Worst episode of your favorite TV show(s)

[Scarim Coral]

For Community it was that season 2 episode when Shirley was going to give birth. While the previous episodes ad a perticular theme (zombie, crime noir and etc) this one didn't and it was plain since it resolve around her given birth.

 

[chikusho]

The first episode of the second season of The Wire.
It's very messily edited, trying to focus on too many things and everything feels endless drawn out and hard to follow. The only poor episode in that whole show though.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Community has the episode with the high school kids. You're supposed to hate them, but I hate them so much that I can't watch the episode.

Yeah, that episode was really fucking effective. Seeing Jeff and Britta be reduced to helpless worms by a bunch of retarded high schoolers was brutal as hell.

For me though, it's the second episode of season 3 with the Lionel Richie song. That was a major nose dive for the series.

Also, the entire second season of Game of Thrones.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

There was that episode of Arrested Development where Tobias' head started bleeding because of his hair plugs, and Buster's turtle literally broke apart because it was put in a box of weed.
Yeah, that episode was pretty bad, considering it went for cheap gross-out gags rather than the typical high quality humour the show was most well-known for.

 

[Ultress]

South Park:The Coon episodes were never that great and while season 12 had some really good eps(including my favorite Super Fun Time)but the season was overall weak.

House: No Reason,Oddly convoluted way to get House will take some treatment that wears off half way into the next season. Plus they never explain why he was shot,which is weird because it's left a mystery and House likes figuring those out instead focusing on the carpet.

Maternity: Not because it's a bad episode more so I don't like dead babies

Most of Season 7 and 8

Baccano!: the first episode, it's just odd even by Baccano! standards and has poor pacing.

Princess Tutu: the short set of episodes that amounts to Mythos tries to steal a soul, Duck stops him, rinse and repeat. Gets really boring really fast

Hell Girl:Two Mirrors, the two episodes with Hone Onna as the focal point, the first one had a very weak revenge justification(He hit my car accidentally and didn't apologize) and the other had too big a coincidence to be plausible.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Breaking Bad: I can't think of one.

For me it's the bottle episode with the fly (can't remember which season). I appreciate that they'd gone over budget with some big explosions that season, and as much as it was something of an acting tour de force for Brian Cranston, it was also a pretty boring episode. But bottle episodes usually are.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Although it was kinda necessary just for the personal interactions between Walter and Jesse.

I only just watched this programme for the first time 6 weeks ago and already I consider it my favourite ever.

 

[Bamba]

My favourite TV show cant have a worst episode. If it had, it wouldnt be my favourite show in the first place!

 

[minispike47]

The LARPing Episode of Supernatural (S08E11).
While it was somewhat funny the whole thing was just so... forced...

I kinda liked that one. It wasn't the best but I really like Charlie (I think thats her name, the one played by Felicia Day) as a character.

OT: I really hated lots of series two of the Walking Dead. They just spent so long at the farm and I got bored. Its annoying because as i've read all the comics I know there was so much more they could have done with that time.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Breaking Bad: I can't think of one.

For me it's the bottle episode with the fly (can't remember which season). I appreciate that they'd gone over budget with some big explosions that season, and as much as it was something of an acting tour de force for Brian Cranston, it was also a pretty boring episode. But bottle episodes usually are.

That one came to mind for me to but I enjoyed because of the monologues. Plus, I was actually pretty tense during the episode because I was beginning to think that Walt had finally lost it.

 

[Therumancer]

To be honest I'd say most finale episodes of good series when they try and tie everything together and have it end making sense. "Lost", "Battlestar Galactica" and others all fall into this trap, as due many Animes. Especially if they decide they want to end on a "profound" note instead of just tying things up in a satisfying way. They tend to be even more maddening when some of the more crazy fanboys don't want to accept a crap ending for what it is... the ending of "The Sopranos" is one of these... our "genius" basically had no clue how to end the series, so he pretty much decided not to but still have a final episode.

