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Top 10 Best Written TV Characters of Our Day
I’ve reached a point in my life where I have watched enough TV shows to make a fair assessment of the best written characters of our day. This isn’t about popularity, or badass factor (which is why Peter Griffith and Jack Bauer are not included on the list). This is simply about awesome writing, acting and characterization.
Kicking it off at number 10 is the master of awkward, Michael Scott. This clown with a heart of gold deserved to be on the list because his uncomfortable dialogue made me literally cringe. He has an uncanny ability to humiliate himself and others, but does it with the sole purpose of making people happy and making the office a fun place to work in and that makes him completely loveable. Nobody but Steve Carrel could have pulled off the foolishness of Michael Scott. His facial expressions and timing make him a comedic genius and The Office is just not the same without him.
At number 9 is the hardboiled Admiral of the Battlestar Galactica, Bill Adama. Played intensely by Edward James Olmos, Bill lives every day at a time in a constant struggle to keep his fleet alive. It’s the little moments between him and his Colonel, drinking whiskey and talking about their days as young pilots where he shows his true colors. Compare his gray hairs from the first season to the last. Makes you wonder whether it was the age that made that happen or the sheer intense acting that “the old man” underwent on that show. He’s the kind of man anyone would want on their side when up against blood thirsty Cylons.
The number 8 slot belongs to FDNY’s finest, Tommy Gavin. Post 9/11 drama, Rescue Me, introduced us to a portrait of misery and redemption. Dealing every day with the ghosts of his past, Tommy becomes the quintessential alcoholic. Now alcoholism is the most overplayed disease in TV, but this is the only show that captured it right. Tommy is layered with character flaws and just when we think he’s going to make things right, Tommy “plays with fire” and breaks apart all over again. This is a tough show to sit through because it’s the self-destruction of one man and his family but proves satisfying when Tommy’s life takes a turn for redemption. Through the fires of his duty and the struggles of his friends and family, Tommy realizes that the real person he needs to rescue is himself and he does just that.
“Omar comin!” When those words are uttered in the streets, it always ends in bullets and murder. At number 7 is Omar Little from what is easily HBO’s greatest show of all time, The Wire. This murderous, unlikely homosexual outlaw is Baltimore’s very own Robin Hood who steals from the rich drug dealers and gives to the, well, himself. But he does help the Baltimore Police track down the real bad guys, making him an antihero and one of the good guys. His snappy one-liners and foal mouth always makes him a joy to watch. He is almost a phantom superhero, disappearing in the streets and surviving a 30-floor plummet from a building. But what really makes this character is his battle versus his inner self. Omar is a good guy at heart but his actions set a bad example to the youngins of the streets and inspire nothing but violence. Even his tragic death proves that crime, even with good intentions, does not pay and that street violence is an endless cycle and a war that can’t be won. Omar Little is a symbol of that.
At number 6 is Larry David for his sense of humor to play an exaggerated version of himself as a neurotic and impossible old bastard. As writer and creator of his own character, Larry David has combined versions of himself and George Costanza into an asshole so obnoxious, you have to love him. Larry is bothered by the little things in life that may bother us as well. People who abuse their ice cream samples at ice cream shops, bad parkers, stop and chats with old friends, people who don’t use coasters and basically things that are so detailed, yet they happen to all of us every day. His character reaches a point where he simply doesn’t care what people think and hilarity ensues, but it’s not always his fault. Sometimes this poor man has to deal with downright annoying people. Larry David is the enforcer of stupid people, a Jew Ball superhero, fighting incompetent people in LA.
At the halfway point is John Locke, from the most inventive TV show of all time and my personal favorite, LOST. Appropriately named after a philosopher, this complex man is the island’s very own philosopher, guardian and everyone’s go to guy for advice. John Locke is a man inspired by adventure and exploration, but when he is robbed of his legs, he is robbed of his ambition and led down a rocky road of daddy issues and lost love. When the island frees him of his paralysis, he is given a second chance and he makes the most of it by turning into something of a Savior, helping every character fight their inner demons. While the others are quarreling amongst themselves, John Locke is busy trying to uncover the mysteries of the island. Everything he does is for the benefit of his friends and his new home. His life and death was a tragic one, but he left his friends with the idea that they were all brought there for a reason, an idea that saved them all in the end.
