NOTE: Due to the sizable nature of the page, and the fact that it will keep growing, please try to keep them in alphabetical order by series on this page so it doesn't delve into chaos and confusion.
- Alright, I guess I'll kick this off, and only fitting that it, like most things 'round these parts, starts with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know this is gonna come across as a weird choice, but "Restless" is probably one of the funniest episodes of anything I've ever seen, does an amazing job unearthing the character's fears, neuroses and desires, and above all is one of the few Dream Sequences I've seen on TV that actually feels like a dream, with its random scene transitions and stilted dialogue but otherwise normal feel. Moreover, it's probably as experimental as any show's going to be getting in the foreseeable future. —Wack'd
- Forgive me for taking a double-shot here, but I also feel the need to mention The Adventures of Pete & Pete's "Apocalypse Pete", the first episode of the show I ever saw. Not only does it perfectly encapsulates not only the show's devotion to taking its silliness seriously (it features a car race where one of the competitors is a remote control toy), but as a kid who didn't have the strongest relationship with his dad growing up due to being kinda off, it—like so many episodes of the show—speaks perfectly to the sort of feelings that can evoke. —Wack'd
- Blake's 7:
- "The Way Back". Good grief, has there ever been a grimmer opening to a science fiction series than this? Our eponymous hero finds his memory's been erased, survives a massacre, learns his family is dead and he gets framed as a child molester. Yeesh. It has a very gritty feel to it and is quite Orwellian.
- "Star One" is a fantastic Season Finale. Blake and co. finally reach Star One, Travis betrays humanity, and our heroes are forced to ally against their enemies in order to defend the galaxy against an invasion. It also ends on the best cliffhanger in the series.
- "Rumours of Death". Avon's past is explored and it's every bit as cheery as you'd imagine. A beautiful, tragic love story. It wasn't all lies, my love.
- "Blake" is one of the greatest, most shocking finales in the history of television. Mary Ridge's direction is top notch, with a great feeling of bleakness that builds up until the ending. Soolin (the most under-developed of the main cast) finally gets some backstory and Gareth Thomas returns as a harder, more ruthless Blake. That final massacre is an ending that stays with you. Imagine if social media existed in 1981...
- Doctor Who:
- "An Unearthly Child". The first episode is still a landmark piece of television and a great introduction to the series. What starts off as a mild curiosity in a junkyard becomes a great spirit of adventure. The reveal of the inside of the TARDIS for the first time is still a marvel and the Doctor is portrayed as this enigmatic, selfish figure. The remaining three episodes show the harsh reality of being trapped in a hostile past. Ian preventing the Doctor from murdering a man in cold blood is the start of his love of humanity.
- "The Power of the Daleks". The reason the series lasted another fifty years. Not only is this a marvellous debut for the Second Doctor, it shows the Daleks at their best - cunning creatures that take advantage of gullible humans by pretending to be friendly, then when the time is right, striking, the petty squabbles amongst the colony irrelevant to them. When Daleks are on the warpath, they're scary. When they're trying to be servile, they are downright sinister.
- "The Web of Fear". The prototype for the Jon Pertwee era. Classic Doctor Who was often mocked for having wobbly sets, yet this one did such a good job of recreating the London Underground that the creators were questioned by the transit authority. Features iconic imagery of yeti on the prowl in tube stations. Tense, exciting and dripping with atmosphere, it's a base-under-siege tale that also doubles as a piece on paranoia and posession. Plus, the Brigadier makes his first appearance. Someone please find episode three.
- "The Mind Robber". Quirky, surreal, creative, imaginative. It manages to recast Frazer Hines midway through and pull it off brilliantly.
- "The War Games". A truly epic Grand Finale that closed the book on both the Patrick Troughton era and the black-and-white era as a whole. What seemingly starts out as a historical set in World War One becomes an adventure that concludes with the revelation as to who the Doctor's people are and why he ran away. Philip Madoc is wonderfully sinister as The War Chief, the Time Lords get a great introduction and Jamie and Zoe get one of the most heart-breaking goodbye scenes in the series.
