What Is a Bottle Episode?

Note: This post was originally published on June 26, 2023. We are updating it to reflect the release of Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story.

Welcome, weary internet traveler, to this shrine to the bottle episode. Perhaps you’ve arrived here with questions. Possibly you’ve heard murmurings about a term shrouded in mystery and controversy, a concept that your friend told you means one thing but that you suspect actually means something else entirely. Maybe you’ve watched Community’s season-two episode “Cooperative Calligraphy,� which is a bottle episode, and talks about bottle episodes, but never actually defines bottle episode, and now you need to know more. Maybe you’re in an argument about episode three of The Last of Us, and you’re here to finally set the record straight.

You want to know what a bottle episode is. We’re ready to help. (And if you need to return in the future, we’ll be waiting for you at isitabottleepisode.com.)

What Exactly Is a Bottle Episode Anyway?

The most familiar definition of the term bottle episode is an episode of TV that takes place in one confined place with a small cast and few or no guest stars. The Merriam-Webster definition adds another piece, describing it as “an inexpensively produced episode of television that is typically confined to one setting.� But both of those definitions lead to confusion: How do you define “confined place�? (Depends.) If an episode takes place entirely on a cruise ship, does that count? (Probably not. But maybe?) What is “small cast� — does that mean two or three people, or can it be more? (Yes, but possibly no!) What if there’s a tiny piece of the episode that’s in a different setting? (Could still be a bottle!) What if there’s one main cast member and one guest star? (Maybe?) Also, wait, why does it have anything to do with the setting? Isn’t a bottle episode more like “an episode that feels separate from the rest of the show�? (Absolutely not.)

A more complete definition of bottle episode is also more precise: It’s about how and why a specific episode is made, and it has nothing to do with what the episode feels or looks like or what kind of story it tells. Bottle episodes, an idea that may have come from Star Trek but also originates in the 1960s with a show called The Outer Limits, are first and foremost a money-saving strategy. Factors like building new sets, filming outdoors or on location, adding guest stars who don’t have full-season contracts, or requiring significant visual effects all make an episode more expensive, and the point of a bottle episode is to save money so that other episodes in that season can go big. As a result, the strictest definition of a bottle episode is an episode that’s filmed entirely on one prebuilt (“standing�) set, includes only main cast members, and is cheaper and faster to produce than a standard episode.

That underlying financial pressure has a tendency to produce a certain kind of story. Bottle episodes often create some reason for everyone to get stuck inside this small place: a door is locked, there’s a deadline, there’s a bomb threat, there’s something to wait for. A classic example is Breaking Bad’s season-three episode “Fly,� which centers on the two lead characters, trapped inside a large underground lab, who have nothing to do but talk to each other. Director Rian Johnson confirmed that “Fly� was written and filmed to be much cheaper because the show needed too much money from the season’s budget for other episodes, and that budgetary circumstance created the fictional result. The characters can’t leave, so “Fly� is this intense, wordy, emotional TV episode that feels set distinctly apart from the rest of the series.

But that kind of fictional experience can be created without actually making a bottle episode. It’s why viewers (and even some critics) have fallen into the habit of expanding the idea to include anything that feels like a bottle episode. The X-Files’s season-one episode “Ice� is one example: Originally intended to be exactly the kind of cost-saving idea bottle episodes are designed to provide, “Ice� is set in an arctic-exploration station with a lurking monster and a very small cast. But the complex horror-movie production elements actually ended up blowing through the budget, particularly because the episode required a fair amount of CGI. Not a bottle!

Mad Men’s “The Suitcase� from season four is another version of “feels like a bottle episode but is not one.� Peggy and Don are on deadline, and almost all of the episode is just them trying to work out a new campaign for a luggage company while also talking around (and eventually about) their whole relationship. But they don’t stay in the office. They go to a restaurant. They go to a bar. Peggy spends much of the night dodging a dinner she’s supposed to be at, and the episode cuts back and forth between the office and the restaurant. There are lots of sets, lots of little minor character roles, and the first 15 minutes are full of other characters and stories. It is not! A! Bottle episode! This kind of episode is often so compelling and exciting, though — it deserves its own name. We’re going to start calling it a “suitcase episode.� Everybody get on board!

