Misused: Bizarro Episode

Bizarro Episode is supposed to be about one episode that is weirdly out of tone with the rest of the series.

The examples, even those on the very page, are all over the place. Including examples where an entire season is a Bizarro Episode. Or where an entire movie (without any sequels) is a Bizarro Episode... (How is something out of tone with itself).

The page's become a repository for whatever viewers find weird or didn't like. Uninteresting Filler Arc? Let's call it a Bizarro Episode. Sure, it doesn't match the definition, but toss it there. Weird Movie? Bizarro Episode it is!

Seems the title makes people believe that this is about anything weird. "I found it bizarre so it must be a bizarro episode". The trope used to be called "BLAM Episode" and it was renamed to avoid confusion with Wham Episode. But I think the new title introduced a whole new sort of trope decay.

edited 9th Aug '12 7:59:21 AM by Ghilz

Some examples of crap examples:

• Almost every episode of Gintama can count as a Bizarro Episode.

• The entirety of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. The premise sounds straightforward enough - MJ uses The Power of Pop to save a little girl from drug dealers - but it... really... just... isn't. Even his biggest fans were left scratching their heads, wondering if he'd written the script by dictating the results of an acid trip. Seriously, if we tried to describe it here, you would not believe us. Just go to You Tube and search for some clips, and bear in mind, every single one of them Makes Just as Much Sense in Context.

• We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story... where to begin?
  • First up, the entire movie is a flashback being told to a random bird. Why? It's never mentioned except at the beginning and at the end.
  • The time traveler says he wants to save the world by giving dinosaurs to all of Earth's children. Ignoring for the moment exactly how taking animals out of their native environment (never mind geological era) and bringing them to New York City is supposed to save the world, he drops them in the ocean, whereupon, after some time, they coincidentally discover a small boy. Okay then.
  • Furthermore, if this guy is a time traveler, why does he show up at the end, rather than earlier to prevent the dark climax from ever occurring at all?
  • The Aesop of the film is supposedly that "family is good"; however, none of the action corresponds with this, and the two main characters' lack of parents is somehow resolved at the end without explanation.
  • The tedious scene in which we watch a hat fall onto a young girl's head would appear to drive the plot somewhere... but it's never mentioned again.
  • Likewise, the children's romance doesn't go anywhere either.
  • The inexplicable musical number.
  • The Big Bad's unneeded and horrifying death scene... right after seemingly learning his lesson about scaring people. This scene would have actually made sense if a previous one had made it into the final product. It's kinda scary though.
  • Said horrifying villain death is all the worse because it is immediately preceded by a scene where the dinosaurs go from angry and wild to cuddly and cartoony through the Power of Hugs. Basically, this movie has balls to do this with the picture book it is supposedly based upon.
• The Hangover could be considered a Bizarro Episode. By the end of the movie, you have sort of a vague idea as to what could have happened last night. But you're still left wondering as to how one situation led to another.

edited 9th Aug '12 8:01:06 AM by Ghilz

Part of what you're seeing is the result of a merge. It was decided that since both A Day at the Bizarro and BLAM Episode were tropes about weird episodes, they should be merged into one. So now we have a trope for "Episode that is weird."

Except alot of them are "Episodes" We have "Entire work is weird" making up the majority of some folders. Or examples of Big-Lipped Alligator Moment

edited 9th Aug '12 8:10:16 AM by Ghilz

If this is supposed to be "episode that is out of tone with the rest of the work", the definition is flawed because that means that standlone works can't be examples, because they have no other status quo to be compared with.

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

It's what the definition says. If standalone work indeed can't be an example, it's not a problem with the definition, it's a problem with the examples. Saying it's a problem with the definition is like saying there's a problem with the definition of Humongous Mecha coz works without Humongous Mecha can't be examples.

edited 9th Aug '12 3:26:53 PM by CobraPrime

Yes. This is a trope that only applies to episodic media. (Comics, serial novels, TV, etc).

According to the OP there's a ton of examples from non episodic medias. So what to do to resolve that?

Remove them. Now that the page is called "Bizarro EPISODE," we shouldn't expect much future misuse.

One of the redirects is Big-Lipped Alligator Movie.

Also, the page always had episode in the title.

Sorry - I thought this used to be called A Day at the Bizarro. And now that I think about it, "episode" doesn't necessarily mean an installment of an episodic series - it sometimes just means "incident."

@6: Sorry, I meant the writeup is flawed because it has an entire paragraph saying that "this can apply to films" (which are typically non-serial).

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Hm... is "just plain weird-reared movie" even Tropable?

In the case of established series & characters in an atypical movie, it still counts as a Bizarro Episode, it's just a Bizarro Episode as The Movie.

EDIT: Actually, we do have a Trope for "Bizarro Episode as The Movie": Non-Serial Movie. (Or at least the former would be a subtrope of the latter.)

edited 16th Aug '12 10:05:20 AM by DonaldthePotholer

Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.

"Hm... is 'just plain weird-reared movie' even Tropable?"

I don't think so. The description given there sounded more like Random Events Plot Only Really Weird and Also A Movie.

This has got to be like the 5,000th time I forgot my email or password...

Well, , plus my "discovery" of the Non-Serial Movie Trope make me want to suggest the following course of action:

1. Delete the paragraph regarding movies and rewrite the paragraph following as:

EDIT: This removes any inference that the Trope applies to stand-alone works.
2. Redirect the Big-Lipped Alligator Movie redirect to Non-Serial Movie.

edited 16th Aug '12 10:09:15 AM by DonaldthePotholer

Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.

I can agree with those changes.

I went ahead and changed the description.

EDIT: Due to , putting the crowner I made behing a hottip

.

edited 31st Aug '12 6:30:06 PM by DonaldthePotholer

Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck.

Changing redirects doesn't need a crowner or a mod. Redirects Are Free after all.

Did it, in fact. For reference, just add the URL of the redirect in your address bar and attach ?action=edit at the end to do the edit.

edited 31st Aug '12 2:41:20 PM by SeptimusHeap

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

You know, I don't care what some internet critic says; a single movie where the plot doesn't seem to make sense should simply be labeled a Random Events Plot. How can it be a Bizarro Episode if said movie is the only "episode" there is?

"If you're out here why do I miss you so much?"

The only film one I'm seeing that makes sense to be there is Halloween III and that's because it's an instalment in a series that doesn't make sense with the rest of the series.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I thought I already posted my question in this thread. Huh. Where DID I ask it then?

I was working on the wicks to BLAM Episode earlier and noticed a lot of movie titles, "this whole episode/series/whatever is one giant BLAM!", and other such questionable things. I didn't know what to do with those.

Also, as far as I can tell BLAM Episode was YMMV but Bizarro Episode is not labeled/marked as such. I put it on the crowner on the YMMV banner thread.

edited 6th Nov '12 10:33:28 AM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

No idea what's happened, but I remember reading that post of yours, too.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

Maybe there was a separate BLAM Episode thread before this one, and I posted there. The rename decision must have taken place somewhere.

EDIT: Ah, here. Looks like Septimus Heap took care of the wicks that had me stymied. Thanks!

edited 6th Nov '12 11:03:28 AM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.

Clock is set.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

It's got only 5 wicks.

EDIT: Only remaining wicks are 2 Lost And Found and an invisible ghost. Is there anything else to do?

edited 26th Dec '12 8:28:23 AM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.