Random Worst Episodes Of 'Seinfeld' (12 items)

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  (#1) The Dog

  • Oct 09 1991

  When Jerry finds himself on a flight next to a boorish alcoholic, he does whatever he can to stop their conversation. The man doesn't pick up on Jerry's disinterest in him, and when he suffers from some sort of medical attack, Jerry's proximity to the man makes him the default go-to to care for his dog, Farfel. The canine in question was never seen on screen but was clearly meant to be a large, aggressive, and nonstop-barking creature. Jerry hates caring for the animal and finally gets rid of it when the man shows up weeks after his medical debacle.

  Why it falls short: One of the features of this episode was the relationship between George and Elaine. Because of the dog, Jerry wasn't able to do much with the group, which left them having to hang out with one another. They felt uncomfortable without their Jerry buffer, which was strange because their relationship seemed very friendly up to this point in the series. It didn't make much sense for the characters, and while the episode works as a standalone, it falls flat when compared to the series as a whole.
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  (#2) The Seinfeld Chronicles

  • Jul 05 1989

  The pilot episode of the series is certainly not the best the show had to offer, and that's okay since it's a pilot. It centers around Jerry and his love life with George on hand to help him out with advice. Kramer... or Kessler, as he was named in the episode, is introduced. The dynamic between the characters is likely what helped get the show an order with NBC, but it's easy to look back on and see that the episode was far from the series' best.

  Why it falls short: It lacked Elaine, the pacing was horrifically slow, Jerry's love life is far from interesting, and the show would have never attained the prominence it achieved had the format remained exactly as it was presented in the pilot.
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  (#3) Male Unbonding

  • Jun 14 1990

  Jerry is plagued by a childhood friend he no longer likes named Joel Horneck. He and George reason that he never stopped hanging out with him because he's a man, and the best way to end their relationship would be to treat him like a woman he was breaking up with. He gives it a shot, and the man breaks down in tears. Elaine makes her first appearance in the show and offers her advice in killing the relationship, and Kramer hatches his latest get-rich-quick scheme: a pizza place where you make your own pie.

  Why it falls short: This was the fourth episode of the series, and it introduced Elaine, but she wasn't given much to do. This is addressed later in the series when the two men admit that they didn't know how to write for a woman, which was effectively a callback to her earlier appearances. There were some funny points throughout the episode, but the overall storyline about Jerry breaking up with an old childhood friend isn't incredibly memorable and made for a weak episode.
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  (#4) The Puerto Rican Day

  • May 07 1998

  "The Puerto Rican Day" features the main cast coming home from a game and finding the city completely gridlocked. The annual Puerto Rican Day Parade is the culprit, and after Jerry gets into a feud with another driver, nobody is going anywhere. The episode shows each of the men conning their way into a townhouse to use the bathroom and catch the last few minutes of the game while Elaine desperately attempts to get home but to no avail.

  Why it falls short: There were a lot of bottle episodes on Seinfeld, but this one is the dullest. More than that, it was incredibly racially offensive, and NBC even apologized for airing it. Overall, it's just not a funny episode, and that leaves the offensive bits standing out as the most prominent feature. Most people don't like this episode, and there are plenty who outright hate it.
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  (#5) The Deal

  • May 02 1991

  In "The Deal," Jerry and Elaine attempt to do the unthinkable: they work out a set of rules that allows them to sleep with one another, and not cross any lines that would endanger their friendship. While it works out in the beginning, the typical issues relating to such a liaison end up causing conflict, and their friendship is almost ruined as a result.

  Why it falls short: The episode was written solely to please the NBC brass, who continuously demanded that Jerry and Elaine get back together. The series was never about a "will they, or won't they" kind of dynamic, which is why Elaine was introduced as Jerry's ex-girlfriend whom he became close friends with. Larry David reluctantly wrote the episode, but in doing so, he proved it would never work. In some ways, it's ingenious, and while it helped the series stay on the air with NBC's approval, it left fans with an episode that disrupted the normal flow of the show, and ultimately, didn't go anywhere.
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  (#6) The Ex-Girlfriend

  • Jan 23 1991

  Jerry begins dating Marlene, shortly after George breaks up with her. She could easily be described as incredibly sexy, but, like George, Jerry quickly finds her dull and uninteresting. He struggles internally to break up with her, but can't because she has a "psycho-sexual" hold on him. When she finally sees his act, she loses all respect for him and breaks up with him mainly because she doesn't think he's funny. The episode also features a subplot with George, who is revealed to be homophobic.

