What Is a Bottle Episode (and What’s No longer): An In-Depth Files

Present: This post changed into as soon as before every thing printed on June 26, 2023. We’re updating it to replicate the unlock of The Undergo’s season-four episode, “Goodbye.”

Welcome, weary web traveler, to this shrine to the bottle episode. Maybe you’ve arrived right here with questions. Presumably you’ve heard murmurings a pair of term shrouded in mystery and controversy, an thought that your friend told you methodology one part but that you just suspect surely methodology something else fully. Maybe you’ve watched Neighborhood’s season-two episode “Cooperative Calligraphy,” which is a bottle episode, and talks about bottle episodes, but by no methodology surely defines bottle episode, and now that you just must snatch extra. Maybe you’re in an argument about episode three of The Final of Us, and likewise you’re right here to lastly region the document straight.

You adore to prefer to snatch what a bottle episode is. We’re capable of support. (And within the occasion that you just must achieve within the long term, we’ll be observing for you at isitabottleepisode.com.)

Essentially the most acquainted definition of the term bottle episode is an episode of TV that takes location in a single confined location with a little solid and few or no customer stars. The Merriam-Webster definition adds any other portion, describing it as “an inexpensively produced episode of television that’s usually confined to 1 setting.” Nonetheless each of these definitions consequence in confusion: How procure you clarify “confined location”? (Depends.) If an episode takes location fully on a cruise ship, does that rely? (Potentially no longer. Nonetheless maybe?) What’s “little solid” — does that mean two or three folk, or can it’s extra? (Yes, but presumably no!) What if there’s a little portion of the episode that’s in a determined setting? (Would possibly presumably well still be a bottle!) What if there’s one valuable solid member and one customer enormous name? (Maybe?) Also, wait, why does it maintain something to procure with the setting? Isn’t a bottle episode extra adore “an episode that feels turn out to be self sustaining from the relaxation of the uncover”? (Completely no longer.)

A extra total definition of bottle episode is also extra true: It’s about how and why a particular episode is made, and it has nothing to procure with what the episode feels or appears to be adore or what extra or less fable it tells. Bottle episodes, an plot that will presumably maybe also simply maintain arrive from Huge name Hunch but to boot originates within the 1960s with a uncover known as The Outer Limits, are initially a cash-saving strategy. Factors adore building fresh units, filming starting up air or on region, alongside side customer stars who don’t maintain elephantine-season contracts, or requiring indispensable visual outcomes all accomplish an episode costlier, and the purpose of a bottle episode is to assign cash in assert that varied episodes in that season can chase enormous. As a consequence, the strictest definition of a bottle episode is an episode that’s filmed fully on one prebuilt (“standing”) region, involves only valuable solid people, and is more cost effective and faster to assemble than a veteran episode.

That underlying financial stress has an inclination to assemble a definite extra or less fable. Bottle episodes in total procure some motive for every person to procure caught interior this little location: a door is locked, there’s a closing date, there’s a bomb threat, there’s something to aid for. A classic example is Breaking Unsuitable’s season-three episode “Cruise,” which facilities on the two lead characters, trapped interior a colossal underground lab, who maintain nothing to procure but attach advice from each varied. Director Rian Johnson confirmed that “Cruise” changed into as soon as written and filmed to be more cost effective for the rationale that uncover wanted too worthy cash from the season’s funds for diverse episodes, and that budgetary circumstance created the fictional consequence. The characters can’t ward off, so “Cruise” is this intense, wordy, emotional TV episode that feels region distinctly as adverse to the relaxation of the series.

Nonetheless that extra or less fictional ride will also be created with out surely making a bottle episode. It’s why viewers (and even some critics) maintain fallen into the habit of expanding the plot that to encompass something that feels adore a bottle episode. The X-Files’s season-one episode “Ice” is one example: Originally supposed to be precisely the extra or less mark-saving thought bottle episodes are designed to offer, “Ice” is region in an arctic-exploration attach with a lurking monster and an awfully little solid. Nonetheless the complex terror-movie manufacturing parts surely ended up blowing throughout the funds, particularly for the rationale that episode required an splendid amount of CGI. No longer a bottle!

Wrathful Males’s “The Suitcase” from season four is any other version of “feels adore a bottle episode but is no longer one.” Peggy and Don are on closing date, and with reference to the total episode is factual them attempting to work out a brand fresh campaign for a bags company while also talking spherical (and within the destroy about) their total relationship. Nonetheless they don’t cease within the placement of job. They chase to a restaurant. They chase to a bar. Peggy spends worthy of the night dodging a dinner she’s speculated to be at, and the episode cuts from facet to facet between the placement of job and the restaurant. There are a quantity of units, hundreds of little minor personality roles, and the first 15 minutes are elephantine of varied characters and tales. It is a long way no longer! A! Bottle episode! This extra or less episode is in total so compelling and thrilling, even supposing — it deserves its possess name. We’re going to starting up up calling it a “suitcase episode.” All people procure on board!

