Summer TV Crush: The Guys of Syfy’s Alphas 

Seriously, there’s something for everyone over on Alphas. Pick your poison.

David Strathairn, Dr. Leigh Rosen

Let’s start with David Strathairn, because he’s David Strathairn, y’all. If he doesn’t do anything for you at all, then please check yourself. I have had a thing for him since Sneakers, and then I found all the indie flicks he did and I was a goner. He’s a very smart actor. He does big roles in small pieces and small roles in huge films. We’ve not had him as a regular on weekly TV series for 20 years, and now he’s back (yay!). It seemed an odd fit, based on the log line, that Strathairn would do a show for Syfy, but it works. He plays Dr. Rosen, the glue for his team, who’s holding them together (sometimes literally) while fighting the battles with the government people who’d rather not have the Alphas involved. So happy he’ll be on my TV all summer.

Warren Christie, Cameron Hicks

Warren Christie has gone back and forth between good guy movie-of-the-week roles and bad guy TV series stints. He was Big Cat on October Road and a nefarious type on Happy Town last summer, so it’s cool to have him be one of the team on Alphas. He plays Hicks, the newest member of the team, who’s trying to fit in and figure out what to do with activating his abiities when he’s kept them down for so long. Christie has a swagger that often makes him a go-to for villain roles, plus amazing intense blue eyes, and a killer smile. He tables the swagger and smile here in favor of a tentative physicality, except for when he’s activated, when we get to lock on the baby blues. We also get him bouncing around cars, firing guns, and scaling stairwells, so there’s that. Looking forward to him, alongside Strathairn, every Monday.

Ryan Cartwight, Gary Bell

I have to give a nod to Ryan Cartwright, too. He shelves his charming British accent for the role and imbues Gary with a sort of wounded smartassness, where he gets to pop off retorts and then fall back to see how they’re taken. He’s very good in this, and a key physical manifestation of his role is filled in later in CG, so we have to give him props for that.

Malik Yoba, Bill Harken

The hotness factor is definitely there with this new Syfy series. I’ve loved David Strathairn from way back. Warren Christie is definitely an up-and-coming hottie (he also gets bonus points in my book for playing Luther the evil vampire in the “Dead Man’s Blood” episode of the CW’s Supernatural); and I’m definitely going to be checking out Ryan Cartwright who might fulfill the adorkable quotient of the show.

But I have to say I’m extremely looking forward to seeing Malik Yoba back on TV and doing sci-fi (I didn’t tune in to his previous genre work, ABC’s Defying Gravity.)  My crush on Yoba began with New York Undercover. He was so crazysexycool on that cop drama, wasn’t he? He made that show. Later, he revealed some surprising comedic skills not only on UPN’s Girlfriends but also as Ice the bounty hunter on FOX’s Arrested Development. On Alphas, he’s playing someone with superhuman strength — the character actually floods his body with adrenaline which then makes these extraordinary feats happen. Yoba’s gorgeous, he has this smoldering quality about him; and he’s this solid presence I like having on my TV screen. So, yup, I’ll be tuning into Alphas for sure.

Alphas premieres Monday, July 11th at 10/9C on Syfy.