Affably Evil/Live Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Mayor Richard Wilkins III, who provides the page image. Harry Groener who portrayed him claims to have based him in part on Ted Bundy: charming, able to talk you into anything, will kill you without blinking. Wilkins is friendly, mannerly, and is implied to be an upstanding, hard-working and honest politician. He also provides well-meant (and, frankly, accurate) relationship advice to Buffy and Angel, inspired by his own marriage a century ago where she aged and died while he was immortal, and the exchange makes it obvious he did love her. He also genuinely cared for Faith, and while he was The Corrupter to her, Faith was already corrupted by the time she sided with him. By contrast she has fond memories of him into the rest of the series, seeing him as the only friend she's had who didn't try to manipulate or use her. And this was after her Heel Face Turn.
    • Well, not exactly honest.
  • Harmony Kendall from the same series -- the only person ever to have her personality improved by being turned into a soulless undead monster. As both a human and a vampire, she pays no attention to the internal voice telling her right from wrong, and simply wants to be popular and liked. Bad results when she ignores her inner voice as a human, gaining a superego and showing no empathy. Good results when she's a demon, and she shows no malice.
  • D'Hoffryn, master of the vengeance demons, seems to be a pretty nice guy, making conversation with Willow, showing up to Anya and Xander's wedding, etc. He got really nasty in his final appearance, though.
  • Sweet, the demon from the musical "Once More, with Feeling". He never even engages in physical violence. On the other hand, he can cause people to catch on fire, bring whole cities to ruin, tries to marry 15-year-old Dawn -- and still has time to get a soft shoe in.
  • Halfrek, an evil vengeance demon, who is best friends with Anya and truly cares about her. She was the only person to notice how screwed up Dawn was in season 6, and her raison d'être was enacting vengeance for mistreated children. It's honestly very sad when D'Hoffryn murders her.
  • Anya. She's cheerful and quirky and bubbly, while reminiscing about the days when she had vengeance demon powers and flayed men alive.
  • Mr. Trick. Always smooth and cool, even when he's about to chomp on a hapless fast food employee (that he'd cheerfully conversed with just a few seconds before).
• Holland Manners in Angel: charming, charismatic, and fatherly, particularly towards Lindsey McDonald.
  • Sahjhan. He's rarely without a one-liner, and even chats up Connor, seemingly without malice, whom Sahjhan knows is destined to kill him in the fight that's about to start.
  • In a stunning Face Heel Turn, the demon, Skip. Known previously for his gregarious nature, when Angel asks whether the character's a patsy or in on the latest evil goings-on, he smiles, shrugs, and says he's no patsy just before laying in to Angel. This, in turn, foreshadows the next Face Heel Turn... Cordellia.

Angel: So, I'm thinking either you've been played for a dupe like the rest of us... or you've been in on this from the start, Skippy.
Skip: Angel, buddy, whatever's going on, I'm telling you true... [dagger shoots out of arm] Not a dupe.

