Another one was included a character named Kat Mandu, intended to trigger a new series called Katmandu. They made a TV movie pilot for the show, but I’m not sure if it ever aired.
This Happy Days episode makes no sense at all. The IMDb description makes some sense out of it now, but possible key plot points were edited out to make room for commercials. I didn’t see it when it aired originally. It looked to me like they threw the script together on the same day they shot the show. This wasn’t even the last season where everything went directionless.
Anime is famous for strange filler episodes but the weirdest had to be the episode of Samurai Champloo where they play baseball. It had cameos of Abner Doubleday and Admiral Perry. Since the whole incident is revealed to be a hallucination caused by mushrooms, it also seems pointless.
If anyone remembers Knots Landing a spinoff of Dallas there was an episode where the female cast spent the night in a real haunted house. It featured some ghost girl children who wanted Val to stay and be a mother to them.
I remember that episode. The thug was hassling Fonzie and Kat was so slight (compared to Fonzie, who really isn’t that tall) that it was kind of silly even when I was a kid.
Having just finished the series recently, I remember this episode, and my consideration that. . .
“Hrm, the writers must have ‘writers block,’ and needed some more time. I bet they wrote this episode just to buy more time for the next episode’s script.”
When I was growing up in Bakersfield, my favourite thing in the whole world was to go to the movies on Saturday afternoons for the Chapter Plays. Anyway, my favourite was Rocketman, and once it was a no breaks chapter. The bad guy stuck him in a car on a mountain road and knocked him out and welded the door shut and tore out the brakes and started him to his death, and he woke up and tried to steer and tried to get out but the car went off a cliff before he could escape! And it crashed and burned and I was so upset and excited, and the next week, you better believe I was first in line. And they always start with the end of the last week.
And there was Rocketman, trying to get out, and here comes the cliff, and just before the car went off the cliff, he jumped free! And all the kids cheered! But I didn’t cheer. I stood right up and started shouting. This isn’t what happened last week! Have you all got amnesia? They just cheated us! This isn’t fair! HE DID’NT GET OUT OF THE COCK - A - DOODIE CAR!
The first season of Mission: Impossible had “Zubovnik’s Ghost” with a real medium calling up the ghost to get revenge. An excellent episode, but unlike anything the show ever did.
I’ve never understood the reaction to “Masks.” It’s always seemed to me like a typical Data-“possessed” episode. It has the ship also taken over by the virus, and does that TNG thing of exploring a culture through what they’ve left behind. It just seems to combine a bunch of different TNG episodes into one.
Now, “Sub Rosa”? That one is utterly bizarre. And, while I like “Genesis,” it’s definitely a departure. But “Masks” never seemed abnormal to me. Spiner’s weird acting is just what he does in these types of episodes.
The episode “Family” is also another weird one-off episode, in that it has no science fiction plot at all. It’s entirely about the characters and their families. But I like that one.
I can’t say the same for Voyager’s “11:59,” set almost entirely in the past, and not involving our main characters at all.
I also note that none of these are backdoor pilots, so they don’t have that excuse. It’s not like “Assignment: Earth” (with Gary Seven) in TOS.
There was an episode of The X files, where a seemingly impossible robbery took place. Scully came up with a supernatural theory to explain it. But Muldur worked out that it was a conjuring trick arranged by a stage magician.
There was a Married With Children episode that was a kind of parody of Pirates Of Penzance. Not sure what that was about, but Steve Rhoades returned for it, which was an additional highlight. Maybe they were trying for that Moonlighting as Taming Of The Shrew kind of thing.
