History Main / BottleEpisode

* The ''Radio/{{Dragnet}}'' episode "B.O.D.-DR-27" also had Friday and Gannon manning the front desk.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits'' the Original Series is the TropeNamer, and many TOS episodes were written specifically to be produced cheaply. "Controlled Experiment" was made at a time when the first season's production budget was going out of control. Notably, "The Probe" was written and filmed ''after'' the series was canceled to fulfill the show's commitment to Creator/{{ABC}}.

* Two TOS episodes of ''Series/TheOuterLimits'' were written specifically to be produced cheaply. "Controlled Experiment" was made at a time when the first season's production budget was going out of control, and "The Probe" was written and filmed ''after'' the series was canceled to fulfill the show's commitment to Creator/{{ABC}}.

** "Marceline's Closet", where Finn and Jake spend 90% of the episode [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin trapped in Marceline's closet.]]

** Subversion: The episode "The Chinese Restaurant" took place entirely in...a Chinese Restaurant, in which the characters do nothing but hang around bitching about not being able to get a table and worrying about offscreen issues. The concept of an episode like that was so groundbreaking at the time that the network executives couldn't understand it, thinking that the only explanation was that production ran out of money. This wasn't the case -- it was just an experiment by the writers, and "The Chinese Restaurant" became ''Seinfeld's'' GrowTheBeard episode, introducing the unique plot and humor styles that made the show a hit later on.
** Other bottle episodes of include "The Parking Garage", which never leaves the titular location, and it's second-to-last episode which takes place over a few hours.

** There was also an episode which was centred entirely on Victor and Margaret in their bedroom late at night trying to find strange ways to fall asleep. Seriously, the whole episode either had them lying in bed arguing, or occasionally the two of them turning on the light and walking around to find their own (strange) solutions to their problem.

* Many episodes of ''Series/TheSandbaggers'' come close to this - the majority of each plot unfolds in the offices of [=SIS=], with the occasional exterior shot set in London or a [[CaliforniaDoubling stand-in for an Eastern Bloc country]].
* ''Series/OneFootInTheGrave''

** There was also an episode, the name of which I don't immediately remember, which was centered entirely on Victor and Margaret in their bedroom late at night trying to find strange ways to fall asleep. Seriously, the whole episode either had them lying in bed arguing, or occasionally the two of them turning on the light and walking around to find their own (strange) solutions to their problem.

* A episode of ''Radio/HancocksHalfHour'', 'The Bedsitter', was not only just set on the one set (Tony Hancock's bedsit flat) but also featured no other actors other than Tony Hancock himself. The plot, such as it was, just featured Hancock trying to amuse himself for 20 minutes. It was justly acclaimed as one of the funniest episodes he'd done.

* ''Series/TopGear'' occasionally has an episode where the presenters tell us they've "spent all the money" and can't afford their normal mix of insane stunts and expensive cars. This is used as much ironically as straight up - what follows is either even more insane stunts with cheaper cars or the most expensive cars of the season.

** "No Exit" contains three sets literally bottled by the Secret Service after a possible toxic breach is declared. The President, Debbie and Charlie was sealed in one area (with a Doctor and Agent Butterfield, Kate with Josh, Will with Toby, Leo with Abby and CJ with Donna. Notable is that except for the group with the President, and the CJ/Donna match, which were fairly amiable, all of the other bottled pairs had spent the majority of the season growing increasingly angry with each other. Also notable because when you lock each of them in one room on a Sorkin production, you lose the ability to {{pedeconference}}.

** "Cat House" from season 5 is another contender. The majority of the episode is Piper and Leo at a marriage counsellor where they have cast a spell to relive their memories that ends up sending Phoebe and Paige into the past to relive them literally. Most of the episode has clips of Alyssa Milano and RoseMcGowan superimposed over clips from previous episodes.

* the new ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Battlestar Galactica]]'': A''lot'' of the action happens in the eponymous battlestar, especially the CIC. Ron Moore mentioned at one point that it was a shame that they could not have shot more scenes aboard the civilian ships in the fleet.

* The episode "Night School" in ''Series/TeenWolf'', [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin takes place in the high school at night]]. It has Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Allison and Jackson form a temporary alliance while trying to evade the Alpha.

