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[Oblivion]

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.

Yup, totally. Simpsons season 9 episode 2. Man, what a twist. I mean really, does any other episode compare to that one in magnitude? I can't think of one. Maybe season 5 episode 7 or season 3 episode 9.

Spoiler

He's talking about Principal and the Pauper for those that don't have to google it.

 

[FrankCanada97]

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic season 1 had an episode about the end of winter. Then, two episodes later, was a story taking place at the start of fall.

The passage of time in that show is portrayed so weirdly. The latest episode had a months-long time skip.

 

[CebollaDeAbbott]

Co-Pilot was a strange episode in Season 2 of The Shield.

A rather random flashback episode, and I believe the only time the series had a flashback episode. Detailing the first days of the Strike Team.

It was very out of place and unnecessary. The weakest episode of the one of the best shows TV has ever seen.

 

[Brandon F]

This thread is making me wonder if the pilot episode of Star Trek Discovery airing shortly is actually going to end up being episode 7 or somesuch nonsense.

Like what the hell at some of the examples in this thread.

 

[Media]

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

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

Spoiler

Goddammit

Would you like me to lie to you now?

 

[bebop242]

That new show Guest Book put an episode (story five? I think) out of order and aired it a few episodes later. Show changes main storys every week but has a running long story for members of the small town. So it threw it off a bit.

 

[GARlockSpiral]

Kamen Rider Gaim.

One episode ends on a major cliffhanger.

The next episode ends on a movie-tie in to Kikaider, who just happens to show up in town two weeks prior. The resident mad scientist, Ryoma, is sent to test an android known as Hakaider from Kikaider's movie villains, DARK. What does he do? He puts his own brain into the android and fights Kikaider and loses. In the next scene, he just...wakes up with no traces of brain surgery, wondering just how evil Hakaider is, as I imagine some intern recieves the suit and is wondering why there's brain goo in the suit.

 

[Frozenprince]

Why did they do this

It's common at networks (especially at Fox who are even now doing this with ANOTHER light hearted sci fi adventure show in The Orville) to focus less on air order for a first season and instead air episodes early on that they think will "hook" the target demo.

 

[streetsahead123]

Community's Video Game episode in season 3 is the third-to-last episode of the season, but has nothing at all to do with the running storyline of the other final episodes. It sits between two connected episodes where the characters have to deal with a crisis at the school.

The most distracting part of this is that the tag of the video game episode takes place with Troy and Abed at Greendale even though it aired in the middle of an arc where they were expelled from Greendale

 

[The Real Abed]

It's common at networks (especially at Fox who are even now doing this with ANOTHER light hearted sci fi adventure show in The Orville) to focus less on air order for a first season and instead air episodes early on that they think will "hook" the target demo.

They're doing it to The Orville too? Like showing them out of order?

The most distracting part of this is that the tag of the video game episode takes place with Troy and Abed at Greendale even though it aired in the middle of an arc where they were expelled from Greendale

Yep.

 

[Xe4]

Cowboy Bebop's Boogie Woogie Fung Shui is already a pretty awkward episode, but it's made worse by the fact it's sandwiched between two of the best episodes of the show Pierre le Fou and Cowboy Funk). It also breaks the run absolutely insanely good episodes from 16 to the finale. On top of that, it was a weird episode to end Jet's main story line on, especially compared to the endings other characters got.

It should've been swapped with Black Dog Serenade IMO.

 

[BroBot]

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 enjoyed how we basically got a new villain every 1-2 episodes in the first season.

 

[RespectThySole]

Ozark episode 8 comes to mind. Flashback was really jarring

 

[Frozenprince]

They're doing it to The Orville too? Like showing them out of order?

Episode 2 in airing order is Episode 3 in production order. Episode 3 is Episode 4.

Production Episode 2 will air as Episode 5.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

As far as out of order shows go, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23 are both pretty bad.

Like, that shit is wacky. Worst part is that they're still out of order if you watch them on Netflix (which I did).

Clone Wars was weird, because I think the original intention was to just jump around different points in the war telling random stories, and not really worrying too much about how the episodes directly linked together. But then they started focusing on lengthier and more involved arcs, as well as character progression, so they shifted to chronological order due to the more serialized format working better. The really bizarre part is the period in-between the transition where they starting putting out direct sequels and prequels to random past episodes, retroactively forming ongoing story-arcs with a completely whack order of release.

 

[Rodney McKay]

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).

 

[The Real Abed]

Episode 2 in airing order is Episode 3 in production order. Episode 3 is Episode 4.

Production Episode 2 will air as Episode 5.

Does it affect anything? Like do some characters you haven't seen yet just appear then disappear?

It reminds me of The Office where "The Fire" aired before "Halloween". Creed hadn't been introduced as a major character yet and makes his debut as the Creed we know in Halloween where he talks himself out of being fired, but since they aired The Fire first, you get a scene with him in it even though we don't know who he is yet.

 

[AoM]

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).

Ah yes. It's the episode before the one you were thinking of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unearthed_(Fringe)#Production

 

[Danthrax]

It's common at networks (especially at Fox who are even now doing this with ANOTHER light hearted sci fi adventure show in The Orville) to focus less on air order for a first season and instead air episodes early on that they think will "hook" the target demo.

