No, a bottle episode isn’t what happens when the shooting schedule goes haywire and everyone rushes to the bar. It’s a standalone episode that briefly takes the audience out of the main serialized structure of a television series. This might happen if an actor suddenly becomes unavailable on a shooting day, a script isn’t delivered in time, or a location becomes unavailable. Bottle episodes essentially act as a backup to keep the cameras rolling. Alternatively, they detract from the main action to spend more time with a particular character or situation. There are many other reasons that bottle episodes are made. Let’s take a look:

Cost Overruns

There’s a massive difference between what most people perceive is Hollywood, and what actually happens. Budgets aren’t sexy or interesting. They are rarely talked about in breathless – or any – terms, so for the most part we never hear about them in detail.

But it’s show business. The reason we continue to see such great shows like Severance is because it makes money. Moola. Bank. Season and episode budgets are established, and taking money from a future episode to pay for a current episode shorts the pot. 

Mark Scout (Adam Scott) in Severance on Apple TV+

Bottle episodes are designed to lessen any budget shortage by either enclosing a script in a limited location like Archer, S06 E05 where the most of the story takes place in a elevator thus avoiding elaborate animation production locations and action, or creating a ‘talking head’ episode where characters mainly talk to each other like The Killing S01 E11. In the example of The Killing not a lot of plot is furthered – it’s mostly interpersonal between Sarah (Mireille Enos) and Holder (Joel Kinnaman), the two detectives in the series, while they search for Sarah’s son, who is missing.

BTW, Severance’s “Cobel” and “Sweet Vitriol” episodes are sometimes tagged as bottle episodes, but for different reasons than budget.

Why?

Determining why a bottle episode is necessary is a first step to writing one. Usually, these episodes are driven by a specific need, and that need will most likely be determined by the showrunner, production company, or someone/ something that is determining the direction of the show. 

Fine Focus

Even if budget is a primary reason for a bottle episode, the format has validity beyond that. Contained episodes can focus a story narrative to a fine point. Forcing the writer(s) to be purer and rely less on cutaways and multiple visual elements allows us as an audience to drill into a particular aspect of character and/ or story point.

Tie Up Loose Ends 

Ambiguous endings may frustrate some people. A bottle episode is great to bring tangential storylines to a graceful close. Also, there are times when a narrative thread isn’t working, and it’s necessary to tie it off and move past it. Once this is done, the main story can continue on a different, more productive, or interesting branch. 

Suspense

To keep a bottle episode moving, create as much suspense as possible. 

You can see examples of this in many series. A hostage situation is a prime scenario. One or more of the main characters is inside a bank or office that is then taken over by bad guys. 

Kidnappings are also great story generators for bottle episodes. These are suspense-packed and relatively simple to film, thus falling nicely into the bottle episode scenario. These self-contained, suspense-driven storylines don’t need to have much to do with the main story. Putting one these episodes in the middle of a series gives the writers a chance to take a well-earned breather, reduces the overall budget, but still maintain the strength of the series. 

Ticking Clock

To make the suspense as, well, suspenseful as possible, and keep the bottle episode compelling, limit the time the characters have to survive. This serves many obvious purposes, but it also distracts the audience from the fact that we’re not moving around much.

Let’s say our characters are bound together in a warehouse and there’s a bomb in there. A lot can be said while they’re also trying to figure out how to get free before they’re blown to little bits. Tick, tick.

Or perhaps they’re waiting to be executed by the bad guys. Or – whatever. Point is, they only have so much time to get free. Prison riots/ takeovers are great bottle episode scenarios/ locations for many reasons. There’s built-in suspense and that ticking clock.

So we get that bottle episode information packed in with a tense scenario and the episode just flies by.

Channel Your Inner Playwright

Since bottle episodes are not necessarily visually driven, they harken back to a play where the interactions of the characters and their dialogue are key. There probably is no larger challenge for any writer than making a static scene with a limited storyline interesting. Playwrights cut their teeth on one-to-one interactions, but screenwriters, not so much anymore.

Much early television was just a play filmed in a studio with huge cameras that were difficult to move. Once series began in earnest, TV writers used to have to write keeping play techniques in mind because of the much lower budgets; so, television was once considered a ‘talking heads’ medium. These days, with multi-million-dollar budgets and incredible CGI visual effects, it’s not as it was when bottle episodes were invented.

Aaron Sorkin, a master of dialogue, had his first series, Sports Night , mostly take place in an office where sportscasters worked. Talk, talk, talk. But his first experience as a paid writer was actually in stage plays. That’s a reason why he’s so dialogue-heavy. Writing a bottle episode for him would be child’s play.  Witness the opening for The Social Network where he’s got two people just talking to each other at a table. Or Newsroom, where much of the action was inside a studio.

Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg)

I’m sure if he put his mind to it, he could write the mother of all static scenes with two people tied back to back in a room and keep it compelling for 45 minutes without any other element. A bottle episode is that type of writing challenge.

Characters Over Plot

Writing a series is both incredible and nightmarish. Coming up with multiple storylines over several episodes is daunting, but one of the incredible parts is the ability to take a deep dive into the story and characters. 

Now, if you’re writing a procedural like NCIS: Origins or Watson, you’re mostly doing plot over character. Any depth to the characters is subsumed by the crime or the illness or the drama line. But because you do have 6 – 15 episodes you can afford to take some time off the plot and get into the characters.

These types of bottle episodes deepen our understanding of characters we already like and want to follow. Getting some background or gaining understandings only increases our connection with them and the series. With a bottle episode focusing on character you don’t have to wedge a character’s background in-between plot moments like in a ‘normal’ episode. 

Deep bios are developed for these characters in the series bible but you can only touch them briefly, not really dive into them much. This is on purpose; we don’t want a ton of backstory initially to get the series rolling. But as we grow to like the characters in a show, we as the audience want more. That’s a great thing since it means the show is successful and something like a bottle episode is welcome.

Self-Aware

Meta is the term more commonly used these days; fourth wall awareness by the cast that they are in a bottle episode or the episode itself becomes self-referential like in Community (Cooperative Calligraphy) or Bojack Horseman (Free Churro). These can be fun and funny and really stretch a character or group of characters. It’s a way to gently subvert the form and get some entertainment value out of the episode thus also avoiding the cliches, and keep it entertaining.

Jumping the shark is possible if they’re not done properly which is probably why you don’t see many of them produced. Plus, you’re breaking that implicit suspension of disbelief with the audience by going meta.

More Than One Way

Chicago Fire recently had a bottle episode (S13 E18) that was really smart use of production. Interviews (cheap to do because of the static situation) are done, and flashbacks from the previous episode are shown to give it bigger production value. Great use of already filmed material to enhance and extend an episode for much less cost.

Love/Hate

Whether you enjoy these bottle episodes has a lot to do with what you’re getting out of a series. If all the techniques are used effectively they can be compelling and rich. In any case, watching them as a writer you’ve at least got to admire the craft – they ain’t easy, and if they work, they work well. 

Let’s hope they don’t disappear completely as the number of series season episodes decreases.