MovieChat Forums > Mary Tyler Moore (1970) Discussion > Worst Episodes?

Worst Episodes?

posted 9 years ago by JaysonT
26 replies | jump to latest

This is one of my favorite shows of all time, but what were some of the worst episodes?

A few come to mind:

Ted Over Heels: Ted dates Chuckles the Clown's daughter. Overtly lame and boring, nothing happens except girl talk and awkward scenes. Rhoda is essentially wasted, and I found the actress playing Ted's woman annoying. The episode also felt very unrealistic and stale.

Howard's Girl: Mary dates Howard's brother, and has to meet his parents who think she should still be with Howard. Dull and lifeless.

A Reliable Source: Political episode that makes no sense. Too much newsroom talk and not enough laughs. Arguably the most boring episode in the entire series.

Murray takes a Stand: Murray was already the least interesting character, and while he did have his moments (Murray Can't Lose, Murray Ghost Writes for Ted), this one is a old, tired clunker and I fell asleep half way through it.

The Shame of the Cities: Lou thinks a city councilman is corrupt. Another political bore. Maybe it's just me, but it comes off dated and not intriguing.

Rhoda's Sister Gets Married: You would think an episode that is all about Mary and Rhoda would be interesting, but it just doesn't hold your interest. Plus the sister is never mentioned again in the spin-off Rhoda series. Only Nancy Walker saves this one from being a complete failure.

His Two Right Arms: Another dreadful councilman story, this one involving racial issues. This would have worked had the series been shaped as a drama, but it's not. And the whole episode plays like a pilot for another series. Boring.

Keep Your Guard Up: An over-all weird episode. A loser who used to play football wants to be the sports anchorman but he just doesn't know how to talk well on air. He also is aggressive, obnoxious and lame. Why Mary and Rhoda would feel sorry for him is puzzling, since he's all about himself.

[–] scottandmindy 8 years ago

"Lou and that Woman" from season 5. Everything seemed off in this episode and even Sue Ann's one-liners weren't funny.

[–] shango7200 8 years ago

First of all - let me say that I am a huge fan of the show and have been watching it since the original run; CBS Saturdays followed by The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show . When the Nick at Nite revival happened (in 1989?1990?1991?) I was then certain that this was my favorite show of all time!
MY CLUNKERS:
The first thing that pops into my head- when I rack my brain to answer this question:
1) "I Love a Piano"--a bland , basic Murray based episode with few laughs & a stale situation that resolves in the only way that it possibly could. And it's predictable & dull.
2) Murray -- again later on in "A Son for Murray". Hopelessly unfunny.
3) I hate hate hate the episode that was a "back door pilot" to an UNFUNNY series with Bill Daley as a political candidate or congressman or senator or whatever the *beep* he was. Horrible beyond words and the set looked like it was from a high school play that had $38.00 to their budget. I guess it's not fair to shoot this one down but.......it's on the DVD set and it begins with the MTM theme song so....... it's an "episode". Geez- I'd rather have "Kelly's Kids" (classic bad Brady Bunch back-door-pilot) become a series than THIS piece of crap.

More to come....................................

[–] shango7200 8 years ago

I HATE:
Season 2 The Six and a Half Year Itch.
A weird and uncomfortable show focuses on Lou's son-in-law who is caught cheating on his daughter. As I recall the resolution was VERY politically incorrect as well. Not many laughs in this one and just a bit too soon to focus on Lou's family.
"In every dimension , there's another YOU!"

[–] shango7200 8 years ago

I actually hate the episode where Lou and Mary date. No too funny and predictable outcome.

"In every dimension , there's another YOU!"

[–] snsurone 8 years ago

I hate the one where Mary dated her creative writing teacher.
What a bore!

And even worse was its "sequel" where Dan actually broke his engagement to Judy over Mary.
Now, one would think that the rest of the episode would consist of Mary talking with Judy, making her see the error of her attitude, and reuniting her with Dan.
But, no--Judy is never seen again, and the rest of the episode was just another talky snooze-fest, only brightened by a brief appearance of Rhoda and her date, played by Steve Franken.

BTW, Judy was played by Barra Grant, the daughter of the late TV celebrity Bess Meyerson.

