Television Episodes That Haunt You to This Day

The finale of Season 2 of Hannibal.

Every episode of Blossom where the cute 1990s version of Fonzie acted like he was in love with her.

Many of the Twilight Zone episodes: To Serve Man, Eye of the Beholder, Masks, Midnight Sun, and especially the first episode Where is Everyone. It gave me nightmares when I was around 6 yo. I DVR’d the New Years Marathon, and going through them. They still scare the shit out of me.

That episode of The Waltons where Max Gail guest starred. He played a traveling preacher who was molesting boys in the Walton's barn while Grandpa watched through a knothole.

R3 yes! Was just going to post one!

"That episode of The Waltons where Max Gail guest starred. He played a traveling preacher who was molesting boys in the Walton's barn while Grandpa watched through a knothole."

No way! Was Grandpa jacking off?

Quiet As A Nun, Armchair Thriller. UK, 1970s. Everyone who saw it remembers it.

The one where Monroe was raped by a woman. That was truly "too close for comfort."

ODAAT had a really bizarre episode where Barbara finds out that Cliff had an affair with a woman before dating her, and got the woman knocked up. Yet Barbara is made out to be the enemy because she gets angry that Cliff never told her. The whole thing is just weird with Ann screaming at Barbra to stop feeling sorry for herself and to understand her lying boyfriend.

The worst part is Ann comes back from jogging at the beginning of the episode, and I guess Bonnie was aiming for realism, but she had no makeup on and looked like she hadn't showered in two weeks. You can practically smell the sweat through the screen.

One Day at a time, I meant

r9

Cliff thought the baby was put up for adoption.

The episode was unrealistic, because Cliff was HOT and the knocked up bitch was a real dog. I mean like "the girl who played Blossom" ugly dog. Cliff wouldn't have boinked her. Besides Barbara wouldn't put out, she just wanted guys to think she did.

Pemberton and Bayliss investigate a murder by skinheads in a gay neighborhood, with conflicting ideas of the victim's sexuality. I think the episode end credits were paired to effect with Barenaked Ladies' 'A Good Boy'.

I saw it only once but at the time it stood out to me because while the victim's sexuality was an issue, it really wasn't. It was a natural, unsensational episode about a gay hate crime.

The old Twilight Zone episode where the household electronics go haywire. The dancing Spanish woman on the TV with her castanets stopping and saying something like, "Why don't you get out" used to really scare me.

And most of the old Outer Limits episodes.

R12: Homicide Life on the Street -Hate Crime episode

Sorry, forget to copy in the critical element

As a youngster the 'demon at the window' scene from The Night Gallery episode "There Aren't Any More MacBanes" haunted me for a long time.

There is an episode of Inuyasha where this little girl dies in a house fire and as such haunts her mother out of anger. Very sad episode.

Several episodes of The Americans, which could be quite graphic—one where Philip and Elizabeth folded up the dead body of one of their operatives to stuff it into a suitcase (complete with ghastly sound effects) and another where they chopped off the heads and hands of a colleague who had been killed during a mission.

The most haunting of all, though, was Nina’s quick but brutal execution.

The Glass Eye - Alfred Hitchcock Presents

'A Second Look' from 30something was great televsion.

When we first see Bob on Twin Peaks.

"The Big High" episode of Dragnet '67. A concerned grandfather goes to LA cop Joe Friday and his partner for help as he’s concerned about the welfare of his baby granddaughter, because his daughter and her husband are a couple of potheads. I saw it when I was just a little kid, and I was not prepared for that ending.

The episode of ER when Carter is stabbed by a psychotic patient. Carter falls to the floor, only to see Lucy laying across from him, having been stabbed as well. I remember at the time everyone was talking about this after it aired. It was really shocking.

OP here. In addition to Doug Savant's unfortunate incarceration (as Anthony Bouvier from Designing Women would have said) in that Cagney and Lacey episode, there were a couple of other things that made it memorable. First, Cagney and Lacey's boss had absolutely no sympathy for the kid's plight, saying something like, "He went looking for trouble that night ... and he found it." Second, there was a very unexpected laugh-out-loud moment when the hot detective who worked with Cagney and Lacey (Martin Kove) learned that the kid was attacked after accepting a pack of cigarettes from the main rapist. (Apparently, according to this episode at least, accepting cigarettes from another inmate means you're now his bitch.) He said something like, "I guess the kid never read the side of the cigarette package: Smoking can be hazardous to your health." It was a horrible thing to say, but I did burst out laughing when he said it.

Criminal Minds - Hotch's wife is killed.

When Cherry the sweet, innocent blonde doughnut dolly was killed in the Tet Offensive on "China Beach."

It was not publicized beforehand and was a terrible shock. She was a major character.

GoT’s Red Wedding episode.

Every episode of unsolved mysteries. The music scared the shit out of me

The "Big Surprise" episode of Night Gallery

The Debbie Jo as Samantha’s best imaginary friend episode of Gimme a Break!

That does sound good, OP.

R22 I concur about that episode of ER. That was harrowing.

The Golden Girls episode where Rose is raped.

Luther when they cut the woman's tongue out. I couldn't continue to watch the series.

R22 I used to have to sneak to stay up and watch ER with my mom… it wasn’t a show for kids. Eventually she said screw it and just let me stay up on Thursdays.

There was a good article about that episode a few years ago.

Charlie telling Desmond it was "Not Penny's Boat" on Lost.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode ‘The Jar.’ A marginal small town nobody visits a traveling carnival and buys one of the curiosities. An enigmatic jar whose contents appear different to everyone who sees it. He sets it up in the sitting room of his little house and immediately becomes the most popular person in town.

He sets up rows of seats and every night the townspeople cram into his house to ponder the jar and wonder what’s inside. The dark episode turns black during the last segment when the reality of what is actually in the jar slowly becomes apparent to everyone in the room. Definition of creepy!

The Sopranos when Adriana was killed.

The Sopranos when Christopher sits on little Cosette and kills her.

Lots of other Sopranos episodes.

The pilot for Night Gallery, with Joan Crawford as the rich blind woman who offers Tom Bosley thousands of dollars for the surgical his eyes, which when implanted in her will allow her to see for just twelve hours. Bosley is incredibly hard up so he has to take the offer.

A very young Steven Spielberg directed.

The Twilight Zone episode "A Little Peace and Quiet" from 1985. Starring Melinda Dillon as a housewife who finds a necklace in her yard while gardening. She finds out that wearing it gives her the ability to stop and start time. The final scene scared the fuck out of six year old me. Synopsis at link.

Life With Lucy's salute to Mame.

The episode of "I Am Cait" whereby Caitlyn and pals rode the trans bus to visit the vineyards in Napa Valley.

The Americans episode where Elizabeth makes Lois Smith kill herself.

The Blood Eagle episode of Vikings.

R36, love that episode.

The Hitchhiker episode of Twilight Zone.

The Twin Peaks episode where—spoiler alert—Bob/Leland kills Maddie. Horrific.

As a child, the Soap episode with Corinne’s demon possessed baby, when it’s first revealed.

The death of Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street.

The death of Henry Blake on MASH.

The XFiles where people were getting skinned alive.

This musical number from Mary Tyler Moore’s variety show. The song is insanely cheesy, and the sight of David Letterman singing and dancing in the chorus will haunt me ’til the end of my days.

There was this religious program that used to be on TV early Sunday mornings called "Insight," and randomly before getting ready for church one Sunday a.m. I tuned into this episode about a slightly retarded maintenance man who idolized Superman and was bullied or neglected or something -- I think Arlene Golonka may have been in the episode too. Anyway, they can't find him and at the episode's end she and maybe some other people search the basement and an abandoned refrigerator, open the door, and find him scrunched inside dead inside of there. Well, I didn't see that one coming and screamed louder than Minnie Pearl. And I'm from Boston stock!! :o

Nothing on television- shows- have ever remotely haunted me- sheesh

The Lou Grant when Mrs. Pynchon’s little dog was kidnapped by dog fighters and used as kill bait.

“clown mask rapist…” Wait. WHAT?

^^^oh my god, I googled it. Now I remember that episode from when I was a kid. It was horrific.

