History Main / BLAMEpisode

-->--'''Yugi''', ''WebOriginal/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries''

** In her review of the {{film}}, WebOriginal/TheNostalgiaChick had to name this {{trope}} because no scene made sense in context of the others.

-->WebOriginal/TheNostalgiaCritic: Ughhhhh... BigLippedAlligatorMoment

-----

* The final episode of ''ExcelSaga''. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d at the very end when the creator of the {{manga}} shows up, ready to kill the director because of it.
** You know what? ''ExcelSaga''. [[WidgetSeries PERIOD]].
*** ''ExcelSaga'', the {{anime}} where [[NoFourthWall the fourth wall is nonexistent]], nothing is too crazy, and every episode is a wild parody of something different, pulls the ultimate BLAMEpisode by doing exactly what no one would expect: making one episode that's [[spoiler:[[MoodWhiplash dead serious]].]] Though said episode still cracks a number of gags, so the success of this attempt is debatable.

* ''The Return of the TexasChainsawMassacre'', where Leatherface is now an effeminate CreepyCrossdresser whose new family (which includes a guy with a bionic leg) are employed by a government group or cult that is possibly controlled by aliens.

--> '''Edward:''' And so, they all passed away, every one. It was a short series, but thanks for your support. [[BlatantLies That was the last episode.]] May they all rest in peace. Amen. ''[pause]'' And for the next series, we bring you ''Cowgirl Ed'', Ed is the main character! ''[giggles]''
--> '''Spike:''' Hey! Wait a minute!
--> '''Faye:''' What kinda selfish thing is that?!
--> '''Jet:''' Next episode, Jupiter Jazz, Part One.
--> '''Spike:''' There really is a next episode!

** Season three has the completely batshit Mortis trilogy of episodes. The basic plot is that Obi-Wan, Anakin and Ahsoka get stranded on a surreal planet whose only three inhabitants - Father, Son and Daughter - are the living embodiments/avatars/personifications of the Balance of the Force, the Dark Side and the Light Side, respectively. [[spoiler:During the course of the episodes Father, Son and Daughter either kill each other, or arrange for the Jedi to do so on their behalf.]] Unsurprisingly it is never referred back to and, aside from the anvilicious hints that Anakin has more sympathy for the Dark Side than is strictly healthy, comes off as extreme padding.

* The entire [[{{Dragonball}} Fusion Reborn]] movie was this. It starts with one of King Enma's workers getting mutated into a giant reality warping baby, that talks like a pokemon, traps Enma's palace in a barrier, which causes the dead to return to Earth, transforms the clouds into marbles and the blood pond into a giant jelly bean. Goku attempts to fight him while Paikuhan tries to free Enma, by INSULTING the barrier. Then Vegeta shows up, and he and Goku defeat this powerful demon that fights with Atari-esque special effects. All the while, Goten and Trunks have a cartoonish slapstick fight with AdolfHitler and his army of tanks. Oh, and let's not forget Goku and Vegeta fusing. HoYay doesn't even describe it. Yeah, the writers were smoking something while making it.

* The ''StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Threshold". So Tom Paris breaks the "transwarp barrier", right? And this results in being in ''every location in the universe at once''. Somehow this makes him [[GoalOrientedEvolution evolve into a higher order of being]]... which then transforms into a [[{{Pokemon}} Mudkip]]-like lizard thing who can't breathe air. He kidnaps {{the captain}} and they run away in said transwarp barrier breaking ship. They are discovered ''within range'' and the crew find them on a beach together having just had a small litter of Mudkip ''babies''. (Repeat: Paris had children with [[TheCaptain Captain Janeway]]. When they were both Mudkips.) Anyway, the babies are still out there presumably but everything else is {{reset|Button}} with antimatter injections. Got all that? Okay, because this is the ''one episode'' out of ''all the'' StarTrek ''episodes ever made'' that is in CanonDiscontinuity.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries The New Batman Adventures]]'' has always been a little more lighthearted than it's predecessor. However, the episode "Critters" was just plain out there. A farmer and his daughter genetically engineer farm animals so they can become bigger. After a cow runs amok at an agricultural expo, they're ordered to cease their growth hormone experiments. So they send giant preying mantises, demonic chickens, and a talking goat to attack Gotham City. WebOriginal/AgonyBooth said it best "I wish I was making all this up, believe me. It’s like David Lynch made a Batman cartoon and forced the networks to air it."

