Villain Protagonist / Live-Action TV

• 24 has a couple: in the penultimate season there was Tony Almeida who actually eclipsed Jack for a good chunk of the season by working with a group of terrorists and actually is the first to plan out an attack on a subway station all so he could work his way up try and kill their leader, and in the final season both Allison Taylor who protects the masterminds behind a successful assassination attempt on a foreign government official and Jack Bauer himself who attempts to assassinate said masterminds even though his doing so starts indirectly putting innocent people in danger, so much so that he ultimately nearly stars a world war trying to kill the one in charge.
• The Americans plays with this trope. The protagonists are deep-cover KGB sleeper agents in the United States in 1981, so American audiences are expected to approach them as the "villains" of the show. Indeed, they do commit murder and many other ruthless crimes throughout the series. However, the show's drama hinges on the pair being sympathetic, primarily through their home life as a family. They are often shown to be similar to their American rivals, and they occasionally get forced into making difficult choices between duty to their nation and their own moral scruples.
• The titular character of Barry is a Professional Killer who - while conflicted and remorseful about his profession - still won't hesitate to kill innocent people if it means saving his own skin. It's demonstrated most shockingly towards the end of the first season, where he murders his innocent friend Chris to stop him from going to the police.
• Blackadder:
  • Edmund Blackadder is a greedy, self-centred arse who enjoys insulting those around him and will happily betray, abuse and mis-treat those around him, especially his inferiors. Frankly, if he wasn't played by Rowan Atkinson he'd be almost completely unlovable. Averted - albeit temporarily - in "Blackadder's Christmas Carol", and in the final minutes of the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.
  • Of the four main-series Blackadders, the most villainous is probably the one from "Blackadder the Third", who commits multiple murders, abuses his underlings, robs, swindles, frames, lies, and even kicks a cat at one point. He's at least self-aware about it; when there's an ad for a "treacherous, malicious, unprincipled cad" to be King of Sardinia, Blackadder gives it due consideration.
• Many Black Mirror protagonists are awful people who really need to be taught a lesson. In the show, Humans Are Bastards because they keep abusing technology. The biggest example is Robert Daly from "USS Callister", a creepy, self-entitled nerd who presides as an asshole god over a modded version of a video game he developed and subjects the sentient characters to torture to relieve his frustrations from work.
• All male members of the Blake's 7 crew flirt with this, even Blake. In the finale of Season 2, it's made clear that he was fully willing to cause the deaths of millions of people (by computer failure) in order to take down the Federation.
• Boardwalk Empire: By the end of the second season, nearly every major character qualifies. Hell, even the Hero Antagonist has turned into one.
• The Borgias: Rodrigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander Sextus, is this. He's Affably Evil, has four kids and an openly-known mistress, and has no problem with blackmail or bribery, and pimps his kids out to the highest bidder. Plus, there's all of the less-than-ethical executions he's considered, and the situations his children have had to endure—in what amounts to emotional abuse. His elder son, Cesare, is an even better example, what with the killing people, having a personal assassin as a best friend, and really loving his sister, though that's probably the least villainous part of his personality. If history has anything to say about it, he gets worse.
• Walter White of Breaking Bad slowly evolves toward this over the course of the first four seasons, especially under his "Heisenberg" alter-ego. Walter still remains an Anti-Hero, thus maintaining audience support, by always struggling against someone worse than him. By the fifth season, however, Walter has become a cold and cruel man, and his opposition is his own family, becoming the Big Bad in his own story, up until his downfall in 'Ozymandias', after which he's relegated to Ex-Big Bad and eventually a dark version of The Atoner.
  • Similarly, the spin-off show Better Call Saul follows the sketchy but ultimately good-hearted Jimmy McGill's descent into the sleazy and amoral Saul Goodman that he becomes in the main show, and then afterwards, the fallout that happens due to him working with the likes of Gustavo Fring, the Salamancas, and Walter White/"Heisenburg", and the things that happen to him after Heisenburg's downfall.
• Almost every episode of Columbo starts off from the villain's point-of-view as he or she carries out a supposedly perfect murder.
