- 9-1-1
- Lucy Donato becomes an even bigger case of this than Taylor. Compared to Jonah, another recurring character also introduced in 5x11, she receives more interview exposures, preemptive words of praise on her character from Kristen Reidel the acting co-showrunner by saying she's "Breath of fresh air"
, an exposition to her backstory, and even jumping ahead on what the show wants to do to her character in the next seasons like wanting to have a cop family dinner scene with her family akin to Blue Bloods. Examples that probably cements Lucy on this status are this interview where the way the article was written implies that Lucy's actress and the co-showrunner did the interview together to hype the character up, something that's usually reserved to main characters, having a character arc about doubts over her ability as a firefighter after a lucky save in 5x14 that makes Buck teaching her first responders have to accept all the lucky saves they can manage sound more ridiculous in retrospect when it's revealed in Season 6 premiere she has 5 years ahead of experience from him, Chimney at Season 5 finale openly declaring that the team loves her, The co-showrunner talking about Lucy on Season 6 premiere interview and saying "We love Lucy" over a more well-liked Ravi despite the backlash on the former, and a dedicated explanation to her absence in the first half of Season 6 in a scene where Bobby also decides to pick her as an interim captain over a more experienced Hen during the season premiere even though while Ravi who is equally absent for the same duration of time didn't receive even a mention to the character throughout the first half of the season. All of these exposures for a character whose initial role is closer to a plot device by being in a pseudo love triangle plot between her, Buck, and Taylor so that a conflict can happen in Buck and Taylor's relationship, a conflict that not only is tired and cliche contrasting Kristen's claim of being fresh but also something in which she ultimately plays little to no role while her counterpart Jonah has more plot relevance but receives little to no exposure. - Athena Grant, while have plenty of fans, has been accused of this by some in the fandom. Athena tends to always be right, the few times she makes a mistake she doesn't apologize or acknowledge her mistake, and when called out for her faults the character doing it tends to be painted as the bad guy.
- Lucy Donato becomes an even bigger case of this than Taylor. Compared to Jonah, another recurring character also introduced in 5x11, she receives more interview exposures, preemptive words of praise on her character from Kristen Reidel the acting co-showrunner by saying she's "Breath of fresh air"
- The Bear has Claire. According to Molly Gordon, showrunner Christopher Storer was so impressed with her acting during a previous project they worked on together that he decided to cast her in this show without an audition. He was so sure the chemistry between her and Jeremy Allen White would be there that he didn't even have them meet in advance before shooting their scenes together. This may have been to the show's detriment as several fans and critics have criticized Claire's character as being bland, underwritten, and overly idealized. To make matters worse, many of the characters in the show constantly kept shilling Claire all throughout Season 2, gushing about how amazing, nice, and beautiful she was and how perfect she is for Carmy, which only exacerbated the negative sentiment. Season 3 actually takes this further by doubling down and giving even more scenes with Claire, mostly in the form of flashbacks that took screen time away from other characters. Many fans and critics have stated that this constant attempt to forcibly push Claire and her romantic subplot with Carmy only made them dislike the character even more.
- In the American Big Brother the editors tend to pick their favorites out of the cast and show them off to the audience. The problem is, they think the audience will like them too and if they don't, they'll Love to Hate them. But they often just hate them instead. Most often, it's a "showmance" couple who gets the lion's share of screentime on the highlights just kissing and hugging each other.
- Brendon and Rachel in Season 12 and 13, but especially 13. The eight new houseguests have virtually no screentime whatsoever unless they're Dominic or Kalia, and Kalia only because she's aligned with Daniele, who turns traitor to the "Veterans Alliance". 50% of the screentime is dedicated to Brendon and Rachel, while 40% is dedicated to Jeff and Jordan, and 5% is dedicated to Daniele and Dominic but later Kalia (only because she won a Head of Household competition and aligned with Daniele). The remaining 5% is split between the rest of the cast, with Porsche and Lawon hit the hardest. (Don't know who they are? Well, you're not alone - the editors seemed to have forgotten they were cast too.)
- Some see Jeff and Jordan as the Creator's Pet because BB's producers wanted to make a good show, which meant putting in a bunch of safeguards and slanting the show so that Jeff and Jordan would be on as long as possible, at the expense of the other extras on the show. Jeff got this more so than Jordan, as he was eventually hired by Big Brother (interviewing the contestants, commenting on episodes, etc). Because of this, the producers became more eager than ever to show off their "Big Brother Legend Jeff Schroeder", with him making more appearances on the live shows than other popular contestants could ever hope to see.
