Recently while watching Glee (well, Mercedes isn’t pregnant, so my ultimatum didn’t come to be; I’m thinking of making another one, because at this point continuing to watch just feels like I’m wasting my time and making myself way too cranky, but I haven’t been able to yet, because I am terrible at stopping watching things in the middle), I was liveblogging it (except not really, because I was just writing notes on paper so the people around me didn’t want to punch me), and I wrote this down: “I would watch 45 minutes of Jayma Mays’ facial reactions to things.” It wouldn’t have to even be facial reactions to audible conversations. I could just watch her face be ridiculous and adorable and expressive all over the place while other off-screen people presumably talked and instrumental music played or something. Then I realized that I could watch this for many, many people, and a list was born. A list that is 60% Whedon actors, this go-round, but I think this is almost inevitable.
10. Jayma Mays (here pictured as Emma Pillsbury in Glee)
The approximately three minutes of onscreen Emma time per episode constitute one of the only reasons I don’t completely hate that I can’t look away from the train wreck that Glee has become yet. Those three adorable minutes make up for so much painful. I like to watch Jayma react to people and pretend she’s somewhere else making those adorable faces at someone more interesting.
9. Nelsan Ellis (here pictured as Lafayette Reynolds in True Blood)
Have I mentioned this before? Well, not in the “45 minutes straight of Nelsan Ellis face” context exactly, but pretty much.
8. Amy Acker (here seen as Claire Saunders in Dollhouse)
Remember the confusing Claire feelings? Yep. I’ve seen some pictures of Amy in Angel, and she was adorable, but since I haven’t seen Angel (well, any of her episodes) I can’t feel qualified to comment. Instead? Some pictures of Claire!Amy being expressive and stuff. (In case you haven’t picked up on it or don’t, I have a thing for elaborate eye rolling faces.)
7. Nathan Fillion (here seen as Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly, Captain Hammer in Dr. Horrible, and Richard Castle in Castle)
This man has some of the most amazing facial reactions on the planet. And a lot of the funny ones were in the background of a conversation, and therefore the caps weren’t as high-quality, but here’s a nice range of amiable and cocky and know-it-all.
6. Alyson Hannigan (here seen as Willow Rosenberg in Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Ditto the comments re: Amy and Angel as to why I didn’t pull some Lily Aldrin of How I Met Your Mother in here. I’ve seen a few episodes, but not enough. And Willow face is my favorite face. She is my original could-watch-this-forever face. At least of recent years.
5. Timothy Olyphant (here seen as Seth Bullock in Deadwood and Raylan Givens in Justified)
Timothy’s face is often intense and glowery, as per the first picture, but he can smirk and pout with the best of them, too.
4. Summer Glau (here seen as River Tam in Firefly, Cameron Phillips in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Bennett Halverson in Dollhouse)
Yes, this is the most predictable list of all time, but really? I feel like I just want animated gifs of every facial expression reaction series this woman ever makes. She can say so much with individual looks. Shocked, emotive, passive, happy, sad, dangerous, knowing, vulnerable, badass, shy, silly, all of it.
3. Bill Hader (here seen in various Saturday Night Live sketches)
This man is one of the best parts of SNL. No matter what he’s doing, he’s making the greatest faces of all time. Even if — especially if — he’s just in the background. Sometimes the entire point of a sketch seems to be to let him make progressively more absurd faces, and I’m good with it.
2. Morena Baccarin (here seen as Inara Serra in Firefly)
She has every facial expression, and her vulnerable ones are rarer but beautiful and poignant and all that, but she can just make the greatest snark faces of all time, too. Pure eye rolling vitriolic doom faces, smirky know-it-all faces.
1. Fran Kranz (here seen as Topher Brink in Dollhouse)
The predictable continues, but I am unashamed. I always love him, but he’s earned the number one spot this week with the release of the trailer for The Cabin in the Woods – I didn’t have caps of it, and anyway it’s a film so not relevant to Television Tuesday, but he was making brilliant faces the entire time. The trailer is like 1/4 his brilliant faces. And really. I can never get tired of his expressions.
–your fangirl heroine.
partlydrawn 
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