Joss Whedon

24 - Echo

From: Dollhouse

Sci-fi’s most lovable schizoid

Echo is unique in this poll as the only character to completely change personality on a weekly basis. Thanks to Rossum’s mindwipe tech, Echo went on missions for the Dollhouse as everything from a blind woman of faith to a sassy master thief. All this changed in the second season, however. “By then, empowered with all these personalities, there was less ‘I like broccoli’ Echo and more ‘I’m gonna kill some bad people, really f–k ’em up’ Echo!” an equally sassy Eliza Dushku told SFX. From blank slate to the saviour of the human race, Echo gives Buffy a run for her money as Whedon’s premier female icon.

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20 - Hoban “Wash” Washburne

From: Firefly

Leaf ’em laughing when you go

Effectively the Jiminy Cricket of the fair spaceship Serenity, Adam Tudyk’s immensely likeable Wash got to say all the things we would’ve wanted to say if we were living in a terrific space Western ourselves – from the grand (“Every man there go back inside, or we will blow a new crater in this little moon!”) to the faintly pitiful (“Oh god, oh god, we’re all gonna die!”).

Equipped with a fantastic sense of humour and a stunning wife to prove that women do find a GSOH attractive, even when compared to such a hunky slice of man-dom as Mal Reynolds, Wash was the heart and soul of the Serenity. Even more so, in fact, than its Captain or Engineer, or any of the other travellers on board, simply because as her pilot he was the one who moved her.

He also moved us, as anyone reduced to floods of tears after his shockingly violent death scene in the movie will attest. We should really have seen it coming, though: Tudyk’s characters always seem to cark it one way or another, and the actor even has his own Facebook page called “Please Stop Killing Alan Tudyk”. We agree. And somehow, universe, please bring Wash back. He’s a leaf who should still be soaring.

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18 - Jayne Cobb

From: Firefly

Don’t make fun of his hat

The best thing about Jayne – other than the fact he had a girl’s name and everybody was too scared to make fun of it – was that, like all good antiheroes, you never quite knew what we would do next. Sure, he lived on the Serenity with Captain Reynolds’ crew and was an important part of the team dynamic. But he only came on board because it suited him to do so, and occasionally – such as in the episode “Ariel” – he’d betray his friends without a second thought to make a quick buck. Jayne was an ornery SOB who was only out for himself, yet it was hard to hate him for it. Who knows, if Firefly had continued on past that doomed first year and single movie, we might have come to know Jayne’s softer side.

Actor Adam Baldwin knew exactly how to approach the role: “The character was someone that I was familiar with from watching in movies like The Good, The Bad And The Ugly with Eli Wallach, and The Wild Bunch with Warren Oates,” he said. A true Western creation, then, perfectly suited to the Firefly universe – although we’re not sure Wallach would ever have said the infamous line “I’ll be in my bunk” quite so magnificently.

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16 - Cameron

From: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

The killer robot it’s okay to fancy

A nice Terminator. It shouldn’t have worked the first time around with Arnie in T2. The fact that it did again with Cameron in The Sarah Connor Chronicles was nothing short of a miracle, and almost entirely down to Summer Glau’s performance. The ex-River Tam may have form playing kooky, spooky, secretly rock-hard characters, but it was still a surprise just how well she pulled off the “killer cyborg from the future” shtick. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been. The original concept for the Terminator was that it would blend in perfectly and in that, Cameron succeeds, being neither Arnie, nor a ridiculous caricature of femininity like the “Terminatrix” in T3. There are no inflatable boobs or minigun hands here – just a woman who appears delicate, but is actually insanely powerful. Mind you, that same power came with some interesting loopholes. Like when Cameron was damaged in season two, and started trying to kill John, rather than protect him… Pleasingly, while taking the character along the same “implacable robot finds a heart” path that Data trod in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the show’s producers never forgot that Cameron could be as much a threat as she was a protector.

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15 - Angel

From: Angel, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

We don’t need another hero

Edward Cullen, Bill Compton, Stefan Salvatore… they all owe one hell of a debt to Angel, the original moping, lovestruck vampire, trying to resist the urge to chow down on his girlfriend. But that was only one phase of Angel’s life. A move to LA and a starring role in his own show revealed a whole new side to the vampire with a soul: rubbish karaoke singer.

Oh yeah, and a guilt-ridden avenger trying to find redemption through being a hero. He became rather obsessed with the whole hero thing; we think it may partly have been to compensate for a Buffy-sized hole in his life.

