Dethroning Moment of Suck (Darth Wiki)/Live-Action TV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Keep in mind:

  • Moments only, no "just everything he said, " "The entire show, " or "This entire season, " entries.
  • No contesting entries. This is subjective, the entry is their opinion.
  • No natter. As above, anything contesting an entry will be cut, and anything that's just contributing more can be made its own entry.
  • Explain why it's a Dethroning Moment Of Suck.
  • No Real Life examples, including Reality Television and Executive Meddling. That is just asking for trouble.
  • No ASSCAPS, no bold, and no italics unless it's the title of a work. ie; using italics in the case of words that would be stressed in speech is alright, but don't type long phrases in them. We are not yelling the DMoSs out loud.

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Other Examples

  • Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Had season 3 episode 14, where, in one of the most cliche moments ever experienced in television, Hercules was depowered after being given a choice between love and power. Not only was this bad writing to the nth degree, but also incredibly jarring to fans who watch the show because the want to see Hercules, you know, with his powers. UGH!!!!!!!
  • A moment that completely derailed Battlestar Galactica was the third season episode "Unfinished Business", where the Galactica crew partake in an organized boxing tournament. The episode climaxes (no pun intended) with the revelation that Starbuck and Apollo slept together for one night on New Caprica, and Starbuck left him the next day to marry Samuel Anders (the Resistance fighter from Caprica). As the final boxing match between Starbuck and Apollo finishes, they both wind up in each others arms while their respective spouses look disgusted and walk away. It was much less a legitimate plot twist than a writer forcing the One True Pairing of Apollo and Starbuck on the audience, at the cost of a season's worth of character development between Kara and Anders/Lee and Dualla.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer - the attempted rape. Buffy lay there and cried and begged like a weak little Muggle victim, when she is the goddamn Slayer and could have put him through every wall in the house and beaten him to a pulp...and has done so before!
    • And in the very next episode, she takes her little sister to her attempted rapist's crypt and actually seems upset when she asks Clem when he'll be back. What did you do to my awesome Buffy?!
    • Tara's death by an impossible shot was when Joss proved he could not resist cheap death for drama. And it didn't need to be. She could have been at the window and I wouldn't be complaining so much.
    • Buffy's "Everyone-sucks-but-me" speech in "Get It Done", including mocking a girl as "a weak idiot" - after she killed herself.
    • Since a few of them already have been mentioned what I think are the show's low points, I'll say when Xander left Anya at the altar. He promised he was marrying her not because he thought the world was going to end in season 5, leaves her because he saw a falsified vision from a demon that wanted revenge on Anya. And his excuse that he doesn't want to be like his alcoholic parents doesn't work--he already isn't anything like them.
    • Xander dumps Anya. That is when I stopped believing in the characters and the story and realised that the show was a non-stop Author Tract. Everything had already gone to Hell and the last remaining tad of joy was Xander/Anya and then Joss even Jossed that.
    • The whole of "Wrecked" is just one big Dethroning Episode of Suck, but the worst would probably have to be the inexplicable scene where Amy steals sage from Buffy's house. It pretty much sums up everythin that's wrong with the Anvilicious "Magic Drugs" storyline.
    • Wrybread: The death of Xander's love interest Renee in the Season 8 Buffy comic book (I'm putting it here rather than in the Comics folder since it's the canonical continuation of the TV series). A lazy, obvious plot development that served no purpose other than to kill off an interesting new character and relationship in order to induce cheap angst and set up the Squicky Xander-Dawn relationship. We get it, Joss, sometimes someone you've just fallen in love with dies and it's sad. And apparently if you date someone who wasn't in the TV series it's all the more likely since they're expendable. Now find a new gimmick.
  • Doctor Who episode "Journey's End". So, many reasons, including the regeneration tease, the Clone Doctor, the Doctor's reaction to the Clone Doctor's rational decision to kill the Daleks when they were clearly beyond redemption, the Doctor fobbing Rose off with the Clone Doctor, Donna defeating the Daleks with Time Lord leet haxxor skillz, Donna being given a psychic lobotomy, the Earth being towed back whilst that "you should feel moved now" music plays in the background like a cue card and Davros being downgraded from Magnificent Bastard to a Dalek pet just to sate the wrath of the Fan Dumb that objected to him ever overshadowing his creations despite being far more interesting than they are.
    • The realisation of the complete bollocks that the Daleks would keep a "blow us up" button in the first place rather spoiled the episode for this troper, let alone that they'd keep it in the same room as their enemies.
    • [At the risk of earning the ire of Nine fans, I found his chickening out of destroying both the Daleks and Earth in "Parting of the Ways", given his previously established Badassitude in taking Van Statten's gun to use against the Dalek and not flinching from Margaret Blaine's attempted shaming of Team TARDIS in "Boom Town", to be one of these.
    • "The Christmas Invasion". If Harriet Jones is supposed to bring a Golden Age to Britain, I believe that Ten should have let her do it. Or the Reapers should have shown up and screw him and Rose over for messing up the timeline or something.
    • The "dramatic" gun scene in The End Of Time, Pt 2. Was there really any doubt that The Doctor was going to shoot the computer maintaining the link? Not to mention that the other supposed targets in question could both regenerate and shoot lightning bolts from their hands. It even underscores the power of the next scene, where a pissed-off Master unloads all the electricity he has into Rassilon, driving him back into the gateway.
    • Ten saying "I don't want to go". Sure, tons of people think it's sad, but realy considering the Doctor has done it nine times prior, and never complained as much, and got to wrap up all his loose ends (something I would be grateful to have done before I died), the fact that he still goes into his regeneration kicking and screaming just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
    • The Twin Dilemma. Strangling the companion is not the best way to present a new Doctor to the world. It pretty much killed the show for twenty years. And the plot is so bad the novelization is a thousand times better, in a world where the reverse tends to happen.
    • I think I'll step up to the plate and add "Love And Monsters" to the list. The first episode not to prominently feature the Doctor or his companions, and it could have easily been the last. Lazy writing, lots of padding, shoddy humor and a mountain of stupidity all steadily accumulated over the course of the episode, to the point where they were practically unignorable. But the fun doesn't truly begin until the villain's true form is revealed to be a complete ripoff of Fat Bastard, even down to the accent.[1] It doesn't stop, either; The villain is an alien which absorbs other sapient entities. The protagonist's partially-absorbed love interest's face is sprouting out of its buttock. But by far, nothing tops the infamous line "We still have a bit of a love life." It's spoken by the protagonist--with regards to him and said love interest, who is now just a disembodied face protruding from a concrete tile. How nobody even considered that might be offensive, I will never know.
    • The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe. I have forgiven almost everything in doctor who, but I can not forgive this episode. That it was a christmas episode was all the more bitter. The episode insisted that this child was weak for being male, and that only woman were 'strong' as they are 'mothers'. . A statement that the doctor himself agreed with. It had to force this message by having all the male characters act like gung-ho idiots, with only the women being the sensible one. I just want to forget this episode ever existed.
    • I sometimes tolerate New Series episodes that other fans have negative views on (specifically “Love and Monsters” and “Fear Her”, those two episodes that I don’t really find that bad). But if I can think of one episode that nearly stopped me from watching the New Series, it would be “Father’s Day”. I know what the episode writer, Paul Cornell (his written two-parter, “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood”, were actually great), was trying to expand the rules of the space-time continuum (i.e. Reapers), but still, none of the established rules ever came back after that episode. But what even pissed me the most was the Ninth Doctor calling Rose a 'stupid ape' for saving her father from the accident, even though she did it because she wanted to get to know her father. I'm sorry, but as a victim of emotional abuse, that nearly made me lost my sympathy for the Ninth Doctor when he regenerated!
      • My sympathy for Nine was completely destroyed when he told the Dalek in its titular episode to go kill itself. Whether the Dalek had it coming or not, you never tell somebody to kill themselves, and I was expecting so much better from somebody as open minded as the Doctor! And he's supposed to be the hero of this show? Even if Rose told him off near the end, that still doesn't excuse his disgusting actions in that episode.
  • Star Trek: Voyager's "Threshold". When you combine all the worst parts of the Star Trek franchise (Reset Button, Hollywood Science, Techno Babble, Special Effects Failure, and Character Derailment), can you blame the executives for all but declaring this Canon Discontinuity? Brannon Braga himself even admits to screwing the episode up.
    • Star Trek: Enterprise's "Dear Doctor" in which Archer decides not to help a race of dying people because he is led by Hollywood Evolution and believes helping them would violate a directive that hasn't come into existence yet. "Until I have that... directive..."
    • "These Are The Voyages" is almost universally reviled by fans (and the cast!), and for good reason: the series (and franchise finale) is a Next Generation episode in disguise, mixing Retcons, out-of-character moments and a genuinely pathetic premise. However, in spite of all that, it might have been possible to excuse it as just being another lame episode...until the speech scene. Captain Archer is asked to give a speech during a ceremony making the founding of the United Federation of Planets, considered to be one of the defining moments in the history of that universe (and something the audience has never seen before). Captain Archer steps up to the podium, opens his mouth to say his first words... and it cuts to Riker and Troi watching the ceremony for a few seconds before terminating the holodeck program and leaving. It could have been one of (if not the) best moments in a series that was ridiculed during its entire existence, but it ends up being a woeful end to the original franchise (as Enterprise was the last Star Trek series aired in the original universe). Why, Braga, why?
    • The last sixty seconds of Star Trek: Enterprise third season finale "Zero Hour." What very nearly redeemed the entire show with easily the best episode of the series to date was instantly destroyed when Enterprise is, without explanation, suddenly and randomly thrown into 1945 Earth. Archer is randomly found by Nazis, and one of those Nazis is an alien. I am not alone in this, but this moment tends to be overshadowed by "These Are The Voyages..." (see above). DITL couldn't give the episode 5-stars because of just how much that ending sucked, and Graham admitted it easily had five stars up until that moment.
  • The finale to one of Dallas seasons, which revealed all of said season to be All Just a Dream.
  • At least it wasn't the entire series, as the last chapter of hispanic soap Pecados Ajenos randomly and happily revealed.
  • The episode entitled "Spaceball" from Galactica 1980. In a series that had little to do with the original Battlestar Galactica to begin with, this episode featured genetically enhanced kids playing baseball to win money for an underprivileged children's camp. May be the worst, most pointless hour of fantasy/science-fiction ever written.