There are edge circumstances, too, the kind of examples cheap folk can disagree about. Seinfeld’s “Chinese language Restaurant” from season two is a helpful one: It’s no longer filmed on a old, standing region, but its single little advise and otherwise pared-abet manufacturing would’ve still made it comparatively cheaper. TV manufacturing has changed rather a chunk of from the times of The Outer Limits, so it’s a long way ideal to think again the strict early definition per fresh TV models — right here’s a residing-Constitutionalist potential to the plot that in preference to bottle-episode originalism. Rob Ladies’s “One Man’s Trash” from season two: It’s no longer filmed on a standing region, and it involves one valuable solid member and one customer enormous name, but creator Jenni Konner has said it changed into as soon as faster and more cost effective than varied episodes, and every thing else about it suits. This absolutely meets the spirit of bottle-episode law! Succession’s “Honeymoon States” is any other example: It has a colossal crowd of extras and a customer role, and its confined advise is an awfully colossal apartment with a pair of rooms. Nonetheless that total apartment is a standing region, and most of the episode’s motion (starting up air of just a few short avenue scenes) takes location interior. In circumstances adore these, arguing over whether or no longer it meets the definition is fun! No longer fun: conflating all outlandish, standalone, departure, or otherwise distinctive episodes into the term bottle episode.

The quick solution: No longer surely.

The longer solution: Yes, consuming presentations procure maintain some analogous manufacturing methods to the are residing-motion bottle episode. It’s more cost effective and faster to accomplish an consuming scene if it takes location in a advise the build the total backgrounds maintain already been created. An episode of Bob’s Burgers in which Bob spends the total time interior his house kitchen, as an instance, is less complex and more cost effective to assemble than an episode the build fresh backgrounds would ought to still be drawn from scratch. Nonetheless most consuming presentations maintain bigger than one region background already created. There’s no motive a Bob’s Burgers episode that veteran only preexisting backgrounds couldn’t rob location in his house and the restaurant and Tina’s evaluate room. The system of transferring the fable between a pair of consuming backgrounds is nothing adore a are residing-motion company switch between varied locations. As a consequence, the stress of little advise in a are residing-motion bottle episode factual doesn’t work the identical system in an consuming context.

I surely maintain a identical solution right here as I procure for consuming TV. It is a long way logical that episodes filmed fully in a studio or competitors advise might presumably maybe be more cost effective than these that exit on region or traipse someplace. Nonetheless the system of scripting a fictional TV uncover and outlining an “unscripted” actuality uncover are no longer fully the identical, and there’s a quantity of variation even interior actuality. It’s sophisticated, as an instance, to accomplish any apples-to-apples comparability for what “bottle episode” would even mean between True Housewives versus High Chef versus Admire Is Blind. So I’m going to chase alongside with “No,” and I bag that interior some particular series and circumstances, there can also simply be exceptions.

Maybe you’re taking a peek for the term standalone episode or departure episode. Nonetheless there are many kinds of episodes: musical episodes, clip presentations, episodes that shift the purpose of behold, flashback episodes, or the kinds we’re calling suitcase episodes. Why cram these all into bottle episode when that methodology something fully varied?

No, it’s seemingly you’ll presumably maybe also simply no longer. Correctly, okay, clip presentations did in total back the motive of padding out a season, so calling that “filler” is ideal. Nonetheless filler, as it’s usually veteran now, doesn’t mean something particular a pair of category of episodes. As an different, it’s roughly deployed to mean “I believed this episode changed into as soon as silly” or “This episode is doing personality vogue, but it’s no longer advancing the plan I care about.” It is a long way ideal to critique a particular person episode as underwhelming or silly or slack. It’s less helpful to flip that critique loyal into a fable category, due to no longer every person will agree with what does and does no longer rely, and attempting to clarify that category will at as soon as turn out to be a swirling maelstrom of wrathful web folk arguing about why they detest something. Fancy them or abominate them, at the very least bottle episodes will also be defined.

I procure! Bottle episodes are a rarer phenomenon within the streaming period, thanks to a resolution of shifts in how TV gets made when it’s in total written and filmed as a total eight-episode season in preference to individual episodes over the route of 5 months. Netflix especially has been transferring toward a mannequin of TV the build no individual episode appears to be that varied from any varied episode; every thing flows into every thing else. As a consequence, it feels extra critical and outlandish when an episode does stand out, either due to it has a brand fresh region of characters, it’s region in a brand fresh location, or its fable feels extra self-contained. So there’s an bustle to name these episodes something, and due to Neighborhood and TV Tropes and the rising ubiquity of online TV discourse, the term bottle episode has been floating spherical, ready for the (inaccurate) taking!

