Many TV shows seem to have downright peculiar ideas about how time works.
No, not in a Stephen Hawking sort of a way, but in less arcane situations – whether it’s characters having birthdays on multiple dates (Ross in Friends), have ages which fluctuate wildly from season to season (Joey in Friends), meet the other characters for the first time on three different occasions (Chandler in Friends) or have pregnancies which last suspiciously long (Rachel in Frie… hey, maybe this show isn’t very good?).
But other shows have to do some serious paddling to keep their chronology-boat upright. For example, Sex And The City seemingly not being aware how long babies take to build with exes going from break up to fatherhood inside of six months
Or Pretty Little Liars continually retconning the identity of the mysterious killer A without going “hold on, if we’re now saying that Wilden was a corrupt cop that covered up the early murders, he would have been what, 12 at the time? How was he even on the force, much less taking payoffs not to investigate Toby’s mum’s murder.”
I’ve thought about this a lot.
That goes double for shows with time travel or alternate realities – trying to work out what the hell is going on in Lost or The Flash is a surefire migraine-inducer. And most importantly, how long did Ted Moseby spend telling his goddamn kids eight years worth of largely inappropriate stories about their mother?
But even with relatively straightforward premises there are plenty of ways to make it weird. Like…
That 70s Show
Period in-show: 1976-1979
Actual length: 1998-2006
The show had a pre-determined timeline, which became a problem when the show was more successful than anticipated. So the date stamps that appeared in the first series were abandoned from season two onwards when the show presumably went “oh hell, we’re going to run out of seventies really soon”.
In any case, trying to argue that eight years was really three was an easy workaround, if you assume that every episode happened in real time. Then the whole thing only went for what, a bit over seven hours?
That still doesn’t explain why they celebrated eight Christmasses, though.
M*A*S*H
Period in-show: 1950-53
Actual length: 1972-1983
That a show about the Korean War was almost four times as long as the war itself is either a testament to the power of the comedy-drama or a savage indictment on the lack of spinoffs to the actual war – a problem which the US has seemingly addressed in the Middle East.
And M*A*S*H was excitingly cavalier about all sorts of character details, from birthdays to ages to hometowns to surnames. So maybe the whole show was just a flashback from Hawkeye’s PTSD?
Gilmore Girls
Period in-show: real time with actual length, supposedly
Again, it’s a function of having a show last longer than people expected it to, but Rory was 16 in the first episode and then stayed 16 for two years, despite literally having a birthday on-screen in seaons one, episode six.
She was still 16 in season two, as late as episode six. For a genius student, her arithmetic is not great.
Game of Thrones
Period in-show: um…
Actual length: 2011-2019
It’s hard to think of a show where the rules of time are more messed about, whether it’s Cersei’s season 7 pregnancy where she’s still not showing by the end, or Jon Snow covering vast distances in a couple of hours.
Fortunately no-one minded that at all and was totally cool about the final series. Next!
Community
Period in-show: a community college degree’s length
Actual length: 2009-2015
The issue with Community wasn’t that it created an anachronism by outliving its welcome so much as that it had to invent a workaround to explain why the characters were still in college after they would have definitely graduated.
Thus they invented a workaround where Jeff became a teacher and the other characters… re-enrolled?
Anyway, it was silly. And given how many actors jumped ship before the last season limped out, they knew it. THEY ALL KNEW IT.