TV's Top 50 Insufferable Characters Of All Time

These characters are literally the worst

Kylin

• Published in Film & TV
• July 26, 2022

There are so many new shows being released, and countless seasons continuing on, it can be hard to keep up. And with this surplus of TV shows mixed with viewers' obsession with anti-heroes, it is almost guaranteed that you’ll have at least one fictional character from your favorite show that you can’t help but love to hate.

However, show writers are human and are inherently flawed, and sometimes they create characters who completely miss the mark of an anti-hero. We end up with characters who are completely off-putting and have no redeeming qualities.

I’m not entirely sure how surprising it is, but we were able to collect 50 of the most insufferable TV characters of all time. Ranging across all genres, and decades, we were able to find characters who are iconically annoying, like Kimmy Gibbler from Fuller House, or Screech from Saved By the Bell, to those who are universally disliked, like Scrappy-Doo from Scooby-Doo, and Dawn Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and those who literally everyone hates, like Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones, Angelica Pickles from Rugrats, and Jeremy Jamm from Parks and Recreation.

From TV comedies, sitcoms, dramedies, sci-fi, mockumentaries, and more, we covered all the bases. Keep scrolling to see who all made our list.

1. Madison Sinclair from "Veronica Mars"

Madison Sinclair was one of the major antagonists on Veronica Mars. She acted like she was better than everyone at Neptune High and bullied basically everyone.

2. Ted Mosby from "How I Met Your Mother"

Even though Ted was the main character in How I Met Your Mother, it was really hard to root for him in his quest to find his ideal woman in New York City. Then just have the show end with him married to Robin after his wife (who was supposedly his perfect match) died.

3. April Kepner from "Grey's Anatomy"

April Kepner was a boring character during her earlier seasons, and her attitude on things was rarely consistent. There was some decent character development later on in the series before she left the show, but many don't think it was enough.

4. Beans from "Even Stevens"

Beans (or Bernard) hit that annoying nerve that a younger brother you secretly love does.

5. Piper Chapman from "Orange is the New Black"

Piper went into prison an entitled, privileged woman who was terrified of everything and everyone. As we watch her character evolve, she somehow manages to become more entitled and whiny.

6. Frasier Crane from"Frasier."

Viewers first met Frasier Crane on the show "Cheers." He then got a spin-off show that lasted for 11 seasons, which was more than enough time for people to realize how obnoxious, self-absorbed and uptight he was to the other characters.

7. Ross Geller from "Friends"

Ross Geller was a whiny little piss-baby who felt the world and its people owed him something. He was sexist, selfish, and narcissistic.

8. Dan Scott from "One Tree Hill"

Dan Scott was a horrible person and a worse father. He didn't respect his wife or his son Lucas' mother and constantly pressured both of his sons, Nathan and Lucas. He was so evil that people tried to kill him multiple times.

9. Eric Forman from "That '70s Show"

That '70s Show made a bold choice focusing on Eric Forman as the main character. He was the most unlikeable person in his friend group.

Eric was a burnout in the making, completely unmotivated, lazy, annoying, and dragged Donna around while he refused to deal with his commitment issues.

10. Angelica Pickles from "The Rugrats"

Angelica Pickles was more than just a brat. She was a complete terror to Tommy and all the other babies.

Co-creator Arlene Klasky told The New Yorker in 1998 that she thought Angelica was too mean and it almost ruined the show.

A child-sized monster

11. Connor from "Angel"

Connor was the son of Angel, from the Buffy The Vampire Slayer spin-off. He was the stereotypical rebellious, contemptuous teenager who makes it their purpose in life to ruin everything.

12. Alan Harper from "Two and a Half Men"

Although Alan started off as awkward and mostly relatable, we eventually saw him as he really was: a sad husk of a man who couldn't make himself or based on his relationships, anyone else, happy.

13. Dennis Reynolds from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"

All the characters on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia are intentionally terrible and unlikeable but in a sort of funny way. Dennis Reynolds was the worst of them all, he was a sociopath.

