Earth has suffered five big extinctions and innumerable little ones. A potential sixth mass extinction, the only one created by the planet’s own inhabitants, looms. So in the spirit of collective mass improvement, now’s the perfect time to look back at scenes of chaos and turnover of life that we hope to avoid in the future.

From the hectic dawn of the dinosaurs to the numerous disasters that darkened skies, acidified the seas, and turned our blue planet into a hellscape, these awe-inspiring scenes of destruction and rebirth shaped the Earth.

10 Dinosaurs Take Advantage Of Extinctions

Dinosaurs entered evolutionary history the same way they exited—with an extinction.

This one occurred about 232 million years ago during the Carnian Pluvial Episode when deep-sea volcanoes (the Wrangellia basalts in British Columbia today) forced climate change and a turnover of ancient life.^[1]

This plunged the Earth into a series of wet and dry episodes. Most notably, four successive pulses of warming and cooling in just a million years led to multiple extinction scenarios which devastated the variety of plant and animal life.

Afterward, it took dinosaurs a surprisingly short span of just two million years to claim the globe and its many now-vacant niches.

9 The Chicxulub Asteroid Scores A Lucky Hit

The 10-kilometer-wide (6 mi) asteroid that took away our dinosaurs 66 million years ago was an exceptionally lucky strike which might not have killed the dinos had it struck anywhere else.

In fact, just 13 percent of the Earth’s surface harbored the necessary materials to spur such a mass extinction. The asteroid just happened to slam into a patch of Earth full of fossil fuels, abundant in hydrocarbons and sulfur. The incredible temperatures generated by the collision ignited these rich veins of fuel.^[2]

The resultant hellfires released vast amounts of soot which blocked out the Sun and decreased surface temperature as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 °F). The escaping sulfur fell back down as acid rain.

Researchers modeled other impact sites. They found that the only other places with catastrophic fossil fuel concentrations included North America’s East Coast, the Middle East, and Siberia.

8 A ‘Trickle Of Food’ Feeds Deep-Sea Creatures

About 66 million years ago, an asteroid smashed into the Yucatan Peninsula and relieved the Earth of dinosaurs. It also killed the giant marine reptiles and caused an immediate extinction of many microscopic ocean creatures like plankton which feed other animals.

But deep-ocean creatures survived, fed by some mysterious food source. Researchers thank algae and some bacteria, photosynthesizing organisms that withstood the extinction and rained down on the ocean deep like a slow trickle of food for bigger creatures.

But life recovered quickly. The oceanic food chain restored itself in just 1.7 million years as new species took over recently vacated niches.^[3]

7 The Neanderthals Are Pushed Out

Neanderthals were like us: They buried their dead, crafted tools, controlled fire, talked, cared for the needy, and created art. So species inferiority may not have led to their demise. A new model says that we didn’t kill Neanderthals in bloody ancient warfare. Instead, their population simply fizzled out.

Their territory extended only from Europe to Central Asia. As other types of early humans (with more extensive habitats) poured in, resources weren’t adequate.

But the situation could have just as easily been reversed. Had we been living in the same region and subject to similar emigration from Neanderthal communities, we could have been the ones relegated to obsolescence.^[4]

6 Earth Gets Rung Like A Bell

Earth’s crust is riddled with tens of thousands of miles of cracks, or mid-ocean ridges, where lava bubbles up between tectonic plates.

When the dino-killing asteroid hit, it actually rung Earth, sending seismic shocks through the planet in the form of magnitude-11 earthquakes. As the jolt reached deep down, it shook the planet like a can of soda and irritated the mid-ocean ridges, which squirted even more molten matter.

The evidence?

Two massive magma mounds, or “bumps,” in the Pacific and Indian Oceans were located by scientists thanks to the increased gravitational pull of the bumps. They’re composed of 96,000–1,000,000 cubic kilometers (23,000–240,000 mi³) of magma, which formed within a million years of the impact.^[5]

The eruptions are on par with natural history’s all-time greats, and the increased volcanic activity continued for up to hundreds of thousands of years after the impact.

5 A Cluster Of Extinctions Fuels The Great Dying

The End-Permian Extinction 252 million years ago was the worst of Earth’s five mass extinctions. It wiped out 70–75 percent of terrestrial species and up to 95 percent of sea life (though some say it’s closer to 80 percent). This extinction event is therefore known as the Great Dying.

But newer research suggests that it’s more like the Great Dyings. The extinction was caused by a two-pronged geological attack. First, volcanoes smothered the globe and the oceans acidified. Then a wave of anoxia drained the seas of oxygen.

After this main event, which saw the Siberian Traps release enough lava to cover an area larger than Alaska, two further mini-extinctions followed.

Volcanoes are again to blame. Carbon isotopes reveal that two major events occurred half a million years and 1.5 million years after the Great Dying, a spate of destruction from which it took 10 million years to recover.^[6]

4 Hidden Eruptions Are Deadlier

Mass volcanism is always bad, but location can be more significant than the duration or magnitude. During the previously mentioned Great Dying, subsurface eruptions caused far more chaos. When the Siberian Traps erupted, not all the lava oozed out. Some spread out over 1.6 million kilometers (1 million mi) beneath the Earth’s crust.

It sounds like a lucky break because underground is where lava belongs. But when it pooled at the subsurface, it scorched carbon-rich sediments and sent plumes of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

The result was ocean acidification, a rise in temperature, and an apocalyptic haze that decimated life. All in all, enough lava was released to cover a United States–size patch in up to 1 kilometer (0.6 mi) deep of lava.^[7]

3 The Dinosaurs Faded Out Long Before The Asteroid

Statistical analysis on the dinosaurian family tree revealed a marked decline long before the fated asteroid strike 66 million years ago. The downturn began around 140 million years ago. Previously, new species emerged faster than old ones disappeared. But by 90 million years ago, 24 million years before E-day, diversity was heading down the toilet.

Factors like climate change and continental breakup started whittling away at the big-money dinosaurs: theropods (T. rex and such), ornithischians (Stegosaurus family), and sauropods (the Brontosaurus group). Conversely, the horned and duck-billed dinosaurs began to establish a stronger foothold, possibly due to the rise of a new food group, flowering plants.

Considering these trends, some researchers believe that the dinosaurs might have bowed out even without a catastrophic cosmic intervention.^[8]

2 Space Wants To Kill Us

Extinctions may have a secret cosmic conspirator: dark matter.

The Earth and our solar system smash through the galaxy at more than 800,000 kilometers per hour (500,000 mph). Every 30 million years or so, they pass through the galactic disc in episodes that apparently line up with past extinctions.

Dark matter generally hangs in halos around Milky Way–like galaxies. But it also accumulates in the central midplane of the galactic disk. So when the solar system flies through this region, dark matter gravitationally perturbs space rocks and sends a few tumbling toward Earth.^[9]

As Earth moves through these invisible clumps, it accumulates dark matter at its core. The particles cause each other to explode, releasing energies up to a thousand times hotter than normal core temperatures. This sends material bubbling to the surface to incite volcanism, magnetic field reversals, and sea level changes.

1 Seedeaters Take Over

About 66 million years ago, a big asteroid slammed into Earth and killed off most of the dinosaurs. However, the birdlike maniraptorans endured.

Birdlike dinos came in two main flavors—toothed and not toothed. They consumed varied diets, but the ones without teeth, with their short and robust beaks, also ate seeds. This is why they survived the end-Cretaceous extinction while their toothy brethren did not.^[10]

In spite of acid rain, darkened skies, landscape-consuming fires, and the eradication of most food sources, maniraptorans kept their bellies full. How? They poked through the ground for seeds deposited by these awesome new things called flowers that proliferated during the Cretaceous.

