Social progress in TV Land, Pt. I

Some people imagine that spending all day with scores of television critics would be intellectually stimulating.

Yeah. I laughed out loud at that notion, too.

Remember, while other people are working in labs, creating great works of art, even enriching themselves by reading a "Doonesbury" collection, we are watching television. Some people can quote Nietzsche; we quote Peter Griffin. Most of our debates surround whether or not Neal Carlson, the latest guy to be eliminated from "Rock Star: INXS," was robbed. You get what I'm saying?

The cast of "Threshold": (from left) Peter Dinklage, Rob Benedit, Brent Spiner, Carla Gugino, Brian Van Holt and Charles S. Dutton.

What we lack in worldliness, though, we make up for with an insatiable curiosity. Sometimes that's not exactly a plus. Like, say, when Peter Dinklage, co-star of "Threshold," took the stage today. Dinklage is a stupendous actor who made a name for himself in "The Station Agent." His "Threshold" character is a linguistics and mathematical genius.

Dinklage also happens to be a dwarf, which isn't integral to his character's profile. But damn it all, somebody had bring it up. "You're in this wonderful position now where...you're getting lots of roles that have nothing to do with your height, and you're getting some roles that do, and you're getting all kinds of things...When did you get the first breakthrough, where you started to get roles unrelated to your size?"

"What do you mean, my size?" Dinklage replied, wearing a deadly serious face. "The size of...oh, oh."

To the actor's credit, he didn't smile or allow himself to be condescended to, even in a benign setting. He kept his cool, and proceeded to politely and subtlely jab at the questioner with his words.

"If you surround yourself with intelligent people" -- emphasis is mine -- "you're not constantly reminded about your size," he said, obviously knowing the room to which he was playing. "People of my persuasion are doctors and lawyers, and --" he adopted a theatrically creepy tone -- "we're all over the world! Now there's an alien invasion show of a different nature."

"So," Dinklage concluded, "here's just a character who happens to be a dwarf like myself, and...you're not constantly being reminded, nor should you be, because there I am. I am that size, and it's addressed just being there."

Good for him.