Because make no mistake. Angel was the eternal teenager. His new role as head of Angel Investigations may have made him feel all big and grown-up, but he still brooded and pouted like some pubescent boy. Somehow, that just made him all the more likeable, especially his hurt expressions when his colleagues took the mickey out of him for it.

Angel could have been a very one-dimensional character (like Edward and Stefan) but Whedon and Boreanaz between them created a character with a self-deprecating humour, tragic depths, petulant flaws and, underpinning it all, a desperate, almost monomaniacal urge to do the right thing. But he really couldn’t sing.

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11 - River Tam

From: Firefly

Mystery girl

Much of River Tam’s appeal can be explained by the fact that: a) she’s one of Whedon’s trademark kick-ass femmes and b) she’s played by every sci-fi geek’s favourite actress, Summer Glau. But River’s got a lot going for her in her own right – an awesome name for starters, a wide-eyed hippy vibe and an air of mystery hiding big, big secrets beneath the surface.

Before being rescued by her brother Simon, River was the subject of an Alliance experiment to create an army of psychic super-soldiers. The experiments worked, but it wasn’t until River’s suppressed abilities were triggered that we saw her true potential. Fragile, yes, but an angel of death capable of laying waste to a room full of the ’verse’s most feared foes with a balletic mix of martial arts, kickboxing and a very big sword.

Firefly’s tragically short lifespan meant there wasn’t enough time for River to etch herself into mainstream consciousness as Buffy did, but from her first moments River was every bit as arresting. She’s adorable, sweet, a total whack-attack and has a knack for the scene-stealing one-liner – calmly announcing she’ll kill Jayne with her brain if he betrays her ever again. Undoubtedly Glau’s greatest role, and in many ways Firefly’s secret weapon.

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5 - Spike

From: Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel

William The Bloody Brilliant

Perhaps the biggest compliment you can pay Spike is that when he became a regular character in Angel, he not only didn’t come across as some gimmick to get Buffy fans watching the spin-off, he actually made you wish he’d been part of the spin-off’s DNA from day one. Angel was a great show without him; with him, it took on a whole new lease of life – a bloodsucking take on The Odd Couple, with its two reluctant antiheroes bickering and trying to get one up on each other constantly. Even Boreanaz, who you’d assume would have hated the idea in a starry, egotistical way, seemed to be re-energised by having a vampiric sparring partner on board.

That’s the key to Spike, though. He was, as Joss Whedon once said, one of his “most fully developed characters”. He was a Swiss army knife of different personalities – soppy lovestruck poet, to psychotic bloodsucker, to punk hedonist, to lovestruck vampire, to saviour of the world, to existential ghost and beyond – but each seemed to flow organically into the next. He could change. He could adapt. He could grow. Writers often talk about their characters’ journeys, but few characters had as many stamps on their emotional passports as Spike.

It also helped, of course, that he had cheekbones like set squares, a cool leather duster and James Marsters bringing him to life.

4 - Buffy Summers

From: Buffy The Vampire Slyer

Se saved the world a lot

“I wanted her to be a cultural phenomenon,” Joss Whedon told The Onion in 2001. “I wanted there to be dolls, Barbie with kung fu grip.” Sometimes, Mr Whedon, dreams can come true (although while there were Buffy dolls, we’re not too sure they had kung fu grip). His Buffy Summers became just the sensation he wanted her to be: an ordinary schoolgirl with an extraordinary destiny, a conflict that made her one of the most fascinating characters in modern TV. She was vulnerable, yet stronger than any human on the planet; she was seemingly shallow, but contained depths that surprised us; she was doomed to suffer, yet still found the courage to joke about things that would make most people hide under their duvets.

Kristy Swanson first brought her to life, doing her best with a bad lot in the original movie in 1992, but she lacked Sarah Michelle Gellar’s spark and sass. When Gellar stepped into Buffy’s shoes it was as though our Vampire Slayer had truly come to life. Thanks to her (and with a little help on the side from a warrior princess named Xena), the ’90s TV viewer learned that women didn’t just exist in that little glass box to look pretty and fall in love with the hero: they could also kick butt like butts existed just for them to kick.

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1 Mal Reynolds

From: Firefly

A big damn hero

He’s the space cowboy, the galactic gunslinger, the tight-trousered, quip-quoting hero – or probably antihero – of the Joss Whedon generation. He’s Malcolm Reynolds, owner of the fine Firefly-class spaceship Serenity and the head of a ragtag crew containing at least one true love, one crazy lady, one preacher and one mercenary you really shouldn’t turn your back on. He’s lost a war (badly), survived a marriage (she was a little sneaky), earned a crust (not necessarily legally), lost some family (sniff) and lived to fight another day (even if we don’t get to see him any more).