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With Thanksgiving coming up this week in the United States, most of us are going to be thankful we're not turkeys.

In the world of science-fiction and fantasy, there are a number of characters many of us would like to be, but there also are characters most of us wouldn't want to be.

I've compiled a list of 10 characters most of us probably would not want to be if we had the chance.

1. A Red Shirt (Star Trek) - You have no name, and even if you do, you know you'll be dead before the end of the episode. No fame. No fortune. No talk show of your own to give you the chance to badmouth fellow cast members. Just someone growling "He's dead, Jim!" over your corpse.

2. Lana Lang (Smallville) - You probably have your own private room waiting for you at the hospital, because it seems you sleep there more than any place else. You've been killed and nearly killed so many times, it's a wonder you still have brain cells left in your head.

Also, everybody has gotten tired of hearing you whine about how hard your life has been, running your own coffee house with an apartment above it at 16, or marrying the wealthiest guy around, or being pursued by that super-hot dude who would do anything for you.

Poor, poor girl.

3. Adam Monroe (Heroes) - You never age. All your wounds and injuries heal immediately. You can't die, and you end up trapped in a coffin indefinitely. You finally get out, and some old guy who was supposed to be dead incinerates you.

4. Dean Winchester (Supernatural) - Your mother died in a fiery blaze on the ceiling when you were just a child. Your father died trading his life for yours. You still end up dying and literally going to Hell, when some creepy hand pulls you out of the grave and brings you back to life. You spend your time running from and running toward the most nightmarish horrors of myth and legend. You've died countless times and still keep coming back. Whether you live or die, Hell never ends.

5. Any Companion of The Doctor (Doctor Who) - You're beautiful, intelligent, talented, or at least quick with a quip. You travel through space and time with the man from Gallifrey, risking life and limb and walking the entire planet to save him. Then he drops you like a hot potato for the next tarty trollop who comes along.

6. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Buffy/Angel) - At first you seem like a bit of a buffoon, but the truth is, you are a victim of a cold and abusive father for whom you were never good enough. You finally come into your own as a brilliant, seasoned, demon-hunting detective, and find the girl of your dreams. The problem is, she falls for one of your best friends.

You wait it out, hoping that maybe at some point she'll come around. When she finally does, you are working for the law firm of evil, and before you ever get to do the deed with her, she dies and her body is taken over by a royal Smurf. Still, the Smurf is willing to be the woman you love for you, but you end up disemboweled.

7. Crais (Farscape) - First, he kills your brother. Then he wins the heart of the woman you secretly love -- going at it with her for weeks while you sit alone in the next room. No matter what you do, this idiot Crichton one-ups you till you have nothing left to hope for. So you die alone, sacrificing yourself for the greater good and to save him and his companions.

8. Xander Harris (Buffy) - Your father tried once to sell you to some Armenians. Your parents are drunks who abused and neglected you all your life. You are a demon magnet. The women you do want won't give you the time of day, but it seems every demon and monster in Sunnydale has a thing for you.

First it was Praying Mantis Woman. Then it was Inca Mummy Girl, and at one point you were Dracula's spider-eating man bitch.

Yeah, you had Cordelia Chase for a short time; and Faith, the vampire slayer, who ditched you immediately, and at one point, every female in Sunnydale from both sides of the hellmouth wanted you. Then vengeance demon Anya came along, and you broke her heart and she died -- but not before a demented Malcolm Reynolds look-alike poked your eye out with his thumb.

9. John Locke (Lost) - Nearly everyone on "Lost" has had a bad life, but yours is possibly the worst of all. Abandoned as a kid. Underemployed and unappreciated, your biological father sought you out, making you think he cared about you, but all he wanted was to steal your kidney to save his own worthless life. Oh ... and then he pushed you out a window, causing you to fall several hundred feet and break your back, leaving you in a wheelchair forever.

You decide to treat yourself to a survivalists' trail in Australia, but when you get there, you are turned away because of the wheelchair.

How much worse can your life get? What? What island? Where?

10. Callie Henderson Tyrol (Battlestar Galactica) - One of the most under-appreciated members of the Galactica crew, first you get your face bashed in by Chief Galen Tyrol, who broke your heart by having an affair with a Cylon. You marry him anyway. Then you think Galen is having an affair with Tory, but in trying to prove it, you accidently find out he, Tory and two others are Cylons. And to make sure your life totally sucked, Tory grabs your baby and throws you out an airlock.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone! As for the rest of the world, have a great November!

Robin Brownfield is a staff writer for Airlock Alpha, working out of New Jersey. She can be reached at rbrownfield@airlockalpha.com.