The 7 Dumbest Things A TV Character Could Possibly Do

By Joanna Robinson | Lists | October 23, 2012 |

By Joanna Robinson | Lists | October 23, 2012 |

There a lot of shows on TV right now with a high mortality rate. Most of them, in fact, are our favorites. When we choose gladiators, gangsters and lawmen as our protagonists, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when the body count starts rising. But barring a life of crime…or a life of fighting crime, here are some of the riskiest, stupidest, mind-bogglingly bad decisions a TV character could make.

Move To Mystic Falls: When “The Vampire Diaries” started four seasons ago, five human teenagers played a central role in the plot. I won’t spoil the wheres and the whyfores, but you can count those humans on one finger now. That’s not even taking into consideration all the parental figures and nubile young ladies who have fallen by the wayside. So listen TV characters, you’re smarter than this. When people start dropping like flies of mysterious barbecue fork wounds to the neck, it’s time to get the hell out of Mystic Falls, VA or Bon Temps, LA or Sunnydale, CA or, yeah, especially Forks, WA.

Play The Games Of Thrones: “You either win or you die.” IT SAYS IT RIGHT THERE ON THE BOX. So don’t play. Move to, I don’t know, Tyrosh. Get a slave girl. Eat grapes all day. If a blonde girl with some dragons blows into town, run, don’t walk, in the other direction.

Buy A Murder House…Worse Yet, STAY In A Murder House: You can go ahead and argue that the Harmons didn’t know what they were getting into when they bought their house. But I’d say, at the first sight of a gimp suit or malevolent basement bird dudes, you should cut bait and run. That goes double for you gay interior designers, tragic firebugs and ye oldey timey abortionists.

Travel With The Doctor: Sure you can go anywhere in time and space and, in the words of my second favorite companion, “when you run with the Doctor, it feels like it’ll never end.” But end it always does. And most often tragically so. Some leave. Some get left behind and some, not many, but some, die. Is it worth it? The show’s thesis is that it is. But after what happened to my favorite companion, I’m not sure I can agree.

Work For Joss Whedon: Obviously this is the actor’s decision, not the character’s. And I don’t think you’d ever find an actor who said working for Whedon was a mistake. But, oh, ask the characters. Ask the Willows and Wesleys and Tophers and the Zoes. Stumbling into the Whedonverse was the unluckiest move of their lives.

Work At Seattle Grace: You expect a certain amount of carnage on a doctor show, sure, but, even if you’ve never seen a single scene from the stupidly addictive “Grey’s Anatomy,” bear with me for a second. The doctors there have endured hospital shootings, car accidents galore, bombs and, at the end of last year, a massive plane wreck which took out two major characters and one half of an angry lesbian leg. Ever since Season Three or so, the residents and interns have been dropping like flies. So, to the shiny new interns they introduced this season I say run, RUN to an inferior teaching hospital. Maybe then you’ll be safe.

Associate With Walter White In Any Way Shape Or Form Whatsoever: You may think the tremendous body count on “Breaking Bad” has everything to do with the drug trade…but you’d be wrong. First of all, did you know the death count on this show is over TWICE what it was on “The Wire”? You’d think Baltimore would be a riskier place than Albuquerque. But the vacuum suck of tragedy around Walter White is so vast, so inescapable, that it pulls planes out of the very sky. So while he continues to spiral ever downward, I’d advise everyone to stay away from him, from New Mexico, from the airspace over New Mexico, from the adjacent states and nations and, while you’re at it, Czech Republic.

Joanna Robinson realizes that admitting knowledge of the recent plot lines of “Grey’s Anatomy” makes her stupider than most of these characters.