There are edge cases, too, the sort of examples reasonable people can disagree about. Seinfeld’s “Chinese Restaurant� from season two is a useful one: It’s not filmed on a previous, standing set, but its single small space and otherwise pared-back production would’ve still made it comparatively inexpensive. TV production has changed quite a bit from the days of The Outer Limits, so it makes sense to reconsider the strict early definition based on current TV models — this is a living-Constitutionalist approach to the concept rather than bottle-episode originalism. Take Girls’s “One Man’s Trash� from season two: It’s not filmed on a standing set, and it includes one main cast member and one guest star, but creator Jenni Konner has said it was faster and cheaper than other episodes, and everything else about it fits. This absolutely meets the spirit of bottle-episode law! Succession’s “Honeymoon States� is another example: It has a large crowd of extras and a guest role, and its confined space is a very large apartment with multiple rooms. But that entire apartment is a standing set, and most of the episode’s action (outside of a few brief street scenes) takes place inside. In cases like these, arguing over whether it meets the definition is fun! Not fun: conflating all unusual, standalone, departure, or otherwise distinctive episodes into the term bottle episode.

Frequently Asked Bottle-Episode Questions

Can animated shows have bottle episodes?

The short answer: Not really.

The longer answer: Yes, animated shows do have some analogous production techniques to the live-action bottle episode. It’s cheaper and faster to make an animated scene if it takes place in a space where all the backgrounds have already been created. An episode of Bob’s Burgers in which Bob spends the whole time inside his home kitchen, for example, is easier and less expensive to produce than an episode where new backgrounds would need to be drawn from scratch. But most animated shows have more than one location background already created. There’s no reason a Bob’s Burgers episode that used only preexisting backgrounds couldn’t take place in his house and the restaurant and Tina’s classroom. The process of moving the story between multiple animated backgrounds is nothing like a live-action company move between various locations. As a result, the pressure of limited space in a live-action bottle episode just doesn’t work the same way in an animated context.

Can reality shows have bottle episodes?

I have a similar answer here as I do for animated TV. It is logical that episodes filmed entirely in a studio or competition space would be cheaper than those that go out on location or travel somewhere. But the process of scripting a fictional TV show and outlining an “unscripted� reality show are not entirely the same, and there’s a lot of variation even within reality. It’s difficult, for instance, to make any apples-to-apples comparison for what “bottle episode� would even mean between Real Housewives versus Top Chef versus Love Is Blind. So I’m going to go with “No,� and I accept that within some specific series and circumstances, there might be exceptions.

Wait, if the thing I’ve been calling a “bottle episode� isn’t a bottle episode, what is it?

Maybe you’re looking for the term standalone episode or departure episode. But there are lots of kinds of episodes: musical episodes, clip shows, episodes that shift the point of view, flashback episodes, or the types we’re calling suitcase episodes. Why cram these all into bottle episode when that means something entirely different?

Can I call these “filler episodes�?

No, you may not. Well, okay, clip shows did often serve the purpose of padding out a season, so calling that “filler� makes sense. But filler, as it’s typically used now, doesn’t mean anything specific about a category of episodes. Instead, it’s roughly deployed to mean “I thought this episode was boring� or “This episode is doing character development, but it’s not advancing the plot I care about.� It makes sense to critique an individual episode as underwhelming or boring or slow. It’s less useful to turn that critique into a narrative category, because not everyone will agree with what does and does not count, and attempting to define that category will immediately become a swirling maelstrom of angry internet people arguing about why they hate something. Like them or loathe them, at least bottle episodes can be defined.

Do you have any guesses about why I’d heard bottle episode meant something else?

I do! Bottle episodes are a rarer phenomenon in the streaming era, thanks to a number of shifts in how TV gets made when it’s often written and filmed as a whole eight-episode season rather than individual episodes over the course of five months. Netflix especially has been moving toward a model of TV where no individual episode looks that different from any other episode; everything flows into everything else. As a result, it feels more notable and unusual when an episode does stand out, either because it has a new set of characters, it’s set in a new place, or its story feels more self-contained. So there’s an urge to call those episodes something, and thanks to Community and TV Tropes and the increasing ubiquity of online TV discourse, the term bottle episode has been floating around, ready for the (inaccurate) taking!

Isn’t language fluid? Are we not supposed to adapt new meanings and new uses over time? And given that reality, doesn’t that mean that if enough people all decide bottle episode has an entirely different definition, this other one you’re using will become an outdated and irrelevant document entirely divorced from how people talk about television?

Yes. But it would be a shame, don’t you think? Bottle episode already has a meaning, and it’s such a striking, appealing one, borne out of not just often-amorphous narrative impressions but particular behind-the-scenes necessity. It’s a lovely collision of function and form. And it’s not like we can’t come up with other, more specific names for other kinds of episodes! See above.

Have You Just Watched a Bottle Episode? A Decision-Making Guide.

1.

