10 Sci-Fi TV Shows That Wasted Great Characters
4. Adelai Niska (Firefly)
It's typically considered blasphemy to talk ill of the beloved cult classic Firefly. But, to be fair, the criticism here isn't that this character was bad; quite the opposite, it's that he deserved more screen time.
Niska was an utterly creepy and intimidating antagonist. His psychopathic tendencies made him incredibly frightening, and the weirdly polite/quiet performance from Michael Fairman made that all the more unsettling. However, his minor appearances felt like a missed opportunity.
His build-up in "The Train Job" painted a great picture of a terrifying man, and when he showed up in "War Stories", he delivered. But, the character ended up taking a backseat to the drama between Mal and Wash, which was a bit of a letdown. Here was a character so scary he could have been the overarching villain of the first series, but instead, he was a one-off appearance.
Of course, there's no way of knowing that the character wouldn't have eventually stepped up to the plate had the series not been unjustly cancelled. But, even so, it's a shame fans didn't see more of him in the season.