Bizarro Episode: Difference between revisions

When the finale of a series is this, it's a [[Gainax Ending]].

 

 

'''NOTICE:''' Please do not use Musicals as examples, as the numbers are part of the show and are rarely anymore out of the ordinary than conversation within context. If it's a musical with absolutely no cohesive [[Plot]], ''then'' you have a [[Big Lipped Alligator Movie|Bizarro Movie]]. However, a particular song may qualify as a BLAM, such as the [[Trope Namer]]; in that case, put it under [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment]].

* Episode 13 of ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'', "The Call of Dagomon" (a.k.a. the "Dark Ocean" episode). A tribute to [[HP Lovecraft]] written by [[Chiaki Konaka]] that was occasionally referenced, but never fully explained.

* The "Cowbell" and "Nanami's Egg" episodes of ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'' feel like this compared to the rest of the series, and trust us, that's saying something.

** However, because this is ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]'', even these episodes contain themes and ideas that help to explain the rest of the series. Not that you're likely to notice the first time in the middle of the giant WTF it induces.

* ''[[Bleach]]'''s 10th year anniversary episode (ep. 287 to be exact), where Ichigo, Chad, Orihime, Rukia and Renji are in a parody of ''[[Arabian Nights (Literature)|Arabian Nights]]''/ContinuityCavalcade of the Soul society arc. However, it was [[All Just a Dream]]. Indeed, but Isane was the one who had the dream, not Ichigo.

* ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Anime)|GurrenLagann]]'' has its Blammer with episode four: The heroes don't seem to have anything better to do than trying to get some food, Kamina almost kills Simon "to make him more manly", there is a lot of lecturing on how to combine as brotherly as possible and the animation suddenly drops in quality. The only thing relevant to the plot is Kittan and his sisters being introduced, wearing psychedelic costumes while riding cows backwards. The consumption of Boota's tail is instrumental in defeating this episode's enemy mecha, which is piloted by a bunch of pink puffballs.

** Supposedly episode 4 was made as a jab at other anime that decrease in overall quality after the first few episodes, but it was still effed up.

** {{spoiler|The Gastly was also the old woman, actually working off of an existing legend of [[I Will Wait for You|a girl who stood watching at a cliff waiting for her lover to return from a voyage]]. [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|And also to make some money on the side,]] [[Voodoo Shark|but that's never really adequately explained either]]}}.

** The one involving [[Time Travel]]! Brock, May, and Max lose Ash in the woods. Ash meets a cloaked woman in the middle of the woods who is singing a little song about Baltoy and treasure. She has an old book, but Ash doesn't pay it or her much attention at the time. Later, he meets a much younger girl who's searching for a treasure with (you guessed it) her Baltoy. She tells Ash she's searching for a treasure hidden somewhere in the woods, and opens a little book that talks about the treasure. It has a little song in it, which she starts singing. Ash interrupts and starts singing the rest, recognizing the song is the same one the woman was singing. The girl is surprised since the book only just came out. Ash explains about the woman and they eventually find her battling Team Rocket. They win and she takes them to a cave, where they fall down a hole in the floor, leading to a tunnel. As they reach the end of the tunnel, the woman takes off her cloak's hood, revealing herself to be an older version of the girl. She then explains that the giant stone tablet thing at the end of the cave is a time machine activated by a Baltoy. Then she goes back to the future. Then the girl leaves and Ash meets back up with his friends. AND ASH NEVER SAYS ANYTHING ABOUT THE TIME MACHINE!!!

** A later episode had Pearl in the theater quipping with the bots while Mike hung out with Observer and Bobo on the planet below.

* The B-plot of the ''[[How I Met Your Mother (TV)|How I Met Your Mother]]'' episode "The Mermaid Theory", in which Future!Ted's usually impressive memory breaks down while telling his kids about a fight Lily and Barney once had, and he starts describing things that make no sense, like a motorcycle roaring through McLarens, Barney magically levitating a beer bottle, or Barney and Lily switching personalities; then going "Wait, wait, that's not right" and starting the whole story over again. This causes an unusually high degree of [[Medium Awareness]] on the parts of "Barney" and "Lily", who are shown referring to the topic of their fight in-dialogue as "something" ("I'm still mad at you because of something!") because Ted can't remember what they were upset about, and at one point they wind up suspended in limbo, casting glares at the screen and checking their watches impatiently while Future!Ted mutters "um...hang on...let me see..." to himself.

** Black Market has a third point of relevance: it's the episode where {{spoiler|Baltar decides to run for President when Roslin realizes he could be a thorn in her side and tries to convince him to resign}}. Obviously though, the scene where this happens has ''nothing'' to do with the plot of the episode.

