Channel Changer

Here's a list from The A.V. Club of "showblockers"--characters who stop a show dead in its tracks.

Most of the list I don't agree with, don't know, or don't care about. (A few make sense, like Kate on Lost, who started out quite interesting, but soon had such a dull backstory that it was depressing to know she'd be the focus.)

But there's one name on the list so right that he deserves a category all his own: Romo Lampkin on Battlestar Galactica.  I'm trying to think of a character more worthless and can't.  He's this radical lawyer who lives unconventionally and makes unconventional arguments for his clients.  The writers seemed to love him, but everything about him was nails on a blackboard.

Let's even assume when there are only 50,000 humans left in the galaxy, all on the run from killer robots, that we'd even allow free-lance lawyers to fight for people's rights.  The arguments he makes are dumb and pointless, and the only way they can gain any purchase is by making the proceedings and the people involved even more dumb and pointless than Romo Lampkin.

He has all sorts of quirks.  He wears shades. He steals.  These don't make him more interesting, or endearing.  They just look like writers desperately trying to inflate a worthless character with enough little weird add-ons that he magically becomes interesting.

You'll have to pardon me if I seem excessive, but I hadn't thought about Romo in a while, and this piece brought back the horror.