- Rachel in particular had probably the severest case of Executive Meddling designed to help a contestant in the series. She comes back with an unbreakable alliance with Brendon and is also paired up with Jeff and Jordan, who are likewise unbreakable. They are then put against people who barely know each other and have never played; the veterans (Rachel, Brendon, Jeff, Jordan, Daniele) do, and have. The challenges are all something they're familiar with. After her boyfriend is evicted from the house, he somehow wins a popular vote to come back, but is voted back out again. Then, after things get turned around again and cause Jeff and Daniele to be voted out, Rachel and Jordan are put on the block, Porsche is forced to open Pandora's Box... and the twist seems tailor-made to benefit Rachel and Jordan. Conveniently, the next veto competition (the one that Rachel needs to win) is... a carbon copy of the first competition in the game that Rachel won, with a different prop. The twist manages to save both Rachel and Jordan. The next head of household challenge is a challenge that Rachel had already won in the past - and just a couple days before, she was talking about how she did so well on it. When she's forced to open Pandora's Box, it's not a game-changing power that sabotages her game as it did to Porsche... it's a shopping spree. That's some amazing luck.
- Mike "Boogie" Malin. It's obvious the producers loved him, but theyd like Dr. Will more, and the only reason he got on in the first place was because Dr. Will wouldn't come on unless they could ask Mike to come on as well.
- Season 16 has Frankie Grande, an attention whore who most fans loathed, but who was given top billing to boost ratings.
- In Season 18, Nicole Franzel and Corey Brooks, the most disliked houseguests of the season, are given a lot of screentime compared to the more liked houseguests such as Natalie Negrotti, Da'Vonne Rogers, Bridgette Dunning, and Victor Arroyo.
- In Season 19, Paul turned into this when he returned by popular demand, took up 90% of the screentime, got a free pass to week three, and was placed with the least likable and hands-down stupidest batch of players ever. His popularity took a nosedive without Victor Arroyo around to keep his Jerkass tendencies in check, or more disliked players like Nicole and Corey who people rooted against. When Paul returned to perform a musical number in Celebrity Big Brother, many Big Brother fans voiced their displeasure with his return. They wanted Rachel Reilly, Jodi Rollins, Jessica Graf, Cody Nickson and Jessie Godderz, who had a much smaller role in the musical number, to be the only houseguests in that number, because they were not happy to see Paul again. Note that all of the previously mentioned people are already Scrappies.
- Bones has Christopher Pelant, a genius hacker and serial killer, who spends two seasons as antagonist, consistently avoiding capture due to dozens and dozens of Ass Pull escapes coming out of nowhere, such as suddenly deleting his identity and creating a new one to get the authorities in Egypt to save him, claiming diplomatic immunity. Fans hated him, but it took until season 9 for him to finally die from Booth shooting him to save Brennan.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Riley. Whedon never wanted the vampire romance, so when he got the opportunity to give Buffy a human Love Interest, the writers spent so long making him "not Angel" that they forgot to give Riley any actual personality or chemistry with Buffy. Despite that, many characters constantly mention how he's the nicest guy around and how great of a couple he and Buffy make. This reached its breaking point in Season 5's "Into the Woods", where Buffy finds out Riley is addicted to letting vampires bite him, for which he blames Buffy for liking bad boys note and thus emasculating him (even though it actually stems from his own issues about not being able to handle dating a girl stronger than him) and not giving him enough attention, completely forgetting that Buffy wasn't hanging out with anyone so she could take care of her sick mother, who has a brain tumor. He proceeds to give her an ultimatum to either forgive him within 24 hours, or he's going to rejoin the army and leave the country, which Buffy very understandably rejects. After all this, the narrative expects you to take Riley's side, and has Xander rant to Buffy that she is to blame for their relationship failing, basically guilt-tripping her into taking Riley back. When he returns in "As You Were", none of his faults are brought up again and he's gotten Happily Married off-screen, this time to a Badass Normal who is, indeed, weaker than him, while even Buffy now believes she should have been with him. As an ameliorating factor, at one of Buffy's lowest points, he unhesitatingly reveals his faith in her and states that she's probably the most amazing person he knows.
- Charmed: Phoebe was seen as this in the fifth to seventh seasons. Particularly, the character applies Never My Fault to the Cole situation; she treats him as though he was responsible for everything that went wrong in their lives, ignoring her own mistakes. She is never called out in the narrative for her faults, which thoroughly aggravated fans. Starting in Season 5 and especially worse in Season 6, she starts becoming an uber-powerful celebrity because of a love advice column she starts writing and just dates a string of rich and powerful men, while everyone is constantly talking about how smart and incredible and beautiful she is. The empathy powers she gains at the start of the season also lead to her constantly barging her way into other character's scenes because she'll "feel" their emotions and thus gets to start speaking all of their dialog. Meanwhile the writers claimed that Phobe's true power was love, seemingly unaware of how selfish they'd written her by the time the show hit this point. This died off slowly, starting with her being punished for abusing her magic by getting de-powered and having her Serial Romeo tendencies deconstructed in Season 8. Her empathy powers also got written out after the depowering mini-arc which everyone agreed was an improvement.
