Another Look at Retcons in Sitcoms (and Trek)

Four years ago I did a short list of some of my favorite sitcom retcons. You can see that article here:
http://nostalgiarush.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-look-at-retcons-in-sitcoms.html


Retcons of course is when established continuity is disregarded or even changed to further the current story line. They often piss people off, but I find them fascinating. The way a show will so blatantly disregard something that has been established in the past like we’re supposed to forget it. Sometimes they work, let’s be honest isn’t forgetting “The Brady Bunch Variety Show” ever happened a good thing?, and other times they can be aggravating like the Everybody Loves Raymond episode that brought up the fact Ray and Debra had a maid when they were first married, a fact which was never mentioned before and make no sense in context with the series.





Here are some more I just love. Some small and others a little more problematic:




Will & Grace

Gee, I wonder what brought this idea up? Yeah Will & Grace returned to network TV the other week but there was one little problem. The show had a firm final episode which closed the book on Will & Grace’s lives. How do you get around it? Make it a dream of course! Well a drug induced one that Karen had anyway. Final episode basically never happened in fact they also retconned Grace being pregnant so basically that whole final season never happened.


This wasn’t the only retcon for Will & Grace. Besides the others I mentioned in the other article we also had Karen’s mother. Karen commented a couple time she’d had her mother committed and when we finally met her she said “she was only joking” about that. Also Jack had said he made a vow to his mother when he came out that he would never deny who he really was. Which was a lie when we find out he never told his mother he was gay in one memorable episode.



Mad About You

This one is infuriating because it was so unnecessary. It was established in the episode where Paul and Jamie  got married that Ira’ band mate Lenny was ordained. And in that episode Paul and Jamie ask him to do a ceremony privately (long story). In the series finale, we find out that was just a lie and he only performed the wedding to be nice. Lenny writes this off by saying he had told Paul that at the bachelor part, at a strip club, to impress the ladies. Even though it was Ira who brought it up first. Thus making Paul and Jamie’s marriage invalid…for some reason which made no sense really.



Mama’s Family

This was a spin-off based on the popular Family sketches on The Carol Burnett Show. When the show was on the network Vint and Naomi had two adult kids. Which made no sense really, and the two disappeared into the void when the show went to syndication. There were no kids and the two would have their first child late in the series run. Bubba was also added but the characters wasn’t quite the juvenile delinquent he’d been established as back on the Carol Burnett Show (never seen but often referenced). And Mama was retconned for the whole series, she was toned down because the more hash character from the sketches would have been intolerable in a half hour sitcom.



Cheers

Ok a very small one but I love it. In one episode Rebecca wants to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Cheers. Problem is that this was around 1989, and the sign in the front clearly says est 1895. The excuse? That number was made up by Carla when she was in a numerology phase. Sure, why not?



Night Court

The Wheelers were a couple of wacky defendants who appeared in an episode and were so much fun they were returned. The problem is that in order to explain how they could return with the backstory given in the first episode, their story was changed. Bob Wheeler simply saying they had lied the first time. Dan Fielding had tweaks to his backstory for instance it had been implied he was always girl crazy but one episode firmly established he was naively innocent till after college.



Seinfeld

Sometimes a retcom is just plan stupid. In “The Gymnast” George explains that he always takes his shirt off when he goes to the bathroom, even at other people’s homes. Except we have seen him dart out of the bathroom before and the shirt was indeed on. Other Seinfeld changes include Jerry saying he hadn’t vomited in years even though in an earlier episode it was clear George and Elaine have seen him vomit recently. Finally, it took the a few episodes to decide what apartment Jerry lived in.



Big Bang Theory

Tried to come up with one but this show is very tight with its continuity. In fact one episode established Sheldon had incandescent paint on the floor in case of a power failure. When a later episode had a power failure, and the light was not there,  they remembered to explain it. So instead here is a small one. This is a small one but worth a mention. In one early episode the guys mention that the elevator hasn’t worked in a couple years. To which Sheldon asks if they should call about that. Buy we later find out the cause of the elevator being broken and it happened a lot longer. By the way, what is up with tat broken elevator on that show?



The Cosby Show

This show had a funny way of retconning the boyfriends who came around. Elvin went from being a jerk to a decent guy though you could argue that was as character development. Others weren’t so lucky. For example, when we first meet Robert he’s “the coolest guy in school” and Vanessa has a major crush on him. By the end of the first episode they are “going steady” a term which no one in the 80’s used but I digress. By the next season, not only had Vanessa moved on but Robert’s reputation had changed. Suddenly he was more of a loser who immediately went steady with any girl who’d give him a second look.



