What are some of your favorite episodes of television?

[Liminal Cat]

Some of mine:

Cowboy Bebop: Wild Horses

It seems like this is often considered to be one of the lesser episodes of Cowboy Bebop, but I’ve always been fond of it. It’s nice to see something from Spike’s past that actually gives him warm feelings, and the ending with the Space Shuttle Columbia is awesome.

The Twilight Zone: The Midnight Sun

I could have easily chosen It’s a Good Life or Shadow Play or When the Sky Was Opened or The A Game of Pool, but this time I’m going with The Midnight Sun. It does a superb job of depicting an absolutely nightmarish scenario, both on a macro and micro level.

The Simpsons: I Married Marge

I’m not sure if I have an absolute favorite Simpsons episode, but this is a really underrated episode. Seriously, f*** A Milhouse Divided for retconning Marge’s feelings towards her and Homer’s dumpy wedding.

Primal: Rage of the Ape-Men

I’m a sucker for beautiful depictions of nature, especially in animation. I actually like the first half of this episode more than the second.

Planet Earth: Caves

A recent first time watch, so I can see this falling off my list eventually. Still, this was mesmerizing.

All in the Family: Cousin Liz

Not the funniest All in the Family episode by a long shot, but this episode was a big middle finger to Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children coalition, so it rules.

The Tick: The Tick vs. The Tick

Nothing much to say about The Tick vs. The Tick other than it’s a ton of fun. The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight is one of the very, very rare “lol random” characters who’s actually tolerable because his voice and mannerisms are (mostly) amusing rather than annoying.

The Dekalog: Dekalog VI

I’d love to choose a less obvious choice, but V and VI really are the best episodes of the Dekalog.

Mushishi: Raindrops and Rainbows

I feel kind of silly choosing an episode of Mushishi since I haven’t seen every episode from the first season and none from the second, but there’s no way I could leave it off. I love the way this show depicts nature as this haunting, mysterious, ethereal thing.

Freaks and Geeks: The Garage Door

Freaks and Geeks is probably my favorite show. Usually, each episode has one story that’s great and one story that’s clearly lesser, but here, both halves of the episode are superb. I’m sure most fans prefer Neal’s storyline (so do I) but Ken’s subplot has what might be my favorite scene in any television show: when Ken confesses to Lindsay that he has a crush on Amy. The way Linda Cardellini delivers the line, “Oh my god… you really like her, don’t you?” is… otherworldly.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Paper Hearts from The X-Files.

 

[SniperHF]

House - "Three Stories" - Probably my favorite single episode of any show.

The Shield - "Family Meeting" - The still undefeated best series finale.

Stargate SG1 - "Within the Serpent's Grasp"

Farscape - "Liars Guns and Money" - well 3 episodes but I'm counting it.

Justified - "Decoy"

 

[trojansoilers]

Breaking Bad - Ozymandias
GoT - Battle of the Bastards
Community - Remedial Chaos Theory
Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Charlie Work

 

[Babe Ruth]

There was an old Christmas episode of WKRP I like a lot.
All the guys from the radio station show up (unawarely) to Loni Anderson's apartment with Christmas tree(s) to cheer her up.. so she ends up with like half a dozen unwanted trees, but gets an apartment full of friends.

 

[frisco]

Six Million Dollar Man-The Bionic Woman. Introduced for the first time. A really good love story.

The Bionic Woman-Doomsday Is Tomorrow. A dying scientist creates a doomsday bomb that will destroy the earth in the sake of peace. Jaime Sommers has to outwit a HAL-like computer to save the world.

Californication-The Apartment. Maybe my favorite all-time TV episode. Hank's conquests over the past few months all show up at his place to confront him. A raging Rick Springfield bearing strippers adds some spice.

X-Files-Herrenvolk. Set in Alberta. One of the mythology episodes. Alien Bees. The Vegreville easter egg. A bunch of other stuff. Hard to pick one episode.

Millennium-The Time Is Now. A virus (worldwide?) is unleashed. Is it the end of the world? Frank's wife dies.

Breaking Bad-Felina. Finale. Too many good ones to pick one but I tried.

90210-One Wedding And A Funeral. Dylan's new wife is mistakenly killed by his mobster enemy who happens to be her father.

Curb Your Enthusiasm-Palestinian Chicken. Hard to explain. The Israel-Palestine conflict is parodied in weird way.

