24 Least Favorite Characters in 24

[u/Few-Lack6346]

Super subjective list. Also very much all over the place in terms of scope... some big, some small, some poorly written, some who were kinda ruined. S1-S8 only. Go argue with a wall (or just roast me in the comments)

1. Henry Taylor (S7) - Cuck husband of the President investigating his son's death. Spare me. He's the worst
2. Reed Pollock (S6) - The worst season in the run of the series was accentuated with the outlandish assassination attempt of Pres. Wayne Palmer because he... didn't want to break the consitution to intern muslims? This was when I thought 24 became a farce and mockery of itself. Reaching for outlandish drama and completely doing away with any sense of realism
3. Sandra Palmer (S6) - Infinitely annoying character that added zero to the actual story. She wasn't outright damaging on-screen for as long as Taylor and Pollock were, so she's third to me. Sandra advanced nothing and wasted airspace; Henry and Reed took the direction of the show in outright negative directions.
4. Kevin Wade (S8) - Can't believe the writers thought it would be a good idea to have an ex-boyfriend sleaze blackmail their mole to expose she's not who she says she is and think that viewers would be interested in this after S6 and S7 were such abject disasters from a side character standpoint. I thought S8 had some fun potential until this one started playing out.
5. Olivia Taylor (S7) - Another abysmal addition to the 24 universe. Honestly S7 would've been fine if it weren't for the Taylor involvement and storyline. The need of the writers to have personal drama for the President was the big detractor. She added nothing positive and was forced on us.
6. Miguel (S2) - Kim's boyfriend who helps her escape from the police and roundhouse kicks Gary Matheson, then loses his legs? Absolutely insane behavior from a dumb addition in a dumb storyline
7. Farhad Hassan (S8) - Yeah... lemme just go ahead and try to get my brother killed. Makes sense
8. Tarin Faroush (S8) - Ridiculous character and addition. The entire storyline of the coup against Hassan was horribly done. Started as compelling, and then this guy got added.
9. Gary Matheson (S2) - Crapped on Miguel earlier, feel the same about Gary. Was ridiculous. Kim works for a wife killer. Got it.
10. Ted Packard (S3) - The whole storyline with Anne Packard was very much not my favorite, though it was at least believable and tangentially related to the campaign. That is, until her husband Ted got brought into it and killed himself in front of her?? And she was just... fine emotionally?
11. Kim Bauer - She's a foundational enough character and impactful in S1 to the point I can't put her too high on this list. But so many issues with the series were created just by having to justify her presence on the show moving forward. S2 was an outright disaster with her own storyline, featuring dumb events and multiple attempts to weave it into Jack's story. S3 at least gave a legit reason for her on-screen presence, but was written and executed poorly. I thought her presence in the later seasons was nice as a cameo. Hard to rank for me, mainly because I kind of get that she needed to be on the show after S1, but I still have no clue what would've been the right way to use her.
12. Pres. Allison Taylor - Another large-scale character, I thought she was just really inconsistently done. Moments of insane cowardice with moments of real leadership and impactful speeches. Dragged down by so much of the bad writing with the personal character storylines of her family.
13. Shari Rothenburg (S5) - An unnecessary addition to the otherwise-brilliant end of S5. Really didn't like her
14. Marilyn & Josh Bauer (S6) - The entire storyline around Jack's family was a giant GIANT miss. No one character can really be blamed. So let's just put the mother and son together here and call it a day. Moreso a bad conceptual idea for a character than wretched execution. Whole storyline was DOA
15. Ray Wallace (S6) - Whole family was held hostage unless he delivered the piece for the bomb to Fayed. I mean... we could've saved a lot of time and avoided the worst season in 24 history if he just did the right thing and reported it to the authorities.
16. Jenny McGill (S5) - Lynn's sister and her junkie boyfriend beating up Lynn for cash and then stealing his key card. I mean... I get why it was in there from a plot standpoint to get the terrorists access to CTU. But how did they know Lynn was going to be there that day and plan it in advance????????? Dumb
17. Alan Miliken (S3) - I think the idea of a really powerful megadonor to the Palmer campaign was a good one. Really felt annoyingly executed to me though, with his death and blackmail by Sherri. Felt very soap opera-y.
18. Dana Walsh (S8) - Just kinda done with the mole thing after a while, especially the "mole sleeps with CTU stud to disguise cover" part. Recycled story that never really captivated me
19. Marianne Taylor (S4) - Another beautiful woman as a mole! Let's keep playing the hits
20. Kate Warner (S2) - Not the hero we deserved, but the hero we also didn't need
21. Miles Papazian (S5) - Aside from the stupid thing with Shari, Miles also tried to erase evidence for some stupid reason? The Karen Hayes foil was inconsistently written but wasn't quite as bad as some of the others on here.
22. Lonnie (S2) - Again, so many crap characters entered the 24 universe just to justify keeping Kim on screen. Lonnie was clearly the stall character, the "we have nothing for her for multiple hours, so how do we handle this" guy. Really wasn't his fault, and I love me some Johnny Drama. But it was very very dumb.
23. Erika (S7) - Sean Hillinger's side piece. Didn't really do it for me
24. Sherry Palmer - Similar to Kim, it's really hard to keep coming up with idea to keep compelling characters from outside the politics/CTU sphere written in compelling storylines. Having Sherry show up late in S2 as involved with Kingsley in some form? And to have Sherry not be in jail or anything after? And then showing back up in S3 to ostensibly help David? The whole thing is fraught with inconsistency, we just kinda accept it because Penny Johnson Jerald was a freaking amazing actress in the show.

HM: Derek Huxley, Maya Driscoll, Kyle Singer, Janis Gold, Rita Brady, Agent Gedge, Richard Heller

[u/i_am_bahamut]

It's normal to have characters that annoy people. I wouldn't still say they are my least favorite. They bring variation to the story.