Some friends and I were talking about the upcoming final season of The Boys when one friend mentioned he had been rewatching the show in preparation, before breaking into a rant about how much he hated the character Hughie. I was a little surprised to see how much one of the main good guys, our moral point-of-view character, was disliked and described as an annoying character; whether it’s his reluctance to act, the way he treats his parents, his fragile masculinity when his incredibly attractive super-powered girlfriend saves him, or just how whiny he is. It seems like a large group of fans doesn’t appreciate Hughie, or maybe doesn’t understand him. Some complained that he could be too feminine at times, or didn’t embrace the violence enough, but I think that also shows that sometimes, viewers may not fully understand why some of what people consider the “annoying” characters have the traits they do.
We’re spoiled for great television, decades of fantastic shows at our fingertips, in a time where things are more available than ever for those who want to go back and digest entire series. Even in programs that’re often discussed as some of the GOATs, there still seem to be a good number of characters audiences absolutely despise. This doesn’t necessarily mean the antagonists, or even people we might normally think of as obstacles–these are people often presented as allies, friends, and family, because reality is choosing to keep obnoxious individuals in our lives for one reason or another. Most of these personalities are important to the show, even when they’re being insufferable, and they work, without bringing the stories down too far. So what makes them like this? What are some of the shared traits between these flawed individuals, and why do we simply have trouble reconciling with their existence, even when they work as intended?
Why Game of Thrones’ Joffrey and Urkel don’t apply
Take a look at who most people think the worst or most annoying characters are in television history, and a lot of the same names start popping up, but Joffrey (Game of Thrones) was meant to be hated, and Urkel was always supposed to make viewers groan in between laughs. We’re not going to agree on all of these names, and even the most polarizing side characters have a handful of staunch defenders, but there is a lot of common ground.
What makes a character truly frustrating to watch? Often, it’s when someone interferes with the story, interjecting themselves into the plot, or becomes more than just a social foil for our main protagonists. Many of these characters pick a path or stance and stick to it, rarely learning or changing to a great degree unless it’s to become worse or make rough attempts at rehabilitation. Most shows often let them off the hook for it or, more than likely, reward their bad behavior, causing audiences to accept their quirky exploits or get increasingly pissed off. The writers often lean into this type of response, either because they think we secretly enjoy it or just need someone we love to hate, thinking they can be fixed later, no matter how far they go or how many scenes they ruin.
Bad writing can be a factor, of course, and sometimes a show simply goes too long, and those characters become tired because they never evolve, or worse, lose their purpose entirely. The worst offense seems to be when characters are inserted to fill a role and are simply boring, like the super-hot roommate. I’m looking at you, Janine from Friends. Some people are only there for a handful of episodes, but are thrown into all of the storylines, just because they’re dating or related to one of the main characters, needing to fulfill a short arc, and end up wasting time overall.
The most common issue, though, is when the traits of our subject are highlighted too often or in such an extreme way that they overtake the character and become their identity. Most of the people we’re talking about are often seen as incredibly self-important, entitled, mean-spirited, and annoying to a point that it’s almost cringeworthy. In less-serious shows, this can cause some of them to come off as almost cartoonish. Even worse when they try to turn that on other characters, shifting blame or exercising some real victim complexes that can be hard to spot.
13 great television shows with annoying characters
Breaking Bad’s Marie
The first person that always comes to mind with that is Marie from Breaking Bad. Why hate on Skyler White when her sister is right there? Sometimes life is so boring that crime is the only answer, and it isn’t surprising that the wife of a law enforcement agent would do petty crimes they think will never bite them in the ass. Marie breaks bad in her own small way and becomes defensive when caught, lying, and refusing any sort of accountability, acting as if she’s actually being persecuted. In truth, she’s just overbearing, even when trying to help, and the show gives her a reason for us to feel bad for Marie right near the end with Hank’s death. This doesn’t mean she’s necessarily sympathetic, but it does make her feel more real. Her worldview is bad, highly flawed, though at no point is it not believable, and she acts as a more naturalized cog in all of the complex storytelling. It shows that the ‘normal’ people are also affected by the activities of the main characters.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Keiko O’Brien
It’s like how Keiko O’Brien from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine gets a ton of hate, while much of her more obnoxious meddling stems from the fact that she’s dedicated to her family and followed a husband into the military lifestyle, giving up her dream job as a botanist, and unknowingly moving to a key location for a coming war. Many fans describe Keiko as selfish, saying she’s constantly nagging, or worse, needlessly causing conflict, but some of that stems from her trying to find a new role, wanting to be helpful, and better the station, like with the school.