Does the episode take place entirely on a set the show regularly uses?

âž¼ Yes: Go to question 2.
âž¼ No: Go to question 3.

The Sopranos “Pine Barrens� Check

2.

Bottle episodes are about being cheaper and faster than usual, but filming outside always adds time. Is the episode shot in an indoor, contained space?

âž¼ Yes, I understand that a forest is not a set: Go to question 4.
âž¼ No, but I think the city of Copenhagen counts as one contained space: Go to question 11.

The Breaking Bad “Fly� Ratio

3.

It’s not the whole episode, but bottle episodes do often have one or two small scenes that take place somewhere else. Does, say, 90 percent of the episode happen on a set the show regularly uses?

âž¼ Yes: Go to question 6.
âž¼ No: Go to question 4.

Seinfeld’s “Chinese Restaurant� Proviso

4.

Okay, but does the vast majority of the episode happen inside one interior space? We’re talking about a single room, an apartment, or several rooms inside a home or workplace.

âž¼ Yes: Go to question 5.
âž¼ No: Go to question 11.

5.

Wait, not all workplaces are the same. Is this like the office building from Severance? A byzantine set of hallways with rooms full of goats and dance parties that needed months for the light board to program? Did the desks cost $100,000 to make?

âž¼ Yes: Go to question 11.
âž¼ No: Go to question 6.

6.

Is it just the show’s main cast?

âž¼ Yes: Go to question 10.
âž¼ No: Go to question 7.

The All in the Family “Elevator Story� Addendum

7.

How many guest stars with speaking roles are involved? More than three?

âž¼ Yes: Go to question 8.
âž¼ No: Go to question 10.

8.

Here’s where we get into tricky speculation territory: Are the guest stars … fancy? Would they add a fair amount to the episode’s budget? Did Dwayne “The Rock� Johnson show up?

âž¼ Yes: Go to question 9.
âž¼ No: Go to question 10.

9.

Do we think Dwayne “The Rock� Johnson agreed to get paid scale for that appearance?

âž¼ Yes, I have a hunch he did: Go to question 10.
âž¼ No: Go to question 11.

The X-Files “Ice� Codicil

10.

Does the episode have other pricey add-ons? Is there CGI? Fight choreography? Is the episode twice as long? Are there stunts? Elaborate props?

âž¼ Yes: Go to question 11.
âž¼ No: Go to question 12.

Mad Men’s “The Suitcase� Evaluation

11.

Does the episode fail to meet the bottle-episode criteria, but it feels like a bottle episode? Does it tell a self-contained story? Is it mostly about people talking to one another rather than big plot swings?

➼ Yes: This is not a bottle episode, but it’s probably a suitcase episode!
âž¼ No: Are you sure? Go back to question 1 and try again.

12.

Is this different from a standard episode of the show? Fewer people? Just one standing set instead of four? Takes place over a shorter period of time?

➼ Yes: It’s a bottle episode!
➼ No: It’s not a bottle episode!

Is That Episode I Just Watched a Bottle Episode?

Is Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story’s “The Hurt Man� a bottle episode? Yes.

Is Industry’s “White Mischief� a bottle episode? No. It’s a departure episode.

Are The Bear’s “Next� and “Ice Chips� bottle episodes? Reasonable people can disagree on these cases. The creative team does little press, so it’s difficult to say how the budgets for each episode work. (Jamie Lee Curtis, for instance, is likely not cheap.)

Is The Bear’s “Napkins� a bottle episode? No. It’s a departure episode.

Is Feud: Capote vs. the Swans’s “The Secret Inner Lives of Swans� a bottle episode? No.

Is Expats’s “Central� a bottle episode? No.

Is Mr. & Mrs. Smith a whole season of bottle episodes? No.

Is The Bear’s “Fishes� a bottle episode? No.

Is The Bear’s “Honeydew� a bottle episode? No.

Is Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’s “Ad Astra per Aspera� a bottle episode? No.

Is Succession’s “America Decides� a bottle episode? No.

Is Succession’s “Honeymoon States� a bottle episode? Reasonable people can disagree on this one. There’s an outdoor scene, but it’s very brief, and the rest of the episode takes place in the standing set of Logan’s apartment. That apartment is full of extras, though, as well as a few guest speaking roles. It’s a borderline case.

Is Succession’s “Connor’s Wedding� a bottle episode? No.

Is Ted Lasso’s “Sunflowers� a bottle episode? No.

Is The Last of Us’s “Left Behind� a bottle episode? No.

Is The Last of Us’s “Long, Long Time� a bottle episode? No.