• I have to agree with Quillian regarding the "Hathor" episode of SG1. It sucks because it's one of those episodes that take a solid idea, but mix it with bad plot full of holes and inconsistencies. It's this contrast that is the worst. Voyager Threshold was just plain stupid so I ignored it but Hathor... An evil Goa'uld is awaken from a sarcophagus by archaeologists and kills them. The empty open sarcophagus is delivered to SG base. Dead people near open Goa'uld sarcophagus without wounds or signs of violent struggle would suggest the alien is on the run. They kinda figure that out during a meeting. Somehow, though, when a random woman with knowledge about top-secret stargate program and claiming to be Goa'uld is detained trying to enter the base, everybody gets brain dead and doesn't believe her. WTF? The seductress/queen makes all men on the base serve her (she wants to rule Earth) while women try to take her out. They walk into a room where she's breeding in a tub but men prevent it by standing in the way. Women get locked up, escape, disable and lock up men. They go back into the breeding room. They are hiding around the tub with automatic guns. No men are present. They just sit there and wait and watch as the Goa'uld walks in, turns her back towards them, picks up Jack O'Neill and puts him into the bath tub full of larvae. WTF are you all staring at!? TAKE A SHOT!! No one's in the way and she's obviously unaware of your presence!! ARRRRRGH!!! No, they just let her go... They bring Jack to the sarcophagus, revive him, he says: "now, we go after that Goa'uld". Samantha Carter complains, "how? she's guarded by men we can't shoot" WTF? How about you just sitting there five minutes ago doing nothing when you had a perfect opportunity and the queen was ALONE? Stupidity doesn't end there, though. They walk into the breeding room while the queen is saying that Samantha has to die. Jack and Samantha knock out 4 men with tranquilizer guns. Full FIVE seconds pass between last shot and the moment Samantha is blasted away with queen's hand force-field device. Instead of continuing to shoot (to disable the queen), Samantha takes time to reply "I don't think so". Jack actually LOWERS THE GUN pointed point-blank at their enemy. He points it again as the queen turns to him and declares "you have failed us but you will not fail us again" SLOWLY raises her hand and blasts Jack. He has a gun pointed at her but (surprise!!) DOESN'T SHOOT. Finally, Samantha comes around and empties a clip into the queen's head. Instead of making sure she's dead everybody runs out of the room, the queen instantly regenerates from several shots in the head (while every other Goa'uld in the universe dies if the hosts' brain is damaged and it takes time to heal by laying in the sarcophagus)and slowly walks away. In a few seconds that follow she manages to go pick up her head dress, activate the gate and escape. Freaking Copperfield this one was. And the computer keeps yelling "unauthorized gate activation". I understand it needs lots of power to activate, a dialing device to turn and lock, and that's controlled by the computer, so it HAS TO BE authorized. But magic and stupidity seem to be woven into this plot so it activates. Final thought--why in the name of whatever does she show up at SGC, the only place where they know how to take her out? Being an irresistible seductress, she could breed anywhere on the planet, get to the US president, turn all male world leaders into her servants. What is with military people in this episode? They're supposed to shoot and they just don't. Hathor is by far the dumbest SG1 episode I've seen. It's enraging.

• OK, one final thing. On Star Trek TNG, anybody out there find it unsettling for Lietenant Yar to have been offed by an evil oil slick?

• Hmmm...somebody's got my name up there. Just to let everyone know, I only wrote about BG. Apparently there's an earlier Jay on this board. Well while I'm at it someone else mentioned Highlander and I thought I might just mention the last Highlander movie. Can't remember what it is called but I rented it last year and couldn't even watch it until the end. It's as bad as the new BG. They totally destroyed a perfectly good franchise with that one. OK, maybe the previous poster wouldn't agree with that assessment, but in any case the movies were generally better than the series. All but this last film. It belongs in the toilet. And just as a parting shot, anybody remember that other 70's sci-fi space series, Buck Rogers? I loved it as a kid, but I've seen a few episodes as an adult and I have to admit it's so bad I guess everybody has just forgotten it. But it's kind of bad in a lovable, nostalgic way so I guess that's OK.

• OK, I know I'm going to be a league of my own here, but the way I see it so is the website author with TNG. The truth is, the new Battlestar Galactica SUCKS, and thank heaven they finally pulled the plug on this monstrosity. Here are the reasons: 1) This is the chief reason--Starbuck is a MAN! You can't change HIM into a woman! Are you kidding me? OK, why don't we just remake Star Wars then and have Han Solo be a woman and have there be a prince! Starbuck is not only a man, he's a womanizer, a charmer, a futuristic Don Juan. Maybe the old Battlestar had some episodes that weren't great, but his was a character that we young boys in the late 70's could look up to. 2) Colonel Tighe is not an alcoholic and is BLACK. He just can't be white. It doesn't fit. 3) Adama fully believed in the existence of Earth. I never watched the new BG after the pilot (couldn't stand puking that much) but that was a stupid ending with him doubting its existence in front of the president. Adama would never have done this. He was passionately committed to proving Earth existed. 4) Suits, manual clocks, and the inside of a craft that looks like the inside of an airplane. What the hey?? OK, yes they had to speak English to make the show work, but c'mon! At least the writers/producers of the original BG had enough intelligence to show the people dressed differently from those on Earth. Having the futuristic cylons attack while people are dressed in suits and ties just doesn't work. It's why Galactica 1980 didn't work. Why should it work now? 5) Baltar is plain evil, not some twisted half-good/half-evil, don't know whose side I'm on fruitcake. I don't know about the evolution of his character after the pilot, but if he continued on down that stupid path he was worthless for either side. 6) The whole thing is over-sexed. Call me a prude, but I just didn't click with the scene with Baltar and the naked Cylon. I guess that might appeal to some, but it shouldn't to little kids watching. Thinking that I might at least see how this pile of bile ends I tried watching a little of the last episode as well. I didn't last more than a few minutes before I had to stop. What a worthless waste. Dare I say it? The original series was far better!!! There, I've committed the sci-fi equivalent of the ultimate political incorrectness. Sue me for it. Starbuck is a MAN. Get over it.

• Woa woa woa, we need a recount. I've just come out with a epiphany. It's Florida in 2000. Theres an episode of trek were Wesley saves the day. His mom is trapped in a "pocket universe" unwittingly, and people keep disappearing. Everyone thinks she's crazy, until she is left alone on the enterprise, and, seriously, comes out with the line. "If theres nothing wrong with me, there must be something wrong with the universe!".

• Bringing up an episode of Six Million Dollar Man might seem like a cheap shot in this contest, but one episode has stuck with me since I saw it as a little kid. In an earlier season, it was revealed that Bigfoot of lore is actually a robot, a guardian of some aliens who had crashed on earth long ago. Steve Austin helps the aliens and Bigfoot fix their ship and head home. But then... It gets worse, in a later episode, titled "Bigfoot Returns" or "Bigfoot 2", something like that, Steve Austin receives a report that Bigfoot has been spotted again. He learns that the aliens actually left Bigfoot behind, and that he is slowly transforming from a robot into a "real" bigfoot. WTF? My young mind simply couldn't comprehend the how or the why of that... and I've been haunted by the vague memory of that show ever since. In second place would be the episode where the Soviet Mars (or was it Venus) Probe crashes on earth, the Six Million Dollar man has to stop the golf cart covered in aluminum before it runs everyone over... Later the Soviets build another, it crashes on earth and...

• There aren't many Deep Space Nine episodes on here... Does anyone remember the one in the first or second season where O'Brian's daughter sees Rumpelstiltskin? C'mon, what were the writers smoking on that one? I will not watch an episode of that show pre-season 3 for that reason....

• I know I'm too late but, I'd have to say the dumbest thing I've seen from Star Trek: TNG. My recollection is a bit fuzzy so bear with me if I have messed up any of the details. I don't know the name of the episode, but this giant crystalline entity is going around the galaxy wiping out all life, killing millions of people. They spend the whole episode trying to figure out how to kill it. When they finally do, and are ready blast it to hell. Picard out of nowhere says that "it's an intelligent lifeform, we should talk to it" Huh? what? You just spent all this time trying to figure out how to kill the damned thing and now you decide you want to talk to it? It's a giant space monster killing machine! Luckily the crazy doctor lady had a bigger pair than Picard and blew the thing straight to hell

• All I have to say is... SPOCK'S BRAIN

• @Jay: If you want to talk about your personal history there are these other kinds of sites called "BLOGS" (I invite you to look the term up). And on blogsites you'll be comepletely safe from Nerds who have lame opinions about stupid obscure stuff. None of those on Blogs, no sirree.

• The 'Highlander' episode called The Zone. Now, Highlander wasn't a great show anyway. In fact, at it's very best, it was 'watchable'. But this one episode... Well, most sci-fi shows have an A storyline, and a B storyline. This episode had no B storyline. The storyline it DID have was very boring - Duncan goes into a dingy part of town for some reason or other. To pad out the show to fit the timeslot, it had about ten minutes of the camera just following Duncan around as he walked up and down streets. This episode was so bad that, on the DVD, the producers actually apologised for making it.

• Well, I'm too late for the contest, but I can tell you that in the episode you were refering to in the begining of the article they were DEvolving. I know, it's a BS concept, but it's a key point to the episode.

• Hi there, I've been following Topless Robot on and off for a while now, and so now I've decided to participate in this contest. Hm, stupidest sci-fi TV episode... I still haven't seen the last few episodes of Stargate: Atlantis, but I would like to nominate its episode "Trio" (from Season 4). Pointless! The three of them just stuck together, gossiping and trying to avoid innuendo as they try to escape an unstable underground chamber which some bratty kids wouldn't help them get out of. What a waste of film... Also worth noting is how even the people behind SG-1 hate the episode "Hathor" (from Season 1) and don't even consider it canon because of how bad it is. They even made fun of that in the episode "Citizen Joe" (from Season 8). Hm, while on the topic of Stargate, I'd like to nominate both of its SG-1 direct-to-DVD movies, "The Ark of Truth" and "Continuum", because while they were made to wrap up the SG-1 storyline (the Ori arc and with Baal running around), it feels like just that: Only made to provide an ending, rather than entertain. Not to mention how they overdo it with the Replicators and time travel AGAIN... (Oh well, at least the music soundtracks are great...)

• Who is more foolish? The fool who answers a nerdy question or the fool who comes to a nerd humor site and is shocked to find a contest based around a nerdy question?

• I also want to defend the Midnight episode of Doctor Who: it is one of the rare episodes where the Doctor is completely subjugated by an unknown enemy and he is left almost completely powerless. It's hard to watch because almost nothing happens and the humans in the bus are idiots, but I think it's intriguing how it is different from every other episode.

• Yeah, the other 90+ comments prove what a failure this question was. Stupid nerds.

