title: Primary election

text: Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the country and administrative divisions within the country, voters might consist of the general public in what is called an open primary, or solely the members of a political party in what is called a closed primary. In addition to these, there are other variants on primaries (which are discussed below) that are used by many countries holding elections throughout the world.


title: Primary election

text: The origins of primary elections can be traced to the progressive movement in the United States, which aimed to take the power of candidate nomination from party leaders to the people. However, political parties control the method of nomination of candidates for office in the name of the party. Other methods of selecting candidates include caucuses, internal selection by a party body such as a convention or party congress, direct nomination by the party leader, and nomination meetings.


title: Primary election

text: Primary elections are typically held for offices that have a rigid term, such as a president, governor or member of a legislature. Offices such as a prime minister, which can be replaced without recourse to a new election, typically do not have dedicated primaries of their own; rather, the party typically nominates its internal party leader as its candidate for such an office. However, Prime Ministerial primaries have been held in inter-party electoral alliances, such as the 2021 Hungarian opposition primary, and also in cases where a single party opted to retain its leader but select someone else as its Prime Ministerial candidate, as the Portuguese Socialist Party has done in 2014.


title: Primary election

text: The inverse may also happen; the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan automatically bestows the party's internal leadership on a sitting DPP president.


title: Primary election

text: Where primary elections are organized by parties, not the administration, two types of primaries can generally be distinguished:


title: Primary election

text: The direct primary became important in the United States at the state level starting in the 1890s and at the local level in the 1900s. However, presidential nominations depended chiefly on state party conventions until 1972. In 1968, Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination without entering any of the 14 state primaries. The Democrats set up the McGovern–Fraser Commission that rewrote the rules to emphasize primaries, and the Republicans followed suit.


title: Primary election

text: The first primary elections came in the Democratic Party in the South in the 1890s starting in Louisiana in 1892. By 1897 in 11 Southern and border states the Democratic party held primaries to select candidates. Unlike the final election run by government officials, primaries are run by party officials, making it easy to discriminate against black voters in the era of Jim Crow. The US Supreme Court declared the white primary unconstitutional in "Smith v. Allwright" in 1944.


title: Primary election

text: The direct primary was promoted primarily by regular party leaders to obtain more party loyalty. However progressive reformers like Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin also promoted them, Starting in 1890 La Follette led the successful fight, winning voter approval in a referendum in 1904.


title: Primary election

text: The United States is one of a handful of countries to select candidates through popular vote in a primary election system; most other countries rely on party leaders or paid up party members to select candidates, as was previously the case in the U.S. In modern politics, primary elections have been described as a vehicle for taking decision-making from political insiders to the voters, though political science research indicates that the formal party organizations retain significant influence over nomination outcomes. The selection of candidates for federal, state, and local general elections takes place in primary elections organized by the public administration for the general voting public to participate in for the purpose of nominating the respective parties' official candidates; state voters start the electoral process for governors and legislators through the primary process, as well as for many local officials from city councilors to county commissioners. The candidate who moves from the primary to be successful in the general election takes public office.


title: Primary election

text: Primaries can be used in nonpartisan elections to reduce the set of candidates that go on to the general election ("qualifying primary"). (In the U.S., many city, county and school board elections are non-partisan, although often the political affiliations of candidates are commonly known.) In some states and localities, candidates receiving more than 50% of the vote in the primary are automatically elected, without having to run again in the general election. In other states, the primary can narrow the number of candidates advancing to the general election to the top two, while in other states and localities, twice as many candidates as can win in the general election may advance from the primary.


title: Primary election

text: When a qualifying primary is applied to a partisan election, it becomes what is generally known as a blanket or "Louisiana primary": typically, if no candidate wins a majority in the primary, the two candidates receiving the highest pluralities, regardless of party affiliation, go on to a general election that is in effect a run-off. This often has the effect of eliminating minor parties from the general election, and frequently the general election becomes a single-party election. Unlike a plurality voting system, a run-off system meets the Condorcet loser criterion in that the candidate that ultimately wins would not have been beaten in a two-way race with every one of the other candidates.


title: Primary election

text: Because many Washington residents were disappointed over the loss of their blanket primary, which the Washington State Grange helped institute in 1935, the Grange filed Initiative 872 in 2004 to establish a blanket primary for partisan races, thereby allowing voters to once again cross party lines in the primary election. The two candidates with the most votes then advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation. Supporters claimed it would bring back voter choice; opponents said it would exclude third parties and independents from general election ballots, could result in Democratic or Republican-only races in certain districts, and would in fact reduce voter choice. The initiative was put to a public vote in November 2004 and passed. On 15 July 2005, the initiative was found unconstitutional by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the Grange's appeal of the case in October 2007. In March 2009, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Grange-sponsored Top 2 primary, citing a lack of compelling evidence to overturn the voter-approved initiative.


title: Primary election

text: In elections using electoral systems where strategic nomination is a concern, primaries can be very important in preventing "clone" candidates that split their constituency's vote because of their similarities. Primaries allow political parties to select and unite behind one candidate. However, tactical voting is sometimes a concern in non-partisan primaries as members of the opposite party can vote for the weaker candidate in order to face an easier general election.


title: Primary election

text: In California, under Proposition 14 (Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act), a voter-approved referendum, in all races "except" for that for U.S. president and county central committee offices, all candidates running in a primary election regardless of party will appear on a single primary election ballot and voters may vote for any candidate, with the top two vote-getters overall moving on to the general election regardless of party. The effect of this is that it will be possible for two Republicans or two Democrats to compete against each other in a general election if those candidates receive the most primary-election support.


title: Primary election

text: As a result of a federal court decision in Idaho, the 2011 Idaho Legislature passed House Bill 351 implementing a closed primary system.


title: Primary election

text: Oregon was the first American state in which a binding primary election was conducted entirely via the internet. The election was held by the Independent Party of Oregon in July, 2010.


title: Primary election

text: In the United States, Iowa and New Hampshire have drawn attention every four years because they hold the first caucus and primary election, respectively, and often give a candidate the momentum to win their party's nomination. Since 2000, the primary in South Carolina has also become increasingly important as it's the first Southern state to hold a primary election in the calendar year.


title: Primary election

text: A criticism of the current presidential primary election schedule is that it gives undue weight to the few states with early primaries, as those states often build momentum for leading candidates and rule out trailing candidates long before the rest of the country has even had a chance to weigh in, leaving the last states with virtually no actual input on the process. The counterargument to this criticism, however, is that, by subjecting candidates to the scrutiny of a few early states, the parties can weed out candidates who are unfit for office.


title: Primary election

text: The Democratic National Committee (DNC) proposed a new schedule and a new rule set for the 2008 presidential primary elections. Among the changes: the primary election cycle would start nearly a year earlier than in previous cycles, states from the West and the South would be included in the earlier part of the schedule, and candidates who run in primary elections not held in accordance with the DNC's proposed schedule (as the DNC does not have any direct control over each state's official election schedules) would be penalized by being stripped of delegates won in offending states. The "New York Times" called the move, "the biggest shift in the way Democrats have nominated their presidential candidates in 30 years."


title: Primary election

text: Of note regarding the DNC's proposed 2008 presidential primary election schedule is that it contrasted with the Republican National Committee's (RNC) rules regarding presidential primary elections. "No presidential primary, caucus, convention, or other meeting may be held for the purpose of voting for a presidential candidate and/or selecting delegates or alternate delegates to the national convention, prior to the first Tuesday of February in the year in which the national convention is held." In 2024, this date is February .


title: Primary election

text: Candidates for U.S. President who seek their party's nomination participate in primary elections run by state governments, or caucuses run by the political parties. Unlike an election where the only participation is casting a ballot, a caucus is a gathering or "meeting of party members designed to select candidates and propose policies". Both primaries and caucuses are used in the presidential nomination process, beginning in January or February and culminating in the late summer political party conventions. Candidates may earn convention delegates from each state primary or caucus. Sitting presidents generally do not face serious competition from their party.


title: Primary election

text: While it is clear that the closed/semi-closed/semi-open/open classification commonly used by scholars studying primary systems does not fully explain the highly nuanced differences seen from state to state, still, it is very useful and has real-world implications for the electorate, election officials, and the candidates themselves.


title: Primary election

text: As far as the electorate is concerned, the extent of participation allowed to weak partisans and independents depends almost solely on which of the aforementioned categories best describes their state's primary system. Clearly, open and semi-open systems favor this type of voter, since they can choose which primary they vote in on a yearly basis under these models. In closed primary systems, true independents are, for all practical purposes, shut out of the process.


title: Primary election

text: This classification further affects the relationship between primary elections and election commissioners and officials. The more open the system, the greater the chance of raiding, or voters voting in the other party's primary in hopes of getting a weaker opponent chosen to run against a strong candidate in the general election. Raiding has proven stressful to the relationships between political parties, who feel cheated by the system, and election officials, who try to make the system run as smoothly as possible.


title: Primary election

text: Perhaps the most dramatic effect this classification system has on the primary process is its influence on the candidates themselves. Whether a system is open or closed dictates the way candidates run their campaigns. In a closed system, from the time a candidate qualifies to the day of the primary, they tend to have to cater to partisans, who tend to lean to the more extreme ends of the ideological spectrum. In the general election, under the assumptions of the median voter theorem, the candidate must move more towards the center in hopes of capturing a plurality.