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has a Deconstruction. The protagonist Rebecca is not really a bad person, but she moved all the way to West Covina just to reunite with her ex-boyfriend, and has repeatedly done bizarre schemes to get together with him, even though he's with someone else. The ex-boyfriend's current girlfriend Valencia is portrayed as an Alpha Bitch who sees other women as "just jealous of her", but the show makes it on many occasions that Rebecca's actions to steal Josh away, however she may justify them to herself, are still wrong. Rebecca herself comes to think so, in her Heel Realization song "I'm The Villain In My Own Story".
• Al Swearingen in the first season of Deadwood is a co-protagonist and the main villain, with Seth Bullock as the heroic co-protagonist. In the second and third season, the Hearst enterprises serve as the villain and Al becomes a more sympathetic Anti-Hero.
• Dexter: The main character is a serial killer who targets other murderers. Thus, Dexter is an Anti-Hero for much of the series; although he is a murderer, the conflict comes from him opposing a more villainous Big Bad in each season. In the final season, however, Dexter's flaws finally catch up to him and he's portrayed as his own worst enemy, pushing him into becoming the villain of his own story.
• Doctor Who: The three-part finale of Series 9 ("Face the Raven"/"Heaven Sent"/"Hell Bent") sees the Doctor undergo a Protagonist Journey to Villain when he experiences a horrifying Trauma Conga Line of betrayal, torture, and above all the death of his companion and sweetheart Clara Oswald. He thus spends most of "Hell Bent" as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds ready to risk the safety of the universe on the Tragic Dream of saving her from the grave, but ultimately has a Heel Realization and with the help of Laser-Guided Karma returns to his best self.
• To the extent that they are protagonists, rather than Echo, the staff of the Dollhouse is this. Although their villainy lessens over time, especially in season 2 as a Greater Evil is uncovered.
• Escape at Dannemora: The protagonists are two convicted murderers and the philandering prison employee who helps them escape.
• Game of Thrones: House Lannister has gradually became the most prominent one in the story with Tyrion and Cersei ranking the first and the second in terms of speaking lines over the course of four seasons (and Jaime placing within the top 5), and despite the existence of its more sympathetic members, like Tyrion and Jaime, it still serves as the Big Bad of the families of Westeros, with even those characters technically supporting the villainous side. Until Tyrion's exile, anyway. Cersei Lannister is clearly the viewpoint character during the Faith in King's Landing storyline in Season 6.
  • In the penultimate finale of Season 8, Daenerys Targaryen has gone insane from a combination of the deaths of Missandei and the dragon Rhaegal, and also the revelation of Jon's true ancestry negating her claim to the Iron Throne. After she has put all of King's Landing to the torch, innocent and guilty alike, she has completely alienated her surviving allies and racked up a greater body count than Cersei, Joffrey or Aerys.
• Gotham focuses as much on Oswald Cobblepot and his rise to power as it does on Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne, with conflicts usually shown from two perspectives - the GCPD's and Penguin's crime family. A writer for The Atlantic even argued that the series should be renamed The Penguin Show.
• Discussed in the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Hercules", where — behind the scenes — the lead actor Kevin Sorbo goes missing, forcing the writers to consider changing the show to account for Hercules' disappearance, and two of the staff members, a gun nut and an unhinged psychopath played by the actors who play Ares and Xena's nemesis Callisto, gleefully propose spinoff series about Ares and Callisto respectively.
• Sylar of Heroes. In the first season he's the Big Bad, but in the second and subsequent seasons he's a protagonist and goes through a Heel–Face Revolving Door, spending some portions as a hero and more portions as a villain.
• Hitler: The Rise of Evil: To be expected in a biographical miniseries that focuses on Adolf Hitler. The main character is a racist demagogue who wants to institute a new dictatorial empire and annihilate the Jews.
• After a certain point in season 1 of Homeland and throughout season 2, the audience is aware of POW turned terrorist Nicholas Brody having ill intentions of which the intelligence agent protagonists are unaware, and the audience's sympathies are split between wanting to see them stop him and seeing if/how he can overcome various obstacles in his way. In season 5, a significant amount of the plot involves a new character, Allison, who is a Double Agent for Russia. The regular cast members essentially play a Hero Antagonist role in relation to her, as she plays them against each other and later on, attempts to evade discovery and capture.
