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Unconventional TV episodes
Saw this on Zap2it and thought it might pose a good discussion....article is as follows (and a warning, there are spoilers for those who haven't watched any of the shows mentioned....look at for the first one, since that episode of Boston Legal just aired):
Last night’s episode of Boston Legal was, as Alan summed up, eventful. The firm has gone bankrupt, Shirley and Carl are engaged and Alan put forth a convincing speech about the state of racism in America. But it was missing one key ingredient – there was no legal. There was no client to comfort, no witnesses to interrogate, opening statements to make or closing arguments to win the case. The show, which always pushes the TV envelope, totally stepped outside its comfort zone. And I think it kind of worked. Then I started thinking about other shows that had unconventional episodes. Here are my favorites: The Joss Whedon Triumvirate: Series creator Joss Whedon wrote and directed some killer episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I still think his legacy will likely be the three episodes that reinvented the hour-long format. "Hush" (December 14, 1999) featured 29 minutes without dialogue, "The Body" (February 27, 2001) focused on the absolute sorrow following the sudden death of Buffy’s mom, and "Once More, With Feeling" (November 6, 2001) proved that a musical episode was not only possible, but could be perfect. "My Musical" episode of Scrubs (January 18, 2007): Any episode that features a song entitled "Everything Comes Down to Poo" is okay by me. Funny, poignant and quite clever, it may not have been as great as "Once More, With Feeling," but it was pretty darn good nonetheless. The live "The Debate" episode of The West Wing (November 6, 2005): It may no have been the best episode of the series, but I still applaud the show for taking a risk (I remember being nervous while watching) and for performing the episode twice (!!) once for the East Coast and once for the West Coast. "A, My Name is Alex" episode of Family Ties (March 12, 1987): In this classic episode, Alex deals with the death of his friend Greg. Much of the episode was performed on a stark stage and Michael J. Fox won an Emmy for his heartbreaking and authentic performance. Those are some of my favorite out-of-the-box (or in this case out-of-the-DVR) episodes, what are some of yours? Talk about it below. "X-Cops from the X-Files...the shot the episode like Cops and it was brilliant. Speaking of the X-Files, they had the movie episode and my personal favorite (staring Jesse L. Martin of Law & Order fame) The Unnatural, which focused entirely around baseball. ER also had an episode with Cynthia Nixon as a patient that was wide awake and couldn't tell them what was wrong. And didn't the Ray Liotta episode go from his POV? At this point any show can go outside the box, but it has to have a good audience for the network to let them. Tough time we live in." |
I don't know if this fits your specific question, but I'm thinking of the Seinfeld episode that they did "in reverse time".
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How about the Doctor Who episode "Blink" from a couple of seasons ago. The Doctor was barely in it, but I think it is one of the better episodes of the new Dr. Who series.
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Originally Posted by Doctor X
(Post 9099873)
How about the Doctor Who episode "Blink" from a couple of seasons ago. The Doctor was barely in it, but I think it is one of the better episodes of the new Dr. Who series.
Darin Morgan wrote the definitive unconventional episodes or The X-Files and Millennium, with "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" and "Somehow Satan Got Behind Me" respectfully. |
Originally Posted by BlooQKazoo
(Post 9099879)
The Scrubs episodes "My Life In Four Cameras", where JD imagines being in a sitcom filmed before a live audience, and the "His/Her/Their Story" episodes narrated from other people's perspectives.
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Coupling (BBC) had a few:
Split - where the episode follows 2 characters at the same time in split screen the entire time. Nine and a Half Minutes - where the same nine and a half minutes are told from 3 points of view. The Girl With Two Breasts - where a conversation between Jeff and a woman who doesn't speak English is played out. Then we see the same conversation only we now can understand the woman and not Jeff. |
That Cops/X-Files crossover was awesome.
M*A*S*H had that ep where they ran a clock on the screen as the Doctors dealt with a seriously injured soldier. They also had those cool interview eps with the characters talking about their experiences in Black and White. |
The Ed episode where he was lucid dreaming was like that.
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What, no love for Atomic Shakespeare, from Moonlighting?
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What about the episode of NewsRadio that answered the eternal question of what it'd be like if instead of a news station they worked at a space news station and reported the space news?
Or the one that inexplicably took place on the Titanic. In one of my college classes (TV Major, woot!) we actually focused a whole segment on these "What If?" scenarios. Chief focus was given to the X-Files/Cops crossover as well as Once More With Feeling. However, the class wasn't very good, and the basic takeaway from it was they do this... because they want to... and can. |
Originally Posted by cardsfan111
(Post 9099813)
I don't know if this fits your specific question, but I'm thinking of the Seinfeld episode that they did "in reverse time".