  Why it falls short: Overall, the episode was pretty boring. The whole point of "The Ex-Girlfriend" was to deliver a punchline, and it wasn't very funny. For a comedian to get dumped by someone because they don't find them funny is sillier than it is funny, and it just didn't work for a lot of viewers. The series touched on this again in a later episode with Jerry dating a woman who never laughed, and that played a lot better than this episode.
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  (#7) The Jacket

  • Feb 06 1991

  In "The Jacket," Jerry finds a jacket he absolutely loves, and despite being extravagantly expensive, he buys it — red & white-striped liner and all. The bulk of the episode centers around George and Jerry waiting for Elaine to show up to a dinner with her father, but Elaine never shows. George and Jerry end up being uncomfortable around the gruff older man who insists Jerry not wear the jacked inside-out as they walk down the street.

  Why it falls short: The biggest problem with this episode is that it's boring. Most of the scenes take place with a couple of guys waiting for someone in a hotel lobby, which is about as funny as it must be exciting. There are some laughs, but for the most part, the episode was a dud. The only interesting part of the episode went on behind the scenes, when Lawrence Tierney, the actor who played Elaine's father, got caught trying to steal a prop butcher knife from the set. When he was confronted, he mockingly threatened to end Jerry with the knife... now, if that were in the episode, it might not have found its way on this list.
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  (#8) The Chinese Woman

  • Oct 13 1994

  When George's telephone line is crossed with a Chinese Woman named Donna Chang, Jerry decides to ask her out on a date. His interest in a Chinese woman compelled him to do it, but when he meets her, he finds that she's a blonde Caucasian woman from Long Island. He somewhat reluctantly continues to see her, and after she gives some advice to George's mother to help with her separation from his father, it all blows up when she's revealed to Mrs. Costanza as a white woman.

  Why it falls short: This is another episode that plays on stereotypes and a little "light racism." There's even a discussion about it in the show, where Elaine asks if Jerry's interest in a woman based on her perceived race was racism, and he replied that it couldn't be if he likes the race. That's cutting it pretty close to the edge, and overall, the episode simple hasn't aged well.
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  (#9) The Mango

  • Sep 16 1993

  When Elaine admits to having faked her orgasms with Jerry, he suffers a devastating blow to his male pride and ego. He ends up pestering her throughout the episode while simultaneously calling all the women he'd slept with to see if they faked it as well. While that is going on, George finds that his libido has taken a hit, and only overcomes his issue when he eats a mango offered by Kramer, who can talk of nothing else.

  Why it falls short: It isn't a beloved episode, mostly due to the fact that a lot of people who watched it were offended. While the episode aimed to tackle racy issues like orgasms, libido, and the like, the plot was both stale and unoriginal, seeming more like a rehash of "The Ex-Girlfriend", which is also one this list.
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  (#10) The Tape

  • Nov 13 1991

  When Elaine secretly records a sexy bit of dialogue into Jerry's tape he was making while performing, the guys become infatuated with the mystery woman's voice. Meanwhile, George is trying to battle his baldness with a Chinese miracle cure, but the only thing it does is make him look like an idiot and stink up the apartment. When the guys all discover that it was Elaine's voice on the tape, they turn their infatuation directly at her.

  Why it falls short: The main problem with this episode is how it ended. The men all lecherously stare at Elaine like she's a giant chicken leg from some Looney Toons cartoon from the '60s. It went against the normal tone of the series, which set the characters' platonic friendship, sans romantic interest relationship as the main point of the series. Going against it was a strange choice, and it ruined what might have otherwise been a great episode.
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  (#11) The Gum

  • Dec 14 1995

  George's childhood nemesis, Lloyd Braun, makes an appearance in "The Gum," having recently been released from a psychiatric institution, or, as George put it, "The nuthouse." Meanwhile, Kramer is working to restore a run-down movie theater whle Jerry is pulled into Braun and George's issues when he reluctantly agrees to buy Chinese chewing gum. Much of the episode's activity centers around Elaine's cleavage, as it's the driving force for many of the interactions seen throughout.

  Why it falls short: The problem with "The Gum" is that it focuses entirely too much attention on Elaine's breasts. Sure, it's funny for a cheap laugh here and there, but it was overused and abused too many times in this episode. 
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  (#12) The Outing

  • Feb 11 1993

  "The Outing" starts out with George, Elaine, and Jerry waiting in the diner for an NYU student to show up for an interview. When Elaine notices a couple of women listening in on their conversation, she has a little fun by talking about Jerry and George's relationship. One of the young women turns out to be the reporter who recognizes them after arriving at Jerry's apartment later. Both men are 'outed' as LGBTQ+, and the episode gave rise to the commend, "Not that there's anything wrong with that," which has remained an element of pop culture to this day.

  Why it falls short: It may have won a GLAAD media award in 1993, but this episode is a perfect example of one that hasn't aged well. While jokes about being gay may have been considered funny in the 1990s, most people are offended by them today. The insinuation that being gay was somehow wrong — despite always decrying that there wasn't anything wrong with it — tends to fall on deaf ears today.

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