12/11/2023 0 Comments Bottle episode walking dead![]() A classic example is Breaking Bad’s season-three episode “Fly,” which centers on the two lead characters, trapped inside a large underground lab, who have nothing to do but talk to each other. Bottle episodes often create some reason for everyone to get stuck inside this small place: a door is locked, there’s a deadline, there’s a bomb threat, there’s something to wait for. That underlying financial pressure has a tendency to produce a certain kind of story. ![]() As a result, the strictest definition of a bottle episode is an episode that’s filmed entirely on one prebuilt (“standing”) set, includes only main cast members, and is cheaper and faster to produce than a standard episode. Factors like building new sets, filming outdoors or on location, adding guest stars who don’t have full-season contracts, or requiring significant visual effects all make an episode more expensive, and the point of a bottle episode is to save money so that other episodes in that season can go big. Bottle episodes, an idea that may have come from Star Trek but also originates in the 1960s with a show called The Outer Limits, are first and foremost a money-saving strategy. But maybe?) What is “small cast” - does that mean two or three people, or can it be more? (Yes, but possibly no!) What if there’s a tiny piece of the episode that’s in a different setting? (Could still be a bottle!) What if there’s one main cast member and one guest star? (Maybe?) Also, wait, why does it have anything to do with the setting? Isn’t a bottle episode more like “an episode that feels separate from the rest of the show”? (Absolutely not.)Ī more complete definition of bottle episode is also more precise: It’s about how and why a specific episode is made, and it has nothing to do with what the episode feels or looks like or what kind of story it tells. ![]() The Merriam-Webster definition adds another piece, describing it as “an inexpensively produced episode of television that is typically confined to one setting.” But both of those definitions lead to confusion: How do you define “confined place”? (Depends.) If an episode takes place entirely on a cruise ship, does that count? (Probably not. The most familiar definition of the term bottle episode is an episode of TV that takes place in one confined place with a small cast and few or no guest stars. ![]() “The One Where No One’s Ready.” It’s a bottle episode. ![]()
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