Favorite TV show episodes

[taurusowner]

Something that I'm really getting into is the new Stargate series, Stargate Universe.  Much darker and less goofy that SG-1 and Atlantis.  I love both of series and wish Atlantis would have lasted at least a few more season.  But it's interesting to see a Stargate series that has none of the campyness or even humor of the other series.  Dare I say it's more "realistic"?  There's really no "monster of the week" or "disaster avoided at the last second" plots.  Not to mention the total lack of "forehead aliens".  It feels like the new Battlestar Galactica, only with Stargate and without all the goofy religious crap.

[lee n. field]

We tried Babylon 5 twice, but couldn’t get past the first few episodes.  I hear it gets really good -- by the second year.

The first year lays foundations and does a lot of foreshadowing.

[seeker_two]

The first year lays foundations and does a lot of foreshadowing.

True....I actually found it better to watch the second and third season before watching the first....made the first season more understandable....

[lee n. field]

True....I actually found it better to watch the second and third season before watching the first....made the first season more understandable....

"Watch your back, Garibaldi."

[Doggy Daddy]

OH!, OH!

The one where Fonzie jumped over a shark with his motorcycle!!

More shows should do something like that...   

DD

[P5 Guy]

Dead Like Me
When Mason has to take the soul of his Guitar Hero. Tied with Roxy and the homeless guy who starts a religion because Roxy grabbed his soul and shock it.

[Unisaw]

The episode on Everybody Loves Raymond in which Marie takes a sculpture class.

On The Andy Griffith Show:
Barney and The Choir
Mr. McBeevee
A Black Day for Mayberry

[Tuco]

I liked the Andy Griffith when Andy was called away for a while and Barney was on vacation, so he had to deputize Goober and Goob had to stay at the courthouse and work on Gilly Walkers car. 
He disassembles it and puts it back together inside the sheriff's office, which totally amazes Floyd.


I liked that one and the SpongeBob Squarepants episode BR-129 when Squidward uses a time machine to get some peace and quiet.
"Everything is chrome in the future!"
That's the one that shows Squidward invented jellyfishing.

[280plus]

I liked the Andy episodes when the Darlin's came to town. Ernest T Bass was another favorite. 

[MechAg94]

Bugs Bunny: The Rabbit of Seville

Bugs Bunny: Bus is a matador, by accident of course.  After Bugs gets botted out of the bull-ring by the bull, bugs says, "Of course you know... this means war."  Two more of my favorite words/phrases from Bugs: "Nin-cow-poop," and "Gulli-bull."

What about Kill the Wabbit? 

I was thinking of that episode of Highlander where he gets in the swordfight and ends up cutting the guys' head off. 
(I guess that is too easy)

[Unisaw]

The Wonder Years episode in which a new music teacher enters the boys' choir class in a singing competition.  (Men, men, men, men....)

[HankB]

Well, if we're going back that far, how about the episode of No Time for Sergeants where they decided to feed all the guys in Will Stockdale's barracks whortleberry root juice in the hopes that they'd all get as strong as Stockdale? Or what happened to the jet when they filled it with Pappy's Elixer? (Pappy was a - wink, wink - moonshiner.)

Or the episode where Pvt. Stockdale was promoted to 2-star general because someone accidentally stepped on an IBM punch card (remember those?) with golf shoes and put a couple of extra holes in it?  (Doggone it, I wasn't even 10 years old when this show was on, and I can still remember these parts!)

Or the episode of Beverly Hillbillies where Banker Drysdale took the Clampetts skeet shooting . . . IIRC, Jed tried to only shoot chips off the clay pigeons "so they could use 'em again" and Ellie May was breaking birds with a slingshot . . .

[280plus]

I remember "No Time" but not THAT well. 

I liked when the Clampett's played, "Ricochet" in the back yard. Always wanted tor try that. Or when jethro was going to be a major league pitcher until they foud out it was bear grease on his fingers that made him throw so good. 

[grislyatoms]

Jethro - "I's gonna be a double-nought spy"
I loved that episode.

One of my all-time favorite tv characters - Festus Hagen from "Gunsmoke".

from imdb:

Dr. Galen 'Doc' Adams: [Festus offers to buy Doc a beer with a silver dollar that he earned from shoeing horses in episode "Whelan's Men".] Why don't you take that money and invest it in something? Why don't you do that?
Festus Haggen: Invest it in what?
Dr. Galen 'Doc' Adams: There's wonderful land values outside of Dodge. Now why don't you go out there someplace, look around, and buy yourself a lot?
Festus Haggen: A lot of what?
Dr. Galen 'Doc' Adams: A lot! A lot of land!
Festus Haggen: Well fiddle, I can't afford to buy a lot of land. You probably could the way you've been a bilking and gouging...
Dr. Galen 'Doc' Adams: Oh, hush up! I'm trying to help you, for heaven sakes. It don't cost a whole lot to buy a little lot.
Festus Haggen: What do you mean it don't cost a whole lot to buy a little, or a whole lot to buy a lot, what do you mean?
Dr. Galen 'Doc' Adams: Well, I mean,... a little lot of land!
Festus Haggen: But there ain't no such a thing. A little's a little, and a lot's a lot, there ain't no little lot, or lot of little, don't you see? Now you want that beer or don't you?
Dr. Galen 'Doc' Adams: No I'm... I'm all worn out.
Festus Haggen: [and as Doc walks away Festus Hollers] If you change your mind me and Newly will be over at the Longbranch having a whole lot of little beers.
[Chuckles and flips his silver dollar]
Festus Haggen: Now I'm buying.

or the episode where the snake oil salesman comes to town -

Speaking to Marshal Dillon "Matthew, don't you think we oughta make sure that stuff is safe for public conniption?"

