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Terrible episodes of great shows?

KagisoRabada

New Member
Just about every long-running or critically acclaimed show has at least one major stinker in its run. It's just inevitable when you have so many episodes, some of them are gonna be duds. Sometimes, these episodes can be just as well-known as the great episodes.

I'll start with Code of Honor from TNG. Everything, from the racist undertones thanks to the baffling decision to make the actors playing a primitive alien race who lust after strong women black to the terrible fight scene makes me wonder how anybody involved thought this episode was a good idea.
 

WishIhadaManafi5

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.
Staff member
Moderator
Got two of them.

First Person Shooter from the X Files is the first one. Just a bad, sexist episode.

Familiar is the second one. The first 10 to 12 minutes are the worst. Saw some of the worst acting there... it was like a very bad table read.
 

NeganTheSavior

Well-Known Member
The Walking Dead- Diverged. The episode is about Carol trying to find ingredients to make soup. That's it. Nothing of note happens. Complete and utter filler. And yes, I'm aware this episode was made with covid regulations in place.

The Office- Christmas Party. This is more about personal preference, but I don't care for most of the episodes where Michael's a jerk. I felt so bad for Phyllis here.

The Office- Scott's Tots. Maximum cringe for all the wrong reasons. I always skip it.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings is the worst episode of Futurama. Everything about it is just awful. It doesn’t work as a series finale like it was supposed to be originally, the plot is terrible, Leela and Fry are extremely one sided this episode and the hinting at them becoming an actual couple just felt forced and added in at the last minute to please fans of the show, and there is just way too much going on that you can’t even focus on what your supposed to be following.

Not really a show but the MLP Friendship is Magic spin-off Equestria Girls has two entries that are just plain awful. The first is Movie Magic which has so many things that went wrong with it as a special. Twilight Sparkle’s explanation of what happened throughout the special is very contrived and doesn’t make sense as she never once mentioned or explained the one incident that started the characters to find clues to solve the mystery and just blames everything on one girl who probably only did one thing wrong and not the other stuff which could have been caused by stray magic running wild which is canon in the spin-off. Everyone agrees that this girl did everything when there are things that she couldn’t have done when you rewatch certain scenes such as causing a set to fall apart completely and she was nowhere near the scene of the accident. Also this girl is constantly being mistreated by literally everyone and they act like she’s the bad one when the main group keep treating her like some set assistant and her own uncle treats her like a slave. The second Equestria Girls special that is just awful is Legend of Everfree Forest which is badly written and makes no sense whatsoever.

MLP FiM’s worst episode is easily Flutter Brutter because Fluttershy is extremely out of character the entire time and just comes off as being plain mean and cruel to her brother who seems like a slacker who quits everything because he’s lazy but it’s really because he is actually insecure and afraid of failure. Out of all the Ponies in the show, you’d think Fluttershy would notice insecurity and being afraid of failure as she has shown those traits several times and would have taken a more supportive and encouraging approach to the problem instead of constantly complaining how frustrating he is and forcing him to stay in a cave.
 

WishIhadaManafi5

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.
Staff member
Moderator
The Walking Dead- Diverged. The episode is about Carol trying to find ingredients to make soup. That's it. Nothing of note happens. Complete and utter filler. And yes, I'm aware this episode was made with covid regulations in place.

The Office- Christmas Party. This is more about personal preference, but I don't care for most of the episodes where Michael's a jerk. I felt so bad for Phyllis here.

The Office- Scott's Tots. Maximum cringe for all the wrong reasons. I always skip it.

Yikes. I remember that one. It was pretty bad. It was like they reached the bottom of the barrel for ideas.
 

KillerDraco

Well-Known Member
How I Met Your Mother's final episode. If you want a textbook example of how not to end a series, this is it. Kill off the titular character shortly after finally revealing them, reduce them solely to the role of baby maker, undo entire seasons of character development, and basically leaving everyone unsatisfied with the conclusion. When your worst episode is the one intended to wrap up the series, you know you dropped the ball.
 

Yveltal91057

It’s Kalos season!
Game of Thrones not having any source material to work with during the last three seasons and to add to that, George R.R. Martin still isn’t done with The Winds of Winter and hasn’t started working on the next book after that.
 

NeganTheSavior

Well-Known Member
Game of Thrones not having any source material to work with during the last three seasons and to add to that, George R.R. Martin still isn’t done with The Winds of Winter and hasn’t started working on the next book after that.

The last three episodes of season 8 could be added here. 8x04 in particular. My interest in ever rewatching that show was killed by Jaime going back to Cersei. I have the first season on blu-ray and will probably end up giving it to my local movie/game store.

It was painful seeing interviews with the cast before season 8 came out. You could tell they had creative disagreements with it, but couldn't say anything because they were under contract.
 

Pokefan_1987

Avid Pokemon TCG Card collector.
First off i don't want any flame wars because of this so read these arguments carefully

While not having any particularly bad episodes but it had a TON of filler. But even worse, both Naruto and Naruto Shippuden has a few problems.

-Lengthy drawn-out battles over many episodes which can get absurd. Expect this to happen to happen because of flashbacks or characters talking or talking about tactics to themselves.

-Absurd ammount of character flashbacks. If someone is close to dying or creates a new move out of desperation, expect them to get a sudden memory flashback. During the end of Shippuden, Obito is a big offender of getting almost 3x times as many flashbacks as Naruto himself. Might as well call the last 2 seasons Obito: Shippuden

-Also this series suffers from a lot of Naruto talking down enemies and defeating them like a psychiatrist or police negotiator. Or better known as www.konohalibrary.fandom.com/wiki/Talk_No_Jutsu
 
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WishIhadaManafi5

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.
Staff member
Moderator
You just reminded me of something... I really dislike when characters have big arcs when they're with others (CSI's Lady Heather arc was a rare exception to it). Bones Hannah arc is one that I never rewatch. It went on for too long.
 

