The Friend Nobody Likes / Live-Action TV

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• The Adventures of Pete & Pete: Wayne "The Pain" Pardue is an annoying, delusional, clumsy, loud acquaintance, of whom Little Pete's posse can't seem to rid themselves. At least once the other kids suggest killing Wayne when his clumsiness threatens their plans yet again. He also creeps on Monica at the school dance.
• 'Allo 'Allo!: Captain Alberto Bertorelli is this among the various officers of the Axis in Nouvion. He is the only Italian officer in a guard mostly consisting of Germans, and most of them already had a very poor opinion about the Italians. His Casanova Wannabe tendencies, his cowardice, and his habit of treating work colleagues as if they were his buddies quickly lead to him being despised by all his supposed allies. They habitually use ethnic slurs when talking about him, and they conspire to get rid of him.
• Angel: In Season 5, this is the role that Spike settles into when he finally decides to stick around. There are several gags where Angel refuses to put anyone important in danger — and then quickly agrees to send Spike.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Sheldon Cooper. It's lampshaded several times, like in a Season 5 episode where, after Sheldon stops being friends with Leonard, the group — minus Amy — stops hanging out with him. Even Amy sometimes lacks the patience to pamper him and chauffeur him around the way he expects of Leonard. As for why he's this, well:
    • Seniority: The guys have known Sheldon for a long time and are aware that the chances of him finding other friends are pretty low.
    • Proximity: Sheldon and Leonard are roommates. Therefore, wherever Leonard goes, Sheldon usually goes. And wherever Sheldon wants to go, Leonard has to take him because Sheldon doesn't drive. Plus, he, Leonard, Raj, and Howard all work at the same place and Penny lives across the hall from Leonard and Sheldon. As for Raj and Howard, they've implied that they (initially at least) mainly just tolerate Sheldon because of their friendship with Leonard.
      Penny: How did Sheldon get new friends in the first place?
      Howard: [shrug] We liked Leonard.
    • Necessity: Despite all his quirks, Sheldon is a genius with an alleged 187 IQ and an eidetic memory. There are a few episodes where the other guys and gals take advantage of Sheldon's vast knowledge for their own needs, such as Penny using his marketing knowledge to launch her own hair accessories business or the other guys needing him for various work projects with which they are tasked.
    • Fear/Goodwill: Since it is nigh impossible to reason with Sheldon, nine times out of ten the others end up caving to his whims about whatever's happening (and the one time out of ten that they don't cave in, Sheldon usually gets his way in the end anyway). It doesn't help that Sheldon has occasionally shown the desire to harm or kill those who cross him. Leonard even said once that Sheldon is "one lab accident away from being a supervillain." Which leads to...
    • Supervision: Genius-level intellect aside, Sheldon is pretty much an overgrown child who has No Social Skills, little empathy, trouble identifying irony and sarcasm, and a total inability to understand why anyone would find anything he says or does to be inappropriate, offensive or wrong. Therefore, the others, usually Leonard, Penny, or Amy, have to prevent him from doing something reckless or illegal, or get him out of trouble when he does.
    • Audience Popularity: It's easy to forget that Leonard is supposed to be the protagonist of the show, as Sheldon is the Breakout Character.
    • Caring: Sheldon really does care about his friends and vice-versa.
  • Howard is a downplayed example in early seasons. He gets along just fine with Raj (his best friend) and with Leonard, although sometimes they make fun of him, like all of them tease each other. However, for different reasons, both Sheldon and Penny strongly dislike him and are very vocal about it (in Sheldon's case, the dislike is mutual). Sheldon even said that everyone in the group (including Penny) is his friend, except Howard who is just an acquaintance. Penny tolerates him more in later seasons after he stops being a pervert, but Sheldon is still dismissive.
  • Amy was this at first in her trio with Penny and Bernadette, it becomes a plot point in one episode when Amy gets upset because the girls go shopping without her. She seems to mostly grow out of it as the three of them become better friends, and Amy even grew closer to Bernadette (even though she considers Penny her best friend). In one of the later episodes, we actually find her and Bernadette ditching Penny and hanging out together so they can have more intellectual conversations.
• Blake's 7: Vila Restal, specifically during the fourth season. It was hard for him after the loss of Blake, Gan, and the most devastating blow being the death of Cally. On the other hand, Tarrant regularly bullied him, Dayna and Soolin both regarded him as a total dork, and of course, we all know what Avon thinks of him.
• The Brittas Empire:
  • Gordon Brittas is a Pointy-Haired Boss who has a nasty habit of offending people and causing chaos, albeit unintentionally. As such, the only members of staff who even respect him are Colin, Linda, and Laura, with the latter two still having their moments of exasperation with him. Tellingly, when he is thought dead in "Back from the Dead", not even Colin seemed that bothered that he's seemingly gone. That said, this aspect is downplayed as the show goes on as the staff comes to understand that he's never truly malicious with his actions, and his actual (albeit temporary) death in the later "The Last Day" is treated with sadness by everyone.
  • Penny, the new sauna/solarium manager introduced in Series 6, is a rather arrogant blonde who frequently clashes with the staff over Brittas' decisions. As such, the only person who liked her in any capacity by the end of her only series was Helen - even Colin, one of the kinder members of staff, once hoped that she would be arrested after an incident involving a marker pen in "A Walk on the Wildside" and Brittas would frequently show exasperation with her.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Spike from seasons 5-7. Justifiably, he was considered largely untrustworthy to everyone besides Buffy and Dawn (and occasionally Willow showed him some kindness), even after he acquired his soul. Eventually subverted in the comics, in which he becomes fully integrated into the Scoobies friend group, becoming Vitriolic Best Buds and roommates with Xander, as well as getting back together with Buffy with the encouragement of nearly every Scoobie.
