Homicide: Life on the Streets – Three Men and Adena
Deep Space Nine – The Visitor
The Wire – That’s Got His Own (“You gonna look out for me, Sergeant Carver? Do you mean it? You gonna look out for me? You promise? You got my back, huh?”)
Roseanne–Fisher abuses Jackie & Dan & Roseanne respond (honorable mention to “Mom Sells the Restaurant” for the close up of Martin Mull eating that sandwich.)
Heartfelt agreement. Absolutely brilliant episode.
I can’t think of 10 right now, but here are a few, in no particular order.
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Sopranos - The Pine Barrens. The one with Paulie and Christopher chasing the Russian mob guy through the Jersey woods.
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Futurama - Jurassic Bark. Yes, the most emotionally manipulative and the best of Futurama episodes. Even more so than “The Why of Fry” or “The Devil’s hands are Idle Playthings.” Anybody who has lost a beloved pet will feel the emotional punch of this episode, particularly in the final minutes with the closing montage of Seymour’s final years set to “I Will Wait For You.” Yes, even after “Bender’s Big Score,” it still grabs me in the gut.
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My Name Is Earl - Our Cops Is On. Not to be confused with “Our Other Cops Is On.” Very good episode written by Tim Stack.
Not a huge Star Trek (or TNG) fan, but: The Inner Light is one of the best hours of television I have ever seen.
In no particular order:
Mary Tyler Moore – The Pilot (“You’ve got spunk, kid. I hate spunk!”)
Newhart – Last episode
Arrested Development – Family Ties (“You forgot to say ‘away.’”)
MASH – Dreams
ST:TOS – City on the Edge of Forever
ST:TNG – The Best of Both Worlds (part I)
The Bob Newhart Show – Mister Emily Hartley
Cheers – The one where Cliff has hysterical blindness
The Simpsons – Homer in Space
SNL – Hosted by Ron Howard
My votes:
“Yesterday’s Enterprise” on ST:TNG.
The “Magnum, P.I.” episode where:
Magnum shot the bad guy at point blank range.
I don’t think I could do a top 10, but one of my favorite TV episodes is the one on Fresh Prince of Bel Air where his dad shows up. Will’s closing monologue made me damn near cry the first time I saw it. The way he went from trying to act cool about it to screaming, “TO HELL WITH HIM!” to him breaking down into tears asking, “How come he don’t want me, man?” It was perhaps the best piece of acting I’ve ever seen from Will Smith, and the look on James Avery’s face as he stood there watching him break down was perfect.
I’m right with you on this one.
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Dead like Me “Haunted” - this one is the season 2 finale. I’m not sure whether it was meant to be a series finale or not, but it certainly works.
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Seinfeld “The Contest”
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Newsradio “Super Karate Monkey Death Car”
-I’m kind of drawing a blank today. I’ll come up with more later.
That is also the episode where Will tells Uncle Phil “You’re not my father” and Avery gives the speech stating “I’ve given that boy everything he needed, from a pat on the back to a kick in the pants.”
I consider the best episode to be where Carlton takes the “vitamins” he finds in Will’s locker, only they are really pep pills. Great performances from Carlton doing the hepped up break dance, Phil telling Will “Welcome to the real world” and making him explain what happened, and Will having another breakdown explaining it to his relatives and Carlton.
Right after that first aired, somebody posted on the X-Files Usenet group: “I missed tonight’s episode. Can somebody post a brief plot synopsis?”
I think the only answer to that question is “no”.
My choices are going to be very subjective, since I don’t watch a lot of TV and have missed a lot of what most people call the “classic” shows. These are just the ones that pop into my head. That said…in no particular order:
- House, “Three Stories.” Near-perfect episode.
- House, “House’s Head.” Part 1 of the 2-part Season 4 finale.
- House, “Wilson’s Heart.” Part 2 of the 2-part Season 4 finale.
- MAS*H, final episode.
- Roseanne, final episode.
- Star Trek: TOS, “City on the Edge of Forever.”
- Frasier, “Flour Child.” (“I actually had a dream my flour sack was abducted and the kidnapper started sending me muffins in the mail.”)
- Mork and Mindy, the Exidor episode. (Honorable mention to the very first episode. People have gotten kind of tired of Robin Williams’ schtick these days, but back when it was fresh he was hilarious.)
- Joan of Arcadia. Don’t know the title, but it was the one where Adam found out about his mother.
- Father Ted, the one where they went to the carnival (“How do you know it was a baby and not just a spider?” “They had it in a pram.”)
Honorable mention: South Park, “Make Love, Not Warcraft.” Maybe not the finest episode of the series, but certainly the most influential for me since it started a year-and-a-half-and-growing obsession. 
I’m sure I’ll think of more as soon as I send this. I’d love to include “Cupid,” but I don’t remember any specific episodes, just that I loved the show and it was very good.
No particular order (and possibly misnamed):
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Three Stories - House
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Beer Barron - The Simpsons
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The Pineapple Incident - How I Met Your Mother
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The Puppy Episode - Ellen
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Out of Gas - Firefly
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The Wonder Years Pilot
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Reverend Jim a Space Odyssey - Taxi
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The one where the Huxtables go to the auction and buy the Painting while Elvin tries to bake a cake and cook dinner - The Cosby Show
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The Ocean Walker - Arrested Development
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Corporal Punishment - Black Adder (the one with speckled Jim)
That was harder than I thought it would be.
The Dick Van Dyke Show–“Walnuts Away!”
In which eating walnuts will turn you into an alien from the Planet Twilo, who–
[ol]
[li]Has no thumbs[/li][li]No sense of humor[/li][li]Has an eye in the back of you head[/li][li]And looks just like Danny Thomas (old tv star).[/li][/ol]
Here are a few Scrubs episodes that have not yet been mentioned:
My Half-Acre: This episode features Mandy Moore as well as Turk’s air-band (Cool Cats.) In fact, let’s watch them rock out right now.
My Way Home: This is the salute to The Wizard of Oz, with dozens of clever references to the movie, and ending with the most beautiful rendition of “Over the Rainbow” that you have ever heard. In fact, why don’t you watch that scene right now?
Ahhh dammit, I forgot to list the finale episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.
**Millenium **- Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense
**Simpsons **- Last Exit to Springfield (“Why must you turn my office into a House of LIES?”)
Buffy the Vampie Slayer - Hush
**Coupling **- The Man with Two Legs
Battlestar Galactica - 33
Dr. Who - Blink
The Shield - Pilot
Babylon 5 - hard to pick one, but let’s say “War Without End”
South Park - Trapped in the Closet (brave lads)
On the Air - Pilot for reasons previously mentioned
Twin Peaks - Pilot
My favorite episode by far of a wonderful, wonderful series. The meaningfulness and humor of Bender’s conversation with computer-god is just incredible.
Bender: “Y’know, I was God once.”
God: “Yes I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.”
and
God: “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”
Dammit, this is the umpteenth mention of this. I don’t know whether I have seen it or not. Could someone please spoilerize a synopsis of it for me?
ETA: the IMDB micro summaries are no help.
10 Episodes? Just so happens that is enough room from one of the best series I have EVER seen in my existence. Episode for episode, best ever.
**Band of Brothers
**
1 Currahee
2 Day of Days
3 Carentan
4 Replacements
5 Crossroads
6 Bastogne
7 The Breaking Point
8 The Last Patrol
9 Why We Fight
10 Points