At number 4 is everybody’s favorite serial killer, Dexter Morgan. Dexter has two faces. The quiet and friendly blood splatter analyst for the Miami PD and then there’s the other Dexter, the one that makes himself known within his dark inner monologues, his dark passenger. As a serial killer, Dexter has devised the perfect way to channel his darkness, by following his father’s moral code of killing bad guys. The hard part is sticking to the code when his dark passenger threatens to completely take over. All he wants is a normal life for his son, while keeping his darkness in check. For Dexter, the future will always be uncertain because even though he’s gone this far, how much longer will it take before he gets caught, or gets himself killed? That and he is just such a nice guy.
At number 3 is Tony Soprano. Family man at breakfast, mobster for lunch at The Bada Bing strip club and family man again for dinner. Tony is a tough specimen. Just when you start to admire him for his loyalty to his men, he cheats on his wife and just when he redeems himself for that, he cheats on his wife again. But there is so much more to Tony than a fat unfaithful goomba. Despite his family crimes, he is the only mobster in New Jersey who plays it fair. Struggling to do business with greedy gangsters, and struggling to live with a dysfunctional family, Tony is always at a tough place so we can forgive him for his screw-ups. We keep seeing the light inside of him and through his therapy, we get a psychological view of what he is really thinking. When he’s in a coma and all we have is his subconscious, we get to see what Tony is all about. He is a man apart who is just trying to ask us for a second chance.
Getting close to the winner is Al Swearengen from Deadwood. It was a tough draw between him and the number 1. In the end, this lineup is all about writing and this saloon pimp certainly has world class dialogue written for him. Writing is one thing, but being able to breathe life into the pages is another. Ian McShane is a monster. His bulging raccoon eyes translate his emotions, along with his deep whiskey voice that do nothing but draw us in. His absorbing aura steals every scene. When he’s angry, it’s scary. What makes him one of the best written characters in TV is his ability to play both the villain of the show and the loveable protagonist. He’s a murdering gangster sonofabitch who’s got a rivalry with the lawman of Deadwood, but at the same time, he’s trying to build a lawless town and keep it in order. He delivers some of the funniest lines in the show and uses the F word creatively. Al Swearengen is a beast.
At number 1, by far the best-written TV character in our age of compelling TV drama is Walter White from AMC’s Breaking Bad. In this show, we watch a pushover chemistry teacher who works par time getting stomped on at a Car Wash, evolve from a softie to a menacing meth cook who is feared across the drug trade. The evolution is crafted in the writing one episode at a time. When you get two unlikely people put into the most extreme circumstances they have ever faced, what you get is pure drama. Walter White does it all for his family. You can say he is always doing the right thing because even though things get heated, he always ends up winning. Using his brilliant knowledge of chemistry, he is able to outsmart the reckless drug dealers that threaten to kill him. And even when he is up against a villain as smart and strategic as he is, Walter still proves the victor. After repeatedly getting screwed over and buried in the deepest holes of failure while coughing out his cancerous lungs, he always climbs out of it because he does it all for love. Walter White’s sadness will make you cry, his clumsiness will make you laugh and his power to beat the bad guys will make you jump out of your chair in jubilation.
Honorable Mentions:
- Walter Bishop from Fringe
-Dennis Reynolds from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
-Hank Moody from Californication
-James Darmody from Boardwalk Empire
-Ari Gould from Entourage
-Kara Thrace AKA Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica
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Weaving historical fact with compelling HBO fiction, Deadwood is a winner. It is a feat of costume, art direction and production design so triumphant it makes you feel like you are actually in the old west. The show chronicles the establishment and early days of Deadwood, South Dakota, and its lawless society run by greedy prospectors, saloon dwellers and gunslingers. What makes this show for me is its protagonist/villain, Al Swearengen, played miraculously by British actor, Ian McShane. This fascinating character juggles between the show’s villain and man of reason who tries to secure order in a lawless town through his own corrupt methods. Most of the show’s strong and sometimes hilarious dialogue is uttered by Swearengen. The stories don’t stray too far from historical truth, giving life to real figures of the time. Notedly is the honorable Wild Bill Hickock played by Keith Carradine, and the foul mouthed Calamity Jane. Deadwood is a town struggling to stay in order by those who use justice and those who use violence, setting the stage for some fine HBO storytelling. Westerns don’t get any better than this.
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Everything about Michael’s Genuine is just that. From it’s humble location, nestled in the artistic realm of Wynwood to the verses of poetry falling off its walls. Brunch here is more than just a meal, but a fanfare event with a line and wait time longer than Space Mountain. The lemon ricotta pancakes oozes sweetness from its yellow core accentuated with a cup of homemade strawberry jam, but that’s not enough. The portion is too small and just asking for the next dish of tiramisu French toast, sprinkled with cinnamon over a glop of ice cream. Just when you thought the menu couldn’t get any more creative, the waiter passes by with a plate of homemade strawberry orange Pop Tarts and you know this must be your next venture. After chugging a mimosa, the last treat to finish off your palette is kimchi eggs benedict and you doubt that seaweed could ever go well with eggs but you soon realize it is the perfect mix of salty goodness, the yolk so orange you can eat it by itself. Michael’s Genuine proves that food can be thought out and displayed outside the box. The menu promises just what it offers. It is a genuine spirit that will have you begging for more.