There's no denying it

14. Mandy Hampton from "The West Wing"

Arguably, dialogue written by Aaron Sorkin can make any character come off as A LOT, but Mandy was especially irritating. Apparently, she was so annoying they wrote her off between seasons.

15. Paige Jennings from "The Americans"

Creators of the FX show shared that fans hated Paige so much they were asking for her to be killed off. She was the oldest and most annoying of the Jennings' children and kept putting everyone's lives in danger over her nosiness.

16. Pete Campbell from "Mad Men"

Pete Campbell was an entitled, jealous man who behaved like a child. He thought he deserved the world, abused his power, and was terrible to women.

17. Janice from "The Sopranos"

While Janice in many ways was like a mirror of her brother, Tony, her lack of power made her shenanigans look even worse. She was a cheat, liar, thief, and con artist.

18. Rory Gilmore from "Gilmore Girls"

Rory may have started out as a likable character, a good student with a seemingly intact moral compass, but as the show progressed she ended up worse off. Maybe her grandparent's penchant for giving her everything she wanted made an impact on her dwindling morality.

In the revival, to say Rory's life is a mess is an understatement. She's homeless, jobless, had a boyfriend she keeps "forgetting" to break up with, cheats on him with Logan (who happens to be engaged) and we find out at the end that she's pregnant with no idea who the father is.

Like dang, get your shit together, dude.

She is the epitome of wasted potential

19. Paige McCullers from "Pretty Little Liars"

Paige did herself no favors when she let her competitive spirit take over during a swim meet and pushed Emily's head back underwater. Their rivalship evolved over time, but Paige's stubborn personality continued to cause problems for Emily and her friends and kept fans from ever really liking her.

20. Olly from "Game of Thrones"

Olly was an unwanted addition to the HBO Game of Thrones series, as many fans hated changes being made to the original story and books by George R.R. Martin. His disrespect for Jon Snow and eventual assistance in Snow's assassination further made Olly a nuisance.

21. Jenny Humphrey from "Gossip Girl"

Gossip Girl had no shortage of problematic characters throughout multiple storylines, but Jenny Humphrey managed to be spectacularly loathsome. She sought popularity by any means necessary and damaged several relationships along the way.

22. Oliver Trask from "The OC"

Oliver's character was literally a teenage villain. He was a manipulative liar and used those skills to control everyone around them.

His obsession with Marissa Cooper led him to sabotage her relationship with Ryan and quickly spiraled out of control from there. He started to stalk Marissa, and even pulled a gun on her and threatened to kill himself if she left.

23. Scrappy-Doo from "Scooby-Doo"

Scrappy-Doo has become an infamous example of networks trying to revive ratings by adding new and sometimes controversial characters. While it worked in 1979 with his introduction to the Scooby-Doo series, many fans did not like him.

The dislike for Scrappy-Doo ended up with his character becoming an antagonist in the first 2000s live-action Scooby-Doo movie.

I said what I said. No regrets.

24. Nikki and Paulo from "Lost"

Aside from the writers on the show thinking they could just have a whole third season focused on two new people as if they had been there the entire time, the characters themselves sucked, too. In flashbacks, we learn how awful these two characters were.

Paulo was a con artist who murdered a TV executive, and with the help of Nikki, they stole $8 million worth of diamonds from the man he murdered. A lot of their time on the island was spent searching for those diamonds, but they ended up bitten by venomous spiders that left them paralyzed and mistaken for dead.

So, they got buried alive. Some karmic justice, I suppose.

25. Emile Danko from "Heroes"

Emile Danko was Heroes season 3 villain, and partly due to his character, the show's ratings staggered to a series low. Danko didn't have any superpowers, but he took advantage of the power granted by Senator Nathan Petrelli in order to hunt down all the super-powered humans.

He was killed off a season later, by being chopped up into little bits.

26. Andrea Harrison from "The Walking Dead"

Andrea Harrison went from a beloved character within the Walking Dead comic universe, but her hot-headed and proud character had a lasting and negative effect on fans of the show. She had a terrible judgment of people and abandoned Rick, Michonne, and her friends in order to be with the villain of the show, The Governor.

