Was Priscilla Barnes miscast

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[QUOTE=TMC;6316338]Suzanne was in real life, actually older than John and Joyce and yet, could've easily believed that she on the show, always had to be babied by her roommates.[/

I never knew that. I thought they all around the same age.

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Originally Posted by BuffaloBill

Terri was always sold, gave the cast a good mix. Priscilla did a great job.

Priscilla Barnes' best moment as a comedic actress was arguably in the episode from Season 6, where Terri goes on that cooking show with Jack and Janet. And the whole time, Terri just has this blank, glazed, deer in headlights look on her face for the TV cameras.

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Originally Posted by TVLegend

I wouldn’t say Priscilla was miscast, but her character was most definitely boring and seemed like a carbon copy of Janet. They didn’t have to make Terri dimwitted like Chrissy, but it would have been nice to see the character have some sort of personality. Perhaps she could have been promiscuous and man-hungry like Flo from Alice and Blanche from The Golden Girls.

I'm starting to wonder if they were after a while, really caught in a rock in the hard place with Terri's character. Somebody else argued that Terri really couldn't absolutely, be written as the smartest person in the room so to speak (which would in theory, otherwise make sense given that Terri works as a nurse), because otherwise, the entire material (in other words, the "everything is a misunderstanding" formula) would fall part.

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Originally Posted by dee2364

I thought that Priscilla Barnes was great on the show; I absolutely loved Terri.

And the writers did know what to do with her. They made her the "straight man" on the show. In a way, she was a lot like Polly on Fawlty Towers, who was the one "sane" person reacting to all the madness like a normal person but at the same time had her moments of goofiness.

As others have argued, Terri at first, seemed a lot more sarcastic and more willing and open to call Jack out whenever he acted too goofy. But after a short while, they pretty much dropped that aspect of Terri's personality and she for better or worse, took over Janet's spot as the logical and pragmatic one in Apartment 201. The key difference from there though is that Priscilla Barnes didn't really have Joyce Dewitt's facial expressions and line reading.