"You seemed smarter than me when I met you" - Jeff Winger to Britta Perry (Community)

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Watchmen series

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"No. I am your father."

Twin Peaks did a great job of reconning. Specifically Mark Frost. David Lynch would film some crazy abstract scenes and Frost would work backwards and explain them. (Bob, Judy, the Red Room...)

I have one for you that may or may not count as retconning.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Seinfeld, but it’s said that Kramer at the start of the show hasn’t left the building in years, yet that is never really a thing as the next season progresses. It actually completely ignores this revelation about him pretty quickly and he’s like a completely different guy soon after this and you’d never think he was this recluse who never left his apartment for years.

Fraiser being an only child in Cheers, a show without Niles would have been far, far worse

Well, we are definitely going to find out

thank you

Clearly it’s in Seinfeld when Kramer’s stance on bathing changes between swearing by cold showers, then only taking baths, and then with normal shower habits outside of the addition of a food disposal.

Very dramatic and consequential with seamlessly integrated changes.

Did he ever actually ever say he’s an only child or is it just that Niles was never mentioned? I cannot remember. I know Martin was dead and was a scientist I think and not a cop prior to the show Frasier.

That's not what a retconn is

Buffy retconned so hard, still it worked.

He also claimed his father was dead, which was retconned into him saying that because they were estranged at the time

Erasing the pregnancies (and Bud's Grandmaster B character) in Married...with children. It was actually done as a curtesy to Katey Segal, who suffered a miscarriage during filming.

A retcon is any retroactive continuity regardless of whether it contradicts information that came before or not. If new information is treated as having always been true, it’s technically a retcon.

Though technically the Vader thing is kind of a retcon that contradicts previous information since the previous movie said Anakin was killed by Vader. (This is especially the case with that example since it wasn’t Lucas’s original plan for Vader to be Anakin.)

However OP is presumably asking about TV retcons, so it wouldn’t count on those grounds.

Wait, context for this? Been a while since I've seen it.

In Breaking Bad, Tyrus Kitt was stated to be a new hire for Gus' group who was assigned to monitor Walt after Victor's death. This made it seem like he was rather green to Gus' organisation.

This was changed in Better Call Saul, where it's revealed that he was working for Gus for years and was good friends with Victor. This changed the dynamic in the original show, where his frosty attitude towards Walt and Jesse is now due to his suspecting they had something to do with his death and blaming them for it.

Also in Breaking Bad, Saul's legal degree says he graduated from University of American Samoa in 1984, while in Better Call Saul, it's stated that Jimmy only became a lawyer relatively recently in the era where cellphones were already rather common. This would meant that the earlier degree is definitely fake... helped by the fact that you need to be a legal resident of American Samoa in order to be admitted to that university.

The Sopranos. Tony is already the boss in The Pilot, while the next episode introduces Jackie as the Boss and Tony is just a capo.

David Chase said he didn't think the show was going to get picked up and basically was planning to take what footage he'd had and make a movie out of it.

Not sure if this counts, but Stargate SG-1 retconned a bunch of elements from the original movie to good effect.

Britta slowly changed from the serious/straight character to a silly/funny one and Jeff throws that line at her at some stage.

That's what makes a good retcon. Obi-Wan's dialogue about Anakin and Vader in ANH was meant to be true when it was written, but it still works with the post-Empire story because it makes complete sense that Obi-Wan would want to hide the truth of Luke's heritage from him. Even the way it's acted fits perfectly, with Alec Guiness visibly hesitating before telling the lie. It's so smooth that it's completely believable that it was always the original intention, even though it wasn't.

Where retcons become problematic is when you just have to straight up ignore details that don't fit the later version because they don't make sense anymore.

If he kept that extreme pressure shower head he bought on the black market he doesn’t have normal shower habits. That thing was from the circus, it was designed for elephants.

You don't change your lo-flo shower head with a sand blaster when you move into a new apartment?

Landry kills a guy in Friday Night Lights and they basically erase it from everybody's memory. It was a stupid idea to begin with and the show is a lot better for it.

Britta was a holier-than-thou brainiac liberal kinda character in Season 1 and the later seasons she turned into a dumbfuck

That doesn't seem to be true. From wikipedia: " Lucas has said that he knew Vader was Luke's father while writing the first film,[23]"

They didn’t Retcon, it’s a direct sequel

? Lol the movie is old, are you serious? He concealed the truth.

