Top 20 Worst Sitcom Scenes Ever

“Arrested Development” (2003-06; 2013-19)


Fans were already annoyed by the fourth season finale, as the revival did not live up to their expectations. And then George Michael punched his father in the face, and what little goodwill was left was instantly evaporated. The punch felt out of character and tonally off compared to the show’s earlier seasons, when George Michael adored his father with every ounce of his being. A physical altercation between them was not only unfunny and uncomfortable, it was also wildly inconsistent with their relationship, even accounting for the tension that had been building throughout the season. It was a weirdly dark note to end the season on, and fans were not having it.

“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” (2005-)


It’s amazing that two Charlie-centric episodes are at total opposite ends of the quality spectrum. “Charlie Work” is regarded as a masterpiece, a brilliant blend of frenetic comedy and creative filmmaking. And then there’s “Charlie’s Home Alone,” which even the show’s diehard fans admit is one of the weakest installments. The episode begins well enough, but things take a turn for the worse once the “Home Alone” parody begins. Many fans find these scenes awkward and unfunny, with unwanted cameos and dated jokes that have been made for the last thirty years. Plus, things get incredibly gross once that bear trap gets involved.

“New Girl” (2011-18)


Robby McFerrin appeared in the second and fifth seasons of “New Girl,” but his role really expanded in season six when he began dating Jess. And then we find out that they’re cousins. Womp womp. They already weren’t a great couple, but making them cousins was a bold move by the creative team. The twist retroactively adds an uncomfortable element to their romance, ruining any sense of rewatchability, and it seemed a bit tonally out of place, despite the show’s best efforts to keep it comedic. Plus, many fans saw it as a way to conveniently end their relationship to make room for Jess and Nick’s inevitable rekindling, rather than serving as a natural progression of the storyline.

“3rd Rock from the Sun” (1996-2001)


Some people would call “3rd Rock from the Sun” an underrated sitcom, but it nevertheless contains a rather awkward ending for one of the main characters. Wayne Knight plays Don Orville, a sometimes-incompetent police officer and the main love interest of Sally. In the series finale, Sally finds Don hiding from a robbery, and he admits that he is a coward who only joined the police force to find safety in his fellow officers. This doesn’t make a lick of sense, and it contradicts many of his earlier heroic actions. Yes, he was bumbling, but he was always well-intentioned. Plus, Don is made sergeant later in the series, so he’s obviously not a coward - not enough to earn himself a promotion, at least.

“iCarly” (2007-12)


For such a funny and lighthearted show, “iCarly” contains a weirdly toxic relationship. That is Seddie, the often-controversial pairing of Sam and Freddie. The relationship blossoms in the fourth season episode “iOMG” after Sam randomly kisses Freddie. This smooch comes completely out of left field, as viewers were given zero hints throughout the show that Sam had any romantic affection towards her supposed crush. In fact, it’s so out-of-character that others make reference to how out-of-character she is acting. Meta. It was a cliffhanger for the sake of having a cliffhanger, and it brought about what many fans consider to be a toxic and unhealthy relationship.

“Malcolm in the Middle” (2000-06)


Fans of this show are split down the middle when it comes to Lois. Some think she’s a strict but ultimately well-meaning mother. Others think she’s a shrew. Their opinion is reinforced in the series finale, when Lois forces Malcolm to turn down a great job. Malcolm is offered a fantastic job straight out of high school, but Lois turns it down, arguing that he should go to college and work his way through in order to get some perspective on life. Some saw this as the ultimate example of Lois’s overbearing and controlling nature; forcing her own vision onto her grown child, disregarding what he might truly want, and ordering him to sacrifice prosperity and gratification for hard work.

“Community” (2009-15)


Many fans of “Community” don’t enjoy season four, which is largely due to the absence of showrunner Dan Harmon. And it ended in spectacularly poor fashion with “Advanced Introduction to Finality,” a series finale which was completely bungled thanks to an over-reliance on gimmicks, meta-humor, and fan service. This is best represented by The Darkest Timeline, a fun idea from season three that was brought back for no reason whatsoever. It didn’t make any sense, felt forced, and lacked the clever execution of the original. It was also a bit tone-deaf, with alternate timelines and evil doppelgängers ruining what should have been an introspective episode about taking new steps. It tried to replicate the show’s trademark high-concept storytelling, but fell short without Harmon’s guiding vision.

