Just FTR, that wasn’t Brad Pitt, it was Tate Donovan. But, as Jennifer Aniston was dating him at the time, we won’t take points off. Yeah, that sequence is unwatchable.
Just off the top of mine: “The Creature from the Pit” and “The Horns of Nimon” from Tom Baker’s penultimate season (which, on the other side of the coin, contains “City of Death” which should be enshrined in the annals of television history). Back to back pieces of crap, from a production team that had been there too long and were just phoning it in.
One more: “Plato’s Stepchildren.” If every print of this episode were to fall into an acid bath, I wouldn’t shed a tear.
Ah, now here’s where we diverge. I didn’t mind the storyline of Willow’s addiction (although I hated that they made it so literal – “Spellcaster’s Anonymous.” Oh, my eyes.) But killing Tara just to made her go Dark Willow and attempt to destroy the world? Unforgivable.
The one where Mr Roper (or was Mr Furley) overhears the roommates talking about something innocent, but thinks they are talking about something salacious.
Start Trek TOS The Omega Glory. Most racist episode in the history of television, with the white civilization depicted as savage, monosyllabic animals.
I Love Lucy “Lucy goes to Scotland” a dream episode a la Brigadoon. the writers have some 'splainin to do about this one.
“Untouchables” “The Night they shot Santa Claus”. At least Eddie Munster had an uncredited cameo in it.
At least it had Michael Dunn (Dr. Loveless) as a good guy. Not to mention the fact that was the episode where Kirk and Uhuru kiss.
Another one I hated: The original Twilight Zone: Steel. The only episode of this series I disliked. The twist was pointless and stupid. Strangely the recent movie that was supposedly based on this episode wasn’t that bad. Honestly if I hadn’t heard it was based on that episode I would have never guessed. You’ve got to wonder why they even bothered securing the rights.
… And Kirk and Spock were Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, perhaps the most ludicrous moment of the entire series.* Yeccch! :mad:
*Ever wonder how the Platonians, who had left Earth thousands of years ago, knew about English nursery rhymes and/or the works of Lewis Carroll? :dubious:
Game of Thrones - The early seasons episode where Littlefinger monologues about his dastardly mustache-twirling ruthlessness while also instructing two of his brothel girls how to get it on. I’m not one to complain about silly superfluous titillation, but man was it silly and superfluous.
Hart to Hart– a first-season episode (“You Made Me Kill You”) and a fourth-season episode (“Hartstruck”), both about a woman’s obsession w/Jonathan Hart (OAD on the first, 10/23/79, and on the second, 4/12/83, both on ABC). The way each of them plays lately to me, they seem to be very much like very special episodes designed to beat one over the head with a specific narrowly defined message, and that is why, whenever I have had a hankering for the Harts (I finished that entire 1979-84 ABC mystery/romance series a long time ago, first from Sony’s DVD releases, then from Shout!'s), those have not been among the episodes I have gone back to.
Breaking Bad - The Fly
House - Don’t remember the episode title, but a woman was dying and wanted House to say something personal about himself so he made up some crap about his grandmother making him sit in a cold tub. The whole hour dragged on in pointless dialogue.
I loved Quantum Leap, but season 5 jumped the shark. Marilyn Monroe, Lee Harvey Oswald, Elvis Presley, Dr. Ruth, UFOs, Bigfoot, evil leapers, Civil War, and Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home.
Any episode of Big Bang Theory with Leonard’s mother. Christine Baranski may be a beloved actress and a fine person, but that character is completely intolerable to me.
I’d have to look through the whole L&O canon to pick out a worst episode. Generally, the bad ones are when they departed from the classic formula; Aftershock and Rubber Room suffered for it. On the other hand, Couples is all over the map and may be the best episode. (Seriously, read the IMDb
[quotes page]
("Law & Order" Couples (TV Episode 2003) - Quotes - IMDb); every one a gem.)
I think I might go with Burn Card as the worst. That’s Jesse Martin’s last episode where he’s suspected of murder and withholds evidence to protect a woman he knows. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.
Angel One gets derided for its sexism, but I think it’s kinda the point of the episode. There’s an episode of TOS called Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. The Enterprise gets embroiled in a racial dispute that’s thousands of years old; a man who’s black on the right and white on the left has been chasing his opposite and blames him for the destruction of their society. It’s easy to watch that and feel superior; we don’t identify with either of them so we can see how stupid the conflict is. Angel One is the opposite. The characters look like (some of) us, so you can identify with them and feel the sexism, but not on the side you’re used to. If you’re a guy, do you resent Riker being told to put on something slinky and wait in Ariel’s bedroom? If you’re a woman, do you bristle at seeing other women acting only to preserve the status quo that keeps them at the top of the pecking order?
I’m not calling it a good episode. There are still a lot of problems with it. And maybe an episode whose goal was to make viewers uncomfortable was just never gonna fly. But even for an episode that fails I try to see what they were going for.
