Saturday 29 September 2012

Michael O'Hare Dies

Apparently, Michael O'Hare, who played Jeffrey Sinclair on Babylon 5 among other roles, has died today after suffering a heart attack on Monday.

I'm a huge Babylon 5 fan.  I got into the show at the right age, when I was an undergraduate, though by then the show had actually finished and I was catching repeats.  And I always preferred Sinclair to Sheridan.  It's not that I disliked Sheridan (and I have a lot of respect for Bruce Boxleitner, after seeing his contribution to the DVD extras).  But Sinclair seemed more interesting as a character; more of a diplomat, while Sheridan was more of a warrior.  It's common to criticise O'Hare's acting in the role, but I never had a problem with it.  And one thing that he could do better than Boxleitner was deliver speeches, a useful trait on that show.

Plus, whatever complaints might be raised about O'Hare during the first season can't really hold to his return as a guest in the third.


O'Hare is the fourth actor who played a major role on B5 to have died, after Andreas Katsulas (G'Kar), Richard Biggs (Stephen Franklin) and Jeff Conaway (Zack Allen).  With the show's large cast, I guess it was inevitable that we'd lose more (and except for Richard Biggs, they were all around 60).  But it is a sad moment, all the same.

I'd dig out my DVDs to watch some of the old episodes, except they're all still in transit and I won't have them for a couple of weeks.

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