10 Amazing TV Shows (With Terrible Lead Characters)
9. Daria
Like with Arrow, Daria's eponymous lead grew more likeable in the later seasons, but watching those first few seasons in 2020 is nigh unbearable.
A lot of this has to do with how starkly different youth culture in both this author's generation and the one after it has developed in the fallout of the 90's. Nowadays, Daria's monotone, too-cool-for-school, "liking things and being excited for things is for sheep" attitude is just no longer relatable.
We've thankfully seem to have outgrown the 90's mindset that the best way to be interesting is to be a cynical, know-it-all jerk. So showing someone who was in Daria's demographic the show these days is likely to result in them rolling their eyes at the lead, and who can blame them?
What makes this complicated, again, are those later seasons, where Daria's attitude actually bites her in the ass more than once, and even nearly costs her the few relationships she actually lets herself care about, forcing her to adapt and evolve. The latter half of the show is what makes it such a fondly remembered classic, but if you didn't grow up in the generation Daria did, then she'll make getting there an utter slog.