10 Experimental TV Episodes You NEED To See

Once upon a time, when folks still gathered to watch TV in a more linear fashion, live episodes were all the rage, with the likes of The West Wing, Will and Grace, 30 Rock, and even The Simpsons producing episodes that were aired while they were being performed by the cast and crew.

But surely the most fascinating instance of a live episode belongs to E.R. and its season four premiere "Ambush", which centers around a PBS documentary film crew filming a day at the hospital.

While it's fair to say that the documentary gimmick provided a convenient excuse for the episode's less-than-perfect camerawork and occasionally visible boom mics, you have to give the cast and crew credit for one majorly ballsy thing: doing it twice.

To ensure that both the East and West Coast of the United States got to experience the phenomenon, the episode was performed and broadcast live twice on the same night - once for each time zone, three hours apart.

Though in the event that either version went belly-up due to technical issues, a version of the episode was also recorded prior to the live show as insurance.

Few will hold up Ambush as one of E.R.'s best-ever episodes, but it is a fascinating and ambitious one all the same, especially with all the subtle differences between the two versions of the episode: