tv shows with poor continuity

[chris12]

What are some examples of shows that had poor continuity in terms of storylines and charachter development? One was Saved By The Bell with them going from Indiana to California with no explanation, storylines being dropped without mention like the Zack/Lisa fling, Jesse's step-brother, the Tori/Kelly and Jesse switch.
Also, Full House was another show with poor continuity, Jesse's last name change, going to a high school class reunion then being revealed as a high school dropout.

 

[Stanislav]

"The Odd Couple" is simultaneously one of the best sitcoms ever, and also has a ton of continuity problems. For instance, I think there are at least three episodes portraying how Oscar and Felix met, all different. Felix is mentioned as taking an uneventful airline flight in one episode, yet later in the series he is deathly afraid of even getting on a plane. And many more like those.

 

[ShawnHill1]

There have been plently of shows (sitcoms especially) with poor continuity, and one that stands out off the top of my head is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air...here's how:

When the show started (1990), Will was 17, presumably a high school junior, as well as Carlton. However, they didn't graduate from high school until season 3 (1993). If they stuck by continuity, they both would have been at least freshmen in college by the start of season 3, instead of season 4 as they were. Also, Ashley's age wasn't consistent until around season 3 or 4. Season 1, she went from 11 to 13 to 12, depending on the storyline.

I think The Cosby Show was the only sitcom I could think of where everyone's ages were consistent, and followed continuity.

 

[LKellerIII]

"When the show started (1990), Will was 17, presumably a high school junior, as well as Carlton. However, they didn't graduate from high school until season 3 (1993). If they stuck by continuity, they both would have been at least freshmen in college by the start of season 3, instead of season 4 as they were."

You're assuming that one season of shows equals a year in Will and Carlton's lives. Remember that MASH ran for 11 seasons on CBS, yet the US involvement in the Korean War lasted only 4 years, and a regular tour of duty for an army draftee was only 2 years. I think we can assume that each season (26 shows) represented only a few weeks in the lives of the characters.

The only problem was how much the long-time actors (Alda, Swit, Burghoff) had aged physically between season 1 and season 11. I believe Burghoff was a carryover from the movie - so by the end of the series, he was still a naive child-like character in a body of a 40 year old. Of course, war is hell...

 

[Stanislav]

You're assuming that one season of shows equals a year in Will and Carlton's lives. Remember that MASH ran for 11 seasons on CBS, yet the US involvement in the Korean War lasted only 4 years, and a regular tour of duty for an army draftee was only 2 years. I think we can assume that each season (26 shows) represented only a few weeks in the lives of the characters.

"M*A*S*H" was replete with continuity bloopers -- Potter was originally from Nebraska, then Missouri -- his horse started out male, then became female, etc. One late-season episode telescopes the events of a full year, from one New Year's to the next in a single episode, yet chronologically it starts when Henry Blake should have still been commanding and in the episode Potter is there the whole time, etc., etc., etc. And, of course, you have the phenomenon of Harry Morgan appearing as a one-shot character, then later returning as a regular, different character -- that happens a lot in TV shows. (On "All in the Family," both Allan Melvin and Vincent Gardenia appeared as minor one-shot characters before becoming regulars.) But that sort of thing happens all the time -- "Barney Miller" was famous for actors showing up 3 or even 4 times as different perps, same thing happens on "Law and Order" where the same actor might be a lawyer in one episode, a suspect in another, etc.

But, really, there are few shows totally free of these sorts of things. I think we have to keep reminding ourselves that this is fiction, and there is a certain suspension of disbelief that must take place to enjoy it. Hell, "Star Trek" and its many sequels have even spawned entire books nitpicking all sorts of goofs including glaring continuity errors -- they are debated endlessly by Trekkers, but they still watch the shows and enjoy them.

