Despite otherwise being a fairly straight-laced military show, The Unit delved deeply into the stupid for two episodes in the middle of the second season. One of those is an episode where the wife of one of the guys dreams the future from his vantage point, or something, where he’s onboard a submarine in danger.
Fortunately, the stupid was so strong and heavy right from the get-go that I’ve never watched more than the first few minutes, so I can’t tell you any more than that.
That was in 1981 and was a pretty big deal at the time; I remember hearing about it, even though I had never watched General Hospital. This started a trend of soap operas doing fantasy and SF plotlines; you can read about some other examples here.
Since it’s one of my favorite show’s, I’ll happily provide the details. Aside from magnum’s repeated “little voice” (which I think is seen over the run of the show to be an actual psychic power, not just intuition) there are these episodes that have “actual” supernatural events:
Season 1:
**Missing In Action **- Magnum works with a woman with “psychic” visions that are shown to be real.
Season 2:
The Woman on the Beach - Magnum investigates a “ghost” that Rick saw. After some investigation, it is found that the “ghost” is someone pretending so the actual murder that was committed in the past can be solved. But it is strongly implied the actual ghost led Magnum to her body, and was seen on the beach at the end -or was she?
Season 3:
**Flashback **- mostly a dream sequence, however some important actual clues came from the dream, stuff Magnum couldn’t have known otherwise.
Season 4:
Home From the Sea - Magnum treads water for 24 hours, and telepathically directs Rick to the right spot in the ocean to rescue him.
Season 5:
Mac’s Back - Magnum has everyone thinking he’s cracking up when he sees the late Lt MacReynolds alive (turns out is a guy who just looks like him). But the real dead Mac shows up at the end of the episode - or does he?
Fragments - Magnum works with a psychic to prevent her death.
Season 6:
Deja Vu - Magnum’s “visions” help solve the case.
Rapture - I admit I’m not as familiar with this, to know how supernatural it was, but Magnum sees a dead boy while diving. My memory is that he really did see a ghost.
Season 7 -
Limbo - Of course, you have to include the one where Magnum dies and helps save his ex-wife, works again with Mac, conjures up donuts from nothingness, and communicates with the living from the titular land, before he walks off into the afterlife.
While Quantum Leap was ostensibly a science fiction show,* it usually stuck with “scientific” elements. However, “It’s a Wonderful Leap” had supernatural elements, as did “Mirror Image.”
The Dick Van Dyke Show had an alien invasion plot in “It May Look Like a Walnut” and a Ghost in “Ghost of A. Chance.” Both turned out to have mundane explanations, though.
Something of a fantasy (or alternate world SF): in Green Acres, they had an episode where the Eiffel Tower was in Washington DC.
*Actually, it was a anthology show that used the device to tell straight drama.
Not sure if it counts but Friends did an alternate universe episode. Other shows have done this too but I am blanking on examples.
Family Guy often does time travel episodes. They’ve also had encounters with Santa Claus, Jesus, and Death (with black cloak, scythe, etc.).
Castle is usually pretty down-to-earth (the series, if not the title character), but they had an episode this season in which the killer used an experimental invisibility suit that mimicked the camouflage abilities of the cuttlefish.
There was another episode a couple of seasons ago where the ending strongly implied that the nutty suspect who claimed to be a time traveler from the future really was:
He carried a copy of a letter that was a piece of evidence in the case, except that the copy was old and coffee-stained. At the end of the episode, Beckett accidentally spilled some coffee on the original letter… creating a stain exactly the same shape as the one on the copy.
Some nice examples, guys. However, a few of you missed the part about being usually set in the real world.
You missed the one with the voodoo doll. But it looks like it happened often enough not to count as “single” sci-fi episode.
Also, it never came about, but Bellisario wanted to do a Magnum/ Quantum Leap crossover.
It must have been about season 2 or 3 that I realized it was supposed to be a “psychic detective” show. But subtle enough that the average viewer might miss it, and the show wouldn’t be considered sci-fi.
Might have been interesting (better than the Murder She Wrote crossover…). It seems that is the only Bellisario made show that didn’t use the full range of the “Bellisario players.” As far as I can tell from a cursory check, only Larry Manetti and Lance LeGault were in QL episodes.
Now if you did a Magnum/Black Sheep Squadron crossover, you’d be in trouble!
Well, there was that one X-Files episode. Normally it was a straight procedural drama about unsolved FBI cases, but there was that one time that something happened that Mulder thought might have been aliens and Dana Sculley thought had a rational explanation. Sadly, though, all the evidence disappeared at the end of the episode, so we’ll never know.
Joking aside, X-Files had one episode where a seemingly impossible robbery turned out to be an illusion created by an expert conjurer using stage magic. No supernatural powers involved after all.
You left out Blood Moon; where Sam leaped into an actual vampire.
Columbo: Mind over Mayhem featured Robby the Robot
Married…With Children had an episode where space aliens stole Al Bundy’s socks – for fuel.
Does Baywatch Nights count?
There was an early episode of The Drew Carey Show where the Devil showed up, played by Grant Shaud.
I recently read about this. The Colbys was a spinoff of Dynasty. I think the abduction was in the last episode aired? And yeah, I think the character popped up later on Dynasty played by another actress.
Moonlighting had a couple, “The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice” and “Atomic Shakespeare”.