Most of the time, we watch television to connect with the characters. They are the heart of the show.
We root for them and want them to evolve and succeed.
But somewhere along the way, several of our favorites suffered from bad writing, insufficient writing, or just too much trauma.
(Lauren Smith/ Paramount+, Anne Marie Fox/Disney, Courtesy of Prime)
These 13 characters deserved better, whether it was a front-burner story, less trauma, or a better ending.
While tragedy and drama move shows along, there is no rule that characters break all the time.
Check out our picks below, and let us know who else you would have added.
Amelia Shepherd – Grey’s Anatomy
(Disney/Anne Marie Fox)
Often, people talk about Meredith Grey’s suffering, but with her not being around as much, it definitely feels like that’s put on Amelia.
One of the most significant problems is that Grey’s Anatomy often doesn’t know what to do with the character. It tacks her onto storylines instead of giving her proper ones.
Many of her medical research accomplishments kept her in Meredith’s shadow rather than in partnership with her. And her love life has been particularly atrocious.
Grey’s introduced a promising romantic dynamic that they inconsistently teased for over a season. Instead of committing to and allowing it to flourish, they killed Monica and added to Amelia’s endless stream of trauma and loss.
It’s that loss and trauma that the series ultimately uses to send her on a sabbatical. It’s clearly for budget reasons, but it only highlights further that they don’t know what to do with the character.
Amelia Shepherd deserves so much better … at the very least, she deserves a meaningful plot at the forefront of the series.
Sam Carver – Chicago Fire
(Peter Gordon/NBC)
From the moment he showed up at Firehouse 51, Carver felt like someone trying to outrun his own past. He didn’t whine or ask for sympathy. He just showed up, did the work, and carried around a lot of unspoken damage that clearly shaped who he was.
And instead of letting that story breathe, Chicago Fire kept pulling the rug out from under him.
First, they introduced an ex who took him down a dark path away from Violet. Then he got suckered into trusting a fellow addict who, you guessed it, was on a dark path.
The final nail in the coffin? Supposed budget cuts behind the scenes in real life that sent him scurrying to Denver on the show, just after declaring his love for Violet, a love she returned.
And the worst part of it? They brought in a replacement for him. Not a character who offered something new, but a replica. Same vibe, different problems, but almost beat for beat the same character. Yes, Sam Carver deserved so much better than Chicago Fire gave him.
Spencer Dutton – 1923
(Lauren Smith/Paramount+)
Spencer Dutton lost his parents and fought in a war, with trauma so dramatic that he left the US to get away from it. So it’s no surprise we’re a bit salty about how his story ended.
Finding the love of his life should have brought him great joy. Instead, that happiness was cut short when he was torn away from his new wife, Alexandra, and forced to return to Montana to fight a great evil and save the family ranch.
When he and Alex finally found each other again, she was near death. She ultimately died in Spencer’s arms after giving birth to a premature baby boy.
Spencer got revenge, but his happily ever after was crushed, and the tale goes that he never found such happiness again. Way to treat your hero, Taylor Sheridan. It was far too tragic for such a magnetic and heroic character.
Tommy Vega – 9-1-1: Lone Star
(FOX/Screenshot)
From the minute Tommy Vega joined the cast, she brought heart to 9-1-1: Lone Star. With Grace Ryder missing in its final season, Tommy Vega was needed more than ever.
We’ll never understand why they made her suffer so much in 9-1-1: Lone Star Season 5. It went downhill at the beginning once Trevor broke up with her so that he could return to Kansas for his daughter’s well-being.
Since Tommy has daughters, she understood that, but it still seemed cruel.
Nothing prepared us for her cancer diagnosis so late in the game. What purpose did that serve, especially without Grace around to support her and Judd so angry and preoccupied to help?
This seemed brutal because her diagnosis could leave her daughters without parents, and we barely saw anyone rally around Tommy. Our girl deserved better.
Rebecca Jung – Butterfly
(Courtesy of Prime Video)
Where to start? Rebecca’s entire life is the stuff of nightmares.
First, her mom dies. Then, her dad appears to die, leaving her to be raised by his business partner, Juno, who trains her to be an ASSASSIN. At this point, she’d need a level of sociopathy just to function.
But Butterfly picks up with her father returning from the dead, Juno ordering a hit on both of them, and Rebecca learning that her dad’s spent the last nine years with a NEW FAMILY.
So they go on the run together, WITH the new wife and daughter (WTH?!?) and reconnect as a family on some level as they take down Juno’s organization.
Just when everything’s looking about as normal as could be expected, Dad finds Wife dying in the restaurant restroom, Rebecca’s in the wind, and the kid sister left alone, asleep at the table.
No one is born broken like Rebecca is (whether or not she killed her stepmom). The world broke her in cruel and horrific ways that no one deserves.
Ensign Dana Gamble – Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
( Marni GrossmanParamount+)
It seems that the white medical team uniform is the new red shirt in the newest Trek canon. Everything about Gamble was designed to endear and amuse.
He had an easy rapport with the senior staff and patients. His supervisor saw him as a son. He was a healer, a friend, and an enthusiastic newbie with stars in his eyes as he set out on his first away mission.
