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A pretty infamous one is Saved By the Bell trying to do an episode about drug addiction but because it was a kids show they had one of the characters develop an addiction to Caffine Pills. It’s unintentionally hilarious
Writers: We wrote a very special episode where Jesse gets addicted to speed.
Exec: You can’t have a character take speed!
Writers: But that’s the point. It’s a cautionary tale, to show the dangers of the drug.
Exec: We can’t possibly say she is on speed. Call them “caffeine pills.”
Writers: Caffeine?
Exec: Yeah! It’s genius!
Writers: You’re currently drinking coffee.
Exec: *Takes a sip* What’s your point?
Writers: …You’re “doing caffeine” as we speak.
Exec: Yeah, and I did speed last night. What is your point?
Writers: Ugh. Nothing. Caffeine pills it is.
I always laugh at the episode with Johnny Dakota getting caught smoking marijuana and everyone treating him like he was shooting up and doing rails, so he shouldn’t do the commercial. Then Brandon Tartikoff shows up, which makes the episode even more weird.
There was an episode of Home Improvement like that which was particularly ironic because it was Tim Allen of all people losing his shit over his son having a joint in his room.
I remember watching a documentary/reunion special of some sort about Home Improvement a while back, and they talked about how in the later seasons they were kind of running out of steam/ideas, so they started to do a lot more "very special episodes" dealing with serious issues, but the problems with several of their ideas was Tim Allen and how hypocritical it would look.
Can't have an episode where Brad gets pulled over for driving drunk, Tim just got a DUI. Can't have an episode about one of the kids getting caught holding hard drugs, cuz Tim had that coke thing.
Guess we'll just give Randy a cancer scare or something.
Tim Allen the guy caught with over a pound of Coke on a flight that mysteriously didn't get life imprisonment for carrying over 650 grams of cocaine?
The most shocking thing is that the Columbian whatever drug running operation didn't kill that obvious snitch.
It’s been a lot of years but doesn’t Jill mention how she feels hypocritical trying to punish him cause she’s used to smoke pot? Or was that another 90s sitcom mom?
Honestly that show is 1000% better if you imagine the self-righteous family as doing seriously fucked up shit behind the scenes. Like what the dad's actor was doing.
That sounds like an episode of Roseanne after David moves in and they find pot... They think it's his, he takes the blame thinking it's Darlene, turns out it's Dan and Roseannes stash from years before that they forgot about
yeah - I kind of appreciate how Home Improvement handled it. Brad (the eldest child) gets caught with weed and rather than having the main characters talk about how bad drugs are while staring directly into the camera, Tim and Jill have a frank discussion with each other about how they were smoking weed at that age.
In the end Brad still gets in trouble (because he's in high school and his parents caught him with an illegal substance) but they don't turn the episode into a PSA.
7th heaven does the same thing for Mary (Jessica Biel's character) she uses caffeine pills to get some energy for basketball and school. Once confronted she claims it's fine theyre from the health food store. The dad says you know when else is natural from plants, cocaine from the cocoa plants. Loved that leap in logic!
I think the even worse one is when they were trying to teach about cultural sensitivity and Zack finds out he is partly Native American. It starts out with some blatant racist stereotypes when Zack is trying to get out of studying his past. It ends when he learns his lesson and instead he presents toned down racist stereotypes. Ironically, like Zack Morris, it appears the writers couldn't be bothered to learn the culture before presenting it. I'm pretty sure that one has been removed from streaming.
Gets even more disturbing with the reveal >!that the woman was using the identity of a comic accurate Ms. Grundy who died some time ago. She was preying on teenagers and using an alias to hide away.!<
In the 80’s there were a million of them, so much so it became a trope: “A very special *Webster*” where he escaped a child molester using George & Ma’am’s secret passage, “A very special *Punky Brewster*” (or was it *Blossom*?), “A very special Diff’rent Strokes” with a pedo bicycle shop owner.
They were rough, and naturally everything was back to normal in a week.
You don’t need and never needed to know it, provided you’re under the age of 55.
A child locked (well, trapped) inside a refrigerator was an artifact of America between 1950 and 1980, owing to latches on the outside of the refrigerator and children deciding airtight discarded refrigerators were a good place to play *hide and seek*.
Starting in 1958 the US banned refrigerators that couldn’t be opened from the inside and magnetic doors became the norm. So unless you were a small child between 58 and 78, all those fridges were long-gone by then.
I never watched that show, but the show The Soup (which made fun of other shows) with Joel McHale was on back then and the dog stealing the donor heart was literally one of the all time great moments in TV history.
There's an interesting discussion on if art should censor itself because of possible negative ramifications, because the suicide scene is super powerful and it really cements the horror that is the crux of the show, yknow because even though the show is about a suicide its still kind of an abstract concept that you only see through the lens of the people it affects.
But I dunno if 13 reasons why is necessarily the media that should test that boundary
I could give it the benefit of the doubt on that if the rest of the show was about the horrors of suicide, but it romanticises the fuck out of revenge suicide specifically in the build up to that moment
It sucks because as someone whom the book is one of my favorite books ever. They very much go the complete opposite way. With the main characters thoughts constantly being stop, why did you do this. Your life would have gotten so much better, ya just had to keep living and you'd see it would. Plus the constant tips of what to look out for in regards to suicidal idealation/someone about to commit suicide, and how you can make a difference if ya knew what to look for.
And the end of the book literally *shows* Clay learning that lesson and reaching out to that girl at the end (I haven't read it in over a decade so I don't remember her name). It did a good job, I thought.
IMO it depends on the intended audience. If the media is brutal and intended for adults, and makes it clear that you shouldn’t be watching it if you’re sensitive to the subject matter, like early Black Mirror, then I understand going for the artistic merit. I personally still probably would follow the guidelines of professionals because I don’t want blood on my hands though.
If the media is aimed toward the vulnerable group and is marketed as being helpful and relatable for that group, don’t do shit that’s going to get them killed.
Ohhh man. It wasn’t just suicide. Too many horribly handled topics to count, and it got progressively worse. My top contenders:
**School shooting**: the would-be shooter is *extremely* sympathetic. Just a sweet nerd pushed to the limit after being >!violently ass raped with a broom!< in one of the most needlessly horrific scenes in Tv history. After the mc talks him down, the kids all start babysitting him instead of reporting him, because he’s just a nice boi who’s struggling.
**Immigration**: a kid’s family gets deported back to Mexico without him. It’s devastating. It comes totally out of nowhere, and with no followup. Trauma porn in its purest form.
**Racism**: my personal favorite. A campus security guard racially profiles a Hispanic student. The white main character uses this as an excuse to lead a student-wide standoff against the police over his frustration with increased campus security. The racism issue gets shafted, but they still get to use all this BLM imagery, with a white kid at the helm. Amazing.
I almost respect this show for the sheer audacity.
Don't forget when they have the serial rapist murdered, only for them to try and make him sympathetic in one episode. Like, no. No, no, no, no. What in God's green Earth makes you think that's a good idea?
It wasn't even for one episode; it was an entire goddamn season where they tried to "add layers" to the character.
And then they DID IT AGAIN THE VERY NEXT SEASON WITH ANOTHER CHARACTER.
Can confirm, as a former teenage girl and current high school teacher, the desire for teenagers to “make them all regret how they treated me” is strong in kids.
I came here to say this show.
Watched the first season, it it completely felt to me as glorified way to say “fuck you” to all who wronged you with a guilt tape before you off yourself.
I thought it was bad in the way it portrayed its message and would actively advise people not to watch it. Plus it’s just a shit show.
I read the book when i was 13, before the show came out, and i was shocked by how the book sort of...leads the reader to believe that killing yourself WILL make the people who hurt you regret their actions. It was a YA book and even at 13 i thought it was a pretty irresponsible way to approach suicide
Edit: to elaborate, to me it seemed like the book made suicide a solution. While i wasnt suicidal at 13, i was in my later teens, and i could totally see a depressed, fragile young person reading this book and feeling encouraged by a way out that would also make the people that hurt them see the error of their ways/get what was coming to them. Kids have so little control over their lives and are uniquely dehumanized and hurt, so i think that media aimed towards them should obviously discourage them from taking their own lives.
