Episodes in a Bottle

A police precinct. An uncomfortable chair. An interrogation room. A rather chaotic Andy Samberg, screaming while strumming a guitar.

These things make up one of the most iconic bottle episodes of all time.

A Bottle Episode is an episode that is produced within a minimal budget. There are few – if any – non-regular cast members involved and more often than not, the entire episode is restricted to a single location.

Similar to a Genie in a Bottle, a bottle episode is quite literally pulled out of nowhere.

Originally, a bottle episode would be produced when the show needed a filler episode which could be produced on a limited budget after they had spent a significant amount of money on other episodes. More recently, bottle episodes are developed as a challenge to the writers rather than something that needs to be fitted in due to budget constraints.

Friends, after the success of their first bottle episode, ‘The one where no one is ready’, decided to include one bottle episode in every season. Modern Family, developed a rather unique bottle episode, ‘Connection Lost’, in which the entire episode is seen through a single character’s MacBook screen. Even an animated series like Bojack Horseman found a way to incorporate a bottle episode when they dedicated 22 minutes out of a run time of 26 minutes to a single character delivering a eulogy and used only one voice actor. Since these episodes are heavily reliant on dialogue and plot instead of locations and effects, they are typically some of the best-remembered episodes of the show.

So, are these episodes really “noticeably boring” or are they masterpieces in their own right?