Birthday meanderings, or a lot of lines about lines and links...
...so, yes, today is the birthday of Senta Moses. And to leave this space blank on that day for more than a few years seems a little wrong to me. So, yes, let's talk about her. In particular, I want to talk about some of the lines she's said while plying her craft.
Sorry to say, but most of Senta's lines aren't what you'd call "quotable": Most are funny and poignant in context, but lose pretty much all meaning when you take them out of context. I think the best show to give her good lines for quoting was actually Greek, and there are only a couple there that you can use out of context: "Ivory and cream are the same damn color!" is funny, but funnier when you realize that the line is a reaction by her character Lizzi to an impossibly demanding boss in Charisma Carpenter's Tegan. There are lines that reveal the character: Lizzi herself is a rules-stickler who's just a little quirky, so her last line of "The Great Cappie" is a nice curtain on that: "I can't remember the last time I stayed up past eleven!" Then there's the line that only guys like me will be able to parse: "Little orphans are so cute!" That one is actually an oblique reference to Senta's own days as a little orphan in a touring production of Annie in the early, early '80s.
Which brings me to my own enjoyment of some of her lines: The ones that display her character's age which become more hilarious when you take Senta's actual age into account. As you may know, Senta was born in 1973...which makes her [redacted]. (Yes, even if you know their exact date, you can't actually say a woman's age in public. Do the math). Which means she was actually out of her teenage years in the early 90s. (Now I'm looking around for an age yellow card. And not seeing one...whew!) Which, then, means that most of the time in the 90s that she was playing a teenager...she wasn't. However, the fact that she didn't quite make it to 5 feet tall and the fact that her hair is the reason why old ladies put theirs in curlers to emulate, most viewers had no problem with her in those teenage roles, as opposed to, say...Luke Perry.
Which brings me to my favorite line out of Senta, which, unfortunately, very few other people have heard because it came in a short, canned series. This would be the TNT Wall Street drama Bull, which they canned when they adopted the "We Know Drama" moniker (and then proceeded to tell us that Kindergarten Cop was drama). Anyway, Senta's role in this was as the sister in a young brother-sister prodigy team that had developed a revolutionary new search engine. (This was 2000; Google was in its infancy, and people heard Bing and thought Crosby or Chandler). She was playing a 17-year-old (at [redacted]...dammit, I can't even say her age then?!? okay, suffice it to say she was a lot older than her role); her brother, 16, was interestingly played by Fred Koehler...who was also a lot older than his role, but still has that baby face (even when he was in those Fiber One commercials). But Fred isn't the subject of the line...here it is (Warning: The next paragraph will have lots of tangents!).
It's the second episode the family was on (in the first, they reach out to their old babysitter, one of the brokers in the firm the show's based around played by Alicia Coppola, to take the search engine public; after a few doubts, and a large offer to buy them out, they decide to take it public themselves). They're starting finalization plans for the IPO (that would be thrown into flux by the events of the episode). One of the secretaries (Coincidentally played by Heather Dawn, who played the sister of the bad guy of the week that Senta's character has a crush on in her episode of Vengeance Unlimited) is praising the kids for their brains and their ability to do stuff while so young. She says "When I was your age, I was on the phone with my friends all day staring at my poster of Luke Perry."
Senta's line? "Who's Luke Perry?"
And for some reason, that still tickles my funny bone.
There are other lines that are funny when you take them out of the context of the character and put them into the context of the actors playing them. Senta did an ep of "Touched By an Angel" where she had a crush on a student teacher, who in reality was the angel Rafael, played by Alexis Cruz. (Side note, as if there weren't enough already: What is it with Senta and guys named Cruz?) Her friend (the real focus of the ep as part of a Romeo & Juliet plot played by Mercedes McNab) tells her to ask him to the upcoming dance. (...and it seems she always wants to dance with them.) She shoots that down immediately, saying "He's old enough to be my...older but insanely gorgeous husband!" Putting it in the actors' context, the kicker is that Senta's a full year older than Alexis Cruz is...and he's [redacted]. (Dammit, I can't even obliquely reference her age!)
But mostly, her lines are useless out of context...though some do stay pretty funny if you bring a bit of the context with it. For instance, a Step by Step episode she did had her fawning over Cody (she does a lot of that, doesn't she), so much so that she knit him a sweater. Dana, whose feminist study group she's a part of, says incredulously, "You knit him a sweater?" "He looked cold!" (Actually, in context, he probably was too busy melting her character's insides...)
