100 GREATEST TV CHARACTERS

1 – 25   26 – 50   51 – 75   76 – 100

26. Darius Jedbergh (Edge of Darkness) (85) – Joe Don Baker
    "A lethal dose to anyone within ten yards. Get it while it's hot!"
    
    Maverick Texan CIA agent with a lump of plutonium in his Harrods shopping bag.
27. Delbert Wilkins (87-88) – Lenny Henry
    "Crucialllll!!!!"
    
    Wicked spinner of the wheels of steel for the Brixton Broadcasting Corporation.
28. Del Boy (81-96) – David Jason
    "This time next year we'll be miwllionaires."
    
    A recent survey of foreign visitors to London revealed that Del is the capital's second most famous resident (losing out only to the Queen). David Jason, who had narrowly missed out on the part of Corporal Jones in Dad's Army, originally auditioned for the part of Grandad.
29. Den and Angie Watts (85-89) – Leslie Grantham/Anita Dobson
    "Happy Christmas, my love."
    
    Den was originally planned as a minor character until Leslie Grantham decided to see just how nasty he could make him. No wonder Angie took to the bottle.
30. Dennis Pennis (95-99) – Paul Kaye
    "If it wasn't gratuitous and it was absolutely vital to the role, would you consider keeping your clothes on in a movie?"
    
    Armed with a microphone, ginger wig and dodgy specs, Paul Kaye runs rings around bewildered major league celebs.
31. Desmond (Desmond's) (89-94) – Norman Beaton
    Head of extended family oversees tears and laughs over the video games (and even the occasional haircut) in Desmond's South London Barbershop.
32. Dorien (Birds of a Feather) (89-98) – Lesley Joseph
    "Like a Virgin…touched for the very first time"
    
    Man-consuming vamp of Chigwell who doesn't allow her marriage to Marcus to cramp her style in the slightest.
33. Dot Cotton (85-present) – June Brown
    "Oooh, I say"
    
    Gossip is never far from her lips and neither is the trademark half-mast fag.
34. Dr Niles Crane (Frasier) (94-Current) – David Hyde Pierce
    "I have a tailoring emergency. I may be several hours."
    
    Hyper-picky culture-vulture brother of pompous Frasier, son of grouchy Martin and pursuer of Mancunian Daphne.
35. Emma Peel (The Avengers) (65-67) – Diana Rigg
    "Mrs Peel. We're needed."
    
    Her name was a hilarious play on words (M. Appeal stood for Man Appeal. Ho ho.) And her kinky boots were primed for action in the Avengers' fight against fiendish cads and gadget-toting toffs.
36. Father Dougal (Father Ted) (95-98) – Ardal O'Hanlon
    "Good news then, Ted!"
    
    Off the Geiger scale for dimness, the roller-blade loving, tank-top sporting resident of the Craggy Island parochial house.
37. Fitz (Cracker) (93-98) – Robbie Coltrane
    "I drink too much. I smoke too much. I gamble too much. I AM too much"
    
    Certainly not the wiry man of writer Jimmy McGovern's first draft - Fitz, as played by Robbie Coltrane, cracked unsolveable crimes by the application of forensic psychology while his own life resolutely remained in total chaos.
38. Francis Urquhart (House of Cards) (90-95) – Ian Richardson
    "You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment."
    
    The saga of Francis Urquhart (FU to his friends) depicted an imaginary Tory party rife with sexual shenanigans, whose scheming politicians were desperate to retain power at all costs. It was so popular with the viewers that the real Conservatives apparently decided to copy the TV version during the rest of the decade.
39. Frank Spencer (73-78) – Michael Crawford
    "Ooh Betty"
    
    Wearing a tightly belted flasher's mac and a permanently vexed expression, calamity magnet Frank Spencer was rarely far away from slapstick disaster. And yet on the plus side he had somehow acquired the most understanding wife in the history of television.
40. Frost (92-current) – David Jason
    The foul-mouthed, chain-smoker of the R.D. Wingfield novels cleaned up for David Jason to make a family-friendly move from the comedy of Del Boy to serious drama.
41. George Dixon (Dixon of Dock Green) (55-76) – Jack Warner
    "Evenin' all"
    
    A firm word was enough to stop criminals in their tracks and make them realise the error of their ways in those days. Dixon had actually died on his first outing (the film The Blue Lamp, where he was shot by Dirk Bogarde) and had to be brought back to life for his marathon TV stint.
42. 42. Hancock (56-60) – Tony Hancock
    "A pint. That's very nearly an armful."
    
    Writers Galton and Simpson took the troubled personality of the real Tony Hancock and exaggerated it to create British TV's first great comic character. Tragically, the burden of forever being seen as "the lad himself" was too much for the real Hancock who met a premature booze-soaked death before the 1960s were out.
43. Hari Kumar (Jewel in the Crown) (85) – Art Malik
    Indian reporter unjustly accused of rape in the epic tale of the last days of British colonial rule.
44. Hawk Eye (M*A*S*H) (73-83) – Alan Alda
    "Incoming wounded"
    
    Still wise-cracking while elbow deep in body parts, Alda was the star and eventually 'creative consultant' of the anti-war satire set in 50s Korea. It hit TV screens just as it was becoming clear that there was no way America could win their next major war in Vietnam.
45. Hilda Ogden (64-87) – Jean Alexander
    "Stanley! Get your filthy hands off that muriel"
    
    Over twenty years, the shrewish busybody with the feckless husband and unending stream of bad luck mellowed into the tragi-comic "muriel"-loving char voted Britain's fourth most popular woman (after the Queen, Queen Mother and Diana).
46. Homer Simpson. (90-Current) – Dan Castellaneta
    "Doh!"
    
    The man who sold his soul to the devil for a single doughnut. The Simpsons made their first TV appearances as inserts into the Tracey Ullman show, but when the BBC bought the ex-pat comedienne's US hit series, they snipped out the yellow cartoon family as not really funny enough!
47. Hudson (Upstairs Downstairs) (71-75) – Gordon Jackson
    "Mrs Bridges, His majesty will dine here tonight"
    
    Gordon Jackson dismissed his uber-Butler creation as "a bully who represents everything I don't like about a human being." 300 million viewers in 30 countries didn't seem to mind.
48. Huggy Bear (76-81) – Antonio Fargas
    "What's the word on the street, Huggy?"
    
    The man whose garish leather shirts, Ecky Thump headwear and street Jive talking singlehandedly launched the Blaxploitation Movie.
49. Hyacinth Bucket (90-95) – Patricia Routledge
    "The Bouquet Residence. Lady of the house speaking."
    
    Patricia Routledge's social climbing battle-axe didn't just bludgeon the British viewing public into submission, she also went on to top the US TV ratings.
50. Inspector Morse (87-2000) – John Thaw
    "You'll never get on if you can't master your subjunctives, Lewis." With the murder count in Oxford runing at just over eighty, writer Colin Dexter finally killed off his crossword-adict Wagner-loving detective last year.