Canon Discontinuity/Live-Action TV

Examples of in  include:


 * Galactica 1980, the Contested Sequel of the original Battlestar Galactica, was long considered mostly noncanonical by fans. When the franchise had its Continuity Reboot in the 2000s, several novels and comics set in the original continuity were released. Those works made it official that the events of Galactica 1980 never happened.
 * George Lucas has publicly said that the The Star Wars Holiday Special does not form part of the Star Wars canon.
 * This is not surprising, as technically, as far as George Lucas is concerned, only the six movies are actually in the official Star Wars canon. Everything else, even if made by Lucasfilm, is subject to being superseded by the movies. On the other hand, he also said he would love to smash every extant copy of said "Holiday Special" with a sledgehammer given half a chance.
 * Greedo shooting first is another example, as Lucas has implied through burying the original theatrical versions in his vaults that the Special Edition second version (he and Han shoot at almost the same time) is now the official version of the event.
 * Many Xena: Warrior Princess fans do not officially consider the two-part "Friend In Need" arc to be the finale, and neither do the writers of the Xena comics. The Dark Xena arc is basically a Fix Fic - constructing a story to undo the finale and other events (such as the death of the Olympian gods).
 * Not only do the comics state that the finale cannot be canon, the show itself makes the events of the final episode dubious at best, since it finished with Xena's soul trapped on Earth as an intangible, invisible ghost. Meanwhile, several episodes throughout the show's run state that Xena and Gabrielle return, reincarnate and generally stick around one way or another forever.
 * One episode of Star Trek: Voyager, "Pathfinder", features the EMH reading-off Lieutenant Barclay's lengthy medical history, including such ailments as transporter psychosis, holo-addiction and hypochondria. At no point does he mention "Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome," the "de-evolutionary" disease from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Genesis", even though it's named after him! Note, though, that this isn't quite the same as saying it never happened.
 * Star Trek: The Animated Series was largely deemed non-canon by Paramount for decades, even though writers referenced events from the show and managed to force select elements (most notably the episode "Yesteryear", which told of Spock's childhood) into canon if only because of their popularity with fans. While the Expanded Universe novels got away with referencing the cartoons, in 1989 Paramount put into its contract with DC Comics that writers could not use or reference the cartoon, much to writer Peter David's horror. Ultimately, to promote the cartoons getting a DVD release, Paramount did a fan poll to decide once and for all the canon status of the cartoon, with fans voting overwhelming to make the company finally acknowledge it as part of the show's official continuity.
 * There is at least one line of dialogue which directly contradicts events of The Animated Series. In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", Dax mentions that Klingon Captain Koloth had always regretted not facing Kirk in battle, even though Kirk and Koloth exchanged fire in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles".
 * This is parodied in Star Trek: The Complete(ly Useless) Encyclopedia, which occasionally takes the tack that the animated series is the canon, and the live-action sections of the Star Trek universe should be judged purely on their accuracy to it.
 * In "Day of Honor", Paris notes that he's never navigated in transwarp before, thus completely disavowing any knowledge of the episode "Threshold", where he did...and he and Janeway were turned into weird sentient amphibians for their troubles.
 * Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation was one of the inspirations for a whole Retcon of the franchise. The producers even reassured fans that Venus de Milo, outside of history books of the series, would never, ever, ever be mentioned again.
 * The disowning is further pronounced in Turtles Forever, where The Next Mutation (as well as other TMNT oddities best left in the depths of obscurity such as Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue and the musical) is missing from 2003 Shredder's slideshow of The Multiverse (and just for kicks, even the ridiculously absurd anime OVA is acknowledged in that same scene). Production-wise, this can be explained away by rights issues, but everyone knows no one wanted to dredge up those continuities again.
 * In Charmed, in the episode "All Hell Breaks Loose", the supernatural is exposed to the general public when the Charmed Ones fight a demon before a news crew, causing a chain of events that ends up in Prue's death. However, the episode "Forget Me... Not", introduces the Cleaners, magical beings tasked with "cleaning" such exposures.
 * However, thanks to time travel, that exposure no longer happened. Maybe that's what the Cleaners intended all along, and the Charmed Ones just didn't see them.
