The Worst TV Episodes Of 2023

With the absolute onslaught of television shows that hit the airwaves and streaming platforms every year, there are countless episodes of everything to watch. But even among the best (and worst) shows, some installments stand well above — or below — the rest. It's worth chronicling those episodes that truly astound. This list, though, is focused not on the episodes that distinguished themselves as the cream of the crop, but the ones with the dubious honor of being the absolute bottom of the barrel.

Some of the worst episodes of this year don't come from the worst shows. The notoriously awful "Velma," for example, was so poorly reviewed that it's difficult to identify a single installment as the worst. Thus, we've put together a list — in no particular order — of episodes that weren't just terrible, but so bad that they stood out from the rest of the pack. Sit back, grab a hot compress, and take two Tylenol, because this is a list of the worst TV episodes of 2023.

With "Euphoria" a massive hit for HBO, it was no surprise when they tapped showrunner Sam Levinson to create another series. The result was "The Idol," a drama about a pop star named Jocelyn, played by Lilly-Rose Depp. Unlike Levinson's previous series, "The Idol" wasn't quite so beloved, meeting with harsh reviews from both critics and audiences. There's still one episode that stands out ankles and feet below the rest: The finale, "Jocelyn Forever."

That episode sees the singer getting ready for a stadium tour when she becomes increasingly controlling of those around her. The episode poses plenty of new questions, too, as discoveries are made about Jocelyn's past, in particular regarding a man she used to date. But with each episode of the season seemingly worse than the last, the finale is the bottom of the barrel for a show that almost nobody liked. And even for those who did watch, it doesn't seem that anyone wanted more, with IndieWire's roast of the episode openly begging HBO not to give the show a second season, content with it ending on something of a cliffhanger.

Over the years, "Family Guy" has devolved, often becoming more of the ordinary, run-of-the-mill animated sitcom it was originally lampooning. Now the show sits remarkably in its 20th season, and reviews of new episodes have been mixed. But even with modest reactions, "Old West" was a huge step-down, cratering an otherwise innocuous year of stories.

"Old West" has Peter and the gang seeking out the father of Mayor Wild West. The episode sees the return of Sam Elliott as Mayor West, and guest star Gerald McRaney as Old West. Bland, lifeless, and rote, the episode feels like a pale imitation of its old self, produced only to add new episodes to its library on Hulu. Even the normally impressive Sam Elliott feels like he's just going through the motions, reciting dialogue off a piece of paper that he doesn't understand or care about.

While even the worst episode of "Family Guy" has a couple of decent laughs, this one offers fewer than most. The jokes that are there are repetitive and tired, and frankly the episode is just plain pointless.

Love for "The Mandalorian" has been nearly universal among "Star Wars" fans, but Season 3 — which followed the disappointing and disjointed "Book of Boba Fett" — wasn't quite as beloved as the previous seasons. Part of that was attributed to the episode "Guns for Hire," which had a bizarre tone and left-field guest stars that left audiences cringing, earning it the unfortunate status of the lowest-ranked episode of the series on IMDb.

Sticking to formula, the episode begins with the Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu on a quest, this time with Bo-Katan (Katee Sakhoff). As per usual, before they can get what they need they have to go on a mission for someone else, this time the Duchess of Plazir-15, who wants them to stop a small army of droids. On paper, it has all the trappings of another thrilling adventure, but in practice, it doesn't work as well as the rest of the series, mostly because it dips its toe a little too far into broad, slapstick humor.

It's true that the franchise has had its elements of humor, even a few goofy moments, but "Guns for Hire" often feels like it's going for a full-on farce. It tips its hand when pop star Lizzo and comedian Jack Black make a cameo at the end in one of the most divisive moments of 2023.

In 2023, zombie spin-off "Fear the Walking Dead" saw its eighth season, which was also its last. When it premiered, audiences were in for something of a shock, discovering that seven years had passed since the events of the Season 7 finale. The status quo was fully shaken up, with the group of survivors having made it to PADRE — a remote island and a safe haven the infection hadn't reached. It's that premiere that lands on this list, kicking off the season on a decidedly low note.

One might expect that the huge time gap might be a reason why the episode fails, but that actually proves to be one of its few compelling points of interest. It allows us to see the character of Mo — just a small child a year ago — become much more interesting as an adolescent. Beyond that, though, the manufactured character conflicts are merely shrugworthy, and there's never any real tension in the story, with even a few mild walker attacks failing to have us even consider biting our nails.

While "Fear the Walking Dead" has rebounded somewhat, Season 8 has yet to reach the heights of the show at its best.

