Worst episode of your favorite TV show(s)
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StarGate SG1
Last two episodes of season 8
We just had a huge battle between the free Jaffa, Goa'uld, and the Replicators followed up by the defeat of one the shows greatest villains. We are then, tacked on to the end, given two episodes based in time travel where it is revealed that absolutely nothing happened.
Last two episodes of season 8
We just had a huge battle between the free Jaffa, Goa'uld, and the Replicators followed up by the defeat of one the shows greatest villains. We are then, tacked on to the end, given two episodes based in time travel where it is revealed that absolutely nothing happened.
I heard it very differantly, and that it was a giant snafu between the creators and Gainex. I suppose it's still a funding issue, but the bottom line is they were promised a lot more episdes than they were able to produce and had to basically rush things towards the end of production to avoid simply having the series end with no continuation.SajuukKhar said:
This was the story back when it had finished it's VHS release, and ADV had pages like "Human Insturmentality Project" up to try and explain it. The movies and OVAs were largely self financed despite studio names on them for copyright issues. Certain collectors items like the "Air" book given out during original showings of one of the movie existed in part because it was known that even the movies were unable to really handle it, as entire plot threads were still dropped and certain key concepts from the beginning were basically ignored or overwritten towards the end of the series. The movies mostly just showing some of the events happening in the real world, but not as intended, and still with major plot holes and on a far more brief level than expected. Questions like why Shinji would want to throttle Asuka (there is supposed to be more to it than her simply not being able to emotionally support him towards the end), the debatable question of people reconstituting themselves after the end, and of course the greatly cut down battle between EVA-02 and the US producted knockoff EVA units (and questions like how it was supposed to even be possible to duplicate a singular artifact like The Lance Of Longinus, and why these morons didn't do it sooner). It's been a long time (very long) but basically things they wanted to cover in the series and movies but couldn't were apparently things like this:
You might remember early on how they defined that everyone in Shinji's school was a potential EVA pilot. Something that makes little or no sense when you consider the eventual "reveals" about the why Shinji can pilot EVA 01 and how the entire technology is based off of family DNA. Leading to the whole "my mother the EVA" jokes and a lot of the "WTF" sentiment. Things were supposed to turn out substantially differantly apparently. The original script was allegedly going to feature a final arc where the Sele council actually takes the students from Shinji's school and trains them to pilot the foreign produced EVA units. The final arc basically comes down to Sele claiming that the only being capable of defeating God, was The Devil, which humanity created and backed to give him enough power. Shinji basically being the biblical "Satan" in these terms and doomed to destroy the world. Thus the students are convinced to train to fight him despite how powerful he has become. It's supposed to be cinemetized to raise the question as to whether or not this is possible. This leads to pretty much everyone in the end betraying Shinji and joining the other side, things play out similarly to the movies with the assault on Nerve HQs, the overall objectives of the Sele council, etc... Shinji not expected to be in EVA 01, etc... but the bottom line is Asuka is the last one left backing him, she actually beats the students, but in the end her own doubts overwhelm her and she's the one who basically brings down/transforms EVA 01 in a sort of biblical Judas referance. Hence the whole bit with Shinji strangling her, since it was a sort of penultimate betrayal on a literally cosmic scale, which was suppodedly animated before they realized they couldn't do the entire thing the way they were supposed to. Apparently in the very beginning they expected to have 26 more episodes to do all of this... and apparently also the duplicated Lances Of Longinus were supposed to have been made by Sele recovering it with a secret space program, and then literally melting it down to create duplicates, which is why all of the enemy pilots had weapons capable of breaching the AT Defense Barrier, even if none of them were as powerful as the full lance was. Going with the symbolism of the series though there are supposed also apparently be subtle referances woven in as Sele tells their story implying the question of why you would need aweapon legendary for having pierced Jesus to kill The Devi? He's not the target of the weapon... Not to mention an overall theme that Jesus dies for our sins allowing us to go to heaven, Shinji also "dies" but in doing so brings the "New Genesis" such as it is, and also dies at the hand of the very weapon Jerus was stabbed with in the cross, while himself being sacrificed trapped in a mecha that happens to assume a cross configuration when it happens.... a lot of this is in the Movies/OVAs to an extent in a greatly changed/abbrieviated form.... and yeah, if your best friend (despite how she acts at times) and the one person you trust and who has ultimatly backed you, turns around and pretty much stabs you in the back, you might not forgive that one. The basic arguement being that Jesus might forgive everyone else, no matter how evil, but not Judas... However at the same time going with the "forgives everyone" analogy notice Asuka opens her eyes after the throttling symbolizing that even she was eventually forgiven despite the rage as he never finished the job.