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The Simpsons did the right thing by never addressing the fake Skinner plotline.

Breaking Bad addressed why the pizza was not precut.

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Lucas was lying when he said that then, because he wasn't even the writer who came up with it.

They say it, and it’s brought up on the spin-off when Ted Danson’s character has a cameo.

she also had an older sister that midge makes reference to having already gone off to college.

Bobby kills a guy on Twin Peaks. It’s mentioned once in the show and never mentioned again.

Strangely, the movie includes that scene.

True

What about kramer in the pilot not having left the building in a decade? Next thing i know he's hitting hole in ones into blowholes

Stargate SG-1 massively retconned the movie to make it fit a series.

Holy shit. Totally forgot about that

"It was true, from a certain point of view." No, it fucking wasn't; Obi-wan just still had his blind spots regarding his apprentice. The Jedi are far more interesting when you see that they fail at their own Code repeatedly.

I count it as a separate timeline/reboot.

Twin Peaks: The Return had some aggressive retcons. They are generally were fine though imo.

Jack Donaghy had several siblings in season one of 30 Rock (one of them played by Nathan Lane, no less) but this was pretty quickly retconned. This was maybe the most significant retool of the show as a whole because it allowed them to establish and solidify the dynamic between Jack and Colleen.

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1. The introduction of Dawn in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was excellent.
2. The replacement of the actor of Greg in “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” was very well done (including multiple in-show references to the character being a different actor).
3. The series “Roseanne” had two different actresses for Becky. In the revival/The Conners, the first actress played Becky, but they had a nice storyline with the other Becky as well.

how did they retcon the siblings I don't remember. I do remember never seeing them again

Season 3 was basically a soft reboot of the show. The writers all decided to just give up on the season 2 storylines and start over.

I wish, wish, wish I was posting about the new Quantum Leap retconning that Sam leapt into the body of a NCIS agent in New Orleans and saved the city multiple times.

I didn’t initially like the introduction of Dawn because it made no sense as it happened, but then that season ended up being so engrossing and felt like a return to form for the show I’ve always been a big fan of.

Honestly, I think there was a more sloppy retcon that screwed a little with continuity from the show, though.

You think you can fool me?! You were my sire, man! You were my... Yoda!

No, I meant do they mention Frasier having no brother in a Cheers episode? If it was mentioned in one episode in an offhand way, then that may explain why I cannot remember if Frasier mentioned having a brother.

I haven’t seen The Simpsons since like season 30 I think but I believe Lisa did mention Armin Tamzarian once in an episode in the mid-teens I think.

Lisa: But to save money on a new dish, we'll just call you Snowball ll and pretend this whole thing never happened.

Skinner: That's really a cheat, isn't it?

Lisa: I guess you're right, Principal Tamzarian.

Skinner: I'll just be moving along,

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When I glanced Married with Children, I thought you were going to mention them retconning them adopting the kid named 7.

>The Simpsons did the right thing by never addressing the fake Skinner plotline.

Isn't the episode parodying this though? I recall a scene at the end where someone says none of this will ever be mentioned again.

Sort of a retcon, but I argue that the entirety of the Clone Wars animated series makes the Star Wars prequels retroactively better. Hell, most of what people like about that era of Star Wars is in large due to the Clone Wars.

I'm still disappointed New Orleans didn't finish with Pride leaping

I think Jack references them off hand a few times but they never appear again.

All long running showd are subject to plotholes though or inconsistencies. In season 1 cheers Diane talked about her father in the present and later in the season we find out he's been dead for years.

The opening scene of the film Serenity retcons how Simon got his sister out of government custody. It doesn't line up at all with his explanation in the Firefly pilot. I don't mind though, it's an exciting scene and you can handwave it away by saying his original explanation was just a very, very loose summary.

Succession actually changes a decent amount over the first season, as they hone in on a show about the adult children vying for a kiss from daddy. Some of it is just downplayed until eventually written out, like the old media vs new media angle of Kendall going all-in on a blog.

But they also eliminate like half of the family, with varying levels of abruptness. Greg's mom, played by Reno 911's Mary Birdsong, disappears after the pilot. Roman's first girlfriend was originally credited in the pilot as his wife, and there was a daughter never seen again; they break up a few eps later. I think Connor's also implied to be married? Marcia's son gets a promotion to Europe in a dramatic reveal, then is never heard from again. Kendall's kids become only talked about, and then essentially forgotten. (Interestingly, most of these result in the generation of the Roy family younger than the main characters basically being eliminated.)

