Parenting & Family Quote by Richard Dean Anderson

Anderson’s pleasure here isn’t about prestige; it’s about range. “That was fun to play” is the actor’s tell: a job that gave him toys (special effects) and texture (domestic scenes) in the same package. He’s pointing to a particular kind of TV-era craft where spectacle had to earn its keep by landing on something human. The phrase “coupled with” does quiet work, stitching together two modes that can easily cancel each other out: the gee-whiz fantasy and the grounded intimacy of “child and wife.” He’s signaling that the episode didn’t just ask him to react to sparks and smoke; it let him play a person with stakes.

Then comes the kicker: “I also was able to age to about 100 years in ‘Brief Candle.’” It’s a breezy flex that masks a darker premise. Aging is usually narrative shorthand for wisdom or decline; here it’s also a production trick and a performance challenge. Anderson frames it like a carnival attraction, but the subtext is mortality as a special effect you can’t actually reset between takes. In a genre show, getting old fast becomes an elegant way to smuggle in questions about time, regret, and what’s left unsaid in relationships.

Context matters: this is a star of a long-running, effects-forward series reminding you the real hook wasn’t the gadgets. It was the tightrope walk between adventure and vulnerability, and the rare TV opportunity to play an entire lifetime in one hour.