# Sorry. That episode simply never happened, and you'll not convince me otherwise. (spoilers likely)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 22, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995 "2010-01-22T15:45:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/1 "2010-01-22T15:45:08Z")
Thread title’s pretty clear, no?
Any reason for tossing is acceptable. Maybe you hate the guest star. Maybe the plot twist is disgusting. Maybe the protagonist is acting in a ridiculously out-of-character way. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s grist for a good rant. 😃
Spoilers are inevitable here. I, personally, plan to name the series and the episode in clear text, then put the reason it should be tossed out of continuity in a spoiler box, but that’s just me.
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### Author:  [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/2 "2010-01-22T15:50:45Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> Thread title’s pretty clear, no?
>
> Any reason for tossing is acceptable. Maybe you hate the guest star. Maybe the plot twist is disgusting. Maybe the protagonist is acting in a ridiculously out-of-character way. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s grist for a good rant. 😃
>
> Spoilers are inevitable here. I, personally, plan to name the series and the episode in clear text, then put the reason it should be tossed out of continuity in a spoiler box, but that’s just me.
Pandas? I thought it was Etruscans that were the enemy. Am I sliding again?
Back on topic, I shall save us all time by axing all Wesley-centric ST:TNG.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/3 "2010-01-22T15:52:40Z")
Hit submit too soon.
Anyway, here’s my first nomination: the \*NCIS \*2nd season episode “Doppleganger.”
There’s a lot of good stuff in this episode. It’s after McGee has joined the Gibbs!Squad, which always feels out of kilter with only two sidekicks. Kate is at the height of her hotness. Tony is annoying and suffers for it appropriately; Ducky is amusingly long-winded, and Abby is pleasantly nuts. But none of that matters because…
Gibbs flirts with the guest character who is eventually revealed to be the murder, invites her over to work on the boat, and makes out with her. That’s right–he gets involved with someone involved in his investigation. It’s unprofessional. It’s foolish. It’s just weird. It’s not even that his gut fails him, because not even Gibbs’ intuition is supposed to be foolproof. It’s that he was doing something so blatantly stupid and unGibbslike. No matter how hot the woman was, how drawn he was to her, Gibbs is simply not going to start such a flirtation, or respond to any blandishments, until he is ultra-certain that the woman in question has nothing whatsodamnever to do with the crime he’s investigating.
“Doppleganger” never happened in the real NCISverse. They accidentally filmed a scene from one of McGee’s crime novels.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/4 "2010-01-22T15:53:41Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#):
>
> Pandas? I thought it was Etruscans that were the enemy. Am I sliding again?
>
> Back on topic, I shall save us all time by axing all Wesley-centric ST:TNG.
Sorry. You only get ONE episode per show These are my rules; I make them up. 😃
Also, the current plan to is manipulate the Etruscans and the pandas into all-out war so that they annihilate each other. But that doesn’t leave this room.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/5 "2010-01-22T15:56:20Z")
Uncle Jack (Martin Short) on Arrested Development.
Brain and brain. What is brain?
The Seinfeld where crazy Joe Divola goes to the opera.
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### Author:  [@tim-n-va](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim-n-va)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/6 "2010-01-22T15:59:33Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#):
>
> Back on topic, I shall save us all time by axing all Wesley-centric ST:TNG.
Mixed feelings about that. “The Game” would be my single episode that fits this criteria. On the other hand, it had Ashley Judd.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/7 "2010-01-22T16:01:05Z")
Well, the “Doppleganger” episode of \*NCIS \*did have one outstanding moment. Gibbs and the murder-lady in his basement working on his boat. She asks why he doesn’t use power tools, and he gives her a hand plane, and stands \*very \*close behind her, guiding her hand with the plane up and down the plank, saying as he did so, “Feel the wood.” Given how close he was standing, I’m quite certain she could feel the wood. 😃
My nominee? The “Normal Again” episode of _Buffy_. This episode posits that Buffy is an inmate at a mental institution, and that the entire series exists only in her twisted imagination. Sorry, Joss, I ain’t buying it. That episode never happened.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/8 "2010-01-22T16:02:25Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#):
>
> Mixed feelings about that. “The Game” would be my single episode that fits this criteria. On the other hand, it had Ashley Judd.