There was also a House where he spent the whole episode just sitting in a room with a rape victim and talking to her. If I remember correctly there was no case they were trying to solve. |
There was that episode of "The Munsters" that had Fred Gwynne without his Herman Munster make-up.
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Stargate SG1 - "Wormhole X-treme", "Heroes Part 1 & 2", and "200".
King Of Queens - "Inner Tube" Angel - "Smile Time" (PUPPETS!) Curb Your Enthusiasm - "The End" off the top of my head thats all I can think of |
M*A*S*H: "Dreams"
Find me a sitcom since that has had the balls to do an episode anywhere near that level. |
That Family Ties episode was my first thought.
There was that Mad About You episode where they were just sitting around waiting for their baby to go to sleep. I think they even got that episode to air with limited or no commercials. |
Xena had a lot - 2 musicals, a few set in the future, the re-worked Amazon High pilot, the underwater flintstones-esque one
Perfect Strangers did an old-timey Laurel and Hardy episode. Northern Exposure had one set in the past when Roslyn and Cicely came to town...I think that counts |
I can't believe everyone's mentioning different episodes of ER without mentioning the one that kicked it all off. The Mark Green and Doug Ross road trip. You never see the ER once and I remember there being and absolute shit storm about it when it first aired. Since that one you have everything everyone's mentioned plus all the Africa jaunts.
First one that came to mind though was Seinfeld "reverse" episode. I think it was called the Betrayal. I'm not sure if the episode would fall into the unconventional category, per se, but I still consider it brilliant. The episode of Friends where Joey & Chandler win Monica & Rachel's apartment. It was especially ballsy to keep up the gag for multiple episodes. Definitely an unconventional plot point even if the episode, as a whole, wasn't unconventional. |
The MASH episodes that were documentaries. I never cared for them myself.
Coupling (BBC) had a few: Split - where the episode follows 2 characters at the same time in split screen the entire time. Nine and a Half Minutes - where the same nine and a half minutes are told from 3 points of view. The Girl With Two Breasts - where a conversation between Jeff and a woman who doesn't speak English is played out. Then we see the same conversation only we now can understand the woman and not Jeff. And these are part of what made Coupling the best comedy series in the last decade or so IMO. These episodes were so well done. |
Originally Posted by WillieTheShakes
(Post 9100323)
What, no love for Atomic Shakespeare, from Moonlighting?
And did they also do an entire episode in rhyme, or was it just for one act? And slightly unconventional was The Who episode of WKRP. They spend the first half setting up this big concert that the station is promoting, with the whole gang going to the show, but without being obvious they never mention the band. Then, just before the seocnd commercial break as they are walking out of the station to head to the show, one of the DJs casually mentions that he hasn't seen The Who in years. They come back from the commercial after the tragedy has occured, and the rest of the show was dealing with their responsibilities in promoting the event (sorry about some of the details, it's been 20+ years since I've seen it). And someone already mentioned the sit-com episode of Scrubs...... |
Hercules had two episodes that focused on the writers for the show in the "real world" trying to think up ideas for the show. Very meta.
Although the show didn't run that long, on Firefly the episode "Out of Gas" is very unconventional for the series (and for TV in general). With the fractured way it jumped between three different timelines, it was a risky move that worked exceptionally well. Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles recently had an episode where the storyline was told in bits, each from a different character's point of view. |
3rd Rock From The Sun - "Nightmare On Dick Street"
Millennium had a few "Somehow The Devil Got Behind Me" and "...Thirteen Years Later" Always Sunny did "The Gang Cracks The Liberty Bell" |
There was the live episode of ER
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Originally Posted by majorjoe23
(Post 9101030)
There was the live episode of ER
That wasn't too bad. |
Deep Space 9= They go back in time and do the show during a original episode of star trek. I forget the name of the episode though.
Babylon 5 = They had a episode that was done like a documentary. Kind of like Cloverfield without the stupid monster. Buffy = The episode where Jonathan was the hero. They changed the opening also to make it look like his show. |
The Seinfeld episode that took place entirely in the Chinese restaurant.
Seinfeld was VERY different at the time, but that episode was even more different than others because it had even less of a plot than normal. On the dvd Larry David talked about how many issues they had getting that episode made because the execs couldn't get behind it. Plus I think that was the only episode that Kramer wasn't in. |
I see Titanic and Space have been mentioned from Newsradio, but I'd also put Daydream in that category as well. Daydream is the episode set in the sweltering heat of summer when Joe was having trouble fixing the AC. it featured tons of little daydreams and ended with a tongue in cheek shout out to a famous drama.
It's a bit hard to draw a line here. Does Edith's near-rape on All in the Family count, or is that more along the lines of the now-common "very special" episode? Would an episode like Firefly's Objects in Space be considered a good example of this if that show had gone 3 or 4 seasons? Does the Nikki and Paulo episode of LOST count? Does something obviously but subtly different in tone like the Mamet-originated episode of The Shield count? ETA: I think the "future" episode of Nip/Tuck counts. In some series (Star Trek), that might be old hat. I think it was very unusual for Nip/Tuck, though. |
Reading all these made me think of another one...