This is why I like some of the Cartoon Network shows where they just deliberately throw continuity out the window (kind of thumbing their noses at the nitpickers), like "Sealab 2021" where the facility was destroyed at the end of several episodes, only to be back intact at the beginning of the next, with no explanation. ("Billy and Mandy" does that a lot, too -- how many times was Billy's house wrecked over the course of the series?) And, of course, the king being "South Park" with Kenny being killed again and again. Sometimes, these shows will even refer to these things very tongue-in-cheek ("Wait....but didn't such-and-such happen in a previous episode?"). In live-action, too -- recall Will Smith's very funny reaction when his Aunt was recast, or when one of Roseanne's daughters suddenly reappeared on the show after several years.

 

[Braves2005]

Happy Days seemed to have a continuity problem especially in its first 4 seasons when Richie, Potsie and Ralph stayed 17 for those seasons and when they graduated from high school in the last episode of the 1976-1977 season and they went to college the next season, the ages moved up to 18 and beyond after that. Only Joanie's age seemed to be consistant throughout the years. Fonzie's running away from home age changed several times during the show's run changing from 5 to 13 in some shows.

It extended beyond that with the TV shows they watched too. In a first season episode where they were watched The Untouchables on TV, the episode was set in 1956. The Untouchables didn't premiere as a show until 1959.

 

[bpatrick]

"I Love Lucy": the Ricardos' phone number seemed
to change all the time; also, Lucy once mentioned
that the only song she could play on the saxophone
was "Glow Worm," yet a few years later the only
song she could play was "Sweet Sue."

And I remember an episode of "The Flintstones"
where one of Wilma's old boyfriends shows up,
and he calls her "Wilma Pebble." After that, her
birth name is always "Wilma Slaghoople."

On "The Andy Griffith Show," Barney was mentioned
as Andy's cousin three times in the first season, then
never again. At the beginning (1960), he's been Andy's
deputy for five years, but three years later (1963) he's
marking ten years in the job. Also, Barney's middle name
was referred to as Milton and Oliver, before he finally
became known as Bernard P. Fife.

 

[Braves2005]

On All In The Family, the storyline on how George Jefferson got his cleaning business was first as opening up in 1970 (actual tape date of the episode) and he paid for this out of his settlement for being injured on the job. However, in an 1980 episode of The Jeffersons, the store opened up on the day of Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968 and they were living in a tenament.

Louise Jefferson's father was referred to as having died in an episode from the 1st season of The Jeffersons, but in an 1981 episode, George found Louise's father working at a newsstand in the building where they lived.

Don't forget about the babies on Family Ties and Growing Pains and how they grew up from infancy to 5 years old in one season!

 

[BlueHen]

(1) Dennis The Menace: When Joseph Kearns died, his character George Wilson was replaced by Gale Gordon who played his brother John Wilson. But did they ever explain on the show what happened to George and Mrs Wilson?

(2) Mama's Family: Buzz & Sonya were the kids on the earlier shows, whom I presume were Vinton's. So where did Bubba come from on the later shows? Was he a nephew? If so, whose son was he? Eunice & Ed didn't have any kids on the old Carol Burnett skits. Besides, Bubba seems too normal to belong to Eunice & Ed. And what happened to Buzz & Sonya? If they went off to college, they didn't exactly appear to be college material.

 

[Braves2005]

(2) Mama's Family: Buzz & Sonya were the kids on the earlier shows, whom I presume were Vinton's. So where did Bubba come from on the later shows? Was he a nephew? If so, whose son was he? Eunice & Ed didn't have any kids on the old Carol Burnett skits. Besides, Bubba seems too normal to belong to Eunice & Ed. And what happened to Buzz & Sonya? If they went off to college, they didn't exactly appear to be college material.

Bubba was indeed Eunice and Ed's son. He was mentioned a couple of times in the sketches of The Family on The Carol Burnett Show but was never seen or heard. One memorable sketch was when Eunice, Ed and Mama attended Bubba's school because Bubba was in trouble and Maggie Smith played the teacher.

