Terrible actors who ruined otherwise good series

Lucy Lui is like watching paint dry.

Nichole Hiltz on [italic]In Plain Sight[/italic] - She sucked the life out of every scene she was in. Mary McCormack and Frederick Weller had good chemistry as partners. Lesley Ann Warren, Josh Malina and Paul Ben Victor were solid support. And then there was Nichole.

Matthew Waterhouse in early 80s Doctor Who

It's true about the Sand Snakes on "Game of Thrones".

Their scenes read like a normally excellent writer had let his horny fourteen-year-old son sit in as writer.

Luke Macfarlane in The Sally Field Programme

Because Being Human was filmed in Montreal, the show was forced to hire horrible Canadian actors. Except for the two male leads, the rest of the cast were from up north.

David Duchovny in the X-Files

Harry Connick Jr. on the original Will & Grace.

r4 Yeah I was so happy when they killed them off, I usually skipped their scenes anyway

Paul Rudd and Jimmy Marsden "ruined" the series they were in? Laughable.

YES, r8. A thousand times yes. I don't think I've ever detested a sitcom character more than his.

OP, You should have watched the UK original of Being Human.

Harry Connick Jr ruins anything he is in. Terrible actor.

Whoever plays Rufus on that time travel show.

If it wasn't for Jerry Van Dyke, Ann Sothern would still be raking in big bucks voicing that damned car.

Supposedly Jerry Van Dyke sexually abused his daughter for years, and loaned her out to his friends. But he did stink in everything, although he had so much competition for badness in "Coach" he actually looked okay.

Miss Sothern is dead (again) and not presently occupying either an automobile or an above-ground domicile.

My vote goes for Winona Rider. She has left the slime of her stupefaction and lack of understanding of human behavior on every scene she's tainted, in film or TV. She's the worst thing in "Stranger Things."

I was bored so I rewatched Downton Abbey and the cousin Rose character was obviously added in as some substitute for Sybil. Didn’t care too much for her.

Wino Rider has always been awful. I never liked her.

FYI, most of the people in r18's link are WOMEN. Like no male actors have ever ruined a show.

R19 suck my cunt, asshole.

R19 is a repulsive psycho who ruins every thread she posts in.

Michelle Trachtenberg on Buffy, she ruined it.

Rob Lowe in anything

Pretty boy John Stamos. Has she ever been good in anything?

[quote]Supposedly Jerry Van Dyke sexually abused his daughter for years, and loaned her out to his friends.

Whoa never heard this. Is this Kelly, the one who committed suicide? She was with Jack Nance for a time- his death is whole nother rabbit hole.

Me neither R25. The first story that comes up on Google is saying that Gene Hackman raped her too, with Jerry's permission. Please don't be true. :(

Didn't that story about Jerry Van Dyke come from notorious liar Entertainment Lawyer?

Mrs Naugatuck ruined Maude.

Jonathan Harris is the God of this topic.

Go eat from your grandpa's colostomy bag r20 & r21.

There have been an ample amount of MEN who've destroyed television shows, not sure why OP's list chose to single out the women.

Kaye Ballard but she was never in a good series.

R19 is the biggest cunt who ever cunted. Go back to the sewers beyotch.

Jessica Lange in Feud

Barbara Bosson and Hill Street Blues. Nepotism at its worst.

Barbara Barrie ruined the first season of Barney Miller; thankfully the producer saw she didn't fit in and phased her out.

R19, you should complain to the writer of the article. The posters here (including the OP) have talked about male and female actors.

R35 She is just a sad old cuntfrau sitting in her govt assisted housing, waving her cane around, waiting for death to unshackle her from her cuntitude.

No kidding.

Christina Hendricks -- too fat for Mad Men.

Scott Porter, Taylor Kitsch, and Minka Kelly on Friday Night Lights.

Everyone in Once Upon A Time were just awful. Some of the worst green screen EVER in a series and they all have bad green screen.

Burt Reynolds.

Janet Jackson in Good Times.

Ice T on SVU. He could tell me it's raining when we were standing in a monsoon and he still couldn't make me believe it.

OP how could you hate Sam Huntington? He's adorable, and I can think of at least two series and a handful of movies in which he was natural as well as charming and entirely watchable.

If you can watch his performance in the otherwise egregious DETROIT ROCK CITY and not even raise a smile or want to cheer for him, then you are fucking heartless.

Russel Tovey in the original Being Human - enforced pronunciation on someone with a naturally quite common accent always sounds a little off.

I hate to tell you, but the Sand Snakes weren't exactly interesting in the book, either. (GRR Martin basically still is a horny fourteen-year-old.) I'm not sure that example is the fault of the actresses in question.

Roger Davis in Dark Shadows

The "actress" playing Alana on Hannibal.

Half of the Grey's Anatomy cast.