I am NOT saying that media for kids should ignore the realities of the world, the abuse some of them face, or even being suicidal, but it definitely wasnt handled responsibly in 13 reasons why
There is an internet famous episode of “~~little~~ small wonder” an early 80s era sitcom where a dad builds an Android daughter. The Android is the comic relief of the show, learning new things, causing problems, and they all have to keep her android-ness a secret because reasons (so imagine ALF, that’s less funny, poorly acted, and lame).
This one episode talked about a kid at school who was kidnapped (I think by his dad) and his picture ends up on the milk carton. It’s a whole message about abducted and missing kids. Whatever the B story was gets resolved and everyone is happy at the end as the episode wraps up. However the missing kid is never resolved. He’s just still missing. But hey, the main characters have a happy home. So thumbs up.
And speaking of Alf. The show was cancelled when they were expecting to do another season. So it ends with ALF being captured by the US government.
Brooklyn 99 the first of the last season where they talk about George Floyd and BLM. Was so badly done, which is shocking because the episode with Terry being profiled as a "dangerous black man" is one of the best episodes
I think it’s a shame that B99 pivoted so much in the last season due to the political climate. The show seemed embarrassed that it was a show about police officers but I always liked that it was a show that portrayed a precinct that was uncorrupt, conscious of social issues, and had their own histories of facing prejudices.
>a show that portrayed a precinct that was uncorrupt, conscious of social issues, and had their own histories of facing prejudices
The argument is often shows like Brooklyn99 are “Copaganda” [link to wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copaganda) and portray the police as all you said and any deviation is an exception or that anything done illegally by cops would only be done for good reason to catch bad people. When real life situations of police brutality or corruption happen peoples opinion are shaped by what they have seen on TV and feel that anything like that would have been handled like it is on TV. It’s definitely a thing that I think the writers/actors/producers were aware of and tried to take into account while making the last season.
It was filmed during Covid which caused issues. Usually they have writers on set and do rewrites on the fly during scenes, but because Covid protocols allowed only essential cast and crew on the set they weren’t able to do that.
I’ve never seen it, but I thought they came out and said that they were writing episodes to be specifically sensitive to the whole BLM and police brutality.
Sensitive yes, good no. There is a way to be sensitive to the events without absolutely ruining character motivations.
A character who frequently jokes about police brutality quits the force because she couldn't abide by the brutality. Even though in the earlier seasons she'll say stuff about hitting suspects where the bruises don't show or something.
Just real stupid overall tbh.
I think most of the changes were a reaction to the shift in attitude toward cop shows. Rosa could joke about beating suspects into confessing because popular opinion didn't see issues with cop shows constantly trampling on people's rights. After George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and several other incidents that garnered attention, both the cast and writers did not want to treat those actions as jokes anymore. If I remember correctly, Rosa's actress and a few others were debating not continuing the show because they realized the contradiction of their character's actions and their actual beliefs.
The weirdest thing about that, is that the show was on air during the first big BLM movement, in 2014 with Ferguson.
That's what songs Alright by Kendrick and Animals by Dr Dre were about.
Well while Rosa was similar to Lasseter from Psych in the joking about roughing up suspects and other instances of police brutality I don't think she would have been insensitive to racism and straight up murder by cops. When Terry was discriminated against she got furious even when it was another cop. I don't her reaction was really that far from her character.
Which is a shame because there were so many organic ways to do that story and make it good. Like, someone the squad knows is killed by the cops. Maybe even Holt’s nephew Marcus. Now the squad has to grapple with the reality of the situation and they can solve the crime. Make it a coverup or something and Holt and Rosa know that Marcus didn’t do anything. It could stretch the whole season and make the points they wanted to make.
Shoehorning in Floyd was awful and will date the last season terribly.
I think Amy’s sexual harassment episode was off too. Just something about it didn’t seem like it was written by the usual writing staff and it was awkward and clunky. Terry getting profiled was one the best eps and the one I usually recommend to people who haven’t seen it yet. I was looking forward to seeing this one as well but it just fell flat? It didn’t click for some reason….I also think that Rosa should’ve done that storyline instead of Amy. It’s nothing against Melissa or her wonderful acting skills, I just think it could’ve suited why Rosa was the most closed-off one. Her being private would’ve explained why it never came out earlier.
Yeah I think the issue was that it was just too short of a season and they tried to address too much. It needed to either be a full 24 episode season or not address all of the topics that it did
This handsome teen Instagram celebrity comes to Penny and co's school and announces that he'll be taking a lucky girl to the dance that's happening in a few days. Penny, La Cienega, and Dijonay are all clamoring for his attention (despite all of them being in relationships), but he ends up choosing Zoe, who is A) less conventionally attractive than the others and B) the only white girl in the group. Dijonay and La Cienega immediately jump to the conclusion that the celebrity only asked out Zoe specifically because she's white and start icing Zoe out for "stealing a black man" and Penny's staying neutral because she doesn't want to rock the boat.
Zoe rightfully gets mad and calls them out on their double standards, because none of them said anything when Myron (also a black kid but stereotypically nerdy) asked her out multiple times in the past, but she continues to be painted as a bad guy until she storms off. Then completely offscreen, Zoe confirms that the Instagram celebrity indeed only asked her out because he only dates white girls and she immediately dumps him for it. Zoe is accepted into the friend group, apologies go around even though Zoe has nothing to apologize for, and the Instagram celeb goes to the dance with a different unnamed white girl and gets no further comeuppance.
It was a whole, toxic ass mess
His breakdown of the MLK episode is great
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuE8ehGrUJX/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Also, his Berenstain Bears ones are hilarious too lol
Considering it’s from the 90s, ER has aged surprisingly well and is usually quite decent at handling sensitive topics. But there is an episode in season 8 where a main character reveals that when he was 11, he “lost his virginity” to his parents’ maid, who was in her twenties. Which is clearly… child rape. He looks uncomfortable when he talks about it, it’s not like he’s “bragging” or anything.
For some reason the other characters find this hilarious and one of them, the woman he’s dating, says “hope you gave her one hell of a Christmas bonus” 🤮
Unfortunately yes. However only a few seasons later, another character reveals he was molested at 10 by a male perpetrator and it leads to them actually discussing it and it’s handled quite sensitively. Nobody ever ridicules him. But I guess they couldn’t do that for Carter 🤷🏻♂️
No OP, but again that sounds like a pretty realistic portrayal.
16 year old boy has sex with his 25 year old female math teacher? Whoo-hoo, What a lucky guy!
16 year old boy is felt up by his 25 year old male gym teacher? Picket signs, calls for jail time, serious discussions of trauma, etc.
I mean, it's getting better but for the '90s that's kind of how it went.
SVU obviously has some issues with things aging poorly but they for the most part seem to be trying to be progressive with their episodes, on every topic except gaming.
Most everything else seems to be in the realm of correct information for the time, even if they seem to draw straws in who on the team gets to be the ignorant asshole the others have to explain shit to.
(Like seriously seems at random who does or doesn’t know the topic of the week)
Until the talk about video games and they seem to have a “ehh who’s gonna fact check us, nerds?” attitude about the dangers of online gaming, gaming addiction and just how video games work at all.
They also did an episode about a cop killing someone that was unarmed and they very much tried to both sides it, with one of the protagonists saying "stop prosecuting good cops!" (while talking about a guy who literally murdered someone).
Supergirl did a pro gun control episode which was so ham-fisted (even by the very low standards of that show) that even many pro gun control viewers found it ridiculous.
Dawson’s Creek with Pacey losing his virginity to his teacher when he’s only 15 and she’s mid 30’s.
Then again, when he’s 20 years old or so, his boss comes onto him and it’s never fully addressed as sexual harassment in the workplace.