• Ho. Ly. Shit. I had forgotten about "Lexx." I respectfully withdraw my entry. (Not really. I want that shirt.)

• Yeah. This topic sucks. Ask us about our personal history... not about some stupid fucking obscure lame ass bullshit. This question is pretty much doomed to anyone BUT nerds who have gimped opinions about lame episodes from stupid shows from the past. Question fail.

• despite the heavy smatterings of bruce campbell, and cleavage heavy babes, I'm going to have to say any episode of Hercules, and Xena: Warrior Princess. Go back and watch any episode, any one at all, and then ask yourself "Hey, wouldn't the producer/director of this series be perfect for something like, say, spider-man?" and try to do it with a straight face. I know I'll probably tick off some fanboys of the show, and a lot of 'mansbians' but I don't care, those shows stunk.

• Ok I just want to defend Midnight because I thought it was a brilliant episode. It wasn't typical action-oriented doctor who but it was very well written. It was creepy and eerie and had more resonance than most episodes. There was still clever humor, and the tension built very well. It reminded me of a good episode of twighlight zone. If they had figured out everything about the monster, or seen it, or absolutely defeated it, it wouldn't have been interesting. The people were supposed to be recognizable everyday figures, not exotic aliens or something. and he couldn't just take his TARDIS because of the exotonic sunlight!

• While it was stupid that The X-Files never got an ending, that was because they were clearly making it up as they went along. Far stupider are some of the stand alone episodes that had no such excuse for being stupid. In that line of thinking, I would like to submit an episode from The X-Files season 3: Teso Dos Bichos. The first problem with this episode is that Mulder & Scully are completely irrelevant to the plot. Nothing they do makes a difference at all in the conclusion. Second, the episode sets itself up to make you believe a ghost jaguar is killing people. That's stupid enough to begin with, but it gets worse. It turns out the actual killer is... a horde of angry, feral cats. Yes, ordinary cats... that have a taste for human flesh. Also they break through a wooden door at one point. Also at one point Scully gets attacked by one, and the budget for this episode was apparently so low that it's clearly a very poorly done cat puppet that she's fighting with. This episode was just incredibly stupid all around. And not the good kind of stupid that The X-Files was capable of pulling off fairly consistantly, the kind that makes you wonder why they even bothered making this episode.

• I love Doctor Who going back to its Tom Baker days for its smart writing plus charmingly bad special effects. I even like Love & Monsters, which is much better than Fear Her (featuring Rose vs. a giant Scribble). The worst episode I've seen (not involving Daleks in NY or the Doctor getting a bunch of people killed by easy to vanquish aliens because he decides to be human) has to be Midnight. In this episode, the Doctor wants to see the crystal falls of the planet Midnight. So he just goes there instantly in his TARDIS. WRONG! The Doctor decides that it's a much better idea to take a bus ride there. Yes, he willingly opts to spend hours on a bus with random people when he could just go there instantly with Donna to save himself time and aggravation. Donna wisely decides not to join him, which is unfortunate because her shrill common sense would've actually helped this episode a lot. The Doctor breaks the bus's entertainment system to force its passengers to talk to each other. Unfortunately, the other passengers are are bland generic humans. They're not even aliens that look like humans dressed in funny clothes from the classic series. They're just boring humans dressed in contemporary clothes without any interesting qualities. Too long into the lamest meet and greet filmed, an invisible monster rips open the bus and kills its drivers. Then this monster possesses a heartbroken lesbian with a stupid name. It proceeds to do ... nothing. The other passengers completely overreact and want the possessed lesbian killed. The Doctor is the only one not to engage in thinly veiled homophobia and tries to talk to the plot device. The passengers then decide they should kill the Doctor too. The possessed woman starts parroting the Doctor's speech, then it says things at the same time, then makes the Doctor say things like a ventriloquist dummy. The nameless stewardess sacrifices herself while throwing the possessed woman into the radioactive air to save the Doctor by this completely underwhelming threat. Then the Doctor has to wait with a bus full of bland assholes for someone to rescue their stranded bus because he didn't bring his TARDIS. At the end of the episode, neither the Doctor nor the viewers have any idea what the non-monster was or what it wanted. Basically, RTD wanted to write a very special episode to show viewers that humans hate and fear what they don't understand. That would have been deep, if viewers hadn't already figured that out by reading any issue of X-Men. Plus, the science in this episode was completely made up. This was also intended to be the 50th episode of the new series, yet it featured no TARDIS, no cheesy monsters, and no clever writing. So it would've been an anniversary special featuring nothing that's made the series so endearing for 45 years. Fortunately, Moffat's Silence in the Library was bumped up to the 50th episode spot because someone realized it was an ACTUAL episode of Doctor Who. There are other episodes of Doctor Who that are more fun to mock for their ridiculousness, but Midnight is unforgivably dull.

• I submit the last X files movie, or the FINAL episode in the series. If you will reach back in the depths of your memory to look for a culmination of the series you will come up blank. Why, there was never an end to it. I realize the aliens are not supposed to invade until 2012 or some bs, but please. They had one more shot to finish the series for the fans by somehow securing the money to do a second movie after years of hearing nothing and they do some vaguely interesting standalone paranormal story. Not in the wildest Dana Scully staring wet dream of any fan will there be a third movie finishing off the series properly. Could anything be more stupid than that. Nine seasons, 202 episodes, 2 movies, and one big FU to the fans.

• guy.enmigmatico said: "Can someone tell me the point of Nelix" No but I know a guy who was down to the final four in the Nelix casting session. If you ever met him, you'd think, yeah he could be like Nelix crossed with Hugh Hefner. Not my best casting story. A friend's ex was up for the job of Captain on the Enterprise, but they passed saying (hand on fucking heart) that they were looking for someone more "Scott Bakula esque".

• can we just nominate Canadian television? Not only did they give us the aformentioned Lexx, but also Forever Knight, Friday the 13th: the series (nothing to do with the film series though), Robocop: the series, Blade: the series, Highlander: the Raven, Mutant X, Total Recall 2070, and Jeremiah. I realize we're meant to come up with one episode, but even the best episode from any of these shows is far worse than anything Star Trek or Doctor who has ever done, at least they were usually meant to be fairly campy. If you have to go with one through, Friday the 13th the series, every epsiode openned with; "Lewis Vendredi made a deal with the devil to sell cursed antiques. But he broke the pact, and it cost him his soul. Now, his niece Micki, and her cousin Ryan have inherited the store... and with it, the curse. Now they must get everything back and the real terror begins," basically every episode centered on a demonic object from teh store that had to be dealt with some of the plots include - A doll that kills people for its owner. The doll can control toys, causing them to move or do other odd things. A statue called The Cupid of Malek. Anyone struck by its arrows falls madly in love with its owner, but the owner must kill them. A gold compact with a broken mirror and a snake on the front. When used to reflect light into another person's face, it makes them fall madly in love with its owner, but the owner must kill them. A tobacco pipe with a Satanic face carved on it. This object emits a red/orange smoke that totally disintegrates its victim. Adolf Hitler's pink silk boutonnière that animates a ventriloquist's dummy, giving its owner fame at the cost of a life, and soon brings the dummy to a murderous life. A makeup case belonging to John Wilkes Booth. When the case is drizzled with the blood of a victim, it grants its deformed owner temporary good looks. A cue stick that bestows unbeatable pool skills to its owner after it is used to kill someone. this show was actually nominated for awards in the 80's, but the kicker is My Wife as a Dog - A man finds "the Aboriginal Leash of Dreams" that grants its owners dearest dream once they strangle someone to death with the leash. In this case it gradually exchanges the life of his wife with that of his ailing dog. that's right the guy gets the collar after his wife decides to leave him and kills a fellow fire-fighter, discovering that his sick dog suddenly gets healthy (even his dog was dying). One thing leads to another, and Aubrey realizes that by killing people he can transfer his wife's soul and body into his dog.

• Gad, I<b>loved</b> the two Joseph Chung episodes (the second was on Millennium, where they meet the Selfosophists, and spend the next hour bashing a thinly-veiled Scientology cult). The scene in <i>From Outer Space</i> where the loser meets the Men in Black is still one of the best-done parody scenes I've ever seen. I crap my pants every time I watch it. Come to think of it, maybe I should see someone about that. I mean, excessive defecation while still clothed is probably a sign of something, right?

• Oh, I thought of another one: Love & Monsters from the new Dr. Who. A bunch of people who have been peripherally involved in the Dr's adventures sounds like a great idea for an episode but what you get is: -A sub Scooby Doo chase scene. -A villain who's only real threat is making fart jokes that a (I mean he "absorbs people" so he's called "The Absorbaloff?" and he doens't even absorb them properly cos they end up killing him from the inside) -Peter Kay (I don't need to elaborate on that) -A bunch of characters who fall for one of the stupidest cons of all time. -And in the end the Dr "saves" a woman by cursing her to a fate worse than death. She's now a face attached to a paving tile. "But they still have a sex life." Thank you Russel Davies, I now have the menatal image of a man mouth-fucking a severed head burned permanantly into my brain.

• It may not quite match the idiocy of Threshold but I have to mention the 3rd epispde of Voyager "Parallax" for gross technical inaccuracies alone. Aside from the usual bollocks that show produced (Can someone please tell me the point of Neelix) this show had the ship fall into a black hole. Now instead of being ripped apart by the tidal forces or experiencing time dilation it turns out the inside of a black hole is just a giant mirror ball where you see infinite reflections of your manky spaceship. The rest of the episode consists of Torres and Janeway getting their periods at the same time and bitching at each other until they use "warp particles" (which are appparently just particles that have been near a warp engine" to open a "crack in the event horizon." And if you know the first thing about black holes that last line just made you want to punch series writer Branon Braga in the face. I love Star Trek but the Voyager crew is basically so unlikable characters that make you wonder if Start Fleet lost them on purpose...

• Not sure if it counts as Sci-Fi; but the Buffy season 6 episode 'Doublemeat Palace" reigns as the pure suckitude of TV. That episode was so bad it left me looking for an enema kit.

• The Starlost, episode 15: The Beehive. (On YouTube.) All of humanity has left Earth in a giant space ark to escape some civilization-destroying calamity. Then something happens to the ark, killing the bridge crew, destroying engines, and sending it off on a course that will eventually crash into a star. It's been off-course for 200 years now. So here's the stupid - There are teams of trained scientists scattered across the ship, none of which know how to repair the engines. Over 200 years, none of them have said, "Hrm, we should repair the engines. We don't know how to fix them, but maybe we could teach our children to become engineers and it'll eventually get fixed." Nope, instead they teach their children to carry on in their particular specialities. In this case, studying bees, or rather, raising GIANT MUTANT TELEPATHIC BEES intent on taking over the ship. And the only people who might be able to save the ship are three open-minded Amish people. Harlan Ellison disowned himself from this low-budget early-70s Canadian travesty of science-fiction for good reason.