Ivan Farkas writes about cool stuff for the Internet. You can contact him at [email protected].

Every now and then a show crosses a line in the sand and gets one of its episodes banned. Sometimes it’s for good reason, such as a health issue.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Movies That Have Been Banned Around The World

Sometimes the ban is based on current events and unfortunate timing. Sometimes there’s no good reason at all, and occasionally a show even willingly bans its own episodes!

From adult favorites to children’s cartoons, shows from all over the spectrum have found themselves on the wrong end of society’s sensibilities and been subjected to censure. Some even ended up censored on later releases on DVD and digital platforms.

These 10 episodes were banned from televisions across the world for reasons ranging from the reasonable to the insane, and I for one am delighted to share them with you!

10 Peppa Pig
“Mr. Skinnylegs”

If you have a child at home, you probably already know about Peppa Pig, the spunk little piglet who’s show revolves around teaching kids wholesome lessons about life and how to deal with fears. She’s also been the subject of many internet jokes and memes, bringing joy to people far beyond her typical audience.

Of course, as you guessed by her inclusion on this list, she also happens to have a banned episode.

The 2004 episode “Mr. Skinnylegs” is a seemingly harmless episode advising children not to be afraid of spiders, as they are more scared of you than you are of them, and won’t hurt you. Normally this message would be fine, and rings true enough…Unless, of course, you live in Australia.

In 2012, and again in 2017, the Australian Broadcasting Company banned the episode from airing on the Australian version of Nick Jr because of its “inappropriate message”. While to someone from the US or the UK, this might seem crazy, it’s important to note that Australia is home to massive, incredibly poisonous spiders such as the Redback Spider and the Sydney Funnelweb.^[1]

9 Pokemon
“Electric Soldier Porygon”

[WARNING: The above clip may trigger seizures.] Everyone knows Pokemon, the extremely popular game where you collect and battle cute little monsters to make them bigger and stronger. It also spawned many spin offs, several shows, a Japanese comic (called a manga), a card game, and tons of merchandise.

With such a massive, family friendly franchise, it’s hard to imagine they could do anything so bad they would get themselves banned from the airwaves, right?

Well, you are half correct! It wasn’t the story content of the episode, so much as the visuals. “Electric Soldier Porygon”, featuring the man-made Pokemon ‘Porygon’, had flashing and strobing lights to simulate a cybernetic explosion. This display caused over 600 children to need a trip to the hospital as the lights caused various illnesses ranging from nausea to seizures to temporary (but frightening) blindness!

Team Rocket couldn’t have come up with a better nefarious plot!^[2]

8 The X-Files
“Home”

The X-Files has never been one to shy away from horrible things. Monsters, mutants, and mayhem (oh, my!) abound in this show, both the original and the 2016 continuation. So it’s really no surprise that they would have found themselves on the wrong end of the banning stick when, in 1994, they released the episode “Home” onto TVs across the nation for the first time.

In the episode, a deformed baby is found buried in a baseball field in Mayberry, Pennsylvania. Mulder and Scully arrive (as is customary) to investigate, and soon uncover something much more awful than a monster or alien invasion: a family of inbred monster men whose matriarch, lacking arms and legs, lives under a bed in the family home.

The episode was so disturbing and received such strong backlash that it was immediately banned from the airwaves and received only one rerun, in October of 1999.^[3]

7 Sesame Street
The Entire Show

There’s nothing that really brings back the feeling of childhood quite like Sesame Street. The muppets, friendly kids, and reassuring adult characters bring back a feeling of safety and gentle nostalgia that wraps you in its arms like a warm hug.

There could be nothing worth banning about the show, right? I mean, it’s recommended showing to pre-school aged children as a primer for kindergarten, so surely it couldn’t be harmful!

Yet, in May of 1970, the state of Mississippi took a rather different view of the show. Citing its fully integrated cast of diverse characters and how that might clash with the views of the average Mississippian, the state of Mississippi actually banned the show from playing on state channels for 22 days.

While the ban was eventually reversed, it left a mark on the history of the show and the state.^[4]

6 Cow And Chicken
“Buffalo Gals”

Ah, the ’90s. Was there ever a better time for television? The answer is yes, but that’s neither here nor there. If you were a fan of cartoons in the late ’90s, you probably watched Cow And Chicken, a show about a pair of siblings, a heifer named Cow and a rooster named Chicken.

As was the style of the time, the cartoon was often crude, hiding adult jokes in plain sight and making various jokes about bodily functions, both human and animal.

One such joke crossed the line however, and ended with the episode being banned from the airwaves after just one airing! The episode, titled “Buffalo Gals”, was about a group of female bikers who wore buffalo head helmets, played softball, and broke into peoples houses to chew up their carpets. The episode, being chock full of innuendo as it was, aired once, and then was never seen again.^[5]

5 Family Guy
“Partial Terms of Endearment”

We all knew Family Guy was going to show up on this list sooner or later. How could it not, being one of the raunchiest, grossest adult cartoons of all time? You would think, given its history, that banned episode would revolve around Herbert the Pervert, or perhaps something to do with Quagmire’s many exploits (and exploitations).

It seems however that the straw that broke the FOX’s back wasn’t Quagmire or Herbert or even one of the many gross and outlandish adventures of Stewie, but instead an episode that tackled abortion and pro-choice vs pro-life views.

“Partial Terms Of Endearment” focused on Lois’s decision of whether or not to get an abortion after the couple she was going to surrogate for die in a car accident. The episode handles the topic in typical Family Guy fashion, with many jokes and jests at both sides of the argument. The episode was too much for FOX Network, however, who pulled it from airing before it could even run. While you can still get it on the DVD box sets, the episode is banned from public airtime.^[6]

4 The Amanda Show
“Episode 29”

Remember Amanda Bynes? ’90s Kids grew up tuning into her sketch show on Nickelodeon after school, watching her and her co-host Drake Bell put on a variety of sketches, mock interviews, and physical comedy bits for our collective amusement.

The ill fated banned episode, simply titled “Episode 29”, featured a skit called ‘The Lucklesses’, about a family with absolutely abysmal luck trying to go about their day, with various disasters culminating in their house being hit by a meteor.

The episode had the unfortunate luck itself of airing in March of 2001, just 6 months before 9/11. The episode was subsequently pulled from the air for fear of it resembling the Tower attack too much and was never shown in the US again.

Those Lucklesses really couldn’t catch a break, could they?^[7]

3 Married With Children
“I’ll See You In Court”

A beloved jewel of the 1980s, the well known sitcom Married With Children often used crude humor and remarks to tickle the funny bone of its home audience. For the most part, they were successful, but apparently one woman wasn’t laughing in January of 1998, when the show aired an episode titled “I’ll See You In Court”.

The episode shows the main characters suing the owner of a local hotel for filming their…intimate time, we’ll call it, without their permission. It also features a mention of homosexuality, and a woman removing her bra. While today that’s a big nothingburger, in the 1980s it was apparently so shocking that a Michigan woman had to start a letter writing campaign to FOX Network and its advertisers, demanding the episode be pulled and complaining of its disgusting and shocking contents.

Eventually, under pressure from its advertisers, FOX acquiesced to her demands, pulling the episode from the air.^[8]

2 You Can’t Do That On Television
“Adoption”

Is it any wonder that a show titled “You Can’t Do That On Television” would get at least one of its episodes banned? According to one of the show’s creators, Geoffrey Darby, it was very much a surprise.

The episode in question, titled “Adoption”, was about a couple who, as you may have guessed, had several adopted children. The children were poorly treated, but in a funny way as per the rules of comedy, slime was dumped on everyone, the audience laughed.

