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

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


iCarly makes its name in Comedic Sociopathy, characters being Jerkasses, multiple moments of Kick the Dog and Getting Crap Past the Radar. However, it can only go so far before it begins annoying or offending people for the wrong reason.

Also, keep in mind that as with all Dan Schneider shows, iCarly runs on Comedic Sociopathy (as mentioned), sadomasochistic tendencies and Bellisario's Maxim, along with characters being Butt Monkeys and/or Karma Houdinis. Thus, while you might have laughed at something that someone else lists here, it might be the other way around, and vice versa. So we obviously won't just up and delete your entry, but you should be prepared to do even more explaining than normal as to what makes it a DMoS.

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 Executive Meddling and Fan Dumb. That is just asking for trouble.
  • No ASSCAPS, no bold, and no italics unless it's the title of a work. We are not yelling the DMoSs out loud.

For smaller moments, or a piece of minor development or plot that isn't quite a DMOS, go to the iCarly Wall Bangers page which can have multiple entries added without being signed.


  • iMeet Fred. Freddie says that he doesn't think Fred's videos are that funny. Not bad. Not terrible. Not 'Fred should stop', just 'not that funny'. Fred sees this and tells the world that he's not going to make any more videos because of what Freddie said. Freddie is immediately ostracised by everyone, including everyone at school and his school groups, his family and Sam, while nobody - not even on the internet - seems to be relieved that he's gone (because, you know, the entire world population just loves Fred so much). Not even Carly stands by him. When the trio go to Fred's house to confront him (in a high tree house), Freddie refuses to take back what he said. Sam then picks up a modern tennis racquet, takes Freddie into a room away from the camera, and proceeds to beat him to a pulp with the racquet, to the point where she breaks it on him. Under threat of more beatings, Freddie finally takes back what he said. At this point, it's revealed that Fred didn't even care about what was said, it was all a ploy to get more viewers. Sam then throws Freddie out of the tree house. The apparent moral of this story? "It's okay to have an opinion, as long as it's not an unpopular one, and beating someone to make them change their views is acceptable".
    • In addition, nobody gets mad at Fred! Before they found out that Fred was lying, nobody stopped and said "Fred's being overdramatic" or "He needs to chill; it's just one bad review". When he admits to lying, no-one gets mad at him for it. Moral: "It's okay to lie to get attention".
  • iHire An Idiot. The big Wall Banger was that after all Cort has done, like writing on Freddie's Pear Pad with a marker, destroying Freddie's laptop with lemonade in a bag, thus knocking them off the air, they finally fire Cort after he ate one of their props. The fact they couldn't fire Cort because he looked good was also annoying. Also, didn't it remind anyone of the King of the Hill episode, "Junkie Business," when Carly and Sam completely ignored a competent worker just for their own selfish reasons? Finally, Sam threatening to give Freddie an attitude adjustment if he didn't stop complaining.
    • The worse part is? When Freddie hires a beautiful-but-ditzy female counterpart to Cort, Carly and Sam complain about it.
  • This Troper isn't too fond of iCarly. Maybe it's because I'm not part of the intended audience. But iGo to Japan grinds my gears. There were lots of unfunny jokes, teenagers and grown adults yelling there and there. Some nitpicks, like deserts being in Japan, and a left-handed Toyota (Scion) in Japan. They portray Asians as idiots (again.), and this troper is perplexed as why are these in-universe webshows nominated? The nominees for best comedy webshow include a popular webshow hosted by teenage girls who are usually yelling and doing stupid stuff, a poorly done Widget show involving Siamese twins and oversized hands, and a French Jerk with a puppet dog. The Wall Banger moment in question? The iCarly gang has to explain situation to the Japanese guards so they would let them in the award show. They do it by playing charades. Not only do they make themselves and the guards look like idiots, but the guards bought all what they're saying. Freddie hacks the screen system, and puts the whole moment on screen. The audience thinks it's funny, and iCarly is given the best comedy webshow award. The guards arrest the Japanese twins for their crime. That's a Deus Ex Machina if I ever saw one.
  • iWill Date Freddie's Broken Aesop. After Freddie broke up with Valerie after finding out she was using him, he still refuses to come back to Carly and Sam because he was tired of Sam constantly mistreating him. So, after Carly talks Sam into apologizing, what does she do? She gives Freddie a wedgie after "hugging" him. Freddie, rightfully, complained, and yet Carly ignores it. Oh yeah, and Sam doesn't learn anything, and continues to treat Freddie like crap. How did Seddie become the Fan-Preferred Couple again?
  • iParty with Victorious was a decent episode. You know. If you completely ignore Carly's Character Derailment in this episode. First, she hits Freddie, which is completely out of character for her, just for pointing out how good looking Tori was. Then she threatens to do it again if he doesn't stop. Finally, after finally hearing the truth that her boyfriend was cheating on her, Freddie decides to go beat him up. How does Carly convince him to stop? She bluntly calls him a nerd, therefore, he'd get his ass kicked. Gee, Carly. Way to show one of your best friends that you care. You know Freddie, it's not too late to go to a webshow with people that actually respect you.
  • iOMG: I only watch this series occasionally and Carly's actions towards Freddie in iParty with Victorious was eye roll-worthy. But let's rewind back to iOMG. I think we all know exactly what this is about. The fact that promos for the follow up episode implies that they start dating motivated me enough to add this entry. So you mean to tell me that after all the hell she put Freddie through, Sam Puckett, possibly the worst love interest and biggest Jerk Sue since Naru freaking Narusegawa, all of a sudden is in love with Freddie and now they're going to start dating? Esoteric Happy Ending doesn't even begin to describe this, knowing where this is likely heading, as I believe Freddie can do and deserves a lot better than Sam or her glorified enabler Carly.