• DS9: Vulcans. Playing baseball.

• AAArrhhH!!!!! I had successfully drank away all memory of the show "Lexx" from my mind, damn you!! Jesus fuck-steak that was an awful show -- even IF it was intended as a comedy or whatever. It's as if Beavis and Butthead watched half a season of Farscape, then half a season of Benny Hill and wrote their own mishmash of the two... Only 10-20 times dumber than that. Not funny. Not entertaining (even with the sound off). Just so horrible you felt sorry and embarassed for anyone involved with it in any way (including yourself for having seen even part of one episdoe). I honestly don't think it should even count. It's too bad to even qualify. "huh huh... their spaceship is a bug... huh huh..."

• <i>Also, to any Joss Whedon haters: you're just whining because he refused to film your Buffy/River slash-fic for you and are jealous of his hot wife.</i> Actually, my own reasons for disliking the creature (I will not call him a "man") relate largely to his marked tendencies to write and film slash-fic of his own. ;) That, and the fact that's he's an effeminate hampster and coddled third-generation Hollywood screenwriter, of course.

• Starman, I'm not sure what is a greater emotion when I think of the canon of JMS's work, pity? Because he can prostitute his original vision so completely? Or respect? Because he gets up each day and keeps writing. I imagine he doesn't have many mirrors in his house to avoid catching his reflection* *Though I am reminded of that old line from The Simpsons movie festival episode. "How do you sleep at night"? "On top of a pile of money surrounded by beautiful ladies".

• Damn you McStevis! I have spent 30 years purging any memory of the Buck Rogers series from my brain, and here you come along bringing the pain. Curse you, Perry the Platypus!!!!

• In defense of J. Michael Strazynski, most (if not all) of the problems with Crusade were not of his doing since the entire concept was revamped by Executicve Meddling into "Let's do something like Star Trek: TNG but put in more sex!" - this happening at the time that TNT was first starting to metamorphosis into Spike TV.

• While I'm warming to the subject, Crusade "Visitors from down the street" is just really fucking dire. Firstly the Mulder and Scully character have to hop into a space shuttle to meet the crew. You couldn't have had Crusade scanning the planet for some element to help cure the plague? And accidently come across Mulder and Scully, and have some weird thing were the aliens thing the B5 crew are in league with the govt in some sinister expert? You really need to go ass over tit into this? Secondly with episodes like Bad Blood, X Cops, and Joesph Chung's from Outer Space, you really think you should bother trying to send up the X-files, when they do such a good job writing intentially funny parodies of themselves?

• I can't believe no one mentioned the Buck Rogers episode that guest starred the one and only Gary Coleman. He played a boy genius in an episode Cosmic Wiz Kid and he played a character named Hiernoymus Fox who like Buck is from the 20th Century and also was frozen in time until the 25th Century (guess Buck Rogers isn't so special being the only 500 year old person in future now, huh?). This is where the first part of the issue with the episode is the little one was supposed to have invented cryogenics...hmmmm I'm so smart to invent the process of freezing people/ things for later regeneration but not smart enough to freeze myself. Then when he wakes up in the 25th Century because he is so smart they make him president of a planet but he gets kidnapped and Buck et al must go rescue him. Ok again he is a BOY GENIUS and he can't get bodyguards or a staff to prevent him from being kidnapped. This episode was so bad I kept waiting for him to say Whatchu talking bout Twiki... Then a few episodes later they bring him back for a mystery episode (actually it was just a clip show)... The acting in this episode made my little mind root for the bicycle shop owner in that "Very Special Episode" of Diff'rent Strokes.

• I can't believe no one mentioned the Buck Rogers episode that guest starred the one and only Gary Coleman. He played a boy genius in an episode Cosmic Wiz Kid and he played a character named Hiernoymus Fox who like Buck is from the 20th Century and also was frozen in time until the 25th Century (guess Buck Rogers isn't so special being the only 500 year old person in future now, huh?). This is where the first part of the issue with the episode is the little one was supposed to have invented cryogenics...hmmmm I'm so smart to invent the process of freezing people/ things for later regeneration but not smart enough to freeze myself. Then when he wakes up in the 25th Century because he is so smart they make him president of a planet but he gets kidnapped and Buck et al must go rescue him. Ok again he is a BOY GENIUS and he can't get bodyguards or a staff to prevent him from being kidnapped. This episode was so bad I kept waiting for him to say Whatchu talking bout Twiki... Then a few episodes later they bring him back for a mystery episode (actually it was just a clip show)... The acting in this episode made my little mind root for the bicycle shop owner in that "Very Special Episode" of Diff'rent Strokes.

• What was the name of the episode of Heroes before this latest one? The one that was mostly filler and ended with Bennett getting roofie'd? I vote that one

• Anyone ever watch the show Lexx? We could make an encyclopedia of stupid with this series. I'll be honest though, I enjoyed the first movie they released. It had a dark, serious tone, and the story was fairly immersive. The second movie was worse, but it was saved by a completely unnecessary shower scene (with some naughty bits covered by what appeared to be an alien slime....eww...). But I digress, I think Wiki does a good job of summarizing the mind numbing stupidity of the vampire episode: "Kai needs to go to Transylvania to explore his curiosity. That's right - in a show where people can go anywhere in the 'two universes,' they decide to go to fucking Transylvania.... because it's such an attractive place to go to. This is how I envision the reasoning: Stan: I like sex, let's go to Cancun Xev: I like sex, let's go to Cancun 790: I like sex... with Xev, let's go to Cancun Kai: I like dead things, let's go to transylvania The Other 3: Oh yeah! Great idea! Kai, you're awesome! "In the tavern, they bump into bats, superstitious villagers, Van Helsing, and 3 goth girls." Wow... Sidenote: There was a completely unnecessary bath scene, but they somehow ruined that too.... with the girl eating a rat in the tub. (yes, you heard me) "They are invited to the castle for the Walpurgis feast, which is hosted by a British actor playing Dracul. Stan has dead thing pie. Kai is trapped in a spiked coffin by Grenfield, the owner." Alright, so the writers have a completely open canvas with this show. Any planet, any culture, any species. I even think they threw in time travel somewhere. They could make up any batshit insane creative thing they wanted to; the skies the limit. And with this canvas, the best they can fucking do, is name a vampire Dracul??? What's next, is the crew of Lexx going to adopt a dog named Sparky? Maybe they'll run into a black guy named Carl, and a white guy named Lenny?

• I didn't mean to imply you had, 8den, but you gotta admit -- the episode would've been better if Jack Palance HAD guest starred as the Cylon (his voice at least). He was doing a lot of guest turns on TV in those days. Hell -- in '79, he was in Buck Rogers -- another show well deserving of mention in this contest. Hint hint...

• Woa I didn't say "The Last War" was as good as Shane (What do you expect when you replace Jack Palance's performance with a guy in a robot suit and flashing LED). The Last Warrior is a poor Xerox of Shane, up to the hero worshipping kid that idolises Apollo/Shane. Oh Speaking of fucking dire Crusade episode 'Visitors from Down the Street". Essentially a couple of freaky looking aliens turn up at the Crusade and claim humans have been visiting their world and conducting experiments. It turns out that the aliens have been getting transmissions from earth and suspect they are real, or something, it's never really clear. What is clear that it dawns on you very early on that the entire episode is an X-Files paradoy. See the two aliens are Mulder and Scully (only freaky looking alien Mulder and Scully), theres even an evil conspirator alien cigarette smoking man. The technical stupid is bad enough (how the fuck can an Alien race build and use space technology yet don't understand "fiction"). To the obviously moronic, why just the X-Files, was early 90s Fox tv the only signal that could reach the planet (If so, why wasn't everyone doing the Bartman?) The entire concept of this episode is so insanely moronic you really must wonder was if written as an elaborate April fools joke by Straczynski, that keep going and going, until the momentum behind it was too great for it to stop. I almost envision him crying in the toilet on the first day of shooting smacking his head against a wall crying 'It was supposed to be a joke, why didn't they see it"!

• Oh wow stupidest sci fi episode,I mean take away obvious like the run of the series "Small Wonder" or "Out of this World"(which starred Burt Reynolds as the father of an alien teenager!) But as for Sci fi episode stupidity I have to say the Star Trek TNG Episode"disaster" was well aptly named for one. Starships with all of their back ups and redundancies all fail AT ONCE!!! leaving Troi in command, Geordi and Dr. Crusher learn that if you hold on real tight, you can survive an explosive decompression of the shuttle bay, not to mention also If starships used gravity platingthat can be turned on and off why the hell if power and computer run time is at a premium, did we leave the "gravity plating on in the turbolift shaft. this episodes has more holes in it than a brick of swiss cheese. Another easy runner is the episode of Voyager (well any episode of Voyager really, this show stunk on ice) where Q a genderless infinite being falls head over heels for Captain Janeway, O.K. Let's forget for one second that Q being infinite and genderless (and above mere human sex drives) falling for a woman, but Janeway, hell she's not even the most attractive woman on the ship let alone the galaxy, why not go all hot to trott for Vash, or Torres, or Dax, or any other woman. this just screamed lame beyond lame. as for the people who say firefly is lame, or anything Joss Whedon wrote, all I can advise you is, Brains..they're not just for Zombies any more...

• As much as I want to participate in this contest, I have never watched a SciFi episode so bad that I walked away in disgust. I have always been able to laugh it off, or I've been enthralled. There's never really been an in-between for me. I laughed my way through Voyager when my parents force-fed it to me (it's what they watched when my mom was preggers with my brother, so they've got ties to it or some equal bullshit), and I was moved by Firefly, despite the early cancellation. An aside: To the people hating on Whedon, I disagree, but I will not fight you. One man's treasure is another man's trash, unless there is money involved, and you are just as entitled to your opinions as I am to mine. Unless, of course, your opinion is that Symphony X is a horrible band, in which case we're going to have to fight-dance to the death. Sorry for the lack of entry. I'm out.

• <i>Yes, Rebo & Snooty.</i> That's Rebo and <b>Zooty</b>, asshole! Zooty Zoot-Zoot!! Booo! Ten demerits! Turn in your nerd cred at the door, etc. Yeah, that subplot was stupid, and I bloody loved that show. The main part, though - people meet dead people, learn about themselves - you have to admit was actually sorta decent. If you're gonna bang on B5, bang on that one where Martin Sheen shows up as one of those death-taking aliens, and an orb of dead people gets loose in the station, and infests a down-below brothel. I really liked how the porn-star captain they brought in for the fifth season shows up as a porn star hologram. But if you want Strazynski at his truly worst, turn to Crusade. Even though it had one of my all-time favorite B-list actors (Gary "Sheriff Lucas Buck" Cole), every episode sucked a hot humid pile of fetid genitalia. Crusade, that is, not American Gothic (which was made of creepy awesome).

