When life gives you lemons: The Career of Noah Wyle

On my last night in Greensboro, NC, I couldn't quite get to sleep even though it was 11pm and I had planned to wake for 4:30am to head out on the road..yikes. So, I turned on the tube and found a Falling Skies marathon on TNT (the self proclaiming "We know Drama" network...yes indeed, I certainty do believe Charmed is all about the drama) and was pleasantly surprised to see a bearded, semi-bulked up Noah Wyle leading a group of ragtag survivors after a alien attack.
Is Noah Wyle, the poor man's Keanu Reeves?

 Brothers from anotha motha?

Perhaps.
I remember young Wyle as the fresh faced ass-kissing nervous nelly, Dr. John Carter on NBC's ER who spent most of his time nipping at the heels of angry -as- a- hemorrhoid, Dr. Peter Benton. (Hartford resident, Eriq La Salle) and lusting after any available pretty thing until the sixth season where they decided let poor Dr. Carter get stabbed in the back by a schizophrenic and develop a narcotics habit. Bitter and full of survivors guilt Wyle was finally allowed to grow a beard and man up.   He eventually ends up in Africa. Yeah, Wyle, you bad ass. I never thought much of Wyle, besides the fact that he was cute, and like most of the actors from ER I pitied their existence after the show's cancellation.  And most did scatter to the winds of syndication and Lifetime mini-series.  Wyle too seemed to fade into the nether-regions of crappy straight to video products or "Blink and you miss him" cameos in Donnie Darko and White Oleander  And then he surfaced on the radar under the guiding wings of TNT networks in a successful Indiana Jones knockoff: The Librarian which due to Wyle not only proving he still act, he could also be witty, charming, goofy and heroic.

Reading is Sexy.

The movie was successful and spawned two just as awesome sequels (with talks of a theatrical work in the makings) Wyle was back, not exactly as Sunset Blvd. billboard material, but really who wants that?  When the Hollywood life gave Wyle lemons, he made his own delicious lemonade. Falling Skies isn't Peabody award winning programming by any standards, but it's fun, has a great story-arc and the writing isn't that bad either. (just don't count of the special effects to blow your mind...this is TNT we're talking about)  And there's Wyle in the middle of it all, with his shit-kicker grin and youthful twinkle as if saying, I'm still here, suckers.

Let's hear it for the Underdogs!