• Francis Urquhart in the BBC series House of Cards and its sequels To Play the King and The Final Cut. Urquhart is a Richard III-esque British MP who schemes his way up to being Prime Minister via various sneaky and some downright evil acts.
• Frank Underwood in the House of Cards U.S. remake is a ruthless politician who will do anything for more power. In Shakespearean tradition, he frequently gives snide, sneering and self-satisfied asides to the audience, letting the viewer see inside his twisted mind. Also applies increasingly to his wife Claire as she gets more and more focus and power. They're both pretty damn evil, really.
• House of Saddam chronicles the rise and fall of Iraq's infamous former dictator.
• There are a few episodes of iCarly where even Freddie and Carly end up going against Sam when she does something bad. Example, starting a child labour sweatshop.
• The Gang - yep, all of them - in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Don't hang out with those guys, or they'll crush your spirits and make you as vile as them.
• Justified splits its screentime equally between U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens and Harlan County crime boss Boyd Crowder, the latter of whom, as a ruthless criminal trying to take control of the county, is a definite example of this.
• One series that really toys with this along with many other tropes is The League of Gentlemen which doesn't so much follow one central plot as much as seperate parallel storylines where most of the characters get their time in the limelight. And many of those easily fulfill this role as well in their part of the story. Examples include the xenophobic and murderous local shop owners Edward and Tubbs Tattsyrup who make a habit out of disposing the un-local elements, the verbally and physically abusive job-restart officer Pauline Campbell Jones and Geoff Tipps a volatile and immature man who envies and resents his supposed best friends and often threatens them with his gun.
• On Mr. Robot, Angela slowly evolves into this by the third season. After spending two seasons trying to get justice for her mother's death and getting constantly looked down by others, Whiterose's brainwashing turns her into a cold, borderline sociopathic woman who is willing to get what she wants no matter at what cost, even go as far as to mind raping Elliot.
• Alan B'stard of The New Statesman. A corrupt politician abusing his power, all Played for Laughs.
• Oz, being set in a prison, naturally revolves around the inmates, many of whom are guilty of murder, rape, drug dealing, etc.
• Resident Alien is about an alien who crash-lands on Earth while trying to deposit and detonate a Doomsday Device in order to Kill All Humans. He still intends to complete this mission once he repairs his ship and recovers the device, even as he tries to blend in among the local population.
• Sailor Moon: Sailor Moon herself is revealed to have been this all along toward the end of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. She's the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds variety.
• Scandal: Olivia Pope and her team start out as traditional protagonists, but that changes at the start of season 2. For starters, Olivia and Supreme Court Justice Verna shut down Quinn's trial to save Quinn. David Rosen is unhappy about that, and he decides to dig for answers about Quinn. It turns out that Olivia, Verna, Cyrus, Mellie, and Hollis are working together in some sort of conspiracy. Olivia had an affair with President Fitz for a long time, despite the fact that Fitz is still married to Mellie. Also, Olivia participated in rigging the election so that Fitz would become President. She also sabotaged David's efforts to find answers. When you put it together, you have a group of protagonists who are actually villains and not heroes.
• In both the original British and American versions of Shameless, Frank Gallagher is an alcoholic, lying, dishonest, violent, neglectful parent, but he's still the main character.
• The Shield: The entire Strike Team are guilty of numerous crimes, but particularly Vic Mackey and Shane Vendrell. The pilot episode drives the "bad cop" point home by having Vic shooting and killing a fellow cop, because Vic knew he was planning on ratting the Strike Team out to Internal Affairs.
• Skins has Tony Stonem in Series 1, who is a manipulative, heartless bastard. He gets better.
• Lex Luthor in Smallville. Although the show is supposed to be about Clark Kent, it focuses on Lex just as much and his descent into becoming the Arch-Enemy of Superman.