• The argument falls short when you consider that 'Shane' is one of the most brilliant explorations of the human condition in the west put to film, whereas 'The Lost Warrior' is a steaming pile of shit wearing spurs and red LED lights.

• I don't remember the "Threshhold" episode of Star Trek: Voyager everyone keeps mentioning, mainly because I stopped watching the entire show after Episode #16, "Learning Curve." This is before the entire show was reformatted into "Star Trek: Look at Seven of Nine's titties" and was simply "Star Trek: Oh Shit! Another Space Anomaly!" The plot is simple. The Maqui are being trained into Starfleet methods because the usual style of Maqui anarchy isn't helping anyone. Hey, seems like some decent drama and character development right? Well all that boring shit is more of a sub plot, because the real action starts up when Neelix tries to make Macaroni and Cheese and his method of cheese fermentation gets the ship sick. That's right, no alien attack, no supspace tachyon transwarp aura, not even rapid mutating fish people. None of that silly shit you would expect from a Sci-Fi program. Nope it's just Star Trek: Voyager's stupidest crew member causing the ship to have food allergies because he's too stupid to look up "Kraft Easy Mac" on the ship computer. I can't even imagine how someone writes something like that without falling into a suicidal depression.

• The BSG episode the Lost Warrior, is essentially a remake of the western "Shane". There's a fine tradition of Sci Fi shows ripping off old movies. The Deep Space Nine episode "Indiscretion", is basically the old John Ford western "The Searchers", with Gul Dukat taking on the John Wayne part.

• my pick is easy and quick what turned out to be the first episode of the very last season of sliders. the episode had the group sliding only to have quint wind up merging with a guy who was getting a treatment to have his legs work again and then quins brother got zapped into a pocket anti matter dimension leaving only Rembrandt the only original slider left.

• Though there are haters of the new Battlestar Galactica, I'm loving every depressing minute of it. It's especially brilliant when compared to its progenitor. The original Battlestar Galactica series is absolutely rife with shitty plots, and you'd be hard pressed to find a good story out of the 24 episodes that aired in '78 and '79. One full year of the turgidly moist bastard spawn of Star Wars and Chariots of the Gods. Glen Larson can suck it. I'm going to close my eyes and pluck one terrible and notable episode from the BG canon: Here we go... "The Lost Warrior" Description: Apollo crash lands on Old West Planet and finds some homesteaders oppressed by a big bad thug named Lacerta. Big Bad Lacerta has a pet gunslinger that has the only laser pistol in town. Said gunslinger turns out to be a Cylon named "Red Eye." Surprise, motherfuckers! Apollo encounters a bunch of people with names like Puppis, Vela, Bootes and -- uh -- Marco. He has a High Noon style showdown with Red Eye and sparks fly (literally, due to the cheapness of the special effects). Ugh -- really? Burn in hell, '70s Sci-fi cheese.

• I vote for the last eight seasons of 'reality' I mean c'mon, the episodes where george w. bush got re-elected, the vice president shooting someone in the face,the illegal wiretapping, the oil, and no one tried prosecuting them?! then the whole storyline where the terminator became governor of a state, was pretty dumb, but they had to do a whole two-parter where they made spinach poisonous?! Then the writers got lazy, and went back to the well for another one where peanut butter and birds was poisonous. The whole eight seasons was retarded. Oh shit, that was real. Then I vote for the entire televison series run of 'Small Wonder'

• How to compete with classics like "Revenge of the Cybermen" or "Spock's Brain"? I respectfully submit "The Man with Nine Lives." Fred Astaire called up BSG and said he wanted to be on the show because his grandkids loved it so much. How do you work the dance man into the plot? Why you make him Starbuck's dad! Not just Starbuck's dad, but a no-good crook and conman. This episode starts off like the Love Boat in space. Then some men from a clan are on a blood hunt to find Astaire because he stole from them or something. He tricks Starbuck into taking him back to Galactica so he can get away form the big guys with the scary weapons. After much doubt from Boomer and Adama, it turns out they are father and son but Starbuck can never know because it would ruin his life as a viper pilot. Cue sappy violins. It saddens me that Fred Astaire's last onscreen dance is on this episode of BSG.

• Someone has already mentioned that Seaquest episode with the battle mechs. I remember that one as well as being rather far afield of exploring the mysteries of the deep. But the episode of Seaquest that gave me the most brain pain was the one where they found the Library of Alexandria...underwater...completely intact! Turns out it didn't get burned down, destroyed by earthquakes, and ripped apart to be make other things. No, it fell whole and undamaged into the Mediterranean, with all its scrolls of valuable ancient knowledge uneffected by the damp climate for the past couple thousand years. Of course, finding it sparks an international crisis, with various nations sending their fleets to claim artifacts for themselves. Bridger and the UEO step in to mediate with the help of freaking PSYCHICS, who read the minds of the world leaders to figure out what's really important to them in negotiating. Oh, and meanwhile the seaQuest crew investigates the library and finds a first edition of the Illiad, which they're pretty sure has Homer's handwriting on it! Immediately following that little revelation, Libyan terrorists decide to show us disdain for cultural heritage by drilling a hole into the water tight seal the library has maintained for so long in order to plant dynamite so they can blast their way in. Please consider that a moment. The valuable assets they want to acquire are fragile pieces of papyrus, thousands of years old, and the best plan they can come up with to get them out is to blow up the underwater library containing them. I think someone at the DSV writing staff must have had a problem with Libyans because of all possible methods, that seems the most nonsensical. In the end, it tunrs out to be the psychics fault, since they intentionally pushed the Libyans to leave the table in hopes the UEO wouldn't bother them anymore. Their leader is all like, "Oh, gee, I wished people would stop knocking my door down looking for mind reading help. I thought I'd just screw up this whole ancient library negotiation so I could have peace and quiet." After that revelation, Bridger gets to play King Solomon and breaks an ancient amphora to prove a point about how wrecking something old and awesome makes it useless for everyone, he then aims all the DSV's weapons at the library and threatens to blow it up so no one can play with it if the nations of the world don't learn to get along. This strong arm tactic actually works, instead of provoking an all out war between the nations of the world over an underwater library. Then the psychic guy says he's sorry for nearly getting Bridger and Lucas killed by the Libyans and that he misjudged him. Peace is restored, the library is presumably split up by various world museums, and it's never mentioned what sort of valuable insight was gleaned from the works in the library. Why is this episode bad, when there are so many people that rank it is as one of the best of the 1st season? Here are my main concerns: The insane implausibility of the library and its paper contents surviving whole underwater for centuries, the psychic negotiators being brought in, the stereotypical crazed Libyan terrorists with a stupid destructive plan, the very cliche geopolitical statement about how if we don't all get along we might break our cool toys fighting over them (also, there's some kind of -centrism in there, with Bridger basically telling all the other peoples of the world he knows best), and because, mos timportanly, Homer the BLIND, ORAL poet hand wrote and signed a copy of the Illiad and the UEO has analysts that can verify his signature.

• All I have to say is "Brain!?? What is brain???" if you dont know what Im talking about, surrender any geek cred you have immediately.

• My choice for stupidest sci-fi TV episode: the old-school Doctor Who episode "Time-Flight". A patchwork job involving time-snatched Concordes, silly-as-shit Plasmatons (hapless plaster-cast critters that obviously came from a contest sponsered by Blue Peter), and an overcooked Master plan which involves him dressing like a leperous Oriental chef for half the show. The only saving grace of the whole thing, which I rewatched on DVD recently, is the commentary by Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, and Sarah Sutton (The Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa, respectively) in which they beat seven shades out of the proceedings.

• Lost: the entire series. I only need one reason, the writers have openly admitted that 90% of the plot is being made up as they go along and that they'll need a two-season warning on an impending cancellation to make everything even make sense. I will repeat that for any of you who didn't immediately grasp the mind-boggling stupidity: they'll need TWO SEASONS to make all these MADE UP AS THEY GO ALONG plot twists even MAKE ANY BIT OF GODDAMN SENSE. I rest my case. Also, to any Joss Whedon haters: you're just whining because he refused to film your Buffy/River slash-fic for you and are jealous of his hot wife.

• The Star Wars Holiday Special...nuff said. I'd watch the Star Trek Space Hippie episode 100 times before I would watch the SWHS again!

• oops... way too much line breaks, sorry... oh and I apologize if my English isn't perfect ^^;;

• I know that Doctor Who is very fluctuating regarding the quality of the episodes, and so it is often referred as a less serious sci-fi show, but I think that overall it's a quite good series. So I don't understand why to relaunch the show in 2005, nearly 10 years since the last appearance of a Doctor, they made a pilot that suck (or, to put it well, it's pretty dumb). At that time they needed to catch up some new/old fans, so what it is better than a stupid episode? <br> <br> The episode is called "Rose" and tries to introduce you the world of the Doctor and Rose, his next companion. Well, during the episode they encounter plastic mannequins that have come to life and this is just a huge cliche for me. So after the Doctor saved Rose and the useless plot go on, we meet her boyfriend, Mickey, who is the most upsetting creature on Earth. Then there is a part about conspiratorial web-sites referring to this mythical Doctor (yeah, something that can be actual but kinda of boring)...blabla... Finally the Doctor brings Rose to the London Eye because it is used by the Nestene Consciousness as a transmitter to control all the plastic (!?!) or maybe only for tourism. Now the Doctor order the villain to stop, but after a negative reply he decides to KILL it with some ANTI-PLASTIC that he bears in his pocket. <br><br> Rose and the Doctor get acquainted, happy ending, ring down the curtain. <br><br> This is 45 minutes long. Think about it. 45 minutes about nothing. Ok, there is a menace of some sort... but is more like a phantom menace (thanks Lucas) because there is the wonderful ANTI-PLASTIC in the Doctor pocket. Why we would care watching it? Only because of the meeting between the Doctor and his new companion?? <br><br> Even the Daleks with all theirs mindless "exterminate!exterminate!" came up with better plots than this. <br><br> The only good part is when the Doctor have fun about his earlobes because it's the first time that he could see this new himself in the mirror. Seriously.

• Gotta second the vote for the TOS space hippies. Abraham Lincoln in space is bad -- mind-scorchingly bad -- but ultimately it's just stupid. But there's just nothing that can touch the extreme stupid badness of the space hippie episode. Spock jamming on a bicycle wheel? Check. Stupid evil plan revealed by the criminal mastermind? Check. Takeover of the Enterprise from the Auxiliary Control Room? Oh my yes, check. (Exactly how many times does that catastrophe have to get repeated before Kirk figures this is a bit of an Achilles' Heel?) And finally, the "unexpected" ending where Eden isn't all it's cracked up to be. Who could see that one coming? For extra credit, compare and contrast the "Obama Salute" with that hand sign the hippies make when saying "One."

• Star Trek Voager Tsunkatse. It's the episode where STV decided they needed to spice up the Delta Quadrant with it's very own version of the Kumite with The Rock as a major fighter. He even Rock Bottom's Seven.

