Top 10 Television Episodes
1) Gridlock – (Doctor Who)
2) The Fix – (Starsky and Hutch)
3) Wilson’s Heart – (House)
4) The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing – (The A-Team)
5) Saga of a Star World – (Battlestar Galactica)
6) Tuesday the 17th – (Psych)
7) From Out Of The Rain – (Torchwood)
8) Once More With Feeling – (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
9) The Speech – (The IT Crowd)
10) Death and All His Friends –( Grey’s Anatomy)
Death and All his Friends
(Grey’s Anatomy)
Grey’s Anatomy is a guilty pleasure show. It’s not great. It’s very on the nose and the characters make ridiculous over the top speeches every five minutes that I suppose are meant to be profound. Still, once in a while it really does get to me. In the sixth season finale episode, a shooter comes into the hospital and tension ensues. For the entire two hours I was a nervous wreck. Characters were injured and some even killed. It’s not a perfect episode and I truly hope that real SWAT teams are more efficient than the one in this episode, but it set out to make my heart race and it succeeded. I was exhausted by the time it was over and it stayed with me pretty strongly days after it aired.
The Speech
(The IT Crowd)
Most of the times in a sitcom either the A plot works or the B plot works, but rarely both. In this season three episode, Jen wins employee of the month and Douglas dates a woman who “used to be a man?!” Oh God! From the internet box to the epic fight between Douglas and April, this episode stands out as one of the funniest single episodes of a TV show I’ve ever seen. It has Roy and Moss teamwork and scheming, oblivious Jen who will believe anything, and pompous Douglas finding love and promptly losing it.
Once More with Feeling
(Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Usually, when a show has a musical episode, it’s a bad sign. It’s filled with bad songs and bad singing, but Buffy’s sixth season episode is actually great. Seven years after I first saw the episode, the songs still get stuck in my head. I couldn’t even pick a favorite song. I love “Under Your Spell,” “Rest in Peace,” “Standing,” and “Walk through the Fire.” I enjoy the rest of the songs as well. Amber Benson, James Marsters, and Anthony Head all have lovely voices and were given songs to really show off. Michelle Trachtenberg is a dancer and was given a number to show that off. The rest of the actors have voices passable enough to pull the episode off. The sixth season is uneven at best but this episode alone makes it worth it.
From Out of the Rain
(Torchwood)
I’ll freely admit to being the only one on the planet who likes this episode. I like Peter Hammond’s writing style. Very slow and dreamlike. In fact, thanks to this episode and series one’s Small Worlds, I bought the complete series of Sapphire and Steel. I love this episode for its atmosphere. It is creepy and hypnotic. I know the plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. To me the feel of the episode makes up for it. I love the darkness and the rain. I love all the use of red throughout the episode. I love the fact that Ianto, Gwen, and Owen are hanging out together outside of work because it was nice to see moments of real friendship between any of them. I love that in both of Hammond’s episodes he introduces something about Jack’s past. I love comparing and contrasting Jack telling Gwen about Estelle in Small Worlds to Jack telling Ianto about his time in the travelling show in this episode. I also think the music in this one is great. Really adds to the other worldly feeling of the episode. It barely qualifies as science fiction and nothing about the Night Travelers is explained, but I love it anyway and I’ll continue to love it unashamedly.
Tuesday the 17th
(Psych)
This homage to the slasher films of the 1980s is one fantastic ride. They had a great guest stars, lovely locations, and strong direction. I love that the references in that episode range from Friday the 13th to Robert the Doll. The only thing that holds this episode back is Lassiter’s lifeless subplot with Justine Bateman (who is completely wasted in this dull role) as his estranged wife. But, everything that takes place at the camp is brilliant. There’s a good twist about halfway through it. Gus gets one over on Shawn for a change. Shawn’s characterization is at its best and most importantly, Juliet is great in it. She’s tough; she takes charge and basically rocks this episode. Juliet suffers the way a lot of female characters suffer but when they get her right, the get her perfect and this was one of those times. There are some great friendship moments between Shawn and Gus, some genuinely tense moments and of course some great laughs. Anytime, the guys get to do their girl scream, I’m sold.
