The wimpiest men on TV revealed – as ‘soft’ guys and ‘absolutely useless’ drips replace swashbuckling heroes on screen

In pursuit of your next gripping TV drama with a swashbuckling hero at the helm? You might need to think again. 

If you turn on your screens these days, you’ll be greeted by a very different type of male hero: he’ll likely be kind but weak-willed – and, above all, very amenable. 

The early 2000s saw a series of flawed, but deeply masculine and charismatic male characters such as Tony Soprano or Breaking Bad’s Walter White, with bonus points for any displays of moral ambiguity. 

But in 2025’s newest releases, such as the ‘absolutely useless’ male cast in All My Fault, men are seen as ‘bungling fools’ without any practical, everyday skills. 

There’s the ‘useless dad and husband’ trope – ‘Daddy Pig’ in Peppa Pig can’t even read a map, while Sasha in Nobody Wants This is reliant on his wife to choose his clothes each morning. 

There’s also the overly ‘nice guy’ who ends up becoming a bit of a pushover – looking at you, Ted Lasso, and Kevin from Motherland. 

Significantly, Benedict Cumberbatch’s character in The Roses (2025) becomes a watered-down version of Michael Douglas’s equivalent in the 1989 film – Benedict’s character Theo, is not, for example, seen urinating on his wife’s meal, or running over her cat. 

Indeed, in a poll of 2,000 people by the Centre For Social Justice (CSJ), 57 per cent of people said men in the media tend to be portrayed as one of two extremes – they are either ‘wimpy’ or a ‘psychopath’ (think Jamie in Netflix’s Adolescence). 

Marketing expert Jeff Sherman told The Daily Mail: ‘From a cultural standpoint, audiences, especially younger viewers, are gravitating toward characters who feel human rather than heroic. 

‘These “soft” male archetypes challenge rigid masculinity standards by showing men who are anxious, flawed, or still figuring themselves out.’

Read on to find out which male characters fit into the ‘soft’ hero subgenre – and some may surprise you…

Noah and Sasha Roklov 

In Nobody Wants This, the romance between Joanne (Kristen Bell) and Noah (Adam Brody), an unconventional Rabbi, won over TV watchers around the world and was viewed 57 million times in three months. A second season was released just this month. 

Timothy Simons plays Sasha Roklov, Noah’s brother, married to Esther, but who grows closer to Joanne’s sister, Morgan. 

Both he and Noah are presented as somewhat goofy and both have a ‘nice guy’ dynamic. 

Sasha, in particular, is portrayed as a ‘manchild’ who needs his wife Esther to choose his clothes in the morning, help him access his bank account and load the dishwasher for him. 

He’s seen as being a needy husband, while she has been a smart and practical mother for 14 years. 

When Esther heads out for the night and his daughter Miriam goes for a sleepover, Sasha’s ideal evening is to take edibles and have a movie night. 

When Miriam returns unexpectedly, Sasha is high, but is actually quite helpful and a good listener. 

Unsurprisingly, when Sasha grows close to Morgan, Esther is less than pleased.

Graham Fulton, co-founder of film distributor Conic, added: ‘What we’re actually seeing is a shift in what masculinity looks like on screen. 

‘Modern male characters are written with more emotional nuance, vulnerability and self-awareness, which some people might misread as weakness, but I think it reflects broader cultural changes.

‘These men aren’t incompetent. They’re written to be supportive partners, dads who try their best, or men who are allowed to be flawed and introspective. That feels like a deliberate move away from older hyper-masculine archetypes. 

‘You can see a similar shift in film: Timothée Chalamet, Paul Mescal and Jeremy Allen White represent a very different kind of male idol compared to the Schwarzenegger/Stallone era.’

Peter Irvine and Richie Kaminski

Sarah Snook’s new thriller ‘All Her Fault’, airing on Peacock in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK, was hailed by the Mail’s Kathryn Flett as the ‘best show of the year’. 

The fast-paced, eight-episode child kidnapping drama sees Succession actress Sarah Snook star as Marissa, and is an adaptation of Andrea Mara’s 2021 book of the same name. 

The series begins as Marissa finds out her five-year-old son Milo has been kidnapped when she goes to pick him up from a playdate at Jenny Kaminski’s house (Dakota Fanning).  

But when Marissa tries to describe him to the police, her husband Peter (Jake Lacy) merely states: ‘He’s… blond?’ 

Marissa has far more detail to give: ‘Orange shirt, blue pants, and his coat, which is mostly green and has a little dinosaur here’, and it’s also revealed she’s put a tracker in his backpack. 

