occasionally, i will be coerced into a television binge where i watch many episodes of a series over a short amount of time. one of the games that i like to play with myself during these times is matching unknown actors’ stage names during the titles to the characters that they portray.

the game is more than just random matching around gender or ethnicity since many actors style their names based upon how they want to brand themselves—a decision which also involves which types of characters that they want to portray. additionally there is usually a correlation between screen time and the order in which the actor is billed.

all this being said, i was only able to correctly match 3 of the 13 characters in the show, battlestar galactica (and i already knew edward james olmos ahead of time). furthermore, i wasn’t even 1000‰ correct on matching genders. jamie bamber is a dood? i thought she was the brassy kara thrace. go figure. anyway, this game is playable with other shows besides battlestar galactica and works especially well with soap operas.