Stranger Things very famously had that one episode in season 2 where Eleven travels and joins another group of teenagers with superpowers - it was an extremely unsubtle attempt at greenlighting a spinoff that never happened.
After that episode this was never mentioned or brought up ever again.
I've been rewatching Stranger Things with my girlfriend who hasn't seen the show. When we got to that episode she was so confused and calling out how much she hated some of the newly introduced characters.
She was so relieved when I said not to worry, we'll never see them again.
That was the worst part of the show to date.
The creators wanted session 2 to be a different cast and setting. A bunch of grad students that discovered the upside down. Netflix said no keep the kids they are popular.
So they used the original session 2 ideas for that episode.
Oof
I literally stopped watching because of that episode. It was so absolutely god awful. Maybe I should pick it up again, but eh.
I mean the series did peak in season 1, but season 2 is the worst one by far. If you do pick it up again you'll probably have a better time once you get through the bad parts.
Lost
That's just cheating
Yeah, that’s Lost’s gimmick. You watch it for all the abandoned plot points.
I also watched it for all the promises about what's not happening, that were also abandoned.
I remember there was this interview by daytime soap opera star, and they talked about this character on the show who went up into an attic, and then that character's actor was let go, and the character was never mentioned again.
"As far as I know, (the character's) still up there in that attic..."
Family Matters also had a character who went upstairs and never returned. I think Happy Days did as well.
Careful about going upstairs on TV, apparently.
In Family Matters I think her name was Judy. She was the youngest of the family and did indeed go upstairs and never came back down. I think they made a joke about it in the later seasons.
Heroes abandoned the Irish girl in the deadly virus timeline. It was obviously going to be a plot line and it was never brought up again.
Heroes got effed with by the network. It was supposed to follow a new group of people every season, but they were pressured into bringing back the original cast. Makes me wonder if the abandoned storylines would have been revisited in the original plan.
This particular plot was a victim of the writers strike. They had to wrap everything up quickly in series 2, which led to peter’s girlfriend being left in an alternate future.
Breaking Bad (and, by extension, Better Call Saul). They brought up the idea that Gus Fring had a mysterious past in Chile multiple times like they would eventually reveal who he "really was", and then never did.
You can piece it together that he worked with Pinochet, the German connection is a giveaway. With that you can speculate on CIA connections.
But that's not the sort of thing you'd flat out reveal, its much better kept as speculation. Just flavor.
They did tho? He's a high ranking person in the cartel. He's directly responsible for Salamanca being in the wheelchair.
I get what you're saying tho. They implied he was gonna be this legendary villian and then it's revealed that he's just another cookie cutter cartel member. It seemed like they were gonna go some route like he was a former cartel leader who got disgraced and was now building himself and his empire back up. But it kinda fell flat.
In the flashback when they first pitch Meth to Don Eladio, he tells Gus that he "knows who he really is" but to beware because Gus isn't in Chile anymore. Then when Gus is being interrogated by Hank they ask Gus why there's no records of Gus prior to his emigration from Chile to Mexico. Gus's excuse was that the government was terrieat keeping records, but the comment from Don Eladio implies there was something more to Gus's past before he became involved with the Cartel. It's never been explained afaik
Ok yeah, I remember that. And yes, they completely dropped the ball on explaining that.
What was the mysterious part, I don't remember them talking much about it, other than Gus and his partner moving to Mexico and starting the chicken brothers as a front to selling meth, eventually getting in with the cartel. It seemed pretty cut and dry that Gus' partner was murdered by the cartel and he chose revenge better served cold over 20 years, eventually making sure Hector's life was miserable and killing the rest of the cartel with the poisoned tequila.
The mystery is about what Gus did before coming to Mexico. The show implies he changed his identity, and only Don Eladio knew about it.
The one I think of a lot is The Magicians and the vial of blood that Quintin gave to the Kitchen Witch.
They promised it would pay off, even after it seemed like it wouldn't, but SyFy cancelled the series because they don't let scripted shows run more than 5 seasons.
Twin Peaks.
Like . . . the whole thing.
Some of it's addressed in the books. Sort of.
IMO. Twin Peaks is explained... Just not with words.
I miss David Lynch.
Besides GoT right?
Still pissed...
Not sure if this counts, but in the original run of Arrested Development, they planned on revealing that Tobias is actually an albino black man and setup some good jokes foreshadowing the reveal before dropping it. There's The Man Inside Me cover and this exchange with Lindsay:
Lindsay: "People hear the name Tobias, they think 'big black guy.'"
Tobias: "Well, obviously, I'm not a big guy."
The original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. After they finally defeated Rita and Lord Zedd the kids are back at the command center celebrating with Zordon and Alpha 5 that they've finally beaten them both. They then talk about what to do next as they still had their powers but the big bads were defeated. The kids bring up the fact they maybe they could start doing good in the community and being crime fighters, apprehending regular bad guys and criminals and keeping Angel Grove safe for everyone.
They never did any of that.
Orphan Black. The clones seemed a minor part of whatever Neolution was doing in session 1. By season 2 every tech not clone related is dropped.
In Justice League Unlimited, there was this robot that could mimic superpowers.
His first episode ended with Amazo leaving Earth. He comes back to face his creators, nigh omniscient, but ends up living with Dr Fate, doing a little soul searching and playing chess.
In his final appearance, he runs into 'chaos magic' he doesn't get, panics:
"I will retreat several light-years distant until I can determine how to counter this effect."
And is never seen again, even through apocalypses.
The trope is more: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PutOnABus
With the writers probably thinking "well shit, we have a 'mimic god' crashing on this guy's sofa? Now what? How are we supposed to write villains when he can teleport Darkseid into the sun?" So they dropped Amazo, heh.
...There are probably more hanging threads like that. Superhero cartoons tend to have them.
Note: Poochie died on the way back to his home planet
Partial spoilers for The Man In The High Castle:
The Man In The High Castle had a whole parallel world travel via mediation(?) sub-plot that was never explained because the character who could do it just randomly died. It was built up to be this big thing early on so it was very frustrating that they tried to pretend it never happened after the show was cancelled and they had to rush their final season.
?
spoilers
Julie meditated into the parallel world at the end of S03 and into S04. And that character randomly died because the actor left the show unfortunately.
I don't recall the show ever explaining how it worked, though.
Oh I agree, it wasn't explained (how could it be explained, to be fair) but they didn't drop it is what I mean
Doctor Who has loads, but one that stands out: in Asylum of the Daleks a huge deal is made out of the fact that going forwards the daleks will no longer know who the Doctor is. In the next dalek story, they know who he is, and the fact that they shouldn’t is never mentioned again.
The Expanse dropped a few plot lines, especially in the last season.
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