** From the new series, ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS2E10LoveAndMonsters Love and Monsters]]'', period. The bizarre, generally unlikeable characters who are never mentioned again, the grotesque yet rather pathetic villain and the soundtrack by ELO are atypical enough, but throw in the fact that one of the Doctor and Rose's only appearances in the episode comes in the form of a ScoobyDoobyDoors gag puts it over the top into a full-blown BLAM.

* While it isn't particularly ''weird'', the ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "The Great Divide" essentially a single BigLippedAlligatorMoment that happens to take up a whole episode. Its plot centers around two {{Wacky Wayside Tribe}}s that are never seen again, none of the recurring villains appear, the overall plot is not advanced, and the audience learns nothing of significance about the PowerTrio or the world that it didn't know before. After being resolved, it's never mentioned again apart from a joke ''much'' later on.
** And if you want weird, there's "Nightmares and Daydreams." The Zuko B-plot has important developments both for Zuko's character and the series finale, but the A-plot consists of Aang having increasingly bizarre dreams due to his anxiety about the upcoming battle with Ozai.
** "The Swamp" set up a potential teacher for Aang by a vision, developed the characters a bit more, and called back to the episode in which Yue died. Naturally, you'd think in the next episode, we'd meet said teacher (aka Toph Bei Fong). Instead, we get "Avatar Day." The episode has nothing to do with Aang's quest for an Earthbending teacher, the characters don't develop, Chin the Conqueror is only briefly mentioned again in the GrandFinale (when Avatar Kyoshi is trying to convince Aang to kill Fire Lord Ozai), and anything we learned about Kyoshi could easily have been planted somewhere else. The raw dough edibles pretty much sum up the episode in the whole canon.
** There's also "[[BeachEpisode The Beach]]", a VillainEpisode in which Zuko and the Ozai's Angels [[VillainsOutShopping hang out at a beach resort]]. The B plot with the Gaang did advance the story, but the A plot was little more than teen drama ([[StealthParody or a parody of it]]; [[PoesLaw it's really hard to tell]]) with the villains. The episode seriously gives Azula a KickTheDog moment in a [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome vicious]] game of [[SeriousBusiness beach volleyball]], Zuko and Mai angst over their relationship, the characters all explain their {{Freudian Excuse}}s in the most melodramatic way, and the episode ends with the crew terrorizing a house party (basically ForTheLulz) and laughing about it as the house went down in flames.
** "Tales from Ba Sing Se". After an episode where we find out the [[spoiler:Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom and its last major city not controlled by the Fire Nation, are ruled by a corrupt official who brainwashes everyone in the city to forget about the war, and threatens to keep Aang and the others from finding Appa,]] we get an episode that ditches the normal 30 minute format and instead shows several shorts centering around each character. The shorts are things like Katara and Toph go to a spa, Aang builds a zoo, Sokka has a haiku battle, Zuko goes on a date, Iroh is awesome, because he's Iroh, and Momo misses Appa. None of this is ever mentioned again. I'm pretty sure the season must have been one episode short, so the writers just wrote the ultimate filler episode.
*** At least the last one ties into the following episode, so it wasn't ''entirely'' filler.
*** Also it could be seen as a BreatherEpisode giving the cast some character development, including a true TearJerker.
** "[[WhoWouldWantToWatchUs The Ember]] [[ShowWithinAShow Island Players]]," the episode before the four-part GrandFinale. The Gaang goes to see a theatrical production of their adventures, performed by an acting troupe called the Ember Island Players. Said theatrical production is loaded with heavily {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed versions of the characters, {{Narm}} in mass proportions, and obvious support of Zutara over Kataang (to which Aang does not take kindly). HypocriticalHumor ensues as the characters complain about how they're portrayed:
-->'''Sokka:''' Apparently, the playwright thinks I'm an idiot who tells bad jokes about meat all the time.
-->'''Suki:''' Yeah. You tell bad jokes about plenty of other topics.
-->'''Sokka:''' I know!
-->'''Aang:''' At least the Sokka actor kinda looks like you. But that woman playing the Avatar doesn't resemble me at all!
-->'''Toph:''' I don't know. You are more in touch with your feminine side than most guys.
-->'''Aang:''' (growls)
-->'''Katara:''' Relax, Aang. They're not accurate portrayals. It's not like I'm a preachy crybaby who can't resist giving over-emotional speeches about hope all the time.
-->[Everyone looks at Katara.]
-->'''Katara:''' What?
-->'''Aang:''' Yeah... that's not you at all.
** C'mon people, "The Painted Lady" may give Katara a sprinkle of character development, it also filled with Sokka panicking about the group staying on a schedule, a plot point that he himself ignores the very next episode and they end up being early for the invasion of the Fire Nation regardless. The episode consists of them ridding a single town of oppressive overseers and cleaning its lake. They only ever speak of it again in the [[WhoWouldWantToWatchUs The Ember]] [[ShowWithinAShow Island Players]].