* The episode "Night School" in ''Series/TeenWolf'', takes place...well, in the high school at night. It has Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Allison and Jackson form a temporary alliance while trying to evade the Alpha.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'' Appropriately enough, "Spin the Bottle" from has at least the tendencies of a Bottle Episode: most of the episode takes place in the hotel, with no guest stars and an "amnesia" concept that makes for a low need of special effects.

** Because JossWhedon has to take this trope and mix it up with Angst UpTo11, we have the episode 'The Body'. It has only one instance of special effects, one vampire (that's where the SE come from), and takes place almost entirely indoors and has no soundtrack. Did we mention it's the most depressing anything of anything ever?

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Subverted with the episode "The Next Phase". It was ''meant'' to be a bottle show and was written with saving money in mind...but they somehow didn't account for the many complicated special effects required, which made it one of the most expensive episodes of the season.

A 'bottle episode' is designed to take up as little money as possible. The easiest way to go about this is to use only the regular cast (or even just ''part'' of the regular cast) and set it in a single location, especially if you have a main standing set. This keeps production costs down, because no one needs to scout locations, build new sets, or create fancy CGI graphics of the outside of the spaceship. Bottle episodes are often a chance for a slow, characterization-filled episode after a big special-effects-laden action episode. Of course, all this doesn't mean the episode ''will'' be cheap, just that it's ''meant'' to be - like any regular episode, [[RealLifeWritesThePlot unforeseen complications]] can cause the show to run over the scheduled budget.

A 'bottle episode' is designed to take up as little money as possible. The easiest way to go about this is to use only the regular cast (or even just ''part'' of the regular cast) and set it in a single location, especially if you have a main standing set. This keeps production costs down, because no one needs to scout locations, build new sets, or create fancy CGI graphics of the outside of the spaceship. Bottle episodes are often a chance for a slow, characterization-filled episode after a big, special-effects-laden action episode. Of course, all this doesn't mean the episode ''will'' be cheap, just that it's ''meant'' to be - like any regular episode, [[RealLifeWritesThePlot unforeseen complications]] can cause the show to run over the scheduled budget.

A 'bottle episode' is designed to take up as little money as possible. The easiest way to go about this is to use only the regular cast (or even just ''part'' of the regular cast) and set it in a single location, especially if you have a main standing set. This keeps production costs down, because no one needs to scout locations, build new sets, or create fancy CGI graphics of the outside of the spaceship. Bottle episodes are often a chance for a slow, characterization-filled episode after a big, special-effects-laden action epic episode. Of course, all this doesn't mean the episode ''will'' be cheap, just that it's ''meant'' to be - like any regular episode, [[RealLifeWritesThePlot unforeseen complications]] can cause the show to run over the scheduled budget.

[[folder:Fan Fic]]
* ScriptFic ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries'':
** "Hypercube", which features about two locations and a handful of characters.
** "Roughin' It" takes it further, only having the title duo and two locations as well.
[[/folder]]

* The movie ''{{Film/Devil}}'' was almost entirely shot within an elevator. One of the characters is the Devil, and everyone tries to find out who it is.

[[folder:Radio]]
* Episodes of ''AudioPlay/CabinPressure'' usually ''feel'' like this - because EpisodeOnAPlane is of course inevitable.
** The only true example so far is "Limerick", which gives us the four main characters bored out of their minds on an insufferably long cargo flight.
** Similarly, the biggest part of "Fitton" has the crew on the ground on standby, waiting for an important client to call. Lots of time for character development and emotional moments.
* The ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' radio drama "The Abergavenny Murder" takes place entirely in the Baker Street study, as Holmes and Watson attempt to determine the story behind an unknown man who [[AlmostDeadGuy staggered in, pronounced a dramatic sentence, and promptly died]].