- Charmed (2018): Abigael was introduced in the already-contentious second season, and despite being an Anti-Villain at best, somehow the sisters always needed to go to her for help. She often manipulated or betrayed them, but they continued to trust her, and the show seemed to expect fans to overlook it, too. She got Ship Tease with both Mel and Harry, though the presentation of her bisexuality came off questionable at best. Being a witch/demon hybrid made her seem like a copy of Macy, and stealing Macy's powers at one point was particularly enraging for many viewers. The third season began to focus more on her Freudian Excuse and redemption arc, but that just meant that the show was continuing to dedicate much of its time and sympathy to her. This was also controversial because people argued that a white villain was getting more attention than the black/Latina leads, something that Macy's actress, Madeleine Mantock, even commented on. (Harry's Character Focus got similar criticism, but viewers still generally liked Harry.)
- Chiquititas (2013): Mili; despite her being the main character and center of the plot, this version still manages to focus too excessively on her compared to other characters. She gets too many songs to herself, not only getting her own theme song "Abraça o Mundo", but also hogging songs that originally belonged to other characters in previous versions such as "Crescer" and "O Que Você Fez?", the latter being alongside her Official Couple Mosca, and them being the only couple involved in the song while the previous versions were sung by two couples instead. Speaking of Mosca himself, he has a relationship with Mili in this version, which is a crucial plot point, while in the 1995 and 1997 versions he had crushes/relationships on several girls but never with Mili. Many important scenes with other characters are also given to Mili, such as her helping the boys studying at one point (which was originally Vivi's role), or being rescued by Miguel while the orphanage is being dedetized (which was originally Carol's role).
- Irish drama The Clinic has this with Dr. Dan. He starts off as a corrupt third-string cast member, then is found out and leaves. A year or so later, he comes back and begins going out with the lead character. Then when she dies, he becomes the lead. Through all this he never reforms, constantly lies for seemingly no good reason, tries to scam people, and generally a total douche and never reforming, even after a bout of life-threatening illness. The character has no depth, they stop him being an outright hero by making him do bad things, stop him from being an outright villain by making him seem joyless. The end result is he's a boring would-be anti-hero who gets all the plot lumped at his feet.
- Dr. Daniel Jonas in Days of Our Lives. In his time in Salem, numerous characters prop him up, telling people he's the best surgeon, boyfriend, lover, etc., etc. In addition, veteran and legacy characters are thrown under the bus to prop Daniel, including the destruction of longtime supercouple Jack and Jennifer Deveraux. His character is retconned to be the daughter of Maggie Horton in order to make both him and his daughter connected to one of the core families in Salem, and almost every female character falls in love with Daniel to the detriment of their prior character development. All of the male characters admire him, and many of the characters constantly discuss what a great guy he is even when he's not in that day's episode. The show constantly force-fed viewers the pairing with Jennifer Deveraux despite major members of the soap opera press declaring the pairing as failed, tired, trite, dull and showing no chemistry.
- Hannah McKay from Dexter. The writers just adored her and were really clearly trying their absolute damnedest to make fans like her, yet fans on the whole found her flat, boring and all around unlikable. Dexter rapidly falls in love with her and can't bring himself to kill her despite her more than fitting his code; that she came after the better-received Rita and Lumen marks her as a Replacement Scrappy on top of all that. Other characters frequently praise her and gush about how great a fit she and Dexter are. Her Spotlight-Stealing Squad tendencies got so bad that most of the story in Season 8 revolves around people trying to catch her. In other words: in the final season of a drama about a serial killer, a huge chunk of the plot is about people trying to catch his girlfriend. Scott Buck even went so far as to state he wished he could do a Spin-Off based on the character (which never came to fruition, to the relief of Hannah's hatedom).
- Stacey Slater from EastEnders. Seriously, she is Walford's answer to Lana Lang. She even got her own Psycho Lesbian stalker for a while who was actually much hotter than Stacey but the plotline ended undramatically. First introduced as an expy for Kat Slater, Stacey quickly became the creator's favourite character. Despite being a shrill, perpetually Wangsty Jerkass who didn't know how to smile and just SHOUTED ALL THE TIME, everyone in Walford adored her and usually ended up sleeping with her. She was such a spoiled brat that she turned up to her boyfriend's work party which was crucial to his career and because she was annoyed over not being invited, got completely drunk and made a complete fool of herself before being forced to leave. Outside, Bradley laid a savage "The Reason You Suck" Speech on her. In revenge, Stacey then seduced Bradley's dad. Even after their affair was exposed on Christmas Day and everyone's lives were ruined, Bradley still got back together with her and after she killed Archie Mitchell for raping her (okay, that she can be applauded for), Bradley took the rap and a nose dive off the Queen Vic to his death. When Stacey nearly did the same thing, you could practically hear the audience chanting "Do it you bitch!" But she didn't. Even after everything she'd done, the writers still loved her too much to either kill her off or send her to prison which in Walford, left only one way of leaving open to her: going to Spain. And there she remains but the writers still sent her off with the touching jingle that they only play at the end of a really sad or moving episode.
