12 TV Families Ranked From Worst To Best

10. The Petrellis €“ Heroes

Petrelli

At their best, your family are your first natural allies against the horrors of the big bad world. That is, unless you have the misfortune of hailing from the Petrelli dynasty €“ in which case you can either expect your relatives to be the cause of those horrors or expose you to them as part of their ill conceived, nonsensical agendas. The Petrellis are a case in point for why it's probably a good thing humans can't grow superpowers in the real world, the only thing worse than that is the thought of actually being related to one of these imbeciles. I mean, if you had to take one of them on who would you choose? You could have Angela Petrelli for a mother, the woman who would readily offer up her children as lab rats, try and fail miserably to manipulate a nigh-invulnerable psycho serial killer into becoming her lackey and become genuinely shocked when her plan to brainwash said serial killer into assuming her dead son's identity blows up spectacularly in her face. Perhaps Arthur Petrelli's numerous attempts to murder his kin, along with his inane belief that unleashing a world-destroying serum is just what the planet needs is enough to convince you that he's father material. Then again you could always have Nathan for a brother who €“ not counting the illegitimate daughter he abandoned to pursue his career or the wife and children who conveniently vanished into thin air as he wormed his way into Tracy Strauss' pants €“ is more than happy to inject mentally unstable soldiers with super strength and watch blithely as an unhinged mercenary rounds up members of his family and imprisons them for attempting to stop the real bad guys from running amok. I guess if you HAD to, Peter would be the logical choice for a relative since his kind and empathetic nature makes him the best of a bad bunch. Having said that, his dangerous level of stupidity and inexplicable talent for putting the world in more danger than it was to begin with would probably land you in an early grave faster than you can say 'save the cheerleader, save the world'. It really is a pity that he never picked up the power to raise his IQ by a few points alongside his ability to fly, which he conveniently forgot to use when he was literally about to vaporise all of New York City in season one. In hindsight, Heroes would've been better off without the Petrellis. Even with their best intentions they managed to 'F' things up for everyone and made the simplest tasks horrendously complicated. They may be imbued with the power of Gods, but if they'd left this saving the world business to the grown-ups they'd have been far more successful.
Contributor
Contributor

A self-confessed Buffy fanatic with a penchant for sleuth shows, superheroes and anything with an infectious groove. I'm a Music and English Literature graduate with zany opinions on music, TV and film to unleash on anyone who will read them. Follow me on Twitter: swingking007