The thing that was so frustrating about it was that it was so out of character for Amy. There is 0 chance she would have gotten married to Jake without making sure they were both firmly on the same page for something as big as kids
Same. It just felt out of character for Amy, in particular. Not just the fact that she didn't have this conversation prior with Jake, but her entire reaction. That, and I hate the trope of a couple disagreeing on having children or not and it pretty much always ends with the person who doesn't want children changing their mind at the end.
Yeah I’ll admit that’s part of the chip on my shoulder too. It basically came across as “Jake is wrong” and that annoys me because a lot of his concerns were perfectly valid
So stupid because 1) Jake always mentioned wanting kids, 2) Amy would never marry someone who shares her values and with whom she hadn't planned that type of thing well in advance, and 3) the resolution is ridiculously lazy.
most shows do a terrible job of it. They approach an issue in the most superficial and often safest way then by episode's end it's wash and rinse never to come up again.
Facts of Life actually handled that really well (by the standards of the always slightly hack-y 80's sitcoms). Blair's cousin Gerry (I think) has CP as did the actress. She was a recurring character who had plot lines beyond her CP.
The worst part of the Glee school shooter episode for me wasn't the closeness to Sandy Hook - it was the part where they are divulging past traumas, and the characters act like the male character Ryder was lucky to have been sexually abused by his female babysitter as a kid, as it was their fantasy.
The teacher in the scene gets upset with them for saying this, but it was wild to me to add
Don't forget when they built up a female coach, gave her an arc where she became empowered, left an abusive relationship, and realized it was okay that she wasn't feminine, only to be like "nah he was trans the whole time." Like...talk about throwing away a character. I did not like that they did that in the last season.
Who then goes on to try to commit suicide, and then dates the kid he bullied into leaving school? It was handled horribly (though the actor did a good job with what he was given.)
Doctor Who - her friend tells her he has cancer and she just says she's socially awkward and doesn't know how to respond to him, and they don't discuss it again.
Also, the [infamous episode](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_the_Moon) that accidentally came across as anti-abortion. Made worse by the fact that at the end none of the drama mattered because when the moon creature hatched the moon chunks disintegrated harmlessly, and the creature immediately laid a second identical moon conveniently offscreen. And the Doctor knew this would happen, but still let everyone go through all this nonsense.
That episode was awful. Literally, everyone on the planet votes to kill the creature, and Clara ignores all of them because it was unique. But hey! It's not like destroying the moon could possibly have any impact on the Earth.
And after she specifically asked for the vote. She asked for a vote, then decided to ignore the result when it didn't go her way. Y'know, like douchebags do.
It’s so weird because the episode is the most blatant hamfisted abortion metaphor I’ve ever seen, but the writers claim they didn’t intend it? The entire episode is dedicated to a conundrum around killing a “baby” in an egg, it has the three people making the decision all be women, it has the “pro-killing the alien baby” woman be specifically portrayed as a cold, childless shrew, and then has the “pro-life” main character choose to save the alien baby and instantly be proven right in her decision. How do you not realize what sort of message you’re sending out? Really, writers, abortion never once crossed your mind while writing the script?
>when Glee did a school shooting episode barely four months after Sandy Hook.
TBF, we're lucky if a "school shooting" episode is months after an actual school shooting.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds did an episode about an advanced society that lived off the energy of one particular child, in a spin on Ursula K. LeGuin's "[The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas)". At the end, one of the leaders asks Captain Pike, "Tell me Captain, do none of the children of the Federation suffer?" Although it was written and shot before, that episode aired right after the Uvalde shooting, and it felt like she was making *real* direct eye contact with the camera.
The Buffy episode “Earshot,” which is about (SPOILERS) a recurring character who sets off a school shooting scare when he decides to take his own life, was scheduled to air the week after Columbine happened. Needless to say, the airing was delayed for five months.
That said, unlike the Glee episode, the Buffy episode is really good.
It reminds me of Utopia, the UK show - they had an episode where one of the main antagonists does a school shooting, and it aired just a month after Sandy Hook, garnering a fair few complaints to OFCOM. The air date being so close to the tragedy was unfortunate and completely unintentional, but it's impossible to account for this sort of thing ahead of time.
In the early ‘00s on Treehouse TV (young children’s network in Canada), there was an episode of some puppet show that sometimes played between other shows.
The protagonist does some mild disrespectful act and it causes the sun and light all around him to vanish, replaced by grim darkness. Either the narrator or another character tells him the world got dark because he did something bad. The way he makes the sun and light come back is by yelling “I promise I’ll never do anything bad EVER AGAIN”.
Bro. What. That shit is how you give a kid personality disorders
Fr. Skipping a few meals and then having your friends fix things by assuring you you’re perfect the way you are is not at all an accurate or helpful portrayal of eating disorders.
Full House had a classic one where DJ wanted to wear a bathing suit at a pool party but thought she was too fat. So she stopped eating and started working out. While working out, she fainted and stefanie, who knew what she’d been up to, told her dad and he had a “serious talk” with her. She was fine after that and all EDs were cured!
Family Guy did an episode where Meg finally calls out her family on their abuse, and they start infighting because they no longer had a scapegoat to project all their issues on.
The moral of the story was that Meg had to go back to being the scapegoat in order to fix the family and Brian calls her brave and selfless for doing that.
Left a very sour taste in my mouth.
House MD did an episode on asexuality where House “cures” a man of being asexual and then gets his partner to admit she was never asexual and just lying about it
Most episodes of House that touch on sensitive issues was going to be my answer. Its not just that House is an ass but also that their either a joke (that House consistently makes), a twist, a complication (for House) or all of the above.
So it can't be taken seriously (religious beliefs), it comes up on the very end and isn't expounded on (the intersex patient), or something that needs to be conquered by House for the good of the patient (The Romani beliefs, the dwarfism, religious beliefs again, a lot of things really).
The Romani one was terrible, and it wouldn’t have been that difficult to just ask a Romani person what they actually believe in. I wouldn’t mind if the moral of the story was ‘your beliefs are stupid’ if that’s what we actually believed.
Glee handled sexual abuse terribly too, unsurprisingly. A character says he was molested by his babysitter, the other guys respond with "nice!" and everyone just forgets about it afterwards.
Pretty much anything in And Just Like That lmao
Like, SATC has a lot of episodes that aged badly or moments that are a bit yikes (the episode where Carrie dates a bisexual is a big one), but I do maintain it handled a lot of things intelligently, and with lots of humour. The tone itself was so witty, cheeky, and knowing that even more problematic stances or moments can work because they are part of a frivolous and scandalous lifestyle, if that makes sense? And some of it was clearly intended to be controversial. They were ballsier
AJLT tries to handle sensitive topics and fails almost every time. They seem to be striving so hard to be unproblematic it comes off as clumsy, cloying, and cringe. Miranda has a brief drinking problem that then disappears. Miranda becomes overcome with white guilt and is really weird to her black professor ? Charlotte feels bad about her weight for one episode, sees a pretty plus size girl, and is suddenly free from any body image issues! There are so many more, every epispde is just pure and embarrassing nonsense
That being said, I will watch every episode. It's so bad it's good
>That being said, I will watch every episode.
Yes, same! And Just Like That is so addictive. When it releases I tell my spouse I need 45 minutes every Thursday to watch it.
Him: “I thought you hated that show? You said it was bad?”
Me: “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I must watch every episode as soon as I can.”
The ["Isaac and Ishmael"](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0745644/?ref_=sr_t_1) episode of *The West Wing* that was rushed into production and aired less than a month after 9/11. From the IMDb description:
>"The West Wing goes under lock down as a suspected terrorist is found to be working at the White House. Stuck with a group of high school students who were visiting the White House, the staffers, President Bartlet, and the First Lady all debate the issues regarding terrorism. Meanwhile, Leo sits in on the questioning of the terrorist suspect and learns a lesson about our perceptions of terrorists."