At any rate Evangelion is something that has caused huge internet debates both in terms of meaning of what was there, and in the business aspects. There are questions due to the mess about the validity of what anyone from Gainex to the series creator say at this point since positions and finance have apparently waffled so many times. The bottom line is that the people who actually know the truth made such a mess out of this that anything anyone says at this point no matter how connected is going to be the subject of huge debate.
Over a period of time I've come to believe that what I heard is at least plausible, and it's what I stand by. Others say I'm wrong and believe it with equal fervor. This is what I tell people when the subject comes up. Some don't like it because it doesn't mesh with something they want to believe (especially with the remakes), others take some comfort in it and feel it explainss a lot, which is pretty much my position on the subject.
Outlaw Star and Lost Universe both rank up there with my favorite Animes despite their apparently less than steller reception. Truthfully though I did hear differantly when it came to "Outlaw Star", since it apparently performed well enough to get a spiritual sequel set in the same universe called "Angel Links". Angel Links was pretty bad though IMO, it tried to do an overblown, unbelievable, "corny but cool" schtick in a differant vein than Outlaw Star, while including some very serious subplots and a downer ending intended to invoke all those "what is it to be human" and "it's right to face mortality" philsophical thoughts. It seemed to more or less universally be a failure... but Outlaw Star was apparently popular enough on it's own to get the spin off to begin with.ecoho said:
Don't get me wrong, I've heard the same things as you, but I've also heard differantly, and at the end of the day the bottom line is that it DID get a spin off (and I have it on DVD) and even with Anime and all the wierdness involving it and it's marketing/politics, that generally does not happen when something is a genuine failure.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - "Move Along Home", man what a stupid episode, stupid premise, stupid, stupid, stupid...
How I Met Your Mother - Everything from season 7 so far, how this show has dipped in quality so much is annoying
The Hurricane episode of Family Guy and South Park "Quest For Ratings", which is and obvious one but worth mentioning all the same!
How I Met Your Mother - Everything from season 7 so far, how this show has dipped in quality so much is annoying
The Hurricane episode of Family Guy and South Park "Quest For Ratings", which is and obvious one but worth mentioning all the same!
The entire fucking ninth season of Scrubs. No JD, no Janitor, no Doug, no Todd. I refuse to acknowledge that it is a part of the scrubs canon and simply a live action version of a toddler's doodling.
onto individual episodes of shows:
D-Grey Man, the guy who's Innocence was manifested as that ball he kicked, they gave him an entire fucking episode of backstory and shit then kill him off in 2 seconds (not even on-screen) in the next episode. Gayest 2 episodes of the series except for the ones with the woman who had the temporary time control.
Bleach: The first 3 filler arcs were impossible to watch without inflicting self-harm upon yourself.
Dragon Ball / DBZ : All of GT except for the baby arc because Super Baby Vegeta 2 looked awesome. The Garlic Junior episodes after the Namek/Frieza saga. Oh and the episode of the cell games arc where Android 16 tries to self-destruct on Cell and fails (It made me feel).
onto individual episodes of shows:
D-Grey Man, the guy who's Innocence was manifested as that ball he kicked, they gave him an entire fucking episode of backstory and shit then kill him off in 2 seconds (not even on-screen) in the next episode. Gayest 2 episodes of the series except for the ones with the woman who had the temporary time control.