Did they do that with the episode they aired on Sunday? I thought it was weird to make your second episode focus heavily on one of the supporting characters growing in confidence as an acting captain while the star of the show gets maybe five minutes of screentime total. Felt like an episode you'd air two thirds into a season once the characters are more established.

[edit] I see you specified later in this thread. Making that episode third still seems too early.

 

[Frozenprince]

Does it affect anything? Like do some characters you haven't seen yet just appear then disappear?

It reminds me of The Office where "The Fire" aired before "Halloween". Creed hadn't been introduced as a major character yet and makes his debut as the Creed we know in Halloween where he talks himself out of being fired, but since they aired The Fire first, you get a scene with him in it even though we don't know who he is yet.

Hard to tell yet until they air the other episode to compare too.

 

[Drkirby]

Fox was idiotic? Like, I don't know how you fuck up this bad. List is in the correct order, date was the original air date Fox had.

The episodes with "never aired" actually aired the next year I believe.

Am I reading this wrong, or did they air the first episode last? Were they going for the "Air out of order and it all makes sense at the end" thing?

 

[kamakazi5]

Scrubs has quite a few out of place episodes.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Am I reading this wrong, or did they air the first episode last? Were they going for the "Air out of order and it all makes sense at the end" thing?

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.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Red Oaks is a show set in the 80s. It is a comedy but it is set in reality. Out of nowhere, there was an episode where the father and son switched bodies.

 

[Bakercat]

This might not count, but I remember back to when dragon ball z was getting the funimation dub and being aired as new episodes on toonami back in the early 2000's and they were in the Majin Buu saga where kid buu had just been shown and he proceeded to blow up the earth. I remember the cool outro they would do with the music and narrator saying stuff like, "what is gonna happen to earth and the Z fighters now!?" I was eagerly awaiting the next afternoon after school to see what would happen and when the show came on they had gone straight back to right after the cell saga with Gohan being an adult in school. Needless to say I was floored knowing that I would have to wait months to get back to kid buu and what happened afterwards. This is also back before the internet so there was no way to find out what happened next. I'm still bitter to this day about that lol. I also remember them always replaying the Frieza saga aswell and I didn't even know the cell saga was a thing until years later. I don't ever remember seeing it aired on toonami.

 

[SchrodingerC]

The episode where all the members of the Teen Titans meet for the first time was pretty weird to air during the last season.
Maybe they thought starting the show in medias res was better than the usual origin story.

 

[SigmasonicX]

The passage of time in that show is portrayed so weirdly. The latest episode had a months-long time skip.

But don't you see! That means fans can fit any number of their own stories featuring Rarity with that hairstyle into that gap! Just like how Doctor Who will often have hundred year gaps between episodes to leave room for retrofitted stories.

Though seriously, the passage of time is all kinds of wonky in MLP. Years must have passed but wait it's the first Summer Sun Celebration since the first episode but there have been three Hearth's Warming episodes but the Cakes are still babies but...

And then you throw Equestria Girls into the mix, and...

 

[awcarew]

Nothing beats Fringe for me.

Same but for me it was 4.19 ('Letters of Transit') which was chronologically the last episode of the story. Then the next two episodes ended up essentially being a flashback for Episode 19. I kinda had mixed feelings how the narrative was told out of order, but it was still a great show in the end so I guess it wasn't that big of a problem overall.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

Fox was idiotic? Like, I don't know how you fuck up this bad. List is in the correct order, date was the original air date Fox had.

The episodes with "never aired" actually aired the next year I believe.

You're supposed to watch the movie before the series?

 

[Lijik]

Community's Video Game episode in season 3 is the third-to-last episode of the season, but has nothing at all to do with the running storyline of the other final episodes. It sits between two connected episodes where the characters have to deal with a crisis at the school.

i think the episode that was meant to be the s3 mid-season return and what they actually aired (because NBC thought it was a "safer" ep for people unfamiliar with the show) were also swapped leading to a few minor inconsistencies if you watched as it aired

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

You're supposed to watch the movie before the series?

No, the pilot is also called Serenity.

 

[Jason Frost]

I don't have an example for an awkwardly placed episodes in a show, but I have an example for an awkwardly timed episode:

The day that Amanda Berry escaped the house where she was held captive to contact the police was the same day that CBS aired an episode of Hawaii Five-0 heavily inspired by the kidnapping of that girl.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

No, the pilot is also called Serenity.

Ohhh

 

[Pluto]

The finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation's second season - Shades of Gray - is literally a clip show from previous episodes. I know it's a biproduct of the writers strike, but holy shit, they didn't even try.

It had nothing to do with the writer's strike, that happened between seasons 1 and 2 and affected the start of season 2. Shades of Gray was done to save money because some previous episodes went over budget.

I guess they couldn't find an in-universe explanation for "nobody liked her"

That wasn't the reason, Diana Muldaur was supposed to become a series regular in season 2 but refused and remained a guest star instead. She was supposed to be back for season 3 but did a movie and would have been unavailable for the season’s first 3 episodes. The producers didn't want to introduce a third cmo in three seasons and Patrick Stewart suggested bringing Gates McFadden back, by that point Maurice Hurley who was the reason for her firing was gone, so there were no problems.
Pulaski disappearing was more circumstantial and not because nobody liked her.