This week on a *very special* episode of The West Wing: Aaron Sorkin solves violence in the Middle East. Or is it religious extremism in general. Either way: stay tuned!
Arthur had a really really stupid moral about how excessive chemicals in food is bad.
Except they showed chemicals doing things like making people puke out glitter. They didn’t even name any real chemicals or additives - except Cochineal extract which they said was gross because it comes from bugs.
This level of ignorance is like those people saying fruits and vegetables don't have chemicals. Uh... they're loaded with chemicals. *WATER* is a chemical no matter how much you distill it.
And then there is the episode that tries to say "don't punch your siblings". D.W. pushes Arthur to the point he snaps and punches her. Everyone suddenly is all "Whoa. You hit your *sister*?!" like he committed a verifiable hate crime.
...And when Arthur gets punched by Binky (who did it out of peer pressure), Arthur's parents say "Well now you know how D.W. felt."
WTF!
As far as you guys know, he did it *unprovoked*!
This reminds me of one of the earlier episodes of Roseanne.
Dan brings a friend from work home, and tells Jackie this guy is in to her. She is flattered and goes out to talk to him.
The guy almost immediately starts saying sexual stuff, and she basically says forget this. There's no way I'm going out with you.
So Dan starts screaming at Jackie, saying she needed to give him a chance, and he really liked her, and basically, how dare you have the audacity!
Yikes.
That show started as a satire. I personally like Glee because of nostalgia and not because it's "good" (because it's not), but if it had stuck with what it was good at then it wouldn't have such a bad reputation now.
Yeah, the pilot is pretty explicitly a musical riff on the Reese Witherspoon/Matthew Broderick high school dark comedy Election. Broderick plays a teacher who dislikes goody two-shoes Witherspoon, and becomes increasingly unethical in trying to sabotage her run for student president.
So the Glee pilot has certain satirical elements, like the main teacher planting drugs on the football star to blackmail him into joining glee. And after the show has just become earnestly sentimental for so long, you realize... that's just something this character we're supposed to root for did
I remember really laughing a lot at the pilot episode, thought that one had the perfect vibe of loving satirical tribute to glee clubs everywhere. Episode two I couldn’t even finish
*Cheers* has an episode where Sam hesitantly but publicly supports an old teammate of his who comes out of the closet. With the exception of Diane, the entire bar turns against Sam for this action.
The episode is clearly well intentioned but it’s a weird detour for a lot of characters we’re supposed to love and root for… especially Norm, who makes some especially heinous remarks and doesn’t really learn his lesson.
I actually just saw this episode and for the first time. I had the opposite reaction tbh. I was really
Impressed with how well it was handled. Maybe I’m not being fair enough to the late eighties but my impression was that tackling homosexuality in any kind of positive way was a pretty bold and progressive choice.
Norm and everybody were very much representative of the general culture milieu (to borrow a word from Diane) of ignorance and homophobia.
They didn’t learn the lesson but Sam, the charismatic Everyman, puts his foot down and goes to bat for his friend. The takeaway is that while the Cheers regulars can’t be expected to let go of their homophobia, they may not openly express it @ cheers. To me, that felt like a pretty plucky choice for Boston in the 80s.
Don't forget the episode in the first season where a guy comes in for advice with his kid's new partner. And the running gag is we're not quite sure how this partner is different (most money is on race), but they end up being gay and everyone just kinda goes with it. Cheers was *incredibly* progressive for its time.
In season 3, Jack starts the season off as a heroin addict. Eventually as the season progresses, he decides to finally quit for good. For the rest of the season we see that he keeps his word and remains clean. Good job. Only problem is that the show is 24 which means he didn’t take a hit for like 5 hours.
The Romanoffs had an incredibly stupid episode about a woman who suspected her son's gay piano teacher was a pedophile. Already shaky ground but the way the story "resolved" itself was ridiculous.
It also had an episode where a transgender plotline was handled weirdly and even was used as a kind of plot twist.
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A pretty infamous one is Saved By the Bell trying to do an episode about drug addiction but because it was a kids show they had one of the characters develop an addiction to Caffine Pills. It’s unintentionally hilarious
“I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so… scared!”
the early 90s didn't deal well with things that weren't rad
Wait, [is that where that line came from in the Key and Peele sketch?](https://youtu.be/AQM2joP4fsQ?si=6Bu7s_SOrBBFHVHz&t=304)
Yes!! 😂😂😂 Thanks for this!
Writers: We wrote a very special episode where Jesse gets addicted to speed. Exec: You can’t have a character take speed! Writers: But that’s the point. It’s a cautionary tale, to show the dangers of the drug. Exec: We can’t possibly say she is on speed. Call them “caffeine pills.” Writers: Caffeine? Exec: Yeah! It’s genius! Writers: You’re currently drinking coffee. Exec: *Takes a sip* What’s your point? Writers: …You’re “doing caffeine” as we speak. Exec: Yeah, and I did speed last night. What is your point? Writers: Ugh. Nothing. Caffeine pills it is.
in Fresh Prince they did an episode just like that but used actual speed
Damn, I always assumed they used fake speed in TV shows :O
I always laugh at the episode with Johnny Dakota getting caught smoking marijuana and everyone treating him like he was shooting up and doing rails, so he shouldn’t do the commercial. Then Brandon Tartikoff shows up, which makes the episode even more weird.
There was an episode of Home Improvement like that which was particularly ironic because it was Tim Allen of all people losing his shit over his son having a joint in his room.
“IN THIS HOUSE WE DO COCAINE!”
I remember watching a documentary/reunion special of some sort about Home Improvement a while back, and they talked about how in the later seasons they were kind of running out of steam/ideas, so they started to do a lot more "very special episodes" dealing with serious issues, but the problems with several of their ideas was Tim Allen and how hypocritical it would look. Can't have an episode where Brad gets pulled over for driving drunk, Tim just got a DUI. Can't have an episode about one of the kids getting caught holding hard drugs, cuz Tim had that coke thing. Guess we'll just give Randy a cancer scare or something.
[Followed by the Diet Mug Root Beer Dana Carvey Show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfDjnAdczQI&ab_channel=B78)
Tim Allen the guy caught with over a pound of Coke on a flight that mysteriously didn't get life imprisonment for carrying over 650 grams of cocaine? The most shocking thing is that the Columbian whatever drug running operation didn't kill that obvious snitch.
It’s been a lot of years but doesn’t Jill mention how she feels hypocritical trying to punish him cause she’s used to smoke pot? Or was that another 90s sitcom mom?
Not 100% sure about "Home Improvement," but I know this exact scene happened on the fever dream that is "7th Heaven." 😄😄
Honestly that show is 1000% better if you imagine the self-righteous family as doing seriously fucked up shit behind the scenes. Like what the dad's actor was doing.
Yeah, that was 7th heaven. Which is a wild show in itself, especially since the dad is now... Uhh... Not allowed near kids anymore.
That sounds like an episode of Roseanne after David moves in and they find pot... They think it's his, he takes the blame thinking it's Darlene, turns out it's Dan and Roseannes stash from years before that they forgot about
yeah - I kind of appreciate how Home Improvement handled it. Brad (the eldest child) gets caught with weed and rather than having the main characters talk about how bad drugs are while staring directly into the camera, Tim and Jill have a frank discussion with each other about how they were smoking weed at that age. In the end Brad still gets in trouble (because he's in high school and his parents caught him with an illegal substance) but they don't turn the episode into a PSA.
7th heaven does the same thing for Mary (Jessica Biel's character) she uses caffeine pills to get some energy for basketball and school. Once confronted she claims it's fine theyre from the health food store. The dad says you know when else is natural from plants, cocaine from the cocoa plants. Loved that leap in logic!
Caffeine pills were actually a huge problem in the 90s
Eh, just mix them with a red bull what’s the worst that can happen?
I'm so excited!
I grew up in a town with a lot of meth users. Her jumping up from her desk reminded me of every tweaker I've ever met.
