Who Are The Most Reviled Tv Characters Of All Time?

Even the most beloved TV shows sometimes have characters we’re not fond of—whether they’re supposed to be annoying and end up a little too effective, or they just don’t click with audiences the way the creators intended. Either way, these deeply irritating personalities can quickly get under our skin, forcing us to grit our teeth through all their scenes—that is, if we’re not already fast-forwarding through them. In the direst cases, we might abandon their shows entirely. For a look back at some of the worst offenders, these are the most hated TV characters of all time.

Game of Thrones is chock-full of violence, but one character was more mindlessly sadistic than all of the others. Whenever Iwan Rheon was on screen as Ramsay Bolton, fans knew to steel their stomachs and avert their eyes. After several of his evil exploits had played out, many HBO watchers felt like enough was enough. At least Ramsay ended up meeting a death that he more than deserved.

Morality is almost always eclipsed by duty and loyalty on The Americans, which is probably why audiences became so frustrated with Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings’ (Keri Russell) goody-two-shoes teen daughter, Paige (Holly Taylor). It’s unlikely that many watching would be all that much cooler than Paige if they found out their parents were actually undercover Russian spies, but her resulting petulance and too-intimate friendship with her pastor and his family drove fans of the thriller series up the wall. At one point, creators Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields revealed that viewers were begging them to kill the high schooler off.

Whether or not you believe they were on a break, Ross (David Schwimmer) was so consistently irritating on Friends that you could never actually be on his side. While all of the six main cast members were given quirks that proved irksome 10 seasons in, Ross’ persnickety behavior and endless victim complex made him the one you’d least like to hang out with.

TV characters don’t have to be likable for us to like them—take Breaking Bad‘s Walter White or The Sopranos‘ Tony Soprano, for example. The problem with Andy (Ed Helms) on The Office, however, is that he started off unlikable and then got progressively worse. By the end, he was just plain awful.

Given that Orange Is the New Black was based on the memoir by Piper Kerman, it only made sense that the series would follow the character inspired by her, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling). Thankfully, the show quickly realized that all of the side characters were far more interesting, and that Piper’s privilege and lack of self-awareness just made her a drag.

Poor Cousin Oliver (Robbie Rist). The plucky youngster was added to the cast of The Brady Bunch in the final season and was so instantly loathed by viewers that he inspired the term “Cousin Oliver Syndrome,” which is when a show adds a new young character in an attempt to drive up ratings. It almost never goes well.

Who could have imagined that fans would turn on a character who mostly served as an obvious ploy to keep Luke (Scott Patterson) and Lorelai (Lauren Graham) apart on Gilmore Girls? To be fair, Luke’s long-lost daughter April (Vanessa Marano) was annoying in her own right, serving up the kind of precocious adolescent behavior that was barely tolerated from Rory (Alexis Bledel) in her younger years.

Even on a show as infused with kindness and goodwill as Full House, no one seemed to like Kimmy Gibbler (Andrea Barber)—and neither did the audience, for that matter. Because she was supposed to be irritating, it seems wrong to fault Barber. And she got the last laugh anyway, reprising the role on Fuller House.

Inspirational teachers are a genre unto themselves, but there’s very little inspirational about Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison). His constant meddling, blatant favoritism, and boundary-violating relationships with students made him one of Glee‘s least likable characters. And that’s to say nothing of his rapping.

In defense of Mandy Hampton (Moira Kelly), Aaron Sorkin dialogue can make any character a lot to deal with. But Mandy proved particularly irritating, so much so that she was written off the show between seasons—the writers didn’t even bother to kill her off in the shooting that ended Season 1 on a cliffhanger.

Jenny (Taylor Momsen) was forced into the chaotic and toxic world of privileged New Yorkers on Gossip Girl at a very impressionable age. In hardening herself to keep up with the terrible people around her, Jenny somehow became the worst, and fans lost sympathy for a character they’d once had a soft spot for.

Like a few others on this list, Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) suffers from being the main character on a series with far more interesting supporting characters—so he ends up looking bland in comparison. But Jack is also stubborn, bratty, and far too insistent on being right all the time, which would make any character obnoxious, lead or not.

As the face of Girls and the show’s creator, Lena Dunham dealt with the brunt of online vitriol throughout the HBO series’ six-season run. But as bothersome as her character, Hannah, was, she was never as uniquely enraging as Marnie (Allison Williams), whose impromptu performance of Kanye West’s “Stronger” at a party for her ex was somehow not her most cringe-inducing moment.

The debate over who Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) should have ended up with always comes down to Angel vs. Spike. No one ever mentions Riley (Marc Blucas), because… well, why would you? Riley’s whole schtick was that he was a boring Nice Guy, and once it was revealed that he wasn’t, he had way too much baggage, including that he couldn’t handle being weaker than his Slayer girlfriend. Pass.

Ah, Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), the Ross of his day. The characters are often compared, which makes sense since they were both the romantic leads of TV shows that never fully grasped how awful they were. Ted’s obsession with finding “The One” while treating all the women he encountered like garbage was bad enough, but his long-winded storytelling was truly unforgivable.

Julie Taylor’s (Aimee Teegarden) biggest crime? Being a teenager. Unfortunately, if you’re a rude, rebellious teen and your parents are Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, viewers aren’t going to like it. Then, of course, there was her treatment of fan favorite Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), which was simply too much for Friday Night Lights enthusiasts to forgive.

Listen, Oliver (Taylor Handley) was meant to be a villain, and not just because he kept Ryan (Ben McKenzie) and Marissa (Mischa Barton) apart. He was volatile, manipulative, and dangerous, which are all legitimate qualities for an antagonist to have—but that just wasn’t the kind of antagonist The O.C. viewers were looking for.

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There’s really no defending the relationship between Ezra Fitz (Ian Harding) and Aria (Lucy Hale), who is his student. But it’s made all the worse when flashbacks reveal he’s also a creep and a bit of a stalker, who was well aware of who Aria was—and her age!—before they hooked up. Of all the bad behavior Pretty Little Liars put on display, Ezra’s was some of the most repugnant, if only because the show kept insisting he was a good guy.

The first season of NBC’s musical drama Smash was a mess for so many reasons, but if you asked viewers what the biggest problem was, there’s a good chance you’d hear the name Ellis (Jaime Cepero). A lurker with homicidal tendencies—yes, putting peanuts in Uma Thurman’s smoothie counts as attempted murder—Ellis was clearly meant to be a villain you love to hate, but instead just ended up being one of Smash‘s countless baffling choices.

It’s not Vincent Kartheiser’s fault he gets stuck playing unlikable characters. Before he took on the role of Pete Campbell on Mad Men, Kartheiser played teenage Connor, the son of Angel (David Boreanaz) on the self-titled spinoff. Yes, another rebellious, sneering kid who shows up and instantly ruins everything. Think Cousin Oliver, if Cousin Oliver had been raised in a hell dimension.

Surprise, it’s yet another moody teenager who viewers hated—perhaps people just don’t like teens? But Dana (Morgan Saylor) really was irritating, and her angsty teen behavior felt especially out of place on a show with such high stakes. When Dana and Finn (Timothée Chalamet) accidentally hit a woman with his car, it was truly a jump-the-shark moment for the ages.

Tess (Emilie de Ravin) felt engineered to make fans angry, showing up out of nowhere to throw a wrench in the Max (Jason Behr) and Liz (Shiri Appleby) romance. Those star-crossed kids worked it out eventually, so maybe fans would have come around on Tess—if she hadn’t also killed Alex (Colin Hanks), everyone’s favorite.