Here are 12 TV shows we love with lead characters we don’t: All of them prove that you don’t need to like someone to love watching them.
It’s better to be watchable than likeable, at least on TV.
Here we go.
Veep
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is outstanding as the mercurial, selfish, cowardly Selina Meyer, a politician who doesn’t really believe in anything.
The hilarious joy in Veep lies in watching her and her capable but callow staff desperately try to protect themselves and their status without doing anything courageous that might actually, you know, help people.
It feels suspiciously like how government actually works, too much of the time, and it’s cathartic to see it play out onscreen instead of behind closed doors.
Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad creator always said the show would turn Mr. Chips into Scarface, and boy did he make good on that promise. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) earned our sympathy in the excellent pilot of Breaking Bad, as Gilligan skillfully piled on a set of circumstances that made us root hard for Walt: his financial struggles, his spoiled students, his career disappointments, other kids making fun of his disabled son.
By the final season of Breaking Bad, Walter White was very much on top — of the Albuquerque drug trade, and of the world.
But even if you could justify his murder of his criminal rivals, it was hard to forgive him for his role hooking countless people on incredibly strong meth, or his willingness to jeopardize the lives of innocent people — including children — in his quest for control.
He also starred in one of the best finales we’ve ever seen.
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Larry David’s character on Curb, who is also named Larry David, is the gold standard of unlikable lead characters. He’s a self-centered, gleefully rude, extremely rich guy who will argue with people over tiny amounts of money or mild inconveniences rather than just counting his blessings.
And yet: He’s usually right. There’s a social expectation that the extremely well off will have the dignity and grace to let certain things go, and Larry’s pettiness never fails to make us laugh.
We wouldn’t want to hang out with him, but we love watching him. We’re also huge fans of his new show, Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, which is high on our list of TV shows we love that are currently on the air.
Dexter
You know someone is an unlikable lead character when being a serial killer isn’t his main problem. At least Dexter is a fairly moral serial killer — a serial killer who goes after other serial killers.
Dexter’s problem is his prickly, uncomfortable energy in all aspects of life, and general lack of feeling. Remember when his wife, Rita, was murdered, and he just shuttered her kids off to their grandparents?
That was good for the show — no one wanted to watch Dexter juggle murders with being a stepdad — but it was also just weird.
It’s no surprise Showtime keeps bringing him back.
The Idol
We didn’t like either of the two lead characters in The Idol, but we were in the small group of people who really did like the show. Of course we weren’t supposed to like Tedros, the sleazy cult leader played by The Weeknd, but we also didn’t find much admirable about Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) the singing star he preyed upon who turned out, at the end, to have maybe been in control all along.
Both had rather grimy, selfish goals, and we didn’t care if they achieved them. Yet we loved the show for its excess and willingness to go to darkly absurd places, and realize that Depp and The Weeknd were admirably open to being unsympathetic and unlikable lead characters so that others could shine, like Suzanna Son’s Chloe, Troye Sivan’s Xander, Rachel Sennot’s Leia, and especially Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Destiny.
We’re sorry HBO let the show go after one hypnotic season.
Schitt’s Creek
Very rich people are generally unlikable lead characters — even when they’re knocked into desperate financial straits, like the Rose family of Schitt’s Creek.
Their haughtiness, helplessness and general ineptitude made them all hard to root for — yet we loved watching their misadventures.
Such was the comic brilliance of father and son co-creators Dan Levy and his father, Eugene Levy, and their co-stars Catherine O’Hara and Annie Murphy.
The Phil Silvers Show
Phil Silvers was perhaps TV’s first unlikable lead characters: His Sgt. Bilko was known for tricking his underlings into doing his work for him, or for outright conning them — and others.
It’s no surprise that Larry David has cited him as an influence.
David once credited Silvers’ Bilko character with “saying and doing things that no one else would say and do, nasty things — being unlikable and being deceptive.”
All in the Family
Archie Bunker, created by Norman Lear and played by Carroll O’Connor, was groundbreaking in his unlikability — Lear gave him enough rope, every episode, to lay bare the ignorance of his narrow-mindedness and bigotry.
The tension between Archie and his family — especially son-in-law Meathead (Rob Reiner) made All in the Family fascinating and endlessly funny — would Archie ever learn?
The show refused to turn Archie into a clueless cartoon or an instrument for preaching at people. He was complicated but capable of change, and he and his family loved each other despite their disagreements.
Girls
Lena Dunham deliberately crafted her Girls character, Hannah, as frequently insufferable: She’s spoiled, initially relying on her parents for money, yet often overconfident to the point of pretentiousness.
We would hate to be in a meeting with Hannah, listening to her espouse eye-rolling pronouncements like the classic “I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice. Of a generation.”
Yet we this is one those TV shows we love because of its willingness to be blunt and honest about its unlikable lead character — and all characters — flaws and all.
The Sopranos
Tony Soprano opened the door to countless modern antiheroes, from Walter White to his HBO companions on Curb, Veep and Girls. He’s selfish, violent, and disloyal to his friends, family and mistresses.
But he’s also fascinating. Are his occasional bouts of generosity and good sense examples of his better self shining through? Or just a sociopath’s attempt to seem like a normal person? We’ll never know.
James Gandolfini did a magnificent job of presenting a character who was oddly sympathetic and reprehensible at the same time — all the time.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
One of our favorite things about It’s Always Sunny is how incredibly willing the leads are to be reprehensible. They’re dopey, lazy and self-righteous — but always think they’re smarter than anyone else. They have no loyalty to anyone, especially each other.
They never learn anything, and only change with the times when they think it will be to their sexual advantage, as when Dennis (Glenn Howerton) went progressive in an effort to court millennial women.
And yet: This is one of the funniest shows ever on television, and the longest-running live-action sitcom. It’s almost like they’re on to something.
We also love that Always Sunny creator Rob McElhenney is such a huge fan of the next show on our list that he even did a cameo on it. The shows have a lot in common in their willingness to tell great stories without worrying about likability.
Game of Thrones
With very few exceptions (Jon Snow, Sansa, Grey Worm, Samuel Tarly among them), every Game of Thrones character had serious flaws. No one proved this more than Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) who went from being arguably the most admirable character on the show to one of its deadliest villains.
We rooted hard for her at the start, then watched her transform from a queen of dragons and breaker of chains into a brutal despot, as nasty as some of the ones she had dethroned.
Lots of people hate that about Game of Thrones, but to them we say: Did you watch Game of Thrones? Her transformation is a perfect expression of the shows ideas about the dangers of absolute power, and the up-and-down nature of life itself.
If you like this list of TV Shows We Love With Lead Characters We Don’t, you might also enjoy this list of TV Characters Who Deserved to Die. There’s some overlap.
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Main image: Game of Thrones. HBO