Bleach: The first 3 filler arcs were impossible to watch without inflicting self-harm upon yourself.
Dragon Ball / DBZ : All of GT except for the baby arc because Super Baby Vegeta 2 looked awesome. The Garlic Junior episodes after the Namek/Frieza saga. Oh and the episode of the cell games arc where Android 16 tries to self-destruct on Cell and fails (It made me feel).
Doctor Who: The one with the pirates from the moffat era, holy shit that blew. Riddled with plotholes, a really forced father son plot and so much fan service it hurt my insides.
Venture Bros: The one with Guargantua One from the first season, just really slow and boring, really hurt that show for whoever watched it from the beginning. If Pirates of the Sargossa didn't exist I probably would have quit out of it.
Venture Bros: The one with Guargantua One from the first season, just really slow and boring, really hurt that show for whoever watched it from the beginning. If Pirates of the Sargossa didn't exist I probably would have quit out of it.
angel links went into production before the end of outlaw star and is one of the reasons it didnt get a second season as it failed horriblly and while outlaw star was well receved in the west it wasnt so much in japan at best it was receved ok and when toonami got canceled the studio cut the second seasonTherumancer said:
I would say that the second half of season 2 of Walking Dead is the worst. There's not much happening. If there is something happening, it's mostly stupid people doing stupid things. Thank god for season 3. Let's hope it can still manage to keep the good story.RedDeadFred said:
As for Dexter, it's mostly season 3 that has the worst episodes. It's bad because the writers clearly had an idea, but couldn't manage to make it work.
Andy Shandy said:
I don't find the Jack Black episode that bad, but for **** sake do I agree with you for the "high school kids" episode.
Buffy the vampire slayer: Tied between "Beer bad" and "Doublemeat palace".
What, the Ferengi eps were the funniest. Especially the one where Morn left Quark his supply of gold pressed latinum after he supposedly died. And then there the episode where they were on the Ferengi home planet and they were negotiating how much to charge for sitting down.Snownine said:
Weekday mornings in the unspectacular 90's. The Conan the Barbarian cartoon decided to have an ep where Conan gets whisked to the future and is showed how he dies and all of his friends die pretty gruesome deaths. Fucked me up, seriously.
The Cleveland spin-off had an episode about a "Daddy/Daughter Dance". That might be normal and harmless in the US but I just felt.....eewww! Never watched it again.
I loved Star Trek Voyager at the time but when you compare it to Farscape and Firefly it is a boring lumbering elephant looking for a place to die. With the exception of maybe three episodes i realize that it was just middle-of-the-road recycled crap.
Ya season 3 of Walking Dead is pretty awesome so far. I just hated how much time they spent on the farm in Season 2. Every episode felt like a bottle episode.Random Argument Man said:
I actually really liked season 3 of Dexter. I loved watching the friendship between Dexter and Migel (can't remember the spelling) grow and then disintegrate.
As for the Community episodes. I really like the Jack Black episode. Ya he's way over the top but Jeff was amazing in this episode. Watching Jeff's layed back, chilling with the gang attitude suddenly crumble due to Buddy's defiance was one of my favourite moments of the season.
I also hated the high school kids episode. I did like the Shirley and Pierce bonding though. I just hated the students so much that it was starting physically hurt me. I loved Pierce's comment though: "why are Jeff and Brita yelling at those handicapped kids?"
-All of that is actually a case of "All There in the Manual" None of that stuff was never actually meant to be explained in the TV show.Therumancer said:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllThereInTheManual
-Everyone in Shiji's class being Eva pilots makes sense, because all of their mothers are dead.
-And the whole bit of Shinji strangling Asuka was explained after the movie came out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Evangelion#Interpretation_of_the_ending
"Shinji renounced the world where all hearts had melted into one and accepted each other unconditionally. His desire... to live with 'others' ? other hearts that would sometimes reject him, even deny him. That is why the first thing he did after coming to his senses was to place his hands around Asuka's neck. To feel the existence of an 'other'. To confirm [make sure of] rejection and denial."
