The Outer Limits/Headscratchers
- When circumstances lead the protagonist of "Think Like a Dinosaur" to believe that teleportation is a form of murder, he faces a moral dilemma: defy the aliens and lose the opportunity his family so desperately needs, or obey them and have the death of an innocent human being on his conscience. The problem: the opportunity his family would get is to be teleported. So either i) teleportation is murder, in which case he should tell the aliens where to go stuff their "opportunity"; or ii) teleportation isn't murder, in which case, no harm, no foul. Either way, where is the moral dilemma?
- In "Double Helix" Dr. Nodel has discovered a way to turn on Introns in human DNA. He starts experimenting on himself and then other humans. This eventually leads him to discovering an alien spacecraft. The episode spins this as a positive result of unrestrained scientific enquiry, but until the end, all he seemed to be doing was setting up his own cult with himself as leader.
- The Revival's season finale Clip Shows. Not because of the cheapness or how the plots are paper-thin, but because of the Continuity Snarl and Shoot the Shaggy Dog aspects. Often times, the episodes used for "backstory" have contradictory backstories and/or resolutions of their own, which can kill the suspension of disbelief if you can't forget how the episodes actually turned out. Then there's the fact that every Clip Show episode is a Shoot the Shaggy Dog story for the protagonists if not all of humanity, which turns Earn Your Happy Ending or Bittersweet Ending episodes into more Shoot the Shaggy Dog stories by extension.
- Actually, the clip show episode "Better Luck Next Time" ended with the protagonists winning. Sure, they needed to do a Heroic Sacrifice, but they won.
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