* ''SailorMoon'' had a 13-episode filler arc to start off the second season in order to [[OvertookTheManga give Naoko Takeuchi more time to catch up in the manga.]] The first four episodes all laid important plot grondwork, the next five featured all the heroines receiving their power-ups for the season, and the eleventh episode set up the two-part finale that occured in the twelth and thirteenth episodes. And that brings us to the ''tenth'' episode, which featured the girls trying to put on a school play of "SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarves". It does absolutely nothing to push the arc's story forward and has no lasting effects afterwards. It's a filler episode even in the context of a filler arc!

* ''SailorMoon'' had a 13-episode filler arc to start off the second season in order to [[OvertookTheManga give Naoko Takeuchi more time to catch up in the manga.]] The first four episodes all laid important plot grondwork, the next five featured all the heroines receiving their power-ups for the season, and the eleventh episode set up the two-part finale that occured in the twelth and thirteenth episodes. And that brings us to the ''tenth'' episodes, which featured the girls trying to put on a school play of "SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarves". It does nothing to push the arc's story forward and has no lasting effects afterwards. It's a filler episode even in the context of a filler arc!

** There was the Guy and Lee imposter arc.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' has too many of these to count, but the first was the episode "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak". In this episode Ash and the crew get off a boat on a beach, [[TheLancer Brock]] spots a mysterious girl and falls head-over-heels, but Ash and Misty miss her completely. Team Rocket gets off the same boat, and James suffers the same situation. They run into a strange old woman, who informs them of this condition, and the next day, both of them are kidnapped by the ghost. When they are found, they have become completely obsessed with the girl, and the old woman from the earlier scene explains that the girl is a spirit who wishes to steal their souls. The spirit turns out to be a Pokémon named Gastly, who defeats Ash's and Team Rocket's Pokémon by turning into their weaknesses (AKA: a mousetrap for Pikachu, a ball of yarn for Meowth, and he combines an illusionary Venusaur and Blastoise to make "Venutoise"). However, the sun rises and Gastly vanishes. Ash and co. and [[GoldfishPoopGang Team Rocket]] party for the night, and the episode is never mentioned again.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' has too many of these to count, but the first was the episode "The Ghost of Maiden's Peak". In this episode Ash and the crew get off a boat on a beach, [[TheLancer Brock]] spots a mysterious girl and falls head-over-heels, but Ash and Misty miss her completely. Team Rocket gets off the same boat, and James suffers the same situation. They run into a strange old woman, who informs them of this condition, and the next day, both of them are kidnapped by the ghost. When they are found, they have become completely obsessed with the girl, and the old woman from the earlier scene explains that the girl is a spirit who wishes to steal their souls. The spirit turns out to be a Pokémon named Gastly, who defeats Ash's and Team Rocket's Pokémon by turning into their weaknesses (AKA: a mousetrap for Pikachu, a ball of yarn for Meowth). However, the sun rises and Gastly vanishes, with his soul apparently free. Ash and co. and [[GoldfishPoopGang Team Rocket]] party for the night, and the episode is never mentioned again.