• ever see the episode of buffy with all the singing? ugh or does the star wars holiday special count

• Although the show may in it's own due time win an award for a new low standard in sci-fi programming, Babylon 5 went all "Last season of Roseanne bat-shit nutters" with it's episode 8, Day of the Dead. While the episode itself (honestly, I've done all I can to wipe specifics of the show from my mind, but for a time, my friend, a die-hard fan, was asking me to record it for him while he was working)was a typical B5 hodge-podge of Bruce Boxleitner, an angry bald dude, some fat alien, and assorted other creatures with styrofoam bone ridges taped to their heads, at a certain point in the episode, I guess in the spirit of comic relief, in walk Penn & Teller. Yes, Penn & Fucking Teller, playing intergalactic comedians named....wait for it.... Rebo & Snooty. Yes, Rebo & Snooty. One can only assume that the name pays some godforsaken homage to Max Reebo and the Sy Snootles band, an element of ROTJ that almost equals the midgets in Care Bears costumes known as the Ewoks as a low point. To this day, whenever my friend tries to convince someone in conversation about how good a show B5 is, I let him go into full detail about star talent like Bruce B., the dated CGI, the alien ships that are shaped like asparagus, the styrofoam bone ridge folk, etc. And when he gets into a climactic, passionate fervor over it, I just smile and say "Yeah, and tell them about Rebo & Snooty too." to which he just winces and says "I refuse to acknowledge that Season 5 existed. Even I think it was crap." I guess I can agree to a point. As far as I'm concerned, Rurouni Kenshin ended after the Kyoto Arc (show-wise, at least). Oh yeah, and the final kick in the balls regarding Babylon 5:Season 5:Episode 8:Day of the Dead:Guest starring Penn & Teller as Rebo & Snooty? The episode was penned by none less than Neil Gaiman. That's right, Neil "Stardust" Gaiman. Thanks Neil, thanks a whole fucking lot.

• I am surprised that none mentioned it before...the most (in)famous episode of Lost in Space: "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" And yes..it is actually about hostile Vegetables who turn the crew into plants as well as punishment for picking a flower..the whole thing was so absurd that the actors started to laugh several times during the shooting and you can still see in the actual ep that they had problems to keep a straight face..which is no surprise since had to wear giant CARROT costumes and similar things...

• Unless you were a fan of a bouffant haired analrapists (it's an 'Arrested Development' joke) whose job was stating the screamingly obvious, or butch blondes who dropped dead at the site of an oilslick, there wasn't much for the pubescent male to really focus on in ST:TNG except for, of course, the lovely Doctor Crusher. Sure she was Wesley's mom, but we got to watch this woman have an orgasmic sex with a ghost/alien in the season 7 episode "Sub Rosa". To a geeky thirteen year old boy in the days before internet porn, this was major stuff! Then, mysteriously, and without adequate explanation at the start of the second season the good Doctor was gone! Replace without so much as a goodbye and in her place a wizened old crone; it was time for the dark times … the Pulaski times. I know she was Star Trek alumni and to be fair, there are some damn good episodes in season 2, but <b>UNATURAL SELECTION</B> is not one of them. The synopsis is that a bunch of SpaceNazi scientists are breeding new race of Aryan supermen on the ironically named Darwin station. Now, we find out later in DS9 that breeding new KHAAAAANs is illegal in the Star Trek universe. That might not be established cannon until later, but given that these sorts of experiments lead to WWIII in the StarTrek universe, no one on the Enterprise seems that concerned that the SpaceNazi scientists are happily breeding a new generation of the master race. Hell, these kids are not just 'perfect' (and white and blonde and blue eyed), they are outright toxic to normals, who immediately start aging rapidly in their presence. In a move that would shame her Polish ancestors, Pulaski seems outright motherly towards the poisonous little nazispawn and promptly sets out accidentally infecting herself. As she rapidly gets older, the usual plot points occur until they figure out that if they run Pulaski through an older transporter pattern, they can weed out the SpaceNazi supervirus and restore her now really wizened form to the original, only slightly wizened form. As an added bonus, her mind doesn't revert back to the previous pattern so she still has all the accumulated memories. Even my thirteen-year old, hormonally clouded mind did double take here. Did they just cure old age? Holy crap! <b>THEY JUST CURED OLD AGE!</b> Save a copy of your 20year old self and transport back into the pattern every ten years or so and suddenly humanity is immortal! Picard could have hair again! A new golden age of humanity has begun! Uh … nope. Shows over. Next week they hit the reset button and they never mention it again. The single greatest discovery in humanity's history since the creation of the warp drive, and they blow it off as a cheap resolution gimmick in a third rate episode. Maybe these aren't the people we want out exploring the universe after all? Oh, that and every single episode of Star Trek: Voyager sucked hard, hard vacuum.

• ZeroCorpse: Go into hiding, before the Whedonites descend on you like locusts from Hell.

• I would have to say any episode of ......manimal.

• Don't know the title of it, but There was an episode of ST:TNG where the Humans, Cardassians, Romulans, and Klingons were all tasked with assembling some sort of cosmic doodad. Nobody wanted to work together except Picard, who's all about diplomacy and reaching across the aisle to shake hands with bad aliens. They finally work out their shit and find out it's some recording from a common progenitor race. Yes, it's a recording made by a guy who insists that Humans, Romulans, Klingons, and Cardassians are descended from the same species, thus explaining why they all look like Humans with prostheses on their heads. Picard is all like "Whee, look at what common ground we can find when we work together." The representatives of all the other races told him to stuff it, probably because they saw the episode where the crew of the Enterprise all de-evolve into radically different creatures. I wonder if Tom Paris was part Betazoid.

• Another note (well, elaboration) on Threshold——as bleaksilence mentioned, above, going past Warp 10 in the "modern" Trek universe is impossible. But this isn't a technical limitation, as in "any warp engine we can build would melt, or draw way too much power than we could possibly supply, before going that fast. We just don't have the technology." No, the reason Warp 10 is unattainable is because of...(drumroll) the 24th century century equivalent of standards and measurments, and how the mathematics used in the warp scale work. That's it. It's even official and canon. All those other episodes where they manage to go at insane, ludicrously high speed to cross distances hitherto undrempt by mortal man, in a single instant? Technically, they're just moving at warp 9.9999999996+, as the warp scale measures it. That's it. The worst part, of course, was that the writers of the episode KNOW this. They *reference it in dialogue*——and they still go with it. Nay, they run, open-armed into the stupid misunderstanding of the basic concept like fanatical cargo cultists worshiping a running jet engine! Then, of course, they use ONE idiotic, avoidable misconception of basic science to smash right into ANOTHER stupid, caveman brained blundering! Like, "Hey, what if you jumped out of a plane, and you fell FASTER than your terminal velocity?""Then that would mean...you'd fall faster than DEATH, so you'd START GETTING YOUNGER!" "OF COURSE!" Bah...what really boils my hash is that by writing it just a LITTLE smarter, or just a little more creatively--even just by using slightly different jargon, or abusing slightly different fantasy technology--they could have avoided it. Could have made almost exactly the same story, even. I don't know how much *better* the story could have been made, but they probably could have made it not be infamously stupid and insulting.

• &#64; ZeroCorpse I'm right there with you pal, it was just one of the worst ones, it was for sure a really really bad dream that you can't wake up from, but being a Trekkie, I forced myself to watch them on the principle that it's canon, if it ever falls out of canon, I will hunt down and destroy every DVD and broadcast copy in existence by shoving them down Brannon Braga's throat and up his ass, and then burn them whilst they are in his body.

