Celebrity crush: Sarah Carter (revised)

Today's entry features an under-appreciated actress (and now singer) who first caught my eye on Smallville in its earlier days. Amazon and iTunes links follow. Any affiliate payments earned from your purchase or rental will help pay the hosting fees for my podcasts, so please consider clicking.

Name: Sarah Carter (images | Web site | Sanguindrake music site | Twitter)
Hometown: This member of the sexy invasion force from our Strange and Savage Neighbo(u)rs to the North hails from the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, according to her Wikipedia profile.
Best Known For: Sarah co-starred with James Woods and fellow celebrity crush Danielle Panabaker in the CBS legal drama Shark, which ran for two seasons. Prior to that, she put in three appearances on Smallville as a less than 100 percent mentally stable teleporter whose heart belonged to big dumb Clark Kent.

(Spoiler alert: The fact her character MARRIED Clark Kent, then was never spoken of again after her death, still irks Ye Olde Podcaster.)

In D.O.A., fighting evil on the volleyball court.

Film work includes the video game-inspired DOA: Dead or Alive and the horror film Skinwalkers. More recent TV work includes a stint on CSI: New York and a guest shot on White Collar, and she'll be in Steven Spielberg's alien-invasion series Falling Skies alongside Noah Wyle and fellow celebrity crush Jessy Schram.

And in 2009, she released her first album as a singer-songwriter, a pretty dark affair (despite her sweet, high voice) titled Before Three. More recently, she's released three singles as part of Sanguindrake.
Humble Beginnings: Sarah was a dancer and actress as a child, and her high school debate team traveled far and wide, according to the Wikipedia entry.

Early TV appearances include the short-lived Wolf Lake, The Immortal, and Black Sash, and early movie work includes the thrillers Mindstorm and Final Destination 2. The creators of the TV show Undeclared intended to make her a regular, but the show was canceled so quickly that she only appeared in a single episode.
Obligatory Edgy Stuff: On Entourage, she played a driver who had a threesome with Turtle and Johnny Drama at the Sundance Festival. Confessions of a Go-Go Dancer featured her as an exotic dancer showing plenty of skin -- despite appearing on the Lifetime Movie Network -- as its title would suggest. And, you know, Canadian.

Why Ye Olde Podcaster Likes Her: First off, she's hot. I'll just admit it. She's hot. Eggs spontaneously cook inside their shells if they're placed in the same room with Sarah Carter for more than 10 seconds. She can pop a bag of popcorn just by smiling at it.

Second, though, she has a tendency to take characters who by all rights should be unsympathetic -- Clark Kent's stalker, an aggressive and ambitious prosecutor lacking moral scruples, a manipulator of an actor's hangers-on, a possible gold digger on Dirty Sexy Money -- and make them endearing despite themselves.

(I mean, seriously -- sure, Alicia wasn't canon to the DC Universe, but neither was Chloe Sullivan until 2010, and she's the most beloved character on Smallville now! And don't give me that Jim Shooter "Jean Grey Must Die" argument that Alicia's mistakes meant that it would be a bad precedent to leave her alive -- they've allowed Green Arrow walk around with everyone thinking he murdered Lex Luthor in cold blood. ... I TOLD you I was still bitter about this.)

But yeah, she's hot. That smile could melt concrete, her voice is odd but alluring (and translates remarkably well into her odd but alluring music -- think a much prettier Conor Oberst), and her latter appearance on Smallville made me envious of a disposable beverage cup for the first and only time in my life. And it turns out she's a hell of a singer and songwriter as well. Face it, tiger -- you hit the jackpot. (Wrong superhero universe, but you get the point.)

Film and TV-movie credits: Marathoners (Amazon | iTunes) * Misconceptions (Amazon | iTunes) * Red Mist (Amazon | iTunes) * Confessions of a Go-Go Girl (Amazon | iTunes) * Killing Zelda Sparks (Amazon | iTunes) * National Lampoon's Pledge This! (Amazon | iTunes) * DOA: Dead or Alive (Amazon | iTunes) * Skinwalkers (Amazon | iTunes) * Berkeley (Amazon | iTunes) * Haven (Amazon | iTunes) * A Date with Darkness: The Trial and Capture of Andrew Luster (Amazon | iTunes) * Final Destination 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * K-9: P.I. (Amazon | iTunes) * Trapped (2001 TV movie) (Amazon | iTunes) * Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (Amazon | iTunes) * Mind Storm (Amazon | iTunes)
Musical work: Before Three (Amazon | iTunes) * "Brand New Truth" (Sanguindrake single) (Amazon | iTunes) * "My Reflection" (Sanguindrake single) (Amazon | iTunes) * "Say I Don't Know" (Sanguindrake single) (Amazon | iTunes)

TV and Web series credits: Falling Skies, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * White Collar, season 1: "Home Invasion" (Amazon | iTunes) * CSI: New York, season 6 (Amazon | iTunes) * The Cleaner, season 2: "Standing Eight" (Amazon | iTunes) * Dirty Sexy Money, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Shark, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Shark, season 1 (Amazon | iTunes) * Numb3rs, season 2 (Amazon | iTunes) * Entourage, season 2: "The Sundance Kids" (Amazon | iTunes) * Smallville, season 4 (Amazon | iTunes) * Boston Legal, season 1: "It Girls and Beyond" (Amazon | iTunes) * Smallville, season 3 (Amazon | iTunes) * Black Sash (Amazon | iTunes) * The Twilight Zone (2002): "Sunrise" (Amazon | iTunes) * MTV's Now What?: "Hang Ups" (Amazon | iTunes) * Undeclared: "The Perfect Date" (Amazon | iTunes) * Dark Angel, season 2: "Boo" (Amazon | iTunes) * Wolf Lake: "The Changing" (Amazon | iTunes) * Los Luchadores (Amazon | iTunes) * The Immortal: "The Good Squire" (Amazon | iTunes) * Cold Squad, season 4: "Root Cause" (Amazon | iTunes)