Best Episodes on Television 2011 Meme
Okay, I'm a little late to this meme. And... I did 11. Why does it have to be 10?
I don't watch every show, of course, and the list is better as a "Favorite Eps" list than a "Best Eps," but I kind of surprised myself with some of my choices. While I have enjoyed Haven and Eureka's recent seasons, for instance, there wasn't one ep that stood out far above the rest for me (Audrey Parker's Day Off came close, but I have an issue with movies and shows that make you the viewer repeat the same day over and over again). I also surprised myself in that my fave moments tend to be of the slashy variety, but in terms of the overall eps, I actually care more about emotional, character development, plot, and entertainment value. This may seem obvious, but it was a surprise to me ;)
So, in no special order, favorite episodes from White Collar, Leverage, Chuck, Hawaii 5-0, Breakout Kings, Supernatural, Revenge, and Burn Notice (some spoilers for the eps discussed):
Revenge: Pilot
My favorite new show, Revenge, is about the lives of glamorous Hamptonites. A young woman tries to fit in with her new neighbors, and has feelings for two handsome young men, one a townie and one a wealthy corporate scion.
Except, as you would guess from the title, the show is actually about REVENGE. Based on the Count of Monte Cristo but with a female lead, it is deliciously soapy in the best possible way, but it is also a very, very smart show: It deals in a way with corruption and the way that it pervades business, governments, and all our trusted institutions. It also explores the countless little ways even benevolent people take revenge for small and great slights, and it explores the relationship between power and revenge in complicated ways.
The pilot is great, but I picked it since it was too hard to pick just one.
A great post on why you should watch Revenge, complete with picspam :) is found here at agnesbean’s lj: http://agnes-bean.livejournal.com/245967.html
White Collar.
White Collar Ep: Taking Account.
I also loved Deadline, Power Play, and parts of Dentist of Detroit, plus the ep with the hug :) But Taking Account for me was my favorite of this year, because it was fun, had some surprises, and both minor characters and one-ep characters were used wonderfully, which is not always the case.
For one thing, I liked the whimsical Caffrey who just has to have fun and live life to the fullest. It was a return to an earlier Neal that I enjoyed. I also enjoyed Sara far more here than in many episodes (not trying to venture into the Sara debate - though, fwiw, I think she's better with Alex or El than Neal), but in this ep I saw why she thought being with Neal is a fun adventure and that Neal in a sense really, really wants someone to have adventures with. The ep also had Neal acting in a ridiculous yet (to him) innocent way, as someone who just happens to find a way to suss out the baddie by living incredibly large. That said, I didn't enjoy how Sara reacted after being yelled at by Peter (isn't she supposed to be a badass?) or that she gave a weird speech about how people should earn what they get the old fashioned way and that it's wrong to try to live the way the super wealthy do (which makes more sense coming from civil servant Peter than from well-paid retrieval specialists who bend rather than break the law). However, this weirdness, which seemed like the writer's putting their "guide to the moral of this season" in Sara's mouth instead of, you know, something interesting, was mitigated by the many meta posts that suggested that Peter should have/did/could spank Neal and Sara. Because I don't like it when canon makes characters seem like unruly teenagers, but lol in kinkfic that's okay.
The other part I LOVED is fabulous guest star Lena Heady as Sally. "Is that short for Salieri?" "It is now."
Mozzie was wonderful in this episode, his absurdity not overshadowing his brilliance, charm, or wit. His scenes with Peter, Neal, and Sally were all great. This is also one of the few canon pairings I enjoy. Plus, I enjoyed the casefic aspect of the ep. My favorite MOMENTS of White Collar were not in this ep, but in terms of overall entertainment value, and giving me what I love about characters, this was it. (Honestly, in previous seasons, this wouldn't be a standout, but there was a lot of baggage in this last season that dragged otherwise good eps. But I just thoroughly savored this ep).
Burn Notice
Burn Notice is probably the show I am most impressed with because it takes a premise - a burned spy tries to get his life back - that should have fizzled after a season or two, and finds a way to make real moves forward with the plot and yet keep the characters entangled in situations that seem realistic, threatening, and psychologically interesting rather than anti-climactic and contrived. This show, more than any of the older shows on this list, keeps getting better.
It also has ACTUALLY good action scenes, clever plotlines, humor, and real and consistent and believable character development over time. And just as an added bonus, it’s a show full of badass sexy people who do amazing things in great clothes - and oh yeah, the youngest main characters are in their forties (at least the actors are). That’s actually kind of refreshing since there are a lot of shows that have 23 year old actors play characters who have ten degrees and know five martial arts forms and speak eleven languages. This is also the only non-new show on the list that I didn’t pick a best ep from and then later realize while writing “Oh yeah, I liked this ep because it reminded me of how the show USED to be.”