  • The last episode of Dinosaurs. They gave a light-hearted (if occasionally preachy) sitcom a Shoot the Shaggy Dog Downer Ending to deliver an Anvilicious Green Aesop. It brings a whole new meaning to "whole new low."
  • Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue: The teamup episode "Trakeena's Revenge" with the Galaxy Rangers. Only the Red Galaxy Ranger shows up for a good chunk of it, who is instantly recognized on Earth, and even then the plot focuses more on a little girl who can't get people to believe that there are monsters in a city constantly under attack by demons. Trakeena's actress also apparently walked off the set before filming and really, the rest of the Lost Galaxy cast was useless. How the Galaxy Rangers even get to Earth is inconsistent. What's worse is Time Force's "Time for Lightspeed" had only one episode, Revenge had two, and Lightspeed was still at least slightly better as it offered a 'where are they now'.
  • In Power Rangers Zeo, Kimberly sends Tommy a Dear John Letter. What followed was a relationship between Katherine and Tommy that many Power Ranger fans felt was forced.
  • 24: In a series that has seen all manner of ridiculous scenarios and over-the-top plot twists, the two episodes in Season 2 that feature Jack Bauer dying for ten minutes, a Middle Eastern secret agent being beaten to death by rednecks, said rednecks holding a woman hostage for a microchip they know absolutely nothing about and Kim Bauer attempting to escape a wild cougar before shacking up with a kooky survivalist is still, six seasons on, the absolute nadir of the series.
  • An early episode of Mind of Mencia opened with Mencia, in bed for some reason, receiving a phone call from what was supposed to be then-President George W. Bush. Bush tells Mencia he loves the show, but asks him to be more politically correct. Mencia responds that he respects the president, but "Go fuck yourself," to a round of applause. Aside from being a pointless, unoriginal Take That (Yeah, so edgy, taking on the same guy that every comedian in America makes fun of), but it's practically a Critical Research Failure: Bush, and republicans in general, almost never advocate political correctness; if anything, it's a liberal democrat ideal. It would be like The Man Show doing a bit where Bill Clinton calls in and tells them that the girls jumping on trampolines is inappropriate. If you're going to tell the president to "go fuck yourself," do it in response to something he actually does. Come on, Carlos, I'm a republican and even I can see there's plenty of legitimate targets! It was a stupid, pointless, and baseless insult, and it's the last scene I ever willingly watched of his series.
  • Orson leaving Bree in Desperate Housewives season 6 finale. I have always been a huge fan of the couple, yet I would have had no problem with them breaking up... if only it had been done in a decent way. First of all, it was a half-assed stunt to Put on a Bus the Ensemble Darkhorse that made season 3 probably the best season ever and managed to go through a gratuitous Character Derailment remaining at least sympathetic. Secondly, the marriage, despite all the problems it had faced, had resolved in a valid Character Development for both and a moving Crowning Moment of Heartwarming in episode 6x14; but in few episodes, the writers had managed to spoil everything. Thirdly, Bree's behavior was utterly weak and illogical, given what Sam had to blackmail her. Seriously, what the hell? For me, Desperate Housewives ended with episode 6x15, before that stupid Sam-subplot started.
    • What really irked me on Desperate Housewives was the last few episodes of this recent season. It's like the writers just got tired of having a subplot with Lynette in every episode, and so they set about just destroying her character and Tom's character. We had to have so many episodes where the basic gist was "Tom is doing something, Lynette doesn't like it, Lynette does something against Tom's wishes, hilarity ensues, Tom lectures Lynette to be his own man and to respect his choices, and then the ending narration has shots of them tying back to the central theme of honesty or some bullshit". She had issues with him spending time on a new job, she hated being sidelined to extra activities at a business conference, she didn't like his ideas for decorating his office, and she didn't like that he picked their vacation without asking her. It got tiring and made me dislike her so much more. And now they are getting divorced! The one couple that through seven seasons of this show showed that they could stay together through unemployment, hostage situations, unknown love children, cancer, tornadoes, failed businesses, miscarriage, children getting arrested, kidnapping by murderers, and other problems would just suddenly be unable to reconcile and give up their marriage just annoys the hell out of me.
  • The whole "I'm insulting your profession, but not you personally" bullshit in the Shindig episode of Firefly. It's not like insulting the profession of someone who has great respect for that profession can be taken as a personal affront. It's not like insulting that profession can offend someone personally and it clearly did. And yet you're somehow considered to be better than the Designated Villain of the episode and will be entirely forgiven because you're Mal Reynolds, everyone's Han Solo self-insert fantasy with less than half the charm. It's a Dethroning Moment because it establishes in this situation that Mal will get away with and be completely absolved of absolutely anything anti-heroic he does, simply because he's the hero. Despite being such a douche, we're supposed to believe that Inara will bail him out for something he got himself into, that his blatant cheating will be accepted by the spectators in a duel that is supposed to have (albeit warped) honor, and that he can just walk away with his "space slut" on his arm that he treated like ass. You can argue that he was absolved because he "fought for her honor," but once we establish that his insults and Atherton's insults are Not So Different, was it really anything more than territorial chest-thumping to establish superiority?
    • Wordy word. How can Mal claim to respect Inara "the person" whilst simultaneously disrespecting her choices, her career, her freedom, and her privacy? How can Inara "the person" be separated from the things that make her that person?
    • More word. Especially since it remains so unclear what Mal's beef with Inara's profession even is. He just keeps yelling "Whooooooore!!!" at her every chance he gets, but the man's a thief and a murderer - what the hell sort of position is he in to throw stones? Also, he seemed to get along just fine with a (non-Companion) prostitute in Heart of Gold, which suggests that either a) he's fine with prostitutes, as long they know their place and don't try to deny that they're "whooooooooores!!!", or b) he's fine with any prostitute who he can hire, but he takes Inara's refusal to "service" the Serenity crew even as she keeps taking on outside clients as an insult, and that makes him act out. The former would make him an entitled douchebag; the latter would make him a childish asshole. Neither particularly makes me want to watch a show about him.
  • The MythBusters Build Team gets one of these when testing a myth on an ancient electrical battery (possibly used for worship), and found it had a zap, but not a lot. So they created their own Ark of the Covenant, complete with the seraphim having Jamie glasses and mustache, and hooked it up to an electrical fence transformer. They then invited Adam (believing it to be the ancient batteries) to try it out. Adam was very obviously in quite a bit of pain. Kari kept a straight face and asked, "Did you feel God?" They later apologized and gave him a hug, but it was probably the meanest prank they ever pulled. Adam himself was not amused. It's worth noting that this is one of the few times in the run of the show that we've seen Adam not smiling, and he's noted upon being asked about it that it was a real low point on the show, adding that it was later revealed to be the fault of the producer (no longer employed for that show) and that the team was against the idea after they tried the thing out first.
    • While the 2010 season had a few bad episodes the worst of the bunch was the Storm Chasers episode. 60 minutes of Adam and Jamie building a hurricane resistant tent. No myth, no build team, just a cheap attempt to boost the ratings of another Discovery Channel show.
  • In the SVU episode "Blinded," Olivia leaked information of the Perp-Of-The-Week's location to the feds, knowing full well that they would come and take him back to Louisiana to be executed. And why did she do this? Because of the two little girls he abused and murdered (which was implied to be a result of his own illusions)? No, because he pushed Elliot's head into a car window to evade capture, thus blinding him. This leads to her confronting Casey (for tanking the case, which she did do for her own reasons). After she is called on this, Olivia went to Jack McCoy and informed him of Casey's actions. Keep in mind that all of this was done solely because the perp temporarily blinded her partner. Worse, while Casey got chewed out by McCoy for tanking the case, Olivia came off as a Karma Houdini for committing a borderline-criminal act (Not even a word from Cragen). If it were anyone else who done this (Even for the actions usually done by the detectives on this show), they would've been taken to ethics committee. This just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
    • In the episode Babes, they arrest a lady for insulting a girl over the internet because it looks like she killed herself. After they find out the girls "boyfriend" strangled her and hung her up to make it look like suicide, they drop the charges. But then Kim Greylek, the current ADA on the show, goes off insulting her and calling her a bad mother and stuff, riling the mom up enough to attack Greylek. After the witnesses pull the mom off Greylek, she says "I'mma get that bitch for assault" or something along those lines. Anyone sensible would ignore this and report Greylek to the ethics committee or whatever. Instead the daughter is crying at the end that her mom is going to jail. In some of her earlier apperances, Greylek was eager to prosecute somebody, so it looks like she planned it so she can send somebody to jail. This, combined with some of her other apperances, makes me believe that if they wanted to make Greylek a likable character, they certainly weren't doing a good job.
    • The episode "Screwed" has a plot no soap opera would accept. It's built around a case that made the Veronica Mars Aaron Echolls trial look realistic. Finn's stepson (who's revealed to be the product of his mother getting raped by her father at 16) is on trial for murder. Benson and Stabler are called as defense witnesses to try and discredit the case because of incidents from earlier in the season (obviously written in just for this climax) - Bensen aiding her wrongly accused fugitive brother and Stabler's daughter not getting charged with DUI (which the judge knew about). As if THAT's not enough, the defendant uses and twists around an incident that happened 10 years ago when Finn was in narcotics to try and discredit him. At the end, the defendant goes free, Stablers daughter is arrested, Olivia risks her badge to confess the circumstances of her brother, Finn looks like a doped dirty cop and both Cragan and Novak face transfer/dismissal. And this was all being manipulated by a IA officer getting revenge on Cragan for passing him up for promotion 15 years ago. I know L&O has never been realistic, but when the fuck did it have to become a Greek tragedy???
    • The episode "Zebras" is pretty much the episode that the show stopped being good. The show's always been dark, but the storyline in this episode was both ridiculous and predictable. Besides killing off a perfectly good character (only to have no one even register that it happened in the next episode despite the character being on the show for years), they made it into a terribly written soap opera horror that crossed the line from dark but well-written to overdramatic, cheesy, terribly acted and written show.
    • "True Believers" was the first episode I ever watched and will be the last. Basically, a college girl gets raped at gunpoint by a black guy. The black guy gets arrested but his lawyer apparently thinks the whole thing is about race because hes black and shes white, even bringing it up in the trial by basically saying "He's black and she's white therefore she can't tell the diffrence therefore she hates black people." And it works! The rapist fucking walks! I'd at least believe his side if the rape was faded out because her memory was fuzzy... or if they didn't show him mentally torturing her at the bar! But no hes automatically innocent because hes black and he gets called a black bastard by the victims dad. And then this pathetic excuse of a defense lawyer and Olivia pal it up at the end and act like nothing ever happened.
