CBS; Ron Jaffe/Fox; Miranda Penn Turin/FOX; Sergei Bachlakov/The CWThousands upon thousands of fans flooded our polls to vote for their favorites in our Ultimate TV Character Crush competition, and it's been a brutal battle to whittle the list down from 64 guys and gals to two finalists. Finally, we have our winners.
In the final round, it was Supernatural's Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) against Criminal Mind's Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Glee's Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) against How I Met Your Mother's Lily Aldrin-Erikson (Alyson Hannigan). So, did our reigning Alpha Male Madness champion's character dominate again? And since Glee fans are as fanatic as they come, did their powers combine enough to bring Santana to glory? We present the proud winners of our Ultimate TV Character Crush tournament…
The girl next door and the demon hunter trumped 'em all, as Lily Erikson and Dean Winchester edged out Santana Lopez and Spencer Reid respectively to come out on top!
How does it feel to create a character so beloved by the fans? Craig Thomas, creator and executive producer of HIMYM, tells us:
"I'm thrilled for Lily Aldrin's distinction as TV's Ultimate Character Crush!' But man, I feel kinda bad for her TV husband, Marshall. It's gotta be super creepy knowing that tens of thousands of strangers on the Internet are eyeballing your wife! (Ah screw it, the guy's probably proud as hell!) Congrats Lily (and, by extension, Alyson!)"
As for the gang as Supernatural, well, they reveled something very disturbing about Dean's fanbase. Writer and producer Sera Gamble tells us: "[Executive producer] Robert Singer and I are totally unsurprised that Dean won this, considering the naughty care packages that sometimes reach the office with his name on them."
Geez, one time we sent along a box of edible underwear and mixed tapes filled with Taylor Swift songs…
Surely, tears our being shed right now, both out of happiness and out of defeat, but you should all know that the margin of victory was as thin as Damon Salvatore's eyebrows. OK, those aren't really so thin, but the difference between the winner and the loser sure was. Dean beat Spencer 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent, while Lily squeaked by Santana 50.9 percent to 49.1 percent.
Let's hear it, guys. Happy with the results? Or are you already writing us letters insisting we somehow rigged an un-riggable poll? We'll take both reactions, so lay 'em on us!