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The Worst Episodes of Tales from the Darkside

Every episode of Tales from the Darkside ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of Tales from the Darkside!

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Tales from the Darkside is an anthology horror TV series created by George A. Romero, each episode was an individual short story that ended with a plot twist. The series' episodes spanned the genres of

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  1. #1 Worst Episode
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    Tales from the Darkside Season 4 Episode 19 - Barter
    3.6/10(242 votes)

    #1 - Barter

    S4:E19

    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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  2. Tales from the Darkside Season 2 Episode 14 - Dream Girl
    3.9/10(293 votes)

    #2 - Dream Girl

    S2:E14

    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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  3. Tales from the Darkside Season 4 Episode 20 - Basher Malone
    4.2/10(240 votes)

    #3 - Basher Malone

    S4:E20

    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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  4. Tales from the Darkside Season 1 Episode 18 - If the Shoes Fit...
    4.6/10(401 votes)

    #4 - If the Shoes Fit...

    S1:E18

    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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  5. Tales from the Darkside Season 3 Episode 3 - The Bitterest Pill
    4.6/10(279 votes)

    #5 - The Bitterest Pill

    S3:E3

    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:Michael P. Kube-McDowell, Jule Selbo

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  6. Tales from the Darkside Season 4 Episode 8 - Seymourlama
    4.6/10(246 votes)

    #6 - Seymourlama

    S4:E8

    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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  7. Tales from the Darkside Season 1 Episode 10 - Djinn, No Chaser
    4.7/10(479 votes)

    #7 - Djinn, No Chaser

    S1:E10

    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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  8. Tales from the Darkside Season 3 Episode 10 - Deliver Us from Goodness
    4.7/10(277 votes)

    #8 - Deliver Us from Goodness

    S3:E10

    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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  9. Tales from the Darkside Season 1 Episode 23 - The False Prophet
    4.8/10(391 votes)

    #9 - The False Prophet

    S1:E23

    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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  10. Tales from the Darkside Season 2 Episode 22 - The Unhappy Medium
    5.1/10(272 votes)

    #10 - The Unhappy Medium

    S2:E22

    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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  11. Tales from the Darkside Season 3 Episode 15 - My Own Place
    5.1/10(244 votes)

    #11 - My Own Place

    S3:E15

    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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  12. Tales from the Darkside Season 3 Episode 21 - Let the Games Begin
    5.1/10(228 votes)

    #12 - Let the Games Begin

    S3:E21

    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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  13. Tales from the Darkside Season 4 Episode 17 - Going Native
    5.1/10(238 votes)

    #13 - Going Native

    S4:E17

    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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  14. Tales from the Darkside Season 1 Episode 11 - All a Clone by the Telephone
    5.2/10(435 votes)

    #14 - All a Clone by the Telephone

    S1:E11

    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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  15. Tales from the Darkside Season 1 Episode 22 - Grandma's Last Wish
    5.2/10(376 votes)

    #15 - Grandma's Last Wish

    S1:E22

    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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  16. Tales from the Darkside Season 2 Episode 13 - Comet Watch
    5.3/10(307 votes)

    #16 - Comet Watch

    S2:E13

    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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  17. Tales from the Darkside Season 3 Episode 16 - Red Leader
    5.3/10(236 votes)

    #17 - Red Leader

    S3:E16

    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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  18. Tales from the Darkside Season 3 Episode 20 - The Swap
    5.3/10(229 votes)

    #18 - The Swap

    S3:E20

    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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  19. Tales from the Darkside Season 4 Episode 2 - Mary, Mary
    5.3/10(249 votes)

    #19 - Mary, Mary

    S4:E2

    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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  20. Tales from the Darkside Season 2 Episode 1 - The Impressionist
    5.4/10(354 votes)

    #20 - The Impressionist

    S2:E1

    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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  21. Tales from the Darkside Season 2 Episode 6 - The Satanic Piano
    5.4/10(346 votes)

    #21 - The Satanic Piano

    S2:E6

    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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  22. Tales from the Darkside Season 2 Episode 23 - Fear of Floating
    5.4/10(276 votes)

    #22 - Fear of Floating

    S2:E23

    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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  23. Tales from the Darkside Season 1 Episode 16 - The Tear Collector
    5.5/10(415 votes)

    #23 - The Tear Collector

    S1:E16

    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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  24. Tales from the Darkside Season 1 Episode 5 - Mookie and Pookie
    5.6/10(545 votes)

    #24 - Mookie and Pookie

    S1:E5

    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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  25. Tales from the Darkside Season 2 Episode 2 - Lifebomb
    5.6/10(323 votes)

    #25 - Lifebomb

    S2:E2

    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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Worst Episodes Summary

"Barter" is the worst rated episode of "Tales from the Darkside". It scored 3.6/10 based on 242 votes. Directed by Christopher T. Welch and written by Jule Selbo, it aired on 7/17/1988. This episode scored 0.3 points lower than the second lowest rated, "Dream Girl".