In 1985 Adam Ant was on my favorite TV show, The Equalizer. I was 21 and believe or not, still pretty naive about stuff. I saw this episode and was traumatized for awhile. Also, I LOVED Adam Ant, he was all over my room, but he played such a horrible, evil character that it took. me a long time to get over it. I was really mad that couldn’t be a good guy. Synopsis: The Griffith family arrives in NYC on vacation from Duluth and things go wrong right from the start...their luggage is stolen by a gypsy cabbie and the hotel has lost their reservations. Bored and frustrated, Edie, the Griffiths 17 year old daughter wanders out of the hotel at night to do some exploring. She is lured into accepting a ride and finds herself abducted. The police can offer little help and with no one else to turn to they hire McCall to help find their daughter. His search will lead him into the seedy underworld of prostitution and an 'invitation only' brothel known as a Lock Box.

[quote] When we first see Bob on Twin Peaks.

There are a bunch of Twin Peaks episodes that will never leave me. That one, the episode with Cooper's dream, the one mentioned upthread where Leeland/Bob kills Maddie, that nuclear freakout episode from The Return…

When Rosalind walked casually into an empty elevator shaft on L.A. Law.

The episode of Buffy called "Hush" - it was the best episode of all, I thought, as it was both terrifyingly haunting and yet also helped move the long-term story arc as a metaphor for what Buffy and Riley were doing with each other.

The episode of Diffrent Strokes where the character has an epileptic seizure out of nowhere. I was whatthefucking all over my room!

Op's episode sounds HOT!

This thread is fascinating. What was in that jar up thread?

The episode of ER titled "Love's Labor Lost".

The episode of Law & Order: SVU titled "Burned". I have never been able to watch either of those two episodes ever again. Absolutely heartbreaking.

Brendan Fraser appeared in three episodes of Scrubs as Ben, Dr. Cox's ex-wife brother, with whom he retained a great relationship despite the divorce.

In the first episode, Ben goes to the hospital for an injury and it's discovered he has leukemia.

The second episode involves him getting set up for chemo.

In the third episode two years later, it's learned Ben didn't do the follow-up care. Most of the episode is Ben following Dr. Cox around the hospital - ending with Dr. Cox only to finally accept the reality that Ben actually is dead.

I've seen those episodes only once, but from that point on, whenever I see Fraser in anything, I can't help thinking of that funeral scene.

That episode of Outer Limits where ignorant miner David McCallum became a grotesque, but brilliant, man of the future. Scared the shit out of this young kid FOR WEEKS.

R54, Adam Ant played a bad guy on the silly Sledge Hammer show, too. He was hot! Anne-Marie Martin admits to really kissing him because she had a crush.

The death of Edie Bunker.

I was just thinking of the Buffy episode "Hush" today! But then, I often do, on the occasion of raising the blinds in one of my windows.

I know exactly the ending R39 is referring to. I couldn't remember the show it was from, but I never forgot the fear and sadness I felt.

Every time I look out of a window at night, I expect to see Casey the Alien like Robin on General Hospital.

An ABC After School Special starring Melissa Sue Anderson. In the episode, she had a little sister who loved horses. The little sister dies by slipping and falling out of the treehouse in their backyard. I must have been about 8 when I first saw it. Watching a kid die like that haunted me for years.

OP got me curious so I just watched that C&L episode with Doug Savant on youtube. Not as gruesome as I was expecting but still very sad.

It reminds me of the SVU episode, Fallacy, in which Kat Moennig played a pre-op transgender woman put in the men's prison at Riker's. The last scene of that episode haunts me To. This. Very. Day.

Where the psycho Lucy Ricardo ate a baby in front of everyone on a plane and then tried to tell them them it was just cheese..

The Lassie episode where Timmy falls into a tarpit. And Lassie refuses to rescue him because she doesn't want to get her coat dirty. I think it was the last episode in the series.

The "Night Stalker" about the rakshasha, a South Asian demon that appears to you as the person you most trust in the entire world... and then lures you into its embrace to kill you.

Kolchak thinks he's safe because he believes he's so cynical and hard he trusts absolutely no one... and then while chasing it in a parking garage, who should turn up out of nowhere but the dear little old lady Emily he works with on the newspaper....

Penny's mother walking slowly toward her with the hot iron as Penny screams is about as fucked up as it gets. On Good Times, in the unlikely event someone didn't know.

The attempted rape of Edith Bunker by David Dukes was very upsetting

Is that the same as the "Slap her, Willona!" episode, r73? That traumatized ME as a child!

There were a few episodes of Diff'rent Strokes where a giant head in a wheel chair named Kathy stalked the Drummond family.

She spoke like she was inhaling helium, and always called Arnold a turkey.

OP, I remember that episode one; the Barney Miller guy lied to C&L that three black men raped the kid; Savant's character's dad told the C&L that he was going to sue because his son got 'turned into a fag.'

and then when C&L figured out it was the Barney Miller guy (solid actor) that it was him and he tried to blame it on the "Soul Brothers' Cagney said she was going to make sure they learned in prison he'd lied and the BM guy was going to be known as.....wait for it...'the Queen of Soul.'

R55 good choice! I was so traumatized by that whole ep, I had to unload the next day to my coworker (jehovah’s witness) who had been watching the first 2 seasons in preparation to see the 3rd. After my description of happened, she said she wouldn’t watch any more of it. She interpreted “got a light?” As mocking the god of light (Jesus)!

The Clown Mask Rapist episode of Little House was scary, but it was nothing compared to the Clown Mask Rapist episode of Barney and Friends.

That Six Feet Under episode where David gets abducted in the white van and I think is forced to do meth, it’s all a blur, very upsetting.

[quote] The death of Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street

Awww, that’s one of the first things I ever recall watching on TV period, and I remember so clearly watching that episode at my Grandparents house - I believe it was over Thanksgiving. I’m not much of a crier over TV and movies but just thinking about that episode now still makes me choke up a little. Poor Big Bird.

R22 To this day I get very paranoid when someone at work brings out a cake and they pull out the knife to cut it. I feel responsible to keep my eyes on that knife and make sure it doesn’t disappear. It’s even worse when it Valentine’s Day.

R80 - i thought it was crack which had the side effect of making you shit your pants.

It was crack they smoked in 6FU.

then David had to take a shit in an alley.

R80 it was so crazy the way that did that episode. It started off formatted like every other episode, with an A, B and small C plot. They switched between them a few times, as normal. Then, at 24 minutes, David is carjacked, and they simply drop the other two plots. As if the show itself had also been kidnapped- it worked amazingly in making you feel the tension and increasing desperation David must have felt.

On "Game of Thrones," when the Red Priestess convinced Stannis Baratheon and his wife to burn at the stake their only child, a young girl, to ensure victory in battle.

That was one of the hardest things I've ever watched on TV.

Re the 6FU it had an extended result with David traumatised over a few episodes and then the big payoff when he visited the kidnapper in prison, thinking that would resolve things but the guy couldn't remember him.

I don't even know what show it was but i was channel hopping and came across Mark Harmon in a submarine trapping someone in a body bag and shooting the bag out of the torpedo tube. Terrifying.

I want to know what was in the jar, too!

the episode is on dailymotion.

That episode where Zoboomafoo gets out and is run down by a car and the Kratt brothers cradle it’s dead body in their hands and weep openly showing kids it’s OK to grieve your dead pets.

Crack makes you shit your pants? Why the hell would anyone do it then?

The episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" titled "An Unlocked Window." I saw it as a kid, which was a huge mistake. I had trouble sleeping for a few nights afterward.

I’ve never quite found it, I assume is an episode of Night Gallery, there are attractive young women who keep going missing and somehow they are being shrunk down and frozen in a painting, but ultimately there’s an electrical outage and one or two escape and free the rest. Does this ring a bell with anyone?

There was an episode of Marcus Welby where a young boy was being molested and they got surprisingly graphic talking about the kid bleeding from the anus. It freaked me out even if I wasn't sure what it all meant, but ass bleeding sounded pretty awful.

The Designing Women episode where a friend is the victim of spousal abuse. The ladies hear the husband order the wife to eat food off of the floor. Very disturbing.

I see it was “The Rowdy Girls” episode, and it was Charlene’s cousin who was abused and Charlene was the one who overheard the husband abusing his wife.

Mark Wahlberg on Graham Norton, images that I've never been able to remove from my mind.

The ending of Futurama’s “Jurassic Bark” breaks my heart, I actually can’t bear to watch it. Especially knowing I’m sick and my beloved dog will probably outlive me.

The X-Files, "Home"

That Weeping Angels episode

Although it's not scary, there's an episode of Family Ties, "A, My Name is Alex", which I can't forget.

Alex and his friend are in a car accident. Alex survives but his friend dies.

Alex contemplates the meaning of his life and why he was spared, "Why am I alive?!?".

The episode won an Emmy for its writing.

The Batman episode where Catwoman falls down the bottomless pit because she won't let go of stolen jewels.

