5. Georgina Haig as Etta on Fringe
When Fringe flashed forward without warning to the dystopian America of 2036, ruled by a race of psychic time-travelers called Observers and with the show's heroes nowhere to be seen, no-name Australian actress Georgina Haig was handed what was simultaneously the opportunity of a lifetime and a gigantic shit sandwich.
She had to step up as protagonist while the show's entire audience was wondering "What the fuck is happening? Who the fuck is this?!", delivering tremendous amounts of exposition about the show's new status quo and her own backstory and serving as the viewpoint through which we're introduced to a whole new world and several new characters, all while being a badass action hero and ending her first episode with a moment of tremendous, heart-rending vulnerability.
And she somehow pulled it off completely, creating a fully-formed character I totally invested in within 42 minutes. She was a great addition to Fringe in its final season, and I hope she can land on another show worthy of her talents come 2013.
4. Nick E. Tarabay as Ashur on Spartacus: Vengeance
There was a bit of a deficit in the villainy department as Spartacus entered its second proper season in January, and Nick E. Tarabay's Ashur – an important but ultimately background player in Spartacus: Blood and Sand and the prequel miniseries Gods of the Arena – stepped up tremendously. In a show where almost every key antagonist is either a wealthy Roman or, at the very least, a wealthy Capuan, Ashur is notable as being the one major bad guy who's a slave just like the heroes, and his scrappy, keep-alive-through-any-means-possible nature is a big part of what makes him so damn compelling.
This year, Ashur's big move to stay alive was convincing Roman praetor Gaius Claudius Glaber to put him in command of what was basically an anti-Spartacus black ops team, charged to stop the rebels through any means necessary, and how! Ashur slaughtered women and children. He raped. He pillaged. He had people crucified and tortured with a smile on his face. He betrayed other characters to their deaths at the exact second it became useful for him to do so. And Nick E. Tarabay did it all radiating slime and menace and perhaps even with a little more depth than such a character demanded.
More than King Joffrey on Game of Thrones, more than Moriarty on Sherlock, more than Gyp Rosetti on Boardwalk Empire, more than Windmark on Fringe or Nazir on Homeland or the Governor on The Walking Dead, Ashur was the TV villain to love to hate in 2012. Kudos, Tarabay.
3. Mae Whitman as Amber Holt on Parenthood
While Parenthood's official main characters may be the adult Braverman siblings played by Peter Krause, Lauren Graham, Dax Shepard and Erika Christensen, Mae Whitman as Lauren Graham's onscreen daughter Amber has been the show's secret weapon arguably since season 1. And in every way, too – she can nail a punchline (don't forget, Whitman is an Arrested Development/Scott Pilgrim alumnus), but when she cries, it's heartbreaking, and she throws herself into an onscreen argument like just about no one else I've ever seen. She sometimes got stuck in the show's more melodramatic corners in the first couple seasons (secret sex affair and running away from home in season 1, drug addiction and almost dying in a car accident in season 2), but Whitman always found the emotional truth in the situation, no matter how over-the-top.
But in this fall's fourth season, the Parenthood writers devised the masterstroke of pairing her up with Friday Night Lights' Matt Lauria as a returning Afghanistan veteran named Ryan. And when Ryan's doing good and the two are totally in love, it's probably the most heartwarming onscreen romance of 2012. But when she has to help him through a fellow veteran friend's suicide or when flashes of violence and alcoholism come out, it's deeply upsetting, and Whitman has been just explosively great with this material, knowing exactly when to play it big and when to play it small. Amber is very, very high up on my list of favorite TV characters right now.
2. Monica Potter as Kristina Braverman on Parenthood
Forget Claire Danes' collection of tics over on Homeland – Monica Potter was the TV actress to watch this fall. Probably the TV actress to watch in 2012, period, but I'm specifically focusing on fall because the Parenthood writers more or less decided to anchor season 4 of the show around Potter's character Kristina by giving her breast cancer.
Now what I'm praising here is really about half the writing, too, as the show has mostly (not entirely, but mostly) done a stellar job avoiding the clichés and pitfalls of the generic cancer arc, finding interesting new corners of the cancer experience to explore, but how staggeringly good Potter has been in the role nevertheless can't be overstated. She's had and excelled at some showier material – vomiting, crying, recording a weepy video for her kids to watch in case she dies – but she's also found some great quiet moments, such as when Kristina literally goes and hides to get away from the oppressive well-wishing and help with things she doesn't need help with people keep forcing on her.
There's even been light touches of comedy, too, such as in Kristina's new medicinal marijuana habit. Potter's been routinely heartbreaking this season, but even in the midst of that, her glassy-eyed, out-of-it announcement to her sister-in-law Julia that she's high in the middle of an otherwise unrelated conversation, after which she begins stuffing her face with candy, was one of the funniest TV moments of the fall. It's just a powerhouse performance, one of the best of 2012 in movies or television.
1. Andra Fuller as Kaldrick King on The L.A. Complex
While I understand and am not trying to denigrate the fact that it's a no doubt incredibly difficult thing millions of people go through, it's pretty hard for me to find the coming-out-of-the-closet TV narrative that interesting anymore. I've seen it and seen it and seen it, seen it played straight (no pun intended), seen it played with homophobic backlash to make it more dramatic, seen it subverted by no one caring, seen it played in the background of an otherwise unrelated sci-fi/fantasy story, seen it and seen it. For the most part I find myself wishing that shows would just have their gay characters be gay and that's that (see Spartacus and Happy Endings for two good examples).
But there's always the exception that proves the rule, and this year that exception was Andra Fuller as rapper Kaldrick King on the CW's pretty damn good and now frustratingly canceled behind-the-scenes-of-showbiz drama The L.A. Complex. If I recommend this nineteen-episode series to people in years to come, most of the reason why is going to be for the arc of this character (who was actually a supporting character in season 1, not even in the show's pilot, and didn't become a full-fledged main cast member until season 2).
Fuller had to throw himself into not one or even two but several personas of Kaldrick King throughout the series, including his public "thug" persona, the somewhat more subdued (but still outwardly heterosexual) version of himself he presents to his father and a few others he's close to, and his rarely-seen introspective, sensitive, and gay innermost self, though even that version can't come right out and use the word "gay," needing to resort to describing himself as a "faggot." (And then there's even combinations, such as the gay and thug persona we see a couple times).
And Fuller totally excelled at every single one of these personas, ranging the gamut from really scary to really heartbreaking. Just gripping, fiery, intense acting. I'd never heard of this guy before seeing him on this show, and his pre-The L.A. Complex filmography is frankly pretty godawful (eight credits, the three before Kaldrick King being single episodes of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, NCIS, and as "Room Service Guy" on Entourage), but he gave quite possibly the best dramatic TV performance of 2012 that isn't Bryan Cranston or Jonathan Banks on Breaking Bad.
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