Top 10 Television Episodes

Top 10 Television Episodes

1)      Gridlock – (Doctor Who)

2)      The Fix – (Starsky and Hutch)

3)      Wilson’s Heart – (House)

4)      The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing – (The A-Team)

5)      Saga of a Star World – (Battlestar Galactica)

6)      Tuesday the 17^th – (Psych)

7)      From Out Of The Rain – (Torchwood)

8)      Once More With Feeling – (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

9)      The Speech – (The IT Crowd)

10)  Death and All His Friends –( Grey’s Anatomy)

Death and All his Friends

(Grey’s Anatomy)

Grey’s Anatomy is a guilty pleasure show.  It’s not great.  It’s very on the nose and the characters make ridiculous over the top speeches every five minutes that I suppose are meant to be profound.  Still, once in a while it really does get to me.  In the sixth season finale episode, a shooter comes into the hospital and tension ensues.  For the entire two hours I was a nervous wreck.  Characters were injured and some even killed.  It’s not a perfect episode and I truly hope that real SWAT teams are more efficient than the one in this episode, but it set out to make my heart race and it succeeded.  I was exhausted by the time it was over and it stayed with me pretty strongly days after it aired.

 

The Speech

(The IT Crowd)

Most of the times in a sitcom either the A plot works or the B plot works, but rarely both.  In this season three episode, Jen wins employee of the month and Douglas dates a woman who “used to be a man?!”  Oh God!  From the internet box to the epic fight between Douglas and April, this episode stands out as one of the funniest single episodes of a TV show I’ve ever seen.  It has Roy and Moss teamwork and scheming, oblivious Jen who will believe anything, and pompous Douglas finding love and promptly losing it. 

Once More with Feeling

(Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Usually, when a show has a musical episode, it’s a bad sign.  It’s filled with bad songs and bad singing, but Buffy’s sixth season episode is actually great.  Seven years after I first saw the episode, the songs still get stuck in my head.  I couldn’t even pick a favorite song.  I love “Under Your Spell,” “Rest in Peace,” “Standing,” and “Walk through the Fire.”  I enjoy the rest of the songs as well.  Amber Benson, James Marsters, and Anthony Head all have lovely voices and were given songs to really show off.  Michelle Trachtenberg is a dancer and was given a number to show that off.  The rest of the actors have voices passable enough to pull the episode off.  The sixth season is uneven at best but this episode alone makes it worth it. 

From Out of the Rain

(Torchwood)

I’ll freely admit to being the only one on the planet who likes this episode.  I like Peter Hammond’s writing style.  Very slow and dreamlike.  In fact, thanks to this episode and series one’s Small Worlds, I bought the complete series of Sapphire and Steel.  I love this episode for its atmosphere.  It is creepy and hypnotic.  I know the plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  To me the feel of the episode makes up for it.  I love the darkness and the rain.  I love all the use of red throughout the episode.  I love the fact that Ianto, Gwen, and Owen are hanging out together outside of work because it was nice to see moments of real friendship between any of them.  I love that in both of Hammond’s episodes he introduces something about Jack’s past.  I love comparing and contrasting Jack telling Gwen about Estelle in Small Worlds to Jack telling Ianto about his time in the travelling show in this episode.  I also think the music in this one is great.  Really adds to the other worldly feeling of the episode.  It barely qualifies as science fiction and nothing about the Night Travelers is explained, but I love it anyway and I’ll continue to love it unashamedly. 

Tuesday the 17^th

(Psych)

This homage to the slasher films of the 1980s is one fantastic ride.  They had a great guest stars, lovely locations, and strong direction.  I love that the references in that episode range from Friday the 13^th to Robert the Doll.  The only thing that holds this episode back is Lassiter’s lifeless subplot with Justine Bateman (who is completely wasted in this dull role) as his estranged wife.  But, everything that takes place at the camp is brilliant.  There’s a good twist about halfway through it.  Gus gets one over on Shawn for a change.  Shawn’s characterization is at its best and most importantly, Juliet is great in it.  She’s tough; she takes charge and basically rocks this episode.  Juliet suffers the way a lot of female characters suffer but when they get her right, the get her perfect and this was one of those times.  There are some great friendship moments between Shawn and Gus, some genuinely tense moments and of course some great laughs.  Anytime, the guys get to do their girl scream, I’m sold.