- "Spearhead from Space": Doctor Who goes into color for the first time and Jon Pertwee makes a startling debut as the Doctor. It's gorgeously shot on film and the scenes of shop window dummies coming alive and killing people are so iconic they were used to open the modern series. The show was never quite the same after this. In the best possible way.
- "Doctor Who and the Silurians". One of the most adult stories the show ever did, a morality fable with well-rounded characters on both sides and one of the bleakest endings in the series' history.
- "Inferno". Primords aside, this is a tense, gripping tale where the Doctor sees an entire world burn, yet manages to save this one. Plus, the Alternate!Brigadier with an eyepatch is deservedly iconic.
- "Carnival of Monsters". A brilliant, funny, subversive script by the peerless Robert Holmes that satirises television itself.
- "The Time Warrior". A riproaring romp that introduces one of the most beloved companions of all time. The Third Doctor is at his most swashbuckling and the double act of Lynx and Irongron is just hilarious.
- "The Ark in Space". Philip Hinchcliffe makes his mark on the series with a proto-Alien story that's considerably darker than anything seen before. Heck, the story manages to make bubble wrap look scary. The "humans are indominable" speech is the moment where Tom Baker officially became the Doctor.
- "Genesis of the Daleks". Every bit as good as you've heard. And then some. A story about genocide, war, eugenics, mad science and morality. Michael Wisher is absolutely chilling as Davros, while Peter Miles is great support as his odious Number Two Nyder. The Doctor testing Davros' meglomania and struggling with his decision to wipe the Daleks from history are some of the most powerful scenes in the programme's history.
- "Pyramids of Mars". They say any story's as good as its villain. Well Sutekh the Destroyer, brilliantly voiced by Gabriel Woolfe, is truly the stuff of nightmares. You know things are bad when the jovial, irreverent Fourth Doctor, who is often flippant in the face of evil, is afraid.
- "The Deadly Assassin". A political thriller set on Gallifrey. The Master returns in a new take on the character that actually works - a desperate husk willing to do anything to cling to life. The Doctor fights for his life in the Matrix, complete with surreal imagery. Great stuff.
- "The Robots of Death". An atmospheric muder mystery with first rate design work.
- "The Talons of Weng-Chiang". Yes, the giant rat is rubbish. Yes, it has a white actor in yellowface. Those aside, this is nothing short of sublime, a strong contender for Bob Holmes' best script. Victorian London is gorgeously recreated, Jago and Lightfoot are arguably Holmes' best double act (they went over so well that The BBC almost gave them a spinoff). The dialogue is rich and colourful. Magnus Greel, the Butcher of Brisbane, is a fantastic villain. Deep Roy as Mr. Sin. A wonderful pastiche of Victoriana. It's also shockingly adult, from references to underage prostitutes to a main character dying in an opium den. It would never fly in the modern series, and more's the pity.
- "Horror of Fang Rock". A grim, moody, atmospheric piece with a wonderfully claustrophobic setting. The last time the series really did Gothic Horror.
- "City of Death". A marvellous script from Douglas Adams that's funny, smart and quotable. Gorgeous location filming in Paris. Duggan, the thuggish detective who would have been a great companion. Julian Glover as the villain. John Cleese and Eleanor Bron as art critics who mistake the TARDIS for a piece of modern art. One of the few times where the series did a comedy episode that actually works.
- "Earthshock". The Cybermen get a brilliant comeback and Adric, the most unpopular of companions, gets a brilliant exit. Fast-paced, tense, exciting. That ending still packs a punch.
- "The Caves of Androzani". The Fifth Doctor gets a truly fantastic swansong. Bob Holmes returns for his best script in some time, while Graeme Harper's direction gives it an almost cinematic feel. The most compassionate and noble of the Doctors is dumped in the middle of a war being fought by selfish, horrible people and his main goal is to save his friend's life. Brilliant characters abound, from the tragic, sinister Sharaz Jek and the scheming, Shakespearian Morgus. The only thing that lets the side down is the magma beast.
