The 10 Worst Christmas Episodes From Great TV Shows, Ranked

Almost every TV show with a following likes to capitalize on the holiday spirit these days and drop a special, festive episode. There will be snow, Christmas food, presents and, normally, a fair bit of drama.

We’ve seen some great stuff, from the first Gavin And Stacey special, the first-ever episode of The Simpsons, and some brilliant Doctor Who adventures. However, there have also been some terrible missteps in the world of TV Christmases. Here are ten.

10 Friends: The One With Ross’ Step Forward

To many, Friends is one of the most overrated shows ever. Obviously, it’s objectively a good, well-made, well-written, well-acted show with great storylines, jokes and characters. But, like, it’s not that good, right?

There has been a Christmas special in almost every season, and ‘The One With Ross’ Step Forward’ stands out as the worst. It isn’t particularly festive and is mostly built on Ross being a bit weird and dramatic. The jokes are lacking and the story is pretty much uninteresting, so if you fancy a festive Friends, don’t go for this one.

9 South Park: Mr Hankey’s Christmas Classics

Even though it comes from the golden era of South Park, ‘Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics’ is a difficult watch. It’s absolutely still funny and saw the creators push the limits of the offensive humor they’re so well known for to its absolute limits. The main problem here, though, is that its variety show format makes it inconsistent and weirdly boring at times.

One of its redeeming factors of the episode is its dedication to Mary Kay Bergman, who had died just a month earlier after having voiced almost every female South Park character up until her final appearance in this episode.

8 The Office: Christmas Wishes

The UK version of The Office didn’t have a bad moment. This is because it limited itself to just 12 episodes and a brilliantly written, perfectly executed Christmas special. In its 9 seasons and many episodes, the US version delivered a fair few underwhelming Christmas specials.

‘Christmas Wishes’, taken from season 8 and written by Mindy Kailing (Kelly in the show), just doesn’t land. Ed Helms’ Andy Bernard is the central character trying to make everyone’s Christmas wishes come true, while Jim and Dwight are engaged in yet another prank war. After so many episodes, it’s no surprise they were really running low on content by the time this one rolled around.

7 The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air: Christmas Show

Despite being the birthplace of the Carlton Dance and starring the likes of Will Smith and James Avery, this episode of the classic 90s sitcom doesn’t hit the mark in the same way much of the rest of the show does.

Set out in a cabin, the iconic Banks house doesn’t give us the nostalgic setting, Will’s lines seem weirdly stilted and the storyline just doesn’t have the same realistic charm of the regular series.

6 The Simpsons: The Nightmare After Krustmas

We all know The Simpsons is one of the greatest TV shows of all time. It’s delivered its fair share of excellent Christmas specials. In fact, its first full episode was a Christmas special designed to test the waters of its appeal. ‘The Nightmare After Krustmas’, however, is as bad as its double-pun title.

You may think The Simpsons is building its quality back up in recent years, but this season 28 effort lacks in humor, acting and storyline and instead reverts to the same-old, same-old of Simpsons present.

5 Scooby Doo! Haunted Holidays

Despite being one of the most inimitable TV shows of all time, Scooby Doo has been rocky at best in recent years. Every now and again, they drop an excellent special with quality matching that of its classic run, but sometimes they just don’t really know what to do.

This direct-to-DVD and released in October (for some reason) special has all of the hallmarks of a Christmas special (snow, toys, Santa) but with lackluster performances, a very unremarkable script and nothing particularly ground-breaking in comparison to previous Scooby gang ventures, it just doesn’t hit the spot.

4 Doctor Who: The Return Of Doctor Mysterio

Since Russell T Davies relinquished the reins of Doctor Who, it’s no real secret that the show has declined in quality. Peter Capaldi is a great actor who just doesn’t really work in the shoes of The Doctor, and even though Matt Lucas does well in his assistant role, the plot of this episode is bizarre and messy.

A strange superman is involved, a wooden journalist joins the team and the bad guy is a pretty unmemorable alien. Considering some of the fantastic Christmas specials Doctor Who has provided, this is a massive misstep.

3 Gavin And Stacey (2019)

Bad Christmas specials are a worldwide phenomenon and after more than ten years away from the screen, much loved British classic Gavin And Stacey returning for a Christmas special was one of the biggest events in the British cultural calendar. Despite the rave reviews and almost 50% viewer share, many viewers were left disappointed.

The writing was inconsistent, despite being penned by the original writing duo of James Corden and Ruth Jones, and much of the humor that made the sitcom a classic was gone. With the original cast mostly being back, there were always bound to be some of the brilliant moments that the show was capable of buried within, but as a whole, it’s just incomparable to the original run.

2 The Star Wars Holiday Special

While Star Wars obviously isn’t a TV show, the idea that the second installment of the largest film franchise of all time was an awful TV Christmas special is seriously weird and we can’t leave it out. Rather than the epic, character-driven space opera of A New Hope, this is basically a sketch show made up of inconsistent, nonsensical skits and musical guests with an exceptional all-star cast.

The main problem with that is that everyone in it is given such terrible lines that they are forced to produce some of the worst acting performances TV has ever seen. Maybe we’ll see a new one soon…

1 Glee: Previously Unaired Christmas

Let’s just say that we’re pretty glad the final ever Christmas special of Glee was exactly that. ‘Previously Unaired Christmas’ was a train-wreck from start to finish, with the missteps ranging from the dreadful writing all the way to an almost unlistenable cover version of ‘The Chipmunk Song’.

Also, season 4 and 5 of Glee were set in the same year, so why are they getting two Christmases? This episode is technically non-canonical, and though typically two Christmases is something we can only dream about, in this case, we really wish we’d just had one.