- Eureka: Zane. The writers have labored diligently to make this character likable, yet audience dislike continues, probably largely because Zane replaced fan favorite Taggart as Deputy Jo Lupo's romantic foil. Despite this pairing (or perhaps because of it) being the focal point of viewer discontent, the writers placed even more emphasis on Zane's relationship with Lupo in Season 4, rather than pursuing the slightly more successful tactic used in some Season 3 episodes of developing Zane's interactions with other characters, thus elevating Zane from a Scrappy to a Creator's Pet. Lupo and Zane relationship is becoming increasingly prominent and with the addition that Zoe is falling for him, it seems the writers are trying far too hard to make him likeable. After the Matrix arc at the beginning, he's been acting like a spoiled brat because a virtual version of his girlfriend was with a virtual version of Carter. This is apparently enough reason to treat both the two like crap. The other characters treat this as appropriate.
- The Flash (2014): By Seasons 8 and 9, some fans feel like Cecile and Allegra have overtaken the focus despite being among the least popular of the regular cast. With Cecile being criticized for constantly being subjected to New Powers as the Plot Demands and having overtaken the plot from other cast members while being heavily shilled by the characters. For Allegra she is perceived as being rather bland and out-of-place on Team Flash, yet is still excessively focused on.
- Game of Thrones: Talisa was seen as this, with her being introduced essentially mouthing off to her king, and it being shown as a positive character trait. Fans of the books disliked her for being a replacement for Jeyne Westerling and Adaptation Expansion (her and Robb's marriage happened off screen in the books) drastically changing Robb's plot. In the books he marries her after a one-night stand to preserve her honor, knowingly breaking a marriage promise to a potential ally (said one-night stand happened when he heard his brothers may have just been murdered too). In the show, Talisa and Robb fall madly in love and he breaks the marriage promise to marry her. Then at the end of Season 3 when she's given a shocking Death by Adaptation, her many haters were horrified.
- General Hospital: Brenda Barrett. Even when she's not there characters are constantly singing her praises and she's referenced in almost a godlike manner. Most every heroine on the show is compared to her, and told how they will never even compete with her. Whenever she returns to Port Charles, characters are either falling at her feet or are reviled by her (and are immediately vilified for this reaction). The show cannot ever decide who her true soulmate is—Sonny or Jax. It constantly changes whenever she comes back. But when she does come back, her presence ruins the relationship either Jax or Sonny is in so they can conveniently hook up with her. But since Vanessa Marcil never stays with the show long, something comes up to break up Brenda's relationship with either man, and it's always their fault, NOT BRENDA'S, that their relationship is over. One poignant example of this is when Brenda returned in the early 2000s, believing that she had inherited her mother's fatal disease. Not only does she use her "illness" to interfere with Jax and Skye's marriage, but they have an affair. Guess who's made out to be the villain in this situation? SKYE! So she gets back together with Jax, but then turns around and shares a kiss with Sonny! Jax witnesses their kiss, and proceeds to rightfully expose her in front of everyone at the altar. But STILL, Brenda is not held accountable for it and Jax is vilified for humiliating Brenda and ruining her "big day", causing her to flee Port Charles in tears. At least with Carly people acknowledge that she's not a good person. Brenda however is ALWAYS portrayed as a godly heroine without any faults.
- Gossip Girl (2007): Dan Humphrey is the ultimate example. He did have a fanbase but the majority of the fans hated him. Showrunner Josh Safran openly admitted that he loved Dan and saw himself in that character and that he wanted him to be popular (even going as far as saying that Dan was "the soul of the show"). This was attempted by shoehorning him into a lot of storylines, breaking up the Fan-Preferred Couple for the sole purpose of hooking the female party up with Dan (which Safran admitted to) and making Dan Gossip Girl... and have everybody just forgive him for all the hurtful, meanspirited things he/Gossip Girl had done over the years (even Penn Badgley (who played Dan) thought this was dumb). It may not be conicidence that Safran was also in charge of the Sequel Series which wasn't nearly as successful than the original...
- Heroes:
- Arthur Petrelli. He was introduced as a blatant replacement for the other fan favorite of season two, Adam Monroe, and was instrumental in the Great Season 2 Character Purge. Despite quickly establishing himself as the single most powerful villain the show had seen yet (or possibly, because of it) he quickly became a case of Orcus on His Throne and sat around drawing pretty paintings until the fandom made it clear how much he was hated and Sylar euthanized him.
- Niki. Initially fairly warmly received by fans, she quickly wore out her welcome with her multiple personality subplot and causing the death of fan-favourite DL. Fans rejoiced that she died, only for yet another identical twin to come back because the writers felt that the show apparently couldn't go on without Ali Larter.
