Out of sight
KARA SCHLEGL RECALLS SOME FAMOUS TV CHARACTERS WE NEVER ACTUALLY SAW ON SCREEN.
MARIS CRANE – FRASIER Given she’s described as so thin she can “hide behind a breadstick”, and suffers from a range of physical defects including allergies, a rigid spine and webbed hands, it’s no real surprise to see Maris Crane on this list. In fact, Frasier’s creators have said they never planned to keep Maris in hiding, but her expanding mythology (and increasingly unusual physical traits) made the character impossible to cast. The ex-wife of Niles Crane and former sister-in-law of lead character Frasier, Maris is the show’s most formidable antagonist – an impressive feat for someone allegedly too petite to “activate a whoopee cushion”. She’s a gaunt shadow cast over Niles and Daphne’s budding romance, representing the very worst of high-society pomposity (although the show’s namesake comes in a close second).
MR PATEL – PEEP SHOW “Good old unfriendly Mr Patel” is the mysterious owner of a cornershop in British comedy series Peep Show. He’s the purveyor of austerity cornflakes, Latvian feta and an illegal supply of knives. He’s also an important fixture in the lives of flatmates Mark and Jez, clipping discount vouchers from the newspaper for them and letting them buy gay porn, no questions asked. In a TV show acclaimed for its unique choice to film from the eyeline of each character, it’s telling that we never actually see Mr Patel. Like most cornershops, his is a last-resort stop, overlooked and under-appreciated – its owner one of the most elusive unseen characters in television history.
ABBI’S ROOMMATE MELODY – BROAD CITY As big fans of Frasier, Broad City creators Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson outdid themselves when they designed this homage to the OG absentee villainess, Maris. There is no bigger arsehole on TV than Melody, Abbi’s AWOL roommate who allows her sloppy boyfriend Bevers to stay in their apartment rent-free. Bevers is a walking, farting, toilet-clogging sharehouse horror story, and Melody’s constant absence throughout the series forces Abbi to live alone with him as he steals all her food and does “butt stuff” to himself in her living room. Melody is a bogeyman for anyone planning to co-sign a lease, capable of transforming even the most chill housemate into someone who passive-aggressively labels all their cheese.
PRESIDENT STUART HUGHES – VEEP During Veep’s first season, creator Armando Iannucci told the press he was looking to cast Arnold Schwarzenegger as President Hughes. Whether or not this was a legitimate desire, it’s lucky the idea fell to the cutting room floor. Vice President Selina Meyer has a Don Quixote-like quality – she’s a fool chasing a dream – and devising a nemesis for her out of thin air only adds to this feeling. The man she describes as a “jowly fossil” who’s “never picked up a book in his life” becomes a windmill Meyer can tilt at – distracting, but inconsequential. Always behind locked doors and never returning his VP’S calls, the President’s absence also acts as a foreshadowing device: a symbol of great power she can never quite get hold of.
DIANE EVANS – TWIN PEAKS In the Twin Peaks pilot episode, we learn that FBI Agent Dale Cooper has a habit of detailing the minutiae of his day into a dictaphone. His frequent recordings are addressed to an enigmatic secretary named Diane, and spoken in the same cadence Humphrey Bogart might’ve used when narrating one of his film noirs – with added quips about “damn good cherry pie”. Diane is described as an “interesting cross between a saint and a cabaret star”, and although she does appear in the 2017 revival, her puzzling absence in the original seasons sets the tone for a show that’s not so much about solving a mystery as it is about opening up new questions.