Seinfeld-The Merv Griffin Show. Kramer finds the set pieces of the old MG Show and revives the format.

Melrose Place-The Big Bang. Kimberly goes whacko and blows up MP.

Star Trek Original Series-The Spectre Of The Gun. The Enterprise are pitted against their rivals with the final showdown at the OK Corral.

Homeland-The Star. Brody is executed after trying to take down the Iranian government.

SCTV-CBC. SCTV goes off air due to janitor strike and picks up the CBC feed in lieu. Monday Night Curling, Hinterland Who's Who and Front
Page Challenge are featured.

The League-Chalupa vs. The Cutlet. Trying to steal Jay Cutler-Kristin Cavallari's baby formula.

The Simpsons-Homer Goes To College. A bunch of nerds help Homer pass nuclear physics class.

Sex And The City-Twenty-Something Girls vs. Thirty-Something Women. Girls go the Hamptons and wage friendly war with their younger versions of themselves.

Mad Men-The Milk And Honey Route. Second last episode. Don Draper goes on cross-country trip of introspection after leaving McCann advertising.

Get Smart-Forget the name of the episode but Don Rickles guest stars.

My Best-Carey

Edit: Put some storylines in so people could identify the eps.

 

[TheAngryHank]

GoT S4 E1 " I'll eat every f***ing chicken in this room"

Workaholics : when dudes wake up drunk on their roof and ones across the street on someone's else's roof lol have to race to work to erase all the messages they left on the bosses phone. This episode has everything including future babes and a breathalyzer to keep them from getting hungover.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Many to choose from if I pause to think but three that come right off the top of my head are:

Lost: Through the Looking Glass (season 3 finale). Not just a real WTF is happening experience, but one with genuine emotional punch to it. (Also The Constant still makes me cry).

Eastbound & Down: Chapter 15. Ashley Schaeffer's Plantation. Just an insane and hilarious half hour of TV that I probably think about way too often.

Silicon Valley: Optimal Tip-to-Tip Efficiency. Another half hour of comedy that reduced me to a puddle of tears. Great comedy writing that turns a very vulgar joke into the very answer the characters need to solve an important question. A joke with a plot purpose.

It'll usually take me years to get around to rewatching things I like but these three episodes always jump out to me because in all three cases I turned around and watched them immediately again.

 

[Shareefruck]

Very nice OP post. Seth Rogen was so much better in Freaks and Geeks than anything else he's ever done, IMO, even though it's such an understated role.

 

[Hoverhand]

Might have to rack my brain a bit more and edit this but here are some of the bangers from my favourites.

Breaking Bad - Faceoff
Breaking Bad - Felina
Better Call Saul - Coushatta
Better Call Saul - Chicanery
The Sopranos - Funhouse
The Sopranos - Long Term Parking
Supernatural - Swan Song
Chernobyl - Please Remain Calm
Chernobyl - Open Wide, O Earth

 

[Babe Ruth]

90210-One Wedding And A Funeral

There was an early Christmas episode I liked.. it was modeled on It's a Wonderful Life, where angels are basically looking over the cast and their Christmas time decisions, etc.
Then they all take a field trip to the barrio to spread some Christmas cheer. There's something endearing & noatalgic about it.. I've rewatched it a couple times over the years.

 

[Boris Zubov]

Madmen --- The Suitcase

Band of Brothers --- Day of Days

Sopranos --- Pine Barrens

Madmen --- The Beautiful Girls

Sopranos --- The Strong Silent Type

 

[Osprey]

The Twilight Zone, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (a passenger on a plane sees a creature out on the wing)

Gilligan's Island, "Pass the Vegetables, Please" (a crate of radioactive seeds washes up on the island and the castaways plant them)

Blackadder's Christmas Carol (the nicest, most generous man in London is taught the error of his ways and becomes a cruel and greedy miser overnight)

Tales From the Crypt, "And All Through the House" (a cheating housewife is visited by a murderous Santa on Christmas Eve)

MacGyver, "The Widowmaker" (MacGyver goes rock climbing and Murdoc shows up, wanting revenge)

Newhart, "The Last Newhart" (series finale, a tycoon buys up the entire town and converts it into a golf course)

Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Cause and Effect" (the Enterprise gets caught in a time loop)

The Simpsons, "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" (Homer eats poisonous sushi and prepares to die)


For the record, those aren't necessarily my favorite episodes overall. I just went with one episode each from some of my favorite shows, since that seemed more interesting than an overall list that's mostly episodes from my favorite show.

