We’ve already celebrated the best TV characters who joined their shows late… but unfortunately, there’s a flip side to that.
It’s not unusual for a long-running TV show to shuffle up its cast in an effort to freshen things up, and a few lucky shows have actually struck gold with new cast members. (Check out our list and our readers’ suggestions for prime examples of that.) Some cast additions, however, actually turn out to be subtractions, threatening to drag down their entire shows with their resounding lack of appeal. We’re calling them the Cousin Oliver All-Stars, in honor of the patron saint of this category: the mischievous little tyke who got blamed for ruining The Brady Bunch when he arrived late in the series’ run.
Join us as we look back at the worst TV characters who joined their shows after the first season — and really should’ve stayed away entirely. We’ve picked out bad apples from all-time great shows like Game of Thrones, The Office, Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and ER, proving that even a host of Emmy wins doesn’t guarantee immunity from the dreaded Cousin Oliver Syndrome.
Read on to see who made our list of the worst cast additions ever — and if you think we missed a big one? Feel free to remind us in the comments below.
Debuting in Season 6, Lucy’s husband had the personality of a doormat and the charisma of… a doormat. He recited his dialogue about as naturally as… a doormat would. He only seemed to exist so that Lucy had someone to yell at who wasn’t a blood relative. So we guess you could say he served his purpose. As a doormat.
Let’s face it: Wayne Palmer could never come close to filling his brother David’s shoes. After serving as President Palmer’s chief of staff starting in Season 3, Wayne proved to be both underqualified and lacking any real leadership skills by the time he took the Oval Office. He spent the entirety of Season 6 either comatose or floundering in his decision-making, becoming the franchise’s worst fictional president ever… which is saying a lot, considering one of them was a treasonous supervillain!
This is a tough one: 30 Rock is a first-ballot Hall of Fame sitcom, and Kristen Schaal has been a comedy delight on everything from Flight of the Conchords to What We Do in the Shadows. But for some reason, when she joined the cast in Season 6 as deranged NBC page Hazel Wassername, it just… didn’t work. At all. Her unhealthy obsession with Liz was more unsettling than funny, and her arrival goes down as one of the show’s rare misfires.
The addition of Noah’s post-prison Parisian fling is only second to killing Alison Bailey on the list of dumb things this frothy drama did over the course of its five-season run. It’s one thing to introduce a new love interest on a show called The Affair; it’s another to assume the audience is going to want to spend entire chunks of episodes seeing stories from her perspective. Come Noah’s move to Los Angeles in Season 4, Juliette was never seen, or mentioned, again.
He may have been adorable as an itty, bitty baby in Season 3, but after he was kidnapped and raised in another dimension, the Connor that returned wasted no time getting on our nerves. Almost all of his storylines were meandering and painstaking, and don’t even get us started on that icky Cordelia/Jasmine/Connor biz. Vampire dad deals with angsty half-demon teenage son? No, thanks.
It’s probably not fair to pin the demise of a beloved TV show on a nine-year-old boy; child actor Robbie Rist only joined the show for the final six episodes of Season 5, when the ratings were already dwindling. Still, the addition of Cousin Oliver — Carol’s never-before-mentioned nephew who came to stay with the Bradys while his parents lived in South America (?!?) — was a transparent attempt to add a cute kid to the cast at a point when the rest of the Brady kids were nearly grown up, and he never quite fit in. It’s not his fault the show was cancelled soon after, but Cousin Oliver’s name will still live on forever in TV infamy.
The annoying potential slayer who joined Buffy in its final season had a grating sense of entitlement and an inability to keep her mouth shut. And after Kennedy started dating Head Witch in Charge Willow, her insistence on calling the shots — despite her junior status as part of the group of potentials — was infuriating. (We’re aware the show was all about female empowerment, but c’mon woman, know your place!)
For the record, this recognition comes through no fault of then-19-year-old Kaley Cuoco, who joined the WB drama’s final season amid budget cuts, creative roadblocks and the forced departures of several beloved series regulars. Rather than being seamlessly integrated into the show as a supporting character, Cuoco’s whiney witch Billie was thrust into the spotlight, eventually (and begrudgingly) pulling focus from the core three. But hey, don’t take our word for it. In one episode, Billie actually apologizes to the sisters, telling them, “I know I can be a huge pain in the ass sometimes.”
