Homicide had a few: ‘Crosetti’ and the White Glove Killer and Gordon Pratt trilogies.
Or, or the Gilligans Island episode where they almost get off the island but Gilligan screwed it up.
Some great picks so far, here’s a few of mine that I can think of …
The Rockford Files - “Nice Guys Finish Dead” (Rockford wins a Goodhue award for his P.I. work, but at the ceremony, there’s a murder in the men’s room. Klutzy P.I. wannabe Freddie Beemer (complete with electrical tape on his horn-rimmed glasses) sees the suspect but has a hard time remembering him. Rockford is aided by too-good-too-be-true P.I. Lance White (Tom Selleck) who takes Beemer to a hypnotist, but all he can do is stare at her cleavage. Eventually, the case is solved and Rockford has to surrender his award to White due to a judging error. Both Beemer and White were seen in previous episodes.)
Hawaii Five-0 - “Over Fifty? Steal” (Hume Cronyn plays Lewis Avery Filer, an insurnace worker forced out of his job, who challenges McGarrett to catch and arrest him even telling him by phone when he’s commiting crimes. Cronyn seems to love his part and plays it masterfully.)
The Andy Griffith Show - “Opie, the Birdman” (While playing with a slingshot, Opie hits a bird’s nest killing a mama bird. Opie has to raise the offspring and decide when it’s time to let them go.)
The Twilight Zone - “The Night of the Meek” (Art Carney as a department store Santa Claus.)
“Time Enough at Last” - (Never was breaking a pair of eyeglasses MORE sad than when it happened to Burgess Meredith)
Star Trek - “City on the Edge of Forever” Kirk goes back in time looking for McCoy only to fall in love with Edith Keeler (Joan Collins) who’s destined to die.
The Odd Couple - “Password” (Felix and Oscar appear on the game show and can’t score until they figure each other’s rationale of thinking. Aristophenes? Ridiculous.)
Taxi - “Memories of Cab 804 Parts 1 & 2” (All of the cabbies recall individual stories shown in flashback about a particular cab that got totalled in an accident.)
I must put in my vote for a third season episode of Moonlighting called Atomic Shakespeare.
Probably the single most brilliantly written episode of the show, it was a version of Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew, done as only the Moonlighting cast could do it. Check out this dialogue:
I’m still trying to get a VHS copy of that episode from a friend of mine in Salt Lake City. But it looks like I may be in luck - Moonlighting on DVD is coming this November.
The Outer Limits – Demon with a Glass Hand – written by Harlan Ellison, starring Robert Culp. Culp plays a man with amnesia, being pursued by aliens who, it turns out, are from the future. They’re looking for everyone from the earth of the future, and only Culp has the secret of where they’re hiding, even if he doesn’t know it. Culp is advised what to do by a computer in the form of a glass hand that’s been grafted onto his body. The problem is, it’s missing three of its memory units (each of which is a finger), and the aliens have those.
Truly weird, off the wall, filled with odd twists, and a wonderful bittersweet ending.
The episode of “The West Wing”- I think it was during the first season- where a homeless Korean war vet is found dead wearing a coat that Toby gave to the goodwill. The coat has Toby’s business card in it, so the police call Toby when they find the body. Toby uses the President’s name to arrange for a funeral with an honor guard. The last scene is incrediby moving. It takes place on Xmas eve, and the music in the background is “The Little Drummer Boy”, which works perfectly with it.
