Terrible episodes of great TV shows

[Mystic Muse]

Taste. It cannot be argued.

Don't get me wrong, I love Friends. I've probably seen every episode I DO Like at least half a dozen times by now, and probably even the ones I don't like more than once. But every series has episodes that, if not bad, are at least objectively worse than others in some aspect.

"There isn't a single episode of friends I don't enjoy." is a very different thing from "Friends has no bad episodes at all."

[Lethologica]

Avilan didn't say Friends' episodes were of uniform quality, which is basically the position he'd have to take to be disagreeing with "some episodes are worse than others in some respect."

Of course, as someone who has no interest in Friends to begin with, this whole conversation is nigh incomprehensible to me.

[Mystic Muse]

Avilan didn't say Friends' episodes were of uniform quality, which is basically the position he'd have to take to be disagreeing with "some episodes are worse than others in some respect."

Of course, as someone who has no interest in Friends to begin with, this whole conversation is nigh incomprehensible to me.

I think I'm just tired and nitpicking at comments like this for no particular reason as a result. Sorry.

[Gnoman]

On balance, I would prefer a series to leave on a strong note than diminish and fade away.

For every show I've seen that had too many episodes and drastically dropped in quality (and there's more than a few), I can think of at least one or two that had too few, or drastically dropped in quality because it looked like there were going to be too few episodes and things got compressed.

[Legato Endless]

Even Firefly had The Message. (And, if you ask people who aren't me, the movie -- but I, for one, like the movie just fine.)

Given the lack of abysmal failure theaters have experienced with Serenity screenings in the last decade, it is more likely than not the folks who dislike the film are a vocal minority.

Message and Heart of Gold I hold up as bad episodes. Message had a funny moment with Jayne's hat, but that doesn't scrape it off the bottom of the barrel.

Seconding Heart of Gold. Nothing in that episode is redeeming.

For every show I've seen that had too many episodes and drastically dropped in quality (and there's more than a few), I can think of at least one or two that had too few, or drastically dropped in quality because it looked like there were going to be too few episodes and things got compressed.

Indeed. The aforementioned axiom also ignores cases where one season declines precipitous, only to rally into the next.

[Mystic Muse]

It's been a while since I've seen heart of Gold or the Message, and if they're that bad, I don't care to re-see them. Anyone care to explain what's so awful?

[Dienekes]

It's been a while since I've seen heart of Gold or the Message, and if they're that bad, I don't care to re-see them. Anyone care to explain what's so awful?

The Message: Starts out with a focus on Kaylee and Simon, one of the weakest parts of the show. Not only that but Kaylee is fantastically bitchy. I have literally no idea what people see in this pairing. To use the show mentioned above, their relationship is about as interesting as Ross and Rachel. I tolerate it, to get to the good parts of the episodes.

Anyway after that piece of annoyance, we're introduced to the one semi-redeeming feature of the episode: Jayne's hat. That's it. The episode is horrible, but it does at least have Jayne's hat.

We are then introduced to an old war buddy, who is annoying, selfish, and we're supposed to be forced to feel for this guy and his problems despite never hearing of him before. Beyond his annoying personality we're set to deal with more focus on who this new guy may mix up the Simon Kaylee pairing, oooh nooo.

Then of course the guy betrays them, but it's all because of mishearing 1 sentence and no one bothering to explain despite having ample opportunity to do so. The only reason they don't is because the writers decided to make everyone dumb for a couple scenes. Just overall, a dull, bore of an episode. But with a very cunning hat.


Heart of Gold: Doesn't even have a hat to distract us on the bad writing. The villain is so blatantly stereotypical, and it just reeks of someone trying to shove girl power down our throats. Look, I like strong female characters as much as anyone. Zoey? Awesome. The fact she can totally kick Mal's ass is great. Also with her much weaker husband is one of the few romances that take up the show that isn't boring. But anyway, stereotypical completely irredeemable misogynist villain. Who's not even memorable. Like Mischa for all the problems of Train Job, was a great villain that was also completely one-note and irredeemable. It can be done well, but this guy was just a pain. Like the author trying to show how bad he was to spread the message of the episode. But much like Mal says to Shepherd Book, I hate being preached too. Especially if it is done in such a ham-handed way. Poor writing. Inara acting like a complete hypocrite just to set up some more DRAMA all makes this episode shine out as just bad. Other than how dull it is the only real thing that stands out is a scene between Wash and Kaylee, which was funny, because Alan Tudyk has great comedic timing. But a good scene can't save a 45 minute episode.