title: Primary election

text: In Europe, primaries are not organized by the public administration but by parties themselves. Legislation is mostly silent on primaries. The main reason to this is that the electoral system used to form governments, be it proportional representation or two-round systems, lessens the need for an open primary.


title: Primary election

text: Governments are not involved in the process; however, parties may need their cooperation, notably in the case of an open primary, e.g. to obtain the electoral roll, or to cover the territory with a sufficient number of polling stations.


title: Primary election

text: Whereas closed primaries are rather common within many European countries, few political parties in Europe already opted for open primaries. Parties generally organise primaries to nominate the party leader (leadership election). The underlying reason for that is that most European countries are parliamentary democracies. National governments are derived from the majority in the Parliament, which means that the head of the government is generally the leader of the winning party. France is one exception to this rule.


title: Primary election

text: Closed primaries happen in many European countries, while open primaries have so far only occurred in the socialist and social-democratic parties in Greece and Italy, whereas France's Socialist Party organised the first open primary in France in October 2011.


title: Primary election

text: One of the more recent developments is organizing primaries on the European level. European parties that organized primaries so far were the European Green Party (EGP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES).


title: Primary election

text: Primary election were introduced in Italy to establish the centre-left candidates for 2005 regional election. In that occasion the centre-left The Union coalition held open primaries in order to select candidates for President of Apulia and Calabria. A more politically significant primary was held on 16 October 2005, when The Union asked its voters to decide the candidate for Prime Minister in the 2006 general election: 4,300,000 voters showed up and Romano Prodi won hands down. Two years later, on 14 October 2007, voters of the Democratic Party were called to choose the party leader among a list of six, their representatives to the Constituent Assembly and the local leaders. The primary was a success, involving more than 3,500,000 people across Italy, and gave to the winner Walter Veltroni momentum in a difficult period for the government and the centre-left coalition. The centre-right (see House of Freedoms, The People of Freedom, centre-right coalition and Forza Italia) has never held a primary at the national level, but held some experiments at the very local level.


title: Primary election

text: The means by which the candidate of an established political party is selected has evolved. Until 2012, none of the six Presidents elected through direct election faced a competitive internal election.


title: Primary election

text: In Germany, top candidates for the federal election can be selected in primaries. For party leaders, however, the selection at delegate conferences is required by law. It is, nevertheless, possible to hold a non-binding primary.


title: Primary election

text: The Greens nominated their top candidates for the 2013 federal election (election of Jürgen Trittin and Katrin Göring-Eckardt) and for the 2017 federal election (election of Cem Özdemir and Katrin Göring-Eckardt) in a primary election by all party members (closed primary).


title: Primary election

text: Primary elections are used much more frequently by parties at the regional than at the federal level.


title: Primary election

text: The first party to use a (non-binding) closed primary to select its party leader at the federal level was the SPD in 1993. After the surprising resignation of Andrea Nahles, the SPD held another party primary to determine her successor in 2019. A dual leadership of Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans was elected. The CDU used the procedure for the first time in 2021. Friedrich Merz prevailed against two competitors Norbert Röttgen and Helge Braun in an online ballot of all CDU party members.


title: Primary election

text: The first primaries in the history of Russia were held in May 2000 in St. Petersburg, the local branches of the parties Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, who before the Gubernatorial election offered citizens to choose a single candidate from the democratic opposition.


title: Primary election

text: In 2007, before the parliamentary elections, United Russia held primaries in several regions. However, its results were not sufficiently taken into account when nominating candidates from the party. For example, the congress of United Russia included in the regional party list in the Samara region not the winners of the primaries, but those who did not even participate in the primaries.


title: Primary election

text: In the same year 2007, A Just Russia held the primaries to determine the candidate for the Gubernatorial election in Altai Krai. Anyone could vote for them, for which special items were opened. However, in the future, A Just Russia did not begin to pursue the primaries.


title: Primary election

text: In 2011, United Russia, together with the All-Russian People's Front, held primaries for the nomination of candidates for the parlmentary election. This vote was called the "All-People's Primaries", but in fact it was not. Candidates for the primaries were selected by special committees. Not even all party members had the right to vote, but only about 200,000 specially selected electors. In addition, the results of voting on the primaries were in most cases ignored. Of the 80 lists of regional groups of candidates for the State Duma, nominated by the congress of United Russia, only 8 lists coincided with the lists of winners of the primaries. All the same, the event played a role in the elimination of candidates: there were cases when the current deputies of the State Duma, having seen that they did not enjoy the support of electors, withdrew their candidacies.


title: Primary election

text: In the future, United Russia has sometimes resorted to an "open" model of primaries, which allows voting to all interested voters. In 2014, in the primaries of the "United Russia" before the elections to the Moscow City Duma, any Muscovite could vote, and not only registered electors.


title: Primary election

text: In 2016, the primaries for the selection of candidates for parliamentary elections were held by four parties: United Russia, People's Freedom Party, the Party of Growth and the Green Alliance. The most massive were 22 May 2016 primaries of the United Russia, which could vote for every citizen who has an active electoral right. However, the primaries, as well as earlier, were not binding for the leadership of United Russia: a number of winners of the primaries were withdrawn by the leadership without any explanation of reasons, and in 18 single-seat constituencies the party did not nominate any candidates. A striking example was the Nizhny Tagil constituency, where the candidate from the United Russia was approved candidate, who took the 4th place in the primaries. Finally, a number of candidates were included in the party list on the proposal of the party leader Dmitry Medvedev from among those who did not even participate in the primaries.


title: Primary election

text: In 2017, the Party of Growth holds the primaries for the nomination of candidates for the presidential election. These are the first presidential primaries in the history of Russia. However, voting for candidates will take place via the Internet within three months, and, according to the spokesman of the party, the results of the primaries will not be mandatory for the nomination of the candidate and the party convention may nominate another candidate who does not even participate in the primaries, or even not nominate candidates and support President Vladimir Putin, if he decides to be re-elected.


title: Primary election

text: For the 2010 general election, the Conservative Party used open primaries to select two candidates for Member of Parliament. Further open primaries were used to select some Conservative candidates for the 2015 general election, and there are hopes other parties may nominate future candidates in this way.


title: Primary election

text: A two-round primary election was held in Budapest, Hungary in 2019 between four opposition parties, to select a single candidate to the 2019 Budapest mayoral election. A smaller primary was also held in the district of Ferencváros.


title: Primary election

text: For the 2022 parliamentary elections, the opposition parties organized a primary to select both their candidates for MPs and prime minister.


title: Primary election

text: With a view to the European elections, many European political parties consider organising a presidential primary.


title: Primary election

text: Indeed, the Lisbon treaty, which entered into force in December 2009, lays down that the outcome of elections to the European Parliament must be taken into account in selecting the President of the Commission; the Commission is in some respects the executive branch of the EU and so its president can be regarded as the EU prime minister. Parties are therefore encouraged to designate their candidates for Commission president ahead of the next election in 2014, in order to allow voters to vote with a full knowledge of the facts. Many movements are now asking for primaries to designate these candidates.


title: Primary election

text: The European think-tank Notre Europe also evokes the idea that European political parties should designate their candidate for Vice-President/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs. This would lead European parties to have "presidential tickets" on the American model.


title: Primary election

text: Finally, the European Parliament envisaged to introduce a requirement for internal democracy in the regulation on the statute of European political parties. European parties would therefore have to involve individual members in the major decisions such as designating the presidential candidate.


title: Primary election

text: As in Europe, nomination meetings and leadership elections (somewhat similar to primary elections) in Canada are not organized by the public administration but by parties themselves. Political parties participate in federal elections to the House of Commons, in legislative elections in all ten provinces, and in Yukon. (The legislatures and elections in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are non-partisan.)


title: Primary election

text: Typically, in the months before an anticipated general election, local riding associations of political parties in each electoral district will schedule and announce a Nomination Meeting (similar to a nominating caucus in the United States). Would-be candidates will then file nomination papers with the association, and usually will devote time to solicit existing party members, and to sign up new party members who will also support them at the nomination meeting. At the meeting, typically each candidate will speak, and then members in attendance will vote. The electoral system most often used is an exhaustive ballot system; if no candidate has over 50% of the votes, the candidate with the lowest number of votes will be dropped and another ballot will be held. Also, other candidates who recognize that they will probably not win may withdraw between ballots, and may "throw their support" to (encourage their own supporters to vote for) another candidate. After the nomination meeting, the candidate and the association will obtain approval from party headquarters, and file the candidate's official nomination papers and necessary fees and deposits with Elections Canada or the provincial/territorial election commissions as appropriate.


title: Primary election

text: At times, party headquarters may overturn an association's chosen candidate; for example, if any scandalous information about the candidate comes to light after the nomination. A party headquarters may also "parachute" a prominent candidate into an easy-to-win riding, removing the need to have a nomination meeting. These situations only come up infrequently, as they tend to cause disillusionment among a party's supporters.


title: Primary election

text: Canadian political parties also organize their own elections of party leaders. Not only will the party leader run for a seat in their own chosen riding, they will also become Prime Minister (in a federal election) or Premier (in a province or territory) should their party win the most seats. Thus, a leadership election is also considered to be one for the party's de facto candidate for Prime Minister or Premier. If the party wins the second-most seats, the party leader will become Leader of the Official Opposition; if the party comes third or lower but maintains official party status, the leader will still be recognized as the leader of their party, and will be responsible for co-ordinating the activities and affairs of their party's caucus in the legislature.


title: Primary election

text: In the past, Canadian political parties chose party leaders through an American-style delegated leadership convention. Local riding associations would choose delegates, usually in a manner similar to how they would choose a candidate for election. These delegates typically said explicitly which leadership candidate they would support. Those delegates, as well as other delegates ("e.g." sitting party members of Parliament or the legislature, or delegates from party-affiliated organizations such as labor unions in the case of the New Democratic Party), would then vote, again using the exhaustive ballot method, until a leader was chosen. Some provincial political parties retain the delegated convention format.


title: Primary election

text: Lately, Canada's major political parties have moved to a "one member, one vote" system for their federal leadership elections. A leadership convention is still scheduled, but all party members have a chance to vote for the new leader. Typically, members may vote either in person at the convention, online, or through a mail-in ballot.


title: Primary election

text: Instant-runoff voting is used in whole or in part to elect the leaders of the three largest federal political parties in Canada: the Liberal Party of Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada, and the New Democratic Party, albeit the New Democratic Party uses a mixture of IRV and exhaustive voting, allowing each member to choose one format or the other for their vote (as was used in their 2017 leadership election). In 2013, members of the Liberal Party of Canada elected Justin Trudeau as party leader through IRV in a national leadership election. The Conservative Party used IRV (where each of the party's 338 riding associations are weighted equally, regardless of how many members voted in each riding) to elect Erin O'Toole as party leader in 2020, Andrew Scheer in 2017, and Stephen Harper in 2004.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: The Weeping Woman (French: La Femme qui pleure) is a series of oil on canvas paintings by Pablo Picasso, the last of which was created in late 1937. The paintings depict Dora Maar, Picasso's mistress and muse. "The Weeping Woman" paintings were produced by Picasso in response to the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War and are closely associated with the iconography in his painting "Guernica". Picasso was intrigued with the subject of the weeping woman, and revisited the theme numerous times that year. The last version, created on 26 October 1937, was the most elaborate of the series, and has been housed in the collection of the Tate Modern in London since 1987. Another Weeping Woman painting is housed at the National Gallery of Victoria and was involved in a high-profile political art theft.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Picasso created "The Weeping Woman" during the Spanish Civil War, which broke out in July 1936, when General Franco revolted against the Republican government. It was part of a series of works in response to the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War on 26 April 1937. The bombing took place when Adolf Hitler ordered the German airforce to bomb the Basque town on behalf of Franco. The painting was a personal protest after seeing newspaper photographs of the event.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: In January 1937, Picasso had been asked to produce a mural for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition. While he was working on the commission, the bombing of Guernica occurred. Picasso was so shocked by the massacre that he stated in the "Springfield Republican" on 18 July 1937, "In the panel on which I am working, which I shall call Guernica, and in all my recent works of art, I clearly express my abhorrence of the military caste which has sunk Spain in an ocean of pain and death". The "Weeping Woman" series has been described as a postscript to "Guernica."


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Picasso's protest against the Franco regime began with his creation of two etchings in January 1937, titled "The Dream and Lie of Franco". The work was accompanied by a prose poem, written by Picasso on 8 and 9 January 1937, which features imagery of women weeping and was a precursor to his visual representation of the weeping woman as a symbol for the suffering of Spain under Franco...cries of children cries of women cries of birds cries of flowers cries of timbers and of stones cries of bricks cries of furniture of beds and chairs of curtains of pots of cats and of papers cries of odors which claw at one another cries of smoke pricking the shoulder of the cries which strew in the cauldron and of the rain of birds which inundates the sea which gnaws the bone and breaks its teeth biting the cotton wool which the sun mops up from the plate which the purse and the pocket hide in the print which the foot leaves in the rock.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: During the creation of "Guernica", Picasso made his first studies of a weeping woman on 24 May 1937, however, it was not to be included in the composition of "Guernica". An image of the weeping woman was inserted in the lower right of the painting, but this was removed by Picasso, who considered that it would upstage the agonised expressions of the four women in the painting. Picasso's aim in producing "Guernica" was to portray the immediate shock and horror of the destruction, rather than the tears of mourning that would arise in the aftermath.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Following the completion of "Guernica", Picasso continued with his obsession for the weeping woman. Judi Freeman remarked that, "The one motif he could not relinquish was that of the weeping woman. Her visage haunted him. He drew her frequently, almost obsessively, for the next several months. She was the metaphor for his private agonies". Between 8 June and 6 July 1937, Picasso produced a dozen drawings and four oil paintings depicting the weeping woman. After returning from a summer holiday in Mougins, he completed the last "The Weeping Woman" painting on 26 October 1937. In total, 36 works depicting the weeping woman have been identified, executed between May and the end of October 1937.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Picasso met Dora Maar in the winter of 1935. The poet Paul Éluard introduced Picasso to Maar while she was working as a photographer on Jean Renoir's film "Le Crime de Monsieur Lange". Although he was 26 years older than Maar, they were drawn together by a shared connection of art and politics. Maar pursued a career as a photographer and became involved in the Surrealist movement. She was Picasso's mistress until their breakup in 1945. It was Maar who documented Picasso's painting of "Guernica" by taking photographs of its development. Dora Maar was politically aware, articulate and persuasive, and may have had influence on Picasso's own political views. She was responsible for arranging the use of the studio on 7 rue des Grands Augustins, where Picasso created "Guernica" and also contributed to its development. Picasso first drew her portrait on 11 September 1936. She became his main model between the autumn of 1936 and spring of 1937. Picasso portrayed her as a tranquil figure until his creation of the weeping women paintings, which displayed a noticeable change in his approach to her.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Despite their shared interests, Picasso's relationship with Maar was abusive, with Maar being the victim of physical violence, which eventually contributed to her breakdown. Picasso portrayed Maar in numerous portraits during their time together, often depicting her in tears, a motif that would lead to her being primarily known as his "weeping woman", rather than as an artist in her own right. Maar disliked the portraits that Picasso created of her, stating, "All (Picasso’s) portraits of me are lies. They're Picassos. Not one is Dora Maar".


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Dora has been described as "Picasso's emblematic victim". Françoise Gilot related that Picasso had said, "For me she's the weeping woman. For years I've painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me". John Richardson offered a more realistic interpretation of Dora's tears. "The source of Dora's tears was not Franco, but the artist's traumatic manipulation of her. Picasso's obsession with her had intensified [at that time], but to judge by the artist's portrayals of her, it precluded tenderness." Françoise Gilot described Maar as, "by nature nervous, anxious and tormented", who suffered from emotional vulnerability and frequent upsets in this period. Picasso explained that, "Dora m'a toujours fait peur" and portrayed her in this manner on numerous occasions from 1938. Maar later admitted that Picasso probably drew his inspiration from her sadness.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: There are four oil painting versions of "The Weeping Woman", all painted between September and October, 1937, as well as a range of drawings on the subject. The most famous painting is held in the Tate Gallery in London. A second version, said by some to be the next best, is held by the National Gallery of Victoria. Another version is held at the LA County Museum of Art and the fourth version is held at Musee Picasso.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: The final version of Picasso's 1937 "The Weeping Woman" is an abstract portrait of a grief-stricken woman. It is an oil painting on canvas measuring 61 x 50 cm and is signed 'Picasso 37' near the centre on the right edge. It is one of a series of artworks based on the theme of a woman weeping, which Picasso created while producing "Guernica". The composition of this painting is highly stylised. Picasso used bright colours and bold lines to convey the figure in a complex series of angular shapes and planes. Despite its abstract nature, the model for this portrait can be identified as Dora Maar, Picasso's lover"."


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Roland Penrose commented on the use of colour in the painting in his biography of Picasso: "The result of using colour in a manner so totally unassociated with grief, for a face in which sorrow is evident in every line, is highly disconcerting. As though the tragedy had arrived without warning."


title: The Weeping Woman

text: The face of the weeping woman can be traced directly to the tortured figures depicted in "Guernica". In particular, the weeping woman continues the theme of mourning that can be seen in the image of the screaming woman holding a dead baby in "Guernica". Picasso created various versions of the woman's face throughout his series of paintings, with the woman depicted in endless tears and sometimes twisted beyond recognition.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: "The Weeping Woman" has been described as the most complex, most fragmented and most highly coloured of all the weeping women artworks. In addition to the confused mass of hands, mouth, teeth, handkerchief and tears in the centre of the painting, Picasso also depicted the eyes with great analytical attention. The Tate draws particular attention to the childlike but striking rendition of the eyes, which have been depicted like boats or overflowing saucers and have been placed on the peaks of the handkerchief to provide an intense exploration of physical and emotional distress. This element was expressed in earlier works that Picasso produced in the same year, which was most intense between 12 and 18 October 1937. The earlier paintings also featured the symbol of the handkerchief within the composition.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: The architecture of the weeping woman's face is very distinctive and shares many design elements with the four female figures depicted in "Guernica". The face is portrayed from mixed viewpoints, with the nose in profile, the mouth shown in three-quarters view and the eyes viewed from the front. This treatment of the face is echoed in the faces of the "Guernica" women. However, "The Weeping Woman" is distinct from these figures in the way that Picasso used cubist forms of fragmentation to depict the face in a series of angular planes, rather than the flat, curvilinear images in "Guernica".


title: The Weeping Woman

text: The image of Picasso's weeping woman has been interpreted in a variety of ways. The symbolism of women suffering has been directly associated with the suffering of Spain that prevails in the iconography of "Guernica". For Picasso, the image of the woman with the dead child represented the reality of the civil war, which had been covered in the French media with images of mothers and children in distress. In addition, the French Popular Front had used such photographs to protest against the conflict in 1936.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: A further interpretation of the painting is that the woman illustrates the Christian motif of the Virgin Mary mourning her dead son, Jesus Christ. This was a particularly prominent theme in Baroque Spanish religious art. Although Picasso was an atheist, John Richardson considered that his art made references to religious themes. Marilyn McCully opined that the weeping woman works are related to the Mater Dolorosa, Our Lady of Sorrows stating, "In their essence as images of art, their emotional power lies in their origins among the painted wood, life-sized statues of the Madonna carried in Spain in religious processions, whose tears are jewels that sparkle as they run down their cheeks, and whose garments are real lace, velvets and silver - at once real and other worldly".


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Christie's describes the weeping woman as a more generic victim and witness to the destruction.She is moreover a universal figure not attached to any single event nor even to her cataclysmic century as a whole - she is the timelessly universal messenger of unfathomable and inconsolable human sorrow, the bearer of an elemental emotion that is as miraculously and beautifully human to contemplate as it is disturbing to behold.Jonathan Jones for "The Guardian" noted that the painting demonstrates both hope and fury. Picasso's biographer, Roland Penrose, who was the previous owner, considered it to be an illustration of optimism, perhaps depicting the healing power of mourning. In evidence of this, Jones pointed to elements of the painting, such as the flower in the woman's hat, the river of her flowing hair and the transformation of her right ear into a bird sipping her tear, a possible representation of new life.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Picasso sold the painting to Roland Penrose on 9 or 10 November 1937. Penrose then gave the painting to Antony Penrose in 1963. The artwork was stolen in 1969 but recovered. It was then placed on long-term loan at the Tate. It was subsequently accepted by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue in lieu of tax in 1987. It is now part of Tate Liverpool's permanent collection.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: On 7 April 1969, "The Weeping Woman", alongside 25 other paintings, was stolen from the Penrose home at Hornton Street, London. The theft received a great deal of publicity and was discussed by Roland Penrose on BBC's 24 Hours programme on 8 April 1969. Penrose was quoted in the "Daily Mirror" stating, "My most prized picture was a Picasso called "A Woman Weeping" which I bought just after he painted it. It must be worth between £60,000 and £80,000. It was my most treasured possession. I bought it when the paint was still wet." He informed Picasso of the theft on 9 April by writing, describing the theft as an "appalling disaster". The paintings were eventually recovered by labourers at a house that was due to be demolished in Ealing, London, in July. When Penrose was reunited with the paintings at Chelsea Police Station he almost wept. The theft caused the family to rethink their security arrangements and this led to the painting being offered on loan to the Tate.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: "The Weeping Woman" has been described as "an iconic work within the history of British Surrealism". It was displayed at the Whitechapel Gallery in a major exhibition of Surrealist artworks in 1937. Later, in 1939, it was displayed alongside "Guernica" in London and Brighton. Frances Morris, Head of Collections at Tate Modern has described it as "a highlight of Surrealism" and "an amazing depiction of female grief and a metaphor for the tragedy of Spain. It was painted during the Spanish Civil War as one of a series made in response to the tragedy of Guernica. It powerfully captures an immense moment of sadness."


title: The Weeping Woman

text: Another version of the Weeping Woman, created on 18 October 1937, is held by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). It measures 55.2 × 46.2 cm and was purchased by the gallery in 1986 for , the most expensive painting purchased by any gallery in Australia, the previous record held by Blue Poles, which cost the Australian National Gallery in 1974.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: The purchase was controversial because of its very high price tag, with some local artists complaining that the money could have been spent more productively on Australian art. The small size of the painting added to the controversy, seemingly highlighting the large expenditure. At the time, the painting was compared to "Blue Poles", but that was a large painting, so it highlighted the high cost of The Weeping Woman, which was a relatively small piece. In 2016, the NGV version of the Weeping Woman was valued by Sotheby's at $100 million.


title: The Weeping Woman

text: This version was the subject of a high-profile art heist in August 1986, being stolen from the NGV specifically to make a political statement about the funding of art purchases in Australia. The theft made Australian and international news. The thieves left a note listing their demands, which included an increase in the funding of the arts. There was an extensive police hunt, which failed to find the painting. Later the same month, it was retrieved from a railway station locker in Melbourne. The thieves were never discovered, though various theories have persisted over the years about who it might have been, and as to whether it was an inside job.


title: Denarius

text: The denarius (, dēnāriī ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the antoninianus. It continued to be minted in very small quantities, likely for ceremonial purposes, until and through the Tetrarchy (293–313).


title: Denarius

text: The word "dēnārius" is derived from the Latin "dēnī" "containing ten", as its value was originally of 10 assēs. The word for "money" descends from it in Italian ("denaro"), Slovene ("denar"), Portuguese ("dinheiro"), and Spanish ("dinero"). Its name also survives in the dinar currency.


title: Denarius

text: Its symbol is represented in Unicode as 𐆖 (U+10196), a numeral monogram that appeared on the obverse in the Republican period, denoting the 10 asses ("X") to 1 denarius ("I") conversion rate. However it can also be represented as X̶ (capital letter X with combining long stroke overlay).


title: Denarius

text: A predecessor of the "denarius" was first struck in 269 or 268 BC, five years before the First Punic War, with an average weight of 6.81 grams, or of a Roman pound. Contact with the Greeks had prompted a need for silver coinage in addition to the bronze currency that the Romans were using at that time. This predecessor of the "denarius" was a Greek-styled silver coin of "didrachm" weight, which was struck in Neapolis and other Greek cities in southern Italy. These coins were inscribed with a legend that indicated that they were struck for Rome, but in style they closely resembled their Greek counterparts. They were rarely seen at Rome, to judge from finds and hoards, and were probably used either to buy supplies or pay soldiers.


title: Denarius

text: The first distinctively Roman silver coin appeared around 226 BC. Classical historians have sometimes called these coins "heavy denarii", but they are classified by modern numismatists as "quadrigati", a term which survives in one or two ancient texts and is derived from the quadriga, or four-horse chariot, on the reverse. This, with a two-horse chariot or "biga" which was used as a reverse type for some early denarii, was the prototype for the most common designs used on Roman silver coins for a number of years.


title: Denarius

text: Rome overhauled its coinage shortly before 211 BC, and introduced the denarius alongside a short-lived denomination called the victoriatus. The denarius contained an average 4.5 grams, or of a Roman pound, of silver, and was at first tariffed at ten asses, hence its name, which means 'tenner'. It formed the backbone of Roman currency throughout the Roman Republic and the early Empire.


title: Denarius

text: The denarius began to undergo slow debasement toward the end of the republican period. Under the rule of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14) its weight fell to 3.9 grams (a theoretical weight of of a Roman pound). It remained at nearly this weight until the time of Nero (AD 37–68), when it was reduced to of a pound, or 3.4 grams. Debasement of the coin's silver content continued after Nero. Later Roman emperors also reduced its weight to 3 grams around the late 3rd century.


title: Denarius

text: The value at its introduction was 10 asses, giving the denarius its name, which translates as "containing ten". In about 141 BC, it was re-tariffed at 16 asses, to reflect the decrease in weight of the as. The denarius continued to be the main coin of the Roman Empire until it was replaced by the antoninianus in the early 3rd century AD. The coin was last issued, in bronze, under Aurelian between AD 270 and 275, and in the first years of the reign of Diocletian. ('Denarius', in "A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins", by John R. Melville-Jones (1990)).


title: Denarius

text: 1 gold aureus = 2 gold quinarii = 25 silver denarii = 50 silver quinarii = 100 bronze sestertii = 200 bronze dupondii = 400 copper asses = 800 copper semisses = 1,600 copper quadrantes


title: Denarius

text: It is difficult to give even rough comparative values for money from before the 20th century, as the range of products and services available for purchase was so different. During the republic (509 BC–27 BC), a legionary earned 112.5 denarii per year (0.3 denarii per day). Under Julius Caesar, this was doubled to 225 denarii/yr, with soldiers having to pay for their own food and arms, while in the reign of Augustus a Centurion received at least 3,750 denarii per year, and for the highest rank, 15,000 denarii.


title: Denarius

text: By the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire (), a common soldier or unskilled laborer would be paid 1 denarius/day (with no tax deductions), around 300% inflation compared to the early period. Using the cost of bread as a baseline, this pay equates to around US$20 in 2013 terms. Expressed in terms of the price of silver, and assuming 0.999 purity, a troy ounce denarius had a precious metal value of around US$2.60 in 2021.


title: Denarius

text: At the height of the Roman Empire a sextarius (546ml or about 2 1/4 cups) of ordinary wine cost roughly one Dupondius (⅛ of a Denarius), after Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices were issued in AD 301, the same item cost 8 debased common denarii – 6,400% inflation.


