About 3 years ago, I embarked on a project to watch all ~1200 episodes of Dark Shadows from the very first pre-vampire storylines to the lame ending.
In the early parts, I really disliked Roger Collins–a supercilious man who couldn’t help being a jerk even when he was trying to be nice. Plus, you just knew from the beginning that he was the one driving the car in that manslaughter hit-and-run that Burke Devlin went to prison for.
Then, somewhere along the line, his character began to be less hateful and more campy, and one day I found myself thinking affectionately of poor, clueless Roger who remains blithely unaware of the vampires, witches, ghosts, werewolves, and Leviathan cultists all around him; even his bratty son David has a better idea of what’s going on at Collinwood.
From beginning to end, I never could stand his bratty son David, though.
Even at his jerkiest, I still had a massive crush on him. I thought he was more often hilarious than malignant. I thought, ‘who wouldn’t want to have such a bitter, sarcastic command of the English language?’
I agree wholeheartedly. But in addition to “good writing,” I’d have to add “great acting.” Mayim Bialik has perfectly kept pace with the evolving character.
You and I have the same taste in men. I could never quite reconcile what an ass hole he was.
Hank on Breaking Bad was such an obnoxious douche in the first episode. I like how, parallel to Walt’s downfall, we get to watch Hank’s redemption. He really becomes a sympathetic, complex, three dimensional character after starting as an asshole cop on a power trip.
I wonder- are we talking about characters who are meant to start out as dicks and then redeem themselves, or characters who don’t really change, but you grow to like them anyway?
I think that G’Kar on Babylon 5 fits the first bill for me. In the first season or two, he was venal, scheming, and petty, but ended up a quite noble and spiritual character.
In the second category, I’d say that Jean-Luc Picard is a good example. Initially, I was not happy with his un-Kirkian approach to interstellar relations- he seemed kind of a bit too talkative and negotiation-oriented for good space opera. I half wanted Riker in charge as a result. Over time, I grew to like him though.
This is the one I came in to mention. He was basically such a cartoon character in his first appearance and I figured that he would always be the douchy character that drags down the show for me*. Instead he emerged as a wonderfully realized version of a genuine good cop. Kudos to Dean Norris as well as the writers for really elevating a well-worn trope into a multi-layered character.
*That honor of course ultimately went to Walt Jr./Flynn :p.
Nope. Adored him from the moment I saw his first scene in the pilot. That never changed (though I did get pretty frustrated with him toward the end when he took his jerkishness to the next level).
I’m gonna go with the Sixth Doctor for my pick. He’s not my favorite Doctor by any means (even among the classics) but I really disliked him at first. Eventually he grew on me to the point where he’s no longer my least favorite classic Doctor. He’s now behind Three, Four, and Eight, and ahead of One, Two, Five, and Seven.
How about Doc Martin? Starts off as a difficult asshole although a competent physician, but later, as we learn more about his background (and his awful parents) we learn how he got the way he is.
This. I remember flamewars on FidoNet between those who hated the character and those who didn’t. I was firmly in the former camp, though eventually warmed to the guy.
Re: House. Liked him at first. Generally liked him less and less over time (with some variation).
With a couple of seasons left to go he was a complete and total jerk to everyone all the time. A despicable person. Until the shiny happy (?) ending and even then …
The moment I opened the thread I was thinking of Hank.
The brilliance of “Breaking Bad” manifests itself in a lot of ways, but Hank is a great example. He is one of the primary antagonists, and they start you off thinking he’s a dick, and in some ways he IS kind of a dick. He’s the sort of person I would probably dislike at first if I met him. But as the events of the show unfurl, you realize that while he can be a dick sometimes, he’s a fundamentally decent human being.
Hank has a moral compass; he knows what is right and what is wrong, and tries his best to act accordingly. Like a normal person, he doesn’t always succeed, but he steers himself in the righteous path as much as he is capable. When he beats up Jesse he admits he was wrong and accepts the consequences, though he didn’t necessarily have to. Our understanding of the characters are thus reversed over the course of five seasons; while we start out liking kind, quiet, mousy Walter and disliking brash, arrogant Hank, because that’s what TV shows condition us to assume we should like, we eventually learn that Hank is the person who has a righteous heart, and Walter’s heart is as black as coal. Do not judge a book by its cover, the show tells us.
We also see what our initial assumption Hank is stupid and Walter is smart was quite wrong. Walter is clever, but very stupid in many ways, and Hank sees and understands things Walter does not.
In the vein of RickJay’s post, I really didn’t care for Skyler White very much initially. She seemed like a domineering, manipulative control freak.
I later came to realize that that’s what she was…in response to Walter’s complete lack of personality or decision making role in the household, and their marriage.
As Walt “Broke Bad” and devolved*, Skyler evolved, and I became genuinely sympathetic towards her.
And FTR, I was never an Anna Gunn hater. Why people hate on actors for playing the role they were hired to play, in the manner the producers, writers, and directors want them to play it, is beyond me.
*IMO, “Bad Walter” is the real Walter, carefully buried under layers of respectability and conformity.
That and the time she blurted out “I was gonna quit anyway” at whoever was running CTU at the time, when caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to be.
Alex has long been the best GA character. Every single person on that show (except maybe Zola) is some sort of shitty asshole. At least Alex has always owned it.
If it’s any consolation to you, Shelley Long originally also thought the character of Frasier was an interloper who the producers might use to break up Sam and Diane permanently. She wanted him to be a brief rival to Sam and then disappear after maybe three episodes.
I am probably the only person in the world who will say this but I hated both Walter and Hank in the first few episodes of Breaking Bad. Hank, of course, seemed irritating, immature and a bit of a try-hard.
While Walter had my sympathy, I couldn’t help but go “be a man, dude” every time he took insults from people without saying a word. Boy, did he turn that around as one season passed after another.
This. And some other characters from Orange is the New Black also fit the bill. When I started that series it seemed like low-grade comedy/soap but I stayed with it until it became one of my favorites for precisely this reason: The characters become interesting humans the viewer can empathize with.
For a slight change-up, I couldn’t stand Captain Bialar Crais in S1 of Farscape. He was a one-dimensional caricature.
He was more interesting in S2, even if he was still unsavory.
Of course, by S3, he went out an absolute bad-ass; a hero even, however flawed.
Captain Bialar Crais: All that I have cared for have gone: my parents were taken away from me, my brother dead - so now I live, I plan, I do all in the service of my own interests. In that I believe I am not unique in the universe.
Crais: Scorpius. I am just making my final goodbyes. Scorpius: Where are you, Crais? Crais: I am standing in your heart, and I am about to squeeze.
I agree about Q. When he first showed up he was just Random Godlike Alien #1854; irritating and generic. But over time he became much more interesting and non-generic.