What is your most hated tv episode of any show?

Janet's baby sister comes to visit on Three's Company. The worst episode ever and that annoying actress that plays her sister Jenny is gross!

The Black History Month episode of "American Dad." Such a good show usually, but that was lackluster and petty.

A runner up would be the WKRP episode about Herb Tarlek's alcoholism. Preachy, and at one point Herb says, "Hey, Johnny comes in to work every day floating on lord knows what, so why can't I come back from lunch a little drunk?" and Andy replies that it's because Johnny's doing it on his own time. Except anyone who ever watched the show knew that Johnny was indeed high as a kite while at work, and IIRC Venus would drink or smoke pot during his late-night bang music shift. It was a really poor attempt at a "message" episode.

The ep of Mission Impossible where the tape Jim Phelps is supposed to listen to gets jammed and all he has is the envelope with 8 x 10 glossies of that week's guest stars.

The last episode of Battlestar Galactica (2003). Not because it was the end of one of my favorite shows, but because it sucked.

The Very Special homeless episode of Kate and Allie, in which Allie has to walk home because she has no money. Cringe-worthy.

I don't know, OP. I watch a TV show, it ends, and my life goes on. If I didn't like it I forget about it rather than dwelling on it for decades.

The episode of All In The Family where Edith gets sexually assaulted. As a kid I was perplexed by a laugh track during an attempted rape.

R2 – That sounds similar to a really jarring episode of "Maude" quite some time ago. Maude's husband, Walter, became a raging alcoholic, seemingly overnight. In one episode he was fine, but then a week later he was a total drunk. Nothing at all led up to this. It was as if the writers said, "okay, Walter's now an alkie, so let's use that as our SJW episode." It was beyond dumb.

The sick dog episode of American Dad.

The A My Name Is Alex episode of Family Ties.

The I Love Lucy episode where they go the rodeo is completely boring and laugh free. And that Christmas episode is just weird.

Totally agree, r4 - hated it. However, the cat episode from the same (final) season of BG may be where the show actually jumped the shark.

The eating disorder episode of "Diff'rent Strokes." In less than 30 minutes, Kimberly develops and overcomes bulimia! Dame Dana Plato pulls out all of the acting stops, with vomiting noises that put Mercedes McCambride's work in "The Exorcist" to shame. And it's all wrapped up at the end with a moving discussion between Kimberly and her dad about the dangers of trying to be "perfect"!

This one rivals the Arnold and Dudley molestation episode for its sheer awfulness.

Buffy "Wrecked". The stupid magic is a drug device, ruining of Willow. There were other cheesy and bad episodes of Buffy, but I actively hated that one.

The McMillan and Wife ep where Sally is pregnant and talks about their baby boy, but subsequent eps never mention the kid or a babysitter. Weird.

"Australia" episode from Modern Family, an unfunny clusterfuck that turned me off of the show. That entire season of Modern Family sucked and that episode was the final nail, although I continued watching when the 6th season started since I was sure it could not get any worse than that.

L&O SVU was a slightly guilty pleasure for me but it became unwatchable after the episode where they killed handsome Mike Doyle who played the forensic tech on the show. And not because they killed off his character but because of the way Olivia and Elliot took down the killer (played by Shameless' Noel Fisher) - Olivia kisses (!) him as a distraction so that a captive Elliot can free himself and knock him out from behind. Beyond stupid and the show just got dumber from there.

Even though it was my favorite show at the time and I still have very fond memories of it, I can admit the last few episodes of "Designing Women" are truly wretched.

The worst of all of them, in my opinion, is Mary Jo becoming some kind of faith healer because the image of Elvis shows up on her snow shovel. I know it sounds like I'm making it up, but it happened.

No one in the show acts consistently within the character, and the plot is truly ridiculous.

Really shameful. (The one hour finale where they all have "Gone with the Wind" fantasies comes in a close second.)

I loved Six Feet Under but the episode where David is kidnapped by a carjacker was AWFUL.

Seinfeld- India

[quote]The Very Special homeless episode of Kate and Allie, in which Allie has to walk home because she has no money.

That was a very good episode. Of all the "special" episodes on 80s TV that one was done without preachiness and Allie learns a lesson.

On Familiar Ties when Alex has best friends you see for one episode only.

Definitely that dull boring episode of The Golden Girls called Empty Nest. Not one funny joke in the entire episode.

The Buckets go to the seaside funfair with the old people from the church. Creepy and sad.

I thought the one where Janet wore the (fugly) blonde wig to attract men was one of the worst TC episodes.

Then again, this is a show where Greedy Gretchen was supposed to be considered hot - simply because she was blonde.

The Brady Bunch episode where they tried to launch a spinoff series about a white couple that ends up adopting a white kid, a black kid, and a Latino kid. Ken Berry and Brooke Bundy (GH's Diana Taylor) were the adopting couple and were supposedly "very good friends" of Mike and Carol Brady. Of course, you never saw these "friends" in any episode before or after the one they were in. Apparently, the spinoff never got off the ground. Today, Ken and Brooke would be accused of appropriating cultures, I guess.

The final episode of Lost.

Despite the producers claims for six seasons that they weren't dead, they WERE.

[quote]This one rivals the Arnold and Dudley molestation episode for its sheer awfulness.

At least when they almost got humped by Gordon Jump, they still had the façade of actually giving a damn and at least they actively distinguished between pedos and gays, which some shows wouldn't even do. By 1986 they were living on borrowed time and being overshadowed in ratings and quality by their spin-off and rip-off week after week, and more people were probably watching the reruns than new episodes. But in terms of actually being destructive to society by actively lying to its audience, my least [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] episodes are by far the anti-drug ones. In 1981, they did an anti-marijuana episode where Willis had to buy pot for some friends. He smoked it, got high and harmed absolutely nothing and no one, but Mr. Drummond threatened to send him to jail if he caught him with it again. That episode was so bad, Gary Coleman refused to do it and went on strike for more money, so they hastily turned it into a [italic]Facts of Life[/italic] crossover by giving his part to Tootie. That was as bad as the "Just Say No" episode if not worse, especially when you consider the circumstances of Dana Plato's death.

^^Least favorite

I hated the All In The Family Episode where Cousin Gerri was a box boy that Archie got fired, only to find out that she was a he and super smart and went on to law school to help Ann Romano by being her divorce lawyer.

I hated the first episodes of [italic]Friends[/italic] and [italic]Full House[/italic] for not being the last episodes.

Yeah but before that he cheated on an exam at Boatright U.

R12 gives me a pretty good idea of what probably happened to my piece of the cake. Those cake-slice disappearances stopped happening after Norman Lear moved all his shows to Universal and my show stayed at Channel 11.

Buffy has at least half a dozen borderline unwatchable episodes, but I would nominate Beer Bad, when she started to revert to Neandertalism from drinking cursed beer.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I just recalled another Arnold-less [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] episode where Willis gets kicked off the basketball team because of Affirmative Action, and his replacement is a short blond white guy in blue short shorts played by Todd Lookinland (Mike's brother). Willis threatens to sue the school, but Mr. Drummond is pro-Affirmative Action and is against the whole lawsuit. Uh huh. Eee-yeah.

I agree R18

Also the Mad Men episode where Don is having an affair with the neighbor and he locks her in the hotel room.

Brave new world

Most [italic]Simpsons[/italic] episodes from this century are pretty dire, and they keep getting worse and worse. There are several examples: their relentlessly unfunny trip to Florida, Maude Flanders' death that could have been prevented if not for Fox's stupidly refusing to make concessions to Maggie Roswell so she record the voice without costly regular commutes from Denver to LA. And there's also Marge giving up on her quest to ban sugar because "you can't use the law to nag", followed up by an episode about childhood obesity that sounds like a conflict of interest coming from Butterfinger spokespeople. And even in the good years, there were still problems, too. The episode where Lisa became a vegetarian now seems like a joke after Linda McCartney died so young of breast cancer, and one of their former producers was also a vegan and didn't make it past 60. If they had ended in 2000, they would probably be remembered as the greatest TV show ever. Now they'll be remembered as a great show that turned into everything it claimed to hate. I can't even watch any era of the show anymore and won't until they cancel it.

Either way, Rupert Murdoch still got rich off of it, and he was more willing to talk to a man who wrote a book about the show than Matt Groening was.

No -- it was the L&O SVU episode with Kathy Griffin as a lesbian. Bad, bad, bad.

The Batman episode with Barbara Rush as Nora Clavicle. She becomes the Commissioner, and plans to blow up Gotham with little mechanical mice. Batman, Robin and Batgirl play flutes and walk around the city like the Pied Piper, gathering up all of the ridiculous mice. To top it off, there is a set that's supposed to be a dock that looks like it was made by kindergartners for their school play. Horrendous.

When Patty Duke used her leverage at ABC to get Frank Gorshin replaced by John Astin.

[quote]And even in the good years, there were still problems, too.

The "Worst. Episode. Ever." episode was quite literally the writers bitching about what people on Usenet were saying about the show. It was pathetic. They did an entire episode because of hurt feelings over a couple of Usenet critics on alt.tv.simpsons.

The episode included Bart ranting about how people got to watch the show "for free" and therefore had no right to complain about anything. So out of character and so transparent, and really gross coming from Fox.

Last episode of bittersweet cynical Sex and the City where everything wraps up in a ludicrous idiotic fairy tale and all characters suddenly become the opposite of what they had been across six seasons. Eew!

When Cousin Ernie visits Lucy and Ricky. My god, those episodes were miserable.

[quote]The episode included Bart ranting about how people got to watch the show "for free" and therefore had no right to complain about anything. So out of character and so transparent, and really gross coming from Fox.

The writers love to project their own smugness and sense of entitlement onto its fans. The Poochie episode was great overall (some of the best [italic]Simpsons[/italic] episodes are about the art and business of animation himself) and an on-target satire of how committee meddling leads to pandering crap that tries to please everyone but pleases no one, but that moment of that episode was just Bart being a puppet for the writers. Comic Book Guy was right; the writers do owe him a level of quality that's as good or better as what's already been established. If they can't accomplish that anymore, why should he bother to keep watching? Considering how much of their humor is built around potshots at other pop cultural ephemera, it's also a bit two-faced.

By the way, I absolutely loved the gag that inspired that Usenet rant from whence the phrase "worst episode ever" came. It was funny, it was plausible, and it was in character. It worked as comedy.

The worst Cosby show was when the introduced Sandra, especially since the prior year they had the episode where Claire wanted to have another child but Cliff says:

Cliff) Why have another? Four is a perfect number

Then Claire says: I guess you're right. Having Denise as our oldest and Rudy as the youngest is perfect. Yes, Cliff, having exactly four children was EXACTLY the right thing to do.

The Andy Griffith Show Goes to Hollywood.

The Facts of Life Goes to Hollywood.

Sex and the City Goes to Hollywood.

Not only did these episodes suck, they were two-parters. (And in the case of TAGS, a four-parter!)

The Facts of Life episode where they go into big, bad NYC and Tootie gets separated from everyone and ends up in a diner where a pimp strong arms his underage prostitute to recruit/kidnap(?) Tootie. And in the end Mrs. G shows up but they just leave that young girl there, to her life of prostitution.

