Name the best and worst episodes in any TV series

[Der_Lex]

You're right about the title, edited that. Kinda sad since I actually translated it for the themed-set rereleases (the boxed sets with episodes from each Trek) over here as well.

[SheSaidSheSaid]

I've got another one - 24

Best: "Day One: 11:00 PM to Midnight" C'mon, this is the obvious choice. Dante said upthread that Battlestar Galactica should be thought of as one of the best single seasons of television in history, well, I contend the same for season 1 of 24. And in its final hour, with Jack Bauer's (as-ever) pulse-pounding pursuit of the dirty agent within the CTU, his emotional reunion with his daughter, and the tragic consequences of it all...it's just heartbreakingly perfect. Even the relatively minor (for the purposes of this episode) subplot with the Palmers reaching their breaking point as a married couple is pitch-perfect and downright chilling. Oh and did I mention the shootout at the dock?

Worst: "Day Six: 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM" For starters, this episode has an insignificant, meaningless death for a popular character (Curtis), but there's a bigger point. Over the years, this show got gradually goofier and goofier, after the generally-plausible plot of season 1. But it never beat you over the head with something that required massive suspension of disbelief. Until this episode. This episode ends with the detonation of a nuclear bomb in one of the LA suburbs, instantly killing more than 10,000 people with thousands more meant to die of the radiation. And an attack with a death toll nearly four times larger than anything that's happened in real life in America is....just kind of brushed to the side. It was just played for a single high-shock moment, which is crap. I guess it explains why the setting moved to the East coast for season 7, but you'd think the detonation of a goddamned nuclear device would be more of a big deal than this episode/season made it out to be.

[topperharley]

I'm a fan of a number of TV shows, but I'm not so familiar with any of them that I could identify, from memory, a best or worst episode.

Although I will agree with S^4 about "Stranger in a Strange Land" being the worst episode of Lost, and that's coming from someone who thought the finale was all kinds of ass. Utterly pointless episode, and Bai Ling creeps me out.

[Cubecubed]

The finale would actually be in my top ten favorite Lost Episodes. So yeah, I liked it..A lot, lol.

[MagicMurderBag7]

... and Bai Ling creeps me out.

Speaking of Bai Ling...

Angel:
Best episode is Over the Rainbow. I love the whole Pylea arc and this one is just great.

Worst episode is the one from season one with Bai Ling. I don't even know the name because I don't bother watching it when I re-watch the series.

While I'm here...

Buffy:
Best episode is Hush. I love the way this episode tells a story without anyone saying anything.

Worst episode is I Robot, You Jane. It was just a bad idea for an episode.


Edit: lol. I didn't even see Lex's post. Funny that we have the same favorite episode of Buffy and worst of Angel.

[Dante1847]

Bai Ling is just...off. Way the hell off. Does anyone remember "Red Corner" with Richard Gere?

[SheSaidSheSaid]

Bai Ling is off, and I don't just mean in her acting craft.

Subsequently, Bai spent some time in a mental hospital. Though she insisted then and now, "I'm not crazy," she maintains to this day that she is from the moon, where her grandmother lives. "I'm not really in reality. I'm in my own universe and my mind is a million miles somewhere else," she claims, further explaining, "Why I feel like I come from the moon is because my mother told me I was found somewhere." She believes that when she looks up at the moon, she can often spot her grandmother there, still living in her childhood home.[5]

[5] is http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/...53H15Y20090418 and it all seems to be supported.

[topperharley]

Well, if she actually was from the moon, that would explain a lot.

[TylerFG]

Doctor Who:

Best - Too many to count for me, but one of my top favorites would have to be The Girl Who Waited from Series 6. I really gotta give props to Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill for their acting on this episode. For those of you who don't know, the both play a husband and wife traveling with the titular Doctor (Played by Matt Smith. In this episode, they visit an alien hospital and Amy (Played by Gillan) gets seperated from the Doctor and her husband Rory. (Played by Darvill) This leads to Rory going a search in the hospital for Amy and during the search, he finds an aged version of her, who plays a big part in the episode. I don't want to spoil the rest, but you might wanna have a box of tissues with you when watching this.

Worst: Love and Monsters. Dear f****** god, where to begin. Honestly, ask any whovian who's seen this episode, and they'll tell you it's one of the worst in the new series. Ok, I know they tried to do something different by doing the first "Doctor-lite" episode, but this was just plain horrendous. Ok, so the episode is about someone who met the Doctor while he was trying to fight of an alien, and becomes obsessed with finding the Doctor again. So he goes around using Rose Tyler's (The then companion for the Doctor) mother for a way to find Rose and the Doctor. She becomes furious with this and right around here is where we meet the monster of the week. An obese alien who absorbs people or something like that. He's already absorbed the love interest. So then, in the very little screentime Rose and the Doctor have, Rose chews the guy out for pissing her mom off when the alien, the true villian is right in f****** front of them. Long story short, the Doctor saves the day, alien goes away, yadda yadda yadda. And this is where it gets stupider. So it turns out the love interest is still alive, despite her face being on a slab of concrete. And she implies that she and the guy still have a "love life". So yep, she's just reduced to a BJ dispencer. So long story short, this episode is sh*t.

[bigmf]

The Sopranos:

Best - The Pilot. It set up the characters very well and the ducks living in the pool added some symbolism (maybe a little heavy handed but I liked it).

Worst: The Finale. It was actually a pretty good episode until th