FBI trainee Ashley Seaver met the BAU midway through Season 6, as she helped them investigate a serial killer — seeing as her own dad was one! She promptly joined the team as a probationary agent, after which Rachel Nichols (Alias, Continuum) became a series regular. Fans, though, saw Ashley as a Clarice Starling wannabe, and the mere appearance that she was a “replacement” for JJ (after A.J. Cook was dropped due to controversial budget cuts) didn’t help matters. By the time Season 7 rolled around, Ashley had quietly been transferred to another team.
After churning out a series-best run with Season 4, Dexter returned with a dud in Season 5, and her name was Lumen. Not only did actress Julia Stiles seem out of place on the show, but the character sucked up far too much of Dexter’s time, time we wish had been focused on Dex or spent with other characters. Lumen’s presence was a dull misstep for the show which had already been killing it (pun intended) for years. Thankfully, we only had to suffer through one season of her storylines before she was kicked to the curb.
Erik Palladino and his bleached hair never really fit in at County General. His character was one of several attempts the beloved medical drama made to fill the “bad boy” role that’d been recently vacated by George Clooney, but his character was never fleshed out enough for viewers to latch onto him. Because Malucci lacked the compassion and the humility that made Dr. Ross a fan favorite, he just came off as smug. When Kerry showed him the door after two and a half seasons, we were thrilled.
A bastard in more ways than one, Roose Bolton’s legitimized son significantly upped the HBO drama’s cruelty quotient when he first appeared in Season 3. And what purpose did he serve, really, other than to torture Reek (fka Theon) and Sansa as he saw fit? Death by hungry hounds was far too easy an exit for such an inhumane creature.
After years of bad timing and private jealousies, Luke and Lorelai had at last paired up, worked through their initial breakup and gotten engaged. So… enter April to blow it all up! Sure, it was sweet to watch Luke the Curmudgeon navigate parenthood. But April’s Season 6 introduction as his long-lost daughter was an uncharacteristically soapy plot twist for Gilmore Girls, and her presence drove a frustrating wedge between two characters who deserved a much more blissful romance.
Ivy was one of the many Gossip Girl characters that joined during the show’s later seasons but immediately made up for lost time by raising hell on the Upper East Side. Though Kaylee DeFer’s character initially claimed to be Serena’s cousin Charlie Rhodes, we later found out that Ivy was an actress who Serena’s aunt hired to play her daughter. You would think this revelation would be the end of the Ivy saga, but unfortunately, she continued to wreak havoc by dating Serena’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Dan and his dad Rufus and also Serena’s dad William, publishing all of this and more in the autobiography she wrote at the end of the series.
Filed under “Be careful what you wish for,” Nikki and Paulo (played by Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro) were introduced early in Season 3, as at least viewers wondered, “Why do we never get to know any other castaways?” Yeah, well…. Even showrunner Damon Lindelof had to acknowledge amid the early backlash that the former soap star character and her con artist beau were “universally despised” by fans, though he asserted they would wind up “iconic characters.” And maybe he was right, seeing as 10 episodes into their run, they ended up (presumed) dead, buried alive!
The Mark Zuckerberg wannabe who arrived in Music City in Season 5 claimed to be a Rayna Jaymes super fan. But the best thing we can say about him is that, after a red herring storyline, he didn’t turn out to be the person stalking the First Lady of Country Music. Instead, he’ll go down in Nashville history as the dork with power who managed to make Rayna’s final months an entrepreneurial nightmare (and who had little sympathy for Highway 65 and a grieving Deacon afterward).
Don’t get us wrong… we loved Damon Wayans Jr. in the New Girl pilot. And we loved him even more as Happy Endings’ Brad. But by the time ABC pulled the plug on Happy Endings and Wayans returned to Apt. 4D, his services were no longer needed. Coach’s comeback messed with the group dynamic far more than Nick and Jess’ relationship ever did, and it always felt like the show was struggling to find storylines for Coach before he disappeared again ahead of Season 5.
James Spader’s enigmatic businessman first popped up in the Season 7 finale, joining a number of big-name guest stars who could potentially fill the void left by Steve Carell. At the time, Robert California seemed like a good fit: an oddball, yeah, but confident in a way that was new and funny for Dunder Mifflin Scranton’s goofballs. All that charisma, though, was stamped out when Spader joined full-time in Season 8, replaced by an unnerving smugness that robbed The Office of its usual joy. Needless to say, we weren’t bummed to see Robert go at the end of that year.