Fail Safe and Dead to Rights were the standout eps imho. I really don’t want to spoil these, but let’s just say that plot twists -- and emotionally resonant character choices -- are more interesting when you have a brilliant opponent who knows you better than you know yourself.
Breakout Kings This show is about prisoners who get to shorten their sentences if they I was surprised to see this on the list, especially with two eps. Overall, I think NCIS:LA is a much better show than this overall, for instance, but Breakout Kings has two amazing eps that were terrific.
In Steaks (play on “stakes”), the prisoners, the law enforcement running the program, and the people they are chasing, all get their turns to be portrayed as complex and conflicted and deeply human. Again, I don’t want to give everything away, but the character moments, the plot, and the ending include humorous AND heartbreaking moments.
In The Bag Man, the fugitive is a character from a previous show from the show runners, T-Bag from Prison Break (he was the best part of that show). Great acting and psychological complexity make you feel something for a complete sociopath, but without letting you forget that that’s exactly what he is.
Chuck
While Chuck's early S4 was uneven, and understandably lost a lot of viewers, late S4 had some stellar moments. This show has always had consistency issues (for example, the BuyMore plots usually suck). But there were some things I loved too. I LOVED the S4 finale. But the eps I liked best were:
Chuck vs. Agent X.
Great, IC moments with everyone, including Ellie and Chuck moments and Bartowski backstory, but with Casey reminding everyone that not everything is fun and games and the good guy vs. bad guy stuff is not as simple as it seems. The reveal of Agent X’s identity is an actually good twist that resonates interestingly with what we know of the Bartowski backstory. Plus there is an AMAZING scene in which our heroes and a sweet elderly British lady open up a can of explosive whupass. That’s right, Casey bonds with a mother figure over her guns.
Chuck vs. The Wedding Planner
The first part is silly. But there is then an emotionally satisfying story about Sarah and her father, and they did a much better job than they usually do with Sarah backstory. I was really happy with this ep, and felt it did a lot to make up for giving Sarah’s internal conflicts short shrift -especially since they are often much more complex and interesting than Chuck’s.
Hawaii 5-0
Loa Aloha
This is a fun somewhat silly show that I watch mainly for the slash. It is thus quite surprising that I have chosen an ep where there isn’t much standout slash (except for a key moment where Steve totally has Danny’s back, but that’s no surprise). There’s also a guest star who is not a good actor and an even worse comedian.
Yet there are TWO of the more emotionally resonant one-off storylines. The case is about finding a truly horrifying killer who turns out to be somewhat humanized (humanized criminals are kind of rare for this series, tbh) in a way that actually makes the ending more moving than if he were just garden variety psycho. The other involves Danny’s family, and I won’t give it away, but it was one of the more memorable character arcs for Danny on the show. Also, you hurt-comfort lovers might love it!
Supernatural
The Girl Next Door.
While I LOVED a lot of the moments in Let it Bleed and The Man who Would Be King, those eps were deeply flawed enough to not be on my list (though of course parts of The Girl Next Door pissed me off too - wee!Sam saving her from assault, Dean’s choice at the end which was hypocritical but ic imho). My Heart Will Go On and And Then There Were None were great too. But the ep I thought was best to my surprise was an ep that did not have focus on Dean and did not have Cas, Crowley, Balthazar, or any of my other favorites. It was instead an old school episode, much like earlier seasons, with Dean and Sam’s different personalities on display, and their different attitudes toward hunting - almost a replay in a sense of the first Lenore ep, or a replay of the Madison ep but with Sam at a different place and in a morally different situation. But the experiences they’ve gone through make it so much more resonant emotionally that Sam thinks evil things can choose not to be evil and Dean doesn’t. I also thought the backstory, with the above exception, was terribly sad but really well done.
Leverage
While I loved the Girls’ Night Out Job (and was pleasantly surprised how much I liked an ep without my favorites Hardison and Eliot), and I thought Queen’s Gambit with Sterling was great too, and I loved the big emotional scene in The Grave Danger Job, I have to go with:
The Long Way Down Job. The season opener showed that this season was going to take its character development seriously and it was going to do a good job. There were some unrealistic things, but plenty of wit and badassery and good-heartedness tinged with just the right amount of wanting to fuck with the enemy. Like any classic Leverage episode. It also showed that it would deal with the newly canonical relationships by putting them in the backdrop for the most part, but not ignoring them - a good strategy, since while I love a good soapy story, Leverage should not be a soap.
The ep also imho has the best Parker scenes in terms of character development in the season and the best Eliot-Parker friendship scene EVER in terms of what it shows about their relationship. This is what elevates it from a really good Leverage ep to a GREAT episode.
