20 Most Hated Characters In TV History

19. Lost - Nikki & Paolo

June Stahl Sons of Anarchy
ABC

Created as an answer to the question of what the other three dozen survivors of the plane crash had been doing throughout the first few weeks on the island, Nikki Fernandez and Paulo were so despised by Lost’s audience that all plans for the two were abandoned partway through season three.

In order to properly appreciate how loathed these two pretty vacant swindlers were, you need to understand the nature of Lost’s relationship with its audience. Premiering in 2004, the show benefited from the kind of entitled fan engagement that’s only possible with the increasing use of the internet to foster fandom communities.

The advent of social media like Facebook and Twitter in the middle of the show’s run only increased this engagement. Lost fans had opinions about everything - the mysteries of the island, the characters and their relationships and back stories, the works - and weren’t shy about expressing them, whether they were positive or negative.

Despite the massive level of subjective opinion thrown at them from all sides, showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof refused to let the pressure of all that screaming fandom get to them. This was their story, and they were going to tell it their way, whether we liked it or not… until it came to Nikki and Paolo.

So loathed was this model-perfect couple, with their weird ability to pop up in scenes that didn’t concern them and the story’s abrupt focus on them (despite two whole seasons where they didn’t appear once) that Cuse and Lindelof decided to bow to the fans for the first and only time in the show’s history, murdering the pair of them in the most horrible way possible.

In our wildest dreams, we never expected this obnoxious pair of cuckoos would be paralysed by spider venom and, believed dead, buried alive by their friends. Now that’s fan service.

Contributor
Contributor

Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.