As if the ABC fantasy series’ “requel” Season 7 didn’t have enough going against it — trying as it did to forge on without original cast members Jennifer Morrison, Josh Dallas and Ginny Goodwin — the introduction of a new Cinderella (Devious Maids‘ Dania Ramirez) did not fly with longtime viewers who either (1) longed to instead see Jessy Schram’s OG princess and/or (2) wanted better chemistry between grown-up Henry and his own One True Love.
This annoying little pipsqueak is basically the Cousin Oliver of animated characters. When the Scooby gang started getting a little long in the tooth, Hanna-Barbera added eager young pup Scrappy-Doo to the mix, first unveiling him in the 1979 series Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo. He did help keep the franchise afloat throughout the ’80s, but die-hard Scooby fans never warmed up to him — to the point where he was made the villain in the 2002 live-action Scooby-Doo movie.
Dave Franco’s frat-boy energy just didn’t mesh with the rest of the new class introduced in Season 9 — the quasi-med school spinoff that first introduced us to the likes of Halt and Catch Fire’s Kerry Bishé and character actor Michael Mosley. Drew was a privileged white kid with no redeeming qualities. It took a brush with cancer to show that there was a real human inside — and by that point, it was too late. The series was cancelled one episode later.
We get it: The billionaire tech bro played by Chris Diamantopoulos was supposed to be obnoxious — and he was. Very much so. With his brash swagger and obsession with attaining “three commas,” Russ stood in stark contrast to the nerdy Pied Piper guys when he arrived in Season 2, but he always rubbed us the wrong way. We were happy to see less of him in later seasons.
Oy. Introduced in Season 5 as a “renowned reporter” with a modicum of international flair, William “Will” Dey was positioned as a love (or at least crush) interest for the titular Kara, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who saw a spark ‘tween the two. The fact that such an extraneous character was kept around for the Arrowverse series’ sixth and final season was a mystery.
This beloved comedy should’ve ended as soon as Topher Grace bailed. But because a hit’s a hit, Fox kept it going one season too long and brought in Seth Meyers’ well-coifed brother Josh in Season 8 to play Laura Prepon’s new love interest. Suffice it to say, the storyline didn’t go over well, and when Netflix revived the franchise as That ‘90s Show, Randy’s character received nary a mention.
Faced with a contract holdout by star Suzanne Somers, the producers thought they could solve things by replacing her with Jenilee Harrison, who joined the hit ABC sitcom in Season 5 as Chrissy’s equally airheaded cousin Cindy Snow. But the roommate swap didn’t take: Harrison, a former NFL cheerleader with little acting experience, couldn’t keep up with the show’s frantic pace and stuck out like a sore thumb. The show rebounded a season later, though, by bringing in Priscilla Barnes as nurse Terri, making her the third roommate and showing Cindy the door.
Incest alert! Even though Eric and his estranged sister Nora (Lucy Griffiths) weren’t technically related — they were merely turned by the same vampire — their hookups had us tapping out midway through the HBO drama’s fifth season. Maybe it’s because Eric insisted on saying things like: “We fight like siblings, but we f–k like champions!” Honestly, he and Nora walked so Jaime and Cersei Lannister could run. And not in a good way.
Despite popular belief, it was the departure of Angus T. Jones, not Charlie Sheen, that derailed Two and a Half Men. Although Jake was barely present for the first two seasons of Ashton Kutcher’s tenure, the powers that be felt the need to replace him once he bailed, and in his place (for a season, anyway) was Charlie’s never-before-seen daughter Jenny, whose sole defining trait was that she slept with as many women as her father.
Yes to so many of these!! Especially poor April on Gilmore Girls. What a terrible plot “twist.”
The only one I disagree with is Coach on New Girl. It was rough for the first couple of episodes, but then I felt like they got in their groove. I was sad to see him go, and always happy when he returned for guest appearances.
I agree. I loved Coach on New Girl. He wasn’t my favorite character, but I enjoyed his episodes.
Coach is also the only one I disagree with. He fit in perfectly after a few episodes.
THANK YOU! Coach is my favorite character and the reason why season four of New Girl was the funniest one!
Isabella Gomez, The Goldbergs. The writing was on the wall before she joined the show, but Carmen and Adam are terrible together and not a coincidence that ABC announces that the series is ending six episodes after she makes her debut (and after she had made just four appearances)
I mean the day after Carmen goes out with another guy, ABC cancels the show.
The Goldbergs started going downhill once the real Adam Goldberg left the show. And with Jeff Garlin gone, it’s just getting worse. It’s time for it to end.
Pop Pop is a poor replacement for Pops too. Not too much they could do about that though.
