Worst episode of each season and why

Here are my least favorite eps of the series:

Season 1: Captain Nemo (a perfect example of the weirdity of the first season compared to the rest of the series), The Car (Ray was a real stupid idiot in this one), Fascinatin' Debra (it tried to hard too make Debra look "normal" compared to the Barones. "Normal" is subjective, and is a relative term. Not a good one.)

Season 2: Mozart (just really boring), Civil War (I HATE war re-enactments), Mia Famiglia (too Italian for my liking), Six Feet Under (Ray was an annoying whiner in this one), The Wedding two-parter (a really weak attempt at an original flashback episode IMO).

Season 3: Getting Even (Ray is a complete @$$hole in this one), Moving Out (I hated the Stipes), The Article (Andy the pathetic little beta male really got on my nerves in this one), The Lone Barone (Ray is a complete @$$hole in this one), The Apartment (it had homophobic undertones I didn't care for), Robert's Date (this show never had any black people on it before and they really didnt need to start doing so, it wasn't that kind of show), Ray Home Alone (just really boring), Move Over (the lies Ray told Debra really pissed me off), Dancing With Debra (they tried too hard to make Ray and Debra do something together). And like I said before, I REALLY didn't like the third season very much. Plus Patty Heaton was pregnant and was therefore homely and frumpy in this season. Bleeech.

Season 4: You Bet (Frank is an @$$hole in this one, plus the stupid argument Ray and Debra had at the beginning pissed me off), Cousin Gerard (I hated how everyone treated Gerard just because he was "different"), No Thanks (I hated how Marie treated Debra), Left Back (Ray accusing Debra of neglecting one of their sons and that he was now "dumb" as a result pissed me off), What's With Robert? (I HATE this one, the men all revealed their inherent homophobia and that pissed me off), Prodigal Son (I hated the religious overtones in this one, I thought Phil Rosenthal was Jewish and not Catholic), Marie And Frank's New Friends (I HATED the Stipes and their idiot son), Alone Time (it had a really stupid ending and Ray was a real @$$hole to Debra in this one), Robert's Rodeo (I HATED how Ray treated Robert in this one).

Season 5: The Author (Ray is a complete @$$hole in this one), The Sneeze (Ray is a complete pathetic mama's boy in this one), Stefania Arrives (she was all looks and no brains or personality, plus she threw a childish tantrum when Robert rejected her, he was clearly better off without her), Separation (Ray is a complete @$$hole in this one), Ally's Birth (the way they try to avoid letting Marie know that Debra was in labor because they didnt want her getting involved was absolutely ludicrous, and was probably the worst flashback episode of the whole series).

Season 6: Odd Man Out (I don't like Marco either, he had ties to the Mob but they never officialy confirmed it), Ray's Ring (the whole plot of the episode was completely ludicrous and Debra was being really immature and unreasonable for a change), Marie's Sculpture (take a wild guess why, I'm guessing a 12 year old wrote this one), It's Supposed To Be Fun (first Ray is a s****y father and then he felt the need to overcompensate and became a crazy man at the end), Raybert (Robert is being an @$$hole for a change and Ray plays along with his ruse cuz he's a stupid idiot, doncha know), The Kicker (Frank is being a complete @$$hole this time), Snow Day (too boring and schmaltzy, plus I dont understand Phil Rosenthal's fixation on the Steve Miller Band song "Jungle Love"), Lucky Suit (Marie overstepped her bounds in this one big time), Call Me Mom (totally pointless, what happened in it meant nothing in the big scheme of things).

Season 7: Robert Needs Money (how Ray spoke to and treated Robert in this one made me really angry, it was true, Ray couldn't stand to see his own brother happy), Pet The Bunny (really stupid and pointless, plus Frank's buddies are real @$$holes in this one), She's The One ( had a completely over-the-top and melodramatic thing happen and was where the series officially Jumped The Shark IMO), Somebody Hates Raymond (Ray is annoying to the point where you want to strangle him and Robert threatens the radio guy with physical harm at the end, which was totally uncalled for), Just A Formality (I hate all the episodes where Hank 'N' Pat are a central focus), Meeting The Parents (same as the one before), The Shower (Marie is a complete bitch in this one and she has Debra over a barrel and I hated that), The Bachelor Party (I didnt like that Ray didnt seem to care about Robert's happiness), Robert's Wedding (when Marie spoke out at the time she did, I wanted to strangle her).

