10 Terrible Episodes In Otherwise Awesome TV Shows

10. "Shades Of Gray" - Star Trek: The Next Generation

The first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation had their fair share of not-great episodes, to be fair, but just a single one which dared to be a truly worthless insult to the audience.

The second season's finale, "Shades of Gray," was the only clip show episode across TNG's seven seasons, and was devised after previous episodes in the season had run over-budget.

Writer Maurice Hurley, who himself called the episode a "piece of s**t," wrote a frame narrative involving Riker (Jonathan Frakes) being forced to relive pivotal moments during his time on the Enterprise in order to fight off an alien infection.

Even for the standards of clip shows, it's howlingly lazy stuff, with the wraparound scenes all being shot in just three days, serving as an embarrassingly flimsy segue to various choice clips from the first two seasons.

It may well be one of the worst season finales to any mainstream TV show in history, though thankfully TNG rebounded with its hugely improved third season.