David Hasselhoff has been cast to play an aging porn star named Dondo in Season 4 of Sons of Anarchy. I just... I don't even know. The Hoff? It could be brilliant. Casting Stephen King as a cleaner last season was incredibly well done but The Hoff causes me to raise an eyebrow. Yes, Kurt Sutter has a deliciously sick sense of humor and I hope that The Hoff will be used as well as King was.
But the news also makes my brain hurt a little. I'm invested in the characters and their stories and while Sons of Anarchy has always had a certain (highly enjoyable) swagger to its sensibility, stunt casting The Hoff might just be a bridge too far. Would Mad Men or Breaking Bad cast someone like David Hasselhoff? Probably not. If this stunt casting is something viewers can expect for the run of the show, does it change how seriously we should regard the show? Does stunt casting fundamentally change what the show is--a family drama? Or does it cheapen it in some tangible way?
Unfortunately, I've got more questions than answers. My concern for the show is that peripheral things like casting The Hoff may serve as a distraction from the heart of an otherwise compelling, strong central story.
