Menu
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
Latest activity
Awards
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Forums
Global Telly Talk
General TV
The 100 Greatest TV Characters of the 21st Century
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ome" data-source="post: 259875" data-attributes="member: 2"><p><h2>55. Jessica Huang (<em>Fresh Off the Boat</em>)</h2><p>[ATTACH=full]25518[/ATTACH]</p><p><strong>Played by Constance Wu</strong></p><p>It was no secret how Constance Wu felt about playing Jessica Huang toward the end of the ABC series' six-season run: She was over it, wanting bigger challenges. But maybe it's because of Wu's comfort, having been able to explore the nooks and crannies of her role as the Taiwanese-American family's matriarch -- "I know [Jessica] like the back of my hand," she said in late 2019 after firing off tweets expressing her disappointment about the sixth-season renewal -- that Jessica was as strong a character as she was. (Very) loosely based off of Eddie Huang's memoir and adapted for TV by Nahnatchka Khan, <em>Fresh Off the Boat</em> was the first American sitcom about an Asian family since Margaret Cho's short-lived <em>All American Girl</em> in the mid-'90s, and while there wasn't a weak link in the core cast -- Randall Park is a delight in anything he does, and we hold a special place in our hearts for Ian Chen as Evan, the baby of the family -- it was Jessica who made sure her sons appreciated where they came from when she wasn't with Louis feeding Floridians meat and potatoes at Cattleman's Ranch. Credit is also due to series writer Ali Wong, who imbued Jessica with Wong's rambunctious sense of humor. <em>-- LB</em></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><h2>54. Captain Holt (<em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</em>)</h2><p>[ATTACH=full]25519[/ATTACH]</p><p><strong>Played by Andre Braugher</strong></p><p>Andre Braugher was already a television star before he was cast on <em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</em>, but the Juilliard graduate was known for serious parts in serious shows like <em>Homicide: Life on the Streets</em> and <em>Thief</em>. It's not that Captain Holt doesn't have all the gravitas of a traditional Braugher role; it's just that he brings that gravitas to a zany comedy. Holt is the no-nonsense boss of the 99, meant to be a foil to Andy Samberg's goofy Jake Peralta. It could be a boring dynamic, but creators Dan Goor and Mike Schur wrote Holt to defy expectations at every turn. He's a gay man who loves his corgi Cheddar, the music of John Philip Sousa, and puns delivered dryly with a straight face. Far from being just a series of discordant traits, Holt is a fully realized human whose life and career has defied the odds of prejudice and who delivers dialogue with a positively Shakespearean flair. Recent conversations about how <em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine </em>propagates "copaganda" are not to be discounted, and, in some ways, Holt is example of just how effective that is. Even though his existence is part of a problematic system, it's hard to deny Holt and Braugher's collective brilliance.<em> -- EZ</em></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><h2>53. Jason Mendoza (<em>The Good Place</em>)</h2><p>[ATTACH=full]25520[/ATTACH]</p><p><strong>Played by Manny Jacinto</strong></p><p>This entry could just read "BOOOOOORTLES!" Is any character more full of joy than Jacksonville dum-dum Jason Mendoza? Jason was first introduced as Jianyu, a monk who had taken a vow of silence. But in one of the first major series twists, it turns out that he's not a pious man at all, but instead sweet idiot Jason, who died trying to rob a restaurant while doing whip-its in a sealed safe.