Or rather, the audience became quite upset, as the episode ended up pulled from the channel after many complaints were made. Darby himself notes that the episode went “too far”, and was pulled after airing “maybe once”.^[9]

1 South Park
“201”

South Park is the Holy Grail of offensive shows. Parodying and mocking anyone and everyone without limit or concern of consequence, South Park has been a stronghold of pure expression for 23 years, refusing to compromise on its jokes or values.

Until, that is, episode 201. Following directly on the heels of the story line of Episode 200, 201 was to feature the Super Best Friends, a team of religious icons acting as super hero’s, fighting against Tom Cruise and other celebrities looking to destroy the town of South Park and become exempt from criticism or ridicule.

The episode was most notable for featuring Muhammad, the prophet of Islamic faith who is not allowed to be depicted in any form. The episode, doing just that in reaction to the backlash to Muhammad’s previous appearance on the show, netted the network and creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker threats to life, limb, and bank account. While Stone and Parker would have gladly braved the storm for their art, the network was not convinced to do the same, and the showed was aired once, heavily edited, and then never again, even stripped entirely from digital platforms.^[10]

About The Author: Deana Samuels lives with her girlfriend and no cats, and has recently acquired a massive collection of Hello Kitty dolls and memorabilia. She hopes to one day achieve her dream of filling an house with plastic balls, like a Mickey D’s ball pit.

Humans have always been fascinated with (and terrified by) the paranormal. This doesn’t prevent some of them from going out of their way to try and force an encounter with the unseen. However, sometimes spooks are the furthest thing from their mind when they are suddenly confronted with something they can’t explain.

It is no wonder that there are a variety of paranormal reality TV shows all dealing with real-life ‘encounters’ with ghosts, demons and other apparitions. Obviously, most of these shows have eye-roll inducing episodes because of the bad acting or weird re-enactments, but occasionally they produce a gem, regardless, that causes real goosebumps.

Potential spoilers ahead!

10 Paranormal Events Linked To Mass Tragedies

10 Terror in the Woods

Woods can be scary places. You can’t always see the dangerous creatures hiding between the trees or thick undergrowth, and that is just the real-life ones. Many people have had unsettling experiences hiking or camping in the woods, while others have purchased homes in remote woods only to find that there is something sinister lurking inside.

Bill and Charisse Stark experienced their own horror story that was eventually aired on Destination America’s Terror in the Woods. They couldn’t believe their luck when a cabin owner sold them his property at the edge of a geological reserve in Red River Gorge, Kentucky. The cabin was to be their dream ‘retirement retreat.’ The dream soon turned nightmarish when unexplained incidents started happening in and around the cabin.^[1]

At one point, Bill installed a security camera outside which captured a green mist that seemed to fade in and out. The camera also caught what looked like a bright light coming up from the ground and floating off. Bill found a weird footprint in the snow outside the cabin, and the couple’s TV and PlayStation would on occasion turn on by itself. When they inspected the game console, they found a slimy substance covering it.

Later, in their Terror in the Woods episode, it was revealed that a woman suffering from a terminal illness had died in the cabin. It was also reported that strange things kept happening in the cabin after the episode aired.

9 Ghost Hunters

Ghost Hunters ran from 2004 to 2016 and was revived in 2019. During its original 11-season run, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson investigated haunted locations in the US as well as the UK. They are the founders of TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) and work alongside a team of ‘ghost hunters.’

During the multitude of episodes, many strange things happened including faces materializing in darkness, multiple EMF meters triggered at the same time, disembodied figures wandering around and voices calling out from basements. During “The Armory” episode the team was investigating the New Bedford Armory in Massachusetts when their sound man, Frank DeAngelis, inexplicably fell backwards. He couldn’t get back on his feet and had to receive medical attention.

Afterwards, DeAngelis claimed that he felt something pass through him. He also quit the crew the next day because he was too traumatized to carry on with the investigations.^[2]

8 True Terror with Robert Englund

Who better to host a scary show than Freddy Krueger himself? True Terror with Robert Englund premiered in March 2020 (as a continuation of True Terror with George Takei) and has received great reviews. The show takes historical news stories of the paranormal kind and brings them to life using Englund’s celebrity and general creepiness.

One of the stories of the pilot episode included a man from North Carolina who dreamt of his own death and the countdown to it. There is also the tale of a New Orleans teenager unable to escape a waking nightmare and his eventual grisly fate. (Sounds like something Freddy Krueger could be involved in, right?)

One of the creepiest episodes, however, is the one that relates the true story of the Axeman of New Orleans, who was one of America’s most infamous serial killers. The Axeman initiated a dark chain of events in which he challenged the public and the police with an open letter. The media printed several responses from citizens in which they challenged the killer right back. Italian American immigrant, George Columbo intended to meet up with the Axeman and what followed is the stuff of nightmares.^[3]

7 Paranormal Lockdown

Imagine spending 100 hours in an infamously haunted house, with an unpredictable demonic entity. This is exactly what paranormal researchers, Nick Groff, and Katrina Weidman, did for Paranormal Lockdown in 2016. The Black Monk House episode was slated as a two-hour special that filled the ‘gap’ between the show’s first and second seasons.

Black Monk House in Pontefract, England, has been visited by several paranormal investigators, some of whom have experienced objects levitating and people being attacked by an unseen entity. A girl was dragged upstairs in what could only be described as a scene from a modern horror movie, while some ghost hunters who have encountered the ‘poltergeist’ that resides in the house, refused to stay at the property. The caretakers of the house also refuse to stay inside by themselves.

Nick and Katrina spent four days trying to capture the poltergeist, The Black Monk, on camera. The result makes for one of the best (if not most terrifying) episodes of the series.^[4]

6 Unsolved Mysteries

Before Unsolved Mysteries 2020, there was Unsolved Mysteries 1987 presented by Robert Stack, among others. As the name states, each episode revolved around mysterious incidents including murders, hauntings, disappearances, and accidents. Robert Stack’s inimitably deep voice and the iconic intro music gave many a viewer a goosebump or two. Alongside this, some of the episodes were truly creepy and are still being discussed on internet forums such as Reddit years after airing.

One of the most memorable, and truly terrifying, episodes aired during Season 7 and related the story of Pam and Eric Ellender. In 1991, Pam and Eric were found dead in their bed in Sulphur, Louisiana. Their infant daughter was unharmed and crying from her bedroom when police made the discovery. It was revealed afterwards that the killers threw a party in the couple’s home soon after killing them and while their bodies were in the bedroom. While the murders were technically solved, there were many chilling details included in the episode that kept viewers at the edge of their seats. It is truly an episode that must be watched.^[5]

10 Gruesome Deaths That Have Been Attributed To Ghosts

5 The Dead Files

Cheerfully named The Dead Files sees medium Amy Allan and former homicide detective Steve DiSchiavi investigate haunted locations at people’s request. The core of each episode revolves around Steve and Amy doing independent investigations at a specific location and then revealing their findings to one another at the end of the show.

Even though the show has attracted a lot of criticism over the years, it remains a firm fan favorite and has aired its 12th season earlier in 2020. One of the spookiest episodes, according to fans, details the story of Annie who has lived in her home for more than ten years and believes that the hooded figures she keeps seeing on her property has made her existing health problems worse. Annie also claimed to have seen the ghosts of long-dead Native Americans surrounding her house in Cedar Park, Texas. Annie’s friend, Joel, claimed to have seen what looked like paper cut-outs in the shape of people hanging in the trees around the house, jumping between the branches.^[6]

4 Celebrity Ghost Stories

Celebrities are not exempt from brushes with the paranormal. There have been so many stories of celebrities experiencing something unexplained that there is even a TV show or two dedicated to those celebs who want to share their scary stories.

Celebrity Ghost Stories (American version) debuted in 2009 featuring Belinda Carlisle and Gina Gershon, among others. Other stars throughout the series included Joan Collins, Alice Cooper, Kelly Osbourne, Nene Leakes, who heard the voices of ghost children, and Paula Abdul.

