You know that show? The one you’ve continued to watch out of habit? By now you’ve sadly concluded that the show will never be as good as it was in its prime, but inertia or the desire to stick with it until the bitter end keeps you watching.
Then, without any warning, there’s an episode that reminds you of how good the show used to be.
What show? What episode?
For me:
One Tree Hill has been a pale shadow of itself since two of the leads left, but this season’s 11th episode, “Darkness on the Edge of Town” was probably one of the best episodes in the show’s entire run. Apparently I’m not the only one to feel that way.
It’s popular to hate the last two seasons of The X-Files, and while I don’t, even I admit that the last couple of seasons aren’t as good. Except for season eight’s “Invocation,” which is within my top five favorite episodes. It’s one of the eeriest episodes ever, and makes for a great hour (okay, 44 minutes) of TV.
I want to say Stargate SG-1’s last episode. Shows generally go downhill when regular cast members leave and are replaced, but in this instance they were replaced by the Farscape cast who were equally as awesome in my opinion. (Aeryn Sun made an EXCELLENT Vala Mal Doran and John Crichton made a good Cameron Mitchell, and it was fun to hint he was O’Neill’s son from the time traveling episode.) So, I managed to enjoy many of those episodes including the finale.
Star Trek: The Next Generation peaked in season 5, and had pretty much crashed by season 7, but that last season had 2 very good episodes, IMO - Parallels and Lower Decks. Season 6’s Suspicions was quite enjoyable, too.
ER was pretty much shark-jumped after the 8th or 9th seasons, but there was a season 11 episode called “Time of Death” that was aired in real time, guest-starring Ray Liotta as a man who was in his last hour of life. It earned Liotta an Emmy award, and was a single bright spot in an awful season.
Season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was pretty poor all around, but it did have two standout episodes in “Storyteller” and “Conversations with Dead People.”
Is House past its prime? Because the recent episode where he operated on his own friggin’ leg in the bathtub really got my attention, (after all that dopey drivel about Taub’s romantic woes). I couldn’t get those scenes out of my mind for two days.
One of the few episodes of the final season of The X-Files that seemed to approach the old magic was “Audrey Pauley.” That strange hospital that Reyes and the others were stuck in was pretty cool.
I’ve been watching Frasier re-runs semi-regularly for the past several months, and have been struck by what a great cast they had.
When Daphne’s brothers became regulars the show really hit its nadar. But in one of the final seasons there was an episode when Niles had a heart attack which was very good.
I’ll give an example of one from later Frasier. Season 8, to be exact. Roz is producing a documentary on space travel and manages to get John Gleen (the real John Glenn) to narrate. While Roz and Frasier are fighting, then apologizing in her booth, Glenn goes off on a tangent and starts talking about “things” the astronauts saw in space, things that NASA didn’t want the public to find out about. Roz and Frasier are completely wrapped up in their own argument, when Glenn comes into the control room, grabs the tape and rushes out.
The last normal season of Scrubs was largely formulaic, but featured an extremely good bottle episode in which JD and Turk stay with a lonely dying patient.
The last season of Roseanne should never have happened in a just and righteous world, but the episode in which Debbie Reynolds played Dan’s crazy mother who is trying to kill him was hilarious.
Dan: Mom, what do you say we bury the hatchet?
Mom: Oh! I didn’t know you had a hatchet! Where is it, dear?
*Everybody Loves Raymond *had already peaked, but there were a few good episodes in the last season. The best was “Tasteless Frank,” in which Frank suddenly wants to add salt to Marie’s cooking (Marie takes great pride in her cooking, and you DO NOT add salt, or anything else, to it). It turns out, he can’t taste anything . . . which is a side effect of some pills he’s taking for his “foot” . . . which are really male enhancement pills. At the end,
Frank and Marie agree that his appreciation of her cooking is more important than his prowess in bed. So Marie gives the pills to Raymond . . . not because he has a problem, but so he can’t taste Debra’s horrible cooking.
Torchwood was fairly mediocre during it’s first two seasons, entertaining but nothing special. The five episode third season “Children of the Earth” was one of the best television I’ve ever seen.