 * Also, in the episode "Morality Bites", the sisters learn that their mission is to protect innocents, not punish the "guilty" and take justice into their own hands. However in the episode "Hyde School Reunion", in order to save Phoebe and Chris, Phoebe and Paige glamour Rick Gittridge, a petty criminal, and deliberately get him killed by a group of demons.
 * Chris comes back from the future in order to keep Paige from dying. And yet, for the entire season he is featured in he refers to future Paige many times as if he knew her, despite not having even been conceived when she "died."
 * The event that would have killed Paige was the Titans, in the first episode where Chris appeared. So one of the first things Chris did was to change that part of his future, and apparently this is an aversion of Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: His memories changed to reflect his new future that includes Paige.
 * it's also possible that Chris was simply lying about Paige's death and just chose to appear during the Titans crisis because it seemed serious enough to be a believable reason for his time travel.
 * NBC has repeatedly ignored the existence of the aborted 1980-81 season of Saturday Night Live. In the season-by-season Best Of series, this was the only one skipped, with "The Best of 1980" containing material from the last episodes featuring the original cast. The 15th and 25th Anniversary specials ignored it, save for clips of its musical guests; and in fact, the 25th Anniversary special's opening titles contained a cast photo from every season EXCEPT that one. (Each photo on the film strip is even labeled with the year - 1979 and 1981 have nothing between them.) Additionally, the late-night 'Classic SNL' reruns that ran for several years only aired a single episode from this season, and due to NBC's coverage of the Pope's death, many areas never saw it.
 * NBC did redeem themselves slightly, however; after the death of Charles Rocket, a clip of one of his Weekend Update jokes was edited into a DVD reissue of the 25th Anniversary special.
 * Game Shows. Yes, game shows. Although rare, there's a few games that have retconned their histories:
 * Wheel of Fortune, despite running five days a week since 1975 with Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford, seems intent on putting forth the deception that it began in 1981 (or 1983) with Pat Sajak and Vanna White. This may be due to Woolery leaving after salary disputed with creator Merv Griffin (he wanted $500,000, Merv offered $400,000). To use the collage at the top of this page as an allegory, the first two images are the Edd Byrnes pilots (taped August 28, 1974), the last image is the show's syndicated run (which began in 1983), and the other two are everything that says anybody else ever participated on the program. The show's official website is the only time this "rule" is broken, and then only once to slap you with a lifetime ban if you've ever been a contestant...which includes the super-cheap children's spinoff Wheel 2000.
 * They also seemed intent to, in Season 28, erase any idea that they taped out of order after Charlie O'Donnell died. He had done another eight weeks, all of which were dubbed over by various substitutes. In Summer 2011, the substitute-announcer episodes were dubbed over by the just-hired Jim Thornton.
 * The Price Is Right has several examples of omitting its history. Long-time host Bob Barker has absolutely refused to allow episodes where fur coats and other products made primarily from animal carcasses were awarded as prizes. More recently, he vetoed episodes featuring ex-model Holly Hallstrom (more than 2,000 episodes from 1977–95) with explanations varying, although Barker and Hallstrom had a hostile relationship at least during the later years. Moreover, when a reporter from USA Today attempted to bring up the best-known models (Hallstrom, Janice Pennington, Dian Parkinson, and Kathleen Bradley), Barker interrupted and demanded the subject be changed, saying that "They're disgusting. I don't even want to talk about them."
 * Barker also refuses to discuss or even acknowledge longtime announcer Rod Roddy; as such, the only true classic star Barker has praise for is announcer Johnny Olson (who died in October 1985 and was replaced by Roddy in February 1986).
 * And don't even ask how Dennis James, who hosted a weekly nighttime version alongside the daytime show for its first five years, falls into this. Most episodes contained furs, but GSN refused to show the remainder and only pulled out a daytime substitution from December 25, 1974 after he died in 1997.
 * The 1980s version of Break The Bank, which aired in syndication. The first 13 weeks (a quizzer where couples earned seconds to be used in silly stunts to earn Bank Cards to possibly break the Bank) were hosted by veteran game show host Gene Rayburn, who got into arguments with the producers because they thought he shouldn't be joking around during their serious and suspenseful show (no, seriously). Rather than do something about it, they fired Gene and brought in Joe Farago; a few weeks later, they dropped the stunts in favor of a $2,000 front-game goal and a Master Puzzle. Only the Farago's tenure was rerun, with no mention of Rayburn or acknowledgement that he had ever hosted in any future airings. (It's unclear how much, if anything, Rayburn had with his shows not being rerun.)
