10 Best/5 Worst TV Series' Time Jumps

Episode: ''Moving Up,'' 2014
As soon as Leslie moved into her dream office—the third floor of Pawnee's City Hall—to start her dream job with the National Parks Service, Parks and Recreation pulled everyone three years into the future. The show bypassed the struggles that come with opening a new branch of government and leapt right into a world that Leslie absolutely owned. Suddenly, she and her power haircut and her power husband were taking names and canceling flights and firing Jon Hamm like it was just another day. Anything could happen (and her kids were adorable). —Kelly Connolly

Episode: ''For Those Who Think Young,'' 2008
Life's prosaic realities drive Mad Men and—occasional tractor or nipple aside—the passage of time is its bread and butter. Matthew Weiner ended ''The Wheel'' with Don Draper's Thanksgiving 1960 blues and a killer Dylan montage, then catapulted his characters 14 months forward. That lengthy jump would demolish most plots, but Mad Men is a character study—and realistic people take time to grow. ''For Those Who Think Young'' picks up the Sterling Cooper crew where viewers left them. But while Peggy's still driven, Pete's still a dick, and Don's still mysterious, they've all evolved enough to inspire curiosity about where they've been and where they'll go next. —Eric Renner Brown

Episode: ''The Telling,'' 2003
After a knock-down fight with the woman she thought was her roommate, Sydney passed out on her apartment floor and woke up in Hong Kong, where Vaughn came to meet her—wearing a wedding ring. She'd been missing for almost two years. It took half of the next season to solve the mystery of Sydney's lost time (captured and forced to go undercover, she erased her own memories to bury a secret and return to her old life), and while later years never reached the height of the first two seasons, ''The Telling'' was Alias at its bold and twisty best. —Kelly Connolly

Episode: ''Lay Down Your Burdens,'' 2006
Battlestar's season 2 finale had already shaken up plenty of things over two episodes: a new president, a habitable planet to settle, and a new life for many of its characters. But then the words ''One Year Later'' appear on screen, and everything changes as the Cylons arrive to occupy the human settlement, setting up one of the most politically charged and thrilling story lines the show would ever see. —Joshua Rivera

Episode: ''Asterion,'' 2014
Masters saved its big time jump for the middle of its second season. While some temporal leaps leave the skipped-over period something of a mystery, the Showtime drama touched on three years over the course of one episode in elegant fashion, bounding from 1958 to 1960. The jump helped the show move closer to some of Masters and Johnson's real-life milestones. —Esther Zuckerman

Episode: ''Gliding Over All,'' 2012
In the show's fifth midseason finale, Walt strikes a deal with Lydia to take his blue product to the Czech Republic. We fast forward through several months of booming business to the tune of ''Crystal Blue Persuasion,'' watching a sarcastically cheery montage of Walt cooking up meth and counting cash day after day, not once seeing his kids. The time jump perfectly encapsulated how monotonous, detached, lonely, and money-obsessed Walt has become. The episode ends with Walt declaring that he's out of the meth game—which we might believe, if there weren't eight episodes of Bad left. —Carolyn Todd

Episode: ''Transilience Throught Unifier Model-11,'' 2012
First previewed in the season 4 episode ''Letters of Transit,'' Fringe's final season time jump saw the plot accelerate 20 years into the future while its entire cast was trapped in suspended animation. The following episodes would be equal parts fun and frustrating, not giving very many answers but serving as a fitting celebration of Fringe's universe of science-gone-wrong. —Joshua Rivera

Episode: ''Through the Looking Glass,'' 2007
Flashbacks were a part of Lost's DNA from the start, and the season 3 finale seemed to give us more of the same. A drunken, depressed Jack struggled to keep it together on a plane, cried over an obituary, and would have committed suicide if not for his savior complex. When he called Kate to meet him at the airport (''We have to go back!''), the game changed—these were flashforwards. They were also proof that at least some survivors would make it off the Island, though there was no telling who, when, or how. —Kelly Connolly

Episode: ''The Heap,'' 2014
It's a bold move to skip an entire year's worth of story in an episode that's neither a premiere nor a finale, especially for a series in its maiden season—but then, Fargo is a bold show. The jump indicated creator Noah Hawley's willingness to take risks and also allowed the show to explore several fun possibilities (Molly and Gus are married—and she's pregnant, just like the original Fargo's Marge! Lester's become a hotshot salesman with a hot young wife!) before reaching its appropriately bloody conclusion. —Hillary Busis

Episode: ''All Good Things,'' 2003
How do you wrap up six soapy seasons of aquatic drama—long after a show's stars have grown to look much older than their college-age characters and its verbose dialogue has lost its luster? Just thrust the action forward by five years, solving the aging problem and ditching the series' dreary college setting in one fell swoop. The jump allowed Dawson's to get away from the campus storylines that had stopped it in its tracks, focusing instead on the core four and their relationships to one another—and finally, finally bringing the endless Dawson/Joey/Pacey love triangle to an end. —Hillary Busis

Episode: ''Radioactive,'' 2013
After an entire season of buildup, the end of the show's sixth year saw the end of Warlow. The bad news: Warlow's death took away the vampires' ability to walk in the sun, leaving Eric to burn all alone on a mountaintop in Sweden. But instead of ending on that cliffhanger, True Blood decided to jump six months ahead, giving viewers an entirely new cliffhanger. Suddenly, Bill was a writer, Merlotte's was Bellefleur's, Sookie and Alcide were living together, and Sam was the Mayor. It was a quick and lazy way for the show to advance the Hepatitis-V storyline, and it began Blood's last season on a sour note. —Samantha Highfill

Episode: ''4 Years, 6 Months, 2 Days,'' 2008
One Tree Hill was, for a while, a show about teenagers—until it skipped ahead four years at the beginning of season 5, only to find the characters all grown up. The series lasted until 2012, but the big move killed its spirit. One Tree Hill was supposed to be about relatable teen angst and aww-worthy sentimentality—not failed dreams and marital problems. —Ariana Bacle

Episode: ''Free,'' 2008
By the time it reached the end of its fourth season, ABC's primetime soap had burned through more stories than the firemen of Fahrenheit 451. Which meant some kind of reboot was necessary—but even after skipping ahead five years, the sudsy drama's attempts at sensational storylines still seemed a little, well, desperate. Plus: Mike and Susan are forced apart again? Come on! —Hillary Busis

Episode: ''Flight of the Phoenix,'' 2013
When fans campaigned to get Arrested Development back, they wanted the AD they knew and loved. What they got instead was a new season that picked up seven years after the last left off, one that rarely featured the ensemble cast together in scenes—which emphasized the sad truth: Arrested Development will never be the same as it once was. —Ariana Bacle

Episode:''Loser Like Me,'' 2014
Here's what you missed on Glee: when the hell this show is supposed to be taking place. (It's been an open question since the finale of season 4, which really threw things out of whack.) Attempts at keeping the main cast involved in the show's action have led to all kinds of timeline weirdness, most recently a lurch forward past the conception, filming, and premiere of Rachel's unsuccessful TV series. Surprise: The jump eventually finds her back in Lima, coaching her old high school glee club. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Now, if only we knew how old Rachel's supposed to be at this point... —Hillary Busis