** "The Woman King" came along one season later and stole "Black Market"'s crown. This episode involves a [[Villain With Good Publicity|well-beloved but insanely racist doctor]] who sets about killing citizens of the "poorer" Colonies under the guise of a free clinic he's operating right on ''Galactica''. Helo's tasked by a woman ([[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|named King]]) to put a stop to the [[Mad Doctor]] and avenge her son (who the doc allegedly killed). Helo spends much of the episode on a [[Cassandra Truth]] wild goose chase because no one believes him, what with the better half of the cast coming down with a sudden case of 24-hour [[Fantastic Racism]] Disease. Everyone acts [[Out of Character]], the episode just goes in circles, and everyone forgets it even happened by the next episode.

*** It doesn't help that the episode is one of the few remnants of a subplot about the Saggitarons on New Caprica that was soon abandoned (the only other really noticable one is Baltar's mysterious whisper that causes Gaeta to try to kill him, which was eventually repurposed towards another subplot in a webisode series), and scenes in earlier episodes that would have helped explain everyone's refusal to believe Helo were all cut.

** J Michael Straczynski has offered to personally apologise to every fan who complains directly to him about the episode, citing it as the bastard offspring of an unholy trinity of Author Brianfart, [[Executive Meddling]], and Ran Out Of Time & Money.

** However, despite half the episode being ridiculous and brain haemorrhage-inducing, the B-[[Plot]] is incredibly important to the [[Myth Arc]]: {{spoiler|Delenn becomes the Entil'zha, while Neroon realises that he'll never win the allegiance of the Rangers like Delenn has, leading to the start of his [[Heel Face Turn]]}}.

** Oh, and 30th anniversary charity special "Dimensions in Time".

* The ''[[Honey I Shrunk the Kids (TV)|Honey I Shrunk the Kids]]'' episode "Honey, I'm Spooked". It involves the spirit of a pint-sized clown showing up and weird things happening to the Szalinskis, such as turning Nick into a ficus and Diane regressing into childhood.

* The ''[[Two Pints of Lager and A Packet of Crisps]]'' episode "When Janet Killed Jonny" is one of these. It is an episode set outside of the main continuity, and is a "horror special", featuring many parodies of the horror genre (although it does contain many moments of [[Nightmare Fuel]], in a [[Mood Whiplash|deviation from the show's usual formula]]). The episode features the cast breaking into the deserted Archer pub to drink the leftover beer, only to fall victim to the previously unmentioned "pub curse", which causes them to be "killed by the thing they love the most". As a result, the entire cast is killed off in an assortment of highly gruesome ways, only to later return as zombies.

*** Actually, it was intended to be the hook for the major villains of the series. The thing was, it created too much paranoia that they wanted to avoid, so they changed the concept over to the Borg. Kept the insect theme, what with the drones and hive mind, and they kept the "they take you over" thing with [[You Will Be Assimilated|assimilation]], but made it quite obvious that these were the bad guys, while the people in uniform are the good guys.

** ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation (TV)|TNG]]'' has a number of oddball episodes that qualify for this, most notably some of the truly god-awful episodes of the final season. After all, we got such lovely inexplicable plots as [[The Medic|Beverly's]] inherited ghost lover and everyone on the ''[[Cool Starship|Enterprise]]'' "devolving" into things [[You Fail Biology Forever|that make absolutely no fucking sense]].

** Want proof? In a later ''[[Star Trek Voyager (TV)|Voyager]]'' episode, Tom Paris says that he has ''never'' travelled in transwarp. '''Never'''.

* ''[[Star Trek Deep Space Nine (TV)|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' went off the rails a few times late in the series, producing such [[BLAM Episode|BLAM episodes]] as the holodeck baseball game and the ''[[Oceans Eleven]]'' knockoff where the main cast ignored their duty in favor of pulling off a heist to save the holodeck lounge singer from a gangster. (No, it '''''doesn't''''' make sense in context.)

* Episode 200 of ''[[Stargate SG 1]]'', which [[Word of God]] states is out of continuity.

** "[[Groundhog Day Loop|Window of Opportunity]]" also counts. Golfing through the Stargate, resigning to kiss someone of a lower rank, ''cycling through the tunnels of the base with a bicycle bell''...

** The season 4 finale, "Restless", starts like this. Eventually what's going on is clarified, as well as the fact that it contains large amounts of [[Foreshadowing]].

** "Superstar". Season 4, ep 17.

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