Medium's Maria Lark

As my friends and family know all too well, I'm obsessed with all entertainment that is dark, mysterious, tragic, and often gory. On any given night, I prefer these to comedy and regular dramas. For this reason, I'm more caught up on Law & Order, CSI (NY, LV, and Miami), Cold Case, Without a Trace, and NBC's Medium than say, The Office or Grey's Anatomy (Trish, you can shoot me now). In particular, I love Medium, the NBC hit starring Patricia Arquette, an actress who I never quite though much of until this show - she is absolutely brilliant as the psychic Allison Dubois.

This extremely classy and clever series grabbed my attention a few months ago, and not just for the interesting plots. The familiar-but-unique characters are played by an equally brilliant cast that includes my absolute favorite, little Maria Lark. This adorable child actress plays Bridgette Dubois, middle daughter of 3 (heh, let's not crack any jokes here since I'm one, too - this has nothing to do with relating to birth order syndromes) in the Dubois clan.

Bridgette's character has got to be one of the smartest on television, and they could not have found a better actress than Maria Lark. Just look at her face! She's able to blend the innocence of a child with the keen sense of a maturing adolescent who knows and sees things other "normal" children probably don't, but she's no wallflower and does not walk around saying cryptic things in a 19th century frock. She gets angry, asks interesting questions, and spills cereal all over herself. Her expressions and mannerisms are beyond hilarious and remind me of my younger sister when she was a kid, all chubby and angry, shaking her fists at the ridiculousness that is the world and yet constantly challenging it - I literally have to laugh out loud watching her, but also admire her spunk.

What I like best about this character is how real she is - no silly extremes here that child characters usually have to portray. As in, she is neither an ignorant, innocent little princess in that 19th century frock or an overly-perceptive, depressed child who sees ghosts and just wishes everyone were happy. Ok, well, she is sort of starting to have interesting "dreams," but instead of being freaked out by them, she grabs the bull by the horns and makes the most of what they have to offer. What a kid.

I imagine her to be the coolest kid in Hollywood. How could she not be - she is the youngest person ever to co-host ABC's The View, has appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" four times, and has a blog devoted to her. While she's not the show's lead, she is definitely its shining star. Give this show a try just for her brilliant portrayal. Notice how many times I've used the word "brilliant" - there's a reason for it!