It’s been a good year for obnoxious on TV, a quality whose value rises as Christmas approaches with its sentimentality, or schmaltz, to slightly multiculturalize the reference. Sentimentality often contains its own inoculations, like Scrooge, or the Grinch. Herod tried to strangle the first Christmas in its cradle; Antiochus was the Grinch of Hanukkah etc.

This year, we are blessed, i.e. cursed, with an election, seeding the season with meanness. Paul Martin says that, quite frankly, Stephen Harper owes him an apology for being mean. Stephen says that, frankly he doesn’t give a damn, he knows how to take a punch and so should Paul. Frank magazine, by the way, has returned in time for all the ill will.

The best, i.e. worst, obnoxious show on TV is House, named for a doctor who sneers through Tuesday nights on Fox. When an intern says, “You were right” about a patient (House is a diagnostic genius), he says, “That’s three words wasted.” “Do I get extra points for pretending I care?” he asks the hospital CEO. When a black patient says, “All doctors are trying to screw me,” he replies, “Okay, then let me observe that all black people are stupid.” I’d say that’s riskier than gay cowboys. And risqué-er. Even when he’s trying to save a life by averting an unneeded operation, he does it by coughing all over the sterile equipment in the OR.

Obnoxiousness is hard to sustain on TV, where you go into people’s homes and expect them not to switch you off. Det. Andy Sipowicz was obnoxious for about half the first episode of NYPD Blue in 1993: drunk, violent, self-pitying. For the rest of the 12 seasons, he was saintly. In the ’80s, Bruce Willis stayed pretty obnoxious as Cybill Shepherd’s pal in Moonlighting. Speaking of MDs, Mandy Patinkin was surly and obnoxious in Chicago Hope but kept breaking into his emotion-wracked falsetto for dream scenes.

Obnoxiousness’ other triumph this season is William Shatner as lawyer Denny Crane in Boston Legal. Denny is so self-obsessed he is shocked when a colleague tells him that not every trial is about him. “Can that be true?” he asks his obnoxious younger partner, Alan Shore, played by James Spader. Alan shows more vulnerability than Denny but that’s because he lacks encroaching Alzheimer’s as a defence. Denny shoots his own guilty client, whom he despises, and lies about why. And makes it all somehow appealing.

This is a triumph not just for a character, like House, but for an actor, William Shatner. With the role, he completes the arc of his career on his own terms. He began as a serious actor in Canada, then became Captain Kirk on the first Star Trek, a huge success in a silly part followed by other typical turns. The key moment came on a Saturday Night Live sketch, where he goes to a Trekkies convention and tells them to get a life. That’s when he took control, commenting acidly on himself as public property. Now he’s in charge, doing ads in which he plays himself playing himself. In U.S. culture, you rule by showing you can scale the heights, and don’t give a damn.

Like Marlon Brando: Most of his later roles are comments on the idiocy of stardom, as if the only thing worth doing is to show your contempt for the success the system bestows on you — with great skill and apparent lack of effort. It’s why I’ve come to realize (watching ads for DVDs of old Dean Martin shows) that I esteem Dean Martin as much as I do Bob Dylan. He always had a drink in hand, looked like he’d never make it upright through the shot, yet inevitably did, with a perfectly delivered line. No matter how much you succeed there, it’s good to preserve a sense of how empty it is. That’s where obnoxious comes in handy: to show you aren’t a willing tool even if you are a tool, and why we can find it magnetic, and keep tuning in.

In such cases, obnoxious can amount to a cranky form of idealism, a refusal to buy into the garbage, a negative omen of freedom and redemption, even attractive in politicians, like Pierrre Trudeau, who seem not to give a damn for ordinary success but fly by their own lights — none of which is visible in the current batch. Have a sneery Christmas and a snappy New Year.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.