Saga of a Star World

(Battlestar Galactica)

The movie length pilot for the original Battlestar Galactica is far more entertaining than I was expecting it to be.  I bought the series for Dirk Benedict and his hotness, but I stayed because I fell in love with the series and it started with the Pilot.  The destruction of the human race was powerful.  I especially love the heated exchange between Starbuck and Athena when she’s trying to tell him that the Cylons have destroyed all of their colonies.  I love seeing the human race trying to survive after the tragedy.  The last third of the episode taking place at the resort with the Ovions is my favorite.  I love how the guys just want to have fun but can’t ignore it when they get the feeling something’s wrong.  I also love the moment between Starbuck and Athena where he tries to apologize to her.  For my money, she was a better match for him than Cassiopeia was, but apparently the writers disagreed with me.  The effects didn’t look nearly as cheap as I was anticipating.  The guys were cool, the girls were cool, and Boxey and Muffy were adorable.  Even at two and a half hours, I can rewatch this episode over and over again.

The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing

(The A-Team)

From one Dirk Benedict show to another.  The A-Team was never the greatest show.  It didn’t have the strongest writing.  But, it was never meant to be deep.  It was meant to be fun and silly.  And it succeeded in being just that.  The plots were rarely important as they rarely strayed from ‘these bullies want our land/water/soda/etc.’ but this season one episode was really strong.  It starts out pretty typically, but the last section with a blind Murdock talking Hannibal through flying the plane is well paced and pretty tightly written for an A-Team episode.  It’s got some hilarious banter between Murdock and BA and Amy’s actually useful.  The fact that they used a shot from Airplane! took me out of the episode, but only briefly.  How can you not laugh at Face repeatedly hitting BA over the head with a tray?  As a Murdock fan, it’s a particularly great episode.  He has a subplot about being declared sane and he gets to be awesomely competent while helping Hannibal land the plane.  The A-Team at its best.

Wilson’s Heart

(House)

This show is an embarrassing shadow of its former self but this episode reminds me that it was once capable of great television.  The gut wrenching season 4 finale had me in tears longer than I care to admit.  I loved Amber.  She was a great character.  And it was about time Wilson found some happiness.  Of course it was horribly ripped away from him.  The acting from Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard, and Anne Dudek was absolutely brilliant.  The look on Amber’s face once she realizes what’s happening gets me to the core.  And before this episode, Wilson never lost his façade so much and never cried.  House’s confession to Amber on the white bus was about as honest as the character has ever been.  Topping the episode off with Passing Afternoon by Iron and Wine completely shattered what was left of my heart.

The Fix

(Starsky and Hutch)

Before the DVDs came out, I wore out my recorded vhs tape of this episode.  For a hurt/comfort junkie, this episode was made for me.  Hutch is kidnapped and his kidnappers pump him full of heroin in the hopes of getting information out of him.  Starsky was a great character for comedy.  He had an endearing childlike aspect to his personality, but he could also go intense at the drop of a hat.  The whole time Hutch is missing, I could feel the tension in him, the ‘I’m not playing around’ vibe he put off.  And when he finds Hutch completely strung out he turns into a big mother hen.  It’s a beautiful thing.  David Soul does a great job in the scenes at Huggys.