[Wardog]

I can't remember what happened in The Message (even after reading the synopsis on Wikipedia), but I didn't mind Heart of Gold. Plus, it included the lines:

Inara: It sounds like something this crew can handle. I can't guarantee they'll handle it particularly well, but...
Nandi: If they got guns and brains at all.
Inara: They've got guns...

[Lady_Springtime]

Is there any episode of Stargate SG-1 remotely comparable to Emancipation in awfulness? I can't think of one, most of their nadir is in my mind just somewhat forgettable that it's hard to point to. Unlike Star Trek where there's usually a fairly big delineation between the bad, the okay, and the good.

Personally, while the implications of Emancipation are pretty awful, I thought The Other Guys and Avenger 2.0 were completely unwatchable.

[SZbNAhL]

That episode of Batman Beyond that retconned Barbara's crush on Bruce into the two of them dating. It was the terrible episode of the entire Diniverse and rewatching it years later when I'm old enough to realise the implications was one of those "ruined my childhood" moments.

[Marlowe]

Hm. People have mentioned TTGL's poor 4th episode, I've mentioned PGSM's poor 4th episode, is it just me or is it a tendency for Japanese series to have somewhat "meh" fourth episodes? This seems to be the usual point in the production where the basic concepts of the series have been established, presumably the audience has had its interest grabbed, and the secondary production team get to take over for a bit while the main team take a break and the writers work on the next big idea.

[Aedilred]

Fawlty Towers never had a bad episode because there's only like, 12 of them. Which is something I feel a lot of American shows could learn from.

With that said, and while I don't think any of the Fawlty Towers episodes are bad, per se, the first one (A Touch of Class) is noticeably a lot worse than the rest of the series.

Of course British and American television work quite differently so comparing them directly doesn't always make sense, but I think some of the reason for the vaunted "short, high-quality" British TV shows (mostly sitcoms) is to do with a generally smaller writing team. British sitcoms tend to have somewhere in the region of two writers who write the entire show, with some creative input from other sources but ultimately it boils down to them, while American sitcoms often have a much larger stable of writers. It's both cause and effect of the relatively short seasons, I suspect. I think it lends itself to greater consistency of quality in UK shows, but it also means there's a much smaller well of creative talent and inspiration to draw on, so it runs dry much more quickly. It also means the longevity of the show is much more dependent on the survival of a particular creative relationship, and if that runs into difficulties (as it did with Fawlty Towers) that's basically the end of the show. Not to mention of course the inherent potential flaw that with less creative oversight there's a chance one or two people will come up with a whole show only they think is funny. Who can forget the Horne and Corden sketch show, so bad that it led people to question the future of the entire genre? (The answer, of course, is "everybody"). Is anyone ever going to tell Noel Fielding that surrealism is not a substitute for jokes? What on earth was going on in the second series of Psychoville?

Inasmuch as it's a rule, there are a lot of exceptions in any case. To any who claim that sitcoms that last more than about thirty (let alone fifty!) episodes are bound to tail off, or that a large pool of writers, or even the inherent commercialism of American TV, leads to a lower quality of writing, I would point to the first seven seasons of The Simpsons and say "look ye here and behold". There have been plenty of clunkers throughout British TV history, after all, and even our very own apparently endless undead formulaic sitcom, in Last of the Summer Wine.

[Avilan the Grey]

Also, Fawlty Towers HAS won a number of things over the years declaring it the best sitcom ever. In the world. It's not exactly Two and a Half Men.

[Aotrs Commander]

Also, Fawlty Towers HAS won a number of things over the years declaring it the best sitcom ever. In the world. It's not exactly Two and a Half Men.

By the British Film Industry (in 2000)¹, yes, but not the British public (in 2004), where it only came 5th and had only half the number of votes as the winner.

The last big where Dad's Army (4th), Vicar of Dibley (3rd) Blackadder (and) and Only Fools and Horses (1st) (with That One Clip of Del Boy (is that how you spell it?) falling through the bar endlessly shown).

(Red Dwarf was shockingly only 18th, though so what do the rest of the British public know?)

Though - on topic - Red Dwarf had its low points as well, season seven having more of them than most. (Though it ALSO had that extended Ace Rimmer fights Nazis segement and the Arnold Rimmer experience, so it balances out...)



¹Which also listed two things I'd never heard of in the top five (so go figure) and Blue Peter, oddly, at number six... (A decade earlier, Blue Peter had still been what it once was, but it largerly petered (aha) out when they slowly phased out the bits like the ones that actually encouraged kids to make things that were really good. Myabe theybroguht it back much later, I dunno, I haven't watched it for twenty years, if it is indeed still going...)

