The original post: /r/television by /u/GeekdomCentral on 2024-07-10 19:01:28.

I’ll be using New Girl as an example, but I’ve seen this happen in countless sitcoms and it has always baffled me. In New Girl, there’s a segment where Jess is dating a guy named Sam. The episode in question sees Jess meet one of Sam’s friends and find out that this friend has been in love with Sam basically the entire time they’ve been friends. The episode ends with Sam learning this, but turning her down, and telling Jess that any potential future with that friend is long past and that he wants to be with Jess. But then in literally the very next episode they have Sam pull a “oh wait just kidding I am in love with her, sorry Jess we gotta break up”.

I understand that romantic interests for main characters barely ever stick around, so I wouldn’t expect them to end up married. It’s just so jarring to do a complete 180 in literally the very next episode. The only two things I can think of would be that the writers just changed their minds in between episodes, or the guest actor ended up needing to be written out of the show sooner than expected.

And if this was just a one-off, I wouldn’t really care, but it seems like every major sitcom does this at least once. Of course I can’t think of any other examples off the top of my head, but is there any genuine narrative reason to do something so jarring? Or is it just likely writers changing their minds/actors needing to be written out quicker than anticipated?