Edit: Also, they bring it back for the 'cat under the chair' episode, but it does feel like the show became uninterested in Logan's dementia after season 1, as the story demanded the character be more consistently cunning and ruthless.

Does it count as a retcon when it’s literally a plot point that she didn’t exist until season 5?

They recommend more than that. His mother shows up on Cheers and she's nothing like the woman they talk about in Frasier. She's a lot meaner, for one.

Also his name was Kessler.

> Breaking Bad addressed why the pizza was not precut.

They did? Where was that?

Don’t remember the episode but Jesse orders a pizza to his party in S4 I think and Badger says it’s a hipster ‘thing’ that they make you cut your own pizza.

Tolkien Black

Wolverine getting his adamantium skeleton/backstory.

Edit to add: I am not a comic book guy, but it is my understanding that the whole weapon x experiments are actually a retcon of Wolverine's original story, and so well done and compelling that it seems like it's always been

the Superman reboot in 86

This must be what they mean by the Tolkien black character..

So it was true, from a certain point of view.

That was hilarious

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> Seymour walks by

i hate these kinds of jokes on the shows with huge character rosters. just have characters materialize for a single joke at their expense rather than spend any amount of time setting up the bit.

yeah, because it’s a huge tv show that they watched when they were kids. of course that’s what they’d associate with Star Wars

Bobby becomes a changed character after the Major Briggs dream speech.

From memory he originally had the claws on the gloves, they weren’t in him, when he faced the Hulk.

Then it was that Alpha Flight found him in the snow and his bones and claws were unbreakable metal. He had no memory of who he was.

Then the Weapon X Program was hinted at more and more in X-Men and then finally fully explained in the Weapon X story by Claremont and Windsor-Smith.

Then it was added to and altered with new characters being added to the origin and Weapon X.

Until finally they came out with the bone claws thing where he wasn’t “Logan” but “James Howlett” and the adamantium was added to existing claws rather than pure adamantium.

And now who knows where it’s at. Guy definitely gets fucked around a lot though.

I could be wrong about some of this…happy to stand corrected.

>whole weapon x experiments are actually a retcon of Wolverine's original story

I don't think so

Charlie from Always Sunny had a sister in the first season that was never mentioned again.

Definitely an improvement as it would potentially ruin his relationship with his Mother and Uncle Jack

Well and the fact Simon could have been lying. That way the team would not expect him to go out on robberies as much.

Dawn isn't a retcon

No it doesn't

Karate Kid 3 Terry Silver is an OVER the top cackling 80s villain. 30 years later in Cobra Kai, “I was so high on cocaine and revenge”.

What did Buffy retcon? I've only watched it one time through, so I don't recall a reason happening.

And had a dog

Not a hipster thing, it's so "they pass the savings on to you."

It seemed like it at first, though.

Watchers Council. It felt like every new season tons of new things appeared.

Is this a retcon, or adding more lore? I'm genuinely curious as I have no recollection.

I don't know if its a genuine retcon but the difference in Cpt Pike from the original pilot where he was kind of an out of touch guy getting used to changes in Starfleet to what's essentially the perfect execution of the boy scout trope is great.

Characters like Pike, Cpt America and Superman when done well are so good because I find characters maintaining their moral code in difficult times way more interesting than the flawed anti heroes that have been popular the last few decades.

What do you mean? It was always Tolkien

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Making O'Neill a wisecracker was a good retcon. They explained in show that he was dealing with grief over his son. I always felt like the one thing that would've elevated Stargate the movie would have been a funnier Kurt Russell performance, like his Big Trouble or Tango and Cash roles

I'm trying to think of something the show actually retconned from the prequels. I think it just did a great job filling in the gaps between movies, better contextualizing the impact of major events.

Boy I sure hope somebody got fired for that blunder

Been a while since I have seen the first two seasons, but some points I don't agree. Like Kendall's children do come back as a story point as he really wants to find their gift at his birthday. They don't appear on screen most probably due to aging.

As for Logan's "dementia". The story makes it unclear whether he is mentally declining or not. The entire setup of the show leans on the old man getting too old. And the inconsistent signs makes it a tougher argument for the family to lean on.

