Serendipity Writes the Plot: Difference between revisions

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== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* Some TV shows do "[[Bottle Episode~~|Bottle Episodes~~]]" due to budget limitations.

* Some TV shows do "[[Bottle Episode]]s" due to budget limitations.

** One episode of ''[[Friends]]'' did one about the NYC blackout because of budget constraints.

*** Not quite. Although it's a fairly low-budget episode (mostly pre-existing sets, and only two additional actors), the blackout gimmick was part of an NYC blackout storyline running through one night of NBC programming. The characters in ''[[Mad About You]]'' knocked out the power, and characters in ''Friends'' and one other show (can't recall which one right now) suffered through it since those shows were all set in New York. The ''[[Seinfeld]]'' folks wouldn't play, though. A better example of this in ''Friends'' would be The One Where No-One's Ready, which, with the exception of the credit sequence, takes place entirely in Monica and Rachel's apartment and features only the main cast. Even the final scene is in a very uncomplicated set with only one additional actor.

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** In the original script of "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S13/E05 The Brain of Morbius|The Brain of Morbius]]", Morbius's new body was cobbled together by his devoted robot servant. But it was the cheap story of the season, so they couldn't afford a robot costume as well as Morbius's body. So it was heavily rewritten to make the robot a human mad scientist (brilliantly played by Philip Madoc, resulting in a classic story).

* While not a technical difficulty, during series 3 of ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', Chris Barrie had complained that between his character on that show and the one in [[The Brittas Empire]], he was suffering from 'git overload' and desperately wanted to play someone heroic and likeable for once. The writers took that desire and turned it [[Up to Eleven]] by creating [[The Ace|Ace Rimmer]].

* Jane Leeves' second pregnancy on ''[[Frasier]]'' came at the perfect time, plot-wise, for Niles and Daphne to have a ~~baby -- in~~ the final season, just ahead of schedule enough for Daphne to give birth {{spoiler|in the finale.}}

* Jane Leeves' second pregnancy on ''[[Frasier]]'' came at the perfect time, plot-wise, for Niles and Daphne to have a baby—in the final season, just ahead of schedule enough for Daphne to give birth {{spoiler|in the finale.}}

* [[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]] originally was going to have a massive fight scene between the FBI and the central antagonist of the first season, a Terminator called Cromartie. When the budget turned out to be too low for it, the writing team got creative. This resulted in a [[Nightmare Fuel|chilling,]] [[Nothing Is Scarier|minimalistic]] sequence where Cromartie slaughters the FBI agents (mostly off-screen) and tosses their bodies into the hotel swimming pool. All while [[Johnny Cash|Johnny Cash's]] [[Crowning Music of Awesome|''When The Man Comes Around'']] plays...

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* As indicated above, multiple disc games often make certain areas inaccessable after certain points in the plot, to save on space on each disc. Each disc usually has some big event occur at the end of the disc that will remove access to certain side areas that are no longer useful to the plot in the next disc. It's annoying if you needed a certain item for a side quest, but allowing the developers to not have to try and fit the entire world and everything in it on the last disc, freeing them up some space for ending cutscenes, boss data, and the very definite final dungeon.

* ''[[Deus Ex]]'': The Unreal Engine would not have been able to handle a fully rendered city with 2000 technology, forcing the creators to [[Hand Wave]] the boxed-in sections in the New York levels with a justification that due to high crime rates, authorities have walled in ghettos and other undesirable areas. In Paris, the boxed-in city is justified with the nation being on lock-down due to terrorist attacks.

** A very eerie example was the lack of the World Trade Center in the New York Skyline. Due to memory limitations, the sections of the skybox including the World Trade Center had to be removed, and the creators justified it saying that they had been destroyed in a terrorist attack before the game started. Keep in the mind that the ''[[Harsher in Hindsight|game came out in 2000.]]'' <ref> It's not ''that'' prescient, mind-- people forget this because 9/11 eclipsed it, but Al Qaeda operatives had already attempted to bring the World Trade Center down in 1993, with a truck bomb.</ref>

** A very eerie example was the lack of the World Trade Center in the New York Skyline. Due to memory limitations, the sections of the skybox including the World Trade Center had to be removed, and the creators justified it saying that they had been destroyed in a terrorist attack before the game started. Keep in the mind that the ''[[Harsher in Hindsight|game came out in 2000.]]'' <ref>It's not ''that'' prescient, mind-- people forget this because 9/11 eclipsed it, but Al Qaeda operatives had already attempted to bring the World Trade Center down in 1993, with a truck bomb.</ref>

** A [[Game Mod]] of the game, ''[[The Nameless Mod]]'', boxes its cities in as well and justifies it with a mention that Forum City is on lockdown due to one of the moderators being kidnapped. The maps are bigger than [[Deus Ex]]'s were, but you can see why the boxed-in method was needed if you "noclip" yourself away from the map and try to view it all at once. It can lag or even crash the game.

* ''[[Deus Ex: Invisible War|Deus Ex Invisible War]]'': The final level at {{spoiler|Liberty Island}} was frozen over and much of it cut off due to the fact that the console version of the game would not be able to handle swimming and larger maps. The map size is true of every level (though isn't as blatant because they are all new otherwise) and such limitations due to console hardware are ''always'' cited as the game's reasons for failing and hatred from the fanbase.