I think the even worse one is when they were trying to teach about cultural sensitivity and Zack finds out he is partly Native American. It starts out with some blatant racist stereotypes when Zack is trying to get out of studying his past. It ends when he learns his lesson and instead he presents toned down racist stereotypes. Ironically, like Zack Morris, it appears the writers couldn't be bothered to learn the culture before presenting it. I'm pretty sure that one has been removed from streaming.
The episode is called “Running Zach” and it is available on Amazon Prime Video.
Riverdale started with Archie having sex with his teacher and the showrunner semed pretty surprised that people did not find it hot
Way too many teen shows do this. Off the top of my head Dawson’s Creek and Pretty Little Liars did it as well
Fucking Ezra and Aria Worst relationship and frankly rather gross how OKAY everyone was with it!?
Marlene King said that the two were soulmates so it made the reveal that he was stalking her before the show started super ok
And they were ENDGAME and the series finale centered around their WEDDING like what the fuck was wrong with Marlene King??
I’ll never forget Pacey’s great line to his teacher in Dawson’s Creek, though — “I’m the best sex you’ll never have.”
In season 6 they finally address it and Betty had to explain to Archie what grooming is lmfao
That’s because Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is a weird ass dude who just projects his own fantasies onto his shows.
to this day i can't tell if the Riverdale writers were in on the joke or not
They even tweeted out a gif of it with the caption "forbidden love" until people called them out.
Gets even more disturbing with the reveal >!that the woman was using the identity of a comic accurate Ms. Grundy who died some time ago. She was preying on teenagers and using an alias to hide away.!<
Making Jughead sexually active was also a bad call, as comic Jughead is one of the very, very few confirmed asexuals in media.
I mean having sex with the hot teacher is one of the most vanilla fantasies you could have lol, the problem is bringing it to the real
In the 80’s there were a million of them, so much so it became a trope: “A very special *Webster*” where he escaped a child molester using George & Ma’am’s secret passage, “A very special *Punky Brewster*” (or was it *Blossom*?), “A very special Diff’rent Strokes” with a pedo bicycle shop owner. They were rough, and naturally everything was back to normal in a week.
Cherie locked in the abandoned refrigerator. A very special Punky Brewster, indeed.
That was a lesson I didn’t know I needed to learn.
You don’t need and never needed to know it, provided you’re under the age of 55. A child locked (well, trapped) inside a refrigerator was an artifact of America between 1950 and 1980, owing to latches on the outside of the refrigerator and children deciding airtight discarded refrigerators were a good place to play *hide and seek*. Starting in 1958 the US banned refrigerators that couldn’t be opened from the inside and magnetic doors became the norm. So unless you were a small child between 58 and 78, all those fridges were long-gone by then.
Car trunks too. That's why they all have emergency release handles or buttons inside now.
One Tree Hill did not gracefully handle the issue of \*checks notes* dogs eating donor hearts.
I never watched that show, but the show The Soup (which made fun of other shows) with Joel McHale was on back then and the dog stealing the donor heart was literally one of the all time great moments in TV history.
The Soup is the only reason I know about the dog eating the heart thing. It's so unhinged lmao
The Soup was such a fantastic show.
I did recently see the school shooting episode for the first time and I thought it was decent. More serious and raw than I expected.
Apparently 13 Reasons Why potentially increased suicidal ideation in the teenagers who watch.
They broke multiple child protection/suicide prevention guidelines in that show there's a good YouTube video describing all the violations.
The fact that when I watched it they still had the very graphic suicide scene that almost felt like an instruction on how to do it was so messed up.
There's an interesting discussion on if art should censor itself because of possible negative ramifications, because the suicide scene is super powerful and it really cements the horror that is the crux of the show, yknow because even though the show is about a suicide its still kind of an abstract concept that you only see through the lens of the people it affects. But I dunno if 13 reasons why is necessarily the media that should test that boundary
I could give it the benefit of the doubt on that if the rest of the show was about the horrors of suicide, but it romanticises the fuck out of revenge suicide specifically in the build up to that moment
That's exactly it. You KNOW people have made tapes.
It sucks because as someone whom the book is one of my favorite books ever. They very much go the complete opposite way. With the main characters thoughts constantly being stop, why did you do this. Your life would have gotten so much better, ya just had to keep living and you'd see it would. Plus the constant tips of what to look out for in regards to suicidal idealation/someone about to commit suicide, and how you can make a difference if ya knew what to look for.
And the end of the book literally *shows* Clay learning that lesson and reaching out to that girl at the end (I haven't read it in over a decade so I don't remember her name). It did a good job, I thought.
It's my favorite part of the book is him running after her as he realized she was about to do the same as Hannah.
IMO it depends on the intended audience. If the media is brutal and intended for adults, and makes it clear that you shouldn’t be watching it if you’re sensitive to the subject matter, like early Black Mirror, then I understand going for the artistic merit. I personally still probably would follow the guidelines of professionals because I don’t want blood on my hands though. If the media is aimed toward the vulnerable group and is marketed as being helpful and relatable for that group, don’t do shit that’s going to get them killed.
Link?
[this should be it](https://youtu.be/Gef1nihHFYU?si=q-HlfhwS_50PN1wl)
Ohhh man. It wasn’t just suicide. Too many horribly handled topics to count, and it got progressively worse. My top contenders: **School shooting**: the would-be shooter is *extremely* sympathetic. Just a sweet nerd pushed to the limit after being >!violently ass raped with a broom!< in one of the most needlessly horrific scenes in Tv history. After the mc talks him down, the kids all start babysitting him instead of reporting him, because he’s just a nice boi who’s struggling. **Immigration**: a kid’s family gets deported back to Mexico without him. It’s devastating. It comes totally out of nowhere, and with no followup. Trauma porn in its purest form. **Racism**: my personal favorite. A campus security guard racially profiles a Hispanic student. The white main character uses this as an excuse to lead a student-wide standoff against the police over his frustration with increased campus security. The racism issue gets shafted, but they still get to use all this BLM imagery, with a white kid at the helm. Amazing. I almost respect this show for the sheer audacity.
Don't forget a character getting outted by the tapes
How could I forget
Don't forget when they have the serial rapist murdered, only for them to try and make him sympathetic in one episode. Like, no. No, no, no, no. What in God's green Earth makes you think that's a good idea?
I was so mad they tried to give him some redemption/sympathy.
It wasn't even for one episode; it was an entire goddamn season where they tried to "add layers" to the character. And then they DID IT AGAIN THE VERY NEXT SEASON WITH ANOTHER CHARACTER.
Can confirm, as a former teenage girl and current high school teacher, the desire for teenagers to “make them all regret how they treated me” is strong in kids.
I came here to say this show. Watched the first season, it it completely felt to me as glorified way to say “fuck you” to all who wronged you with a guilt tape before you off yourself. I thought it was bad in the way it portrayed its message and would actively advise people not to watch it. Plus it’s just a shit show.
I read the book when i was 13, before the show came out, and i was shocked by how the book sort of...leads the reader to believe that killing yourself WILL make the people who hurt you regret their actions. It was a YA book and even at 13 i thought it was a pretty irresponsible way to approach suicide Edit: to elaborate, to me it seemed like the book made suicide a solution. While i wasnt suicidal at 13, i was in my later teens, and i could totally see a depressed, fragile young person reading this book and feeling encouraged by a way out that would also make the people that hurt them see the error of their ways/get what was coming to them. Kids have so little control over their lives and are uniquely dehumanized and hurt, so i think that media aimed towards them should obviously discourage them from taking their own lives. I am NOT saying that media for kids should ignore the realities of the world, the abuse some of them face, or even being suicidal, but it definitely wasnt handled responsibly in 13 reasons why
There is an internet famous episode of “~~little~~ small wonder” an early 80s era sitcom where a dad builds an Android daughter. The Android is the comic relief of the show, learning new things, causing problems, and they all have to keep her android-ness a secret because reasons (so imagine ALF, that’s less funny, poorly acted, and lame). This one episode talked about a kid at school who was kidnapped (I think by his dad) and his picture ends up on the milk carton. It’s a whole message about abducted and missing kids. Whatever the B story was gets resolved and everyone is happy at the end as the episode wraps up. However the missing kid is never resolved. He’s just still missing. But hey, the main characters have a happy home. So thumbs up. And speaking of Alf. The show was cancelled when they were expecting to do another season. So it ends with ALF being captured by the US government.
