Happy Saturday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with another Top 5 Villains List. Today’s topic may be a little too broad. Top 5 TV Villains can include animated and live-action villains, and each one of those categories could make its own top ten list. Then, you’ve gotta question what constitutes a villain. Does Walter White from Breaking Bad count as a villain? Or an anti-hero? Or even an anti-villain? I don’t know. The lines get blurred. But what I do know is that we’re going to restrict this list to one villain per franchise, and we’ll limit the number of villains who originate in another medium, otherwise we’ll get a ton of entries like The Joker and Darth Vader. Sure, they’re great villains, but they belong on a different list. Clear as mud? Great! It’s time for JK Geekly’s Top 5 Television Villains.
5: The Borg (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Most great Star Trek villains accomplish this task through their personal idiosyncrasies and charismatic performances. Just ask Q or Khan. The Borg go in a different direction. They are a vast, unsympathetic intelligence floating through the remote corners of the universe, absorbing entire civilizations unimpeded for centuries. And they’re pure nightmare fuel and an example of Star Trek at its narrative best.
“You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.” Ah. The Borg may not dazzle viewers with pithy one-liners or well-thought-out monologues. They tap into a primal fear of a hive mind or losing oneself to mob mentality. They serve as a warning for AI adopters. Could ChatGPT turn into The Borg in a few centuries? It also doesn’t hurt that The Borg vaguely resemble cenobites (Pinhead from Hellraiser) and that Captain Jean Luc Picard was briefly turned into a Borg. I was never the biggest Star Trek fan, but seeing Picard as a Bord gave me the ick. Yeah, The Borg easily make this list.
4: Montgomery Burns (The Simpsons)
“Excellent.” The Simpsons’ Mr. Burns popularized hand-tenting or steepling. Be honest. You used Mr. Burns’s iconic hand gesture when you read, Excellent. If you didn’t, I’ll give you the chance to do so before we continue. For those of you who did the gesture before, once more with feeling. “Excellent.”
Unironically, Mr. Burns may be the harshest critique of Capitalism that television has ever managed. This man, voiced by the incomparable Harry Shearer, is so wealthy that he’s completely out of touch with the common man and their lived experience. Despite having more money than he could spend in fifty lifetimes, Mr. Burns is obsessed with becoming even wealthier. In one episode, Mr. Burns feared that solar power would eat into his bottom line, so he blocked out the sun. Who does that? Maybe the current United States president. How much American taxpayer money did Trump spend to cancel a deal for green energy? Boo-rump! I mean, Boo-urns! That’s what I said. I said, Boo-urns.
3: Bob (Twin Peaks)
“Who killed Laura Palmer?” Spoiler alert: It was Bob. I know, I just ruined the entire show. As a being from the extradimensional vortex of evil with the red curtains and zig-zag flooring that was Twin Peaks’ visual signature, Bob is a type of demon who possesses others to commit crimes. We won’t tell you who Bob possessed when he killed Laura Palmer. That’ll really spoil David Lynch and Mark Frost’s horror-mystery classic. You can’t keep your eyes off of Bob, and every scene with him strikes terror.
Funnily enough, actor Frank Silva began as a crew member. After a few glimpses of Silva on set, Director David Lynch cast Silva as the menacing Bob. The rest is history. Silva proceeded to scream and laugh his way through the part like he was possessed.
2: Benjamin Linus (Lost)
Say what you want about Lost and J.J. Abrams reliance on the secret box method of storytelling, but Michael Emerson’s performance as Ben Linus warped reality around him. Kidnapping, torture, mass murder, the sacrifice of his own daughter. Ben would stop at nothing to protect the Island from those he deemed unworthy of its secrets.
In part, Emerson’s performance is one of the reasons Lost became a huge letdown. The actors gave their all for a show didn’t know where it was going. That secret box had nothing inside. Well, it had another secret box inside the first secret box. Ugh! Anyway, Emerson was only supposed to have a brief story arc, but he killed it in rehearsals that Lost’s showrunners had to give him a meatier role. And the Island was a lot better for it. If a show is only as good as its villain, Lost should’ve been the greatest television show of all time. For a time, it was. Ben Linus had a lot to do with that success.
1: Walter White (Breaking Bad)
You know his name. See what I did there? Tee hee.
Yep. I’m still not sure if Walter White qualifies for this list or not, but Bryan Cranston’s turn as the chemistry teacher turned meth dealer is so iconic that I had to include him on this list anyway. Breaking Bad was the peak of television’s Golden Age. Walter White is the show’s most recognizable character. Heisenberg is the one who knocks. I love this character so much that I don’t care if it’s questionable if he qualifies as a villain, hero, anti-hero, or anti-villain, or something we haven’t discovered.
But if you don’t like the inclusion of Walter White, I’ll give another name for this entry from the same show: Gus Fring. Portrayed by the amazing Giancarlo Espositio, the Chicken Man pushed Walter White toward greatness. Remember what I said about a show being as good as its villain? The same can be true of a protagonist. No matter how one would classify Walter White, he is undoubtedly Breaking Bad’s protagonist (show’s main character), and Gus Fring is his antagonist (foe of the show’s main character). Gus’s status as a brutal drug lord beneath a legitimate businessman exterior made Walter White’s accomplishments seem herculean. I still get chills whenever I think of Gus growling, “I will kill your infant daughter.”
That’s our list of the Top 5 Television Villains. There were too many villains for this one list. This may have to be a series of posts in the future. Let us know who you would add to this list. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.
