TV's 12 worst love interests

Paige (Lindsay Shaw) is part of another nasty trend for bad love interests, which is “homophobic bully ends up dating their victim.” Initially, Paige and Emily (Shay Mitchell) were rivals on the swim team, and in addition to just being mean, Paige at one point actually tried to drown Emily. But somehow they got over that and became one of the series’ longest running couples?! Anyone Emily dated was going to have a hard time measuring up to her best girlfriend, Maya (Bianca Lawson), but Paige was seriously annoying on top of having once attempted to murder her. Unfortunately, Emily had seriously terrible taste in women, so it’s no wonder this on-and-off relationship spanned several seasons. [Mary Kate Carr]

It’s clear from episode one that Roy is nothing more than an obstacle to Jim and Pam’s inevitable relationship. Still, did he have to be this annoying? Roy is the definition of a useless boyfriend. He pays no attention to Pam’s needs or interests, and he’d rather impose his choices on her. It became increasingly tedious to watch her with him, and not just because we were all desperately waiting for Jim and Pam to get together. As a random saving grace, brought Roy back for a final season episode to show us what a changed man he is. The question is, who cares? [Saloni Gajjar]

Ted Moseby never lacked in romantic partners; it’s part of what made the search for the titular mother the driving force of How I Met Your Mother. The writers were also careful (at least in the beginning) to never reveal one of these love interests as the mother or not; we made it all the way to the altar before it was confirmed that Stella Zinman was one of the non-mothers in our midst. Unfortunately for Zoey Pierson, coming after this betrayal left audiences (and Ted) eager for something more serious. It was pretty obvious from the beginning that Zoey was not the mother, and as their relationship dragged on and the show kept getting renewed, it felt like everyone was stalling for time. [Drew Gillis]

Steve Urkle’s actual girlfriend on Family Matters was a foil for Laura, an attempt at showing her what she was losing by rejecting Steve. While it did give Urkle something to do besides harass his neighbor, Myra was never a character that we looked forward to seeing. If anything, the cast around her seemed just as annoyed by her presence as we were. Obviously, that’s the point. It’s not like she was designed to be a hip love interest for TGIF’s favorite nerd, which probably would’ve been a better dynamic. For all intents and purposes, she was girl Urkle (Gurkle?), and that’s simply one Urkle too many. [Matt Schimkowitz]

We love that gave Mabel a queer love interest in season two, but did she have to be so goddamn aggravating? After a whole season of watching the incredible chemistry between Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short, adding Cara Delvigne to the mix was a real bummer. She and Gomez were so stiff around each other that it was hard to believe their characters even liked each other, much less experienced any sort of mutual attraction. Luckily, Alice turned out to be a red herring and disappeared by the end of the season. So long, Alice! You will not be missed. [Emma Keates]

It’s probably rude to dunk on a character in the throes of a quarter-life crisis, edging towards her mid-30s and still working as an improv teacher as her dreams of Hollywood stardom drift from her grasp. It’s a sad story, for sure and packs an emotional wallop when she lands on “some people aren’t meant to achieve their dreams,” but getting there is a lot. She does not support Edgar, who suffers from PTSD and heroin addiction, when he needs her. Furthermore, his emotional problems outweigh her professional ones, making her appear pretty selfish in the face of all he’s going through. To be clear, this all makes sense on the plot level, and the performance from Collette Wolfe is spot on, but dealing with a 35-year-old improv teacher in intense loser denial for two seasons is a tall ask. [Matt Schimkowitz]