There is a stain on some great shows that were otherwise perfect, and it takes the form of younger siblings that contributed absolutely nothing useful to the show. Most of these characters simply existed to add a degree of cute to the screen, but many of them were just plain annoying. Here are a few of the most notable TV siblings who should never have been born.
Dawn Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Let’s start with the most obvious. Almost everyone within the Buffy fandom can agree on this one: Dawn Summers. We’ll start with the fact that she didn’t even exist for the first four seasons. Now, the writers “fixed” this by pointing out that she really didn’t exist before that. Through some mystical mumbo-jumbo, she was created just before Season 5, and everyone was given fake memories of her so that Buffy would protect her.
Some disgruntled fans would even go so far as to blame Dawn for the death of the Slayer’s mother, Joyce. Regardless of whether you subscribe to this fan theory or not, hardly anyone can claim that she is their favorite character. After her initial storyline in Season 5, she simply reverted to being completely useless other than to cause trouble and whine. There is even a line in Season 6 where Buffy says, “Dawn’s in trouble? Must be Tuesday.”
Morgan Matthews (Boy Meets World)
Another one of these siblings that didn’t have any impact on the show was Morgan Matthews in Boy Meets World. Granted, she offered a few adorable scenes in the early days, but let’s face it, if you can completely recast a role and no one even notices, your role might just be useless. Even going into Girl Meets World, her existence is almost completely ignored until the final episode where both actresses show up, playing the same character, sitting right next to each other. And everyone just acts like this is completely normal!
Judy Winslow (Family Matters)
The epic love story that was Laura Winslow and Steve Urkel was impacted in absolutely no way by Laura’s little sister, Judy Winslow. In fact, she was so insignificant to the show that at one point she just disappeared completely with absolutely no explanation. Not only does she disappear from the viewer’s eye, but she is never even mentioned again. Whether her purpose of “being cute” was shifted to other, younger characters, or she was just fired, it is a glaring oversight that the writers never even address what happened to the youngest Winslow.
D.J. Conner (Roseanne)
D.J. Conner is yet another victim of only being the cute factor of the scene. I really cannot remember a single episode that actually revolved around the younger Roseanne kid. In fact, there is barely anything to say about him other than he was there. Luckily, he didn’t experience the harshness of the previous two examples by being written off in any way. However, he might has well have been given his absolute lack of importance to the story or anything that happened on the show. The only thing he really had going for him was being the only boy in the family, but even that was taken from him in later seasons when Roseanne gave birth to yet another Conner son.
Amelia Shepherd (Grey’s Anatomy)
It’s safe to say that Dr. Amelia Shepherd‘s presence has impacted Grey’s Anatomy neither for the better or worse. Her constant flip flop between drug addiction and trying to climb out of Derek’s shadow is utterly tiring. Others might not like her because she is with Owen, who we all know belongs with Cristina.
Perhaps for the same reason that Webber lectured Meredith about how she is the wrong Shepherd, fans widely accept that Amelia Shepherd is, in fact, the “other” Dr. Shepherd. It’s also possible that maybe we are still not over Derek‘s death. After he died, the concept of her trying to be “sisters” with Meredith was completely overshadowed by the fact that Meredith had a real sister who genuinely wanted to get to know her.
Bottom Line? Some younger siblings on TV had absolutely no business ever being born.