What are the worst episodes of the best shows?

All of Season 7 of “The Golden Girls.”

R1 farnkly, I don't get the distaste for Season 7 of GOLDEN GIRLS by some people.

I say "some" because a lot of people I come across tend to enjoy it, including me.

It's only the misanthropes online who seem to despise it.

I Love Lucy - Scotland

I think Season 4 of the GG's is worse than Season 7

GG had some great episodes in season 7. The Rita Moreno episode was a POS, and any of the episodes that centered around Rose and Miles were pretty bad.

OP, I thought the Suzanne in blackface storyline was pretty funny, especially Julia's reaction. But otherwise the spousal abuse storyline was stupid and frau-y.

The male stripper episode of “The Facts of Life” when Blair found out her med student boyfriend was moonlighting as one. The strippers were hot but it was “The Facts of Life”, for fucks sake. It felt icky.

This was back when every other show tried to have make strippers on. Even “Guiding Light”.

Agreed, R5. I think one of my least favorite episodes is when Rose attends a faculty party with Miles and these professors are supposed to be having high literary conversations but they are discussing the most basic things that you would assign to an undergrad to write a paper on, not discuss as though it were a brand new hot topic.

Monroe gets raped.

Mavis was played in that episode by Guiding Light star Kim Zimmer, who had announced she was leaving the soap before this aired.

Linda Bloodworth was a Guiding Light fan, and created this role for Kim because she was considering her for the Marilu Henner role on Evening Shade.

I've always hated the 2-part "having a baby" episodes. Almost every show had them.

R9, I got AIDS like that

Rose's blind sister visits the Golden Girls.

The frau-y esthetic pretty much ruins everything on TV

The Golden Girls go to a homeless shelter.

I tuned into Knots Landing every Wednesday and remember hating the later season twee storyline where Kevin Dobson tries to help some ugly surfer kid (Jason Lochner)

"Designing Women" episodes, after Jean Smart and Delta Burke left, were disasters. Julia Duffy's character, Allison, was so over the top obnoxious. Julia is an excellent actress, but the producers and writers should've made Allison more likeable and softer. The show rebounded, a bit, with Judith Ivy, who was wonderful. Yet, the writing was so abysmal toward the end. Alice Ghostley kept the show on life support.

Melissa dates miles on thirty something.

Hope volunteering at a homeless shelter on thirty something

The empty nest pilot on Golden Girls.

Carrie's birthday party on SATC where none of the ten guests show up because they either can't find the restaurant or they're stuck in traffic and she has to pay for her own cake. Miranda tells her to 'get a cell phone!' when she's already used cell phone in previous seasons. Everything about that episode was sloppy.

The episode of “Six Feet Under” when David was kidnapped in a van.

The cringy episode of LHOP when Carrie discovered her imaginary twin playmate.

Some of these are not 'the best shows'.

MTM - when Mary moves to the new apartment.

That time Dorothy slapped the shit out of the gardener

MTM - when Murray and Marie adopt a son

The Office - while Pam and Jim are on their honeymoon the “office” thinks they are doing business with the mafia.

I thought Parks and Rec was a terrific show but once they started the time dash episodes I was out.

I hated the “Cheers” Boston Barmaid contest. I know the humor is that Diane got all into it and it’s 1983 but it’s so degrading.

R4, LHOP's combination of mercantile-edged bitchery and Lynchian weirdness (Sylvia, anyone?) , shirtless Charles or Almanzo, and wholesome family themes more than earns LHOP a place in the DL Hall of Best Shows.

The “Seinfeld” episode when Elaine successfully converts a gay man just by begging. But then complains that he changed “back”.

Not that the show had a great track record on it. Kramer converts lesbians. Susan’s lesbianism “didn’t take”. The two occasional gay guys are creepy. I think the only time it was shown in a somewhat normal manner was early on with Glenn Shaddix and his partner.

George had an erection when a masseur touched him

R32, that episode featured one of the best scenes from Elaine in the entire series: when she snatches the toupee from George’s head. It begins at around 2:45.

The episode of “The Sopranos” that’s all about Meadow’s soccer team.

That was about my MS!

SVU was basically quite good at what it did - but after about season 17 Mariska seems to have taken complete control of the scripts and turned them into domestic dramas, mostly all about her and her kid. There are more reaction shots of her face in that show than there are stars in Hollywood.

Best show: Frasier.

Worst episode: The Greek wedding, in which we find out Frasier and Niles have a Greek Aunt Zora — never mentioned before or after, making no sense at all in this WASPy family. Was she Martin's sister or their mother's sister? Who knows.