  • For most of her time on the show Anya was, in-universe, the least popular member of the Scoobies (Spike was even less popular, but for most of his time in the show, he wasn't seen as a friend at all, just an, at best, untrustworthy ally.) Willow particularly disliked Anya, but Dawn found her irritating, and even Buffy and Giles could get tired of her quickly. Only Tara (who was friends with everyone and whom Anya had as a bridesmaid at her wedding) and Xander (who was dating her and the one who brought her into the gang to begin with) were consistently friendly. It is quite telling that no one bothered to check in on Anya after Xander dumped her at the altar until she became a Vengeance Demon again.
  • Andrew, who sticks around the Scoobies from season 7 onward but is kept at an arm's distance for most of it. Again, justifiably, as his discretions didn't even have the excuse of having no soul at the time. By season 10, he attempts to resurrect Tara in an effort to help make up for his sins towards the group. After which, he is forgiven and accepted fully into the group.
• Candy (2022): Before a church service, Betty comes up to a group of women to propose they organize a children's choir but none of them are very enthusiastic. Candy appeases her with a "We'll think about it." After Betty walks off, one says out loud, "Ugh. Sweet Betty of Perpetual Distress". When Candy calls her out about it, she's all, "What? I said she was sweet," but can't keep a straight face.
• Cheers:
  • Depending on the Writer, Cliff. In many episodes, it's just Carla who hates him but in others, it seems like no one can stand his presence, and even Norm just barely puts up with him.
  • This is actually referenced in the Frasier episode “The Show Where Sam Comes Back”. In it, when Sam updates Frasier on the events at Cheers since he left, he mentions that Cliff hasn’t been around since he heard about a new bacteria in beer, but that on the other hand, a lot of old customers have been coming back around, indicating that the latter of the two points mentioned above is true.
  • Diane had very strained relations with the gang sometimes. Again, Carla disliked her more than most, and that might have been partly due to envy over Diane's relationship with Sam, but Diane didn't have a lot of true allies at the bar. The only exception was Coach, with whom Diane had a surrogate father-daughter relationship. (This one has a Reality Subtext: nobody in the cast liked Shelley Long except for Nicholas Colasanto; he died midway through Season 3, leaving her without allies and probably contributing to her decision to leave the show at the end of the fifth season.)
• Community: Pierce. He is the least-likeable member of the study group, and everyone (including him) usually knows it.
  • In some early episodes, he is insecure about his unpopularity, Just Wants to Have Friends, and concocts various schemes to convince the others he is cool. These ill-conceived efforts mostly go wrong and only make him more obnoxious.
  • Later, he mostly accepts this role, and even enjoys the chance to be antagonistic or play the Token Evil Teammate when a need arises.
  • In "The Art of Discourse" The group is so upset they kick him out. In his absence, his necessity is revealed. Abed, Genre Savvy as ever, notices that without Pierce around to be the obvious target, the role of Butt-Monkey is falling to everyone else, and the group is fighting for petty reasons. They eventually realize They Want Their Jerk Back.
  • After Pierce dies after season 4, the role falls to Ben Chang.
  • Britta increasingly rivals Pierce for this role as everyone in the group gets more and more tired of her loudmouth Know-Nothing Know-It-All antics. They even start using her name as a verb meaning "to ruin something". Ultimately downplayed, since she still tends to be on relatively good terms with everyone else in spite of this and, unlike Pierce, her status as a member of the group is never once called into question.
• Corner Gas: There are times when each of the main characters exhibit this trope, but it's a small town, and most of them have known the others for most of their lives. However, there are two characters that rise above the others:
  • Hank is often mooching off the others, and seems to rarely repay debts. He misunderstands basic instructions and conversations, and has half baked, at best, ideas. But he grew up with Brent and Wanda.
  • Oscar personifies "old man yells at clouds", he sees conspiracy and collusion everywhere, and calls everyone "Jackass", when they disagree or try to correct him. But he has lived in Dog River all his life, and while he frustrates her greatly, his wife Emma does love him. And he is Brent's dad.
• Cougar Town:
  • Tom, who lives on the other side of Jules from Ellie. He's incredibly creepy — him walking up to a table at a crowded restaurant and asking for sugar will make everyone flee. The group tolerates him because he's a neighbor and also because he'll do anything they ask.
  • Holly is almost this. Holly is only around because she's Grayson's baby mama. Laurie likes her because they were already good friends, and Travis likes her because she's hot and they made out once, but no one else likes her and Jules outright despises her. But she's Tampa Jill's mother, so...
• Coupling: Jane. The other five characters were connected fairly well. Jeff was good buddies with Steve, who became good friends with Patrick, who was Amicable Exes with Susan (who was dating Steve and co-workers with Jeff), whose best friend was Sally. Jane was Steve's ex, but they were far from amicable; in fact, Steve would be happy if he never saw her again. Patrick and Jeff were mostly indifferent to her (although Jeff did develop feelings for her later, and Patrick slept with her once, as he did every other bipedal female in London), and the girls weren't especially fond of her (Susan kept comparing herself and her relationship with Steve to her, and Sally just found her annoying). The only real reason she was still around was that she was so self-obsessed she honestly didn't know how much everyone else disliked her.
