I have been, and always shall be, your co-star
When former castmates reunite on new shows
Among the most exciting aspects of Season Three of The Diplomat is The West Wing reunion between Allison Janney (as the new POTUS) and Bradley Whitford (as her First Gentleman). The two have known each other for so long, and have such good chemistry together, that they work just as well as a couple as they did once upon a time as platonic coworkers.
But did you realize that this is in fact the third different TV show they've appeared on together since West Wing ended?
Whitford was one of the stars of Aaron Sorkin's next NBC drama, the infamous Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, where he played the producer of a thinly-disguised Saturday Night Live. Janney played herself briefly in one episode as the celebrity guest host of the show-within-the-show. And while Janney was winning Emmy after Emmy on the CBS sitcom Mom, Whitford stopped by a couple of episodes to play an old friend of her character's love interest.
Janney and Whitford's ongoing double act continues a long TV tradition of actors who worked well together once teaming up again down the road. I'm not talking about actual reunion stories where people are reprising their former characters, like The Conners, or the legendary final scene of Newhart revealing that the entire show was a dream of the hero from The Bob Newhart Show. (Nor am I talking about ones adjacent to that, like the Curb season about making a Seinfeld reunion special.) I'm referring to instances where two or more actors who worked together on an old series get to play opposite each other on a different series, in different roles, usually with one of them as a guest star popping in so audiences can enjoy old friends reconnecting(*).
(*) Every now and then, a TV show has a golden opportunity to do this, and flubs it. Lawrence Gilliard guest-starred in one of the later seasons of Friday Night Lights, and Jason Katims admits it didn't occur to him to put Gilliard in any scenes with his The Wire Season One co-star Michael B. Jordan. Similarly (albeit involving movies), Anthony Michael Hall guest-starred in a Community Season One episode, and didn't significantly interact with his National Lampoon's Vacation dad Chevy Chase.
What follows isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of this kind of stunt casting, because it happens constantly. These are just some of my favorite instances of it. Add your favorites in the comments, or on the What's Alan Watching? Discord:
