The 15 Best New TV Characters of 2017

The 15 Best New TV Characters of 2017

TV characters, more than film characters, are tricky to get right. Viewers who fall in love with a s..

TV characters, more than film characters, are tricky to get right. Viewers who fall in love with a show will spend significant time, week in and week out, with these people. They’re in our homes. They’re familiar. And we know what familiarity breeds.

But there are a few characters who never wear out their welcome, whether they’re perfectly constructed or simply short-lived enough to leave us wanting more—and this year, television was filled with promising newcomers of all kinds. Be they serial killers, rotting wives, brain-damaged good guys, or wise-cracking dames, these are the 15 characters introduced in 2017 we won’t soon forget.

By Michael Yarish/Netflix.

Lydia Riera (Rita Moreno), One Day at a Time

The prospect of rebooting a classic 70s sitcom for today’s TV-viewing audience seemed, initially, like a foolish one, even for bright minds like Norman Lear and Netflix. But the show excelled at updating the social issues it addressed to suit a modern audience—and even more surprisingly, One Day at a Time also succeeded on its own old-fashioned terms, thanks largely to a glorious, over-the-top sitcom performance from Rita Moreno. Always exaggerated but never a stereotype, Moreno’s character became a stand-in for all the ways this show depicted old-world values colliding with the new.

By Chris Large/FX.

Nikki Swango (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Fargo

There was a moment in Season 3 of Fargo when Swango and her newfound accomplice, Mr. Wrench (Russell Harvard), wordlessly exited a room, having briefly gotten the upper hand on the Big Bad. That’s when you realized that the season would have been so much better if it had been focused only on these two. Mr. Wrench is old hat (the only character, in fact, to appear in all three seasons of this anthology show), but Nikki is a fresh creation who outshined a double role from a movie star, a classic Fargo policewoman played by a prestige-TV favorite, and a gonzo villain. By the time she stumbled into a bowling alley (that might also have been heaven) in the back third of the episodes, it seemed like show-runner Noah Hawley had also finally figured out who Season 3’s star should have been.

Courtesy of Netflix.

Bob Newby (Sean Astin), Stranger Things

Critics who were already a little fed up with the avalanche of 80s nostalgia pop-culture references in Stranger Things Season 1 might have cringed a little when they heard that Sean Astin, of Goonies fame, was joining the cast. But Astin’s Season 2 appearance was mercifully light on “never say die” references. His goofy dad-like charm and willingness to play hero made him a worthwhile and seamless addition to an already-cull cast. The same can’t be said for every new player in Season 2, but Bob felt like a detour worth taking.

Riverdale
By Katie Yu/The CW.

Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse), Riverdale

Want to talk about the pressure of taking on a character with a lot of baggage? See Jughead Jones, who has existed in some form or another in the Archie Comics since 1941. That Riverdale was able to turn him from crown-wearing, burger-munching sidekick into the secret star of the Archieverse is perhaps the show’s greatest success. The new Jughead came in like a knit-clad wrecking ball to bust up the 50-plus-year-old love triangle of Betty/Veronica/Archie. Credit where credit’s due: Cole Sprouse firmly buried his cheeky, blonde-haired, child-star persona and, lo, a millennial heartthrob was born.

American Gods Season 1 2017
Courtesy of STARZ.

Laura Moon, a.k.a. Dead Wife (Emily Browning), American Gods

American Gods had a lot of fertile mythological territory to work with while adapting Neil Gaiman’s beloved fantasy novel about deities walking the Earth and meddling in human affairs. But the show found its greatest success in its wildest deviation from the source material. In the novel, Laura Moon is barely a character at all; she exists, as many dead wives in stories do, to help her husband, Shadow, on his hero’s journey. In the Starz retelling, however, Laura got a rich backstory, a personality, and a purpose. Elevated from marginal guest star to a hero almost rivaling the show’s male lead, Browning’s compelling, depressed, and determined zombie (oh yes) was the best part of a bumpy first season.

By Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Courtesy of HBO.

Renata Klein (Laura Dern), Big Little Lies

There are so many multifaceted female characters to love on Big Little Lies that it feels impossible to pick just one. But under duress, I would single out Laura Dern’s high-strung Renata Klein. Taking what could have been an exaggerated villainess and turning her into someone so compelling to watch was a testament to Dern’s well-established skill. Renata, a woman not in control of her worst instincts, was somehow sympathetic even when she was screaming her guts out in a volcanic, maternal meltdown.

Courtesy of Netflix.

Catherine (Angela Bassett), Master of None

It’s challenging enough to establish a character within the span of just one episode, but Bassett had an even higher bar to clear. Her appearance on the brilliant “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None was chopped up as the story of a mother and daughter unfolded, jumping forward years in time every few minutes. Bassett had to convincingly deliver a lifetime’s worth of emotional progress in under an hour, and had the added pressure of playing a fictional version of the episode’s writer and star Lena Waithe’s real mother. The result, however, was an incredibly human portrait of the growing pains our own country is going through. Progress beats on—sometimes reluctantly, but always forward.

By Michelle Faye/FX.

Lenny (Aubrey Plaza), Legion

Aubrey Plaza made a name for herself in the comedy scene by delivering version after version of a dour I-don’t-care persona. That seemed to be what Legion show-runner Noah Hawley was asking her to do again when she showed up as our main character’s mental-hospital buddy. With a manic gleam in her eye and an arsenal of sarcastic, caustic commentary, Lenny was precisely what you would expect Plaza to deliver . . . until she wasn’t. Legion went off the rails several times over the course of its first season, but never so enjoyably as when Lenny—revealed to be much more than meets the eye—saucily and viciously danced (yes, literally danced) through our hero’s subconscious. In a year of fair-to-middling on-screen comic-book villains, Lenny emerged as, perhaps, the very best.