That's all about her lines...now I'm gonna ramble just a little bit about myself gushing about her (almost to the point of restraining order, but to my amazement I probably still haven't crossed that line yet) and looking at who I'm following on Twitter, and just marveling at just how many I am following only because they worked with her somewhere. In fact, I can probably cut my Twitter feed into three distinct portions, with only a few newsfeeds falling outside of them: Magic, Poker, and people who have worked with Senta Moses at some time in the past. The latest one of those was just yesterday, when I followed Kathleen Rose Perkins (who Senta worked with on 10 Years Later), whom I followed through Sean Maher, who is actually one of the few people I can't put into those thirds (though I did follow him through Firefly/Jewel Staite...more on that later) The previous latest was Richard Speight Jr. (who Senta worked with on Running the Halls), and I found his Twitter through one of his close friends, who happens to be another person on the Senta list: Rob Benedict, who worked with her in Tequila Body Shots and the short-lived F*x series Opposite Sex. A few other connections: Community's Yvette Nicole Brown (who worked with Senta in a Big Lots commercial), Steven Weber (who played her boss in "Choose Connor"), and Amber Stevens (Greek, of course).
Hell, even some of the people I follow that I didn't follow for her, I really did. Stephen Falk of the Film Pigs is a writer for Weeds, which Senta actually had a part on in Season 1 (but that part was cut, I believe; she landed on another Jenji Kohan show, the pilot for Ronna & Beverly, but that didn't get picked up and I assumed that was just a guest role anyway). But I followed him because he was one of the Film Pigs, and I discovered them through DVD Podblast...whom I discovered because of a guest Blaster named...Senta Moses. ...ugh. I guess this one really will set the gears in motion for that restraining order.
But before I'm cut off, one final thing: A connection between Senta and the other actress I've been following for awhile. Though Nathan Fillion is on the list of people whom Senta's worked with (Castle), I didn't follow him solely because he worked with Senta. I actually followed him because he was on Firefly, which starred Jewel Staite...which makes him, by my count, one of only five actors to have worked with both Jewel and Senta. The other three, and it probably isn't complete, are Adam Baldwin (worked with Senta on DC Cab, worked with Jewel on Firefly), Christina Hendricks (Worked with Senta on an MTV pilot called Sorority, worked with Jewel on Firefly), Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond for Senta, the Hallmark TV movie Call Me Mrs. Miracle for Jewel), and Rebecca Herbst (General Hospital for Senta, Space Cases with Jewel, though that one is a bit tenuous on Jewel's end).
Hey, still not cut off! I guess that gives me a chance to end this by saing: Happy [redacted] birthday, Senta Moses!
Sorry to say, but most of Senta's lines aren't what you'd call "quotable": Most are funny and poignant in context, but lose pretty much all meaning when you take them out of context. I think the best show to give her good lines for quoting was actually Greek, and there are only a couple there that you can use out of context: "Ivory and cream are the same damn color!" is funny, but funnier when you realize that the line is a reaction by her character Lizzi to an impossibly demanding boss in Charisma Carpenter's Tegan. There are lines that reveal the character: Lizzi herself is a rules-stickler who's just a little quirky, so her last line of "The Great Cappie" is a nice curtain on that: "I can't remember the last time I stayed up past eleven!" Then there's the line that only guys like me will be able to parse: "Little orphans are so cute!" That one is actually an oblique reference to Senta's own days as a little orphan in a touring production of Annie in the early, early '80s.
Which brings me to my own enjoyment of some of her lines: The ones that display her character's age which become more hilarious when you take Senta's actual age into account. As you may know, Senta was born in 1973...which makes her [redacted]. (Yes, even if you know their exact date, you can't actually say a woman's age in public. Do the math). Which means she was actually out of her teenage years in the early 90s. (Now I'm looking around for an age yellow card. And not seeing one...whew!) Which, then, means that most of the time in the 90s that she was playing a teenager...she wasn't. However, the fact that she didn't quite make it to 5 feet tall and the fact that her hair is the reason why old ladies put theirs in curlers to emulate, most viewers had no problem with her in those teenage roles, as opposed to, say...Luke Perry.
Which brings me to my favorite line out of Senta, which, unfortunately, very few other people have heard because it came in a short, canned series. This would be the TNT Wall Street drama Bull, which they canned when they adopted the "We Know Drama" moniker (and then proceeded to tell us that Kindergarten Cop was drama). Anyway, Senta's role in this was as the sister in a young brother-sister prodigy team that had developed a revolutionary new search engine. (This was 2000; Google was in its infancy, and people heard Bing and thought Crosby or Chandler). She was playing a 17-year-old (at [redacted]...dammit, I can't even say her age then?!? okay, suffice it to say she was a lot older than her role); her brother, 16, was interestingly played by Fred Koehler...who was also a lot older than his role, but still has that baby face (even when he was in those Fiber One commercials). But Fred isn't the subject of the line...here it is (Warning: The next paragraph will have lots of tangents!).