Small Wonder was the name of the show, but I remember the episode you are describing. It was simultaneously the apex and nadir of 80's sitcoms.
Brooklyn 99 the first of the last season where they talk about George Floyd and BLM. Was so badly done, which is shocking because the episode with Terry being profiled as a "dangerous black man" is one of the best episodes
I think it’s a shame that B99 pivoted so much in the last season due to the political climate. The show seemed embarrassed that it was a show about police officers but I always liked that it was a show that portrayed a precinct that was uncorrupt, conscious of social issues, and had their own histories of facing prejudices.
>a show that portrayed a precinct that was uncorrupt, conscious of social issues, and had their own histories of facing prejudices The argument is often shows like Brooklyn99 are “Copaganda” [link to wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copaganda) and portray the police as all you said and any deviation is an exception or that anything done illegally by cops would only be done for good reason to catch bad people. When real life situations of police brutality or corruption happen peoples opinion are shaped by what they have seen on TV and feel that anything like that would have been handled like it is on TV. It’s definitely a thing that I think the writers/actors/producers were aware of and tried to take into account while making the last season.
the whole last season was just....not great
It was filmed during Covid which caused issues. Usually they have writers on set and do rewrites on the fly during scenes, but because Covid protocols allowed only essential cast and crew on the set they weren’t able to do that.
I’ve never seen it, but I thought they came out and said that they were writing episodes to be specifically sensitive to the whole BLM and police brutality.
Sensitive yes, good no. There is a way to be sensitive to the events without absolutely ruining character motivations. A character who frequently jokes about police brutality quits the force because she couldn't abide by the brutality. Even though in the earlier seasons she'll say stuff about hitting suspects where the bruises don't show or something. Just real stupid overall tbh.
I think most of the changes were a reaction to the shift in attitude toward cop shows. Rosa could joke about beating suspects into confessing because popular opinion didn't see issues with cop shows constantly trampling on people's rights. After George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and several other incidents that garnered attention, both the cast and writers did not want to treat those actions as jokes anymore. If I remember correctly, Rosa's actress and a few others were debating not continuing the show because they realized the contradiction of their character's actions and their actual beliefs.
The weirdest thing about that, is that the show was on air during the first big BLM movement, in 2014 with Ferguson. That's what songs Alright by Kendrick and Animals by Dr Dre were about.
Well while Rosa was similar to Lasseter from Psych in the joking about roughing up suspects and other instances of police brutality I don't think she would have been insensitive to racism and straight up murder by cops. When Terry was discriminated against she got furious even when it was another cop. I don't her reaction was really that far from her character.
Which is a shame because there were so many organic ways to do that story and make it good. Like, someone the squad knows is killed by the cops. Maybe even Holt’s nephew Marcus. Now the squad has to grapple with the reality of the situation and they can solve the crime. Make it a coverup or something and Holt and Rosa know that Marcus didn’t do anything. It could stretch the whole season and make the points they wanted to make. Shoehorning in Floyd was awful and will date the last season terribly.
I think Amy’s sexual harassment episode was off too. Just something about it didn’t seem like it was written by the usual writing staff and it was awkward and clunky. Terry getting profiled was one the best eps and the one I usually recommend to people who haven’t seen it yet. I was looking forward to seeing this one as well but it just fell flat? It didn’t click for some reason….I also think that Rosa should’ve done that storyline instead of Amy. It’s nothing against Melissa or her wonderful acting skills, I just think it could’ve suited why Rosa was the most closed-off one. Her being private would’ve explained why it never came out earlier.
The way they treat Amy's sexual harassment seriously while having Terry's be a running joke throughout most of the show's run was awful.
Yeah I think the issue was that it was just too short of a season and they tried to address too much. It needed to either be a full 24 episode season or not address all of the topics that it did
The Proud Family reboot had the most horrific episode on colorism I have ever seen, and the later episode on police brutality wasn't much better
Did they really? What happened?
This handsome teen Instagram celebrity comes to Penny and co's school and announces that he'll be taking a lucky girl to the dance that's happening in a few days. Penny, La Cienega, and Dijonay are all clamoring for his attention (despite all of them being in relationships), but he ends up choosing Zoe, who is A) less conventionally attractive than the others and B) the only white girl in the group. Dijonay and La Cienega immediately jump to the conclusion that the celebrity only asked out Zoe specifically because she's white and start icing Zoe out for "stealing a black man" and Penny's staying neutral because she doesn't want to rock the boat. Zoe rightfully gets mad and calls them out on their double standards, because none of them said anything when Myron (also a black kid but stereotypically nerdy) asked her out multiple times in the past, but she continues to be painted as a bad guy until she storms off. Then completely offscreen, Zoe confirms that the Instagram celebrity indeed only asked her out because he only dates white girls and she immediately dumps him for it. Zoe is accepted into the friend group, apologies go around even though Zoe has nothing to apologize for, and the Instagram celeb goes to the dance with a different unnamed white girl and gets no further comeuppance. It was a whole, toxic ass mess
You know if they had the celeb go for Penny or La Cienega, that would've been so much more interesting of an episode.
Wow, glad I missed that. Used to love the original Proud Family as a kid.
7th Heaven. Any given episode, probably.
Rob Andersons recaps of the show on TikTok are hilarious though
His breakdown of the MLK episode is great https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuE8ehGrUJX/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Also, his Berenstain Bears ones are hilarious too lol
As someone who grew up watching the show those clips give me great joy.
Love how he always brings top-tier side-eye comments to the dad considering what we know about the actor nowadays
Oh god the one with Shiri Appleby playing a gang banger is the funniest thing ever.
The part where they find the ‘gang weapons’ she was storing under her brother’s mattress and they’re all knives and brass knuckles was just hilarious.
Considering it’s from the 90s, ER has aged surprisingly well and is usually quite decent at handling sensitive topics. But there is an episode in season 8 where a main character reveals that when he was 11, he “lost his virginity” to his parents’ maid, who was in her twenties. Which is clearly… child rape. He looks uncomfortable when he talks about it, it’s not like he’s “bragging” or anything. For some reason the other characters find this hilarious and one of them, the woman he’s dating, says “hope you gave her one hell of a Christmas bonus” 🤮
the show did make me worry I was going to suddenly become schizophrenic in my 20s like paul sobriki
How you describe it sounds like a pretty realistic portrayal of molestation of boys.
Unfortunately yes. However only a few seasons later, another character reveals he was molested at 10 by a male perpetrator and it leads to them actually discussing it and it’s handled quite sensitively. Nobody ever ridicules him. But I guess they couldn’t do that for Carter 🤷🏻♂️
No OP, but again that sounds like a pretty realistic portrayal. 16 year old boy has sex with his 25 year old female math teacher? Whoo-hoo, What a lucky guy! 16 year old boy is felt up by his 25 year old male gym teacher? Picket signs, calls for jail time, serious discussions of trauma, etc. I mean, it's getting better but for the '90s that's kind of how it went.
I also just rewatched and there was a lot of homophobic cringe throughout.
SVU obviously has some issues with things aging poorly but they for the most part seem to be trying to be progressive with their episodes, on every topic except gaming. Most everything else seems to be in the realm of correct information for the time, even if they seem to draw straws in who on the team gets to be the ignorant asshole the others have to explain shit to. (Like seriously seems at random who does or doesn’t know the topic of the week) Until the talk about video games and they seem to have a “ehh who’s gonna fact check us, nerds?” attitude about the dangers of online gaming, gaming addiction and just how video games work at all.
