'A spin on her own celeb status': Courtney Cox in Dirt. Photograph: Gale Adler/Disney
Over the last few weeks we've had a glut of US TV stars returning with new roles. Monica from Friends is now a hard-ass trash mag editor in Dirt; Ally McBeal's a right wing TV pundit with tons of Brothers and Sisters, including Six Feet Under's Brenda; Seinfeld's picky ex Elaine is now a divorced soccer mom in The New Adventures of Old Christine; and Six Feet's introverted undertaker David is back as Dexter: police blood spatter expert by day, serial killer by night.
But can we ever get used to seeing them as anyone other than the people they used to be? When someone's been in something as big as Friends or Seinfeld, it can be hard to shake off the feeling that you're just watching their old character - leaving a few next move options.
1. The spinoff. You liked the character in that old show; here's a whole new show with a load of new friends. Frasier pulled it off. Joey didn't.
2. Playing yourself (aka Ripping off Curb Your Enthusiasm). The "Being Larry David" model has only really worked for Larry - Kirstie Alley's Fat Actress was alright; Extras was littered with celebs tripping over ironic versions of themselves. Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback and Jack Dee's Lead Balloon were along the same lines.
3. Doing a 180 - playing someone so far removed from the new character that you forget all about the old one -- that's got to be part of Dexter's impact, surely.
4. Getting into films. George Clooney made it out of ER and into the Oscar league. Jennifer Aniston's still having a go. David Caruso left NYPD Blue, made Jade, then came back to TV after he got his own CSI team to run and hasn't taken his shades off since.
As for where the new series fit into this, Courtney Cox's role in Dirt seems to be much more a spin on her own celeb status than an extension of Monica's OCD quirkiness - ooh, she's exposing the morals of those pesky tabloids who've been papping her in real life for all these years!
Brothers and Sisters escapes the "the new Ally McBeal" tag it could have had because there's less emphasis on it being Calista Flockhart's big TV comeback, more on it being a strong ensemble that includes Rachel Griffiths and Sally Field. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (finally coming to More4 on July 26) does the same thing by pairing Matthew "Chandler" Perry and Bradley "Josh from the West Wing" Whitford to rattle through the "walk and talk" script from WW creator Aaron Sorkin.
It goes without saying that The New Adventures Of Old Christine is a long way from the sublime genius of Seinfeld, but if you make it past the clunky pilot, and are in the mood for some mainstream sitcom antics, there might be just enough of Elaine in Julia Louis Dreyfus's goofy timing to make it a passable outing. You can kind of imagine this is what Elaine's life might have been like if she'd moved to LA after Seinfeld, got married, had a kid, and was now divorced (and wasn't hanging around with three other hilarious buddies).
Perhaps the most successful reinvention of recent times has been William Shatner - for Boston Legal fans, his performance as cranky lawyer Denny Crane opposite James Spader has surely exorcised the ghost of Kirk for all but the most die hard Trekkies? (He'll always be TJ Hooker though.)
Who do you think has been away too long? The Sex and the City women? Any stars you'd like to see paired up, or spin-offs you wish they'd write? Sopranos do LA? Anyone you just couldn't believe in a new role?
