Cinderella Spawn Takes Writerboy Hostage

(TORONTO) The granddaughter of boxing great and Cinderella Man James J. Braddock threw a few punches of her own last night as she took an area man hostage following the premiere of a TV show.

The actress, Rosemarie DeWitt (pictured left with co-star Ron Livingston) was starring in a new FOX show, Standoff.

The incident began shortly after 9:12 p.m. when the unidentified man fired up his PVR to find a pleasant looking woman with a really cute nose on his screen.

"I can't help it," said the man. "I really kind of like brown hair and brown eyes and pretty, cute noses. She just didn't look like people you see on TV. She was life pretty, not TV pretty, you know what I mean?"

DeWitt's flinty, no-nonsense hostage negotiator, Emily Lehman, quickly emerged as the best thing about the drama, STANDOFF, possibly triggering Stockholm-syndrome like feelings in her helpless hostage.

"Don't get me wrong," wept the man, "I think Ron Livingston is great and definitely deserves to be a TV star. He's the TV John Cusack. And don't get me started on Gina Torres...but there's just something about DeWitt. She's not any relation to Joyce DeWitt, is she?"

Fox has an interesting tradition of casting appealing, off kilter women in roles that make their casting among the best on Television. With characters like Chloe O'Brien on 24, Constance Brennan on Bones, and even Ming Na on Vanished, Fox manages, more than the other networks, to cast women who are pretty enough to suck you in, but strong enough that watching them proves to be compelling, preying on tired people who should know better.

Says Arthur E. Robinson, a psychologist and not the name that we currently can't clear for another role on Across The River To Motor City, "an interesting thing happens to the heterosexual male when he's tired and sitting on the couch after a long day. He might find himself susceptible to things that he otherwise wouldn't even consider, like watching a whole episode of a middling drama about hostage negotiators." Robinson continued, "Yes, the show might have their attempt at a HOUSE-like "Everybody Lies," hook with "at the core of every standoff there's a broken relationship," but really, how far can it go? A show like this as a limited run series could perhaps work, but are we really going to sit through 22 weeks of hostage situations? Then 22 more? I think the answer is clear."

A day later, the victim isn't so sure. "Here's the thing. Everybody loves the whole will-they-or-won't-they thing. Standoff had a great teaser, with Tom Wopat as a Seventh Heaven like TV star taking his kids hostage. Ron Livinston's character distracts him by revealing his no-no relationship with his partner. Now everybody knows. It looks like they're going to have to not be together to keep working together, but can they keep doing that? Can they keep doing that? I. Just. Don't. Know."

Evidence suggests that they can't just keep doing that. "Eventually," says Robinson, "All will-they-or-won't-they shows has to end with, "they will," and the question is whether STANDOFF has enough heft to survive to that point. I could almost see a very different show, where there actually was a very black comedy element to their relationship, where these two hostage negotiator types use all their manipulating hostage techniques on each other in the relationship. That could rise to the level of something sublime. As it stands, though, as a straight down the pipe drama with a frisson of romance, the world of Standoff is probably too limited to survive a long run with an appreciative audience."

But for one area man, now safe at home, the scars of his ordeal aren't quite ready to fade. And the Standoff in his heart is by no means over.

"I keep thinking about that nose. The dry line delivery, the evident passion and intelligence in the performance. The lovely fitted blouses...and the nose. God help me, I can't forget the nose."