• Farscape:
  • Scorpius embodies this trope a good majority of the time he's on screen -- particularly in keeping his minions rewarded and loyal. Even whilst performing horrific acts, his cool, personable demeanour remains...until you push him too far.
  • Another good example to be found in Farscape is Kaarvok, a one-off villain appearing in "Eat Me". Despite being a cannibalistic and badly-decomposed Mad Scientist with a penchant for cloning his prey to prolong his food supply, Kaarvok was eloquent, well-mannered, and almost charming if you could ignore the fact that his reedy English accent was emerging from one of the purest and most evil examples of Nightmare Fuel on television.
  • Even more than both Scorpius and Kaarvok is Evil Sorcerer, Reality Warper, and Emotion Eater, Maldis. In both his appearances, he always seems so friendly and conversational even while guiding his victims into his death traps - not to mention clearly having the time of his life.
• Even though they never forgot the purpose of their experiment, The Mads (and later Pearl) on Mystery Science Theater 3000 oftentimes have a strangely chummy relationship with Joel & Mike. In the Time Chasers episode, Pearl and Mike even hang out on her spacegoing Volkswagon van, enjoying a cuppa while chatting like neighbors on a front porch. "So, Pearl: why are you so evil?" "Hmm...I'm filled with hate, I don't know if that helps."
• Satan himself in Reaper appears affable, caring, and fatherly to Sam, his newest reaper, although his generosity is quite limited, and he quickly withdraws when Sam rebels. Despite his paternal attitude, he's no pushover.
• Lionel and Lex Luthor in Smallville's early seasons. Later seasons have Lex distrustful and paranoid, delving him into traditional villain territory. Lionel becomes a vessel for Jor-El and mentor to Clark, but is no less a Magnificent Bastard.
• Heroes:
  • Linderman is Affably Evil combined with Well-Intentioned Extremist. Particularly in his initial appearance, where he reveals that he likes cooking, as it relaxes him. When Nathan draws a gun on him, he says firmly, "Now you can't have any of my pot pie." In one season 3 episode, he is shown to deeply care about Angela, hating the mental abuse that Arthur has put on her all throughout their marriage. It's hard to believe that a guy who almost cried when trying to convince her to let him restore her memory would be the same guy who tried to blow up New York City and get Nathan into the White House to further his global ambitions.
  • Bob, too. Maybe even more so.
  • Also HRG, before his Heel Face Turn.
• Siegfried from Get Smart. In one episode, he even joins forces with the heroes (at least, until the very end). Not so, however, in the 2008 remake film, in which he is stylish but not exactly friendly.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Master, especially as portrayed by Roger Delgado. His later incarnations were a little less affable and a little more psychotic.
    • He wants the Doctor dead, but that doesn't mean he can't be friendly towards him. The Claws of Axos and The Sea Devils show this. Later incarnations don't even seem to want to kill him.
  • An even better example would be the Meddling Monk, another renegade Time Lord. A charming fellow who just wanted to "improve" history here and there...by blasting the Vikings with a thermonuclear bazooka, allowing Harold's forces to pwn the Normans at Hastings!!
  • Count Grendel of Gracht in "The Androids of Tara". Oh so polite, even as he outlines how he means to kill the Doctor and use Romana to get to the throne and then kill her.
  • Li H'sen Chang in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang". A superb illusionist, and a very charming fellow. He also hypnotizes young women and leads them to his fifty-first century war criminal master, who basically cannibalizes them.
  • Tilda and Tabby from "Paradise Towers", who are courteous and welcoming to passers-by, until they break out a knife to butcher the guest and cook them. It's a creepy affability, however.
  • Tobias Vaughn from "The Invasion". Very courteous, even to trespassers, as long as one is not hindering his plans. But when he gets upset...
  • Well Intentioned Magnificent Bastard Sir Charles Grover from "Invasion of the Dinosaurs". So courteous to everyone he meets, all the while planning to Ret-Gone the Silurians and nearly all the human race in the name of Gaia.
  • Monarch from "Four to Doomsday", who carries a pleasant and civilized demeanor (which unfortunately wins over Adric for most of the last two episodes) despite looking like a giant crusty frog, and also wants to destroy everyone on Earth for its silicone so he and his android army can travel back in time and meet himself "creating the universe".
  • Yvonne Hartman, head of Torchwood's now-ruined London branch, is such a thoroughly pleasant Benevolent Boss, it's easy to forget she's in charge of a xenophobic scavengers with imperialistic ambitions.
  • The Slitheen, for the most part. They're only doing their business, after all, even if said business does involve destroying entire planets. Besides, hunting and killing are a trait of their species. They can't really help that. And they're pretty polite until you upset them.
