# One-off episodes of TV shows **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 18, 2007, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573 "2007-05-18T09:30:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/21 "2007-05-18T14:56:56Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] There was one where an entire scene was done with The Sims. [/QUOTE] Aha! That explains why, of all people, Drew Carey would show up at a successful party. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/22 "2007-05-18T15:04:18Z")
[QUOTE=Merijeek] **Babylon5** had an episode where an attack on the station was seen from the point of view of two maintenance men [/QUOTE] Actually, Babylon 5 did a good number of unusual episodes. One was set in real time, with one character being interrogated. Except for the end, it was all in one room, with those two characters. Another had several acts that took examined the legacy of B5 in the distant (hundreds, and then thousands of years) future. Another was a series of interviews with B5 personnel, culminating in a surprising finished product. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/23 "2007-05-18T15:06:18Z")
Drew Carey also did shows with all the mistakes and pop ups. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/24 "2007-05-18T15:25:27Z")
I was watching the First & Second Season DVD set for _Quincy_ and was surprised to watch an episode in which _Quincy did not appear_! All the other regular characters were there, but Quincy’s function in the show was taken over by a visiting Japanese doctor. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/25 "2007-05-18T15:46:08Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] Drew Carey also did shows with all the mistakes and pop ups. [/QUOTE] I think that was the same one with The Sims – that was one of the mistakes. They also did an episode live, in Whose Line format. ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/26 "2007-05-18T16:06:36Z")
[QUOTE=athelas] Actually, Babylon 5 … had several acts that took examined the legacy of B5 in the distant (hundreds, and then thousands of years) future. Another was a series of interviews with B5 personnel, culminating in a surprising finished product. And so on. [/QUOTE] This reminds me of an episode of Star Trek Voyager that takes place hundreds of years in the future of the show’s timeline. The holographic doctor is stored in some kind of memory pod that was left on a planet they original crew visited. He is reactivated by an alien archaeologist to find that Voyager is remember in that planet’s history as a conquering warship. He sets the record straight, and the show fades into an ending set _another_ several hundred years in the future with a speaker explaining how the Doctor changed the planet’s history, etc. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/27 "2007-05-18T16:28:55Z")
[QUOTE=Tangent] …Either **Xena or Hercules** (or both?) had an episode where we saw the cast members in “reality” as actors arguing with the writers and producers over things like the script and their salaries. [/QUOTE] **Xena** had an episode set in the 1940s with reincarnations of Xena, Gabrielle, and Joxer discovering the tomb of Ares and accidently freeing him. Another episode had the trio reincarnated in the '90s, but with Xena in Joxer’s form and vice versa (_Annie Bannie, she kicks fannie_). > [@](#): > > Early in Law & Order there was an episode where there was no murder to be solved. Instead the cops were temporarily demoted to uniforms and did a “day in the life” thing – Just random emergency response stories… **Law and Order** also did an episode where McCoy and his ADA and Briscoe and his partner witnesses an execution and then reacted to it. There was also a 3 parter that took the cops to LA. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/28 "2007-05-18T16:29:11Z")
[QUOTE=Turek] _The West Wing_ had an episode after 9/11 which was completely outside the storyline and arcs of the series. [/QUOTE] The episode title was “Isaac and Ishmael”, and it was the first prime-time network show to air a brand new episode after the attacks. As for TWW debate episode, Brad Whitford (Josh Lyman) had a couple of lines in the first minute backstage (he was Jimmy Smit’s campaign manager by then), but otherwise, yeah, no original series cast members. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/29 "2007-05-18T16:38:04Z")
[QUOTE=alphaboi867] **Xena** had an episode set in the 1940s with reincarnations of Xena, Gabrielle, and Joxer discovering the tomb of Ares and accidently freeing him. [/QUOTE] Reminds me of when Thomas Magnum found himself in 1930s Honolulu. ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/30 "2007-05-18T16:44:31Z")
ER did the same episode live twice – once for each coast. Buffy did an episode as a musical ---
**Author:** ![Delly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Delly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delly)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/31 "2007-05-18T16:51:27Z")
Didnt CSI recently do an episode live as well? It was filmed as a reality Tv Documentary if I remember correctly ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/32 "2007-05-18T17:11:22Z")