The "very special" two-hour disco episode of the Love Boat. Julie's 10-year high school reunion is taking place on the boat. In addition to the fact that all of her supposedly 28-year old former classmates look like they're in their forties, Julie realizes she's still attracted to her old high school flame when he shows up with his wife, played by Lisa Hartman. Suddenly Julie starts acting like a manipulative slut to try and steal him from his wife. There's even a dance-off between them.

Whatever writer they brought in to script this story arc had probably never, ever seen an episode of the Love Boat in his life--otherwise he would have had a clue that it was completely out of character for perky cruise director Julie to act like such a pathetic bitch.

Can't think of one but all of Archie's place,his entire persona got so unattractive .

R19 – Yes, the Seinfeld "India" episode was one of the worst in the history of television. The fact that the scenes were shown backward, time-wise, made a stupid, complicated episode totally unwatchable.

Reading about the finale of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica reminds me of another - and I think worse - series finale. Quantum Leap.

(Re: Lost) "Despite the producers claims for six seasons that they weren't dead, they WERE."

They weren't dead since the plane crash if that's what you think.

R7: That AITF episode and the one where Gloria gets assaulted are both reprehensible, but then so was so was the attitude towards women in the 70s.

The "Samantha has an imaginary friend" episode of Gimme a Break. Out of nowhere, Samantha decides to talk to an imaginary friend and actually have conversations with it. Keep in mind the actress was a tall and lanky 14 by that point, way too old to be talking to thin air unless clinically diagnosed as schizophrenic. The episode ends with someone, probably Nell, convincing her she needs to say goodbye to her special friend. The episode ends with her bawling in the most god awful embarassing way as she shuts the imaginary friend up in her jewelry box. She's also wearing pantyhose with shorts which NO ONE was doing in the 80s.

Has anyone mentioned the How I Met Your Mother Who We Killed Off on the Final Episode After You Sucker Fans Waited Years to Meet Her?

Samantha was always a little "special". Remember the episode where she kissed a boy and later went crying to Nell because she thought it made her pregnant?

Remember when Samantha called Nell a nigger? No joke. It happened.

Then Nell gave some speech about how that word could be used to show "affection between two people". It confused the hell out of me as a 11 year old.

Lara Jill Miller was awful in her first few years as Samantha on Gimme a Break but got better. The Joey-in-blackface episode was another shocking episode.

R55 I pissed all over myself from laughing!

I went and found the blackface episode of Gimme a Break. It's cliched as hell (Samantha upset that she's no longer the baby) but, goddamn it, it's actually good! Due largely to Nell Carter's really excellent performance in the final scene. I actually teared up (I know, Mary!). With Carter's acting and sitcom vet Hal Cooper (Maude among many others) directing it is quite an effective piece.

[quote] She's also wearing pantyhose with shorts which NO ONE was doing in the 80s.

Beg to differ.

r7, is it bad that I thought Edith's almost rapist (David Dukes) was extremely hot?

The fucking AIDS episode of Mr. Belvedere and I don't care what anyone says I loved Mr. Belvedere. That was one fucked up family.

[quote]The Very Special homeless episode of Kate and Allie, in which Allie has to walk home because she has no money.

[quote]That was a very good episode. Of all the "special" episodes on 80s TV that one was done without preachiness and Allie learns a lesson.

When this episode originally aired back in the early '90s, I still lived at home in Texas and bought Allie's predicament hook, line and sinker about being stranded so far from home. It wasn't until I moved to New York years later that I realized how ludicrous it was that she couldn't just walk home in about the span of an hour and a half. (IIRC, she was in Washington Heights when she lost her purse/wallet and had to get home to her apartment in the Village.) Yes, it would be a long walk with lots of stops along the way to rest, but she could have done it without appearing to be some homeless person who hadn't eaten or showered in hours and hours (which, at the time, is how I felt the episode portrayed her situation). Of course it was all done for dramatic effect and project a certain message about how we see those less fortunate, but still thinking about it now it was pretty ridiculous.

And I say this as someone who absolutely loved -- and still love -- "Kate & Allie" and wish it was still seen in reruns today more than it is.

Now you can all watch poor Allie find her way home. I love how they had to give Kate her five little seconds in the episode. Where the cab she's driving in just misses Allie. Such a stupid fucking episode. No matter how much the myth of the cold hard New Yorker is pushed it just isn't true. Allie could have stood at any turnstile and explained to some strangers how she needed to get home and lost her purse. They may have huffed and puffed but it would have taken less than ten minutes before someone said "oh honey here".

Series finale of LOST. Complete disappointment.

And I know they didn't die in the crash. I just felt the ending was watered down, flat, and insulting.

[quote]"Australia" episode from Modern Family, an unfunny clusterfuck that turned me off of the show.

I love "Modern Family" but this episode was the only one I turned off halfway through. It was just horrible.

The last episode of GREEN ACRES. It starred Elaine Joyce as "The Ex-Secretary." She was Oliver's ditzy secretary when he practiced law in New York. I had never seen this abomination until it aired on one of the classic tv channels a couple of years ago. It was possibly meant as a pilot for a new series.

The DESIGNING WOMEN ep where the cast is trying to get to the Clinton inauguration was puke inducing. Nothing but a big ass-licking for Bill. Linda and Harry Thomason are close friends of the Clintons, but to hijack a sitcom and use it as propaganda is beyond reprehensible. I don't watch sitcoms to get lectures or political talking points. Take that bullshit and all the tear-jerking "Very Special" episodes and cram 'em where the sun don't shine.

Last episode of "Charlie's Angels" Julie Rogers replaces Tiffany Welles, who replaced Sabrina Duncan. Poor Kelly Garrett gets shot in the head AGAIN and her "friend" Julie acts like they have been working together more than the 15 episodes that aired.. no mention of the other girls. What a waste of time!

ALL IN THE FAMILY - Season 9, Episode 11: The Bunkers Go West/Episode 12: California, Here We Are

In this two-part episode, after the Bunkers find out the Gloria, Mike & Joey can't come to NY for Thanksgiving, Edith and Archie surprise the Stivicks by flying out to them. In the course of the episode, we find out that Mike & Gloria are separated, Gloria has had an affair, Mike tells Gloria "You know, ever since we got separated, you got fat," and she slaps him so hard you can feel the sting. We see familiar and beloved characters being so hateful and hurtful that it leaves a bad taste in one's mouth to watch and listen. It's a shame the storyline took this trajectory.

R72, I really like that two-parter! I think it was pretty spot-on about what would happen to Gloria and Mike once they got out on their own.

Any back-door pilot is always terrible, and The Facts of Life had a bunch of them. The worst was "Brian & Slyvia" which was Tootie's aunt and her white husband making a go of their interracial relationship. The worst of the worst.

The worst regular episode of The Facts of Life was the one were Tootie thought she was going deaf and threw a big hissy fit. Turns out she'd just forgotten to clean her ears for her whole life and they had to fit her with some kind of drainage tube. Hilarity ensues.

But he saved the broken-armed stewardess from the icy Potomac waters R31

I absolutely hate every single episode from every single show that is a retelling of A Christmas Carol. Laziest writer hack in the world and done to death.

Oh damn, R13, I thought the 'dealer" Rax, or something like that was so hot.

"So Called Angels" -- My So Called Life

[quote]Christmas in Three Rivers finds Rickie out on the street after a fight with his abusive uncle. Angela, aided by a mysterious homeless girl (Juliana Hatfield), tries to help him, putting her at odds with Patty. Meanwhile, Brian faces Christmas alone. The mysterious girl Angela meets is an Angel.

"Christopher" -- Sopranos

[quote]Columbus Day ignites tensions between Italians and Native Americans, and Bobby receives devastating news about his wife.

R66 That Kate & Allie episode had a cameo by our beloved lesbian Geraldine Court from Guiding Light. How I miss her dearly.

The most obvious one for me - the last MAD MEN. A show I loved with that detached ending. It sort of ruined the show for me.

And if I recall, r71, the last episode of CA was a flashback episode which are the absolute worst.

The episodes of The Office that had Will Ferrell as special guest star were painfully unfunny.

The Bradys - when Marcia becomes an alcoholic, hits rock bottom at a family press conference and seeks help all in 42 minutes.

There was a bottle episode of "E.R." where the cast is forced to attend an anti-sexual harassment seminar. When the instructor is late, the characters spend the hour learning secrets about each others past (think Breakfast Club).

This was the episode where I started hating Noah Wyle's character who was my favorite up until this point.

I hated the episode where Jan refuses to wear her glasses and then plows into the picture Mike was going to give Coral for her birthday. Then Jan takes to the streets under the name of "Eve" to "earn" money to replace it.

Totally unrealistic, but it was good enough to get Eve Plum a spin off pilot later on.

The episode of MTM where Murray reveals that he's been in love with Mary all this time and feels like he needs to tell her.

The character of Murray was so underwritten and Gavin McLeod was easily the show's weakest cast member. They should have made the character gay (yes, it was the 70s but even if they implied it without actually stating it, it would have been better, IMO).

James Brooks - creator of MTM - also wrote & directed Broadcast News which had a fresh look at the MTM triangle, with Holly Hunter in the Mary role, William Hurt in the Ted Baxter role and Albert Brooks in the Murray role. Albert Brooks showed how great the Murray character could have been and deserved the Oscar that year for his performance.

The MTM episode where Ted gets a job in NYC (or LA) with a huge raise to host a quiz show and suddenly Mary, Lou and Murray don't want him to go. Bullshit, never before have any of them shown any real affection or like for Ted. They only tolerate him and Lou is happy to be shed of him for any reason on prior occasions.

It was a weakly written episode.

The other day I rewatched the episode of THE SIMPSONS where Maude Flanders dies. Looking back, I was only about twelve when I first saw it, and even then I could see how poorly written it was. The tone of that episode is all over the place, with lame jokes crammed in at inappropriate moments. And Ned goes on dates in the same episode where his wife dies? They couldn't have thought of anything else to do? Of all the SIMPSONS episodes, that one probably had the worst long-term effect on the show, because Ned's character was never the same afterwards.

"That AITF episode and the one where Gloria gets assaulted are both reprehensible"

I thought it was a great episode. Edith convinced Gloria to talk to the detective by telling her the story of when she was assaulted under a boardwalk in NJ by a boy she knew. She kicked him in the balls and escaped, but said she didn't tell anyone because they didn't "talk about that kind of stuff" back then. Then, she added, "I've always wondered how many other girls he got under the boardwalk. And how many of them didn't get away..."

I enjoyed the Mad Men series finale r81. Series finales are always a bit difficult, but I thought it was a very appropriate ending for the show. Can't imagine considering it a contender for worst episode.

[quote]In the course of the episode, we find out that Mike & Gloria are separated, Gloria has had an affair, Mike tells Gloria "You know, ever since we got separated, you got fat," and she slaps him so hard you can feel the sting. We see familiar and beloved characters being so hateful and hurtful that it leaves a bad taste in one's mouth to watch and listen. It's a shame the storyline took this trajectory.

Actually, the episode ended up foreshadowing what was to come given that we'd later learn, in the premiere episode of "Gloria," that Mike eventually left Gloria for a younger woman (something I never really thought that character would do, but I guess they had no other choice).

Any back-door pilot is always terrible, and The Facts of Life had a bunch of them. The worst was "Brian & Slyvia" which was Tootie's aunt and her white husband making a go of their interracial relationship. The worst of the worst.