R45 The main problem with Being Human UK was that Russell Tovey insisted on every character he played should be 'straight' at the time. even though he was personally out. His career has been much better since he embraced playing gay characters.

If George had been gay (essentially Being Human UK was about outsiders) the character would have been more believable, big missed opportunity for him and the show.

r40 Worse than SCANDAL's DC "location" shooting?

I thought Russel Tovey was hilarious on Being Human with his high sounding shrieks when transforming.

I agree that Ice T couldn't act his way out of a paper bag but SVU is not an "otherwise good series." At least, it hasn't been one in 10+ years.

The guy who played Duncan on Veronica Mars - the rest of the cast was excellent and he was so wooden. I actually kind of liked the character but the actor was not good.

I agree with Michelle Trachtenberg being the weak link on Buffy though she didn’t ruin much for me. And the Sand Snakes were poorly written. The acting was not great (except for Ellaria who was fantasic) but the writing was worse.

Does Screen Rant make a point of only contracting morons to write their crappy-ass "stories"? Jesus.

Yep r53. The main problem with the Sand Snakes rests with the writing, not the acting. Those were one-dimensional poorly written characters.

[quote]The guy who played Duncan on Veronica Mars - the rest of the cast was excellent and he was so wooden

Also yes! The guy who played Duncan was awful, Teddy Dunn hasn't had an acting job about a decade and it is no surprise why. Whoever decided to cast him also deserved to get fired.

I never cared for the second Darren on Bewitched. He was just too serious for comedy. I would have sucked the first Darren off anytime. Of course I loved super fruit Uncle Arthur. Lynde was a queer gem in the 1960s.

Jessica fucking Pare on Mad Men. Oh God. Oh my fucking God.

Emma Samms on Dynasty

The article title is terrible actors who ruined series but then spends all of its time talking how their characters were bad.

The actress on Frasier played an annoying, guilt tripping mother, but she was a fine actress. They would never have hired her otherwise.

R57 she was horrible. I couldn't watch the show. Just lousy.

The second Aunt Viv on Fresh Prince was awful. Not only a bleached version of the super dark first Viv but the character was defanged and made irrelevant.

Finn Jones in "Iron Fist". I truly don't understand how he landed that role. He wasn't in good shape, couldn't do the fight choreography, but most importantly was also just a shitty actor that the rest of the cast could act circles around.

Kristen Schaal ruined Flight of the Conchords.

The new added siblings (brother and sister) in stranger thing 2, just horrible

Truth.

[Quote] Michelle Trachtenberg on Buffy, she ruined it.

I don't know about ruined but i still hate her character to this day. Same goes for Connor on Angel.

That fucker who played Coach on Cheers. Fuck did I hate him. Terrible non-actor. Not funny at all.

Truth.

Apparently the actor who played Coach on Cheers was much beloved. When he died they kept a photo of him over the bar or near the bar or somewhere on that frikkin' set.

While Revenge ruined itself -- and quickly -- the actor who played Declan was AWFUL.

Minka Kelly - Friday Night Lights. Every scene she was in came across like Amateur Hour - the scenes she wasn't in were great.

For your consideration: Cote de Pablo (who played Mossad Barbie 'Ziva David' in NCIS). She drained the life out of that show; plastic, smug, talent free. It was a workmanlike and enjoyable little show until she swanned into view and the writers had to come up with more and more inexplicable and unbelievable shenanigans just to give Mossad Barbie a chance to wave her hair around and pout. Needless to say, she was super-popular with mug cradlers from coast to coast.

Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and Funeral. Every other cast member was perfection, but oh GOD did she suck.

She's particularly bad in this scene:

Sorry, just realized this was for TV shows, not films.

Oh well, she still sucked.

Dawn was such a dramatic drain on Buffy. She was fine at first as a wry spin on the bratty-kid-added-in-later-seasons trope, but once Season 5 was over she had no purpose. I always thought it would have been interesting if in Season 6, she had started disintegrating back into the elemental energy she was made from, so while Buffy is irritated at being alive, Dawn is facing a kind of death. It would have given the character something interesting to do and would have been a great way to write out Trachtenberg.

Scott Porter was one of the worst actors on Friday Night Lights.

R76 But he was cute, so he didn't ruin anything.

By the third season, The Gilmore Girls began turning into a buffet of bad acting from the majority of the cast. Part of it had to do with the writing giving almost all of the characters the same talky smugness, which translated into smug performances. That town became one big unlikable clique by the end, and it seemed the only two people not invited to be part of the clique were Lorelei's parents.

R78 I thought Paris was a good character, as she wasn't cutesy like Lorelei and Whory Rory

I agree Paris was good. I couldn't stand who TPTB paired her up with romantically. She was much better as the leader of those two mean girls she hung with.

