The Most Annoying Sci-Fi Characters In History

The Walking Dead didn’t become a hit right out of the gate because of its strong character development, which came in later seasons, but those first few seasons are, especially in retrospect, incredibly hard to sit through. Carl Grimes, the whiny pre-teen who doesn’t seem to understand he’s in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, given how often he’s complaining, is easily one of sci-fi’s most annoying characters.

This is a bit of a shame, as Carl from the original comics also has trouble adjusting to his new life, but thanks to Robert Kirkman’s writing, it’s far more believable. There’s also nothing wrong with Chandler Riggs’s performance as Carl since he wasn’t writing those lines of dialogue that made viewers cringe.

Carl does get better as The Walking Dead goes along, but he’s still responsible for Dale’s death, and that can’t be forgiven.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a nearly perfect movie, but John Connor marks the film as a product of its time. In the 90s, there was a push to insert kids into everything, even adult franchises, to try and appeal to a broader market. Of course, this was also the era of being “Extreme” and “too cool for school” era, during which kids were portrayed as juvenile delinquents. On the one hand, it makes sense that John would be acting out as a young kid living in a foster home, but on the other, he’s an annoying character.

The future savior of humanity did not start out as a paragon of virtue is great and all, but audiences were subjected to temper tantrums, and every adult watching the film was immediately repulsed by his behavior. Edward Furlong, making his film debut, did fine with what he was given, and in fact, he’s so annoying that he knocked this one right out of the park.

What made Lost a hit was the mystery surrounding the island and not the incredible character work, but no one is a case of wasted potential like Kate. Played by Evangeline Lilly, who also hates her performance and has said that she cringes watching the first few seasons, Kate should have been a force of nature on the island. A reformed criminal who finds purpose in helping others is an amazing character arc, but that’s not what we saw throughout the series.

Instead, Kate, without changing her facial expression, spends the entire run of Lost simply reacting to the plots of other characters, from Jack to Sawyer and even the Man in Black. Again, there’s a trend with these annoying characters of being let down by the writers, and that’s exactly what happened here as no one knew how the show would end, so how could they craft a satisfying character arc?

It’s impossible to call out any one character from Under the Dome as the most annoying character, as this time, everyone is equal. From Junior, who starts out by kidnapping Angie and keeping her in a bunker, to Big Jim’s need to be in complete control at all times as the world’s most ineffectual tyrant. Everyone is less a character and more a machine for bland exposition.

The bifurcated cow from the first episode has more personality than most of the residents of Chester Mills.

There is not one redeeming character in Under the Dome, as everyone has their turn with the idiot ball and becomes the most annoying character on television at least once an episode. Julia, an investigative reporter, is terrifyingly easy to con as she misses everything, and even what should have been a fun character, that of the Reverand/Mortician, is reduced to a single corrupt note.

Pound for pound, you’d be hard-pressed to find a less annoying sci-fi show in existence, as even Homeboys in Outer Space is better than this.

Andrea is still, even though she didn’t make it to the end, the most annoying character in the history of The Walking Dead. Even worse than Carl. Impulsive, manipulative, willing to use guilt to get what she wants, and ultimately self-serving, Andrea didn’t make a bad decision she couldn’t somehow make worse.

The most frustrating part about this is that, again, in The Walking Dead comics, Andrea is an amazing character who develops sniper skills so refined that she saves Rick’s life on multiple occasions. The version we got on television can’t spell “sniper.”

Given how Laurie Holden has won awards for her work in other projects, from Due South to The Americans, we can’t hold her work on The Walking Dead against her. But seriously, Season 3 is nearly impossible to re-watch and it’s almost entirely thanks to Andrea.

The Star Wars prequels have gone through a cultural examination brought on by those who saw them as kids. That said, Anakin Skywalker is both one of the greatest villains in history and one of the most annoying characters of all time. We can forgive Jake Lloyd’s performance in The Phantom Menace as he was a kid, and honestly, he shouldn’t have been put in that horrible of a situation to begin with.

And by a horrible situation, we mean reciting dialogue written by George Lucas.

Instead, the later prequels brought us grown Anakin, played by Little Italy’s Hayden Christensen, who has managed to redeem his role thanks to Ahsoka. A little bit. His part of it has been redeemed, at least. Anakin is still a very annoying character based on, well, killing children for one, turning to the Dark Side that easily for another, and coming across as more whiny than The Walking Dead’s Carl during his arguments with Obi-Wan.

And let’s not get started with his feelings on sand.

It’s obvious why Jurassic Park includes John Hammond’s grandkids; after all, it’s a movie about dinosaurs, and kids are going to see it, so give them kids on the big screen. Again, we come across the usual issue with the most annoying characters in that the child stars can’t truly be blamed. Ariana Richards may have stepped away from acting, but Joe Mazzello is still going today, and after seeing him in Justified, we know he can act.

The real problem with the kids from Jurassic Park is that they don’t act like actual kids and, instead, are bad decision machines that serve to frustrate the audience. Yes, it adds drama and tension, but it’s hard to watch them and not shout out how they are making the wrong choice every single time. Who turns on a megawatt flashlight when a T-Rex is dozens of feet away from them? Who does that?

Annoying sci-fi characters aren’t a new phenomenon; for example, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, a throwback to old sci-fi serials, still included Twiki. An “ambuquad” (which roughly stands for Ambulatory Transportation for their QuAd Superiors, and even that’s annoying), Twiki served as the comic relief but committed the fatal sin of not being actually funny. This is made even worse when you learn that’s the legendary Mel Blanc (the voice of Porky Pig and hundreds of others) saying “bigiddy bigiddy bigiddy” in every…single….scene.

Twiki learned Buck Roger’s sense of humor, so the robot would try to emulate it with out-of-place phrases like “Gimme five” or “tweaking.” Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is one of the least serious sci-fi shows ever made, but even then, the awkward “humor” of Twiki has no place in any century.

Which, again, is a bit of a shame because as time has gone on, the retro-future design of Twiki stands out as remarkably inelegant in all the best ways.

Even Wil Wheaton thinks Wesley Crusher is one of the most annoying characters of all time, and he’s certainly the worst offender in the entire Star Trek franchise. Wesley is especially annoying in the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with “The Battle” cited by Wheaton himself as the episode that turned everyone against his precocious kid genius. The simple “Heh…adults” line reading was so out of place and so off-putting that Wesley’s popularity never recovered.

There’s a reason that fans have made supercuts featuring every time Captain Picard said, “Shut up, Wesley!”

Wesley Crusher was so annoying that he became an annoying character shorthand for a “sci-fi kid sidekick no one likes.” Just as “jump the shark” has entered pop culture, so too did “Wesley,” and even decades after The Next Generation went off the air, fan hatred has yet to die down.

Right off the bat, yes, Ruby Rhod is supposed to be annoying, and to that end, Chris Tucker did a fantastic job bringing the intergalactic radio host to life. If, for some reason, The Fifth Element is ever remade, Ruby Rhod would be a podcaster hawking supplements and multi-level marketing schemes. What would be the same, and would ensure that he’s still one of the most annoying sci-fi characters of all time, is that he’d be loud, brash, and painfully unfunny.

Again, that’s all on purpose, but Ruby Rhod still makes us cringe. Chris Tucker’s rapid-fire delivery was perfected a few years later in Rush Hour, but as Rhod, instead of a joke-a-minute, it feels like being pummeled into submission. Allegedly, Prince was director Luc Besson’s first choice to play Ruby Rhod, and we can’t even imagine how that would have looked.

In the end, just because a character is supposed to be annoying doesn’t mean we have to like them.