The Aeon Flux episode entitled Ether Drift Theory.
Trevor runs an ecosystem known as the Habitat where he experiments in artificial life-forms. It’s suspended in an ocean of some sort of paralytic fluid.
The very last “shot” of the Habitat - and Aeon - sinking into the chemical sea is one of the most exquisitely creepy things I’ve ever seen on an animated series. Amazing episode, amazingly unique series…
Actually, “The Body” episode of “Buffy” didn’t really get to me, but there was one episode in particular that did. It’s the one where Cordelia wishes Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, and the alternate history has the Master vampire creating an assembly-line bloodletting machine. The scene where a girl is put through the machine really gets to me, for some reason.
There was an episode of Wiseguy where David Strathairn plays a small town sheriff implicated in a series of murders and commits suicide by jamming two tasers into his neck, electrocuting himself. Shellshocked, Vinnie Terranova (Ken Wahl) stumbles away muttering “We have no jurisdiction here…”
I know I’m repeating my post from the censorship thread, but the “Bass-o-Matic” ad from the original “Saturday Night Live,” when Dan Ackroyd drops the bass into the blender and hits frappe, almost made me lose my cookies. I was that close to uuuurping if I wasn’t laughing so hard.
Dave Letterman hosting the Oscars.
It was like watching a buddy get bitch-slapped by a blind date.
Oh my lord. How could I forget this? What a horrifying scene that was. I was so emotionally conflicted after that one. On one hand, I wanted her to tell Tony so badly. He would have “taken care” of the guy without a second thought. But on the other hand, that would have been totally out of character for Dr. Melfi, and it would have been difficult to maintain my belief in the show’s events.
But, god, it would have been so satisfying to see Tony kicking the shit out of that guy.
I feel like a bad person for thinking this. I mean, it’s fiction! But such is the power of really excellent television.
The Body didn’t really do anything for me, because it was one of the very first Buffy episodes I have ever seen, and I didn’t know any of the characters or have any sort of attatchment to them. Of course, when I rewatched it later, I was very sad, but I didn’t have the shock that others had.
The episode that got me was Seeing Red. Tara’s death was horrible…but the attempted rape was so much worse. You have to understand how much I love Spike…and seeing him react to the situation in such a way…it was totally out of character and really, I never would have seen it coming. It’s still too painful for me to watch, and I was terrifed afterwards that they would kill Spike.
I needn’t have worried…they’re just going to torture him for an entire season.
The episode of Judging Amy where her mom goes and rescues a little girl who had been held captive in a small closet-like room for years…I can’t even stand to watch news stories about that particular form of abuse
There was a recent episode of NYPD Blue where Medavoy and Jones coax a confession from a young black man who was convicted before of rape. The had previously promised the man’s pastor that they would treat him fairly as the man had really turned his life around. They even convince the pastor to unwittingly talk the young man into his confession.
And it turns out the guy’s completely innocent. My wife left the room. It was difficult watching them lie to the guy, although they seemed to be be ashamed at the end when the pastor chatised them.
Makes me wonder how much cops have to lie like that during interrogations.
Hmm…I thought I saw all the episodes, but I missed this one. What happened, and how does it connect to WKRP? (Was “Johnny Fever” in this episode?) If you can bear to think about it, please share… - Jinx
Nope, Gordon Jump, who played Arthur Carlson on WKRP. This page from the “Jump The Shark” (pun acknowledged) site features several references to Gordon’s appearance as the bike shop owner:
Another All in the Family
Right at the end of a very funny episode - a character played by Greg Sierra, who is in the fictional “Hebrew Defense Association”, gets blown up in his car (off-screen) - with the Bunkers looking on from their stoop (and the US flag still draped incorrectly to cover the swastika on their door).
Archie says something like, “…they blew him up.”
Dead silence from the live audience
*credits roll silently *
It was a movie, but…
The scene in Pulp Fiction when the syringe is blasted into Uma Thurman’s chest…
I read later that Tarantino filmed the scene with Travolta pulling his hands up from her chest, and then it was run in reverse for the effect we see in the film…
What happened that was disturbing, please? I’ve looked at several episode guides, and none said - and now I’m curious.
I forget what the preceding episode was, but for me the real shocker was Buffy coming home and finding Joyce’s body. The expression on her face as she said “Mommy?”- heartbreaking.
The episode that got me was Seeing Red. Tara’s death was horrible…but the attempted rape was so much worse. You have to understand how much I love Spike…and seeing him react to the situation in such a way…it was totally out of character and really, I never would have seen it coming. It’s still too painful for me to watch, and I was terrifed afterwards that they would kill Spike. **
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Shocking, yes. Out of character for Spike? Don’t think so- Spike is a character who is very much driven by passion, and sometimes driven to some pretty extreme behavior.
For me, the most disturbing scene in a BtVS episode was the scene in “Dead Things”, when Buffy beats Spike’s face to a bloody pulp, when he’s trying to prevent her from turning herself in for killing Katrina. I think Giles would have given her the same advice (remember “Bad Girls”?), but wouldn’t have phrased it that way. Spike was doing shades of Faith in that scene, and when I was watching it, I went back to a couple of eps in S3…
**
Actually, word is, the chip will be gone by episode 14, and judging by the spoilage I’ve seen, I think the actual Spike torture is pretty much finished when Buffy rescues him at the end of “Showtime”- unless you count the chip malfunctioning as Spike torture.
The reason I didn’t think it was in character for Spike to act that way because there are few constants in the world, and one of them is that Spike doesn’t hurt the people he loves. Not intentionally, at any rate. In Entropy he says “Not you. I don’t hurt you.” It seemed to me the entire season was about Spike struggling to make Buffy trust him and respect him, and the onlyway he knew how to do that was to let Buffy do what she wanted. He could hurt her all season, but he never tried. He could have raped or maimed her (or attempted to) at any point from ep 9 onwards, but he never tried, nor wanted to. In Older and Far Away he showed up with a black eye and bruised face, and didn’t seem to hold a grudge at all.
That’s why I say it’s out of character. I understand why he did it. i understand what was going through his head, and I understand how the events of the season led up to that. Something horrible was going to happen because something horrible had been happening all season. But, Spike doesn’t hurt the people he loves.
The episode of “All in the Family” where the cross-dresser (I don’t remember his name…was it Harvey?) is beaten and killed. It was just so horribly bleak. Damnit, could someone please help me with the name?
Beverly La Salle
A childhood memory seared into my brain is from V (sigh, yes, V), where the woman has the half-alien, half-human baby, and at first it looks like a normal human newborn, but it suddenly turns into an evil V-lizardy thing.
I don’t know if that was a real part of the show, or a dream sequence, or if I just had a nightmare about it. Mom told me not to watch that program, but did I listen? Nooooo.
I second that. I remember watching that and thinking…WTH!!!THEY CAN’T DO THAT! Then I realized that no one could hear them because of the music at the party by the admit desk…I cried for a good half hour…
~Ferry