The new Star Trek series has a bunch of silly retcons (Burnham is Spock's sister, Picard and Data were best friends, etc.) but the best ones are from Strange New Worlds, in particular Pike being shown his future and aware that he'll someday be horribly injured in an accident.

The other was giving Spock and T'Pring a full romantic relationship. In TOS, she was Spock's wife and the crew had no idea but on SNW it's a public long distance relationship and it adds a lot to the series.

The claws were meant to be part of his gloves, that’s correct, but it wasn’t mentioned in the comics so it’s not something that needed to be retconned. I think the claws were shown to be a part of him within a year of being introduced.

And another minor thing-BWS wrote and drew Weapon X, Claremont had no involvement.

Do they really go into that in the pilot or is it more like a throwaway line? I can't remember.

Also wild to imagine a world where the freakin' Sopranos never gets made.

At least he didn't get the Silkwood model.

What a GDB.

They just never engage the idea again and all references are jack as an only child like in flash backs etc. They never out an out say he's an only child but that more or less becomes the dynamic.

A lot happened in 2 years. I feel like the clone wars should have gone on for like a decade but that wasnt an option for when they made the show.

Yeah part of the entire thrust of the show is the kids thinking they can take the old man down while he's weak and then oops Logan ain't that down.

Yeah theres a scene early in Claremont x men where Storm is shocked to find out the claws were in Logan's hands and that was the first time it was made explicit that the claws are in his body.

Pretty famous fun fact, but I do love that the Clone Wars does gymnastics around Anakin meeting Grievous all for the sake of one line in Revenge of the Sith

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But it was true, from a certain point of view. The man who was his friend and brother is gone and he doesn't believe he can ever return.

I legit laughed so hard during that scene I had to pause the show and rewind it.

They guys have addressed a few of those on the podcast. I think it was Rob that said "well... we didn't have a Meg back then." or something like that.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine changed everything about the "Trill" species in order to make for better TV.

When introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation, they were your standard bump-on-forehead alien (kinda very ugly look). They couldn't use the transporters or it would kill the symbiont, and the symbiont completely subsumed the host's personality, as if the host was just a shell for the symbiont to inhabit. In addition, noone outside of their people knew they were a 'joined' species as they apparently weren't part of the Federation but just some aliens.

For DS9 my guess is the makeup didn't look good on the gorgeous Terry Farrell and having no transporters would have severely limited what kinds of scenes her character could participate in. They also retconned them to have been not only in the Federation but in Starfleet.

This led to a much more interesting character and backstory for Dax.

yeah the movie was basically ... the stargate went to one planet in a distant galaxy(!), that was it. The alien had been just sorta chilling out there for several thousand years for no particular raisin.

The TV show was a massive improvement even if visually it didn't have the money to out-cinematic the movie

> Picard and Data were best friends,

no no the show Picard said that Picard loved Data in a soulmate kinda way.

Right and TNG both the series and movies never showed a relationship with the two of them beyond captain/crewman. Data had a stronger friendship with Geordi, Troi and Worf

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Yeah well Picard was only ever close to Crusher ... he's the captain. Everyone else was at arm's length.

And Seven when he just disappeared lol

Season 10/ reboot of Roseanne/ The Conners completely retconning all of season 9 in the first episode was solid.

Or him subleasing his apartment from Paul Reiser's character in Mad About You?

That spawned my favorite two types of stoners meme lol.

I also have totally believed ageing was the reason Kendall's kids aren't on screen, but they're still mostly invoked in the most recent season in a "you never see them and don't care about them" way. It's not really a retcon but I thought it was interesting that they were kinda lumped into the show phasing out anyone younger than the main characters (some of them definitely as retcons). You'd think there'd be something to explore about the adult kids, constantly questioning their loyalty to Logan, having their own heirs to worry about or fear.

Generally I don't think what I said about Logan's dementia was wrong. It's the catalyst for the start of the series, and the first season plays with to what degree it's a real concern, but once he announces he's staying on and the show shifts to merger storylines, or Shiv and Roman getting moments in the sun, (outside the 'cat under the chair' episode) Logan's not pissing on carpets anymore or making business moves that seem less than calculated.

in the pilot of Succession Roman clearly has a wife and kids but they’re never seen again and i think are retconned as his ex girlfriend and her kids

i grew up on revenge of the sith and the clone wars so whenever i think of star wars the first thing i think of are clone troopers, battle droids, jedi generals, badass heroic anakin, etc. still my favorite era at age 22

Did you want a B plot about Skinner going on his evening walks?

