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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"I hate bottle episodes. They're wall-to-wall facial expressions and emotional nuance. I might as well sit in the corner with a bucket on my head."''
|'''[[Ambiguous Disorder|Abed]]''', "Cooperative Calligraphy" (the bottle episode), ''[[Community]]''}}
One of the important things to do when planning a series is to consider how the budget should be spent. Rather than spreading it evenly [[Season Fluidity|over the episodes]], most producers allocate more money towards the start, middle and end of the season (and if it's an American production, towards the [[Sweeps]], wherever they may fall).
That way, you can keep the audience's attention by letting big stories (be they huge battle scenes, exciting explosions or just big-name guest stars) flare up every so often, rather than having a run of episodes that are equally flat.
Of course, this means that there's less budget to go around the others. To compensate, the producer will then commission a '
Note that the term has become synonymous with "single-location" episode, even though bottle episodes can (theoretically) have as many locations as a normal episode. All that matters is that it costs less, because the money is having to pass through a "bottleneck". The ''[[Star Trek]]'' cast and crew call this a 'ship-in-a-bottle' episode, which is where the name originated.
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Typically, effects-heavy shows such as ''Trek'' will hold off on the bottle episodes until near the end of a given season, saving the Big Money for mid-season cliffhangers and special guests.
Bottle episodes are known as a challenge and/or a chore, depending on the writer. Since most/all of the episode is set in a single location (sometimes even entirely in one room) with a smaller than usual cast, the dialogue (regarded as one of the harder things to write) needs to be better and tighter than in other episodes since the writer can't really do anything else with the cast. Sometimes, writers create single-location episodes just [[Self-Imposed Challenge|as an exercise to see if they can]], like in the case of one of the first bottle episodes, ''[[Seinfeld]]'''s "The Chinese Restaurant", which actually ended up costing as much as a regular episode due to the expense of the new set. In any case, this generally results in either one of the most boring episodes of a series, or one of the best. In [[
Some plots lend themselves to the nature of a
Almost all [[Clip Show
▲Almost all [[Clip Show|Clip Shows]] (and, by extension, [[Recap Episode|Recap Episodes]]) fit this trope, despite not strictly being an actual Bottle Episode. Not to be confused with [[Drowning My Sorrows]], nor with sending out messages in bottles.
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* The ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' episode "Someday in the Rain" takes this idea and runs with it including a long shot of Yuki reading a book motionless as language lessons and radio programs play in the background. Oddly the budget was clearly substantial and the episode has no connection to the light novels the rest of the anime is based on
== Anime ==▼
▲* The ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' episode "Someday in the Rain" takes this idea and runs with it including a long shot of Yuki reading a book motionless as language lessons and radio programs play in the background. Oddly the budget was clearly substantial and the episode has no connection to the light novels the rest of the anime is based on -- implying that it may have been done either for the hell of it or as a deliberate reference to the typically conservative animation styles in anime.
** Funnily enough, the episode was penned by the original author of the light novels.
** Also of note is that it's chronologically last of first season, meaning it becomes the last episode on DVDs.
* Episode four of ''[[Kamichama Karin]]'' has possibly the most [[Off-Model]] art of the whole series, but the story was actually quite well-written.
* Episode 11-B "Nothing To Room" of ''[[Panty & Stocking with
* In the first season of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', the episode "Pikachu's Goodbye" was thrown together during the hiatus following the seizure incident, and was the first aired when the show returned. To take pressure off the animators, the only Pokemon included were Meowth and Pikachu (the latter in large numbers). The end result was arguably the season's [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]].
* [[Script Fic]] ''[[Calvin and Hobbes:
▲== Fan Fic ==
▲* [[Script Fic]] ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series|Calvin and Hobbes The Series]]'' has "Hypercube", which features about two locations and a handful of characters.
** "Roughin' It" takes it further, only having the title duo and two locations as well.
* ''[[Saved by the Bell]]'' was often made of bottle episodes, especially in the first season where the scenes were shot entirely in the one and only classroom and the hallway immediately outside. Even more common on the single season of Good Morning Miss Bliss as it didn't have the same budget.
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[
* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' uses flashbacks and flashforwards very liberally, but "The Limo" was as a bottle episode. No flashes, and the tale of them hitting up five parties for New Years Eve was told almost entirely from the backseat of a limo (with only a couple shots of street, and one brief phone call to the limo from one of said parties).