- "Remembrance of the Daleks". The Cartmel Masterplan gets off to a flying start. After an introductary season playing the fool, the Seventh Doctor's chessmaster persona kicks in, manipulating events and having plans within schemes. Ace takes on a Dalek with a baseball bat. The Daleks-as-Nazis allegory is explored through the racism of 1960s Britain. The Special Weapons Dalek. The Doctor cementing his ruthless streak by tricking his greatest enemy into wiping itself out. All in all, a great start to the 25th anniverasy season.
- "Ghost Light". A complex, labrynthian plot that has a wonderfully gothic atmosphere. Ace's background is explored in great detail. A triumph...though it does require multiple viewings.
- "The Curse of Fenric". A complex, atmospheric story containing Norse mythology, World War II, vampires and startlingly adult subtext. The Seventh Doctor's chessmaster tendancies come to a head as he commits possibly his cruelest act in the name of the greater good and Ace gets more growth as a character.
- I'm going to give New Who the love it deserves on this page and show my sheer adoration to "The Girl in the Fireplace". The episode has everything I love about Doctor Who in it. The clockwork robots are great villains, the Timey-Wimey Ball is utilized spectacularly, and the episode has an elegance to it that I haven't seen in any other Doctor Who episode. It has both one of the funniest ("You're Mr Thick-Thickity-Thickface from Thicktown, Thickania!") and coolest (The Doctor riding a horse through a mirror) scenes in the entire series, and the ending never fails to make me cry.
- "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances". They manage to be really creepy, and still have a happy ending.
- No entry on great television would be complete without mentioning Firefly's "Out of Gas". The episode is perfectly paced, amazingly acted, and of course, superbly scripted. The whole thing nails everything great about Firefly in one awesome episode, and showcases one of Nathan Fillion's finest performances. It is an exquisite episode, and one of the finest pieces of television ever put to film.
- If there was a great Very Special Episode, it has to be the Full House episode "The Last Dance". The show's dealing with death is well-handled, Jesse and Michelle's reasons for hiding their feelings well-motivated yet tragic and the setup of the sad scenes are just great. The jokes are funny too, and the whole episode has such a heartwarming sendoff.
- Every single 25th of December I take time out to watch both Christmas episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 back to back. The riffing on both Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Santa Claus (1959) is constantly on the ball and razor ship and ensures plenty of laughs, but the host segments themselves have moments that are surprisingly very touching. From the opening of the former where Joel and the bots go over their Christmas lists to the end of the latter where Mike is pleasantly surprised to see it snowing in outer space, they're the perfect way to end the holiday.
- NUMB3RS:
- Calculated Risk is an episode where Don shows his human side by taking in Daniel, son of the episode's victim and the hug when they say goodbye is especially sweet.
- If I ever had to choose my favourite Halloween Episode, I would immediately say "Halloween" from The Office (US). Yeah, it doesn't have that much to do with Halloween, but it's still one of the funniest, most heartwarming and most emotional episodes of anything ever. And plus, it gave Creed his Cloudcuckoolander personality that all Office fans know and love.
- The Sesame Street episode where Linda breaks Ruthie's pitcher. It's an episode where an object gets broken but not a cliched "broken-object-episode". Instead of someone breaking something and not wanting to tell the adults, this is what happens (warning, spoilers): Linda runs past, knocking over the pitcher and it breaks. However, Linda is deaf and didn't hear the crash, so when she comes back and sees it broken, she doesn't know what happened to it. Elmo believes Linda must know what happened to it but only said (or rather, signed) that she didn't know because she didn't want to tell Ruthie for fear of Ruthie getting mad. When Elmo hesitates and seems sad when she asks if he knows how the pitcher got broken, she reckons he's the one who broke it and doesn't want to tell her. In actual fact, Elmo is not sad at all, he's just confused and at a loss for words as he doesn't know whether to tell Ruthie or wait for Linda to. Elmo asks "what if somebody who is a good friend of Ruthie's broke something of hers by accident and they are afraid to tell her for fear of her getting angry, what should that someone do?". This continues to make Ruthie think Elmo broke the pitcher and is scared to tell and she tells him a story which she think will answer his question. The story tells about Ruthie's childhood when she broke her uncle's favourite lamp and she was afraid to tell the uncle for fear he would get mad, but eventually, she did tell him, and, despite being sad, he didn't get mad, in fact, he was proud of Ruthie for telling the truth. Elmo then says he needs to find Linda, which confuses Ruthie, as Elmo goes off to find Linda to tell her not to be afraid as Ruthie won't be angry. Back at Finders Keepers, he finds Linda and Ruthie says that Elmo wants to tell her and Linda what happened to the pitcher. Elmo replies, "not exactly", but instead he wants to tell Linda not to be afraid to tell Ruthie what happened. Linda signs that she wasn't there when it broke, so how would she know what happened. Elmo says she was, so Ruthie asks him to tell them what happened. Elmo recaps on what happened. Ruthie and Linda then clarify that Linda didn't tell about the pitcher because she didn't hear the crash and therefore didn't know it broke.