Moreover, the episode about Wesley’s wankertude at Starfleet Academy (“The First Duty”?), featuring proto-Tom Paris as the (sort of) bad guy, is excellent.
> [@BrotherCadfael](#):
>
> Well, the “Doppleganger” episode of \*NCIS \*did have one outstanding moment. Gibbs and the murder-lady in his basement working on his boat. She asks why he doesn’t use power tools, and he gives her a hand plane, and stands \*very \*close behind her, guiding her hand with the plane up and down the plank, saying as he did so, “Feel the wood.” Given how close he was standing, I’m quite certain she could feel the wood. 😃
Oh, there’s plenty of good stuff in that episode. Team Gibbs meeting their police force dopplegangers is hiliarious. But the awfulness of the plot twist outweighs all that.
> [@](#):
>
> My nominee? The “Normal Again” episode of _Buffy_. This episode posits that Buffy is an inmate at a mental institution, and that the entire series exists only in her twisted imagination. Sorry, Joss, I ain’t buying it. That episode never happened.
Oh, that one’s not so bad. Anyway, the fact that the series continues clearly means that the asylum was the hallicination. It’s not like the last episode of Newhart.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/9 "2010-01-22T16:03:08Z")
The Principal and the Pauper ep of Simpsons. Hell, even the show writers pretend it didn’t happen.
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### Author:  [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/10 "2010-01-22T16:03:59Z")
ST:TNG Wesley falls into the greenhouse and must be executed. ([Justice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_%28TNG_episode%29))
The pandas have always been the enemy - got it.
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### Author:  [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/11 "2010-01-22T16:06:03Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#):
>
> My nominee? The “Normal Again” episode of _Buffy_. This episode posits that Buffy is an inmate at a mental institution, and that the entire series exists only in her twisted imagination. Sorry, Joss, I ain’t buying it. That episode never happened.
Funny, that’s one of my favorites. I liked the way it questioned the entire basis of reality, while at the same time, left open the possibility that the crazy Buffy was the hallucination.
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### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/12 "2010-01-22T16:10:45Z")
In a move that I’m sure **Skald** will find shocking and utterly impossible to have predicted, I’m tossing the BSG finale.
No, “God did it” is not an acceptable resolution. Poof, Starbucks gone? Fuckies that. Six and Baltar (and apparently Starbuck) are angels? Bullshit. Chief Tyrol runs off to Scottland to brood by himself after single handedly…well, ok, he used two hands…choking the life out of our last best hope for a lasting peace? Guy committed treason as often as I change socks. _All Along the Watchtower_ was not written by Bob Dylan, it’s some kind of universal constant that Starbuck’s Ghost-daddy tapped into. Horse puckey. Oh, hey, everybody, let’s abandon all of our technology, including weapons, medical, and transportation, to go become hunter-gatherers. And hey, let’s hold hands and giggle about how batshit insane we’ve become.
Oak was not amused.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/13 "2010-01-22T16:12:46Z")
> [@Oakminster](#):
>
> In a move that I’m sure **Skald** will find shocking and utterly impossible to have predicted, I’m tossing the BSG finale.
>
> No, “God did it” is not an acceptable resolution. Poof, Starbucks gone? Fuckies that. Six and Baltar (and apparently Starbuck) are angels? Bullshit. Chief Tyrol runs off to Scottland to brood by himself after single handedly…well, ok, he used two hands…choking the life out of our last best hope for a lasting peace? Guy committed treason as often as I change socks. _All Along the Watchtower_ was not written by Bob Dylan, it’s some kind of universal constant that Starbuck’s Ghost-daddy tapped into. Horse puckey. Oh, hey, everybody, let’s abandon all of our technology, including weapons, medical, and transportation, to go become hunter-gatherers. And hey, let’s hold hands and giggle about how batshit insane we’ve become.
>
> Oak was not amused.