R35 I barely remember that. I'm gonna have to find a site or something dedicated to "Lost" to get a thorough analysis of that FUCKING show. I think I'm finally over my grudge.

I'm not sure exactly what the name of the series was but I'm pretty sure that it was Nova on PBS.

Anyway, I was at my grandparent's house--unsupervised--and flipping through channels. I came upon an actual birth including a huge, bloody head covered in what looked like mounds of snot coming out of a stretched-out vagina with big, discolored labia. And the obligatory screams of pain. It was HORRIBLE. I was 8 and still thought women had babies through their stomachs! I STILL see that shit in my head--vividly.

I do get a chuckle every time I watch a sitcom where the baby's father passes out while watching the delivery.

A couple of Hardy Boys episodes. One where a girlfriend is riding in the front seat with one of the boys and they have to stop suddenly or get in a small wreck. She isn't wearing a seat belt and hits her head and dies.

The other one (also Hardy boys) is something about looking around a house for a missing person or something. Somehow they open a wall and there is a skeleton inside it.

[quote] I'm gonna have to find a site or something dedicated to "Lost" to get a thorough analysis of that FUCKING show. I think I'm finally over my grudge.

I rewatched it last year, knowing where it was going, and I still think it is a brilliant show. "The Constant" is possibly my favorite TV episode ever.

I remember an episode of Night Gallery (I’m pretty sure) when I was maybe 6 or 7 where a haystack or a shrub or something keeps getting closer to a house each time the people inside look out the window. I think I spent that whole night looking outside my bedroom window in terror. I wish I knew exactly what show and episode it was so I could watch it again.

Black Mirror/s "White Bear"

Anything with Bill Cosby in it.

R108 I can see feeling the same way. I think I got bored with it--because it was on for so long-- but felt obligated to watch it.

Another vote for the ER episode where Carter gets attacked. I saw that when I was 12 and it was the most shocked I’d ever been. The song that was playing still scares me, as does David Krumholtz.

The carjacking episode of Six Feet Under.

Mad Men - Lois on the John Deere, slicing into the British hotshot. Hilarious, but gory.

8 is enough when Abby substitute teaches at the school in a crappy neighborhood and is raped by the hot Hispanic on the stairwell. She never tells Tom or the kids.

The episode in Lost In Space where Don finds Dr Smith in a compromising position with Will.

He beats Smith to a pulp but Mrs Robinson feels the evidence is somewhat lacking and she gets John to beat Don to a pulp.

In the commotion, Smith plats Penny's hair.

Still haunts me to this day.

Supernatural

The episode where Lucifer rapes Sam.

He finally confesses what happend to Dean.

This triggered a repressed memory from Dean who tearfully recounts how Castiel raped him before getting him out of hell.

The brothers wept in each others arms.

Bobby tells the boys to man up and stop acting like crying little girls.

It might be slightly stretching the definition of a 'television episode' but the one that springs to mind for me was a mock-documentary/reality special shown on Halloween on the BBC in the 90s called 'Ghostwatch'.

It was portrayed as a legitimate, live investigation into a haunted house in the UK, and as a kid I was completely taken in by it (and so were lots of other people, there were so many complaints it was banned from ever being shown on UK TV again).

Definitely caused me plenty of nightmares - I've seen it subsequently (it's available on DVD) and even knowing it's all fake, it's still creepy. The central ghost is dubbed by the girls living in the house as 'Pipes' and has some backstory of cross-dressing to lure vulnerable, gullible kids into being abused in the basement and there's some 'blink and you'll miss it' flashes of him throughout the show that are creepy as fuck.

Unlike, John Ritter's famous ball slippage on Three's Company (which was great), I was horrified by the accidental vagina shot (however brief) on "Life With Lucy."

R113 I saw that as an adult and I was shocked.

"Supernatural" That sounds like some tween girlie show.

Medium - the one about compulsions that begins with an Alison dream about various people with dangerous compulsions/OCD, including a girl who's a cutter. The dream ends with the girl gleefully taking a razor to her whole body, including her face. Very disturbing. They use Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" for the background music, and now I can't listen to that without thinking of that episode.

R48- What HAUNTS me is MTM VERY unflattering hairstyle- she was so pretty on MTM show especially the first two seasons.

[quote] Family Ties, "A, My Name is Alex"...Alex and his friend are in a car accident. Alex survives but his friend dies.

The friend we never saw before and the one we will never hear of again?

r49

Here you go

R125 Were they wearing red?

The "Alice" episode where Alice tells the gang Tommy died but refuses to release the cause of death.

Ann Romano slapping that gayling. It was like she was slapping ME.

The episode of Ozzie And Harriet where Ricky gets a classmate knocked up and David helps him with a back ally abortion that results in the girl’s death and a huge conspiracy to cover it up.

The concluding episode of Series One of "Unforgotten."

Spoiler Alert****

The dementia-suffering character played by Gemma Jones sits alone in a room. One of her sons visits her. To him, she has completely ruined the family for what she did decades ago. She reaches for a glass of water, and he drags it just so that it is out of her reach. The look on Gemma Jones' face is a mixture of fear an not understanding. Brilliant acting.

I'm not sure they "haunt" me, but I thought the Roseanne episodes where she deals with her father's funeral and the one where Jackie discloses physical abuse at the hands of her boyfriend Fisher were very affecting, despite the obvious affinity these plot developments had to Roseanne Arnold's own bogus claims of abuse at the hands of her father.

The episode of Diff'rent Strokes where Gary Coleman gets molested

The In Excelsis Deo episode of The West Wing series one in which Toby uses the influence of his office to organise a funeral for a homeless veteran. As a veteran myself I found this to be extraordinarily poignant and, sadly, the situation for many veterans is little different nearly a quarter of a century after this episode first aired.

The episode where Spike & Buffy get in on.

That Forehead Frankenstein stole my man!!!

R106 reminds me of my friend who loves Call the Midwife. Whenever she is watching it, her husband, who is blind, quips “I see you’re watching your horror show again.”

The episode of St. Elsewhere where Boomer Morrison is raped by prison inmate Nick Moats (played by John Dennis Johnston.)

R126, that “Insight” episode is on YouTube and stars Lane Bradbury, who originated the role of Baby June on Broadway!

The episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine where Sisko dies and his son spends the rest of his life trying to resurrect him; I never expected Star Trek to make me cry, but man. Also, the final episode of Six Feet Under still haunts me even though I never went back to rewatch it.

^ The episode where Kes leaves STV haunts me as she was my favorite ST character evah!

R136 - funny that your blind friend uses the phrase "I see".

R97, who played Charlene's cousin?

R137, didn't dr. Westphall order his doctors to work with prisoners and that led to the rape? didn't the rapist come back and Morrison's son picked up his gun and shot the guy to death?

R141 You might wanna sit down for this...

Folks who say they're "dead on their feet" are actually still alive.

R103, the pal was played by Brian McNamara, well cast as the best pal. I imagine if anyone ever tried to bully Alex that Brian's character would have intervened.

They showed a flashback scene where the friend is borrowing Alex's homework (to copy as Alex is smarter); Don't forget to bring it to school tomorrow? "Don't I always?" the buddy replied.

Alex wasn't in the car with this friend tho; he refused to help him move whatever he was moving (a sofa? a piano?) and so the guy does it alone and ends up getting killed in a car accident. I think this was the first of Michael J. Fox's THREE consecutive Emmys over the years.

That episode of "Oz" where a jealous Chris gets Ronald to suck his dick (which is initially pretty hot) and then suddenly breaks Ronald's neck while he's doing it.

That episode of "Breaking Bad" where Gus suddenly grabs his own henchman and slashes his throat in front of Walter and Jesse. OMG

That other episode of "Breaking Bad" where the junky couple stole the ATM. While the guy's got it propped sideways and is trying to jimmy it open from underneath, he taunts the woman (who's on a meth bender) with insults until she pushes it over and crushes him under it. The sound of his head being smashed like a watermelon is enough to induce vomiting.

Same here, r50. I mean, I have some favorite episodes that shocked or surprised me, but am I "haunted"?

No.

As a kid in the 70s-80s, I wasn't allowed to watch much TV. Two episodes of "Little house on the Prairie" stick out in my mind:

1) The headless horseman prank at Halloween, which is super corny. But then he appears in the final scene. I couldn't sleep for a week.

2) Nellie Olsen finds out she's pregnant.

On "Newhart," Larry, Darrell and Daryl show up for the first time.

R100 Hugs to you.