There are fan pages dedicated to hating on Andrea, and the incident where she shot Daryl after mistaking him for a zombie only made the ire worse.

27. Joffrey Baratheon from "Game of Thrones"

Game of Thrones is chock full of morally grey characters, but Joffrey Baratheon was a straight-up monster that literally no one could stand. That smug little shit could make any peaceful person want to throttle him.

Literally what everyone wanted to do every time he was on screen.

28. Bill Compton from "True Blood"

Bill Compton may have been the leading man in the series, but somehow writers forgot that the main love interest should be likable and enticing. Over seven seasons we were given a boring, unlikeable dude who was not as respectable as he would want folks to believe.

Oh, and that whole thing where he didn't stop Sookie from being nearly killed so he could bind them together by using his blood to heal her. What an ass.

29. Dawson Leery from "Dawson's Creek"

Albeit the titular character of Dawson's Creek, Dawson Leery was one of the least favorite characters of the show. The melodramatic character doesn't hold up to any scrutiny as a likable character, there's even a Tumblr account devoted to how Dawson is the worst.

As Sarit Luban from Vice writes, "Dawson exemplifies the Nice Guy persona that is all-too-familiar today, whereby self-identified sensitive men perceive themselves as morally superior to and passed over in favor of their more stereotypically masculine peers."

30. Dawn Summers from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

Dawn Summers was one of those characters, like Scrappy-Doo, who was just thrown into the cast late into the show. She was a stereotypical whiny younger sibling, but with the added stress of her existence threatening the lives of the other characters we had grown to love over the 5 seasons leading up to her appearance.

31. Bevers from "Broad City"

Bevers is the perfect portrayal of a roommate's terrible, mooch of a boyfriend. He makes huge messes, eats other people's food, and walks around naked in an apartment that isn't even his.

32. Jeremy Jamm from "Parks and Recreation"

Not only was Councilman Jeremy Jam the bane of everyone's beloved Leslie Knope's existence, he was also grossly misogynistic, condescending, and annoying. He would constantly try to impede on any progress Leslie tried to make for Pawnee, and had the most annoying catchphrase: "You just got jammed."

Same, Jerry, same.

33. Jake Ballard from "Scandal"

Jake Ballard was a creep who claimed to love Olivia but always tried to influence her decisions for his gain. He lacked any sort of moral compass, and it seemed that his favorite method of dealing with any situation was just to kill whoever was in his way.

34. Julie Taylor from "Friday Night Lights"

Julie was another stereotypical angsty teenager, but the majority of fans felt that she was the worst character on the show. She constantly picked fights with her parents, took her boyfriend for granted, and ended up cheating on him with a college dude.

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35. Cousin Oliver Tyler from "The Brady Bunch"

Cousin Oliver was added to the cast of The Brady Bunch in its final season and was instantly hated by viewers. The hatred for Cousin Oliver actually inspired the term "Cousin Oliver Syndrome," which is when a show attempts to drive up its ratings by adding a new, younger character to relate to a younger demographic.

This addition rarely works out well.

36. Ned Flanders from "The Simpsons"

Ned Flanders started out as the Simpsons family's annoyingly optimistic neighbor, but he eventually turned into the religious character who judged and looked down on those who didn't align with his beliefs.

On the show, Homer wrote a song called "Everybody Hates Ned Flanders," and the track ended up nominated for a Primetime Emmy for outstanding music and lyrics.

Stupid Ned Flanders

37. Andy Bernard from "The Office"

Andy Bernard was a Cornell-obsessed, insecure, toxic man with uncontrolled anger issues. By the end of The Office, Andy remained the most obnoxious character in a series that was written around unlikeable personalities.

There's no excuse for Nard-Dog

38. Ellis Boyd from "Smash"

Smash had plenty of terrible things between the over-the-top drama and some creative faults, but Ellis still managed to be terrible. He was needy, conniving, manipulative and all the horrible stereotypes about millennials rolled into one character.

