9 Great Shows We Watched in Spite of Terrible Lead Characters
On television, there are antiheroes we love to watch in spite of their misdeeds. And then there are supposed heroes who just get on our last nerve. The characters below have all fallen squarely into the latter category, and only some have redeemed themselves.
From a lovestruck surgeon (Grey’s Anatomy) to a “Lonely Boy” (Gossip Girl), some TV characters are at the center of their stories and our mental dartboards. Here are nine good TV shows with main characters who had us yelling at our television sets.
Grey’s Anatomy
Meredith Grey was dealt a lousy hand in life, but she makes one bad decision after another in this medical drama’s early seasons. Chief among those bad decisions was begging McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey) for his love, a line even Ellen Pompeo loathed.
Dawson’s Creek
Maybe Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek) just wanted his life to be as dramatic as the movies he obsessed over. But the guy is an arrogant narcissist who can’t make decisions and lashes out when others make decisions for him. His “nice guy” persona is too often just an act.
Glee
Ignoring all the Lea Michele backlash, we can say Rachel Berry was a diva who frequently made us desperate to find New Directions to look. She threw tantrums when things didn’t go her way, and she couldn’t find it in herself to share the spotlight — her personality just hit all the wrong notes.
Lost
After the Lost pilot, we wouldn’t have expected Sawyer (Josh Holloway) to become a chivalrous hero while Jack Shepard (Matthew Fox) devolved into a self-important, self-destructive whiner. Jack redeemed himself in latter seasons, but for a while, he made the “live together or die alone” question seem like a dilemma.
Orange Is the New Black
We get that this prison comedy-drama is based on the life of author Piper Kerman. But Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) was far less interesting — and way more selfish and entitled — than the other inmates in Orange. She had long worn out her welcome by the time she called herself “gansgta, like, with an ‘A’ at the end.”
How I Met Your Mother
We’d be surprised if Ted Mosby’s kids didn’t sign him and themselves up for family therapy after listening to the saga of this sitcom’s title. The Josh Radnor character is judgmental and pompous, and he acts possessively toward women he thinks might be “the one” and disrespectful and even callous to those he doesn’t.
Girls
Navigating one’s 20s is a challenge — even more so when you’re dealing with OCD, as Hannah Horvath is on Girls. But we can’t excuse Hannah’s lack of self-awareness, lack of empathy, lack of accountability, and her many other flaws. (And props to Lena Dunham for casting herself in such a role!)
Sex and the City
We couldn’t help but wonder… what’s the deal with Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker)? She’s often too self-centered to be a good friend, she doesn’t do well with boundaries, and — with what we’re hearing of her historical-romance novel on And Just Like That… — we’re not even sure she’s a good writer.
Gossip Girl
Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) was a surrogate for the average Gossip Girl viewer, an outsider looking into the cutthroat world of the upper-crust Upper East Side. But — unlike us viewers, we hope — he’s also smug, pretentious, and, as it turns out, just as amoral as the classmates he pretends to be above. No “XOXO” here!
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C
Saying Meredith Grey is a terrible character shows just how much the author doesn’t understand the kind of trauma she experienced. In the words of Alex Karev, “You were raised by wolves,” which is probably right. Her mom had extremely high expectations with no grace about her. She was probably basically raised at the hospital. Trauma leads people to make bad decisions.
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B
Meredith Grey was a terrible character! I watched a few episodes and bailed.
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G
Terrible character being played by a one dimensional subpar actor!
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O
None of that is an excuse for the terrible decisions she made.
Grey was incredibly unprofessional, often letting her personal issues influence her decisions. She yelled at an abused woman, telling her she was failing as a mother; she sabotaged an Alzheimer's treatment trial and was surprised when she was punished for it. The list goes on.
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R
Yeah, Dawson himself wasn’t a likeable lead, thought the world revolved around him, and his friends and parents purely existed fulfil his dreams as some important film director.
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G
I was surprised to see SJP on the list. Yes, the character Carrie could be selfish at times; however, she’s also very loyal to her friends. SJP (in my opinion) is an excellent actor and without her in the role of Carrie, I’m not sure the series would have lasted six seasons.
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O
I'd have put Will over Rachel. At least she has the excuse of being a teenager with room to grow.
Will's a straight up creep who often forced kids into situations they weren't comfortable with so that he could live vicariously through them.
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B
I love Meredith Grey!!!
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