“2 Broke Girls” (2011-17)


It’s amazing that “2 Broke Girls” aired in the 2010s, because it had the cultural sensitivity of a show from the 1950s. While it ran for six seasons, the sitcom faced intense scrutiny throughout its run owing to its casual racism. Many characters embodied racial stereotypes, like the sleazy Eastern European Oleg. But perhaps the worst offender was Han Lee, a Korean-American character that often reinforced negative stereotypes about Asian men. We cringed any time he was on screen, bracing for the next casually racist remark or joke. Oftentimes these “jokes” are that Han Lee is short, geeky, and speaks in an accent. How hilarious.

“Heil Honey I’m Home!” (1990)


It took the world all of five seconds to realize “Heil Honey I’m Home!” was a bad idea. A spoof of the traditional ‘50s sitcom, it stars Hitler and Eva Braun as they fail to get along with their Jewish neighbors. Sometimes you just have to pause and ask yourself, “No, seriously, what were they thinking?” The concept was deliberately tasteless, its offensive premise part of the joke. But there are some ideas that should just never be tried, and this show was over the second Hitler walked through the door and did a poorly-disguised Nazi salute. Eight episodes were filmed, but the show was canceled after the pilot owing to the public’s palpable outrage.

“Frasier” (1993-2004)


Sometimes parody veers into mean-spiritedness, and that’s certainly the case with “Dr. Nora.” This is an episode from the sixth season of “Frasier,” in which an abrasive and deeply unlikable psychiatrist becomes a popular radio personality. The character of Dr. Nora is bad enough - she’s a horrible person, and while her confrontation with Frasier drives the plot of the episode, her vitriolic behavior makes for deeply unpleasant viewing. But the character is also a spoof of Laura Schlessinger, better known as Dr. Laura, and the show got in some big trouble for going after her mother. Schlessinger chastised the writers for getting personal and involving her mother when she was not a public figure, and the episode was pulled from syndication.

“The Office” (2005-13)

Like many shows, “The Office” runs out of steam by the end, and fans find the ninth season particularly hard to watch. It’s marred by numerous problems, including the absence of Steve Carell and Andy’s infamous boating subplot, which many people did not enjoy. Andy leaves on a trip with his brother Walter Jr., leaving Erin behind and deeply hurt. Many fans found this to be a self-centered moment that was wildly out of character for Andy, especially considering the positive development he had undergone since season three. It also removed Andy from the main ensemble’s dynamic, an awkward balance that was largely attributed to Ed Helms’s burgeoning movie career rather than a natural progression of his arc.

“Two and a Half Men” (2003-15)

By 2011, Charlie Sheen was causing some major problems, so executives decided that he had to go. Fans did not like the idea of a Charlie-less “Two and a Half Men,” and they REALLY didn’t like how the show decided to write him off. He is supposedly killed off-screen between seasons eight and nine, with Rose telling everyone that he was hit by a train while they were honeymooning in Paris. The explanation was unceremonious, almost insultingly so. His death was also painfully rushed, lacking any sense of proper closure and almost serving as a middle finger to the audience. We later learn that he was actually locked in Rose’s dungeon the whole time, but the damage had already been done.

“Scrubs” (2001-08; 2009-10)

Alright, look future showrunners, your main characters don’t all need to like each other. Drunk or not, there was absolutely no reason to have J.D. and Carla share a kiss. It was nothing but a plot device to create unnecessary drama and tension, and the fans saw right through it. The characters never had any romantic chemistry to speak of, the kiss came completely out of nowhere, and worst of all, it betrayed both of their personalities. Carla has always been deeply committed to Turk, and J.D. would never do anything to hurt his good buddy - especially kiss his wife on the lips. The kiss does nothing but disrupt beloved character dynamics and cause massive inconsistencies with the show’s tone.

