TV Characters Who Can Swim With Sharks

Their bite is a helluva lot worse than their bark

By MINDY MONEZ

Updated 3:15 PM EST, Fri, Jul 31, 2009

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Jack Bauer is a killing machine, with row upon row of razor-sharp teeth.

Sunday marks the dawn of 2009's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, an annual tradition in which we sit down and watch crazy people swim with sharks and almost get their arms bitten off. It's the most fun you'll have with nature all year! So in honor of Tracy Jordan's favorite television event, we thought we'd assemble our own shark tank. You know, for the office. Here are the biggest, scariest, sharkiest predators on television right now.

Jack Bauer (24)
He once bit someone's throat out (dull human teeth be damned), he tends to hide and wait for his prey to pass by him to attack, he never stops moving, and it's unclear how he sleeps. Jack's really more of a literal shark than a figurative one. The show's not big on metaphor.

Georgina Sparks (Gossip Girl)
She has a history of leaving people for dead and possible murdered (her "You don't have to worry about her ever again" comment regarding Poppy Lifton was terrifyingly vague), and she'll do whatever she has to do to get what she wants, with zero conscience. The only thing that has ever stopped the diabolical wrath of Georgina Sparks was Blair Waldorf, the universally acknowledged Roy Scheider of the Upper East Side.

Eric Northman (True Blood)
He's a pale, bitey predator with a keen sense of smell and a perseverant attitude when it comes to finding his way to food or Sookie. For what it's worth, I bet he'd be good at pool, too, if he ever tried it.

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Brenda Leigh Johnson (The Closer)
She's a vicious eating machine/interrogator with little regard for the feelings of perps and/or burritos. Confeyuss!!!

Dexter Morgan (Dexter)
He likes to stalk his prey before he pounces, and though he probably likes to play with his victims a lot more than real sharks do, he definitely shares that solitary hunter aspect in common with most of them. And their love of bacon.

Patty Hewes (Damages)
Like sharks, Patty Hewes is terrifying. If you endanger her interests and are perceived as a threat, or even just happen to know something useful that can help her win a case, she will take what she needs and then destroy you, plain and simple. And your dog, too, in certain cases.

The Smoke Monster (Lost)
Originally I was going to say that the Dharma shark from Lost is a shark, because you really can't argue that he's not, but then I remembered that guy is probably chum now, considering trigger-happy Michael shot him three seasons ago. But the Smoke Monster is a scarier predator anyway -- even Ben is afraid of it. It may sound like a fun rollercoaster, but it pretty much ate Greg Grunberg in the pilot, and everybody else it doesn't like gets thrown around the island to death like a jungle rag doll.

Wilhelmina Slater (Ugly Betty)
She's the most fabulous conqueror in history. Wilhelmina can masterfully lie, scheme, manipulate, and condescend 24/7 without even breaking a sweat. Bitch downright stole somebody's baby to secure her position at Mode, and then just went to work with that person every day like nothing even happened.

Dennis Reynolds (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)
You got a girlfriend? Then it's probably best not to cross Dennis, or he'll don his best skin tight body suit or dramatically pop open his shirt and "bang her" in a second. Particularly if she's still in high school.

Kim Kaswell (Drop Dead Diva)
Tact is nary a concern for Kim Kaswell when she's after something or someone. She routinely throws her co-workers under the bus to get ahead, and she lied to a grieving hunk in order to trick him into going out with her, even though she knew his girlfriend had just died a few days prior. As Jane herself pointed out, "every woman [is] a threat, every man [is] a conquest" to Kim. She's a maaaneaterrr.

The Bachelor (The Bachelor)
No matter who he is at the time, the Bachelor always proves to have an unrivaled need to pursue and then successively chew on ladies' faces when given the opportunity. There is very rarely more than one survivor of these attacks per season.

Barney Stinson (How I Met Your Mother)
Barney isn't evil, he just loves the ladies. Except he goes through them like most people go through toilet paper, and disposes of them in pretty much exactly the same way.

Sylar (Heroes)
A big fan of murder, Sylar has been on a serial killing binge with a side project in torture for several years now. And though we found out fairly recently that he does not eat the brains he likes to play with, hunting people and using them to his advantage still remains his favorite pastime, which is awfully sharky.