<em> The Good Place</em> was filled with pointedly flawed misfits, and Jason was representative of the series' ingenuity and its heart. He's an absolute dirtbag, but a truly caring one. Sure, he never really fully understood the deeper concepts about ethical living the show wanted to impart, but he tried his best anyway and ended up a better person for that. <em>-- EZ </em></p><p></p><p></p><h2>52. Tyrion Lannister (<em>Game of Thrones</em>)</h2><p>[ATTACH=full]25521[/ATTACH]</p><p><strong>Played by Peter Dinklage</strong></p><p>It takes a lot to stand out amid the dynamic and fascinating characters that a land of ice and fire calls for, but Tyrion Lannister, the son of a warlord and brother to a literal knight in shining armor and a queen as vicious as she is beautiful, is the best of the bunch, his wry quips and acidic nature hiding a vulnerable heart of gold way deep down in there somewhere. Manipulation and plotting come second nature to a character like Tyrion, who has spent his life learning how to prove his worth with his mind instead of his might, but still he never let it corrupt him quite as completely as the rest of his family. His doomed romance with the sharp-tongued prostitute Shae was as gripping and tragic as any medieval romance, and his friendship with the sellsword Bronn was one of the most consistent bright spots of the series. Tyrion was able to escape from the Lannister family a hero, more or less, and delivered some of the best lines of the entire show along the way, going from "I am the god of tits and wine" to "A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone" at the flip of one of his treasury's many gold coins. In a way, his oft-quoted statement in the very first episode -- "Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." -- can be read as the thesis of the entire show. <em>-- ES</em></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><h2>51. Abed (<em>Community</em>)</h2><p>[ATTACH=full]25522[/ATTACH]</p><p><strong>Played by Danny Pudi</strong></p><p>There are few characters on this list that are as much the soul of their show as Abed is the soul of <em>Community</em>. Abed is everything Dan Harmon's sitcom is: Pop culture-obsessed, prone to meta digressions, untouchably <em>nerdy</em>. When the series begins, it's Joel McHale's Jeff Winger that's at the center of the narrative. He's the one with the logline hook: "Disgraced lawyer has to return to community college." But it quickly becomes clear that Abed is the person that holds the whole thing together. It's through Abed that <em>Community</em> takes its most daring detours: An entire episode mimicking <em>My Dinner with Andre</em>; stop-motion animation; it goes on. Credit goes to Harmon, of course, but Pudi also takes a character who could easily be a bunch of annoying tics and makes those tics sweet and bizarrely sensitive. <em>-- EZ</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ome, post: 259875, member: 2"] [HEADING=1]55. Jessica Huang ([I]Fresh Off the Boat[/I])[/HEADING] [ATTACH type="full"]25518[/ATTACH] [B]Played by Constance Wu[/B] It was no secret how Constance Wu felt about playing Jessica Huang toward the end of the ABC series' six-season run: She was over it, wanting bigger challenges. But maybe it's because of Wu's comfort, having been able to explore the nooks and crannies of her role as the Taiwanese-American family's matriarch -- "I know [Jessica] like the back of my hand," she said in late 2019 after firing off tweets expressing her disappointment about the sixth-season renewal -- that Jessica was as strong a character as she was. (Very) loosely based off of Eddie Huang's memoir and adapted for TV by Nahnatchka Khan, [I]Fresh Off the Boat[/I] was the first American sitcom about an Asian family since Margaret Cho's short-lived [I]All American Girl[/I] in the mid-'90s, and while there wasn't a weak link in the core cast -- Randall Park is a delight in anything he does, and we hold a special place in our hearts for Ian Chen as Evan, the baby of the family -- it was Jessica who made sure her sons appreciated where they came from when she wasn't with Louis feeding Floridians meat and potatoes at Cattleman's Ranch. Credit is also due to series writer Ali Wong, who imbued Jessica with Wong's rambunctious sense of humor. [I]-- LB[/I] [HEADING=1]54. Captain Holt ([I]Brooklyn Nine-Nine[/I])[/HEADING] [ATTACH type="full"]25519[/ATTACH] [B]Played by Andre Braugher[/B] Andre Braugher was already a television star before he was cast on [I]Brooklyn Nine-Nine[/I], but the Juilliard graduate was known for serious parts in serious shows like [I]Homicide: Life on the Streets[/I] and [I]Thief[/I]. It's not that Captain Holt doesn't have all the gravitas of a traditional Braugher role; it's just that he brings that gravitas to a zany comedy. Holt is the no-nonsense boss of the 