  • The original Cybermen from The Tenth Planet. You see, their planet was dying, and they needed Earth to save it. It would destroy Earth instead, but that's no problem, we'll convert you all to Cybermen and you can come to Mondas. You'll have better technology, no disease, no fear or despair, and your lifespan will be dramatically increased! It's reasonable to say they weren't even evil. At worst, they treated the humans like children who didn't want to get their vaccinations. They honestly did not understand why anyone would reject their gift.
    • The new series Cybermen are less so, being far more Borg-like. "You will be upgraded" and "upgrading is compulsory" are pretty much the new "You will be assimilated" and "Resistance Is Futile". Ironic, as the Borg were often accused of being based on the Cybermen. However, what hasn't changed is that they still believe they're improving people, genuinely pitying the poor, emotional humans, and working to "free" them of that unenviable state.
• Bilis Manger, the antagonist in the last two episodes of the first series of Torchwood. OK, he's a being of unknown origins who apparently has supernatural powers and is working to resurrect an ancient demon that feeds on the life force of all those who fall under its shadow. But he's a really nice old guy. And so classy.
• Star Trek:
  • The famous Khan Noonien Singh. It is often pointed out that once you strip away his limitless need to rule the universe, he's really a mirror image of Captain Kirk: polite, charming, a bit of a swaggering rogue. Of course, then came the weird ear parasites, and the charm mostly vanished...
  • The Cardassians tend to act this way when not obviously evil. This is especially true of Elim Garak and Gul Dukat. The former has pleasant chats with Bashir during which he often chastises the doctor for trusting him and praises him when he doesn't. Garak isn't so much evil as a pragmatic "former" spy with few, if any, scruples. Gul Dukat, on the other hand, is a charming fellow who has many Pet the Dog moments, at times seeming like a Nazi with a heart of gold; however, his acts of villainy are malevolent and supervillainy. His heart may well be gold: cold and metallic. Then, there is the example of Picard's torturer, Gul Madred, who has some father-daughter time at the office and only really gets angry when the human proves so darn uncooperative. It would seem that Cardassian society does not condemn many acts we (and the Federation) might consider morally reprehensible, but also has many virtues we would find admirable--concern for children and the family foremost among them. Affably Evil almost seems to be the Cardassian hat.
  • Weyoun, also from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the others of his species (the Vorta), who are the Founders' "carrot" race (with the Jem'Hadar as the "stick"). But Weyoun is the finest of them, genetically engineered to be efficient, evil, and oh so polite. Also, useful for a diplomat, immunity to most poisons.
    • Although he is specifically designed to be polite and persuasive, most characters (especially some of the Cardassians, who are supposedly on the same side) find him intensely irritating.
• Sheriff Lucas Buck of American Gothic certainly falls into this territory most of the time.
• Nucky Thompson, the Treasury Secretary of Atlantic City and Villain Protagonist from Boardwalk Empire, is polite, funny, snarky, intelligent, and very progressive for his time (the 1920s). He's also such a corrupt politician that he supplies enough illegal liquor to incapacitate a bull elephant, and, while he usually seeks to avoid such confrontations, has no problem with killing those who cross him.
• Gus from Breaking Bad plays this almost to a fault. Not only are the employees at his chicken restaurant punctual and polite, but the people who run his massive underground drug empire are too. He even apologizes to a fellow kingpin when his hideout is not wheelchair accessible. Whether this is a stone cold facade or simply the way he prefers things has not yet to been clarified. It works slightly to his disadvantage, however, when Walt is easily able to identify the all-too-humble fast-food manager as his "mysterious" contact.
  • This also makes the moments of real cruelty (Slitting a man's throat unprovoked and threatening to murder Walt's family) all the more chilling.
• Ben Linus from Lost is affable and polite even when informing you exactly how terrible he's just made your life, and has only occasionally let out his scary side. Even when he does act scary, he usually waits a beat or two and returns to his affable demeanor with a small exhale or chuckle, which is much, much more frightening than if he were malevolent all the time. When he doesn't go back to being nice? Someone dies. Just call him Ben "I've Prepared You a Nice Breakfast Because the Next Few Weeks Will Be Very Unpleasant" Linus. This exchange from third season between Ben and Jack really says it all:

Ben: I'd like you to take a walk with me.
Jack: You say that like you're not going to knock me out and put a bag over my head if I say no.
Ben: Then don't say no.

• Todd the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis is surprisingly charming and personable for a life-sucking monster (and has a sense of humor -- he even makes some jokes that aren't morbid), especially since every other member of his Exclusively Evil species seems to lean heavily towards the Large Ham school of Stupid Evil. He shows signs of being a budding Magnificent Bastard, and is honest enough not to pretend to be anything other than a human-eating monster, and is quite frank with the heroes in pointing out that, no matter how many times they cooperate out of necessity, their fundamental nature will inevitably make them enemies at some point (though the Atlantis expedition has begun to take steps to remedy this). Todd can even be said to be trustworthy, as he honors a deal with Sheppard even though Sheppard is completely at his mercy.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • Baal, despite being rather sexist and genuinely malevolent, is at least fairly reasonable and relatively subtle compared to the rest of his megalomaniacal, Exclusively Evil, Large Ham species. This was especially the case in the last few seasons, after he spent some time living as a human after losing his empire, and started to adopt Earth behavior and mannerisms (including talking like a normal person instead of in standard Goa'uld scary echo speak). In Stargate: Continuum, Ba'al goes so far as to take over the galaxy using a fake "We Come in Peace" slogan instead of the typical "Kneel before Zod (or die)" approach. He even calls the U.S. President using a satellite phone, and invites him to lunch.
• Played for Laughs in The Goodies, an episode of which features Dr. Wolfgang von Petal, a Mad Scientist who just wants to be liked. Unfortunately for him, he seems to have a bit of a skewed idea of how to actually go about getting people to like him:

"All I've ever done is tried to help people! I helped the Russians with their nerve gas, I helped the Americans with their H-Bomb, I helped the British with their anthrax -- I even helped the Nazis! Now how generous can you get?"

• Prince of Fire (later "Isambard Prince") from Lexx could be best described as an Affably Evil, Card-Carrying Villain. Introduced as the de-facto ruler of the inhospitable desert planet Fire, he seems incredibly pleasant and unceasingly polite. He will unhesitatingly order the brutal deaths of his enemies and cheerily tell the protagonists that he's an evil and untrustworthy monster...right before offering them exactly what they want. And did we mention it's all but stated that he's Satan himself?
• Ari Haswari of NCIS. He's always calm and polite, even when pointing a gun; he's charming and persuasive enough to convince several groups of his loyalty, which is truly only to his own agenda.
• Dollhouse:
  • Guess who turns out to be the Big Bad? Yeah, that's right, the ever-affable and fatherly Boyd Langton, who had seemed so much more moral than everyone else on the show since his transgressions against all that is decent and right in the world had merely been implied. It turns out he's really one of the two founders of the Rossum Corporation.
  • There's also Bennett. She's a surprisingly shy and sweet girl, a complete genius, and while she's a little quirky and an oddball, she's endearing and likable, especially with her geek crush on Topher. Then she gets her hand on Caroline....
• Jonas Hodges of 24. Charming, witty, charismatic, psychotic. When he suspects the chairman of the board of his company of helping the government in taking down his company, he engages him in a conversation discussing their long history together and the virtues of loyalty before savagely beating him to death with a glass pitcher. He then proceeds to dab the blood of the man he had treated like a son from his shirt with a wet napkin. That's just the most extreme example.
• Kings.
  • Abadon. Yes, a dude named Abadon is affably evil. It helps that we also see that Silas knows his weak point and convinces him to do the stabilizing, if not exactly right, thing for Gilboa even after years of imprisonment. Of course, he's played by Brian Cox. So in order to drive home that he's, y'know, evil -- since he can't do much, locked up as he is -- they have him remark offhandedly that when he was king and bored, he'd rape a serving girl.
  • Silas himself has more than a touch of this trope.
• The Bernie Madoff lookalike and his wife on Law and Order are friendly and cheerful even as their assets are being seized and he's being arrested on suspicion of murder. He's innocent (of murder, anyway), and allowing himself to get caught was better than having his family killed by the South American gangsters he was cheating. The ending reveals the flip side of their affability: while the couple truly loved each other, they completely screwed their investors, childhood friends, and their own daughter out of their savings.
• Oz. Sayid (before his Heel Face Turn) and Ryan O'Reilly. Ryan O'Reilly in particular, since his entire "Iago" gimmick requires him being able to charm the pants off of just about anyone to further his schemes.
  • Schillinger can be this at times, though how much is a facade is hard to determine. Keller is also pretty charming a lot of the time.
• General Xaviax of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, to the degree that if he'd come along earlier, this trope might've been named The Xaviax. What would you expect, though, from a guy whose entire MO is luring those capable of being Riders into a Deal with the Devil?
• Dexter Morgan, the title character of Showtime's show Dexter, exemplifies the Affably Evil. His affability is his primary means of hiding his murderous outings.
  • He's not the only one. Many of the show's Big Bads also employ this method of keeping their second life a secret. In fact, one could argue that Dexter's rivals can be more charming than he is.
• Most of the (relevant) villains in Supernatural are this:
  • A Christmas Episode has the main characters encounter some festive gods, who pleasantly start to sacrifice the pair, while making polite conversation about Christmas traditions, tell Dean off for his potty mouth, and generally act like a sweet old couple making dinner.
  • Crowley, even more so as of "The Devil You Know". And so much more so after the Man Who Would Be King.
  • Death has been shown to be friendlier than the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

