This one's a bit different, as it's a character who actually became tolerable. Namely, Morgan on Chuck.
First season, this was a character who managed to combine having no positive qualities at all (OK, he was loyal to his friend Chuck. But he was also a key enabler and downright encourager of Chuck not doing anything close to fulfilling his potential, far outweighing the loyalty) and also grating like nails on a chalkboard in terms of personality and dialogue. I don't think I've ever seen a character who was supposed to have been considered a positive character by the audience come across so horribly.
Over the next few seasons, the writers managed, without doing a complete personality implant/retcon, to somehow write him such that while he'll never be anything close to a favorite character of mine, I don't wonder any more why no other character has killed him and discreetly disposed of the body.
Runner-up, although this may have changed since I gave up on the show, was Evan on Royal Pains. As far as I could tell, he was consisted entirely of idiotballium, admittedly taking the load of carrying one from the other characters. No signs of change as of the time I quit watching.
Admittedly, I've been realizing the past few years that "stupid for the sake of being stupid/plot reasons" just isn't working for me unless done very well, or without an expectation that we/characters on the show are supposed to ignore the stupid and still like the characters. Examples that do work: most, but not all, of Arrested Development, Jeff and Lester on Chuck.
Good point about Morgan, though I'm still not a huge fan of the character. Better integrating him into the A plot helped a lot, though.
Evan and Royal Pains both got a LOT better as the show has gone on (though this past week's was actually one of the worst they've done in ages). I think it may actually be No. 3 now of the USA dramas (behind White Collar and Burn Notice). As with Morgan, they made subtle changes with Evan, so they weren't completely changing his personality, but rather making it so he wasn't someone you wanted to punch all the time. Still not perfect, but far improved from how he started.
On thinking about it a bit more, I think what particularly irks me about Morgan and Evan and similar characters is their very role as lead character's best friend makes no sense. In my experience at least, smart, competent, people mostly hang out with, well, other smart, competent, people (with an exception for the not-really-that-smart type who selects folk because they want to be the smartest person in the room at all times).
Now, I'm not trying to be an intellectual snob. For example, note that Richard Feynman liked to hang out in Vegas and the Sunset Strip and had friends across a number of spectra. But also note that he very much enjoyed attending MIT, Princeton, and working at Caltech, and it's clear from his autobios he really enjoyed being with smart and interesting types.
But with Chuck and Hank, we're expected to believe their bffs aren't just not as smart and competent as they are (and at least first season, Hank was pretty much at a Mary Sue level of all around awesomeness), but are completely incompetent idiots. At a level that any sane intelligent person meeting Morgan and Evan for the first time would run screaming from them, and, if followed, look into getting a restraining order. And, admittedly due to cast budget considerations, they didn't seem to have any friends who were at their level of smarts and competence who they'd hang out with.
This is also something that's bothered me for a while about Spider-Man. Admittedly Gwen Stacy was semi-retconned into also being a science major, it's not like she and Peter were ever shown talking about science related topics. I think Peter's current girlfriend, Carlie Cooper, is the first science type with non-street type smarts that he's ever dated. And all of his close friends were never portrayed as anywhere near Peter's level of smarts. I mean, in the Silver Age/Peter's high school years, his best superhero friend should've been Hank McCoy, not Johnny Storm (although Dan Slott in particular in the Spider-Man/Torch mini- did a good job of showing the type of friendship they've had. It's not so much that he's friends with Johnny, Flash, Harry, etc., but that he's got no close friends anywhere near his level of smarts).
What worked for me was Frasier and Niles Crane's friendship beyond their being brothers. While they could still be neurotic and do dumb things which followed naturally from their personalities, they were both smart and you could see why they'd hang out together. But way too many sitcoms or dramas with a strong comedy sub-element, seem to feel either they can only have one smart person, or that they have to have a character who can be counted on to hold the idiot ball in every episode.
I don't disagree with any of this, though I think in both examples you've got here, you could find reasons why they hung out.
With Chuck, clearly nostalgia was a big part of it. But I also think with his season 1 depression/lack of ambition/getting kicked out of college, the people he might otherwise have hung out with didn't want to hang out with him. If Bryce (and Jill, for that matter) hadn't (seemingly) betrayed him, I don't think it would be unreasonable to think he would have been hanging out with them and others of his intellectual capacity as opposed to Morgan.