** Episiode six is a bit of a BLAM too.

** Not to mention that the Gastly summoned a Venusaur and Blastoise... and then, for no reason at all, decided to [[FusionDance combine them into]] a [[http://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/f/f7/Venustoise.png Venustoise]]. This is ''not'' the kind of thing that happens in the Pokemon universe outside of really bad FanFiction.

*** May and Meowth had a {{time travel}} episode too. Only instead of a StableTimeLoop, they end up changing the course of history so that a guy doesn't die anymore and a town expands into a city. And instead of a time machine they get zapped by a magic locket. Because of [[ThePowerOfLove love]], or something. Anyway, neither May nor Meowth sees fit to tell anyone about the whole futzing about with time.

*** This was the first time a Togepi appeared since Misty's Togepi evolved and was released a good five seasons earlier. It is also the only time in [[{{Anime/Pokemon}} the entire anime]] that a member of the Togepi evolutionary line appeared in an episode without Misty's Togepi or Dawn's Togekiss.

* ''[[BatmanTheAnimatedSeries The New Batman Adventures]]'' has always been a little more lighthearted than it's predecessor. However, the episode "Critters" was just plain out there. A farmer and his daughter genetically engineer farm animals so they can become bigger. After a cow runs amok at an agricultural expo, they're ordered to cease their growth hormone experiments. So they send giant preying mantises, demonic chickens, and a talking goat to attack Gotham City. WebOriginal/AgonyBooth said it best "I wish I was making all this up, believe me. It’s like David Lynch made a Batman cartoon and forced the networks to air it."

** Season three has the completely batshit Mortis trilogy of episodes. The basic plot is that Obi-Wan, Anakin and Ahsoka get stranded on a surreal planets whose only three inhabitants - Father, Son and Daughter - are the living embodiments/avatars/personifications of the Balance of the Force, the Dark Side and the Light Side, respectively. [[spoiler:During the course of the episodes Father, Son and Daughter either kill each other, or arrange for the Jedi to do so on their behalf.]] Unsurprisingly it is never referred back to and, aside from the anvilicious hints that Anakin has more sympathy for the Dark Side than is strictly healthy, comes off as extreme padding.

* In StarWarsTheCloneWars there's "Mercy Mission" and "Nomad Droids" basically their episodes that focus on R2-D2 and C-3PO in their own misadventures when they get separated from the army. The episodes pay homages to various works like Literature/AliceInWonderland, TheLordOfTheRings, GulliversTravels, TheWonderfulWizardOfOz, and RealSteel.

* ''CodenameKidsNextDoor'' Operation: R.E.P.O.R.T. set entirely in the character's parody rich imagination's... number 4 turns into a super saiyan, Operation: W.H.I.T.E.H.O.U.S.E. witch well {{All Just a Dream}} did make self contained sense until the very end when number 1 turns into a big monster for no explained reason

*** "Nevermore" can actually function as a fairly good bait-and-switch in terms of this. The episode starts out silly, the first part being the debut of Control Freak, where the Titans fight him in a video store and he brings things like candy to life and turns them evil. ''Then'' things get dark.