[230RN]

"The Trouble With Tribbles."  Original Star Trek.

[roo_ster]

Angel, Not Fade Away (the final episode)
Firefly, Mrs. Reynolds
Babylon 5, The Coming of Shadows

^^^Will you get out of my brain!!!!!

I'll mention three from Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Hush
Once More With Feeling
Season Three Finale (Senior class vs the mayor)

[taurusowner]

Hush is my all time favorite Buffy episode.  For a somewhat goofy show, that one was truly creepy.

[Jocassee]

Watching "Our Mrs Reynolds" right now.

"...but if your hand touches metal I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you."

[Scout26]

"The Trouble With Tribbles."  Original Star Trek.

That episode is Pure Win.

 

[AJ Dual]

Honestly, in terms of story-arc Babylon 5 had some of the best writing bar none.

The examples given are excellent. Completely buried under the often execrable visual design and hammy acting.

IMO, some imaginary Sci-Fi show with the better acting and cleaner visual style of Star Trek, the story arc of B5, the grittiness and quasi-documentary look of the new Battlestar Galactica, and the Banter of Firefly would be the best thing ever put to television..

I don't know the name of the episode, but the first X-Files written by William Gibson was really really good. (The second 'First Person Shooter' was pretty weak...)

The programmer trying to track down/destroy the rouge AI getting killed by the AI setting up a cross fire with fake phone calls to police and a gang was great. (As was the duct-tape make shift look of his laptop and cell-modem in the pre-WiFi era..)

And the hacker-girl making her way around the world in an office hidden in a shipping container was cool as well. Her militant leather-look was obviously a homage to "Jane" the augmented "Street Samurai" of his early novels.

The "does not exist" SDI platform the AI commandeered to kill people was great too. How it zoomed in with a "Google Maps" like view of the target 10 years before such a thing existed was cool.

And at the end how the AI was just a bunch of server racks in a little camping trailer in the middle of the desert tended by "robots" made of re-purposed RC cars was really neat.  It was connected to the rest of the world via a single fiber optic line on a row of lonely telephone poles was both funny and creepy at the same time. And you understood how vulnerable it was once discovered, because as Agent Mulder approached, all it could do was flare spotlights, and emit an electronic shriek through a loudspeaker as he stepped closer.

It all looks dated now, but it was a rather semi-realistic and thoughtful treatment of how a malevolent AI would have to manipulate people and resources "behind the scenes" to achieve it's ends. Much better than the entire Terminator franchise.

[Ron]

I don't know the name of the episode, but the first X-Files written by William Gibson was really really good.

I remember that one, it was pretty good. Wikipedia has all the episodes listed.

"Kill Switch"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_Switch_%28The_X-Files%29

episode list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_X-Files_episodes

[TommyGunn]

THE NAKED CITY --
"The Rydecker Case"  and "Which is Joseph Creeley?"

[erictank]

Something that I'm really getting into is the new Stargate series, Stargate Universe.  Much darker and less goofy that SG-1 and Atlantis.  I love both of series and wish Atlantis would have lasted at least a few more season.  But it's interesting to see a Stargate series that has none of the campyness or even humor of the other series.  Dare I say it's more "realistic"?  There's really no "monster of the week" or "disaster avoided at the last second" plots.  Not to mention the total lack of "forehead aliens".  It feels like the new Battlestar Galactica, only with Stargate and without all the goofy religious crap.

I'm generally enjoying SG-U, but I could do without the whole, "Hey look, there's SEX on Stargate!!!!" bit...    If it makes sense, I don't have a problem with it.  Most of what they've shown, IMO, is the above bit.  But overall, that's a fairly-minor quibble. 

I too liked both previous series.  I do miss RDA as a main-focus character, though.  His humor really made SG-1 shine, IMO.  Browder tried, but wasn't QUITE as good, in that respect, and neither was Flanagan (on SG-A).  My wife always laughed at his (Flanagan's) hair - here's a character who's a relatively-high-ranking military officer, and he can't get a milspec haircut?  Then again, I'd laugh at HER, because Atlantis would just put her out like a light - twenty minutes in, and she'd be snoring.  We joke about that to this day - whenever we stumble across it in the listings or flipping through the channels, one of us will look over at the other and she'll start snoring.   

[taurusowner]

Yeah, they did have a lot of soap opera themes early on in the season, though as of late that seems to have been toned down quite a bit.  I do agree that the humor was a great part of the SG1 and SGA, especially Daniel/Jack banter and McKay.  But The near lack of humor of SGA is surprisingly enjoyable.  It's certainly nothing like the other series.  I never really felt like things would end any way but good with SG1 or SGA.  No matter what the story arc or cliffhanger, one always knew that in the end they'd wrap it up and tell a few jokes along the way.  SGU doesn't have that feel at all.  SGU really seems like things could go bad and just stay bad.  After a combined total of 15 seasons of Stargate, it's kind of a refreshing change.

[tyme]

I'm generally enjoying SG-U, but I could do without the whole, "Hey look, there's SEX on Stargate!!!!" bit...    If it makes sense, I don't have a problem with it.  Most of what they've shown, IMO, is the above bit.  But overall, that's a fairly-minor quibble.  

Could you also do without all the gratuitous violence of the SG* series?