They gave him an opening POV monologue, for Pete’s sake! He was SO excited to be present at the opening of the shrine on Vadia IX, only to be immediately killed and possessed by the extra-dimensional Vezda entity.
To add insult to (fatal) injury, the Vezda rebuilt its body upon its escape from the Enterprise so it could continue to use its physical appearance to torture and coerce its friends and crewmates into complying with its demands.
RIP, Ensign Gamble, you deserved so much better.
Mitsuki Yamato – Invasion
(Courtesy of Apple TV+)
Exactly how many times do the writers need to kick the puppy-dog character?
Here’s a woman with a brilliant mind who loses the only person she’s ever loved during the aliens’ initial incursion and sets out to learn the truth about their arrival, offering her skills to help the World Defense Coalition (WDC).
But when they discover Mitsuki can communicate with the aliens, do they recognize how significant that is?
No. For her ability, the humans capture her, cut her open, and then hunt her when all she wants is to be left alone. When she finally overcomes all her misgivings about humanity to connect again with the aliens on behalf of Earth, what happens?
The aliens abduct her! Invasion Season 3 ends with everyone moving on with their lives, and Mitsuki is still gone.
Hub Halloran – The Bondsman
( Tina Rowden/Prime Video)
Okay, okay, nobody’s perfect, and Hub Halloran made some bad choices when he was alive. Really. Bad. Choices.
Whether that warranted being resurrected to serve as the Devil’s bounty hunter is debatable.
But the thing is: Hub followed through. He did his job and sent a whole whackload of escaped fallen angels back to Hell.
So he struck a deal with the last one, Lilith herself, to escape eternal servitude; who wouldn’t take that deal?
Unfortunately, despite it all, the loophole bites him in the arse when Lilith possesses the woman he loves, forcing him into a new indentured service to keep her safe from the Devil himself. Take about a raw deal.
Lucas Bouchard – When Calls the Heart
(Ricardo Hubbs/Hallmark)
I despise how isolated Lucas has become from the rest of Hope Valley. He spent so much time in the Capital City trying to create a National Park for future generations, but it felt like his friends didn’t appreciate him.
He initially became governor to better their town, but so many of them forgot about him.
Mike and Mei forgot that he and Edie were dining at the cafe, and they were served cold chicken. To add insult to injury, no one invited Lucas to the celebration when Allie and Oliver were found.
The series often forgets how fond he is of children and how they helped pave the way for the national park.
I hope that When Calls the Heart Season 13 integrates Lucas more into the community, because he deserves better.
Sam Maroun – Law & Order
(Will Hart/NBC)
There is so much left to delve into with Sam Maroun. Law & Order finally opened a can of worms when they found the man who raped and murdered her sister.
The series put her through the emotional wringer, accusing Sam of murder, and then having Sam still prosecute the case.
Law & Order needs to use Sam’s voice more, though. While Sam can be sympathetic to some of the suspects, many cases are not black-and-white.
I hate the cases when it seems like Sam is just there; I prefer it when the others hear her out.
She deserves to have a voice among the ADAs, or why is she on the show?
Fin Tutuola – Law & Order: SVU
(NBC/Virginia Sherwood)
Fin has been relegated to a background character for too long on Law & Order: SVU.
Unfortunately, Fin started off Law & Order Season 27 by briefly contemplating retirement, and probably wished he had when he was brutally attacked and had his gun stolen when he walked home from Cragen’s memorial.
He disappeared off-screen to recover, but even when he returned, Fin seemed skeptical of whether he was physically capable of returning.
Instead of seeing Olivia, Fin, and Amanda run the SVU like old times, it’s full of newbies, and no one knows NBC’s plans for Fin.
He’s been there since the beginning and deserves better.
Oliver Odell – The Hunting Party
(James Dittiger/NBC)
Oliver Odell was one of the least developed characters on NBC’s The Hunting Party.
We never learned how serious he and Bex were before he killed that man, or what motivated him to become a prison warden of serial killers.
It felt like he took that deal to give his life some purpose again. And he never knew how sinister things truly were down there.
Just as Oliver started to reform and prove to Bex that he wasn’t the same man, one of the serial killers poisoned him.
We won’t know until The Hunting Party Season 2 premiere whether Oliver survived, but he deserves better and needs a second chance to rebuild his family.
Jacob Nash – Brilliant Minds
(Pief Weyman/NBC)
We could write an entire post on why almost every character on Brilliant Minds deserves better.
We’ve ranted frequently about Dr. Wolf, so we’ll focus on Jacob and why he didn’t deserve to have his screen time slashed in half.
He’s one of the more layered interns, yet Brilliant Minds has barely explored his past with his father or the impact of his sports concussion on him.
While I hated that the interns weren’t together, seeing Dr. Thorne mentor Jacob would have been worth it, but those scenes were few and far between.
He was used in medical scenes, but anything personal, except for a few scenes with Ericka, has been cut so far.
Jacob deserves so much more than that and his own arc.
Which character do you think deserves better? Vote in our poll and comment below with your thoughts.
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