15 Most Monstrous Villains In Television

One of the most vital and influential TV shows never to make it to a full season, Profit debuted in 1996 on Fox and was cancelled after four of the nine episodes produced had been aired, due to overwhelmingly negative viewing figures. Two decades ago, the American audience wasn’t ready for a broadcast TV show about a sociopath killing and blackmailing his way to the top of a multinational company.

Raised by an abusive father in farming country, forced to live in a large cardboard box with a hole cut in the side so that he could watch television, the boy who would become Jim Profit escaped by tying his father to the bed and setting fire to the house. When he reappeared, it was as someone altogether different: a yuppie, well-groomed and highly educated. This ‘Jim Profit’ uses fair means and foul (mostly foul) to instal himself into the corporate hierarchy of Gracen & Gracen, a large but unethical multinational conglomerate.

The always dependable Adrian Pasdar plays Profit with a quiet, predatory grace as he works to take over the company from within for his own nefarious purposes. Why does Profit pick G&G as his target? That cardboard box he was raised in was a G&G shipping box. Profit both hates and loves the company, wanting to do well and join the team, but wanting to tear the family-run concern down as well.

Despite living in a large, luxurious condo, Jim goes to sleep every night lying on his side in the foetal position, naked, in the same rubbish-strewn cardboard box he was kept in as a child. All the things that turned the 1996 audience off Profit are the things that have since made Dexter, The Shield, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos and Sons Of Anarchy massive worldwide hits.

Such a shame. Obviously, being on Fox didn’t help - but really, the character was just years ahead of his time.