The only thing that kind of haunts me was a scene I vaguely remember from Twin Peaks where some kind of boogeyman is hiding behind some furniture in a dark room--I often still think of how horrifying it would be to have someone hiding somewhere in my home.

Otherwise, a lot of sad stuff. Most recently, many harrowing episodes of Bojack Horseman--despite the animated animal figures, the existential sadness hits home.

R147, you are correct that some people would not be haunted by any TV episode, and some would be haunted by only one or two episodes. That’s the point of the thread, to share not a list of memorable TV episodes, but rather just those episodes that have continued to haunt some people. If you don’t have any, that’s okay.

That would be Bob, r150. And yes, he has given many people nightmares.

Haunted isn't the right word but left a big impression works.

"Haunted" is a perfectly good word for what some posters here are describing.

[quote] Haunted isn't the right word but left a big impression works.

“Haunted” is not the same as “leaving an impression”.

I Am Jazz. Most of it haunts me, but especially the episode where the mother talks about forcibly dilating her son's new vagina. A horrifying documentary of the lifelong mental abuse and physical mutilation that one family can inflict on a child all in an effort to avoid having an effeminate son.

R126 THIS episode of Insight I saw when I was 8 years old and I will never fucking forget it. Never.

I'd been looking for it to watch again for like 30 years, and it was finally posted.

A game show in which contestants are challenged to go "All Out." And I mean REALLY all out.

PLEASE watch this. You'll be amazed at this brilliant piece of scripted television. It has foresight that rivals the movie Network which came out the same month this aired.

WATCH

Btw the Insight ep I posted at R157 features the great Juanita Moore from Imitation of Life, and DL favorite Pamela Bellwood (crazy Claudia from Dynasty)

R156 - strangely, the last two (or more) threads on "I Am Jazz" have been deleted from DL. Wonder why? I was just going to comment that one of her brothers is really hot.

I'm haunted by bigoted Republican trolls like r156 who think trans people are a bigger threat to gays than their fellow Republicans

The baby over the cliff scene

Not an “episode” but a “television event”

"In Excelsis Deo" from The West Wing for r134.

^^^^ Mrs. Landingham's "In Excelsis Deo" backstory.

When Big Aggie said she was gonna rape Kris on an episode of Charlie’s Angels.

The episode of Family Affair with Eve Plumb as a terminally ill child befriended by Buffy. The final scene showing that Buffy gets it was very effective and heart rending.

The rape of Edith Bunker in All in The Family.

In Punky Brewster when Cherrie gets stuck in the fridge.

The rape of Debbie Jo by Samantha on Gimme a Break!

R162 If we're going to include television events, then it's the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, followed by 9-11.

Punky Brewster also had one where some killer was on the loose in the city and Punky was afraid that Henry was going to be murdered.

The ST ELSEWHERE episode with Terence Knox as the ski mask wearing rapist. VERY creepy.

Later on there is an episode where different characters are dreaming and he turns up again wearing that same ski mask.

[quote] didn't dr. Westphall order his doctors to work with prisoners and that led to the rape?

They allhad to do community service of some kind. Westphal was obsessed with the idea that the hospital had to connect the community more.

[quote] didn't the rapist come back and Morrison's son picked up his gun and shot the guy to death?

Yes, Pete shot him. Pete was also kidnapped (or went missing). The little guy had a very traumatic first couple of years.

[quote]Punky Brewster also had one where some killer was on the loose in the city and Punky was afraid that Henry was going to be murdered.

Were the calls coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE??

[quote] Later on there is an episode where different characters are dreaming and he turns up again wearing that same ski mask.

There are a couple episodes where Peter returns after (spoiler alert) Shirley shoots him in the crotch. When Fiscus is shot and bouncing between Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, he keeps ending up in a boat with Peter. Peter convinces him to waterski, and when Peter hits the gas he suddenly appears with the ski mask on, the boat pulls away and explodes.

In another episode, Jack is in a sleep study to make some extra cash and in his dreams he walks to a hospital room where music is playing. Before he enters, he looks down and sees his feet are bare, then sees something, screams, and wakes up. This happens a couple times until finally he keeps dreaming and sees Peter who talks to Jack (who has been defending him to people who accused him of being the rapist) and Peter tells Jack that he was the rapist, Jack refuses to believe it, until he looks at Peter again and sees him in the mask.

(I could have a detail or two wrong, but I'm a huge fan of the show.)

I only just watched it, but I think the final episode of After Life will haunt me. I don’t want to give anything away, but the “official” interpretation of the end that Gervais has explained in interviews is bullshit. He must be trying to avoid bad PR. Anyway, it was very moving. Can’t stop thing about it.

I think it’s an excellent show, might not get a lot of interest here because it’s about a man who loses his wife to cancer.

I liked Peter, Rudy’s chunky little white friend, on The Cosby Show.

The episode of Too Close for Comfort, when Monroe (Jim J. Bullock) is kidnapped and raped by two women in a van.

r177 meet r8

BOB, Frank Silva, on Twin Peaks was a set dresser trying to hide from the camera,Lynch saw the reflection and was so creepy, he became BOB.

I think Frank died of AIDS.

R169 The Hillsborough Stadium disaster.

With the surge of reality shows after Survor’s success in 2001, Murder in Small Town X was a one season reality show that ran from July to September of 2021. I watched all 8 episodes. It was described as an unscripted drama series in which ten ordinary people compete to track down a fictional killer in a town filled with improvisational actors playing the suspects and witnesses. The competitors (contestants) are “killed off” at the end of each episode until one person is left.

The last episode aired September 4. The winner was Angel Juarbe Jr., a New York City firefighter. He was killed a week later in the collapse of the World Trade Center. He’s in the front row, second from the left in the leather jacket. He was very well liked on the show - a quiet, gentle man.

When Double Trouble was canceled in the 80s

[quote]The Batman episode where Catwoman falls down the bottomless pit because she won't let go of stolen jewels

That was Marsha, Queen of Diamonds, played by Carolyn Jones, not Catwoman.

When Kate & Allie refused to admit they were lesbian lovers during the series.

When Cagney & Lacey refused to admit they were lesbian lovers during the series.

I don't know if haunt is the right word, but that episode of Black Mirror where the Prime Minister is forced to fuck the pig just wouldn't leave my mind for days. I wish I had never watched it.

I'm forced to fuck a Prime Minister who IS a pig

The episode of The Golden Girls when Dorothy is arrested for domestic violence against her mother, Sofia.

Brought up the significant problem of elder abuse in the home.

You just know next season’s Yellowjackets episode where they eat Shauna’s baby is going to be bad.

Thank you, R94

I'm watching "The Unlocked Window" now - it holds up well and is incredibly suspenseful

The ER episode where the guy was doused in fluorine and all they could do was watch him die. They brought in his family to be with him while he died and the body bag at the end. The expectation that doctors could fix anything was just shattered.

I was a child when the Billy Mummy evil psychic child on The Twilight Zone: It's A Good Life - A Very Bad Man

Still freaks me out.

The Homicide: Life on the Street episode where a man gets crushed on subway tracks and he is awake, aware, and in no pain, but will die when they remove what's crushing him. They spend the episode trying to find his fiancé so he can say good-bye before he dies. Watched it when it premiered and it still haunts me 25 years later.

The Dexter episodes where they show the flashbacks of his mother being killed, and then when his wife/ mother of their son is murdered.

When Dr. Melfi is raped on the Sopranos, and then when she sees him later in the store and does nothing.

R175, that finale had me pretty shattered. After reading your comment about Gervais's explanation, I went and read it. It happens to jibe exactly with my interpretation. What is your take?

The episode of MASH that said farewell to Henry Blake. Totally shocking.

R195, I don’t want to give it away because I think it’s such a good show and don’t want to ruin it. But there are some articles that mention an alternate interpretation.

Tell me about it, r56!

There was an episode of a sci-fi series where a man is almost killed by a terrible monster in an alley and his life is spared as long as he promises never to tell anyone about it. Cut to him married with kids to Rae Dawn Chong and one night he confesses what had happened to him years ago in that alley. Well, isn’t Rae, his wife, actually the monster and she says “you promised not to tell” and then kills him! Does anyone remember this? It fucked me up real good.

That's a hell of a long con, though. I have to take my hat off to that monster for its stick-to-it-iveness.

R200, it was also a beautifully shot episode. Plus, his blabbermouth condemns wife and child to turn back after into demons. Everyone is doomed.

I just can't believe nobody mentioned the "Charlie's Angels" cliffhanger where the BEST angel, Sabrina, is trapped in a burning building. My mother would have given me Valium if she had any. I was escalated all summer.

