These Completely Bonkers TV Episodes Made Viewers Ask, “WTF Is Going On?”
Some television episodes are pure comfort food. Throw them on in the background, doze off, wake up when Netflix rudely asks you if you’re still watching.
But these WTF TV episodes are the diametric opposite. Throw them on in the background, quickly shove them to the foreground as you wonder how the hell anyone made them in the first place. So fire up your streaming stick and fix yourself a snack. It’s time for some of the most WTF TV episodes ever.
Doctor Who, “Kill The Moon”
No, this isn’t the classic Mr. Show sketch, or revenge for Majora’s Mask. This is a Doctor Who episode in which our time-traveling hero must, well, kill the moon. Why? Because it’s actually a giant egg holding the offspring of a dragon creature, of course.
Fans and critics alike found this episode to be immediately polarizing.
Spongebob Squarepants, “Mid-Life Crustacean”
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Spongebob Squarepants is mostly for kids, but has enough of an anarchic, surreal sensibility that adults can enjoy it, too.
Sometimes the show’s pendulum swings too far in this adult direction, resulting in an episode like “Mid-Life Crustacean,” in which Spongebob and Patrick help Mr. Krabs get out of a mid-life crisis by embarking on a panty raid. Not a cute, sanitized version.
An actual, “we’re going to steal women’s underwear” panty raid. Even worse — they accidentally target Mr. Krabs’ mom.
Supernatural, “Bloodlines”
The TV concept “backdoor pilot” refers to an episode of an exisiting TV show that subtly sets up the world of a new TV show. For this trick to work, however, you need to actually make that new show.
When you don’t, you get “Bloodlines”, a confusing and apathetic entry that follows a cop we’ve never met before and a shoehorned mythology that involves a monster mafia. CW passed, condemning this episode to be a strange footnote.
Glee, “The Hurt Locker, Part Two”
At one point, Glee was a genuine exploration of small-town dreams with a dash of snarky humor. By season six, it was a display of audacious nonsense that lost any tethering to the real world. In “The Hurt Locker, Part Two”, Sue traps Kurt and Blaine in a fake elevator(!
), sends in a creepy doll version of herself(!!), and makes them kiss to be freed(!!!). Aca-creepy.