Okay, thanks for reading. I welcome discussion, disagreement, whatever :)
I don't watch every show, of course, and the list is better as a "Favorite Eps" list than a "Best Eps," but I kind of surprised myself with some of my choices. While I have enjoyed Haven and Eureka's recent seasons, for instance, there wasn't one ep that stood out far above the rest for me (Audrey Parker's Day Off came close, but I have an issue with movies and shows that make you the viewer repeat the same day over and over again). I also surprised myself in that my fave moments tend to be of the slashy variety, but in terms of the overall eps, I actually care more about emotional, character development, plot, and entertainment value. This may seem obvious, but it was a surprise to me ;)
So, in no special order, favorite episodes from White Collar, Leverage, Chuck, Hawaii 5-0, Breakout Kings, Supernatural, Revenge, and Burn Notice (some spoilers for the eps discussed):
Revenge: Pilot
My favorite new show, Revenge, is about the lives of glamorous Hamptonites. A young woman tries to fit in with her new neighbors, and has feelings for two handsome young men, one a townie and one a wealthy corporate scion.
Except, as you would guess from the title, the show is actually about REVENGE. Based on the Count of Monte Cristo but with a female lead, it is deliciously soapy in the best possible way, but it is also a very, very smart show: It deals in a way with corruption and the way that it pervades business, governments, and all our trusted institutions. It also explores the countless little ways even benevolent people take revenge for small and great slights, and it explores the relationship between power and revenge in complicated ways.
The pilot is great, but I picked it since it was too hard to pick just one.
A great post on why you should watch Revenge, complete with picspam :) is found here at agnesbean’s lj: http://agnes-bean.livejournal.com/245967.html
White Collar.
White Collar Ep: Taking Account.
I also loved Deadline, Power Play, and parts of Dentist of Detroit, plus the ep with the hug :) But Taking Account for me was my favorite of this year, because it was fun, had some surprises, and both minor characters and one-ep characters were used wonderfully, which is not always the case.
For one thing, I liked the whimsical Caffrey who just has to have fun and live life to the fullest. It was a return to an earlier Neal that I enjoyed. I also enjoyed Sara far more here than in many episodes (not trying to venture into the Sara debate - though, fwiw, I think she's better with Alex or El than Neal), but in this ep I saw why she thought being with Neal is a fun adventure and that Neal in a sense really, really wants someone to have adventures with. The ep also had Neal acting in a ridiculous yet (to him) innocent way, as someone who just happens to find a way to suss out the baddie by living incredibly large. That said, I didn't enjoy how Sara reacted after being yelled at by Peter (isn't she supposed to be a badass?) or that she gave a weird speech about how people should earn what they get the old fashioned way and that it's wrong to try to live the way the super wealthy do (which makes more sense coming from civil servant Peter than from well-paid retrieval specialists who bend rather than break the law). However, this weirdness, which seemed like the writer's putting their "guide to the moral of this season" in Sara's mouth instead of, you know, something interesting, was mitigated by the many meta posts that suggested that Peter should have/did/could spank Neal and Sara. Because I don't like it when canon makes characters seem like unruly teenagers, but lol in kinkfic that's okay.
The other part I LOVED is fabulous guest star Lena Heady as Sally. "Is that short for Salieri?" "It is now."
Mozzie was wonderful in this episode, his absurdity not overshadowing his brilliance, charm, or wit. His scenes with Peter, Neal, and Sally were all great. This is also one of the few canon pairings I enjoy. Plus, I enjoyed the casefic aspect of the ep. My favorite MOMENTS of White Collar were not in this ep, but in terms of overall entertainment value, and giving me what I love about characters, this was it. (Honestly, in previous seasons, this wouldn't be a standout, but there was a lot of baggage in this last season that dragged otherwise good eps. But I just thoroughly savored this ep).
Burn Notice
Burn Notice is probably the show I am most impressed with because it takes a premise - a burned spy tries to get his life back - that should have fizzled after a season or two, and finds a way to make real moves forward with the plot and yet keep the characters entangled in situations that seem realistic, threatening, and psychologically interesting rather than anti-climactic and contrived. This show, more than any of the older shows on this list, keeps getting better.
It also has ACTUALLY good action scenes, clever plotlines, humor, and real and consistent and believable character development over time. And just as an added bonus, it’s a show full of badass sexy people who do amazing things in great clothes - and oh yeah, the youngest main characters are in their forties (at least the actors are). That’s actually kind of refreshing since there are a lot of shows that have 23 year old actors play characters who have ten degrees and know five martial arts forms and speak eleven languages. This is also the only non-new show on the list that I didn’t pick a best ep from and then later realize while writing “Oh yeah, I liked this ep because it reminded me of how the show USED to be.”