  • Rory stealing a fucking yacht on Gilmore Girls. Most of the characters seem to agree that she had a really flimsy reason for doing it in the first place. The show just took a sharp turn for the worse after that and never really fully recovered.
    • Agreed. And the episode after she stole the yacht she quit Yale - so not her. From that moment on, the show sucked. Rory and Lorelai became both so out of character, and then their fight ruined the whole reason for the show, the happy mother/daughter relationship.
  • In The Wire's series finale, "-30-", Baltimore Sun city editor Gus Haynes has decided to investigate the claims about the facts in a story written by one of his reporters (Scott Templeton). The story (about a serial killer, which was part of the season's storyline) was exaggerated and faked to make it more interesting. Gus confronts the managing editor, who refuses to believe his claims (even though he has significant proof) and busts him back to the copy desk as punishment. David Simon's grievances are on full display; not only does this make the upper management at the Sun look like drooling morons for continuing to let a reporter write falsified and erroneous stories (which could open the newspaper up to lawsuits), it also doesn't address the nagging issue of the sources who were lied to by Templeton, and never explains whether or not they would sue the Sun for the libelous stories. At the end of the episode, the newspaper arc just...stops, and amounts to nothing more than "newspaper management sucks", which is a far cry from the nuanced and layered lessons laid out at the end of all the previous seasons.
    • A later episode of Season 5 also features the resident Badass Omar Little doing what he alway does: scaring the shit out of Baltimore's drug world. So what makes it a DMOS? He does it while he's limping around with a broken leg. While previous seasons usually had Omar resort to hit-and-run tactics even when he had backup, Season 5 has him going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge while he's on crutches like he's Baltimore's own Rambo. At one point he even walks up to a group of Marlo's drugdealers to threaten them and they just let him walk away when he's done, which made this Troper's jaw drop for all the wrong reasons.
  • Degrassi: The Next Generation: Spinner and Emma getting (and staying) married. They've had barely any interaction during their years on the show. This could kind of possibly been forgiven if they hadn't decided to stay together after their first drunken wedding. However, because Emma is the writers' pet and they believe she can do no wrong, Spinner is magically able to get over Jane, who he was head over heels for, in about two seconds. Not to mention that all of Emma's Jerk Sue moments are conviently ignored. What really gets to me is how everybody though that Jane was so horrible for cheating on Spinner, yet overlook the fact that a few seasons ago, he cheated on Darcy, the only person who would give him the time of day. Then there's Emma, who cheated on her boyfriends twice (of course, she never got called out for it). They seriously couldn't think of a better send-off for these characters? Like having Spinner leave for police college and Emma traveling abroad or something (and speaking of send-offs, don't even get me started on how they dumped Liberty with zero warning after Season 8 and then only gave her a two second cameo in the movie)?
  • I tried to give Stargate Universe a chance, I really did. But I just can't stand it, and a big part of the reason is the character of Chloe. The DMOS which killed the series for me was the episode in which part of their group was going to be sent off in a craft to try to colonize a nearby planet, while the others would remain on the ship and face imminent death, and a lottery was held to determine who would be in which group. As soon as they realized that Scott would go and Chloe would stay, the two of them went off to have sex. Scott left, and she turned to Eli for comfort. Then they discovered that the ship they were on was safe, so they called the other craft back and Chloe went straight back to Scott. It's pretty sad when the only memorable facet of a character's personality is the fact that she has two guys interested in her and makes it clear which one she prefers, but has no qualms about leaning on the other if her favorite isn't available.
    • The DMOS for me was when people started having sex in other people's bodies and no one even batted an eye about it. They could have actually addressed so many morally ambiguous issues with the whole body swapping thing, but instead of having anyone realize, "Hey, this is kind of rapey and wrong," the closest they get is a brief sense of, "Hey, this is kind of awkward," like it wasn't meant to be morally ambiguous at all.
  • The episode of Delocated where they had a parody of Face/Off had a very sucky ending. So Jon has to accept his marriage of Sergei's picked fiancee, lest he blows his cover. Okay, fair enough. After the celebration, they have a montage via photography involving Jon/Sergei and his wife during their honeymoon and birth of a new child. Okay. Then about a year or two later, the agency guys let Jon/Sergei abandon his pregnant wife while he was playing with his new son, Jon/Sergei's wife notices that her child is crying, but she has no idea where he is, and that's the end of that episode. Just going "what?" doesn't display how I hated that ending. And I'm not someone who's had an abandoned father figure either. Oh, and having a parent abandon his or her child isn't a good attempt at making comedy either.
  • As a physicist, I find the episodes of The Big Bang Theory where Leonard, Raj, and Howard fake a scientific discovery in order to get Sheldon to be less obnoxious when they're stuck together at the North Pole to be a Dethroning Moment of Suck. What makes it especially egregious is that it's not just any scientific discovery, but the discovery of magnetic monopoles, which would almost certainly net its discoverer a Nobel Prize, not to mention provide actual experimental confirmation for string theory (among other theories). Then they have the gall to act as though Sheldon is overreacting when he finds out that they've committed the cardinal sin of science: faking data. As scientists, they should have been tarred and feathered by the entire community, especially since they made Sheldon take the fall for what they did.
    • one gets the impression from the series as a whole that none of the main characters are on the A-list of the scientific world. Wolowitz runs a Mars Rover into a ditch to impress a date (and subsequently loses his security clearence); Koothrapali can't even function around half the human race unless he's liquored up (at which point he becomes so obnoxious as to make Wolowitz look desirable to women); and Leonard's work is constantly running into dead ends. Chances are, all of these guys are at a dead end in their careers but aren't willing to admit it. So even something this tacky isn't going to do them any more damage than they've already done to themselves. Still, the university should have fired them at the very least for 1) faking data and 2) wasting research grant money to fake data (in the corporate world, this would be known as 'embezzlement' or 'misappropriation of funds' and will land you in jail). Sheldon's normally (and for good reason) the Jerkass of the ensemble but in this he was entirely justified. That said, Sheldon set himself up when he didn't wait for peer review before announcing his big 'discovery' (but then again, that's completely in character for Sheldon, who doesn't want to admit that he has'any peers).
    • the episode "The Tangerine Factor", the first season finale. In it Penny is reasonably upset that her ex posted a sex blog of their relationship. Leonard tries to console her and stupidly gets her to console with him. Then Penny comes back and yells at him and when Leonard goes there again, it;s revealed that he hooked up with some other guy. Then he gets a date with her. Here's my problem with the ep; It's essentially Leonard badgering Penny to go on a date with him and an unnecessary detour on Leonard's part with her going back to the guy. It's not chemistry, its him breaking her down. Then the next ep they don't go out again for some contrived reason and its like the show enjoys having them relationship cocktease us and break them up again.
    • The episode "The Excelsior Proclamation" where in Sheldon finds a letter summoning him to traffic court for a red light violation. When he reminds Penny that it was the night he rescued her from a broken arm injury, she denies that night ever happened and tries to get out of helping Sheldon with a problem that he is in due to helping her. Then she makes an offer to pay him back eventually that in no way means she will pay him back (after the time he gave her money, no questions asked, and likely was never repaid) with a smug smile. Granted, the next bit in court with Sheldon is pretty much his fault, but at the end, the ultimate Penny screw up occurs when she finds out where Stan Lee lives (who Sheldon had missed due to having to be in court) and makes no effort to call him and ask if Sheldon can see him, then letting Sheldon just walk in after Stan's sarcastic remark and doesn't mention that he Does Not Understand Sarcasm, just runs away, proving how much of a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing she can really be, and Sheldon winds up with a restraining order from Stan Lee, proving the Penny made no effort to explain the situation afterward.
    • The episode The Maternal Congruence was almost painful to watch. Christine Baranski is a really good actress and I usually like the portrayal of the protagonists' quirky parents, but the episode basically boiled down to Beverly and Sheldon bitching around in full-mode Jerkassery, with Beverly falling into an Abusive Parents behavior that completely ruined her character and wasn't funny at all. The only good moment involved her and Penny getting drunk. While the end credits were rolling, my mother and I had this exchange:

My Mother: (disbelieved) If I ever become like her, please kill me and burn the corpse.
Me: If you had been like her, I'd have already killed you and started stabbing young women under the shower.

    • The 100th episode "The Recombination Hypothesis" where in Penny and Leonard get back secretly and Sheldon plays a game that requires him to say "Wood". That's it. Nothing overly out of the ordinary until It turns out Leonard imagined the whole episode. Before that we have to suffer Leonard and Penny fight and then immediatly have sex, no creative writing involved with that plot or Sheldon's, like it was written by eleven year olds. This is a prime example of the series coasting on their success and ratings that are mostly undeserved. Overall just a very very lazy episode. For Christ's sake, 100th episodes are when you go big and extravagent.
  • The scene from Everybody Loves Raymond where Debra shoves Ray into the bookshelf. Now, not everybody hated the scene, as shown by the harpy-like screeching coming from what sounds like the entire female half of the audience, but this is one of the most triumphant examples people point to when they think of Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male, Double Standard, and Jerk Sue. Also look toward the scene where Debra faked having a breast augmentation, trapped Ray into admitting he liked it (sort of, his defense that he was just being supportive after what he thought was surgery seems pretty reasonable), and then berating him for for saying what she more or less told him to.
    • Let's also add the episode where everyone reacts negatively to the fact Raymond doesn't go to Church. So do they accept that maybe some people just don't like Church, that he has every right not to go to Church for any reason he wants and accept a difference of opinion? No, of course not. Instead Debra, insufferable bully that she is, makes Raymond go. What flawless, impecable logic does she employ? She asks Raymond why he doesn't go to Church, and says "God can hear you" when he doesn't give strong reasons. He doesn't need strong reasons, he has every right not to go. Then she goes on about herself having reasons, and that somehow is the nail in the coffin and Rey, against his will, goes to Church.
  • In Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, the otherwise awesome Once a Ranger has Adam going against Thrax the son of Rita and Zedd. However he doesn't win, he doesn't even get rescued by other Power Rangers. Instead he gets rescued by the Sentinel Knight a character who, while shown to be powerful hasn't participated in any battles before comes out of no where to destroy the team up episodes Big Bad. Ruined the entire episode for me.