On Guiding Light when they had this psychotic rapist, who was dressing as a scary looking woman to stalk his victim, went to kill this sweet girl. She was in the shower. It was lightening. It was shot really well and did not seem like daytime TV. Dark shit.

R199, I think I remember that but I don't know what show it was. Maybe Tales from the Darkside?

This episode of One Step Beyond

The Shadowman episode of the new Twilight Zone series from the mid-80s. The ending haunts me to this day.

R199, it's actually in Tales From the Darkside: The Movie. The story is called Lover's Vow.

An episode from Season One of MI5 that has a gruesome death scene of one of the agents that involves a deep fryer 🥺.

NARM.

There was a Hill Street Blues episode that stayed with me. The storyline ran for three episodes; the final one was the one that got me. It was about the murder of a prominent young attorney, a close friend of Joyce Davenport's, during a botched robbery. An arrest is made, and the perp rats out his accomplice in the robbery as the killer. He and the killer are both in custody, but due to legal technicalities they're both released. Then a witness pops up who said he heard and saw everything. They're both arrested again, and the one who ratted out his accomplice agrees to testify against him for a lesser sentence. But turns out the witness is a total fraud who got his information from his girlfriend who works as a clerk typist for the police; seems they wanted the big reward being offered for information leading to a conviction. So the criminals are released again. The one who did the killing promptly kills his thug buddy for informing on him. He's arrested again. Furillo says "We have you now." And he tells him "You have me....but you ain't gonna keep me." He then says that with his lawyer's legal maneuvering and whatnot, and the fact that he killed a worthless thug, no way he will do "double digit" time, just "three years and change." The end of the final episode went like this:

Davenport: "He's won, Frank. He killed a warm, loving, committed human being who had everything to live for and he got away with it clean."

Furillo: "Well, he'll do time, maybe not as much as you and I would wish, but..."

Davenport: "Three years and change. Just about the time it takes to get a law degree."

Marty's gang rape on One Life To Live was very disturbing. The lighting, direction and symbolism with the banging shutters opening and closing and the teddy bear she watches until it falls to the ground as she's being assaulted were almost cinematic in an independent film kind of way. It was the most harrowing thing I'd seen on daytime television.

The really haunting one is that one on that show when the guy did that thing to the other woman.

The episode of AHS where the guy gets nails shot into his head until he's dead. Still very disturbing to me.

That “X Files” fluke worm shit.

Ho Le Fuk!

Season 1 True Detective 6 minute continuous shot in the episode :“Who Goes There.” It starts at 3:30 into the clip.

Nonstop action and you don't know what will happen next. I felt drained when it was over--like I'd been through it.

I have one, but damned if I know the title of the series or the episode. It was in the late 1970's/ early 1980's on one of those "Night Gallery", "Tales from the Dark Side" type anthology series.

It was set in an old, run down theatre. The main character was a youngish male (a reporter maybe?). He was talking to an older man who knew the history of the place. There was a legend about a female singer, vaudeville or opera. She was to perform one night but disappeared, never to be seen again. The younger man is a skeptic and laughs it off, the older man leaves him alone in the building. Immediately, there is a shot in which the viewer can see the woman's ghost on the stage, wearing a black and red dress, and quiet singing can be heard. During the episode, in flashbacks reminiscent of "Somewhere in Time", the man watches the woman and other spirits play out the events of the final night of her life. Towards the end, we learn the singer was murdered and the young man from the present is about to be murdered in her place. Just as the fatal blow was about to land, suddenly he is back in the decrepit theatre and the rotten wood of the wall he is leaning against gives way. He finds himself face to face with the skeletal remains of the singer, wearing the tattered red and black dress she had on when she was killed. The murderer had concealed her within a tiny empty space in the walls. I remember the show also had a voice over narrator. That's it. I was around six to eight years old. It haunts me, but pleasantly so; it's the kind of creepy ghost story I love. I would love to see it again.

American Horror Story: Coven, when Lily Rabe's character, (Misty?) is stuck in the never-ending-loop of dissecting the frog in her biology class. I kind of thought that was unforgivable.

R199 Thank you! That shit fucked me right UP!

The ER episode where Mark tries and fails to perform a C-section, eventually losing the mother. It's intense and horrific.

^ Mark was an idiot in that episode. It was very disturbing.

R218, Yet they gave that episode a punning title? Jerks.

Millenium, Laura Means goes nut to Patti Smith, cannot find a clip.

I fucking loved that show.

But, r209, are you "haunted" by the memory? Many shows have "stayed with" their viewers.

[quote]The ER episode where the guy was doused in fluorine and all they could do was watch him die.

sad, but he died with fewer cavities, than the guy who doused himself in gasoline

Desperate Housewives - when Felicity Huffman and others are trapped in the supermarket with insane Laurie Metcalf. The acting was 100% top-notch.

OZ - when Chris Meloni falls over the balcony railing.

I saw what turned out to be the pilot episode of Twilight Zone.

Woke up one night with a sore throat.. I thought it was very late. There was a movie on tv about a guy in Hawaii who was trying to tell people Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked, but nobody listened to him. Then I heard gunshots and a plane came into view, flying low. The plane shot bullets through the windows of the room the guy was in, killing him. I freaked out. I knew planes dropped bombs from high up the sky, but it was a shock to find that planes could fly low and shoot bullets (strafe) at people.

Shortly afterwards the story switched to 1950s and a man sees a photo hanging in a bar. He asks to see it, and the guy who we just saw get shot is in that photo. The bartender tells him the man, named Peter, died at Pearl Harbor. But the man who is holding the photo had just been talking to Peter in his office!

The guy had gone back through a time warp and got killed. It’s called The Time Element and one of the reasons I freaked out was because Riley, from Life of Riley (William Bendix) was the guy who got killed. I watched reruns of Life of Riley every day. I was at an age where television was still real to me, so I’d just watched Riley get killed.

The Time Element is one of the Twilight Zone episodes Stephen King borrowed from (a man who was living in modern times shows up in a group photo of long-dead people hanging behind a bar).

Serling did a couple of variations on Time Element basic plot — a man sees a psychiatrist and tells of a strange, frightening recurring dream he’s having. He believes he’ll die in the dream. After describing his dream, the psychiatrist looks up and the man is dead, or disappeared or he jumped out the window.

The reason I was so horrified at the strafing was because I’d seen so many tv shows/movies of people going into a bomb shelter/basement when sirens went off, and the planes flew so high up in the sky, I just assumed you’d have time to get to a shelter and survive a bombing.

But a plane coming at you shooting bullets? Fuck. You can’t outrun a plane. I didn’t want to go back to bed because there were two windows in my bedroom and I was afraid the Russians would attack with machine gun planes. It was the Cold War, after all.

[quote] When Dr. Melfi is raped on the Sopranos, and then when she sees him later in the store and does nothing.

That whole episode was deeply unsettling to me, right up to that amazing ending, where she realized she had it in her power to unleash Tony on her rapist and then decides not to. Fucking powerful stuff.

Several episodes of Mad Men. My parents were basically the lower middle class version of Don and Betty.

The “Gladys” episode of Leftovers season 1. One of the Guilty Remnants is tied to a tree & stoned to death, you get to see her face progressively fall off. The kicker is who does the stoning…

R166 I rewatched the Eve Plumb episode for the first time as an adult. I barely remembered it but that ending was like a punch in a gut. I think that show is pigeon hold as a feel good but with watching it on DVD I had a different appreciation.Not shocking but the episode when June Lockhart played Jodie’s teacher and his confused attraction to her (that makes it sound like something it wasn’t) had a pearl clutching moment.

The most shocking TV death for me was Jill Hennessy. Literally didn’t see that coming. And Orbach’s reaction.

The Red Wedding.

R184 - no it was Catwoman in the episode Better Luck Next Time..

I've read thru this entire thread, and I think the ER episode where Carter and Lucy get stabbed is the top of the list. Everything about that final scene: the music, the way the schizo guy is standing behind Carter with the knife, the expressions passing thru Noah Wylie's face; and for me, especially the way Lucy disappears halfway thru the episode, you forget about her, then the final shot of her lying in a pool of her own blood. It should have won the Emmy for Best Direction.

I was a kid but the episode of Doctor Who called Turn Left, based in an alternate universe where the Doctor died and the show hid none of the ramifications of that, including the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on London and immigrants being forced into labour camps. For a Saturday evening family show, it got dark.

The suicide is 13 Reasons Why was awful. I can see why they’ve edited it out.