• Derry Girls: James isn't really well-liked by any of the girls... or anyone else in Derry for that matter. It's mostly because he's an Englishman in a very not-English-friendly town.
• A Different World: Whitley Gilbert from Season 2 on; she's made the protagonist following Denise's departure and due to her being someone's roommate or being in charge of something on campus (not to mention Dwayne Wayne's girlfriend), she's not going anywhere... at least until the series finale.
• Doctor Who: Fifth Doctor companion Vislor Turlough. Even after he rejected the Black Guardian's mission to kill the Doctor, he was still a bit of a self-serving jerkass. Tegan was still more than a bit wary around him and The Doctor was aware that a leopard doesn't change spots overnight.
• Family Matters: Most of the Winslow family are annoyed by Steve Urkel (particularly in the early seasons), who comes over to their house all the time, and later moves in. By the final season, they have, for the most part, warmed up to him, however. Other characters like Waldo, 3J, and Lieutenant Murtaugh generally get along with him, while Weasel, Rodney, and Penny despise him. Myra, however, outright loves him, to the point of stalking.
• Farscape: There must always be one. Rygel is the original, followed by Jool (when he stops being such a chronic traitor), and finally Sikozou, who serves as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Jool.
• In The Ferals, it is made repeatedly clear that the main reason anyone tolerates Joe is that he is their landlord. The Ferals each have their moments where at least one of them annoys the others, and on occasion, all four Ferals have angered their human associates, but Joe is the one most regularly the victim of the events that befall the group because his arrogance lands him in trouble and nobody cared enough to help him earlier.
• Firefly: Jayne Cobb, to the point where the others don't even bother with the "wait until they're out of the room" part. When the crew is discussing what to do with River, a mentally unstable girl who may or may not be a living weapon, Zoe says she's never hurt anyone. When Jayne points out she sliced him in the chest with a butcher knife without provocation, Zoe amends it to "anyone we can't spare." He remains on the ship because he gets money, and they keep him because he's good with weapons and usually doesn't sell them out.
• Seth from For the People is the least popular lawyer on the Prosecutor's side because he lost his first case thanks to it being against his girlfriend Allison.
• Fresh Meat: JP is this. Though the others warm to him a little over the course of the series, he remains a source of constant annoyance.
  JP: Oh, my God, am I the posh one you all secretly hate?
• Janice in Friends is loathed by everyone, even Chandler who dates her sometimes. Between her Big "OMG!", Annoying Laugh, and her tendency to insert herself into the group whenever they're doing something, the friends are generally annoyed and they outright ask Chandler why he's even dating her. While Chandler usually can't stand her, he genuinely falls in love with Janice in season 3, though they eventually break up, and she only makes guest appearances Once a Season afterwards.
• Full House has two examples, both by Proximity.
  • Kimmy. She and DJ are best friends, and Kimmy is also their next-door neighbor, so DJ's family members tolerate Kimmy the best they can, though they won't hesitate to snark at her when they see fit, which occurs a lot as she's also a Drop-In Character. This does eventually grow into Caring, however, as demonstrated by the episode in which they scramble to throw Kimmy a surprise birthday party.
  • Aaron is a classmate of Michelle's, so he's around whether Michelle and the other classmates like it or not. He's eventually accepted into Michelle's social circle and becomes a friend as well, though it doesn't stop him from being a Mouthy Kid.
• The Girl From Plain Ville: Cassie and Natalie testify about their relationship with Michelle at her trial. In their testimony, Michelle comes across as desperate for their friendship, needy, and grateful for the smallest crumbs of their attention. In Cassie's case, it is clear that it was a "school" friendship and she was not interested in hanging out with Michelle outside of class.
• Glee: Rachel and Santana were kept around for their musical talent, not their personalities, though they did eventually warm up to everyone else by graduation.
  • No one seems to like Jesse, other than Rachel, when he joins New Directions since most people think he's a spy. This carries over to when he becomes an advisor despite him having legitimate constructive criticism for them.
• Gotham: Despite Edward Nygma's skill as a forensic analyst, most of the GCPD can't stand him, due to his insistence on speaking in riddles and excessive interest in some of the morbid cases they have to handle, and often ignore him, shoo him away, or even actively belittle him - in one episode, Harvey Bullock makes a joke about throwing Ed off a roof while he's standing right there. Small wonder he ends up snapping and becoming the Riddler.
• Henry Danger: Piper becomes this to Narlee and her gang toward the beginning of "JAM Session". The girls flee for a weekend ski trip without Piper, and Narlee sends Piper a videochat reminding her that while they are friends, they don't like being around her because of her bad temper and anger issues. This causes Piper to break down in tears and Henry decides to sign her up for Junior Anger Management to help control her temper.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Barney. This is actually the topic of an entire first season episode, where Ted tries to recall exactly why they were friends with him. He concluded that it was because the zany antics that Barney invariably got them into tended to make life entertaining. This trope is played straight especially in earlier seasons as most of the characters admit to having a "Barney Limit." When Barney slept with Robin, Ted explained his anger at Barney isn't simply that he slept with his ex, but that he assumed that if Barney had any sort of "limits," it would have been anything regarding him. It isn't until after they reconcile that Barney starts being treated more as a real friend and less of a nuisance.