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Staycations, vacations that take place within driving distance of home (or even ''at'' home, with people simply taking a week off work and staying home,) are done for much the same reasons, and can have the same benefits/drawbacks.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'': The Water Temple, as theorized [[http://gameological.com/2012/06/the-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-timewater-temple/ here]]
* The latter half of [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry Devil May Cry 4]] could also count, since you are replaying the same levels/bosses as the first half, the level structure is just reversed.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' reused the Spira map from the first game.
* The remakes of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' have included post-game bonus content in which 2 of 3 dungeons are mirror images of the levels at the end of the regular game.
* [[VideoGame/SonicGenerations Sonic Generations]] resolves about Sonic and his friends being caught in a simplistic white world reliving memories of past games, using designs and concepts that were already there years before.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/EchoChamber'', the TVTropes webseries, had [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmB1u1C-cSs an episode]] on WalkAndTalk which was substantially shorter and simpler than a normal episode. Tropers were divided on whether its [[BrevityIsWit brevity]] was an asset or a liability, compared to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV_W6uMfrv0 the previous episode]].
* ''KateModern'' tended to follow a schedule of one episode every weekday, with Bottle Episodes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and a more special effects-heavy episode on Friday. This was sometimes subverted, either by having the bigger budget episode earlier in the week or by showing an additional, often more dramatic episode at the weekend.
[[/folder]]

* ''Series/{{Titus}}'' is nothing '''''BUT''''' bottle episodes, though sometimes it's two joined rooms rather than just one room and it does cut away to Titus in the Neutral Space [the black-and-white room in which ChristopherTitus narrates the episodes] explaining a certain situation or giving insight on an event that just happened (often comedically; but sometimes dramatically. Other than that, a typical episode of Titus usually has two settings, the five main actors (Christopher Titus {[[AdamWesting as himself, essentially]]}, Zack Ward {Dave}, David Shatraw {Tommy}, Cynthia Watros {Erin}, and Stacy Keach {Ken Titus}), and maybe some recurring supporting characters (Amy, Titus's sister Shannon, Erin's DysfunctionalFamily {Nora, Merritt, Kim, and Michael}, Juanita {Titus's violent, manic-depressive schizophrenic mom}, and/or Kathy {Ken's bitchy nurse fiancee}) or one-shot characters.

* The 150th ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Brian & Stewie", which is about Brian and Stewie coming to terms with each other while locked in a bank vault. The entire episode was free of the show's normal conventions (cutaway gags, recurring characters, burns against celebrities). It's basically just SethMacFarlane TalkingToHimself -- no Alex Borstein playing Lois, no Seth Green as Chris, not even Mila Kunis as the DesignatedMonkey Meg -- for 40 minutes (28 sans commercials). It's about as minimal as an episode can get.

* ''{{The 4400}}'' had an episode that took place entirely inside NTAC HQ.

* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePony:FriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Look Before You Sleep" fits this trope and may have been intended to conserve the budget, since it has only three speaking parts and is set mostly inside Twilight's treehouse.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/EchoChamber'', the TVTropes webseries, had [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmB1u1C-cSs an episode]] on WalkAndTalk which was substantially shorter and simpler than a normal episode. Tropers were divided on whether its [[BrevityIsWit brevity]] was an asset or a liability, compared to [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV_W6uMfrv0 the previous episode]].
* ''KateModern'' tended to follow a schedule of one episode every weekday, with Bottle Episodes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and a more special effects-heavy episode on Friday. This was sometimes subverted, either by having the bigger budget episode earlier in the week or by showing an additional, often more dramatic episode at the weekend.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'': The Water Temple, as theorized [[http://gameological.com/2012/06/the-legend-of-zelda-ocarina-of-timewater-temple/ here]]
* The latter half of [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry Devil May Cry 4]] could also count, since you are replaying the same levels/bosses as the first half, the level structure is just reversed.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' reused the Spira map from the first game.
* The remakes of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' have included post-game bonus content in which 2 of 3 dungeons are mirror images of the levels at the end of the regular game.
* [[VideoGame/SonicGenerations Sonic Generations]] resolves about Sonic and his friends being caught in a simplistic white world reliving memories of past games, using designs and concepts that were already there years before.
[[/folder]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/FriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Look Before You Sleep" fits this trope and may have been intended to conserve the budget, since it has only three speaking parts and is set mostly inside Twilight's treehouse.

* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePony:FriendshipIsMagic'' episode "Look Before You Sleep" fits this trope and may have been intended to conserve the budget, since it has only three speaking parts and is set mostly inside Twilight's treehouse.