Top ten annoying female TV characters

I saw my sister yesterday (who I might have to give a guest slot as she gets mentioned so often) and we were watching Gilmore Girls and I said how annoying Rory is. Whereas she conceded she could be annoying, she maintained that there was no way Rory would make a top ten list of all-time annoying TV characters.  After some animated discussion, I had to agree with her. Sorry Rory, you don't make my list. I have kept it to females as they kept getting mentioned but I don't want to be unsisterly so I shall do my best to compile a male list some time soon.

Here we go:

10. Amy Gardener (Mary-Louise Parker) from The West Wing. Everytime she was on screen I felt my teeth starting to tingle with irritation. I hated the way MLP portrayed her, so mannered and affected. I think she was meant to be a bit kooky but I wanted to hurl cushions at the TV. Thank heavens they wrote her out.

9. Joey Potter (Katie Holmes) from Dawson's Creek. Now then, I liked Joey in seasons one and two of DC. She was OK in seasons three and four because she was dating Pacey and gave us some classic Pacey moments. However, by season five I wanted to kill her but not before I had hacked her horrible orange hair off. As my sister so famously said at the time "all she does is wheel out her dead mum as an excuse for why she needs sympathy." We're known for compassion in our family.

8. Grace Adler (Debra Messing) from Will & Grace. I wanted to like her and to be fair, she wasn't all bad. I loved that the network cast someone with abundant ginger curls who wasn't classically pretty. This is not in any way a criticism of Debra Messing who I quite liked. But they made her character so pathetic. She lives in Manhattan, in a fabulous apartment, has a great job and a cool gay best friend. Yet she whinges all the time. When she was given some fun lines, I liked her but she wasn't given enough of them. All she ever wanted was a boyfriend and she was in love with her gay best friend which I do not believe actually really happens. Your gay friends are gay. You love them but you don't have a crush on them. Because they are gay. Maybe I am too well adjusted.

7. Pam Ewing (Victoria Principal) from Dallas. Just looking at that picture above is bringing me out in a rash and it's been well over 20 years. My supreme irritation with Pam can be summed up by her trademark line: "I need more time." The woman could never make a decision about anything. She would sanctimoniously stride into either JR or Cliff's office and shout at them and then whimper away with either Bobby Ewing or Mark (from Houston!) A disgrace to all women.

6. Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) from Charmed. Charmed was my guilty pleasure and I shall blog about it soon. Everyone in this was annoying but none quite so much as Phoebe. They made her such a skank, I think that's what bothered me and it's hardly Alyssa's fault. She was bratty and mainly horrible.

5. Krystle Carrington (Linda Evans) from Dynasty. I can't think of anything positive to say about Krystle. Oh yes I can - when she had catfights with Alexis and showed some spine. Other than that, all she did was mope. Why did she marry Blake? WHY? Always put in powder blue, pink or some silvery shade to bring out her eyes, Krystle was the archetypal wet blanket. She quivered, she trembled, she had watery eyes and would whisper "Blake!" like a kicked puppy. I loathed her.

4. Alison Parker (Courtney Thorne-Smith) from Melrose Place. This isn't Courtney's fault but I don't like her face so it didn't start well for us. Something about her mouth. Then they make her the most exasperating character in Melrose (and boy, was there competition). Defined by her love for Billy (who was a plank of wood) Alison was a royal pain in the arse. Amanda was horrid to her and we loved Amanda for it. At no point did one ever feel remotely sorry for wet Alison who dripped around bleating that people were mean and turning to the bottle. Wish she'd drowned in it.

3. Now we are getting properly into it. Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart). She would be at number one except I actually couldn't watch this show because of her. This could have been a great tv programme - it introduced us to the wonderful Lucy Liu after all. But in the history of television, could any woman have been more excruciating? Waaaaaaaay too thin, in love with another woman's husband, self-obsessed. Arrrrgggghhh! I had to turn it off.

2. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica-Parker) from Sex and the City. A show about four kick-ass women living in Manhattan and they make the protagonist a wimpy, man-dependent, nightmare. Go figure. I really like SJP and so it pains me to have Carrie at number two but her obsession with being in a relationship infuriated me. She was horrible to Aidan (although I couldn't stand Aidan, he didn't deserve to have her cheat on him) and nobody said to her 'Hey, you are being a bitch". She is this high on my list because the show was so influential and a little more sisterhood would have been most welcome.

1. Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) from Beverly Hills 90210. Kelly Taylor was the bitch in the early seasons of 90210 and therefore quite fun. However, when Shannen left, the writers decided to make the show about her and her love for Dylan/Brendan. Dear lord. What a mistake. She floated around doing her psychology course (god help us all) and dolling out advice and words of 'wisdom' to anyone unfortunate enough to be in range. She was a class A bitch (it's ok to be a bitch when your character is to be a bitch but when you are meant to be nice, it's not) to Valerie and again, nobody called her on it. She got slightly burned in a fire and filled a whole season with her 'recovery' from one scar on her back (never her pretty face of course). For me all annoying TV characters are benchmarked against Kelly Taylor and none have topped her yet.

There we have it. A great way to start a Saturday, a good old vent!