* ''[[Star Trek: The
** A perfect example of this is "[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine/Recap/S01
** Subverted with the ''[[Star Trek: The
** ''[[Star Trek II: The
*** A prime example of this is the fact that Kirk and Khan never physically meet in the film; they are always on different ships or planets. This too was done to save money: the two actors had busy schedules and working around them would have been much more expensive. Yet Khan is often cited as the greatest opponent Kirk ever faced, despite the fact that their scenes were filmed months apart from each other.
* Because [[Joss Whedon]] has to take this trope and mix it up with Angst [[Up to 11]], we have the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode 'The Body'. It has only one instance of special effects, one vampire (that's where the SE come from), and takes place almost entirely in a hospital and has no soundtrack. Did we mention it's the most depressing anything of anything ever?
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** Another notable episode was set entirely in the Interview Room
* ''[[Friends]]'' has done this quite a few times.
** More specifically, ''[[Friends]]'' had to do this in the first season where the entire cast had to stay in one apartment, and it was so well received that bottle episodes became a staple of that program.
** Notably, the season 3 episode 'The One Where No One Is Ready' is often lauded as one of the best episodes ever, and it never even leaves Monica and Rachel's main room (except for a short scene during the credits).
** Interestingly, the episodes featuring all six Friends among themselves are consistently the best episodes of the entire series. This fact is why Thanksgiving episodes are typically bottle episodes.
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* The first season finale of ''[[Married... with Children]]'', "Johnny Be Gone", takes place only downstairs at the Bundys', only features the main cast, and is in fact one long scene. This was repeated, albeit with guest stars, in the penultimate episode "The Desperate Half-Hour".
* ''[[Titus]]'' is nothing '''''BUT''''' bottle episodes, though sometimes it's two joined rooms rather than just one room and it does cut away to Titus in the Neutral Space [the black-and-white room in which [[Christopher Titus]] narrates the episodes] explaining a certain situation or giving insight on an event that just happened (often comedically; but sometimes dramatically. In "Tommy's Not Gay," one of the Neutral Space cutaways was about how a Wyoming kid named Matthew Shepard was killed because of his homosexuality, and act one of "The Last Noelle" ended with Titus reading the love letter of his abusive girlfriend who [[Blatant Lies|promised to never beat him up if he stayed with her]]). Other than that, a typical episode of Titus usually has two settings, the five main actors (Christopher Titus {[[Adam Westing|as himself, essentially]]}, Zack Ward {Dave}, David Shatraw {Tommy}, Cynthia Watros {Erin}, and Stacy Keach {Ken Titus}), and maybe some recurring supporting characters (Amy, Titus's sister Shannon, Erin's [[Dysfunctional Family]] {Nora, Merritt, Kim, and Michael}, Juanita {Titus's violent, manic-depressive schizophrenic mom}, and/or Kathy {Ken's bitchy nurse fiancee}) or one-shot characters.
* The [[Britcom]] ''[[Men Behaving Badly]]'' had a bottle episode that took place in a single
* ''[[Mad About You]]'' had a bottle episode ("The Conversation", which was also an example of [[The Oner]]) where the camera didn't
** This was lampshaded in the ending credits, where Paul was watching an unseen show and commenting about what amazing cinematographic skill it took to shoot an entire episode from one camera shot.
* ''[[Spooks]]'' did something very close to one in its second series (The VX one) and it was one of the best of that series.
* ''[[Without a Trace]]'' came close with "Doppelganger".
* ''[[The Dead Zone]]'' had a
* The [[Revival]] of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' has done this [[Once a Season]] since the second series, having to squeeze fourteen episodes into a budget (and shooting schedule) of thirteen. Often the limitation is not in set construction, but in special effects or actors:
** "[[Doctor Who
** "[[Doctor Who
** "[[Doctor Who
** "[[Doctor Who
*** And despite all this, it wasn't a money-saving episode. They had to build that one set to meet a lot of requirements, pay a whole cast for two weeks instead of a few days each, and spend a day on rehearsal, since it had to be performed basically like a play. It's a bottle episode done for its own sake. It's a bit surprising it ever got made.
** "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
** "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
** "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S32
** The specials for Red Nose Day 2011 are set within the TARDIS control room, which is ''also'' within the TARDIS control room. It's a Klein Bottle episode!