Picking the absolute worst though would be really, really, hard to do. Especially seeing as some of the worst ones like say "Evangelion" at least had reasons for them outside of the series. In that case I believe it was Gainex promising the creator a lot more episodes than he actually got, among other things, and so he was left with a bunch of subplots and such that just had to die unresolved, and then needed to rush the ending so it came accross as a lot more "WTF" than it probably would have if he had worked into it. The OVAS/Movies being more of the same allegedly by way of protest, and also because even with their combined run time, he still didn't have what he needed to do it right. I have no idea if this was worked out better in the remake though since I haven't seen it.

When it came to "Andromeda" that show always had writing problems, and as I understand things they thought they were abruptly cancelled at the end of Season 4 (second to last) and wound up actually rushing to create a rather lame final episode just so it would have one, the sort of "downer" note being a statement on the abrupt surprise "your out of work guys" they received. They wound up getting picked up again for a fifth season after that though and thus wound up in a position where they had to undo their "protest" ending and actually had a bunch of episodes where they could resolve the various plot threads (such as they were) dropped at various points through a somewhat messy series... and really while contrived, I'll at least give them credit that they did an amazing job for the corner they were in. Andromeda at least had a fairly worthy finale and did answer most if not all of the questions from the series, if not entirely as people
would have hoped since they still had to rush some things.

The point of the last two being that I can sometimes forgive and appreciate things more depending on what I hear about IRL. In the case of things like "Lost" though JJ had how many years to work on that one? He pretty much kept things going with wierdness after wierdness and putting off the payoff and answers to the point where when the time finally came he pretty much had a mess entirely of his own creation, he was either going to be a genius or fall flat, and he fell flat. I feel much the same way about "Battlestar Galactica", the whole "hey look, trippy Cylon space angels and a cycle that is always doomed to repete itself" was pretty much a cop out, some of it was hinted at, but for the most part the whole ending sequence smacked of "we really have no idea what to do here, so let's take a series that has so far been grounded in science fiction and throw in divine angels as our explanation for anything we're having trouble wrapping up... genius!".

 

[AT God]

I hate the episode of Futurama where they talk about Fry's dog, I can't remember the name of the episode but it is very depressing, especially the end where they say his dog must have forgotten about Fry and then they do a timelapse of Fry's dog waiting for him outside the pizzaria until it dies of old age. Heart breaking

Unfortunately, that episode happened to be the Krusty Krab Training Video, otherwise known as 'that episode where 'POOP' is an fast-food acronym and you don't actually learn the Krabby Patty secret formula at the end'.
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I loved that episode, the part where the narrator is trying to say hoopla and a little fish guy keeps interrupting him so they throw a brick at the guy's head. I loved that bit, always made me laugh and makes me laugh thinking about it.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

The absolute worst episode of Lost was appropriately enough in its absolute worst season, the third one. The episode was called "Stranger in a Strange Land", and it was total horseshit from beginning to end. Absolutely fuck-all happened, and the flashback revolved around Jack banging some asian chick who was a tattoo artist, but there was some incredibly stupid attempt to make it into a mystery of sorts. Then at the end Jack got a tattoo, and some guys beat him up because of it. Maybe it said "Suck my balls, dickface" and Jack didn't know it, because I can't think of any other logical reason for it. Just... bleargh.

The Vision of Escaflowne is my favorite anime of all time, but the 20th episode doesn't really sport any of its strengths. There's no adventure, no grand mecha battles, no mystery being unearthed, no villainous scheming or rivalry between characters. It's pretty much just shoujo romance, which is alright, but considering how awesome the rest of the series is, it's definitely a lowpoint.

 

[UrinalDook]

I remember 'The Message' in Firefly being a real stinker. It all revolved around Mal being too bloody stupid to explain his plan to the person at the centre or it.

Aye, I concur. And it's a real shame too, because the banter at the start is brilliant. As is Wash's 'cunning' plan to fly through the canyon, and the subsequent results.

In the grand scheme of all TV, it's still a great forty minutes. But yes, clearly doesn't hold up to rest of a tragically short series.

I think someone else said the same, but mine would probably be the first episode of Community. I didn't find it that funny, after being told the series was hilarious, I didn't click with any of the characters, and I didn't like how disparate their ages were. Also, Chevy Chase. It feels very weird to think that was my opinion now though, because I've loved just about every episode since and I love each and every one of the characters - even Shirley, who I immediately dismissed as the shallow 'sassy but religious older black woman'. As a quick burst of needless exposition, I watched the first two episodes a couple of months ago, never felt like pushing through. Finally, after getting bored only last week, I resumed from episode three. I feel like I've barely stopped watching since, I'm now halfway through season 2. So yeah, the idea that my first impression of Community was weird is itself rather weird. It feels a lot more distant than 'last month'.

