Far from the worst but my funniest example comes from my favourite show. In the first season of Stargate SG-1, they introduced an alien weapon which would go on to become a staple of the series, the Zat Gun. One shot stuns, two shots kill, and three shots… Disintegrates?!
Yeah, it’s so stupidly powerful that the writers pretty much immediately realized the mistake and the show kinda just conveniently forgets that was established in the first season, except for like three other times in the entire ten season run.
Even the first two shots became very nebulous over time.
Edited to add, the disintegration effect is even mocked in-world in a very meta way in later seasons.
They wanted a phaser but couldn’t call it a vaporize setting.
But they didn’t completely abandon it. Disintegration gets used a handful more times when they remember it and it helps them wave away plot holes. Like in the episode where they end up in the 60s they disintegrate a box. A box!
Well, not quite. Iirc the disintegration effect came about last minute when the director decided he needed a way to remove the bodies, to explain why other jaffa wouldn’t see them and get suspicious.
It’s why in the Wormhole Xtreme episode, they mock that exact premise when O’Neill suggests it.
Far from the worst but my funniest example comes from my favourite show. In the first season of Stargate SG-1, they introduced an alien weapon which would go on to become a staple of the series, the Zat Gun. One shot stuns, two shots kill, and three shots… Disintegrates?!
Yeah, it’s so stupidly powerful that the writers pretty much immediately realized the mistake and the show kinda just conveniently forgets that was established in the first season, except for like three other times in the entire ten season run.
Even the first two shots became very nebulous over time.
Edited to add, the disintegration effect is even mocked in-world in a very meta way in later seasons.
They wanted a phaser but couldn’t call it a vaporize setting.
But they didn’t completely abandon it. Disintegration gets used a handful more times when they remember it and it helps them wave away plot holes. Like in the episode where they end up in the 60s they disintegrate a box. A box!
Well, not quite. Iirc the disintegration effect came about last minute when the director decided he needed a way to remove the bodies, to explain why other jaffa wouldn’t see them and get suspicious.
It’s why in the Wormhole Xtreme episode, they mock that exact premise when O’Neill suggests it.
Two boxes stacked against each other, in fact. Sitting in a truck.
The truck does not disintigrate.