I was talking about TV characters and how they have to be relatable for the audience.  I mentioned Seinfeld.  I think a much better 80s show was Friends.  All the characters had their own quirks, but they all had redeeming features that we could fall in love with.  Ross was a nerd, but his (mostly unrequited) devotion to Rachel made him somebody that we could root for.  Chandlers snideness, Monica’s obsessiveness, Joey’s obliviousness, Phoebe’s weirdness, and Rachel’s self-centeredness could all be looked over because we like the characters.

I also said you could take characters to the extreme, if you have at least one character the audience can view the others through.  Think back to the 60s, and the Andy Griffith show.  Most of those characters were completely wacko, but we could always enjoy them by looking through Andy’s exasperated eyes.  That’s why The Andy Griffith Show is timeless and hardly anyone remembers Mayberry RFD (the same show without Andy).  A similar methodology is the show Two and a Half Men.  Originally the audience could enjoy Charlie by viewing him through Allen’s relatively normal eyes.  Unfortunately, Allen has become such a caricature himself, that it is no longer possible.  I think the show’s producers were lucky that Charlie Sheen left when they did, so that they could bring the character of Walden in to be the “new normal.”