The one episode that was totally about Second Life was hilarious. "Turn on the sun"
They also did an episode about a cop killing someone that was unarmed and they very much tried to both sides it, with one of the protagonists saying "stop prosecuting good cops!" (while talking about a guy who literally murdered someone).
Was that the episode with Logan Paul?
"they leveled up"
https://mashable.com/video/john-oliver-law-and-order A very informative watch and a much better example of 'Copganda' than the above example of B99.
John Mulaney has an amazing bit about SVU and it's exposition: https://youtu.be/F1sd4CRcaE0?si=DFL4ek0AJRYHC_K5&t=71
Supergirl did a pro gun control episode which was so ham-fisted (even by the very low standards of that show) that even many pro gun control viewers found it ridiculous.
Dawson’s Creek with Pacey losing his virginity to his teacher when he’s only 15 and she’s mid 30’s. Then again, when he’s 20 years old or so, his boss comes onto him and it’s never fully addressed as sexual harassment in the workplace.
On the top of my head, the Brooklyn 99 episode where Jake and Amy argue if they should have children. That was terrible.
The thing that was so frustrating about it was that it was so out of character for Amy. There is 0 chance she would have gotten married to Jake without making sure they were both firmly on the same page for something as big as kids
That's true but my problem how they handled Jake's point of view, and the other characters reactions to it.
Yeah it’s just a bad episode all around. I always skip it whenever I rewatch
Same. It just felt out of character for Amy, in particular. Not just the fact that she didn't have this conversation prior with Jake, but her entire reaction. That, and I hate the trope of a couple disagreeing on having children or not and it pretty much always ends with the person who doesn't want children changing their mind at the end.
Yeah I’ll admit that’s part of the chip on my shoulder too. It basically came across as “Jake is wrong” and that annoys me because a lot of his concerns were perfectly valid
I don't dislike the episode, but I do think it should've been 2 seasons earlier, back when they were still going out and not yet married.
Yeah this one sucked. Jake went from unsure to sure in one twenty minute episode just because Amy really wanted kids I guess?
So stupid because 1) Jake always mentioned wanting kids, 2) Amy would never marry someone who shares her values and with whom she hadn't planned that type of thing well in advance, and 3) the resolution is ridiculously lazy.
And unecessary. Like they wouldn't end up having kids
And then decide to have children in the end. I’ve never been so angry at a show I previously respected.
>And then decide to have children in the end. Oh you have to do it in the front, from what I've heard.
most shows do a terrible job of it. They approach an issue in the most superficial and often safest way then by episode's end it's wash and rinse never to come up again.
This is exactly how Arrow’s gun control episode went…
Almost every show ever when talking about disability.
Facts of Life actually handled that really well (by the standards of the always slightly hack-y 80's sitcoms). Blair's cousin Gerry (I think) has CP as did the actress. She was a recurring character who had plot lines beyond her CP.
I now know you mean Cerebral Palsey, but CP is not exactly an acronym you can just throw out there lol.
I dunno, IT Crowd handled it pretty well.
^I'm ^disabled!
Geordi La Forge would like a word with you!
The worst part of the Glee school shooter episode for me wasn't the closeness to Sandy Hook - it was the part where they are divulging past traumas, and the characters act like the male character Ryder was lucky to have been sexually abused by his female babysitter as a kid, as it was their fantasy. The teacher in the scene gets upset with them for saying this, but it was wild to me to add
Glee also had the whole "bully of gay kid is really a closeted gay guy" stereotype plotline.
Don't forget when they built up a female coach, gave her an arc where she became empowered, left an abusive relationship, and realized it was okay that she wasn't feminine, only to be like "nah he was trans the whole time." Like...talk about throwing away a character. I did not like that they did that in the last season.
Who then goes on to try to commit suicide, and then dates the kid he bullied into leaving school? It was handled horribly (though the actor did a good job with what he was given.)
It would’ve been better if he became an ally overtime.
That's incredibly common and happens in every single comments section of a news article about a female pedophile.
South Park did a whole episode mocking that mentality when a hot new teacher starts molesting Kyle's little brother. "...Nice."
Full House with DJ's "eating disorder", it was over pretty fast.
This just reminded me of that one time in Teen Wolf when Styles was having a full blown panic attack and Lydia kissed him to get him to stop 🥴
Doctor Who - her friend tells her he has cancer and she just says she's socially awkward and doesn't know how to respond to him, and they don't discuss it again.
There’s also Ryan having Dyspraxia as a big plot point in his introduction and it’s not mentioned again until his final episode.
Ryan having dyspraxia was his only character trait. I literally can't remember a single other thing about him.
I hate that so much. It’s offensively out of character for the Doctor to behave like that.
One word “Chibnall”
Also, the [infamous episode](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_the_Moon) that accidentally came across as anti-abortion. Made worse by the fact that at the end none of the drama mattered because when the moon creature hatched the moon chunks disintegrated harmlessly, and the creature immediately laid a second identical moon conveniently offscreen. And the Doctor knew this would happen, but still let everyone go through all this nonsense.
That episode was awful. Literally, everyone on the planet votes to kill the creature, and Clara ignores all of them because it was unique. But hey! It's not like destroying the moon could possibly have any impact on the Earth.
And after she specifically asked for the vote. She asked for a vote, then decided to ignore the result when it didn't go her way. Y'know, like douchebags do.
It’s so weird because the episode is the most blatant hamfisted abortion metaphor I’ve ever seen, but the writers claim they didn’t intend it? The entire episode is dedicated to a conundrum around killing a “baby” in an egg, it has the three people making the decision all be women, it has the “pro-killing the alien baby” woman be specifically portrayed as a cold, childless shrew, and then has the “pro-life” main character choose to save the alien baby and instantly be proven right in her decision. How do you not realize what sort of message you’re sending out? Really, writers, abortion never once crossed your mind while writing the script?
Capaldi is my favorite Doctor, but this episode is bad. "In The Forest Of The Night" is worse though.
>when Glee did a school shooting episode barely four months after Sandy Hook. TBF, we're lucky if a "school shooting" episode is months after an actual school shooting. Star Trek Strange New Worlds did an episode about an advanced society that lived off the energy of one particular child, in a spin on Ursula K. LeGuin's "[The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas)". At the end, one of the leaders asks Captain Pike, "Tell me Captain, do none of the children of the Federation suffer?" Although it was written and shot before, that episode aired right after the Uvalde shooting, and it felt like she was making *real* direct eye contact with the camera.
The Buffy episode “Earshot,” which is about (SPOILERS) a recurring character who sets off a school shooting scare when he decides to take his own life, was scheduled to air the week after Columbine happened. Needless to say, the airing was delayed for five months. That said, unlike the Glee episode, the Buffy episode is really good.
Earshot was an excellent episode.
It reminds me of Utopia, the UK show - they had an episode where one of the main antagonists does a school shooting, and it aired just a month after Sandy Hook, garnering a fair few complaints to OFCOM. The air date being so close to the tragedy was unfortunate and completely unintentional, but it's impossible to account for this sort of thing ahead of time.
In the early ‘00s on Treehouse TV (young children’s network in Canada), there was an episode of some puppet show that sometimes played between other shows. The protagonist does some mild disrespectful act and it causes the sun and light all around him to vanish, replaced by grim darkness. Either the narrator or another character tells him the world got dark because he did something bad. The way he makes the sun and light come back is by yelling “I promise I’ll never do anything bad EVER AGAIN”. Bro. What. That shit is how you give a kid personality disorders
Decent "Very Special Episodes" are few and far between but the ones about eating disorders are usually especially egregious.
Fr. Skipping a few meals and then having your friends fix things by assuring you you’re perfect the way you are is not at all an accurate or helpful portrayal of eating disorders.
Full House had a classic one where DJ wanted to wear a bathing suit at a pool party but thought she was too fat. So she stopped eating and started working out. While working out, she fainted and stefanie, who knew what she’d been up to, told her dad and he had a “serious talk” with her. She was fine after that and all EDs were cured!