Hal Sparks on Queer is Folk. Horrible actor - I never bought the character as gay and never thought Brian would be best friends or, even worse, attracted to Michael.

Also Chrissy Metz on This is Us.

Vince Vaughan in True Detective.. 'nuf said..

Yes, Hal Sparks was AWFUL.

Gavin McLeod and the Georgette actress in MTM.

Ted became a show wrecking character, but Ted Knight was a good actor.

Mischa Barton on The O.C. always made me groan and hope her scenes would be over quickly. Her character is fairly unlikable as written, but for that not to get shrill or annoying quickly, you have to find a really likable and talented actress who can manage it. Barton always give such stiff line readings and every time she'd say "anything", she'd say it like she was a Brit trying to do an American accent and would say "in-a-thing" Always bothered me for some reason.

I think I'm one of the few people who was thrilled when she was killed off in season 3. It finally gave the high underrated Melinda Clarke something to play besides one note bitch (which she was BRILLIANT at). The whole cast really really quite excellent besides Barton.

R62 I agree with you. I spent the entire show waiting for some type of transformation that would make the actor or the character worth watching and it never happened. On that note can someone start a thread about "hate" watching a show. Iron Fist got to that point for me but the ultimate, "this show is ridiculous and the characters can't get any more stupid but wait, they can" was The Following. I started watching because I liked the concept but I kept watching so I could yell at the screen and ask anyone else in the room, "Who does that?"

R75 or Buffy just pushes Dawn off the tower.

R85 I hated Marissa and I wasn't sad to see her go. I got tired of her shit real quick.

R86 I don't know how/why The Following was renewed after season 1.

Hal Sparks was the worst - but I never got the sense Brian was ever really attracted to Michael. The few times Brian came on to him it was a pity fuck kinda situation. Further, Brian would NEVER be friends with a geeky comic book nerd who whined constantly. I could see them being highschool friends, being the only two gays - but the moment Brian realized he was hot and could fuck whomever he wanted he would have dropped Michael IMMEDIATELY.

Majel Barrett, Roddenberry's favorite mistress - Star Trek (The Original).

Meghan Markle is THE singular reason I stopped watching Suits.

What a shit actress.

Sucked the air out of every scene she was in that I started to hate the lead character for wanting to be with her.

R73 Hugh Grant is perfection! What a sad doltish cunt you are.

R91 - think you need to read r73 again?

R23 - I thought Lowe was creepy good as the plastic surgeon/ pill pusher in ‘Behind the Candelabra’.

R89 - Yes! Majel was awful in Star Trek. Her line readings and therefore her believability, were dreadful.

David Caruso on CSI Miami!

Bill Paxton in Big Love.

r95, Caruso was terrible but he wasn't even the worst actor on the show. That blonde woman was horrid, I can't remember her name

3rd vote for that greasy, aloof, carrot top head, Caruso. Bad. Terrible.

I remember seeing women going ape shit at the mention of his name. Yuck, what the fuck!

[Quote] I remember seeing women going ape shit at the mention of his name.

Are you serious??

Don't ask me why, but I used to watch "A Different World."

What a suckfest! Both during and after Lisa Bonet's time on the show.

And so many ham actors!

R100 here.

Sorry, my post might not belong here.

My post should be in a thread titled "Most Terrible Actors in One TV Show."

Have I been mentioned?

How about that prissy queen Dr. Bellows in I Dream Of Jeannie?

“Mutt” was good looking but sucked the life out every scene he was in on Schitt’s Creek... thankfully they wrote him out in season 3.

David Caruso and Emily Procter on "CSI:MIami." It takes a truly special casting talent to find the worst actor and actress in the entire history of television and put them in the same show. It was never must-see TV but those two made a perfectly watchable procedural into a cringeworthy exercise.

Ugh, Procter's face was annoying to start with r105. And then she got that horrible plastic surgery. Unwatchable.

Dominic West didn't ruin THE WIRE, but he sure didn't make it better.

Kevin Spacey ruined HOUSE OF CARDS. His accent was so terrible, I couldn't get past the opening.

Aunt Becky here.

I was the worst actor/actress on "Full House" and that is really saying something when your co-stars are a pre-literate Mary Kate and Ashley!

David Caruso (NYPD Blue) and Daniel J. Travanti (Hill Street Blues) both belong to the "I enunciate my lines, but do so with absolutely no expression, and you will think it is amazing acting" school of tv.

WTF?

Charlotte Hope ruins my television whenever she appears. When she was Myranda on GoT I wondered why she there when she was so terrible. I figured she must be related to one of the showrunners and I'd never see her again.

Nope.

She appeared on Endeavor and I swear I could smell a stinkbomb in my house. She was so, so bad and wearing Red Gash lipstick, making her even uglier than her usual ugly self because it accentuated her yellow teeth. And throughout the episode, she's referred to as beautiful.

Then I was channel surfing and came across an abomination called The Spanish Princess. Jesus Christ! This troll doll actually stars in the series. And she affects a painfully awful attempt at a Spanish accent.

This woman can't act. She's fug. She hurts my brain. I want to slap her

Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington in GoT.

R107, Spacey was the only one keeping HOC alive in S03-5. I couldn't have watched it if it weren't for his acting. I don't have quite a sensitivity to American accents though, so if his accent was inaccurate I couldn't tell that.

S06 was boring as hell, despite a very good cast, due to the writing.

Sandra Oh's face is punchable AF. Can't watch her attempt to act on anything.

R111 I thought Emilia Clarke grew into her role nicely by the end. Her acting was one of the few bright spots of the final season. Harington was never any good though

"This woman can't act. She's fug. She hurts my brain. I want to slap her"

She's a mediocre actress but she is NOT ugly

Vincent D'Onofrio in L&O:Criminal Intent. Terrible.

R113 she's Chinese. They are all like that. The camera does not like Chinese people. How many awesome Chinese actors have there been in America over the last hundred years?

[quote] She's a mediocre actress but she is NOT ugly

Oh, she's ugly. She has a lollipop head, a horrid overbite, big yellow teeth, moles all over her face and fake henna hair.

And she's not a mediocre actress, she's terrible

Please, the only reason she even has a career is because she's pretty

[quote] Vincent D'Onofrio in L&O:Criminal Intent. Terrible.

My partner liked that show. I remember telling him: "This is 'Murder, She Wrote' with Asperger's" That show was so formulaic, with the culmination of every episode being D'Onofrio with the perp(s) in the interrogation room or getting them all together somewhere, getting all up in their grills, his eyes bulging, accompanied by weird facial and vocal tics, after which they would just spontaneously confess or start fighting with their co-conspirators. It was worse than the Speed Weed years of L&O:SVU.

Interesting.

Apparently R121 is a new bump troll, this is the fourth "interesting" I've seen him post while bumping old threads.

R117 she's Korean, shit head.

That's a troll from two years ago, they're long gone by now.

Thank you [R73] !! I'm so glad I'm not the only one who wanted to put her foot through the screen whenever McDowell opened her mouth. Bless Hugh Grant for being able to convince audiences that he was in love with that block of wood. Bit of trivia: Charlotte Coleman, who played Grant's kinky little roommate (and ended up with the rich Texan) died at age 30 from an asthma attack of all things. Now THAT to me was a horrible waste and very sad. But McDowall will probably live forever - she couldn't even convincingly act dead.....

Agreed R72, they did the same with the blond actress on Criminal Minds. One minute she wasn't even an agent, the next every show revolved around her super ninja abilities and saving the day. They did knock it off eventually, but it ruined the show for me.

The Sand Snakes were poorly written. Had you seen more believable training like Ayra's it might be more believable that these hot teen girls were serious ass kickers. There wasn't much reason as to why they were fighters in a world were most women were portrayed as whores. It could have been explained better.

[quote] Thank you [[R73]] !! I'm so glad I'm not the only one who wanted to put her foot through the screen whenever McDowell opened her mouth.

Yes, you are both revolutionaries.

Danny Pintauro ruined the pre-Douglas Marland years of [italic]As the World Turns[/italic]. The only good thing about that shitty sitcom he ditched it, which would have been bad no matter who was in it but the casting made it exceptionally awful, for is that I didn't have to see his ugly face or hear his whiny-yet-monotonous voice whenever I came home from school which was usually while my mom was watching ATWT.

And speaking of which, am I the only [italic]Facts of Life[/italic] fan who liked Scott Bryce better than George C. Looney?

Ditched it for

R122 Get over yourself, superkunt.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan in The Walking Dead

Harmony Cramp was awful on [italic]Road To Avonlea[/italic] which stuck out like a sore thumb when the rest of the cast was good and they were able to attract top-notch American and English guest stars. At least they replaced her with Molly Atkinson who could actually act. The whole storyline about Cecily getting TB was so they could make the switch.

[quote] For your consideration: Cote de Pablo (who played Mossad Barbie 'Ziva David' in NCIS). She drained the life out of that show; plastic, smug, talent free. It was a workmanlike and enjoyable little show until she swanned into view and the writers had to come up with more and more inexplicable and unbelievable shenanigans just to give Mossad Barbie a chance to wave her hair around and pout. Needless to say, she was super-popular with mug cradlers from coast to coast.

Even Punky Brewster stopped wearing her hair in pigtails once her age reached double digits.

Nowadays, Hollywood's pushing out nothing but horrendous SJW-filled movies which are by definition garbage. You can say almost everyone in the past few years has been nothing but cuntses. The Disney trilogy was about a million times worse than anything Lucas could have put out. Lucas never had any Mary Sues in his two trilogies.