    Lily, to Robin: If you moved away, I'd have to follow you. Then Marshall would follow me, and Ted would follow Marshall. The only upside is that we might lose Barney.
  • Ted's old friend Adam "Punchy" Punciarello and ex-girlfriend Karen aren't well-liked by the gang, either, as Punchy is a jackass who makes fun of Ted and punches him in the arm repeatedly, and Karen was a stuck-up snob who frequently disparaged Marshall and Lily, and would constantly cheat on Ted. It tends to be more that Ted reverts to his high school self when around Punchy and the worst part of his college self around Karen. Punchy actually travelled from Ohio to New York when a phone call gave him the impression that Ted needed a friend. Karen was pretty terrible, however.
• iCarly: For Freddie and Gibby and anyone else who might be friends with Carly, Sam is this through Seniority, Fear, and Audience Popularity.
• Impractical Jokers Murr is the Butt-Monkey of the group who is always picked on by the other guys and his punishments are noticeably more brutal than everyone else's (though Sal is a very close second). Sal seems to be the one who likes Murr the least since they always quarrel with each other in group challenges and it's even implied in one episode that he probably wouldn't be friends with Murr were it not for Joe and Q. But Murr is kept around due to seniority (they've known each other since high school), proximity (he was Joe's roommate for a while), and because they really do care.
  Joe: I can't stand Murray. I love him — doesn't mean I can stand him.
• The Inbetweeners:
  • Almost every episode or situation has one of the four lads being this: Will for being too geeky and an annoying newcomer to the group; Simon for obsessing with Carli at inappropriate times, often being a "hos before bros" kind of guy; Jay for just being a Jerkass who is bullshitting the others with made-up sex stories; Neil for being too stupid to understand basically everything. In general, Will and Jay are the worst offenders. The reason they are hanging out is, exactly, that they are all "in-betweeners": They seem to be the only students at the school who are neither complete losers nor popular or socially adept, so they only have each other.
  • Jay tends to be the biggest Jerkass and liar of the group, but is still childhood friends with Simon, making it an example of seniority.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
  • While The Gang as a whole are all-around awful people, especially to each other, Dee in particular is mocked the most, whether it be for her looks or being "The Useless Chick" of the group. Deconstructed in "The Gang Broke Dee" — she becomes depressed and more insecure to the point where she preemptively mocks herself. A dark Reconstruction later occurs when it's revealed the gang planned to show her things could be worse by making things even worse, and she goes back to her normal angry self. However, a later episode reveals that Charlie actually values their friendship and doesn't like mocking her. He just does it to stay in Dennis and Mac's good graces. Then a later episode from that revealed that she took advantage of Charlie's feelings toward her to rape him, so even that relationship is twisted and horrific by now.
  • Mac becomes this in "Mac Day" because of his frequent attempts to prove that he's straight despite being in a Transparent Closet, his intolerance of other religions and his own sexual orientation, and pretending he's a badass despite being a cowardly and unskilled fighter. He was mainly this because of comparisons to his cousin, Country Mac; normally, the group can tolerate him, but Country Mac threw his problems into sharp relief.
  • Frank showed up out of the blue in Season 2 and decided he wanted to join the gang, everyone (except Charlie) was against this so he bought half of the bar out from under them. Over time they warmed to him but later seasons show they're still ready to jump on any opportunity to get rid of him and are overjoyed at the prospect of his retiring. In general, the reason they keep Frank around is a mixture of Seniority (Frank is Dennis and Dee's legal father), Necessity (Frank's "seemingly limitless wealth" bankrolls the Gang's absurd schemes and actual bar-running), and Fear (Frank is a scarily-competent fighter who always carries a gun and is more than unhinged enough to use it).
  • Overall, each member of the Gang has fallen under this at some point. Each of them has had at least one episode where they are kicked out of, quit, or are replaced with someone else in the Gang. Reactions range from apathy to outright cheering when it occurs.
• It's Awfully Bad for Your Eyes, Darling...: Samantha, Pudding, and Clover aren't too fond of Virginia, finding her bossy, demanding, and just not fun to be around:
  Virginia: But you know we're not allowed pets or other nuisances here. It's in the lease, "No pets or other nuisances".
  Clover: Can't think why they let you live here, then.
• Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger has Noel Takao, AKA: Lupin X and Patren X, the series's resident Sixth Ranger for both rival sentai teams. While he acts friendly and chummy with both teams, neither one fully trusts him due to his nature as a Wild Card: the Lupinrangers can't abide a potential rival thief who knows their secret identities, and the Patrangers suspect him of being a mole but cannot act on that suspicion due to his undercover work.
• Mirabelle of The Kicks. She's outright called "mean", "scary", and "annoying", but her teammates still consider her a friend (it helps that she's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold).
• Phil Tandy Miller in early episodes of The Last Man on Earth is tolerated at best by the group. And no one is hesitant to tell him just how completely insufferable he is, and that none of them would spend a second with him if the world hadn't ended. As the show progresses, Phil experiences some Character Development and becomes the de facto leader of the group.
• Last of the Summer Wine:
  • Foggy is definitely this most of the time. He's bossy, delusional, pompous, and hypocritical, and unlike the likes of Blamire, Seymour, and Truly, seems to have no sense of humor most of the time
    Compo: [about Foggy] Nice fella. Nobody likes him.
