10 TV Shows That Completely Wasted Great Characters

By Cathal Gunning / March 13, 2022

There’s nothing quite as frustrating as realizing that a show which is in need of a shake-up has introduced a great new character, only for them to end up totally underutilized in coming episodes. It’s not a rare occurrence: between writer’s rooms adding characters only to forget about them a week later and nervy executives demanding the addition of someone new only to then abandon them soon after, it’s inevitable that some much-loved figures end up written out of television history.

But for audiences hoping to see more of these characters and—reasonably enough—assuming they have been added to the line-up for a reason, this is a deeply frustrating move. A lot of shows feel the need to reinvigorate their cast list after a few stale seasons, and in many cases the addition of a new character can be the perfect compromise.

However, in the case of examples included in this list, it didn’t matter how good the characters were since they were never given a chance to have much impact on proceedings before being shuffled back out of the cast list...

10. How I Met Your Mother - The Mother

Anyone who ever considered themselves a fan of this divisive hit sitcom from the 2000s must have been able to guess that the long-unseen eponymous character of How I Met Your Mother would inevitably have to make this list. For the uninitiated How I Met Your Mother followed much the same formula as Friends a decade earlier and New Girl a decade later, following a group of twenty to thirtysomething friends as they navigated their professional, personal, and love lives, but with the twist that the show was presented as the winding story of ostensible hero Ted telling his children how he met their titular mother.

As such the elusive mother, eventually revealed to be Cristin Milioti’s Tracy, was merely hinted at for the first nine seasons of this show, without so much as a name revealed for season after season. Then came the final season and her first appearance—and shockingly Milioti managed to be charming, funny, and interesting enough to delight the show’s long-time fans.

All of which only made it more frustrating when the creators decided to off her in the series finale in order to let Ted and his ex Robin hook up, an outcome they’d planned since the first episode. The ending horrified fans who had grown to love Milioti despite how short her screen time was, and it’s proof that planning ahead doesn’t account for audiences deciding they prefer another character to the originally designated love interest.