Indeed, one review by the Irish Independent stated that ‘virtually’ all the men in the show are ‘absolutely useless’, saying Peter is ‘too wrapped up in his own career to do anything as banal as a school run’. 

Meanwhile, viewers accused Jenny’s husband Richie (Thomas Cocquere) of ‘weaponised incompetence’.

The main suspect in the show is Jenny’s nanny, who disappears on the same day as Milo. 

But when Detective Alcaras (Michael Peña) asks if they noticed anything odd in her hiring interview, Richie admits he didn’t take part at all. 

Detective Alcaras, meanwhile, is the only man in the show who appears respectable: he works full time and asks astute questions, all while being a capable father to his nonverbal 13-year-old. 

Daddy Pig 

While Mummy Pig is presented as a clever swine, the same can’t be said for her foolish husband. 

Daddy Pig, father to Peppa, George and new baby Evie, is always being ‘silly’ and, in some ways, seems more childish than his offspring. 

Far from being the leading man of the family, Daddy Pig can’t read a map, refuses to exercise, and gets stuck in the mud while driving his car. 

After declaring he is an ‘expert at map reading’, Mummy Pig says: ‘When you map-read we always get lost and you get grumpy.’ 

He’s the brunt of multiple jokes from Mummy Pig, who takes aim at his figure. Peppa meanwhile, tells him that his tummy is ‘too big’ and the password to enter her treehouse is ‘Daddy’s big tummy’. 

In one episode, Daddy Pig ends up getting stuck when he tries to take part in kids’ soft play due to his size. 

When he tries to treat his wife on Mother’s Day, Daddy Pig messes up the breakfast and his surprise beach day out is ruined by the snow. 

Nicky, Johnny, Tony, Mikey, Vinny, and Braden Caccimelio 

US television series Only Murders In The Building is a mystery comedy-drama which focuses on three main characters, Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin); Oliver Putnam (Martin Short); and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez).

They are three neighbours who share an obsession with true crime podcasts. When someone is murdered in their building, they partner up to investigate and to make their own podcast about the case.

Each season, the trio solve a new murder, and this is where the weak male characters come in.

Season five of the show’s plot, released in September, is based around billionaire characters as well as mobsters, notably Nicky Caccimelio (Bobby Cannavale), aka the Dry Cleaning King of Brooklyn.

While he initially appears to be a tough and unyielding character, the programme plays on the trope of the Italian mama’s boy.

He and his brothers (Johnny, Tony, Mikey, Vinny, and Braden) were coddled by his overprotective mother Nonna Caccimelio (Elizabeth D’Onofrio), and they are shown as still being very much under her influence.

Ted Lasso 

The Apple TV series follows the title character Ted Lasso, an American football coach hired to become the new manager of the fictional AFC Richmond by Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham). 

Unknown to Lasso, he has been hired only because Rebecca deems him useless and hopes to use the team’s failures to get revenge on her cheating ex-husband Rupert.  

Above all, Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is kind and lovable – although this occasionally comes across as weak-willed. 

For example, when Nate (Celebrity Traitors star Nick Mohammed) betrays him and tells journalist Trent Crimm about his panic attacks, Ted does nothing and immediately forgives him. Even when Nate ditches Richmond for archrivals West Ham, Ted remains nothing less than pleasant.  

As a football coach, Ted is often oblivious – it’s not until the third season that he understands the offside rule – and he makes baffling decisions, such as removing Jamie Tartt from play to teach him a lesson about kindness, despite him being Richmond’s key to victory.  

In the first episode, Ted puts up a yellow sign with blue letters, reading ‘Believe’, initially dismissed by the players on his team as cringey. 

He’s not the only character who embodies the new type of male hero. Nate is portrayed as the awkward kit man who works his way up to coach, but still finds it awkward to ask for the window seat in his favourite restaurant. 

Roy Kent is the gruff former football star with a secret soft side, while striker Jamie Tartt initially comes across as ‘stupid’ but seems to have hidden depths.  

Kevin Brady

In Motherland, it’s the women who take centre stage, with Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin), Amanda (Lucy Punch) and Liz (Diane Morgan) all facing the trials and tribulations of putting their children through primary school in London. 

The only active husband in the group is Kevin (Paul Ready), who is positively thrilled about being a stay-at-home dad and loves being included in the girl gang. 

But Kevin, alongside Julia and Liz, is in the ‘uncool’ group of parents, and repeatedly and unsuccessfully tries to join in with Amanda’s group of cool mums. 

One hilarious scene sees him volunteering to be a ‘human cloakroom’ for people’s coats at a school fundraising event, but he is left overloaded and too hot within minutes. 

His wife Jill is never seen, and treats him terribly, while Kevin is presented as being completely under her thumb.  

