A NOT SO LOCAL LISTING....

I'm always looking for opportunities to showcase the international quality of Toobworld. But aside from the offerings from the UK and one or two from Canada, I don't always have luck in that search.

The attempt to keep "Inner Toob" from looking America-centric wasn't helped very much by the recent competitions to find the Best TV Character currently on air, and to find the Greatest Sitcom Character ever. For the most part, all of the characters were either from the United States or at least in US productions.

So at least now I have the chance to report on a poll taken by the Radio Times online site, asking its readers to name the Top Ten Coolest TV Characters ever.

And here were their selections:

The Top Ten Coolest People on TV
1. 'Doctor Who' (David Tennant)
2. Jack Bauer in '24' (Kiefer Sutherland)
3. The Fonz in 'Happy Days' (Henry Winkler)
4. Mr Darcy in 'Pride and Prejudice' (Colin Firth)
5. Cat in 'Red Dwarf' (Danny John-Jules)
6. DCI Gene Hunt in 'Life On Mars' (Philip Glenister)
7. Dermot O'Leary
8. 'Columbo' (Peter Falk)
9. Dylan in 'The Magic Roundabout'
10.Sawyer in 'Lost' (Josh Holloway)

I guess the readers of the Sun-Times count televersions of real life celebrities as "characters", because otherwise Dermot O'Leary stole a space that could have been better served by any number of characters.

American characters did well in the top ten, with Columbo and Sawyer and Fonzie and Jack Bauer. And oddly, those readers didn't find any female characters cool enough to crack the top ten. I might have expected a classic entry like Mrs. Emma Peel or someone more contemporary like Rose Tyler, Buffy Summers, or Veronica Mars....

But it's nice to see that the Lieutenant is still held in high regard across the seas, even though he's getting dissed here in the States for being too old.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby