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Bottle episodes are often produced when a show has a mid-season cliffhanger or an expensive season opener/closer, serving to both allow as much of the budget as possible to go to the more expensive production, and/or to use what money remains in the budget as efficiently as possible. Scott Brazil, executive producer/director of The Shield, described bottle episodes as "the sad little step child whose allowance is docked in order to buy big brother a new pair of sneaks". Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan said that the limited scope of bottle episodes contrasts with and accentuates the dramatic impact of other episodes. The popularity of the Friends bottle episode "The One Where No One's Ready" led the producers to create at least one bottle episode in each subsequent season. Several early episodes of The X-Files were conceived as bottle episodes, including "Space", "Darkness Falls" and the well-received "Ice", although these often ran over budget nevertheless.
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