Fail Safe and Dead to Rights were the standout eps imho. I really don’t want to spoil these, but let’s just say that plot twists -- and emotionally resonant character choices -- are more interesting when you have a brilliant opponent who knows you better than you know yourself.
Breakout Kings This show is about prisoners who get to shorten their sentences if they I was surprised to see this on the list, especially with two eps. Overall, I think NCIS:LA is a much better show than this overall, for instance, but Breakout Kings has two amazing eps that were terrific.
In Steaks (play on “stakes”), the prisoners, the law enforcement running the program, and the people they are chasing, all get their turns to be portrayed as complex and conflicted and deeply human. Again, I don’t want to give everything away, but the character moments, the plot, and the ending include humorous AND heartbreaking moments.
In The Bag Man, the fugitive is a character from a previous show from the show runners, T-Bag from Prison Break (he was the best part of that show). Great acting and psychological complexity make you feel something for a complete sociopath, but without letting you forget that that’s exactly what he is.
Chuck
While Chuck's early S4 was uneven, and understandably lost a lot of viewers, late S4 had some stellar moments. This show has always had consistency issues (for example, the BuyMore plots usually suck). But there were some things I loved too. I LOVED the S4 finale. But the eps I liked best were:
Chuck vs. Agent X.
Great, IC moments with everyone, including Ellie and Chuck moments and Bartowski backstory, but with Casey reminding everyone that not everything is fun and games and the good guy vs. bad guy stuff is not as simple as it seems. The reveal of Agent X’s identity is an actually good twist that resonates interestingly with what we know of the Bartowski backstory. Plus there is an AMAZING scene in which our heroes and a sweet elderly British lady open up a can of explosive whupass. That’s right, Casey bonds with a mother figure over her guns.
Chuck vs. The Wedding Planner
The first part is silly. But there is then an emotionally satisfying story about Sarah and her father, and they did a much better job than they usually do with Sarah backstory. I was really happy with this ep, and felt it did a lot to make up for giving Sarah’s internal conflicts short shrift -especially since they are often much more complex and interesting than Chuck’s.
Hawaii 5-0
Loa Aloha
This is a fun somewhat silly show that I watch mainly for the slash. It is thus quite surprising that I have chosen an ep where there isn’t much standout slash (except for a key moment where Steve totally has Danny’s back, but that’s no surprise). There’s also a guest star who is not a good actor and an even worse comedian.
Yet there are TWO of the more emotionally resonant one-off storylines. The case is about finding a truly horrifying killer who turns out to be somewhat humanized (humanized criminals are kind of rare for this series, tbh) in a way that actually makes the ending more moving than if he were just garden variety psycho. The other involves Danny’s family, and I won’t give it away, but it was one of the more memorable character arcs for Danny on the show. Also, you hurt-comfort lovers might love it!
Supernatural
The Girl Next Door.
While I LOVED a lot of the moments in Let it Bleed and The Man who Would Be King, those eps were deeply flawed enough to not be on my list (though of course parts of The Girl Next Door pissed me off too - wee!Sam saving her from assault, Dean’s choice at the end which was hypocritical but ic imho). My Heart Will Go On and And Then There Were None were great too. But the ep I thought was best to my surprise was an ep that did not have focus on Dean and did not have Cas, Crowley, Balthazar, or any of my other favorites. It was instead an old school episode, much like earlier seasons, with Dean and Sam’s different personalities on display, and their different attitudes toward hunting - almost a replay in a sense of the first Lenore ep, or a replay of the Madison ep but with Sam at a different place and in a morally different situation. But the experiences they’ve gone through make it so much more resonant emotionally that Sam thinks evil things can choose not to be evil and Dean doesn’t. I also thought the backstory, with the above exception, was terribly sad but really well done.
Leverage
While I loved the Girls’ Night Out Job (and was pleasantly surprised how much I liked an ep without my favorites Hardison and Eliot), and I thought Queen’s Gambit with Sterling was great too, and I loved the big emotional scene in The Grave Danger Job, I have to go with:
The Long Way Down Job. The season opener showed that this season was going to take its character development seriously and it was going to do a good job. There were some unrealistic things, but plenty of wit and badassery and good-heartedness tinged with just the right amount of wanting to fuck with the enemy. Like any classic Leverage episode. It also showed that it would deal with the newly canonical relationships by putting them in the backdrop for the most part, but not ignoring them - a good strategy, since while I love a good soapy story, Leverage should not be a soap.
The ep also imho has the best Parker scenes in terms of character development in the season and the best Eliot-Parker friendship scene EVER in terms of what it shows about their relationship. This is what elevates it from a really good Leverage ep to a GREAT episode.
Okay, thanks for reading. I welcome discussion, disagreement, whatever :)