Tuesday, 4 April 2006

Worst...Episodes....Ever!
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: Worst episodes of shows I've seen
Topic: List-O-Mania
A while back I made a list of my personal favorite episodes of shows I was a fan of. Now its time for the flip side...the bad episodes! In other words, the episodes that made me groan and say "Oh here we go...."

Chicago Hope - Brain Salad Surgery:
At the time I loved it but this episode, aka "The Musical Episode", should have been a sign to me that the show was starting to slowly go downhill. People I liked left, and the episodes got stranger (a "Hitchcockian" episode?). People were fired and rehired but I was never able to get to know them. They went off the air, without much fanfare, a year or so later.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine- Take Me Out To The Holosuite: Anyone who thought that steroids were the worst thing to happen to baseball probably never saw this episode where the DS9 crew play a game of baseball in a holosuite with the Vulcans.

Friends - The One With The Cat: Phoebe thinks her mother (well not real mother cause her real mother was alive and well in Montauk) was reincarnated in a cat. We never saw that cat again, thank goodness.


Mystery Science Theater 3000 - "Hamlet": The crew of the Satellite of Love tried their best, but I found out the hard way that Shakespeare movies don't make very good MST3k subjects.

Caroline And The City- "Caroline and the Big Move": This episode is full of things, a wedding, a baby and a new relationship for a reason; this was the last episode before it was canned. The last season of this show is pretty subpar, but what makes this the worst is something beyond peoples control: cancellation. Richard goes to stop Caroline from marrying another guy, and she sees him in the church rafters. Fade out, play credits and music. Its over. The worst thing you can do to an audience, no matter how small its gotten, is end the series on a cliffhanger.

Frasier - "Cheerful Goodbyes": One of the better things about Frasier was that once in a while Cheers alumni would appear on the show. Lillith made regular visits, while Sam, Woody and Diane were there at least once. (Rebecca never appeared on the show, but may have been referred to) By the time the last few seasons came along, the concept of having Frasiers old buddies visiting had reached the point of diminishing returns. Carla, Norm and Cliff were in this episode which is mostly about Frasier and family (and Daphne) being in Boston. They are really there for a lecture but end up at Cliffs retirement party. I enjoyed all three on Cheers, but here they felt wildly out of place. (And it doesn't help that the bar they are having Cliffs party isn't at Cheers, but that couldn't be helped.) No points for guessing if Cliff really retires or not.

That 70's Show - "Eric's Hot Cousin": Eric has a cousin, and a good looking one too. Thats about it. It wouldn't be so bad all by itself but this came out the same year the thankfully short lived "That 80's Show" came out.

X-Files- "Never Again" :The early to mid series run of this series you can pick out a lot of good episodes. This is also true of bad episodes. After David Duchovny started spending less and less time in the series, the quality seemed to go down. (I think he left to start a movie career, which hasn't grown that much at all. Maybe you should have stayed till the end after all?) For me my least favorite is "Never Again", a mostly Scully-only episode. Mulder is never seen, and the story centers around a man and his new tattoo...its talking to him and causing him to do crazy stuff. Nothing really "X-Files-ish" about it at all. Pretty much a nothing episode. I watched it once, and I will Never Again watch it in reruns.

Sliders- "Exodus": Arguments can be made for what is the worst episode of this largely great sci fi series; too many episodes about the Kromaggs, when Jerry O'Connell left the show (his brother left at the same time so they combined two characters into one), but for me it is this episode, at least the last few minutes of this two part episode. They killed off one of the four "original" Sliders, Professor Arturo. It seemed to fall apart slowly after that, strange twists in plot and other original Sliders leaving the show (Rembrandt Brown was the last remaining one). I never saw the last episode, it was taped for me, but it got taped over by something else. I guess that tells how interested I was in how it ended.

Angel - "The Girl In Question": It's easy for me to say the worst episode was the series finale of this awesome series, but thats the easy way out. Its hard to pick out a worst episode. Some moments are strange (Cordelia and Connor getting it on) but other great moments make up for it (how can you not see "Puppet Angel" and not laugh your butt off?). The Girl in Question is actually Buffy Summers but Buffy is not in it. At least not the Buffy we know. Just the some random blonde who we don't even see that well who is supposed to be Buffy. The whole plot was about Angel and Spike checking up on her. Shes fine, sorry to waste an hour of your life. This episode proves one thing, you can't put Buffy in an episode and not have the actual Buffy. Sarah Michelle Gellers involvement, no matter how small, would have improved this episode that much. As it is, its the worst episode of the final season.

Posted by citizennancy at 2:09 PM EDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 27 June 2006 11:53 PM EDT

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