Top TV dads: The good, the bad and the 'Scandal'-ous

Good TV fathers, like real ones, don't always know best. But the best never stop trying. The worst? They're just very trying.

We could argue all Father's Day about the relative merits of Fred MacMurray (My Three Sons) and Andy Griffith, talk about Ed O'Neill's very different fathers on Married . . . with Children and Modern Family, or try to come to terms with the complicated legacy of Bill Cosby's Cliff Huxtable.

Or we could focus on 10 current - or nearly current - characters who deserve a Father's Day shout-out, and a few other Very Bad Dads for whom Hallmark will hopefully never have a card.

1. Lou Solverson (Keith Carradine/Patrick Wilson) of FX's Fargo.

We first met Lou in Season 1 as the widowed cop-turned-coffee shop owner (Carradine) who raised police chief Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman). That would be recommendation enough, since Molly's terrific.

In Season 2, though, we saw the younger Lou (Wilson) as a loving, worried husband and father trying to do right by his family while working the biggest case of his life.

Any TV daughter would be proud to claim him.

2. Andre "Dre" Johnson (Anthony Anderson), of ABC's Blackish.

Sitcom dads nearly all carry a little of Homer Simpson's DNA, and Dre's no exception. He may seldom get the last word in an argument with his doctor wife, Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross), but amid the laughs, what resonates is his belief that his privileged kids shouldn't take that privilege for granted, along with a genuine concern about the world beyond their safe-ish cocoon.

3. Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck), of CBS' Blue Bloods.

Modern TV dads don't get much more old-fashioned than this New York police commissioner, who has two sons (Donnie Wahlberg and Will Estes) on the force and a daughter (Bridget Moynahan) in the District Attorney's Office. And it's his old-fashioned ethics, passed down to his children and grandchildren during those Reagan family dinners - not to mention his amazing mustache - that keep viewers coming back.

4. Dr. Shoukath Ansari (playing a version of himself in his son Aziz's Netflix comedy, Master of None).

"My dad took off most of his vacation time for the year to act in Master of None," the younger Ansari posted on Instagram in the fall. "Tonight, after we did [The Late Show with Stephen Colbert] together, he said: 'This is all fun and I liked acting in the show, but I really just did it so I could spend more time with you.' "

5. Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville), of PBS' Downton Abbey.

Over six seasons, the man who once refused to bankrupt the estate he was charged with preserving to ensure his children's financial futures became someone who'd come to accept one daughter's marriage to the family's former chauffeur and another daughter's raising of the child she'd given birth to under scandalous circumstances. Love dragged him into a brave new world.

6. Louis Huang (Randall Park), of ABC's Fresh Off the Boat.

Though perhaps only loosely based on the real-life father of chef and memoirist Eddie Huang, this ambitious restaurant owner is almost as in love with all things American as he his with his family, making him a great buffer between his formidable wife, Jessica (Constance Wu), and their hip hop-loving son Eddie (Hudson Yang).

7. Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys), of FX's The Americans.

It's not easy balancing the demands of the KGB and family life, but this Russian sleeper agent has been doing his best to keep his bosses from recruiting his keenly observant daughter, Paige (Holly Taylor), while keeping her brother, Henry (Keidrich Sellati), completely in the dark.

After this season, I expect his role as a father to become even more complicated.

8. Rogelio De La Vega (Jaime Camil), of the CW's Jane the Virgin.

One of TV's most delightful narcissists, he has grown a lot while trying to make up for lost time with Jane (Gina Rodriguez), the daughter he hadn't known he had. He may not always make the right choices, but his heart's in the right place.

9. Murray Goldberg (Jeff Garlin), of ABC's The Goldbergs.

A father who removes his pants every time he walks into his home might not be every kid's dream, but it's the kind of character detail that helps make The Goldbergs, inspired by the real-life family of Jenkintown's Adam F. Goldberg, very specific. And very funny.

10. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), of AMC's The Walking Dead.

OK, I grade on a curve for parents dealing with a zombie apocalypse. It's true that Rick's son, Carl (Chandler Riggs), has had all kinds of issues (and that he has been accidentally shot at least twice, although honestly, I can no longer bring myself to keep up). But he's alive. So let's give credit where it's at least partly due.

1. Stannis Baratheon (Steven Dillane), of HBO's Game of Thrones.

Competition for Worst Father in and around Westeros is always stiff, what with Jaime Lannister (Nicolaj Coster-Waldau), the father who's also his children's uncle; Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance), the father who tried to have his son Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) executed; and, beyond the Wall, Craster (Robert Pugh), the guy who married his daughters and got rid of his sons.

Yet the man who would be king (and now never will be) managed to set a new bar for bad dads, one we can only hope will never be cleared, when he had his charmingly bookish young daughter, the princess Shereen (Kerry Ingram), burned alive in a failed attempt to impress the so-called Lord of Light.

2. Lucious Lyon (Terrence Howard), of Fox's Empire.

Lucious is a killer and all-round bad guy, but it's the way he treats his three sons, happily playing them off against one another and belittling them at every turn, that has made him the Empire character I no longer even love to hate.

3. Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight), of Showtime's Ray Donovan.

The South Boston-bred ex-con and killer who wormed his way back into the lives of his West Coast-based offspring is a charming snake, and every bit as bad as his Hollywood-fixer son Ray (Liev Schreiber) says he is.

Rowan Pope (Joe Morton), of ABC's Scandal.

Here's a father who's in a class all his own. I can't call him a good dad, exactly. He most recently threatened to murder a man (Scott Foley) he considers a surrogate son as a means of manipulating his daughter, Olivia (Kerry Washington).

But he raised her largely on his own, is fiercely - and I do mean fiercely - protective of her, and Olivia Pope wouldn't be the fascinating, frustrating character she is without him.

graye@phillynews.com

215-854-5950@elgray