Julia’s husband, Paul, meanwhile, is completely uninvolved and always at work, leaving all the parenting to her. 

Julia goes frantically goes about life, trying desperately to find childcare for her children and usually resorts to her unwelcoming mother.  

James Maguire 

James Maguire (Dylan Llewellyn) is the only male student at Our Lady Immaculate College in Ireland and is one of the five main characters. 

James is Michelle’s cousin and is English, meaning he’s often the butt of the jokes in the series, and is known as the ‘Wee English Fella’. 

At one point, Michelle even says that James’s breathing is annoying her, and James has to sit away from the rest of the group. 

In the first episode, he constantly asks where the bathroom is, but receives no response, even from the teachers. 

Sometimes, the group seems to forget him entirely, such as when they go to a Take That concert in Belfast. 

When they do remember his existence, they say he’s unattractive, gay or feminine and are gobsmacked when exchange student Katya shows romantic interest in him. 

However, as the show progresses, he has an emerging romantic storyline with Erin, showing that he’s accepted as part of the group.  

Malcolm Moscrip 

BBC comedy Daddy Issues tells the story of 24-year-old Gemma (Aimee Lou Wood) and her father Malcolm (David Morrissey).

When Gemma falls pregnant, the only person she can turn to is her slightly hapless dad.

She ends up moving in with Malcolm, a newly divorced man who is struggling to deal with the collapse of his marriage, and trying to rebuild his life.

While sweet and supportive, Malcolm is shown as being somewhat useless when it comes to everyday skills (like using household appliances).

His general inability to navigate adult life is shown early on, when he blocks the toilet by trying to dispose of a used teabag, and his bin is overflowing.

However, this is somewhat offset by his positive attributes – notably, his kindness and warmth, and him being supportive of his daughter.

Theo Rose

The Roses (2025) stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as Theo and Ivy Rose. It’s a reimagining of the 1989 hit film, War Of The Roses, starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. 

With screenplay from Tony McNamara, it depicts the moment the war between a bickering couple turns deadly.  

The Roses gets off to a rom-com style start, seeing the couple meeting in a restaurant in London where she works as a chef. 

It then jumps 10 years into the future to see them settled in California with children. Soon, however, Theo’s career as an architect crashes and he loses his job when a naval history museum he designed is destroyed in a storm. 

While Ivy builds a restaurant empire (he gifts her a seafood restaurant called We’ve Got Crab), Theo settles as a stay-at-home father, becoming increasingly isolated and petulant.  

By contrast, Michael Douglas’s character Oliver in the original 1989 film was fierce and vicious in a way that shocked critics at the time, with Roger Ebert calling it a ‘black, angry, bitter, unrelenting comedy’.  

Shocking scenes showed Barbara biting her husband during sex and the couple attacking each other with insults. 

At one point, Douglas’s character humiliates her by urinating on a dish she’s made at a party for clients, and runs over her cat and blames her for it. In response, she locks him in a sauna. 

Paxton Hall-Yoshida 

The 2020s teen drama Never Have I Ever, which is available to watch on Netflix, was created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, and is largely based on Kaling’s real-life experiences.

The coming-of-age comedy-drama tells the story of Devi Vishwakumar, a first-generation Indian-American high school student who has just endured a highly stressful year, during which her father suddenly died and she temporarily lost the use of her legs due to stress.

Devi’s love interest is Paxton Hall-Yoshida, a fellow pupil who is considered somewhat of a heartthrob by the girls.

However, while he may initially seem like the typical confident jock, it is revealed that he has his insecurities.

As the series continues, Paxton’s lack of confidence in his academic abilities is revealed.

In addition, while he and Devi date for a while, his insecurities undermine their relationship.

Paxton’s lack of maturity and academic nous are highlighted when Devi was tutoring him before a biology test.

After ditching the study session to go to a party (where he gets high on magic mushrooms), he ends up blaming Devi for not helping him enough, instead of realising that he needed to put in the work himself.

Sheldon Cooper 

Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) is one of the main characters in US 2010s sitcom The Big Bang Theory, which features a group of young scientists who live together.

While Sheldon, a theoretical particle physicist at the California Institute of Technology, is a genius when it comes to science, he struggles with other aspects of life.

Notably, he struggles with numerous social and emotional weaknesses.

Because he doesn’t seem to understand many social norms, he will voice whatever thoughts come into his head – however rude or judgmental.

He likes logic and meticulous rules, and he struggles to tell when people are being sarcastic.

As well as misreading other people, he also struggles to express himself appropriately and often comes across as being condescending and insensitive.

This has led to him being somewhat socially isolated – although throughout the course of the series, he does develop friendships and even a romantic relationship.