- In the early seasons of Holby City the character of Victoria Merrick was often seen by fans as the creator's pet. She was incompetent in the extreme, supercilious to the nurses, became addicted to drugs and generally whined every single week about how hard it was to be a junior doctor, yet still they kept her on. Even the perfectionist Anton Meyer kept forgiving her. Yet another character, who played a quite competent young female cardiologist was immediately 'sacked' by boss Anton Meyer for a much lesser crime. Fans often wondered if Merrick was his love child and this was lampshade in the first episode of the third series when Merrick was sent off to another department, and one character said "There goes the theory that she's Meyer's secret love child." Ironically, the actress who played her, Lisa Faulkner, went on to star in Spooks as an equally incompetent young spy, but in her (and the series') second episode was dipped head first into a vat of hot oil and shot. Holby City fans, who had often written stories killing off Victoria Merrick in increasingly bizarre ways, cheered (and wished they'd thought of it).
- Homicide: Life on the Street: Falsone. Falsone was a fairly stereotypical Italian-American cop (played by an actor with a slight but nonetheless obvious Hispanic accent) who ate up all the screen time with his fairly stereotypical custody battle for his fairly stereotypical young son who he stereotypically loved unconditionally and was stereotypically denied access to him by a stereotypically conniving ex-wife. His hooking up with Ballard—also not the best defined of characters—seemed to be a cynical attempt to copy the Simone-Russell chemistry on NYPD Blue. It got to the point where fans started a 'I hate Falsone' hate group on the Internet.
- House: Martha Masters, Thirteen's temporary replacement while her actress, Olivia Wilde, was shooting TRON: Legacy, is widely disliked. Many season 7 episodes focused heavily on her, and she came across as worse than Cameron—not just obnoxious, but obviously didn't know what she was saying or doing outside of differentials.
- Mad Men: Creepy Child Glen keeps showing up long after he stopped serving any clear purpose, just because he's played by showrunner Matthew Weiner's son. It really doesn't help that according to some interviews with Weiner, he's actually not supposed to be a creepy child; the kid just can't act, and Weiner can't accept that.
- Neighbours:
- Summer Hoyland. That's The Other Darrin Summer Hoyland, who's so different from the charming and sweet-natured original it's hard to believe they were meant to be the same character. She dumps her likeable boyfriend for spurious reasons (the fact that he was competing with Andrew for her), her next boyfriend turns out to be gay prompting her to make lots of big speeches about how there's nothing wrong with that without noticing she's causing most of the hostility towards him, then she sleeps with her sometimes-best friend's boyfriend who she's suddenly decided is the love of her life. (It doesn't last, despite the show trying to turn them into the Official Couple when they're actually something of a Crack Pairing.) And she still has the nerve to be self-righteous about everything and everyone. She gets the school radio station closed down by wrongly accusing the local council of being corrupt without any evidence, for which she receives no punishment. She attempts to cheat at an exam (albeit in a desperate, poorly planned fashion that wouldn't have been very effective even if the exam hadn't been postponed due to her teacher collapsing) and instead of redoing Year 12 after being caught out, she convinces the local newspaper editor (her boyfriend's dad) to give her a job. As a result, at the age of eighteen, she's a full-time professional journalist despite having no qualifications and next editor Susan (basically an older version of Summer) effectively makes her her right hand woman. Even after she sleeps with the deputy editor and tries to run off to his next paper with him, Susan still wants her to stay on but instead she leaves to do charity work. In Paris.
- Imogen Willis actually managed to surpass her. She started off well, spending her first few months as a bright but insecure girl overlooked in favour of her brother and developing bulimia. Then she gets elected school captain and proceeds to lord it over everyone. The older boy she's been crushing on for months falls for her...and she abruptly decides she doesn't like him after all. Then she does it to the next major character to show an interest in her, while several guest characters think their only purpose is to spend their time on the show basking in her loveliness. She gets a job at a law firm while still at school, treats the secretary (who's twice her age) like an underling and somehow keeps the job despite constantly doing unethical things (tipping off her dad to a lawsuit against his employers, trying to get her brother out of an assault charge). Her best friend starts dating the latest boy she likes and she launches a vicious campaign against them that has even her notoriously biased mother admitting she's the bad guy, then wrecks their wedding by declaring her love to him that morning and getting stuck down a well with him (Makes As Much Sense In Context) and he still falls for her after she starts hanging around him as soon as he's single. And this time the show doesn't admit the relationship isn't working: Instead, the actor playing her boyfriend was effectively sacked so that, when she gets offered a dream job as an intern in LA, they can get a judge to grant special permission for her to marry him and take him with her, because apparently they're Meant To Be even though they're been together six months and broken up twice. And even though he's a member of one of the show's original families and the son of the show's ultimate Golden Couple, he has to change his name to hers, because she's just that awesome.