“ALF” (1986-90)

If you want one of the darkest endings in sitcom history, may we present “ALF.” This show was popular in the late ‘80s, essentially a sitcom version of “E.T.” with an alien living amongst a suburban family. In the series finale, ALF is about to rendezvous with some other aliens when he’s surrounded and captured by government agents. And, yep, that’s it. The cliffhanger was meant to be resolved in the next season, but NBC canceled the show, leaving ALF’s fate ambiguous. The cliffhanger was unsatisfying, not to mention tonally jarring, as the dark ending clashed with the otherwise fun and lighthearted sitcom. Luckily, fans finally got closure six years later in the form of ABC’s “Project: ALF.”

“Friends” (1994-2004)

Ross kissing Monica was bad enough, but at least that was a mistake. Ross hitting on his own cousin was completely intentional. Cassie Geller comes to visit, and because she looks like Denise Richards, everyone is instantly smitten with her. That’s understandable. Denise Richards is a gorgeous woman. But when we say everyone is smitten with her, we mean everyone - including Ross. Not only does Ross become infatuated and obsessed with his own cousin, he catapults over a very gross line when he tries to have sex with her on the couch. For many fans, this was a low point in Ross’s character arc, a move that had many raising their eyebrows and scratching their heads in disgust.

“Roseanne” (1988-97; 2018)

You could almost hear the country collectively groan on the night of May 20, 1997, when “Roseanne” pulled the “it was all a dream” card. The entire ninth season was divisive, as the Connors had won the lottery, the show took on a more surreal style, and John Goodman was absent through most of it. But ending on that weird note would have been better than what we got. The finale reveals that the entire season was a what-if scenario concocted by Roseanne, who was coping with some major traumas by writing a fictional story. Unsurprisingly, viewers hated this twist - not only because it betrayed their trust, but also because it ended the show on a bizarrely dark and depressing note.

“How I Met Your Mother” (2005-14)


How do you go nine seasons and 208 episodes building up a story only to completely dismantle it in five minutes? We don’t know, but “How I Met Your Mother” managed to do it. For nearly ten years, viewers watched Ted recount the complex story of how he met Tracy. And by some miracle, despite the wild anticipation, the show nailed her character with some strong writing and pitch-perfect casting. And then they ruined everything by killing her off and having Ted get back together with Robin, as if that was the point all along. It was a blunder of epic proportions, and it’s universally regarded as one of the worst endings in television history.

“The IT Crowd” (2006-13)


Graham Linehan wrote “The Speech” and lost his marriage because of it. In this wildly controversial episode, Douglas Reynholm discovers that the woman he has been dating is transgender, and he reacts with both disgust and violence. His reaction - and the show’s handling of the sensitive subject - was widely seen as offensive, and critics argued that the episode depicted trans identities in a derogatory and insensitive manner. Douglas’s vitriol was deemed transphobic, and Channel 4 pulled the episode from streaming. In response to the outrage, Linehan became a vocal anti-trans activist - a campaign that resulted in a Twitter ban and a divorce from his wife.

“Happy Days” (1974-84)

The term “jumping the shark” was created in 1985 and has since entered the public lexicon, referring to a specific scene that tanked the quality of a show. Or, more generally, that a show has exhausted its creativity and lost the spark that made it popular. You can thank “Happy Days” for it. In this infamous episode, Fonzie literally jumps a shark while on water skis, a moment that was absurdly out of place in an otherwise grounded comedy rooted in ‘50s nostalgia. It leaned too far into the larger-than-life qualities of Fonzie, and the shift in tone was widely derided, with the wacky scene sparking a massive decline in the show’s quality and popularity.

“Seinfeld” (1989-98)


Even if it’s not the worst series finale in TV history, it’s probably the most notorious. We’re talking about “The Finale,” which has lived in infamy since May 14, 1998. There are various reasons why fans don’t enjoy it, including its cheap, clip show nature, but perhaps the biggest criticism is the ending itself, with all four characters being thrown in prison. Facing punishment for their typical antics felt jarring and out-of-sync with the rest of the series, and some didn’t like how the show suddenly introduced a moral compass after nearly ten years. Others thought it was too dark or anticlimactic. The controversial ending was later parodied in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” suggesting that even the people who made it didn’t really like it!

Did you enjoy any of these scenes? Let us know in the comments below!