The X Files episode I remember was the one called "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", in which this creepy recurrent character describes how he was involved in the assassinations of JFK and MLK, and how there is a shadow government that runs everything. It was pretty credible even back then - I think I'd be afraid to watch it now!

[quote] It should have won the Emmy for Best Direction.

And as an ER fan I love that it was directed by “Dr. Weaver” (Laura Innes). To the person upthread who said they think about it when there’s a cake and knife in their office - me too, ha.

I was an ER fan back in 2000, but I don’t remember this episode at all. I think I must have (traumatically) blocked it out.

The song does creep me out, which tells me I have some sort of memory of watching it.

I had remembered the traumatic part being the bulk of the episode because it was so prominent in my mind, but it’s just at the end of the episode, the last three or five minutes, and then the show goes right into the credits. The rest of the episode is fairly mundane, although when you rewatch it and see the cake and the knife you can see how the show starts turning the tension up very slowly.

Did someone mention Little House when the wolves attacked the barn, with the girls and their dog trapped inside?

R215, is this it?

I’m kind of shocked about the lack of mention of Grey Anatomy in this thread, I thought it would be a big contender, especially the episode where Meredith realizes the patient who’s face is destroyed and dying is George, or when she’s in the operating room with her hand inside the guy with the bomb, who later blows up, or the active shooter in the hospital in multiple scenes like Kerref (sp) getting stabbed and crawling into the elevator, April slipping in the blood of her dead roommate, Bailey being dragged out from under the bed and asked if she’s a doctor and lying because the young medical student was shot for being a surgeon and then Derrick being shot and Christina operating on him despite the shooter saying he’s going to kill her and Meredith begging to be shot instead.

The “Mad Men” ep in which they basically pumped out Joan. I felt sick to my stomach for about a week after watching it.

Pimped

“Grey’s” is basically a cartoon. Hard to get too emotionally invested in a cartoon.

Regarding the Carter/Lucy stabbings on ER, there were spoilers leaked ahead of the episode airing that she would be killed off. I still remember watching it and about 50 minutes in, I thought to myself “well I guess the spoilers were wrong.” Anyway, it was still disturbing as fuck but didn’t hit me quite as hard as it might have had I not been anticipating it.

There was an episode of ER from an earlier season in which Mark goes to the restroom to pee and an unknown assailant beats the shit out of him. I think it was before spoilers were a thing and it shocked the hell out of me. It just came out of nowhere.

Could that be the movie “Attack of the Puppet People”, R95?

[quote] The ER episode where Mark tries and fails to perform a C-section, eventually losing the mother. It's intense and horrific.

An effective, drama filled episode that bears no semblance to reality. Nothing in that episode made good sense. Nothing like that would have ever occurred in reality, simply because the mother would have been sent to OBGYN instead of being sawed open in an emergency room.

I agree R247, but if I recall there were limited OB beds, and Mark with his God complex was underplaying the seriousness and risk. I am not a doctor but I thought his consequences should have been much more severe.

The Hitchhiker - Face To Face Dec 04 1984.

“Dr. Christopher Hamilton is a plastic surgeon with ambition and a sharp scalpel. He sees a face, and he wants to change it. But unless he looks deeper, there are some things he's not going to see. Like a dangerous smile, even on the most perfect face.”

[quote] I am not a doctor but I thought his consequences should have been much more severe.

Of course his consequences should have been more severe. The hospital staff got away with murder on that show, sometimes literally. Doug Ross euthanized a child, but no charges were brought against him. If I recall instead of being brought up on criminal charges, like he should have been, a buddy pulled strings for him and he went off to practice medicine in Seattle. In real life he probably would have done jail time.

This episode of War and Remembrance. I saw it as a young teenager and I couldn’t forget it. 25 years later I was finally able to watch the entire series (two) including this realistic terrible and sad episode. Filmed in the original places.

If we’re bringing miniseries into discussion, James Woods in Holocaust having his fingers broken, but desperately needing to draw what he was experiencing in the death camps.

Mannix - when Joe got run off the road on a winding road in LA.

[quote] pigeon hold

No, no.

There was an LA Law episode.

There were parents of a sociopathic boy. He was such a danger to his parents and siblings. He started a fire in the family home. The parents spent thousands of dollars on therapy, hospitals, and legal issues. His violent behavior increased as he grew older. The parents terminated their parental rights and the boy became the ward of the state. The boy begged for his parents to keep him. He promised he’ll be good. The parents were equally devastated. If they kept him, the whole family would’ve been destroyed. It was as very sad.

I don't think WAR AND REMEMBRANCE could be shown on network TV today. And for anyone who remembers seeing it on ABC, did it have commercial breaks? I remember it was a multi part mini series over several nights, but I can't imagine seeing any kind of commercial after seeing that clip posted above. Not to mention the nudity -

Sherry Stringfield leaving ER at the height of her red hot storyline with Dr. Green effectively ending her red hot career.

[quote] I’m kind of shocked about the lack of mention of Grey Anatomy in this thread

I'm not. As someone mentioned it's cartoonish. Every episode features and outlandish scenarios or situations. The characters are always almost getting killed, or getting killed, or dying, or having terrible accidents. It's very ho-hum, par for the course for this soap opera that tries to pass itself off as serious drama.

Natalie's attempted rape in Charlie Chaplin drag on The Facts of Life.

Who did Natalie attempt to rape?

Brutal murder of one of the characters in Season One of Happy Valley. If you watched the show you know the one I’m taking about.

The American Horror Story episode that gave backstory to how Pepper ended up in Briarcliff Asylum.

Here's the episode I referenced at r240, found it on youtube

You've got me watching War and Remembrance again, r251—from the beginning. I skip the war in the Pacific for the most part, concentrating on events in Europe and the US, but it's still a lot to watch. I've read both books and seen both miniseries, each a number of times. One of the most compelling bits of storytelling in my lifetime.

I thought Nip/Tuck was pretty silly but one episode stayed with me. A young woman and her gay friend decide that being dead is preferable to getting old and grey. They make a suicide pact. I can't remember exactly what happened but she ended up shooting herself in the face, disfiguring her for life. She later tells the surgeons that she and her friend are somehow committed to each other; he has flings and affairs that never last, "but we do." Her gay friend is there for her, as always, but seems to be kind of pulling away. Later he fesses up and tells her he's met someone who he wants to be with. She sneers at this, thinking it's just another hookup, but he says this is different. She snarls that he's going to get old and wrinkled and the guy won't want him anymore but he says his new love "wants to grow old with me." He also tells her he's never going to love her "the way you want me to." Then she pulls out a gun (I suppose she was contemplating suicide) and points it at him and tells him "I love you too much to watch you get old." The camera cuts away to the surgeon's fugly nurse. A gunshot is heard. And the nurse gets a mildly puzzled look on her face like she's thinking "whatever could that be?" For some reason that Nip/Tuck episode has stuck with me.

With Season 4 of Ozark dropping today one needs to mention Helen having her head blown off and splattered all over Marty and Wendy, if only for the visceral experience of what that would feel like.

R221 Why is that show not steaming?

ABSOLUTELY. Nate's death scene in 6FT Under was sooo disturbing.

The infamous serial-killer-tranny episode of "Charlie's Angels". I saw it when it first aired, I was 10-years-old, and the killer Margo scared the hell out of me.

Margo was terrifying! I was rooting for Kelly to get together w/ Edward Ford, so this was a twist I didn't see coming.

Those Fembots the first time their faces fell off were quite unnerving on Bionic Woman, I’ve never seen surefooted Jamie Sommers so panicked before and that made young gayling me very nervous for her.

For some reason Datalounge goes insane when I try copypasta. The ER episode about the pregnant patient was based on a true story that happened at a hospital in either Nassau County or Queens, NY. (I’m pretty sure it was Nassau) The pregnant patient was a physician, making it all the more horrifying - if doctors fucked up & killed one of their own, what chance do the rest of us have? The case was bungled upon bungled and the patient DIC’d and died. It was kind of like Downton Abbey where a physician was trying to tell another physician what to do and the first physician was arrogant and refused to take advice.

I was an RN on .Long Island at the time and it was a feature story in newsday back when newsday was a good newspaper. Everyone was shocked by it,

Copypasta? Are you trying to strain or drain?

Adrianna running for her life.

The Adriana episode is particularly haunting because you think she’s gotten away, then they pull the rug out from under you.

I knew she was doomed when Sil pulled off into the woods. I didn’t expect it to be as pathetic - him dragging her from the car and calling her a cunt, she crawling in the woods on all 4s in hysterics.

“CHRIS- TOE- PHOR!”