Oh, God, yes, it was horrible. Every joke was about race as if the audience was blind and needed to be reminded every three seconds that Brian and Sylvia were in a mixed marriage. Truly one of the worst pilot eps I've ever seen (glad to know Richard Dean Anderson had better career days ahead of him as this was just a few years before "MacGyver").

Loving some of these hated moments. I remember the Bunkers go to LA episode where Archie and Edith were confronted with Gloria and Mike's impending divorce. The most memorable part in that bad episode - bad mostly because it totally destroyed Gloria's characterization up to that point - was Archie saying to his "little goil", "I never thought I'd ever say this, but he's too good for you".

R89: you're right. That part of the episode was good. Edith was smarter than one normally gave her credit for. The part of that episode with the detective grilling Gloria was really painful, though. I know that is how it was in the 70s; hence, my comment about the awfulness of that decade (in so, so many ways).

I don't know if it's the worst I Love Lucy episode ever but I saw a pretty bad one this morning. It was a dream sequence musical that took place in Scotland.

The episode of FAMILY GUY where the dog is shamed into eating Stewie's shit out of his diaper. (This is true.)

Quit watching it after that. Ms. McF's issues are his own, but he doesn't need me to make money off them.

ANGEL had some real low points, but the one that sticks out to me was when Cordelia pt on a bizarre midriff-baring outfit before announcing she was pregnant by Conor. The whole storyline was just so weird.

[quote] Any back-door pilot is always terrible, and The Facts of Life had a bunch of them. The worst was "Brian & Slyvia" which was Tootie's aunt and her white husband making a go of their interracial relationship. The worst of the worst.

Richard Dean Anderson was hot, but the woman playing Sylvia was miscast and not very funny; everyone else did what they could, including the guy who played the flamboyant gay lyricist from [italic]All That Jazz[/italic], but I can't help thinking it might not have been so bad with a different actress as Sylvia.

The Sex and the City episode when Carrie went with Aiden to his "country" house. Big showed up and the two men got into a fistfight. Painfully unfunny in an otherwise great all-around show.

[quote] The Bradys - when Marcia becomes an alcoholic, hits rock bottom at a family press conference and seeks help all in 42 minutes.

If Maureen McCormick had actually done the show, that episode could have been one of the all-time camp classics of TV. But it might have hit a bit close to home for her.

'It's a Wonderful Life" episodes are just as bad as "A Christmas Carol" episodes.

And there was a period about ten years or so ago when Hitchcock episodes were a thing. "That 70s Show" did one and so did "Chicago Hope".

"Rear Window" was the favored movie to spoof.

There are so many awful episodes from the last season of Roseanne that it's hard to single out the one I hated most, but the one where Roseanne saves Hillary Clinton from terrorists on a train would be on the top of the list. Mike Tyson and Steven Seagal were in that episode, too.

Mama's Family. I hate any Buzz and Sonia-themed episode from the first two seasons, but one I hate from the syndicated years is when Mama and Iola try to impeach the incompetent President of the Church Ladies League. It's revealed that she's not lazy, though; she's just illiterate. A weird very special episode.

One episode of Designing Women I hated was the one where Julia became a deranged anti-porn crusader. Crazy bitch kept driving her car through a new stand and could have killed innocent bystanders. It was Julia at her worst.

[quote]I absolutely hate every single episode from every single show that is a retelling of A Christmas Carol. Laziest writer hack in the world and done to death.

This is such a true statement.

Chuckles the Clown.

This E News Ep about Lochte lyin.

I can tolerate the MAMA'S FAMILY SPECIAL ILLITERACY EPISODE, but the MAMA'S FAMILY SPECIAL HOMELESSNESS EPISODE is the one that gives me dry heaves. They could parade Bubba through every scene of it sans clothing and fully aroused and I would still be repulsed by it.

Ok. Maybe I'd watch it once to see nekkid, erect Bubba, but NEVER AGAIN!

Pretty much all American shows mentioned above - guess that's the primary demographic here :)

Any UK or Aussie D/Lers remember Blakes 7?

Loved that old scifi series sooooo much - even tho it was (like Dr who at the time!) a really low-budget BBC effort.

The final season wasn't very good anyway - but oh dear that final episode...urgh! (spoiler alert for those who don't know the series - they all get killed by the evil bad guys - who essentially win all. Such a blow to an idealistic teenage fan! Still clearly remember the trauma surrounding it all)

Any and every "very special" episode of Blossom.

Any "very special" episode of any show actually.

The Q and the Grey from Star Trek Voyager.

Dorothy's dying episode on the Golden Girls. She had one of those diSHEases and got a little stalky with her Dr.

R26, I called that first episode. Why would a guy in a wheelchair suddenly be walking? Duh!

I am sure I will be alone here but while I do love old "MTM" shows, I never got "Chuckles the Clown". Except for that one moment at the funeral, the rest of the jokes lay flat flat flat. Always a bit baffled when it is referred to as one of the top 2 or 3 episodes of all time for the show.

r89

You must be really stupid if you think that episode is reprehensible or else you think women SHOULD not talk about being raped. Because that is what the message was, women SHOULD talk about it.

[quote]One episode of Designing Women I hated was the one where Julia became a deranged anti-porn crusader. Crazy bitch kept driving her car through a new stand and could have killed innocent bystanders. It was Julia at her worst.

That's one of my least favorite episodes, too. Julia's behavior was just horrific. Even Suzanne sounded more sane when she said to the publisher of that BDSM porn mag, a short-haired woman who donates to NOW, "you can't call yourself a feminist and still show women doing these awful things." Then Julia tries to argue that the First Amendment only applies to political speech and says they're going to run the publisher out of town. But vandalism of a newsstand for carrying that magazine is protected speech? And on top of that, she's putting the financial health of the design firm in jeopardy with the cost of the damages. How narcissistic can you get? No wonder they almost went broke by the end of the show and needed B.J. Poteet to bail them out.

R107 - they showed Blake's 7 here in the States. What a bizarre ending! I saw Jacqueline Pearce in a play in London not long after seeing the series on television.

I don't like very special queer episodes of anything. I have never seen one show mentioned on this thread but Simpsons. Family Guy and some Seinfeld reruns. I wish I understood Mike and Gloria because that sounds interesting and All In A Family was a famous show.

r103, that's generally true but the Christmas Carol episode of Moonlighting was probably my favorite of that series.

I agree R117 - It's A Wonderful Life type of episodes are usually over the op schmaltz, but Moonlighting did it so well, starting from the beginning when Maddie makes the office work on Christmas Eve to seeing her life if she had never opened the detective agency and then the ending.

The Simpsons episode with Lady Gaga, not one funny thing out of that.

R94 if im thinking of the same episode was It Charles Durning who was the police officer? He was actually very good.

Of all The Golden Girls very special episodes...I actually like the Dorothy gambling episode. Has a good number of genuinely funny moments and I thought the "problem of the week" was the most plausible. And I've learned to live with The Temptations.

8 is Enough when Merle's bumpkin sister comes to visit and mistakes Joannie's acting troupe as hookers and Tom's poker game with the boys to mean the family was running a casino. Unbelievably bad. Of course the police are called and the sister has a Hee Haw Honeys accent. You had to see it to believe it.

I agree with you R18. That was such a good show but that episode was awful & then altering David's character going forward to have PTSD was a strange choice. There was enough drama in that show to not have that.

[quote]bad mostly because it totally destroyed Gloria's characterization up to that point - was Archie saying to his "little goil", "I never thought I'd ever say this, but he's too good for you".

I remember seeing that when I was a kid and feeling almost betrayed. They were already having trouble and talking about separation and she had an affair with a professor, which Mike forgives, but her own dad tells her this guy he's hated for a decade is now "too good for her"? Gross.

Then in "Gloria" you find out he ultimately runs off with an 18-year-old student of his, and that's just funny. Gloria sleeping with an adult when the marriage is already mostly broken up? Crime against humanity! Mike using his position of power to sleep with a girl just out of high school (and referred to as a "homecoming queen")? Comedy gold!

Any episode of "Cheers" that includes the Tortellis and/or focuses on Carla.

Omg, any Cheers episode with Loretta kills!!

I hated quite a few episodes of MASH, but one that sticks out is the one where some foreign visitors come to the 4077. I think one was from England, one was from India and the other was from Denmark. As soon as Hot Lips lays eyes on the man from Denmark her crotch gets wet. She immediately goes in for the kill and it's excruciating to watch. She makes awkward attempts at conversation; her lust for him is embarrassingly transparent. She's practically drooling over him. He doesn't respond to her advances, but not because she's making a fool out of herself, but because he is impotent due to a war wound. Finally she takes the bull by the horns and comes to his tent. He politely allows her to enter and she does her damndest to get him to fuck her, pleading with him to let her stay after he suggests she go. Cornered, he tells her his secret; she understands and says they can go to HER tent where they can talk without worrying about his tentmate coming in. The episode ends with him and Hot Lips hugging goodbye; they're "friends." This episode make me sick. It was grotesque to watch Margaret Houlihan flinging herself at the poor guy and his attraction to her (he admitted to Hawkeye that he would love to spend a night with her, if not for his wound) is inexplicable because by that point in the series Loretta Swit looked like a man in drag. Strangely enough, Swit went on the marry the actor who played the object of her lust. His name is Dennis Holahan. He's a lawyer now. He and Swit eventually divorced; he has children from a previous marriage. But I saw a picture of him that practically screamed "GAY!"

r125, I did enjoy the episode where Loretta throws raw meat at Carla and denounces her in the name of King David.

I am sure that all of these qualify as truly terrible episodes of teevee, but in my mind nothing can compare to the total awfulness of the St. Terry of Bellefleur funeral episode of True Blood.

There's not just one episode but in several episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show Rob Petrie either refers to or is encouraged to smack Laura around to show her who is the boss. They are small moments but they cast a pall. Even for an early 60's show it's creepy.

I'm also with all those who've mentioned the Julia Sugarbaker anti-porn episode. But any "man vs. woman" episode where Grandpa Hal blathers on is also high on my list.

The "Rose might have AIDS" episode is hysterical, homophobic, self-righteous and anti-gay.

[quote]That sounds similar to a really jarring episode of "Maude" quite some time ago. Maude's husband, Walter, became a raging alcoholic, seemingly overnight. In one episode he was fine, but then a week later he was a total drunk. Nothing at all led up to this. It was as if the writers said, "okay, Walter's now an alkie, so let's use that as our SJW episode." It was beyond dumb.

Did you watch this show at all??! Walter was a drunk right from the beginning, almost episode after episode he was drinking to excess, plastered off his face, doing things he wouldn't remember the next day.

There was an episode of [italic]Small Wonder[/italic] where Jamie was friends with a girl who stuttered. At one point Ted suggested aversion therapy similar to what he had as a child for a lisp. Just "a lisp"? Puh-leeze! This is a guy who cut school to see the movie version of [italic]Oklahoma![/italic]

The Kirstie Years.

Any episode where someone is having a baby. Whether it is a movie or TV show...having a baby is not a fun business.

I detest THE BRADY BUNCH episode where Robert Reed and Florence Henderson play elderly relatives. I find absolutely nothing slightly humorous in that episode. However, I don't mind where Ann B. Davis plays her dyke cousin, Emma.

Ditto r134

Any episode where they had a 'look-a-like' of one of the leads appear for one episode. Cora-Beth Godsey's good-time gal of a cousin was just awful as was the German doppleganger of Edith Bunker, who wasn't even a relative.

