10 Awesome TV Shows (With Just One Bad Episode)

4. Arrested Development - "Ready, Aim, Marry Me" (2.10)

OK, I'm cheating slightly with this one. Because Arrested Development had more than a share of bad episodes - and they were found in the horribly disappointing fourth season last year. So pretending all the Netflix business never happened, I'm focusing on the show's original run for the purposes of this article. For me, of the first three seasons, the only real dud for me is Ready, Aim, Marry Me. In truth, there's a lot of good stuff in this episode too. The Tobias sub-plot, in which he begins recording his conversations so he can hear how homoerotic and innuendo-laden they are, is just hysterical. Lucille (Bluth) and George Michael are also on funny form. In fact, there is one single character in this episode that makes it the worst of the original run - Martin Short as Bluth family friend Uncle Jack. I've never found Short particularly funny, or indeed offensive - in most stuff I've seen of him he's just sort of there. But his hammy over-acting in this episode actually ruins it for me. The problem is that the broad, loud humour of Uncle Jack completely clashes with the more low-key tone the show established and the scenes with Short fall completely flat. And as this episode's plot is centred around the character, that means there's a lot less laughs in this offering than what we're used to with Arrested Development. Fortunately, the writers seemed to realise that it didn't work, and Jack was a one-off character never seen or heard of again.