The Worst Episodes of Tales from the Darkside

#1 Worst Episode
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3.7/10(260 votes)
#1 - Barter
S4:E197/17/1988
A mother tries to get a reprieve from her noisy drums-practicing son by making a deal with an ammonia-seeking alien. Spoofs the I Love Lucy television series.
Director:Christopher T. Welch
Writer:Jule Selbo
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Director:Christopher T. Welch
Writer:Jule Selbo
3.9/10(310 votes)
#2 - Dream Girl
S2:E141/19/1986
A group of people find themselves trapped in a scenario with Otto, only to discover that he is a stagehand and they are a theater group all trapped in his dream.
Director:Timna Ranon
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Timna Ranon
Writer:Unknown
4.3/10(253 votes)
#3 - Basher Malone
S4:E207/23/1988
A wrestler seeking one great opponent finds himself tricked into fighting a demon from Hell.
Director:Anthony Santa Croce
Writer:Peter O'Keefe
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Director:Anthony Santa Croce
Writer:Peter O'Keefe
4.6/10(425 votes)
#4 - If the Shoes Fit...
S1:E185/12/1985
Fast-talking politician Bo Gumbs finds himself in serious trouble when he arrives for a meeting and waits at a nearby hotel.
Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:David Gerrold
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Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:David Gerrold
4.7/10(514 votes)
#5 - Djinn, No Chaser
S1:E101/13/1985
A couple inadvertently buy a magic lamp that contains a genie. Unfortunately, the genie is anything but amiably. Confined in the lamp for thousands of years and still trapped, he refuses to grant wishes and instead terrorizes the couples with plagues, rains of frogs, etc. The husband finally has himself committed, but a few days later his wife brings him home. Their apartment is now richly decorated and they have plenty of money. The genie is now an amiable and willing wish-granter. The wife's solution to freeing the genie: a can opener.
Director:Shelley Levinson
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Shelley Levinson
Writer:Unknown
4.6/10(298 votes)
#6 - The Bitterest Pill
S3:E310/12/1986
A boy treated poorly by his parents gets the upper hand when an eccentric uncle shows up and tries to convince the parents to finance him to develop his newest invention - a pill that increases brain power and memory. He has a stroke and dies but not before the boy swallows the one and only prototype, and soon puts his parents into the same position he was before.
Director:Bryan Michael Stoller
Writers:Jule Selbo, Michael P. Kube-McDowell
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Director:Bryan Michael Stoller
Writers:Jule Selbo, Michael P. Kube-McDowell

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4.6/10(265 votes)
#7 - Seymourlama
S4:E811/15/1987
Much to his parents' frustration, a spoiled young boy, Seymour, is declared the High Lama by a group of monks.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
4.8/10(411 votes)
#8 - The False Prophet
S1:E238/4/1985
Cassie Pines is a woman travelling on her own who believes in astrology, tea leaves...everything. She comes into a diner with a most unusual mechanical fortune teller named Horace X. "Horace" is uncanny with his predictions but Cassie soon finds that Horace is demanding and possessive - despite her misgivings she enters the booth one more time...and disappears.
Director:Gerald Cotts
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Gerald Cotts
Writer:Unknown
4.8/10(295 votes)
#9 - Deliver Us from Goodness
S3:E1011/30/1986
Valeria is a saint - literally - and finds it more then she can bear. She seeks out a way to fall from Grace but is unable to do so no matter how hard she tries.
Director:Warner Shook
Writer:Jule Selbo
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Director:Warner Shook
Writer:Jule Selbo
5.0/10(259 votes)
#10 - My Own Place
S3:E152/8/1987
Laura, a desperate woman, tries to get an apartment by herself but is forced to take in Ram, an immigrant from Calcutta. When Ram dies partly due to her involvement, Laura finds that she has inherited an entire family of ghostly Hindus.
Director:Theodore Gershuny
Writers:Theodore Gershuny, Perry Lang
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Director:Theodore Gershuny
Writers:Theodore Gershuny, Perry Lang
5.1/10(288 votes)
#11 - The Unhappy Medium
S2:E225/18/1986
The family of a dead preacher show up for a reading of the will but discovers he left them nothing specific. Rather, he warns them on his video-taped will that he will send them a sign.
Director:Dusty Nelson
Writer:Edithe Swensen
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Director:Dusty Nelson
Writer:Edithe Swensen
5.2/10(466 votes)
#12 - All a Clone by the Telephone
S1:E111/20/1985
Leon, a hapless TV writer, buys an answering machine that has a mind of its own - it initially helps him out by providing him with new material, but Leon soon finds that it's taking over his life.