Tina Louise going for an Emmy as Ginger Grant lookalike, Eva Grubb.

[quote]I detest THE BRADY BUNCH episode where Robert Reed and Florence Henderson play elderly relatives.

Since they got married, doesn't that make Mike and Carol related another way?

R136 I like your name under the posting LOL.

My most hated episode of Three's Company was the one where Mrs Roper wanted sex but Mr Roper didn't.

R84, yes! That episode of "ER" was so stupid. I am sure I wasn't able to finish it.

And it was ridiculous when they were all saying how young they were when they lost their virginity, and everyone said, like fourteen!

Great thread!

I agree, Carla episodes of Cheers were usually sub par.

Also, any ep of "ER" where one of the doctors left the hospital to either pretend to be a social worker, or a super-hero was bound to be beyond ridiculous.

Okay, MTM is totally one of my fave shows of all time.

But a lot of the episodes in its later years sucked big time.

The one where Mary asks Lou Grant to go on a date with her: one big yuch! The expression "jump the shark" had not yet been invented but if it had, I would have used that expression to describe that show!

It just screamed desperation on the part of the writers! Mary date Lou, someone who had been a father figure to her? And they had already had a Murray in love with Mary ep and a Ted hitting on Mary ep. Enough!

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

R112, I totally agree about Chuckles the Clown. Totally agree that Mary's reaction at the funeral is the only mildly funny part of it.

R144, A Different World was an interesting show. It sucked big-time when Lisa Bonet was on. She cannnot act!

Then it got okay for a while.

Then it sucked big-time again its last years when it had all these AA actors overacting so much I was embarrassed for them: Jasmine Guy, the Cook guy, the ROTC husband of Jaleesa, the dorm mother woman, the crunchy granola roommate........all truly dreadful! So awful that I cannot bear to look up their names on IMDB.

Jada Pinkett was okay. So was Sinbad.

As a kid, I always hated when Barbara Eden worked overtime as Jeanie's evil sister.

Always tedious...

The episode of MASH where they kill off Henry Blake. He's already leaving the show...you have to kill him too??

I hated the Brady Bunch ep where they go to the amusement park. Dull!

About tv shows "Jumping the Shark": that was one of the funniest websites ever! I wish that "TV Guide" magazine had not taken it down!

The more awful the show, the more hysterical the comments.

Some of you DL wits must have posted there back in the day!

Any of the LAW AND ORDER: SVU episodes with Marlee Matlin’s character who needed an organ transplant. She was in two episodes and they both sucked because they had nothing to do with sex crimes.

I hated the Seinfeld episode with the Kenny Rogers chicken.

And I really love that show!

They did this a lot on 70s sitcoms, but any show where the cast puts on a talent show.

The episode of "Little House on the Prairie" where the little girl dies fleeing from her rapist/molester.

R7. Yes! that episode traumatized a 10 year old me. I'd rather watch the Dudley/Bikepaedo episode 100x before watching that Edith attempted rape episode again.

R153 Yes that one was awful. Poor Sylvia.

Any “A Very Special Episode of_______ you knew you were in for it.

Her rapist’s clown mask was suuuuper creepy!

The Different Strokes episode where Dudley get molested.

No.

The series finale of "Seinfeld". Left me glad is was over :(

R152 I agree, with the exception of the One Day At A Time ep. when Barbara performed as Elton John.

Doctor Who has had duds. The one with the farting aliens and the one where people's fat broke off and became little cutesy creatures stood out as especially dumb.

The Desigjng Women episode where MaryJo gets mugged and they take a self defense class together and spend half the episode screaming NOOOOOO and 9 1 1!!!!!!

Every time they tried to do “woke” episodes it always came off super lame or cringeworthy

Airdate: May 8, 1989

Mary Jo is mugged on her way to pick up concert tickets. Mary Jo is especially upset because she froze during the attack and now knows that she cannot defend herself. Her fear increases and she refuses to go anywhere unless it is absolutely safe. She wants Suzanne to take her place on a trip to New Orleans for business. Anthony suggestss that all the women join a self-defense class. They agree and attend their first meeting.

Julia shows immediate talent in defending herself, but Suzanne isn't happy about the grubby aspects of self-defense and Charlene is afraid of hurting someone. Worst of all is Mary Jo. No matter how hard she tries, she freezes during the practice muggings. One night Mary Jo is alone in the parking garage elevator. A grubby man approaches her. Suddenly Mary Jo remembers all the anti-mugging techniques and the man quickly backs away.

Mary Jo proudly tells the others about her success. Everyone is ecstatic until they realize that her "mugger" is actually a client, Mr. LeBoof. However, Mr. LeBoof is not angry. In fact, he apologizes for approaching Mary Jo in the garage, saying he understands how threatening that can seem. In a special ceremony, all the women pass their self-defense course.

**Designing

Any episode of Alice where Linda Lavin found an excuse to sing, dance or dress up as some “character”’

DRAKE & JOSH GO HOLLYWOOD, which is technically a TV movie but effectively is just a triple-runtime episode of ‘Drake & Josh’. And it shows.

It drags; the punchlines don’t land and the beats protract; the blocking is horrible and there’s no chemistry. The dialogue is cutesy & unrealistic, and events stack up with no payoff. You can tell it was tense onset because no-one really knew what they were doing. The plot is also quite dull and Josh’s character has nothing to do.

The two subsequent TV movies they did, however (REALLY BIG SHRIMP, and MERRY CHRISTMAS D&J) turned out successfully hilarious compared to the first, even improving on the comedy of their original show by making it tighter & snappier (as well as darker & dirtier...). Guess it just took some time to adjust to longform shtick.

The Golden Girls where they have to spend the night in a homeless shelter to retrieve a winning lottery ticket from a jacket. CRINGE-TASTIC. Even worse than the reviled Chronic Fatigue Syndrome episodes

Any episode where they introduced a gay character who after two episodes died, was murdered, or realized he was just confused and realized he was straight.

R142 I agree, especially those ER episodes where they went to a warzone in Africa for no reason.

The great divide ( Avatar the last airbender)

The sex and the city episode where Carrie dates a bisexual guy, also the one where Carrie and Samantha go to L.A by train.

The April looses her christian faith and turns "bad" episode on Grey's Anatomy.

The episode where Anna is raped by Mr.Green. (Downton Abbey).

How timely, as this show aired last nite. It was the S4 E18 of 'Fresh Off the Boat' , titled 'Measure Twice, Cut Once'

The Jews of Hollywood, advocating the circumcision of new borns as a comedy. Fucking disgusting.

R156, I believe you meant "Mr. Belvedere."

R152, yes!

There was an episode of "227" where the three female leads sing and dance, and they are just way too talented for it to make sense!

Yes, Linda Lavin could not be satisfied singing that lame "Alice" theme song; she insisted on singing in a bunch of stupid episodes.

Agree that Val Bertinelli as Elton John was the exception, R158.

The Gomer Pyle pilot on the AG show.

Another vote here for the horrid chronic fatigue lecture from Dorothy on Golden Girls. Unfunny, preachy, completely wrong, and paints Dorothy as an unhinged attention-seeking "victim" which really wasnt her character.

But close runner up for me was the What's Happening episode where the fat one, Rerun(?), is at a Doobie Brothers concert secretly taping the concert; it was their very special episode on the critical issue of bootlegging. At some point his tape recorder falls on the ground, and the concert instantly stops and the entire band is shocked, shocked i tell ya.

R172 LOL Back then I only remember thinking, why would the kids want to be at/go to a Doobie Brothers concert? It seemed like an odd musical choice to feature in on the show, even to a ten year old me.

Series finale of Dexter.

That episode of FIREFLY where Mal & Zoe get holed up in the old whorehouse and have a shootout. So lame & forced.

The best one is still the creepy one about the planet that got gassed to death. Or the hilarious one where Jayne is a local hero.

X-Files with Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner

I think it made logical sense that Mike and Gloria would separate. They had little in common except for sex and with the common enemy removed, Archie, it was obvious they would have problems in their marriage. People seem to forget that what made Archie so furious was not that Gloria was having an affair but that she was having an affair with a married man. The trajectory of the storyline was very much true to the characters but for Mike to head to a commune with one of his students was ridiculous because Mike never would have left Joey. Second, Mike clearly was on the path to becoming a Reagan Republican. In the last episode in Queens, Mike tells Archie he was just like a father to him and that he actually loved him. There might have been fights but it made sense to Mike.

Mike a Reagan Republican? Never. He would a be an old Bernie supporter today

All in the Family was depressing

Why did so many 70s sitcoms take place on the in Brooklyn, the Bronx, or some dreary alcove on the East Coast? Everything had this dreary, dingy, muted colorless feel to it.

The fly episode in "Breaking Bad"

R178, no way. Mike would be solidly for Trump today.

The episode of ST: THE NEXT GENERATION called "The Outrageous Okona". Now on one hand it has Billy Campbell as the hot titular character, a rogue who is also a player, and at one moment we see a postcoital moment when Teri Hatcher, in ratted out hair, walks out of his suite on the Enterprise having fucked him. But his character is just annoying; and worst of all, the endless subplot is about Data going on the holodeck to learn about comedy from (of all people) the incredible unfunny and unappealing Joe Piscopo.

There were lots of really bad episodes of ST: TNG . Some were so awful they were memorably campy (especially from the first season, such as the one where the planet is run by a matriarchy and the men are all slutty short musclemen who spritz themselves perfume, or the much quoted episode with the microbrain ("UGLY BAGS OF MOSTLY WATER!" "Life Force, can you understand us?"); but there are some that were so dreary no one even remembers them. The time-traveling two-parter to 1890s San Francisco; the episode with the aliens who are like Irish tinkers; several of the main characters are for some reason turned into children; most of the episodes focusing on Worf's problems being a single dad to Alexander...

Most "bookend" episodes of Murder, She Wrote from seasons 6/7 where we barely got to see our beloved Jess..

I thought there was only one truly awful episode of Sex in the City, and a poster above named it, when Mr. Big and Aiden got into a fight. Only it wasn't just a fistfight, it was in the mud. Like the SNL/Milton Berle episode, it should have shown only once, then be pulled from syndication.

Lucy's Scottish dream.

Every ep of Laverne and Shirley.

R24 I LBELIEVE the "Blond Janet" episode also was the last time we saw Cindy Snow .

Janet is awful to her & the last we see of her is walking out of the Regal Beagle.

I guess TPTB wanted Cindy to go out angry/hurt over Janet's actions so they didn't have to keep using her anymore.

All around a very dumb episode for the series.

R109 I like the analogy of the Q & the Grey episode from Voyager.

The Kes years were better in my opinion.

I have a 3 way tie for most hated episodes for that series with the horrible/boring 1999 time gate story which is right up there with the 2 holodeck "Irish novels" where nothing really happens.

Ugh to all 3.

R172 & R173 Lol, my 10 year old self wondered that same thing.

R172, thanks for bringing up What's Happening.

Interesting show: all A-A, but not too posh like Cosby, not too urban like Good Times.

But three OBESE characters: Rerun, the mom, and Shirley the waitress.

I liked the sassy little sister.

R177, I just watched that episode where Gloria and Mike are leaving for California.

Extraordinary acting by all four of the leads!

Brought tears to my eyes!

Cosby Show always annoyed me because every time they had an episode where they had friends over there was always one black friend/couple, one Asian friend/couple, one Caucasian friend/couple, etc It was like a mini UN in their living room. Seemed very extra.