• No one can deny that Doctor Who has an important place in sci-fi television history. True, it ran on a shoe-string budget... but the writing was usually top-notch and there were many occasions when the show worked past its' silly costumes and cheap effects to create some genuine drama. And then you have episodes like <i>Revenge of the Cybermen</i>... the episode which did more than anything else to establish The Cybermen's reputation as B-List Daleks, despite their ability to use staircases. (Yes, I know Daleks can fly now... but back then they couldn't.) The last episode of Tom Baker's first season as The Doctor, <i>Revenge</i> is widely considered to be not only the worst episode of the 12th season of Doctor Who but also the (Comic Book Guy voice) Worst Doctor Who Episode Ever! Tellingly, it is the only episode of the 12th season not released on DVD in the USA. And ironically, it immediately follows up <i>Genesis of the Daleks</i> - one of the most popular episodes of Doctor Who - and closes out the on-going story of the mostly excellent 12th season. Previously in Season 12, the Doctor takes a hand in aiding the last remnants of humanity, who were placed in suspended animation on the space-station Nerva while waiting for The Earth to become habitable again. The Doctor frees the Earth from an invasion fleet and and is on his way back to Nerva to give the all-clear when his time-traveling ship, the TARDIS, is high-jacked by The Time Lords (the advanced alien race The Doctor is one of), who put him to work on delaying the evolution of long-time baddies The Daleks. <i>Revenge</i> opens here. Having just escaped from the Dalek homeworld, The Doctor and his companions (army doctor Harry Sullivan and reporter Sarah Jane Smith) are transported through time back to the space station Nerva. The good news is they get to the station well enough, though it is orbiting an entirely different world. The bad news is that they arrived a few thousand years too early and they are immediately accused of being spies since one of the crew is found dead. This is Voga, also known as 'The Planet Of Gold' as that metal can be found in abundance there. The Doctor and Company learn that a plague has killed all but a handful of Nerva's crew. A visiting civilian scientist named Kellerman is, in fact, a traitor working with a group of Cybermen who want to destroy Voga as the gold dust that the world producers can coat their breathing apparatus and suffocate them. The 'plague' is the result of poison injected into its victims by Cybermats - metallic snake creatures controlled by the Cybermen. The Cybermen invade the beacon and force the Doctor and two of the remaining humans to carry some cobalt bombs down into the heart of Voga. Kellman, however, is really a double, double agent, secretly working with one faction of the Vogan race on the planet below. Their plan has been to lure the Cybermen onto the beacon and destroy it with a rocket, known as the Skystriker. The Doctor rids himself of the bomb he has been forced to carry and returns to the beacon, which the Cybermen evacuate on learning of the Vogans' intentions. The missile is launched, but the Doctor gives instructions for it to be redirected away from the beacon and onto a collision course with the Cybermen's ship. The Cybermen go boom and The Doctor and Company return to the present on Earth. Tedious as this all sounds in the abstract, it's even worse to watch it slowly play-out over four episodes. I'd do a play-by-play breakdown of the whole plot... but I don't think I could take watching my tape of the episodes again. Suffice it to say, here's ten reasons why this episode is widely reviled. <b>1. The Title -</b> The Cybermen are a horrifying enemy because of their lacking humanity to the point that they do not show any emotions at all and are all - for the most part - people who elected to willfully give up their ability to feel. Explain why such beings would desire "revenge", which as entirely emotional concept. <b>2. The Emotional Robo-Nazis -</b> Keeping the above note in mind, The Cybermen in this episode openly show emotions. Particularly the CyberLeader, who has enough pride to refer to them as "a warrior race" and enough of a sense of poetry and ironic humor to refer to the destruction of Voga as a "magnificent spectacle". Even The Doctor calls them on this point, noting that they don't act like the usual bunch of Cybermen but nothing else is ever said about this. <b>3. The Planet Of Gold, Gold and More Gold. And That's All! -</b> Ignoring the fact that an entire world of gold doesn't make any geological sense, you'd think the Vogans would have realized that there are certain things that don't work when made out of gold. Gold chains, for instance, are easily sawed through by The Doctor's companions as they try to make an escape attempt and Harry makes note of the fact that gold - as a soft metal - is more easily broken than other metals. <b>4. Some Things, However, It Wouldn't Hurt To Keep To Your Theme -</b> When The Cybermen finally do invade Voga, they prove amazingly resistant to touching the surface of the planet even though their every heavy step should be kicking up tons of gold dust into the air. Oddly, two Cybermen are apparently able to kill nearly half the Vogan army because while their guns appear to be made of gold (or are, at least, gold plated) their bullets appear to be of the rather ordinary variety. Even UNIT (widely acknowledged as the most useless paramilitary group in all science-fiction) had the sense to make gold-tipped bullets for fighting Cybermen... why not the military of the freaking legendary Planet of Gold?! <b>5. I'll Give You $50 If You Have A Hard-Boiled Egg In Your Purse? -</b> Great play is made, in multiple speeches, about how The Vogans consider gold to be virtually worthless except as a trade commodity with other worlds because of how readily available it is. And yet, when The Doctor asks the Vogan leader for a bag of the stuff before going to fight the Cyberleader, the Vogan leader says "of course", reaches into his robe, and pulls out a small pouch. To put this in perspective, imagine The Doctor asking President Obama for a jar-full of dirt from the White House garden and President Obama reaching into his desk-drawer and just pulling it out. <b>6. You Fail Physics Forever -</b> I can swing with a Planet of Gold existing even though it would be virtually impossible to live on. I can't, however, forgive that said Planet is actually an asteroid with no atomsphere and yet the Vogans seem to have no trouble whatsoever with breathing or living comfortably. This wouldn't be that bad except that great play is made of how they have been lying low and trying not to get attention. How do they eat, then, with no tillable soil and no other obvious means of outside trade. Indeed, the desire to rejoin the universe and trade once more is at the heart of the conflict between the two factions of Vogans! <b>7. The Fight Scenes -</b> Granting that Doctor Who has never exactly been known for convincing fight choreography, this episode plumbed new depths with The Cybermen's attempts to rough-up The Doctor looking more like a rather extreme massage technique. <b>8. The Stock Footage -</b> The missile which is launched at the Cybermen's ship is rather obviously lifted from NASA footage of a rocket launch. <b>9. Organic Materials, Eh? -</b> With their transports broken, The Doctor winds up hot-wiring a "transmat" medical device into a working teleporter. The Doctor uses this device to save Sarah Jane after she is bitten by a Transmat. Great play is made about how the transmat works by taking organic materials it scans and filtering out any synthetics it comes into contact with and how The Doctor cannot cancel out this effect for fear that The Cybermen might be able to use it. One small problem though... The Cybermen are able to use the transmat anyway, with no apparent ill-effects. And if transmat/teleporter is unable to effect non-organic tissue, why doesn't anyone who uses the teleporter wind up naked when they get to where they are being sent? <b>10. The Rock Tumbler of Doom -</b> As The Doctor, in the final minutes of the last episode, attempts to steer Nerva away from a collision course with Voga, we see the approaching surface of the planet... as represnted by a spinning stretch of rock, set up on the spinning axle of a rock-tumbler.

• Also Daleks of Manhattan in new doctor who. Russel T Davis committed many criminal acts in the revamp of Doctor Who, but this was a new low, after over using the Daleks in a 2nd season finale, he brought the daleks down from being the mightiest of his enemies to this http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__v16ajx69Mw/SK-Kgr9w77I/AAAAAAAACQk/J1Evd4OZTDg/s400/Doctor+Who+-+Daleks+In+Manhattan.JPG This is a Dalek Human crossbreed. Or more accurately it's a man with six penises on his face.

• It would have to be classic Doctor Who episode "The Ice Warriors," which based its whole plot around the scientific "fact" that plants create carbon dioxide. I sat there dumbfounded.

• Another one for "Space Above and Beyond". The entire series worked off the premise that not only were they an elite squad of pilots, but also grunt marines. Why yes we'll spend millions training our cannon fodder as fighter pilots and vice versa.

• Seaquest DSV Season 2 playtime. Sequest DSV started out as a vaguely plausibly, Sci Fi series in Season 1. Y'know stopping futuristic Whalers, evil Hackers, terrorists with bio weapons. By the middle of season two, it had dropped this and decided to go completely fucking crazy. The crew respond to a child's voice calling for help (how, why, they hear it fuck knows) and get sucked into a "underwater time vortex" (I've watched alot of discover channel shit and I'm pretty sure underwater time vortexs' are not something Jacqui Costeau regularly faced). They are propelled 225 years into future and they discover that there are no people, just a boy and girl only interesting in playing computer games (With giant real mech). You see the child's voice is the world's AIs mainframe. Humanity is now on the brink of extinction, and get this, time and space are ending because there will be no future. This created the underwater time vortex. Now, leaving aside that you're an AI thats so powerful you are self aware, so WHY DON'T YOU SWITCH OFF ALL THE GAMES. Leaving aside that if you had the equivalent power to bring someone into the future do you really pick the modern day equivalent of Russel Crowe and the lads from Master and Commander as the best people up to the job? The episode's conceit is THAT THE UNIVERSE AND SPACE TIME ITSELF WILL END IF WE STOP PROCREATING. Is this not just a tad egomaniacal? Do none of the writers stop to think "Y'know humanity has only been in this world for a few hundred million years, while the universe itself is 15 billion years old, so lets assume the whole of y'know, space time, packs up and shuts up shop once we stop rutting like feral dogs". Jesus. Anywho they blow up the AI, the kids take each other by the hand, and slip behind the bike shed, for a quick adolescent fumble, and the crew leave these two teenagers to give birth. raise children, and start a new society despite the fact that the clearly don't have any real people skills, or practical survival skills. And the "underwater time vortex" stays open long enough to let the crew go home. Which is nice.

• &#64; Tater I keep telling myself "Enterprise" didn't happen. It was a bad dream.

• Well, normally I'd have a long-winded story that would entertain and thrill the geek masses here at TR, but this time (at least at the moment) I only have one thing to add: Joss Whedon is still a motherfucking hack. I say this because I gave "Dollhouse" another few moments of my time tonight, and I have to tell you: It fucking blows. It's ridiculous, with poor acting, LOUSY dialogue, and costuming that makes me slightly embarrassed to be watching it. So right now I'd have to say tonight's episode of "Dollhouse" is one of the stupidest Sci-Fi TV episodes I've ever seen. Really, this show is just everything bad about Joss Whedon in one stinky ball. It proves to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Joss Whedon is the Rob Liefield of TV shows and movies: He can't draw a multi-dimensional character that doesn't look identical to all his other standard archetypes. He simply can't. He's one of the only artists I've ever seen who plagiarizes himself so shamelessly, and this is made worse by the fact that all his writing seems to be some twisted Mary Sue sort of thing. What I'm saying is that Joss objectifies women and writes them so poorly because he pictures himself in the lead role, and he scripts it as he'd behave if he got his life's greatest desire and became a skinny little teen-looking girl who can do circle-kicks like a motherfucker. Man, I hate Joss Whedon.

• I'm going to have to go with the Enterprise episode "Regeneration" because it basically ignores almost all Star Trek canon in existence. First of all in First Contact, the Borg Sphere is completely decimated, meaning that there would have been nothing left to discover years later by Captain Quantum Leap, I mean Captain Archer and his cronies. Secondly, they discovered a TRANS-WARP COIL, which would still have been somewhere in some lab that scientists would be studying, meaning that they should have been able to figure out what the FUCK it was when they encountered the Borg... Thirdly, they KNEW ABOUT THE BORG 200 FUCKING YEARS BEFORE THEY WERE ENCOUNTERED, WHAT THE FUCK, why weren't they fucking preparing for this shit? More to the point the Borg wouldn't have encountered humans if not for Q deciding to move things along, meaning that the Borg signal that was sent at the end of the episode didn't matter... AT ALL I still think that Enterprise was just the lost four seasons of Quantum Leap, where Dr. Samuel Beckett was stuck forever in Captain Archer's body, Al was even there for an episode, he just wasn't a hologram, and as Sam had amnesia anyway and "never returned home" it's not a stretch that this could have occurred. But that's all beside the point.

• How could I forget, the first episode of that great series "Space:Above and Beyond"!!! I mean, what's the best way to train young space/jet fighter pilots about the business of flying? Of course, drop them on the planet Mars, with no trained leadership, live weapons and a mission that any monkey with a shock collar could manage. Oh, and let's not forget, Mars is currently on the front lines of the war that Earth is currently in. It takes a couple of million dollars to train a pilot. Let's waste that cash by waxing someone on a dangerous, but routine house call the Geek Squad could manage. Yeah, yeah, get that realistic military action down there folks.

• Ok so, lets say your a top flight team of the militaries best minds. You are stationed on a planet in another galaxy when the earth is threatened by a major enemy. Lets also say you have a large spherical device that can connect you to earth instantaneously. (With me so far, you may be able to see were this is going). As mentioned the major enemy is attacking earth in a huge spaceship with enough power to kill and eat everyone on the planet. Also of note is that the enemy brought one of their own large spherical devices along to intercept any earth reinforcements. If you guessed Stargate Atlantis season finale you win, well loose really, I am sorry. Because when I said top flight military personnel I should have said bumbling fucking idiots. The atlantis team finds out that it can't communicate with earth because the wormhole was shortstopped by the stargate on the wraith ship instead. This made atlantis all hot and bothered with fear. No you didn't read that wrong, the good guys have a way inside the super enemies unstoppable ship and they were worried about it. If you were in this situation what would you do: A) Throw some flash bangs, and then send a team in. B) Get the biggest fucking nukes you have and throw those through the gate. C) Wait ten minutes and send some more nukes through, hell its your home planet mind as well be sure. If you said options B and C then congratulations you are smarter than Stargate Atlantis (The other correct answer is A, B, and C: just in case you want to get rid of some characters at the same time.) Lets also remember that back in the day the atlantis team use to blow up wraith ships by beaming nukes onto them. Its not like it is an unknown strategy. And this method is better than teleporters because it can't be blocked. If that is not bad enough earth could have saved itself. The Deus ex machina weapon from the previous series was on the planet. Do we think using super weapon to fend of the attack by bad guy attack craft would be a good idea. Of course not. Lets send the guy that can use the super weapon up in his own attack fighter instead because he like to be a pilot and fuck everyone else on planet. So the Deus ex Machina weapon was destroyed so they had to think of another one. No worries we can do that in one line of dialog. Lets just make up a new form of FTL so Atlantis can save the day in the nick of time. Have we hear of this technology before, ever. Yeah I nominate the Stargate Atlantis series finale.