  • Howard, who is constantly badgering Clegg to be the go-between for him and Marina — the woman he's cheating on his domineering wife with. Not to mention he's misogynistic, whiny, cowardly, and always ready to leave Clegg holding the bag if they're ever caught. Even Foggy finds him annoying, and the trio is always willing to drop Howard in his own mess in return.
• On Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Carisi was this way in his first couple seasons, owing to his abrasive personality and over-enthusiasm. He mellows, eventually becoming an ADA.
  • Deconstructed with Stuckley. He’s competent, but he has little quirks which really gets to the others and they show their disdain for him. When he ends up blowing an Open-and-Shut Case due to how he labeled evidence, they rip into him and he ultimately snaps, becoming a Vigilante Man.
• The League of Gentlemen: Geoff Tipps. He has a Hair-Trigger Temper, Cannot Tell a Joke, and gives a magnificently horrid Bitter Wedding Speech at his supposed best friend's wedding.
• Mimpi Metropolitan: Everyone in the dorm finds Alexi annoying to varying degrees, but they all put up with him anyway since they can't get rid of him. He's a paying resident and a valuable celebrity for Bybyr Agency after all.
• Misfits: Although you could argue that most of the main characters are this to some extent (they're a bunch of kids on community service, so they have literally no choice but to spend time together), Nathan is the one who causes the most flinching and eye-rolling among the others, due to his loud personality and anti-social behavior.
• My Name Is Earl:
  • Ralph Mariano becomes this after Earl's Heel–Face Turn. He is a worthless thug whose shenanigans usually interfere with Earl crossing things off his list. He also makes it no secret that he wishes Earl was bad again (since Earl was essentially Ralph's mentor when they were kids). He tried to follow Earl's lead by going legit but a few hours and a non-winning lotto ticket later, he gives up on it and attempts to rob Earl (and fails). His Karma Houdini status in Season 3 causes Earl to temporarily give up on karma and go back to being bad. However, Earl punches out Ralph at the end of the episode and he's never seen again after that, implying that Earl finally cut things off with him.
  • An early episode centered around Philo, a suicidal man who was on Earl's list because Earl had previously stolen gas from him. Philo forgives him, but after witnessing a few suicide attempts, Earl sticks around to try and give Philo a reason to live. Only problem is that Philo is rather homely, rude, and boring, annoying Earl, Randy, and everyone else to no end. However, at the end of the episode, Philo no longer wishes to kill himself because he views Earl and Randy as his friends and invites them to hang out. Despite admitting (behind his back) that they don't like him, Earl and Randy agree to spend time with him regardless, since they feel a sense of obligation to a man who decided to live because of them. Philo is never seen after this episode, so it's likely that they did eventually ditch him.
• The Nanny: C.C. Babcock. Apart from her business partner Maxwell, nobody in the Sheffield household particularly likes her — especially Niles, whose frequent verbal sparring with her is one of the funniest aspects of the show. This gets turned on its head in the last season — C.C. and Niles find themselves falling for one another and actually marry in the finale.
• Penelope from No Appointment Necessary (1977) seems to have problems with everyone working at Hair a Go-Go, as her efforts to raise business gets on their nerves.
• The Office (US): There are several characters who aren't that well-liked by their coworkers at the titular office for varying reasons:
  • Michael, the regional manager and highest authority in the workplace, isn't liked by the others for his antics, offensive behavior, emotional neediness that leads him to try and befriend his employees, and generally unprofessional conduct. However, he doesn't get shunned for his antics as much as others, because the workers know he isn't trying to offend them and is just horribly socially incompetent rather than malicious. Notably, they'll actually join in on some of Michael's stunts of their own free will and typically treat him better if he isn't trying too hard to win them over.
  • Dwight's the biggest case because he's power-hungry, prone to paranoia, has a disproportionate opinion of himself in relation to his actual capabilities, lets what power he does get go right to his head, and is a Yes-Man to whomever he thinks will get him more authority over others. Even Michael tries to avoid him if he can, and the only things to close friends or at least frenemies he has at the office are Pam and Jim, who pranks Dwight nonstop and succeeds because no one wants to tip him off because of his behavior.
  • Andy falls even lower than Dwight at times because of his ego and bizarre behavior, while lacking the salesman acumen that Michael and Dwight have.
  • Ryan's a Jerkass with an ego who actively disdains everyone around him. The only people that actually want to be anywhere near him are Kelly (who dated him for some time and still holds romantic interest in him) and Michael (who has a man crush on him), but even they eventually get fed up with his behavior. He only still has a job at the office because Michael was able to negotiate a deal with Dunder-Mifflin to get him hired back after being fired. It speaks volumes that David Wallace, who shows almost endless patience with and respect towards Michael, openly disdains Ryan.
• On My Block has Jasmine, a loud, extroverted, and at times crude classmate of the main characters. They only hang out with her when they can't get rid of her. She has a crush on Ruby, but he wants nothing to do with her.
• Once Upon a Time has the following:
  • Regina, the former Big Bad of the series, who's kept around mostly because of Proximity due to being Henry's adoptive mother, and due to Control on the part of Emma, who only knew her as Mayor Mills, a mostly harmless, if corrupt, manipulative, and jealous woman, not a mass-murdering dictator.
  • Rumplestiltskin is an Evil Sorcerer who's mostly kept around because he's a lot more controllable than the other villains, given that he's pretty reasonable to anyone (unless you happen to hurt Belle or make a deal with him). In fact, given the choice between saving him and Cora, the entire group actively chose him. Unlike Regina, he takes a while to claw out of this position, with the group only barely accepting him after he kills his own mother, which wasn't even a particularly selfless act. His full redemption only kicks in during Season 7.
