# What TV shows are best--and worst--at leaving their comfort zones? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 16, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346 "2009-09-16T18:08:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/21 "2009-09-17T03:12:36Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > I love _House_, but for most of the life of the series, it’s done a horrible job of leaving its comfort zone. House formula: > > 1. Middle- to upper-class person collapses and becomes unresponsive in front of large number of people. Bleeding may occur. > > 2. Forty minutes of the show is dedicated to House and his team citing obscure diseases and ordering drugs/tests/procedures that don’t work. House annoys/berates the ducklings/Cuddy/Wilson/Foreman. > > 3. One drug/procedure does work, but only temporarily. Patient is on the brink of death. > > 4. Some concurrent issue with Wilson/relationships/Vicodin causes House to realize what the actual disease is. The patient was lying about some aspect of his/her life which kept him from discovering the truth. He administers a cure at the last minute, against Cuddy’s explicit orders. The patient lives and his/her life resumes as normal. > > Sound about right? You know…I think I SAW that episode! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/22 "2009-09-17T14:12:11Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > You know…I think I SAW that episode! 😃 No doubt. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Awesome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a698b9/32.png) [@Captain\_Awesome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Awesome)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/23 "2009-09-17T14:26:35Z")
I’ve been impressed with the extent that **Weeds** seems to tear up the rule book, shift location, remove and introduce some major parts, and alter character perspectives over time. It could very easily have taken a more conservative approach, and been a less interesting show for it. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/24 "2009-09-17T15:26:45Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > I love _House_, but for most of the life of the series, it’s done a horrible job of leaving its comfort zone. House formula: > > 1. Middle- to upper-class person collapses and becomes unresponsive in front of large number of people. Bleeding may occur. … Like the homeless guy who lived in a box? The Cuban couple on a raft? The charity case with the facial tumor? Cuddy’s fix-it guy? All the others that are so poor they live in dumps that gross out the ducklings when they search their houses for bad stuff? The rest of your post is similarly skewed. I take it you’ve only seen a couple episodes of the show. ---
**Author:** ![stargazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb8c5e/32.png) [@stargazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stargazer)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/25 "2009-09-17T16:35:03Z")
I think the original **Law & Order** shows are great at staying in format, generally, and they have also used the breaking of that format to great effect. The best example of the “out of comfort zone” episodes is “Aftershock,” which follows the main characters as they react to watching a Bad Guy’s execution. Part of what made L&O different from other shows when it was new is that it generally stayed away from the main characters’ personal lives, but this episode was almost nothing BUT personal lives. It was pretty powerful, and it ends with a car accident that kills one of the main characters. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/26 "2009-09-17T16:49:22Z")
Most mornings, TNT shows 2 episodes of _Angel_. Of course I watch them–or the first one–while getting ready for my day. Even though I’ve seen them before numerous times & have the DVD’s. Just recently, they showed “Smile Time”–the hilarious puppet episode. Followed by “A Hole In The World”–which is definitely not hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/27 "2009-09-18T15:36:10Z")
> [@stargazer](#): > > I think the original **Law & Order** shows are great at staying in format, generally, and they have also used the breaking of that format to great effect. The best example of the “out of comfort zone” episodes is “Aftershock,” which follows the main characters as they react to watching a Bad Guy’s execution. Part of what made L&O different from other shows when it was new is that it generally stayed away from the main characters’ personal lives, but this episode was almost nothing BUT personal lives. It was pretty powerful, and it ends with a car accident that kills one of the main characters. I remember “Aftershock.” One of the two best L&O’s better, matched by its sort-of follow-up the next season, in which McCoy, grieving over the character who died in “Aftershock” (Claire) goes overboard while prosecuting a drunk driver for murder. That was the best thing about L&O at its height. Even though we only ever see the characters at work, their private lives aren’t irrelevant a la “Dragnet”; rather, the viewer is allowed to infer what’s going on and use his or her own imagination, which is quite inteesting. Even though it’s never explicitly stated that Claire dies in “Aftershock,” and the name is mentioned only once (by the one character who never met the dead one, it’s clear that the other characters’ grief and guilt is the emotional subtext driving the story. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/28 "2009-09-18T15:38:28Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Most mornings, TNT shows 2 episodes of _Angel_. Of course I watch them–or the first one–while getting ready for my day. Even though I’ve seen them before numerous times & have the DVD’s. > > Just recently, they showed “Smile Time”–the hilarious puppet episode. Followed by “A Hole In The World”–which is definitely not hilarious. I love Angel and both of those episodes, but I’m not sure either story really counts as leaving the comfort zone. Angel was all about mocking its characters, in a universe that was nevertheless extremely grim and resolutely unjust, from the very first episode. ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346/29 "2009-09-18T20:11:21Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > One show that I thought very effectively strayed beyond the expected was a British comedy called **Blackadder**. It seems to be pretty popular on this board, but for those unfamiliar with it, it starred Rowan “Mr. Bean” Atkinson as a succession of cowardly, conniving, thoroughly unsympathetic villains. The supporting actors (at times including Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry) played, for the most part, over-the-top buffoons and loonies. Deaths were common and always played for laughs. Then, in the last few minutes of the fourth season, everything got serious. I doubt if there’s any way I can describe the last scene without it looking cheesy and maudlin, but somehow it worked. I’m actually tearing up a little just thinking about, it and it occasionally shows up high on lists of British TV’s best moments. That scene choked me up. The entire show up to that point had been almost uniformly silly and light-hearted–indeed, that particular episode had been light-hearted and silly up to that point (IIRC)–and then, all of a sudden, it was intensely sad. And yet I don’t feel that that scene was somehow out of place or wasn’t in keeping with the tone of the rest of the series. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-shows-are-best-and-worst-at-leaving-their-comfort-zones/510346.md?page=1)