I loved april on gilmore girls, she was fun
I have watched scrubs many many times, season 9 just doesn’t exist, it ended after season 8 – season 9 had a pretty good cast but it was awful top to bottom 0 you could have selected any of the new characters
I liked April here character. Just didn’t like how they used her in the plot to pull apart Lorelei and Luke with him not telling her about him and all.
It was really April’s mom, Anna, that did that, but April gets the blame.
I disagree with both Jacinda and Billie. I thought they both brought interesting take to their respective shows.
In the case of Charmed, I felt like Billie was perfect at reminding the sisters why they kept fighting. And also helped them move toward more of a teaching instead of fighting role.
Yea Billie wasn’t the problem, it was Christie that didn’t really work well
Christie was the worst!
100% Loved Billie, couldn’t stand Christie.
I think they were both awful additions.
Jacinda IMO was awful. The entire last season was bad and most of the new actors weren’t good.
Seven on Married With Children (didn’t he later show up on a milk carton?).
Yes, he did. And in another episode, when Kelly was cramming for a game show, they showed things that she had to forget in order to retain sports knowledge and they flashed a pic of Seven.
Guess I’m in the minority. I didn’t mind Seven’s addition. The addition I didn’t care for; Marcy’s niece Amber.
Amber was so hot she took attention away from Kelly.
Amber was “hot” to the nerdy basement dweller who couldn’t get a woman. Amber knew her place as a nerd-hearder. Kelly attracted models and captains of the football teams. Amber attracted desperate D&D players.
This should have been the first one
Surprised to see Julia Stiles/Lumen on the list, season 5 was the last season of Dexter that mostly worked for me and I would rank it ahead of season 3. I bought Lumen’s relationship with Dexter more than Jimmy Smitts/Prado’s in season 3.
Yes to all of this! I really liked Lumen and considering *when* she entered Dexter’s life, their bond was the selling point of the season for me.
Agreed. Stiles was nominated for several awards for this season.
“but c’mon woman, know your place!“ Somebody wrote this. And then clicked “publish”. It’s 2023.
If you read for context the comment makes sense. Hint: it has nothing to do with gender.
And yet it’s still poorly worded…like when ricky bobby says with all due respect
It was very clearly written tongue-in-cheek given both the context and how it was prefaced it. They all but came right out and said, “hey, this is a joke.” And it was very obviously not knowing her place “as a woman” but as a newcomer and trainee in that situation, which was valid.
I liked Lumen in Dexter and thought Ramsay Bolton was a great villain. Absolutely despicable.
Allison Sugarbaker on Designing Women. Jean Smart leaving and Delta Burke being fired left some HUGE shoes to fill and Allison and her pretentious attitude just didn’t cut it. It was baaaad.
Yes! Suzanne was a bit spoiled and entitled but still very kind. Allison was awful.
Ivy was the worst addition to GG. Such a contrived presence that added nothing to the show. The producers should’ve kept Katie Cassidy onboard since her arc as Juliet was actually good.
Ivy was the only highlight of that horriblr fifth season
I don’t disagree that Kennedy was annoying, but if we’re only picking one from each show, I think I would pick Andrew over Kennedy. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a character to die so badly.
Agreed, Kennedy’s biggest crime was not being Tara, the Buffy fan base were (justifiably) still upset over her being killed off.
Dawn on Buffy. OMG, I get she had to be there for the Key arc, but her constant whining and screeching was horrible!
Well she was child so her acting like that makes sense.
but she was also a nice in joke about adding a new character to a show
I totally agree.
OTOH, Tara’s biggest crime was being Tara.
I agree with Andrew. He was there as comic relief, but his scenes were annoying rather than funny.
I disagree. The actor who played Andrew was good and but IMO the actress who played Kennedy was awful. To me it wasn’t just the character of Kennedy but also the actress.
No Andrew slander. I loved him.
Kennedy kicked Willow out of her own room when she had one of her temper tantrums. This is just one reason this selfish spoiled brat is the worst.
agreed.
Kennedy was okay. I actually hated the addition of perpetually whiny Dawn to the Buffyverse. I can count on one hand the number of times she was at least mildly entertaining or useful.
I hated Dawn at first but then she grew on me and fit right in. I loved them as sisters and how much Joyce’s death hit them. I’ll always remember Dawn collapsing to the floor and crying no, no no as Buffy tried to comfort her. “The Body” is one of THE best TV episodes ever.
I loved Dawn. It was a brilliant addition of someone for Buffy to protect. Kennedy didn’t bother me as much as Tara did. Warren did us all a favor there.