  • "iStakeout". The main plot (where the police stay at Carly and Spencer's loft to track a clerk who they think is selling pirated DVDs) wasn't that funny, but the sub-plot was even worse. Because of some stupid bet about what MPEG stands for, Sam makes Freddie get a tattoo of her on his arm. And Carly does nothing about it. So after Freddie spends the whole episode trying to hide it from his mom as hard as possible, near the very end, Mrs. Benson sees it, and gets mad. Once again, Carly says nothing to back him up. After Mrs. Benson angrily takes Freddie to get it removed, we find out that the tattoo Sam's cousin made was temporary. Seriously? I know I wasn't the only one who wanted to punch Sam in the face after that.
  • The episode that did it for me was the one where one of Carly's teachers had just broken up with her boyfriend. The students watch her lie on top of her desk, sobbing hysterically. When Carly goes up to console her, said teacher snaps and starts being a huge Jerkass toward her students. After Spencer goes to talk to her, the two end up dating, and we start seeing just WHY her boyfriend broke up with her abusive, controlling self, while she lets her students slack off. Carly and friends push Spencer to keep dating her despite the obvious issues she has, and when he finally decides he's had enough, she goes into 100% Jerkass mode. Carly and co come up with a plan to put a stop to it, involving their webshow. I expected something heartwarming like, they would get her ex-boyfriend to watch the show and have her talk about how much she misses him. I was watching the wrong show. Instead, they get her to mention that she downloaded mp3s off the internet, and get the police to watch, thus having her arrested.
  • "iTwins". It was stupid how Freddie was in such denial thinking Melanie was Sam in disguise. Even after Spencer knows about her, after she tells him that she's real, she calls him cute, and even says, "Would Sam do...this?" and kisses him straight on the lips, and when Sam says that wasn't her who did that, and you can easily spot the difference between their voices... Freddie refuses to buy it. Then, right after Freddie leaves, we see her arrive to get in the elevator with both Carly and Sam. And later in "iThink They Kissed" we learn that Freddie still doesn't believe her existence. Note to the writers of iCarly: We know you guys hate nerds, but seriously, Freddie is not that gullible! If we get another Melanie episode, I sure hope it isn't anything like this. Ugh.
  • iLose My Mind. The episode's plot is that Sam has checked herself into a mental hospital because she likes Freddie. Not because she's insanely violent or anything like that, but because she likes Freddie. After a series of events they convince her to leave, only to find that they need her mother's signature for her to leave. They decide to dress Spencer up as a woman, and when this plan obviously falls through, they start arguing with the woman running the mental hospital and the police because they won't let them leave to do their webshow. Apparently "I have a popular webshow" are the magic words that make laws disappear and the police officers and mental hospital worker are being jerks for not realizing this. Then it turns out all the mental patients just love iCarly so much that they force the police officers to let them do it at the mental hospital by one of them threatening them. The police officers don't seem to realize the fact that, not only should they have weapons with them, but assaulting a police officer is a crime, and give in. Once they start the webshow Carly decides to ask fans of iCarly if Sam is nuts because she likes Freddie, because total strangers are the best people to ask about this sort of thing. The two people they ask say they should date, with one of them being a Seddie shipper who does nothing but yell "SEDDIE!". Freddie then takes the camera and says no one has asked him how he felt, he then proceeds to kiss her. Remember this is Sam, the girl who abuses him on a daily basis for little to no reason what so ever, and no one gives a care, not even the victim. Can you say abusive relationship? Apparently no one on the show can.
  • iDate a Bad Boy. The trailers leading up to it were hyping this twist ending as to her "bad" boyfriend's secret. What's the secret? He collects a Beanie Babies Captain Ersatz. This gets by Carly, Sam and Freddie treated like it's the worst thing a boy could do. Really Schneider? Was that really the worst thing the censors would let you get away with? This is made even worse by the fact that these were the same people that created a webshow on the basis of, "kids can do whatever they want, no matter what society says."
  • Danjorw1: The Fatcakes episode was the peak of the DMoS to me. When did Sam get that dumb. True she was never book smart, but so dumb she couldn't answer a simple American question, not to mention being dumb enough to live the country without and ID. It also seems like they stopped with the Radar humor, which is odd considering the entire cast is grown except Gibby. Wouldn't it make more sense to make off-color jokes when you are grown. Its like they forgot what made the show a hit.
  • I'll I agree that I Date A Bad Boy was a dethroning moment of suck, but for a different reason. The family unfriendly aseop that if you like someone you can date them regardless of the fact your legal guardian doesn't approve. Whether you feel its okay for teenagers to date or not its not for the kid to decide, its up to the parents(or in this case Spencer) whether the kid's ready to date or not. But Carly just does what she wants and acts like its her call. It wouldn't be so bad if she was an adult living on her own, but she's a teenager. This isn't about whether teens should or shouldn't date its about how the episode implies you don't have to obey your parents if you feel there wrong(how is a kid gonna know if there parents are wrong?) In addition to being a family unfriendly aseop its a broken aseop. The message they wanted to convey is messed up by making her boyfriend a thug and troublemaker. It might of worked if he was a good guy that Spencer misjudged, but he's a guy that Spencer has every right to keep Carly away from. Thus the "you should let carly make her own choices" message is ruined.
  • In iGo One Direction, the main plot was pretty decent, but Spencer's subplot was horrible. He pretends to be a personal exercise trainer to impress a hot woman, but it turns out her bratty daughter is the one who wants the training, not her. Spencer works her to bits, and then tells her she has a crappy personality. He gives her a makeover, which she thinks makes her look terrible, and she just runs off. Spencer isn't satisfied that there's no resolution. Neither was I, and overall it felt pretty meaningless. It ended abruptly and with no creativity at all, and was unpleasant to watch.