A couple short-run sitcoms from a few years ago:
Josh Gad in 1600 Penn - Yes, he was a co-creator but he sucked the life out of every scene he was in
Josh Gad in The Comedians - Billy Crystal tries his had at being Larry David, but Josh Gad sucked the life out of every scene he was in
I’ll limit my comments to his TV shows, but I notice a trend here.
At the risk of being whooshed, Brenda (Rachel Griffiths) was in every episode.
Yeah, but she doesn’t appear until the second scene of the first episode. So maybe that first scene just rocked.
I walked away from “Two and a Half Men” when Charlie Sheen got himself booted off and was replaced by Ashton Kutcher.
Oh, another reminder. I never watched “Two and a Half Men” because of Charlie Sheen.
Showtime seems to have this problem with a bunch of their shows.
Already mentioned that I completely agree with:
The sister from Dexter
Jon Voight from Ray Donovan
Also:
Malin Akerman, Billions - she just can’t act, not helped by having to act against Damian Lewis and Paul Giamatti
Ruth Wilson, The Affair - I have no idea how she was nominated for an Emmy; she is terrible. Of course, everyone else is just OK compared to Maura Tierney, who acts circles around everyone.
Libby from Masters of Sex - just kinda vacant
Miranda Otto from the last season of Homeland - another weird acting performance - I never figured out what her motivation was supposed to be, even after they spelled it out for me
Child actors who are clearly struggling with that acting thing: Carl Gallagher from Shameless, but especially Manny from Modern Family - ugh.
To be fair, Lori was utterly useless and badly written as well.
I’m amazed that we’re three pages into this thread and no one has mentioned Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What a whining, useless tit. I understand the point of having Dawn in the show - but Miss T brought nothing to the role except her complete believe-ability as a danger-prone, misguided idiot with perfectly shampooed hair. Blech.
The Secret Circle was a CW show of 2011–2012 which got off to not too bad a start, and showed some potential to develop into a halfway decent show. It was fairly OK until episode 6 when Chris Zylka playing the character Jake showed up and quickly began to dominate the entire show. Unfortunately the guy couldn’t act, onscreen he was boring as hell, and he sucked the life completely out of any scene he was in. The entire plot seemed to fall into banal stupidity.
Zylka didn’t just ruin it for me, he ruined it period. Once his character took over, ratings fucking crashed and quickly got it canceled.
At first—but she matured in Season 7 at last and began contributing value (once she kicked the drug-magic) to the winning theme of female empowerment that wound up the season and the series.
To be fair, in addition to the usual agonies of being a hormonal teenybopper and losing her mother, she had to deal with the metafictional awareness that she was a character artificially shoehorned into the cast and, real girl or not, was nothing more than a glorified (heh) plot device. How well would the sanity of any of us hold up to such a revelation?
I stopped watching Blacklist specifically because of Megan Boone.
Isn’t the entire point of these characters that they are such horrible and annoying people?
With Carmela’s wilful refusal to acknowledge the inconvenient truth of what her husband does, her smug piety, she is not an innocent bystander, she is a hypocritical enabler. In some ways she is far worse than Tony himself. Tony may try to rationalize his evil acts, but he does not live in sanctimonious denial of what he is. We are supposed to hate Carmela.
Janice’s role is, as you say, to continue the theme of Livia. And the whole point is that Tony lets her get away with outrageously disruptive, selfish and dishonest drama over and over again. If she were anyone else, she’d be dead. But Tony just has a blind spot about family (as do many real people, not just mafia bosses) that means that he just tolerates a ridiculous amount of crap from her, just as he did from his mother. Separately from the effect on Tony, the Janice & Richie Aprile relationship was utterly brilliant.
I’d say that the effect these two characters had on you was precisely what was intended, and that they were well written and well acted.
What, that I’d stop watching the show entirely and will have nothing to do with it? I don’t think that’s what the producers had in mind.
If The Sopranos was not for you, of course that’s your prerogative. But I don’t agree that the writing or acting of the Carmela or Janice characters are in the same category as (say) Eliza Dushku’s terrible acting putting people off an otherwise potentially great show.
Just remembered another show I couldn’t watch because of the horrible characters on it. Seinfeld. I was put off watching the actors because the people they played were so horrible.
I think you’re confusing that with Willow’s magic addiction (and don’t get me started on how stupidly they handled that.)
During her initial season, where she found out she wasn’t “real,” the character worked well, and Michelle T did a good job with it. After that whole storyline was over, the writers just didn’t know what to do with her. The same thing happened with the character of Riley - once the Initiative storyline was done, he was in limbo. :smack: It’s part and parcel of how Whedon is so overrated. He’ll sacrifice character development and logic for cheap plot twists.
I had a character ruin TWO shows for me: Spike. He killed Buffy for me and I stopped watching Angel when he switched to that show.
More obscure: I loved John Doe but hated his perky young sidekick. Apparently everyone did - they wrote the character out of the show early on. I always blamed the writing of the character rather than the actor - until she showed up on 24 during season seven as the president’s estranged daughter. I could totally see why they cast her - she could pass as Cherry Jones’ daughter in real life - but it was just unpleasant to watch her scenes.
At what point did I say I didn’t like Edie Falco’s acting? I loved her in Nurse Jackie, I just can’t stand people like Carmela. In real life or on television. The difference is, it’s easier to avoid them on television. Which is why we stop watching these shows.
It didn’t quite ruin the show for me, I kept watching, but the character of Brenda’s brother (Billy?) was absolutely insufferable.
‘The Blacklist’ is the inverse of this question: the only reason to watch was for James Spader’s spadering. We joked that this special-investigative-department for the FBI was the most incompetent government unit ever seen. Though I have abandoned the show now. I don’t know if it’s improved.
Dennis Haysbert and David Caruso