[factotum]

(Red Dwarf was shockingly only 18th, though so what do the rest of the British public know?)

Though - on topic - Red Dwarf had its low points as well, season seven having more of them than most. (Though it ALSO had that extended Ace Rimmer fights Nazis segement and the Arnold Rimmer experience, so it balances out...)

To be fair to the British public, the memory of seasons 7 and 8 of Red Dwarf would have been quite fresh in the mind in 2004 (since they were shown in 1997 and 1999 respectively), so them marking the series as a whole down for that maybe isn't surprising.

Although, having said that, they had yet to see the horror that was "Back to Earth" in 2009...

[Aotrs Commander]

To be fair to the British public, the memory of seasons 7 and 8 of Red Dwarf would have been quite fresh in the mind in 2004 (since they were shown in 1997 and 1999 respectively), so them marking the series as a whole down for that maybe isn't surprising.

Although, having said that, they had yet to see the horror that was "Back to Earth" in 2009...

That is a fair point.



I would say Back to Earth was better than the 7/8 median... But the cost-mandated lack of studio audience (and necessity of setting in on Earth) really hurt it. It just took some of the edge off the guy's usual performances. This sort of comedy is a little bit like panto (something I know very well...), the presence of the audience gives you that little boost extra to play up to.

Fortunately, of course, it did well enough to give us RD 10, 11 and 12 (of which the former was back to the high standard of the earlier seasons, the others obviously pending).

[VoxRationis]

I'm going to go against the crowd and say that Korra's "Endgame," or at least Aang's involvement in it, didn't seem like that much of a problem to me. I considered it rather improbable that a single bloodbender—one who is currently dead, no less—could permanently shut down the bending of a generations-spanning cosmic entity with a thousand past lives to act as backup power. And since Raava hadn't been written in yet (writing her at all was a big mistake in my opinion—I was not fond of the spirit arc one bit), Aang made the most sense to symbolize the connection to the Avatar's past lives. Him giving a speech and Korra's bending being restored was pretty inevitable.

I myself would nominate the equivalent episodes of the second season, which were basically the writers throwing flashy, gimmicky fights and techniques at us without any real sense or continuity (Really? Korra can transform into a giant spirit-kaiju without drawing on anything Avatar-related? Can anyone just do that? If so, why didn't any of the others try it? She could have used the backup.). Plus Korra's decision at the end, which was incredibly poor—given everything the show has taught us thus far about how humans and spirits tend to interact, the expected result of her decision is nothing less than the collapse of human civilization and the return to the "hide on the backs of lion-turtles" way of life—and wasn't questioned by any of the characters, including Tenzin, who has spent his time thus far building up "stern, demanding mentor" cred.

[Cikomyr]

Yes (Prime) Minister is a (subjectively) hilarious series about the problems and challenges of inner government workings. If you are into that sort of thing, its a great series.

They talk about a wide variety of topics, and most of them are easily understandable and you get why each factions care about their positions.

Except for the episode "A Conflict of Interest". Its a completely meaningless and mungled episode, where you cant figure out why you should care either way about who the next Governor of the Bank of England should be, or even why the characters care either way. Its boring, and except for a few bits, the jokes fell completely flat.

[Knaight]

I'm going to go against the crowd and say that Korra's "Endgame," or at least Aang's involvement in it, didn't seem like that much of a problem to me. I considered it rather improbable that a single bloodbender—one who is currently dead, no less—could permanently shut down the bending of a generations-spanning cosmic entity with a thousand past lives to act as backup power. And since Raava hadn't been written in yet (writing her at all was a big mistake in my opinion—I was not fond of the spirit arc one bit), Aang made the most sense to symbolize the connection to the Avatar's past lives. Him giving a speech and Korra's bending being restored was pretty inevitable.

That's the least of the issues with "Endgame" though. Anon hijacked a social movement with a lot of very legitimate criticisms, and while Anon was revealed as a fraud as far as the movement was concerned, those legitimate issues were still there. A period of disunity followed by the emergence of another leader makes sense, the movement balkanizing makes sense, any number of things make sense. The one they picked, where the entire movement just fades away as soon as the leader is gone? The whole concept of a social problem being solved by the leader of the underclass being beaten up by the hero is unbelievable at best.

[Keltest]

That's the least of the issues with "Endgame" though. Anon hijacked a social movement with a lot of very legitimate criticisms, and while Anon was revealed as a fraud as far as the movement was concerned, those legitimate issues were still there. A period of disunity followed by the emergence of another leader makes sense, the movement balkanizing makes sense, any number of things make sense. The one they picked, where the entire movement just fades away as soon as the leader is gone? The whole concept of a social problem being solved by the leader of the underclass being beaten up by the hero is unbelievable at best.