And about Buzz and Sonya, since Buzz and Sonya being close to one year apart in age with Sonya being the oldest, when the show started I think that Sonya was about 17 and Buzz was 16, so possibly they may have moved back to where their mother lived and attended college.

 

[RicoGregg]

On one episode of Cheers, Frasier's mother is an aging stuffy Boston society dame trying to keep Diane Chambers away from her precious son.

On the Frasier spin-off, his father is a widower, and a gruff, but unstuffy retired Seattle cop. Eh?

Married, With Children was possibly the worst offender when it came to continuity and consistency. There are just too many examples to pick from, but here's one:

In one episode, Al Bundy has been saving money for years to buy a new car. He puts the money in a shoe box (of course) and buries it in his back yard. Great savings plan. Anyway, when the time comes to finally buy the new car, he discovers most of the money gone and squandered by Peg. He has to settle for his old Dodge.

Just a few weeks later, in a Labor Day episode, Al & the family are stuck in an impossible traffic jam on a Chicago expressway - in a brand new Ford Mustang convertable! No explanation for the car is made.

One detail MWC never covered: What was the name Al short for? Allan? Alfred? Alex? And was Bud his son's formal first name? I've known guys named Bud, but it was always a nickname.

 

[WMC2006]

There have been plently of shows (sitcoms especially) with poor continuity, and one that stands out off the top of my head is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air...here's how:

When the show started (1990), Will was 17, presumably a high school junior, as well as Carlton. However, they didn't graduate from high school until season 3 (1993). If they stuck by continuity, they both would have been at least freshmen in college by the start of season 3, instead of season 4 as they were. Also, Ashley's age wasn't consistent until around season 3 or 4. Season 1, she went from 11 to 13 to 12, depending on the storyline.

I think The Cosby Show was the only sitcom I could think of where everyone's ages were consistent, and followed continuity.

Actually, The Cosby Show did have a continuity error from the get-go. The series starts with 4 Huxtable kids (Denise, Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy). I believe even Cliff (Cosby) even asks Claire why they had only 4 children. Later on in the season (or series), college student and child number 5, Sondra, shows up.


And how about continuity problems between spinoff shows??? Knots Landing (Gary and Val) did address the death of Jock Ewing over on Dallas. But they got caught in the middle with Bobby Ewing's death when Bobby came back from the dead (Pam's season long "dream"). There was no way to take back the Knots season like Dallas ignored the previous season.

This is from IMDB.com: Even though Gary got a phone call telling him Bobby was dead, the whole Pam dreaming Bobby was dead/Bobby returning that happened in Dallas was never resolved in the Knots Landing storyline. The producers of Knots Landing chose not to go along with its parent series in order not to confuse viewers, so Bobby Ewing remained dead on Knots Landing, and the series never associated itself with Dallas again.

 

[chris12]

Another one was in a later episode of The Facts Of Life they had a reunion with three of the girls from season 1 visiting and they make it seem like them and Jo had never known each other or met when there were a handful of episodes in seasons 2 and 3 where the three girls made bit appearances and had scenes with and interacted with Jo.

 

[LKellerIII]

One of my big problems with action/adventure shows was car continuity. As a kid, I loved cars, and knew them all by year and model, so this really bothered me.

I remember a TV show about World War 2 that featured at 1955 Chevy sedan as an army staff car. Cop shows were bad, and the anthology show Police Story was the worst. In a car chase, the cop heros would screech around the corner in a black and white Ford Torino. After the cut, they would come out on the next street in Chevy Caprice. Since I knew cars, this would actually confuse me - I'd wonder where the show's main characters had gone, and why the camera had suddenly decided to follow a different cop car. Took me awhile to get used to this.

I guess they used a lot of stock chase footage, and figured all black and white police cruisers would look the same to the viewers.

