Ballsiest game-changers in TV. - Page 2

Lem's Death in the Shield really REALLY kicked it up several notches. Up until then, the entire show was basically about the Strike Team getting, somehow, out of their mess more or less scarred but intact. Killing Lem, for me, was a big sign that fate was finally catching up, and it was downhill from there.

In BSG, Season 3, killing off Starbuck (even though she came back, they really really played it straight for a few seasons) was ballsy. I mean, at that point she wasnt QUITE the primary character that she used to be in Season 1 and parts of 2 anymore, but it was still close. And since BSG has been rather rough on the main crew a few times, killing off quite a few semi-important characters and a load of smaller ones, I bought it

And while its well-known history, I thought that the murder of Caesar in "Rome" drastically changed the entire dynamic of the show, especially since Caesar was (as most of the characters in Rome, actually) a very interesting character, the actor was great, and he carried a lot of the plot so far. So its not ballsy, but its certainly a game changer.

It's not the destination that matters with The Wire. It's the journey.

The very last moment of the TV show Roseanne. By the way, Dan's heart attack killed him, we didn't win the lottery, and the past couple of seasons were visions of the stuff Roseanne wrote to cope.

The TV show itself was a real game-changer for sitcoms, as far as dealing with white families go. Mom wasn't sexy, Dad wasn't dumb or lazy, the daughters weren't hot jailbait, and they were poor. I can't really remember any specific episodes, but there were some I can't believe made it to air.

I get that. I'm not sure I 100 percent agree with it but I get it.

Introducing Angels into "Supernatural" was a pretty big fucking game-changer.

The entire BSG season 3 finale. Mostly, the discovery of who the final 5 were.

Bewitched. Dick Sergeant replaces Dick York. Same character. GAME CHANGED!

No, because while it was a "game-changer" in terms of how the show was percieved, and the effects of that episode were felt by Bayliss and Pembleton all the way to the tv-movie finale, it's more of an episode that defines a character/s actions thn anything. The JMJ storyline from season three was more of a "game changer" for Pembelton pre-stroke, too.

Does 'Breaking Bad' qualify?

(anybody reading this thread should be aware of spoilers, but since the series is so new: WARNING)


Having Walter's cancer cured halfway the season definitely and completely turned around his motivation for living the dealer life.

The only reason I brought it up was that it changed the dynamic of the cop show. I don't think there ever had been such an episode depicted on tv where the cops just failed to get a confession.

But you're more than likely right because it didn't change the set up of the show.

That's not a game changer, just a game ender and a horrible one at that (of course those final few seasons were brutal).

Lost was cool enough for the first few episodes, with its weird "monster" that you never saw but would chase people through the jungle and kill the pilot, and the fact that so many people survived this plane crash. An awesome game changing moment for me was when they hear the crazy broadcast in French from the French woman about "help me" and "it killed them all, etc." and the fact that the broadcast is coming from the island, and the fact that it has been repeating for 16 years. This followed by Charlie's famous, "Guys... where are we?" which was played over and over in the "previously on Lost" intros to the show for a lot of the first season.


But the one moment that really REALLY hooked me and made me sit up and say to myself that the show was really something special was the moment at the end of episode 4, "Walkabout" where it's revealed that John Locke was paralyzed before he got on the plane. Things got weirder and weirder and even more awesome after that.

Also, the episode where the hatch is first revealed got a big "what the fuuuuuuck!!" out of me.

Ah, and of course the Raft finale and "We're gonna have to take the boy". Definitely a game changer.

*edit*

More Lost: I think the discovery of the "Orientation" film was a pretty damn big game changer. Think about how much mythology that film introduced into the show.

Not necessarily game changers at all. At that point (and perhaps still to this day) we weren't aware of what the game actually was on Lost.

True. But I think that a lot of these and other twists on that show totally alter your perception of what's going on. Can't that be considered "game changing"?

in a show all about game changers, this was the granddaddy of them all.

This.

Cast changes in the later seasons of a show are normal. But I don't recall when it actually rejuvenated said series like The Practice.

Uh....you mean that moment that came halfway through the pilot? Yeah, real game changer there.

I guess I am reaching with that, but hell we got Vic Mackey's actions in the first episode up in here.

I thought the broadcast was at the end of the second part of the pilot episode, am I mistaken?

I'll cut a bit of slack on the Shield one, since having the hero do something so heinous really was shocking at the time, and "game changing" in terms of the genre, if not the show itself (where it was more setting up the game than changing it). It was a game changer for all the people who, rather understandably, spent the preceding hour thinking they were watching LAPD Blue.