  • Doug's subplot in The King of Queens episode "Mama Cast" combines this trope with a definite Mood Whiplash. This mysterious guy has a scam where he has two ice cream trucks. He sells one for an unbelievably low price (which Doug buys), and then, using the unbought one, tries to murder whoever bought the other one, which he tries to do to Doug! Look, I know it's just a TV show, but on what planet is that considered funny? And the worst part? Doug spent the majority of the episode running and hiding from the mysterious assailant instead of, oh I don't know, calling the cops and having the guy thrown in jail for life. Or would that make too much sense?
  • I felt "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet" was a real low-point in The West Wing. The show has always tended towards idealism, but it just got ridiculous here. The Bartlet administration goes for about a week without acting recklessly or passing any landmark, revolutionary legislation - in other words, behaving like a normal government - and it somehow suffers a big drop in approval ratings? The whole thing is a massive Wall Banger. The staff hold meetings on controversial issues such as DADT and financial commission reform, and this is treated like a bad thing, on the basis that President Bartlet should instead just blow off everyone else's opinion and storm ahead on his own. It was just so detached from reality. Leaving politics completely aside, nothing else happens in that episode. It is literally a long slog, simply to justify a would-be Crowning Moment of Awesome at the end. The episode ceased to be a realistic simulation of the White House and instead became a vehicle for Aaron Sorkin's beliefs on how politics should work.
    • For me, it was the two-episode introduction of Ainsley freaking Hayes. Yes, the show always championed the belief that people with differing opinions could work them out in a peaceful and civilised manner, that being the foundation of representational democracy. And all right, they wanted a token "good" Republican to emphasise that. Fair enough. But did they have to overcompensate by making her brilliant and perfect and wonderful in every way and turning every cast member who was hostile to her into a blithering idiot so she could blow them away with her flawless rhetoric and air of noble suffering at this vile, Democratic persecution? Oh, and then there's the pure Narm of her "You don't like the people!" line, which is treated as the ultimate zinger. No, Ainsley Hayes, I don't like people whose morals are incompatible with mine. Nor do I expect them to like me. While being able to peacefully disagree even with people you dislike may be necessary for a civilised society, actively loving every single other person on the planet is not.
  • The show My Wife and Kids had an episode where Michael Sr. gauges what present he should buy his wife for a holiday she and the other women in the family made up. When he calls her up and she starts screaming at him, he decides that a 3/10 is a reasonable rating. So he buys her a pearl necklace. However, the reason the women created this holiday is because all of them wanted diamonds. When everyone but Jay gets diamonds, she isn't happy (after Tony practically forced Jay to listen about the "Women Rating System"). So her completely logical reaction is to treat Michael as if he were neglectful and horrible, while treating everybody else much better than normal. Oh and according to Jay's measurement, getting a pearl necklace (3/10) compared to diamonds (10/10) is worse than getting strips of raw bacon (4/10) compared to blueberry waffles (10/10). She seems to think that pearls are incredibly cheap. The sad part is, had Jay not completely overreacted, she would have had a valid point.
    • This is seriously the most enraging episode of any TV show I've ever seen in my life. While neither Kyle or Jay were right in this situation ( a woman rating system? seriously? ), Jay was acting like a complete bitch about it and blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Were we supposed to sympathize with her here? I'm assuming we are, since the episode tries to paint Kyle as the bad guy in this situation ( once again, neither were right ). Of course, the whole thing could've been avoided had Jay not came up with a fake holiday just to get some diamonds.
  • As with all Dan Schneider sitcoms, Drake and Josh has its ridiculous moments, but "Theater Thug" in particular stands out. The episode involves Josh re-inacting a scene with a criminal named, well, the Theater Thug. After his take is shown on FBI's Most Wanted, they show a picture of the real thug (who I honestly don't think look like Josh at all). Then, the next day, when Drake and Josh go to The Premiere, out of nowhere, Josh is assaulted by a bunch of old ladies who think he's the thug, even though he states that he just re-inacted a scene. And then, he gets arrested. And that's pretty much the rest of the episode-Josh getting arrested ad fucking nauseam. Even when he tries using a disguise he gets the boot! And then, at the very end of the episode, while Josh is closing, the REAL thug comes in, and after he pressures Josh some, the cops show up. Drake comes in, and after a scuffle between him and the thug, which ends with him getting knocked down, Drake leaves Josh to get the cops...who come in right after Drake leaves. The real thug then escapes...and the episode ends as the cops arrest Josh. I know the people in this world are stupid, but here, they looked like headcases.
  • The last Malcolm in the Middle episode where Lois first rejects a very good job proposal for Malcolm and then tells him that she pretty much planned his life for him and expects him to be president of the United States. What? That's so incredibly stupid and selfish I really hoped Malcolm would tell her to shove it up her ass, but instead he accepts it and rolls with everything. Now, I'm well aware it's about how much your family means to you and that you would do anything to please them, but it's such a ridiculous Wall Banger I don't get how this is heartwarming...
    • Ugh. I know what you mean. I raged when someone claimed it was one of the most heartwarming moments in sitcom history (if that person is reading this, I rebuke you for claiming it was anywhere on par with the ending of Luck of the Fryish). Malcom's family claim that society takes advantage of them because they're poor. Maybe if they weren't so irresponsible, they wouldn't be so damn poor.
    • Agreed. What really bugged me about this was that it COULD have been pretty heartwarming. If they'd instead have had Lois asking Malcom not to take the job and telling him how much he had open to him and that she thought he could do so much, that would've really been something. Having Lois decide it for him just comes off as creepy and raises a lot of unfortunate implications. The way she's the one who decides he should be president, the way the family expects him to solve all their (often self-inflicted) problems, the way they refuse to give him any help, it just comes off as needlessly controlling and cruel, even by her standards.
    • Fourthed. There was even an episode where Malcolm worked up the balls to say "No" to Lois, asking her if she intended to watch over him when he's married or 30 years old. From what I read, only one season after he shows regret for costing Reese a girlfriend, he lists all the horrible things Reese has done to him while Reese himself is in the army. Francis realizes what a horrible person Lois is, and told her in no uncertain terms how much he openly hates her before choosing his own path in life. Horrible as life was for him up in Alaska, at least he had the balls to sever ties with Lois. This goes to show how little respect Malcolm has for himself, even though he realizes and resents just as much what a control freak she is and how much a mess their lives are as a result. I would sympathize with other Butt Monkey characters like Keitaro Urashima, Monroe, Shinji Ikari, Meg Griffin, Chris Rock, Kyon, or Mikuru Asahina. Malcolm? All I can say is, What an Idiot!! I like to imagine that one day, he wises up and betrays his whole family. It's the only thing keeping me from hating this episode more.
    • The worst thing about that episode is that it shows how much of a manipulative bitch she is. Seriously, she told Malcolm that he's one of the few people that listens to their conscience, so now she made sure he'd tune it out? WTF. This troper can't help but feel that all of Lois and Hal's kids should have been adopted by different families. But that pales in comparison to Army Buddy. Getting right to the sucky point, Reese's army buddy reveals to Lois that she has a crush on her, and her response is, not an exact quote but, "It's not that I'm not flattered but I have a family, five kids..." She says that pretty casually and makes no mention of the pedophilia (given the buddy's age, it would have been statutory rape, not paedophilia) that would be involved. Out of all the times she exploded, I am surprised this wasn't one of them.
  • That '70s Show...Jesus, it's hard to pick the exact moment where the show lost all appeal. There's a lot of minor things, like Lisa Robin Kelly being replaced by the less funny and less talented Christina Moore, Fez and Laurie getting married, the gradual character derailment of nearly every person in the show....But probably the moment that ended it all, the exact point in time where the series started its long road into the night, was when Kelso decided to become a police officer. The biggest idiot, most irresponsible, and most anti-authority after Hyde, and he decides to join the police academy. Words fail me as I try to express how stupid this simple decision was for the show, and it was around that time that the jokes started getting less and less funny and the characters less like themselves.
    • You couldn't have said it better. The purpose of the police officer is to maintain law and order in our towns and cities. And now its newest member is a sex-crazed idiot who can barely run his own life.
    • An episode that really pissed me off was one where Red took the Vista Cruiser from Eric. Eric lost it because Kelso gave him a purple nurple, causing him to swerve and scratch the paint on a fire hydrant. Kelso and the others bailed when Red showed up. Later, they are in a car Kelso borrowed and get arrested because the car was reported stolen. Kelso also wastes their one phone call because Jackie mistakes the call for roleplaying. They get freed, and what happens then? Kelso and Jackie get laid. It frustrated me because Kelso was a complete jackass the entire episode, and he get no retribution (the car was accidentally reported stolen, Kelso had it legitimately). I could forgive Kelso being a cop because he was at least a bad cop and ended up as a bouncer in the finale, but the fact that he endangered everyone and got Eric in trouble with Red over the scratch (Red doesn't buy that Eric was arrested) makes me pissed that they reward his dickish behavior with sex. Fuck Kelso.
    • Jackie and Hyde break-up, the biggest reason concerning Hyde not being able to commit to marriage. Then when they are about to get back together a stripper shows up and claims to be his wife. And he stays married to her! Now the only reason they brought this character on was for a new Ms. Fanservice (On a show with Mila Kunis!) and to set up Jackie/Fez. Now you can set up Jackie/Fez....however the show hadn't brought up this pairing in a good four seasons. If Jackie/Fez was supposedly endgame, why put her with Hyde in the first place? Besides a lot of people liked Jackie/Hyde and they didn't even get a dignified break-up. Honestly Hyde's actions felt like just a big Fuck you to Jackie. (Plus his wife's actress was awful).
  • In Kamen Rider Decade Movie Wars, the duel of Kivala and Decade comes to mind for this troper. Decade was just finished defeating every single rider and Kivala of all people kills him as he half heartedly fights Kivala instead of his fury mode threatening to kill the only person he really cared for. It would have been more convincing for Diend to defeat him than Kivala.
    • One for the show is a part from Kabuto's world, Natsuki and Hiyori were being chased by Worms and wheb we got cornered Natsuki stepped away from Hiyori as the Worms closed in, she wasn't pushed or tossed away she just stepped aside to leave Hiyori at the mercy of the monsters, Hiyori makes it out of it but still Natsuki looked like a total jerk for just moving away like she did.
