7 underwhelming TV shows with one great character

Every cloud…

By Sam Ashurst
24 February 2017

Terrible TV shows that are saved by great characters are rare. After all, it's great characters that make telly shows worth watching in the first place. Showrunners that get everything else wrong usually don't have the good taste to give us even one person to care about.

There are exceptions, however, and we're currently trying to create a Marvel-style shared universe that includes all of them in one show. Wish us luck.

Now, we're not necessarily telling you to binge every single show on this list, but the following character creations are definitely worth hunting out on YouTube at the very least.

1. Gotham – Jerome (Cameron Monaghan)

Gotham might be notorious for being a Batman show that doesn't actually feature Batman, but at least it has a Joker – and not just any Joker, one of the best Jokers in any medium.

Cameron Monaghan's Jerome might not have the bleached skin or bright green hair, but he's the perfect Clown Prince Of Crime in every other way. We're not going to bang on too much about him (because we'd only be repeating ourselves) but if you haven't given Gotham a chance, it really is worth it – for Jerome alone.

2. The League – Rafi (Jason Mantzoukas)

Let's face it, unless you watch American football religiously, there are huge sections of The League (about a group of friends who bet on the sport) that are completely impenetrable. Also, pretty much all of the main characters are super annoying.

Thank goodness then, for Jason Mantzoukas' creation, Rafi – the most inappropriate, violent, disgusting and hilarious character on this (or pretty much any) sitcom.

We've seen every episode of the show, and we've spent each minute of view time counting the seconds until Rafi shows up, an event that makes us punch the air, bellow his name, and cry laughing... before he goes away again and we patiently wait for him to come back.

You may recognise Mantzoukas from his bad movie podcast How Did This Get Made, which is also ace, but it's Rafi that has our heart (and our pocket hot dogs).

3. Under The Dome – Big Jim (Dean Norris)

We'll take any excuse to express our love for Dean Norris, even if that does mean discussing the insufferable Stephen King adaptation Under The Dome. Still, it's worth catching for Norris' take on Big Jim, which turns one of the most unlikeable villains in King's book into what it would be like if Hank from Breaking Bad turned into Heisenberg.

The show – about a community cut off from the world by a big alien dome – is guff, but Norris' councilman / meth dealer is good. Because he always, always is.

4. The Killing (US) – Sarah Linden / Stephen Holder (Mireille Enos / Joel Kinnaman)

So technically this is two great characters in one booooooring show, but Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman are so great (and work so closely together) we find it very hard to separate them.

They're literally the only reason to stream The Killing on Netflix (well, that and if you're suffering from insomnia); both leads turn in layered, magnetic performances as a pair of po-faced detectives investigating murder – if only the case they had to investigate was as mesmerising.

5. My Family – Nick Harper (Kris Marshall)

Originally intended to be a radical new kind of sitcom, utilising a US style mega-team of writers, My Family basically ended up being 2point4 Children 2point0.

Still, at least it brought us Kris Marshall's naturalistic Hugh Grant-style charm, which lifted pretty much every scene he was in (even if that scene was crammed wall-to-wall with nonsense).

The character was so popular, Marshall was given his own sitcom, My Life In Movies. Sadly, despite the fact it also starred Andrew Scott and Alice Lowe, it was cancelled after six episodes.

6. Robin Hood – Guy of Gisbourne (Richard Armitage)

This off-target attempt to make Robin Hood edgy and cool (via a lead that looks like he got lost on the way to a boyband audition) certainly has its fans, and that's probably almost entirely down to Richard Armitage's brooding portrayal of Guy of Gisbourne, who's so good on the show he could probably walk straight onto the set of Game Of Thrones without anyone noticing the difference. He was one of the few characters to experience an actual narrative arc, turning from a villain we loved to hate, to a character we loved to love.

7. Babylon – Finn (Bertie Carvel)

Oh, Babylon – so much promise, so disappointing. Despite a production pedigree that included director Danny Boyle (and Peep Show geniuses Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain), the drama / comedy about a US media guru tasked with bringing the UK police into the modern world never found its audience.

Still, the folks who did stick with it mostly stayed onboard for Bertie Carvel's Finn, who was basically this show's Malcolm Tucker – with slightly less charm (if you can imagine such a thing). Forget Batman V Superman, we want Tucker V Finn.