Carnivale: stereotypes of Russians in Western media

There is something I have encountered few times in the last two weeks. First, in "Sarah Connor Chronicles". As soon as I saw Dimitry-the-Russian-programmer I thought "Aha! He will be the evil character who stole the Turk". And of course, he was the evil character who stole the Turk.

And after "Sarah Connor" I am watching "Carnivale". The Creature of Darkness is revealed as Russian. Oh dear. These things don't bother me too much usually, but when there are too many of them - this can't just be random.

I am thinking really hard and trying to remember an American show where a Russian person wasn't:

1. Evil
2. Programmer (of evil variety)
3. Low intelligence but good at chess
4. Scary mafia guy involved in human traffic

Oh my, look - I am a programmer myself.

To be honest, the stereotypes of Russians are much "softer" than stereotypes of some other nations or religious and sexual orientation minorities.