• Early seasons of Sons of Anarchy paint Jax Teller as the more idealistic (though far from innocent) alternative to his violent, crooked stepfather Clay Morrow. But near the end of Season 4, that all changes. A series of tragedies in Jax's personal life cause him to be sidetracked onto a path of revenge, and he becomes increasingly violent, manipulative, and generally controlled by evil. The show attempts to portray him favorably by putting SAMCRO up against some of the worst criminals imaginable, but his efforts to defeat them always wind up causing him and his club more mental anguish. By the start of Season 7, it's apparent that Jax has become the villain of his own story.
• The Sopranos: Considering that well over half the cast is in the Mob, this trope was bound to pop up. Even the nicer ones have no problem with murder, drug trafficking, and other unsavory, illegal activities. And chances are, if you're not in the mob, you're a huge Jerkass who just doesn't happen to be as morally bankrupt. Tony Soprano is notably credited with making this character archetype a viable option for the medium as a whole.
• Harry Montebello in The Straits has been known to kill people by feeding them to a variety of exotic wildlife. This is because he takes the security of his drug-smuggling business and his family extremely seriously.
• Supernatural: By the end of Season 10, it's clear that Sam and Dean Winchester are the biggest threats currently out there, and only barely any better than the things they hunt, if at all.
• Taken: Three generations of the Crawford family, Owen, Eric and Mary, commit terrible crimes as part of their crusade to discover what the aliens are planning. Owen is a complete sociopath while Mary is highly erratic and unstable. Eric is not on quite the same level as his father and daughter. In "Maintenance", he tries to become a better man. In "God's Equation", he has reached the stage where he does not want any more deaths on his conscience.
• This is very often the case on Tales from the Crypt, where the protagonist is a murderer or some other sadistic criminal (who usually gets what's coming to him at the hands of someone who's even worse.) For instance, in "Surprise Party", the protagonist finds his father is going to donate a chunk of farmland and its ruined house to charity -so he kills him. When the son goes out to the farmhouse, he finds the reason it's ruined is his father burned it down years ago -with the attendees to a party still inside. Their ghosts can't take revenge on the father anymore...
• Trilogy of Terror: The segment "Julie" has Chad Morgan, a sexual predator who blackmails his English professor into dating him.
• Henry VIII on The Tudors is a chronically-backstabbing, Control Freak Narcissist with a Hair-Trigger Temper who spends four straight seasons abusing his family, murdering his rivals (and sometimes their innocent family members), and manipulating national policy to flatter his own vanity.
• The Vampire Diaries didn't start out this way, but as more of the Main Characters became vampires, and even "good" vampires like Stefan were revealed to have done horrific things, Villain protagonists became the norm. By the end of the third season, Elena admits that killing all the vampires in the world, including her friends, would actually be the right thing to do, and that trying to keep them alive, at the expense of who-knows-how-many people they'll go on to kill, makes her the bad guy. To which she adds, "Fine, I'll be the bad guy."
• The Villains of Valley View focuses on a whole family of villains, and the protagonist is their only daughter.
• In WandaVision, Wanda is more of an Anti-Villain Protagonist, but she definitely fits. Regardless of how sympathetic her motives are, the fact is that she trapped hundreds of people inside the bubble and controlled their minds (even if the initial creation was an accident), gaslit Vision when he started to get suspicious and turned violent with anyone who even slightly challenged her comfort-reality.
• Nancy Botwin and her Affably Evil associates from Weeds are drug dealers. Then again, almost every official and law officer is a corrupt hypocrite. She starts out in a Stepford Suburbia in a Crapsack World, and things go downhill from there.
• The host of the game show Word Whiz Or Slime Pit, Dr. Slime, is a Laughably Evil and hammy scientist who spends each episode trapping three children, the contestants of the show, in his lab to be potential minions of his and giving them some word-based challenges to complete. Those who don't do well enough in the challenges will be Covered in Gunge and forced to work with him.
• On You (2018), the protagonist Joe is a Stalker with a Crush who is obsessed with a grad student named Beck and would do anything to be with her.
• Zero Zero Zero: All three storylines are told from the perspective of drug runners, though their level of villainy varies dramatically.