TV Episodes Where Everyone Is Trapped Somewhere

One room, no exits, and a production budget that ran out in March.

Entries
10
Category
TV
Updated
  1. A bank ATM vestibule lit only by the machine's glow, a pack of chewing gum on the ledge, a dark city street outside.

    10. The One with the Blackout

    Friends · 1994

    A citywide blackout traps Chandler in an ATM vestibule with model Jill Goodacre, playing herself. He chokes on gum and she gives him the Heimlich. Back at the apartment, a cat sabotages Ross. The episode is also credited with popularizing the phrase friend zone.

  2. An ornate antique vase on a pedestal in a suburban living room, a closet door slightly ajar beside it.

    09. The Gang Gets Trapped

    It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia · 2011

    The gang breaks into a suburban house to steal a vase they're convinced is a priceless artifact, and the family comes home. Everyone hides in closets and under furniture and immediately gets on each other's nerves. Indiana Jones would not have done it like this.

  3. A dark open turbolift shaft with a ladder rising into blackness, three small glowing badges clipped to the rungs.

    08. Disaster

    Star Trek: The Next Generation · 1991

    A quantum filament knocks out the Enterprise, stranding Picard in a turbolift with three kids, Troi in command, and Worf in Ten Forward delivering Keiko's baby. The captain who is uncomfortable around children makes them honorary officers. Molly O'Brien is born here.

  4. An Arctic research station's metal table with test tubes, a small cage, and a frosted window showing nothing but white.

    07. Ice

    The X-Files · 1993

    Mulder, Scully and a small team are quarantined at an Arctic research outpost where a parasitic worm may be in anyone. Glen Morgan and James Wong borrowed openly from The Thing. Designed as a cheap bottle episode, it went over budget. The worms were mealworms.

  5. A heavy boxed air conditioner and a plastic bag of goldfish on the concrete floor of a vast, identical-looking parking garage.

    06. The Parking Garage

    Seinfeld · 1991

    The four can't find Kramer's car in a mall garage, with a heavy air conditioner, a bag of dying goldfish and a full bladder between them. Shot on the regular soundstage with mirrors to fake the size. When they finally find the car, it doesn't start.

  6. Rows of empty shuttle bus seats with tray tables down, glaring white sunlight blasting through the windows onto a diamond-crusted alien landscape.

    05. Midnight

    Doctor Who · 2008

    The Doctor's tourist shuttle breaks down on a planet with a lethal sun, and something outside gets in. A passenger starts repeating everyone, then speaking first. Russell T Davies wrote it to keep the companion offscreen. It's mostly people in seats, and terrifying.

  7. A purple gel pen lying alone on a long wooden study table, chairs pushed back at odd angles, an air vent above.

    04. Cooperative Calligraphy

    Community · 2010

    Annie's purple pen goes missing and the study group locks itself in the study room until someone confesses, while a puppy parade goes by outside. Abed narrates that it's a bottle episode, which it is. The culprit is not a member of the group. Or a person.

  8. A gleaming stainless steel lab with a single housefly perched on a vent, a flyswatter balanced on a tall ladder below.

    03. Fly

    Breaking Bad · 2010

    Walt and Jesse spend an episode sealed in the superlab chasing a single housefly. Rian Johnson directed. Vince Gilligan said they made it because the show was hopelessly over budget. Critics called it a perfect hour or the most-hated episode. The fly had no comment.

  9. The inside of a huge dim metal cylinder, a bagpipe, a ballet slipper and a clown's ruffled collar on the floor, a circle of light far above.

    02. Five Characters in Search of an Exit

    The Twilight Zone · 1961

    A major, a clown, a ballerina, a bagpiper and a hobo wake up in a giant metal cylinder with no memory and no way out. Rod Serling wrote it from a short story. The twist involves a Christmas charity barrel. It reportedly inspired the movie Cube, and plenty of nightmares.

  10. An abandoned van with its door open in a snowy pine forest at dusk, a single loafer in the snow.

    01. Pine Barrens

    The Sopranos · 2001

    Christopher and Paulie botch a body dump, lose the car and spend the night lost in the snowy South Jersey woods. Paulie loses a shoe, then the car. Steve Buscemi directed. The Russian's fate was never resolved on screen, and David Chase has been asked about it ever since.

Honorable mentions

  • An empty restaurant waiting area with a pager buzzer on a bench, a payphone on the wall and a menu propped against the window.

    The Chinese Restaurant

    Seinfeld · 1991

    Jerry, George and Elaine wait for a table in real time for the whole episode. NBC thought pages were missing from the script, and Larry David threatened to quit over it. Technically nobody is trapped. They could leave at any moment. They do not.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A small jail cell with four mismatched chairs facing the bars, a bowl of soup and a puffy shirt on a hanger.

    The Finale

    Seinfeld · 1998

    76.3 million people watched the four get convicted under a Good Samaritan law and locked in a cell together, forever, while past guest stars testified. Even Jerry Seinfeld later had doubts. Larry David regrets nothing. It is the bleakest trapped episode ever made.

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