Terrible episodes of great shows.

[Scott Taylor]

You can put the blame squarely on Roddenberry for that. He mandated that there would be no conflict between the crew. Drove the writers crazy, because that's where you can develop some of the best kinds of stories.

It was sort of funny - you knew that whatever new character came aboard was going to create conflict. Literally no one else in the entire galaxy was happy except for the TNG crew. And the moment someone on the TNG crew became unhappy, they got kicked out!

[ChrisIII]

There did seem to be more conflict in the later seasons when Rodenberry was less involved (similar to like how the movies played out after TMP). There were times that Picard clashed with Riker, Beverly, Data, Worf and of course Wesley about ethics and all that.


I think at one point in it's development Insurrection was pitched as Data vs. Picard over the planet, but that concept pretty much got shrunk to nothing in the finished product.

[sunofdarkchild]

The funny thing is TMP actually had a decent conflict going on between Kirk and Decker throughout the film. It gets resolved in a stupid manner with Decker rapturing himself, but it was actual human drama which stemmed both from Kirk's character as well as his flaws. Looking back it's hard to believe Roddenberry allowed Kirk to be written as so desperate to get the Enterprise back he'd kick out the rightful captain and get into silly arguments in which he's clearly in the wrong, to say nothing of his getting his science officer killed and nearly destroying the ship by ordering it into warp when the engines weren't working. Kirk's jealousy of Decker was the only human part of the whole movie, and hardly the 'ideal human' it seemed Roddenbbery wanted to convey in TNG.

[Totoro Man]

although not as awful as "the Great Divide"... I usually end up skipping "the Painted Lady" in Avatar: the Last Airbender.

it's just that "the Headband" and "Sokka's Master" are so much better by comparison that it's painful to watch.

I also typically skip past "the Swamp". there's nothing about that episode that really advances the overall story... and you don't really need the premonition concerning Toph… because when Toph finally appears they make a reference to that scene. so... yeah, you're not really losing anything too serious.

[ChrisIII]

The Simpsons like TNG had a bit of a rough start. While certainly popular at the time, it wasn't until around halfway through season 2 that the voice actors really settled into their roles and the animation got better.

Plus the last decade and a half of the show hasn't been that great either, although the movie was all right.


The fact that early Homer's voice is pretty much a Walter Matthau impersonation is an occasional in-joke in the show.

[sunofdarkchild]

although not as awful as "the Great Divide"... I usually end up skipping "the Painted Lady" in Avatar: the Last Airbender.

it's just that "the Headband" and "Sokka's Master" are so much better by comparison that it's painful to watch.

I also typically skip past "the Swamp". there's nothing about that episode that really advances the overall story... and you don't really need the premonition concerning Toph… because when Toph finally appears they make a reference to that scene. so... yeah, you're not really losing anything too serious.

I never got the hate for The Great Divide. It's one of the few times we see Aang really act like the Avatar, the neutral party who negotiates peace between conflicting groups. The Swamp I think is the worst episode of the series, though no ATLA episode is irredeemable.

[Deathstroke]

The final episode of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER.
It confirmed (for me) how big a jerk Ted was. Every time I’ve caught a random ep. since then, it’s all I can think about every time he’s on screen.

Yep, this one was quite atrocious. Not just a bad episode but one of the worst finales ever as well.

[Steel Inquisitor]

True Blood's last season and its series finale. Went out with a whimper.

[From The Shadows]

TNGs "Where silence has lease", god that was just so boring and weird and not in a good way. The alien looked terrible too. I think this was the name of it. I swear I saw the episode in a top 10 and I was like "what???" It's the only one I've never had a repeat viewing of.

[CastletonSnob]

I think Shades of Gray is a strong contender for "Worst Star Trek episode ever". It gives the most contrived excuse for a clip show I've ever seen. "The parasites are reacting to Riker's memories".

[caj]

Frasier was an incredible show that still holds the record for most Emmy wins by a tv comedy.

