10 TV Shows That Actually Benefited From Bad Acting

There's perhaps no greater guilty pleasure show still airing today than Riverdale, a slick and self-consciously trashy reimagining of the classic Archie Comics series.

The show has gone down some increasingly silly rabbit-holes in recent years, with many fans believing its quality has declined severely, noting the chaotically inconsistent writing of the series' beloved main characters.

Look, Riverdale was never going to be winning Emmy awards for its acting, and though the older cast members largely get away with their dignity in tact, the teens are all over the place, especially KJ Apa as Archie, Camila Mendes as Veronica, and Cole Sprouse as Jughead.

While they're absolutely at the mercy of the show's roughshod scripts, of the main teens the only actress to emerge relatively unscathed is Lili Reinhart, whereas the quality of the others' work varies wildly from scene to scene.

Yet given Riverdale's unapologetic penchant for slushy melodrama, basically styled as a teen riff on Twin Peaks as it is, the wonky acting helps elevate that vibe into the stratosphere, where the audience is simply having fun laughing at the heightened absurdity of it all.

Seemingly well aware of this fact, Cole Sprouse himself hilariously compared the ensemble cast to a wax museum a few years ago.