It takes a lot of factors to make a show good, from the writing and direction to the performances and costumes. However, a single bad character can do a lot of damage to a show’s reputation. These ten characters nearly ruined their shows.
The Sand Snakes
Game of Thrones started trending in a bad direction around its seventh season, largely because the showrunners ran out of George R.R. Martin’s books to adapt. The Sand Snakes, three Dornish assassins who are daughters of Oberyn Martell, became focal characters with ill-defined plans and little charisma after the death of their father.
Jackie Jr.
The Sopranos was a tightly written crime drama with believable characters and gripping subplots. Except that all went out the window whenever Jackie Jr. opened his mouth. His dialogue was not remotely what you’d expect a college student to say in the late 90s, and storylines involving him simply didn’t land correctly.
Scrappy-Doo
Audiences hate it when long-running shows introduce a “cute” kid sidekick character. That goes double if the kid has an annoying voice actor and grating catchphrase. That’s exactly what the extraneous side character Scrappy-Doo brought to the Scooby-Doo franchise, annoying basically everyone both in the show and in the audience.
Walden Schmidt
Two and a Half Men took a weird turn after the show had to fire Charlie Sheen. They brought in Ashton Kutcher to play a billionaire named Walden, and the show’s balance just didn’t function anymore. Without Charlie’s antics, it all felt kind of flat and clinical.
Mark Brendanawicz
Parks and Rec struggled to get off the ground in its first season. This was exemplified by Mark, the apathetic loser who Leslie is somehow smitten with. Thankfully, Mark didn’t spend much time on the show and was quickly eclipsed by Adam Scott and Rob Lowe’s excellent characters from the second season onward.
Negan
The Walking Dead had a big problem with repeating itself in its later seasons. After the show lost Rick Grimes, it became clear it needed another narrative throughline to function. The writers tried to use fan-favorite villain Negan to fill this role, but having Jeffrey Dean Morgan just put on a “Negan’s Greatest Hits” show didn’t make for compelling TV.
Ahsoka Tano
Before you grab your pitchforks, everyone knows Ahsoka Tano is a great character these days after dozens of hours of character development. However, when she was first introduced, her characterization defied the suspension of disbelief. If Anakin had a Padawan between Clones and Sith, why didn’t we hear anything about her during his fall to the dark side?
What’s more, Ahsoka herself was insufferable in the early seasons of The Clone Wars, as she was literally a walking Mary Sue. How does a 13-year-old girl just waltz across open battlefields without so much as a scratch on her? Yes, Star Wars is about space wizards, but Ahsoka’s presence just didn’t make any sense.
Kali
Stranger Things started really strong in its first season, but from its second season on it has rapidly diminished in quality. The first signs of the once-great show cracking were its random second season introduction of Kali, another girl from Eleven’s program, and her band of 80s teenagers. The show’s weird pivot to Chicago had basically no bearing on the season’s broader plot and really slowed the narrative momentum.
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Cara Dune
Even before Gina Carano doubled down on some truly outlandish claims on social media that saw her ejected from the Walled Garden of Disney, her character on The Mandalorian was more than a bit grating. Cara Dune was little more than a bland, poorly-acted “tough soldier” archetype with minimal characterization who was somehow less charismatic than a guy who wears a face-covering helmet all the time.
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Deangelo Vickers
When Steve Carell left The Office in its seventh season, the show basically held tryouts for a new main character. “Just put Will Ferrell in there” seems like it should have worked, but the character of Deangelo Vickers just never quite clicked with the somewhat grounded humor that made The Office work.
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