The original post: /r/television by /u/deathcab4rookie on 2026-02-23 22:27:03+00:00.

Flipping through channels as an unsupervised child, the “highlights” for me were:

  • Catching the ending to the “Candy Richards” episode of Nip/Tuck. I was curious about the procedure he was performing so I put the remote down, and then out of nowhere he gets fucking stabbed by a demented woman. I didn’t know the show or what it was called. Years later, in college, I streamed *Nip/Tuck* and upon rewatch, I wasn’t as disturbed because I knew what was coming. As a kid? It was permanently etched into my brain.

  • Most CSI: Miami reruns. One in particular, where a man executed his entire family with a shotgun (except for the toddler) and tried to blame it on his wife, who was being treated for postpartum depression. I knew it was fictional, but seeing the flashback where they were killed strategically was nightmare fuel. Even worse, the eldest son tried to stop him and died trying to get his infant brother (a literal *baby*) to safety.

This next one actually happened so I’m not using the spoiler text…

The biography channel had a series called I Survived…, where people are interviewed about the real-life horrors they experienced. What made it different from similar shows was that it didn’t do re-enactments. The person is in front of the camera recalling events, and then there’s the occasional photo with text.

One of the worst ones involved a girl named Brandi who was abducted with her friend, Liz. The night before they were due to graduate high school, the girls offered to give this guy a ride home because they were always told to “do the right thing.” He pulls a knife on them, demands money, and has them pull over the car. He takes Liz into the woods, fatally stabs her, and comes back to the vehicle like nothing happened; he even lies to Brandi that he allowed her friend to leave. Then he has her walk along a bridge, where then beats and assaults her. After trying to break her neck, Brandi is thrown into a river. (The sicko was caught and is currently spending the rest of his useless existence in prison.)

While it haunted me, it taught me a lot about stranger danger and situational awareness - and it did a better job than any school assembly could.