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[Doctor Bat]

The Prisoner was filmed in the correct order but aired in the wrong order for the lead’s character arc, meaning an episode where he has little knowledge follows one where he easily defeats everyone. There’s even a Western-themed episode directly before the two-part finale.

The fan orders make it clearer and pace it around the character, but the only certain, fixed episodes are the first and last two. It’s even up for debate whether the order was intentional to add confusion.

 

[Hesh]

Clerks: The Animated Series. They aired the fourth episode first, then the second episode. The second was a flashback episode, and made no sense as it aired.

The show was then cancelled. RIP.

I still remember watching that as it happened. I loved the premiere episode, then the second episode I didn't really understand (rightfully so), and then I think either I missed the third episode airing (no DVR back then) or it was canceled after the second airing. Years later I rented the series on DVD and watched it all and it blew my mind how brilliant that second episode was. Man, that was such a great show that was criminally mishandled by ABC.

Nothing beats Fringe for me.

I forget which season it was, but a fairly major character dies during the season and then (I think it was the finale, or close to it), there they are like nothing happened and nobody is referencing it. I was so confused when it happened.

More specifically it was

Spoiler

Charlie

who died and the episode where they were alive was either the mole kid episode or the town where everyone's ugliness was camouflaged. It was made more confusing because previously in the season

Spoiler

the character was already killed and replaced with an evil doppelganger

, so watching the episode how it aired you had to stop for a minutes and wonder, "heyyyy, what's going on here...?

It wasn't a great episode or anything, so it felt like they just pulled the episode from its normal order (I don't think it did any movement of the overall plot).

Yes! That was going to be my example. I want to say it was like an episode about a public transport bus getting ember'd in a tunnel and I was all like "Wait,

Spoiler

Charlie's

alive? How!?". It was so bizarre. I need to get around to picking up the series on blu-ray one of these days to rewatch.

 

[Oberon]

One Punch Man has Saitama obliterating that skyscraper sized giant in the very first episode! That never sat right with me to see him beating an adversary that was more intimidating than anyone he's faced aside from Boros.

I think he was there to set the tone and show us that we Saitama will just win any fight. Because of course he's not going to lose to lose to some chumps if he beat that giant guy (I thinkhe was threat level dragon or something)

 

[eerik9000]

Simpsons season 9 episode 2, a revelation of that...magnitude should have been either the pilot or the finale. I am leaning towards pilot because it does set a certain prescedent for season 9 and onwards.

You mean this episode should have never existed.

 

[sectionse7en]

Nothing beats Fringe for me.

I forget which season it was, but a fairly major character dies during the season and then (I think it was the finale, or close to it), there they are like nothing happened and nobody is referencing it. I was so confused when it happened.

More specifically it was

Spoiler

Charlie

who died and the episode where they were alive was either the mole kid episode or the town where everyone's ugliness was camouflaged. It was made more confusing because previously in the season

Spoiler

the character was already killed and replaced with an evil doppelganger

, so watching the episode how it aired you had to stop for a minutes and wonder, "heyyyy, what's going on here...?

It wasn't a great episode or anything, so it felt like they just pulled the episode from its normal order (I don't think it did any movement of the overall plot).

This episode is 'Unearthed'. It was filmed at the same time as Season 1 and was never shown, so was simply dropped into the airings of Season 2.

It's baffling for exactly that reason, that character turns up and you spend the whole episode waiting for a twist. It's available on S2 boxsets as an extra.

It's also easily the worst episode of Fringe, there's a good reason they cut it from S1.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Yeah, they aired the pilot last. IIRC for some reason they didn't think it was a good hook, and it just kinda got shelved until they dumped it at the end of the run.

To be fair, they were kind of right. I've introduced Firefly to several people and had to encourage them not to drop it on the first episode. It's not a good hook at all. Of course it picks up greatly by the second episode and the rest of the series is a solid ride. It's just getting over that first bump. The first half of the pilot is the by far the weakest stuff in the entire series.

 

[Slaythe]

Not awkward, but I'll mention this one from Angel anyway:

"Smile Time" followed by "A Hole in the World".

Spoiler

Goddammit

This fucking show

 

[Oblivion]

You mean this episode should have never existed.

It has a dumb plot, but it's a good and funny episode.

 

[Sabercrusader]

It's how they were aired, but not produced. Nothing about that show is changed if you watch in order vs out of order, except that the continuity actually makes sense. That's why I said that Netflix has them still out of order. Some episodes literally do not make sense as to where they are placed, no matter the argument. The official Star Wars site has a viewing order.

Ah, I didn't know that they were produced in order. So they really had about 2 seasons completed by the time season 1 aired?

 

[Media]

I suppose this isn't what the topic is about but I still feel like it's in the spirit of it.

In a bit of a reversed example, the season one finale of Dollhouse; Epitaph One, was never aired and only appeared on the home release.
The episode was very obviously intended to end the show prematurely under the fair assumption that it would be cancelled.

It wasn't. If you watched the show on TV you basically missed part one of a two part finale, and if you watched it on DVD/Netflix you saw it at the end of season 1, when it actually takes place after most of season 2.

I will say though, going into to that season 1 finale blind was a hell of a mind fuck.
Ironically I remember feeling like Epitaph Two left the story open for an 'Epitaph Three' that never happened because it was actually cancelled that time.

My memory much suck because I swear to God epitaph 1 aired.

I was the lead developer on the ARG fight the future that stemmed from that episode in and effort to keep it from being canceled in season two. It had to have aired right? Ugh my brain.

 

[ButteryPie]

The first 3 or 4 episodes of Victory Gundam were edited to be aired out of order so they could have a Gundam show up in the first episode.

 

[Astral Dog]

Came to post this. It's even more glaring when you marathon the series.

Smallville was a pro at this, and it becomes even more apparent if you watch episodes next to each other instead of spaced a week apart. Season plot-heavy episodes would be followed up by wacky comedy episodes, and big bads and other seemingly-pressing plots would just not show up or be put on hold so that the lighter episodes could happen, even if it was the end of the season and things were clearly ramping up. Sometimes these contrasting episodes were handled well, but many were not.

The interesting part is that the network didn't air them out of order - they were just written that way.

I loved Smallville for this

 

[BKatastrophe]

Ah, I didn't know that they were produced in order. So they really had about 2 seasons completed by the time season 1 aired?

So it would seem. It's just so damn weird.