We know from interviews that Diana Muldaur didn't have the best time on TNG, she didn‘t really want to do it in the first place and only agreed as a favor to Roddenberry and the cast resented the way McFadden was treated and Muldaur didn't receive the warmest welcome because of it.
Neither Muldaur nor the rest of the cast probably shed tears when she left but the primary reason was not „nobody liked her“.

 

[Blitzrules240]

Pretty sure Fox aired Arrested Development out of order.

 

[ryseing]

ABC aired Happy Endings out of order. It's why if you watch S1 in the "listed" order, Alex/Dave's relationship seems really weird and incomprehensible. IIRC there's an episode where they have tickets to see Hootie and the Blowfish that was supposed to be the second or third one, and it got moved back to the end of the season because ABC wanted to get past the admittedly not great post breakup stuff.

Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23 is the most egregious example I've seen in recent memory/every. ABC aired six episodes that were made for, but went unaired during, Season 1 at random points in Season 2. That shit was insane and probably one of the reasons the show got canceled.

When it aired with HE, it was the greatest hour of "this stuff is brilliant but we have no idea how to promote it" quite possibly ever.

Eric friggin Andre is in this show.

 

[MGrant]

Master of None Season 2, episode 6 ("New York, I Love You"). It's actually a really great episode that would have fit in just fine in the first half of the season between "Religion" and "First Date," but the fact that it shifts entirely away from the main storyline after the twist at "The Dinner Party" was frustrating for a show that releases its whole season at once.

 

[ScaryShark]

'The National Anthem' is a rough first episode to start Black Mirror off with. I actually really like it, but it can be a tough first impression for people trying out the show.

'Across the Sea' in the final season of Lost should have been the third or fourth episode of that season. Not the third to last.

 

[Duane Cunningham]

Yeah, didn't Clone Wars kinda screw up in the second to last season with Hondo's base already wrecked a few episodes before it actually happened, because they flipped some episodes? I can't really remember the details.

 

[Mulgrok]

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.

That is in chronologically correct order though. It puts into perspective how overpowered he is so the viewer can chuckle at their inevitable smackdown.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Yeah, didn't Clone Wars kinda screw up in the second to last season with Hondo's base already wrecked a few episodes before it actually happened, because they flipped some episodes? I can't really remember the details.

Huh, I totally don't recall that, but you seem to be right. I thought I remembered the series release order and chronological order being 1:1 from around the mid-point of season 3 until the end of the show, but they did indeed set the premiere of season 5 smack dab in the middle of the season. I think it was basically to tease the Maul arc early on though.

 

[OG Shaka Zulu]

Walking Dead season 7 episode 2. Unreasonably killed the momentum of the premiere.

 

[whitemex88]

As far as out of order shows go, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Don't Trust the B--- in Apartment 23 are both pretty bad.

Like, that shit is wacky. Worst part is that they're still out of order if you watch them on Netflix (which I did).

I remember watching season 2 on TV when shit was going on from season 1 l. The Beeks dancing with the Stars thing. It was weird as fuck.

 

[Jennings]

Fringe season 2 episode 11. This is actually an episode filmed at the tail end of season 1, but hadn't been aired. It's notable because the best character of the series had been killed, only to randomly show up in the middle of season 2 for no reason.

 

[Oblivion]

That is in chronologically correct order though. It puts into perspective how overpowered he is so the viewer can chuckle at their inevitable smackdown.

I know it was the right order, I'm just saying it felt inappropriate.

 

[Beren the Empty-Handed]

I enjoyed how we basically got a new villain every 1-2 episodes in the first season.

Yeah, that worked well because the ongoing plot stuff was usually more of an aside, and most longer plots were about 3-4 episodes. It could have also worked in a purely serialized format (seasons 8 and 9 got the closest to this), but they never leaned into that fully, so we got a lot of random stuff that felt tonally out of place. The later seasons suffer from this a lot more than the early ones, imo.

 

[BKatastrophe]

Xander joins the swim team in Buffy. Like what?

Yeah that placement was odd. The episode itself is bad on its own, but the placement is terrible.

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

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

Spoiler

Goddammit

The Body was a whiplash-inducing tone change for Buffy

These are par for the course, however. Complete emotional contment for the hero is not an option, so naturally tragedy must strike swiftly, unstoppably, without mercy

 

[Septimus Prime]

Justice League Action was (is? I don't even know) aired in seemingly random order by Cartoon Network.

Girl Meets World was also awkward in that the actors were going through puberty, so in some episodes they would appear obviously younger than they do in episodes that are supposed to be chronologically earlier. Riley would be like a foot taller or shorter between episodes, and Farkle would just look and sound totally different.

 

[Lupercal]

Am I reading this wrong, or did they air the first episode last? Were they going for the "Air out of order and it all makes sense at the end" thing?

The first 2 parter was to slow for their liking and they wanted something more exciting to hook the audience.

 

[omnislayer]

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.