10 TV roles Katherine Heigl wouldn't play

Watching Katherine Heigl attempt to inject life into yet another cardboard cut-out of a controlling, manic working woman in "The Ugly Truth," you have to wonder: For this she wants to leave television?

Yes, being a movie star is still a bigger deal in America than a being a television star, but there are more and better roles for women on the small screen. Roles that require depth and wisdom and boundless energy, that demand of their performers the dramatic flexibility and exploration of character. Roles that don't seem to punish them simply for being women.

While Heigl and other stars are stuck in narrow, nasty movie roles, women get to do just about anything on TV.

---Mary McNamara, Tribune TV critic
Read more about why women on TV trump the big-screen starlets.
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Patty Hewes, played by Glenn Close, would never face the humiliation that many female characters on the big screen have to endure (think "27 Dresses"). Indeed, when Hewes found out her husband had betrayed her, he was out the door so fast that his little speech about how impossible she is to love practically choked him.

Patty Hewes in "Damages"

(Courtesy of FX)

Patty Hewes, played by Glenn Close, would never face the humiliation that many female characters on the big screen have to endure (think "27 Dresses"). Indeed, when Hewes found out her husband had betrayed her, he was out the door so fast that his little speech about how impossible she is to love practically choked him.