"Join me, Dean. The pizza is delicious."

Although it's arguable whether or not Death is actually evil. His main concern is to get out of Lucifer's control so that he can go back to doing his own thing. Even though his thing is killing people (he is Death, after all), he generally seems apathetic towards individual human lives, and even to the destruction of entire cities. Basically, he's just playing the waiting game until he reaps God.

• Herrick in Being Human (UK) is friendly, funny, and actually quite polite to the protagonists. On the face of it, Mitchell could do worse than have Herrick as a boss ... or a father. He's also a complete bastard plotting to Take Over the World. Towards the end of Season 1, he takes a turn to Faux Affably Evil.
• Number 2 from The Prisoner, sometimes. It depends on which one you're talking about. The one played by Leo McKern certainly is.
  • Also Guy Doleman, Peter Wyngarde, and Georgina Cookson. None of them are ever unpleasant to Number Six.
• From Babylon 5:
  • Bester tries to be this, and although he manages to be a character of great pathos and complexity, he's still a bit of a subversion -- his efforts at affability are a creepily obvious front for a somewhat sociopathic and thoroughly broken personality.
  • Mr. Morden. Like Bester, he's a very broken individual, but in completely different ways. His veneer does crack when he's pushed too far, but there's only a handful of cases of that throughout the series.
  • Then, there's Sheridan's torturer in season 4, who was basically a middle-aged accountant who just happened to be delivering large electrical shocks and doses of agonising, vomit-inducing poison, instead of doing tax returns. Somehow, his Why Did You Make Me Hit You? attitude and philosophical digressions on the nature of truth managed to be creepier than he could ever have been as a frothing sadist.
• Senator Clay Davis from The Wire is a blatantly corrupt, money-grubbing politician who will take anyone he can for as much money as he can. He's also friendly, charismatic, and cheerfully open about what he is.

"I'll take any motherfucker's money if he givin' it away!"

• • Brother. Fucking. Mouzone. You know, the man with the thick glasses, the dorky bowtie, the exceedingly polite speech, a love of Harpers magazine, and who has no problem shooting hoppers with hollow-point bullets or gunning down Stringer Fucking Bell!
  • Proposition Joe. Everybody likes him.
• More than one antagonist in Burn Notice.
  • Larry, a recurring character (yes, Dead Larry), is a consistently polite and cheerful man. He seems to truly care about his friends, tries to be a positive influence on the people around him, and will never do anything harmful to anyone without a good reason. He's also a remorseless sociopath, so "good reason" for Larry means "it would be marginally more convenient for me if you were dead". In his latest reappearance, Michael and Sam walk into Michael's house and are greeted warmly by Larry, who is very apologetic about the still-bleeding corpse on the floor, and makes himself as helpful as he can in dealing with the cartel that wants Michael dead. Well, actually, they want Larry dead, but he was using Michael's stolen identity at the time.

Sam: That guy sucks.