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Carnivale
One of the saddest things in life for me are when great TV shows get canceled. Some of my favorite shows have been cancelled-Firefly, Dollhouse, Flash Forward, Arrested Development, but none have been more disappointing than the brutal execution of one of HBO’s finest dramas, Carnivale.
Set in the 1920’s Dust Bowl era, Carnivale follows a traveling carnival from one shitheal American town to another. Within this caravan is a colorful cast of carny freaks that are so compelling and absorbing, that you can’t help falling in love with even the bearded lady. Led by Samson, their midget leader who despite his size, is not one to mess with. Then there’s the protagonist, Ben Hawkins (played by Nick Stahl) the hero of this epic. Below the surface of this fun-filled carnival is a dark past and a trailer full of mystery, where the faceless “management” calls the shots, treating the carnival dwellers as chess pieces in a much larger game of good vs. evil. This show goes beyond the carnival and into the realms of mythology, religion and in a very David Lynch-esque manner, the supernatural. Running parallel to this story is that of Brother Justin Crowe, (played sadistically by Clancy Brown), a church minister that hides his pure evil behind the cloth with his ruthless sister Iris, who hides her own evil behind her sweet and gentle aura. Together, these two agents of evil use God as a means of gaining thousands of followers that will lead to the ultimate battle of good vs evil.
Just as it began to develop, the show was cancelled, leaving an unbearable cliffhanger. The world will never find out what will happen and I doubt this show will ever get picked up again, which leaves the ending up to the imagination. This is another example as to how network and cable television is not a safe place to tell stories. Investing deeply in something for so many hours only to have it come to an abrupt end felt like a death in the family. I’ll always regard Carnivale as one of the HBO classics.
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Drive
In Drive, we are given an existential anti-hero (Ryan Gosling) who’s stone face and mysterious aura leaves his dark past up to the imagination, well deserving of Oscar nods. Hollywood stunt driver by day, criminal getaway driver by night, this badasss gets tied up in a web of betrayal and violence and the kind and puppy-dog character we’ve grown to love in the last hour unleashes his true colors. The streets of LA glow with neon colors, making the city a character of its own. Slow and carefully paced and hypnotically atmospheric, Drive is sure to stay with you with an 80’s soundtrack that will leave you nostalgic and a car chase that echoes with the spirit of Steve McQueen. Although the violence was a bit over the top and unnecessary. I guess this is becoming the new trend. Check out Drive if you want to see a totally different kind of action movie, the kind I hope to see again in the future
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We Are The Streets
I take great pleasure in walking. I can easily fly if I wanted to, zip through buildings or hover gracefully over Central Park but I prefer walking. It makes me feel human and feeling is something I haven’t been privy to in years. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do so walking has become my everything. I’m a wandering nomad of sorts, except I don’t wander in search of food or shelter. I wander because it is all I can do.
The streets of downtown New York have become my home. In the winter, there’s a certain New York smell that stays with you. The smell of Christmas and we all know what Christmas smells like. It has its own brand of aroma in New York. Christmas mixed with sewer steam. That stuff is all over the place, enveloping every alleyway like an overpowering ghost. Sometimes I think the steam is making me hallucinate, but these are no hallucinations. These things I see are real.
I see 9/11 support groups. FDNY firefighters assembling in church rectories to share survivor’s guilt. The blank stares that prove they never really survived. Miserable cadaverous stares that make you question what it is to really live. Stale coffee drips from the pots and the donuts have shed their powdered sugar. They speak of putting it behind them, but they will never forget. That’s what the signs demand, anyway. NEVER FORGET.
I see these signs everywhere. Even now, ten years later, America still spreads its patriotism, releasing ten-year anniversary picture books and billboards announcing how New York City is “STILL HERE!” Even the little American flags perched on car windows that seemed to disappear for a few years, are now back in style. The sewer unleashes another misty cloud of steam and now I’m at a bar.