title: Denarius

text: Silver content plummeted across the lifespan of the denarius. Under the Roman Empire (after Nero) the denarius contained approximately 50 grains, 3.24 grams, or (0.105ozt) troy ounce. The fineness of the silver content varied with political and economic circumstances. From a purity of greater than 90% silver in the 1st century AD, the denarius fell to under 60% purity by AD 200, and plummeted to 5% purity by AD 300. By the reign of Gallienus, the "antoninianus" was a copper coin with a thin silver wash.


title: Denarius

text: In the final years of the 1st century BC Tincomarus, a local ruler in southern Britain, started issuing coins that appear to have been made from melted down "denarii". The coins of Eppillus, issued around Calleva Atrebatum around the same time, appear to have derived design elements from various "denarii" such as those of Augustus and M. Volteius.


title: Denarius

text: Even after the "denarius" was no longer regularly issued, it continued to be used as a unit of account, and the name was applied to later Roman coins in a way that is not understood. The Arabs who conquered large parts of the land that once belonged to the Eastern Roman Empire issued their own gold dinar. The lasting legacy of the "denarius" can be seen in the use of "d" as the abbreviation for the British penny until 1971. It also survived in France as the name of a coin, the denier. The denarius also survives in the common Arabic name for a currency unit, the "dinar" used from pre-Islamic times, and still used in several modern Arab nations. The major currency unit in former Principality of Serbia, Kingdom of Serbia and former Yugoslavia was "dinar", and it is still used in present-day Serbia. The Macedonian currency "denar" is also derived from the Roman denarius. The Italian word "denaro", the Spanish word "dinero", the Portuguese word "dinheiro", and the Slovene word "", all meaning money, are also derived from Latin "denarius". The pre-decimal currency of the United Kingdom until 1970 of pounds, shillings and pence was abbreviated as lsd, with "d" referring to denarius and standing for penny.


title: Denarius

text: In the New Testament, the gospels refer to the denarius as a day's wage for a common laborer (Matthew 20:2, John 12:5). In the Book of Revelation, during the Third Seal: Black Horse, a choinix ("quart") of wheat and three quarts of barley were each valued at one denarius. Bible scholar Robert H. Mounce says the price of the wheat and barley as described in the vision appears to be ten to twelve times their normal cost in ancient times. Revelation thus describes a condition where basic goods are sold at greatly inflated prices. Thus, the black horse rider depicts times of deep scarcity or famine, but not of starvation. Apparently, a choinix of wheat was the daily ration of one adult. Thus, in the conditions pictured by Revelation 6, the normal income for a working-class family would buy enough food for only one person. The less costly barley would feed three people for one day's wages.


title: Denarius

text: The denarius is also mentioned in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). The Render unto Caesar passage in Matthew 22:15–22 and Mark 12:13–17 uses the word (δηνάριον) to describe the coin held up by Jesus, translated in the King James Bible as "tribute penny". It is commonly thought to be a denarius with the head of Tiberius.


title: Home Office

text: The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is a ministerial department of His Majesty's Government, responsible for immigration, security, and law and order. As such, it is responsible for policing in England and Wales, fire and rescue services in England, visas and immigration, and the Security Service (MI5). It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs, counter-terrorism, and ID cards. It was formerly responsible for His Majesty's Prison Service and the National Probation Service, but these have been transferred to the Ministry of Justice.


title: Home Office

text: The Cabinet minister responsible for the department is the Home Secretary, a post considered one of the Great Offices of State; it has been held since October 2022 by Rt Hon Suella Braverman MP. The Home Office is managed from day to day by a civil servant, the Permanent Under-Secretary of State of the Home Office.


title: Home Office

text: The expenditure, administration and policy of the Home Office are scrutinised by the Home Affairs Select Committee.


title: Home Office

text: The Home Office is headed by the Home Secretary, a Cabinet minister supported by the department's senior civil servant, the permanent secretary.


title: Home Office

text: A number of functions of the National Policing Improvement Agency were transferred to the Home Office in October 2012, ahead of the future abolition of the agency.


title: Home Office

text: The Home Office outsources a number of contractors to handle specific duties relating to its mission.


title: Home Office

text: The Department outlined its aims for this Parliament in its Business Plan, which was published in May 2011, and superseded its Structural Reform Plan. The plan said the department will:


title: Home Office

text: On , the Home Office was formed by renaming the existing Southern Department, with all existing staff transferring. On the same day, the Northern Department was renamed the Foreign Office.


title: Home Office

text: To match the new names, there was a transferring of responsibilities between the two Departments of State. All domestic responsibilities (including colonies) were moved to the Home Office, and all foreign matters became the concern of the Foreign Office.


title: Home Office

text: Most subsequently created domestic departments (excluding, for instance, those dealing with education) have been formed by splitting responsibilities away from the Home Office.


title: Home Office

text: The Home Office retains a variety of functions that have not found a home elsewhere and sit oddly with the main law-and-order focus of the department, such as regulation of British Summer Time.


title: Home Office

text: On 18 July 2012, the Public and Commercial Services Union announced that thousands of Home Office employees would go on strike over jobs, pay and other issues. The union called off the strike; it claimed the department had, consequent to the threat of actions, announced 1,100 new border jobs.


title: Home Office

text: The first allegations about the unfair targeting of pre-1973 Caribbean migrants started in 2013. In 2018, the allegations were put to the Home Secretary in the House of Commons, and resulted in the resignation of the then Home Secretary. The Windrush scandal resulted in some British citizens being wrongly deported, and being refused life critical medical treatment, along with a further compensation scheme for those affected, and a wider debate on the Home Office hostile environment policy.


title: Home Office

text: Aderonke Apata, a Nigerian LGBT activist, made two asylum claims that were both rejected by the Home Office in 2014 and on 1 April 2015 respectively, due to her previously having been in a relationship with a man and having children with that man. In 2014, Apata said that she would send an explicit video of herself to the Home Office to prove her sexuality. This resulted in her asylum bid gaining widespread support, with multiple petitions created in response, which gained hundreds of thousands of signatures combined.


title: Home Office

text: On 8 August 2017, after a thirteen-year legal battle and after a new appeal from Apata was scheduled for late July, she was granted refugee status in the United Kingdom by the Home Office.


title: Home Office

text: Until 1978, the Home Office had its offices in what is now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Main Building on King Charles Street, off Whitehall. From 1978 to 2004, the Home Office was then located at 50 Queen Anne's Gate, a Brutalist office block in Westminster designed by Sir Basil Spence, close to St James's Park tube station. Many functions, however, were devolved to offices in other parts of London, and the country, notably the headquarters of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Croydon.


title: Home Office

text: In 2005, the Home Office moved to a new main office designed by Sir Terry Farrell at 2 Marsham Street, Westminster, on the site of the demolished Marsham Towers building of the Department of the Environment.


title: Home Office

text: For external shots of its fictional Home Office, the TV series "Spooks" uses an aerial shot of the Government Offices Great George Street instead, serving as stand-in to match the distinctly less modern appearance of the fictitious accommodation interiors the series uses.


title: Home Office

text: To meet the UK's five-year science and technology strategy, the Home Office sponsors research in police sciences, including:


title: Home Office

text: Most front-line law and order policy areas, such as policing and criminal justice, are devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland (and only very partially in Wales), but the following reserved and excepted matters are handled by Westminster.


title: Home Office

text: The following matters were not transferred at the devolution of policing and justice on 12 April 2010, and remain reserved:


title: Home Office

text: The Department of Justice is accountable to the Northern Ireland Executive, whereas the Northern Ireland Office is a UK government department.


title: Home Office

text: The Scottish Government Justice and Communities Directorates are responsible for devolved justice and home affairs policy.


title: Home Office

text: In March 2019, it was reported that in two unrelated cases, the Home Office denied asylum to converted Christians by misrepresenting certain Bible quotes. In one case, it quoted selected excerpts from the Bible to imply that Christianity is not more peaceful than Islam, the religion the asylum-seeker converted from. In another incident, an Iranian Christian application for asylum was rejected because her faith was judged as "half-hearted", for she did not believe that Jesus could protect her from the Iranian regime. As outrage grew on social media, the Home Office distanced itself from the decision, though it confirmed the letter was authentic. The Home Secretary said that it was "totally unacceptable" for his department to quote the Bible to question an Iranian Christian convert's asylum application, and ordered an urgent investigation into what had happened.


title: Home Office

text: The treatment of Christian asylum seekers chimes with other incidents in the past, such as the refusal to grant visas to the Archbishop of Mosul to attend the consecration of the UK's first Syriac Orthodox Cathedral. In a 2017 study, the Christian Barnabas Fund found that only 0.2% of all Syrian refugees accepted by the UK were Christians, although Christians accounted for approximately 10% of Syria's pre-war population.


title: Home Office

text: In 2019, the Home Office admitted to multiple breaches of data protection regulations in the handling of its Windrush compensation scheme. The department sent emails to Windrush migrants which revealed the email address of other Windrush migrants to whom the email was sent. The data breach concerned five different emails, each of which was sent to 100 recipients. In April 2019, the Home Office admitted to revealing 240 personal email addresses of EU citizens applying for settled status in the UK. The email addresses of applicants were incorrectly sent to other applicants to the scheme. In response to these incidents, the Home Office pledged to launch an independent review of its data protection compliance.


title: Home Office

text: In 2019, the Court of Appeal issued a judgement which criticised the Home Office's handling of immigration cases. The judges stated that the "general approach [by the home secretary, Sajid Javid] in all earnings discrepancy cases [has been] legally flawed". The judgement relates to the Home Office's interpretation of Section 322(5) of the Immigration Rules.


title: Home Office

text: In November 2020, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a statutory body that investigates breaches of the Equality Act 2010 published a report concluding that the Home Office had a "lack of organisation-wide commitment, including by senior leadership, to the importance of equality and the Home Office's obligations under the equality duty placed on government departments". The report noted that the Home Office's pursuit of the "hostile environment" policy from 2012 onwards "accelerated the impact of decades of complex policy and practice based on a history of white and black immigrants being treated differently". Caroline Waters, the interim chair of the EHRC, described the treatment of Windrush immigrants by the Home Office as a "shameful stain on British history".


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Written by Shigesato Itoi, published by Nintendo, and featuring game mechanics modeled on the "Dragon Quest" series, "Mother" is known for its sense of humor, originality, and parody. The player uses weapons and psychic powers to fight hostile enemies, which include animated everyday objects, aliens and brainwashed people. Signature elements of the series include a lighthearted approach to plot, battle sequences with psychedelic backgrounds, and the "rolling HP meter": player health ticks down like an odometer rather than instantly being subtracted, allowing the player to take preventative action, such as healing or finishing the battle, before the damage is fully dealt. While the franchise is popular in Japan, in the Anglosphere it is best associated with the cult following behind "EarthBound".


title: Mother (video game series)

text: While visiting Nintendo for other business, Itoi approached Shigeru Miyamoto about making "Mother". When approved for a sequel, Itoi increased his involvement in the design process over the five-year development of "EarthBound". When the project began to flounder, producer and later Nintendo president Satoru Iwata rescued the game. "EarthBound" English localizers were given great liberties when translating the Japanese game's cultural allusions. The American version sold poorly despite a multimillion-dollar marketing budget. "Mother 3" was originally slated for release on the Nintendo 64 and its 64DD disk drive accessory, but was cancelled in 2000. Three years later, the project was reannounced for the Game Boy Advance alongside a rerelease of "Mother" and "Mother 2" in the combined cartridge "Mother 1 + 2". "Mother 3" abandoned the 3D graphics progress for a 2D style, and became a bestseller upon its release. "EarthBound" was rereleased for the Wii U Virtual Console in 2013, and "Mother" received its English-language debut for the same platform in 2015, retitled "EarthBound Beginnings". In 2022, Nintendo released "Mother 1" and "2" to their Nintendo Switch Online service.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "EarthBound" is widely regarded as a video game classic, and is included in multiple top-ten lists. In absence of continued official support for the series, members of the "EarthBound" fan community organized online to advocate for further series releases through petitions and fan art. Their projects include a full fan translation of "Mother 3", a full-length documentary, and a fangame sequel-turned-spiritual successor called "Oddity". Ness, the protagonist of "EarthBound", received exposure from his inclusion in all five entries of the "Super Smash Bros." series. Other "Mother" series locations and characters have made appearances in the fighting games.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: While visiting Nintendo for other work, celebrity copywriter Shigesato Itoi pitched to the company's lead designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, his idea for a role-playing game set in modern times. The contemporary setting worked against role-playing genre norms, and while Miyamoto liked the idea, he was hesitant until Itoi could show full commitment to the project. Itoi reduced his workload, formed a team, and began development in Ichikawa, Chiba. Nintendo tried to accommodate Itoi's ideal work environment to feel more like an extracurricular club of volunteers. Itoi wrote the game's script. The game, titled "Mother", was developed by Ape, published by Nintendo, and released in Japan on July 27, 1989, for the Famicom (known as the Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan). The game was slated for an English-language localization as "Earth Bound", but was abandoned when the team chose to localize "Mother 2" instead. Years later, the complete localization was recovered by the public and distributed on the Internet, where it became known as "EarthBound Zero". "Mother" received its English language debut in June 2015 as "EarthBound Beginnings" for the Wii U Virtual Console.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "Mother" is a single-player role-playing video game set in a "slightly offbeat", late 20th-century United States (as interpreted by Itoi). Unlike its Japanese role-playing game contemporaries, "Mother" is not set in a fantasy genre. The player fights in warehouses and laboratories instead of in dungeons and similar fantasy settings, and battles are fought with baseball bats and psychic abilities instead of swords and magic. "Mother" follows the young Ninten as he uses psychic powers to fight hostile, formerly inanimate objects and other enemies. The game uses random encounters to enter a menu-based, first-person perspective battle system.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "Mother 2" was made with a development team different from that of the original game, and most of its members were unmarried and willing to work through nights on the project. Itoi again wrote the game's script and served as a designer. The game's five-year development exceeded time estimates and came under repeated threat of cancellation. It was in dire straits until producer Satoru Iwata joined the team. "Mother 2" was developed by Ape and HAL, published by Nintendo, and released in Japan's Super Famicom on August 27, 1994. The game was translated into English for North American audiences whereupon it became the only "Mother" series game to be released in North America until the later localization of "Mother" as "EarthBound Beginnings". The localizers were given liberties to translate the Japanese script's cultural allusions to Western audiences as they pleased, and symbolism was also modified between the versions to adapt to Western sensitivities. To avoid confusion about the series' numbering, its English title was changed to "EarthBound", and was released on June 5, 1995, for the North American Super Nintendo Entertainment System.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Though Nintendo spent about $2 million on marketing, the American release was ultimately viewed as unsuccessful within Nintendo. "EarthBound" was released when role-playing games were not popular in the United States, and visual taste in role-playing games was closer to "Chrono Trigger" and "Final Fantasy VI". "EarthBound"s atypical "this game stinks" marketing campaign was derived from the game's unusual humor and included foul-smelling scratch and sniff advertisements. "1UP.com" called the campaign "infamously ill-conceived". Between the poor sales and the dwindling support for the Super NES, the game did not receive a European release.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: The "Mother" series titles are built on what Itoi considered "reckless wildness", where he would offer ideas that encouraged his staff to contribute new ways of portraying scenes in the video game medium. He saw the titles foremost as games and not "big scenario scripts". Itoi has said that he wanted the player feel emotions such as "distraught" when playing the game. The game's writing was intentionally "quirky and goofy" in character, and written in the Japanese kana script so as to give dialogue a conversational feel. Itoi thought of the default player-character names when he did not like his team's suggestions. Many of the characters were based on real-life personalities. Itoi sought to make the game appeal to populations that played games less, such as girls.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "Earthbound"'s story is a continuation of "Mother"'s, featuring many of the same antagonists and monsters. By default, the player starts as a young boy named Ness, who finds that the alien force Giygas ( ) has enveloped the world in hatred and consequently turned animals, humans, and objects into malicious creatures. Buzz Buzz, a bee from the future, instructs Ness to collect melodies in a Sound Stone to preemptively stop the force. While visiting the eight Sanctuaries where the melodies are held, Ness meets three other kids named Paula, Jeff, and Poo—"a psychic girl, an eccentric inventor, and a ponytailed martial artist", respectively—who join his party. Along the way, Ness encounters the cultists of Happy Happy Village, the zombie-infested Threed, the Winters boarding school, and the kingdom of Dalaam. When the Sound Stone is filled, Ness visits Magicant alone, a surreal location in his mind where he fights his dark side. Upon returning to Eagleland, he prepares to travel back in time to fight a young Giygas, a battle known for its "feeling of isolation, ... incomprehensible attacks, ... buzzing static" and reliance on prayer.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "EarthBound" plays as a Japanese role-playing game modeled on "Dragon Quest". The game is characterized by its contemporary, satirical Western world setting and its unconventional characters, enemies, and humor. Examples of the game's humor include untraditional enemies such as "New Age Retro Hippie" and "Unassuming Local Guy", snide dialogue, frequent puns, and fourth wall-breaking. The game also plays self-aware pranks on the player, such as the existence of the useless ruler and protractor items that players and enemies can unsuccessfully try to use nonetheless.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: In 1996, "Mother 3" ("EarthBound 64" in North America), was announced. It was slated for release on the 64DD, a disk drive expansion peripheral for the Nintendo 64. Itoi's expansive ideas during development led the development team to question whether fans would still consider the game part of the series. The game entered development hell and struggled to find a firm release date and in 2000, despite its level of completion, was later cancelled altogether with the commercial failure of the 64DD.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: The project was reannounced three years later as "Mother 3" for the Game Boy Advance alongside a combined "Mother 1 + 2" cartridge for the same handheld console. Itoi had been working on porting "Mother" and "Mother 2" to the Game Boy Advance, and based on encouragement what he predicted to be further pressure, decided to release "Mother 3". The new "Mother 3" abandoned the Nintendo 64 version's 3D graphics, but kept its plot. The game was developed by Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory, published by Nintendo, and released in Japan on April 20, 2006, whereupon it became a bestseller. It did not receive a North American release on the basis that it would not sell.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "" was released in Japan on June 20, 2003. The combined cartridge contains both "Mother" and "EarthBound". "Mother" uses the extended ending of the unreleased English language prototype, but is still only presented in Japanese.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Unlike earlier games in the series, "Mother 3" is presented in chapters. When the Pig Mask Army starts a forest fire and imposes police state-like conditions on a "pastoral forest village", a father, Flint, ventures out to protect his family (twin sons Lucas and Claus and wife Hinawa), but the rest of the world is eventually implicated in the plot. Lucas, the game's hero, does not become prominent until the fourth chapter. Along with his dog, a neophyte thief, and a princess, Lucas fulfills a prophecy of a "chosen one" pulling Needles from the Earth to wake a sleeping dragon and determine the fate of the world. The game features a lighthearted plot, with characters such as "partying ghosts" and "talking rope snakes".


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "Mother 3", much like its predecessors, is a single-player role-playing video game played with two buttons: one for starting conversations and checking adjacent objects, and another for running. The game updates the turn-based "Dragon Quest"-style battle system with a "rhythm-action mechanic", which lets the player take additional turns to attack the enemy by chaining together up to sixteen taps in time with the background music. Apart from this, the battle system and "rolling HP meter" (where health ticks down like an odometer such that players can outrun the meter to heal before dying) are similar to "EarthBound".


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Around "Mother 3" 2006 release, Itoi stated that he had no plans to make "Mother 4", which he has reaffirmed repeatedly. Itoi has said that, of the three, he had the strongest drive to create the first "Mother" video game, and that it was made for the players. He made the second game as an exploration of his personal interests, and wanted to run wild with the third. While reflecting on "Mother 3" 2000 cancellation, Itoi recounted the great efforts the team made to tell small parts of the story, and felt this was a core theme in the series' development.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: In the absence of continued support for the series, an "EarthBound" fan community coalesced at Starmen.net with the intent to have Nintendo of America acknowledge their interest in "Mother" series. They drafted petitions for English language releases and created a full-color, 270-page anthology of fan art, Upon "little" response from Nintendo, they localized "Mother 3" by themselves and printed a "professional quality strategy guide" through Fangamer, a video game merchandising site that spun off from Starmen.net. "The Verge" cited the effort as proof of the fan base's dedication. Other fan efforts include "EarthBound, USA", a full-length documentary on Starmen.net and the fan community, and "Mother 4", a fan-produced sequel to the "Mother" series that went into production when Itoi definitively "declared" that he was done with the series.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: IGN described the series as neglected by Nintendo in North America, as "Mother 1", "Mother 1+2", and "Mother 3" were not released outside Japan. Despite this, Ness's recurrence in the "Super Smash Bros." series signaled favorable odds for the future of the "Mother" series. IGN and "Nintendo Power" readers anticipated a rerelease of "EarthBound" on the Wii's Virtual Console upon its launch in 2006, but it did not materialize. A Japanese rerelease was announced in 2013 for the Wii U Virtual Console as part of a celebration of the anniversaries of the NES and "Mother 2". North American and European releases for the same platform followed, with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata crediting fan interest on the company's Miiverse social platform. The game was a "top-seller" on the Wii U Virtual Console, and "Kotaku" users and first-time "EarthBound" players had an "overwhelmingly positive" response to the game. Simon Parkin wrote that the game's rerelease was a "momentous occasion" as the return of "one of Nintendo's few remaining lost classics" after 20 years. In an interview in late November 2015, Shigesato Itoi has once again denied plans to create a "Mother 4", despite fan feedback.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: The series is known for its combination of humorous and emotionally evocative tones. Itoi wanted to tell "Mother 3" through a technique that swapped the active player-character, which he first attempted in "EarthBound". The two games also share similar visual styles, both with psychedelic battle backgrounds and cartoonish art. While "Mother 3" music is both similar in tone to its predecessors and completely new, it features similar sound effects. "EarthBound" characters such as Mr. Saturn recur, and "RPGamer" wrote that "Mother 3" final chapter is "full of blatant links" between the games of the series. "Mother" also shares similarities with its sequel, such as the game save option through phoning Ninten's father, an option to store items with Ninten's sister at home, and an automated teller machine for banking money. Additionally, the members of the party follow behind the protagonist on the overworld screen in the first two games. Ninten's party members in "Mother" are analogous to those of "EarthBound" in style and function.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: While "Mother" battles were triggered through random encounters, "EarthBound" and early "Mother 3" shared battle scene triggers, where physical contact with an enemy in the overworld began a turn-based battle scene shown in the first-person. Apart from "Mother 3" rhythm and combo battle mechanic, the two game's battle systems are similar. "Mother 3" also retains the "rolling HP meter" of "EarthBound" (where health ticks down like an odometer such that players can outrun the meter to heal before dying/fainting) but removes the feature where experience is automatically awarded before battles against much weaker foes. Recurring through the series is its signature "SMAAAASH" text and sound, which show when the player registers a critical hit.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Some characters are present in multiple entries of the series, such as Giygas, Mr. Saturn, and Pokey/Porky. Giygas is the primary antagonist in both "Mother" and "EarthBound". The alien creature's emotional complexity deviates from genre norms. Giygas shows internal conflict in "Mother" and has no appearance but as an "indescribable" force in "EarthBound" final boss battle. In both final battles, Giygas is defeated through love and prayer instead of through a tour de force of weaponry, unlike the endings of other period games. Nadia Oxford wrote for IGN that nearly two decades later, "EarthBound" final fight against Giygas continues to be "one of the most epic video game standoffs of all time" with noted emotional impact. This battle's dialogue was based on Itoi's recollections of a traumatic scene from the Shintoho film "The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty" that he had accidentally seen in his childhood. Oxford wrote for "1UP.com" that Itoi intended to show the alien's yearning for love in "a manner ... beyond human understanding". Despite "EarthBound" and "Mother 3" dissimilar settings, the Mr. Saturn fictional species appear in similar Saturn Valleys in both games. The Mr. Saturn look like an old man's head with feet, a large nose, and bald except for a single hair with a bow. Though they are a technologically advanced and peaceful species with a pureness of heart, they are under constant attacks from encroaching enemies. Nadia and David Oxford of "1UP.com" considered the Mr. Saturn to be aliens despite their human-like and fleshy appearance, as described a piece arguing the central theme of aliens in the "Mother" series. They compared the Mr. Saturn to Kurt Vonnegut's Tralfamadorian alien species. Finally, Pokey begins as Ness's child neighbor who "cowers" and "refuses to fight" in "EarthBound", but grows into a "vicious control freak with no regard for human life", Porky, by the end of the series' "Mother 3".


title: Mother (video game series)

text: The soundtracks for "Mother" and "EarthBound" were composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. The "Mother" soundtrack was likened by "RPGFan" reviewer Patrick Gann to compositions by the Beatles and for children's television shows. He found the lyrics "cheesy and trite" but appreciated the "simple statements" in "Eight Melodies" and the "quirky and wonderful" "Magicant". The "Mother" soundtrack contains several tracks later used in subsequent series games. When Suzuki and Tanaka were unavailable to commit to "Mother 3" soundtrack, Itoi chose Shogo Sakai for his experience with and understanding of the series. Sakai worked to make the music feel similar to previous entries in the series. Kyle Miller of "RPGFan" wrote that the game retained the quirkiness of the previous soundtracks in the series despite the change in composers. He felt that the second half of the album, which included reinterpreted "classics" from the series, to be its strongest. RPGamer's Jordan Jackson too found that the music was "just as catchy as previous games" despite being "almost completely new". Luke Plunkett of "Kotaku" credited Suzuki's background outside of games composition as a rock star and film scorer for making the music of "Mother" and "EarthBound" "so distinct and memorable" as "a synthesized tribute to 20th-century pop music".


title: Mother (video game series)

text: In "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die", Christian Donlan wrote that the "Mother" series is a "massive RPG franchise" in Japan comparable to that of "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest", though it does not enjoy the same popularity in the West. IGN described the series as neglected by Nintendo in North America, which only received one of the three "Mother" releases. Donlan added that the series' oddities did not lend towards Western popularity. RPGamer's Jordan Jackson noted that the series is "known for its wacky sense of humor, originality, and its very young protagonists", and "Kotaku" Luke Plunkett said that the games were distinct from all other video games in that they stirred "genuine emotion in players beyond ... 'excited' and 'afraid with a "charming", "touching", and "tragic" story, which he credited to its creators' pedigrees from outside the video game industry.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "Mother" was the sixth best-selling game of 1989 in Japan, where it sold about 400,000 copies. It received a "Silver Hall of Fame" score of 31/40 from Japanese magazine "Famitsu". Critics noted the game's similarities with the "Dragon Quest" series and its simultaneous "parody" of the genre's tropes. They thought the game's sequel, "EarthBound", to be very similar and a better implementation of "Mother" gameplay ideas, overall. Reviewers also noted the game's high difficulty level and balance issues. "USgamer" Jeremy Parish said that "Mother" script was "as sharp as "EarthBound"", but felt that the original's game mechanics were subpar, lacking the "rolling HP counter" and non-random encounters for which later entries in the series were known. Parish wrote earlier for "1UP.com" that in comparison to "EarthBound", "Mother" is "worse in just about every way", and important less for its actual game and more for the interest it generated in video game emulation and the preservation of unreleased games.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "EarthBound" sold about 440,000 copies worldwide, with approximately 300,000 sold in Japan and about 140,000 in the United States. It originally received little critical praise from the American press, and sold poorly in the United States: around 140,000 copies, as compared to twice as many in Japan. "Kotaku" described "EarthBound" 1995 American release as "a dud" and blamed the low sales on "a bizarre marketing campaign" and graphics "cartoonish" beyond the average taste of players. Multiple reviewers described the game as "original" or "unique" and praised its script's range of emotions, humor, cheery and charming ambiance, and "real world" setting, which was seen as an uncommon choice. Since its release, the game's English localization has found praise, and later reviewers reported that the game had aged well.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Prior to its release, "Mother 3" was in the "top five most wanted games" of "Famitsu" and at the top of the Japanese preordered game charts. It sold around 200,000 units in its first week of sales in Japan, and was one of Japan's top 20 bestselling games for the first half of 2006. In comparison, the 2003 "Mother 1 + 2" rerelease sold around 278,000 copies in Japan in its first year, and a reissue "value selection" of the cartridge sold 106,000 copies in Japan in 2006. "Mother 3" received a "Platinum Hall of Fame" score of 35/40 from "Famitsu". Reviewers praised its story (even though the game was only available in Japanese) and graphics, and lamented its 1990s role-playing game mechanics. Critics also complimented its music. Jackson said that the game was somewhat easier than the rest of the series and somewhat shorter in length.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: The series has a legacy as both "one of Japan's most beloved" and the video game cognoscenti's "sacred cow", and is known for its long-lasting, resilient fan community. At one point leading up to "Mother 3" release, the series' "Love Theme" played as music on hold for the Japan Post. Similarly, the Eight Melodies theme used throughout the series has been incorporated into Japanese elementary school music classrooms. Donlan of "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die" wrote that "EarthBound" is "name-checked by the video gaming cognoscenti more often than it's actually been played".


