So recently Ryan sent me his top 25 tv villains. I made up my own list of favorites, but on further review I decided some characters I was considering weren't clearly villains, or villainous enough. I decided some were too campy to actually be villainous (Princess Ardala on Buck Rogers, Tomax and Xamot on GI Joe, and Ares on Xena), some were too ambiguous (Number 6 and Ben Linus), some had too many nice moments of kindness even if they were evil (Mr. Burns), some rarely implemented evil even if they were generally nasty (Newman), and some turned into heroes (Andrew Wells). When all was said and done I'd knocked my original list down quite a bit. Now it's quite possible I'm forgetting some characters I really liked, but at present I'd rate the following as my 15 favorite tv villains:
Alex Krycek from The X-Files, Bebe from Frasier, Cartman from South Park, Mr. Morden from Babylon 5, Baltar from Battlestar Galactica, Sylar from Heroes, Nicole Julian from Popular, Drusilla and Glory from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation, George Williams and Andrew Van De Kamp from Desperate Housewives, The Weeping Angels from Doctor Who, Bob from Twin Peaks, and Lucas Buck from the short-lived American Gothic
Are there any others you'd throw into the mix? I'm sure some of you would have quite different picks. And hey, I could be forgetting several tv shows.
Posted by armand at July 16, 2008 11:19 AM | TrackBack | Posted to CultureSee, I think that Q and Andrew Van de Kamp and kind of too ambiguous myself. But I might be thinking of a more voyager Q and forgetting the old Q that didn't just provide comic relief. And Andrew's pretty much redeemed himself into boring. But I'll definitely agree with the statements about Ben Linus and Number 6.
The bad guy from the first season of Dexter (assuming you don't count Dexter as one) was pretty good, and the paramour qua destructive force from the second was pretty fantastically rough, too.
The Sopranos had some pretty bad guys, too -- Richie Aprile, Phil Leotardo.
I don't know if any of these fit what you had in mind, but they get my vote.
Posted by: moon at July 16, 2008 02:14 PM | PERMALINKNew Baltar - always new Baltar - can never get enough of new Baltar. Ever.
Posted by: Armand at July 16, 2008 02:20 PM | PERMALINKWell I never watched Voyager. On TNG Q was funny, but quite happy to murder multitudes if it came to that. As to Andrew, I haven't watched the last season, so I can't say if my views would've changed - but that's said to hear. He was fun when he was bad.
I'm also one of those provincial types who has yet to watch Dexter (I know, I know) and a heretic who never got into The Sopranos (I know, I know).
Posted by: Armand at July 16, 2008 02:35 PM | PERMALINKneither dexter nor the sopranos is for everyone. but knowing you personally, i'd honestly say that you really ought to rent a disc or two of dexter s1. i'd be pretty surprised if you didn't take to it immediately.
Posted by: moon at July 17, 2008 05:44 PM | PERMALINKDexter's in the queue. I know many who like it and who think I'd like it. The problem is that other stuff keeps jumping ahead of it in the queue (at the moment 30 Rock and Undeclared).
Posted by: Armand at July 17, 2008 08:35 PM | PERMALINKI've gotta say if there's a creepy villain in BSG as of the mid season break, I vote for Leoben. He's crazy stalker to the millionth power.
Posted by: Morris at July 17, 2008 10:33 PM | PERMALINK