10 Tired Sitcom Clichés That Really Need To Die
6. Clip Shows
My Wife And Kids really lowered the bar for this one with a two character two-parter, presumably trying to take the crown from Friends’ The One With The Invitations, which featured less than eight minutes of new footage. Yep, it’s the clip show - those episodes made up mostly of old clips because it’s slightly cheaper.
Aside from the obvious lack of creativity involved, the problem is that clip episodes are never any good. There might be a good gag here and there, but as a whole they’re never that funny or memorable, and are just slightly cheaper filler that are used to increase a season's episode count, or to stop the money/ideas running out too quickly.
The good news is that getting rid of clip shows is possible because there is a way around it: the Bottle Episode, an episode written with limited cast and sets to save money. Plenty of shows do it, and, like Friends’ The One Where No One’s Ready, and Red Dwarf’s Marooned, they can end up being really good. Much better than jamming together some stock footage to save a few quid, at least.
Bonus Points If: A show ends up doing this more than twice.