The episode of 'Northern Exposure' where Shelly sang all of her dialog.

Really any episode where the focus was on Shelly.

R192, lol ,true.

Well on the Brady Bunch, there was always one black friend.

R193, Northern Exposure was an amazing show.

I remember hating it at the end, though, when the new doctor came to replace Joel.

Bump

[quote] I remember hating it at the end, though, when the new doctor came to replace Joel.

Agreed. I stopped watching it then.

R192, watch the Cosby episode where Rudy has friends over and he has each kid (boy or girl) ride his leg like a horse.

It is kind of disturbing now in light of everything else we know about the man.

Also shows what an incredible ham he is as an actor, but that is another story.

The episode with 11's sister in Stranger Things.

Also, not one episode, but the entire final season Of Reno 911. Lost its improve magic, and 2 AMAZING cast members.

R200 I liked Reno 911. Concur, the last season seemed like they were just going through the motions, just wanting to can it for something else.

Apparently Norman Lear never liked to pull the plug on his hit shows.

Hence, the last season of Good Times, One Day At A Time (Dammit, Julie!!) and All In The Family feature multiple cast departures and ridiculous plot lines. In other words, they jumped the shark!

IIRC, there was an episode of "My Three Sons" that was just Dodie roaming around the house, feeling lonely.

It was so boring!

The producers really saved money on the salaries of the leads that week. JK...I am sure they were under yearly contract.

[bold] SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS [/bold]

Its so offensive.

All of the episodes of The Golden Girls where the ladies just sat around the table and reminiscing about something that happened in the past while they replayed clips from previous shows.

I always felt so cheated, a new show that consisted of nothing but reruns.

There's an episode of Happy Days where Fonzie goes blind. He starts feeling sorry for himself (like Mary Ingalls, from Little House on the Prairie). He lazes around, allowing everyone to baby him... But Richie can't stand seeing him act like Lexie, from Ice Castles. So, Richie has Ralph and Potsie dismantle Fonzie's motorcycle in Fonzie's apartment. Richie then has blind Fonzie repair the motorcycle himself. Applause from the obnoxious studio audience ensues.

R205, OMG, so many shows cheap out with that whole reminiscing around the table game.

I am unable to think of any right now, but I know there are a bunch.

R207 — I Love Lucy, Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best — I'd guess ALL sitcoms at some point.

"The Miracle" episode of Roseanne where Darlene's baby almost dies. It tries sooo hard to be melodramatic and serious and the few jokes sprinkled in are flat. And then all the women hold the baby and give it speeches and it's just too ham-fisted.

The episode of "The Nanny" when Fran and C.C. are locked in the wine cellar is funny but then at the end Fran locks C.C. back in! It's so mean-spirited!

There's an episode of "Full House" where Steve pretends to get engaged to Michelle and she puts on a dress and cries when she finds out it's not real. This was ridiculous because Michelle was my age and should have known better, and also because my little gay ass wanted to marry Steve.

“Spock’s Brain”

The WKRP episode where an athlete thinks Les is gay and bans him from the lockerroom. Les then contemplates suicide. It really made me think being gay must be bad.

The Puerto Rican Day parade episode of Seinfeld sucked pretty bad.

Not because it was racist but because it was stupid and tedious.

The Family Ties episodes with "Lauren" played by a young Courteney Cox were of extremely poor quality.

Courteney was pretty, but she could not act!

She improved by the time she was hired for "Friends" in 1994.

Is there a thread "Sitcom actors or actors who cannot act" ?

The "Cousin Oliver" episodes of The Brady Bunch and the episode in that last season where they tried to spin off a new show with a different family. Those really stunk. I would add the "Ricky Seagull" (or whatever his name was) for ruining the last season of The Partridge Family, except that he was only in the episodes for a few minutes for the most part and they worked around him. Plus, the last season of the Partridge Family turned out to be pretty good, second only to the third season. For what it was, of course. It wasn't Ibsen, but it was really good for a television sitcom. And David Cassidy wanted to leave anyway, so Ricky really didn't "kill" the show. (Although he could have, if he had appeared in a following season.)

For shows that are still being shown in reruns, I hate the Adam Goldberg episodes of "Friends" and "Will and Grace." I liked him in "Dazed and Confused," oddly enough, but he usually plays a horrible bully in TV shows and is very hard to like.

When Natalie got raped, but she didn't, but you know she would've if they would've allowed such a thing back then.

Omg, I’d forgotten about the Gimme a Break episode with Samantha’s imaginary friend. What a weird episode, but Samantha was weird from the onset singing happy birthday to her dead mother. But yeah what was with the pantyhose and shorts combo???

I've always hated the ubiquitous 2-part wedding episode of most TV series, especially sitcoms. Even worse are the episodes in which one of the characters is rushed to the hospital to have a baby, because you know the next few episodes are going to boring as fuck and revolve around the infant.

Keeping Up Appearances -- Hyacinth "steals" a Rolls-Royce

The Facts of Life -- Natalie runs for mayor of Peekskill

The Jeffersons -- George is robbed and stabbed by a teenaged female street gang. He later tracks them down...and delivers the pregnant leader's baby!

R201, but the final season did have Dangle's sex tape and that was worth it.

R149 I so miss that site. I can't believe the creators sold it to TV Guide who promptly ruined it. I used to spend hours laughing my ass off at the comments. The ones on Helen Crump were especially wicked.

R221, the "Jump the Shark" thread on Blossom had me laughing my ass off. Ditto "That's Incredible."

R187 On the E true Hollywood Story Joyce had nothing good to say about Jenilee, I thought she was a major bitch about her.

r190 My name is Dee! I thought the Doobie Brothers one was lame too but there was a great line when one of the Doobies remembered Rerun from high school and asks what he's up to now and Rerun tells him he's still in high school. WH was great, Dee was the best character, always extorting Raj and telling on him. The actress is a veterinarian now so she's doing okay.

I LOVED that horrible episode of Gimme a Break with Samantha's imaginary friend. The scene where the Chief MURDERS "Debbie Jo" still horrifies and tickles me in equal measure. It's so ludicrous!

[quote]The character of Murray was so underwritten and Gavin McLeod was easily the show's weakest cast member. They should have made the character gay (yes, it was the 70s but even if they implied it without actually stating it, it would have been better, IMO).

The MTM show won heaps of Emmys during its heyday but McLeod wasn't even nominated once.

He's closeted for damn sure.

[quote]The Sex and the City episode when Carrie went with Aiden to his "country" house. Big showed up and the two men got into a fistfight. Painfully unfunny in an otherwise great all-around show.

And Carrie fucking SCREAMING when she sees the squirrel. What, she never saw one her entire life?

R208 , I agree that shows where cast members sit around reminiscing , and then go to endless flashbacks, are usually cheap ways of putting on a "new" show. But not the Leave It To Beaver episode you're probably thinking of. That was the series final episode, so it was an appropriate finale. As a matter of fact, LITB was the first sitcom to ever have a pre-planned "final" episode.

OMG R126 I work for that firm, not in that office though. I may have seen that episode once, those last few seasons were unwatchable.

The Ed Burns arc on Will & Grace. And the Woody Harrelson arc - yuck.

[quote]Any of the LAW AND ORDER: SVU episodes with Marlee Matlin’s character who needed an organ transplant. She was in two episodes and they both sucked because they had nothing to do with sex crimes.

I concur, R150. That arc brought the show to a screeching halt. However, I hate the ones with Olivia's brother more.

[quote]Cosby Show always annoyed me because every time they had an episode where they had friends over there was always one black friend/couple, one Asian friend/couple, one Caucasian friend/couple, etc It was like a mini UN in their living room. Seemed very extra.

There was one where there was a dance-off or something and quite suddenly Cliff's sophisticated friends stop by to pick them up for dinner or something, and lo and behold! They're very good dancers!!!!!!!!

I knew before the credits rolled those two were connected to Alvin Ailey.

And I'm not even black!

There were a few episodes of the Cosby Show where the characters just sat in a room telling stories to each other. At that point, though, the show could do no wrong.

The pilot episode of ABC's "The Goldbergs." Every character on that show, except for George Segal's, was massively annoying and unlikeable. And don't get me started on how they can't stick to the 80s timeline correctly.

It's been mentioned on DL a million times but Roseanne was already swirling the drain when she made them win the lottery. I had quit watching a season or so before that mess.

r234 Adam is the weak link and makes that show almost unwatchable. I don't mind they fudge the timelines but god I hate him.

When You met Peg Bundy’s family, and the episodes with Seven

I thought Linda Blair and Bobcat were hilarious in that episode. R237

The last episode of St. Elsewhere.

The episode of Downton Abbey where Edith falls in love with a disfigured, lost cousin who ends up not being who she thought he was. It was so stupid, I'm not sure I even understood it correctly.

I'd agree the "Stranger Things" episode with 11's sister is unbelievably bad. It reminded me of nothing so much as the video for "Love is a Battlefield."

((ahem))

I remember an episode of Nip/Tuck midway through season 4. The show had already started going downhill with the anti-climactic reveal of the Carver, who they introduced in season 2 and dedicated almost all of season 3 to. This episode involved a young nanny Sean and Julia have hired to look after their new baby. Sean fucks her and she ends up being a Glenn Close/Fatal Attraction type and threatens to tell Julia everything. I feel like this went on for quite a few episodes and, in this episode, there comes a moment where she and Sean are fighting outside next to a busy street and she ends up walking into the middle of the road and BANG - she's hit by a bus. It was SO lazy and ridiculous. All that drama that had been building up was instantly resolved in a matter of 3 anti-climactic seconds. I half thought they must have hated the actress or something and were just looking for a way to write her off the show or were planning on bringing in one of her crazy family members to stir up drama after her death, but no. I don't even think they acknowledged her existence after that episode. That was when the show started jumping the shark. They kept presenting interesting characters and storylines and never following through with them. It was super bizarre.

I agree with the Designing Women episode where Julia goes all anti-porn. She came across as an awful, self-righteous schoolmarm who needed a good gang bang. To be honest, that show rarely handled it's "very special episodes" well. They almost always felt preachy. I think they got a lot of credit for simply addressing the issues at all. Their AIDS episode isn't too bad and Julia has that great moment where she tells off that awful Imogene. Suzanne's class reunion episode is really terrific, too, and Delta Burke is incredibly moving during her big speech scene.

The "High Anxiety" episode of The Golden Girls is kinda cringe-worthy, too...as are the AIDS and Chronic Fatigue episodes.

r243 Tell me about it!

General Hospital - Luke has sex with Felicia...for THREE days.

There's not enough eye bleach in the world.

Has nobody mentioned the episode of DAWSONS CREEK where Joey gets locked in an ATM booth with the man who robbed her and they learn life lessons together? Kevin Williamson's hard-on for Katie Holmes was out of control and they obviously thought they'd delivered Emmy level brilliance, my god

The Episode of Head of the Class where Rain Pryor is accused of being a lesbian by a group of bullies.

You can just say any episode with Rain Pryor.

R232, that was a whole category on Jumptheshark.com: characters on sitcoms that break into song/dance.

Two shows that come to mind are 227 and Alice; it just so takes you out of the sitcom to have characters sing or dance and be too good at it.

I get it! Former Broadway stars sometimes end on on sitcoms and are glad for the work, but it just sucks.

