When it comes to television series, a twist is often necessary. With stories that span over multiple episodes and sometimes over multiple seasons, the idea of a twist is something that helps keep audience interest while also driving the story forward. When done right, a twist can make for some truly compelling storytelling and give audiences iconic television moments that end up discussed long after the episode or series is over.
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However, not all plot twists are good and that is especially true with the plot twists are sci-fi in nature. Even in series that aren’t necessarily science fiction themselves, a sci-fi based twist can sometimes send things off the rails, wrecking an episode for the viewer and, in some cases, totally tarnishing an entire series. Sometimes, it’s weird retcons; others, it’s a surprise revelation about a character that feels totally unlike what fans have come to expect but whatever the bad twist, it takes viewers right out and these are seven of the worst.
7) St. Elsewhere Was a Figment of a Child’s Imagination (St. Elsewhere)
We’ll admit it: St. Elsewhere isn’t exactly a sci-fi series, but that doesn’t mean the series doesn’t have a sci-fi adjacent twist that not only ruined an entire episode but diminished the series as a whole. The series finale, “The Last One”, wrapped up a lot of stories, with the St. Eligius hospital being sold back to the Boston diocese while major characters depart for other adventures, and one even passes away. But while that sounds like solid way to wrap up a long-running series it’s the revelation that none of it has ever been real that flips everything on its head. It’s revealed that the hospital, the people working there, everything were all figments of the imagination of an autistic boy staring at a snow globe with the hospital building inside of it. There are a lot of ways to read this ending — one could consider that maybe the show is a strange pocket universe, which would certainly fit the sci-fi idea or even take the stance that the snow globe scene is the dream and therefore that is what’s not real — but however you read it, it completely messes up that episode and the series.
6) Sam Beckett Never Makes It Home (Quantum Leap)
Another finale episode that soured not only itself but the entire series, the series finale of Quantum Leap, “Mirror Image” gave viewers a gut punch of a twist. The series had followed Dr. Sam Beckett who had been leaping into the bodies of various people in different times trying to right various wrongs. The hope is that he will eventually be able to leap back home and into his own life. However, when it came to the finale, despite Sam being told he can return home whenever he wants, he instead leaps to tell his friend Al’s wife that Al is actually still alive. The episode, and the series, ends with a quick postscript that “Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home.”
5) Jack and the 456 (Torchwood)
Less a twist that ruined the entire episode or series and more a twist that ruined an entire character, the third season of the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood introduced an alien species referred to as the 456. It’s revealed that the 456 had previously come to Earth, offering a cure for a deadly flu strain in exchange for children, who they used as a drug. The fourth episode of the season revealed that Captain Jack Harkness had turned over a group of children to the aliens the first time they came to Earth to get that cure. It was such a shocking twist, considering that Jack was previously never portrayed as being cruel.
4) Elliot is Mr. Robot (Mr. Robot)
Mr. Robot was a show with a ton of wild plot twists, but the biggest and perhaps the one that derailed the penultimate episode of season 1 for many viewers was the revelation that Mr. Robot and Elliot were actually the same person. Turns out that mysterious figure known as Mr. Robot who had recruited Eliott to attack E Corp was actually just a manifestation of Elliot’s mental illness the whole time, with Elliot taking on the persona of his dead father from the start. It certainly makes you look at everything very differently once you know.
3) Madi’s Fate (The 100)
The CW’s The 100 didn’t have the best final season, but a twist in the penultimate episode really just ruined, well, everything. After Clarke’s adoptive daughter Madi ends up targeted by the Children of Gabriel, the girl surrenders to them and undergoes a memory capture procedure. Unfortunately, that causes a massive stroke in her brainstem that leaves her irreversibly paralyzed. The devastating twist of it all is that Clarke and Octavia had arrived on a rescue mission to save her but are not able to. It’s a horrible twist and one that doesn’t really get any better int he finale, which sees humanity transcend, but while Clarke and her friends choose to return to Earth, Madi does not. Really, it was just one bad twist on top of another there at the end.
2) The Thirteenth Doctor’s Regeneration (Doctor Who)
When it came time for Jodi Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor to regenerate, fans were excited. It was already known that Ncuti Gatwa was set to be the next Doctor so the moment was highly anticipated, with fans expecting to see Whittaker disappear and the Sex Education star appear in her place. Except, that didn’t happen. The end of “The Power of the Doctor” instead saw Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor disappear and David Tennant, aka the Tenth Doctor, return as the Doctor in her place. The episode ended with this new Doctor looking very confused which just so happened to line up with how viewers felt about the twist.
1) The Cigarette Man is the Father of Scully’s Son (The X-Files)
There are a lot of twists over the entire run of The X-Files, but the one that sticks out as ruining a whole episode is actually a twist off of a twist. The season 5 episode “Christmas Carol” had established that Scully was infertile so Scully getting pregnant and having a child in season 8 was a pretty big twist. Season 11 episode 1, however took things a bit further and revealed that Scully’s son William isn’t actually Mulder’s child, but is actually the son of the Smoking Man who had artificially inseminated Scully using alien technology. Given the dubious consent of the whole thing, it’s an icky twist that viewers just couldn’t get over.
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