I don't find it to be that implausible. Besides the fact that he doesn't actually give a crap about the movement itself, he is also a bender, so having it succeed at its goal is actively detrimental to him in the long run. Combine that with his general personality and it makes total sense that he would organize the movement such that without himself (let alone the lieutenants that abandoned ship on him), it wouldn't be able to function.

[Peelee]

Yes (Prime) Minister

Stupid question. Is that a spinoff of Yes Minister, or is it the same show and differently titled in the U.S.?

[Lethologica]

I'm going to go against the crowd and say that Korra's "Endgame," or at least Aang's involvement in it, didn't seem like that much of a problem to me. I considered it rather improbable that a single bloodbender—one who is currently dead, no less—could permanently shut down the bending of a generations-spanning cosmic entity with a thousand past lives to act as backup power. And since Raava hadn't been written in yet (writing her at all was a big mistake in my opinion—I was not fond of the spirit arc one bit), Aang made the most sense to symbolize the connection to the Avatar's past lives. Him giving a speech and Korra's bending being restored was pretty inevitable.

Korra's bending being restored was absolutely inevitable. But Korra's lack of spiritual connection to the whole Avatar thing was one of her weaknesses, and a reason she was an interesting foil to Aang. Considering there was a whole book coming up called 'Spirit', it would have been nice to make spiritual growth and regaining her non-Air bending a goal for the second season, and skipping straight to 'connect to the Avatar State and regain bending' felt somewhat unearned. But IIRC the writers weren't sure there would be a second season, so what they did is understandable even if I think they should have done it differently.

including Tenzin, who has spent his time thus far building up "stern, demanding mentor" cred.

My memory of this is that Tenzin spent his time developing from a terrible mentor who was jealous of his own daughter's effortless spiritual connection to someone who admitted he had no idea what he was doing. Which is...not a terrible character arc, but doesn't exactly build mentor cred, or proceed naturally to conflicting with the Avatar's decision.

I don't find it to be that implausible. Besides the fact that he doesn't actually give a crap about the movement itself, he is also a bender, so having it succeed at its goal is actively detrimental to him in the long run. Combine that with his general personality and it makes total sense that he would organize the movement such that without himself (let alone the lieutenants that abandoned ship on him), it wouldn't be able to function.

The movement would fall apart. The sentiment behind the movement wouldn't. I think the writers were trying to sell that there weren't actually any legit sentiments behind the movement, and Amon manufactured anti-Bender sentiment from thin air as part of his cult of personality, so of course it vanished when he was delegitimized. Which is boring and silly, but at least it's consistent. Except, oh wait, there's Tarrlok legitimizing all the anti-Bender sentiment Amon whipped up by turning into the oppressor Amon railed against. So, never mind, it's not consistent, just silly.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Stupid question. Is that a spinoff of Yes Minister, or is it the same show and differently titled in the U.S.?

It's not a stupid question: Yes Prime Minister was a sequel to Yes Minister, with the Right Honourable Jim Hacker promoted to the eponymous post.

[Knaight]

The movement would fall apart. The sentiment behind the movement wouldn't. I think the writers were trying to sell that there weren't actually any legit sentiments behind the movement, and Amon manufactured anti-Bender sentiment from thin air as part of his cult of personality, so of course it vanished when he was delegitimized. Which is boring and silly, but at least it's consistent. Except, oh wait, there's Tarrlok legitimizing all the anti-Bender sentiment Amon whipped up by turning into the oppressor Amon railed against. So, never mind, it's not consistent, just silly.

Even the movement wouldn't. The particular organizations are all pretty much doomed, but a movement is broader than its organizations, and there are a lot of people around who were invested enough to be activists, and then a fair few invested enough to be outright militant (mostly after Tarrlok escalated things). It's just such an unsatisfying ending because of how ridiculously clean it is when it has no business being that way.

[Legato Endless]

The movement would fall apart. The sentiment behind the movement wouldn't. I think the writers were trying to sell that there weren't actually any legit sentiments behind the movement, and Amon manufactured anti-Bender sentiment from thin air as part of his cult of personality, so of course it vanished when he was delegitimized.

Even the movement falling apart is very suspect. Social movements are an informal plurality working from a shared cultural identity. The reveal of Amon wouldn't change any of that. Furthermore, even if it were manufactured, the idea than Amon's revelation would shatter the movement remains ludicrous. It is a trivial task to find dozens of leaders of movements in history who were revealed to be hypocritical frauds in one form or another and that didn't destabilize the moment, or even the individuals base of power one wit.