Head of the Class was such a stupid show. I am a jerk for having watched it.

I liked Gavid MacLeod on MTM. Murray was a combination straight man/joke setter upper.

Lou and Ted were so over the top that you just need a Murray.

And the adolescent Helen Hunt played his daughter.

Now, his role on The Love Boat is another story entirely.

"Murder, She Wrote": Any episode with Jessica Fletcher as a look-alike relative.

"Frazier": The creepy episode where his date reminded him of his mother.

"Frasier." (Yikes!)

Any episode where someone is having a baby.

Saw an episode of Seinfeld where they had lost Kramer's car in a parking garage at the mall.

Are You Being Served?-- "The Erotic Dreams of Mrs. Slocombe"

Mrs. Slocombe is a full-blown alcoholic (never mentioned before or since) who's drinking all the time and pinning for Mr. Humphries. They play her drinking up for laughs, then at the end of the episode, they're at the Opera, Slocombe passes out drunk from eating Rum Chocolates or something, and Mr. Humphries basically sexually assaults Ms. Brams, who been givign him pointers of how to romantically charm Mrs. Slcoombe during the Opera performance. And then the credits. Just a horrible episode, not funny in the least.

r254 I'm a huge Seinfeld fan and my friends and I agree the parking garage is the worst, I think the Chinese restaurant one is shit too and the one where they go to India for the wedding.

The I Love Lucy grape stomping episode. I cringe just thinking about it

R254, couldn't disagree more about Seinfeld. There were plenty of bad episodes (Kenny Rogers chicken, the India episode), but the parking garage and the chinese restaurant episodes were exactly what Seinfeld was all about. I loved those two!

I very much dislike the I Love Lucy Christmas episode and all the Golden Girls “remember when...” episodes made up of clips of previous ones. Grr.

And I can recall exactly the Different World episode you’re talking about, OP.

I turned to the Hallmark Channel this morning and they happened to be showing the episode of "I Love Lucy" that I hated the most (and I disliked several). It was the one about Ricky's asshole Uncle Alberto and Lucy's inexplicable obsession with making a good impression on him. I would've told Uncle Alberto to go fuck himself and then went on about my day. Problem solved.

[quote]The one where Mary asks Lou Grant to go on a date with her: one big yuch! The expression "jump the shark" had not yet been invented but if it had, I would have used that expression to describe that show!

I may be mistaken but I think this episode of MTM was actually the next-to-last episode.

There was a terrible Mr. Belvedere "very special episode" where the daughter had a friend who thought he was gay. In the end, the daughter basically told the gay guy "Cheer up, you might not even be gay." Very poorly handled, even for the 80s.

Those fucking Golden Girls clip shows really were the worst. What a waste of space.

I'm watching GG on hulu now, haven't watched in years and yes, forwarding over the clips shows but loving all the fat jokes they make, god they were vicious and funny, it would never fly today.

The "Twin Peaks" episode "Double Play," in which James get involved with a cliché femme fatale who will obviously use him as a patsy for her husband's murder. It's just a warmed-over film noir plot, and it doesn't even take place in the titular town. It's clear evidence of how network interference hobbled the show during its second season.

The West Wing 9/11 episode. Condescending and preachy, Aaron Sorkin used high school kids as stand-ins for his audience and talked down to us about patriotism, terrorism, and bigotry. He succeeded only in reinforcing his reputation as an arrogant blowhard...

...later topping himself with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. So many bad, pretentiously meta episodes, but the worst was probably the one about the focus group. A writer for the show-within-a-show came up with a fucking comedy sketch about commedia fucking dell'arte, if you can believe that, and everyone spent a whole hour debating the focus group's negative reaction to the sketch, as if that were a surprise.

The Sex and the City episode when Big visits Carrie at Aidan's country house. Problematic as that obviously is, what I actually hate about the episode was the bizarre way Big's character was written. The Big character viewers had seen for a few years would never cry on someone's shoulder over a woman ignoring his phone calls. He wouldn't obsess over a woman not calling him back right away. He wouldn't go to Carrie for girl talk. And he wouldn't have any interest in going to Aidan's house at all, but especially because he would realize how wrong that would be since he and Carrie slept together while Carrie was with Aidan. Why did the writers write Big so out of character? That was an explicable flaw, and ended up a really dumb storyline in an otherwise very well-written show.

Seinfeld junkie here.

I know that the Chinese restaurant ep is considered the prototypical Seinfeld ep, but I didn't like it either. The only thing I liked about it was that the restaurant manager, James Hong, played the head waiter in the film version of "The Flower Drum Song." That is a neglected R and H musical and the movie features some awesome dancing. But I digress.

The Kenny Rogers ep sucked big time! A bunch of the eps in the last two Larry Davidless years were horrible, but some were laugh out loud funny.

The parking garage was tedious too.

The episode of Gilmore Girls where Godawful April Nardini shows up and lisps to Luke that her is her father.

r267 and other Sein lovers, I thought the Roaster one was great because we got to see Jerry and Kramer switch apartments and then take on each other's personalities. Glad I was not the only one that hated the Chinese restaurant one. I even like the Puerto rican day parade because we go to learn all their aliases, Varnsen, Vandelay and the unknown Pennypacker. I'm an anomaly amongst my Seinfeld loving friends because I hate Elaine. She's a bitch and she's not very smart. I know we are supposed to semi dislike them all but Elaine is the worst. What the hell was with her telling the Rosses that George didn't really have a Hamptons house? And she's dumb (statue of limitations, war, what is it good for!) I disliked the Soup Nazi one because it became such a pop culture thing to say and it wasn't that great, the gay guys Cedric and Bob who intimidate Kramer were the only good part. Oh and Elaine was a total bitch on that one too, shocker.

Oh I never watched Gilmore Girls, it's already awful because of Lauren Graham. She ruined the eps of "Newsradio" that she was on and it still infuriates me, we had so little time with Phil and she was in 3 eps of one of his final seasons.

For GG the worst episode is a toss-up between the dreaded Chronic Fatigue, or the one where they spend a night at a homeless shelter.

The Will and Grace one with Demi Moore as Jack's former nanny. Not a single genuinely funny line.

R269, Seinfeld junkie here again.

Elaine's personality really changed in the later years. She did indeed become an unadulterated bitch! She was funnier when she was more neurotic.

As for her being stupid, I mean, yeah, that is sort of a plot inconsistency. In one of the early eps, she takes an IQ test for George b/c she supposedly has a high IQ.

But I really liked Elaine in the ep where she has to ask her bf to go down on her (The Marble Rye) and I liked her in The Sponge and the Susie.

R269, I agree that the Soup Nazi was overrated.

What I do like about that one is that Ana Gasteyer from SNL has one line!

Good to know that even the "extras" are super talented comedic actors!

And Cedric and Bob were hysterical; I think they were also in an episode where Kramer doesn't want to wear THE RIBBON.

MULVA!

R275 — Mulva/Dolores should actually have been Regina. It would have made far more sense and been funnier.

Either Regina or Bervix.

No, you are correct......Regina is pronounced "ReGIna in Canada, isn't it? with an I as in wine!

Nothing is funnier than MULVA!!!

Elaine defender here again.

Elaine was also very funny when she was asking Putty all kinds of questions about car repair pricing in the middle of having sex with him.

Julia L. D. really did a good job with it.

Julia Billionaire is comically gifted.

IIRC, some of the GG flashback episodes weren't actually flashbacks of previous episodes. They were original episodes comprised of scenes presented as "flashbacks" via the conceit that the girls were reminiscing about something common in their lives (e.g., difficult mothers-in-law). Of course, those "faux" flashbacks would later become actual flashbacks in future installments of the series.

If any of that makes sense....

That's correct, R281. If the writers had a story idea but realized it wouldn't work as a full episode or it only had one really good scene anyway, it became a "flashback". That technique was also used as a way to have each of the actresses tell a story or have a scene as Emmy bait--think Rose's scene in St. Olaf where she's making a cake for her niw-deceased husband's birthday. They weren't all repackaged episodes.

The Seinfeld ep with the tractor story was kind of stupid, IIRC.

They were annoying clip shows whether the clips were old or new, R282

OP mentioning Jasmine Guy reminds me of what a ham that actress was.

But Guy was superior to the original star of "A Different World," the famous Lisa Bonet (who ate no basil) who really could not act to save her life.

I did like in GG when they did a Sophia/Dorothy flashback that they used an actress who resembled Dorothy as a young woman rather than try any tricks with her Bea Arthur. And all they had to do to make Sophia younger was for Estelle Getty to take her wig off.

Lisa was fine as part of the supporting cast of the Cosby show, but she never should have been the lead in A Different World. She was not a lead actress.

Jasmine Guy was really good in Dead Like Me. Don't blame her for Whitley.

Mama's Family - Buzz and Sonia just about ruined the first two years. Fran was also an awful character; Iola was so much more interesting and entertaining. Fran was always just whining.

Episode where Vinton and Naomi were going to some other city (like 20 or 30 miles away at most) to some sleezy motel for their anniversary. Mama gets a call from Aunt Effie, who's fallen but can't get up. Effie lives in that same city, so Mama rides with Vint and Naomi there. Effie was just trying to con Mama into doing housework for her, they fight, Mama somehow gets to the sleezy motel, ruining Vint and Naomi's anniversary. Just stupid. Vint needed to drive Mama home, then return back to motel. They were staying the entire weekend I think. As it was they left early because Mama was such a royal bitch.

The other one that annoys me is where Naomi goes to some Flight Attendant school. OMG, it's the end of the world that she'd want a career. Everyone is shitty to her, except when they find out they can get a free plane trip to Hawaii. Naomi fails the course due to something stupid; then the family is just disappointed that they won't be flying to Hawaii. Even for its time the episode is extremely sexist. You'd think that Mama would be all for it if it meant more money coming in for Vint and Naomi. Maybe they'd be able to move out of her basement.

" Nothing at all led up to this. It was as if the writers said, "okay, Walter's now an alkie, so let's use that as our SJW episode."

Why do I get the impression that you don't really pay attention to the world outside your brain?

Granted, it's just a hunch on my part.

Series finale of Battlestar Galactica.

Starbuck is an a**** WTF??!?

I've posted this on DL before but the only episode of "The Honeymooners" that I actually hated was the one in which Ralph records an apology to Alice to get her to come home after she gets mad and walks out on him to go to her mother's. I hated it because it was the only episode in which I actually thought Ralph was 100% right and Alice was 100% wrong. The reason she got mad at him was because he'd just come home with tickets to some hugely-popular murder mystery on Broadway with a super-secret reveal and Alice's mother, being her usual uber-bitch self, purposely told the ending. Well, of course, Ralph blows up as his tickets are now basically useless but instead of getting mad at her asshole of a mother, Alice jumps down Ralph's throat for getting mad, then walks out when he refuses to back down. So what happens? Ralph ends up recording this overly-sentimental apology to get her to forgive him and come back.

Sorry, but I would've told her to stay the fuck where she was and oh, by the way, your mother is STILL a fucking blabbermouth.

It's always sad when the man who continuously threatens to beat his wife has to apologize for screaming at another woman.

You're so brave for having survived watching that episode, r292. The INJUSTICE!!!

You are an inspiration to us all.

r252 here. Changed my "Frasier" example:

The worst one is where Martin dates Roz's mother, played by the acting deity known as Eva Marie Saint. When she is humiliated at overhearing Martin's criticisms of her, that is a low for the show.

