It’s hard to realize just how much skill acting requires when you’re seeing talented actors. They help you escape into the show’s plot and make acting seem natural and effortless. Every once in a while there will be a guest actor that will kind of blow it, though, and pull you back into reality. Like on the Law & Order and CSI shows the core casts are usually superb but they’ll get the occasional secondary suspect that just seems awkward or off somehow and reminds you that you’re watching a scripted show.

A few days ago, Kaiser covered the news that Elisabetta Canalis’ acting on TNT show Leverage was really bad, like obviously so. I had the chance to watch the episode with my mom, who is a fan of the show, and it was even worse than in the clip that we saw. Canalis kept tilting her head and trying too hard and it just looked forced. Leverage suffers from that “bad secondary actor” scenario all the time, although usually it involves people that don’t have many lines. Producers probably felt that it was worth the trade off in publicity to make due with Canalis despite the fact that she can’t act her way out of a paper bag.

Let’s talk about Bristol Palin and her upcoming spot on ABC’s Secret Life of The American Teenager. The Huffington Post had a clip from Bristol’s appearance (above), in which she supposedly plays herself but is as flat and as interesting as a piece of blank paper. I don’t understand why it was so hard for her to deliver lines using even a semblance of normal cadence. I didn’t get a really dumb joke she quipped because I was so focused on her robotic voice. Just watch the clip (above) and get back to me.

I had to watch that clip like three times to figure out what the hell was happening. Does Bristol have more scenes than that and are they just as bad or worse? “This-program-isforteenmoms.” She looks so scared and unable to convey any other emotion. I would feel bad for her if she hadn’t bragged about how well she’d done for herself on her own while living with her parents and getting paid tens of thousands to deliver speeches on topics she’s obviously unfamiliar with.

Does this show need the ratings boost that will come from featuring a girl who is semi-famous? It’s in its third season and is doing well in the ratings. I guess the themes deal with teen pregnancy and Christianity, so Bristol would be a natural choice for a guest spot if she could act at all. Didn’t they have a coach who could work with her so she wasn’t this glaringly bad?