Also, may I just point out how much I like all the answers so far, given that thread title references favourite series and so far every series mentioned has been a favourite of mine. Good going Escapist, y'all have good taste.

EDIT:

I hate the episode of Futurama where they talk about Fry's dog, I can't remember the name of the episode but it is very depressing, especially the end where they say his dog must have forgotten about Fry and then they do a timelapse of Fry's dog waiting for him outside the pizzaria until it dies of old age. Heart breaking

That episode has Fry doing the hustle. Your argument is invalid.

Also, "What do we want?" "Fry's dog!" "When do we want it?" "FRY'S DOG!"

I got to use that at a student profile. One of the geekiest highlights of Uni for me.

DOUBLE SUPER CHOCOLATE EDIT:

Oh oh, I've got another one. The episode in the second season of Homeland that revolved around the VP's pacemaker. So. Unbelievably. Face-palmingly. Stupid.

 

[CPunchMaster]

There's a couple episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that come to mind. The one where Dax falls in love with a guy whose planet vanishes all the time. But that pales in comparison to the episode where half the cast goes to Risa, which was just painful. And there was the one where Quark dressed up as a woman, I don't even know what that was meant to be.

 

[The Funslinger]

Even the villian in the movie seemed like a bit of an offshoot of him, just less loopy. Or maybe I'm just racist because they were both black. Who knows.

I had the exact same thought.

OT: Hmm...

I guess this is one where I'm drawing a blank. I can think of episodes of stuff that was incrementally below the line of quality, but not anything I hated.

The Jack Black episode of Community was kind of annoying, though I did enjoy perceiving it as a satire of how Jack Black probably is in social situations.

 

[Robot Number V]

Dr. Who: Love and Monsters. What the flying FUCK happened here? I can't talk about it in more detail, but suffice to say that it's so cheesy and stupid, it makes the rest of the show look like "The Wire" in comparison.

Community: Like some other person said, the one where Abed makes a religious film. There is such a thing as too much "meta".

Sherlock: The second episode of both seasons. I still have no idea what the hell the second (1st season) episode was even about. And "Hounds of Baskerville" felt like a really long "CSI" episode.

Supernatural: Pretty much any "funny" episode that isn't actually funny. The one where Sam (or Dean, I don't remember) gets beat up by a clown monster comes to mind. I don't know why they had a 24-style countdown going on.

Futurama-The "nature documentary" one. I mean...What? Why?

 

[barretxiii]

"Rescue Me" - all Season 5 imo. An entire season where nothing super significant or dramatic happens, in a series all about personal drama, characters, and the significant things that happen to said characters. The most significant things were one group of characters opening a bar and failing to make it unique, and one character struggling with the revelation that he has cancer (Which actually set up some good drama, but fell flat when his morphine-induced fever dream turned the show into a weird musical number).

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

Community has the episode with the high school kids. You're supposed to hate them, but I hate them so much that I can't watch the episode.

I've been watching back through the Community episodes a lot lately and it's good to see I'm not the only one that hates the episode with the high school kids. Jeff and Britta are horrible in that episode. Pierce is awful to Shirley. Abed working with Troy to achieve his college experience list isn't near enough to save that episode.

 

[Epona]

Also, TNG . . . worst episode is the one where Worf turns into an ape and bites people.

Yes, that one was pretty bad even during the original run. I didn't realize it during the original run in the early 90's but looking back, most of Season 7 was bad.

Noatably bad episodes from Season 7:

Sub Rosa
Interface
Liasons
Phantasms
Dark Page
Attached
Force of Nature
Masks (though this one does show Brent Spiners acting abilities)
Genesis
Bloodlines
Emergence

I only liked a few episodes:

Gambit
Preemptive Strike
Lower Decks
All Good Things...

The rest are merely tolerable.

Also, All Good Things... was better than the first TNG movie (Generations).