  • Zelena possibly has it worse. She was kept around in Season 5 mostly due to being pregnant with Robin's baby, and after that, solely because she happened to be the one who knew Hades' secret. Even in Season 6, after she's considered at the very least neutral if not reformed, Regina still blames her for an admittedly small part in Robin Hood's death, resulting in a lot of tension; the Charmings don't even bother with her, for the most part. In Season 7, she's still shown to be relatively isolated and close to only her adult daughter Robin, as Regina, the sister she still has a tenuous relationship with, and Belle, her only friend, wandered off to the New Enchanted Forest and left her alone in Storybrooke. She develops a strangely endearing friendship with the Wish Realm version of Hook, eventually. It's quite telling that her happy ending instead of consisting of being a part of the Charmings' family, is instead to create her own family with a loving, non-fairy tale husband in San Francisco.
• Jerry from Parks and Recreation is the office Butt-Monkey, usually for no apparent reason. The only three people who treat him with genuine kindness and even friendship are Leslie, Ben, and Donna. The former two were the only ones who attended his funeral during the Grand Finale. Donna also ensured that he would be known by his actual name, Garry, by labeling his place at her wedding with it.
• Piece Of Cake is a World War 2 series about British fighter pilots. Moggy is a sociopathic bully that the rest of the characters would love to be rid of. However, he is also a hell of a pilot and keeps coming back from missions while other characters keep dying. The surviving characters keep hanging out with Moggy because he is a familiar face in the sea of replacements and they do not want to befriend the New Meat. When Moggy is killed in the series finale, only one of the original pilots is still alive. He is not really saddened by Moggy's dead but by the fact that the last reminder of a happier time is gone.
• Power Rangers:
  • Bulk & Skull from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers only hung out with the Rangers due to proximity and Skull's crush on Kimberly. However, for as often as they were disgusted with each other, they still occasionally showed genuine friendship.
  • Power Rangers: Dino Thunder: Cassidy and Devin were basically Bulk & Skull's arc condensed into 38 episodes, and by the end they each earned a genuine friendship from both Ethan and Kira.
  • Power Rangers Mystic Force: Leelee initially only hung around to try and get into Nick's pants. However, after The Reveal that she's the daughter of one of their enemies, they all outright hated her, but were stuck with each other when Leelee was hired at the record store.
  • Power Rangers RPM has Ziggy, a bumbling ex-criminal who gets the role of Ranger Green...only because he activated the Morpher to prevent the bad guys from getting it. The Rangers, and especially Doctor K, only barely tolerate him at first, but over the season they warm up to him (Doctor K especially) and he soon becomes a true part of the team (though his combat effectiveness only barely improves).
• Pretty Little Liars:
  • Alison is this before she's murdered since she tended to make all of the girls feel as miserable as they did special. After Ali's return to Rosewood, the girls don't see her as one of them, and often reject her attempts to reclaim her Alpha Bitch status. On two occasions, they have accused her of murder with significant ramifications, and they don't trust her, often discussing her and analyzing her actions like a stranger or enemy.
  • Mona is also this to the Liars. Even before she was revealed as A, only Hanna liked hanging out with her. After she is revealed to be A, she's generally kept around because she's useful and Hanna still likes her a little. This carries over to The Perfectionists, where the new group doesn't really trust her, mostly because Alison has told them about her.
• Red Dwarf:
  • Rimmer is essentially a combination of answers 1-3. He and Lister are roommates, Lister would probably go mad from loneliness if they tried to live apart (he says at one point that messing with Rimmer is what keeps him going), Lister's only other alternatives for conversation are a Human Alien whose personality can be summed up as "dumb, self-centered and vain" and a fawning robot whose idea of fun is hanging out laundry, and Rimmer is the last lingering connection Lister has to his life before everything went to smeg. Besides which, depending on the episode, either Rimmer has hidden most/all of the other hologram recordings, or else Lister is such a laid-back slob that most other crew members would rather be dead than be his hologramatic partner. In essence, Rimmer gets left online because it'd be even worse to have him switched off. And then there's that episode where Rimmer finally contrives a way to have two holograms running at once, and then duplicates his own hologram disc (have we mentioned he's a chronic narcissist?) and then discovers he can't stand himself either.
  • The Alternate Continuity of the novels gave Rimmer an awful lot of Character Development and played up the fact that Lister wasn't the easiest guy in the world to live with either, possibly as a form of Plot Armor; the Doylist explanation for why Lister doesn't actually get rid of him (Rule of Funny) wouldn't work in the Darker and Edgier novel-verse.
• Room at the Bottom (1967): Mr. Powell is one at Titan Products to both the workers and executives; The workers see right through his act of trying to relate to him, whereas the bosses don't think much of him at all.
• Rules of Engagement:
  • Russell, due to his Jerkass tendencies.
  • In a rather sad example, Adam Rhodes ends up as this later on, when the poor guy doesn't deserve it. Jeff excludes him as much as possible, when not outright mocking him. Russell does outright mock him, as does Timmy at times. Audrey seems apathetic to him, and it seems the only reason he's dealt with is that he's engaged to Audrey's best friend Jennifer. The worst part is he's one of the only (along with Timmy) Nice Guys in the cast.
• Saturday Night Live: The character Debbie Downer constantly gets on everybody's nerves with sharing depressing facts or stories during her sketches, but is always invited to gatherings, anyway.