But in season 10, there was an episode titled "Enemy At The Gate" in which Frasier holds up a line of people waiting to exit a parking garage because he refuses to pay the $2.00 parking fee when he didn't actually park in the garage.

It's absurd on any level but especially on a show of this caliber. Here is an educated, successful, and intelligent man driving a BMW who refuses to pay $2.00. I wanted to reach into the tv and smack him.

[godisawesome]

The funny thing is TMP actually had a decent conflict going on between Kirk and Decker throughout the film. It gets resolved in a stupid manner with Decker rapturing himself, but it was actual human drama which stemmed both from Kirk's character as well as his flaws. Looking back it's hard to believe Roddenberry allowed Kirk to be written as so desperate to get the Enterprise back he'd kick out the rightful captain and get into silly arguments in which he's clearly in the wrong, to say nothing of his getting his science officer killed and nearly destroying the ship by ordering it into warp when the engines weren't working. Kirk's jealousy of Decker was the only human part of the whole movie, and hardly the 'ideal human' it seemed Roddenbbery wanted to convey in TNG.

Rodenberry’s “Utopoian Humanity” schtick didn’t really come into being until he was working on TNG’s first season; he had no problem with flawed humanity and internal conflict on TOS, and the Decker vs Kirk element of TMP shows he was still fine with it at that point. I think he may have been reacting *against* the clearly military and very human-flaw-based drama of WOK - TOS had always tried to blend optimistic Utopianism and good old-fashioned Western-style drama, and he may have felt that he “had” to compensate for WOK going Horatio Hornblower In Space.

Still, I’d say that it ironically wasn’t his overcompensation in TNG’s season one that caused the worst episode - it was Code of Honor being the prefect mix of a subpar script with a genuinely terrible director who injected all kinds of worse elements into an already unfortunate script. I mean, it takes a special kind fo terrible to take a sexist script and then add in a racist element as well. If I remember correctly, Roddenberry and co. forbade the director from ever working on Star Trek again,

[TriggerWarning]

Frasier Here is an educated, successful, and intelligent man driving a BMW who refuses to pay $2.00. I wanted to reach into the tv and smack him.

Some people are that way. My sperm donor, who unfortunately also goes by the moniker of my father, was a college professor with a PHD in Zoology. Extremely intelligent but he was beyond crazy when it came to money. This is absolutely something he would do. He always checked his receipts on getting home and once discovered that the grocery store had double charged him on a 30 cent item (this was in the 80's so maybe $1.00 in todays money). He drove the 20 miles to the store and back to get his money back. The fact that it cost him more in gas than he got back didn't matter, it was the principle of the matter of him being overcharged.

When I was little I thought it was cool to pump gas. One time I let two drops of gas hit the ground instead of properly shaking out the nozzle to get all the gas in the car. You would have thought I'd just burned a $100 bill the way he acted.

He was also completely nuts about parking. He lived in Baltimore so when I'd be sent to stay with him during the summers he'd sometimes take me to Washington DC to see the Smithsonian and other highlights. We would park nearly 3 miles from them though in order to get "free" parking.

I can absolutely see my father doing something like Frasier did.

[Deathstroke]

Frasier was an incredible show that still holds the record for most Emmy wins by a tv comedy.

But in season 10, there was an episode titled "Enemy At The Gate" in which Frasier holds up a line of people waiting to exit a parking garage because he refuses to pay the $2.00 parking fee when he didn't actually park in the garage.

It's absurd on any level but especially on a show of this caliber. Here is an educated, successful, and intelligent man driving a BMW who refuses to pay $2.00. I wanted to reach into the tv and smack him.

Yep...that was the episode that got me to seriously consider dropping the show from my regular viewing. But when they renewed it for the 11th season and brought back some of the creative team that provided the show's funnier material, I stayed with it.

But this was an atrociously bad episode.

[From The Shadows]

But I could at least enjoy Code of Honor for its cheesiness/awfulness for fun. There is nothing enjoyable about my least favorite episode.