10 Best TV Guest Appearances Ranked, From Seinfeld to Justified A look at 10 of the best TV guest appearances, including Philip Baker Hall in Seinfeld, Albert Brooks in The Simpsons and Margo Martindale in Justified. A ranking of 10 of the best guest appearances on television highlights how guest characters and guest actors can be harder to define than expected, even as major awards bodies hand out guest acting awards annually. The list, which spans series including Seinfeld, The Simpsons, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Justified and Girls, considers who makes the most out of the limited time they are given on screen. Defining a guest appearance is not straightforward. A performer can enter a series for an entire season as a major player, only to disappear quickly, and still be considered a guest. Someone can also appear once a season from start to finish and still be classified as a guest.Seinfeld and The Simpsons guest rolesPhilip Baker Hall appears in only two episodes of Seinfeld, but he immediately rises to the top of the packed list of great Seinfeld characters. Hall plays Lt. Joe Bookman in The Library, and then reprises the role for the guest character-packed finale episode of the series.Lt. Bookman is a hard-nosed private detective whose primary concern is making sure that people who check out books from the library return them on time. The character is compared to Detective Joe Friday from Dragnet suddenly appearing in an episode of Seinfeld. Few guest characters have completely altered the tone of a Seinfeld episode quite like the late Hall.The sheer amount of guest characters in The Simpsons makes them hard to rank, but Hank Scorpio, voiced by Albert Brooks, is described as at least in the top five. Hank appears in season 8, episode 2, You Only Move Twice, as the owner of the Globex Corporation, who hires Homer and invites his family to move to the idyllic Cypress Creek.It turns out that Hank is actually an evil mastermind in the style of a James Bond villain, but Homer never notices, even after Hank asks that he kill a few people on his way out after resigning. Every line out of Scorpio's mouth is described as brilliant, made better by Brooks' delivery.Sopranos and Deadwood guest charactersTo be a guest character on The Sopranos usually means dying at the hands of some mobster, but Gloria Trillo, played by Annabella Sciorra, upends expectations to the very end. When Tony, played by James Gandolfini, meets the beautiful Gloria in the waiting room of Dr. Melfi's office, that should have been the first sign things were not going to work out between the two.On the surface, Gloria is a classy, professional, successful woman, but that exterior hides a darkness that Tony is quickly exposed to. Depressed, suicidal, and anxious, Gloria proves to be more than a match for Tony in every way, and Sciorra's antic, mesmerizing performance is described as a heartbreaking portrait of someone struggling against their own demons.Keith Carradine appears in five episodes of Deadwood as James Butler Hickok, better known as Wild Bill. The famous gunslinger sets off the events of the series with his death soon into it. At this point in time, Wild Bill is past his prime and is weary of his life, hoping to end it in Deadwood through gambling, drinking, or both.It is described as a powerful performance from Carradine and a critical one for Deadwood. His presence in the first few episodes and friendship with Seth Bullock, played by Timothy Olyphant, lends an emotional weight to the start of the series that carries through three seasons. His haunted look throughout his appearances is a reminder of the true cost of life in the old West.Justified and Girls guest appearancesMargo Martindale is described as the queen of guest characters, a point noted by Todd, voiced by Aaron Paul, in BoJack Horseman, who always refers to her as Character actress Margo Martindale. Martindale has made a career of coming into a TV show for only a few episodes and stealing every scene she is in.Martindale has an extended guest appearance in Justified as Mags Bennett in season 2. Mags is the primary antagonist of the season as the matriarch of the Bennett clan, a family of pot dealers who have a feud with another family of weed growers. Grim and strong, Martindale makes it clear that Mags is someone not to be messed with, but who would rather be doing anything else if she could.Riz Ahmed has a brief but memorable role in Girls as Paul-Louis in season 6. When Hannah, played by Lena Dunham, goes to the Hamptons to report on a surf camp, she finds herself completely uninterested in her assigned task. What she does find interesting is the handsome but air-headed surf instructor, Paul-Louis.Paul-Louis is a complete caricature of the surfer bro, easygoing, cool guy archetype, the kind that Hannah never gets with, and he manages to make him likeable. The ranking reflects how guest performers can leave a lasting impression despite limited screen time across long-running television series.