** The original series had ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S1
* In ''[[Torchwood]]'' the vast majority of "[[Torchwood/Recap/S1
* Several episodes of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' were either filmed in a small space ("Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" was filmed in a single room with a minimal cast), filmed with a minimal cast (the [[Pilot Episode]] had Earl Holliman walking around a deserted town asking "[[Title Drop|Where Is Everybody?]]" for nearly the entire duration), or filmed only with two people (in "Two", Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery are the only two soldiers at war after [[World War III]] has vaporized everyone else). "The Last Night of a Jockey" takes all honours, however - set entirely in one room, with a cast of ''one'' (Mickey Rooney).
* ''[[The 4400]]'' had an episode that took place entirely inside NTAC HQ.
* Two original ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' episodes were written specifically to be produced cheaply. "Controlled Experiment" was made at a time when the first season's production budget was going out of control, and "The Probe" was written and filmed ''after'' the series was
* ''[[The Goodies]]'' used this a few times, two notable examples being "The End", where the Goodies' office was sealed in a block of concrete, and "Earthanasia", which took place in real time on Christmas Eve {{spoiler|with the world being destroyed at midnight}}. These episodes usually came at the end of a series, after the entire budget for location filming, special effects and guest stars had been exhausted.
* ''[[CSI]]'' had the lighthearted [[Lower Deck Episode|Lower Deck]]/
* ''[[Eastenders]]''' two-hander episodes (and it's ''one-hander'' episode) are usually this to a T - originally designed as casting timesavers much like ''[[Doctor Who]]'' mentioned above, they've since become revered in their own right - although the show uses them sparingly to prevent overkill.
* ''[[Farscape]]'''s "Crackers Don't Matter" is light on effects, takes place wholly on the ship, and has only one weird alien guest
* The episode "Unfinished Business" of the new ''[[Battlestar Galactica
** Another episode of the reimagined ''
** Not to mention the fact that a ''lot'' of the action happens in the eponymous battlestar, especially the CIC. Ron Moore mentioned at one point that it was a shame that they could not have shot more scenes aboard the civilian ships in the fleet.
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' and ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' both have their fair share of episodes taking place almost entirely within the SGC or Atlantis, respectively. Including, for each series, the second ever episode.
** They even reference each other a bit: One SG-1 episode was called "Grace" and most of the episode was Carter, alone, on the starship, 'hallucinating' a little girl named Grace, as well as some of the other members of SG-1 and her father, with those hallucinations bidding her to deal with her [[UST]]. For Atlantis they had Rodney stuck in a jumper under the ocean. The name of the episode was "Grace Under Pressure", which was a rather clever pun - the episode was essentially "Grace" under pressure. In this episode Rodney hallucinates ''Carter'', who not only helps him cope with his situation but advises him on his relations with the rest of the Atlantis expedition.
* During the second season of ''[[The West Wing]]'', [[Aaron Sorkin]] was told that money was tight, and to make up for budget overruns, he'd have to write an episode with "no guest cast, no locations, no new sets, no extras and no film. In other words, [he] got to write a play." The resulting episode, "17 People," is probably one of his best.
* ''[[Eureka]]'' episodes "H.O.U.S.E. Rules" (automated house S.A.R.A.H. locks the cast inside) and "A Night In Global Dynamics" (self-explanatory).
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{{quote|'''Clarkson''': It works well here, but what about upside down?
(Cut to establishing shot of the Sydney Opera House.) }}
* ''[[Homicide: Life
** Both of these episodes are substantially more [[Truth in Television]], however, as they depict, in fairly realistic terms, events from the non-fiction book of the same name that inspired the show. Not that it didn't also help to save money.
** Perhaps in a nod to the aforementioned ''Homicide'', ''The Shield'' had, in its fourth season, an entire episode set in the Farmington police headquarters' interrogation room, where Vic Mackey and Monica Rawlings spend 42 minutes grilling a suspect. Notably, the episode was an extended 90 minute (with commercials) episode as opposed to the usual 60 minute (again, with commercials) episodes.
* An episode of ''[[Bottom]]'' took place solely on top of a
* A episode of ''[[Hancock's Half Hour]]'', 'The Bedsitter', was not only just set on the one set (Tony Hancock's bedsit flat) but also featured no other actors other than Tony Hancock himself. The plot, such as it was, just featured Hancock trying to amuse himself for 20 minutes. It was justly acclaimed as one of the funniest episodes he'd done.