[QUOTE=athelas] Actually, Babylon 5 did a good number of unusual episodes. One was set in real time, with one character being interrogated. Except for the end, it was all in one room, with those two characters. Another had several acts that took examined the legacy of B5 in the distant (hundreds, and then thousands of years) future. Another was a series of interviews with B5 personnel, culminating in a surprising finished product. And so on. [/QUOTE] There were two ISN episodes, actually – one was a series of interviews conducted against the backdrop of the Narn-Centauri war and an incident impacting the station, the other one was after it became a propaganda arm of the Clark dictatorship (the first half was the interviews being conducted; the second half was the resulting broadcast, in which the interviews were edited out of context as part of a total pack of lies). The latter had a transition gag in which the characters are about to watch the ISN broadcast, and Sheridan turns on a screen, muttering “It’ll probably be a commercial”. At that moment, that portion of the episode ends (and a block of commercials begins). ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/33 "2007-05-18T17:36:33Z")
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink] I was watching the First & Second Season DVD set for _Quincy_ and was surprised to watch an episode in which _Quincy did not appear_! All the other regular characters were there, but Quincy’s function in the show was taken over by a visiting Japanese doctor. [/QUOTE] Similarly, The Prisoner epsiode without Patrick McGoohan- be seein’ you. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/34 "2007-05-18T17:54:42Z")
**the Drew Carey Show** did a great episode that started with the cast all complaining that nobody’s ever won an emmy on the show. Somebody points out that actors usually win emmies for ‘Very Special Episodes’ featuring highly gimmicky storylines (character suddenly comes down with a trendy illness, characters step out of the scene to speak directly - and DRAMAHHHHTICALLY - to the camera). Carey then states that they are going to do the Most Special Episode ever, and during the course of the next half hour, everybody on the show has some ‘dramatic’ problem to work through. IIRC, the episode ended with everyone single character coming out as gay at the end. Oh and that reminds me! The **Ellen** episode where she buys a puppy-- I mean, comes out. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/35 "2007-05-18T18:23:44Z")
[QUOTE=Delly] Didnt CSI recently do an episode live as well? It was filmed as a reality Tv Documentary if I remember correctly [/QUOTE] While CSI: Original Recipe did have an episode that featured a documentary crew filming the lab, it wasn’t live. Stargate SG-1 has a fictional science fiction show Wormhole X-Treme!, which is a campier version of the actual Stargate SG-1 show. In one episode, the producer wants to make a movie and the SG-1 team pitches various ideas. We get to see how these would have worked out. This includes hilarious parodies of The Wizard of Oz, Star Trek and Farscape, one sequence with marionettes, as well as SG-1 in the style of an “edgy, hip” show (like Dawson’s Creek or The O.C). ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/36 "2007-05-18T18:39:20Z")
[QUOTE=Terminus Est] Stargate SG-1 has a fictional science fiction show Wormhole X-Treme!, which is a campier version of the actual Stargate SG-1 show. [/QUOTE] Campier? It goes to 11? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/37 "2007-05-18T18:51:58Z")
The “Atomic Shakespeare” episode of _Moonlighting_. A high school student imagines _The Taming of the Shrew_, as done by the cast of _Moonlighting_. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/38 "2007-05-18T19:12:58Z")
There were a lot of unusual episodes in Moonligthing. It happened often enough that format breaking episodes were almost expected. Another episode of MASH, the ghost of a soldier wanders rounds the 4077th invisible to most people except for Klinger. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/39 "2007-05-18T19:32:58Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] I did not see it but read once Letterman did a show where the picture on the screen rotated as the show progressed (as in at one point, the picture is upside down). [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Fiver] I saw at least part of this. They were rotating the picture three degrees per minute, so halfway into the show they were upside down and had righted themselves by the end. [/QUOTE] Letterman did a fair number of shows like when he was on NBC. There was the one with the “Monkey-Cam” where they put a small camera on a chimp on roller skates and turned him loose on the set. They also had a show shot with the “Cow-Cam” which was the same thing as the “Monkey-Cam” only with a cow who just basically stood over by the band the whole time. (There was also the “Tiger-Cam” but that wasn’t as successful. 😛 ) It’s too bad Letterman hasn’t done too many shows like these since he went over to CBS. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2007, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573/40 "2007-05-18T19:34:42Z")
[QUOTE=zagloba] ER did the same episode live twice – once for each coast. [/QUOTE] Those of us \*between \* the coasts just had to watch a test pattern. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-off-episodes-of-tv-shows/404573.md?page=3)