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Critics consider "EarthBound" a "classic" or "must-play" among video games. The game was included in multiple top 50 games of all time lists, including that of "Famitsu" readers in 2006 and IGN readers in 2005 and 2006. IGN ranks the game 13th in its top 100 SNES games and 26th among all games for its in-game world, which was "distinct and unforgettable" for its take on Americanism, unconventional settings, and 1960s music. And Gamasutra named it one of its 20 "essential" Japanese role-playing games. The rerelease was Justin Haywald of "GameSpot" game of the year, and "Nintendo Life" Virtual Console game of the year. "GameZone" said it "would be a great disservice" to merely call "EarthBound" "a gem". In the United Kingdom, where "EarthBound" had been previously unreleased, "GamesTM" noted how it had been "anecdotally heralded as a retro classic". IGN's Scott Thompson said the game was "the true definition of a classic". "Kotaku" wrote that the game was content to make the player "feel lonely", and, overall, was special not for any individual aspect but for its method of using the video game medium to explore ideas impossible to explore in other media.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Multiple critics wrote that "Mother 3" was one of the best role-playing games for the Game Boy Advance. "GamePro" Jeremy Signor listed it among his "best unreleased Japanese role-playing games" for its script and attention to detail. Video game journalist Tim Rogers posited that "Mother 3" was "the closest games have yet come to literature". There are no plans for an official "Mother 4".


title: Mother (video game series)

text: The series, and specifically "EarthBound", is known for having a cult following that developed over time well after its release. Colin Campbell of "Polygon" wrote that "few gaming communities are as passionate and active" as "EarthBound", and "1UP.com" Bob Mackey wrote that no game was as poised to have a cult following. Starmen.net hosted a "Mother" 25th Anniversary Fanfest in 2014 with a livestream of the game and plans for a remixed soundtrack. Later that year, fans released a 25th Anniversary Edition ROM hack that updated the game's graphics, script, and gameplay balance. "The Verge" cited the two-year-long "Mother 3" fan translation as proof of the fan base's dedication, and Jenni Lada of "TechnologyTell" called it "undoubtably one of the best known fan translations in existence", with active retranslations into other languages. Frank Caron of "Ars Technica" said that the fan translation's "massive undertaking ... stands as a massive success", and that "one cannot even begin to fathom" why Nintendo would not release their own English localization.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: "EarthBound" Ness became widely known due to his later appearance in the "Super Smash Bros." series. He appeared in the original "Super Smash Bros." and its sequels: "Melee", "Brawl", "3DS/Wii U", and "Ultimate". In Europe, which did not see an original "EarthBound" release, Ness is better known for his role in the fighting game than for his original role in the role-playing game. He returned in the 2001 "Melee" with "EarthBound" Mr. Saturn, which could be thrown at enemies and otherwise pushes items off the battlefield. "Melee" has an unlockable Fourside level based on the "EarthBound" location.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: When "Melee" was in development, Ness was not supposed to return as a playable character and would have been replaced by Lucas, the main character of "Mother 3". However, "Mother 3" original Nintendo 64 release was cancelled, though it was later successfully revived as a project for the Game Boy Advance. As a result, Ness was featured in Melee instead of Lucas.


title: Mother (video game series)

text: Ness was later joined by "Mother 3" Lucas in "Brawl", and both characters returned in "3DS/Wii U" and "Ultimate". Players can fight in the "3DS" Magicant stage, which features clips from the "Mother" series in its background.


title: Bottle episode

text: In episodic television, a bottle episode is produced cheaply and restricted in scope to use as few regular cast members, effects and sets as possible. Bottle episodes are usually shot on sets built for other episodes, frequently the main interior sets for a series, and consist largely of dialogue and scenes for which no special preparations are needed. They are commonly used when one script has fallen through and another has to be written at short notice, or because of budgetary constraints. Bottle episodes have also been used for dramatic effect, with the limited setting and cast allowing for a slower pace and deeper exploration of character traits and motives.


title: Bottle episode

text: The term "bottle show" was coined by Leslie Stevens, creator and executive producer of 1960s TV series "The Outer Limits", for an episode made in very little time at very little cost, "as in pulling an episode right out of a bottle like a genie". The earliest known use of the term "bottle "episode"" dates from 2003.


title: Bottle episode

text: Bottle episodes are sometimes produced to allow as much of the budget as possible to go to the more expensive episodes of the season. Scott Brazil, executive producer of "The Shield", described bottle episodes as "the sad little stepchild whose allowance is docked in order to buy big brother a new pair of sneaks". They can also be used to incorporate major current events into the flow of a long-running series, such as the episode of "The West Wing" following the September 11 attacks, or the episode of "Chicago Fire" in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Bottle episode

text: The BBC soap opera "EastEnders" has a tradition of "two-hander" episodes stretching back to 1986, which consist of a dialogue between two characters, typically in a single location.


title: Bottle episode

text: "Seinfeld"s "The Chinese Restaurant" was refused by NBC numerous times, almost causing Larry David to leave the show. The episode is viewed as a classic and said to have "[broken] new ground" for both the show and sitcoms.


title: Bottle episode

text: The "Mad About You" episode "The Conversation" (season 6, episode 9) was a single-shot bottle episode, originally shown on broadcast TV in 1997 with no interruptions. During the credits, Paul and Jamie are watching a TV show and he comments on how difficult it is to do a single-shot, 20-minute scene, and she insists that "It's their job!"


title: Bottle episode

text: The third-season premiere of "The West Wing" was delayed by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. When the season did return, the first episode was a bottle episode titled "Isaac and Ishmael", in which the main cast paid tribute to those affected by the attacks and informed viewers about what to expect from the delayed premiere. Set almost entirely in the White House Mess Hall, the main characters explore the motivations and nuances of terrorism.


title: Bottle episode

text: 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 season.


title: Bottle episode

text: In a seventh season episode of the American comedy television series "Parks and Recreation" titled "Leslie and Ron", Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson are locked in a room together overnight to force them to deal with their rivalry.


title: Bottle episode

text: Several early episodes of "The X-Files" were conceived as bottle episodes, including "Space", "Darkness Falls" and the well-received "Ice", although these ran over budget.


title: Bottle episode

text: Bottle episodes from "Star Trek: The Original Series" ("Star Trek: TOS") are known for occasionally becoming popular with fans. Examples include "Charlie X", "Journey to Babel", "", "Elaan of Troyius" and "Is There in Truth No Beauty?". The phenomenon has persisted to a lesser extent in later incarnations, with "" ("") being celebrated as "[a]rguably one of the best episodes of "Deep Space Nine" and a jewel in the entire "Trek" canon".


title: Bottle episode

text: The third story of "Doctor Who", "The Edge of Destruction", was a bottle episode created in different circumstances from most. The series had been picked up for thirteen episodes by the BBC, and the previous two stories had contained eleven episodes between them; hence, a two-part story was needed. It only featured the main cast of four. "Doctor Who" has also had occasional bottle episodes since then, most notably "Midnight", which, apart from bookend scenes at a holiday resort, is set entirely on a shuttle bus, with a monster depicted only via sound effects and the acting of the guest cast.


title: Bottle episode

text: The third-season episode "Fly" of "Breaking Bad" features only two members of the main cast (plus a few extras) and takes place almost exclusively in the secret laboratory used to cook crystal methamphetamine. Although widely acclaimed by critics, this episode was the lowest rated episode of the entire series. Series creator Vince Gilligan has referred to this as a bottle episode, noting that the limited setting and cast allowed for a slower pace and deeper exploration of character traits and motives:


title: Bottle episode

text: Even if financial realities didn't enter into it, I feel as a showrunner that there should be a certain shape and pace to each season, and the really high highs that you try to get to at the end of a season—the big dramatic moments of action and violence, the big operatic moments you're striving for—I don't think would land as hard if you didn't have the moments of quiet that came before them. The quiet episodes make the tenser, more dramatic episodes pop even more than they usually would just by their contrast.


title: Bottle episode

text: "Archer"s fifth episode of the sixth season, "Vision Quest", features seven of the eight major cast members stuck in an elevator in real time.