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The Most Disappointing Episodes Of The Greatest Shows

By TWoP Staff | Friday, August 7, 2009, 2:02 PM


Jennifer Aniston ruins an episode of "30 Rock."
James Devaney/WireImage.com

We often complain about lame television shows, but in all fairness, even the most truly wonderful programs of the last 10 years have had their share of subpar episodes. Here are the installments of TV's best that we prefer to pretend never happened and would erase from our DVD sets if it were possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"30 Rock"
Worst Episode: "The One With the Cast of 'Night Court'"
Why: There's a "Night Court" reunion, brought on solely by the fact that Kenneth is upset about the changes to the page uniform and he wanted to see a resolution to that show. This just reeked of a desperate way to squeeze in these guest stars. And when "Night Court" wasn't in session, guest star Jennifer Aniston tried to take over the show with her crazy horny antics. Terrible.

 

"House"
Worst Episode: "One Day, One Room"
Why: This insufferably heavy-handed episode featured a clinic patient who got stuck with House as her doctor and then begged him to stay at her side for hours after she revealed she'd been raped so they could discuss God and the meaning of life. So boring to watch, so preachy to listen to.

 

"Chuck"
Worst Episode: "Chuck Versus the Predator"
Why: The cheesy looking Predator planes swooping through Los Angeles to attack random Buy More locations were so visually unimpressive, and the fact that sudden gang war broke out between our loveable Buy More gang and the Beverly Hills store's crew was just a ridiculous tacked-on plot device.

 

"Gossip Girl"
Worst Episode: "Woman on the Verge"
Why: First we find out that the whole setup for this show, the whole reason Serena skipped town and then came back in a hushed manner, was because she killed someone. That could have been awesome, except she didn't actually murder anyone. Instead she was just in a room acting inappropriately for her age when an older guy snorted a line of coke and then dropped dead in front of her. What an anticlimax.

 

"Lost"
Worst Episode: "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Why: Just knowing that Bai Ling was the guest star should have prepared us for the awfulness that was about to unfold before our very eyes. Nearly the entire episode was a flashback about Jack's time in Thailand where he met a tattooer/prostitute who could see into his soul and brand him appropriately, except she didn't really want to do it and he basically forced her, and then he got beaten up by some locals. The end. We're still shaking our heads about this one.

 

"Battlestar Galactica"
Worst Episode: "Black Market"
Why: Apollo's got guilt issues because his old girlfriend was pregnant and he ditched her right before the Cylons attacked, so he goes to a hooker and helps her with her life and her kid. During the course of all this, he stumbles across a black market, which he tries to break up, but along the way he kills the ringleader and then decides the criminal ship Prometheus should be allowed to continue to deal drugs because that's what makes the world go round.

 

"Friday Night Lights"
Worst Episode: "Last Days of Summer"
Why: Remember when this series was about a family and football? Well, it was hard to tell that by the premiere of Season 2, when Landry and Tyra killed a man. Yes, that's right: killed. He may have attempted to rape Tyra first, and he quite possibly deserved it, but these are supposed to be smart people. And this well-written drama is better than ridiculous murder subplots that belonged in a soap opera.

 

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
Worst Episode: "Where the Wild Things Are"
Why: The whole thing revolved around Buffy and Riley having lots and lots of sex at a frat house. A poltergeist made them do it, apparently. Did we mention the whole never-ending sex session happened during a frat party, and that Xander and Anya tried to have sex in an ice cream truck with little kids standing outside?

 

"The Office"
Worst Episode: "Frame Toby"
Why: This one just showed Michael Scott and Dwight in a mean-spirited light that really left us with a bitter taste in our mouths. Michael's irrational hatred for Toby is usually funny, but trying to get him arrested for narcotics possession was anything but. And why did Pam suddenly become an annoying nudge with her passive-aggressive signs in the kitchen telling people to clean up?

 

"The West Wing"
Worst Episode: "The Indians in the Lobby"
Why: Quite possibly the preachiest episode of the preachiest series in the history of television, this centered around CJ being forced to delay her Thanksgiving plans while she listened to two Munsee Indians who refused to leave the White House lobby until Congress resolved a land dispute. This, of course, was just an excuse to make a ham-fisted episode about the egregious offenses against Native Americans.

 

"The Sopranos"
Worst Episode: "Commendatori"
Why: This trip to Italy was like watching a travel documentary that just happened to have the members of Tony's mob families in it. Seriously, was this episode just an excuse for the cast to get a free trip? Even more annoying was the fact that Carmela spent her portion of the episode whining about how she didn't get to go.

 

"24"
Worst Episode: "Day 6: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM"
Why: This is the episode in which we learned that, for some reason, everyone in Jack Bauer's extended family is evil. It started with Jack torturing his brother, Graem, and ended with his dad, Phillip, murdering Graem so he couldn't be questioned further about the dastardly deeds that Papa Bauer had orchestrated. So contrived, so weird, and, above all, so unnecessary.

 

TALK ABOUT IT: What was the worst episode of your favorite show?

 

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