I was thinking about how much I love Dwight Schrute, and decided to make a list of mine. This list excludes bit characters, and an honorable mention therefore goes to Judge Marx from The Good Wife. He's one of my favorite characters, but he's kind of a gag character (the crotchety old judge who understands technology). I'm not sure I'd appreciate him so much if he'd been recurring though. While I'm at it: honorable mentions also go to Eli Gold and Marissa Gold, both of whom would make a list of my top two dozen favorite TV characters.
- Sterling Archer (Archer). Not even a competition.
- Boyd Crowder (Justified). Unlike most of these characters he's more a dramatic character than a comic one, but I identify with him really strongly. He's smart, sophisticated as hell, opportunistic, and basically what I imagine I might be if I'd grown up in similar circumstances.
- Dwight Schrute (The Office, US). I've always sympathized more with Dwight than any other character on either version The Office.
- Karl Pilkington (An Idiot Abroad). He's playing himself, but he does so awesomely.
- Maurice Moss (The IT Crowd). There's just something so endearing about how Ayoade plays him.
- Elsbeth Tascioni (The Good Wife). The bunny-ears lawyer incarnate.
- Krieger (Archer). Mad scientist Hitler clone FTW.
- Ron Swanson (Parks and Rec). I shouldn't have to explain this one.
- Leslie Knope (Parks and Rec). Her manic energy and relentless optimism is everything I wish I could be.
- Mr./Ms. Garrison (South Park). Garrison's combination of "only reasonable man" and utter insanity makes him consistently the best thing about the show.
- Pam Poovey (Archer). Yes, three Archer characters made it on here; there's a reason it's my favorite show of fucking ever. (Cheryl, Cyril, Ray, Nikolai and Brett are also honorable mentions.)
- Kenneth Parcel (30 Rock). Yeah, he's a southern stereotype, but he's also just so adorable.
I'm kind of disappointed with myself that only three and a half of my top twelve characters are female. Not sure if that's my fault or the fault of the people making the shows I like; it's probably a bit of both. With that in mind...
Honorable mentions also go to Rachel from House of Cards and Susanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren from Orange is the New Black. Both of these are tragic characters who stand out really clearly to me for that reason. I also identify strongly with Warren. However as should be clear from that list, I'm very strongly oriented towards comedy, and tend to like comedic characters much better than dramatic ones. An honorable mention also goes to Clara Oswald of Doctor Who. I love her, but I'm pretty sure that's more because I'm infatuated with Jenna Coleman than because her character is all that interesting. Although I still maintain that she was better-written than the average female companion in the new series.
It's interesting that three of my favorite shows--Community, Futurama, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia--have strong all-around casts, yet no character I would call one of my top favorite characters ever (well, Bender probably makes my top twenty). I wonder if that's why the first two kept getting canceled.