Robo-Post: The 10 Best Episodes of 2007

I should've imposed a "one episode per show" rule, but I did not. First, the almost...

-- What Kind of Day Has It Been, Studio 60
-- The End Isn't Near, It's Here, the OC
-- Business School, the Office
-- I Think We Should Have Sex, Friday Night Lights
-- The Wheel, Mad Men

The first two for sentimental reasons, then for Pam's art show, the bat, and Michael at b-school, for the sex talk, and for the Kodak pitch.

10. This Is Your Brain On Drugs, The Riches
Eddie Izzard on a meth trip to show his wife how he worries about her.

9. Company Man, Heroes
Oh, false hope. This episode just shows Bryan Fuller = good, Heroes = bad.

8. Black Eyes & Broken Hearts, FNL
The playoff game called on account of attempted hate crime. The bus ride home.

7. Kingdome Come, Big Love
The assasination (attempt) of Roman Grant.

6. Nixon vs. Kennedy, Mad Men
Really, you can take any episode, but for the party and the ending, let's use this.

5. Blinders, Friday Night Lights
The first part of the race storyline and the greatest powder puff game ever. Tim Riggins, coach. Landry the ref. Matt and Julie making up. Julie learning to QB from her father.

4. Beach Games, The Office
Andy floats away. Pam opens up.

3. Flashes Before Your Eyes, LOST
Desmond unstuck in time.

2. His Visit, Day 5, John From Cincinnati
The monologue at the motel. The speech to Sissy.

1. Through The Looking Glass, LOST
Locke has work to do. It's not Penny's boat. Hurley saves the day. Sayid kills a man with his legs. We have to go back, Kate. We have to go back!

I probably switched 1&3 a dozen times. I'm a huge sucker for the Desmond/Penny backstory, but ultimately, TTLG was more mindblowing. You could make a Top 25 from LOST, FNL, and Mad Men alone.

A couple other episodes I want to give some much deserved love to:

-Greatest Hits - Lost. Everyone felt CERTAIN Charlie would be dead at the end of this. Him coming up and into the fresh air of the underground lair? Incredible. No one seems to remember this on their year's best lists, but this episode TRULY set up the amazing pay-off in Thru the Looking Glass (which wins my top episode, hand's down....hell, it's probably the most entertaining 2 hours of television ever.)

- Secrets and Lies - 30 Rock. Tracy's shark attack. Tina Fey's tape-bra. Jack and C.C.'s relationship is exposed. And Kenneth making dinner banter. Pricelessly funny, and perhaps as funny as Rosemary's Baby. Honorable mentions also go to Greenzo, and any episode featuring Will Arnett ("Your back is like a barrel of snakes.")

- Farthingale - Life. Damian Lewis delivers one of the best performances of the year, and this "procedural" exceeds the genre in this mind-twisting episode involving a man with two lifes, who is found with his entire lower half vaporized in an explosion. The visuals alone (particularly the victim's half-body on the floor) were incredible.

- Blinders/Black Eyes and Broken Hearts/I Think We Should Have Sex - Friday Night Lights. In a three-week span from February 7-21st, FNL delivered arguably the greatest 3 episode run of any show on television. Honestly, if you want to see why people like me are RABIDLY fanatical about FNL, these are the three episodes to watch. The scene between Julie Taylor (Aimee Teegarden) and Tami Taylor (the PHENOMENAL Connie Britton) should have been given it's own category in the Emmys, it was so good.

- Santa in ths Slush - Bones. The victim of the week aspect of the story was a little rushed, but the show's continued flirtation of will-they-or-won't-they between Bones and Booth made for great television.

- Six Days: Part 2 - Grey's Anatomy. A rocky season for the show, but George's father's death was poignant, and Christina's speech about joining the dead father's club was powerful.

What ever happened to Lucy, Daughter of the Devil? I saw the pilot through this blog, and have recently caught up with it through the intertubes, and i think it's as good as anything I've seen on the networks this year. Maybe it's out of the running for this, though, since it's short, and animated, and all non-networky and stuff, but episode 11 of 'L,DOTD' is definitely on my list.

Lost finale nº1... sure! Even if 3rd season began slow, the last episodes were great!!

Lostie
http://www.catodicos.com/user/alalrm/

I really don't understand the praise Reaper gets. The pilot was ok. But the show is very similar to 'Chuck', except that Chuck is funnier, with more likable characters, and a storyline that actually moves forward and episodes that don't endlessly repeat each other. Ok, sure, the pilot doesn't take the blame for that - the mediocrity of Reaper is much more in all the episodes that followed... but even that first episode was merely ok.

It's potential that wasn't matched by execution. A neat premise, but the witty dialogue, interesting characters, and surprising plot twists are all missing.

Yet it was raved about before the season, and is still showing up on lists like this. I don't get it.

There are a lot of other episodes I loved that I could make my list of, but I didn't see everything on this list to know they were actually better. I did see Reaper, and it's just nothing special.