I didn’t like Tara. The speech patterns they all used flowed from the regulars, but Tara, Riley and Dawn never got it. And I never saw the chemistry between Tara and Williw. I actually thought Willow was the most unconvincing lesbian I’ve seen on TV.
Dania Ramirez gets Dual Offender status for Once Upon A Time and Heroes – well Season 2 in general was the Cousin Oliver of that show.
I didn’t like her character on heroes, but I think any love interests introduced for Claire (Hayden Pennetierre) were worse. Needed more Elle though (Kristen Bell)!
Hands down, Scrabby Doo.
Oops, Scrappy Doo.
Did Supergirl lose their casting director?
The original cast was awesome, but everyone they added in the later seasons was awful.
None of the romantic relationships worked in the later seasons because the lead actors had no chemistry with the costars.
Lost a chunk of its budget when the show moved production from the US to Canada to offset CW’s bottom line.
Dreamer and Brainy were great additions
Considering they hit the jackpot with Tyler Hoechlin and the Legionnaire cast and Lex Luthor or just with The Elite, nope. The only original cast members that could not make the move to Vancouver were Calista Flockhart and Peter Facinelli. (Not including other recurring characters like Jenna Dewan and the actor that played Sam Lane)
Hard disagree considering we got Nia and Brainy and Melissa, the lead actress, found her husband in Chris Wood’s Mon-El.
Jenny – on 2 1/2 men was great-
When she left and Walden and Alan pretended to be gay to adopt – is where the show finally lost me.
I wouldn’t say she was great or bad. For the most part she was forgettable.
Joe from Blue Bloods. This list isn’t complete without him.
I was always on the fence about Hazel on 30 Rock, but she had enough really good moments to keep her off a list like this.
Jen from Last Man Standing.
Well they had to do something with katylin dever leaving and devers was at least believable as a middle child even though she was about 7 years older then her charcter Jen was playing an 18 year old when at the time wasn’t she like 32 when she was cast and she had some good episodes but she just didn’t fit in as they tried to make her the same as Ryan when they should’ve had Ryan take her lines
They could’ve ùsed Boyd for that.
Robert California’s weirdness was fine with me.
There were funny moments, when his wife wanted a job, the pool party. His exit, getting David to fund his charity.
Nellie, on the other hand, was truly awful.
You bet me to it. Bringing Nellie on was the end of the show for me. Truly terrible. She was way worse than Robert.
Re: Gilmore Girls: I didn’t mind April herself. I blame her mother for the awkwardness.
GoT: I hated Ramsey, but feel he was necessary to the story, such as it is.
Russ Hanneman was awesome.
Great list, but I taking your GoT call is way off. The absolute worst cast addition was Euron Greyjoy. Uncle Pirate was such an undeveloped, unneeded character. His dialogue, costumes, none of it clicked whatsoever with the rest of the show.
I agree. Also, part of the problem is the way they set this character up. In the books he is much more integral to the storyline during the time Theon took over Winterfell. In the series he sort of came out of nowhere and pretty much ruined the entire Reek storyline, which was more complex. But that is true of so much of the series. Inexplicably leaving out characters only to introduce others that had no point.
Disagree on Billie. She was fine, it was her sister that should never have been introduced. The idea of her having a missing sister worked, but she didn’t need to be found, not all mysteries need to be solved.
Also disagree on Ashley Seaver. I would have agreed until I rewatched the show recently, and it wasn’t that she was a bad character, she actually had a lot of potential. but her presence was a bitter reminder of what went down bts to put her there so she never really stood a chance of the audience liking her – tptb set the audience against her pretty much before she started.
The thing that most bothered me about Ashley was this: assignment to the BAU was something that some agents strived for, yet this girl fresh out of the academy, with zero field experience, gets in.
I think April gets a lot of flack when in reality it’s Luke’s fault for not handling it like an adult in a relationship.
I agree with Seaver on Criminal Minds. She didn’t ruin it for me but she did present as a replacement JJ and you just cannot replace JJ. I really didn’t find her all that intriguing and I thought the whole “my dad was a serial killer so I have special insight” was kind of lame.
She wasn’t the worst though. That guy they added in after Hotch left that ended up dying was the worst team member. He was a good actor but his character was BLAH. I don’t even remember his name.
If Seaver was added at a different time other than when AJ got fired. I think she would have fit in well. I agree, she wasn’t the worst. Stephen Walker was agent who only lasted one season.