That episode of LHotP where Mama Ingalls had gangrene ir something in her foot and was all alone the entire episode and she nearly had to cut off her leg. I dont remember that much of it except it was like an "artsy" episode where you saw thibgs from her perspective and she would hallucinate and it'd be all weird. Such a creepy weird episode. Anyone remember it?

Also the Different Strokes episode where Dudley's dad has lung cancer and has to get operated yet the show ends in a freeze frame of him still lighting up after leaving the Drummond apartment. Just the way it ended so abruptly and serious with no music or anything. As a kid that change in mood really gets to you.

PS - if the pregnant patient who died hadn’t been a physician you never would’ve heard about the case. I can’t remember if her husband was also a physician but her physician colleagues were shocked when they heard she died and immediately grabbed her chart (which was a physical book back in those precomputer days) and went through it. There was no HIPAA back then, either. Any doctor could grab any chart they wanted and go through it.

R278 LHotP did a bottle episode? That’s amazing, I’m intrigued!

OhmyGerd, the Fembots! That shit was creepy as hell. I recently saw those episodes on COZI-TV and it's still unsettling.

The story was called "Kill Oscar" which is a really cool title. I bet that's where Tarantino got his title from.

There were a couple of episodes of “The Affair” that dealt with how fucked up Joanie became. I could barely watch— she had just been so doomed from the beginning.

Kudos to the folks who mentioned the Fembots episodes of The Bionic Woman - some of my all-time favourites.

that Femme bot Callahan line 'You're no match for us, Somers.' was chilling

but I can't say I was 'haunted' by it.

To my friend at R240 - YES! That's it! Thank you! It's not quite what I remember (and a lot more cheesy), but it was 1978 and I was six, so that's to be expected. I found the full video on YouTube. The actress who played the burlesque performer in the 1978 version was also in "Deep Throat"!

I also found the video of the original "One Step Beyond" episode from 1959, titled "Father Image". "Hawaii Five-O"'s Jack Lord played the son in that one. The original version was much better written and acted. But the major difference was the reveal of the body. Being 1959, of course they couldn't show the remains and missed the creepy factor of a cobweb covered skeleton in a forgotten storage space which enthralled me so as a kid. Funny to think I was trying to find "The Muppet Show" that night!

I've been watching other episodes of both "One Step..." and "Next Step..." since you pointed me in the right direction. Thanks again!

I'm R215 at R285 .

Arnold's molestor on Diff'rent Strokes.

Cherry being locked in a fridge in the back yard on Punky Brewster.

Edith Bunker raped by a home intruder in an old rerun of All In The Family.

Jessie Spano so excited, so scared from caffeine pills!

r285, you're welcome! Glad I could help.

The Little House on the Prairie episode where Albert's girl friend is pregnant "Sylvia" Turns out she was raped by someone else in town.

Another Little House episode when Albert was a drug addict.

When Edith Bunker was almost raped.

Samantha saying the N word on Gimme a break and the time she dressed Joey in blackface. She was the youngest and I thought Nell's favorite but she became a horrible teen.

In St. Elsewhere when Peter was revealed as the rapist.

The Sand Castle Murders on Charles Angeles, for some reason that one really haunted me.

[quote] Edith Bunker raped by a home intruder in an old rerun of All In The Family.

She wasn't raped. The show was a cop-out, made you think that's what would happened, but it didn't. Same with Gloria. She was attacked but not raped.. That show was a lame cop-out, too.

Sometimes, it's better to tell a social issue story -- like rape -- with a friend of the lead; they can be rotated out at the end of the episode, and then, the main leads tackle next week's issue.

I think Edith has a breast cancer scare and Irene Lorenzo shared with Edith she'd had one of her boobs cut off.

If Edith lost a breast, got raped, etc. etc. she wouldn't be a sitcom lead -- she'd be Jo from Search for Tomorrow.

The oz crucifixtion

r45 inspired me to (finally) watch Twin Peaks! On Episode 8 of Season 2 ...

Patty Duke played a sad sack in an episode of Police Woman; she was all set to get on a bus to go back to see her kid but a hit man shot her after she stopped to buy her kid a toy.

I was a wee one but PW was on Friday night's and we got to stay up late. So manipulative; why not just let her get away?

^ I remember her singing "Me and Bobby McGee" over and over in that one

R290 "All in The Family" is HARDLY a cop-out despite not showing women getting rapped. I never watched it until recently and my mouth hits the floor in just about every episode.

The final episode of "Kings," where King Silas has imprisoned his gay son, Jack, the crown prince, in chambers deciding that he will have "a living death". To do this, he imprisons the woman whom Jack was using as his beard in the chambers with him, and they won't be released until Jack has produced an heir that Silas "will take and raise right this time." Scene starts at 44:27.

Like Roseanne or not, this was powerful.

Roseanne often was as piercing as the best moments of Norman Lear's shows.

Definitely the Fembots episodes! I had recurring nightmares about them as a kid (yeah, yeah, MARY!).

This doesn’t haunt me as much as stick with me - but the Everybody Loves Raymond episode where Ray overhears Debra pretending not to know him at some school or neighborhood function when she’s embarrassed by him, and how hurt he was by that. A striking and but everyday lesson about marriage.

The episode of Felicity where Pink Ranger is date raped by Brian from My So-Called Life.

R302 I think the Felicity episode most are haunted by is when she gets her hair cut.

R303 It was particularly disturbing because she could have easily kicked his ass.

R394 The stylist? I think she went there willingly.

No, Pink Ranger.

An episode of "Trauma: Life in the E.R." where a patient walks in one night with a big kitchen knife sticking out of his head terrified and disgusted me.

And also a few episodes of "Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction." One that sticks in my mind is when everyone in the family keeps thinking they see a glowing pair of red eyes staring at them in the darkness. They discover some kind of electrical problem and decide that is what's causing it, but then at the end we see the family nanny stare into the camera smiling with glowing red eyes. Another was about a woman who keeps seeing visions of what looks like a dead woman in the mirror. Many people were scared of the "Monster in the Closet" episode but for some reason I was more fascinated by it than scared. Those two others scared me much more.

THe one that has always haunted me was the pilot of St. Elsewhere. A doctor's wife dies and her heart is used to save another patient. The end of the episode is silent, with the Doctor entering the patient's room as he is sleeping and siting beside him, holding his stethoscope to the patient's heart. So simple and beautiful.

[quote] inspired me to (finally) watch Twin Peaks! On Episode 8 of Season 2 ...

You’re about to hit a brick wall. No shame in skipping to the season finale. Even David Lynch checked out for most of the season after the killer was revealed. The finale is great, though, in a Lynchian "I have no idea what’s going on but I don’t care" kind of way.

And then if you’re a serious Lynch fan, check out Fire Walk With Me (a movie prequel) on HBOMax and The Return on Showtime. Neither is for the casual viewer, though.

Given their propensity to hurl vile abuse and threats of violence towards disobedient women and girls who don't agree with autogynephiles trying to force their redefinition of womanhood, R160, I would say the trans cult is dangerous.

Don't act like you give a shit about "women and girls" you troll R310.

Night Gallery - Escape Route. A man wishes to be in a painting.

I remember watching "Room 222" when I was in grade school.

Someone wrote "FAG" on the locker of a boy because he appeared in a play.

I didn't know why it shook me up at the time, but it stayed with me more than any other moment from watching TV as a child.

I've watched A LOT of true crime over the years. (I like to binge watch reruns of shows like Forensic Files while I clean and do other chores.)

Several years ago, I settled in for an afternoon of Cold Case Files. And the episode featured murderer Theresa Knorr.

I don't think I've ever been so disturbed by a true crime show. This woman tortured two of her teenage daughters to death in separate incidents (she starved one in a closet until she died of malnutrition/dehydration; the other, she shot, handcuffed in a bathtub for a week, tried to extract the bullet with an Xacto knife -- she went into shock -- and then finally dumped her by the side of the road, still alive, but barely, doused her in gasoline, lit her on fire, and drove away.) She used her other children in the commission of these acts.

One of the worst details: when police found the daughter's charred body, they couldn't make an ID. They speculated, though, that she may have been a young mother, as they also found diapers strewn about. What they didn't know is that Theresa Knorr had abused her daughter so badly that she'd become incontinent.

I was very depressed after watching that. I went outside and took a very long walk -- thankfully, it was a sunny afternoon -- and tried to remind myself that there is plenty of joy and compassion in this world.

I remember an episode of The Good Wife that was about plastic guns made on 3D printers. The way it showed the production process and the viewer's eventual realization of what was being made really creeped me out.

