By Not every TV show can do a Fawlty Towers or The Office – a handful of perfect episodes and then out. Not around long enough to have a duffer.
Even the greatest TV shows of all time have the odd filler episode that you have to skip during a cheeky binge.
The following are the worst offenders. Not just because they're bad episodes, but because they're bad episodes of shows we knew were capable of much better. We're not angry, just disappointed:
Lost: 'Stranger in a Strange Land'
An infamous episode in the mythology of Lost and its fans. By season three, the show had gone into full WTF territory, but writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse clearly had no idea how long it was going to last, and so had to come up with nonsense episodes like this.
The episode offered absolutely nothing in terms of answers or even interesting backstories. All it did was reveal how Jack got his distinctive tattoos. It didn't even explain what they meant, for Jacob's sake.
Thankfully, soon after this it was announced that Lost would end after its sixth season, so we didn't have any more water-treading episodes like this. Not that all questions were answered, of course (special mention goes to season 6's 'Across the Sea' – thanks for telling us NOTHING, Allison Janney, and you can take your board game with you).
South Park: 'Pip'
Trey Parker and Matt Stone do enjoy trolling us with a downright bizarre episode from time to time – like the Terrance and Phillip episode 'Not Without My Anus' or any episode revolving around Towelie. But the oddest has to be season 4's 'Pip'.
The episode is a retelling of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, starring no-one's favourite South Park Elementary student Pip. No other regular characters appeared and it also featured a live action Malcolm McDowell in a parody of Masterpiece Theatre. Trey and Matt have admitted that it isn't much-loved among fans, but they actually think it's "really good".
The Office US: 'The Farm'
This is a perfect example of why backdoor pilots aren't a good idea. The surprisingly brilliant American version of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's sitcom was coming to an end after nine seasons, and so NBC looked into potential spinoff ideas.
Dwight was the obvious character to get his own show, and so a whole episode was dedicated to the Schrute family farm that we had heard much about, but never seen. Not only did this stick out like a horrendously mangled thumb in The Office, but it simply wasn't funny and almost single-handedly ruined the brilliance of Dwight. You could remove this one from the boxset and you wouldn't notice.
The Simpsons: 'The Principal and the Pauper'
Yes, we know it's hard to even think of a genuinely brilliant Simpsons episode from the past 15 years or so, but that's mainly because not many of us actually watch it anymore. But if we're talking the classic era of its first 10 seasons, this is the one we wish had never happened.
The episode reveals that Principal Skinner was actually named Armin Tamzarian and wasn't who he said he was. But the episode ended with Judge Snyder ordering that everyone forget this fact, allowing the viewers to reset to the point before the episode even started. So, what was the point?
Voice actor Harry Shearer wasn't a fan, telling writers: "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience." We agree, Harry.
