A recent episode of Supernatural shattered the fourth wall in a pretty amusing way…
They come across a writer who’s written a series of books called Supernatural that’s chronicled the demon-hunting trials of two brothers named Sam and Dean. This naturally piques the guys’ interest, and they contact him and find out that whatever the guy writes will actually happen, because he’s actually a prophet of God. Anyhoo, through that character,
…the writers of the show explicitly apologize for a couple of the worst episodes by name (Bugs springs to mind).
Agreed. The Theron episodes weren’t brilliant either, but they were a decent way of working a big star onto the show, which they needed to do. Uncle Jack was just goddamn annoying, though.
Are you me? I’m at the exact same point in the series via Netflix, and I completely agree with you on “Unfinished Business.” Halfway through the episode I had to pause and text a friend who loves the series how much I hated the episode.
I’m a big fan of that one. The chorus of the song is great Simpsons/Futurama philosophy: “When push comes to shove, you gotta do what you love/Even if it’s not a good idea.”
Among Futurama episodes, That’s Lobstertainment gets a lot of hate, but I think A Pharaoh to Remember is worse. As a supporting character Bender is a really entertaining jerk. As a leading character, he gets needy and whiny, psychotic in a bad way, and becomes so mean that you can’t understand why anybody would bother with him. He gets close to that threshhold in Jurassic Bark too, but I like that episode and it’s a very well told story.
All the Futurama hate, and none of it for “A Leela of their own”? I’m pretty sure I didn’t laugh once during that entire mess.
If you want to talk bad Supernatural episodes, Troy McClure, it’s a toss up between the mind numbing stupidity of Sam and Dean vs the racist truck, and Hollywood Baybalon, an episode in which nothing happend, slowly, but at least it was cheap to film.
I’m surprised no one has said the Columbus Day episode of the Sopranos. It’s preachy and the only reason for it to exist is for David Chase to get back at all the people who accused him of smearing Italian-Americans.
I guess all us Futurama fans have our own “worsts”…
I really don’t like the Valentines episode. I thought it was unfunny and not poignant enough to illicit the “awwww” that some of the BEST Futurama’s do
The episode of “The Office” (US) when Michael drove the rental car into the lake. Ridiculous and stupid.
The episode of “The Simpsons” guest starring Michael Keaton as a convict that Marge helps out. That was the first complete “swing and a miss” I’d seen from that show in years. There had been some mediocre episodes, but at least they had a couple of good lines. This one was crap straight through and then had a couple of years of crap that followed it.
I think the one where Homer has a midlife crisis and ends up going to Florida with the family is much worse (I believe it’s called “Kill the Alligator and Run”).
At least “Saddlesore” had the scene where Homer is at the BTO concert going for it.
The episode of Bones where Booth is trapped on a boat with a bomb. To describe it, it sounds like an ideal episode, packed with a bunch of mytharc stuff like the buried alive serial killer from the previous season, and Booth’s brother’s ‘redemption’. But in execution it came across as fan fiction. And the ‘ghost’ part was horrendous. It might have been excusable as Booth’s hallucination which it was portrayed as for most of the episode, but the ‘very special’ ending in which Bones sees the ghost too without realizing it just shat on the entire premise of the series and Bones’ character.
So we’re ignoring the Armen Tanzarian episode? I’m cool with that.
I’m also going to disagree with whoever said the Evil Santa episode of Futurama (or at least one of them). I use “I’m going to buy you so many lizards” more often than I should. “Squawk!”
Racist truck was the worst. Hollywood Babylon at least cracked me up a few times with the meta references, esp. the exchange about how demons could possibly hear a summoning when they’re in hell and we’re on earth. “They have super hearing!” I would say that Red Sky at Morning is a worse episode. Dean in a tux does not redeem the painfully bad “that old lady has a crush on Sam!” jokes.
In fact, it was. The next episode of Heroes began with the family at the diner, watching the TV Broadcast…negating any possible reason to have the episode at all.
This type of thing is partly what put me off Heroes in the first place. I was watching in on Netflix, so maybe it was more annoying to me since I was watching them back to back rather than one a week, but nearly every episode started with the last 5 minutes of the previous episode. I haven’t seen any of the third season yet, can’t decide if I want to bother or not.
Futurama: The Zoidberg-heavy episodes tend to be hated by fans, but That’s Lobstertainment has grown on me, and it used to be my least favorite. Maybe it’s because it’s also Calculon-heavy, which is always fun.
Offhand, I’d say A Leela of Her Own is probably the worst, and I generally like Leela episodes. I just find it not as funny as other episodes, and kind of boring. The parts with Hank Aaron are pretty funny, though.
I think I’m the only Supernatural fan in the universe who more or less likes Red Sky at Morning. Old lady with a crush on Sam ammused me - any time Sam gets his ass grabbed is a good time, IMO.
I agree with you on racist truck, though. That was “I can’t even watch this again,” bad, and I rewatched everything.
Old lady with a crush on Sam would have been mildly amusing to me if Sam had taken it with a bit more grace. He was too grouchy and Dean was too mocking about it. That’s where the writing totally broke down, for me.
My friend and I have been watching old episodes, and when we got to the racist truck episode, I made us skip it because…it’s terrible. But I guess my friend had been reading some fan site because she was like “wait, doesn’t Dean get naked in this episode?” I said, “NO…he has a sex, that’s it.” She wanted to watch it anyway, but I insisted. Then she went home and watched it alone, and the next day she was mad at me because it’s a. terrible and b. Dean does not get naked. Apparently, wishful thinking on her part turned my “no” into “yes” in her mind. (She’s French and I think she still can’t believe that the CW will not give us at least Dean’s ass, no matter how many times I point out that Supernatural is not on HBO or Showtime.)
That one’s beyond terrible, but I believe the winner for most despised episode of the Simpsons goes to the panda rape episode. Someone on TV tropes suggested that the phrase Jump the Shark should be changed to Raped by the Panda. Having seen it, I’m inclined to agree.
Fox got away with Captain Tightpant’s butt on Firefly. CW could get away with a peek at Dean, if Jensen’s down for it (though I’m not sure he would be. He’s suposedly pretty shy. Jared, however…)