Michael O’Hare passed on September 28. He was best known as Commander Sinclair on Babylon 5 and spoiler alert, Valenn. This was revealed over a decade ago, it’s not really a spoiler. O’Hare didn’t do much TV from what I could find, he was more of a stage guy. Initially I thought his B5 acting began as rather stiff but I was growing to like him when the powers running the show decided to go with Bruce Boxleitner with season two. How Sinclair was ditched started off in a clunky manner. I am glad they brought O’Hare’s character back periodically and gave him a great farewell as becoming a key person in the B5 Universe’s history. I also give J Michael Straczynski credit for demonstrating his adept writing with something as fluid as an ongoing TV series.
I’ve also noticed how B5 has had bad luck with its cast. Three major actors are gone while Star Trek: NG and its spinoffs have had no major losses. I would prefer all genre shows’ casts to live long, pleasant lives with one exception, Adam Baldwin from Firefly, he’s a birther douchebag.
Next up was Howard H Scott. You may not recognize him at all. He was a key player in helping with the development of the LP, the music format for albums before cassettes, CDs and MP3s. Scott had incredible patience in supervising the transfers of long Classical pieces from 78s to 33 1/3s. This was all done without computers or tape in the late Forties. More about him is here.
Finally, NFL Hall of Famer Alex Karras died. Many my age know him for the Webster TV show he starred in with his wife and Gary Coleman knockoff Emmanuel Lewis. I usually avoided the sugary program. To me he’ll forever be Mongo in Blazing Saddles!