Pokefan_1987

Avid Pokemon TCG Card collector.
You just reminded me of something... I really dislike when characters have big arcs when they're with others (CSI's Lady Heather arc was a rare exception to it). Bones Hannah arc is one that I never rewatch. It went on for too long.
The Harper Dearing arc from from the recent NCIS was also a bit to long for a single villain in 4 episodes. I'm taking about the series with Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

He was also too far ahead. How did he have time to stuff explosives into a car-seats that belong to the director. That car was parked and locked in a high security Navy Military parking lot and no-one noticed it?
 
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masdog

What is the airspeed of an unladen Swellow?
There are a lot in Star Trek.

TNG: You already mentioned Code of Honor, which was the worst episode of Season 1. There is also Season 2’s Shades of Grey (spoiler: It’s a clip show) and Season 7’s Sub Rosa.
Voyager: Threshold.

Babylon 5: Season 5’s A View from the Gallery…I think that is the episode’s name. It’s the one where you follow around the maintenance guys around the station.
 

WishIhadaManafi5

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.
Staff member
Moderator
The Harper Dearing arc from from the recent NCIS was also a bit to long for a single villain in 4 episodes. I'm taking about the series with Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

He was also too far ahead, how did he have time to stuff explosives into the car-seat, the directors car was locked in a high security Navy Military area and no-one noticed it?

I remember that character. Good points. How wouldn't he have not been caught?
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Several episodes from season 1 of Breaking Bad are mediocre, including Cancer Man I believe it was called. Fly from season 3 is also another example since that episode was notorious for not progressing the plot. Many of the later episodes of Game of Thrones would qualify as badly written as well.
 

Pokefan_1987

Avid Pokemon TCG Card collector.
I didn't mention this earlier but i'm surprised no one has mentioned Electric Soldier Porygon.

As a person that has Epilepsy problems myself (not photosensitive epilepsy exactly) but i always get disgusted about the fact that Japan didn't have better safety standards when they designed the flashy explosion in that episode and so many people got hospitalized :mad:
For some life will never be the same if they have permanent seizures and to use anti-convulsive medications to prevent epilepsy triggers ever since the episode affected them.
 

jaden767

Amphetamine
I didn't mention this earlier but i'm surprised no one has mentioned Electric Soldier Porygon.

As a person that has Epilepsy problems myself (not photosensitive epilepsy exactly) but i always get disgusted about the fact that Japan didn't have better safety standards when they designed the flashy explosion in that episode and so many people got hospitalized :mad:
For some life will never be the same if they have permanent seizures and to use anti-convulsive medications to prevent epilepsy triggers ever since the episode affected them.
No offense but that's making a mountain out of a molehill. Most of the kids who experienced seizures only felt mild seizure-like symptoms like dizziness, headaches and nausea and only around 150ish of the 700 kids who suffered symptoms had to go to the hospital.

Plus nobody who suffered from the incident had long term effects either so that situation wasn't as bad as some fans believe. People always talk about the Porygon episode like it was an act of terrorism but it was only overblown because it involved the most popular anime in Japan at the time. In fact iirc there was a less popular anime that gave kids seizure symptoms too before the Porygon episode even aired but nobody talks about that.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
No offense but that's making a mountain out of a molehill. Most of the kids who experienced seizures only felt mild seizure-like symptoms like dizziness, headaches and nausea and only around 150ish of the 700 kids who suffered symptoms had to go to the hospital.

Plus nobody who suffered from the incident had long term effects either so that situation wasn't as bad as some fans believe. People always talk about the Porygon episode like it was an act of terrorism but it was only overblown because it involved the most popular anime in Japan at the time. In fact iirc there was a less popular anime that gave kids seizure symptoms too before the Porygon episode even aired but nobody talks about that.
And none of the animators even knew such a problem existed or could even happen. Until the Porygon episode, rapid flashing lights that caused blinding effects were extremely common in anime and video games. Even movies utilized strobe lighting in a heavy manner.
 

Pokefan_1987

Avid Pokemon TCG Card collector.
SM episodes out of all Pokemon episodes
Why exactly. The art-style may have looked stupid. But that series had a lot of good episodes including Ash vs Gladion in the finals, finally becoming a champion.

I will also won't deny how annoying Rotom-Dex was through the entire series. There are rarely moments when he isn't in the background and is talking so much or taking a lot of pictures like a paparazzi. And that shrill voice is one on the worst voices i've ever seen for a robot supporting characters.
 
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Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
Why exactly. The art-style may have looked stupid. But that series had a lot of good episodes including Ash vs Gladion in the finals, finally becoming a champion.

I will also won't deny how annoying Rotom-Dex was through the entire series. There are rarely moments when he isn't in the background and is talking so much or taking a lot of pictures like a paparazzi. And that shrill voice is one on the worst voices i've ever seen for a robot supporting characters.
I wanted Rotom Dex to sound a bit like the original Dex from the OS before being upgraded with info for Togepi. I also wanted it to be a bit snarky at times with Ash and give him some sass whenever he used it on a wild or another trainer’s Pokémon he already owned or met before and be a bit uncooperative at times if it didn’t want to be helpful and left alone such as if it was taking a nap when Ash started to use it. I think that would have brought a lot of character to Rotom Dex and be a nice call back to when Dexter was snarky towards Ash with the Rattata stealing food from his backpack bit.
 
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