• A real life example was heavily hinted at in Long Way Round, when Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman are put up for the night by a very friendly Russian "businessman" who always seemed to have a bunch of very large friends hanging around, and an unsettling number of assault weapons in his compound.
• Jonathan in Bored to Death has a friendly conversation with a man holding a hostage. They end up smoking pot together before the cops break in.
• Finster from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is more of a friendly old guy than an out-and-out villain. It seems that he does what he does more out affection for Rita than any real desire to do evil deeds. In fact, while Lord Zedd is in charge (prior to marrying Rita), Finster doesn't create any monsters at all.
• Lothor from Power Rangers Ninja Storm. Although he tends to be more comic-relief and Evil Is Dumb, he's probably the most lovable villain ever, mainly because of his character and the way his actor portrays him. The fact that he has two even more evil nieces (again, Evil Is Dumb) he has to look after only makes him even more affable.
• Marc Antony in Rome.
• Melvin Palmer in Boston Legal. Of course, it may be difficult to call him evil in the Grey and Grey Morality world of law, but when facing him in court, Alan inevitably comes off as more sympathetic.
• The Tech Bandit from the episode "Common Enemies" of Fox's The Good Guys. A nice fellow that only steals so that he can support his love of traveling and food blogging.
• Warehouse 13: H(elena) G. Wells. Let's begin with the fact that she started her tenure as Big Bad by pulling off a massive Batman Gambit in order to get her hand on the last existing picture of her dead daughter, and go from there.
• No matter what nasty (and sometimes downright evil) deeds Neighbours' Paul Robinson has planned, he will always do them with an air of debonair class.
• Johnny Johnson from News Radio, in a fifth-season story arc, exemplifies this trope. A rival businessman who takes over Mr. James' corporate empire (after hatching a secret plot to have the tycoon imprisoned for the infamous real-life "D.B. Cooper" skyjacking) succeeds in temporarily duping everybody at the station in to believing that his motives are good (even going so far as seducing Lisa, one of the main female characters), with the exception of Dave, the news director. When Dave calls Johnny on his evilness, he flat-out admits it, and says that he would be willing to give it up if Lisa were to marry him. Dave balks, to which Johnny replies, "I happen to have a talent for evil - doesn't mean I like it."
  • Jimmy James himself is not without his own misdeeds. While we never see him doing anything evil, he'll often commend his employees for engaging in duplicitous behavior (as long as it's good business practice), even when it's against him, as well as admitting (or heavily implying) to having done unethical things. The implications are that Jimmy may be a very friendly person, but he didn't get rich without all the standard business villainy.
• The Cigarette Smoking Man was this sometimes. Ever so polite and conversational until you get in his bad books, and he genuinely seemed to have a liking for Mulder, among others. The Well-Manicured Man could be classified under this trope too, but a good case can be made that he was never really particularly evil in the first place, especially by the time he died.
• Nevel Papperman of iCarly is polite and friendly despite his attempts to destroy iCarly because Carly refused to kiss him.
• Dr Dave from an episode of CSI. He's an elderly small town dentist, avuncular, well liked, very set in his routine, unfailingly kind to his patients and everyone else... and he's been torturing and murdering young women for decades.
• Rafael Hendrick of Children of the Stones, played by the very urbane Iain Cuthbertson, is polite, cultured, friendly, and brainwashes the villagers of Milbury into becoming "Happy Ones".
• The Sheriff of Nottingham in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
• Gatehouse from The Shadow Line. He's always scrupulously polite, and yet commits horrific acts of violence in pursuit of his goal.
• Lionel Luthor on Smallville has no interest in hurting people pointlessly. As long as you're not in his way (and aren't related to him), you're in no danger. The same can be said of Tess Mercer, who eventually took over LuthorCorp; the same can not be said for his son Lex, or his Alternate Universe counterpart, Earth-2 Lionel, who are both classic examples of Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
• Nikola Tesla loves Helen Magnus unconditionally, will do absolutely anything for her, and has pretty much always come through when the titular Sanctuary needs him. This does not stop him from wanting to Take Over the World, or constantly getting himself into trouble that he then needs the Sanctuary team to help get him out of. He's also one of the good guys (mostly).
• Harry Montebello from The Straits loves his daughter, is always polite to the police, and even built a special set of steps so his cute, tiny dog can more easily get up onto his bed. He also is the head of a crime syndicate who will cheerfully have you stung to death by jellyfish if you cross him.
• John Oliver made a comment in his Comedy Central stand-up special about how when Britain, in its imperial days, would conquer countries, but they would do it politely.

"And remember how we used to do it? We'd ring you up, tell you where the bomb was, when it was going to go off, and have a chat. How fucking polite were we!?"