Convince me to watch/read your favorite series by showing me one installment

Cafe Society
1

I think my thread title is pretty clear, but here are a few rules:

  1. By “series” I mean “a work of fiction or drama with at least four separate installments, the majority of which can watched or read separately and still understood by a newbie.” Thus the LORD OF THE RINGS movies don’t qualify, as (a) there are only three, and (b) none of them tells a complete story; only the entire trilogy does. Likewise the Matrix movies, because they don’t have enough installments. The Star Trek movies, on the other hand, has more than four installments, so they’re in. Only currently published works can count toward the “at least four installments” rule.

  2. Televison shows, comic books, novels, and movies all count.

  3. Explain why this one installment is the best to start a newbie, if you would be so kind.

  4. If possible, include a link to Barnes & Noble, Amazon, IMDB, or whatever other site an interested reader might want to follow.

2

If I wanted to explain to someone what James Bond films were about, I’d show them the pre-title sequence to Goldfinger, which for me pretty much encapsulates what’s great about the series. I’m pretty sure if that appealed to them it’d hook them there and then.

3

Futurama: The Problem with Popplers. If you can’t laugh at that you can’t laugh. It’s got almost every supporting character in at least a minor role, and is the most consistantly funny ep of the series.

4

I’d dismissed Buffy for years, until I happened upon the episode title “The Body.” It knocked me for a loop, and within a short time I became convinced Buffy was the single greatest series in the history of American TV.

5

For Middle Earth the **Hobbit ** of course. (It is a series as you have the Hobbit, LotR, Tales of Tom Bombadil and the Silmarillion which is a series of short stories. If you don’t like the Hobbit, you probably won’t like the others.

Star Trek: The **Tribble ** Episode shows the the shows humor, a bar-room brawl. Klingon vs. Human conflict, a peaceful contest to control a planet instead of bloody combat.

Taxi: Jim takes a drivers test, better known as “What does a Yellow Light Mean?” Voted in TV Guide as the funniest moment in TV history. A burnt out druggie takes a NYC drivers test to get a job and the Sunshine Cab company. Hilarity Ensues.

WKRP: The Turkey drop episode or “As god is my witness I swore Tuckeys could fly” A classic in a great series.

MAS*H: The original Movie.

Barney Miller: Episode where Wojo brings in some brownies that his Hippy girlfriend made. Whoops, they are hash brownies. Best lines: Sgt Yamana Mushy mushy mushy.
Sgt Fish who is near retirement and always in pain, he just got done chaisng done a 25 year old perp by leaping across roofs, he is now informed that the brownies were laced with hash. “Figures, the best I have felt in 20 years and its illegal.”

SNL: The Richard Pryor hosting with the original cast. Skit with Chevy that ends in “Dead Honkey”

Just Shoot Me: The Christmas Episode the parodied at the same time, the Grinch (with Finch, right down to trying to use a magnet to pull out nails). Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus, A Charlie Brown Christmas Special and Chucky.
(However this series sucked after the first 2-3 seasons, so I would say only watch the first 2-3 seasons).

Northern Exposure: The Epsiode were Christ build a trebuchet to fling a cow and Ed goes “Oh, just like in Monty Python and a the Holy Grail” Chris who is an artist, needs to be original and Flings an upright Piano instead set. It fly through the air to the sounds of Enya.

Jim

6

That’s something on which we can agree.

7

Or the episode with Donny–Chicken pot, chicken pot, chicken pot pie.

8

Yeah, “Slow Donnie” would also be my vote for Just Shoot Me, though even the first 2-3 seasons aren’t great, but they were better than jsut about anything else that was on ast the time. (And besides, that lead actress was smokin…and had honest to God curves! How often do lead women on a TV show have vurves?)
If you can watch the Futurama episode “Jurrasic Bark” and not at least shed a small tear at the end, you are an inhuman moster with no soul who was spawned in the very depths of Hell itself.

9

While I can definitely see the advantages of hooking folks on Buffy with “The Body,” I tended to rope folks in with “Hush”. I think it’d have the advantage of requiring less background knowledge, having more humor, and having a very original premise; on the other hand, “The Body” has much greater pathos.

I’ve just finished watching the first season of Lost on DVD, and am shaking my fist at the heavens for the long time it’ll be before I get to watch the second season. I think if I were trying to hook someone on that show, I’d show them the first fifteen minutes of the pilot. Which is pretty damned rare, for a show’s first fifteen minutes to be so strong.

Firefly? “Out of Gas”: it shows all the characters, it’s got an intricate plot structure, it’s extremely tense, and it shows how hardcore Captain Tightpants is. “Our Mrs. Reynolds” would come in a close second: less intricate plot, less ensembly, but far funnier and with a much more fun twist.

Deadwood: whichever episode it is wherein they establish a town government. the show is all about corrupt people doing good things and good people cooperating with the corrupt, and the difficulty of figuring out what constitutes “good” in a place so devoid of morality. I think that’s very well encapsulated in the various machinations around the formation of the government.

