CONT'D: TV's Ten Sexiest Women | Page 1, 2, 3

Sarah Silverman  The Larry Sanders Show

On first glance, Silverman reminds you of the girl-you-like's best friend in high school. She's cute enough, but she doesn't dazzle your libido like the unattainable head cheerleader. However, her charm lies in her slightly self-effacing and delicately perverse comedy. "So, I was licking jelly off my boyfriend," she laments in her stand-up act, "and I thought 'God, I am turning into my mother'." Underused as a featured player on Saturday Night Live, along with a memorable role as Kramer's sleep-interrupting girlfriend on Seinfeld, Silverman always seemed to squeak with untapped potential. Her tough girl humor has earned her parts in There's Something About Mary and HBO's hilarious Mr. Show. Most notably, her role as the writer/ struggling stand-up on Larry Sanders allowed her a forum in which to unleash her quick-draw wit as well as occasionally allowing her vulnerability to quietly bubble up. She's the kind of girl who seems much more comfortable accepting verbal barbs than a dozen roses and that's exactly what makes you buy them for her.  To see if she'll let you in a little.

Kim Delaney  NYPD Blue

Easily the most talented female actor on TV, Delaney's sex appeal is compounded by her staggering talent.  Simultaneously strong and fragile, Delaney's Detective Diane Russell is one of the most complex characters on the small screen, battling alcoholism, repressed memories of sexual abuse, and more personal tragedy than a Sally Jesse marathon.  With subtle craftsmanship, Delaney brings this multi-faceted, very real woman alive, causing the viewer to fall as hard for her as Jimmy Smits' Bobby Simone did.  In fact, it was Delaney's portrayal of Russell's angst-ridden grief and helplessness that peppered the emotional punch of Simone's drawn-out heart disease and death.  We cried not for him, but for the beautiful, tortured creature that he left behind.  Come here, Kim. You can cry on my shoulder.

Kristen Johnston  3rd Rock from the Sun

Johnston once described Sally Solomon, her swashbuckling alien trapped in an earth female body, as "the only character on TV guilty of sexually harassing herself ."  Exploring her body like an exuberant eighth grader on a sick day, Sally is corrupted by the power of her newly-found libidinous frame, making men serve her, such as when she made a potential suitor carry a refrigerator the length of the apartment several times, just because she knows that she is beautiful enough to get away with it.  Perhaps it is this outer-worldly confidence and macho aggressiveness that accounts for her erotic pull.  Or maybe it's simply her killer (and I do mean killer) body stretched out on a six-foot plus slender frame that draws me.  Whatever the reason, I'd gladly rocket to any rock with this Amazon beauty, even though she'd most likely wipe the space shuttle floor with me.

Beth Littleford The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

You've got to love a woman who, when interviewing the expelled masturbation-teaching Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, asks "What about Jesse Helms... is he stromming his own thurmond?" Intelligent and beautiful, Littleford reeks of comic naughtiness. A memorable stint as Stuart's recurring psychotic on-again, off-her-rocker girlfriend on Spin City serves as a calling card for future excellence.  But her true talents shine through the soft, bathing light of her tongue-in-cheek Beth Littleford Interviews with has-been celebrities such as David Cassidy, Kato Kaelin, and Fabio, the side-splitting highlights of Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Not that Littleford needs the distorted, soft camera to look good; her business jacket and skirt combinations wrapped around her tall, svelte body are enough to sell her as a sexy, serious journalist to rival Diane Sawyer any day. But her sparkling smirk and gently condescending tone (should) tip her satiric hand to the audience and her unwitting pseudo-celebrity victims. Fortunately, they are usually not hip to subtle derision, and Littleford continues to confound the clueless, ambush the arrogant, and fondle my funny bone almost too much for basic cable.

Torrie Wilson WCW Monday Nitro

Certainly the most unusual choice, no list of sexy TV women could be complete without the scintillating Ms. Wilson. All right, so she doesn't actually do anything (I may be wrong, but accompanying wrestlers to the ring doesn't exactly require a Masters in molecular biology from Vassar), but during every moment of air time, Wilson lights up the screen with her very presence. This blonde babydoll would probably blow Pamela off the beaches of Baywatch, so next to the brutish behemoths that pound each other into pulp on Mondays, she looks that much more appetizing. I know that her role is nothing more than delicious eye candy for drooling adolescents. I know her image merely sates society's thirst for unrealistic, Barbie-doll beauty. And I know they're probably not real. But I can't help sensing that underneath the skimpy halter tops and come hither stares resides a charisma with the potential to flower into much more than the misogynist structure of wrestling will allow. Or maybe I'm just fooling myself, another victim under Torrie's sultry spell.

Page 1, 2, 3