Weak In, Weak Out

Here's an interesting piece from the A.V. Club about bad episodes of good shows. Some of the shows--Firefly, Friday Night Lights, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Big Love--I don't really watch so I have no opinion.  But by and large, the choices from the staff made sense.

I'm glad to see someone else hates "The Fly" from Breaking Bad.  It's not that I mind bottle episodes--"Four Days Out" works pretty well, but when the plotline doesn't move forward, and the characters aren't even put in danger, what's the point?  The only moment of interest on the show is when it looks like Walt may reveal what he did to Jane.  Aside from that, no tension, a lot of stupidity.

But I strongly disagree with picking the "Murray In  Love" for The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  It's one of my favorites of their more dramatic episodes. (You can see I chose it for my MTM tribute.) Yes, I know Mary could never go with Murray, but having him finally admit something which had been bubbling underneath for years, and having her let him down gently, was one of the most powerful and brave things the show ever did. Besides, I could name plenty of episodes that are a lot weaker, especially in the first season when they don't always have the characters down. Or many others, such as the one that's essentially a pilot for a Bill Daily show that never happened.

Good call on "The Summer Man" from Mad Men.  There are a lot of thing wrong with this episode, but above all, we should never be privy to Don's inner thoughts (even if he's lying to himself)--that's the central mystery of the show, or at the very least it's subtext which shouldn't be made text.

"The Puerto Rican Day" is a pretty weak Seinfeld, but the weakest?  At least it had enough nerve to be pulled from the rerun schedule.  Anyway, the final season without Larry David was pretty stale in general.

It's sort of ridiculous picking the worst Simpsons episode.  There's over 400 to choose from, and no matter how good the show, they'd have to have at least 50 or so that don't quite cut it. "The Principal And The Pauper" is a controversial episode since outing Seymour Skinner as an impostor is ridiculous and goes against the character.  But really, who cares?  The show is fairly funny and they've made plenty of meta-jokes about how the series starts fresh each week no matter what outrage occurred last time.  It's silly to get stuck on this episode from 1997, when the show was still at its height, considering the last decade has been filled with uninspired episodes.

"The Day The Spores Landed" is a good choice for The Cosby Show.  Sometimes off-series experiments are fun, but for a show so grounded in reality, having Cliff dream about men giving birth is more creepy than funny.

It's hard to pick out a bad episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, since the worse the movie, the better the show.  But if I had to complain about anything, it'd be their reliance on Japanese monster movies.  They're too easy and after a while they started to feel the same.  I preferred when they picked on quirkier subjects.

I'm already on record as saying the live 30 Rock episode was a success, so attacking it for the very thing that makes it work--seeing the cast play to an audience--misses the point.

I don't quite agree on the episode chosen for The Dick Van Dyke Show.  There are a number of episodes that have the sexual politics of the time that may make us cringe today (even while the racial politics are progressive).  But that doesn't make the episodes all bad (though "Washington Vs. The Bunny" isn't great).  Why not pick a clunker like something that deals with Sally's failed romance (which also has odd sexual politics but is extra-boring).

Picking on Twin Peaks is too easy.  The second season pretty much went off the rails and while there are some good moments, anything after Laura Palmer's murder is solved is fair game.