THE STYLINGS OF LYLA GARRITY, CHRISTIAN RADIO DJ*: The AV Club has a roundtable discussion about the worst episodes of good shows. I agree with some (see above; see also 30 Rock, live episode). But the first one that came to mind for me was the black market episode of Battlestar Galactica. Should I ever manage to get Spacewoman to watch that show, we'll skip right over that one there.
Yours?
*Featuring Logan from Gilmore Girls.
And the reference to Logan reminds me of the worst single episode of Gilmore Girls, the one that was an effort at a backdoor pilot for the "Jess and the Skaterats" show.
ReplyDeleteI just finished a full re-watch-through of the West Wing. I've watched the first four seasons many times but this was the first time I've done the whole thing since the finale aired.
ReplyDeleteSeasons five and six were worse than I remembered. There was the weird thing with Nancy McNally's voice in the one where they introduce Kate Harper. There's the utterly nonsensical choosing of Bob Russell as VP.
But the only episodes I skipped in my rewatch were The Long Goodbye and The Debate. And since The Long Goodbye is from season 4, I think it's the perfect choice for this. Although I think I maybe skip it more because it makes me sad than because of the quality.
I also have a pretty complicated relationship with Night Five.
The Columbus Day episode of The Sopranos belongs on the list.
ReplyDeleteAlso, from back when ER was good, Benton Goes To Mississippi was not.<span> </span>
The vast majority of clip shows would fit but be too generic a suggestion, right?
ReplyDeleteMy So-Called Life Halloween and Christmas episodes. Just not a fan.
Yep, otherwise we'd need to discuss Shades of Grey in ST:TNG. And nobody wants that.
ReplyDeleteIs there a bad episode of "The Wire" (as opposed to bad plot points in otherwise good episodes)? Maybe the one where Richard Belzer shows up?
ReplyDeleteI like the black market episode of BSG, but it's completely unnecessary to the arc of the story. It strikes me as one of those things that writers need to work out so they understand the universe in which they are working, but it did need to be made into an episode.
ReplyDeleteI never cared for some of the episodes of MASH that tried a different narrative in order to show how serious Larry Gelbert, et al., were that "war isn't funny" -- Yankee Doodle Doctor with the ridiculous coda, and Point of View, the episode shot entirely from the eyeballs of a wounded soldier -- I suppose the latter was important television, and the former was so early in the series that it wasn't yet clear how the audience would take the show -- but I always find those episodes that fight the basic format of the show largely unwatchable.
Huh -- I thought that "Access" was the clear winner for "Worst West Wing Episode."<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteThere's an argument for "Access," particularly given how gimmicky it is and the continuity problems it creates, as well as for the one from season 5 or 6 that's centered around a flashback with Leo and Kate Harper, but "Long Goodbye" "wins" for me because:
ReplyDelete1. West Wing Seasons 1-4 are a VERY different show from Seasons 5-7 in terms of quality and style, and "Long Goodbye" is the clear "winner" from those first four seasons, unless you REALLY hate "Isaac and Ishmael," which is clunky, but well-intentioned, and basically admits its problems up front.
2. It basically discards the entire cast other than Janney and has nothing to do with anything that goes on before or later--CJ's backstory is never spoken of earlier or subsequently, she doesn't follow through by becoming an advocate for Alzheimer's funding, and the actions of the episode have no consequence. (The closest to continuity we have is her falling into bed with Matthew Modine as an arguable indicator of CJ's difficulty in making good decisions about men as a tiein to the CJ/Hoynes plotline.)
Man, did I hate Sidney, the army psychiatrist who ostentatiously employed humor as a tool to demonstrate that he was dead serious.
ReplyDeleteThe BSG episode I don't really like is the one from season 1 on the prison ship. I forget what it's called, but we stopped rewatching the series a couple months ago when we got up to that ep and I just never had the desire to hit "play."
ReplyDelete"For British Eyes Only" from Arrested Development -- and I generally liked the Rita arc.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with Meghan's call on MSCL. I just made a deal with Marsha that I'd watch Friday Night Lights and get through the rough spots if she'd watch MSCL and forgive it the strange forays into magic realism in the Halloween and Christmas episodes, which were totally out of place with the tone of the rest of the show.
ReplyDeleteThe article is so, so right on Doublemeat Palace, but even worse is "Beer Bad." Alcohol is BAD. So BAD it trns Buffy into a CAVEGIRL! Oy vey.
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