@Czarcasm’s thread is focusing on real-life, real-time events on TV that stopped us in our tracks. But what about fictional events. Scriptwriters labored to create the words, camera operators and lighting directors set the mood visually, actors brought it to life. And all they ask in return is that we talk about it and then tune in next time to see what happens next.
Here’s your chance to pay them back. What moment on TV, that was totally scripted, made you sit up in your recliner and say to whoever was in the room, “What was THAT!”
Obviously there will be spoilers.
I’ll start: Henry Blake’s death in MASH. In 1975, lead characters in a sitcom simply didn’t get killed off without warning. I had just had dinner with my fiancee and my parents, we settled back to watch a little TV and what the hell happened???
Dr. Romano getting his arm cut off by a helicopter on ER. It may be the first and only time I ever sat up and yelled “What the fuck?” while watching a TV show.
The Brady Bunch group dressed as characters from The Wizard Of Oz while doing a song and dance from the title song from Carwash. It gives “white soul” a whole new meaning.
Firefly, the episode Objects in Space. The bad guy has infiltrated the ship, and at one point quite casually threated to rape Kaylee. One of the few times I genuinely felt apprehension for a character, because Kaylee was so sweet, but it was a Joss Whedon show, so it might have actually gone that way.
All the BSG season endings were jaw-dropping. The Season 3 ending made no sense in retrospect, but it literally made me shout at the screen in astonishment.
Someone joked about it being the same helicopter, out to get him. The amputation scene was great in that, first of all, NBC didn’t spoil it in previews (as they so often did) so we didn’t know it was coming and then it was so quiet and sudden. I’ve been afraid of helicopters ever since.
An earlier NBC surprise was Rosalind Shays (played by Diana Muldaur) on L.A. Law falling down an open elevator shaft. She had her back to the elevator, talking to someone while waiting for it to arrive and then when the ding went off backed into the opening, which didn’t have the elevator cab in it. Again, I try to be careful to check elevators now.
The Season 1 finale of The Good Place. For those that have seen the show, here’s a video of the cast getting the reveal prior to filming since they didn’t know it was coming.
And that post triggered this: Carter gets stabbed by a patient — that’s bad enough — but when he’s on the floor, he sees sweet, little Kelly Martin dying from her throat being cut.
I thought the attack on Dr. Greene was totally random, but I could be wrong.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5, episode 15. Buffy’s mother has been having medical issues for the past few episodes, but she had surgery and they were resolved. Buffy beats the villain of the episode, and comes home. Her mother is lying on the couch. Not breathing.
The episode fades to black as you hear Buffy saying, “Mommy?”
The first few moments of Episode 1, The Walking Dead; you know something’s coming, but Oh, man, they messed up that little girl something awful and then she gets shot in the head! The producers are not screwing around.
That’s the one I came in for, but I’ll mention the episode of Twin Peaks when Mr. Tojamura was revealed to be Catherine Martell in disguise- a surprise that apparently the rest of the cast was not prepared for either
I think it was L.A. Law or one of those legal eagle shows where a woman steps into an empty elevator shaft to write her off the show. I didn’t really like her on the show so didn’t care that much but I remember people found that shocking.
ETA: Someone had this one already.
I remember this one. I was working with someone who knew someone in the Alda family and he told me to make sure to watch MASH that evening. He didn’t say why, just told me I didn’t want to miss it. It was big news at the time. Must have been in 74 or 75 based on where I was working at the time.
In point of fact, that’s impossible, because the outside doors are opened by the elevator car. They have no motor or powered mechanism of their own. They can never open on an empty shaft.
Given that, more than anything i wanted Dr Pulaski to fall down a turbolift shaft.
