Crud, can a mod fix my crummy spoiler tags?
I got one more - the episode in the most excellent anime Cowboy Bebop where Spike and his buddy Vicious meet up in a Cathedral. The scene was brilliantly composed, and the music was awesome. Reminded me of Quentin Tarintino and John Woo, but in a cartoon.
That was excellent, since it was so nicely extended. From the same episode, I liked the scene where they came out of the comet, Kirk figured out what the Rommies did, and took advantage of what could have been a disaster. It is so rare that a show that claims its hero is a genius shows it, not tells it.
The end of The Doomsday Machine with Kirk saying “Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard,” Spock saying “Mr. Scott” with frantic impassivity, and Scotty swatting sparks. Damn fine writing, and based on character too.
But hey, how about that great moment in “My Favorite Martian” when … nah.
How about that great scene in Time Tunnel when … nah.
And then there was that time in Twilight Zone when everyone turned out to be dead … nah.
Or what about that incredible scene from Buck Rogers when … when … when … nah.
One BSG moment that gets me is the swearing-in of Laura Roslin aboard the suddenly-redesignated Colonial One. It’s very reminiscent of Johnson’s swearing-in after the Kennedy assassination, except Roslin looks deeply afraid. Must come as a shock to be, what, 38th in the line of succession, and in one instant everyone before you is gone …
“So say we all.”
Battlestar Galactica, when Adama finally realizes they have to give up the lost pilot search for Starbuck. Apollo (his estranged son) asks him if he’d have kept the search up so long if it was him out there.
Adama: “If it was you, we’d never leave.”
I get tears in my eyes thinking about it. I am such a wuss.
I’ve got one from Time Tunnel, wise guy. 
“The Day The Sky Fell Down” - Doug and Tony land in Honolulu on Dec. 6, 1941 and try to warn the authorities about the attack on Pearl Harbor. They fail.
Tony’s father is there as a naval officer along with Tony as a child. Young Tony is sent away and is safe but his father is mortally wounded in the attack. Doug and Tony find him as he lay dying, and his father, strength fading, tells Tony that he reminds him of his son. As he cradles his father’s head in his lap, Tony replies, chokingly, “I am your son.” You can see the recognition in his father’s eyes as he dies.
I vividly remembered that scene 40 years later, and I just had to get the DVD set when it came out.
The short-lived TV series She-Wolf of London, especially the episodes “Can’t Keep a Dead Man Down,” parts one and two. Witty script, good direction, wonderfully atmospheric photography, amazing acting by everybody from the bit-part players to the leads. My favorite two hours of sci-fi TV.
This was the first thing I thought of. It was the exact moment that flipped me from ‘You know, this actually isn’t bad’ to ‘Damn, this is good!’
“We’ll need a priest.”
I’ve always considered Demon with a Glass Hand to be a seminal and defining moment for sci-fi on TV.
When we first meet the Borg in Star Trek, before there was any hint of their Janeway-ification. As we loved them, completely souless and efficient, no Queen, no negotiating just the Borg.
And in the same episode, Picard calling on Q to save the Enterprise, admitting that he’d overcooked things when he declared the Federation to be ready to reach out to the rest of the galaxy.
It’s TV, cuz I’m sure it’s been shown on T.V. by now, It’s Sci-Fi cuz…well…it just is:
"And what you fail to realize is: My ship is dragging mines!
The first time TV ever had a truly adult SF hit. Yes, indeedy.
The reason I think Outer Limits was so cool is that it wasn’t unduly burdened with what an SF story ought to be, unlike most SF TV series that came after, which is kinda the point I was trying to make about the bad effect of Star Trek and Star Wars on TV. In any given week you might get anything – a lame story about a disembodied brain, a halfway decent story like “The Invisible Enemy” or a mind-blowing story like “Demon With A Glass Hand.” Of course a lot of it looked like shit because they had no budget and no special effects tech. I mean, “Wolf 359” might have been scary if the evil floating thingie hadn’t been such a totally obvious hand puppet – it was like Shari Lewis was trying to scare people with Lampchops. (OK, that’s not quite fair – Lamb Chops could look kinda evil at times.) And “Invisible Enemy” would have been a lot more impressive if the enemy hadn’t turned out to look like something you could buy in a dime store for a quarter. In fact, “Invisible Enemy” was primo science fiction – its central plot point seems kinda obvious nowadays, but in those days, especially for TV, it was thinking outside the box.
That’s what went wrong with Outer Limits ver. 2.0 – it never really had that “outside the box” feel that Outer Limits did, despite the greater freedom its writers had.
Though only its central concept was SF, and the show itself was mainly soap suds, I was very touched by the final minute or so of the final episode of Quantum Leap. The episode is a bit bizarre, but basically Sam is told that he can now control his leaps, and that his missions are going to become more difficult. Before he begins his new missions, Sam tells “God” or whoever the hell he is (Bruce McGill, great character actor, actually) that there is something he has to take care of. Sam leaps and arrives in 1969 in the living room of Beth Calivicci, Al’s first wife. Without going into too much detail, we first see footage of Beth from an earlier episode. She is dancing alone, though in the earlier episode, Al, the hologram, unknown to her, was dancing with her. Becuase Beth remarried (after Al was declared dead after being held as a POW in Vietnam), Al became a bit of a man whore, was unhappily married four or five more times, etc., etc. Beth is frightened when Sam leaps in, but he tells her he is a friend of Al’s, and he has something to tell her she must believe. Sam says something like, “Instead of telling you the whole fairy tale, I’m going to jump straight to the happy ending.” A pause as Beth waits… “Al’s alive, and he’s coming home.” Beth gasps, smiles, cries at the same time. Sam smiles at her beatifically, then the leap effect envelopes the screen, and white title cards come up against a black screen:
“Beth never remarried.”
“She and Al have four daughters, and will celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary in June.”
“Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home”
.
Effective, especially with Susan Diol’s wordless reaction to the news.
Sir Rhosis
My stock response to this thread has already been mentioned: the President’s “Hold the line” speech from B5. However, the stock B5 response I always see in these threads hasn’t been mentioned yet, so I’ll go with that one:
“Only one human captain has ever survived battle with the Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.”
From the BSG pilot, when they have to abandon the Colonial ships that don’t have FTL capability, and the survivors listen to those left behind curse them on the radio, right before the nukes hit.
And, one from Firefly: “You want to know the real me?”
I came in just to post “Roslin’s LBJ moment.”
It started with her receiving the automated announcement that all government workers are to go to Case Orange. The look on her face as she explained that it meant that the president, the vice president, and most of the cabinet were incapacitated… That’s when it began to dawn on her that she might be the last one left. Then, the point where she is actually being sworn in – the way she held her hand during the ceremony, she seemed so powerless, and the look on her face was just one of being completely overwhelmed and terrified – made (and still makes) me get misty. In that scene, you can see the entirety of what has happened falling directly onto her, and it’s just really moving.
Mary McDonnell sold me on the series right there.
Fry becoming his own Grandpa.
Or Bender being fired out of the torpedo tube while the ship was at maximum velocity.
Farscape
[spoiler] The many trials and tribulations of Aeryn and John -
John, temporarily possesed by Scorpius, manipulates Aeryn to her falling to her death, then regains his faculties in time to see her die.
John The Twin wins Aeryn’s heart, discovers how to make wormholes and then dies from radiation poisoning.
John is reuinted with Aeryn after finding she’s pregnant, only to see shes harbouring Scorpious.
Oh yeah, and two men fighting in bunny suits.
[/spoiler]
Dr Who - The Boy in the Gas Mask.
Bender becoming God to one race on his chest and another on his arse 