Meet this season's 10 TV scene-stealers and scene-killers

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• Lily is not the worst supporting character on “Whitney” — that would be Whitney’s husband’s inexplicably dim, inexplicably a cop best guy pal — but she’s the one for whom I feel worst, because she is played by Zoe Lister-Jones, who has previously created and starred in her own pretty OK movie (“Breaking Upwards”) and deserves better than bad jokes. Free Zoe.
  NBC Universal

  Worst: Lily (Zoe Lister Jones) on “Whitney”
• I am optimistic that my feelings about Dr. Danny Castellano, grade-A jerk, will change as “The Mindy Project” works out its kinks, because Danny is a major one. Until then, however, he’s a stridently unlikable character (and bad dancer) we’re supposed to like (and think is a good dancer), which only makes it harder to stomach him.
  NBC Universal

  Worst: Danny Castellano (Chris Messina) on “The Mindy Project”
• On another show the continued mediocrity of Winston would be unremarkable. He’s funny sometimes. (He did a nice job reading “Z Is for Zombie” out loud this past week.) But the other supporting characters on “New Girl,” Schmidt and Nick, are so stellar, Winston keeps getting embarrassed by comparison. Maybe one day the writers will figure out what to do with Winston — or they can make him wear a pirate earring again.
  Fox

  Worst: Winston (Lamorne Morris) on “New Girl”
• This is pretty mean, you might say, because Chris is just a kid! And this is true (and it is kind of mean). But “Homeland” has done a great job fleshing out Dana, Brody’s other child, while Chris, never, ever gets anything to do and is treated like little more than a rapidly growing movable prop.
  Showtime

  Worst: Nicholas Brody's son, Chris (Jackson Pace), on “Homeland”
• Here’s another character fail that’s more the fault of the writers than the actor. On Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” Lachman regularly acted circles around the show's star (Eliza Dusku). On “Last Resort” she got stranded in a C-story line as an islander who never gets to interact with any of the sailors except one Navy SEAL. She could be put to better use.
  ABC

  Worst: Tani (Dichen Lachman) on “Last Resort”
• Brit Lucy Punch, who plays Kate’s sultry, over-confident best friend BJ, steals every scene she’s in. She deserves a show all her own.
  Fox

  Best: BJ (Lucy Punch) on “Ben and Kate”
• A standout on “Eastbound & Down,” Ike Barinholtz has been standing out on “Mindy” ever since he showed up in the second episode as big-hearted, too-quick-to-punch-people ex-con Morgan. He is to lovable, well-meaning doofi, what Danny Castellano is to pompous know-it-alls.
  NBC Universal

  Best: Morgan (Ike Barinholtz) on “The Mindy Project”
• The president’s cuckolded wife, Mellie, is half–Lady Macbeth, half-sympathetic character, scheming in one scene, haranguing her husband in another, rightfully hurt in another (and, as of Thursday night, maybe letting her husband walk into an assassination attempt in another). No matter what she’s doing, Mellie’s more interesting than the show’s heroine, Olivia Pope, who is just as shady, but whom we’re supposed to admire unconditionally anyway.
  ABC

  Best: Mellie (Bellamy Young) on “Scandal”
• Toks Olagundoye plays the female alien lead on “The Neighbors,” an alien who has a British accent, two kids, an uptight alien husband, curious human neighbors, and the name Jackie Joyner Kersee. Out of such an absurd premise she wrings something understated and dry.
  ABC

  Best: Jackie Joyner Kersee (Toks Olagundoye) on “The Neighbors”
• “Boardwalk Empire” is so much phony bologna, but Bobby Cannavale has been chewing up scenery all season as the crazy sensitive, ultra-violent, auto-asphyxiating mobster Gyp Rosetti. It’s not that there’s never been a mobster like this before — see, Joe Pesci in everything— but compared to everyone else on “Boardwalk,” Cannavale seems like part of a more vibrant, compelling, maybe even campier show.
  HBO

  Best: Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale) on “Boardwalk Empire”

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