Gridlock

(Doctor Who)

There are plenty of wonderful Doctor Who episodes that stand out to me as great television, but this episode is one I never tire of.  Ten is my favorite Doctor and Martha Jones is my favorite companion, and of course I love the Face of Boe.  Martha is clever as she always is.  I love the Doctor’s desperation to get to her after she’s kidnapped.  It’s strange, I hated New Earth, and this was kind of a sequel to that episode, yet I adore it.  Seeing all the different cars on the motorway is fun.  All the guest stars are memorable.  And I admit to crying at the end when The Old Rugged Cross plays as the Doctor tells Martha about Gallifrey. 

The Fifth Member Of The Team: Amy, Tawnia, and Frankie

When I first started watching The A-Team, I only knew that it was a show about four guys and that Mr. T was one of them.  Imagine my surprise when I started my first episode and a woman’s name appeared in the titles.  I asked other people about this who were not big A-Team watchers and they all told me that they didn’t know there was ever a woman on the show.  It turns out the show went through two women and one man to try for a fifth member in a four man band.

The A-Team was about a band of brothers.  Four guys who had been through Vietnam together and spent years on the run from the military together.  Their bond comes from what they have seen and what they have done.  They know each other inside and out.  Whether they like it or not, they’re family and they’re stuck together.  Face said it best, “apart we’re just a bunch of social misfits, but when we’re together, that’s something very special.”  Who can understand that bond?  Who can know other than the four of them?  No one can.  But, a few tried.

           

 The first fifth member of the team was reporter Amy Allen.  Maybe it’s the Doctor Who/Torchwood fan in me, but this show could have went in a completely different direction, centering on her character.  And, I would have watched it.  I would have watched a show about this ordinary woman adapting to life in this crazy environment with these amazing men.  In today’s television world, we would have seen deep into her psyche and she would have had a romance with Face, or possibly Murdock, or worse, a love triangle with both of them.  But, this show was not about Amy Allen and this was not a deep or dramatic show.  The A-Team was a live action cartoon.  She was merely our POV character who introduced us to the team.  She was not invited to join the team.  She blackmailed her way onto the team.  From the moment she joined, her importance got smaller and smaller, until she literally vanished from the show with barely a mention as to what happened to her.

            In the first season, which she appeared in as a regular, she did all right for herself.  She had a moment of realizing how dangerous working with the team could be (Children of Jamestown), she bonded with Murdock (One More Time), she handled cons pretty well (The Rabbit Who Ate Las Vegas), and she saved the team’s lives (The Beast From The Belly Of A Boeing).  She was pretty fully integrated.  Holiday in the Hills was the first time we got to see the guys completely without Amy and what do you know?  Their interaction was more than enough entertainment to carry the show.

            What Amy really lacked was a distinct personality.  She was a bit dull and flat.  The guys were larger than life.  Hannibal was always on the jazz, was incredibly smug and despite being a fugitive, really loved his life.  Face was a gorgeous charmer and he never missed an opportunity to complain about something.  He was a quick thinker and a capable leader in Hannibal’s absence.  BA more than lived up to his name.  He had an attitude and he was gruff.  But, he loved kids, he loved his van, he loved milk and he loved his mother.  Plus, what would the show have been without his fear of flying and banter with Murdock?  Finally, Murdock was crazy, or really good at acting crazy.  A new persona/obsession every week.  A fearless pilot and fiercely loyal.   Next to all that, Amy just sort of faded.

            Season 2 is when she really faded to the background.  She still had her moments in season 2, but they were few and far between.  She was basically a tag-along.  The actress, Melinda Culea, was fired midseason and Amy simply disappeared.  I consider the first season of The A-Team to be one of the best single seasons of a television series ever.  For what it tried to be, a funny, goofy, but interesting show, season one completely succeeds.  I would be lying if I said that Amy didn’t contribute to that.  The relationship between the guys is the heart of the show, but in some ways, I regret the way the show could have been had Amy been given adequate development and screen time.