• Ok so, lets say your a top flight team of the militaries best minds. You are stationed on a planet in another galaxy when the earth is threatened by a major enemy. Lets also say you have a large spherical device that can connect you to earth instantaneously. (With me so far, you may be able to see were this is going). As mentioned the major enemy is attacking earth in a huge spaceship with enough power to kill and eat everyone on the planet. Also of note is that the enemy brought one of their own large spherical devices along to intercept any earth reinforcements. If you guessed Stargate Atlantis season finale you win, well loose really, I am sorry. Because when I said top flight military personnel I should have said bumbling fucking idiots. The atlantis team finds out that it can't communicate with earth because the wormhole was shortstopped by the stargate on the wraith ship instead. This made atlantis all hot and bothered with fear. No you didn't read that wrong, the good guys have a way inside the super enemies unstoppable ship and they were worried about it. If you were in this situation what would you do: A) Throw some flash bangs, and then send a team in. B) Get the biggest fucking nukes you have and throw those through the gate. C) Wait ten minutes and send some more nukes through, hell its your home planet mind as well be sure. If you said options B and C then congratulations you are smarter than Stargate Atlantis (The other correct answer is A, B, and C: just in case you want to get rid of some characters at the same time.) Lets also remember that back in the day the atlantis team use to blow up wraith ships by beaming nukes onto them. Its not like it is an unknown strategy. And this method is better than teleporters because it can't be blocked. If that is not bad enough earth could have saved itself. The Deus ex machina weapon from the previous series was on the planet. Do we think using super weapon to fend of the attack by bad guy attack craft would be a good idea. Of course not. Lets send the guy that can use the super weapon up in his own attack fighter instead because he like to be a pilot and fuck everyone else on planet. So the Deus ex Machina weapon was destroyed so they had to think of another one. No worries we can do that in one line of dialog. Lets just make up a new form of FTL so Atlantis can save the day in the nick of time. Have we hear of this technology before, ever. Yeah I nominate the Stargate Atlantis series finale.

• Ok so, lets say your a top flight team of the militaries best minds. You are stationed on a planet in another galaxy when the earth is threatened by a major enemy. Lets also say you have a large spherical device that can connect you to earth instantaneously. (With me so far, you may be able to see were this is going). As mentioned the major enemy is attacking earth in a huge spaceship with enough power to kill and eat everyone on the planet. Also of note is that the enemy brought one of their own large spherical devices along to intercept any earth reinforcements. If you guessed Stargate Atlantis season finale you win, well loose really, I am sorry. Because when I said top flight military personnel I should have said bumbling fucking idiots. The atlantis team finds out that it can't communicate with earth because the wormhole was shortstopped by the stargate on the wraith ship instead. This made atlantis all hot and bothered with fear. No you didn't read that wrong, the good guys have a way inside the super enemies unstoppable ship and they were worried about it. If you were in this situation what would you do: A) Throw some flash bangs, and then send a team in. B) Get the biggest fucking nukes you have and throw those through the gate. C) Wait ten minutes and send some more nukes through, hell its your home planet mind as well be sure. If you said options B and C then congratulations you are smarter than Stargate Atlantis (The other correct answer is A, B, and C: just in case you want to get rid of some characters at the same time.) Lets also remember that back in the day the atlantis team use to blow up wraith ships by beaming nukes onto them. Its not like it is an unknown strategy. And this method is better than teleporters because it can't be blocked. If that is not bad enough earth could have saved itself. The Deus ex machina weapon from the previous series was on the planet. Do we think using super weapon to fend of the attack by bad guy attack craft would be a good idea. Of course not. Lets send the guy that can use the super weapon up in his own attack fighter instead because he like to be a pilot and fuck everyone else on planet. So the Deus ex Machina weapon was destroyed so they had to think of another one. No worries we can do that in one line of dialog. Lets just make up a new form of FTL so Atlantis can save the day in the nick of time. Have we hear of this technology before, ever. Yeah I nominate the Stargate Atlantis series finale.

• Already a few hits for Threshold from ST:Voyager, and one hit for the super racist Code of Honor from TNG, of the two i'd pick the latter. Even Wil Wheaton tore the shit outa it http://www.tvsquad.com/2008/04/28/star-trek-the-next-generation-code-of-honor/

• Almost any episode of the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica could tie this one up nicely, but (and I couldn't even find it in a search for 'Battlestar Galactica Dancing with a Lighted Rope') the episode where the pilots get shore leave aboard the ... not pacific princess... Astral Queen that's it and they all dance with this big lighted led-filled rope (which is supposedly the highest in popular culture - glad they saved that gilded love nugget from the ashes of their destroyed civilization), and then there's a conspiracy and then Apollo saves the day, Starbuck shags everything and Boomer is black. That one. That was the worst. As a 5-year-old, I didn't really know what sexuality was, but I'm sure I questioned my there on the spot. And then went to have some cup-o-soup.

• I'd have to say that one of the stupidest episodes ever is the episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century titled "Space Rockers". Bad synth music, evil guys trying to take over the universe via a hidden message in a live broadcast of some spandex-clad band....not even guest stars Jerry Orbach or Richard Moll could save it.

• I'm never going to stop banging <i>Stargate: Atlantis</i>, because that show hates my happiness. So, There's this episode in the second season called Critical Mass, where - seriously, and in rapid-fire succession - a Gua'ould [??] spy gets on the station, rigs the gate to explode next time it dials Earth [except that it's later revealed to be NOT really a bomb], sets a distress beacon to alert two Wraith ships that happen to be in the 'hood, turns on the city's inertial dampeners [because the city is really a giant spaceship; they actually say that very thing in the episode], AND sets loose a virus into the city's computer system to lock everybody out with some kind of command code. Then! They think it's the asshole scientist guy who's the agent, so they decide to "take the gloves off," and have some whole Important Discussion about torture. Their only evidence is that he's an asshole. And! Sweet Jeezus! At the same time, the Simple People who live on the island have a funeral ceremony, wherein Rachel Luttrel [who's the warrior-princess member of the team] actually freaking SINGS some sort of Enya-inspired bullshit about "crossing the horizon" or whatever. I was totally waiting for that one mime guy to show up and do his pantomime rendition of <i>Jonathan Livingston Seagull</i>. The title of the ep is right: it's a critical mass of stupid sci-fi cliches, all at once, that caused me to throw up into my mouth right away, and then spend the rest of the episode being all "oh, they did NOT just lay that bullshit down." Don't forget that there's also a *shocking!* twist ending that will blow you away. This episode made me impotent for the rest of the week. I will never forgive it.

• Darthbogus won hands down. The last 2 seasons of Heroes has been some of the worse writing/acting I've ever witnessed.

• The last paragraph and two individual lines arent' from the Wikipedia article. I really should've done some formatting to clarify that.