99, meant to be a foil to Andy Samberg's goofy Jake Peralta. It could be a boring dynamic, but creators Dan Goor and Mike Schur wrote Holt to defy expectations at every turn. He's a gay man who loves his corgi Cheddar, the music of John Philip Sousa, and puns delivered dryly with a straight face. Far from being just a series of discordant traits, Holt is a fully realized human whose life and career has defied the odds of prejudice and who delivers dialogue with a positively Shakespearean flair. Recent conversations about how [I]Brooklyn Nine-Nine [/I]propagates "copaganda" are not to be discounted, and, in some ways, Holt is example of just how effective that is. Even though his existence is part of a problematic system, it's hard to deny Holt and Braugher's collective brilliance.[I] -- EZ[/I] [HEADING=1]53. Jason Mendoza ([I]The Good Place[/I])[/HEADING] [ATTACH type="full"]25520[/ATTACH] [B]Played by Manny Jacinto[/B] This entry could just read "BOOOOOORTLES!" Is any character more full of joy than Jacksonville dum-dum Jason Mendoza? Jason was first introduced as Jianyu, a monk who had taken a vow of silence. But in one of the first major series twists, it turns out that he's not a pious man at all, but instead sweet idiot Jason, who died trying to rob a restaurant while doing whip-its in a sealed safe.[I] The Good Place[/I] was filled with pointedly flawed misfits, and Jason was representative of the series' ingenuity and its heart. He's an absolute dirtbag, but a truly caring one. Sure, he never really fully understood the deeper concepts about ethical living the show wanted to impart, but he tried his best anyway and ended up a better person for that. [I]-- EZ [/I] [HEADING=1]52. Tyrion Lannister ([I]Game of Thrones[/I])[/HEADING] [ATTACH type="full"]25521[/ATTACH] [B]Played by Peter Dinklage[/B] It takes a lot to stand out amid the dynamic and fascinating characters that a land of ice and fire calls for, but Tyrion Lannister, the son of a warlord and brother to a literal knight in shining armor and a queen as vicious as she is beautiful, is the best of the bunch, his wry quips and acidic nature hiding a vulnerable heart of gold way deep down in there somewhere. Manipulation and plotting come second nature to a character like Tyrion, who has spent his life learning how to prove his worth with his mind instead of his might, but still he never let it corrupt him quite as completely as the rest of his family. His doomed romance with the sharp-tongued prostitute Shae was as gripping and tragic as any medieval romance, and his friendship with the sellsword Bronn was one of the most consistent bright spots of the series. Tyrion was able to escape from the Lannister family a hero, more or less, and delivered some of the best lines of the entire show along the way, going from "I am the god of tits and wine" to "A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone" at the flip of one of his treasury's many gold coins. In a way, his oft-quoted statement in the very first episode -- "Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." -- can be read as the thesis of the entire show. [I]-- ES[/I] [HEADING=1]51. Abed ([I]Community[/I])[/HEADING] [ATTACH type="full"]25522[/ATTACH] [B]Played by Danny Pudi[/B] There are few characters on this list that are as much the soul of their show as Abed is the soul of [I]Community[/I]. Abed is everything Dan Harmon's sitcom is: Pop culture-obsessed, prone to meta digressions, untouchably [I]nerdy[/I]. When the series begins, it's Joel McHale's Jeff Winger that's at the center of the narrative. He's the one with the logline hook: "Disgraced lawyer has to return to community college." But it quickly becomes clear that Abed is the person that holds the whole thing together. It's through Abed that [I]Community[/I] takes its most daring detours: An entire episode mimicking [I]My Dinner with Andre[/I]; stop-motion animation; it goes on. Credit goes to Harmon, of course, but Pudi also takes a character who could easily be a bunch of annoying tics and makes those tics sweet and bizarrely sensitive. [I]-- EZ[/I] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?
Post reply
Forums
Global Telly Talk
General TV
The 100 Greatest TV Characters of the 21st Century
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Accept
Learn more…
Top