"Frasier" was a great show but it did have some bad episodes, primarily the ones towards the end, when Daphne's mother came to live with her and Niles. OK, here is one that was a true stinker: Daphne's mother and some neighbor kid engage in the war of Halloween (?) pranks. The pits.

Ralph was a blowhard, R293. He was certainly overbearing (to put it mildly) but anyone who watched "The Honeymooners" knew, as demonstrated in nearly every episode, that he loved Alice from the top of her head down to the bottom of her feet and would never have actually laid a hand on her. Plus there was the fact that Alice was no wallflower and went toe to toe with him and knocked him down to size every time; there was no doubt who was the stronger one in their relationship. And if you watched the show enough, you'd also know that Alice's mother was an evil bitch who didn't dislike Ralph because of some perceived physical threat to her daughter but rather because he was just a bus driver who didn't provide her with all of the finer things in life. Her motives for trying to hurt Ralph were purely superficial, so your outrage over his screaming at her would be better saved for a more sympathetic character.

People who make sanctimonious statements like yours with regard to "The Honeymooners" are usually people who didn't watch the show or are just being willfully stupid about the true intent of those characters. You're glad I survived watching that episode and I'm glad you survived reading my post about it as you clearly had to climb down off your high horse to read it.

R296 Amen!

R295, I think the “Frasier” episode where he’s refuses to leave the parking garage is the very worst episode of the series. I’ll defend some of the episodes during seasons 9 and 10 when people were sick of the show, but that one was unbearable.

r298 Parking garage episodes are generally shit.

I didn't like the GG episode when Rose's conniving sister came to visit and Dorothy and Blanche were so willing to take her side over Rose. Then in the end, when they found out that Rose had been telling the truth all along about her, as I recall they barely apologized. Hated that episode.

Agree with R1, Janet's stupid baby sister comes to visit. Worse episode ever and her sister was butt ugly!

While we are on the subject, the episodes of I Dream Of Jeanie where Jeanie's evil sister Jeanie came to visit and B. Eden did double time in a brunette wig always sucked big time.

As a kid, I loved the music on the Partridge Family.

But whenever the plots involving Ruben Kinkaid and Danny got too convoluted, I must say, I hated the show.

R286, yes, Lynne Greene played young Dorothy.

Lynnie was super tall, like Bea, and she really did a nice job of imitating Bea/Dorothy's mannerisms.

Lynnie Greene was first introduced in the sitcom "On Our Own" which was, I believe a summer replacement.

Remember those?

And Lynnie Greene was, just like Bea Arthur and Doris Roberts, a Jewish woman playing an Italian-American!

Just about every episode after Fran and Max got married on The Nanny.

R50. the Norman Lear shows were all famous for staying on the air way way past their prime.

Good Times, All in the Family/Archie's Place, The Jeffersons, One Day at a Time....all were still going long after the proverbial plug should have been pulled.

BTW, I learned this from the late great website jumptheshark.com

R308: Which just proves Bea Arthur was right to end Maude when she did. And the Golden Girls as well. Shows cannot go on forever, regardless of how much money people think they're going to make.

R309, yeah, I mean a long running sitcom is a payday for a lot of folks, but it is oftentimes a drag for the viewer if the quality suffers!

Any Cheers episode with Gary's Old Towne Tavern sucked.

The Brady Bunch eps where the went off site sucked big time: the Amusement Park one comes to mind, but there were others.

I hate that episode of Three's Company with the misunderstanding.

On the other hand, the very special episode of "Mr. Belvedere" where the youngest brother is molested at summer camp is no better or worse than any other episode!

Once Joanie fell in love with Chachi the quality of "Happy Days' took a nosedive.

r311 How dare you! I loved their prank wars with Gary! r312 Agree, except the Hawaii ep with Vincent Price and the cursed tiki idol. Their trips to the Grand Canyon and King's Island were shit though.

R303 Yes, remember the episode with Farrah Fawcett? I think someone was trying to sue Ruben and Danny was in on the shenanigans in court. Farrah just had a bit part as the eye candy, but still!

r311 What? Gary was hot. Both of them.

R313, Three's Company is the Blame It On Rio of Sitcoms.

John Ritter, and Mr. and Mrs. Roper were good actors that had been funny on other shows. (Sorry too lazy to look up their names.)

But the show was so leering and sleazy......I felt like I needed to take a shower after watching it.

The Roseanne episode after she found out Dan was having an affair. She drives around town eating fast food and listening to radio shows. It is so terrible.

r58 - Here's a clip of The "n-word" episode of GIMME A BREAK

r319 Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, you cretin! Norman was in "Catch 22" and some other iconic flicks, "The Apartment" or "Lost Weekend" or something too. Glad he was able to get another gig in the 70's.

r307 - YES!

R322, I make a point that you agree with, and you have to call me a cretin? You couldn't be bothered to check IMDB for Norman Fell either.

Please take your meds.

[quote] The Roseanne episode after she found out Dan was having an affair. She drives around town eating fast food and listening to radio shows.

Is that what led her to Alex Jones?

That episode of Bones where Zach was Gormogon's assistant. The show jumped the shark at that moment and never came down again.

R206 UGH! On that note that episode of Little House on the Prairie where Mary goes blind.

Roger Casement. He was Gay too .

Opps! Wrong thread.

The series finale for the Sopranos.

It was a fuck you episode, we’ve got our money, we’re outta here.

Frasier: the one where he has a fling with his first wife Nanette and ends up on stage dressed up like a baby. Poor Kelsey Grammar! And the one with Frasier and Niles' 'Greek' cousins.

That ep of The Simpsons with Skinner's double identity, it was the beginning of the end of Good Simpsons.

"but anyone who watched "The Honeymooners" knew, as demonstrated in nearly every episode, that he loved Alice from the top of her head down to the bottom of her feet and would never have actually laid a hand on her. "

But I did watch "The Honeymooners, Blanche. I did. It was already in reruns by the time I saw my first episode, which I only watched because Jackie Gleason had a variety show at the time and he seemed more or less pleasant.

I was even inured to the way Ricky Ricardo would sometimes threaten Lucy. Didn't he spank her at some point? Sitcom behavior and all that. Cartoon violence: I never gave it a second thought.

And yet, my honeymoon with The Honeymooners was short-lived precisely because Ralph's threat seemed real enough to me.

Too much real life violence in the world for me to buy into that "He hit me but it felt like a kiss" bullshit.

Slapped r333, not hit.

Last episode of Lost. They were all sitting in a fucking CHAPEL? Why weren’t they on s beach in limboworld?

You stand corrected, r334.

Sorry r302 - I disagree. As a young gayling I loved nothing better than when Jeannie and Samantha did drag as their sassy sexy raven haired vixen relative! Who didn’t love that?!?!?!

R337, Okay, sure, Barbara Eden looked great as a brunette, but those plots got tiresome, no?

Btw, I can't believe how much I loved that show as a kid. It must have been because of Major Nelson.

So many of the last episodes of Ally McBeal stank. It became a farce and the storylines with her getting a daughter or Dame Edna joining the firm were absurd

The pilot episode on Golden Girls with Rita Moreno.

The The Practice episodes on older Grey's Anatomy.

In general I hate and resent pilot episodes on shows that I watch. If I want to watch the damn new show I will. I don't want it pushed down my throat.

The episode of "Six Feet Under" where the gay brother David gets randomly tortured by the guy he tries to pick up, who winds up dousing him with gasoline and threatening to set him on fire.

It was such a weird episode because it had that "Tonight, on a very special episode of 'Blossom' that will astound you..." feel to it, and you could tell the writers thought they were being really edgy and deep and thought they were going to reap awards for it. But it had nothing to do with the themes of the show and no one ever mentioned its events again--it just seemed like a nasty exercise in cruelty.

Kimmy Schmidt, Season 4, Episode 3 “Party Monster: Scratching the Surface”.

While the episode received critical praise, I was pissed off that we were subjected to the story of DJ Fingablast. It was as jarring to me as was the April Fool’s Day edition of South Park featuring Terrance and Phillip.

Oh I liked it r342! Because I fucking adore that show so would watch anything associated with it, it definitely took you out of the show though, and no Pinot Noir singing from Titus.

^ But didn’t we get to see some of Titus’s music video with fire and mannequins?

"Just say no" A very special episode of Different Strokes where Miss Nancy Reagan tell us all to just say no to drugs!

r330

Ally McBeal started out a little cute, then jumped the shark by Year 2 or maybe Year 3.

Sad.

Robert Downey Jr was so good on Ally McBeal and when he got written out the show never really recovered.

Oh r44, how could you not love Teensy and Weensy?

R348- I never knew RDJ had such a good singing voice.

I generally hate the "A Christmas Carol" / "Twelve Angry Men" / "It's A Wonderful Life" spoofs TV shows do, but "Married With Children" did an excellent spoof of "It's A Wonderful Life." And "That Girl" did a hilarious spoof of "Twelve Angry Men." In that one Ann proves the guy couldn't have done it because it was the wrong hand only to learn he did do it, and she screwed up because he backhanded his victim instead of using the palm.

I didn't like the episode of "Seinfeld" where Elaine was upset because her Korean beauty shop ladies called her a "princess."

Elaine even cries? No way, so out of character. Elaine was an uber bitch famous for telling everyone and his brother off. Jerry even calls her the "Queen of Confrontation." She loses jobs because she'll confront people over trivial slights.

[quote]The character of Murray was so underwritten and Gavin McLeod was easily the show's weakest cast member.

That is largely due to the fact, the character was rewritten. Gavin auditioned and basically got the part of Lou Grant. But he wanted to read for Murray, which was then a different role. Murray was supposed to be the antagonist and office enemy of Mary Richards.

It took them so long to cast Lou Grant at one point they asked Gavin again if he'd do it and he declined.

Ted was also supposed to be much younger and a love interest for Mary. When after like eight times, no one else came close to Ted Knight's characterization, they changed Ted's role (no longer a love interest) and then softened Murray up (after the first run though pilot which got bad audience reviews) and then redirected Murray's antagonism away from Mary toward Ted.

[quote]There was a terrible Mr. Belvedere "very special episode" where the daughter had a friend who thought he was gay. In the end, the daughter basically told the gay guy "Cheer up, you might not even be gay." Very poorly handled, even for the 80s.

I liked this, because that is EXACTLY how a teenage girl would think and that is what a teenage girl would say.

[quote]The "Rose might have AIDS" episode is hysterical, homophobic, self-righteous and anti-gay.

Again I liked this because Rose isn't any of those things but a person, any person, who has or thinks they might have a life threatening disease is going to be real angry and say things they don't mean just out of anger. This is realistic.

[quote] The episode of "Six Feet Under" where the gay brother David gets randomly tortured by the guy he tries to pick up, who winds up dousing him with gasoline and threatening to set him on fire...it had nothing to do with the themes of the show and no one ever mentioned its events again--it just seemed like a nasty exercise in cruelty.

Are you serious? It haunted David for the rest of the season, and the trauma was triggered again after Nate’s death in the final season.

The Kelly's Kids episode from The Brady Bunch

The Machiavellan Curse & Days & Nights of Sophia Petrillo episodes of The Golden Girls

Roseanne's bathroom fantasy episode from one of the earlier seasons.

I actually like the India episode of Seinfeld.