I don't find it to be that implausible. Besides the fact that he doesn't actually give a crap about the movement itself, he is also a bender, so having it succeed at its goal is actively detrimental to him in the long run. Combine that with his general personality and it makes total sense that he would organize the movement such that without himself (let alone the lieutenants that abandoned ship on him), it wouldn't be able to function.

Hmm, whats that old quote? The Graveyards are full of indispensable men.

What are you describing is cartoonish and bureaucratically impossible. Any social movement of sufficient sweep has never been so organized. Unless this was nothing more than a click, or some other variant of small social club, then no, Amon could not just magically organize ethereal social forces to simply rise and fall with his life. Unless the movement was just entirely daft and held together only by his persona then what occurred is the chief domain of bad juvenile fantasy. No one was a true believer? They were all just in it for the trend? Not anything resembling real life. And if it had no point or justification, then you're left with a trite black and white conflict. Either way, a fairly cloying fable of a real life phenomenon.

[Ceiling_Squid]

The thing is, save for the three-year timeskip between season 3-4, the events of LoK do take place over a relatively-short period, which hardly gives the anti-bender movement much time to reform. I suppose it's safe to handwave the idea that between the water tribe embassy bombing, the giant dark avatar attack, and the spirit world bleeding into the natural world, there's simply too many crises going on for a new cohesive movement to emerge.

Though, season 3 would have been a perfect time to at least mention it again. New benders emerging spontaneously would have brought it boiling back up. The Red Lotus also would have loved to milk the chaos.

Ah, well. I like the show a lot, but it is an exercise in missed opportunities sometimes.

Edit: also, for the sake of saying it aloud, it *is* still a cartoon marketed for a major kid's programming network. I'm not shocked to see the simplicity of only one major threat per season, with loose ends neatly and unrealistically tied up. I suppose we should be glad to see some ongoing consequences at all, in the form of Korra's trauma, Asami's relationship w/ her father being revisited, the public approval for the avatar dropping over time, etc...

[Knaight]

The thing is, save for the three-year timeskip between season 3-4, the events of LoK do take place over a relatively-short period, which hardly gives the anti-bender movement much time to reform. I suppose it's safe to handwave the idea that between the water tribe embassy bombing, the giant dark avatar attack, and the spirit world bleeding into the natural world, there's simply too many crises going on for a new cohesive movement to emerge.

So where is the undirected discontent then? Even if the loss of Amon left the movement with no leadership whatsoever (and I'm not buying that), you'd still see individual and small group action. The really gigantic mass protests and similar would be harder to pull off, but there would still be a lot of people doing something.

[Ceiling_Squid]

So where is the undirected discontent then? Even if the loss of Amon left the movement with no leadership whatsoever (and I'm not buying that), you'd still see individual and small group action. The really gigantic mass protests and similar would be harder to pull off, but there would still be a lot of people doing something.

I said it was a justifiable "handwave", not a logical omission.

The fact is, the second season's story is not about the Equalists anymore, it's about the Water Tribe civil war and the dark spirit shenanigans.

A fragmented Equalist movement could (and should) certainly be surging in the background (and I would have loved for it to get a mention or two), but the plot has no reason to show it.

I realize this is a meta-explanation based purely on economy of script, but jeez. This is just a cartoon show. At some point you have to accept it's limitations and shortcomings.

[Keltest]

So where is the undirected discontent then? Even if the loss of Amon left the movement with no leadership whatsoever (and I'm not buying that), you'd still see individual and small group action. The really gigantic mass protests and similar would be harder to pull off, but there would still be a lot of people doing something.

The important question here is not "where is it", but "is it relevant to the main characters?", and the answer is "not really". The protagonists don't oppose the movement because of what it stood for, they did it because it was hurting people and going after them, specifically, in exceptionally destructive ways. LoK isn't a show about politicians working for reform and equality, so once the movement stops with the armed revolution thing, the protagonists stop caring about it. They might be keeping an eye out to make sure the armed revolt doesn't start up again, but it isn't their jobs to quell civil unrest or enact reforms.

[Cikomyr]

Stupid question. Is that a spinoff of Yes Minister, or is it the same show and differently titled in the U.S.?

Like its been said, its not a stupid question at all. Although i dont feel like the explanation given it 100% accurate.

Yes Prime Minister is.. basically the 2 seasons that immediately followed the first three seasons of Yes Minister. They flowed immediately after the events that ended Yes Minister. I dont feel they are two different series, just the same series that changed name to a more appropriate title when it was relevant.