One of the episodes feature shock rocker, Marilyn Manson, who related the story of his encounter as a teen with a copy of the Necronomicon. His friend implored him to read the incantations in the book, and Manson believed that doing so caused a disturbance in the energy around them. Manson also claimed that a scary disembodied voiced asked them ‘do you believe in satan?”

Manson stated during his segment that he had read enough of the Bible to know that what was happening was ‘not good’ and that people’s energy stays with the things they were attached to in life after they die.

3 Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction

Much like Unsolved Mysteries, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction also gained a cult following its premiere in 1997. Presenting 5 stories in each episode, of which some are fact and some fiction, was the premise of the show.

The show’s opening episode, The Apparition, was one of the most unsettling in the series. It tells the tale of a woman who suffered a nervous breakdown and after her recovery starts seeing the ghost of a dead woman in a mirror on the second floor of her home. The ghost tries to say something, but never succeeds.

One night a man breaks into the woman’s home and follows her when she runs upstairs trying to escape him. The man then sees the ghost in the mirror and freaks out.

Even though the episode aired years ago, it still packs a chilling punch and is worth a watch. It was revealed at the end that the story was based on true events.

2 Paranormal Witness

Paranormal Witness is one of the most popular spooky TV shows and ran for five seasons between 2011 and 2016. The stories covered during the show included the weird abilities of Don Decker, the Capitol Theatre Haunting, werewolves, creepy dolls and, of course, demons.

One of the most horrifying episodes details the incident in which 23-year-old Christene Skubish died after she fell asleep at the wheel while driving along Highway 50 in California and crashed down a steep incline in 1994. In the car with Christene was her 3-year-old son, Nick. When she didn’t arrive at her intended destination, her stepfather reported her missing. Five days later, a woman named Deborah Hoyt and her husband were travelling along Route 50 when Deborah spotted a woman lying on the side of the road. The woman was naked, and her arms covered her head. The couple immediately notified the police, but when the authorities arrived, the woman was gone.

This incident led police to the discovery of Christene’s body inside her wrecked car and Nick laying in a fetal position in the passenger seat, weak and dehydrated but alive. Doctors agreed that if Nick had been inside the car for another hour or two, he would have died.^[7]

The details of this story are both chilling and heartbreaking and one of the best episodes of Paranormal Witness.

1 Haunted

Haunted premiered in 2018 on Netflix and recounts terrifying true stories of people who have found themselves face-to-face with evil. One of the episodes in Season 2 of the series details a nurse’s encounter with a possessed patient at a nursing home which caused many viewers to freak out.
However, Season 1’s Slaughterhouse episode, in which two sisters reveal that their father was a serial killer, is about as terrifying as they come.

Their childhood was spent listening to the terrible sounds of people being murdered in their house, after their father picked up ‘strays’ from the streets and bars. They lived on a couple of acres of forest land and their father disposed of his victims’ bodies in the woods. The sisters believed that the murders led to their house becoming haunted, and their father also engaged in dark rituals in the woods which led them to believe that he was possessed.^[8]

The episode unleashed controversy with many viewers taking to Twitter to voice their scepticism about the validity of the claims made by the sisters.

10 Terrifying Haunted And Creepy Mask Stories

When it comes to television in the United States, network censors are often on-hand to rule on certain plot points to ensure the American public isn’t traumatized by whatever might be offensive.

While these standards have relaxed over the years (you can now see a toilet on TV!), some episodes slipped by the censors only to be banned shortly after airing.

Some of these ten episodes have since returned on other networks or on DVD/Blu-Ray releases, so you can find them if you’re interested in seeing them. Still, they never did see the light of day again on their original networks.

10 Family Films Banned For Stupid Reasons

10 Sesame Street—”Episode 847″

You’d probably never have thought it possible, but even a show like Sesame Street runs into the ban-hammer. An episode that once aired in 1976 has never been seen since. It was removed from syndication or repeated viewings because it was too frightening for children.

Remember, this is a show designed for young kids, so anything that’s super scary isn’t going to be liked by the parents. In the episode, the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz makes an appearance, and it was too much for some parents.

The episode featured Margaret Hamilton reprising her role from the movie, which is impressive enough, seeing as she was nearly killed filming her role in the film. The episode saw her fly over Sesame Street, where she drops her broom.

A law student working at Mr. Hooper’s store finds it, and the Witch storms in, threatening to turn Big Bird into a feather duster. Ultimately she gets the broom back, and it ends well enough, but parents were upset over the frightening imagery. After a largely negative reaction from parents, the episode was pulled and never seen again.

9 Tiny Toon Adventures—”Elephant Issues”

Children’s cartoons have long been a source of moral teachings, and they typically cover lessons that children need to learn. Whether it’s about honesty or the benefits of teamwork, an animated show takes the time to make sure children aren’t only entertained; they’re also educated!

Of course, teaching a lesson about the dangers of drinking to a demographic that’s more concerned with drinking a glass of milk wasn’t the best idea for one episode of Tiny Toon Adventures. The problem arose from a segment, “One Beer,” which aired only once in September 1991.

The ban came from a segment featuring Buster throwing some heavy peer pressure towards Plucky and Hamilton into sharing a beer with him. Shortly after, they drive right off a cliff while driving under the influence.

The episode might have been okay for an older demographic, but Fox Kids banned it soon after it aired. It eventually found its way into a DVD set, but it never re-aired during the series’ initial run. Incidentally, it’s one of two episodes from the series that was banned, with the other being “Toons from the Crypt,” though that episode never aired.

8 South Park—”200/201″

It should come as no surprise that a show like South Park had to pull an episode or two, seeing as the show is all about pushing the envelope. Still, the vast majority of offensive content has aired and re-aired on Cartoon Network without any problems. That can’t be said of the two-part episodes titled “200” and “201.”

Incidentally, the whole point of the episodes was to confront the boundaries of censorship, which was done by depicting just about every religious figure the show could animate. Unfortunately, this included the Prophet Muhammad, who, according to Islamic doctrine, cannot be depicted in any way.

The episodes garnered a ton of threats from Islamic groups, including Revolution Muslim, which is known for advocating an end of Western imperialism. Many of these threats came before the episode even aired, but they didn’t push the show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, to alter their work in any way.

While the show’s creators weren’t willing to back down, that cannot be said of the network. Cartoon Network decided to heavily edit the episodes and remove them from further broadcast to protect its employees. “200” can be found on DVD in its original form, but “201” is heavily edited.

7 The X-Files—”Home”

For the most part, The X-Files handled offensive and controversial content rather well. Still, there is one episode that crossed the line… well, several lines, and as a result, FOX banned it. The episode “Home” originally aired on October 11, 1996, but wasn’t seen on the channel after that.

In “Home,” the series strayed from its typical format by using people as the antagonists. There was nothing supernatural about the horror that unfolded on the screen. The episode revolves around a family of inbred and deformed people who catch the attention of the FBI after a deformed baby is found buried in a sandlot.

The brothers of the Peacock family end up murdering the Sheriff and his wife, but that’s not the worst of it. Mulder and Scully find the “matriarch” of the family hidden under a bed with all of her limbs removed. The boys had been raping her for years.

The disturbing content earned the episode the first TV-MA rating. FOX pulled the episode after it aired, but it didn’t stay buried. While FOX was done with it, FX showed the episode in an X-Files marathon the following year. It has since become one of the most-watched episodes of the series (largely due to the intrigue the ban built).

6 Seinfeld—”The Puerto Rican Day”

Seinfeld may have been “a show about nothing,” but that doesn’t mean it didn’t offend certain groups of people from time to time. One of the most infamous episodes of the series was one of the last to air. “The Puerto Rican Day” featured the group finding themselves trapped in the city on their way home from a game.

