Show:  Dawson’s Creek

Role:  Insensitive mother

Best Lines:

Mama Witter:  “Why doesn’t Joanna set the table?”

Pacey:  “Her name’s Joey, mom.”

Mama Witter: “That’s what I said.”

Ah, Dawson’s Creek.  Our generation’s Gossip Girl.  Back when the WB was inventing its successful format of fast-talking, pop culture referencing, enormously witty yet alarmingly angsty casts of characters, Dawson’s Creek was right at the forefront of the movement.  In this episode, the sad, sad former Mighty Duck Pacey has a sad, sad family whose sad, sad parents belittle him to no end, giving Joey, his sad, sad-eyed girlfriend, sad insight into his sad childhood.  Jane plays his mom, with weaponized one-line barbs that all show that she has a complete and utter lack of faith in her son.  It’s a little over the top – ok, we get it, Pacey has had no emotional support his entire life – but it’s still worth the watch just to see Jane deliver what usually is deadpan humor in a setting where those words are meant to hurt.  You do really feel bad for poor ol’, well-intentioned Pacey.  Cue Paula Cole.

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Show:  The West Wing (“In the Shadow of Two Gunmen” Parts I and II)

Role:  Hard hittin’ White House reporter

Best Line: [insistent]  “You know, they’re also reporting there’s now a massive manhunt underway for a possible third accomplice on the ground.”

Oh, The West Wing.  We want Martin Sheen for president.  We want Allison Janney as our press spokesperson (although, we were pretty ok with Dee Dee Myers).  We want Rob Lowe as a thoughtful liberal aide – scratch that, we really love him on Parks and Recreation, so yes, let’s keep him in Pawnee.

Anyway, a very young, circa-2000 Jane Lynch pops up as a reporter on the second season of The West Wing, one of her few strictly dramatic roles.  This was an amazing two-part episode; from what we recall, CJ has a fantastic speech in the press room, where she shuts all the reporters down with stats on gun-related crimes and deaths.  The larger point being, of course, the President is but a famous victim amongst way too many.

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Show:  Arrested Development (“Altar Egos” & “Shock and Aww”)

Role:  Smitten girlfriend/government mole

Best Line:  “Oh, I hate when you call yourself old. You’re new to me!” although, honestly, our favorite line was spoken by one of the main characters talking about Jane Lynch’s character: “Is this why you wanted to fight this thing, so you could run off with this great redwood of a whore?”

If you have never watched Arrested Development, you need to stop reading this and, right now, start watching it. Or put it on your Netflix queue.  Or write it on your To-Do list, or whatever it is that you do to guarantee that you will get to it, soon.

There, now.  Jane Lynch plays Cindi Lightballoon (whomever thought of that name hopefully got a raise, or at least a gold star), an undercover FBI agent who falls in love with the incarcerated George, Sr. and tries to use her knowledge to him beat the government’s case.

Yeah, we know none of that really makes much sense unless you’ve watched the show, but trust us, watching this series is a weekend well-spent.  The best we can do is give you the image below and point you to this preview of “Altar Egos” on Hulu.  Cindi Lightballoon is just barely introduced when the free preview concludes.  Womp womp.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Role:  Nurse

Best Line:  [All exhausted reaction shots]

Even though the show’s lightning-fast references and allusions sometimes was a bit too pretentious, we still loved Gilmore Girls even if we could not understand it.  Also, no one complains when Aaron Sorkin does it.

Anyway, right around that time when she was popping up on pretty much every show on television, Jane Lynch shows up in Stars Hollow midway through the series’ first season, playing a nurse with requisite pink cardigan who has to contend with Lorelei’s upper crusty mother.  Sounds like a job for Sue Sylvester, really.

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Movie:  Spring Breakdown

Role:  Authority figure (Republican senator)

Best Line:  “Never trust a Korean with a perm.”

This one inadvertently comes to us from Louis Virtel over at Moveline, which ranks Spring Breakdown as one of its “Bad Movies We Love.”  Co-written by Rachel Dratch, yeah, it’s not great, but we see what they were trying to do there – a female-driven spring break movie – and we appreciate the effort very, very much. 

Jane Lynch plays a big-haired Southern Republican senator who asks Parker Posey’s character to make sure her daughter doesn’t do anything too crazy during spring break in South Padre.  Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch, Posey’s BFFs, tag along in an attempt to do something not-boring in their lives, and to make up for some lost partying time in college.  In Virtel’s words, Jane’s “part is smallish since she doesn’t visit South Padre until the end of the movie, but she’s always a pleasure in even the most underwritten, over-pantsuited roles. That’s a relief, because from 2006-2010, she made appearances in as many as 25 movies, and child, they weren’t all 40-Year-Old Virgins. She worked overtime in most of those, and here, she’s earning time-and-a-half for her hard-strutting brio.”

We found a short clip below.  Put this one on your Netflix queue for when you want something that’s mindless and won’t piss you off.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Show:  Veronica Mars

Role:  Authority figure (teacher)

Best Line:  ”You can toss those ballots in the recycle bin when you’re done uncovering [quote hands] corruption.”

Oh, gosh.  We loved Veronica Mars, especially its first season, which might go down as one of the very few series with a perfect first season other than, say, Battlestar Galactica.  And possibly The Killing, but it’s too early in that series to tell for sure.  But, Veronica Mars – the characters unfolded like flowers, the overarching Who Killed Lilly Kane plot propelled each episode, and the plot lines within each individual episode never felt like they were weighing the season down.

Jane Lynch shows up in this pitch perfect first season as Mrs. Donaldson, a teacher and student council elections advisor.  When Veronica Mars suspects that the student council president election between a very rich kid and a very not-rich kid may have been rigged, she runs into some problems convincing Mrs. Donaldson that there should be a recount.   Could Mrs. Donaldson’s reluctance to ok the recount have anything to do with her class sympathies?  Her job description says no, but her sweater-around-the-neck says, I have exclusive access to a private country club.  Class sympathies, what?

The full episode – as well as all 22 episodes from the first two seasons – is online at TheWB.com.

Show:  Criminal Minds

Role:  Mother, schizophrenic

Best Line:  [On being told she's not in a government office] “Well, this certainly looks like a government office!”

Oh my gods, you guys, Jane Lynch was the very not-comedy drama, Criminal Minds a few years ago.  And she was really good.  The first clip opens with American Beauty-like music and introduces her as the schizophrenic mother to one of the show’s characters; in the second, her body language tells you everything you need to know.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.