Yes. Nonetheless it surely might presumably maybe be a shame, don’t you suspect? Bottle episode already has a that methodology, and it’s this kind of placing, appealing one, borne out of no longer factual in total-amorphous fable impressions but impart at the abet of-the-scenes necessity. It’s a enjoyable collision of feature and impress. And it’s no longer adore we can’t arrive up with varied, extra particular names for diverse kinds of episodes! Explore above.

➼ Yes: Crawl to impeach 2.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 3.

The Sopranos “Pine Barrens” Test

➼ Yes, I realize that a forest is no longer a region: Crawl to impeach 4.
➼ No, but I maintain the town of Copenhagen counts as one contained advise: Crawl to impeach 11.

The Breaking Unsuitable “Cruise” Ratio

➼ Yes: Crawl to impeach 6.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 4.

Seinfeld’s “Chinese language Restaurant” Proviso

➼ Yes: Crawl to impeach 5.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 11.

➼ Yes: Crawl to impeach 11.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 6.

➼ Yes: Crawl to impeach 10.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 7.

The All within the Family “Elevator Memoir” Addendum

➼ Yes: Crawl to impeach 8.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 10.

➼ Yes: Crawl to impeach 9.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 10.

➼ Yes, I surely maintain a hunch he did: Crawl to impeach 10.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 11.

The X-Files “Ice” Codicil

➼ Yes: Crawl to impeach 11.
➼ No: Crawl to impeach 12.

Wrathful Males’s “The Suitcase” Overview

➼ Yes: This is no longer a bottle episode, but it’s doubtlessly a suitcase episode!
➼ No: Are you certain? Crawl abet to impeach 1 and take a look at again.

➼ Yes: It’s a bottle episode!
➼ No: It’s no longer a bottle episode!

Is The Undergo’s “Goodbye” a bottle episode? Yes! It is a long way practical to imagine this a bottle episode, even supposing it breaks one of many acquainted tips region out above: “Goodbye” takes location starting up air. Nonetheless its exterior setting is within the little, with out peril contained advise of a darkish alley. The alley is a repeatedly veteran region on the series. The full episode takes location with one lighting fixtures setup and only just a few digicam setups. The one characters who seem are these within the foremost solid, and there are only four of them, which makes the setups even more straightforward. Given all these considerations, especially in comparability with the accepted manufacturing of the relaxation of the series, this counts!

Is Severance’s “Woe’s Gap” a bottle episode? No. No doubt no.

Is Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Memoir’s “The Damage Man” a bottle episode? Yes.

Is Industry’s “White Mischief” a bottle episode? No. It’s a departure episode.

Are The Undergo’s “Next” and “Ice Chips” bottle episodes? Realistic folk can disagree on these circumstances. The inventive team does little press, so it’s sophisticated to reveal how the budgets for each episode work. (Jamie Lee Curtis, as an instance, is seemingly no longer cheap.)

Is The Undergo’s “Napkins” a bottle episode? No. It’s a departure episode.

Is Feud: Capote vs. the Swans’s “The Secret Interior Lives of Swans” a bottle episode? No.

Is Expats’s “Central” a bottle episode? No.

Is Mr. & Mrs. Smith a total season of bottle episodes? No.

Is The Undergo’s “Fishes” a bottle episode? No.

Is The Undergo’s “Honeydew” a bottle episode? No.

Is Huge name Hunch: Bizarre Contemporary Worlds’s “Advert Astra per Aspera” a bottle episode? No.

Is Succession’s “The United States Decides” a bottle episode? No.

Is Succession’s “Honeymoon States” a bottle episode? Realistic folk can disagree on this one. There’s an exterior scene, but it’s very short, and the relaxation of the episode takes location within the standing region of Logan’s apartment. That apartment is stuffed with extras, even supposing, to boot to just a few customer talking roles. It’s a borderline case.

Is Succession’s “Connor’s Wedding” a bottle episode? No.

Is Ted Lasso’s “Sunflowers” a bottle episode? No.

Is The Final of Us’s “Left Within the abet of” a bottle episode? No.

Is The Final of Us’s “Prolonged, Prolonged Time” a bottle episode? No.

Linked

There’s a worthy-cherished etymology of bottle episode that aspects to Huge name Hunch’s habit of constructing “ship in a bottle” (as in, the total episode takes location interior the Enterprise) episodes. The competing starting up build comes from a 1986 book known as The Outer Limits: The Unswerving Companion, which describes Outer Limits showrunner Leslie Stevens caught in a train the build he desired to be in a location to assemble a total episode in four days. He known as it a “bottle uncover,” as in, “pulling an episode out of a bottle, adore a genie.”

A filmmaking term for when a total manufacturing needs to definite out of 1 advise and relocate to any other. Firm moves inevitably add to every time and payment.

In 2023 the clip uncover is quite extinct, but this veteran to be a moderately accepted impress of episodic time-losing abet within the times of the 22-to-24-episode season. The premise is mostly that some fable part creates an excuse for the total characters to reminisce, so some enormous percentage of the episode is clips from old episodes.