R38, I just saw that episode. I think that was Martin's brother who married into the Greek family. Aunt Zora was played by DL icon, Patti LuPone.

For Frasier, many of the episodes/seasons after Niles and Daphne got together. The show was much better when Niles was pining after Daphne.

HOW DARE YOU, R38!

R38 I came to post that.. it felt like a spinoff that never got picked up. I'll also add the dream episode in the cabin

90% of season 9 of the original Roseanne. The worst episode was Roseambo. It's considered by many to be the worst sitcom episode ever.

Such a tragedy because the original Roseanne was great, most of the time.

I don't know what happened with season 9, if Roseanne was off her meds or wasn't taking them but what a weird way to end a fantastic sitcom.

She became Saint Olivia long before that r37.

I love watching repeats on ION TV though, if only to give descriptive names to Mariska's changing looks. Poodle Mariska, Wise Mariska, Cat that swallowed the canary Mariska, Hunchback Mariska, Holding in a shit Mariska...

And then there are the other characters

IT'S OLEEBIA R43!

r34's link also shows Gary/Greg from White Lotus (a young Jon Greis) picking up the toupe at 3:40.

That "One Day At A Time" when Anne ducks into the bedroom to process her birthday and the onward marching of time. What also got old? Listening to her talking to herself!

Wasn’t Anne supposed to be only in her late 30s in that episode? Screw you, Anne.

The last few episodes of “Game of Thrones.”

Golden Girls-Mr. Terrific. -it IS funny though when you learn that the actor playing Mr. Terrific played Maude’s almost son-in-law in the “Maude” pilot.

The episode “Howard’s Girl” from season one of Mary Tyler Moore. Just kind of pointless and not that funny.

The episode of “Alice” where Mel gets a robot waiter. Martin Scorsese would have plotzed.

The MTM episodes where Mary dates the wrong Van Dyke brother. She may have turned the world on with her smile, but Jerry definitely turned it back off.

One Day at a Time was not a good show!

The MTM episode where she spends the day with Phyllis's daughter, Bess.

I watch that one just to see Lisa Gerritson rebel by wearing her Mom's fall and makeup.

When Roseanne tried to be profound in its later seasons, it didn't work. The episode where DJ doesn't want to kiss the black girl for one. Good message but too staged and forced in its delivery. And no teacher would have mouthed off to Roseanne like DJ's teacher did because they would have lost their job.

I also didn't care for the episode where Roseanne is contemplating having an abortion, which is basically her screaming at everyone not to tell her what to do. She treats Dan like absolute shit in some militant pro feminist message.

"The Rowdy Girls" is prime DESIGNING WOMEN -- the serious storyline that some of you are shrugging off is brought home by the amazing Jean Smart, and the comic one is priceless (if inconceivable today).

The last episode of Designing Women is pretty terrible.

Nothing tops the last episode of Grace Under Fire, which could be pretty good…but that last one is monumentally bad.

The Columbus Day episode of The Sopranos

"I don't know what happened with season 9, if Roseanne was off her meds or wasn't taking them but what a weird way to end a fantastic sitcom."

I meant to write "if Roseanne was off her meds or taking too many of them."

LOL.

The original final season of Roseanne was full of terrible episodes but Roseambo - Roseanne dressed as Rambo saving a train from terrorists - had to be the nadir

[quote]Nothing tops the last episode of Grace Under Fire, which could be pretty good…but that last one is monumentally bad.

If you haven't seen it, it's worth watching, especially the opening scene where Brett Butler is so drugged up that she seems to be in her street clothes and messy hair, mumbling her lines in a disturbing monotone.

They brought in Julia Duffy to do some professional comedy opposite Brett, but nothing could save this. The episode actually ran three minutes short because Brett couldn't get through it. An all-time trainwreck.

Golden Girls-Mr. Terrific.

R49 - I for one like this episode as I think Bob Dishy is funny, as is the scene where Dorothy fights with Kolak.

Dorothy: Why Kolak. I didn't know you could speak English.

Kolak: Hey what you don't know could fill a space the size of Guam!

For me the only episode of The Comeback (Lisa Kudrow) that was not absolutely classic was the one called "Valerie Gets a Magazine Cover" I have skipped that episode on my many binge/rewatches, so I will check it out again to see if that is still the case.

I hated the episode (I think it was called The one with the truth about London) from Friends where Monica reveals the truth about how she had actually wanted to hook-up with Joey and not Chandler in London during Ross' wedding. It was such an unnecessary episode that completely humiliates Chandler's character, ridicules Monica and Chandler's relationship and apart from that episode, it's never mentioned again. Very dark humor for a light-hearted comedy like Friends.

