Much like in films, TV series’ are often more than happy to pretend certain elements of their continuity never happened so that their future installments can be better, make more sense, or simply keep going.
There have been various examples of retcons in TV history, whether they appear in comedies in a pretty unremarkable or unproblematic way, or they change the entire approach of a drama, leading to a flawed storyline that is impossible to follow. Here are ten of the biggest examples.
Prison Break
For its first and, to an extent, second seasons, Prison Break was a remarkably intense, perfectly written and gloriously acted show about the trials of a group of characters an entire audience fell in love with. Its third, fourth and fifth seasons took us down a rabbit hole of government conspiracy and overblown drama.
Throughout that third season, Sara Tancredi was dead. Michael Schofield was heartbroken. Michael’s brother (who would certainly recognize her) saw her head in a box, so we all knew it to be definitely, unequivocally, certainly true. Oh but no, season 4 opens with her death being retconned as it was apparently fake and she was in the main cast of the show again.
Doctor Who
In a way, Doctor Who exists on a retcon device so ingrained into TV culture that we don’t even blink an eye. But if you think about it, the idea of regeneration is a way of retconning the death of The Doctor every time it happens. Anyway, in the 2013 special "The Day Of The Doctor," John Hurt portrays a version of The Doctor who fought in the mysterious time war.
Only, this was always implied to be Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor. In fact, it was supposed to be. The only reason this ended up being retconned is that Eccleston had no interest in returning to the franchise.
Will & Grace
When Will & Grace came to an end with a two-hour series finale in 2006, the two titular characters had grown apart. In a flash-forward, they meet once more when helping their children move into college and become friends once more. When the 2017 season rebooted the show, the entire series finale was retconned using the most cliched technique of all time: it was just a dream. They hadn’t fallen out, they hadn’t had children, and that was it. The show continued, ignoring all of the events the previous entry had introduced.
Star Trek
Star Trek is another example of a show so grand in scope that it can only really survive if retcons keep it moving forward. There are pretty much too many to mention, but one of the most notable examples came when Star Trek: Discovery reintroduced the Klingons, only they looked completely different.
Using a clever piece of retconning, their new look is explained as follows: they stole human DNA with the intention of creating their own enhancements, only this backfired and led to a virus which made them all look much more human back when the show was first around.
Newhart
Speaking of 'it was all a dream,' Newhart takes retconning to another level. Sure, it’s pretty much done as a joke and the lack of seriousness and tension of the show sort of all allows them to get away with it, but it’s still a pretty heavy retcon. At the very end of the final episode (of 184 episodes), Bob Newhart wakes up in character as Dr. Bob Hartley (his character from The Bob Newhart Show) and explains a strange dream he had to his wife. That dream, as you might have guessed, is the entire plot of Newhart.
Friends
In the pilot episode of Friends, we are introduced to Rachel as she bursts into Central Perk, still wearing her wedding dress and exhausted after having escaped her own wedding. They all introduce themselves for the first time and strike up a many season-long friendship, with season 2 confirming this when the characters are all shocked at what Rachel looked like before her nose job.
Except, it is established that Chandler and Rachel had met multiple times over many previous years, so why don’t they recognize each other? Especially considering they knew they had met before.
Dallas
One final step into the world of ‘it was all a dream' comes from Dallas. The response to this reveal wasn’t exactly positive and has been parodied in various shows since, but it was the only way to bring back the character of Bobby Ewing from the dead. The entirety of season 9 was explained as a (weirdly detailed) dream of Pam Ewing and the show just carried on as if nothing ever happened. How on earth did the ‘it was all a dream’ suggestion get any momentum past that of a writer's room joke?
Gossip Girl
Oh, dear. Gossip Girl. What went wrong? What happened to the stupidly dramatic, terribly written, yet somehow perfect teen drama? Despite making absolutely no sense whatsoever, the writers of the show knew they needed to give the infamous Gossip Girl an identity at the end of the show.
So they chose Dan. A writer who wanted to write himself into the Upper East Side, and pulled it off. It's genius and the perfect ending. Except, in order to make it happen, the entire plot of the show had to be retconned. We’d seen Dan react to GG blasts while sitting by himself, as well as ruin the lives of himself, his Dad and his sister many times over. Not to mention the fact that running GG was quite a challenging side hustle. How did he have the time to get anything done?
Prison Break... Again
Michael Schofield was the main character in Prison Break from its opening moments, right up to the closing scene of season 4, where the gang visits his grave. It’s implied that he died of cancer. In the two-part follow-up, it is revealed Michael actually died sacrificing himself for Sara. Perfect! Eight years later, Prison Break announced a season 5 with Schofield returning, so obviously, he wasn’t dead at all. The retcon was explained by his imprisonment in a Yemen prison at the hands of the mysterious Poseidon and forms the basis of the entire revival.
Doctor Who... Again
Gallifrey, the home planet of the Time Lords, and, as such, The Doctor himself, was always shrouded in mystery. In the revived version of Doctor Who from 2005 onwards, Gallifrey was destroyed, leaving The Doctor as the only remaining Time Lord. This in itself was retconned when The Master returned, but The Day Of The Doctor reveals that it wasn’t destroyed and was actually frozen in time and locked away in another dimension. This retcon allowed the planet to return in the season nine finale, where Peter Capaldi’s Doctor returns to the planet.