After a couple of episodes, we were introduced to the next fifth member of the team.  Another reporter named Tawnia Baker.  Essentially, and Amy replacement.  Unlike Amy, Tawnia did not blackmail her way onto the team.  She tried a much more dignified approach.  She whined and begged until they let her come along.  Tawnia is a pretty hated character who barely lasted into season three.  Personally, I liked her just fine.  She was whiny and a bit of an airhead, but at least that was a bit more of an in your face personality than Amy’s.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for subtlety, but The A-Team is not the place for it.  If she had been more intelligent, she could have been a female Face.  I thought she held her own just fine.  Honestly, I’m a bit perplexed as to why she gets so much hate.  Are there that many Amy loyalists who didn’t want her replaced? 

            Despite being a reporter, Tawnia Baker is no Amy Allen.  While Amy lacked real personality, she had the potential to being leading lady material.  She was sympathetic to clients.  She was smart.  She could have good time with the guys.  She had a quiet determination about her.  Tawnia’s personality would fit in more with an ensemble, if they had tweaked it a little bit.  She also had a determined nature but was more aggressive about it than Amy was.

The real problem with Tawnia is that she didn’t bond with the guys the way that Amy did and this is most obvious in Curtain Call.  Murdock is severely injured and the rest of them have to pull together to save him while trying to avoid MPs.  The drive to save Murdock is palpable in Hannibal, Face, and BA.  Tawnia, on the other hand, almost doesn’t seem to realize that Murdock could die.  She has no sense of urgency in the episode.

Tawnia was out the door soon after that.  She was not in the third season premiere and in the second episode two parter, she was married off and that was that.  She had a lot less time than Amy did, but she did get a proper send off episode (The Bend in the River). 

That is where we leave the women behind.  No more reporters tagging along.  The team stays at four through the rest of season three and all of season four.  It works.  They all have such a wonderful and familial way of interacting that even though the women had some great moments, I can’t help but wonder why the writers ever thought they were necessary.  The writers clearly had no intention of going anywhere with either of them. 

The third and final time the team had a fifth member, they tried a different approach.  He was a special effects expert who also became a wanted man by helping Hannibal, BA, and Face escape the firing squad.  His name was Frankie Santana.  Frankie, like Tawnia, seems to get a lot of hate for being in season five.  Season five had numerous problems, but in my opinion, Frankie wasn’t one of them, at least not a main one.  He had more personality than Amy and Tawnia combined.  The problem was, his personality seemed to be pieced together from the others.  He was something of a ladies’ man, like Face.  He was goofy like Murdock.  He was great at explosives like BA.

Despite that, he could still be an entertaining guy.  He didn’t want to be on the team.  He was forced to stick with them.  However, he was still loyal to them and clearly cared about them.  See Point of No Return and Without Reservations for proof of that.  He could hang out with any of them and seem at ease, particularly Face and Murdock.  He did get in some great lines as well. 

Frankie integrated well with the team.  Perhaps too well.  Leaving backstage drama out of this, Frankie got a lot of screen time in season 5.  BA, on the other hand, was getting less.  Frankie had a preexisting relationship with Hannibal, “Johnny” to him, and he had enough in common with Face and Murdock to hang out with them a lot.  BA was frequently sidelined.  His banter with Murdock was all but gone. 

Though, I just said I would leave backstage drama out of this, I really think that deserves more blame than anything Frankie did.  Perhaps, in earlier seasons Frankie would not have worked.  But, for the fifth season that was so drastically different than the rest, he stood out as the brightest spot in all the changes.

Looking at the series as a whole, the fifth member was something of a revolving door and no attention really need be payed to them.   But, Amy, Tawnia, and Frankie were not just copies of each other.  Amy blackmailed for a spot on the team, Tawnia begged, and Frankie was forced.  They all had their moments of triumph and they all had their moments when I wanted them gone.  It can’t have been easy for the actors and my hat goes off to them for giving it a shot.  There are a lot of what ifs regarding all three characters.  Even at their most irrelevant, I’m glad they were there for the short time that they were.