TV Shows where continuity doesn't matter...

For most shows, I get angry at continuity. When someone on Battlestar Galactica does something that is physically impossible, I get pissed. However, not all shows are like that for me.

These include Futurama, Sealab 2021, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It doesn’t matter what they do, every episode is great. Even when they make HUGE mistakes as far as continuity of an episode goes.

What are some others?

The Simpsons, particularly the Halloween episodes.

Star Trek: Enterprise, pretty much throughout its run, alas.

Aeon Flux, in its original MTV Liquid Television incarnation. The heroine died at the end of every episode.

Dallas, with Bobby stepping out of the shower after being “really most sincerely dead.”

Any soap opera.

Oops. My bad. Somebody already mentioned Battlestar Galactica. :stuck_out_tongue:

I think we may be confusing some different things.

In most series prior to the 1970-80’s, especially sitcoms, there were no precedent-setting events which would have ripple effects in future episodes. That way, you could watch all the episodes in any random order, and they would all make sense. No matter what order you’d see them, it could all be understood as chapters of a single story. This is what the OP means to me: “Continuity doesn’t matter.”

But if “the heroine died at the end of every episode”, I’d call that a broken continuity, because each episode must be seen as a story independent of all others.

Both of those are in contrast to standard continuity, such as in soap operas, where every episode is (supposed to be) built on all past episodes.

South Park - “They killed Kenny!” every week.

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Keeping the continuity of these boards, I must move this thread to Cafe Society.

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That’s not what most people mean when they talk about continuity. If it’s established that, in the Battlestar: Galactica universe, people can breath in space, that’s poor physics, but not poor continuity. However, if one episode of BG has people breathing in space, and the next episode has people suffocating in space, that’s bad continuity: they’re changing things that have been firmly established in previous episodes of the show.

I’m surprised that you would include Futurama in your list of shows that break continuity - I was always impressed at how perfect the continuity was.

As an example, in the very first episode, as Fry “falls” into the freeze chamber, you can see Nibbler’s shadow pushing him in. Long before Nibbler was even introduced, and longer still before they reveal that the Nibblonians were responsible for it.

The only continuity problem I ever noticed was that Fry mentioned Star Trek in an earlier episode and wasn’t penalized for doing so. (Since it’s forbidden ever since the Star Trek Wars).

I always wondered if that hadn’t been “fixed” when they released the first DVDs.

Star Trek TOS - Star dates are not sequential (so they came up with a trek-reason for that).

Looking at some of the old sitcoms that are running on TV Land…

Three’s Company doesn’t seem to have any episode-to-episode continuity of any sort. Were there even any changes to characters through the show’s run?

It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I think *WKRP * is similar in this regard - an essentially unchanging cast on some different lark each week that doesn’t really intersect with any other episodes.

MASH has continuity of characters coming and going, but not much event continuity. Col. Blake leaves and is replaced by Potter, Major Burns wigs out and is replaced by Winchester, etc., but there’s really nothing along the lines of “post-op is shelled, so some episodes are in the old ward and some are in the new one” and you can tell they’re playing episodes out of order that way.

Alice does have continuity between episodes. It’s sparse, but there is some - Flo’s trailer is stolen, so for the next however many eps, she’s living with Alice, for example. It’s not like one week the trailer’s gone, next week, she’s at Alice’s apartment, and the next week, the trailer magically returns and she’s back home.

That’s not why I’d say continuity on TOS is so weak. I’d point to things like the fact that when they first travelled through time via a slingshot effect (ep. 1.19, “Tomorrow Is Yesterday”), they acted like it was a complete shock to them that this was even possible, but the next time they did it (later that same freaking episode, for crying out loud), it not only had suddenly become little more than a science project, but they could maintain control through the course of the slingshot and operate their transporters to boot.

Fancy writin’ there, D. C.

Star Trek: Voyager pretty much ignored continuity. The ship takes battle damage one week, then the next week looks like it just flew out of space dock. Or they have to ration ship’s supplies, but have enough spare parts to build the Delta Flyer. Or Harry Kim being killed and replaced by the Harry from the duplicated Voyager (“Deadlock”) and returning to Earth as if he weren’t a different person from the rest of the crew. That show made extensive use of the reset button.

They changed blondes at one point, and swapped out Norman Fell and his wife for Don Knotts.

There was some other continuity stuff. Hot Lips’ engagement, marriage, and subsequent to Col. Penobscott played out (mostly off screen) over the course of one or more seasons. And Klinger gave up the dresses towards the end, donating his wardrobe to dispossessed Korean prostitutes.

Also, all of the characters got less funny and more preachy as the show progressed.

Got 'em all on my quaint little VCR tapes. When I first saw The Day The Earth Stood Stupid I went straight back to re-watch the original. (“Elaine - to the archives!”) It’s there in the very first episode.

WKRP has some references to earlier episodes. One I can think of right now is when Johnny Fever hosted “Gotta Dance” as Rip Tide, and they mentioned that Herb was only a local disgrace when he was on “Real Families” and that this was National. Or maybe that was the other way around.

Most animated shows have no need for continuity, and I guess most sitcoms in general don’t pay it much mind.

Well, there was that episode where the Omicronians really did a number on the planet while looking for the Jenny McNeal tape. They leveled New New York for starters, and the episode ended with a joke about how on TV shows, everything is always back to normal at the end of every episode.

Just the kind of testimony I was hoping to elicit. You may step down.

True, but when they included the joke they scored points.

The Odd Couple always stands out in my mind. It was a great, funny show, but had no continuity consistency. First Felix and Oscar were “childhood friends,” then later they had met one day on the street in New York, then they were army buddies, then Oscar’s father had almost killed Felix’s father, which was never mentioned again. Felix “met” Howard Cosell on two separate occasions, one when Oscar had been his “enemy” for years and another when Howard and Oscar were co-hosting Monday Night Football and it was the first time they’d met, and Felix’s daughter Edna aged about 9 years in the 5 years of the show.

Plus, of course, there were the set changes that were never mentioned, Felix’s fear of flying after an episode where he flew to Alaska, and various inconsistencies in their marital and divorce situations.

The Flintstones is very inconsistent. The layout/design of the house they live in is always different. The address is always different whenever it is mentioned. The cars are always different (sometimes it has one seat just for Fred; sometimes there’s a back seat for Wilma and Betty). Sometimes Barney drives a “pencil car” and other times he drives a “Flintmobile.” Fred’s boss has not always been Mr. Slate. Sometimes the chraracter who is recognized as Mr. Slate has had different names and sometimes “Mr. Slate” has been a different character. By the third season I think they finally settled on the name and character. The name of the company always changes from episode to episode. Some of the supporting characters, such as Arnold the newspaper delivery boy, Joe Rockhead, and the leader of the Water Buffalo Lodge are different people. Certain features, such as a plate-glass window, a doorbell (operated by a monkey), and birds for car horns only appear when they are significant to the plot. I’m sure there are lots of other examples, too.