Forum Villain
- Best episode? Crawl Space by far, followed by the S3:12 episode Half Measures. These episodes were tense. These are the episodes where EVERYTHING goes to shit. Crawl Space had absolutely gorgeous cinematography (That one "scene" in the field where Gus puts a hit out on Walt's head) and the rebirth of Heisenberg.
- While all the episodes were great, the worst would probably be the pilot episode. It was pretty weird, I recall, but that's to be expected while the series tries to find its footing.
I'm glasses.
- Favorite: "Midnight". Still the best episode Russell T Davies has ever written for Who. Here he ditches his usual grandiosity for what he does best: looking into the heart of humankind. Usually he finds good things there, but not this time. This episode is all about the bad side of humanity. The tendency to judge, to fear the other, all laid bare for the viewer. This episode totally flips upside down nearly everything about the show and about the Doctor. The Doctor's strategies that usually put him in charge only put him in further danger here. Instead of the usual epic scope of the series, this episode is incredibly claustrophobic, nearly all of it taking place aboard one small bus. This episode is scarier by far than anything Steven Moffat has ever wrote, and it's hard not to get tense just by watching.
- Least favorite: "Fear Her". Okay, does anyone like this episode? I hope not, because it's just a mess. Originally, this episode was going to be about the 1920s and written by Stephen Fry, but unfortunately he had to step out and so this episode was quickly slapped together to replace it. And boy, does it show. It's all about some girl who traps people inside her drawings, so right off the bat the premise is a bit weak. We find out that there's actually an ancient creature that has decided to make the girl her host because it was lonely, and we get to speak to it. Only the girl they cast is an absolutely rubbish actor and every scene where the consciousness supposedly speaks through her just comes off like they told her to lie on the bed, close her eyes put on a pretend raspy voice. Oh, and plus there's a whole weird thing about her dead dad being a child abuser which doesn't work at all and is kinda offensive. The only good part is the Doctor carrying the 2012 Olympic Torch, and even that's corny as hell. There's some good Doctor/Rose banter as well, but that's pretty much it. The rest of it is crap.
edited 12th Oct '11 1:00:59 PM by Sporkaganza
Always, somewhere, someone is fighting for you. As long as you remember them, you are not alone.
cannot into space
Favorite: The one with the cement truck. I don't really need to say anything besides "Go look up mythbusters and cement truck on youtube." Also, the one where they dropped and fired a bullet at the same time, because I am a physics guy.
Least Favorite: The one where they tested Flatulence jokes. Because I really don't find farting funny.
Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.
Actual Wrestling Legend
Doctor Who:
- Best: Close contest. You can't top Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. Of all the Myth Arcs, I like the first three series the best, and every character got a chance to shine in this one. Their roles felt natural, too, unlike the later years where RTD just shoehorned in every minor character for lulz. I'm a sucker for In Medias Res and Part 1 pulled it off brilliantly, too. With the Dalek siege on the station, and the Doctor's allies being picked off one by one, it really felt like something was at stake. The ending was both haunting and moving, probably because I never minded Rose as much as others do.
- Worst: Love And Monsters for me. This was the first bottle show, as I recall, which is surprising since the format of NuWho works well for that sort of thing. This one was pretty gross. People getting absorbed into alien ass cheeks and blowjobs from paving stones (you know — for kids!).
- Best: "The Way of the Warrior". This doesn't show up on other peoples' favorites lists, and I don't know why. Possibly it's because the addition of Worf is coldly viewed as a ratings stunt, nothing more, and he didn't exactly blow the ceiling off the show or anything. He remained in-character — a gruff, ornery douche. So that's my theory. I probably enjoyed this episode more than all the others — it's just a great premiere. Once again, every character has their role and they integrate themselves seamlessly into Worf's arrival. Worf's bug-eyed face when Sisko starts leaking secrets with Garak in the room is hilarious. The whole business with the Klingons going apeshit is admittedly contrived, but it serves its purpose in making Worf essential. It's exciting to see him acting professional and doing his very best to root out the cause of the Klingon insurrection, while at the same time wishing he could just go back to Minsk and retire, and eventually coming full circle and transferring to command, where he gets a red uniform and symbolically joins the DS( family. And as a bonus, we get a great big booming speech from Sisko at the end.
