Likable villain ... Del Boy Trotter tops the Radio Times' list of TV's anti-heroes
"What do you like about him?" Bart Simpson once asked about Jimbo Jones. "He's just a good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules." And there's the rub - we do like some devil in our TV heroes and, in honour of this, (and to promote the upcoming comedy drama The Invisibles) Radio Times has compiled a list of TV's top 10 lovable rogues. It's not a bad list as these things go - a bit on the obvious side and Bilko is always rogue number one in my heart but, hey, any list with Fletch and Sawyer ain't all bad.
Still, I think we can do better. I'm thinking tortured-but-charming womanising types, perhaps? In Californication, brilliantly gifted writer Hank Moody spends his days in sunny LA drinking, getting high and having meaningless sex with beautiful women. But is he really happy? Mystifyingly, apparently not and his longing to be back with his ex and daughter give him that irresistible vulnerability that every lovable rogue needs.
Not that that's something you'd readily associate with Al Swearengen from Deadwood. Ian McShane's extraordinary performance breathes life into the complex, intellectual thug, thief, pimp, dope dealer, saloon owner and philosopher Albert Swearengen, a man prone to Shakespearean monologues while being fellated, cutting deals and cutting throats with the same "so what?" air.
Because that's how they roll, the rogues. Never apologise, never explain. Like Wernham Hogg's alpha male Chris Finch. The hard-drinking, hard-loving super rep with an IQ of 142 is the quintessential flat-track bully and big fish in a small pond. And, as with so many characters from The Office, everybody knows a Finchy.
But probably the most compelling rogue currently broadcasting is Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck. Emerging from a childhood of horrific abuse, the modern, reimagined Starbuck is a conflicted, unfaithful, alcoholic brawler who is also courageous, passionate and a genius level pilot. Starbuck-style railing against authority always gets you qualified - how else would Jimmy McNulty from The Wire get inducted? B-More's own legend of negligible Irish ancestry's willingness to buck the chain of command has had him branded a "gaping asshole" by major Bill Rawls. But take all the drinking, the whoring and the insubordination aside and Jimmy McNulty is good po-lice, the Western District way.
And, in his own way, so is Vic Mackey. OK, he murders a member of his own team for turning snitch, skims money off the streets and can't encounter a rule without breaking it, but Mackey knows no fear and puts more bad guys behind bars than Columbo. And what about when they get inside? They have to deal with a jailhouse Machiavelli like Ryan O'Reily from Oz. Show creator Tom Fontana compares the slippery Irish operator O'Reily to Othello villain Iago but there's really no comparison. O'Reily is much smarter than that. Two weeks inside Em City and the self-proclaimed "lord of the fucking dance" would have Iago fetching his lunch, tidying his cell and washing his drawers. Believe that.
So who else makes it into our alternative rogues' gallery? Who are the boys your mother warned you about? And wouldn't we all be better off settling for a nice boy with a good job and prospects?
