This Season in Television - 2010-2011 (Part 2)

I meant to include this in part one, but I didn't get the chance and it would've made that post super long anyway. Since the new TV season will be starting up soon, I think this is a good time to go back and name my favourite episodes of last season. (Note: Survivor is not included, because it's a reality show and all of the episodes are too similar for any of them to ever stand out.)

The Cape
Probably the pilot episode, because it's the only one I didn't really have any problems with.

V
"Mother's Day", the series finale bloodbath that was actually kind of fun and fulfilled my wish to kill off the worst character on television. Yay!

Glee
Glee is pretty much always flawed, but I watch the show for the comedy of Sue and Brittany, and "A Very Glee Christmas" was an enjoyable enough episode that heavily featured both of them doing what they do best.

Running Wilde
"Into the Wilde" was probably the funniest of the series, but "It's a Trade-Off" was the most entertaining, where Steve and Emmy trade lives for a while and begin to take on each other's mannerisms.

Community
This is the most difficult show to choose a favourite episode for, because it's all over the map and does a lot of awesome things in different ways. "Cooperative Calligraphy" (the "bottle episode") might have been the most memorable because it was purely character and nothing else, and still stands out as one of my favourites. But there are multiple runners-up that gave us great genre parodies: "Basic Rocket Science", "Epidemiology", "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design", "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons", "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking", "Paradigms of Human Memory", and "A Fistful of Paintballs". Told you it was hard.

The Office
"Goodbye Michael" was a perfectly wonderful send-off for a beloved character, and is a close second, but it doesn't quite match the epic "Threat Level Midnight", which was quite possibly the most hilarious and entertaining episode of the entire series, let alone the season. People should start doing the Scarn dance at parties and weddings.

Parks and Recreation
Every episode was solid this season, so this is also difficult. Stand-outs include "Flu Season", "Harvest Festival", "Fancy Party", "Soulmates", "Eagleton", and "Li'l Sebastian". If I was forced to choose one... I guess I'd say "Harvest Festival". It had such a big, climactic feel to it and featured a few of the recurring supporting characters, making it very true to the show's own nature because it had everything that is Parks and Recreation.

30 Rock
Whenever I think back on season 5, the episode that always seems to come to mind first is "Brooklyn Without Limits", guest-starring John Slattery as a crazy congressman. It's also kind of hard to choose a favourite for 30 Rock, but for yet another different reason, which is that for me the jokes are often more memorable than the storylines, so really I would just be choosing my favourite joke(s). And Congressman Steve Austin was one of my favourite jokes, but it was an ongoing one that lasted most of the episode. Runner-up jokes include the Mel Gibson montage at the telethon in "Operation Righteous Cowboy Lightning" and Jack and Liz's cold opening in "Double-Edged Sword".

Fringe
To be honest, I don't think I really found season 3 to be all that memorable. I mean I can easily say that my favourite season 2 episode is the one with Peter Weller, but there isn't a lot that stands out this time around. Maybe "Os", because I liked the idea of using a floating agent plus weighted boots to allow crippled people to walk (or at least stand up). And it was the first instance of Anna Torv doing her amusing Leonard Nemoy impression.

TV returns this week, and the full schedule is up and running next week! See you back here for "This Week in Television"!