It's the second episode the family was on (in the first, they reach out to their old babysitter, one of the brokers in the firm the show's based around played by Alicia Coppola, to take the search engine public; after a few doubts, and a large offer to buy them out, they decide to take it public themselves). They're starting finalization plans for the IPO (that would be thrown into flux by the events of the episode). One of the secretaries (Coincidentally played by Heather Dawn, who played the sister of the bad guy of the week that Senta's character has a crush on in her episode of Vengeance Unlimited) is praising the kids for their brains and their ability to do stuff while so young. She says "When I was your age, I was on the phone with my friends all day staring at my poster of Luke Perry."
Senta's line? "Who's Luke Perry?"
And for some reason, that still tickles my funny bone.
There are other lines that are funny when you take them out of the context of the character and put them into the context of the actors playing them. Senta did an ep of "Touched By an Angel" where she had a crush on a student teacher, who in reality was the angel Rafael, played by Alexis Cruz. (Side note, as if there weren't enough already: What is it with Senta and guys named Cruz?) Her friend (the real focus of the ep as part of a Romeo & Juliet plot played by Mercedes McNab) tells her to ask him to the upcoming dance. (...and it seems she always wants to dance with them.) She shoots that down immediately, saying "He's old enough to be my...older but insanely gorgeous husband!" Putting it in the actors' context, the kicker is that Senta's a full year older than Alexis Cruz is...and he's [redacted]. (Dammit, I can't even obliquely reference her age!)
But mostly, her lines are useless out of context...though some do stay pretty funny if you bring a bit of the context with it. For instance, a Step by Step episode she did had her fawning over Cody (she does a lot of that, doesn't she), so much so that she knit him a sweater. Dana, whose feminist study group she's a part of, says incredulously, "You knit him a sweater?" "He looked cold!" (Actually, in context, he probably was too busy melting her character's insides...)
That's all about her lines...now I'm gonna ramble just a little bit about myself gushing about her (almost to the point of restraining order, but to my amazement I probably still haven't crossed that line yet) and looking at who I'm following on Twitter, and just marveling at just how many I am following only because they worked with her somewhere. In fact, I can probably cut my Twitter feed into three distinct portions, with only a few newsfeeds falling outside of them: Magic, Poker, and people who have worked with Senta Moses at some time in the past. The latest one of those was just yesterday, when I followed Kathleen Rose Perkins (who Senta worked with on 10 Years Later), whom I followed through Sean Maher, who is actually one of the few people I can't put into those thirds (though I did follow him through Firefly/Jewel Staite...more on that later) The previous latest was Richard Speight Jr. (who Senta worked with on Running the Halls), and I found his Twitter through one of his close friends, who happens to be another person on the Senta list: Rob Benedict, who worked with her in Tequila Body Shots and the short-lived F*x series Opposite Sex. A few other connections: Community's Yvette Nicole Brown (who worked with Senta in a Big Lots commercial), Steven Weber (who played her boss in "Choose Connor"), and Amber Stevens (Greek, of course).
Hell, even some of the people I follow that I didn't follow for her, I really did. Stephen Falk of the Film Pigs is a writer for Weeds, which Senta actually had a part on in Season 1 (but that part was cut, I believe; she landed on another Jenji Kohan show, the pilot for Ronna & Beverly, but that didn't get picked up and I assumed that was just a guest role anyway). But I followed him because he was one of the Film Pigs, and I discovered them through DVD Podblast...whom I discovered because of a guest Blaster named...Senta Moses. ...ugh. I guess this one really will set the gears in motion for that restraining order.
But before I'm cut off, one final thing: A connection between Senta and the other actress I've been following for awhile. Though Nathan Fillion is on the list of people whom Senta's worked with (Castle), I didn't follow him solely because he worked with Senta. I actually followed him because he was on Firefly, which starred Jewel Staite...which makes him, by my count, one of only five actors to have worked with both Jewel and Senta. The other three, and it probably isn't complete, are Adam Baldwin (worked with Senta on DC Cab, worked with Jewel on Firefly), Christina Hendricks (Worked with Senta on an MTV pilot called Sorority, worked with Jewel on Firefly), Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond for Senta, the Hallmark TV movie Call Me Mrs. Miracle for Jewel), and Rebecca Herbst (General Hospital for Senta, Space Cases with Jewel, though that one is a bit tenuous on Jewel's end).
Hey, still not cut off! I guess that gives me a chance to end this by saing: Happy [redacted] birthday, Senta Moses!