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no, but you can just include him in the plot somehow or just not have the joke there. characters appearing for a single joke just contributes to flanderization.

Writer’s Strike messed up a lot the show’s plots. Like Buddy taking in that kid who played TE.

The bone claws came way before Origins came out. Magneto ripped the adamantium off his bones and that’s when people found out they were his claws. I remember before reading it, they wanted to do the story in the comics before the movies made up their own origin story about him.

Did they though? Retconning isn't the same as just adding more backstory. I'm a big fan of the Buffy and Angel series and I can't think of any glaring problems.

All the bad parts of season 2 were written before the strike

Kind of throwaway. "You may run North Jersey but you don't run your Uncle (Junior)" Something like that

> It doesn't line up at all with his explanation in the Firefly pilot.

It also doesn't line up with his downplaying of River's mental talents, when he's been expressly told by the project head that she was a psychic. But it makes perfect sense if you consider he's trying to cover that fact up, along with the lengths that he went to to break her out.

> Right and TNG both the series and movies never showed a relationship with the two of them beyond captain/crewman.

I wouldn't agree with that. Data routinely went to Picard for a lot of things. Picard's the man who was teaching him humanity through acting. The man who stood between Data and Starfleet first when they wanted to experiment on Data, then when they wanted to experiment on his daughter. Data was more than anyone else responsible for saving Picard from the Borg. And Data sacrificed himself to save Picard's life.

Yes but how many times did Picard confide in Data? He mostly confided in Troi, Beverly and Riker. So it was bizarre to me for him in the Picard finale to be like "I've never gotten over your loss my dearest friend"

A stronger way to hang that plot point would've been for Picard to be like "As your captain I've helped shepherd you on your journey to be more human, there's not a more human experience than death I'll be here for you." But they retconned a closeness these two characters never mutually shared on screen before

It never would have made any sense to have all of those symbols on the gate if it was only going to one place.

well if it was a combination lock maybe. Maybe it was originally set up to obliterate people if they got it wrong?

Just like that kid from the Brady bunch. He was a cousin or something. Cousin Oliver I think

I don’t know if this is a example but whatever happened to Laura’s little sister on “Family Matters?” She just up and disappeared and no one said anything and then the little boy was introduced

She’s a no-good B.

More TV shows should end with Scott Bakula leaping out.

The way that the Watchmen series (taking place after the written works) retconned the identity of Hooded Justice (from the source material) was really clever. As a Watchmen fan, I thought that the payoff was tremendous.

“James has always been cool”

The best part was that even Cartman was in on it. I forget the exact line, but he's, like, "what did you think it was?"

There was no retconning there. Just a good sequel doing what good sequels do.

Look it's me, I'm here. Deal with it. let's move on.

O'Neill. With two "L"s!

(It was O'Neil in the movie)

That damned Quantum Mirror...

ooh ok thnx

King of the hill Last episode they said a lot of events were a dream like the stealing tank incident

I honestly don't consider that a retcon, since we already got glimpses of O'Neil's true personality ("Give my regards to King Tut asshole!") in the film. At the start of the film he was suicidal due to what happened with his son (making him the perfect candidate to lead the expedition), but by the end he's come to terms with it and decided to go on living, paving the way for Richard Dean Anderson's subsequent portrayal in the show.

Calling season 4 of Community a gas leak season.

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i love that due to our age differences we get an entire different rich backstory for Star Wars in our heads.

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Legend of Vox Machina writing out Tiberius.

If anything, it makes the prequels worse by really shining a light on how badly Lucas fucked up

On the flip side, the Gorn retcons are just really dumb and unnecessary

Don't both Jerry and George mention siblings in Seinfeld that are never seen or heard about again too?

That wasn't really a retcon it was more filling in information we didn't have.

Series 3 of Red Dwarf retconning the end of series 2 with a ultra fast Star Wars style scrawl then launching into its peak era Series 3-6.

Hooded Justice was portrayed as a white man in the source material (at least heavily implied without any indication that it was a diversion). I’d file it under retroactive continuity.

I mean, perhaps. Although maybe it was more Lucas realizing he was best left as overseer, and allowed folks like Dave Filoni to assist in the minutiae of storytelling.

the prototype: Chuck Cunningham added nothing to Happy Days, went upstairs one day and was never seen again, and then was retconned out of existence entirely.