This is a firefighter bar with a monument built on the highest wall. Helmets picked up from Ground Zero are set along a massive mural of abstract 9/11 images. The place echoes with Irish folk songs and servers are applauded when they accidentally spill a glass. Within the drunken hollering and cheery spirits, you always see one of them with his FDNY muscle shirt staring at his glass with those zombie eyes. It never fails, there’s always at least one. They slap him on the back and order him another round but nothing will get rid of the hollowness of his eyes. He’s like me. Outside, the steam is brewing hot and I get lost to its moisture.
I see Liberty Street and it is a dark tunnel of ash and soot. A car is abandoned next to me, the door wide open, the turn signal flashing on and off in the darkness. This time, the soot doesn’t get in my eyes. I can see it clearly. Like clockwork, it happens every day around this time, if time even makes sense here. All I know is that every day, Liberty Street grows dark with ash and I see myself stumbling over my high heels, my eyes blind with soot. I don’t know why I am forced to watch. Eventually I take my heels off and walk barefoot through the cold street. I watch myself raising my arms out, hoping I don’t walk into something. My hair is bunched up in a ponytail and white with ash. It almost looks like it’s snowing.
The ground rumbles below us and now everyone is running. They know what is to come. This is the second time it happens. The men’s ties flap against the wind and their business loafers clank on the pavement as they sprint as fast as they can. I wonder if those people made it alive. I watch myself trip and fall and I sit there in the ash in defeat, moaning like an infant, untamed in a tantrum that can only result when you know you are going to die and there is nothing you can do about it. I can’t bear to watch it any longer. Why must I be forced to watch? As the thousands of pounds of weight plummet down on us, I see the steam simmer out from the sewers into the air, untouched by the ash. It circles around me and then I am flying.
I prefer walking but right now I am flying. There are other people here, people just like me. All of us are flying next to the World Trade Center that isn’t there, but we can see it. We can see it tall and glimmering. All of us soar around the twin towers as fast as we can and we are so high up, the sewer steam can’t even touch us. The couples are no longer falling as they hold hands, but rising and the children perform nosedives with melodious giggles. Up here we have office gatherings and we remember the days when we could feel. We remember 2001, the year we were all born. We are there to hold on to each other if we lose our grip on the windowpanes. If it gets too hot, we are there to cool each other off with the magic of this place, a magic that has given us certain abilities that others don’t have. We have the ability to be all things and to be everywhere at the same time. If we work hard enough, we even have the ability to form the shape of two mighty towers that aren’t really there. We hold this shape for as long as possible so the downtown New York City skyline can glow once more with Manhattan steel. The city lights form constellations for us. Wanderers by day, floating magicians by night. We are down there and up there, as everything and everywhere in the whispering chasms of New York City.
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Theory of Flight
I don’t know why but I’m thinking about haystacks. The way they were so perfectly stacked on top of each other in neat circles. I used to look for the three circles that formed the perfect Mickey Mouse shape. Sometimes they were off by a few feet.
I don’t care how old you get, some things stick with you.
My mother’s knick knacks. She was an avid collector of cookie jars. Jars in the shape of pop culture icons like Lucille Ball and Scooby-Doo. Cookie jars from all over the world standing proud as trophies of her exploration. As a hobby, my mother would decorate those wooden spoons used to stir sauces. She’d paint faces on them, knit maid outfits for them to wear with squiggly blonde yarn for hair. She’d sell them to her friends for 75 cents a piece.
There is no wind in Kentucky, they used to say.
The air out there was always very still, like it fell asleep to a cowbell’s lullaby. Silence was only disturbed by my father’s Cesna plane and its rumbling propeller. He flew the plane to work at the Air Force base a few miles west from the farm. I remember waking up to its mechanical hymn at night and loving that noise because it meant my father was home safe.
The tin airplane that created shadows along the wall.
My father didn’t speak much. Whatever emotion he did convey was through his expressions or his actions. Most of our meals were quiet, nothing but the symphony of silver wear with a bass of milk gulps and undertones of chewing. Mother made the small talk but father would nod his head and look outside. I knew he was thinking about flying. I knew he’d rather be on his plane. The gesture that made me realize my father did care was the time when he crept into my room at night. He didn’t say anything, just tiptoed beside my bed. I remember pretending to be asleep and trying hard not to move. When he left I saw he placed a small tin airplane on my bedside table. It was a Pan Am twin-engine jet. I remember it smelled like pennies.
We washed the plane barefoot.
I wanted to be a pilot because I saw the way my father treated his plane. Washing it was a careful ritual that he would let me take part in. No words were exchanged as he handed me wet towels to scrub the sides with. Whatever happened when he was out there in the clouds, I wanted to be a part of.
The night that felt like I was still dreaming.