• It may be a comedy, but I think The Venture Bros. has enough sci-fi elements to get it to fit and "¡Viva los Muertos!" is just plain horrible as an episode. I cannot stand to even try to describe it, so I'll just quote verbatim from Wikipedia: The episode begins from the first-person visual perspective of one of the Monarch's henchmen as the Monarch is preparing to storm the Venture compound yet again. It goes badly. The henchman finally sees a blood-drenched Brock in the process of destroying his comrades; he attempts to escape, but his head is twisted completely around by Brock and the screen goes black. After the title sequence, the show continues on through the perspective of the henchman as he is resurrected as a Frankenstein-esque monster, reanimated by none other than Thaddeus Venture himself. As he becomes aware of what has happened, he (afterwards known as "Venturestein") attempts to strangle Dr. Venture out of horror, and is subsequently re-killed by Brock and subsequently re-resurrected. Meanwhile, outside the Venture compound, a van containing a quartet of aging hippies and large dog comes upon the Venture compound. The newcomers resemble the cast of the Scooby-Doo series, as well as celebrated criminals of the late 60s and early 70s. Ted, overbearing and something of a bully, decides the place must be haunted and that there is a mystery to be solved (simply on the basis that if they stopped here, there has to be a mystery to solve), and forces everyone else to investigate. Everyone else seems uninterested, as Val spouts radical-feminist vitriol from the SCUM manifesto, and once comes onto Patty, implying that she is a lesbian, Patty just wants to go to her parents' house, as she has for the last 10 years, and Sonny is repeatedly ordered by the dog Groovy (possessed by a German-accented demon whom only Sonny can hear) to kill everyone. Ted eventually bullies everyone into coming with him, except for Groovy and Sonny, whom he orders to go search for clues on their own by shaking a pill bottle of "groovy treats." Inside the compound, the Ventures are eating in the kitchen with Venturestein, and Venturestein learns he now has an African-American cranium complete with Afro hairstyle. Dr. Venture explains his experiment: he can put corpses and dead people to good use as manual labor and keep them productive even after death. The zombie seems perturbed by the presence of Brock, who in turn is genuinely put off by Venturestein, but the zombie begins to cheer up when the boys teasingly tell him that "Brock bad" for killing him. Dr. Orpheus arrives and informs Dr. Venture of his plans to have a get-together in his portion of the compound. Orpheus is suspicious about the resurrected corpse, and invites Brock, who he suspects is troubled, to the event which he promises will be both spiritual and therapeutic in nature. Later, Hank and Dean are distraught when they can't find "African America" on a map. They mention that they can't get into their "learning beds" because Venturestein has been put in one to learn how to "socialize" (though actually he is learning how to be a child laborer, watching old training films produced in the 1960s). The boys hear odd noises in the hall and investigate. Venturestein, upon hearing the word "zapato" (shoe) from the phrase "Viva los zapatos" which means "Long live the shoes," he smashes out of the bed and crashes around the compound; hoping to find one. Meanwhile, the hippies come across Dr. Orpheus and Venturestein and assume that the compound is a Dracula/Frankenstein factory. Sonny and Groovy come upon Hank and Dean, and Sonny is scared out of his wits. In a flashback, we see that he and Groovy murdered the boys two years earlier in a cave. Sonny "freaked out" after bumping into the boys, Groovy tore Hank's throat out and Sonny beat Dean's head in with a flashlight; Ted helped to toss the boys' corpses into a mine shaft. Sonny concludes that Hank and Dean are "g-g-g-g-GHOSTS!!!" Brock is now clearly in a funk, and after several failed attempts at throwing knives for target practice, decides to go to Dr. Orpheus' party after all. Meanwhile, Dr. Venture is thrilled to find that the military wants to use his reanimated corpses as soldiers, providing a much more lucrative business deal. When confronted with the shortage of corpses around the compound, he blithely asks Brock to go kill some people; Brock refuses. After introductions of the other attendees (including the Order of the Triad and an Amazonian mystic), Dr. Orpheus passes a round of drinks made from psychotropic plant vines (similar to a ritual DMT ceremony). The mystic excitedly relates the story of his sexual encounter with a dolphin as Dr. Orpheus and the others begin vomiting with the onset of the hallucinatory effects. Brock knocks back the strange brew and complains of the wretched taste. In a moment of pre-hallucinatory regret Brock admits that he feels bad about killing the henchman that became Venturestein; he had already thrown his gun down and was running away, but Brock killed him anyway just for the hell of it. Brock vomits, accuses the Amazon shaman of poisoning him, then collapses to the floor. Brock's hallucination begins by riding nude on the back of a pink dolphin in the middle of a vast, pink ocean. The dolphin tells Brock that the path to happiness is through empathy; however, the dolphin is soon harpooned by Brock's ex-mentor Hunter Gathers (post-op, but with pre-op face). Hunter blasts into the air with Brock, telling him (while he is hugging onto Hunter's breast) that he's working for the government and that his entire job is to hunt and kill people, and that "You can't teach a hammer to love nails. That dog don't hunt." Brock then awakens from his trip, and charges out of the party in a confused, homicidal rage. Sonny in the meantime has told Ted of the resurrected Venture boys ("No groovy treats until you find a clue dirtbag!"); the arrogant Ted doubts him until the boys find the hippies in a dark corridor. Ted produces a gun, intending to put those 'zombies' out for good, and the hippies pursue the terrified boys. Hank and Dean run into a dark lab room, only to find many life-support tubes holding their many yet-to-be-animated clone-slugs. Both boys fall to the floor and curl up in the fetal position, whimpering. The hippies run into the clone lab and Ted prepares to shoot the brothers. However, Venturestein enters behind them sending the five in a panic and Ted opens fire on Venturestein, accidentally shattering one of the clone tubes. Venturestein slips on a lifeless Hank clone slug, which sends him toward the hippies and in the process grabs a growling Groovy, breaking his neck. As the others run, they have the misfortune of running into Brock, who Ted makes the mistake of pointing the gun at. Brock grabs Ted and starts to twist and snap his wrist, at which point the gun goes off and shoots Sonny in the chest, and then headbutts Ted in the forehead, killing him instantly (Val and Patty—who took no part in the attempted murder of the Venture brothers—manage to escape, while Sonny briefly babbles to himself before dieing). Brock snaps out of his rage when he see the boys on the floor, and realizes the shock of seeing their clones has sent them into a catatonic state. Dr. Venture comes and tells his sons the clones were supposed to be their Christmas present: a whole army of them, doing their chores and dangerous missions, etc. The boys leave, happily and oblivious to the nature of the clones. Dr. Venture counts the new corpses, and briefly contemplates killing the clones for his death quota before Brock stops him. After the credits, Brock is seen driving Venturestein (wearing Hank's Batman mask) to buy him prostitutes' services as a way to make up for his murder. Venturestein thinks he can pay for their services with a shoe made from Groovy's severed paw, but Brock assures the monster that he will pay for their services. Venturestein, now obviously over his fear of Brock, cries out "Brock good!" Everything aside from the boys seeing their own clones was immediately resolved into dis-continuity, and even that took a season to pop up. It doesn't help that much of the dialogue feels out-of-character and the episode being devoid of laughs for me and everyone else I've discussed it with. Also, the Scooby Doo parodies are based on serial killers. Ugh.

• <i>ST:TNG</i> gave us "Yesterday's Enterprise," "The Best of Both Worlds" and "The Inner Light," but it's also responsible for two of the lowest moments in the <i>Trek</i> franchise: the racist "Code of Honor"--Jonathan Frakes and Wil Wheaton have expressed their shame over that episode--and the lame clip show with an unconscious Riker as a framing device. "The Menagerie" notwithstanding, clip shows aren't <i>Trek</i>'s style. No wonder they never did a clip show again.

• In the new Doctor Who episodes... there's an ep where the Doctor has to save Agitha Christie from huge space wasps that took on human form. Yeah, I can except the ridiculous nature of Doctor Who... but there's a limit.

• As Templar said above, it's gotta be the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Threshold." It causes me great physical pain to even think about this episode so I'm not going to go in to much detail describing it, but, basically, Voyager helmsman Tom Paris builds a shuttlecraft that can go Warp 10, breaks the transwarp barrier, occupies every point in the universe simultaneously, grows a second heart, devolves in to a fish, attacks Captain Janeway (who also devolves in to a fish), thy make little fish babies together and are returned to normal in the last five minutes of the episode only to go on with his life as if none of this crazy shit ever happened. Voyager was notorious for what fans called "the five minute wrap-up" and this episode was easily the worst offender. They just leave their fish babies on a random planet somewhere and agree to never mention the incident ever again. I figure most of you won't want to read any further so here's a picture of Paris and Janeway as fish, which should be all you need to understand why this is regarded by most Trekkies as the absolute worst episode from any Trek series, ever: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Transwarp_humans.jpg First of all, Paris manages to build a shuttlecraft that can go Warp 10, something every previous episode of Star Trek ever has said was impossible. Not only that, he manages to throw it together in the cargo bay of a ship stranded 75 years away from Earth, with minimal supplies, while the rest of the crew is on food rations. Meanwhile scientists on Earth with basically limitless resources can't figure out how to do the same damn thing. Then when he finally breaks the transwarp barrier, he occupies every point in space simultaneously, but decides to come back to Voyager (which, again, is stranded 75 years away from his homeworld) because he "noticed that the crew was looking for him." Um, and then he devolves in to a fish. He attacks the Captain, she devolves in to a fish, and they make freaky little fish babies.... ...honestly I can feeling my brain dying as I type this so I'll just leave you with a couple of quotes by the makers of the episode: Brannon Braga, writer: <i>"I wrote the episode, or at least the teleplay. It's a terrible episode. People are very unforgiving about that episode. ... Unfortunately, that was a royal, steaming stinker. ... I don't know where this whole 'de-evolving into a lizard' thing came from. I may have blocked it out. I think I was trying to make a statement about evolution not necessarily being evolving toward higher organisms, that evolution may also be a de-evolution. ... Unfortunately, none of this came across in the episode. And all we were left with were some lizard things crawling around in the mud. So. It was not my shining moment."</i> Jeri Taylor, producer: <i>"The fact that we were turning people into salamanders was offensive to a lot of people and just plain stupid to others."</i>

• First of all, sorry for the bad English that'll follow. ;) The worst Sci Fi episode I ever saw was a Star Trek Voyager episode called Treshold. The story: Tom Paris attempts to reach Warp 10 (which would mean infinite velocity) and succeds but eventually ends up mutating and hyper-evolving into a different (and pretty ugly) reptile species because of the side effects of warp 10. He then kidnaps Janeway, and dissapears on a shuttle set on warp 10. The crew finds them on a planet (both janeway and paris as fully fledged reptiles) and discovers that they MATED! This epsiode is wrong on so many levels. Paris can't possibly evolve in a few seconds, normally that is only done through procreation. Furthermore, he kidnapped Janeway and mated witn her (does anyone think of rape yet?), yet when the doctor heals them from their condition she seems only a bit surprised. Horrible pictures: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Hyper-evolution.jpg

• ...Shatner-yest) screams... I need to proof-read.

• The one that comes to mind and just won't leave is one particular episode of Star Trek, The Original Series. Spock and Kirk (and maybe a redshirt? They don't matter) beam down to some planet for some reason. I wasn't really paying attention until a ridiculous looking smoking, lava monster thing with psychic powers tells them that they must teach him the nature of good and evil. Okay, this is goofy, but it's an old show, so I let the effects slide and start to focus in. They talk, and honestly I find the dialogue interesting. This omnipotent lava-rock thing is going to use his powers to organize a battle between good and evil to learn more about them. Cool. That's when he brings in the teams. Batting for the good side? Spock, Kirk, some ancient Vulcan I don't care about, and Abraham Lincoln. Yeah... Batting for the evil side? Two Trek baddies, Hitler, and Genghis Khan. Wow. Here's the thing. It wasn't a bad episode. In fact, it was very good! The dialogue was great. Lincoln pinned down and offering to sacrifice himself while explaining that to save the Union he sacrificed thousands for mere acres? Awesome! But we're not judging good or bad. We're judging stupid. And I don't care how good your dialogue is, when you have Abraham Lincoln start beating the crap out of Hitler only to be stabbed in the back by Genghis Khan holding a spear as Kirk (at his Shatner-yness) screaming "NOOO!", we've entered Stupid Land. Yeah, I know that sounds like it should be the greatest scene of all time, but believe me - it isn't.

• Oh, almost 2/3's of the episodes of the show "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" will do. However, in season three there was a two, TWO, part episode where the Seaview, the submarine of the future had a werewolf running around on board. Now, let's ignore the whole 'how can it change if it can't tell its a full moon' thing. Let's ignore the whole "what could possibly be ripping these crew men up like a savage dog" thing. We cannot, must not, ignore the fact that these men of science actually embrace the idea of a mythic creature on board very quickly. But get dumb ass stupid on how to kill it. "Bullets? Made of... tin? Lead? Rubber? What was that substance?"

• Sliders was a phenomenal show in it's first and second seasons. Then, as they are want to do, Fox interfered and the show started to become "What movie are they spoofing this week?" Season 3 was a roller coaster of good to terrible episodes and I would have to say the one I nominate for the contest is "Electric Twister Acid Test" which is already one of the most retarded episode names ever. Quinn and the gang end up on an Earth that is plagued by electric tornadoes. The Sliders try to escape the tornadoes and end up in what seems like a Puritan village in the middle of the desert. The village is safe from the twisters because they have no electronics but the timer causes a tornado to rip through the village. Quinn, Arturo and Rembrandt are locked in the barn and Wade is forced to help the women of the village with the crops. The village leader's daughter helps the Sliders escape because she is secretly helping a group of outcasts led by her exiled brother. Ready to get your minds blown? The brother is played by super guest star Corey Feldman! So they find Corey and yadda yadda yadda it turns out the father is the one who caused the twisters because of some weather experiment he was involved with fucked up the Earth's magnetic field (Perhaps it was the Weather Dominator?) So with the family reunited and set on working on a solution to the problem the Sliders head off the their next adventure (A Back to the Futureesque episode) but that is a story for another time.

• Alkad, you're just proving Matt's point.

• Also, before someone else says it: "Treshhold", from ST: Voyager.

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