Finale of Game of Thrones where Arya kills the Night King. Infuriating turn of event and a stupid script that pissed on the show that built its story for over a decade.

Agreed, R63 about the Friends moment.

The episode of "The Lucy Show" in which Lucy and Viv build a replica of the White House with sugar cubes and "lovable" Lucy viciously assaults people with a heavy sack of sugar cubes and then steals a horse to make a getaway after stealing a restaurant's entire supply of sugar cubes. Lucy viciously knocking men unconscious and then literally becoming a horse thief wasn't nearly as adorable as her writers seemed to think.

Not so much worst episode but worst scenes. I find it cringeworthy when sitcoms have scenes set in gay bars (e.g., Frasier and Will & Grace). It’s Muzak instead of music, the bar vibe is lifeless, and the men all look like they modeled for a JCPenney catalog. I got a similar feeling from all the Central Perk scenes on Friends. That cafe bears no resemblance to any NYC cafe IRL.

That Chatterbox episode of the Nanny. Another backdoor pilot that failed.

R60 It’s so bad. I think they chose to air it just to humiliate Brett. Poor Julia. I hope she got a fat paycheck.

Will & Grace was inconsistent but I found the early seasons mostly solid. One of the worst episodes was from season 4 involving a garden gnome Will is attached to for some reason. Of course Grace breaks it and then Three's Company-level shenanigans ensue. I remember watching that the first time it aired and thinking it didn't bode well for the future of the show. Soon after they introduced the 'Will & Grace' want a baby' storyline and added Harry Connick Jr. and the show never really recovered despite lasting 4 more seasons (and a reboot.)

"The Rowdy Girls" had a very sympathetic portrait by Kim Zimmer (and the husband was kinda hot, no?). This is also the episode that made me love Jean Smart -- when she returns to the house she hears the husband beating up on Mavis, and the look on Smart's face and the terror and despair she feels is right there. A brilliant piece of acting, only seconds long.

So yeah, not a great episode, but it's interesting to know the moment you became an admirer of an actor.

SVU was never a best show. Always thoroughly mediocre.

Lost: Stranger in a Strange Land. So bad that it inspired a push toward setting an end date for the series.

That GRACE UNDER FIRE finale, yikes

The Fly episode of Breaking Bad.

The Seargent Emma episode of Brady Bunch. So, so bad.

The Will and Grace episodes where they were trying to have a baby

Sergeant Emma was a dyke!

The "Cavender is Coming" episode of The Twilight Zone

IIRC, “Grace Under Fire” didn’t even get to have a real finale as she had a major meltdown during a taping and was screaming and cursing at producers in front of the audience. The show was shut down on the spot and that was that. Cast members had already fled the show by that point.

Butler is one of those who published an “overcoming my demons” memoirs a little too early.

[quote]That GRACE UNDER FIRE finale, yikes

You can feel the desperate editing they used to cobble together a simulacrum of a performance by Brett Butler.

The Dexter finale.

The SATC episode that takes place at Aidan's house in the Hamptons. Aiden and Big get into a muddy fistfight over Carrie. For me, it was the one only awful episode in a season of winners.

However, it was still better than just about every episode of AJLT.

Didn’t the mud fight between Big and Aidan take place at the country cabin?

"The Mother Muffin Affair" on "The Man From Uncle".

That was one of my favorite SATC episodes. I don't know about the worst... maybe the one where Carrie dates the young bisexual guy.

R82, are you conflating Carrie's Hamptons adventure with the later Big/Aidan Batman vs. Green Hornet (with Pete as Kato) mud wrestling scene in Aidan's rustic place in Suffern?

The final episode of "How I Met Your Mother" was putrid. Worst series finale ever.

I hated the Breaking Bad episode "Fly". Just an opportunity for the writers to jerk themselves off. Yes, an episode where the characters are stuck in one place and talk about their feelings. How incredibly clever of you. Too bad The Sopranos did it in 2003 with "Pine Barrens".

The only Original Recipe Perry Mason episode that was filmed in color. It ruined the whole "film noir" atmosphere of the show.

I'll also stick up for "The Rowdy Girls," which really shows what Jean Smart brought to the table.

When Arnold gets molested on Diff'rent Strokes. Not funny. At. All.

SVU tipped to kitsch a long time ago. Now it’s an aging Ice T and Mariska who looks like she should be in a babushka picking turnips.

The worst episode of it was definitely the OLIBEEA one. Terrible. Overwrought. Yet fraus and young lesbians lapped it up.