  • I'm willing to put the last few minutes of the last episode of Kamen Rider Kiva in Fanon Discontinuity because of the amount of stupid in them. I can accept that the final battle was against a suddenly resurrected 1986 King (instead of someone who would make sense). I can accept that Wataru was saved by a 22 years old piece of armor. But I can't accept they doing the "child from the future" thing again, completely out of left field, and announcing that the Fangires are still enemies (that completely and utterly destroys the optimism of Taiga trying to find a new source of energy to replace humans' life essence as Fangires' food and, therefore, reaching peace between the races). And the "Neo Fangires" being UFO-like only put the final nail in the coffin. And BTW, Toei, don't bother making a poorly-planned Sequel Hook if the chances of there being a sequel are slim-to-none!
  • The episode "Scott's Tots" of The Office. So apparently years ago Michael promised an entire class that if they graduated he would pay for their college tuition. What? So we are expected to believe that numerous people believed and accepted that a paper Salesman in Scranton could afford to send several kids to college let alone a whole class? And what if it was a private school? What if it was out of state. Hell, what if it was Ivy League? And worse is that the episode reveals that he has spent years getting to know these kids so you think that their parents or a teacher or someone would notice he does not have the income to support this. Pam is the only person who seems to grasp how unbelievably bad the situation is and forces Erin to take Michael to the school so he can come clean. But Michael "misses Pam" apparently so for no reason he treats poor sweet Erin like garbage the whole episode. So Michael goes to the school and tells these kids who have been relying on him that he can't pay for their tuition and then tries to smooth the situation by giving them batteries. Oh but he does pay for textbooks-for one of the kids. Then to top it off we get this awful attempt at a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming where Erin says that their class has the highest amount graduating from the school-all thanks to him! Yeah, and now most of them can't go to college-all thanks to him! Meanwhile the B story has Dwight trying to get Jim fired and Jim suddenly loses his brain and falls directly into the trap and the rest of the office become unbelievable dicks and won't let him get a word in.
  • The Ponzi scheme arc on Two and A Half Men. Alan rips off his family and friends, only feels a token amount of guilt, and when Rose offers to pay him so he can pay everyone back in return for not telling Charlie that Rose made up being married to make Charlie want her, he gets all pissy because he doesn't want to lie to his brother. What? He just scammed his brother out of thousands of dollars, was planning on scamming Rose for the money, and was planning on using the information to blackmail Rose so she wouldn't tell about his scam, and now he chooses to act like he's any more moral than Rose? Granted, Alan has decayed a lot as a character. He started as the Henpecked Husband and voice of reason to being a Straw Loser and Butt Monkey, but at this point, he becomes completely irredeemable.
    • Ok, so Judith kicks Herb out of her house because he followed Charlie's advice to put his foot down and stand up against Judith's abusive behavior. Alan hears about this, grins sadistically when he thinks about how the harpy bitch that constantly screws up his life is suffering, and later, goes to her house. Most viewers were expecting Alan to rub it in her face. Instead it ends up with Alan comforting her, and getting back with Judith, like if he forgot all the shit she put him through up to this point. Of Course, it ends with Judith breaking it up again, going back with Herb and remaining an abusive harpy for the rest of the series, never getting any comeuppance whatsoever for her actions. There should be a limit to how much one can Turn the Other Cheek.
  • The finale of Seinfeld. While visiting another town, the gang watches a guy get mugged and do nothing, so a nearby cop, instead of arresting the mugger, arrests them for not abiding by some Good Samaritan Law. The prosecution decides that this is some huge landmark case that is more important than a serial killer, and starts to bring in people that the gang pissed off as witnesses. The prosecutor claimed it was establishing a pattern of behavior that the gang showed when not helping the mugging victim. That may have been acceptable for a couple of people, but then they pull in people who had stupid reasons for hating them, people who have their own assumptions of the gangs actions, and even a guy who, according to Jerry, left America for parts unknown! Then when the gang gets found guilty, everyone cheers and the judge delivers a Reason You Suck Speech to the gang. The fact that the prosecution was allowed to pull in every character who had ever been on the show is incredibly stupid. The gang did not get a fair trial at all.
  • To say X-Play has suffered in recent years would be an Understatement. One moment that annoyed me was when they did Your Childhood Sucks: Final Fantasy VII. Not because they panned it, but they picked the most asinine reasons to do so. The rant consisted of nothing but nitpicks about the graphics (despite being made in 1997), the music, the random battles (which is like complaining about reloading in a FPS), and how muched they hated the people who liked it. In a nutshell, they pretty much said "This game sucks for being a JRPG made in the 90s."
    • A DMOS for this troper regarding the above is that not another single "Your Childhood Sucks" really made another appearance after I believe one more entry. So it was kind of an excuse to bash maybe two games.
  • The 30 Rock episode "TGS Hates Women." In theory, it was supposed to subvert and play with the growing public perception that maybe Tina Fey isn't so much a feminist powerhouse but just another writer who's made her bones picking on women she considers "below" her. In practice, it just came off as a snitty attack on "hot" female comics - the main three influences seeming to be Sarah Silverman's adult-child persona, Olivia Munn's "sexy geek" act, and Abby Elliott's late night presence, Khloe Kardashian voice, and name (the character in question was named "Abby Flynn"). The episode ended with a completely improbable Twist Ending in which the character had actually adopted the "slutty comedian" act in order to hide from an ex-husband, but it didn't really make a difference - the episode just felt nasty.
  • For Victorious, for me it was originally Cat's New Boyfriend, but "Jade Gets Crushed" had a worse moment in the subplot where Tori tries to ready herself for her Tech Theater exam. Robbie helps her study by doing some performing exercises, and while the show tells you it only takes her 28 seconds to complete, by watching you can see that it was much longer. Okay, fine with me. The worst part though? Tori aces the exam and bests Robbie by one point, and Robbie's picture is taken down from the wall in favor of Tori's. The icing on the cake is when Rex takes the time to taunt him as the picture is thrown in the trash. In general this was pretty mean-spirited because Robbie is much smarter with this stuff than Tori is and deserved it more. Also, it's been shown in other episodes that Tori isn't as knowledged at certain drama terms, so this really came out of nowhere (and was rather predictable). I don't like how Dan Schneider always subjects nerds to this kind of torture.
    • Goldeneye101: "Wi-fi in the Sky" is another crap episode. With Nick's advertising campaign being every single episode being a "special", I was actually expecting something good. What I got was one setting (the airplane) and absolutely idiotic jokes. After about 15 minutes, it got worse and worse. Then, Tori's sister needs to use the bathroom and goes to the first class one instead of the coach. I felt like that one wasn't too bad, but then she came back to say that she stole Perez Hilton 's camera. Now, Perez Hilton... wasn't exactly very likeable to many people. I was hoping and praying that they wouldn't show the guy... but at the end of the episode, they do. Complete with Tori saying "Oh my God, you're Perez Hilton!" And an applaud track. Really, Nick. The guy is gay, yet calls Will.I.Am a faggot, he gets punched by the band's manager because of it and is offended by it. He took an upskirt picture of Miley Cyrus (then 17) and somehow dodged arrest. He called Michael Jackson's death a hoax. He said everyone in my hometown was a retard because of a former mayor, even inviting a horde of guests to slam it. And yet, the fuckhead still gets screentime... on a show for pre-teens. I would have been absolutely offended if I was a mother letting my kid watch that show and knew who the guy was.
    • "Tori Gets Stuck." From the toy car in Robbie's intestine, which was just unnecessary disturbing and squicky Nightmare Fuel, to the doctors letting Trina and Cat just walk into a friggin' TB ward, so Trina can record a deathly ill man's cough and use it for her stupid role. Then the hospital makes Tori give three pints of blood! And the doctor almost outright tells her he has no clue at all if it's safe (which it most likely isn't...two pints is touchy enough). And the blood she gives isn't even used, since it explodes all over Tori and Robbie, making that entire plot almost entirely pointless. And then during the play, Tori passes out from having to give so much blood! And then somehow it's supposed to be funny that Trina catches TB from being in the TB ward... It's a life-threatening condition, you idiots! And nobody helps her because her illness makes her role "more realistic." Can you say worst episode? I can and will. Bonus points for Jade stealing Tori's medical records in the beginning and getting no comeuppance for it whatsoever, and using them for something that could've damn well killed her (exposing her to flowers she is allergic to).
    • How Trina Got In. First, there's the complete Character Derailment of Tori. While she wasn't a saint in the past, she at least got comeuppance for it (Cat's Boyfriend, anyone?). In this episode, she Took a Level in Jerkass. After her and Robbie got finished working their debt off at the Sushi place, Robbie accidentally breaks some dishes. Now, keep in mind that Robbie was treating Tori earlier, only to forget about his wallet. So, instead of helping him, she selfishly leaves him behind. Second, there was a scene that revealed Robbie didn't have phone service because it costed 45 dollars a month. Gee, a Jewish kid who thought that was too expensive? That doesn't sound offensive in the least. Third, the running gag with Cat keeping candy in her bra got old quickly. Finally, They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot with Trina's origin story. Instead of giving her Character Development, she got in the school because of Sikowits having a Mushroom Samba. Fuck this episode!!!
    • "Prom Wrecker" was absolutely terrible. Tori was just at her worst here. While normally I can put up with her when Jade is being a jerkwad, here she was just completely uncaring and rude to Jade when she finds out that her prom leaves her unable to do her art project. To put this in further perspective, look at Wok Star, when the entire gang played parts in helping Jade save her play from Mrs. Li turning it into a mess. Then, compare that to this, where noone gives a flying flip about Tori's prom leaving Jade unable to do her project or even calls Tori out on her behavior. Then, right when people start to leave the prom and it looks like Jade is finally going to have her chance, Trina reminds Tori to announce Prome King and Queen...and Tori makes Jade queen and Doug king. So, in short, Tori gets Jade's performance knocked, gets back at her, and gets no punishment whatsoever. Seriously, at that point I would have just had them have a The Bad Guy Wins ending after that, because it was deserved in such a situation. Also, the running gag of Andre and Sherry repeatedly kissing got old incredibly quickly. To make matters worse, this episode could have been awesome, but was nothing but a bunch of wasted potential. Bonus points for when Robbie thinking Cat was making up lies about her date, and walking away right before we see him on screen. Tsk. Sorry Dan, not your best work.