- The Noddy Shop has Sherman and Rusty treated this way. Every other episode has them as the focus among the toys, usually in a situation where two people had different opinions on a particular topic. Warloworth was also a victim of this trope in episodes where there is a difficult situation a child would misunderstand. It got to the point where due to this, barely any other toys got to have episodes focused on them, except for Planet Pup note and Johnny Crawfish note .
- Nellie in season 8 of The Office (US). While she had definite signs of The Scrappy initially (hated by fans), the writers have been publicly praising Catherine Tate (adored by creators), brought back and put in as the boss and attempted to be given a sympathetic backstory (put into large scenes), and finally talked up by other characters (with Jim and Pam defending her at one point).
- Inverted on Peep Show. The fanbase loved Matt King's character Super Hans and actually wanted more of him but the writers were resistant to do so. It helps that they had a high degree of awareness that Super Hans is similar to Jeremy (he's basically Jez with no positive traits) and were wary of him becoming unfunny too quickly. His appearances became more frequent in later series, though.
- Primeval Danny Quinn himself was accepted by the team far too easily and could basically do no wrong (despite spending his first episode impeding and bullying the team, which didn't exactly endear him). It didn't help that he was an action hero type who seemed to be from a completely different genre than Primeval previously had been. The fact that he was given the big final confrontation with the show's Big Bad, ahead of characters who'd been on the show three seasons and had actually met her before, grated somewhat as well.
- Revenge: Victoria ascended to the position in Season 4, suddenly becoming an Invincible Villain who effortlessly demolished every move Emily made against her. Many fans accused the writers of being overly enamored with Madeleine Stowe's performance, to the point that they refused to let the character get any comeuppance and half the time it felt like we were supposed to be rooting for her. Unlike most Creator's Pets, however, Victoria did get her comeuppance - the ultimate comeuppance - in the Series Finale.
- Kate from Robin Hood (BBC). She was introduced in Series 3 as a replacement for the well-liked Maid Marian. She quickly establishes herself as a member of the Merry Men, Robin's new girlfriend and is constantly fawned over by the characters, being called "beautiful", "brave", "a good fighter", "compassionate" "a treasure" etc. and is generally adored by all. Unfortunately for the writers, most viewers didn't agree, with Kate actually gaining a certain amount of notoriety as the biggest Scrappy on the show. Besides being an obvious replacement for Marian, it doesn't help that Kate never really lives up to her Character Shilling, instead being a Faux Action Girl who constantly needs rescuing, often makes stupid decisions and generally comes across as shrill and obnoxious.
- RuPaul's Drag Race: Every so often Ru will have a clear favourite, and they're not always the fans' favourite. With Jorgeous in season 14, it was so obvious that even the other queens commented on it.Bosco: I don't want to go up against Jorgeous. I'm pretty sure RuPaul has signed up to be an organ donor for Jorgeous.
- Saturday Morning All Star Hits!: In-Universe - when the cartoon block's host Skip makes a cameo appearance on the show Strongimals with a single line ("Umm...subs?"). Despite a lukewarm reception, in a few weeks Skip becomes the main character of Skip and the Strongimals, resolves the series' conflict in a single lines (just stop fighting the Big Bad) and gains the main role in a Live-Action Adaptation. By the season's end Skip's star has faded, and his brother Corbie is on the ascent...
- Saturday Night Live:
- Lorne Michaels most definitely has his favorites. But it wasn't very pronouced in SNL's earlier seasons where there was so much talent that it was hard to feature just only a few performers. In was really in the late 90s to current day that fans noticed Michaels had his pet projects. Some of these favorites include Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Taran Killam and Kate McKinnon. Interesting that Michaels named Will Ferrell as maybe his all time favorite SNL cast member and his was never considered one of Michael's favorites when he started.
- This wound up being subverted by Killam, as he and the similarly popular Jay Pharaoh wound up being let go despite having more time on their contracts. Given both were regularly contributing to the show in well received ways, their removal was not well received.
- During Jean Doumanian's brief yet infamous time as showrunner, she basically groomed Charles Rocket to be the "breakout star" of the show. She made him the lead in multiple sketches, put him in charge of the Weekend Update desk, and even gave him his own segment known as the "Rocket Report". Hell, in the first episode, Rocket even called himself "a cross between Chevy Chase and Bill Murray". Unfortunately, many saw him as a poor man's version of both of them (Rocket's reportedly diva-like attitude backstage didn't help matters either. Notably, during the episode Murray hosted, he pointedly turns away from Rocket). This all culminated with Charles saying the F-word on live television. By the end of Season 6, both Rocket and Doumanian were fired, their careers tanked, and Rocket eventually took his own life in 2005.