It's all debatable as I said because the creators and cast have said differant things at differant times. When releasig the movies/OVAs, etc... they of course were going to promote them as they were as opposed to by initial intent given what the finished product is. You don't make a product and say "yeah this sucks, and doesn't do it right" you present it on it's own merits and as objectively as you can. Ditto for the fights with Gainex, given they the creator DID wind up doing more business with them, there are limits to how much finger pointing he was going to do in the long run.SajuukKhar said:
Don't misunderstand me, this could very well all be correct, and it's a popular set of sources/theory, and apparently made it "officially" onto wiki. Especially seeing as it's easier to prove because the statements were made and intended for public consumpsion. I just personally don't happen to buy into that, I'm more of a believe that there was a far more extensive script that they could not follow, and the attempted wrap ups also ran into problem. It's not anything I can present as an absolute truth though (as I pointed out) just my personal beliefs on how it played out.
In suppot of the specific script/ideas series I'm referring to being correct, I'd point out in response that all the kids in Shinji's class being potential EVA pilots because they were missing their mothers makes no sense in the context of how they were forced to do the series, because our pilots can do their thing specifically because the EVA units include genetic material from THEIR parents, and there are not a bunch of EVA units standing around waiting for pilots that require this to make sense for them being there. Indeed the whole project/plan as finally presented revolves entirely around only the units we see being used, and none of those kids have the genetic material to take over piloting these suits. The US produced EVA units are NOT piloted by Shinji's classmates (I believe we get to see a shot of at least one of the pilots if I remember) but apparently by US military personell working for the Sele Council, and if they were intended to be the pilots they would have been in the US closer to Sele there rather than in Japan, since the entire purpose of that unit was to pretty much take down EVA 01 and 02 and destroy Nerv.
Hence why I tend to support this other script I heard about, because it ties these events together a bit better, in a more cohesive sequence. It does this with other things as well, but this is simply one point that sticks in my mind. The basic point being that they gradually lead into the events for that battle, make a point of the kids leaving to pilot the Sele mecha, and create tension based on the idea of whether or not they are doing the right thing by preparing to kill what is by this point one of their friends. As things stand now it also makes a degree of sense, but kind of involves they simply dropping the whole subplot with the classmates and why they are there, and working into that whole arc, and pretty much just has Sele pull a bunch of additional mecha out of their arse in the 11th hour piloted by generic pilots and do what the plot demands with little explanation or fanfare. It works, but it's ham handed in comparison to the rest of the series.
With Evangelion in paticular we're probably going to have to agree to disagree, I think what I think, and you have your own beliefs. We'll never know. To be honest I'm also well aware that especially now what I'm espousing comes accross as a conspiricy theory (more so than when this was more current) since I'm basically referancing virtually unprovable stuff that was relevent a decade or more ago. I used to have a version of the alleged full 52 episode intended run of Evangelion in text, along with scans of the "Air" book and such, but as I long ago ceased to be involved I no longer have it, it was stored on computers I replaced years ago, not that it really matters since to be "right" it would involve a bunch of people pretty much confirming old rumors that were touchy when they were new and pretty much saying "yeah, this was true, but we wound up lying for business reasons so we could keep it going in any form, and make money" which just doesn't happen from either a studio like Gainex, or a creative team.
I do half expect that at some point we might see another complete reboot of it using the original script though. Probably a pipe dream, but on the off chance it ever DOES happen and you notice the plot events I'm talking about, remember where you heard it.... even if I'm not the original source of this "leak" (far from it).