She does want others to change, sometimes for the wrong reasons, and even seems unsure about several decisions. Which leads to her biggest failure to me, when she was about to leave Miles at the altar and sent Data to give him the bad news—that sucks. Now, Keiko is a good character because it’s obvious she loves her husband; we see them being a good family and trying to work on their problems. If only she could learn his coffee drinking habits.
Smallville’s Lana Lang
Love is a tricky thing, but it makes for good television and character interactions, partially because most of us have been there and know that couples are going to argue, pick on each other, and hopefully, in the end, stand together. And sometimes, they simply don’t work out. It can be annoying when fans feel like these relationships are forced or they’re just toying with us.
Look at characters like Smallville’s Lana Lang, where Clark chooses not to tell her about his powers, worrying about her safety keeps them apart for a while, and then when they’re together, it doesn’t seem to work, even though the actors have a ton of chemistry. She’s also a character who feels very shoehorned in, and later on, the writers weren’t sure what to do with her. Like when she became a witch or was blackmailed into marrying Lex Luthor? She didn’t ingratiate herself with the audience early on, somewhat due to the writing, because Lana constantly acted like she was the only person truly affected by the major events in the town (mostly the meteors). Even when almost everyone has some sort of unrequited love for the character, or bends over backward to help her, she comes across like it’s not enough.
The Big Bang Theory’s Bernadette
That’s on the drama side, from a comedy standpoint, we have Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory, cute and mousey until the serious yelling voice kicks in, and suddenly she’s bullying everyone. It’s hard to argue with, because she gets results, but in later episodes, it’s made clear that her friends don’t like working for her and are sometimes afraid to bring up their displeasure. Another character that is often said to be nagging, the show makes it clear that Howard has always needed someone like that in his life to keep him honest.
Bernie is a great example of love interests and friends in sitcoms who are given odd voice quirks, whether it’s constant or changes depending on their mood. Figures like her and Arnold Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter are remembered for their peculiar sounds, but that aspect also has them being referred to as irritating or grating after a while. At least she’s not Priya, Raj’s sister, who treated Leonard poorly in what looked like an attempt to do the same thing as Bernadette, but there were fewer signs of caring, and she also cheated on Leonard.
Full House’s Kimmy Gibbler
From a non-romantic standpoint, there are people like Full House’s Kimmy Gibbler, someone who feels like they’re an intruder – because they are constantly telling her ass to go home – but she isn’t quite bad enough to cut ties, completely, especially when you have multiple daughters who need to learn how to socialize with the less fortunate.
As she’s younger, Gibbler gets away with being loud, just like her fashion sense, and snarky, often pointing out the obvious or making situations worse by stating things that should be left unsaid or for the family to discuss. Similar to Urkel, Kimmy arguably gets better in later seasons, but by that point, she’d already been justly judged.
Saved by the Bell’s Screech
It’s similar to being friends with Screech from Saved by the Bell. Like Urkel, he’s the overly-intelligent nerd trope, often too smart for his own good, just not inventing teleportation pads or transformation chambers to make himself cool. He did have a robot named Kevin, which was weird. Samuel Powers is often the butt of the jokes, again annoying us with another squeaky voice and being an unwitting component to so many of Zack’s plans. We like Screech, but he can’t help himself, and even in The New Class, he never seemed to grow out of any of his antics, meaning most people never turned around on him.
A better example is Pierce Hawthorne from Community. It doesn’t make sense why these characters would keep hanging out with this older, racist man, who continually flaunts his money at them, unless they were just that desperate. We go on this ride of just waiting to see what will happen next, what he’ll say or do in the name of pettiness or ignorance. Pierce is so jealous of what others have that makes them happy, so much so that he even attempts to buy it from them, like Troy and Abed’s handshake.
Chevy Chase, who played Pierce, said he didn’t like where the character was going and wasn’t fond of being written as “overly bigoted.” Still, there are stories of him making racist jokes on set and other incidents of misconduct, so take that with a grain of salt. Not only did the actor leave the show, but many fans were beginning to grow tired of his schtick and wondering if he was genuinely salvageable.
Buffy & Angel’s Dawn, Connor, and Xander
Speaking of problematic figures, it’s probably a good time to look at the Buffyverse. No matter what we think of the horrible person that is Joss Whedon, it’s hard to argue against the claim that he writes compelling characters. I was a Dawn hater back in the day. I couldn’t understand why this whiney kleptomaniac with abandonment issues was being thrust into such a tight group of badasses at the time, screwing up their dynamic. She was just there to cause problems and get into trouble, which was somewhat needed, as most of the other characters had grown out of those awkward stages, so it made sense to bring in someone else who could fill that role. It’s also hard not to appreciate how it was done in hindsight of seeing the whole show.