    • I'm just going to say it: I fucking hate Jade. How did such an unlikable bitch become an Ensemble Darkhorse? What really did it was in the episode where Tori was being stalked by Ponnie. The episode just ends with Jade shaving Cat's head and we just leave on that. No well-needed retribution or anything. Jade even said it in front of the councilor that she was going to 'get Cat,' and didn't so much as suspend her. Sikowitz flat out said that it was Cat's problem too. Adults Are Useless doesn't even cover it. The students are being educated by morons! I haven't seen a school staff this idiotic since Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu.
  • The Sentence, the second season finale of The Outer Limits relaunch. We have David Hyde Pierce playing a vain psychiatrist trying to win the Nobel Prize (in medicine, presumably) by curing violent sociopaths through virtual reality prison sentences. This procedure had had a 100% success rate up until he put on a demonstration for a visiting US Senator. In that case, the man kept protesting his innocence until he was put in the machine, at which point the virtual reality simulation broke down into an orgy of violence. Why? "Because the (duly convicted) man was innocent." How do they know he was innocent? Because the simulation didn't work for him. And everyone just accepts this assesment! Now, most of the episode actually takes place (in a transparently obvious twist) inside the psychiatrist's own VR simulation, but the innoncence of the man in question remains a plot point even after we return to the real world. Also: David Hyde Pierce is on trial for the death of the convict, we learn just how horrible the procedure really is, when people who have gone through it testify that "they wish they were dead." Problem is: this entire trial takes place inside a VR simulation. There is no real-world evidence that the procedure is anywhere near that bad. Anyways, the simulation progresses, David Hyde Pierce gets sent to a hellish prison for twenty years (the prison being based upon his own knowledge of what the actual prison system is like), gets "reformed" and wakes up to find that, in reality, only about thirty minutes have gone by. He then tries to destroy the machine, on the grounds that it is a cruel and inhumane punishment for innocent people, and his guilt at having built it is reinforced by the fact that his experience in the machine was not the same as that of the other "innocent" man. Problems with this: 1) There is still no evidence that the duly-convicted-by-a-jury-of-his-peers test subject was innocent. 2) Even if the occasional innocent guy did get through, is it really worse to implant a few false memories over the course of one afternoon than it is to literally steal years of his life in a hellish prison? 3) All of the evidence that the procedure is inhumane comes from the doctor's own nightmare fantasy, and finally, 4) we get to see first hand just how terrible the current penal system is!
  • The most offensive parts of Scrubs were in the "fake final" when JD wrote down every single rant from Dr. Cox, which reduced his character to nothing more than a pathetic Dr. Cox fanboy/stalker and when Dr. Cox finally admits how proud of JD he really is only for JD to be standing right behind him with a stupid smug look on his face because he in fact planned the entire thing. What kind of pathetic little suck up needs someone's approval that badly? Dr. Cox has shown his pride for JD in several episodes such as "My Last Day", "My Cake", and "My Fallen Idol" just to name a few. If JD can't figure out how much Dr. Cox cares about him without him outright saying it to his face, then he is a complete tool.
    • Gess: However sickening that was, they still managed to top it in the 9th season. JD's craving with Dr. Cox's attention turned from merely pathetic and needy to downright masochistic! On one occasion, while withstanding another rant from his idol, JD is begging for more in his head. Ugh. And then he gives his students a photo presentation of himself in suggestive poses... Let's say it plain and blunt: they turned JD into a whore and it's disgusting.
  • The NCIS season five episode "Dog Tags" is a Dethroning Moment for Abby. McGee is attacked by a Navy drug-sniffing dog and bitten several times before he manages to fend it off by shooting it non-fatally. Upon hearing what happened, Abby immediately berates McGee for hurting the dog - which is also suspected of attacking and killing its handler - and spends the rest of the episode acting like a spoiled brat: refusing to acknowledge that the dog could possibly be dangerous, treating it as a pet, and refusing to hand it back over to the unit responsible for the dogs. At the end of the episode, she forces McGee to adopt the dog that attacked him. Compare with her actions in the episode "Corporal Punishment", where she shows no compassion whatsoever for a Marine who attacked several people, even though he was in a mental institution due to a combination of PTSD and Playing with Syringes.
    • Normally, I like NCIS, but the recent multi-part season finale just left a bitter taste in my mouth. While I did enjoy Jamie Lee Curtis as a guest star, I felt the whole thing was bogged-down by its overly-long plot and a villain that seems better suited for a James Bond film rather than a crime-drama series. But, the true DMOS of the finale was the fact that Ducky is killed in an explosion. I'm sorry, what? I know killing off characters is nothing new in the show and it seems they do it for a good number of major plot twists (IE: Agent Todd and Jenny Shepard, for instants.). But, at least those deaths had epic foreshadowing to them. Ducky's death was just killing off a character for the sake of killing of a character.
  • In House, I can't remember the name of the episode, but it was one of those "day in the life of" featuring Cuddy. Basically, the entire episode was about what a day for Cuddy is like. Cuddy is confronted with a patient who's suing the hospital for reattaching his thumb when he specifically requested not to. The reason was because his insurance wouldn't cover a reattachment, but would cover stitching the wound closed. The doctor decided to act on his own and reattach the thumb anyway. Now, I know it's Cuddy's job to defend the hospital and its staff, especially when it comes to potentially serious financial matters. But that still doesn't make me any less pissed off with her attitude towards the patient. Cuddy, your doctor broke the damn law. It's illegal to perform a procedure or treatment on any mentally sound person without their consent. He specifically stated that he didn't want his thumb sewn on. It was done anyway. And then he was charged full price for a procedure he didn't ask for. It's especially bad considering one of the other sidestories about how the evil insurance company is trying to cheat them out of money they deserve. She's doing the same thing to the patient! The worst part is a line that seriously made me want to smack her across the face, which was essentially: "Our services aren't free, and we'll get our money even if it means taking your house (yes, she specifically mentioned taking his house as a means of payment)." Jesus Cuddy, why don't you just bust his kneecaps and demand protection money while you're at it? He specifically stated he didn't want that procedure done. This is one of the myriad reasons why it's a good thing to have a national health service like the one in this troper's country, assuming her government doesn't destroy it.
  • Charlie Sheen guest starring on Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza. Evidently, Carey failed to tell him that the idea behind Story is to continue the story on your turn, not just shout "Charlie Sheen fucking a dead hooker" over and over again. I don't expect the guest stars to be experts at improv, but they tend to be able to outperform a cardboard standee with a tape recorder.
  • Law and Order -- "Under The Influence (s8e11)" may be Jack McCoy's Never Live It Down moment, but his trueDMoS comes earlier in "Savages (s6e3)". In order to make sure an accountant who murdered an undercover cop was eligible for the Death Penalty. McCoy cuts a ludicrous deal with the only person who could verify he knew the guy was a cop: The drug-dealing Smug Snake of an antique dealer the accountant was working for to begin with. The same dealer the dead officer was investigating. The deal? Dropping all charges against the dealer AND blanket immunity on the stand (meaning anything he confessed to during testimony instantly became off limits). Bear in mind, they had the accountant locked down for murder (2nd Degree Murder carrying a 20-year minimum sentence). McCoy let a clearly worse criminal walk just to be able to apply the ultimate sanction to the killer.
  • I was watching The Mentalist pretty regularly but then I stopped altogether because of one scene. It was the end of the first season episode with the con-artist that claimed she could talk with the dead. In the end, she said she had talked with Patrick Jane's murdered daughter. The dead girl had said that she didn't suffer when she was killed. Jane doesn't get furious and tell her not to pretend to know anything of his daughter, instead Jane gets teary-eyed and thanks the charlatan.
  • Over time, Top Gear has veered more toward scripted "reality" that now James May says he now plays a character instead of himself. However, this came to a head with the test of the Tesla Roadster, which included a fake break-down. Tesla is now suing the show over this segment. The icing on the cake? It was immediately followed by a segment declaring a hydrogen-powered Honda the real future of cars, even though hydrogen development has been all but dropped over fuel supply issues.
  • The most recent Wizards of Waverly Place episode. Basically, Alex is being rewarded for saving the world from the Angels of Darkness by being named wizard of the year, complete with a banquet and getting back in the wizard competition, with only Justin realizing what little sense this makes that she's rewarded after all the bad things she's done. Speaking of Justin, her and Max make fun of him even though he really was trying (and succeeding) to not be a sore loser. Also, Alex and Mason are having "realtionship problems" because a TV show edited a clip of her to make it look like she said she was going out with another guy. So now Mason doesn't want to come to the banquet and we're supposed to feel bad for Alex. Poor, poor Alex. She may be a complete Jerkass and she may be getting a reward she really doesn't deserve, but feel bad for her. And laugh at Justin, while they mock him to the point where he snaps and starts ranting, which in turn kills another chance for him to catch up in the wizard competition. After that episode, I just can not root for Alex anymore.
    • In an earlier episode, the Russos and Harper collaborate to prevent his then-girlfriend Juliet from being dragged off to Monster Jail, which they do by setting up a group of decoy monsters to be captured in her place. Towards the end of the episode, Justin cheerily reports that the decoys were sent to said jail and that Juliet is safe. Everything sounds peachy, right? Well, one of the monsters that was hauled off to rot in a prison cell was Frankengirl, who is not only clearly sentient but was created by Justin himself in an earlier episode and sees him as a father. In other words, Justin was present to witness his own daughter be dragged off to be imprisoned in another dimension for possibly an eternity, and he didn't give two craps. Sure it kept your girlfriend from suffering the same fate, but come on, Justin.
    • The episode when Stevie was revealed to be evil, and ultimately got defeated by Alex freezing her and Max accidently knocking her over and shattering her to pieces, thus most likely killing her. The fact that Stevie turned out to be "evil" was... alright I guess, and sure, freezing someone is a kinda cool and unusual way of beating them, but did they really have to kill her off? The thing that bothers me the most, however, is that no-one even cared that Stevie just died! That was horrible, but the worst still must've been when Max and Justin started to draw things on the face of an unconcious guy who was covered in Stevie's pieces. Said guy was Stevie's brother! Okay, they might've been at odds with each other, but still! To wake up and find out that, not only is your only sister dead, but you're lying amidst her frozen parts! And your face has been drawn on as well!
    • What annoyed me was the fact that her "evil" plan was to have all Wizards be allowed to use magic and abolish the Competition. And that's a bad thing, beause....?
