Television Without Pity has a list of the best Joss Whedon episodes of all time. (That would be episodes on his shows, not necessarily ones he wrote.) And since I was just thinking that I wanted to be a little more positive and highlight some shows I liked - as opposed to just making snarky comments - I decided to go down the list of good episodes.
Then after finding another list by Entertainment Weekly, I decided to look at the episodes TWOP liked, then the episodes EW liked, and then the episodes they both liked. It's completely unscientific, of course, but I'm curious to see if there's any sort of consensus.
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Angel: Hero
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Doyle's death had impact. But was a bit heavy-handed. But he was so nice. But that was the whole point. I think it's the blatant manipulation of making me like him over the course of the season, then killing him during a "racism is bad" episode that turns me off.
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Firefly: Ariel
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Important canon episode for Firefly, coolly moving Simon and River's story forward while capping off with Jayne and Mal's tense showdown. Great example of a Heist Gone Wrong story.
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Angel: Reprise
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The episode builds to Angel and Darla having sex. Frankly, I liked "Epiphany" a little better. And there are other episodes that would beat both out on a list. ("Shiny Happy People" or "Magic Bullet," for example.)
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Buffy: Who Are You
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Buffy and Faith's body-switch underwhelmed me at the time and I haven't seen it since. Great idea, slightly off on the execution in my opinion.
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Firefly: Objects in Space
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Excellent suspenseful episode, and I can see how River becoming more integrated into the crew is important. However, I'm afraid don't have a huge emotional connection here.
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Buffy: Earshot
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In some ways, I think the delay of this episode gave it more weight than it might have had otherwise. It was well done, but I never quite got past Jonathan trying to claim he was going to off himself with a rifle.
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Angel: Awakening
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The one where they took Angel's soul away. I just remember being grateful that they weren't really pushing Angel and Cordelia with this one. And while the "It was all a dream" is kind of cheesy, this has a killer pay-off: Angelus.
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Buffy: Becoming, pt 2
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The pain of bringing Angel back just long enough for Buffy to kill him is beautiful. Plus, it includes Joyce finding out about Buffy being a Slayer when she meets Spike.
We see the comedic episodes fall away in favor of gut-wrenching emotional pieces. I think these represent character high-points, as opposed to plot climaxes, which is really interesting. The action is there, but only when coupled with an emotional investment. I guess TWOP is just a bunch of big softies at heart after all.
So off this list, I agree wholeheartedly with "Becoming" as an example of Classic Whedon. The rest had merit - excellence even in the case of "Ariel" and "Awakening" - and none of them is really a bad episode. I'm just not sure if I'd put them on my own personal Best Of list. To be fair a lot of the heavy hitters on the TWOP list were also on the EW list, so I haven't gotten to them yet. Tomorrow, I'll do the Entertainment Weekly overview, then I'll look at the episodes the two lists had in common.