10 TV Shows That Completely Wasted Great Characters
4. Scrubs - Julie
Look, we could fill this entire list with the “love interest
of the week” characters featured throughout most sitcoms since Diane’s first
conquest darkened the door of Sam’s bar. After all, one-joke short-lived love
interests are a staple of sitcoms, and they often vanish as soon as they appear,
taking their single use character trait with them as they do. But we’re trying
to limit ourselves to the most egregiously wasted characters here, so gone are
the many forgettable faces dated by the denizens of Friends and Seinfeld.
On first glance, Mandy Moore’s klutzy-but-sweet Julie, dated by our nominal hero JD during a later season of Scrubs, fits the “one note girlfriend” archetype. She’s clumsy! And little else. But soon JD is buying a plot of land with her, and the chemistry between then-real-life sweethearts Moore and JD actor Zach Braff is obvious onscreen.
There’s just one problem.
Julie never becomes more than a two-episode stop on the way to JD inevitably ending up with Elliot, wasting the chemistry between the two and making the land-purchasing a strange and pointless fugazi of a subplot.