"The Changeling" begins with Apollo Kagwa (LaKieth Stanfield) and librarian Emma Valentine (Clark Backo) falling in love and welcoming a baby boy named Brian. The plot takes a quick left turn when Emma begins to feel their baby may have been abducted and replaced by an otherworldly being.

Most of the middle of the season sees Apollo hunting Emma down looking for vengeance after she appears to kill their child. "Stormy Weather," on the other hand, is a wild divergence that focuses entirely on Apollo's mother (Adina Porter) as she rents a room in a seedy hotel in the hopes of making sense of what's going on and how it might relate to her own dark past. It even poses some interesting questions and offers new clues to the mystery that might have saved the episode had they not been so frustratingly vague.

To be fair, "Stormy Weather" isn't a bad hour of television. On its own, it's a powerful story of an immigrant woman's fight against an oppressive system and her silent, solitary struggle in a world that rarely acknowledges outsiders. It features a powerful performance from Porter, but the episode is woefully out of place. Not just because it includes a strangely off-putting musical number, but because it sidesteps the season's main story and forces fans to wait an extra week to resolve the previous episode's cliffhanger. 

Like "Family Guy," it's almost become a joke how far "The Simpsons" today is from how good it was in its prime. Nevertheless, the show continues to have its supporters, and while most would agree it rarely — if ever — matches the greatness of its heyday in the '90s, there's still plenty of fun to be had. The same can't be said for the 2023 episode "Fan-ily Feud," the 18th episode of the show's eye-popping 34th season. 

Commenting on controversial subject matter has been done before on "The Simpsons," but this episode doesn't do it well. It meekly tries to address the rise in so-called "cancel culture" (which itself feels like it's well past commenting on) when Homer makes a nasty remark about pop star Ashlee Starling, whose loyal fans turn him into public enemy #1. 

The story touches on some similar themes as those in the 1994 episode "Homer Badman"  – even hitting some of the same story beats — but doesn't do as much with its concept. Perhaps its goals were too lofty for a show that has long since tried to play it safe, but the insufferable musical number doesn't help.

"Futurama" is one of the best animated comedies of the last 20 years, producing a number of all-time classic episodes. It has proved so enduring, in fact, that it's survived multiple cancelations. And while the show's first new season in a decade more than lived up to its legacy, there's one episode that was a real letdown for longtime fans hoping for a flawless new year of stories.

Titled "The Prince and the Product," the episode is an anthology of sorts, with the cast turned into various lines of toys in a series of half-hearted vignettes. In these stories the Planet Express crew becomes mechanical wind-up figurines, rubber duckies, and toy cars. A handful of satirical commercials serve as interstitials. Though it may sound good on paper, it's simply not as clever as it thinks it is.

In its defense, its lampooning of kids cartoons and how they're often just glorified commercials is a good one, but they pulled it off much better in 2011's "Yo Leela Leela." And while it's trying hard to be a stinging critique of the business of entertainment, the gags are unfunny and stale, and frankly, even the best jokes are obvious low-hanging fruit. Reaction from fans was harsh, too, with some fans claiming it was pure garbage. "This is genuinely, without hyperbole, the worst episode of Futurama to date," said Reddit user Redpenguin. "I enjoyed nothing about this episode and struggled to even finish it."

2023 saw the debut of the first small-screen expansion of the Monsterverse, "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters." The series is set in two distinct time periods: 2015, after Godzilla arrives from the deep, and 30 years earlier, as a clandestine organization called Monarch investigates the emergence of otherworldly monsters from the Hollow Earth.

The series is seriously impressive, but it certainly isn't perfect. The episode "The Way Out" is a particularly massive fumble; it switches up the tone at random and fails miserably. The episode's attempt to be more thoughtful and introspective is noble, but it feels more like it's trying to be something it's not. Some critics made comparisons to HBO's "The Last of Us," as it examines what happens to life after an attack by a giant monster like Godzilla. For a show like "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters," though, the episode is curiously devoid of any monsters at all. This could have worked as a respite from the over-the-top spectacle, but it mostly feels like unnecessary wheel-spinning. Throw in the use of recycled footage from previous encounters with Godzilla, and there's an unavoidable sense that the entire episode was produced to save money. While that is certainly understandable, it didn't have to be this bad.

It's hard to believe, but "Rick and Morty" has been on the air for over a decade, with its seventh and most controversial season airing in 2023. Fans were wary of the two lead characters' new voice actors, and many dinged the season for seeming like a pale imitation of the show at its best. But after a rough start, "Rick and Morty" bounced back strong with a handful of excellent stories. Unfortunately, late in the year, the series aired its worst-ever episode, "Rise of the Numbericons: The Movie."