The Puerto Rican Day Parade blocks all traffic, so they find themselves stuck, and various antics ensue. The depiction of Puerto Ricans was offensive to many, but the thing that really made people mad came towards the end when Kramer accidentally lights the Puerto Rican flag on fire.

That scene was too much for many viewers, and NBC was flooded with complaints about the episode. Protests were held by angry fans outside 30 Rock, so NBC decided to remove the episode from further syndication. It was buried for several years but eventually resurfaced (on other channels) broadcasting the series in syndication.

When this happened, the flag-burning scene was edited out of the show, but it eventually found its way back. By 2002, syndicated airings of the episode featured the original cut, burning flag and all.

5 Hawaii Five-O – “Bored, She Hung Herself”

In the episode “Bored, She Hung Herself,” from the original Hawaii Five-O, a character named Don Miles practiced what is now known as autoerotic asphyxiation. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s sexual gratification achieved from limiting one’s oxygen, usually through strangulation.

In the episode, which aired in 1970, it’s revealed that the woman was actually killed by a neighbor, but that didn’t stop one fan from trying what they saw on television. While it hasn’t been proven, it’s believed that the episode was pulled from broadcast because a fan died while attempting to recreate what they saw in the episode.

Snopes checked into the claim and couldn’t find any evidence that this actually happened, but even if it didn’t, the episode was banned and cannot be found in any legitimate reproduction.

The episode was never aired again, and it wasn’t included on the Hawaii Five-O DVD release of season two. The episode is considered “lost” by many fans, thanks to CBS’ refusal to rebroadcast or make it available for syndication. The only images found online were taken from bootleg copies recorded 50+ years ago.

4 The Star Wars Holiday Special

While it wasn’t an episode, the Star Wars Holiday Special did air on television back in 1978, and then it was taken off the air forever. Anyone who saw this horrifically awful attempt at bringing Star Wars to television would probably agree it needs to remain hidden from the world. It was absolutely terrible, but if you’ve never seen it, you really can’t know how bad it was.

The Special was so terrible, Carrie Fisher used to play it at the end of her parties to get people to leave her home. George Lucas, who had little to nothing to do with the Special, once said that “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.”

The plot involved Han Solo and Chewbacca flying back to Kashyyyk (The Wookie home planet) for Life Day, which was described by The Hollywood Reporter as “a kind of space-age merging of Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

Everything about the Holiday Special is awful, and thanks to Lucas, it has never been re-aired or released on home video. Unfortunately, bootlegs of the original broadcast still exist…

3 Ren & Stimpy—”Man’s Best Friend”

“Man’s Best Friend” is a bit different from the episode on this list because it was partly banned before it aired in 1992. The segment was intended to air on August 22, 1992, but Nickelodeon opted to pull it in its entirety before it aired. Ultimately, it did make it to television, but that didn’t come for 11 years, and on another network.

The episode was controversial due to an incredibly violent scene involving Ren. He mercilessly beats Goerge with an oar, and it was ridiculously violent. On top of that, there were several references to tobacco use, and Nickelodeon wasn’t willing to support the segment or its creators.

The series creator, John Kricfalusi, and his production company, Spümcø, were both terminated by Nickelodeon. They were removed entirely from further working with the show. Nickelodeon moved on with The Ren and Stimpy Show on its own with Kricfalusi’s former partner.

The network ended up airing the episode with the original theatrical pilot taking the place of the offensive material. It was later added to the DVD box set as a special feature and finally made it onto television years later via Ren & Stimpy “Adult Party Cartoon” with a TV-MA rating.

2 TaleSpin—”Flying Dupes”

TaleSpin was a widely beloved afternoon cartoon that aired on The Disney Afternoon, and the series’ final episode, “Flying Dupes” was ultimately banned. In the episode, Baloo is tasked to deliver a package to the Thembrian High Marshall, which isn’t the most controversial plot in the world until you learn that he was unwittingly carrying a bomb.

He was given the bomb by arms manufacturers who wanted Thembria to go to war with Cape Suzette. The terrorism theme was considered to be a bit too risque for an animated series aimed at children, so Disney decided it would be best to pull it from airing in any reruns or through syndication.

Oddly enough, “Flying Dupes” did find its way to television in 1999, eight years after it first aired. It popped up on Toon Disney but is believed to have resulted from an oversight on whoever threw the episode on the air. It has since never seen the light of day on any Disney channel.

The episode cannot be found on iTunes or Disney+, but if you want to check it out, there is a way. It was released on the series DVD in 2013, so copies of the episode do exist.

1 Beavis And Butt-Head – “Comedians”

If there’s one thing an animator wants to avoid, it’s life imitating art. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened soon after the episode “Comedians” aired on MTV. Beavis and Butt-Head was never a show to restrain itself, but few could have foreseen what would happen after the episode aired.

In “Comedians,” the titular duo attempt to make it as stand-up comics but fail miserably. When they don’t make it, they decide to set the comedy club on fire. They then watched it burn from across the street. For a Beavis and Butt-Head episode, it was actually pretty tame, but it resulted in tragedy.

According to an article in the New York Times, Austin Messner, a five-year-old child, watched the episode, which included a line claiming that “fire was fun.” Shortly after this, the boy’s mother found him playing with matches, and later that evening, he set fire to the family home.

Sadly, this resulted in the death of his younger sister. The tragedy resulted in the episode being permanently pulled from syndication, and it’s only ever been aired once in its entirety. There has since been some doubt about the episode’s influencing the fire, but MTV continues to keep the episode off the air.

Top 10 Banned Commercials

Long ago, The Twilight Zone became a cultural institution. Rod Serling’s original series, which ran from 1959 to 1964, still ranks highly on lists of the greatest TV shows of all time, even in today’s era of peak prestige TV. Serling oversaw 156 episodes over five seasons, writing a whopping 92 of them himself. But if you tune in to an episode today, it seems like it’s one of a handful of old standbys: Burgess Meredith breaking his glasses in “Time Enough at Last,” a beautiful young woman being treated by pig-faced doctors in “Eye of the Beholder,” or an overworked businessman making “A Stop at Willoughby.”

However, a large number of worthy episodes are all but unknown, except to the most dedicated of fans. Whether these episodes were withheld from syndication, hidden away due to controversy, or simply lost to time, they have been unjustly forgotten. Today, we take a look at ten of the best Twilight Zone episodes that are nearly unknown.

Related: Top 10 Truly Terrible Television Series

10 Episode Hidden Away for 52 Years

Before he became Sulu on Star Trek, George Takei starred in what is perhaps the most controversial episode of The Twilight Zone. “The Encounter” first aired on May 1, 1964, and then promptly disappeared until the SyFy channel included it as part of a Twilight Zone marathon on January 3, 2016. Although the episode has always been included on DVD and Blu-ray releases of Season 5, its absence from broadcast TV lasted for 52 years. And that’s because it was a very controversial episode from the start.

Takei plays Arthur, a young Japanese-American man sharing a beer with World War II veteran Fenton (Neville Brand). Fenton wants to show Arthur the samurai sword he took from a Japanese soldier he killed in the war. Unfortunately, this leads to some uncomfortably racist conversation, Fenton’s PTSD played for laughs, and the sword supernaturally influencing Arthur to kill Fenton. In the end, Arthur plays into Japanese stereotypes and commits suicide by jumping out a window.