* Many episodes of ''[[The Sandbaggers]]'' come close to this - the majority of each plot unfolds in the offices of SIS, with the occasional exterior shot set in London or a [[California Doubling|stand-in for an Eastern Bloc country]].
* ''[[One Foot in the Grave]]'' episode "The Beast in the Cage" is set entirely in a car stuck in a traffic jam.
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* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' has (almost) always handled its bottle episodes brilliantly. Examples include "Marooned", "The Last Day", "Quarantine", and "Out of Time", all of which are widely considered among the show's finest.
** Though there's also Duct Soup, which frequently tops worst episode polls.
* Episode 4 of ''[[Psychoville]]'' features only David and his mother attempting to avoid getting caught by a police inspector in a flat in Hammersmith, London. It's an homage to [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[Rope]]'' (with nods to ''[[Psycho]]'' and ''[[Frenzy]]'') and mostly consists of two long continuous shots joined by a concealed edit.
* The ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|
** "O.R." was shot entirely in the operating room. And since the [[Laugh Track]] wasn't used for any shot taking place in the O.R., this is the first ''M*A*S*H'' episode to omit the laugh track completely (although when ''M*A*S*H'' was shown in Britain initially the ''series'' omitted the laugh track - this is not the case nowadays).
** "A Night at Rosie's" takes place entirely at [[Local Hangout|Rosie's Bar]].
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* The ''[[Leverage]]'' episode "[[Lampshade Hanging|The Bottle Job]]" takes place almost entirely within the pub Nate lives over.
** The episode title has [[Fridge Brilliance|a double meaning]], as this is also the episode where Nate starts drinking again.
** Triple meaning, even. Team Leverage has to squeeze a con that normally takes the better part of a month to pull off into about an hour and a
* The ''[[Porridge]]'' episode ''A Night In'' takes this concept to an
* Subversion: The ''[[Seinfeld]]'' episode "The Chinese Restaurant" took place entirely in...a Chinese Restaurant, in which the characters do nothing but hang around bitching about not being able to get a table and worrying about offscreen issues. The concept of an episode like that was so grounbreaking at the time that the network executives couldn't understand it, thinking that the only explanation was that production ran out of money. This wasn't the
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' had an episode (Intersections In Real Time, Season 4) where the main character (Sheridan) was in a cell, being psychologically tortured to make him break. It is widely regarded as the most emotionally-charged (and NOT in a good way) episode of all the series.
** It is also notable in having been done with one continuous take for each act of the show, and having only one main character (Sheridan) speak. The only other main character who appears is Delenn, who appears only as a non-speaking hallucination.
* ''[[Breaking Bad]]'' had a fantastic episode- with only Walt and Jesse appearing- set almost entirely in one room - {{spoiler|the lab}} - which saw Jesse and Walt chasing a fly for the full forty-something minutes. Better than it sounds thanks to the extraordinary levels of tension present throughout, coming to a peak when Jesse is balanced precariously at the top of a ladder while at least three potentially relationship-destroying secrets are on the brink of being revealed during the course of an absolute [[Tear Jerker]] of a monologue by Walt.
** To a lesser extent "...And the Bag's in the River" in season 1 which takes place mostly in Jesse's house and "4 Days Out" which mostly takes place in an RV in the desert with Walt and Jesse stranded but is sort of a subversion as far as cost lowering goes as it was intended to take place entirely in the RV but the plot endeded up requiring more and more scenes outside and ended up becoming one of the season's most expensive episodes.
* The season six Christmas episode of ''[[The X-Files]]'' was this; the other episodes were getting so expensive that Fox was getting antsy. Therefore, "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" takes place almost entirely in one room and has only four cast members.
* The aptly titled ''[[Regenesis]]'' episode "Unbottled". The lab is deserted except for the main cast and the terrorists holding them captive, and the protagonists spend most of the episode locked in a storage room.
* In the ''[[Adam-12]]'' episode "Light Duty", the whole episode takes place entirely inside the police station, as Malloy (sporting an injured wrist) and Reed man the front desk and listen to the day's action through the radio while dealing with assorted people who come in for assistance.
* The ''[[Dragnet]]'' episode "B.O.D.-DR-27" also had Friday and Gannon manning the front desk.