 * For the longest time, the producers of Press Your Luck would not allow either of the two episodes featuring Michael Larson to air in syndication. The only indication that he'd even been on the show was the re-randomization of the board patterns (cued with a slightly higher "spinning" soundtrack).
 * A rare Tokusatsu example in Kamen Rider Decade, whose final episode ended on a cliffhanger and a trailer for a conclusion movie. Said movie would contain absolutely NO footage from that trailer and only a select few of the concepts it implied. Fans were livid, and a group of Japanese parents (akin to the PTA) complained that the last episode was just a half-hour advertisement for the movie, which did nothing to resolve the dangling plot points, making both of them a giant money grab. Only several months later with the Director's Cut version of the movie would we be given only a select few snippets from that trailer added into a dream sequence near the film's start, showing the fans to more or less ignore that trailer. There was also a slightly smaller change within reruns of the last two episodes. Characters were removed from specific shots, stock footage was used, and dialogue was added in order to fit better with how the aforementioned conclusion movie started out.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer mostly ignored the movie it was based off of. The only real references to it are that Buffy was kicked out and the whole Watcher/Slayer relationship. Worth noting is no mention of Pike and only a brief mention/scene of Merrick being her first Watcher (who looks extremely different from Donald Sutherland) in a late Season 2 episode.
 * Technically the series isn't based on the movie, but on the script (written by Joss) the movie was based on.
 * The Big Finish version of The Tomorrow People includes a list of homo superiors who died when their powers first manifested. This turns out to include the characters from the 1990s Revival.
 * After Saban re-acquired Power Rangers, executive producer Johnathan Tzachor made a post on the official message boards saying that he considered every season made by Disney (from Ninja Storm through RPM) non-canon.
 * On a related note, Saban has said that RPM is non-canon until they need to reference it or do a crossover, at which point it will become canon. This is easier to understand than the above, since RPM is an After the End series that implies a cruel fate for at least one past Ranger.
 * When RPM WAS referenced in Power Rangers Samurai, it was explained as being an alternate universe(this is shown by only a villain and the RPM Red Ranger appearing in said series.)
 * This has seemingly been thrown out, since there's word that the 20th anniversary will include a Legend War battle that features every single Power Rangers team, including the Disney ones.
 * The Zat gun on Stargate SG-1 may be an example of this. Early on it was said that "one shot stuns, two shots kill, and three shots disintegrate." They used it a few times until they realized it was just too convenient. This was later self-parodied in "Wormhole X-treme!" with one of the writers saying: "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
 * The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The family goes to see a psychologist, then leaves, then John comes back several times, then Sarah comes back, then Sarah comes back in another episode and the psychologist says that after the first time he never saw them again. All in Season 2.
 * This existed between the Highlander movies and series to the point of Continuity Snarls at times.
 * CSI has a problem with this in multiple shows.
 * In one original series episode, Sara was stated to have a brother. In a season 12 episode, she refers to being an only child.
 * Official info on the CBS character bios was changed and/or ignored. The bios had Catherine being born in Bozemon,Montana (probably recycled and given to NY's Lindsay) and Grissom's father being involved in smuggling.
 * In CSI: NYMac says he used to sit with his wife in the hospital, indicating a likely original intent to have Claire found, then die of her injuries after 9/11. But later, he says she was never found when talking to his stepson, Reed.
 * The famous "Danny was from a family of cops" stuff-the producers retconned by saying 'extended family' but many still don't buy it.
 * Amusingly, there's actually an instance of Actor Discontinuity for Power Rangers. In an interview with Marz Gurl and Linkara, Johnny Yong Bosch said that he figured his character, Adam Park, continued to do good even after losing his Ranger powers, as something of a heroic ninja type. Then the 15th anniversary episode "Once a Ranger" had him make an off-hand reference to running a dojo in Angel Grove, which kind of wrecked the idea. Johnny said he personally prefers to ignore the dojo line and stick with his original idea.


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