Even in a time before America had passed civil rights legislation, viewers found the episode insensitive and deeply offensive. CBS responded by pulling the episode from summer re-runs and later from the syndication package. Viewed through modern eyes, it’s clear “The Encounter” was trying to make a statement about the horrors of war and racism but indulged in too many stereotypes instead. Still, it’s fascinating to see a long-hidden episode of an iconic series make a return to TVs.^[1]

9 Winner at the Cannes Film Festival and the Oscars

Like “The Encounter,” the episode “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” was from the tail-end of the original Twilight Zone’s run, coming late in the final season. Even the most dedicated fans tend to agree that Serling and company were running out of gas a bit at this point. But who could blame them? The show averaged over 30 episodes per season, which is almost unheard of today. Serling not only wrote so many of the episodes but also acted as producer, showrunner, and the show’s only recurring star as the on-screen narrator. So it’s not surprising that near the end, Serling looked to outsource an episode.

This was accomplished by buying the rights to An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, a 1961 French short film based on the classic short story by Ambrose Bierce. Set during the American Civil War, it’s a surreal story about the last moments of a civilian who is to be hanged by Union troops. The film is silent, other than background bird noises and the occasional military order. The haunting film won the Best Short Subject award at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film at the 1963 Academy Awards.

At a time when the average Twilight Zone episode cost $65,000 to make, the producers of the show were able to secure the rights for An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge for $20,000. An additional $5,000 was spent shooting Serling’s introduction and editing him in. This turned a fine film into a cost-effective episode. But when it came time for syndication, the episode was withheld, presumably because the original purchase didn’t cover unlimited rights. It’s now available on home video box sets and occasionally airs on TV as part of marathons, but mostly it’s become another rarely seen episode of The Twilight Zone.^[2]

8 The Pre-Twilight Zone Pilot Episode

In 1955, Rod Serling shot to fame with his teleplay for Patterns. An episode of NBC’s live Kraft Television Theatre, Patterns was an immediate critical and commercial hit. Essentially a boardroom drama, Serling’s script for Patterns examined the plight of the working man in corporate America. It struck a chord with audiences, and suddenly Serling was a star. With the networks ready to give him his own show, Serling came up with the idea for an anthology show that would deal with the controversial issues of our time—but do so in the sci-fi genre in the hopes of avoiding network censors.

CBS purchased Serling’s first script for his new idea, called “The Time Element,” and promptly shelved the project. The network execs just didn’t see the potential in the idea. “The Time Element” might have gone nowhere if it weren’t for Desi Arnaz. He was looking to add some prestige to his anthology series, the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. When he found out CBS had an unused Serling script sitting in the vaults, he put it into production, and “The Time Element” debuted on the Playhouse on November 24, 1958.

The overwhelmingly positive reaction to “The Time Element” persuaded CBS to buy Serling’s show idea, and The Twilight Zone premiered in the fall of 1959. “The Time Element” was mostly forgotten, but with its sci-fi/fantasy theme, opening and closing narration, and a twist ending, it’s essentially an early pilot for The Twilight Zone. It went unseen for years until TV Land included it among its first broadcasts in 1996. In 2010, “The Time Element” was finally included on the Blu-ray edition of Season 1 of The Twilight Zone.^[3]

7 Early Starring Role for Robert Duvall

When it comes to long-unseen episodes of The Twilight Zone that languished in the vaults for years, the discussion will inevitably lead to Season 4. This season was an experiment designed to breathe new life into the series. Despite strong critical notices and a rabidly devoted fanbase, CBS was unhappy with the show’s ratings and put production on an indefinite hiatus at the end of Season 3. When the TV season started in the fall of 1962, The Twilight Zone was nowhere to be found. Serling successfully pitched expanding the show from 30 minutes to an hour as a way to revive interest. The re-tooled Twilight Zone premiered as a mid-season replacement on January 3, 1963.

In the end, the hour-long episodes didn’t perform any better in the ratings, and Season 4 was written off as a failed experiment. When the show returned for Season 5 in the fall of 1963, the running time was back to 30 minutes. Given that the 18 episodes of Season 4 all run twice as long as the rest of the show, they were not included in syndication. It wouldn’t be until DVD releases of the show that Season 4 was finally made widely available. Today, most streaming services that carry the show don’t have Season 4 due to this history of it being excluded from syndication.

So while nearly all of Season 4 could be highlighted on a list of rare episodes, one of the best is “Miniature,” the eighth episode of the season. Acting legend Robert Duvall gives a great early performance as a man who sees a figure come to life in a museum dollhouse. As he falls in love with the figure, Duvall’s family naturally thinks he is crazy and has him committed to a psychiatric hospital. But true love in The Twilight Zone will surely lead to a twist ending that won’t be spoiled here.

Duvall’s performance is reminiscent of his then-recent turn as Boo Radley in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. He’s quiet and sullen but still evokes great empathy, making “Miniature” a standout in the hour-long episodes of The Twilight Zone.^[4]

6 Weird End of The Twilight Zone

Speaking of To Kill a Mockingbird, Duvall’s co-star in the film, Mary Badham, appeared in the final episode of The Twilight Zone, “The Bewitchin’ Pool.” In the film, Badham played Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, and in “The Bewitchin’ Pool,” she plays a character named Sport. In the film, Scout’s brother is named Jem, and in this episode, Scout’s brother is named Jeb. It seems highly unlikely that writer Earl Hamner Jr. (later the creator of The Waltons) wasn’t referencing the To Kill a Mockingbird characters in this episode, but it’s safe to say the tone is entirely different.

Hamner’s script was inspired by what he saw as a rise in divorce rates and its effect on children. Sport and Jeb’s parents are fighting their way through an ugly divorce, and the kids respond by spending a lot of time in their swimming pool. One day, the pair find a secret portal in the pool that takes them to the home of a kindly woman known as Aunt T.

By the end, the message of the story seems to be that kids should just run away if their parents can’t behave themselves. It’s a very unsettling episode and a weird way for the show to go out. Like a lot of Season 5 episodes, “The Bewitchin’ Pool” is seen as evidence of the show losing its touch at the end. It’s among a handful of Season 5 episodes rarely seen in syndication.^[5]

5 Litigation Keeps an Episode out of Circulation

Yet another Season 5 episode oddity, “Sounds and Silences,” concerns Roswell G. Flemington, a man who prefers his environment to be as noisy as possible. After his wife has had enough, he starts to hear everything as crushingly loud… then he can hear nothing. Lacking a clear moral or message, it’s a weird one, but still worthy of the new things Serling was trying with the show near the end of its run.

The episode is perhaps better remembered as the subject of a lawsuit. In 1961, a screenwriter submitted a script called “The Sound of Silence,” which was rejected. After “Sounds and Silence” aired in 1964, the author felt like his work had been plagiarized. Since the lawsuit was ongoing at the time the syndication package was put together, “Sounds and Silence” went unseen for decades. Although it’s readily available now, it still rarely pops up on TV.^[6]

4 National Tragedy Bumps an Episode

November 22, 1963, is considered one of the most tragic days in American history, the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. As one would expect, regular television programming was interrupted that day—and for several days afterward, as Kennedy’s alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and then assassinated himself days later. The Twilight Zone has been scheduled to air an episode called “Night Call” on November 22, but unsurprisingly the show did not air that night.

“Night Call” was eventually broadcast on February 7, 1964. Considering the episode’s content—an elderly woman gets anonymous phone calls that are eventually traced to a ghost calling from a cemetery—it would have been absolutely inappropriate if it had aired anywhere near the Kennedy assassination. Since 1964, “Night Call” hasn’t exactly been rare, but it’s still broadcast less often than other episodes from the initial three seasons.^[7]

7 Missing Because of Music Rights or Because It’s Bad?

Returning to the curios that haunt the final days of The Twilight Zone, we come to “Come Wander With Me,” the Season 5 episode that has the distinction of being the last episode produced for the show. Although “The Bewitchin’ Pool” was the last to air (due to voice dubbing work delaying its premiere), “Come Wander With Me” was the last to be filmed. The story concerns a Bob Dylan-esque folk singer named Floyd, who writes a new song during a fateful visit to a small town. The song reflects the plot and ultimately ends up predicting Floyd’s fate.

