Disturbing/upsetting moments in TV shows

A lot of movies give us disturbing, upsetting, and/or disgusting moments. TV has a lot more limitations due to censorship. Still, sometimes, truly unnerving moments will arise:

  1. Twilight Zone: Lots of 'em here, but the one that got me the first time I saw it was the epsiode “Eye of the Beholder” when the doctors and nurses were revealed.

  2. Twin Peaks: Second season episode “Demons” in which Laura-lookalike cousin Maddie meets her untimely demise at the hands of Leland/BOB. This STILL creeps me out ten years later.

  3. Archie Bunker’s Place: First show of the second season where Archie finally breaks down and comes to grips with Edith’s death. We were so used to him being an obnoxious bigot that we forget he really did love his wife.

Name some of your favorites.

The Larry Sanders Show:

When the cue card man, Sid, died.

Paraphrasing
“Cue Card men never die, they just get whited-out.”

Well said Mr. Sanders

The eulogizing of “Bill McNeil” on Newsradio after Phil Hartman’s murder.

At a young age, I was very disturbed by the “nightmares” episode of MASH, especially the one in which Hawkeye had his arms pulled off for falling asleep during a demonstration.

Every single moment of every Friends episode, ever.

YES. Especially the parts with Rachel. grin

Battlestar Galactica when Apollo was “killed” by this evil devil character. My sister cried for Boxy. My mother said we shouldn’t watch the show any more.
I guess the network heard her?

The nightmares episode of MASH freaked me out too. . .

BUT, nowhere near as much as the last episode of MASH. Thw whole ordeal with the chicken that turns out to be a baby etc (I don’t want to give too much away if you’ve never seen it). IS HORRIBLE!!! I felt personally wronged when I saw it for the first time. :eek:

Finding out that Kevin Arnold’s father died a few years after the final episode of the Wonder Years. My father had died a year earlier, and I realized Kevin and I would have been the same age at that point.

The episode of All In The Family when Edith got raped.

When Buffy’s mom died. The whole episode was pretty upsetting, but the worst part is when Buffy goes to her sister Dawn’s school. She pulls Dawn out of class, and the scene is shot through a window, so we can’t actually hear what is said, but we can see Dawn’s reaction. It’s very sad.

Going back to my childhood, when Mr. Hooper died.

Oh, yeah. This episode of the show is worth watching even if you haven’t ever seen a single episode of Buffy. The opening when Buffy finds her mom’s body is amazingly well done.

Last season’s final episode of JAG, when Bud Roberts gets his leg blown off in Afghanistan, and they cut to an overhead view of him lying there mangled. Hell of a scene to leave us with for the summer.

Can I post one from a soap opera? On “General Hospital”

When Sonny found out that the love of his life, Brenda, had been wearing a wire for the police to spy on him.

The most disturbing thing I ever saw on televison was a sketch on “Kids in the Hall” where one of the castmembers was seen making love to himself dressed in drag. I thought I was gonna puke.

She didn’t get raped!? Did she? I thought she got away.

She did. But that didn’t remove the trauma.

It was attempted rape. It just has still stuck with me, and thus I didn’t think of the attempted part.

That was my understanding as well. She was almost raped. Scary enough though.

How about that episode of Law and Order where the wife and two daughters are kidnapped by a Serbian um…erm…collection agent and the elder daughter is raped by him while the other two were blindfolded and forced to listen? I think that was SVU, but heck, with so many L&O flavors out there, who can remember?

Well, sorry, meant to quote the post below that. Still new, still learning.

How about the one on ER where the guy’s arm gets hacked off by the helicopter blade? He just falls to the ground and starts shaking…

Yech.