My mother frowned upon my claims to be an Air Force pilot. Said with an honest heart like mine, I was destined for an honest job. When I first expressed an interest in flying was when my father first started paying attention to me. Then there was the night he took me flying. He woke me up really late and said we were going on an adventure. The expert care he put in wrapping his pilot’s scarf around my neck was that of an artist. As we crept out of the house, he squealed with laughter. I’d never seen him so giddy.
My favorite kind of lightning is the kind without thunder.
He sat me on his lap as he pushed the thrust that accelerated us toward the field. The complicated display of knobs and levers made me dizzy. As he did this he explained the four forces that make an airplane fly. Lift. Thrust. Drag. And let Gravity do the rest. He demonstrated every force as it occurred and as he demonstrated Lift, I felt my stomach perform a somersault as we were pushed against our seats. On the surface, nature is as simple as a mango tree. The world above the clouds is different. There is a serene magic to it all that is hard to explain. Like the quiet storm. Lightning illuminated every cloud but it wasn’t accompanied by thunder. I remember thinking that maybe that was why my father was so quiet, because up here, lightning made no sound. It took away the scariness. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I wiped my cheeks from my father’s wet kisses.
He let me take the wheel. For a whole ten minutes I flew the plane. That night I was a real pilot. When I’d had enough, he pulled the wheel down and we performed a nosedive. I screamed out in panic and he covered my mouth and kissed my cheek and told me he was just playing around, and that from now on he would take care of me and take me to town like his friends did with their sons and buy me baseball trading cards and maybe one day show me what the ocean looked like. I didn’t realize until years later that he was trying to say he was sorry for being a bad father.
The smoke looked like a worm crawling up the sky.
My father died while performing a corkscrew at the town’s air show. A fuel leak and engine fire caused an explosion for all to see. I remember my mother covering my eyes right after it happened, her trembling hand squeezing my scalp and behind the darkness of her hand, I remember the silence. There wasn’t any yelling or the crashing of debris, just a stunned silence that reminded me of my father’s peaceful demeanor.
My colleagues look up to me.
You’d think I’d become a pilot to honor him but I never did. And it had nothing to do with my father’s grisly public death either. I didn’t become a pilot because I lost interest in flying over the years. My psychologist would say I buried my flying ambitions somewhere but that’s not true either. The truth is, nobody becomes their first childhood ambition. My mother said she wanted to be a trapeze artist after her first visit to the circus. We find connections to extraordinary things as children for irrational reasons. My father loved to fly, but I’m not my father. I’ve always wanted to manage people. That’s why I became the Marketing Executive at Delta Airlines. I’ve built a good life for myself. My mother was right. An honest heart that lead to an honest career.
Sirens are wailing but they are too far away.
Now things are growing scorching hot and I have to make a decision. We all do. The flames have eaten up every inch of our once honest office floor. The roof should cave in any second now. My colleagues have always turned to me for advice and even now at the end, they are awaiting my orders, using each other as human life savers in huddled groups. Someone shattered the glass of our wide windows to let the smoke out and we stare down at the hundreds of papers and folders becoming one with the smoke, echoing with memories of office spirits. The heat is now unbearable. It’s time to move.
Let gravity do the rest.
Letting go isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. All it takes is releasing my weak grip on the cold steel and I fall. The plunge is slow at first, like the sensation you get when you jump over a fence only it doesn’t stop. The speed increases until I can no longer feel my body. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like. That weightless sensation. As I fall I can clearly make out a commercial airliner flying oddly close to us. A Boeing 777. I know this because my father would always point out the model and make of planes. I’m flying again. It feels liberating. Like the red Cardinals that scattered into flight at my father’s approach. And it’s quiet. It’s quiet like the lightning.
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The Wire is more than just a cop show, it’s an inside look at the war on crime from both sides, but sometimes the lines between good and evil are blurred and we don’t know who’s side we should be on. Where this show succeeds is in its real life portrayal of corruption. Whether it be low level drug dealers or rich police commissioners and politicians, all of them are portrayed in their truest evil. The villains are written so well that I don’t think I’ve ever hated a fictional character so much in my entire life. The only ones we can really trust are James McNulty (Dominic West) and his pawn shop unit cops, using their trusty wire to dig deep into the world of drugs. This colorful cast of cops are the good guys but this show is so unpredictable that we sometimes find ourselves relating to the supposed “bad guys.” I never thought I’d be so intrigued by the lives of criminals because the writing has a way of immersing you in the territory, this territory being the dark side of Baltimore. I’m excited to see more of this gritty harsh reality.