Director:Frank De Palma
Writer:Haskell Barkin
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Director:Frank De Palma
Writer:Haskell Barkin
5.2/10(253 votes)
#13 - Going Native
S4:E176/19/1988
An alien is sent to Earth to study the nature and behavior of human beings. The alien, who resembles a normal Earth female, meticulously studies photographs of still life from large cities, simultaneously fascinated with and disgusted by the disarray and degeneration depicted in the pictures. The alien joins a therapeutic support group in an effort to better understand the seemingly contradictory humans. As she develops personal relationships with each group member, she begins to further understand the origin of and reasons for the behavior of humans, albeit from an outside observer's vantage point. The other members of the group see the alien as distant and detached, a condition that they assume is rooted in a self-denial complex. As the alien speaks at one of the group meetings, she suddenly realizes that she has been experiencing the exact same feelings as the humans that she has been studying. She has become human-like through assimilation, trapped within the emotional shell of ano
Director:Andrew Weiner
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Andrew Weiner
Writer:Unknown
5.2/10(248 votes)
#14 - Let the Games Begin
S3:E215/10/1987
When Harry Carson has a heart attack, an angel and a devil fight for who will get his soul and it's up to Harry to make the right choice.
Director:John Lewis
Writer:Peter O'Keefe
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Director:John Lewis
Writer:Peter O'Keefe
5.3/10(398 votes)
#15 - Grandma's Last Wish
S1:E226/16/1985
Given one last wish to enliven her days before she is moved into the Tranquil Gardens retirement home, elderly Grandma sees to it that her self-centered family finds out what it's like to grow old.
Director:Warner Shook
Writer:Jule Selbo
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Director:Warner Shook
Writer:Jule Selbo
5.3/10(326 votes)
#16 - Comet Watch
S2:E131/12/1986
Englebert Ames, an astronomer, is watching Hailey's Comet and is in for a shock when Sir Edmond Hailey himself arrives - he's been riding "his" comet all these years trying to elude Sarah, the woman pursuing him out of obsessed love.
Director:Warner Shook
Writers:Jule Selbo, Harvey Jacobs
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Director:Warner Shook
Writers:Jule Selbo, Harvey Jacobs
5.3/10(265 votes)
#17 - Mary, Mary
S4:E210/4/1987
A woman who lives with mannequins because she is unable to deal with real people gets a rude awakening.
Director:Katarina Wittich
Writer:Jule Selbo
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Director:Katarina Wittich
Writer:Jule Selbo
5.4/10(373 votes)
#18 - The Impressionist
S2:E19/29/1985
An impressionist, "Mr. Personalities," is brought in by the government to try to help them communicate with an alien. Mr. Personalities is at first stumped but finally makes "contact." The alien departs and Mr. Personalities is depressed...until the alien returns for him.
Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Armand Mastroianni
Writer:Unknown
5.4/10(295 votes)
#19 - Fear of Floating
S2:E235/25/1986
A hapless yokel, Arnold, runs into an Army recruiting office and asks for help, claiming to float. It turns out that he's telling the truth, but then Mr. Cooper and his pregnant daughter (pregnant by Arnold) show up and demand he do the right thing - it turns out that the more Arnold lies, the more he floats.
Director:John Lewis
Writer:Unknown
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Director:John Lewis
Writer:Unknown
5.4/10(255 votes)
#20 - Red Leader
S3:E162/15/1987
A crooked tycoon makes a deal with the Devil in return for power and wealth.
Director:John Harrison
Writer:Edithe Swensen
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Director:John Harrison
Writer:Edithe Swensen
5.4/10(248 votes)
#21 - The Swap
S3:E205/3/1987
Anna Belle's plot to murder her husband to gain his money backfires with unpleasant results.
Director:John Drury
Writer:Richard Benner
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Director:John Drury
Writer:Richard Benner
5.5/10(442 votes)
#22 - The Tear Collector
S1:E162/24/1985
Prudence is a young woman who can't stop crying, but finds a peculiar way to make a profit when she meets Ambrose Cavender, a man who collects tears.
Director:John Hayes
Writer:Unknown
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Director:John Hayes
Writer:Unknown
5.5/10(363 votes)
#23 - The Satanic Piano
S2:E611/3/1985
Pete Bancroft is a talented pianist who has lost his inspiration, but is contacted by a mysterious inventor who gives him a piano that lets him play as never before simply by thinking of the music. Bancroft is at first relieved, but soon discovers that the piano must feed on the soul of the woman he loves to retain its powers.
Director:John Harrison
Writer:John Harrison
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Director:John Harrison
Writer:John Harrison
5.6/10(579 votes)
#24 - Mookie and Pookie
S1:E511/4/1984
Twin siblings, Mookie and Pookie, are extremely close. But Mookie has a terminal illness. Later the scientific genius Mookie succesfully downloads his mind into the computer before he dies. But now that he's in there Pookie must convince her parents not to pull the plug.
Director:Timna Ranon
Writer:Dan Kleinman
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Director:Timna Ranon
Writer:Dan Kleinman
5.6/10(341 votes)
#25 - Lifebomb
S2:E210/6/1985
Ben Martin, a rich businessman, is contacted by a special medical firm, "Lifebomb" which offers him an expensive policy that will let him live forever. They give him an implanted device which, every time he "dies," activates and places him in a cocoon until the corporation can arrive and revive him. His wife soon leaves him and since Ben is close to death, the Lifebomb goes off constantly. Tired of life, he finds that he is trapped since Lifebomb refuses to call off the policy so that they can make money off of him.
Director:Frank De Palma
Writer:Michael P. Kube-McDowell
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Director:Frank De Palma
Writer:Michael P. Kube-McDowell