- Worst: I'll rule out all Ferengi episodes and Season One episodes. And Ezri episodes. Boy, this show had no shortage of crap, eh? Personally, I have a low tolerance for Classic Dax so I'm going to say "Blood Oath". We bring back the three classic TOS Klingons, and kill off two of them in one fell swoop. Bye, Kang. So long, Koloth. The setup is that Dax swore a blood oath to avenge some Klingon kid — whom we never see or care anything about — and has to storm the equivalent of Columbian drug lord's mansion in the jungle. It's worse than it sounds. The whole thing hinges on Tery Farrel, who has the emotional depth of blueberry scone (truthfully, she got better towards the end — just in time to screw the writers and quit). As a kid, I remember admiring Jadzia for being a cool, androgynous Xena-chick who was tough without being butch about it. Never revisit a show unless you remember it really well. Only Kor survives, and he gets killed off a few seasons later, in a much more fitting departure than this one.
Favourite: Silence in the Libary and Forrest of the Dead. A truely fantastic story with an engaging plot and strong characterisation for both Ten, Donna, River and even the Mauve Shirts. Also, the ending is a real Tear Jerker after you see more of River's story in series 5 and 6.
Least Favourite: The Stolen Earth and Journey's End. An insulting mess that is (imo) the absoulte low point of a 50 year old francise. The pointless character cameos, incredibly lazy writing, character assassination of the Doctor and Dues Ex Machina ending all add up to create the only story of Doctor Who that I geniuely hate.
edited 17th Oct '11 1:12:42 PM by PurpleDalek
Best: The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, easily the best season finale there has been. The humorous bits worked, the action was good, and it felt like the whole season had built up to that point.
Worst: The End of Time, it felt like it was trying to be big and failed miserably. More over while I was sad to the Ninth Doctor go, this episode really made me feel that Ten had overstayed his welcome.
Star Trek The Next Generation :
Best: Chain of Command, the torture scenes with Pichard alone make this a great episode and the strong B-plot puts it over the top for me.
Worst: Shades of Grey, the single most aggressively lazy and boring episode of any Science Fiction show ever produced.
Pirate AND writer!
- Best: "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances." A perfect mix of the show's trademark elements; humor, danger, mystery, interesting characters and the new series' first triumphant example of High Octane Nightmare Fuel. I guarantee that you will get freaked out at least once during these episodes. And the whole two-parter is topped off with a beautiful ending that fixes the problem in the most wonderful, inspiring way possible. This definitely deserves to be called one of the show's greatest episodes.
- Worst: "The Christmas Invasion." Have an Incapacitated!Doctor story? Sounds like a good concept. Do this story with a newly-regenerated Doctor while trying to introduce the audience to him? Really bad idea. Ironically, it manages to work until the Doctor actually wakes up. Then we have a final fight mixed with one Establishing Character Moment after another, shortchanging both. What we get in the end is the impression that our new Doctor is little more than bipolar and an Esoteric Happy Ending that is, quite frankly, pretty disturbing.
Favorite:
- "Mixology Certification": I liked it because it was a departure from the usual humor they do. It showed the characters outside of their usual areas in the school.
- "Epidemiology": I loved the shout outs to zombie movies. I also liked that this wasn't just a throw away episode with nothing that affects the rest of the story.
Least favorite:
- "A Fistful of Paintballs"/"A Few Paintballs More": I honestly just didn't get the references. I never saw Star Wars so I had no clue what they were talking about.
- "Competitive Ecology": It portrayed the study group almost like a cult. It was bizarre.
Friends: Favorite:
- "The One Where No One's Ready": Partially because this happens so much in real life.
Also I know this is the Live Action forum, but I just couldn't help myself.
- "The Siege of the North" :I loved the story telling and world building.
- "The Boiling Rock": It was almost like a 45 minute movie. It is, hands down, my favorite episode of any show ever.
edited 21st Oct '11 3:29:21 PM by wuggles
Lord high Xecutioner
Myth Busters - Best = bull in a china shop. I expected the buls to break the china. Myth busted.
Worst = baseball myths. When I was at school, there was sport, cabbage and fish. I have hated sport, cabbage and fish ever since.
Buffy - Best Family Season 5, episode 5, explains why Tara manked the spell last year and the Willow/Tara ship is written in stone.
Worst= Tabuls Raza. It is magnificent fun as a stasnd alone, but Willow dumping Tara breaks all previously extablished canon.
Babylon Five- Best = Day of the Dead; Worst = Comes the Inquisitor''.
Xena - Best = One against an Army; Worst = the Way.`
Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!
As the Film board has an Overrated/Underrated Film thread, I thought I'd do something similar for this board, just a collection of personal opinions on TV, you know?
So, we all have our favorite TV shows. At least, I'm assuming that's why we're here, right? And within those shows we can find episodes that stand out, some in good ways, some in... not so good ways. This thread is a place for Tropers to catalogue their opinions on individual episodes of their favorite shows. Remember to elaborate on WHY you dislike your least favorite episode, lest this be deleted as a complaint thread.
Here are mine.
edited 12th Oct '11 9:46:36 AM by HamburgerTime
The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."