The one bad episode in the entire series
While I loved the Dick Van Dyke Show, and there was really never a "jump the shark" moment, there was one episode that i thought was really poor...season one's "The Bad Old Days". The story, for those of you who are not familiar with it, deals with Rob and Buddy having a discussion about longing for the good old days, when men were firmly in control, and women knew their place. Rob then has a dream in which he lives in a "Dickens-like" world, where Laura and Richie are totally subservient to him
The episode is completely unfunny, and Buddy acts like a jerk. Dick Van Dyke has even stated this was his least favorite episode. Fortunately,the writers, Norm Liebmann and Ed Haas only wrote one other episode, and the show rebounded in its next oouting, the very funny two-parter with Jerry Van Dyke