 

[anotherguyTN]

On the subject of MASH there are some continuity problems between the TV show and the original movie as well:

In the end of the movie Hawkeye goes home and Trapper is still at the 4077th, while it is reversed in the TV show.

The character Duke played by Tom Skerritt in the movie doesn't exist in the TV show.

In the movie Henry Blake talks about his long army career, but in the TV show he is a draftee like the other doctors.

In the movie Hot Lips's last name is O'Houlihan rather than Houlihan like in the TV show.

In the movie and the early TV shows Radar was not the innocent kid he was for the rest of the TV show.

 

[Stanislav]

I think it's too much to expect continuity between a movie and a subsequent TV show based on that movie. Most of the parts are usually recast, different writers and directors, etc. And it's normal to expect some tweaking of the characters and overall focus because now you have more time to develop and flesh out the basic premise. ("M*A*S*H" the movie had 2 hours and some minutes to develop a story -- "M*A*S*H" the TV show pumped out the equivalent of over 100 theatrical films.) You might as well say that there was little "continuity" between "M*A*S*H" the book and "M*A*S*H" the movie. When different musical artists cover a previously released song, we don't expect them to do it the same way -- sure, you expect the lyrics to be the same, and the overall melody, but beyond that there can be a huge difference in how the music is treated. Look at the way an artist like Sinatra took songs that had been done by others and adapted them to his own style to such a degree that it was almost like a brand-new work.

 

[dhett]

Possibly the most apparent continuity gaffe would be to recast a lead character, regardless of what the reasons are.

For a prime example, I give you Bewitched: Dick York / Dick Sargeant in the role of Darrin. What? did they think we wouldn't notice?

 

[Firebird]

And was Bud his son's formal first name? I've known guys named Bud, but it was always a nickname.

Bud was short for Budrick, supposedly named after Al's favorite beer, Budweiswer.

Source: http://www.bundyology.com/

 

[Stanislav]

For a prime example, I give you Bewitched: Dick York / Dick Sargeant in the role of Darrin. What? did they think we wouldn't notice?

Well, what was the alternative? Either cancel the series (ratings too high) or kill off the character (unheard of in those days for a sitcom)? Besides, in either case we would never have had the fun of 40 years' worth of "Which Darrin was better?" arguments! ;D

 

[easttxtv]

Don't forget about the babies on Family Ties and Growing Pains and how they grew up from infancy to 5 years old in one season!

Ah, yes. Another case of SORAS (soap opera rapid-aging syndrome), except on sitcoms.

As for soaps, a whole FORUM couldn't list all the possible continuity issues with them. Generally, though, their problem lies in having had executive producer and/or head writer/associate writer changes. Usually, the next one of those in the door (especially those with no prior association with the show or knowledge of show/storyline history) come in with their own ideas which may clash with what has recently transpired. Whole new families may be written in (where they weren't heard of or mentioned before)--or long-time family members may be back-burnered, which can be quite jarring for viewers. Actors might be canned and replaced with another in the same role (possibly a favorite of the incoming EP/HW), or the character might even be killed off depite their level of popularity with fans. Some characters have been allowed to walk out a door, down a hall, or up a staircase, and not be mentioned again, even in passing. There have been several instances of 'forgetfulness' on the part of shows over the years. One, on Days of Our Lives, involved Bonnie wanting to get pregnant by Mickey (while Mickey's wife Maggie, thought killed by a serial killer, was really kidnapped to a far-off island...don't ask!) ...it was already made QUITE CLEAR in the 70s during a years-long storyline that Mickey was sterile (and not Mike's father--Bill was all along). One of the biggest blunders I've ever seen was a clip I found on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOG09f0-Dwc ) where on Santa Barbara, they changed the actor playing 'Mason' in the middle of the scene! The late Terry Lester started the scene, swung to hit another man and missed, fell to the floor, and got up played by Gordon Thomson! OK, the only clip I could find was in Italian, but you'll get the drift when you see it...