Season 8: The Surprise Party (pretty much pointless, and Debra is once again humiliated by Ray at the end), The Bird (they tried too hard to make the Barones and the McDougalls do something together that they clearly didnt want to do), Jazz Records (it was depressing and kind of disturbing, they kept screaming at each other, and Ray should have just gotten over his obsession with the CD's already), Debra At The Lodge (the way those old guys treated Debra were REALLY pissing me off), Crazy Chin (no need for it to be made, Robert's quirk should have been left unexplained), The Nice Talk (tried too hard to "shake up the status quo" of the series and was totally unnecessary), The Model (the fact that EVERYONE we saw in that office was in on the plan to scam Robert out of his money was really hard to believe, there was no suspension of disbelief), The Mentor (I really didn't care for the writers' attempt to "humanize" Frank in this one, as far as I'm concerned it was too little, too late.)

Season 9: The Home (I LOVED Not So Fast, though), Ally's F (Ray actually caring about his daughter totally out of nowhere and it was just not funny, plus the digs the writers got in on the French are now outdated and embarrassing to see in reruns, as topical humor does not age well), Favors (Ray overreacts to something that totally could have been prevented, he should have framed the letter and hung it in his office, and at the end he tells Debra to not touch his stuff in a borderling-threatening tone, being a complete @$$hole as usual), and The Finale (I've explained elsewhere why I don't like it, it was a very substandard attempt at a series finale in general IMO).

And admittedly, there is one episode of the series with Hank 'N' Pat that I can at least tolerate, and that is Pat's Secret. Pat's frustration with Hank and his annoying habits comes to a head and she actually tells him that if she didnt have her cigarettes, she would have to fight him. That was cool to see her have a backbone for a change. And then everyone else reveals their secrets as well. I have to admit, that one with Hank 'N' Pat wasn't AS bad as the others. But I still didn't like Hank or Pat very much. Or Marco or Stephania, either. Plus, I wish Bill Parker had appeared more often in order to be the "straw villian" that Ray needed. Instead, they made "Peggy Hitler" be that for Ray, and he demonized her because she challenged his narrow-minded way of thinking and actually stood up to him when others didn't but should have. She didnt take any of his crap, and that's why I liked her.

There you have it!

Season 1: "Frank, the Writer." Although Peter Boyle puts in a refreshingly enthusiastic performance here, this episode just feels mediocre from beginning to end. Some of the scenes are downright cheesy (the conversation between Ray and Frank in the basement comes to mind), and it just feels like an episode of some run-of-the-mill sitcom rather than an Everybody Loves Raymond episode.

Season 2: NONE. That's right, I liked every single episode in this season. If I had to choose one, though, I'd probably go with "The Letter," if only because it's overrated ("the first classic episode," according to the DVD commentary? No way, there were way better episodes in Season 2 than this one!)

Season 3: "Cruising with Marie." Just a mess of an episode that is only saved by the cast's acting. Aside from an unfunny running gag that's ran into the ground and the blatantly filler montage sequence, this episode suffers heavily from out-of-character writing (Marie getting along with other people? Robert, a police officer, possibly scorching Frank on purpose? Come on!). Dishonorable mention goes to "Big Shots," which would have been just as poor as this episode were it not for the AMAZING Ray/Robert scene at the very end.

Season 4: "Bully on the Bus." It's not a bad episode, but it's one of the few episodes that hasn't aged well due to the way that Debra brushes off Ally's behavior. The scene on the bus is also rather slow, but there are still plenty of funny moments in this one that make it worth a watch.

Season 5: "Net Worth." The premise of Debra charging Ray for her services could have been taken SO MUCH further than it was, the re-appearance of Ray's high school buddies was pointless and out-of-character considering how Ray tried to avoid them in their previous appearance, and the "twist" at the end just seemed like an extremely forced way to wrap up the episode. With that being said, the cast does the best it can with a strong contender for the worst script in the series.

Season 6: "Odd Man Out." A Frank/Marie episode that involves them trying to win the friendship of the show's most one-dimensional character? It was never going to be a great episode with that premise, but surprisingly, it's actually okay. However, it still stands out as the weakest episode in what is otherwise the show's strongest season.

Season 7: "The Annoying Kid." Although this episode does contain some strong interactions between the Barones, the scenes with Spencer are borderline painful-to-watch, and the ending just feels unsatisfactory at best.

Season 8: "Debra at the Lodge." Not a bad episode, but it feels very... lifeless, for some reason, as if the cast was just going through the motions for the entire episode. The ending where Frank stands up for Debra makes it worth watching, though, but the episode as a whole feels likes it could have been so much more than it was.

Season 9: "A Date for Peter." Again, it's not a bad episode (the scene where Peggy makes fun of Ray while Robert drunkenly laughs at him makes it worth the price of admission by itself!), but I found Ray to be more irritating than funny in this one. I also feel like the big payoff at the end should have been a lot funnier than it was.

All things considered, though, the only episodes that I think are truly bad are "Cruising with Marie" and "Net Worth." That seems like a good track record to me!