The song “Come Wander With Me” was written for the episode and was later used in a couple of movies. Perhaps music rights issues might explain why this episode has rarely been since its 1964 debut. While there’s nothing that says it was ever withheld from syndication, it’s also an episode that you just don’t see pop up on TV. On the other hand, it has a reputation as a not-very-good episode. Author Marc Scott Zicree’s book The Twilight Zone Companion called it “virtually incoherent.” Considering that Zicree’s book is seen as the bible for Twilight Zone fans, that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.^[8]

2 Another One in Legal Limbo

The episode “A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain” first aired on December 13, 1963, and then disappeared. Along with “The Encounter,” “Miniature,” and “Sounds and Silences,” it was one of four “lost episodes” that were officially withdrawn from circulation until the DVD release of the entire series. It’s assumed that this was also due to plagiarism claims. But if a lawsuit was filed over this particular episode, the details have been lost to time.

As it stands, “A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain” is a fine episode. It concerns a May-December marriage, with the older man resorting to desperate measures to keep up with his much younger wife. He gets his brother, a research scientist, to develop a youth serum. As expected in The Twilight Zone, there’s an ironic twist to getting what you want.^[9]

1 One That Perhaps Didn’t Age Too Well

“Black Leather Jackets” first aired in early 1964. Aliens from another planet invade Earth, disguised as human bikers in leather jackets. Calling themselves Fred, Steve, and Scott, they move into the suburbs to study average Americans.

The youngest alien, Scott, falls in love with the teenage girl next door, Ellen. Once he reveals the truth to Ellen, she naturally thinks he’s insane, and Ellen’s father tries to have him committed. Scott tries to stop an interplanetary war by convincing his world’s leader that overall, humans are a peaceful race.

While The Twilight Zone was usually able to spin a good metaphor for big issues, “Black Leather Jackets” ham-fistedly addresses the generation gap by making the alien invaders swoon-worthy guys in leather jackets. And just like the emerging 1960s counterculture they are meant to represent, the youth among these aliens are all about peace and love, man!

While “Black Leather Jackets” has never been considered lost or withheld, it’s still one you rarely see broadcast. And perhaps that’s because the fear of leather-clad bikers that the episode plays off of is a long-ago concern, making it seem dated, unlike most classic Twilight Zone episodes. Whatever the reason for its obscurity, it’s still a fun and charming episode worth seeking out.^[10]

At this point, writing a script for a film or an episode of television should be down to an exact science. Even people with a passing interest in scripts know about phrases such as inciting incidents, peaks and valleys, and denouncements, and even without popular webpages like IMDb goofs or the endless ranks of video essayists on YouTube, we can sniff out a hole in a plot.

So knowing audiences have that level of savvy, how can filmmakers that have to devote months, if not years to these projects think that they can get away with having holes in stories that seem like they would take a conscious effort to ignore? On top of that, how do they sometimes not only get away with it but make movies and episodes that audiences cherish for generations? Perhaps we can gain some insight into that by looking at the stories below. All 10 examples are, we should mention, movies and episodes that we love enough to have watched multiple times. Still, you can’t really love something until you accept its flaws.

(By the way, if you’re expecting Citizen Kane and its infamous supposed plot hole to be on here, check this page for why it isn’t. Also, SPOILERS ahead!)

10. Avengers: Infinity War

In the fourth movie in world history to gross over two billion dollars at the box office, the villain Thanos wants to become so powerful that he can, at a stroke, kill half the universe’s population to provide more resources for the other half. Aside from how nonsensical that is (think how many systems of producing and distributing the needed resources would be practically wiped out, how traumatized many of the survivors would be, etc.) considering he can do whatever he wants with time, space, reality, and so on, it also means that he can provide infinite resources to everyone. So why would he kill half the population to deal with alleged shortages?

However, some might try to dismiss that by claiming it’s part of his insanity. In terms of sheer plot mechanics, there’s a less high-falutin example near the end of the movie. The hero Doctor Strange possesses a green stone which allows him to, among other things, reset time for at least a short period. This was demonstrated quite memorably in the climax of Doctor Strange. Yet after a confrontation with Thanos late in the movie, he allows himself and his associates to be defeated without employing this power at all, despite the loss being an extremely near-run matter. There’s a common trope among superhero stories of the heroes “forgetting” their powers, but rarely does it go that far.   

9. Get Out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJd2sPSVKVg

While the meticulous plotting of Get Out‘s screenplay required twenty drafts and resulted in Jordan Peele receiving the Academy Award for Best Screenplay, he left an unfortunate hole in the story that’s as much unnecessary as it’s a cheat.   

The basic plot of the film is that Chris goes with his girlfriend Rose to visit her parents’ home. While there, he encounters a person from his neighborhood who is now in a relationship with a much older woman. Since he and other black people that Chris has encountered have been acting weirdly, he is deeply suspicious, even before he receives confirmation from his friend Rod that, indeed, the person he just met has been listed as a missing person, just as numerous other black people in that neighborhood have been. Shortly after, Chris discovers a box in the closet of the bedroom he and Rose have been sleeping in. It is full of photos of Rose with a large number of black boyfriends and girlfriends, including the person Chris knew was missing, revealing that something profoundly wrong is happening.

The issue is this: Why does Rose have that very incriminating box of evidence where Chris could find it? In the following scenes, it’s revealed that Rose is a willing participant in the disappearances and feels no remorse. Indeed, we see her casually looking through photos of up and coming athletes shortly after, indicating that she’s already moving on from the harm she’s going to inflict on Chris, so it’s not as if she’d subconsciously be sabotaging the crime. They’re also printed photos even though the movie is set in contemporary times when surely she would be inclined through social conditioning to take digital photographs. Even the best screenplays can’t seem to escape these missteps.  

8. Black Mirror: National Anthem

Often hailed as The Twilight Zone for the internet age, Charlie Brooker’s science fiction anthology struck a chord with audiences from its pilot episode, which premiered in December 2011. In the episode, Princess Susannah is kidnapped by an unknown person who will only release her alive on the condition that the prime minister do something by that late afternoon that the prime minister very much does not want to do, with the full understanding of the public. One of his subordinates makes arrangements to cheat the arrangement in the event Princess Susannah is not rescued in time. Word of the attempted cheat gets out, so the kidnapper releases a video of him removing one of the Susannah’s fingers, and he sends a finger to the press. Learning about this cheat and the harm inflicted on the Princess turns the public against the prime minister, forcing him to go through with the deal. In the end, it’s revealed that the princess is released unharmed and that the kidnapper was an old performance artist who cut off one of his own fingers.

The issue with that is that the performance artist is revealed to be an aged man with a generally working class body while Princess Susannah looks like she’s a model in lower middle age, at the oldest. There’s no way their fingers could plausibly be mistaken for each other, even in the heat of the moment. Even if the extent of the news that leaked was that a finger was sent to a media outlet after the video of the supposed finger removal (which is staged so that the injury itself does not happen in the camera’s line of sight), word would just as quickly get out that it wasn’t her finger, which would massively undercut the public pressure for the prime minister to meet the kidnapper’s demands.    

7. Cinderella

While it is a tale as old as time, most viewers today are probably familiar with it through either the 1951 animated Disney adaptation or the 2014 live action Disney adaptation. Or maybe the 2014 deconstruction in Into the Woods by… uh, Disney again. Our readers very likely don’t need the plot synopsized, but in brief: There’s a hardworking stepdaughter/maid who sneaks to a royal dance after her fairy godmother gives her a dress, carriage, and slippers made of her old clothes, a pumpkin, and magic respectively. She dances with the prince, they fall in love but she has to leave at midnight, leaving her slipper behind. He hunts her down by having every woman in the kingdom try on the slipper until it fits her.

