Entertainment Debate: TV Versus Movies

There's a fun and fascinating debate going on at What Would Toto Watch.

Part 1 kicked off the debate. Part 2 is a TV-phile's declaration of TV supremacy. Coming soon: part 3 will be Toto's defense of movies.

Aren't we rather comparing apples and oranges, though? A little bit?

Here's an idea to throw into the mix: what happens when movie stars try to do TV or when TV stars try to do movies? Sometimes the results are delightful, sometimes disastrous, sometimes dizzily goofy. Three examples, perhaps:

• Delightful: Robert Downey Jr. is a cinema figure, but his turn as lawyer Larry Paul on the fourth season of TV's "Ally McBeal" was a consistently charming (and Golden Globe-winning) performance.
  
• Disastrous: Katie Holmes made a name for herself as Joey Potter on TV's "Dawson's Creek," but her movie appearances haven't been impressive. Some have been flat awful. (*cough* "Batman Begins"! *cough*)
  
• Dizzily goofy: William Shatner in anything on TV. "DENNY CRANE!"

Oh, and what about some cool twists on the movie-TV divide? TV's lamentably canceled series "Firefly" made the leap to the big screen as "Serenity." (And, IMHO, made the leap well.)