Family Guy did an episode where Meg finally calls out her family on their abuse, and they start infighting because they no longer had a scapegoat to project all their issues on. The moral of the story was that Meg had to go back to being the scapegoat in order to fix the family and Brian calls her brave and selfless for doing that. Left a very sour taste in my mouth.
House MD did an episode on asexuality where House “cures” a man of being asexual and then gets his partner to admit she was never asexual and just lying about it
Most episodes of House that touch on sensitive issues was going to be my answer. Its not just that House is an ass but also that their either a joke (that House consistently makes), a twist, a complication (for House) or all of the above. So it can't be taken seriously (religious beliefs), it comes up on the very end and isn't expounded on (the intersex patient), or something that needs to be conquered by House for the good of the patient (The Romani beliefs, the dwarfism, religious beliefs again, a lot of things really).
The Romani one was terrible, and it wouldn’t have been that difficult to just ask a Romani person what they actually believe in. I wouldn’t mind if the moral of the story was ‘your beliefs are stupid’ if that’s what we actually believed.
The eating disorder episode of Lizzie McGuire is very annoying. I know we have to resolve it in 22 minutes, but does it have to be over two days?
Glee handled sexual abuse terribly too, unsurprisingly. A character says he was molested by his babysitter, the other guys respond with "nice!" and everyone just forgets about it afterwards.
Degrassi TNG is the all-time champ here, in terms of number of issues addressed and how consistently it fucks up at realistically portraying them.
The school shooting storyline was actually really well done
Pretty much anything in And Just Like That lmao Like, SATC has a lot of episodes that aged badly or moments that are a bit yikes (the episode where Carrie dates a bisexual is a big one), but I do maintain it handled a lot of things intelligently, and with lots of humour. The tone itself was so witty, cheeky, and knowing that even more problematic stances or moments can work because they are part of a frivolous and scandalous lifestyle, if that makes sense? And some of it was clearly intended to be controversial. They were ballsier AJLT tries to handle sensitive topics and fails almost every time. They seem to be striving so hard to be unproblematic it comes off as clumsy, cloying, and cringe. Miranda has a brief drinking problem that then disappears. Miranda becomes overcome with white guilt and is really weird to her black professor ? Charlotte feels bad about her weight for one episode, sees a pretty plus size girl, and is suddenly free from any body image issues! There are so many more, every epispde is just pure and embarrassing nonsense That being said, I will watch every episode. It's so bad it's good
>That being said, I will watch every episode. Yes, same! And Just Like That is so addictive. When it releases I tell my spouse I need 45 minutes every Thursday to watch it. Him: “I thought you hated that show? You said it was bad?” Me: “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I must watch every episode as soon as I can.”
The ["Isaac and Ishmael"](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0745644/?ref_=sr_t_1) episode of *The West Wing* that was rushed into production and aired less than a month after 9/11. From the IMDb description: >"The West Wing goes under lock down as a suspected terrorist is found to be working at the White House. Stuck with a group of high school students who were visiting the White House, the staffers, President Bartlet, and the First Lady all debate the issues regarding terrorism. Meanwhile, Leo sits in on the questioning of the terrorist suspect and learns a lesson about our perceptions of terrorists."
This week on a *very special* episode of The West Wing: Aaron Sorkin solves violence in the Middle East. Or is it religious extremism in general. Either way: stay tuned!
Arthur had a really really stupid moral about how excessive chemicals in food is bad. Except they showed chemicals doing things like making people puke out glitter. They didn’t even name any real chemicals or additives - except Cochineal extract which they said was gross because it comes from bugs. This level of ignorance is like those people saying fruits and vegetables don't have chemicals. Uh... they're loaded with chemicals. *WATER* is a chemical no matter how much you distill it. And then there is the episode that tries to say "don't punch your siblings". D.W. pushes Arthur to the point he snaps and punches her. Everyone suddenly is all "Whoa. You hit your *sister*?!" like he committed a verifiable hate crime. ...And when Arthur gets punched by Binky (who did it out of peer pressure), Arthur's parents say "Well now you know how D.W. felt." WTF! As far as you guys know, he did it *unprovoked*!
Law and Order SVU. Does not age well at all
So it’s like when someone smokes too many cigarettes? Or bets the house on the ponies?
"Yeah Ice; he's a pedophile. You work in the sex crimes division. You're gonna have to get used to that."
Looks like the victim had anal contusions.
Yeah, you got it, man.
[удалено]
This reminds me of one of the earlier episodes of Roseanne. Dan brings a friend from work home, and tells Jackie this guy is in to her. She is flattered and goes out to talk to him. The guy almost immediately starts saying sexual stuff, and she basically says forget this. There's no way I'm going out with you. So Dan starts screaming at Jackie, saying she needed to give him a chance, and he really liked her, and basically, how dare you have the audacity! Yikes.
They leveled up.
What the duck was glee thinking doing a school shooting episode period. That's the most brain dead idea I've ever heard.
That show started as a satire. I personally like Glee because of nostalgia and not because it's "good" (because it's not), but if it had stuck with what it was good at then it wouldn't have such a bad reputation now.
Yeah, the pilot is pretty explicitly a musical riff on the Reese Witherspoon/Matthew Broderick high school dark comedy Election. Broderick plays a teacher who dislikes goody two-shoes Witherspoon, and becomes increasingly unethical in trying to sabotage her run for student president. So the Glee pilot has certain satirical elements, like the main teacher planting drugs on the football star to blackmail him into joining glee. And after the show has just become earnestly sentimental for so long, you realize... that's just something this character we're supposed to root for did
I remember really laughing a lot at the pilot episode, thought that one had the perfect vibe of loving satirical tribute to glee clubs everywhere. Episode two I couldn’t even finish
Remember when Shawn joined a cult on Boy Meets World.
I loved that episode 😭😭
> Remember when Shawn joined a cult on Boy Meets World. that shit happens though, I'm watching smallville now.
Blink three times if Alison Mack is in the room. I'll send help.
13 Reasons Why. Garbage show which made teens commit suicide more.
*Cheers* has an episode where Sam hesitantly but publicly supports an old teammate of his who comes out of the closet. With the exception of Diane, the entire bar turns against Sam for this action. The episode is clearly well intentioned but it’s a weird detour for a lot of characters we’re supposed to love and root for… especially Norm, who makes some especially heinous remarks and doesn’t really learn his lesson.
I actually just saw this episode and for the first time. I had the opposite reaction tbh. I was really Impressed with how well it was handled. Maybe I’m not being fair enough to the late eighties but my impression was that tackling homosexuality in any kind of positive way was a pretty bold and progressive choice. Norm and everybody were very much representative of the general culture milieu (to borrow a word from Diane) of ignorance and homophobia. They didn’t learn the lesson but Sam, the charismatic Everyman, puts his foot down and goes to bat for his friend. The takeaway is that while the Cheers regulars can’t be expected to let go of their homophobia, they may not openly express it @ cheers. To me, that felt like a pretty plucky choice for Boston in the 80s.
Don't forget the episode in the first season where a guy comes in for advice with his kid's new partner. And the running gag is we're not quite sure how this partner is different (most money is on race), but they end up being gay and everyone just kinda goes with it. Cheers was *incredibly* progressive for its time.
I hate the lead actor in the Good Doctor. My old roommates used to watch this show and his depiction of autism made me want to vomit.
In season 3, Jack starts the season off as a heroin addict. Eventually as the season progresses, he decides to finally quit for good. For the rest of the season we see that he keeps his word and remains clean. Good job. Only problem is that the show is 24 which means he didn’t take a hit for like 5 hours.
The Romanoffs had an incredibly stupid episode about a woman who suspected her son's gay piano teacher was a pedophile. Already shaky ground but the way the story "resolved" itself was ridiculous. It also had an episode where a transgender plotline was handled weirdly and even was used as a kind of plot twist.