Saga of a Star World
(Battlestar Galactica)
The movie length pilot for the original Battlestar Galactica is far more entertaining than I was expecting it to be. I bought the series for Dirk Benedict and his hotness, but I stayed because I fell in love with the series and it started with the Pilot. The destruction of the human race was powerful. I especially love the heated exchange between Starbuck and Athena when she’s trying to tell him that the Cylons have destroyed all of their colonies. I love seeing the human race trying to survive after the tragedy. The last third of the episode taking place at the resort with the Ovions is my favorite. I love how the guys just want to have fun but can’t ignore it when they get the feeling something’s wrong. I also love the moment between Starbuck and Athena where he tries to apologize to her. For my money, she was a better match for him than Cassiopeia was, but apparently the writers disagreed with me. The effects didn’t look nearly as cheap as I was anticipating. The guys were cool, the girls were cool, and Boxey and Muffy were adorable. Even at two and a half hours, I can rewatch this episode over and over again.
The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing
(The A-Team)
From one Dirk Benedict show to another. The A-Team was never the greatest show. It didn’t have the strongest writing. But, it was never meant to be deep. It was meant to be fun and silly. And it succeeded in being just that. The plots were rarely important as they rarely strayed from ‘these bullies want our land/water/soda/etc.’ but this season one episode was really strong. It starts out pretty typically, but the last section with a blind Murdock talking Hannibal through flying the plane is well paced and pretty tightly written for an A-Team episode. It’s got some hilarious banter between Murdock and BA and Amy’s actually useful. The fact that they used a shot from Airplane! took me out of the episode, but only briefly. How can you not laugh at Face repeatedly hitting BA over the head with a tray? As a Murdock fan, it’s a particularly great episode. He has a subplot about being declared sane and he gets to be awesomely competent while helping Hannibal land the plane. The A-Team at its best.
Wilson’s Heart
(House)
This show is an embarrassing shadow of its former self but this episode reminds me that it was once capable of great television. The gut wrenching season 4 finale had me in tears longer than I care to admit. I loved Amber. She was a great character. And it was about time Wilson found some happiness. Of course it was horribly ripped away from him. The acting from Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard, and Anne Dudek was absolutely brilliant. The look on Amber’s face once she realizes what’s happening gets me to the core. And before this episode, Wilson never lost his façade so much and never cried. House’s confession to Amber on the white bus was about as honest as the character has ever been. Topping the episode off with Passing Afternoon by Iron and Wine completely shattered what was left of my heart.
The Fix
(Starsky and Hutch)
Before the DVDs came out, I wore out my recorded vhs tape of this episode. For a hurt/comfort junkie, this episode was made for me. Hutch is kidnapped and his kidnappers pump him full of heroin in the hopes of getting information out of him. Starsky was a great character for comedy. He had an endearing childlike aspect to his personality, but he could also go intense at the drop of a hat. The whole time Hutch is missing, I could feel the tension in him, the ‘I’m not playing around’ vibe he put off. And when he finds Hutch completely strung out he turns into a big mother hen. It’s a beautiful thing. David Soul does a great job in the scenes at Huggys.
Gridlock
(Doctor Who)
There are plenty of wonderful Doctor Who episodes that stand out to me as great television, but this episode is one I never tire of. Ten is my favorite Doctor and Martha Jones is my favorite companion, and of course I love the Face of Boe. Martha is clever as she always is. I love the Doctor’s desperation to get to her after she’s kidnapped. It’s strange, I hated New Earth, and this was kind of a sequel to that episode, yet I adore it. Seeing all the different cars on the motorway is fun. All the guest stars are memorable. And I admit to crying at the end when The Old Rugged Cross plays as the Doctor tells Martha about Gallifrey.
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