I had a feeling that it was only a matter of time before someone posted a topic like this...the evil cousin of the Top 10 Fave Episodes thread, if you will.
You many notice that I've bashed out another monstrously long post, and I'm sorry about that (is that OK?
); this wasn't so enjoyable to write, either.
Now, these aren't in any order, nor are they actually my picks for "worst episodes" per se - there are one or two that I think are actually worse than some of the ones I've picked. These are just episodes with which I have specific problems that I want to highlight.
Adoptcalypse Now
This episode had its moments (notably, Herriman's realisation that he doesn't wear any pants), but I feel the writers really miscalculated in their assumption that I could sympathise with Mac and Bloo's efforts to sabotage Adopt-A-Thought Saturday. I've always loved the poignancy of the Foster's concept, which was evoked very well at the end of "Good Wilt Hunting"; Foster's is really like an orphanage, a place for lost and abandoned friends to stay until they can find a loving family, and another chance at happiness both fr themselves and for their child. Wilt even says as much in this episode when he's reprimanding Bloo for his actions, but he and Mac, in their self-serving quest to ruin the day, simply ignore him. Obviously the audience is supposed to do the same, but I just couldn't.
My So-Called Wife
It feels a little harsh to include this episode in this list, because it did make me laugh a few times, but the fact is I was really disappointed by how this one turned out. There's a Chinese proverb I learned that really summed up how I felt about this episode - "to paint legs on a snake", ie to ruin something by adding things which are superfluous. The central premise, of the stuffy Mr Herriman having to give the insane Coco the My Fair Lady treatment to pass her off as his wife, is fantastic, but the writers seemed unable to follow it through, instead adding a huge host of entirely extraneous additional plotlines and twists (Bloo's sarcasm lessons, Mac and Bloo inexplicably deciding to crash the party, the ludicrous millionaire games plotline, Mr Factor turning out to be a conman) that gave us a few laughs but completely compromised any narrative coherency, and also rendering the great central plotline practically irrelevant. Coco doesn't get many showcase episodes, and I was sad to see how this one was hijacked.
Imposter's Home For Um...Make' Em Up Pals
I wrote a very long analysis of exactly what I thought went wrong with the infamous "Imposter's..." in the "Goofball John Magee" topic on the "Supporting Characters" board, so if you want my full thoughts on this episode, head over there. In short, I don't despise the episode with the same fervour a lot of others do, because I don't believe the writers actually intended it to be mean-spirited or malicious; I think it was intended to be twenty minutes of zany fun with a surprising and emotionally satisfying ending. Needless to say, that therefore makes the actual execution a mind-bogglingly colossal failure in all respects, as what it came across as was a deeply, deeply irritating story of an extremely obnoxious character harassing an extremely likeable character and getting no comeuppance for it whatsoever. The episode is not evil, in my opinion; just rubbish.
Foster's Goes To Europe
EuroTrish was an amusing parody of Don Bluth-brand schmaltz, but otherwise this was just another example of how to completely mismanage audience reaction. Just like "Imposter's..." here we had a very sympathetic protagonist (Mac) being walked all over for twenty minutes by entirely unsympathtic antagonists (everyone else really, but mostly Bloo). What kind of satisfaction are we supposed to take from that? And that's not even mentioning the ludicrously mean-spirited ending...in my opinion, the character of Madame Foster was generally handled really quite badly right up until late Season Three. The idea was always that she's supposed to be a really lovely, pleasant and sprightly old dear who's occasionally prone to the odd burst of craziness or belligerence for comedic effect, but for most of the first three seasons, her pleasant side was just kind of assumed; they didn't bother to actually
show it very often at all. As a result, the impression I got of her was that she was just a senile, actually quite unpleasant old lady.
They've since rectified this with episodes such as A Lost Claus, Bloo's The Boss and Emancipation Complication, but her actions in Foster's Goes To Europe still stand out as the series's nastiest moment.
Camp Keep A Good Mac Down
This suffers from a similar problem to the previous two episodes, but Mac isn't quite as sympathetic here. In fact, this is one of those episodes where none of the characters is particularly sympathetic; the writers aren't trying to engage you emotionally here, they're just using the characters' established schticks to drive forward a series of events. This isn't a problem in itself, as many great episodes have come from this template (Bus The Two Of Us being a standout); the problem is that they unbalance the whole dynamic by making Bloo so utterly unlikeable. This is a show whose emotional basis and underlying theme is one of friendship, primarily the one between Mac and Bloo. Sure, Bloo is a hyperactive, overly impulsive and often selfish character, but if you just make him an obnoxious jerk to the extent he doesn't even seem to care about his friends, you undermine the entire basis of the show. This and the previous two episodes I mentioned formed a quick-fire triple whammy at the beginning of Season Three which could have actually killed the show dead; the writers have thankfully since got it right back on track, but they need to make sure they remember and learn from the mistakes they made then.