The Top 10 Whedonverse Episodes

Let me just say this: THIS WAS DIFFICULT TO WRITE! Now, with Joss Whedon's the Avengers coming out next week, I've decided to count down my top ten favorite episodes of all four of his shows. You'd think I'd be doing the top ten superhero movies right now, but I've decided to save that for after I review the Avengers. Once again, with 294 total episodes to choose from, this was hard to write, but being the Whedon freak that I am, I managed to pull this off. A little warning, there will be spoilers. So let's get started. The top ten Whedonverse episodes:

10. Safe (Firefly)
Now I loved just about every episode of Firefly, but this one really stood out to me. On the way to sell some cattle in a backwater town on a backwater planet, Simon and River get kidnapped by some hillfolk (they need a doctor for their town) We start to see River's telepathic abilities, and this leads the town to think she's a witch. Through flashbacks, we see how Simon clashed with his parents as he decided to break River out of the Alliance facility. Summer Glau and Sean Maher both do awesome jobs here, and while there might not have been as much action as in other episodes, if you didn't love the Big Damn Heroes bit at the end, you cannot call yourself a Whedon fan.

9. 5 By 5/ Sanctuary (Angel)
I might get some crap for grouping these together, but in my mind this was a two part episode. So, Faith arrives in LA, and Wolfram and Hart hires her out to kill Angel. We get some mind games and life-attempts, and after Faith nearly tortures Wesley to death, Angel rushes in, and Faith's criminal insanity catches up to her as she completely breaks down. After that, Angel starts trying to rehabilitate Faith, and things get shaken up when Buffy AND the Watchers Council show up, and they both want blood. There is no weak performance here, and the emotion generated by both slayers and of course the fight with the Watchers make this episode plenty of fun, and, in my opinion, the highlight of the whole first season.

8. Objects In Space (Firefly)
The 1st season and, sadly, series finale of Firefly saw the crew finally become fully aware of River's telepathic abilities, just as a bounty hunter with... interesting views on right on wrong gets on board Serenity one night to take River. As he uses Simon to find her on the ship, things take an interesting turn. This was another episode where River pretty much steals the show, proving that Summer Glau is pretty amazing actress on top of being super hot. Honestly, just about everything going on in this episode was awesomely entertaining.

7. Redefinition (Angel)
This is another episode that I don't understand why more people love. So, in the last episode, Druscilla shows up, re-vamps Darla, and a broken Angel ends up letting them, helping them, even, feast on the Wolfram and Hart Junior Partners. He then proceeds to fire Wesley, Gunn, and Cordy and goes all dark, because, you know, he does that sometimes. But it's much better this time. He then undergoes intense physical and mental training to reinvent himself as a cold-hearted weapon of mass destruction, leading to some of the greatest badassery in the history television. Meanwhile, Cordy, Gunn, and Wes have to figure out what to do with their lives, and they do this by getting drunk and singing karaoke at Caritas. Seriously, epic, badass action and a hysterical subplot; how can you go wrong.

6. The Gift (Buffy)
Buffy's fifth season was easily it's most serialized, and it all lead up to this: the amazing, action-packed, and very emotional season finale. So, Glory, our favorite hell god, has Dawn, and is going to use her to tear the dimensional walls down and go home, which would cause hell descend upon the earth. If Glory succeeds, the only way to reverse it is to kill Dawn. Buffy lost an awful lot in season 5, so she wasn't about to go kill her own sister. So, using Tara, Buffy, Spike, and the Scoobies go to Glory's base of ops for one final showdown to either save the world or watch it burn. The fight scene between Buffy and Glory alone was incredible, plus the all the emotion leading up to it really sealed the deal. Everyone has something to do here, too, which only makes things better. And if you didn't feel something when Buffy gave her speech to Dawn as she sacrifices herself, you have no soul.

5. The Body (Buffy)
Buffy's mom has anyeursm and dies, and leaving Buffy and the scoobies to react and deal. That's it. Nothing supernatural, save for one vampire who meets the buissness part of saw. On paper, that probably doesn't sound very good, but believe, it was. Was it depressing? Yes, but the fact that a fantasy show gave the most realistic, well written, and perfectly acted responses to the natural death of a loved one ever produced has a poetic irony to it that makes it impossible not love. Seriously, this was so good that the fact that this isn't number one on the list means some damn good stuff is ahead.

4. Out of Gas (Firefly)
Serenity's engine breaks down and the life support system begins failing as the crew find themselves nowhere anyone is likely to find them. As Mal struggles to hold the ship and the crew together, we see, through flashbacks, how Zoe, Wash, Jayne, Kaylee, and Inara ended up on the Serenity, and how Mal ended up with the ship to begin with. All the actors here are at their finest, especially Nathan Fillion, in what is the best episode of the entire show. It's one of those things that's hard to explain why it's awesome, but once you've seen it, you know why.

3. Epitaph One (Dollhouse)
So after Dollhouse gave us formulaic, somewhat tedious first season, we find ourselves in the post-apocalyptic future of 2019, where anyone can become a doll after coming in contact with almost any kind of technology. So, some people end up shells with there entire personality and most of there brains wiped, some people have copies of there memories placed into other people's bodies, and some find themselves programmed to kill anyone who's not programmed to kill anyone after nothing more then a phone call. A group of survivors end up inside the LA dollhouse and learn through the programming chair how this all happened (the dollhouse technology ends up with the wrong people and spirals out of control as Echo, Paul, and others work to undo it) which we see through flashbacks. It just kicked some serious ass, but, oh wait, it never got aired because FOX is evil.

2. A Hole in the World (Angel)
Winifred "Fred" Burkle, our beloved super genious Texan and Wesley's new girlfriend, is dying. How? She's been exposed to the air inside the coffin of the ancient parasitic demon Illyria, who is now hollowing out Fred's body, turning it into a shell. Angel and Spike haul ass to England to find a cure as Gunn tries to work out how this happended and Wesley comforts the dying remains of the woman he loves. This one just covered all the bases: action, comedy relief, and LOTS of emotion. Take that and add in the slighly haunting final scene and there you have it.

1. Restless (Buffy)
The fourth season finale saw Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles recovering from their near-death fight with Adam. To do so, they stay up all night watching movies, and soon, they all fall asleep. From there, the rest of the episode takes place in dream sequences that sum up all of the emotional changes undergone by each character this season, and something unearthly is stalking them in their dreams. The dreams themselves are among the most bizarre-but-incredibly-awesome-in-a-poetic-sort-of-way things I have ever seen in my entire life and just felt so... great, I guess is the word. Take that and of course the legendary Cheese Man and you've got the single finest hour of television ever written.

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