NUP_178288_0780.JPG
By Colleen Hayes/NBC.

Jason Mendoza (Manny Jacinto), The Good Place

This is a bit of a cheat, I’ll admit. (Jacinto’s co-star Jameela Jamil actually made this list last year.) But did any of us really know Jason Mendoza when The Good Place premiered in 2016? Jacinto has since emerged as the brightest comedic spot in a cast jam-packed with hilarious talent. So, O.K., sure—he’s not technically new. But if The Good Place has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes rules are made to be broken.

TWIN PEAKS
By Suzanne Tenner/SHOWTIME.

Diane (Laura Dern), Twin Peaks: The Return

Yes, this is the second Dern character on this list—but that should come as no surprise given 2017 could, unofficially, be termed the Year of Dern. The pressure of delivering on a classic Twin Peaks character, one who had been addressed but never seen in the original series, was enormous. How could any actual performance live up to our imaginations when it came to Agent Dale Cooper’s faithful secretary, Diane? But from the moment Dern’s bewigged Diane slowly spun around on her barstool, all earlier fantasies of that character immediately vanished. Acerbic, damaged, hyper-stylized, alcoholic, real and not, Diane was about as far from your typical girl Friday as one could get.

TCDDOWH EC259
By Simon Ridgway/©BBC America/Everett Collection.

Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie), Doctor Who

It’s hard enough for any actor or actress to step into the titular role of this long-running sci-fi series. There had been 11 Doctors before Peter Capaldi, and there will be many more after. But it’s even harder to take on the ever-shifting role of Companion. You have to be audience surrogate for newcomers to the franchise, but not bore veteran watchers with too much wide-eyed enthusiasm. For a while now, Who has had a bit of a problem with casting thinly developed pretty young things to hop on board the TARDIS. But Mackie’s rebellious Bill brought a breath of fresh air and much-needed matey-ness to a series that seemed to have lost its way. It’s just a shame that now that Capaldi has finally found the right personality to bounce off of, the show is moving on to a new show-runner, a new Doctor, and, we can assume, a new companion. R.I.P. Bill; you were too good to last.

By Merrick Morton/Netflix.

Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton), Mindhunter

Eventually, Netflix’s Mindhunter became something of a sensation among TV critics and weekend binge-watchers, landing itself a spot on Vanity Fair’s 10 best new shows of 2017. But there was a small hurdle when it came to recommending the grim 70s-set serial killer drama to would-be watchers. “Make it past the first episode,” you’d have to advise. “That’s when it gets really good.” Because Episode 2 is when Cameron Britton’s hulking, terrifyingly intelligent, based-on-a-real-creep mass murderer Edmund Kemper showed up to taunt and bedevil our hero F.B.I. agents. Before that, Mindhunter was Silence of the Lambs without Hannibal Lecter. But after? Even though he only appeared in three episodes, the compulsively watchable Netflix series went from fine to incredible, drafting us all into the role of Agent Ford: repulsed by but irresistibly drawn to this monster.

The Handmaid's Tale
By George Kraychyk.

Offred (Elisabeth Moss), The Handmaid’s Tale

A bitter, angry mirror to another woman who will crop up later on this list, Offred had been battered and broken by a society that turned its back on women. Nevertheless, in the parlance of 2017, she persisted. Moss’s take on a classic fictional heroine was a searing one, which should come as no surprise to fans who followed her from Mad Men to Top of the Lake and back again—Moss excels at righteous feminine anger. But her anger never became alienating caricature under the unrelenting close-up scrutiny of the Handmaid cameras, meaning that audiences could follow along—latching onto occasional glimmers of softness from Moss, even as Offred’s tale got bleaker and bleaker.

TWIN PEAKS
Courtesy of SHOWTIME.

Dougie Jones (Kyle MacLachlan), Twin Peaks: The Return

When Twin Peaks first returned to screens after more than 25 years away, all audiences thought they wanted out of MacLachlan was another round of his Boy Scout F.B.I. agent, Dale Cooper. What that unpredictable imp David Lynch gave us, instead, was almost an entire season of an addled man-child creature wearing Cooper’s face, who answered (vaguely) to the name “Dougie Jones.” This character was meant to reveal more about the world around him than he was to take us on an inward journey to his soul. His constant confusion frustrated some, but a funny thing happened on the way to the return of Dale Cooper. Dougie Jones, so pure of spirit, somehow worked his way into our hearts—and when Coop finally woke up to himself and his version of Dougie left forever, well, it was one of the saddest “deaths” on television in 2017.

Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.

Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

It’s hard to overstate how much 2017 needed Midge Maisel. She is a symbol for all women who have tried to meet every standard of perfection that’s been put in front of them, for every woman who has been let down by a disappointing man, and for every woman who, at one point in 2017, threw her hands up and sardonically—but hilariously—cursed a blue streak. Brosnahan somehow managed to distill the essence of female frustrations and anger, all without losing the thread on the fact that she was starring in a comedy. And above all else, Brosnahan’s Maisel succeeded where many, many characters who are performers before her have failed: she made us believe she actually is genuinely talented at her chosen profession (with a big help from the show’s writing staff), and that watching her struggle along in her journey to the spotlight was worth every second.

Get Vanity Fair’s HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Joanna RobinsonJoanna Robinson is a Hollywood writer covering TV and film for VanityFair.com.

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