- For Dick Ebersol, Eddie Murphy was his pet, and he wasn't shy about letting you know that. SNL was basically the Eddie Murphy Show from Season 7 to 9 (until Murphy left). After that it became the Billy Crystal / Christopher Guest / Martin Short show. Ebersol believed less in the emsemable format and more of having one or two stars with the other players in the background. Looking back Ebersol might have been correct. Building the show around Murphy very much saved SNL which was coming off record low ratings and possible cancellation after the 1980-81 season. SNL also seems to have its strongest seasons when it is built around either one or a few uber talented performer with the others in the background. The mid-90s to early 00s with Will Ferrell. The mid to late 80s with Dennis Miller, Dana Carvey, and Phil Hartman. The early 90s with Chris Farely and Mike Meyers. The mid 00s with Tina Fey, etc.
- As listed above, Jimmy Fallon got hit with this quite a bit. While he did prove to be quite adept at impressions, resulting in plenty of roles, the fact that he could never get through a sketch without laughing became infamous. Despite many believing his laughing episodes took away from mute sketches, he was constantly out in the spotlight, which made him a highly divisive cast member. Not helping was that he also ran Weekend Update during his tenure, so Fallon's detractors were guaranteed to see plenty of him each night no matter what. He would go on to gain this reputation from NBC as a whole after leaving, once he gained his own talk show in Late Night and was later given the coveted The Tonight Show, additionally getting several hosting gigs for NBC broadcast award shows and SNL episodes and special, even getting to open up the show's fortieth anniversary. All this exposure caused many to jump on the Fallon hatedom and caused many accusations of him being the network's personal lapdog.
- Kristen Wiig's herself was this for many fans during the 2008-2010 seasons. She was guaranteed to be in the majority of the skits every show, almost always playing the female lead. It didn't help that most of her recurring characters, like Gilly and her awful Kathy Lee impression, were incredibly grating and time-consuming (despite Gilly being widely believed to be her least funny character even by Wiig's fans, she even got a freaking holiday special!). Even worse, the other female cast members were shoved into background roles to make more, unneeded room for Wiig. With Wiig out of the cast, however, the rest of the female cast have now been finally given enough screentime to show their talents.
- As of season 46, Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong have become accused of being this as they've been allowed to miss several episodes of the season outside of pre-taped sketches done remotely so they could film their own television shows instead. Given the two of them have already been on the show for eight seasons, which are among the longest tenures in the show's history, many fans feel they've had their time and they should just walk away to strictly focus on their solo projects and allow some of the newer cast members to make their mark on the show.
- Also for season 46, some feel that Maya Rudolph has become one. After making several appearances the previous year as then presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Rudolph continued the role after Joe Biden named Harris as his running mate. Suddenly, not only did Rudolph's Harris start appearing in almost all the cold opens, even when she was only slightly connected and therefore didn't have much to do, but Rudolph also started appearing in multiple other sketches throughout the episodes.note While Rudolph is a very popular comedic actress and former cast member, some fans have criticized her sheer number of appearances this season as yet another example of SNL neglecting it's current cast in favor of big names.
- As mentioned above, Kate McKinnon very much qualifies. A popular cast member, she went from initially being something of an Ensemble Dark Horse, as she found her role increasing as more of the bigger names in the cast started to leave, to become the show's MVP by that point in the eyes of many. She then went on to portray Hillary Clinton, widely regarded as the frontrunner for the upcoming presidency, and won an Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series not long afterwards. And then, by the next season, McKinnon's role started to greatly increase. She continued to portray Clinton until her shocking election loss, but then took over for a wide variety of Donald Trump's cabinet members, most of them men, as well as often finding herself at the center of sketches, to the point where she basically eclipsed her entire supporting actress to become something of a leading lady. This major exposure would continue for the following years, which some viewers thought was stretching McKinnon far too thin, with her work not being as fresh and exciting as it once was, likely due to such a large workload. This eventually culminated in, when the show debuted a Robert Mueller impression played by McKinnon, it being poorly received, which was not so much blamed on McKinnon herself but rather it being a symptom of the large workload granted by the show to McKinnon spreading her too thin, resulting in the role being recast with Robert De Niro to a much more positive reception.
- Pete Davidson has repeatedly been accused of being one. Several viewers have noted that having an actor who both has very little range and almost always breaks character is a poor fit for a live sketch show which requires playing a multitude of parts. There's also the fact that Davidson has repeatedly either barely appeared in or completely missed episodes, with accusations that he doesn't pull his own weight in comparison to the other big names in the current cast. And then there's the time where he was still allowed to remain on the show even after publicly criticizing his coworkers. Many have noted that due to Davidson gaining fame from his relationship with Ariana Grande and frequency discussing his poor mental health have caused Lorne Michaels to give Davidson free passes due to a combination of taking advantage of his fame as well as stopping his health from worsening. All this has caused Davidson to become one of the more divisive actors in the show's cast.
- Lorne Michaels most definitely has his favorites. But it wasn't very pronouced in SNL's earlier seasons where there was so much talent that it was hard to feature just only a few performers. In was really in the late 90s to current day that fans noticed Michaels had his pet projects. Some of these favorites include Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Taran Killam and Kate McKinnon. Interesting that Michaels named Will Ferrell as maybe his all time favorite SNL cast member and his was never considered one of Michael's favorites when he started.
