Most unjustly hated episode

[Gul Re'jal]

6079SmithW wrote:

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"Masks". For some reason it gets a lot of hate around here. Maybe some think Bret Spiner was overacting? I don't know.

I like "Masks" very, very much.

A lot of people hate DS9 "Move Along Home," which I happen to like.

[Harvey]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Nobody ever did funnier clip shows than XENA . . ..

You know, I've never seen a single episode of Xena. Any good?

[FreddyE]

I absolutley love Masks and Genesis. The Royal might have been better with faster pacing or a strong B-Plot.

[Greg Cox]

Harvey wrote:

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You know, I've never seen a single episode of Xena. Any good?

Absolutely. Like most series, it has its clunkers and was starting to run out of steam near the end, but at its best it was marvelously entertaining. I was a huge XENA fan back in the day, to the extent that I wrote an entire non-fiction book about the show. (Now sadly out of print.)

Standout episodes include "Callisto," "A Day in the Life," "Hooves and Harlots," "Been There, Done That," "The Price," "The Debt (Parts One and Two)," and "The Ides of March."

XENA also did a musical episode, "The Bitter Suite," before BUFFY did. That's a good one, too, although it's heavily tied into that season's continuity and so probably not that accessible to an newcomer.

"The Xena Scrolls" is probably the best of the clip shows.

Avoid "Married . . . with Fishsticks" at all costs!

[teacake]

Now I'm remembering the Sanctuary musical episode which I had purged from my mind

[Greg Cox]

teacake wrote:

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Now I'm remembering the Sanctuary musical episode which I had purged from my mind

XENA actually did two musical eps.

The first one, "The Bitter Suite," is great.

The second one, "Lyre, Lyre . . . Pants on Fire," not so much.

[R. Star]

Greg Cox wrote:

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Nobody ever did funnier clip shows than XENA . . ..

I was just thinking this the other day. I'm re-watching Hercules/Xena for the first time since it aired and I thought that season 1 Xena episode about the Greek Bard Academy was utterly hilarious for a clip episode.

[doubleohfive]

sonak wrote:

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is it really a major character revelation for Archer that he loved his dog? That hardly seems worth an entire episode to me that otherwise is an exercise in character assassination. IMHO, of course. YMMV. ROTFL. LOL. TTFN. MMXII.

Why would it have to be a major character revelation? As you say, we know going in he loves his dog. As I said, I still liked that element of the story.

[teacake]

MY DOG WILL PISS WHERE HE WANTS TO!!!

What an idiot.

[Greg Cox]

R. Star wrote:

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I was just thinking this the other day. I'm re-watching Hercules/Xena for the first time since it aired and I thought that season 1 Xena episode about the Greek Bard Academy was utterly hilarious for a clip episode.

"Athens City Academy of Performing Bards."

That one was good, too. Especially since they managed to work in clips from "Spartacus" and some old Italian sword-and-sandal epic, too!

That was also the episode that made it absolutely clear that XENA, as a show, had no intention of staying true to history. When you have Homer (in ancient Greece) telling Gabby the inspiring story of Spartacus, which took place about a thousand years later, you know that actual history is no match for XENA!

[R. Star]

Greg Cox wrote:

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"Athens City Academy of Performing Bards."

That one was good, too. Especially since they managed to work in clips from "Spartacus" and some old Italian sword-and-sandal epic, too!

That was also the episode that made it absolutely clear that XENA, as a show, had no intention of staying true to history. When you have Homer (in ancient Greece) telling Gabby the inspiring story of Spartacus, which took place about a thousand years later, you know that actual history is no match for XENA!

Yeah, that's it. Well Hercules and Xena both departed from history and even mythological history rather early on, but it's fun stuff. And the way the clips were creatively interpreted was hilarious and I like the concept of a clip episode that made fun of itself.

[Minuet]

As far as TNG goes...

- I like "Aquiel." It has an interesting mystery, with a suitably creepy atmosphere. It's got some good performances as well. It's not a great, stand-out episode, but I wouldn't call it actively bad.

- I always felt "Sub Rosa" had a little more going for it than most people gave it credit for. It's a little hokey at times, but it, again, has great performances from Gates McFadden and the actor who played Ronin. The thing I enjoyed about Ronin's character was that even if he was essentially using these people for energy, he did legitimately care about them and made them happy. It was manipulative, but also a bit more three-dimensional than your standard tale of deceit and deception. At the very least, the episode did try something different.

- Most of the latter day Wesley episodes were good to great, especially "Final Mission," which I would almost call an essential episode of the series, if you're trying to follow episodes with the most character development for the cast members.

- I want to hate "Rascals," and I usually hate episodes that make absolutely no scientific logic whatsoever (oh, they can lack actual science, but it has to be consistent--"Rascals" is practically "Threshold" worthy), but I always enjoy the episode. It's entertaining. Meh.

- "Emergence" also doesn't make a lot of sense, nor does "Genesis," but they are both incredibly fun episodes, as long as you can suspend your disbelief a little more than usual for the show.

- "Shades of Gray" is pretty patronizing and boring, but when you've watched every other single episode of the show about five thousand times, it's almost a breath of fresh air to watch something you've maybe seen once or twice before you tried to erase it from your memory by pouring bleach into your ear canal. There's a handful of good lines and character bits in the episode. That's pretty much all it's worth, and it's definitely a pretty piss poor episode...I don't even know why I'm even trying to defend it. It's indefensible. Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing talking about this one.

[M]

I feel like some mistook my earlier post as an argument for "Shades of Gray" as a good episode. That, however, is not what I was saying. I don't see any hidden qualities in it others are missing. It's just that I don't think it's nearly as bad as most of fandom makes it out to be.

Look, this thread is about "unjustly hated episodes". And I'm convinced "Shades of Gray" is just that. It's not particularly good as an episodes (personally I like it as a clip show, though), but it certainly doesn't deserve the hate and vitrol directed its way. Let's face it, it's just a cost-savings measure. An order from the studio execs. And within that it's really not all that bad. I like the framing story, the newly-created score and most of the thematically chosen clips. I don't love them, but I like them.

"Sub Rosa" is another one which I always liked. It has great atmosphere, wonderful sets and even makes me like Beverly, my least favorite TNG character.

[sonak]

doubleohfive wrote:

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Why would it have to be a major character revelation? As you say, we know going in he loves his dog. As I said, I still liked that element of the story.

well if it's not a major revelation, then why have an entire episode based around it? What, are they going to start doing entire episodes based around trivial crap in character's backgrounds? It's like that episode where we discover that.... REED LIKES PINEAPPLE CAKE!!!


Wow, that was certainly worthy of our time. And that was only a subplot, not the whole episode like ANIS was. And it didn't make Reed look like an immature jerk like Archer like ANIS did for Archer.

If you're going to do an episode that's basically a character piece, have it either be something significant about the character or have it be tied to the overall series and that character's continuing development. Otherwise you're basically just farting around.

[Robert D. Robot]

T'Girl wrote:

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Both Data and Questor are in a casino, the house gives them trick dice, they're deliberately out of shape and balance so the players can't win their point.

Both androids squeeze the dice in their fists to correct the dice, rendering them properly shaped.

Both win their point.

Ah- ha! Thanks, T'Girl!