10 Controversial TV Show Retcons That Pissed Off Fans

If this retcon happened today in one of the top shows on television you would practically hear Twitter having its seething meltdown.

Probably the most iconic TV retcon of all time, the end of season 8 saw Dallas family patriarch Bobby Ewing die surrounded by his family after saving his wife Pamela from being hit by a car. Season 9 continued with the regular cast members going about their business while grieving his loss, and while the death was hard on viewers that had come to care deeply for the character, it seemed like Dallas would continue on nonetheless.

Bobby's portrayer Patrick Duffy had left the show to pursue other acting options, but season 9 saw a huge decline in ratings for the show, and the producers convinced him to return to the role. This meant a huge retcon was on the horizon in order to make Bobby's return work.

A character being magically revived after a sad death would have been a large enough retcon to piss off fans pretty severely, but what made it all worse was that the show's writers decided to erase the entirety of season 9 in order to bring him back. Yep, the season 9 finale showed Pamela waking up and finding her husband very much alive in the shower, and it was revealed that she had dreamed all thirty episodes that viewers had become invested in.

"It was all a dream" has become famous for being the laziest of all retcons you could possible imagine. It was sheer laziness in order to bring back a beloved actor to save a show's ratings, and it's insulting to the fans who had spent thirty hours with that season's characters and plots only to have it whimsically wiped away. Imagine this happening in The Walking Dead today. The scenes would be absolute carnage.