You know, I kind of like Voyager, but I feel the same way despite the number of seasons it went on. My problem with it, especially towards he beginning was that they seemed to just recycle Star Trek Tropes again and again, I mean when we have multiple space anomolies, and time travel stories over the space of a few episodes it gets pretty bad, seemed like a lot of filler from people who weren't sure what to do with the entire story arc. I do feel it got better when they started doing stuff with The Borg, Undine, 7 Of 9, etc... simply because it started to have more of a general storyline behind it and more stuff happened. Although I still maintain that as hot as she was, having a Borg serving on the ship, no matter how they wrote it, just never seemed right. It's not that the character was bad, it just never seemed to fit in with the Star Trek concept, and seemed to mostly be overlooked since Jeri became the show's eye candy. It's actually to her credit that she pulled it off as well as she did and made the character popular, because a lot of sex bomb characters like that, even if icy, tend to fall flat from an audience that starts to yawn at the pandering.Mr Mystery Guest said:
I'll also say that I am also a huge Farscape fan, and despite some truely horrible writing and consistincy issues I also liked Andromeda.
Also on a final note I think one of the problems with Star Trek is that it became a victim of it's own production values, and support crews and FX guys that really just did not have a bloody clue what they were doing, not to mention some horrible casting choices when looking at the long-term health of the show.
I think other science fiction shows like "Farscape" stood out because in those shows people actually did stuff, and you got to see some good action. With Star Trek I heard stories about how much it cost them to do the FX for firing phasers and some other things which were bloated for the effects achieved. As a result you had a lot of Trek episodes that were based around doing as little as possible that would cost money, leading to entire episodes which might basically involve The Doctor and a couple of other characters puttering around Sick Bay talking, and while it might get dramatic at the end of the day that's all you wind up watching. Other shows had those episodes, but not as many, because they used their budget better and managed to get FX guys who had a better idea of what they were doing and could get good results without spending a fortune. On the casting angle of things shows like Firefly, Farscape, and even Andromeda understood that science fiction needs action and adventure, they cast people who could do decent choreography. If you look at the credits for some of these shows you'd notice that the guy playing D'argo had stage acting experience including choreography, Bed Browder had some good skills there (which he showed off also in shows like Stargate), Gigi Edgley makes a big deal about being able to do a lot of her own stunts and fight scenes (or did on her fan page), Firefly had Nathan Fillian and the guy who played Jayne (the name eludes me) who knew how to do a good fight scene, Andromeda had the lady playing Beka who came from a serious dance backround if I remember which includes choreography, and Kevin Sorbo came off of a long stint doing Hercules.... when looking at a lot of the Star Trek casts, sometime ask yourself "who here can actually do action?" the answer is pretty much nobody, the most they can do is point a prop and hope an FX guy makes them look good. A lot of the fight scenes involve these painful looking moments where the characters hold their hands together and swing like a club, I guess it's supposed to be a double fisted punch but OMG it looks bad, Sisko (DS-9) and Torres (Voyager) did that a few times when they were "fighting". I think DS-9 did okay eventually though because Nana Visitor seemed to get a grasp for it as time went on, Terry Farrel allegedly had a dance backround which wound up helping when someone realized it (from when she was a model), and Michael Dorn got into character enough where he practiced to pull that kind of stuff off a lot more convincingly for DS-9 (I heard he got pwned so much in TNG because the actor couldn't do good choreography, being hired for looks in the makeup, Jonathan Frakes originally being groomed for the action guy role, but he wound up putting on more than a bit weight pretty quickly).
At any rate, apologies for the rambling, that's just my thoughts. I guess the basic message is that I think the differance between a good Science Fiction show (or one that's entertaining) and one that has a ton of snorefest
episodes is making sure you hire some people who can do action as well as the drama stuff, and make it look fairly
good. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy being able do pretty good fist fights, helped in a lot of episodes, and meant they din't have to worry about the FX that much, and it prevented things from getting too boring. Nobody fought Klingons bare handed like Kirk. The Farscape cast mostly seemed to have decent physical skills, and in Andromeda they were smart enough to cast a guy (love him or hate him) who had spent years punching out monsters (and other guys) on TV before that, so they knew right off getting some exciting stuff into the show wouldn't be hard with Sorbo around, they wouldn't even need fancy gun effects, need some excitement? find a reason for this rather large and well built guy to kick some dude in a creature suit in the head a few times... deep it's not, but it is entertaining (which could be said for Andromeda in general IMO ). Trek's problem, especially Voyager? They didn't have anyone around that could do that when they needed it.
