This is different from villains. It’s is not even, necessarily, antagonists. In fact several of these are protagonists. These are characters that I did not want on my screen. Characters that I hated watching or were pressing on that final nerve.

In professional wrestling, there is a term called ‘go away heat.’ It is when an audience just does not want to watch this wrestler, not root against them or hope they get their comeuppance.

I noticed that in my Twilight Zone write-ups, I mentioned several times that there were characters that I couldn’t stand. If they were the main protagonist, they could have easily ruined episodes for me. Unlike a character such as Erich Streator (played by Telly Savalas) which was a character I hated, but I enjoyed watching because of his work in the story and Savalas’s top notch performance, these characters just rubbed me the wrong way.

Some are major characters and some are minor supporting characters, but the one thing they had in common was that I just hated watching them. Understand, it is nothing against any of the actors involved, but these characters just did not do it for me.

#25. Cora (Mute). This was the mother in the episode, who was meant to be portrayed in a positive light, I believe, but she lied about the circumstances and manipulated her husband in order to keep the little mute girl. And she succeeds without having to pay for any of her transgressions.

#24. Aunt Agnes (The Fugitive). Played by Nancy Kulp (Ms. Hathaway from Beverly Hillbillies), she was the mean-spirited aunt of Jenny, who would choose to leave the earth instead of staying with her.

#23. Gloria Shorewood (The Bewitchin’ Pool). Yet another bad mother. She is so bad that she drove her two kids into the magical tunnel inside their swimming pool and off to Aunt T (who I really think is the witch from Hansel & Gretel- making this all the more tragic).

#22. Patrick Thomas McNalty (A Kind of Stopwatch). Even the other people in th episode couldn’t stand McNalty. He was given the power to stop time with a stopwatch, but he was so insufferable that even a redemption arc couldn’t save him.

#21. Leila (The Chaser). The woman that Roger Shackleworth was in love with, but who had no time for him. Roger cast a love spell on her and things only got worse. He realized after a while that he had made a real mistake. It is telling that the man who took this woman’s choice away and basically engaged in sex with her was not the worst character of the episode.

#20. Fitzgerald Fortune (A Piano in the House). A cruel man who used this magical player piano to torment his wife and guests of his at a party. His mockery, particularly, of his guest Marge was terrible. He did not receive enough of a payback for my taste.

#19. Bartlet Finchley (A Thing About Machines). This guy had no redeeming qualities at all and his obsession with the machines around him only served to isolate him even more from the story. Another one whose comeuppance was lacking overall.

#18. Paul Radin (One More Pallbearer). The billionaire who brought a group of people from his past into a bomb shelter and told them that the world was coming to an end, and then proceeded to rip them down. The people who he brought in did not succumb to this manipulation and he wound up going mad.

#17. Jess-Belle (Jess-Belle). She turned into a leopard. It was silly. This character was also all over the place… some times considered a horrible witch, other times a victim. The leopard thing though cemented her place on this list.

#16. William Feathersmith (Of Late I Think of Cliffordville). An old businessman who was feeling nostalgic, made a deal with Julie Newmar to go back in time and he planned on remaking his fortune. He paid a price for his arrogance, but it came too late for me.

#15. Roswell G. Flemington (Sounds and Silences). Just keep it down, Roswell! This guy and his loud military records and his constant shouting made him one of the more annoying leads of an episode.

#14. Flora (A Short Distance from a Certain Fountain). Another wife who was just horrendous. She had married an older man and she was just terrible toward him, until he took a potion intended to de-age him, and it worked all too well.

#13. Major French (The Old Man in the Cave). James Coburn played this military man who came across this small town of people who did everything that an old man inside a cave told them to do. Major French’s bad choices led to the death of everyone involved.

#12. Ace (The Prime Mover). Ace manipulated his friend, Jimbo, taking advantage of his telekinesis power. He showed no concern for his friend and he was even worse to his girlfriend, Kitty. Making so much money, Ace had even tossed Kitty aside for another woman from the Las Vegas hotel. What was worse yet was that Ace wound up back with Kitty at the end. She never should have taken that ass back.

#11. Jana (The Lateness of the Hour). This selfish girl who was jealous of her parents’ robots, demanded to have them decommissioned and gotten rid of. She was annoying as could be and the fact that she turned out to be a robot too did not help the matter.

#10. Horace Ford (The Incredible World of Horace Ford). Horace Ford was a toy designer, but actor Pat Hingle played this character with such a childish nature that his fits of anger and his Autistic-like behaviors were too much to overlook.

#9. Rance McGrew (Showdown with Rance McGrew). An annoying actor from Western movies winds up face to face with the real Jesse James in one of the worst of the comedic episodes of the series. Rance was just obnoxious the entire time (and Jess James wasn’t much better to be honest).

#8. Sykes (Dust). Whoo-boy this guy was just horrible. He was a lowlife peddler who prayed on the sorrow of a man whose son was going to be hanged. He reminded me a lot of Mr. Haney from Green Acres but without a soul. Plus, his change of heart at the end of the episode came across as insincere.

#7. Wallace Whipple (The Brain Center of Whipple’s). The wicked businessman who was out looking to replace his workers with computers (really fitting with the current actors/writers strikes and AI). Whipple was just a horrendous person and his own downfall at the hands of the robots was not enough for me.

#6. Simon Polk (Uncle Simon). Sure he died. But in the end, this terrible man, who tormented his niece for years, winds up getting the upper hand as he is turned into Robby the Robot (which is actually the second character in a row with Robby the Robot involved).

#5. Joe & Phyllis Britt (What’s in the Box). This married couple were just a pain to watch and listen to their constant fights. I’m not sure which of the two of them were the worst, so that is why they share this spot on the list. Joe does wind up killing her (even after he saw himself do that very thing on the TV).

#4. Salvadore Ross (The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross). I do think Sal was meant to be seen as the hero realizing his errors, but I never got that. I only got the implication that this guy was a selfish prick who used a power of his to manipulate people and get things that he wants even if no one lese wanted it.

#3. Julius Moomer (The Bard). Moomer used dark magic to conjure up William Shakespeare to help him write TV shows. Moomer did not have an arc in the story and never learned his lesson. He did not pay for using dark magic. And he was such a blowhard. How could he be more pretentious than Shakespeare?

#2. Susan (Caesar & Me). Again, I feel slightly bad for including a kid this high, but this little girl was just a horror in this episode. I absolutely hated every second she was on screen and her whiny, snarly attitude truly inspired me to make this list. I almost put her at number one, but I dropped her to two because she was just a little girl.

#1. Oliver Pope (You Drive). Boy I hated this guy right away. He hits a kid on a bike and leaves him there to eventually die. Then he was more concerned with his position at his job than anything else. He was such a terrible person and the silly chase scene with him being pursued by his car and eventually turning himself in did not do it for me either. Maybe if he had been run over by the car that would have been satisfying. I think this is easily the worst protagonist ever on the show.