10 TV Shows Whose Leads Are The Worst Character
3. Orange Is The New Black - Piper Chapman
Season one of prison drama Orange Is The New Black uses Piper Chapman as the audience surrogate character. Sentenced to a custodial sentence for historical drug crimes, she’s completely out of her depth, a privileged white woman surrounded by people who are, largely, nothing like her.
Over the course of the season and series, we learn more about her fellow inmates, many of whom are underrepresented on TV in the way Piper and actress Taylor Schilling are very much not. With few exceptions, the surrounding characters are more interesting than Piper, with stories more relatable, interesting, and important. It would have been easy enough to take Piper out of the equation to spend more time on the rest of the Litchfield prisoners.
Instead, Piper remains inarguably the main character for the seven season duration. She’s not a bad character by any means - and it should be said that Schilling’s performance is excellent - but the writers can clearly be seen scrambling for more excuses to keep Piper in the limelight, often pushing the credulity of the show as a result.