TV Jerks

Scott Hardie | December 15, 2017
I don't like bullies and jerks in real life. Why would I want to spend time with them on TV?

Carla Tortelli on Cheers always rubbed me the wrong way. I get that she's a tough working-class single mom, and the show needed someone like her to provide traction for the losers like Cliff Clavin, but some of her insults just seemed unwarranted and way too harsh.

My current most hated character on TV is Gina Linetti from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She serves a similar narrative function as Carla, reinforcing the social pecking order by deflating some egos, but she's vain and whiny and obnoxious on top of being rude. I just don't understand how the other characters put up with someone who is not just insulting but physically destructive. She dismantled Santiago's car in the parking garage; on the way to a Thanksgiving dinner, she threw Santiago's dish out the window of a moving vehicle. She's a monstrous bully who should have been fired from her job years ago; the fact that nobody ever calls her out makes it hard for me to suspend disbelief. The fact that I keep watching the show in spite of this horrible character is a sign of how good the rest of the show is.

Way back in the early days of the web, there was a game called "Who Would You Kill?" that polled readers to name the most hated character of each TV series and how they should perish. Gina Linetti would easily be my pick.

Which TV characters can't you stand?

Samir Mehta | December 19, 2017
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Erik Bates | December 19, 2017
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Scott Hardie | December 24, 2017
I can understand that list, and I haven't even seen some of those shows. If near-pointless cruelty bothers me so much, I don't think I could sit through Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead for long.

Roger Ebert hated cluelessly horrible idiot characters whose sole narrative function is to doubt the hero in every scene. He devoted half of his review of Die Hard to railing against the idiot police chief. I felt the same way about the village bully in The Maze Runner. Samir, if you don't like idiots and don't like jerks, idiot jerks must be the worst for you. :-)

Erik, I hear you about quirky/weird. I've been watching the latest season of Orange is the New Black and as much as I love Suzanne Warren, it bothers me how much her mental problems and intelligence level keep varying from episode to episode; she's as weird as the plot needs her to be at any given time.

Erik Bates | December 26, 2017
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Scott Hardie | December 27, 2017
Yeah, Kelly and I continue to be blown away by how good Uzo Aduba is in the part. Maybe I'm being unfair; Orange is the New Black is a considerably more complex show than Big Bang Theory, and comparing their characters is not apples to apples. Suzanne's crazy freak-outs can be both plot devices and true to her tragic character at the same time. (Btw, just finished and loved season five. One of the show's best.)