39. Will Schuester from "Glee"

Will may have been voted teacher of the year at McKinley High, but he was far from a great teacher. On the outside, he appeared to be a good-natured director for the glee club, but in reality, it seemed like he was focused more on projecting his dreams onto his students and living vicariously through their experiences within his glee club.

He was arguably way too involved with the personal lives of his students and made some very questionable choices. Like blackmailing his student into joining the glee club, to suspending another student who refused to wear a seashell bikini for a performance.

40. Serena Joy from "The Handmaid's Tale"

While in the second season of Hulu's drama The Handmaid's Tale writers tried to explain why Serena Joy was so awful, we just don't care. There's no explanation that would make Serena a sympathetic character while she played a vital role in helping Gilead come to fruition, and the inhumane way she treated the handmaids.

41. Jonah Ryan from "Veep"

Jonah Ryan is a walking caricature of toxic masculinity. He was an unpalatable brown-noser who spent way too much time and energy butting into everyone's business, whether personal or political.

Plain and simple

42. Kimmy Gibbler from "Fuller House"

Kimmy Gibbler is that friend who overstays their welcome and becomes the butt of jokes. Throughout the original and the revival of the Full House series, Gibbler has been the wacky character that ended up being more insufferable rather than fun and quirky.

43. Miranda from "Sex and the City"

Although Miranda was the most successful of the four, she struggled with her looks, but that isn't any reason to consider her unlikeable. What IS was her habit of holding a grudge, often icing out one of her friends for long periods of time.

It seems like these bouts of weaponized silence occurred when she felt like her friends didn't meet her strict expectations on how someone should act. Obviously, her issues stem from her need for control, and she used it like a weapon against her friends.

44. Marnie Michaels from "Girls"

Besides her terrible taste in men, and lack of self-awareness, Marnie could suck the air out of the room with her need for constant attention.

45. George Costanza from "Seinfeld"

There really aren't "likable" characters on Seinfeld, but somehow George managed to be particularly loathsome. He created a charity to avoid buying Christmas presents, he went along with being disabled to get a job, he pulls out an injured man's IV, and in order to save himself during a fire, pushed kids and his girlfriend's elderly mother out of the way.

As if that wasn't enough, he unintentionally killed his fiancee and was more relieved that he didn't have to go through with the wedding than upset that she died.

46. Janice Litman from "Friends"

Janice had that grating nasally voice and laugh that felt like nails on a chalkboard. She was just so obnoxious.

47. Richard Hendricks from "Silicon Valley"

While Richard Hendricks sometimes came across as empathetic and we found ourselves rooting for him to succeed, that didn't last long. He was overly cocky and flaunted his success in front of others within the tech industry.

Whenever faced with the chance to learn and grow from his mistakes, he never did. Over five seasons and his character had very little growth.

48. Sheldon Cooper from "The Big Bang Theory."

Sheldon is a polarizing character, and not just because he is arrogant, selfish, rude, and insensitive. Some people like to hate him just because he is part of the beloved and most hated sitcom, The Big Bang Theory.

49. Screech Powers from "Saved by the Bell"

Screech proved that being too goofy can be a bad thing. He may have been book smart, but he didn't seem to ever understand a joke, and was completely oblivious to Lisa's disinterest in him romantically and continued to pursue her.

50. Michael Scott from "The Office"

Michael Scott may have been a hilarious character, he wouldn't be someone that anyone would like in real life. He overstepped boundaries, forced his way into situations that he shouldn't have, and he was rude, inconsiderate, and selfish.

Sorry not sorry, Michael Scott, you suck.

Sure, there are some characters on the list who may have annoyed their way into our hearts, like Janice from Friends,  or Michael Scott from The Office. But you’d be hard-pressed to convince us that any character on this list isn’t deserving of a mention.

If you want more characters we love to hate, check out this list of an additional 25 terrible TV characters. If we missed a character who is awful enough to make this list, be sure to drop an honorable mention in the comments section below.

Kylin