* ''[[Community]]'' has a lot. The most notable being the episode "Cooperative Calligraphy", which takes place entirely in the study room that the main characters meet for their study group. Abed and Jeff even refer to the "Bottle Episode" concept by name. (It's also the only one actually referred to as being "The
** Also, the second season episode "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" took place almost entirely in the study room with the group playing D&D. Like, dice-rolls-and-described-actions D&D, not elaborate-dream-sequence D&D.
** And Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts, the entire episode was shot in the anthropology room, due to the two/three expensive episodes it was between.
** Season 3 has "Remedial Chaos Theory" which takes place entirely in Troy and Abed's apartment (save for one scene in the study room at the end) that involves Jeff rolling a dice to decide who has to go downstairs to let the pizza delivery man in the building and each way that it lands creates an alternate timeline.
** Stunningly [[Inverted Trope|inverted]] (and quite possibly the only example to date) in the season two episode [[Community/Recap/S2
* "The Suitcase" from ''[[Mad Men]]'', in which Don and Peggy spend a whole night trying to come up with an idea for a suitcase commercial. It was pretty much immediately hailed as one of the show's best single episodes.
* "Pixelspix" and "[[LazyTown]]'s Greatest Hits" are two examples from ''[[LazyTown]]''.
* "Just Act Normal", episode 5 of series 2 of ''[[Miranda]]'', is set entirely in a psychiatrist's office.
* In ''[[The Monkees]]'', "Monkee Mother" and "A Coffin Too Frequent" both take place entirely in the Monkees' apartment. There's also the episode "Fairy Tale", which takes place on a minimalist cardboard set.
* The Season 6 episode of ''[[Bones]]'' "Blackout in the Blizzard" has an abridged cast of the main characters; 2 of which spend the majority episode stuck in an elevator with a 3rd overlooking. The remaining 4 characters in the episode solve the entire crime in the standard "Jeffersonian" set...in the dark.
* In one of the few childrens' show examples, season 1 ''[[Victorious]]'' episode "Wifi in the Sky" takes place entirely on an
* While ranging quite a bit through various Seattle locales, episode #11 "The Missing" from ''[[The Killing]]'''s first season strikes many as being a bottle episode in spirit. It features only the two main characters, with generous helpings of heretofore basically absent character development. While some dismissed the episode for venting whatever narrative urgency the main murder plotline still had going, others were grateful for a reprieve from those most frustrating elements of the show.
* The classic sitcom ''[[Barney Miller]]'' was nothing BUT bottle episodes. Every episode took place in the same squad office at the police station, which consisted of three small rooms: the main office, the holding cell, and Barney's office. That's it. Characters would come and go, but their interactions with the world outside the office were almost always implied and not shown. About once a year they would do an episode where characters actually went outside, but after a few seasons, even this was dropped. The show was never a big ratings hit but managed to last eight seasons because it was incredibly inexpensive to make.
** [[Word of God]] says that the whole philosophy behind ''[[Barney Miller]]'' was to make a show that resembled a classic stage play. The economic benefits were just a happy side effect.
* Most episodes of the Mexican sitcom ''[[El Chavo
* The [[Britcom]] ''[[Dinnerladies]]''. ''Every'' episode took place entirely on a single set. (The only time a character appeared elsewhere was in two short inserts of film (one a home video, one an in-universe TV show) that the other characters were watching)
* The eighth season of ''[[Scrubs]]'' had to bring down its budget, in part by setting most of its 18 episodes in the hospital, and giving each cast member (including the main character, Zach Braff's J.D.) at least two episodes off. Thus, a lot of the episodes come off a little bottle-y, but a few episodes especially so. "My Full Moon", for example, only features cast members Sarah Chalke & Donald Faison, as well as a few recurring characters, and takes place over one night on one floor of the hospital.
* ''[[Police, Camera, Action!]]'':
** ''The Liver Run'', which was a [[Very Special Episode]] featuring the Metropolitan Police, Eli Kernkraut, Aliza Hillel - filmed in one room, and entirely footage-based (apart from interviews with officers).
** ''Helicops'' (1995 episode) - only filmed at a police airfield in London and around Surrey, but nowhere else.
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* ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' has the episode "Seven Seconds", which took place within the same shopping mall almost the entire time.
* ''[[12 Angry Men]]'' is an excellent example. About 95% of the movie takes place in the discussion room where the jury is sequestered, with the story taking place over a couple of hours of one day.
== [[Radio]] ==
* Episodes of ''[[Cabin Pressure]]'' usually ''feel'' like this- probably because [[Episode on a Plane]] is of course inevitable (in fact all episodes have some time on a plane) but the only true example so far is 'Limmerick', at the end of series 2.