[–] Dreamsville 8 years ago

It's funny, I actually like parts of that episode a lot, especially the conversation Mary and Dan have on the stairs outside her apartment at the end, and Rhoda's banter with Dan's friend Jonas - BUT, it is very strange how the character of Judy is treated. No one in the episode seems to care much about her at all - even Dan, who's engaged to her, doesn't seem to like her much. The writers seem to be trying to paint her as an obnoxious b-itch, but IMO it doesn't seem all that out of line for a woman to get upset because her fiance's ex shows up at their engagement party (at the fiance's invitation, no less!). In this story, though, because the ex-girlfriend is Mary, we're supposed to automatically root against the new girlfriend, which just winds up feeling a bit odd.

We're also supposed to see Dan as this potential great catch for Mary, despite the fact that he's really kind of a jerk toward Judy. I guess we're just expected to assume that there wasn't much depth to the Dan/Judy relationship to begin with, which would explain why it was so easy for him to blow her off. Neither Mary nor Dan seem the least bit concerned about how Judy feels about the whole thing - in fact they both make fun of her at different points. And as you said, she just disappears from the story in the second half. Weird...

[–] gbennett5 8 years ago

"The System" is boring as hell (all about gambling), as well as the ep where Lou
produces a documentary on an HONEST politician. It's so boring, that everyone
walks out of the bar where they are watching. But it's not as BORING as the
episode itself.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] InherentlyYours 8 years ago

I find the Mary dates Ted Bessell episode to be one of the better ones from the later season where the show gained it's wit, and it was well acted. You're not supposed to take it to heart

[–] shango7200 8 years ago

MORE BAD EPISODES:

Lou Opens a Bar.

WJM Investigates the Singles Scene (in the same bar no less).

Murray confesses he loves Mary-- a hopeless episode and too late in the game.

Completely horrible episode that has Ted acting as if he and Mary are having an affair or something like that.

Mary dating Murray's father.

Mary dates the priest.

Lou's date with Beverly Garland and he dumps the ice cream sundae on her head. A real head scratcher episode.

The Johnny Carson episode (Greatest Hits episode)

"The ENEMY of my ENEMY is my FRIEND"

[–] [email protected] (5854) 3 years ago

Just watched, "Mary's Father" recently and she did not date the priest. She was working with him on a documentary. When he told her that he was troubled and considering leaving the priesthood, Mary immediately assumed he was in love with her.

Not a great episode by any means, but I really liked the actor who played the priest. He was one of my favorites from St. Elsewhere. The best scene (I think) is when he realizes that Mary is trying to "turn him down" gently and he bursts out laughing. He had no romantic interest in her.

The episode with Beverly Garland was mostly a clunker. But I LOVED her one scene! The woman had it coming to her after dumping Lou in a Dear John letter and then showing up years later to ask him for money!

[–] CarolTheDabbler (570) 2 years ago

The Johnny Carson episode (Greatest Hits episode)

I've read through all the replies to this thread, assuming that a lot of people would mention that cobbled-together episode, but you were the only one.

The title was "Mary's Big Party" (S7.E22). I assume when you call it a "greatest hits episode," you mean what I call a "patchwork" episode -- a minimal amount of new filming that mostly serves as a framework for characters being "reminded" of things that happened in previous episodes, which we are then privileged to witness again. This one was pretty pathetic even by those standards. We've been watching a couple of MTM episodes every night off our DVDs, and unless one of the final two episodes "outdoes" this one, it's definitely our mutual choice for the series' WORST episode ever.

The set-up is that A) a congresswoman is responsible for entertaining Johnny Carson that evening, but doesn't dare take him to any public place, so she asks Mary to throw a party, and then B) right after most of the local guests have arrived, the lights go out in the whole apartment building, so that all we can see is the faint light outside the window.

So the guests start talking about Mary's previous parties, and we're shown bits of those. My guess is that the promise of an appearance by Carson was intended to keep people from changing the channel. And the power outage enables him to "appear" briefly without actually being on-set -- we never see him, we only hear him. I wasn't even sure it was actually Carson's voice, but he was credited (over a black screen), so apparently it was.

We had been thinking that season 7 was pretty blah, but then we really liked the two episodes we had watched the night before ("Murray Ghosts for Ted" and "Mary and the Sexagenarian"), which made this episode all the more disappointing.