Now I want to go order seasons 1 & 2 on DVD.Farscape; the entire series, but some single-ep standouts are;
Crackers Don’t Matter - a small alien drives the crew mad
The Way We Weren’t - Pilot and crew discover one of Aeryn’s deep dark secrets, the puppeteers for Pilot put on some heartbreaking tragedy, the Pilot puppet out-acts the rest of the crew…and you’ll never look at Pilot as a “puppet” again…
Won’t Get Fooled Again - Journey thru Crichton’s twisted subconcious
The Locket - John and Aeryn grow old together in a time-accelerated universe, features a cool shot of Moya reverse-starbursting as well
Different Destinations - the Moyans travel back in time, with disastrous results
Incubator - Scorpius shows John why he hates Scarrans with a trip thru his past, gives Scorpy more depth as a foil to John
Dog with Two Bones - “You have got to be kidding me…”
Unrealized Reality - John begins to realize the dangers of the wormhole knowledge in his head “Fear is the correct answer”…“oops…”
Kansas - the Moyans arrive on Earth in 1985, and need to fix a corruption in the timeline (great Henson inside jokes as well…)
Terra Firma - we see the Moyans reactions to human society
A Constellation of Doubt - we see Humans reactions to the Moyans…
oops, forgot Revenging Angel - John is knocked into a coma by D’Argo, and battles off Dream-D thru a “Looney Tunes” style universe, this ep is a PERFECT homage to the Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons
Oh yeah, both the Lance White episodes were great!
The episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Bea Arthur is Dewey’s babysitter while Lois, Hal, Reese, and Malcolm are having a horrendous day at a water park (I believe it was Season 1’s finale). The part where Bea and Dewey are dancing to ABBA’s “Fernando” is wonderful.
That is Episode 10 of the first season and is called “In Excelsis Deo.” I just watched it two days ago :).
-DF
I’d have a hard time choosing which episode of The Defenders was my favorite. Even though it wasn’t mentioned in the link I provided, the one that remained in my memory was about a defendant who was actually guilty, even though E.G. Marshall skillfully got him acquited.
The social issues on this groundbreaking series were impressive to a young adult(me). This was the groundbreaking Law show upon which all others were based.
And I agree with most of the cites from the 1960’s/70’s shows provided by other posters.
I will find it hard to pick one so I’ll name a bunch
Scrubs:
Mr Catalyst (The first Michael J Fox episode)
My Screwup (The last one with Brendan Fraser)
West Wing:
Two Cathedrals
Seinfeld
I don’t know the name of this one but it’s the one where Kramer gets an intern.
I’ll second Demon With a Glass Hand and nominate
“The Man Who Had To Struggle For Everything” from The Simpsons
The best half hour of dark comedy I’ve ever seen. Frank Grimes is a man injured in a tragic silo accident who had to spend years teaching himself “to walk and feel pain again.” His heroic story gets him a job at Springfield Nuclear, but the experience of working with lackadaisical Homer proves too much for him. He visits Homer’s house, where he sees Homer’s Grammy award and a picture of Homer in outer space.
Grimes: You’ve been in outer space!?!
Homer (politely): You haven’t?
After seeing Homer’s nice house Grimes declares, “I live in an apartment over a bowling alley – and under another bowling alley!”
Tasty stuff
Also the “Lola Falana Christmas Special” episode of SCTV. Never has the Christmas spirit been treated more cheesily.
And the Blackadder Christmas special with Blackadder travelling in time. Great black humor.
Futurama: Episode with the Globetrotters.
Seinfeld: Episode where George pretends to be a marine biologist and ends up having to rescue a whale because Kramer hit a golf ball into its blowhole.
Red Dwarf: Episode with the sirens.
Let me briefly mention that I’m impressed that you folks even remember the titles of episodes. I sure don’t.
As much as I respect other people’s choices, I personally can’t take seriously any top 10 list without a single Whedon episode. Between Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, that just makes to sense to me.
Star Trek (TOS) : Mirror Mirror.
Doctor Who : Earthshock. ( alright, pedants, it was several episodes - but one story)
Chef, was the Turkey episode the LAST one? It was funny as hell but I didn’t know it was the swan song of the series…
Star Trek:
TOS: Balance of Terror
TNG: Yesterday’s Enterprise
DS9: Trials and Tribble-ations
Simpsons: The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
Futurama: “I, Roommate”
Fry: “Where’s the bathroom?”
Bender: “The what room?”
Fry: “The BATHroom”
Bender: “The bath what?”
Fry: “THE BATHROOM!”
Bender: “The what-what?”
I second that.