But Lost? It was set up as a sci-fi/mystery show from the start, and the stuff in the pilot, while cool, was really just delivering on the promise of the premise. They did prove adept at shifting the focus and "rules" of the show later on, however. The reveal of the hatch/button, the introduction of the Tail survivors, "Flashes Before Your Eyes", "The Man Behind The Curtain", and, of course, the whopper of the S3 finale would all qualify, imo.

It was in the final season and the beginning of the end, but I thought the good guys on Angel working at Wolfram and Hart was pretty game changing in season 5.

Sinclair being replaced by Sheridan In the last episode of Babylon 5 S1 / First episode of S2

I'll agree with the DS9 one, and this last episode of Mad Men.

As a animation nerd I'd add the introduction of Cadmus on Justice League changed the whole feel of that show, and though they ended up where we thought they would, the Day of Black Sun episode of Avatar throw a pretty good wrench in the mix for a kid's show.

The real game-changers are on crappy shows, like when they changed families on Charles In Charge and wisked on Nicole Eggert, or the whole Valerie Harper debacle when she bolted from her own show. But no one wants to reminisce about those turds. "Remember when that sucky show was retooled to suck in a whole new way?"

To bring it to something more our speed, the flash forward reveal in LOST's S3 finale, Through the Looking Glass, felt like a game changer because the way they structured the stories fundamentally changed and it began the reveal of the true time-travel nature of the show. To a slightly lesser extent, the BSG 1-year jump was a game changer.

Seinfeld really came into its own when they stopped making the main characters put-upon by society but rather the ones who were insufferable.

I agree. I actually saw the episode "The Jem'Hadar" not all that long ago and I'd forgotten how huge it was when they first appeared. That was probably the first time a Galaxy-class ship, which was then kind of the flagship of the franchise was destroyed. That in particular struck me as a really symbolic move. But I might be reading too much into it as well.

EDIT:

Well, I was half right. According to Memory Alpha:

The Odyssey was the third Galaxy-class starship destroyed onscreen, following the USS Yamato and the USS Enterprise-D, which has been destroyed four times during the run of TNG, in the episodes TNG: "Contagion", "Time Squared", "Cause and Effect", "Timescape". Reportedly, a number of fans became nervous when they saw the trailer for this episode, which featured a shot of the Odyssey exploding, which some thought was to be the destruction of the Enterprise-D, since this episode aired weeks after the conclusion of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The choice to make the Odyssey a Galaxy-class starship was to demonstrate that the Jem'Hadar could have destroyed the Enterprise-D had the ship appeared in the episode and to make the Dominion threat all the more terrifying. According to Robert Hewitt Wolfe, "We wanted to show the long-term fans how dangerous these guys were. And it's my belief that if that had been the Enterprise and not the Odyssey, and Picard rather than Keogh in command, it still wouldn't have survived." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)

I've been watching DS9 for the first time with a friend on Thursday nights. We're almost through the 3rd season and I can already see how much that episode changed things up.

That was definitely a huge one for Mad Men but I think the game changer came in the "Gypsy and the Hobo" when Betty confronts Don about Dick.

How was that "ballsy"?

The HIV subplot during the early days of E.R.. Of course, the surely already mentioned death of Lucy Knight.

It's easy to have evil or monsters in film/tv with little-to-no religious subtext. Bringing in angels means you have to address the concept of a God, which can be very dangerous.

FUCK!!! Fuck me for coming here. I'm still in the middle of season 2. Cest la vie

Anyways, I came here to post I LOVE LUCY, b/c it was an industry game-changer to record shows on film, rather than only airing them live. It was expensive, but created the now standard method of syndication. Desi Arnaz raked in the money. Every sitcom made afterward followed I LOVE LUCY's production and distribution scheme.

Hey! Taking TV Criticism in college finally paid off!

Or were we only talking about plot twists?

JetManX, dont sweat it. By the time you arrive there, there ll be plenty of stuff interesting so you can afford that spoiler and not lose the fun

"Kate... we have to go back."

That. Was. Awesome.

Anyone mention Moonlighting? Certainly affected that show, and gave a whole boatload of shows alot to think about when it comes to resolving UST. Maybe not ballsy and just a bad idea, but many shows have taken note of that decision.

One of the most loved shows here, Chuck, is suffering from worrying about that right now I think.