    • That episode was just filled with ungodly bad writing. It got what was right and wrong entirely mixed up! Stevie was supposedly wrong and "evil" for daring to rise up against the unfair Wizard Competition (along with others she'd recruited who felt the same way) so that all wizards can keep their magic powers and there'd be less broken wizard families like hers or the Russos around. Alex was supposedly "doing the right thing" in using Stevie and pretending to still be her friend just so she can freeze her and transfer her powers back to her brother. And Justin was supposedly right in hamfistedly declaring that "Stevie is evil and is trying to overtake the entire wizard world" even though she never talked about doing anything of the sort, unless the wizard world is really shallow enough to be kept standing by one stupid competition and it's stupid rules. And Max, who actually wanted to take over the wizard world to be king and is the one who kills Stevie in the end, gets no punishment or acknowledgement of what he's done wrong. And no one cares that Stevie's dead; Alex even makes a joke out of it after Stevie shatters on her unconciouss brother! And before that, Alex flat out states that she thinks "people outside the Russos are better." Well, YEAH; this episode proves that in so many ways! This is a Dysfunctional Family of monsters! If the series had started it's downhill spiral at the start of the third season, this episode is defenitely what killed it.
    • Originally, for me it was the ending of Wizards Vs Werewolves. However, the series finale is now even worse and essentially replaced the previous moment. Basically, its the same thing: It was a massive copout that bordered on Dues Ex Machina: Justin wins the wizard competition and earns the right to become a full wizard. But, he interupts the awarding of it by declaring he doesn't deserve it, because Alex stopped and came back to help him when he got stuck on a bush and helped him get out. So, he declares that she deserves it, but not him. But, so he'll have a happy ending, Professor Crumps announces he's retiring and appoints Justin his replacement, so that he can become a full wizard instead. Ok, this infuriates me. 1) Since when did Justin ever think Alex deserves the right to be a full wizard? He's made it clear before he doesn't think she deserves magic because she always abuses it. Why? Because, she totally does! Alex is always being reclass and causing trouble with magic, to the point she comes off as a Designated Hero. But, because she saved him, he decides to change his opinion? Didn't he get really mad when others ignored all the bad she did to award her for saving the world once? 2) If they wanted to have Justin give up the power, why not just show the damn scene first instead of flashing back to it? Did they want to make it a plot twist? Well, too bad, they failed! Why didn't they just make it clear before what happened, or better yet, just let her win and give Justin another reason to be awarded the power by Crumps. 3) Why did she even have to win in the first place? Like I said, Alex is constantly abusing magic and causes all the trouble she gets into. Justin isn't always that much better, but he's usually only such because Alex does something to set him off. Why not just let Justin win? Oh, because of her and Mason, the boyfriend she would have to break up with. But, he's an immortal werewolf who will apparently never grow up, Twilight Vampire style. She's going to get older, he's not, so eventually they'll have to break up. 4) The Crumps thing came completely out of nowhere. Why not announce at the begining he was retiring, or a few episodes ago and build up to it? This is the problem with Dues Ex Machina endings, they can easily be averted by hinting/forshadowing/building up to it. All in all, the ending was just lazily written.
  • The ending of the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode "Fracked." The team thinks they've finally put together what's going on with the Complete Monster gas company (one of their employees was killing whistleblowers, then the company had the killer killed for outliving his usefulness), when, out of nowhere the sleazeball Undersheriff closes the investigation. Yeah, the episode was probably trying to make a point about the "untouchability" of corporations, but all it did was suck any sense of satisfaction out of an otherwise passable episode. I've even grown an epileptic tree about this episode: the Undersheriff was bribed.
    • The ending of the episode where Langston and Lady Heather meet. This turns Langston's Crowning Moment of Awesome from a previous episode into nothing. Previously, Langston was able to turn the 'genetically predisposed to being a psychopath' theory on its ass by revealing that genetically and historically, he's a lot like Nate Heskel: He has the same gene and he had an abusive childhood, but he's still not a serial killer. That was an awesome moment. But then, in this episode, he confesses to Lady Heather that he feels 'a monster' inside of him, and feels he needs to kill Nate. Ok, so, you give a middle finger to a previous episode's very awesome ending by making it clear that actually, he is really a serial killer waiting to happen. Great way to make it apparent that being a Complete Monster isn't by choice writers. What makes it more infuriating, was that the previous moment was what saved Langston from being my least favourite character, so not only do they remove an awesome moments credability, they remove the one thing I liked about Langston.
  • The most recent episode of The Office,and that's saying something after the CMOH wrap up of Michael's departure with Deangelo being Flanderized into a Jerkass and then cruelly let off before we really know anything,then Dwight taking over only to be once again be ousted,instead of going with it for a while. Those moments were embarrassing but compared to the interviews special for the new manager that's nothing. First,it's riddled with Celebrity Guest Stars who seem out of place all vying for the new position which slowed down the usual pace,the jokes weren't funny at all especially not Warren Buffett.But then the main story of the interviews was hampered by not only too many people,but the Gabe plot tumor trying to get Erin back and make everyone miserable to do so,which leads to massive Character Derailment to manipulating Kelly which backfires and gets him Put on a Bus.Then you have the "Angela's Boyfriend is gay" subplot which also took away,wasn't funny and frankly just made a huge Kick the Dog even too much for Angela.And none of it was well executed,with awkward transitions littered here and there,and why did Jim Carrey get the last line? Everything imaginable went wrong "Search Committee" and not even Creed's Large Ham could've saved it.It sucks that Deangelo got axed so quickly for this.
    • It was also pretty terrible when the episode following Deangleo's departure featured no manager and things were getting on fine! Plus it made Jim look like a huge dumbass. He gets offered manger (a job he was aching to get in season 6) but turns it down because he likes how people are operating without a manager. He then is horrified when Dwight is given the job. Well what did you think was going to happen? Did you seriously think that they were going to let a bunch of people work unsupervised? Why didn't you just accept the job and then just keep running it the same?
    • The hiring of Jordan the Personal Assistant. She was hired to be Deangelo's assistant but he's fired the same episode she was hired so naturally, shouldn't they get rid of her? Nope. They were obviously trying to get some sex appeal to keep viewers, copying the hiring of Erin. However Erin had a reason to be hired and Erin is genuinely funny. Jordan isn't even a good straight man and they do not need a personal assistant in an office that already has a receptionist, Office Administrator and a temp.
  • The George Lopez Show: Ok, so George finds out his daughter is dating someone he doesn't like. So after arguing with her a bit, she says she almost a woman and she can do whatever she wants. What does he tell her? He basically tells her to get out out and he won't come looking for her. Ok, so she runs away and he starts to feel like crap. What does his wife tell him? It wasn't his fault and he was trying to protect her. If I was her, I would've fucking kicked him out. Let me remind you everyone was acting like it was no big deal, and nobody called him out on it at all. How he's even likeable as a character anymore is beyond me.
    • Well, he has a Freudian Excuse that shows up quite regularly in the form of Benny Lopez. She's the Dethroning Moment of Suck in The George Lopez Show, where her childhood abuse of George is played for laughs and is generally treated as if it was a good thing for George. Honestly, after some of what she's put George through, the fact that he isn't a member of a Mexican prison gang with a life sentence for a triple homicide is a testament to his moral fortitude and indomitable will.
      • I found that arc bad for the opposite reason. Carmen and Max's behavior was what infuriated me. Carmen, when your dad has a My God, What Have I Done? Papa Wolf reaction to you running away, the correct response is to realize how wrong you were and accept his offer to come home with open arms, not reject and disown him in front of a celebrity who could tell the world about it no less. And then she insists that George and Angie are "treating her like a baby and controlling everything she does". Yeah, because wanting to know if you're safe, alive and haven't been taken advantage of soooo makes them control freaks. Meanwhile, Max is more preoccupied with Carmen getting punished and never once shows any actual concern for his only older sister being alone somewhere with a boy who has taken advantage of innocent girls, and could do it again with her! And when she doesn't get punished, he not-so-subtly threatens to run off himself. Dear God, these kids.
  • In episode 17 of Choujin Sentai Jetman, the group is out shopping, the girls going through swim suits, when Ako suggests to Kaori that one suit in particular would be appealing to Ryu. Gai, being the model of emotional maturity that he is, decides right then and there to grab Kaori by the arm and drag her away from the others, ignoring everyone yelling at him, and takes her into an elevator to isolate her from everyone. When he starts talking about all men being wolves, she thinks its a joke, but she quickly realizes it isn't, and visibly becomes scared. Then a power outage strikes, and Gai, being the emotionally immature belligerent dick that he is, decides that then is the time to invade Kaori's personal space and to demand to know if she loves or hates him. And yet, this is supposed to be the Ensemble Darkhorse of Jetman? This is supposed to be one of the most popular characters in the whole of the Super Sentai franchise? Fuck him, I don't care how many "Badass" stunts he pulls in battle, none of them were worth that one scene, not that it was an isolated incident mind you.
  • As much as this troper loves The Twilight Zone, they earned themselves a dethroning moment during season five's episode "Night Call," in which a lonely old woman receives mysterious and disturbing phone calls. The calls escalate from creepy silence to unsettling moans and finally speaking, and she tells him to stop bothering her. She attempts to find out where the calls are coming from and finds out they are from her dead fiance, who died when she bossed him into letting her drive and she crashed. He calls again, only to let her know that he won't be bothering her anymore, and she's heartbroken. This episode seems to be about torturing a lonely old woman and saying women shouldn't drive or attempt to be in control of anything, ever, and its Kick the Dog attitude does not help.
    • The episode "Mute" is just awful. It's about a preteen girl, Ilse, with telepathic powers, which she got because her parents raised her as an experiment, never teaching her to talk and never loving her. Well, her parents die in a fire and she's adopted, and has to be reached out to by her new stepparents and school teacher. Now, what should happen here is that her stepparents and teacher should try to show her real love and acceptance, help her open up socially with her telepathic abilities, and teach her how to harness them for good purposes. But that's not what happens. Instead, the stepmother is hysterically intent on using Ilse as a Replacement Goldfish for her own dead daughter, the stepfather never seems to give a damn, and worst of all, the school teacher decides that Ilse's telepathy must be gotten rid of and Ilse must "be like everyone else", so she instructs all the other schoolchildren to Mind Rape Ilse by always thinking her name until these thoughts become deafening to her. Eventually, it works. Ilse's telepathy is ruined and she breaks down crying and screaming "My name is Ilse!" over and over. And at the end, the ending tries to be happy saying that Ilse lost her telepathy, but at least she now has people who love her, which is more important. Excuse me, but just how does one confuse incessant mental torture and love!?