- Another Sesame Street episode that avoids children's show cliches is the one where Natasha is scared of the rain. In most kids' TV episodes where somebody is scared of something, the fear springs completely out of nowhere and/or the way the character expresses the fear is Out of Character. Natasha, however, is a baby, so it's completely normal for her to develop a strange, sudden fear and to shriek and cower away when scared. And unlike how most kids' shows portray rain as nothing more than a pain in the neck, a central theme in this episode is that rain is a happy thing.
- Star Trek: The Original Series: Really? It's taken this long for "The City on the Edge of Forever" to be on here? A powerful, tragic piece of television and one of the best scripts the series ever had. How good? The episode won the Hugo Award, the original script won the Writer's Guild Award.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- "The Measure of a Man" is one of the best "ethical problem" episodes, where they determine that Data is a person.
- "The Best of Both Worlds". The Borg at their very best, a battle that changed things forever, and one of the best cliffhangers in the history of television.
- "Face of the Enemy" sees some good action for Troi.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
- "Trials and Tribble-ations". That is all.
- "In the Pale Moonlight". There was nothing like it before and Nothing Is the Same Anymore.
- Star Trek: Voyager:
- "Dreadnought" is B'Elanna at her best, and it has humour and action aplenty.
- "The Thaw" manages to mix comedy and horror and shows some serious butt-kicking from the Doctor and Janeway.
- "Bride of Chaotica" is pretty cool with its in-universe campiness.
- "The Void" has Janeway at her best, with the alliance she made that has three rules: no killing, no stealing, and no giving up.
- Ultra Series:
- Ultraman: Episode 23, "My Home is Earth". One of the most poignant and moving episodes of the entire franchise, this episode deals with Jamila, a mutated astronaut who returned to Earth to seek revenge on his country for abandoning him. It's unexpectedly nuanced and deep for a series about wrestling matches between People in Rubber Suits, and will leave you in tears by the end.
- Ultraseven:
- Episode 8, "The Targeted Town". One of the most thought-provoking episodes in the franchise, complimented by the excellent cinematography by Akio Jissoji adding to how wrong the episode feels.
- The two-part finale, "The Greatest Invasion in History". A rip-roaring finale to an excellent show, with beautiful cinematography and the climactic final battle set to Schumann's Piano Concerto.
- Ultraman Max:
- Episode 15, "Miracle of the Third Planet". A beautiful episode about a blind little girl who loves playing her flute, and a monster that adapts to any attack and grows stronger. Words cannot do it justice.
- Episode 16, "Who am I?". A very funny episode where a trio of space cats cause widespread amnesia, featuring excellent comedy and the infamous scene where Ultraman Max forgets how to fight.
- Episode 22, "Butterfly Dream". One of Akio Jissoji's final contributions to the franchise and a huge Mind Screw from start to end, featuring perhaps the most surreal creature the series has to offer.
- Goosebumps (1995): I like the episode adaptation of Say Cheese and Die — Again!. It's funny because of the Fat Comic Relief, it's unnerving because of the Uncanny Valley nature of the fat makeup, and the jerk teacher gets comeuppance in the end. It even has a nice shot of Greg's newly fattened butt when he first gets up for younger viewers who are into that.