But this story, whether it be the original French version, the German version by the Brothers Grimm, and every film adaptation, has a major problem related to the character of the prince. It doesn’t even make sense by fairy tale logic that the prince loves someone without even knowing what she looks like. Even the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet knew each other’s faces! While fairy tales naturally get deconstructed a lot despite being wish fulfillment fantasies for children, everyone always seems to get too hung up on how impractical glass slippers would be as an article of clothing to observe this problem with the plot.   

6. Raiders of the Lost Ark

This 1981 film was both a tribute to 1930s movie serials (even though creators George Lucas and Steven Spielberg admitted they didn’t actually like those when they screened a few for each other during pre-production) and one of the films that codified Hollywood’s blockbuster era. Indiana Jones was instantly iconic as a tomb raiding academic who goes on an adventure to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant  in a race against his old rival Belloq and his Nazi collaborators.

It probably helped that in Lawrence Kasdan’s acclaimed screenplay, Indiana Jones is more relatable because he so often fails on the way to the climax, including said climax beginning with him in captivity.

This is where the trouble with the story emerges. As Indiana and his fellow captive Marion Ravenwood look on, the Nazis open the Ark. Ominous light emenates from the Ark, and out of the blue, Indiana Jones tells Marion to shut her eyes. As they do, angels that seem more like demons emerge and kill all of their captors. Never mind the moral issues that they indiscriminately kill everyone solely on the basis of looking at them. How does Indiana know that shutting their eyes is the way for him and Marion to save themselves? The only thing he’s said about it before this scene was when, back at the university, he sees an image of the Ark and blithely guesses that the light emerging from it is the “power of God.” It’s a very puzzling oversight.

Except it actually isn’t. Kasdan included a scene in the original screenplay where the means of surviving was explained to Dr. Jones, but it was cut during editing. Which just goes to show that even a perfect script can be undone during the production process.

5. Black Mirror: USS Callister

After six years and a move from BBC to Netflix, the premiere for Black Mirror’s fourth season once again left audiences in awe and slightly disturbed. In brief, the episode is about the creator of a virtual reality online video game named Robert Daly. Instead of merely playing his game (which is modeled in large part on a fictional equivalent of the original Star Trek series) as a light adventure as originally intended, Daly makes artificially intelligent copies of coworkers and tortures them into treating him as essentially a god. Part of Black Mirror’s conceit was well-established by that time that AI simulations of people have the equivalents of physical sensations and emotions, thus making the AI in this show as sympathetic as any human beings would be and their existences just as Hellish.

Still, a problem with the story is revealed almost immediately. To properly map out the memories and emotions of his coworkers to make the simulations as accurate as possible, Daly sneaks samples of their DNA home from work from such things as discarded styrofoam cups. The issue of that is that while Daly would indeed have good DNA samples to make clones, in real life he wouldn’t be able to make replicas required by the narrative because our DNA does not contain our memories. It’s a testament to the execution of the episode that this did not seem to take many viewers out of the experience.

4. A Quiet Place

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh-trhU24sI

A Quiet Place, the directorial debut from John Krasinski, is a commercial and critical darling. However, its suspenseful pace and limited dialogue left audiences with plenty of time to nitpick the details of its story about monsters that rely on sound to hunt down a family. The biggest issue is really a nail that is sticking up from the middle of a step to the basement that Evelyn Abbott steps on. Now, the nail is sticking up right from the middle of the step, and the staircase is in good condition, so this is not a matter of rushed or improvised repair after the apocalypse. It also is not joining two pieces of wood together. So why in the world is it there? Perhaps the deaf daughter Regan Abbott put it there because she’s subconsciously becoming suicidal (that’s extrapolating from how she blames herself for the death of her young brother and wants to stop experimenting with hearing aids). That still leaves a nagging question: How did it get pounded in without an immediate monster attack?

The producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form were questioned about the nail and the best they came up with was saying that the family couldn’t risk the noise of removing a nail. Which… Fine. But why, or even how, did they get it there in the first place?!

3. Hereditary

While there are many that are contemptuous of this horror hit (hence the fact the influential audience test score called Cinemascore gave it a D+), those that view it favorably tend to be passionate about it. It is deliberate in its pacing and unpredictability, and its art design is as subtly creepy as it is beautiful. Near the beginning, a family learns that a recently departed grandmother’s grave has been desecrated and things… well, they get even more grisly and disturbing from there, including the death of of the main character’s young daughter, Charlie, which culminates in a truly horrifying ending.

While it could be fairly said that writer-director Ari Aster attempted a much more grounded form of occult horror, he still left some substantial holes in the story. Staci Wilson of At Home in Hollywood pointed out that the cemetery calls the family to inform them of the desecration. However, later in the movie Charlie’s remains are also seen, and the movie devotes time to seeing her burial. So how is the family not being told about this desecration? How are the police not being informed of it? With a clear connection between the two desecrated graves, why are the police not investigating the family? Aster has to really fill the runtime with unsettling imagery to keep the viewer’s mind off matters like that.

2. The Dark Knight Rises

While it might not have achieved the heights of critical hype and commercial success of 2008’s The Dark Knight, this 2012 film still made quite an impression with its story of how Bane practically paralyzes the billionaire vigilante Bruce Wayne and conquers the city of Gotham. It makes Bruce’s eventual recovery and triumph all the more compelling, especially with how costly it was in the end. And for this entry, we’re going to go ahead and ignore the well-established plot hole of how Bruce somehow got halfway around the world and snuck into Gotham despite being, at this point, a former billionaire with no resources.

However, one of the greatest problems with the story was that Bruce Wayne recovering from his injury and going through the spiritual journey that allows him to go confront Bane again on more favorable terms takes five months. Can you imagine any administration allowing a city to fall into the hands of criminals to such an extent that people physically cannot enter the city? We can just see some commenters saying something like “sure, look at Chicago, New Orleans, etc,” but you know what we mean. Even in a series where urban crime is to an extent decided by costumed heroes and villains having fistfights, that’s just silly. Silly in a way that the movies directed by Christopher Nolan have tried their hardest not to be. 

1. The Sixth Sense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y8SlYqBOX8

One of the biggest hits of 1999 and the possessor of perhaps the most famous twist in modern cinema history, this film had members of entertainment media predicting that M. Night Shyamalan would be the next Steven Spielberg. We’ll see if his recent hit Split will put him back on course to achieving that honor, but we can always appreciate his story of a child who could see the many ghosts that walk among us. One or two oft-parodied scenes dominate most people’s memories of this film, but there’s a particularly touching scene where Cole Sear conquers his fear of ghosts by helping bring closure to the ghost of Kyra Collins.

Problem with it is that Kyra’s sequence brings with it all sorts of problems. For one thing, it’s said of the ghosts that “they see what they want to see,” so why is she the only one who’s aware she’s dead? There’s also the fact that the way she imparts the truth to Cole for him to pass on to her father is by pushing a VHS tape out from under her bed when he goes to her house during the funeral. But if Collins is aware she’s dead, and has apparently already watched the tape (otherwise she wouldn’t know that it has the information that would identify her murderer on it), then she must be able to move the tape around considerably. So what’s to stop her from just showing it to her father herself without seeking out Cole Sear? Like the rest of these, it’s hardly a movie ruining problem, but it’s enough to make you wonder how such inconsistency was never picked up by critics or harped on during the years-long Shyamalan backlash.

Dustin & Adam Koski also wrote the urban fantasy novel Not Meant to Know. It probably has plot holes in it, but you’ll have to read it to find them!