Kristen Bell's 10 Best TV Roles, Ranked

Ready to feel old? Kristen Bell has been brightening our TV screens for damn near 20 (!) forking years.

We know! To us, she'll always be the teenage gumshoe who sent Veronica Mars into orbit in 2004. But in fact, the small-screen big-timer — shockingly never Emmy-nominated — has a long and varied roster of roles to her credit. And in the latest installment of our new occasional feature, we've not only reviewed them, we've (gasp!) ranked them.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can see you scrolling already. Don't. First, know that we laid down a few ground rules for ourselves. For one of Bell's numerous TV gigs to be considered, she had to be a series regular, recur heavily or show up in a particularly significant one- or two-off guest spot.

TV movies? Nope. Not in the running. Even though Bell's "Little Mary Sunshine" number in Showtime's Reefer Madness in 2005 is the definition of high-larious. As for voiceover parts, we limited ourselves to one. (We do best with boundaries, honestly.)

So... ready to see the 10 characters that wound up making the (incredibly deep) cut? All you have to do is continue scrolling. (And you're probably doing that right now, anyway.) Then hit the comments to let us know which picks you're down with, which you're down on and which stars you want to see get the 10-best treatment next.

Bell was only in one episode of the beloved WB drama, Season 2's "Extra Ordinary" back in 2003, but the star on the rah-rah-rise still made a lasting impression as a petulant teenager who was less concerned that her ruptured breast implants might jeopardize her health and more concerned with how they'd affect her coveted new position as co-head cheerleader.

The sharp mind and quick wit with which we usually associate Bell's characters were on prominent display in her back-to-back 2004 appearances as a baby-faced grifter on HBO's locked-and-lauded Western. And endings don't come much more memorable — or horrific — than the ones that awaited Flora and the brother who was her partner in crime.

Bell's devout church lady may not have had a prayer of landing hot firefighter Ken Marino in Season 1 of the reality-dating spoof. But the actress still gets a hose from us for the just-go-for-it performance that helped her stand out from a cast of funny ladies that included Jennifer Aniston, Malin Akerman and Abigail Spencer.

To hilarious effect, Bell turned the pretension up to 11 in three Season 6 episodes of the NBC comedy. She played Leslie Knope's antithesis, an Eagleton City Councilwoman who was so hoity-toity, her version of "You don't kick a man when he's down" was "You don't kick a dressage horse after a failed pas de deux."

It was fitting that Bell's superpower in Seasons 2 and 3 of the NBC drama was the ability to generate electricity. Even when ill-fated Elle wasn't throwing literal sparks, her portrayer was delivering one emotional jolt after another as "Company" property that was as heartbreakingly damaged as she was dangerous.

The CW's 2007-12 soap wouldn't have worked viewers into half as frothy a lather had it not been for Bell's mischievous voiceovers as the all-knowing blogger who turned out to be... Wait, what? Penn Badgley's Dan Humphrey? Never mind. Bell's narration was so key to the success of the series that XOXOMG, she'll be setting tongues wagging again in HBO Max's reboot.

Bell's starring role as a fast-talking management consultant on Showtime's 2012-16 dramedy fit her so snugly, it was a wonder she could draw a breath. Whether she was acing chemistry tests opposite leading man Don Cheadle or finessing lines of dialogue until they curved, she rocked the House.

C'mon, you know this list would be total bullshirt if it didn't have a spot reserved near the top for Bell's divinely flawed alter ego from NBC's 2016-20 comedy. Over the course of its celebrated run, the actress evolved Eleanor from self-absorbed bench to the kind of heavenly heroine who doesn't need the prefix "anti" in front of the descriptor.

There's a reason that after the teenage-detective drama wrapped its initial run on UPN and CW, it was brought back as a Kickstarter-funded movie and then a limited series on Hulu: Bell slays as the title character, a protagonist with a sharp enough edge to draw blood and a big enough heart to use her powers for good. Now and always she makes us glad that "we used to be friends."