Le Guin’s Earthsea: A Wizard of Earthsea. It’s the first, it’s the most narratively straightforward, and you can’t really understand the rest without understanding this one, I think. However, it’s not the best: I’d probably say The Other Wind is the best.

Daniel

10

Wow. That show is cooler than I remembered.

For Buffy, I would instead suggest S1 episode The Puppet Show. IMO, it’s the first exemplar of everything Buffy could be – really funny as well as legitimately scary, lots of expectation-confounding twists and turns, excellent action scenes, poignancy, and oh, did I mention how funny it is?

For the brilliant comic book Sandman, either #17, “Calliope,” available in the Dream Country collection, or #50, “Ramadan,” in Fables & Reflections.

–Cliffy

11

Actually, for an introductory Buffy episode, I’d choose either Season 2’s Innocence (with a “Previously seen on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” recap of the end of Surprise), or Season 3’s The Wish.

For Discworld, I’d choose Small Gods to hook folks.

And, for Wonderfalls, I’d choose either Wound-Up Penguin or Crime Dog.

12

I’d go with the first episode, assuming that’s the one where Bill and Montana have the shootout with the bad guy in the street. Every friggin’ episode is excellent, so it’s the rare series where if you don’t like the very first episode, odds are the series simply isn’t for you.

For The Sopranos, I’d recommend the one from the first season where Meadow and Hunter take speed to get through their recital, which has that great Godfather homage at the end with the hit on Christopher’s friend and the fake hit on Christopher overlaid with the recital. I am biased, though, because that is the actual episode I got hooked on. It was the first one I’d seen, and I promptly checked out the repeats to get caught up. It was on again last week. (To be followed by the one where Tony and Meadow check out colleges. Another fantastic episode. “Are you in the mafia?”)

For Star Trek: The Next Generation, I’d probably go with Yesterday’s Enterprise. Back story bedamned, any episode with Picard steeling his jaw and going down with the ship is aces in my book.

13

A couple I didn’t see…

The Shield: Very first episode. Tells you everything you need to know about what this show will entail.

News Radio: Super Karate Monkey Death Car, simply hilarious.

14

For Babylon 5 I would choose an episode from the third season, “Passing Through Gethsemane”. It’s an episode that can stand alone, apart from the 5-yr story arc of the series. You learn a lot about what many characters think and believe about social and religious issues. If not that one, then I have a tie for second place, two episodes from the first season. Oddly enough they both also touch on religious issues. “Parliament of Dreams” or “Believers”. Break out the tissues for the latter one.

15

I must be a Bab 5 fan heathen, because I only consider that ep. average. I watched it recently on DVD and didn’t see why it was so great. Not bad in any way, but I think there are better B5 episodes. I would recomend “Confessions and Lamentations” as the episode to bring someone into B5.

16

You know, I started to list “The Body” as the best Buffy episode to start on. I didn’t because…

  1. Despite its brilliance, its very unlike the rest of the series, so someone could easily like “The Body” and hate the equally-brilliant “Once More with Feeling” or “Earshot,” both of which are a lot more representative of what made Buffy great, and…

  2. It’s very arc-heavy, as a lot of what is going on in that episode only makes sense if you appreciate what is going on with the Scoobie’s lives all around.

So I wouldn’t start someone off with “Body.” I’d make someone fall in love with Buffy by showing them “Hush.”

17

I generally don’t like to admit that I’m a fan of the show, but I would disagree with both of you, mainly for your reasons.

I’d show them Bothered, Bewitched and Bewildered, or whatever the name is of the Valentine’s day episode where Xander casts the love spell.

Or Band Candy, which is notable only because it is actually the first episode I ever saw, and it hooked me.

Hush has way too much invested in the Riley Buffy backstory to translate well to a newcomer. Besides, you never want to throw the best episodes at somebody for a first viewing. It all goes downhill from there. Start with an average episode – which is of course still good – like Band Candy, and then the treasures like Hush and OMWF are saved for when they can be truly appreciated.

18

If you don’t mind spoilers, then issue 50 of Brian Azzarello’s 100 Bullets which explains who the Minutemen are, what the Trust is and what “CROATOA” means. And it has a bloody gunfight in a street, just to top it off.

Warren Ellis did some fine work on Magic and Loss, which is issue 10 in the Planetary title. You can’t have not worn a towel around your neck and pretended you were a superhero, and then not have a small chill at this issue.

19

Agreed - Ramadan, that is. That’s my favorite one-shot story in the whole run.

For Family Guy, I’d like to nominate Road to Rhode Island.

20

I’d show you:

Objects in Space for Firefly. Very easy to follow and a brilliant villain.

Crackers Don’t Matter for Farscape. “Humans are superior!!!” Hilarious episode.

The Pilot of Veronica Mars.

The Body episode of Buffy. This is the first one I showed my wife. I hesitated about it since it is such a big spoiler, but I went for it and it paid off. We’re on our second time through the series together.