10 Amazing TV Shows (With Terrible Lead Characters)

Main characters in comedy are a tricky sort. Make them too defined by one joke like the rest of the cast, and audiences will despise them. But if you make them too much of what comedy terms the 'straight man', they become boring, because no one wants to follow a comedy where the main character does nothing but roll their eyes or tut-tut the other characters' antics.

Comedy writers have to make their main characters funny and likeable enough for audiences to want to follow them, while making sure they aren't the weirdest part of their world, so audiences aren't turned off.

A fine line that Girls' Hannah Horvath fails miserably at walking.

This brilliantly grounded mumblecore comedy unfortunately has a lead who is uninteresting at the best of times acting as an albatross around its neck. While the other characters have their defining gimmicks, quirks, and running gags, there's always something a bit more hiding underneath the surface to help you believe that these are real people. Hannah, on the other hand, is often portrayed as a one-note stereotype of millennial youth culture, and not even in a funny way.

Mumblecore is already an acquired taste as a subgenre, and characters like Hannah do not help Girls make a case for itself as the unique comedy that it is.