With Hank, you've also got someone who started out as despressed, creating a dependency. The fact that he's his brother also factors into it, I think. I think also Evan buffoonishness belied the fact that he actually is pretty good at marketing/finances. It's not completely clear, especially since they've got a house paid for them and are surrounded by really really really rich folks, but I think he's got the business going pretty well, despite Hank frequently not bothering to worry about getting paid/providing pro bono services.
(And, yes, Hank's still just about at Mary Sue levels of capability...)
First season, this was a character who managed to combine having no positive qualities at all (OK, he was loyal to his friend Chuck. But he was also a key enabler and downright encourager of Chuck not doing anything close to fulfilling his potential, far outweighing the loyalty) and also grating like nails on a chalkboard in terms of personality and dialogue. I don't think I've ever seen a character who was supposed to have been considered a positive character by the audience come across so horribly.
Over the next few seasons, the writers managed, without doing a complete personality implant/retcon, to somehow write him such that while he'll never be anything close to a favorite character of mine, I don't wonder any more why no other character has killed him and discreetly disposed of the body.
Runner-up, although this may have changed since I gave up on the show, was Evan on Royal Pains. As far as I could tell, he was consisted entirely of idiotballium, admittedly taking the load of carrying one from the other characters. No signs of change as of the time I quit watching.
Admittedly, I've been realizing the past few years that "stupid for the sake of being stupid/plot reasons" just isn't working for me unless done very well, or without an expectation that we/characters on the show are supposed to ignore the stupid and still like the characters. Examples that do work: most, but not all, of Arrested Development, Jeff and Lester on Chuck.
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Evan and Royal Pains both got a LOT better as the show has gone on (though this past week's was actually one of the worst they've done in ages). I think it may actually be No. 3 now of the USA dramas (behind White Collar and Burn Notice). As with Morgan, they made subtle changes with Evan, so they weren't completely changing his personality, but rather making it so he wasn't someone you wanted to punch all the time. Still not perfect, but far improved from how he started.
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Now, I'm not trying to be an intellectual snob. For example, note that Richard Feynman liked to hang out in Vegas and the Sunset Strip and had friends across a number of spectra. But also note that he very much enjoyed attending MIT, Princeton, and working at Caltech, and it's clear from his autobios he really enjoyed being with smart and interesting types.
But with Chuck and Hank, we're expected to believe their bffs aren't just not as smart and competent as they are (and at least first season, Hank was pretty much at a Mary Sue level of all around awesomeness), but are completely incompetent idiots. At a level that any sane intelligent person meeting Morgan and Evan for the first time would run screaming from them, and, if followed, look into getting a restraining order. And, admittedly due to cast budget considerations, they didn't seem to have any friends who were at their level of smarts and competence who they'd hang out with.
This is also something that's bothered me for a while about Spider-Man. Admittedly Gwen Stacy was semi-retconned into also being a science major, it's not like she and Peter were ever shown talking about science related topics. I think Peter's current girlfriend, Carlie Cooper, is the first science type with non-street type smarts that he's ever dated. And all of his close friends were never portrayed as anywhere near Peter's level of smarts. I mean, in the Silver Age/Peter's high school years, his best superhero friend should've been Hank McCoy, not Johnny Storm (although Dan Slott in particular in the Spider-Man/Torch mini- did a good job of showing the type of friendship they've had. It's not so much that he's friends with Johnny, Flash, Harry, etc., but that he's got no close friends anywhere near his level of smarts).
What worked for me was Frasier and Niles Crane's friendship beyond their being brothers. While they could still be neurotic and do dumb things which followed naturally from their personalities, they were both smart and you could see why they'd hang out together. But way too many sitcoms or dramas with a strong comedy sub-element, seem to feel either they can only have one smart person, or that they have to have a character who can be counted on to hold the idiot ball in every episode.
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With Chuck, clearly nostalgia was a big part of it. But I also think with his season 1 depression/lack of ambition/getting kicked out of college, the people he might otherwise have hung out with didn't want to hang out with him. If Bryce (and Jill, for that matter) hadn't (seemingly) betrayed him, I don't think it would be unreasonable to think he would have been hanging out with them and others of his intellectual capacity as opposed to Morgan.
With Hank, you've also got someone who started out as despressed, creating a dependency. The fact that he's his brother also factors into it, I think. I think also Evan buffoonishness belied the fact that he actually is pretty good at marketing/finances. It's not completely clear, especially since they've got a house paid for them and are surrounded by really really really rich folks, but I think he's got the business going pretty well, despite Hank frequently not bothering to worry about getting paid/providing pro bono services.
(And, yes, Hank's still just about at Mary Sue levels of capability...)
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