Medium did an episode in 3-d. That one was pretty cool, made me jump a few times. |
Would the couple dream episodes from The Sorpranos count?
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There was also that atrocious 'Moonlighting' episode late in the run where Bruce Willis played Maddie's fetus in utero, and depicted the miscarriage by walking up steps to heaven while singing 'Sunny Side of the Street'. Ugh.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the last episode of 'Newhart' is an amazing example of unconventional episodes. |
I vaguely recall a Cheers episode where they made like a video tape for somebody's family...like I said, vague memory. Anybody know the episode I am referring to? I seem to recall it broke convention for that show.
My favorite Deep Space Nine one was The Visitor, where Jake lost his dad in a freak accident, only the dad wasn't dead but in some kind of time loop paradox that took Jake his entire life to fix. A powerful episode. Deep Space Nine had a few...I also loved the one where Miles spent a life time in a prison but it was actually only a few hours but it was like a life time in his mind. Powerful episode. "The Children of Time" where the crew gets stuck on a planet populated by their great grandchildren was also a very interesting episode. |
Originally Posted by calhoun07
(Post 9102134)
My favorite Deep Space Nine one was The Visitor, where Jake lost his dad in a freak accident, only the dad wasn't dead but in some kind of time loop paradox that took Jake his entire life to fix. A powerful episode.
Deep Space Nine had a few...I also loved the one where Miles spent a life time in a prison but it was actually only a few hours but it was like a life time in his mind. Powerful episode. "The Children of Time" where the crew gets stuck on a planet populated by their great grandchildren was also a very interesting episode. |
Originally Posted by calhoun07
(Post 9102134)
My favorite Deep Space Nine one was The Visitor, where Jake lost his dad in a freak accident, only the dad wasn't dead but in some kind of time loop paradox that took Jake his entire life to fix. A powerful episode.
Deep Space Nine had a few...I also loved the one where Miles spent a life time in a prison but it was actually only a few hours but it was like a life time in his mind. Powerful episode. "The Children of Time" where the crew gets stuck on a planet populated by their great grandchildren was also a very interesting episode.
Originally Posted by Jadzia
(Post 9102203)
I was going to suggest DS9 "Far Beyond the Stars" -where Sisko is suddenly a 1950's science-fiction writer and all the cast (including the aliens) play different roles in the era.
Buffy had a similar episode where Buffy has visions of being in a psychiatric institute after a mental breakdown, and that all her memories of being a Vampire Slayer were a delusion. The episode amusingly has a psychiatrist listing some of the plot contrivances of the show to Buffy as reasons why it clearly must be a delusion. |
Originally Posted by CharlieK
(Post 9102091)
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the last episode of 'Newhart' is an amazing example of unconventional episodes.
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Cool idea for a thread! :up:
A couple that I don't think have been mentioned yet: Friends: "The One That Could Have Been" - love the alternate credits! Felicity: "Help for the Lovelorn" - black-and-white Twilight Zone-inspired episode. Also, the last few episodes of Felicity's final season, where Felicity travels back in time, were certainly unconventional. |
Though the double dipping harmed the unconventional-ness of the premise, the Cops episode of My Name Is Earl surely qualifies.
Isn't there a Dick van Dyke episode shot entirely in a bathroom? |
The West Wing had a few others besides the debate that were out of the ordinary and pretty well done. The Isaac and Ishmael 9/11 episode wasn't directly in continuity and provided an interesting perspective from the characters on the political climate of that time. The documentary episode focusing on a camera crew's look at one day in CJ Cregg's life in the White House was also not done in the show's usual formula.
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South Park, as an April's Fool joke, aired an episode that, instead of resolving the cliffhanger in the previous episode, was an episode of an entirely different show that the characters of South Park were fans of. The characters that were in this episode eventually were integrated into the main show, but at the time it was highly unconventional (and controversial, since a lot of South Park fans apparently can't take a joke).
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Originally Posted by majorjoe23
(Post 9101030)
There was the live episode of ER
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I don't think it really counts, but I always felt like each episode of From The Earth To The Moon was completely different from one another.
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Originally Posted by the big train
(Post 9100735)
That Family Ties episode was my first thought.
That's the first one I thought of as well. The one where Alex's friend is killed in a car crash. Also the child molestation episode of different strokes. And wasn't there a musical episode of Buffy? The last episode of Mad About You. There's also many epidodes of sitcoms where the main character(s) only appear briefly if at all in an episode. The episodes focus on spinning off a previously unknown character(s) into there own show. |
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