Friends

Yeah I know as I mentioned I covered a bunch of these last tine. Here’s a fun one I missed. The problem with birthdays. Ok first Ross says he is 29 three times over three seasons. Sure that makes sense. The biggest problem however comes with the episode “The One Where They All Turn 30”. This episode aired in season 7. It’s Rachel’s birthday, even though in season 3 Chandler clearly says that Rachel is 29. While the rest of the birthday’s are flashback most of the timeline’s dont add up. The worst is Monica who says she is 26 in Season One. The flashback to her 30th she and Chandler are living together and her parent know so that would put it at Season 6. She should have been 30 back in Season 4! Birth dates were an issue, was Ross born in January or not? And Phoebe’s birthday was on Halloween one episode even though there no indication of that in either the Halloween episode the year before or the episode where they celebrated Phoebe’s birthday (set in Feb!) in Season 1. I could be here all day.



The New Old Friend

I talked before about how in the classic Family Ties episode “A My Name is Alex”, we meet a friend of Alex’s named Greg. Who we’ve never seen before even though they were close friends. Making his death has less impact since we never met him. This sort of thing happens a lot in sitcoms, a new character is introduced who already has a history with one of the main characters. That we’ve never or heard of before. Usually what they do is have another character be aware of this history so it doesn’t seem so blatant. Like on Seinfeld, when we first meet Sue Ann Mishkie, Elaine explains that she was her rival for years and Jerry comments that “she’s mentioned her before”. I guess it was when we weren’t watching. There is also Phoebe’s roommate Denise on “Friends” who Phoebe insists she has mentioned many times though none have heard of her (and in fairness she was probably made up). And Golden Girls was horrible with this as every week it seemed yet another old friend or relative we’ve never heard of would pop up out of the woodwork. In fact in the spin-off “The Golden Palace” we meet another brother of Blanche’s we’ve never head of, which the episode has Rose openly acknowledge. The reason he was never mentioned was because he is slow and Blanche was ashamed of him. Still, he never came up??? And even Star Trek did this with the Cardassians. Apparently the Federation had been at wear with them but we never heard a mention of this until Season 4, after the war had ended.


Speaking of Star Trek…



Let’s go thru some Star Trek Retcons

Amazingly in the previous article I didn’t cover these. Where do I begin?

Klingon-This is the classic head scratcher. The Klingons in the movies didn’t look much like the Klingons in the TV show. There have been tons of explanations for this, some more canon than others, but it still remains one of the biggest retcons ever.

The Borg-Yeah there was some tinkering here too. In their first episode they only assimilated technology, not people. This was changed in “Best of Both World’s” with no explanation given. I always assumed that Q just didn’t explain it well that first time (chances are there is a non-canonical reason out there I am not aware of). Also in the first episode it’s clear that Borg begin as biological beings with cybernetic enhancements and grow into being Borg. Of course the assimilation angle would become the only way Borg “reproduce” (made clear on Voyager). Oh and do I even need to mention the Borg Queen???


Trills-When we first meet a Trill he is very different than what Jadzia would be later. He can’t transport, he doesn’t have dots on his face, and it seems that trill’s are a more common thing here than they would be later when only the best and brightest can become one.



The Ferengi-It’s clear if you watch the pilot for TNG that the original idea for the Ferengi didn’t quite become the characters we’d get. And in that episode the Ferengi’s are mysterious unknown aliens but later on we’d establish that the Federaton has know about them for while.



Dr Bashir-When it was revealed that Dr Bashir had been genetically engineered as a child it caused all kind of things to be inconsistent in earlier episodes.


Spock’s Brother-We meet Sybock in Star Trek V and learn that Sarek had another kid with another woman, and that he and Spock are half brothers. Funny this had never been brought up before.


Oh, and what about the retcons that Star Trek:Discovery are making? Well…I hated the pilot and refuse to pay CBS to watch it. So it’s of no interest to me.



There are lots more but I’d be here all day. One last favorite comes from TNG’s “The Royale”. In the teaser Picard is trying to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem. If you don’t know it, it involved a mathematical formula left by Pierre De Fermat when he died in the 17th century, and there is no way I can explain it. Point is that Picard says it is still unsolved in their time. This episode came out in 1988. A proof was, however, found by Andrew Wiles and published in 1995! This little error was retconned in an episode of DS9 when it’s claimed that people still try to find their own interpretations.




Course these are just the few I could think of. There arr plenty more times when a back story for character is suddenly changed to fir the needs ot the story tat week. Did I miss your favorite? Comment and let me know.