10 Most Insane TV Show Storylines Ever

4. Dallas Wipes Out Its Entire 9th Season

Beginning with the funeral of series favourite Bobby Ewing, long-running prime time soap opera Dallas would proceed without him, whipping up 31 episodes of high-octane, high-quality frothy nonsense over the course of the 1985-1986 television season. But the usual melodramatic intrigue, Machiavellian scheming and shoulder-padded fury was interrupted in the season finale, 'Blast From The Past', which saw plot threads being brought towards a devastating, explosive conclusion€ only to have heroine Pam Ewing awake in the next scene in her own bed.

Hearing the shower running, Pam went to investigate, to find her dead husband Bobby wishing her good morning, as the utterly barmy finale freezeframed on his face, then cut to credits. The beginning of season ten the following year would reveal that the entire of season nine had been a particularly vivid dream of Pam's, and the ninth season would henceforth be referred to as 'the Dream Year'.

It wasn't the last time such a device would be used to retcon massive amounts of story. Most memorably, in 1990, US sitcom Newhart would end with the entire thing from start to finish having been a cheese dream of series star Bob Newhart's previous sitcom character in The Bob Newhart Show.

In 1988, on the other hand, hospital drama St. Elsewhere would conclude with the implication that the entire show had been a dream in the mind of an autistic child but that's a whole other can of worms.