'The Pretender' a unique TV series, which captured my imagination like no other TV series or movie I've seen before or since. A fan from almost the very beginning, I still enjoy it now just as much as I did when it started in 1996. It ended in 2001 but won't be so easily forgotten by its fans I should think than its TV network.

A show with a cast of complex, dynamic characters, who showed all facets of human kind; their flaws as well as their virtues. The hero, a genius, who can do practically anything, struggles to know what most of us take for granted; knowing who he is. The heroine, more villain than damsel, whose strength and will is formidable yet who shows flashes of vulnerability and a heart which is achingly fragile.

In stories it is always the relationships which I love the most, the interactions between characters. Which probably explains my fondness for romances, but in the Pretender there is not the fluffy kind to be found, especially between my favourite pairing of Jarod and Miss Parker (the two main characters). In fact they behave as enemies most of the time, but beneath that there is obviously a connection that runs deeply between them. We're never explicitly told what connection that is, in fact the show has hinted they may be siblings! My preference is the star crossed lovers version but each to their own.

Though it is the characters, not the actors who interest me, they wouldn't be the wonderfully human characters they are without the talented people who portrayed them. They are:

Jarod: Michael T. Weiss
Miss Parker: Andrea Parker
Sydney: Patrick Bauchau
Broots: Jon Gries
Angelo: Paul Dillon
Mr Raines: Richard Marcus
Mr Parker: Harve Presnell (sadly now deceased)
Mr Lyle: James Denton
Brigette: Pamela Gidley
Young Jarod: Ryan Merriman
Young Miss Parker: Ashley Peldon
Kyle: Jeffrey Donovan