  • Gilligan's Island had its ups and downs but one of the worst episodes has to be "Take a Dare". The plot is that a man is a contestant on a radio game show where he has to live on a deserted island for a week for a $10,000 grand prize. But in order to get the prize money, he has to do it without any help whatsoever, and after he is put on Gilligan's Island, he steals the castaways food and whatnot and all the while pretending that he is having a hard time on the island. Now he has a radio that he constantly uses to talk to the game show people, and he has a button that can be pressed if he ever wants to quit. Well the castaways find out about this and they try to get him to change his mind and get them off the island. The idea of the Howells giving him a reward is idiotically tossed aside by having the guy not believing they are extremely rich, which in it of itself is stupid since it is implied the Howell's are extremely well known and their disappearance would've been highly pulicized, so it makes no sense that he would think they are lying. So the castaways try to steal the radio, which the guy goes so far as to throw the radio over a cliff into the ocean to prevent them from being rescued. They also try to find a way to get to the ship as it picks him up, and...the guy gets off the island. The fact that he ends up not winning the prize money (it was in the radio he threw over the cliff) still doesn't soften the Yank the Dog's Chain ending. The writer of this episode obviously didn't understand that it was funny when Gilligan or somebody else screwed up their chances of getting off the island. It's NOT funny when a guy is just being a jerk, just for a few thousand dollars, and they try hard to get off the island and they fail.
  • The fifth season episode of Angel, The Girl in Question. Where do I start? First, it interrupts the ongoing story arc. The whole story of Angel pretending to be corrupted by Wolfram & Hart loses any steam when they go from Angel giving a baby to a demon cult and him having a wacky comedy with an hour long pissing contest with Spike about Buffy. They ruined the mood the ending of Time Bomb started. Then we get to watch as our hero and a cool secondary character are turned into self admitted "hen pecked teenagers chasing after a girl". Angel and Spike have such a grasp on the Idiot Ball that they and get outsmarted and blown up by some nameless demon that any other time would have been decapitated long ago and Andrew leaves the episode with more dignity than them. And when they aren't acting like dorks about Buffy, they're bitching about the Immortal's perfection emasculating them. And it's not bad enough that this happens to our heroes in their current state. Oh no! They also have to give us a flashback to when they were evil and make them look like the vampire equivalents of Duckie. They turn Angelus and William the Bloody from a cold blooded killer and the most feared vampire ever into whiny little dorks who are jealous of the jock. Not to mention it undermines the poignancy of Darla's last appearance by having her last scene in the Buffyverse be a giggling fangirl who had a three way with Drusilla and the Immortal. And then there's Buffy's romance with the Immortal. Seriously, "The Immortal"? Tell me that doesn't sound like something they made up in five minutes. It's not bad enough they stuck Buffy with some God Mode Sue noncharacter, but the way the episode plays out turns her into more of a damn plot device than the severed demon head Angel and Spike had to get. It's such a stupid way to close the Buffy/Angel/Spike triangle. This idea with Buffy and the Immortal was so bad they retconned it in the Season 8 comics. Oh, and let's not forget the jarring B Plot where Illyria pretends to be Fred when her parents visit. This wasn't as obnoxious as the A Plot until you realize that it implies the Fang Gang are so thoughtless that they didn't even call Fred's parents to inform them their daughter died! And finally, the most damning sin a comedy episode can commit: it's not funny!
  • "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" from Community. I haven't completely seen Season 2, but so far this is Pierce's worst moment. Imagine if Party of One was done by Pikie Pie being a dillhole to someother pony instead of the main plot. In it, Pierce doesn't get invited to a Dungeons and Dragons game by Jeff to cheer up a possibly suicidal classmate named "Fat Neil" who the narrotor keeps calling him. Pierce's D&D character steals Neil's sword he worked hard for and wipes his privates on it and humps it and loads over that Neil has no friends and is fat. This, as someone who got bullied, a very painful experience and wanted to knock that fucking asshole's teeth out.
    • I second that, Pierce is supposed to be a dick but he is just so cartoonishly, pointlessly evil in this episode it just throws everything out of order. The series had been building towards a real low moment for Pierce but seemed to jump ahead another six episodes worth of developement in this episode. It makes his behaviour in Celebrity Pharmacology seem reasonable and to an extent it was. He was obviously just desperate for attention and the addiction was messing with his head, hence the teaching kids bad lessons and paying off Annie. Please correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't seen it in a while but he seemed to redeem himself in the end of Celebrity Pharmacology making this derailment far worse.
  • The CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode "Sounds of Silence," featured Sara and Warrick being unforgiveably - and uncharacteristically - rude to a deaf person in the course of their investigation. You could cite ignorance of the deaf community as one of the factors, but it's just simple courtesy to not ignore the person you're talking to in favor of the translator (and you'd think the translator would at least make them aware of this before they started their interview). The whole situation seemed to be designed purely as a setup for the reveal that Grissom knows sign language, and it just seemed like there could have been a better way to do it other than having our characters pick up an Idiot Ball.
  • The Boston Legal episode where Denny shoots a homeless guy with a paintball gun. Yeah, he was called on it repeatedly, but the willful jump from "loveable nut" to "smug, unrepentant asswipe" was jarring.
  • I know it's rather odd seeing a Disney Channel show being on this page, but this troper recently watched an A.N.T. Farm episode that pretty much made this troper give up on Disney Channel completely. In the new episode PatANT, the Alpha Bitch of the show goes through a "Boy Who Cried Wolf plot" pretending to be hurt and everybody believed it. But in the end, she actually does break her legs. So what does the cast do? They just fucking leave her there, now not believing her. Holy hell, Disney, I know she was an Alpha Bitch, but come the fuck on! That's just fucking harsh, even for a Disney Channel show. And did I mention that this is the last we see of her, which means we don't know what happens to her? They were trying to force us to think she deserved it, but it's just Disproportionate Retribution, plain and simple. It's just sad how Disney Channel went from teaching life lessons to sadistic comedy like this on their shows.
  • Now normally I like Tosh.0, I understand the humor etc... But in the 4th Season episode. Where Daniel takes the $24000+ that he made auctioning off all the memorabilia from his show, and rather than donate it to Charity or something like that. He proceeds to blow it all on one hand of Blackjack in Vegas. And then he has the nerve to make a joke about it. Now I understand it's a comedy show, and the people who paid in that auction expected to see him do something stupid with the money... But for me, it just seemed like a giant middle finger to people who could have put that money to good use.
  • The FOX 25th Anniversary Special was a Dethroning Moment for the Fox Network. I will admit that parts of it were quite nice, including the Fox Sports segment; and I liked that Firefly, Dollhouse, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles each got a Shout-Out for their respective fanbases. That said, long-running Fox shows such as Malcolm in the Middle, King of the Hill, COPS, America's Most Wanted, and Mad TV each got VERY minimal screentime; and they didn't even mention favorites like Parker Lewis Can't Lose or Futurama (each of which had three seasons on Fox), despite showing clips from a TON of reality shows cancelled after only one season.[2]
  • How I Met Your Mother's seventh season finale "The Magician's Code". It's bad enough they went with the safe route and revealed Barney & Robin would end up together despite spending the entire episode building up his relationship with Quinn. But then there's what they do with Ted. He calls Victoria again to attempt tying up that loose end, she happens to be in the city and she shows up wearing a wedding dress. Victoria then says they should run away together, and as they're driving Ted tells her no as he was once left at the alter. BUT THEN he decides "ah screw it" and runs away with her anyway. God damn it writers! Do you learn nothing?
  • The seventh season finale of Bones was wall-bangingly ludricous. I won't even go into how the evil genius super-hacker serial killer Pelant is somehow able to thoroughly screw Brennan and everyone else around her using the bar codes from library books. Pelant knows things and does things he simply should not be able to do. In that, they're physically and technologically impossible. He's beyond Crazy Prepared; he's impossibly prepared. He's able to effortlessly exploit every flaw in the legal system to turn it against the heroes, despite the heroes's track record of trustworthiness, and despite the fact that he's a convicted felon who doesn't even own a computer. NO ONE is that smart. Or that prepared. Max's speech about "the system" comes dangerously close to some kind of Anti-Establishment Writer on Board speech. The entire premise of the episode seems designed to prove that the system is evil, you can't win against it, and the only solution is to chuck it all and run.
  • Sportsnation: Basketball's 101 Most Disrespectful Moments may be the worst thing that's ever aired on any ESPN network (worse than The Decision). For one, most of the clips are simply dunks (apparently it's "disrespectful" to get an easy basket) instead of something like a flagrant foul or a brawl. Also the commentary is awful (it's mostly just the two hosts saying "That's disrespectful" for an hour), the music consists solely of ten-second loops of the same two songs, half of the clips feature Duke or North Carolina, the audience consists of brain-dead teenagers who will react to anything and no one in the room seems to know what disrespectful means. This is a clear example that ESPN will air anything nowadays, no matter how low quality.
  • America's funniest home video: One video had a kid with diarrhea crying on the toilet while the mom is filming and laughing. How is that funny? The only sympathy for the kid in the clip was from the family dog. Worse it won the 10,000 dollars. Yeah good thing you have the money because the kid will need it for therapy after this. Also how are kids of people vomiting funny? Laughing at someone who is sick and humiliated is just wrong.
    • Now, I may be in the minority when I say that I tolerated the Fuegelsang/Fuentez era of AFV and found some moments pretty funny. That being said, their "Seven Deadly Sins" special contained a moment so awful and disgusting it nearly made me swear off the series forever. The episode in-and-of itself is fine at first with each segment of clips focusing on a different sin (a pretty clever idea, I must admit). But, then we get to the theme of "Pride". What sort of clips do they decide to show their audience? Why, babies vomiting of course. Just...no, eww, no. I want to watch people getting into wacky situations. Not change the channel the moment "Junior" decides to literally show us what he had for breakfast. Have the producers forgotten the show is called America's Funniest Home Videos and not "Babies Barf-O-Rama"?

  1. Fun fact:The design was picked as part of a contest. The contestants were all primary-schoolers.
  2. I almost complained about the lack of Fox Kids recognition, including the failure to recognize what a boon Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was for the network, but then I remembered that other companies now own most of those shows, and it would have been legal hell if Fox had mentioned the block.