10 Awful Characters From Otherwise Excellent TV Shows

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A sequel to this article; 10 Woeful Characters Who Ruined Awesome TV Shows... A TV show is nothing without its characters. These are the people whose lives we follow, for what could be a great number of years. We will meet them in the first season and watch their journey for several more to come. Of course the story, setting and writing need to be adequate but with the possible exception of procedurals, a TV show needs to have interesting characters in order to keep the audience invested. A great show needs to have more than one captivating character in order to succeed; it requires a cast of colourful, individual and well defined people who will bring something to the overall chemistry of the show. There is no Scooby without Shaggy and the gang, David Brent wouldn€™t be half as endearing without his co-workers and Jack Bauer can€™t stop the bad guys without the help of Chloe in the CTU. These groups of characters are what make us watch the shows that we love and what make them so memorable when they are over. However, as much as we may love these casts- though we might miss them and look back fondly as the years go by- even the best shows make mistakes. Even the greatest of shows have those characters that make us want to claw their eyes out. It could be for any number of reasons such as inconsistent characterisation, a lack of chemistry with the other cast members or the character being propped up as some sort of genius or superhero. When really they are just a child, a loser, or both- here€™s looking at you Wesley Crusher (more on him later). Let€™s have a look at 10 awful characters from otherwise brilliant TV shows...

10. Nikki and Paulo - Lost

nikki-and-paulo-los1 We are going to start the list with what is admittedly a bit of a cheat; I€™m counting the infamous Nikki and Paulo from the third season of Lost as one entry. You will struggle to find a better example of a show having lost (no pun intended) its direction, than this ill-conceived couple. Lost had grown flabby in its output by the third season, as the writers struggled with the fact that they did not know how long the show would run for. In a series that was built on mythology and answering questions, this was a problem and it was clearly a struggle with how long they needed to drag the story out. One of the questions that had been asked during the first couple of years on the show was; what about the other survivors? Meaning what were the other passengers from flight 815 doing, while Jack and co tried to get them off of the island. In answer to this, we were introduced to Nikki and Paulo who we learnt had been on the island the whole time. First things first, the characters themselves- awful! Whiney, self-involved and useless, the core characters are going through hell with in their struggle with the others, The Smoke Monster and the ultimate goal of escape from the island- and all these two idiots can worry about is there diamonds. They are stranded on an island and they are worried about diamonds! Secondly, why would anyone think that shoe-horning these two into the show would be a good idea? We already had our core characters and had been introduced to the survivors from the tail-section, whilst there was still room for newcomers like Juliet, we did not need any more survivors. The decision to make them characters that had been on the island all along was also a terrible miscalculation. Did people ask about the other passengers of flight 815? Yes, but that doesn€™t mean that you should actually answer them. People asked the same questions about the red shirts on the Enterprise, but guess what? No really one cares about them and no one cares about the other passengers of 815. At least Nikki and Paulo got the exit they deserved- at the end of the same episode in which we saw flashbacks of the two in the background of important moments of the shows' history- Nikki and Paulo were buried alive. That€™s a hell of a way for the producers to admit their mistake and enough to earn my personal forgiveness.
 
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A guy who is in too far to many geeky things then he would care to admit. A film, tv and gaming enthusiast he will maintain that Rocky III is an awesome movie until he draws his final breath. Embarrassing Fact- owns five different versions of Ocarina of Time