I was recently rewatching the IT Crowd, which is one of my favourite shows and after finishing Season 2 Episode 1, “The Work Outing” for the hundredth of time I realized this is probably my favourite sitcom episode of all time. I just can’t get bored of the jokes and the delivery. The writing is gold, and the story escalates from funny to absolutely insane hilarious. Makes me laugh every time. Half the dialogue I quote to this day.
There are many good episodes I love, and could put here as close seconds: probably most of the Futurama series, a dozen of episodes of The Office or some classics from the Friends, I could think of.
So I would like to hear what episodes of any TV show is your favourites and why? Doesn’t needs to be necessarily comedy, anything from television is fair game.
Think of it as a “what single item would you bring to a desert island with you” question, just with an episode of a TV show :)
Firefly, Out of Gas
“Fay-yoo? Ah… ah… OK, she won’t be winning any beauty contests anytime soon, but she is solid. Ship like this, be with you till the day you die.”
“Because it’s a death trap.”
Maybe not favorite of all shows but the first that came to mind;
Out of Gas, Firefly
Take my love
Take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don’t care 'cause I’m still free
You can’t take the sky from meA Dark Quiet Death from Mythic Quest.
Nearly totally removed from the rest of the show, it’s about relationships, sacrifice, integrity, compromise. For a comedy show about video games, this episode hit hard and made me reflect on past relationships and really broke me down. A reminder to take responsibility of your actions when you feel like the blame is external.
Then there’s a very brief end scene that puts it in context with the regular cast.
This episode should have won an award.
Samurai Jack - The Scotsman
One of the best episodes of one of the best animated series of all time.
Monorail monorail monorail
I don’t know about my favorite ever, but the episode I rewatch and love the most from the last few years is the Jackie Daytona (On the Run) episode of What We Do In The Shadows. It’s just perfection from start to finish. It’s ridiculous, hilarious, it’s endlessly quotable, and it doesn’t matter how many times I have seen it- I will always be up for another rewatch. The show is great in it’s entirety but that episode was just pure gold!
Amazing how an episode about a regular human bartender raising money for his local volleyball team can be so hilarious and perfect.
The gay episode of The Last of Us. I think it’s the greatest episode of television period.
Bo Jack - Free churro.
Always Sunny, “The Gang Hits the Road”.
The entire episode is just them driving around Philly with the intention of going elsewhere, but the plan gets derailed in typical gang fashion when they wind up just switching seats over and over (both in and out of the U-Haul) until they end up back where they started, and with zero interest in continuing the original plan.
I wouldn’t say this is my favorite TV episode ever, but my favorite episode from a specific show that I don’t see mentioned elsewhere: Corporate “Natural Beauty” (Season 2, Episode 3). It pokes fun at the different expectations, etc., that men and women face, particularly in the workplace.
The opening scene shows the female character going through her long morning routine, with occasional cuts to the male character repeatedly hitting the snooze button before rolling out of bed and spending 30 seconds getting dressed. When they each arrive at the office, he’s complimented on his appearance, and she’s told that she looks tired.
Corporate is an amazing and underrated show. Hoping it gets the Detroiters treatment, soon.
I’m not familiar with Detroiters. I’ll try to check it out.
For some reason, my mind went to first episodes/pilots. Of these, I’d say that Suits and The OC are up there with some of the best.
As for the actual best episode, I’d go for My Lunch, the Scrubs episode where there’s a rabies outbreak amongst organ transplant patients. Alongside this, probably Tracy does Conan from 30 Rock, and the musical episode of IT Crowd.
That rabies one is good. Also the one with Brendan Fraser is a classic.
Yes, Scrubs is so good. I honestly believe My Lunch and My Screw Up are the two best written episodes of any TV show.
Honorable mention for my favorite moment in a TV show - Brienne of Tarth a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. What a shining, glorious moment of satisfaction for a hardworking and truly good character in a season of utter bullshit.
I will always feel that we were robbed of so many satisfying conclusions because of the show rushing to wrap everything up. Not everything had to be tied in a perfect bow, but what we got certainly did not scratch that perfectly placed itch.
It’s an absolute travesty that they threw away nearly every character’s arc in the final season and robbed them of their big moments, purely to subvert expectations. These arcs were predictable because that’s where their stories were fucking heading. But noOoOoo…
Jaime is probably the show’s finest example of an eight-season arc thrown directly into the trash at the last moment. What was even the point?
I understand they wanted some characters to be disappointments, it could have been cool to have Jaime get super close to a satisfying arc and, at the last second fail. But the last few scenes with him completely backpedalling his entire motivation make no sense.
GOT had so much going for it. And yet, in a post like this asking about favorite episodes, no one is even mentioning it’s earlier fantastic episodes - the final season ruined all previous good work.
The Late Philip J Fry in Futurama. It’s a really sweet but sad episode, and I loved how they explored all the different eras. Episodes which involve Farnsworth’s wacky inventions are always my faves!
I really enjoyed the episode Forks from The Bear, particularly after the traumatic gut punch that was Fishes. Hit close to home and didn’t expect a Taylor Swift song to break me, much less in a GOOD way.
Star Trek TNG S6E21 Where Riker gets put through psychological hell in magnificent fashion. It spells out clearly everything that’s terrifying about psychedelics, and mental hospitals commandeering your life with discrediting tactics.
Also I love the wrestling episode of King of the Hill because Bobby and Connie subvert expectations of warring adults in grand fashion!
The circle of life episode of Adventure time is such a blast! Very trippy.