The episode is, oddly, an extension of a post-credits gag from "Get Schwifty," a fan-favorite episode from Season 2. In that stinger, rapper Ice-T reveals himself as an alien and returns to his home planet, where an army of Numbericons attack. In "Rise of the Numbericons: The Movie" we learn that the post-credits scene was the intro to a full adventure that sees Morty and his math class recruited by Ice-T to help thwart an invasion by the Numbericons. As usual, the episode runs on an ambitious, high-concept premise — but what works as a single gag isn't really worth much when extended to a full episode.

The writers of "Rick and Morty" should be given some credit for trying to do something different, but at this point, doing something different is par for the course. Also, making Ice-T the central character while sidelining Rick entirely and focusing on an alien war with low stakes is a mistake. No wonder it sent fans into a frenzy.

A teen comedy on Disney+, "Pretty Freekin Scary" may not aspire towards Emmy-winning drama, like some shows on this list, but it does entertain with a fun mix of fantasy and horror. The show centers around 14-year-old Frankie (Eliana Su'a), who dies and makes a deal with the Grim Reaper (Siobhan Murphy) to return to the land of the living in exchange for doing their bidding on Earth. All the while, she's accompanied by a pair of the Reaper's minions named Pretty (Kyan Samuels) and Scary (Leah Mei Gold).

"Pretty Freekin Scary" generally threads the needle, but the episode "Locker Life" feels like a torture device from the netherworld. Determined to get separate spaces, Frankie and her locker buddy look for someone called the Locker Broker to help them find new cubbies in the school hallways. It's an innocent enough idea, exactly the kind you might expect from a teen comedy. But even by those standards, it fails miserably. Boring and unfunny, "Locker Life" seems to forget the appeal of the show: The fantasy and horror elements that set it apart from other fare. Without them it's little more than a bad episode of a forgettable 2000s tween comedy.

Disney+ hasn't just been creating Marvel and Star Wars content, nor are they solely making shows for American audiences. In 2023 they revived a different kind of franchise when they released "Journey to the Center of the Earth," a Mexican-produced adaptation of the Jules Verne classic that takes wholesale liberties with the source material. This time, the action is set in Mexico, where a group of camp kids embark on an adventure below ground.

Supposedly the adventure that inspired Jules Verne to write his novel, this story sees Diego (Sebastián García) and his friends attend a camp run by eccentric adventurer Pompilio Calderon (Óscar Jaenada). But when his grandmother disappears into a strange portal in a hidden cave, Calderon and the kids go on an adventure that takes them to other dimensions. 

From start to finish, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" isn't very good, though it may be good enough to keep some kids entertained for 30 minutes at a time. Unfortunately, the episode "Todo el tungsteno" is a particular stinker and one of the worst episodes of 2023. The kids ride a giant turtle, the story is nonsensical, and there are bad special effects, even for a series that by its very nature isn't supposed to be taken seriously. In the episode's defense, it's unlikely many fans even made it far enough into the season to see it.

If you've not heard of "The Swarm," we're not surprised. Produced in Germany and airing on public service channel ZDF, the series isn't well-known to wider audiences. It's a sci-fi thriller that explores an emerging undersea menace, and mankind's attempts to stop it from destroying civilization. Reviews for the series have been only slightly better than lukewarm, but when it works, it's a satisfying entry in the emerging genre of ecological thrillers. Sadly, its season finale falls well below the general level of quality of the TV landscape.

This season-ender sees the crisis come to a head, as opposing ideas on how to stop the global threat from reaching a tipping point clash. The episode is difficult to suffer through, plagued as it is by weak character beats, a confusing resolution, and some atrocious performances. Gone is any hope that the series could offer up some interesting insight into the balance of man and nature — a staple of the sub-genre. Instead, it's a muddled mess that's so bad, it will have you wondering why you sat through the seven previous episodes to get to it.

Figuring out which shows to avoid can be a simple matter of looking at reviews and ignoring whatever series get lambasted by critics and audiences. But finding individual episodes that rank among the worst of the year is a tall order, and it's one we've tried hard to get right. While some of the episodes on this list come from good shows — and even a few truly great ones — you may notice that most are from shows that ride the line between good and bad. So, how did we pick them?

For starters, we took a look at audience scores across all shows on IMDb sorted by individual episodes, thus identifying a slew of low-rated installments. From there, surfing social media helped us narrow down our list. We looked for episodes that online reviewers roundly roasted — with many making claims that they couldn't even finish them. We also filtered these episodes through our own opinions, until we were left with this list. Unfortunately, given how many of these episodes are part of season-long story arcs, some of them are not avoidable. You may have to sit through one of the worst TV episodes of the year — but at least you're prepared.