The 2 episodes of Frasier I tend to avoid are the car parking one and the dream sequence one. It seems to be trying to be edgy and artsy, but just ends up being a grade 10 drama class skit.

In hindsight, the black and white MASH news reel episodes are now too preachy and overacted.

There'a a tedious back door pilot on Married with Children with an incredibly hot (pre-friends) Matt le Blanc and his father living in a small apartment. Pointless really.

I wasn't a big fan of the fly episode of Breaking Bad. I'd easily call that a perfect show, but that one episode bothered me. So tedious and needless. It's like they wrote all the episodes for the season, but AMC wanted one more, so they crapped that one out in a day.

Worst episode of The Simpsons is Saddlesore Galactica from season 11. Homer and Bart rescue a horse and when it becomes a champion racehorse the other jockeys are pissed and revel themselves as evil underworld-dwelling trolls. This was not a Treehouse of Horror episode. So awful and the show just got worse after that.

^*reveal themselves

R264, season 2 of Twin Peaks had so many bad episodes/storylines. The worst for me was Ben Horne’s mental breakdown/Civil War re-enactment. It just went on forever, wasn’t remotely entertaining and had nothing to do with any else happening on the show.

Yeah, the last two-thirds of season two of Twin Peaks was pretty awful. Once they revealed who killed Laura Palmer, it fell right off the cliff; no gradual descent or anything. The cliffhanger finale was pretty great, though.

That 90210 episode when Brenda and Donna are in Paris and Donna signs with Helen Keller Modeling Agency.

The baseball episode from season 1 was atrocious too.

R363, Helen Keller Modeling Agency lol

While we're talking Twin Peaks - the Showtime reboot had its moments - Grace Zibreski in particular - but God what a waste of story on James Belushi, Naomi Watts - that whole Las Vegas subplot . AWFUL.

The last episode of Dexter made me so angry.

The Ab Fab episode where Saffy is upset that her mother forgot her birthday. Thoroughly unpleasant, and I don't think I laughed once.

Any episode where the main character is stranded somewhere -- on a sinking boat or floating on a piece of wood in the middle of the sea -- under a fallen tree - fallen at the bottom of a ravine, so they can either play a bunch of flash-backs and/or have the main character show he or she can "act" by giving long soliloquies that will be submitted in hopes of an Emmy nomination.

I agree about the talent show episodes. Often they seemed to just be catered to an actor's ego. I loved the Dick Van Dyke show, but the air was often sucked out of the room when they performed.

The only good episode of the Cosby Show was the pilot, and everything after that was indulgent garbage, but the worst was the episode when Cliff Huxtable and his old friends performed Julius Caesar for the teenage son, who had to read it for school. They must have truly run out of ideas.

I used to love seeing male strippers on shows like "Donahue" and "Sally Jessy Raphael," as sleazy as they were. You know where I didn't really like seeing male strippers? On an episode of "The Facts of Life." That was so embarrassing and cringey. It was just part of the fad that it seemed a lot of shows from 1982-1984 had to have male strippers in there somewhere... but in Peekskill? Ugh.

^ Datalounge, never change.

I'd never heard of Empty Nest. I just watched the intro. So dated. Looks like it was made in 1970 not 1990.

I'll never understand the fascination the gays have for crappy golden Girls show. Is it the caftans?

R311 the first Gary episode was the best especially when Diane's bowling skills save the day. Also when Gary says he graduated from Princeton magna cum laude and she responds "Couldn't make summa?"

All the Frazier episodes where Niles pretends he's straight.

Does anyone remember that awful gay panic episode of Cold Case with the salesman? I was a big fan of Cold Case, and when it was on TV, posted on the IMDB and TV.com boards devoted to the show. It got a lot of shit from far right groups for having a "liberal agenda", and there was talk on the boards that the gay panic episode was to placate those people.

There was an episode in the British comedy series One Foot in the Grave which was downright depressing. The series was noted for its dark humour, but the entire episode of "Timeless Time" took place in the Meldrew's bedroom at night - so it was literally dark - where they discussed cheery topics like the premature death of their only child. The only comic bit was Mr. Meldrew's complaint that by accident he had stepped on a dead hedgehog in his bare feet.

Mertz & Kurtz

The Buffy episode where Dark Willow uses magic to flay alive the nerd who shot Tara. It's so tonally jarring from the rest of the series (it's a hideously painful way to die) that it took me completely out of the show, and then to top it all off, she never has to be punished for having done it. later when she ceases becoming Dark Willow, the other characters say basically, "Wow, you were so scary for a while when you flayed that poor guy alive! And then when you kept trying to slaughter his friend! We feel so sorry for what you've had to go through! Oh well--you're back to normal now!"

I stopped watching Buffy after that.

Did anyone else think that Dingbat was asking for it?

Game of Thrones

I love Lucy. I honestly do, but I detest the grape stomping episode

Every episode of The Nanny after Fran became Mrs. Sheffield. The episode in which Fran gives birth is particularly loathsome with the C.C. and Niles nonsense.

The tranny episode of [italic]The Jeffersons[/italic]. That was 1977. It’s no coincidence that Damon Evans left shortly after, or that Norman Lear stopped supervising his shows around that time.

[quote] The episode of All In The Family where Edith gets sexually assaulted.

She's not my type.

[quote]Diane's bowling skills save the day.

You don't sweat bowling ---- Diane "you do in tweed." Plus, Woody's trauma/PSTD from some mysterious bowling tragedy was funny.

Sad that I remember more from the first five seasons of Cheers that I watched repeatedly when in syndication in the late 80's0's (Twin Cities played them between the news and the Tonight Show) than I do from what I did at work this morning.

The finale of AHS: Cult.

I also didn't like the final episode of The Sopranos.

The Diane Chambers bowling episode was one of my favorite Cheers episodes, too. Also liked "Gary" from Gary's Old Town Tavern.

Damn, survived 214 posts, then the obvious hit. Yeah, I sucked.

I didn't like the final episode of Downton Abbey. They tried to tie up all loose ends tried to make everybody happy.

Not saying it was hated, but The Changeling, was very much the strangest episode of The Waltons. Was it about a poltergeist or was it a metaphor for puberty and Elizabeth getting her period? It just sticks out like crazy on such a grounded show.

[quote]In hindsight, the black and white MASH news reel episodes are now too preachy and overacted.

Who became the most self-important towards the end of their respective shows: Carroll O’Connor, Ed Asner, or Alan Alda? At least in Asner’s case, he outright switched from a comedy to a drama.

Janet's annoying and ugly baby sister Jenny comes to visit on Three's Company.

[quote]"Just say no" A very special episode of Different Strokes where Miss Nancy Reagan tell us all to just say no to drugs!

They did an anti-smoking episode later that same year that was better done and more believable: Dudley’s father got lung cancer, and the episode ends with him lighting up a cigarette. And like so many other things about this show, there’s a real-life tragedy connected to it: Le Tari, who played Mr. Ramsey, died in 1987 after appearing in the “Blacks Without Soul” segment of [italic]Amazon Women on the Moon[/italic] that also had [italic]The Jeffersons[/italic]’ Roxie Roker.

Daenerys barbecuing Kings Landing in the last season of Game of Thrones. The whole last season was pretty terrible and illustrated how much contempt the writers had for their audience.

I didn’t mind the Dark Willow plotline in Buffy

The absolute worst Diff’rent Strokes episode was when Dorothy Hamill was the guest star. Supposedly, Dorothy is so impressed watching Kimberly Drummond lumber across the ice that she wants to Kimberly to come train with her full time. Kimberly is ambivalent about leaving her friends and family behind to pursue a skating career, so she injures herself to get out of it.

AS IF that bitch could ever be a professional skater. Jeff, bring me the wooden club!

I know everyone hates The Empty Nest episode of Golden Girls, but Mary Had A Little Lamb is just as bad. At least Empty Nest makes sense now; they were setting up a spin off. But, Mary Had A Little Lamb introduced a character tha audience never met and then we were expected to feel bad for her? It feels like it was setting up a spin off but we never got it.

R396, which episode is "Mary Had A Little Lamb?"

Another vote for "A My Name is Alex." I loved "Family Ties" and I still think it was better than a lot of other family shows of the era but really? We spend an hour with Alex grieving over the death of his best friend- who had never appeared before, whom we never even knew existed until after he was dead. Total Emmy grab.

Theo and Cockroach rap about "MacBeth."

There was also an episode of The Cosby Show where the Huxtables attended a college commencement.

Having recently been required to attend my sister’s marathon-length college commencement, I really didn’t care to watch that preachy episode.

R401, that wasn't even a commencement, it was just supposed to be the installation of a new president at Hillman.

My mother said at the time, "Colleges don't go all out like this just for a new president."

The final episode was about Theo's graduation but, thankfully, only took place mainly before and after.

Another vote for "The Changeling" episode if "The Waltons". What the...?!

Venus teaches chemistry to a gang kid on "WKRP in Cincinnati". Very special episodes were not that series forte.

Star Trek (TOS):

Where Frank Gorshin played an alien where on half of his face was white and the other side black. His adversary also had one side white and the other black. Really? They hated each other because the white/black was opposite on the other. Totally unwatchable. I remember both of them running around the Enterprise.

The other episode was a guy named Adam with his hippy group of followers who wanted to be beamed down to a planet named Eden. So painful to watch.

R401 Actually, while most colleges don't, HBCUs tend to make a big deal out of the installation of their Presidents.

I learned something new!

The ending of [italic]The Brady Bunch[/italic] episode “The Liberation Of Marcia Brady” bugged me: Marcia proved she could do what was required of her in that all-male scouting group, but she quit anyway. She was only doing it to prove a point. That felt like a cop-out even for the 1970s.

You actually watched The Walton’s R402?

The episode in Chicago of Season 2 of "Stranger Things" is horrible.

R407 Not first run, as I wasn't born, but I own the entire series on DVD. It is one of the best shows of all time.

R405 I only know it because there are six HBCUs within an hour of where I grew up. So I remember seeing the celebrations on my local news, every time they installed a new President.

It has been years since I have watched it (it was not in the syndication cycle as much as Little House), but if I remember correctly the depression era episodes of the Waltons were pretty decent. I think the quality slipped sometime after entering WW II where Mary Ellen ran around in Jordache jeans (or some similar pure 80's designer jean) and feathered hair. Also most of the kids suffered the common child actor affliction of being naturals as children and not good actors as adult. The loss of Richard Thomas, the grandparents, Michael Learned did not help.

Jim and Pam's wedding on The Office

Series finale of Battlestar Galactica (the reboot) because of that awful revelation about Starbuck.

I recently came across this episode from season 5 of All in the Family. "Edith's Friend." Just dreadful.

At first I was excited because it actually seemed to be an episode of AITF I'd never seen before. Half way though, I realized that it's possible that it was so bad that it was left out of the original syndication package. Edith attends a wedding in her hometown without Archie. There's a man there, her cousin played by Tim O'Connor from Peyton Place. Unbeknownst to Edith, they aren't actually cousins. The guy starts coming on to Edith, and she leaves town before the wedding even happens, I believe.

Just terrible, half-baked, unfunny, goes nowhere. The "cousin" thing is really weird. It almost plays as a precursor to the episode where Archie is kissed by the waitress a couple years later. For sure it's the worst episode of the show's first 8 seasons. Season 9 was pretty bad because Mike and Gloria left, and I think it was worse than most of those too.