I think it was slightly more than an hour, but I’ll go with Once More With Feeling, from BtVS. I wrote a really long post about it in an old thread of mine, here: What is the single best episode of any TV series that you have ever seen?
The last hour of Super Bowl 42 (Giants over Patriots).
The “Company Man” episode during the first season of Heroes (despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that the show was generally terrible after that episode).
Whedon choices:
“Hush,” from Buffy, is possibly the best “concept episode” I’ve ever seen, and the Gentlemen stick with me as the apotheosis of a particular sort of villain.
“Objects in Space,” with the commentary turned on, is the best commentary I’ve ever heard.
Non-Whedon choices: Season Three, Episode 11 of The Wire. There’s a conversation in it that’s just about Shakespearean, and I love it.
It was only a half hour, but the second-season finale of The Mindy Project, “Danny and Mindy”, did it for me. It was the only time I can recall asking “Who wrote that?” after watching a TV show. (Mindy Kaling wrote it.)
“Ozymandias” from Breaking Bad was as perfect as any hour of television has ever been but it didn’t leave me with the same feeling. Perhaps it would have if they had ended the series there. Knowing that they had two more episodes that would have to rush to tie up everything that happened in “Ozymandias” took some of the shine off of it for me.
My Nominations are:
Six Feet Under - Finale
Breaking Bad - Face Off
The Sopranos Pine Barrens
The Good Wife Hitting The fan
Orphan Black Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est
YES YES YES! This is perhaps the most amazing finale in TV history, IMHO. Sia singing “Breathe Me” as the lives of the characters are played out in a montage is amazing. I can’t watch it without crying, all these years later.
Another one that was pretty good (especially at the time) was the finale of “Roseanne.” I had started to lose interest in the show during the last season due to all the over-the-top “lottery winner” stories. The finale wrapped everything up in a stunning and (to me, anyway) completely unexpected way.
Is that the one where the mom had like no arms or legs and lived under the bed and her two grown sons were sexing her?
It’s hard to say as there are so many. Now that Whose Line Is It Anyway is back on I’m just going to say that. But specifically I’ma go with the episode with Richard Simmons.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the season finale of Buffy Season 2, “Becoming Part 2” is the best hour of TV watching ever.
Honorable mentions to:
Star Trek, “The City on the Edge of Forever”;
Northern Exposure, " The Election";
Murphy Brown, the one that mocks the Anita Brown/Clarence Thomas Hearings when Murphy gets called to testify before the Senate committee
The Rockford Files - Rockford before the Grand Jury.
The half hour leading up to and half hour following the announcement that Obama had defeated Romney. It was extra sweet for me because I hadn’t expected it to turn out that way.
I watched PBS coverage mostly.
“Ozymandias” was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title.
“Jurassic Bark” (Futurama) is the only great television episode I refuse to ever watch again.
My first thought was that it had to be an episode of Angel, but that I’d have to give some serious thought to picking the specific one.
Then the episode of Doctor Who in which Eleventh and Amy meet Vincent Van Gogh and try (and fail) to save him from himself came to mind.
Then several *DS9 *episodes came to mind. And several Good Wifes, and not a few Mad Mens.
This’ll be hard
No doubt. I was watching FOX and caught the Karl Rove vs. his own math whiz’s meltdown. Good times.
[quote=“Drunky_Smurf, post:48, topic:689777”]
Is that the one where the mom had like no arms or legs and lived under the bed and her two grown sons were sexing her?
It’s hard to say as there are so many. Now that Whose Line Is It Anyway is back on I’m just going to say that. But specifically I’ma go with the episode with Richard Simmons.
3 sons…and yes.
also that episode of Whos line is insanely funny
A lot of the drama shows mentioned here I’ve never watched, like Breaking Bad or Wired. So they might have been great, but I can’t speak to that.
I couldn’t finish that episode of X Files that was referenced above; I thought I saw where it was going and I didn’t want to go there. My favorite X Files episode was the one in the circus, with the man who had a little mini-me that everyone thought was attached, but that could detach and went around killing people. It was funny. Also various episodes of The Avengers, such as the one where everyone thought the victims were being killed by big cats like tigers or lions, when they were killed by trained housecats. Or the last episode of The Prisoner, which was so out there I was just fascinated (and dumbfounded).
Anyway, for my pick I’m going to go back almost 50 years to the first Barbra Streisand special, I think it was called “My Name is Barbra”. Her singing was fresh and much less mannered than it became later (or so it seemed to me). The songs were very good, the arrangements were wonderful, and it was like a burst of color in a grey-scale world. I was maybe 15 at the time. It has stuck with me all these years.
Not sure if this counts but watching my then nearly 3 year old discover “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” for the first time, it was as if I were seeing it also for the first time.
OH! The episode of Star Trek Next Gen where Picard passes out and wakes up on another planet in another person’s body and lives a full life as someone else. I cry every time I see it.
I’ve been working through The West Wing lately. It’s not perfect, and I wouldn’t claim it as my best ever, but the episode “Two Cathedrals” is pretty damn good. It’s the one where Pres. Bartlet struggles to deal with the death of his secretary and has to decide whether or not he will run for reelection despite the scandal over his hiding his MS. Simply knowing that there were four or five more seasons somewhat lessens the suspense, but still very good.
Are you ready for this?
[quote=“The_Fornicator, post:58, topic:689777”]
Are you ready for this?
[/QUOTE] At about 5:55, I think my heart skipped a beat.The Judge Judy episode where the two people involved had different versions of what had happened to create the fuck up in question.
Oh, and Judge Judy yelled at one of them.