Anybody have this happen to them? You enjoy a TV show (or movie) and a character comes on that is so freakin’ awful (for whatever reason) that you ditch the entire thing?
Happened with me and Six Feet Under. I heard all sorts of great things about this HBO series and decided to check it out by getting S1 from Netflix. Really enjoyed it too, up to the point where Nathan got involved with Crazy Lady (don’t remember her name). No problems there, not until…
Brother Billy showed up.
God, I couldn’t stand him. The damned show was angsty enough without adding a psycho to the mix. Hated, hated, hated brother Billy. Hated his sisters reactions to him. Hated what he brought to the show.
Hated. With a fiery passion. With a heat that can melt steel. Hated.
I made it through the end of the first season, but since I found out the guy was in S2 (and, IIRC, beyond) I never bothered to pick it up again.
Cannot stand Peggy or Bobby and most episodes have a pretty decent serving of one or the other and it was just easier for me to go do something else. Though Cotton Hill is a bad ass, so if he was in the episode, I could stand Peggy.
I’d mentioned it before … and I really did like the humor on Friends, particularly Ross, who I felt I really identified with – geeky, intellectual, hopelessly socially maladjusted (Monica is way more savay than her big brother, for instance, when their parents sent their childhood dog to “live on a farm”) But when he cried over losing Rachel, I gave up on the show. This is the second time he’s lost this girlfriend, he didn’t lose a limb for chrissake.
Monk, when they had the Annoying Neighbor in most of the shows. The guy who won the lottery. Monk is an Annoying Character himself, and while one Annoying Character can be interesting, two of them are just extremely annoying. Monk’s character had a lot of backstory, and Monk was a sympathetic character, while the Annoying Neighbor was just a PITA.
I can’t stand Vincent D’Onofrio’s character in “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” so much so that I can’t watch the show. I otherwise liked the show when it first came on, but cringed the whole time that his character was on screen that I gave it up. “Annoying as hell” is the phrase that comes to mind.
The Practice. There’s a phrase in AA, “self-will run riot,” and that was Bobby all over. Loved the first couple seasons, but got to the point where I couldn’t fucking stand another second of Bobby Donnell. (O’Donnell? I’ve blocked out so much.)
I’m sort of feeling that way about Big Love. I started off thinking they were all cool. Different but quirky and still good people. I liked Margene and Sarah the best. Now I think they’re all creepy and Sarah’s pretty much being written off the show.
I adore Deadwood and could stand Jane and Trixie on first run, but watching the DVDs, I fast-forward many of their scenes – the screeching harpy Trixie became in S3 and all of Jane’s scenery-chewing drunk scenes. A half-sober Jane was much fun, but when she was really drunk and drooling and slurring all her words, that was just bad.
Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory. Yeah, he’s funny - but he’s not funny enough for the writer to put in pauses after every.single.sentence he speaks for the audience to know they should fill the silence with laughter.
I really can’t think of any characters I’ve hated ENOUGH to stop watching a show I like. I would say David Letterman has had some “regulars” who would come out to do so called comedy bits - Chris Elliott, guy who lived under the floor (?); that foul mouthed slick- haired Vegas jackass; the interminable, boring phone calls to some woman who worked in a building across from the one the DL show originated from. I’d turn to another channel for 10 minutes or so because I found them boring.
Oh, wait - just thought of a show that has been on for decades with a cast, 95% of whom, were just appalling. Those people would last for a season and be replaced by others equally bad, for years. Whether it was due to bad writing, or just so-so performances, I hung in there wasting precious hours of my life hoping for improvement. Which never came, and I had to give up. Anyone care to guess the name of this show?
Most of Dr. House’s half-season antagonists have come very close to this for me–especially the cop. I think I’m supposed to ‘love to hate’ these characters… but really, I just hate them.
When we finally got one that I did like, House’s therapist, he barely showed up in any episodes…
I can’t stand Jenny Schecter, and her character got worse and worse as time went on. Even when she died in the final season, that whole frickin’ season was about her and what a big raging nutbag she was and how everybody around her hated her. Even her best friends couldn’t stand Jenny and yet there she was every week interacting with all of them. She was so annoying that I almost gave up watching the L Word.
However, the program features women’s breasts on it an awful lot and I’m a big fan of seeing those things, so I hung in there through it all.
