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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ome" data-source="post: 259888" data-attributes="member: 2"><h2>40. Walter White (Breaking Bad)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25533[/ATTACH]Played by Bryan CranstonBefore he became a pop-culture lightning rod, the ultimate symbol of Bad Fandom, and a face printed on Heisenberg t-shirts, Walter White was just a guy running around the desert in his underpants. While the "Mr. Chips to Scarface" transformation, outlined by series creator Vince Gilligan in interviews over the years, was planted early on, the show's initial appeal was deceptively simple: watch Bryan Cranston, an actor most viewers knew from his more comedic turn as the obnoxious dad on Malcolm in the Middle, squirm out of unbearably tense, impeccably plotted suspense scenarios week after week. More than the murderous "I am the one who knocks" meth kingpin of later seasons, the early cancer-stricken chemistry teacher version of Mr. White, as Aaron Paul's slacker-student Jesse Pinkman called him, was the key ingredient that made the show so addictive. As the debates around the finale fade and the hyperbole around the show grows less suffocating, Cranston's performance is easier to appreciate as a piece of tragicomic acting. Every strained grimace on his face drew you further into the unfolding nightmare. -- DJ<h2>39. Charlie Kelly (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25534[/ATTACH]Played by Charlie DayCharlie Kelly's sanity hangs by a single thread from his single remaining brain cell from huffing all that paint, and it certainly doesn't help that he shares a pullout couch for a bed with Frank (Danny DeVito) in a dingy apartment, is relegated to doing gross "Charlie work" at Paddy's Pub, and harbors an unhealthy infatuation for the extremely disinterested Waitress (Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Charlie Day's real-life wife). He's one of the most maniacally unpredictable characters on TV -- for 14, going on 15, seasons! -- and whether he's ranting about bird law, drinking 70 beers on a cross-country flight, or pulling a whole damn musical out of his ass, Charlie is never dull to watch, nor does he make you regret humanity's very existence in the way that the conglomerate of chaotic evils -- Dennis, Mac, and Sweet Dee -- tend to. He's the one true wildcard. -- LB<h2>38. Blanca (Pose)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25535[/ATTACH]Played by Mj RodriguezOf the cast members on Pose, FX's groundbreaking show about the 1980s and 1990s ball scene, Billy Porter has gotten the most plaudits for playing Pray Tell, the balls' boisterous emcee. But it also often seems like the television establishment offers him deserving praise at the expense of the trans members of the cast. While Pray Tell is a vital part of Pose's narrative, it's Mj Rodriguez's Blanca who makes the show as revolutionary as it is. In the first season, Blanca forms her own house, the House of Evangelista, becoming a mother to a group of young queer people. Blanca rebuts the idea that a cable TV protagonist has to be troubled and conflicted; she is one of the most genuinely kindhearted characters on television, always operating from a place of love. -- EZ<h2>37. Michael Scott (The Office)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25536[/ATTACH]Played by Steve CarellIt's tricky to parse out the precise moment that liking The Office went from totally normal to the definitive feature of people's entire personalities, but it's no question that meteoric rise can be attributed to the one and only Michael Scott, the US's bubbly answer to The Office UK's insufferably dickish David Brent. Nobody could have delivered the same doltish childlike buffoonery of being an indisputably terrible manager, prone to calling unnecessary conference room meetings and being casually racist, while, ultimately, being a decent enough boss who genuinely cares about his employees like Steve Carrell did, cementing not only his comedic legacy as one of the most memed and beloved small-screen characters around, but the entire show's fairytale white-collar office dynamic of a dysfunctionally obsolete paper company. In a way, Michael Scott is both one of the best TV characters of this century and also its most irritating: It was instantly apparent that the show wouldn't work without him around after Carrell left in the seventh season, but he left behind troves of material that all those Office megafans won't soon let you forget. -- LB<h2>36. David Brent (The Office)</h2>[ATTACH=full]25537[/ATTACH]Played by Ricky GervaisThe difference between the UK version of The Office, which ran for only two seasons and a holiday special, and its sunnier American counterpart, which marched to syndication and streaming immortality with nine seasons, can be summed up with one word: misery. Where Steve Carell's Michael Scott was a buffoon, Gervais's David Brent, the type of boss who could turn any workplace interaction into a lesson in humiliation, was a terror. For some, that makes Brent hard to watch -- unbearable, even. The tics of Gervais's performance, particularly the way he'd just ramble on and dig himself into a verbal hole while searching for a laugh or an ending to an anecdote, don't make for relatable GIFs or wacky quotes, and the show's wildly influential mockumentary style often intentionally drained punchlines of their potency. (The Office was very funny, yes, but it was also proudly drab.) But Brent, as conceived by Gervais and co-creator Stephen Merchant, will always edge out Scott precisely because of that all-too-human desperation, the quality that causes Lucy Davis's Dawn to dub him a "wanker" and a "sad little man" in the first episode. The show was willing to look the bleakness of Brent's "investment in people" philosophy right in the eye. -- DJ</blockquote>

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