Apropos of nothing, are you going to watch _Caprica_ tonight?
ETA: I’m not mocking you, I was just wondering.
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### Author:  [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/14 "2010-01-22T16:19:41Z")
For _Angel_, I nominate the first season episode “She.”
Yeah, there might be episodes that for plot or story reasons (or ick factor, like Cordy sleeping with Connor) that might better have not existed, but this episode had a stupid guest star that can’t act (Bai Ling) as some sort of demon from a dimension where the women are all, like…super horny, or something? Because of a growth on the back of their neck? And also, they are hot…like, phyiscally hot and burn people unless theyare kept on ice? Or their demon slave masters kidnapp them and cut off the thing off the back of their neck to make them sex slaves, cause I guess they still stay horny but they don’t burn people and lose their free will for some reason?
God, I hate that episode.
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### Author:  [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/15 "2010-01-22T16:21:09Z")
**Oakminster** beat me to my choice and said everything I would have.
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> Apropos of nothing, are you going to watch _Caprica_ tonight?
I can’t speak for Oak, but I will not be watching _Caprica_. I will pretty much avoid anything Ron Moore is involved with from now on. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
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### Author:  [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/16 "2010-01-22T16:25:01Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> Apropos of nothing, are you going to watch _Caprica_ tonight?
>
> ETA: I’m not mocking you, I was just wondering.
Yeah, I got the dvr set to record it. May watch it live, depending on what else is on. BSG entertained me for at least three seasons, even tossing out the stinkers and that abomination of a finale, so _Caprica_ gets at least a chance to earn a spot in my watching rotation…at least until _Warehouse 13_ and _V_ return…
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/17 "2010-01-22T16:32:00Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> The Principal and the Pauper ep of Simpsons. Hell, even the show writers pretend it didn’t happen.
There was a callback to that episode a couple of seasons later, so that’s not exactly true. But the whole point of the ending was that it wasn’t going to be acknowledged again. (I still think giving Skinner that kind of past was a great idea, it’s the identity part that failed.) If I had to drop one non-clip show episode, I think it would be “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star.” They shouldn’t have named the Simpsons’ religion. It’s generic mainstream Protestantism; getting more specific was bad for the parody. Not that it’s come up very often since then, but it still bothers me.
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### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/18 "2010-01-22T16:33:11Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> There was a callback to that episode a couple of seasons later, so that’s not exactly true. But the whole point of the ending was that it wasn’t going to be acknowledged again. (I still think giving Skinner that kind of past was a great idea, it’s the identity part that failed.) If I had to drop one non-clip show episode, I think it would be “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star.” They shouldn’t have named the Simpsons’ religion. It’s generic mainstream Protestantism; getting more specific was bad for the parody. Not that it’s come up very often since then, but it still bothers me.
Incidentally, can you edit the thread title for me to fix the misspelling of “spoilers”? It’s driving me crazy.
Well…crazier.
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### Author:  [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/19 "2010-01-22T17:14:27Z")
I’ve always found it interesting that _Seinfeld_ didn’t have a real finale.
And you will never convince me otherwise.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sorry-that-episode-simply-never-happened-and-youll-not-convince-me-otherwise-spoilers-likely/525995/20 "2010-01-22T17:18:43Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> There was a callback to that episode a couple of seasons later, so that’s not exactly true. But the whole point of the ending was that it wasn’t going to be acknowledged again. (I still think giving Skinner that kind of past was a great idea, it’s the identity part that failed.) If I had to drop one non-clip show episode, I think it would be “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star.” They shouldn’t have named the Simpsons’ religion. It’s generic mainstream Protestantism; getting more specific was bad for the parody. Not that it’s come up very often since then, but it still bothers me.
I do remember there was an ep where someone kind of rolls their eyes and calls him Mr. Tanzarian or something like that…but I guess other than that.
It just bothered me because all of his weird POW 'Nam flashbacks basically mean nothing since he wasn’t actually in a POW camp at all. It kind of screws with the whole character.
What was the Simpsons’ religion revealed as, incidentally? I haven’t seen any newer eps in the last few years, so I’m curious
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