 

[VMBM]

Some British comedy gems:

Fawlty Towers — Gourmet Night
The Young Ones — Flood & Bambi
Blackadder (Goes Forth) — Goodbyeee
Men Behaving Badly — In Bed with Dorothy
I'm Alan Partridge (Series 1) — To Kill a Mocking Alan
Coupling — The Girl with Two Breasts

 

[Power Man]

Some of mine:

Cowboy Bebop:

Cowboy Bebop!


X-Files : too many great episodes, can't pick one, but the one with the "Amish" community was great.

Severance S1 finale

 

[frisco]

There was an early Christmas episode I liked.. it was modeled on It's a Wonderful Life, where angels are basically looking over the cast and their Christmas time decisions, etc.
Then they all take a field trip to the barrio to spread some Christmas cheer. There's something endearing & noatalgic about it.. I've rewatched it a couple times over the years.

That was a good one. The "Donna Martin graduates" was one I considered. I have them all on DVD (pretty old school). Just have to find the time to get around and watching them again.

My Best-Carey

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Death Note - Episode 25 "Silence" - The culmination of a series-long battle between "Good" and "Evil" and probably one of the more iconic animé moments. This episode affected me so much that the first three times I watched the series I could only get one or two episodes past this one. I finished the series with my wife the fourth go-around and wished I would have left the rest after this point to my imagination. My most recent watch-through last month I stopped at this episode. (That's not to say the rest isn't good, it's just my own personal feelings about the direction.)

South Park - Season 10 Episode 6 - "Make Love not Warcraft" - This was the famous World of Warcraft episode. As a huge lifelong gamer (espeically MMO's) and South Park fan I thought they really knocked this one out of the park. It's hilarious and hits so many of the common themes in the nerd world. The way they depicted the bad guy in World of Warcraft is how most of us envision any player who is better than us at a game lol.

 

[Stylizer1]

House - "Three Stories" - Probably my favorite single episode of any show.

The Shield - "Family Meeting" - The still undefeated best series finale.

Stargate SG1 - "Within the Serpent's Grasp"

Farscape - "Liars Guns and Money" - well 3 episodes but I'm counting it.

Justified - "Decoy"

The Shield - "Family Meeting" - The still undefeated best series finale.

Best TV show ever.

 

[reckoning]

A few of my favourites from sitcoms:

Newhart -"Take Me To Your London" . The townfolk become paranoid that the town is being invaded by aliens because "War Of The Worlds" is on TV, and the more Dick tries to be the voice of reason and sanity, the more they become convinced that it's actually happening. It's a completely ludicrous idea for a plot, but it works because they had built the town up for several seasons as being full of residents who were gullible and somewhat detached from reality.

All In The Family - "Lionel's Engagement". This was the episode where they revealed that Lionel's fiancee's parents are an interracial couple. And in their bigoted intolerance of this, Archie and George finally find common ground.

Cheers - "Diane's Perfect Date". After making fun of each other for bad dates they've had, Sam and Diane agree to set each other up with a date the other chose for them. Season 1 was all about building the Sam/Diane will they get together or not dynamic, and this episode did it better than any other. And Diane's date was so memorable, he ended up returning for a couple more episodes in future seasons.

Curb Your Enthusiasm - "Palestinian Chicken". I don't think I've ever laughed more at a single episode of any show. I could watch it 20 times and never get sick of it.

WKRP in Cincinnati - "Fish Story" The back story to this episode is that the network had told the show that they were being too clever and they should make the show simpler to appeal to more viewers. Angry about this, the show set out to make an intentionally dumb episode. But it worked perfectly because the cast was so talented.

I can't pick just one episode from Seinfeld, but they were absolutely on fire in Seasons 3 and 4. The Boyfriend, The Limo, The Contest, The Bubble Boy, The Implant, The Junior Mint, The Outing. That was a Hall of Fame calibre run of episodes.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Stargate Atlantis - Rising (Part 1 + 2)

 

[BostonBob]

Seinfeld - The Contest

And now that I've finished posting my opinion......