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Reviews
Friends: The One with the Ick Factor (1995)
The second of the two worst episodes of Friends
Get ready for the worst episode of Friends. It's so bad and unfunny that it will leave that 'ick' taste (even the writers knew this was bad..) in your mouth for a very long time.
It's a Monica episode - a character the writers were clearly very unsure about even this far into the 1st season - and even worse than the previous Monica episode, which happens to be the episode before this one. So, we get a double bill of terrible Monica episodes to deal with.. yikes.
In this episode Monica dates a much younger character (that in true US tv style is played by an actor who's clearly at least 7 or 8 years older than his character is supposed to be) who is completely devoid of personality and charm. He even comes of as pretty obnoxious in most of his scenes and lines. There's no chemistry with Monica at all. They are not, in the slightest, convincing as a match.
The characters - with zero chemistry - proceed to jump into bed after a really icky 'romantic' scene. In the bedroom, he reveals that he tricked her into sleeping with an underage guy. The only thing he cares about is that he 'just had sex' which he says with a creepy grin. Monica, understandably, is mortified. The next scene is an utterly ridiculous, cringe scene in the coffee house where they're calmly talking (after his unforgivable deception and entrapment) about the fact that he thinks he's falling in love with her. Monica even entertains a fantasy situation where she might feel the same way if he wasn't underage despite that fact he tricks girls into having sex for his own selfish needs. It is a wholly abysmal episode that's not only terribly written and acted, but in extremely poor taste for a show of this nature. Poor Monica.. the writers must have had a strange course for her before steering her back to the Monica we all love, thankfully. It's all up from here but you'll have that awful memory of the 'ick' episode. One to skip for sure.
Friends: The One with the Fake Monica (1995)
The first of the two worst episodes of Friends
Season 1 of Friends, like any first season, is about finding its feet and establishing characters. It's clear that the writers were much less sure about Monica than the others. In this episode we see Monica sympathise with and then idolise an obnoxious woman who stole her credit card and went on spending sprees. It's a really bizarre, unfunny story that casts Monica in a very strange light that really doesn't 'follow' from previous episodes. It might have worked if Friends was a deeper show with more serious character examinations and explorations but, it isn't, and this episode comes off as something that doesn't 'fit' in the friends universe at all. You can skip it and miss out on absolutely nothing.
It gets MUCH weirder in the second of the two worst episodes of Friends...
The Big Bang Theory: The Habitation Configuration (2012)
An episode that lays the true Amy bare
It has long been a premise of this show that Sheldon is not very 'human'. I would contend that Amy is far less human and very obnoxious with it. This episode leaves a bad taste in the mouth because this very obnoxious character is, for some reason, written in as the 'good' guy here. She is very rude and unreasonable to Wil Weaton in the opening scene but the 'moral' in the episode is that Sheldon, as her boyfriend, has to take her side and 'defend her honour'. Penny is also of this toxic opinion and bullies the naive Sheldon into taking that same opinion too. It's shockingly bad, unfunny writing (even for TBBT which became regularly formulaic and unfunny by season 4) and really reveals the true nature of Amy - that she's actually a very narcissistic and selfish person. The only redeeming factor is that we see a rare emotional side of Sheldon (albeit it one where we feel sorry for him).
The subplot of Howard reluctantly leaving his Mother's house is predictable and laugh free.
A very dire episode overall.
The X Files: All Things (2000)
All Things.. that are unbelievable and stupid
One of the most icky 'Scully' episodes.. We learn of a former chapter in her life where she was apparently a lover to an older looking man who seems utterly unbelievable as a love interest to her. The dialogue between them is just awkward and incredibly icky (he looks like he could be her uncle or something). We see some prime Anderson over acting during the silly slow motion scenes and the 'spiritual awakening' scene that pops out of nowhere.. It's easily one of the worst episodes of The X Files - totally incoherent and near non existent 'plot', more pretentious Scully monologues, lame Moby 'esque (is it Moby??) music that's used incredibly amateurly to try to make Scully sexy and sultry (qualities that her character never had and just fall flat when suggested). Mulder's off looking at crop circles (it's easy to get rid of Mulder in any given Scully episode - just have him go off chasing some esoteric subject matter..) which turns out, conveniently, to be a dead end - actually the most interesting part of the episode because Mulder's rarely wrong about anything..