As I’ve mentioned in other threads, I’ve been rewatching lots of older shows lately. I just finished the full run of Bewitched. A lot of TV series are repetitive and formulaic in their plots, but I don’t recall ever seeing another show as brazen in recycling entire episode scripts with superficial changes as they did on Bewitched. For one example, there is
A two-parter where Samantha is sent back to New Orleans hundreds of years in the past with amnesia and Darrin has to be sent back in time with a special ritual and restore her memories so they can go back to the present.
A two-parter where Samantha is sent back to Salem hundreds of years in the past with amnesia and Darrin has to be sent back in time with a special ritual and restore her memories so they can go back to the present.
A two-parter where Samantha is sent back to the court of Henry VIII hundreds of years in the past with amnesia and Darrin has to be sent back in time with a special ritual and restore her memories so they can go back to the present.
They did this over and over and over. They never even lampshade that it is similar to an earlier incident. Are there any other shows that do this so baldly and so often?
The Gilded Age might as well be retitled Downton Abbey: New York because Julian Fellowes recycles so, so, so many storylines.
It’s one thing to retread the standard upstairs/downstairs convention, but when you’re just damn near literally copying and pasting the exact same characters and situations you begin to ask yourself why you keep watching.
And then you post about it incessantly on the internet in-between checking Google to see when the next season airs.
edit to add
I just checked the Gilded Age thread and was reminded (by 2023 me) that there was one The Gilded Age episode in particular that ripped off at least 6 story points from Downton Abbey.
another edit
Although, I realize now that you’re asking about shows that cannibalize their own stories. So never mind, I guess.
I see from wiki that Bewitched had a very grand total of 254 episodes over 8 seasons, which amounts to 32 episodes per season. I’m not surprised there was recycling.
Three’s Company really only had two plots, recycled over its entire run:
Someone in the apartment (usually Jack) lies to salvage a situation, and the situation spirals as everyone in on it frantically vamps to keep the deception going.
Someone (usually either Mr. Roper or Mr. Furley) overhears something, misinterprets it, and the rest of the episode is “humorous” exchanges with each side understanding a different conversation.
Pretty sure that covered at least 90% of the episodes.
And of course there turns out to be a TV tropes page on the subject. I havent read the whole page, but I bet Bewitched beats them all:
24 scripts on Bewitched were recycled scene by scene. One was recycled twice. Most of these were episodes featuring the first Darrin that were recycled with The Other Darrin while others were black and white episode remade in colour. Since some were two-parters, this means a total of 55 of the 254 episodes, 22% of the entire show, weren’t unique. In addition to these completely recycled scripts, there were also many that had similar premises but were different in the particulars, and many individual scenes and gags that were recycled in otherwise original episodes.
If we’re talking cartoons, got to include Scooby Doo. Every ghost and monster turned out to be a corrupt real estate developer scheming to devalue the property. And they would have gotten away with too, it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids.
Colombo basically had the same plot every episode with a few rare exceptions, but that was part of its charm. The episodes where they tried to get creative and go outside the formula are actually among my least favorite episodes.
I don’t know if this counts, since I think the OP is looking for plots recycled within a single show, but back in the day every single sitcom had to do a cheesy takeoff on “A Christmas Carol” when the season came around. I remember as an older kid rolling my eyes and thinking “not again” every time a show did one.
Slight hijack, but my favorite has Dick Van Dyke toss a curveball at the usual Columbo plot: uh, Lieutenant, you don’t need to ask whodunit; I killed the guy! Am I going too fast for you, here? I decided to put a bullet in him, and it came as no surprise that he died as a result!
That’s funny, I did a Columbo rewatch a couple years ago, and I remember the Dick Van Dyke episode pretty well, or so I thought, but as far as I remember it stuck to the formula pretty closely- I don’t remember some early-on confession. Unless it was said sarcastically to goad Columbo— “oh sure, I killed him! That’s what you want me to say, right?”
BTW, Van Dyke did an excellent job playing against (his usual) type as an arrogant, rude murdery asshole.
I don’t know if I should spoilerize something as old as Columbo, but my favorite:
Columbo is wrong, and puts his, and maybe his boss’s, jobs on the line with his insistence that this guy killed his wife. Dug up the estate, etc. Then the wife shows up, alive. Hilarity ensues, and then…well, watch the episode.
I very well might, if you can be a little more specific— do you remember which actor was the guest murderer that episode?
I think I do vaguely remember that episode plot line, but not which specific episode. It did stand out as one of the very few times Columbo made an actual mistake early on, and wasn’t just pretending to screw up. If I recall correctly, I think the wife was in on some insurance scam with the husband and they faked her murder. Then the husband ends up murdering her for reals. Or something like that?
The gimmick is, Dick Van Dyke shows up with ransom money the guy hadn’t asked for, and a ransom note the guy didn’t write, and shoots the guy dead — and then he shoots himself with another gun, after putting it in the hand of the guy who, y’know, had previously done time for extortion. And so he can helpfully explain that he killed the guy, and blink, and add ‘in self-defense.’
Ah, ok so I was close- the murder was faked not as an insurance scam but a publicity stunt. And the husband does kill the wife for real later.
That was early on in the 90s reboot era of Columbo, so perhaps not surprising that they tried to shake up the old formula a bit. The Columbophile Blog agrees that this is pretty much the first time in the series that Columbo got completely outsmarted like that, at least at first. Can’t say I’m much of a fan of that episode. I like my Columbo to always be a step or three ahead of the bad guy at all times.
That is the episode I’m going to watch today. Thanks for spoiling it. Okay, I have the box set and have seen the episode multiple times, so it’s not spoiling. But, a coincidence that there is a discussion about the episode I’m watching next.
MASH did an episode in Season 1 where Hawkeye and Trapper made an overzealous officer (Leslie Nielsen, in his less-famous days) think he had appendicitis, to take him out of combat. Hawkeye pulled the same trick in Season 7, but at least BJ argued with him about ethics.
The original Night Court regularly had people brought in for doing strange things, claiming they were from another planet.
Speaking of MASH, I haven’t seen a significant number of episodes since the show originally aired, but I’m pretty sure I recall multiple episodes with these premises.
One is that Hawkeye does something insubordinate, gets in trouble, and is then let off the hook when the outraged general realizes what an indispensably brilliant surgeon he is and that in the hellscape of war, you have to make allowances for these men’s need to blow off steam, sometimes in ways that might not meet with official approval.
The other is that character A wants something character B has; B wants something C has, and so on, all the way out to whatever number of “wantings” can be contained within a half-hour-commercials-included episode. Hawkeye and Trapper/BJ set up deals so that everyone will get what they want. All appears to be going well until the character at the end of the chain punks out for some reason, and the whole thing collapses like a row of dominos to the amusement of the home viewer.
