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They’re brooding, they’re complicated, they’re often corrupt, and they’re all over our television. These past few years have been the age of the TV anti-hero. However, as fun as these dark character studies have been, they’re creating a whole new problem. There are very few pure heroes left on TV, and it’s starting to feel draining.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for complicated character studies, and most of my favorite moments from 2016 television have been driven by characters who are neither entirely good nor bad. The best example is the bundle of complication and lies that is Elliot (Rami Malek) in Mr. Robot. Is he a good person? Is he evil? Does he even have the slightest idea what he is? No one knows for sure, least of all Elliot. Another great but less extreme example is the DEA plot line in Narcos Season Two. In their quest to bring down Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura), DEA agents Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook) and Javier Peña (Pedro Pascal) have spent a lot of time trying to capture the drug lord through legal or legal adjacent means, but well into Season Two, they still don’t have Escobar. That’s when Peña changes everything, choosing to align himself, and as a result the U.S. government, with a group of Escobar-hating terrorists. The rest of Peña’s storyline is incredibly interesting as we watch one of our good guys become progressively more entrapped in illegal activities and murderous connections, but the message is clear. Playing dirty is how you get the job done. Being safe and legal like Steve is how you end up on the sidelines.

There are countless other examples of complicated protagonists this year, from Naz (Riz Ahmed) in The Night Of and Jimmy / James / Saul / Gene (Bob Odenkirk) in Better Call Saul to Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in Veep to the entire cast of Silicon Valley. These are all great and complicated characters, but they’re the same type of complicated protagonist: someone with initially good intentions becoming increasingly more corrupt (with the possible exception of Selina). Now more than ever, this year has been a time for morally complicated characters, but all of this complexity comes with a cost.

There’s something really refreshing about watching a true hero’s journey. It’s the reason we’re still talking about Luke Skywalker to this day. Good-hearted heroes overcoming the odds of everything and everyone around them is hopeful and aspirational. These stories are what we want our best lives to be like. I know it’s how I imagine my own journey. As compelling as it was to watch Walter White transform into Heisenberg, I don’t think many people want to see themselves and their journeys in Breaking Bad. Likewise, no one really wants the highs and low lows that comes with being a character on BoJack Horseman or UnReal or Bloodline or — god forbid — Game of Thrones. These shows and their dark characters are fascinating to watch, but they’re rarely uplifting because there are very few pure heroes left in the mix.

There are exceptions. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is one of the rare shows out there that features a cast of what I would call “pure heroes” — people who strive to be and typically are moral and caring with few ulterior motives. And though they engage in a lot of illegal activities, the Broad City girls would fall into this category too. There are even traces of pure heroes in Netflix’s The Get Down, and Marcia Clark (Sarah Paulson) was definitely in that category in The People v. OJ. But for the most part, especially in the world of our dramas, we’re missing a hero. As great as these complicated character studies are, things have been getting pretty dark lately. I think there’s enough room on television for heroes and anti-heroes.