Dawn Summers was introduced as if she had been there the whole time, then when she’s revealed as The Key, we realize that some of her actions are because she’s only been alive for a short time and dealing with the fact that she was created by magic. To follow that up, two of her mother figures are killed a season apart; it’s hard not to sympathize with her a little bit (just forget she tried to bring one of those people back from the dead). No wonder she had inadequacy issues. Dawn was an invasive entity, and worse, meant to be an annoying little sister, but once the scripts stopped using her so heavily as a plot device, she was received much better, and it became hard not to feel for her—a little bit.
Dawn is an example of a creative way to introduce a new youthful character, where it feels important and immediately ties this new person to the existing cast, following through with the promise that there will be some sort of resolution to their involvement. People often like to cite Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch as one of the worst examples of this. Any new character like that, especially one that will constantly be getting into trouble to further stories, needs to feel like they have a strong purpose or motivation, otherwise winning over the audience is going to be difficult.
Connor from the spin-off series, Angel, is an example of when the Dawn approach goes wrong. This whole plot could just be bad, but it’s often difficult to introduce children of main characters who are introduced late in the series. Not only does he whine and keep betraying people, but his whole existence just upsets the show for a while. You’d think we could cut him some slack since he grew up in a Hell dimension, but then there was that weird part where he slept with Cordelia, and that felt like everyone was done with him after that.
We also can’t get away without mentioning Xander (rest in peace, Nicholas Brendon), who has a handful of great moments, but it’s really hard to look past the bad ones. It also doesn’t help looking back on these and seeing him as Whedon’s self-insert. Xander Harris wants what he can’t have, and his answer is to lash out about it. He’s jealous of others, insecure, and simply cannot take rejection easily, which is a trait we see in several other characters like this. He’s constantly pointing out the mistakes of others, but won’t own up to his own unless almost forced to.
Remember when he summoned that music demon? It’s easy to call some of these flaws quirky personality traits, but looking back over many of his interactions, he really treats Cordelia poorly, especially when it comes to her appearance, almost to the point of slut-shaming her. He has the epitome of ‘nice guy’ syndrome, complete with double standards, and can’t handle being emasculated, even when it’s Buffy who helps him with a Bully. He might make Hughie look good. Yet, many will stand up for the character, arguing that he’s well-written and an example of slow maturity over a lengthy show. Guy gets one good episode like “The Zeppo,” and he’s set for life.
The Sopranos’ Janice
Sometimes the characters don’t change, but they’re well-written, and we see people being worse to them, or they’re family, so it’s looked past, like in The Sopranos. Janice had bad taste in men and made horrible decisions. Sure, she’s selfish and a bit conniving at times, but she’s written intentionally to be a pain and to then be thrust into horrible situations, because most viewers won’t think anyone necessarily deserves that. Somehow, it still always feels like her fault, not just her circumstances, but Tony’ll fix it. It was so bad, she made us forget how annoying the kids were.
The Walking Dead’s Andrea
Other times, characters are hard to like, then they do something cool on their way out. The Walking Dead had Andrea, an overall buzzkill, where it felt like the writers were trying to evolve her too fast, causing her to seem more flighty and pointless. Most people hated that she was banging the Governor, but were upset when she looked to be turning a corner and died.
Friends’ Janice Litman
Some of them never go away. Friends had Janice Litman, who kept turning up like a bad penny, a parasite, clinging to the group and appearing at so many major points of their lives with her nasally catchphrase of, “Oh my gawd.” I think I accidentally said that when they revealed that she was pregnant at the same time Rachel was.
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Wesley Crusher
If I had to pick one person who embodies a character that makes viewers annoyed, while keeping them intrigued enough not to change the channel, it’d be Wesley Crusher, from one of the best shows ever made, Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was the youthful audience surrogate, too intelligent for his own good, used to try to bring in a wider audience, so good at what he did, he made the trained adults look bad and felt unbalanced, always meddling and causing trouble, or just whining about wanting to be a normal kid. Also, for those who really hated him, it was that voice, causing people to groan every time he had a line of dialogue, “Shut up, Wesley!” The disgust for Wesley was REALLY bad at times.
Wil Wheaton, who played the character, has said he didn’t hate being Wesley, but the fan backlash really did get to him. Even he admits that the blame falls onto poor writing. Wesley arguably wasn’t ‘fixed’ until Star Trek: Prodigy, and even then, that depends on who’s asked.
Sometimes it takes a show ending before we can come around on someone, going back to them and seeing how they fit overall for us to like that character. Other times we see them in a new light and, it might even be worse, but highlight their purpose. Is a great show hurt by having so many hated characters in it, or accented for having a wider array of personalities, viewpoints, and challenging us not to make snap judgments?