* The ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'' radio drama "The Abergavenny Murder" takes place entirely in the Baker Street study, as Holmes and Watson attempt to determine the story behind an unknown man who [[Almost-Dead Guy|staggered in, pronounced a dramatic sentence, and promptly died]].
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Sequels made with [[Mission Pack Sequel|as many reused assets as possible]] are common. The quality can fall everywhere from "cheap cash in" to "classic" as the feedback and extra experience/time have allowed the developers to fix all the original's flaws.
* The live action opening cutscene for ''[[The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall]]'' was made into a secret meeting at midnight, lit only by a single torch that is dramatically extinguished at the end, to avoid creating ''any'' set for the opening. This allowed the developers to stretch the cutscene's low budget by creating only a throne, simple torch, a metal bin full of sand and costumes, none of which needed exceptional detail.
* ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Dark Forces]] II: Jedi Knight'', similar to the above, ''has no physical backgrounds'' (in 1997!) for its live action cutscenes, with all the backgrounds being still photos or prerendered CGI [[Chroma Key]]ed in. They actually hold up fairly well thanks to using heavy darkness to obscure the backgrounds and CGI characters and compensating for the lack of depth with overhead lights characters walk in and out of.
== [[
* ''[[Echo Chamber]]'', the [[TV Tropes]]
* Staycations, vacations that take place withing driving distance of home, are done for much the same reasons, and can have the same benefits/drawbacks. ▼
* ''[[
▲* ''[[Echo Chamber]]'', the [[TV Tropes]] webseries, had [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmB1u1C-cSs an episode] on [[Walk and Talk]] which was substantially shorter and simpler than a normal episode. Tropers were divided on whether its [[Brevity Is Wit|brevity]] was an asset or a liability, compared to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV_W6uMfrv0 the previous episode].
▲* ''[[Kate Modern]]'' tended to follow a schedule of one episode every weekday, with Bottle Episodes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and a more special effects-heavy episode on Friday. This was sometimes subverted, either by having the bigger budget episode earlier in the week or by showing an additional, often more dramatic episode at the weekend.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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* The ''[[Invader Zim]]'' episode "Zim Eats Waffles", with the exception of the first minute and about twenty seconds at the end, consisted entirely of two camera angles. May have been due to a relatively large portion of the budget allocated to the second season finale (which was never made due to [[Executive Meddling|the series being canceled]]), although that remains unclear.
** The commentary actually states that this was the writer's intention.
* The ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' DVD commentary says that "Rubber Nipple Salesmen" was a
* ''[[SpongeBob]]'''s "Gary Takes A Bath". 8-minute season 2 finale with one voice actor and only three characters. Mr. Krabs doesn't even talk.
* The ''[[Sealab 2021]]'' episode "Fusebox" consists almost entirely of one exterior shot of Sealab while the power is out.
* According to [[Word of God]], ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'' episode "Tag Sale...You're It!" was ''meant'' to be one of these by keeping the action on the Venture compound. Then the plot of the episode called for [[Loads and Loads of Characters|Loads and Loads of Background Characters]], and the amount of work for the animators didn't really diminish.
* The 150th ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "Brian & Stewie", which is about Brian and Stewie getting locked into a bank vault.
** It was <s>more</s> even less than that; the entire episode was free of FG's normal cutaway gags and recurring characters. The whole thing is ''literally'', nothing but Brian and Stewie. There isn't even any ''music''. And it was an extended 40-minute (28 without commercials) episode too!
*** Brian and Stewie are both voiced by series creator [[Seth MacFarlane]], so it's basically MacFarlane [[Talking to Himself]]
*** And it was [[Tear Jerker|pretty]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|good]] [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|too.]]
* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'' has "[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1
* ''[[Adventure Time]]'' has several, with the most notable being "Marceline's Closet", where Finn and Jake spend 90% of the episode [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|trapped in Marceline's closet.]]
** "Still" is also one, as evident by the fact that Finn and Jake are frozen the entire episode. One of the workers on the show even ''called'' it a Bottle Episode.
* ''[[The Fairly
== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* Staycations, vacations that take place withing driving distance of home, are done for much the same reasons, and can have the same benefits/drawbacks.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Script Speak]]
[[Category:Show Business]]
[[Category:
▲[[Category:Bottle Episode]]
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