I am a woman, R311. Gay women exist too. Nor am I a "troll" for pointing out the misogynistic harassment of women and girls by the trans community. It's well documented.

R308 That was not the pilot, it happened much later. And Dr Morrison was the Doctor. Lovely Boomer.

Oz had many scenes that stayed with me. The Beecher getting his arms and legs broken. Adabisi raping Peter Schabetta. Kareem getting shot by Joel Grey. o many scenes.

From Twin Peaks, Lealand and Maddie 'dancing', the violence. Can never forget it.

R201 Sabrina was trapped in a burning building because she was supposed to be there and burn up

On The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, when Taylor Armstrong hands her husband the electrical extension cord and purrs, "Come on, you know you want to. That ceiling fan would hold you. Well, long enough. And then I would never tell anyone about you know what. I'm going to go run to the store. You be a man and do the right thing while I'm gone, OK? I won't have you hold me back."

^so glad they restored that deleted scene.

I love laughing and feeling guilty about it, a la r319

Thanks for the mention of NIGHT GALLERY!! It featured not one but two totally haunting episodes I have never forgotten:

1. SINS OF THE FATHER, with Richard Thomas and Geraldine Page. In medieval Wales, Richard Thomas, whose family is starving in a famine, is recruited by a creepy dwarf to serve as a "sin eater" for a wealthy woman whose husband has just died. The sin eater is required to feast on lavish food that is spread around the dead man's corpse, thereby absorbing his sins and assuring the deceased's entry into Heaven.

2. THE CATERPILLAR, with Laurence Harvey lusting after an older man's sexy wife in steamy Borneo. He is there to escape a prison sentence back in Britain. One night at a bar, a creepy guy tells him about a local insect called an "earwig" which when placed into the victim's ear will eat its way through the brain to the other side. He hires the guy to kill the older guy in this fashion, but the results are horrifying.

One Step Beyond scared the hell out of me as a kid, R204. Yours was a good episode. I'd like a Jeremy of my own.

Tommy Westphall staring into the snow globe.

Twin Peaks was the first show I ever saw that turned to shit in season 2. I was so disappointed. It’s happened so many times since then,

The episode of Howdy Doody where Princess Summerfall Winterspring tied Howdy down by his strings and whittled off his knob in revenge for his assault the episode before. Splinters hurt, she said.

Catch the series ‘I Survived’ on Vice. Horrifying true stories told in a creepy way. No re-enactments. Just the survivors telling how they survived truly unbelievable situations. They usually have two or three stories per episode. One usually involved someone trying to murder another, one is usually about an animal attack, and the other is usually a car/machine type accident. There are a few you just can’t believe they survived. Many are survivors of serial killers.

Twilight zone with Rodney McDowell. Where is he’s an astronaut and goes to another planet. He gets all excited because they look human and they’re really nice to him. They even make him a house just like on earth. Come to find out it’s not a house it’s a cage. In a zoo.

Best thread in forever.

Scott's Tots.

It's not an episode per se, but Sybil -- especially the "hold your water" scene -- disturbed me deeply.

How the fuck was this shown on TV in the 1970s?!

Ricki Lake is the poor man's Sally Jessy Raphael.

^^^ wrong thread, apologies

JFC, r332. I never saw that before. That was horrifying.

People who weren't there assume the 70s were Victorian, r332. They were raw.

America became prim and proper again in the 80s because of AIDS. The years just before were very open.

An episode of Criminal Minds where the killings were biblically based. There was a scene were a woman was chained to the floor by her wrists when the killer unleashed a pack of rabid dogs to kill her. I stopped watching the show after that.

Yeah, Criminal Minds turned into torture porn and I quit watching too.

Wait, wait, wait...The FUCK is going on in that clip from Sybil? I get the enema part but what was she doing with that knife?

"It's a Good Life" Twilight Zone

This one creeped me out as a kid and still does

[quote]Wait, wait, wait...The FUCK is going on in that clip from Sybil? I get the enema part but what was she doing with that knife?[/quote]

R340 It's explicitly said by Sybil, under hypnosis, recalls her mother saying to her as a child "Don't you cry. You'd better get used to it. When you get older people are going to stick things inside of you" (paraphrased)

I just watched r332 again for the first time in many years.

MARY!!!!!!! It's awful.

[quote]And I'm from Boston stock!!

R49 So, basically, inbred?

The Teen Wolf episode where the guy is burned alive in the Japanese internment camp.

Little House on the Prairie was BRUTAL! The producers of that show were true sadists. I was always getting traumatized by what those poor prairie-folk had to endure.

The one show that really haunts me was actually the series finale of the 1980s version of Beauty and the Beast where Linda Hamilton died screaming during childbirth.

It was a just goofy fantasy-romance show with two excellent leads - Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton that I turned on while doing other things around the house, but I wasn't at all aware that the lead actress wanted to leave the show to have an actual baby, so it came out of left field when hunky-hairy Ron Perman failed to save her from the bad guy who injected her with an overdose of something while she was pregnant.

The show sold itself with the "fated by the stars" romance between the two lead characters so that the last thing I expected was to watch one of them get murdered on-screen, especially while giving birth. It just was too much. I was actually really pissed because I hate watching women - or anybody - get victimized just for the sake of entertainment.

Every single episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians where the family makes an appearance.

[quote] When you get older people are going to stick things inside of you

I wish my mother had had that talk with me, so I would have had something to look forward to.

The episode of The Golden Girls where Dorothy has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome...

I thought she was going to rip Dr. Budd's nuts right off his body

She had a lot of crazy energy in that scene for a "mug cradler"

‘I Survived’ is very good. There is something haunting in every episode.

Also see ‘A Haunting’ which follows real life hauntings. Many are by multiple eye witnesses so I believe many of them, but not all.

You all are young. No mention yet of The Day After, about a nuclear bomb going off in America. I watched it with a friend in New York and I remember it was an unusually quiet night in Manhattan and it felt as if I was the only one alive after a bomb. The show itself I’d frightening

r351, it was a ridiculously bad movie. I watched it when it first aired and the only thing that haunted me was buying into the hype ahead of the movie and then wasting my time watching it. I could imagine that anti-nuke nuts got off on it, but no one I knew took it seriously.

R350 A Haunting is superb, best of the reenactment paranormal shows. I love the narrator! The episode that spooked me the most was about the Puerto Rican guitarist whose mother was into santeria. There was a scene where as a young boy he was in a taxi, & the driver turned around & his eyes were solid black & he appeared to be possessed. Flipped me out!

The pilot for sex and the City and closeups of SJP when she is being flirty. How do feel about Cleveland?

R353 What makes ‘A Haunting’ so terrifying is many of the accounts are likely real. They involve multiple family/friend verification. That, combined with some family and friends who’ve had some experiences, makes this show down right fucking scary.

R351 meet R162

Well if this is about TV movies that's a whole different ball game than episodes.

R352, we apparently live in different universes.

[quote]I could imagine that anti-nuke nuts got off on it, but no one I knew took it seriously.

So you're a pro-nuke nut?

R332, That made me cry!

Was Sybil and her 16 personalities ever debunked?

r361 I was actually going to start a thread about the Shirley Mason saga.

Even if faked, it's a fascinating story. It created such a cultural moment (and not in a good way).

The episode of LHOTP where a traumatised Albert emerges from Pa Ingalls bedroom with torn shirt, pants and bloody lip.

Ma Ingalls doesn't bat an eyelid as she makes the morning porridge but Laura knew better and she was going to seek JUSTICE for Albert!!

Poor Albert!

R363 What? No way.

The Outer Limits episode where tumbleweeds come to life and attack Eddie Albert and (Baby) June Havoc freaked me out when I was I kid. I still find rolling tumbleweeds creepy.

I adored Jack Bailey's Queen for a Day. My childhood dream was to be crowned on that show.

I was very young when "Queen for a Day" was on the air, but even then I could recognize that these beleaguered women's sad lives probably weren't going to be improved much by their winning an Amana range. The crowning ceremony with the tiara and royal robe, as "Pomp and CIrcumstance" played on the sound system, was a hoot, though.

[quote] Wait, wait, wait...The FUCK is going on in that clip from Sybil? I get the enema part but what was she doing with that knife?

Supposedly Sybil's mother would stick things inside Sybil's vagina, various things, a knife, a buttonhook, a flashlight. That's what all the implements she had were for, for that purpose.

Thank you, Patsy.

When they found out the neighbor was eating cat food after on "Good Times"

That hillbilly episode of the X-Files.