• Saved by the Bell: Screech is good friends with Zack but merely tolerated by the rest of the group (and outright despised by Lisa). They all like Zack and Screech is part of the baggage. He seems to have grown on the rest of the group by the end of the series though.
• The Secret Circle has Jake, who is only there because he's part of the circle. Cassie is the only one who likes him, and Diana seems to be the only other person who tolerates him. Later, John Blackwell, despite being told several times that he's evil (which he is), is only around because he's Cassie and Diana's father.
• Seinfeld:
  • Newman. He and Jerry have a mutual animosity and the only one who seems to hang out with him in any friendly sort of way is Kramer.
  • George Costanza comes off as this, Depending on the Writer. In certain episodes, Elaine can't stand him while Jerry considers him an acquaintance at best and most likely hangs with him out of pity. He and Jerry have also been friends since high school, so he's also got seniority going for him. Humorously, he thinks Elaine is the one nobody likes in their group.
• Skins has several, though each of them gets better at the end.
  • Tony from the first generation, to a degree. He isn't seen as such at first when his Jerkass and screwball prankster tendencies are known mainly by his girlfriend Michelle and best friend Sid who are devoted to him (although the more sensitive members of the group, like Cassie and Jal, express their distaste with Tony's behavior early on). Over time though, when he manages to alienate these two, it becomes apparent that no one in the pack is willing to side with Tony.
  • Generation Two has Cook, with whom Effy is sleeping and to whom JJ is loyal to in a similar way Sid was to Tony. Also there's Katie, who's Emily's sister and dates Freddie at some point, and is a wannabe queen bee with not that much regard for what other people think of her.
  • For the third generation is Mini, at first seemingly a queen bee for whom the gang quickly loses patience. Liv even points it out twice, declaring in the fifth series that 'she loves [Mini] despite or of her flaws but she [Liv] is the only one left' and stating in the sixth that she's friends with Mini "because somebody has to, but it's a tough duty".
• Soap: Bob is liked by none of the other members of the Campbell family except for Chuck due to his snarky comments about everything, inability to take anything seriously, seeming hatred of everyone around him, and for simply being a ventroliquist doll that everyone had to pretend was real for Chuck's sake. He was so disliked that "shut up, Bob" became something of a Catchphrase in the Campbell household (even Chuck would tell Bob to shut up when he said something particularly offensive) and barely anyone tried to stop Burt when he tried to choke Bob once (and only stopped after realizing how ridiculous it was to try to choke a wooden doll). They only tolerate him because he's Chuck's Companion Cube and therefore have to keep him around.
• The Sopranos: The Mafia is full of assholes and sociopaths who are supposed to act like friends, but generally speaking members of the same crew are friends, or at least on friendly terms. Not so much for Ralph Cifaretto, who is such an unpredictable hotheaded asshole that absolutely nobody in the Jersey family cares for him one bit. The family mostly lets him stick around because (1) he's a made man and (2) he's a great earner. Nobody mourns him when he dies.
  • Before Ralph, there was Richie Aprile who was just as feared as he was despised. He's the only one in the Jersey crew whose callousness and unpredictably violent nature comes even close to Ralph's and he's arguably even worse in this regard, earning the hatred of everyone after he brutally paralyzes Beansie. Richie's such a loose cannon that Tony has to hold him back from killing gamblers in executive games and is more a thorn on everyone's side than an actually competent earner. What drives him further in this territory is that he actively despises and questions Tony's authority and becomes his rival on the leadership of the Jersey crew. He's also extremely narcissistic, not caring about his niece Adriana being in an abusive relationship with Christopher and actively plans to disown his son for being gay. And much like with Ralphie, no one cares when he is eventually killed.
• Pre-Character Development, Rodney McKay of Stargate Atlantis. He had no real friends when he first appeared in SG-1. He was extremely arrogant, condescending, full of himself, and outright sexist, and the rest of the cast tolerated him at best. He didn't really deserve any better. But as time went on, even though it took him a rather long time, he's becoming less annoying and more accepted by others.
• Stranger Things: Max starts out as this, with Lucas being pretty much the only one who likes her from the start. The rest of the party is rather wary of her since she’s pretty much a walking Masquerade violation and a Sour Supporter. Mike outright hates her at first, seeing her as a Replacement Scrappy for Eleven. It takes most of Season 2 for them to warm up to her, and even then Mike seems to more tolerate her presence than outright like her.
  • Will seems to be this in season three. He's Alone Among the Couples and is annoyed with how obsessed with relationships the others are. He and Mike even have a fight over this, which reduces Will to tears. Though, it looks like they patched things up by the end of the season.
  • Dustin spent at least two seasons brooding about how he thinks he's this. Since he came to Hawkins while Mike, Lucas, and Will have already been friends for years at that point. He even starts to cry when he thought the others forgot about his homecoming from camp. It eventually gets resolved when he reunites with the Party and Mike tells him that he's a great friend.
• The Tales from the Crypt episode "House Of Horror" has Les, who treats his pledges like his own personal servants/slaves and acts obnoxiously to his fraternity brothers. His fraternity brothers talk trash behind his back and pledge only tolerate him to become members. Les also blackmailed the Dean with evidence of a cheating scandal to obtain the position of pledge master. Les has also gotten away with this routine for six years already, because according to the pledges, "People like Les Wilton don't graduate."
• Louie de Palma on Taxi. He treats everyone at the Sunshine Cab Company like absolute garbage, never missing an opportunity to insult, degrade, or exploit them, and they all respond to him with equal loathing. However, despite his rotten exterior, Louie's got a bad case of I Just Want to Have Friends, and since he's too repellent for anyone to willingly spend time with, he uses what power he has over the cabbies to wheedle or cajole his way into their social gatherings.
• That '70s Show: Jackie, at first, was only in the group because she was the girlfriend of one member, Kelso. Later, though, she became a regular friend. As the series progresses, Jackie forms romantic relationships with both Hyde and Fez, and a particularly close friendship with Donna (since they confide in each other thoughts which they tend to hide from the others).
• The Party Planners sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look were based around this. The characters would be planning a party and discuss inviting someone only to raise a concern that the person might bring someone that they can't stand. For example, Moneypenny bringing James Bond or Velma, Daphne, and Fred bringing Shaggy and Scooby.
• Slugs from This Country. He specialises in turning up uninvited, outstaying his welcome, and being "utterly annoying". He was at school with Kerry and Kurtan and it's possible that they hang out with him because all of their other friends have moved on and left the village and they're bored. Also because it's such a tiny village and he's hard to avoid.
• The Vampire Diaries: Damon, initially. The main reason they keep him around is that he's Stefan's brother. However this is played straight mostly in the first few seasons (and in Season 5, because he Took a Level in Jerkass). As of Season 6, he's on relatively friendly terms with everyone, including Bonnie and Caroline, who used to hate him.
  • Stefan becomes this in Season 3. At first it's because of his lack of humanity and even after he gets that back, he becomes so obsessed with killing Klaus that he drives people away from him. They do forgive him though.
  • Klaus on The Originals has the tendency to backstab people and go against the others' plans, and is only kept around because he's family.
• Victorious:
  • Trina Vega tends to be the butt of all the jokes due to how conceited and untalented she is. Jade — in two different episodes — even tells her, "No one likes you!" Being Tori's sister, the group usually has no other choice but to include her, especially since Trina usually forces them to include her.
  • To some extent Robbie, since his friends constantly act like jerks to him. Pity is likely why he's kept around.
  • It's heavily implied Jade is only tolerated by most of her schoolmates because they fear her. It's up to debate how far this applies to the main cast. Sometimes they seem to genuinely like her, other times it seems like they just tolerate her because Beck brings her along. Cat seems to genuinely like her. Robbie and André have admitted to being scared of her (Though André had a crush on Jade at one point). Tori tries to be friends with Jade, but their relationship is very strained. In Jade's case, she has said that Tori's not her friend, she only tolerates Robbie and Cat is "basically a pet."
• In Season 3 of The Walking Dead (2010), Merle is this for the short time he's with the group. Nobody likes him, and he's best remembered as a racist and unpleasant Jerkass. Most people tolerate him because he's Daryl's brother, but even Daryl starts to get fed up.
• What We Do in the Shadows (2019) has Colin Robinson, an "energy vampire" who feeds on emotions... specifically, boredom and frustration. The other vampires hate him because he's deliberately boring and a troll, and only put up with him because he's also a daywalker and the only person in the house with a steady paying job.
• Roy Biggins on Wings. Hated by all the other characters, who he hates back in turn, he still ends up inserting himself into their lives far more than "works at the same airport" really calls for. Despite his anti-social tendencies, Roy still desires some form of companionship, and is indifferent enough to other people's feelings that he's willing to force his company on them regardless of how openly they resent his presence.
• In Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell and Lady Jane Rochford aren't popular at court. For Cromwell, it's because of his low birth and enigmatic past and motivations; they see him as an untrustworthy interloper in the circle of titled gentlemen around Henry. Lady Rochford constantly picks fights with Anne Boleyn and insults people beneath her to deal with the unhappiness of her marriage. It's not surprising that they end up working together.
• On Would I Lie to You?, a bit of a minor Running Gag is that host Rob Brydon is this trope behind-the-scenes, and team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack expend as much energy as possible trying to escape from him in social settings.
• The Young Ones: Rick. No one likes him and they have even told him that. When introducing the gang to his mother, Vyvyan called Mike and Neil his friends, but called Rick "a total bastard I know".
• Young Sheldon has Dr. John Sturgis, Sheldon's theoretical physics professor and Meemaw's boyfriend. Other than those two, nobody in the Cooper family likes him. Missy is the most vocal about it, though it's implied that she's angry at him for breaking up with Meemaw after his stay in the mental hospital. Mary and George Sr. are uncomfortable around him, but the former pushes the latter to start hanging out with John because he has no other friends, to which George agrees out of pity. Georgie seems to at least tolerate John, asking uncomfortable questions that John is perfectly willing to answer. Aside from being a bit awkward, John hasn't really done anything to deserve that kind of scorn.
• Zoey 101:
  • Logan, due to Proximity. Being Chase and Michael's roommate, he regularly hangs out with the main group, yet Zoey and the others openly dislike him and think he's a jerk. He actually serves as the main antagonist in a high number of episodes (recurring plot: Logan does something jerkish and all his "friends" punish him).
    Chase: I know she'd never date a jerk like Logan.
    Lola: He's one of your best friends!
    Chase: Which is how I know he's a jerk.
  • Quinn in the early seasons. Not because she was a Jerkass like Logan, but she was treated like a freaky nerd by most of her friends. She becomes more normal in later seasons.

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