Maybe the typecasting wouldn't hurt if the type were the right one, as in "superstah"

I loved Grey's Anatomy last night, just like the rest of you. I bawled my eyes out. (Man, I hate it when characters developed with Beverly Hillbillies subtlety bite the dust.) My heart, too, was made softer and more pudding-like during the course of the most awesome veterinarian evah's speech about being scary and damaged.

However. What is up with the typecasting? No, I don't mean the guy who played Big Jim (though seriously when has he ever not played a marshmallow coated with a scary crust?).

No. I mean, John Cho.

I mean: You have one guest spot on House M.D. and suddenly you can only play patients? Albeit, this time, a patient who moonlights as a surgeon, as opposed to his previous role as a patient who moonlighted as the receiving end of a dominatrix's attentions. Is it because he lies in bed well? Because he does. I think it has something to do with the longer hair and how awesome his jaw looks when sprinkled with stubble. He has that early Harrison Ford quality of making scrapes and bruises look hot. And did he or did he not apologize and break down into tears all over Big Jim's messy paw like the best of them? He did.

But I find myself asking: Why couldn't he play the most awesome veterinarian evah? What does Chris O'Donnell have that John Cho doesn't?

They both do cute. They both do sincere. Admittedly, to my knowledge, John doesn't have the wife and four young children to support, but other than that, what is up?

Is it because John Cho isn't a "household name" like Chris O'Donnell?

Firstly, John Cho is a name around my household. Around my household, his name is said with a little squeal of joy, as in "Omigod, is that John Cho on the stretcher? That neck brace is so his color."

Secondly, Chris O'Donnell may also be a name around my household, but it's a name you don't want to have, because then your name is affiliated with such things as Scent of a Woman and the death by Schumacher that the Batman series suffered so lingeringly. Your name is associated with that bad movie I never bothered to see where he's being chased around San Francisco by hundreds of women in wedding dresses. Way to ruin both the city I love and weddings for me in a single preview, Hollywood.

Is this about the GA mission of rehabilitating boyish heartthrobs from earlier decades? Now that Patrick Dempsey has been rescued from that brief tenure of B-movie stardom in the 80s, you're moving on to rescuees from the 90s? But isn't it a little early, by those standards? Couldn't the redemption of Chris O'Donnell wait a decade more? At that point, the scruffy look he's currently sporting may have become a little too mountain man (Rule #1 of boyish heartthrob reclamation: Scruff. Up.), but still, I'm sure the audience would be even happier to see him after the sting of his earlier "accomplishments" is less sharp.

Meanwhile, John Cho moves on to the next medical drama. And not that he wouldn't bring shades of feeling to his portrayal of an ER patient who moonlights as a police detective (I'm trying to broaden his scope so he can maybe jump to a CSI), but seriously, could we stop forcing John Cho to moonlight as anything? My household may not be Nielsen, but in my household, that boy's more like a star.