- Flynn from Shake It Up. At only 10 years old he is portrayed as a Spoiled Brat far more intelligent than all the characters older than him, except Henri. They even said he set up Wi-Fi in the apartment when he was three. Also, he is given all the good stuff no matter what he does. He's been given the spotlight dance despite not doing anything the entire episode, he tricked Rocky into getting him a toy by pretending to be a needy child, becoming an internet sensation, and even impressing a girl twice his age. No matter what he does he almost always gets away with his actions despite being selfish, greedy, and obnoxious.
- Skins: Tony from the American version of Skins, who didn't seem believable as the most popular guy in school and overall just came off as a whiny little twit, especially with James Newman's terrible acting. Yet, the writers kept shoving him in the viewers' faces, with him even getting it on with the show's resident lesbian.
- Lana Lang from Smallville was kept on long past her usefulness as obligatory love interest from the early seasons, to the point that some people theorized that she was the biggest reason the ratings were dropping. Nonetheless the writers seemed invested in keeping Kristin Kreuk around. The writers' persistence could be chalked up to the fact that Lana is traditionally the girl in Clark's past... if Smallville hadn't made far bigger breaks with tradition, particularly by introducing Lois Lane. Apparently it came out that Gough and Millar actually did the casting for Lana before they did the casting for Clark.
- On Smash, according to people who worked on the show, Julia was an example of this. She was reportedly not allowed to have any genuine struggles to work through, because according to showrunner Theresa Rebeck, "She's the hero! She saves everything!"
- Gemma Teller-Morrow from Sons of Anarchy gradually became this. Some fans think that her character is quite overused and takes up focus in plots that isn't even about her. Throughout the show she lies, schemes and bullies people but rarely suffers the consequences of her own actions while others have to. Even after the controversial finale of Season 6 which ended with her killing her own daughter-in-law and then putting the blame on the Triads to save her own skin, the show desperately tries to make you sympathize with her, and her eventual death at the hands of her own son is clearly portrayed in a sympathetic light which many thought came off as unearned for someone like her. Not to mention that Jax never found out the truth about his own mother's involvement in his father's death. So in a way she got what she wanted. The fact that her actor is married to the show's creator in real life might have something to do with it.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Vic Fontaine. Ira Behr was so stoked at convincing one of his favorite musicians, James Darren, to join the show that he created a part just for him, a holographic lounge lizard. Darren, who was initially skeptical of returning to acting, became very invested in the part and eager to return, so Behr was obliged to keep inviting him back over fans' protestations. His many detractors felt that his constant presence in the back half of the final season (he was given several focus episodes) took screen time away from resolving ongoing plots and character arcs that fans had become invested in over the years. It didn't help that his presence in those episodes that didn't revolve around him often felt shoehorned (characters with no particular nostalgia for the period of Earth history he represents like Quark or Odo would go exclusively to him for advice, despite the fact that the station had just gotten a professional counselor) and many characters (most notably Julian) would go on at length about what a great and insightful "person" he was before the audience had a chance to judge for themselves.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation brings us Wesley Crusher, the former Trope Namer. He nearly killed the show in the fans' eyes, by being an Insufferable Genius. Whenever the other characters weren't praising him undeservedly, they were rudely dismissing him undeservedly, depending on which one would make him look better. Even worse was the 1987 Writer's Strike, which left the network sitting on a ton of unused "Wesley Saves The Day" scripts as most of what they had to work with. (Ironically, these episodes are generally considered So Okay, It's Average, making him marginally more likable when he's the focus character, as opposed to when he's given such a large role in other episodes.) It got so bad that even Wil Wheaton, the actor who played him, hated his guts. He became a bit more bearable with the 5th season episode, "The First Duty", where he screws up big time by participating in an illegal stunt that gets a schoolmate killed and then attempting to cover it up, and for once he isn't Easily Forgiven, or otherwise allowed to get away with it. Instead, this leads to him being bawled out by Captain Picard and getting that school year's marks voided. Eventually he was Put on a Shuttlecraft and the character disappeared from the series, only coming back for the near-final episode Journey's End, and finally being cut out of a cameo appearance on Star Trek: Nemesis.
- Many players of Survivor have become this - some started out as fan favourites who became this due to production shilling, overexposure, getting cast to play with newcomers who seem to be talking up how much they like them, constantly getting invited back again and again (when many others never even got a second chance), receiving advantages, Manipulative Editing hiding out their worse features, and less showy performances. Examples include "Boston Rob" Mariano, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Oscar "Ozzy" Lusth, Cirie Fields, Benjamin "Coach" Wade, Phillip Sheppard, Jon Cochran, and Russell Hantz. Not helping is that many of these have also appeared on other shows like The Amazing Race, or Big Brother as Stunt Casting.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/CreatorsPet/LiveActionTV
Go To