Hello, TV Freaks! It’s time for the all-new, so-exciting, groundbreaking Friday feature, Top Ten Lists! Yep, those tinglies you are feeling? That's excitement. You're welcome.
I am a huge fan of lists. I want everything to be in list format. I will read ‘the top ten most boring things ever to happen’ list, and be happy to debate it with anyone who will listen. Now, I'm not going to always do my lists in specific numerical order, you'll know if I do because the list will start with 10. I also do not claim to have watched everything on TV ever, so I'm going to miss stuff all the time. But hopefully I will get some of your favorite stuff and maybe introduce you to some new stuff too. Onto the list!
Top Ten Trapped Episodes
In honor of the very exciting Bones spoilers about the upcoming Booth-and-Bones-are-stuck-in-an-elevator episode, which could prove to be awesome or as uneven as the rest of this season has been, I decided to bring you the best people-are-trapped-somewhere episodes. This is a loooooong standing cliché in TV writing, particularly in sitcoms (wacky hijinks!) but if done well, it can prove to be a hilarious or suspenseful plotline. Like I said above, I haven't seen everything (although my Mother would argue I'm working on it) so I realize that there are widely-accepted great trapped episodes of Star Trek, Firefly, Homicide, and The Twilight Zone. But I haven't seen those. I have, however, seen:
1. Friends, "The One With the Blackout"
This is a completely underrated Friends episode, and doesn't ever make the Best-of lists for this show, but it’s really Friends at its best. It's in the first season, but it's really when the show found what it was doing comedically, and especially figured out how to use Matthew Perry. He is hilarious in this episode, where he is trapped in an ATM vestibule during a city blackout with Victoria’s Secret model Jill Goodacre. (Yeah, I don't know who she is either. But apparently she was a very big deal in 1994. Like the Chunnel.) Perry is on his game in an episode that has him speaking mostly in voiceover, calling attention to his physicality and great facial reactions. I still giggle every time I think about the scene below where Perry is trying to tell his friends where he is, and who he is with. The rest of the episode is spot on as well, with the introduction of the hated Paolo, Rachel's hot Spanish boyfriend. Ross is at his most adorable, the sweet-pathetic of earlier seasons, as opposed to the pathetic-pathetic the character became later.
2. LOST, “LaFleur”
Now, look. LOST was a far from perfect show, but I do believe it was one of the most ambitious projects ever to appear on TV. At its best, LOST was heartfelt, confusing, exciting, and absolutely riveting. When was it the best? When the writers focused on the characters, and not on all the sci-fi mumbo-jumbo. We loved this show because we cared about what happened to the people, not because we were obsessed with the physics of time travel. Pretty people are more fun than math. Season five, with all of its time travel, spent a lot of time on physics and mysteries and wandering around in the jungle and whatnot, so it was incredibly uneven; but “LaFleur” is by far the best single episode of the season, and I would argue one of the best of the show as a whole.
Some of the castaways have made it back to the real world, but the island-trapped castaways, including Sawyer and Juliet, have been previously skipping through time. When Locke leaves the island the time-traveling seems to have stopped, and it turns out that these characters are stuck in the 1970’s, where they remain for three years. In one episode, the writers manage to not only capture three years, but build a relationship that becomes a focus for the remainder of the show’s run. They managed to do for Sawyer and Juliet in one episode what I’m not sure they ever accomplished in six seasons of Jack and Kate. The performances by Josh Holloway and particularly my girl-crush Elizabeth Mitchell are stellar, and it is one of the best examples of what how good this show could be.
3. The West Wing, “Noel”
This entry might be stretching the definition of trapped slightly, but it is such a brilliant episode, I decided you would all deal. Josh, played by Bradley Whitford, is trapped in a room with a therapist, played by the excellent Adam Arkin, forced to confront his PTSD after the previous season-ending shooting. Told in flashbacks and accompanied by a guest-turn from cello great Yo-Yo Ma, this episode is heartbreaking and engaging all at once. The pacing of the script, written by my hero Aaron “Please lay off the mushrooms” Sorkin is really what makes this episode stand out, along with brilliant work from both Bradford and Arkin. (Bradford won the 2001 Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in part for this performance.)
The episode is concluded with one of my favorite all-time West Wing moments, with Leo assuring Josh that he can keep his job and telling him a story about friendship:
"This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole, can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"
God, when Sorkin is on it, he’s on it, huh?
4. Community, “Modern Warfare”
I love meta TV writing, or lampshading, or whatever the crazies over at TV Tropes are calling it this week. I think that no show has done a better job of making fun of itself (along with TV and movie clichés) than Community. It’s the perfect show for the TV Freak in all of us, and there is no better example that season one’s “Modern Warfare”. The gang all gets trapped in the school during an out of control paintball tournament, and the action hits the high points of all of the battle-movie clichés. There’s Mexican standoffs, ridiculous yelling, people jumping off walls in slow motion, John Woo style-fun with Senior Chang, and Troy and Abed brilliance. I appreciate that the writers got Jeff and Britta together early on so that we don’t have a whole will-they-wont-they thing going on (although I guess now there’s the whole annoying and slightly creepy Jeff and Annie thing). All in all, I adore this episode, and this show, for how much fun it’s having. Plus, McHale doing his best McLane in a white tank? Hot.
5. No Reservations, “Beirut”
Normally I’m not going to do much with non-scripted TV, although one could argue with Bourdain’s writing this show falls somewhere in the middle, but this is one powerful episode of television. Bourdain and his crew happened to be filming in Beirut when the war between Hezbollah and Israel broke out and end up trapped in the country for a week. They spend most of their time trapped in the hotel, awkwardly sunbathing and trying to make sense of the madness around them. Tony vacillates between being horrified, confused, and even bored in this incredibly honest portrayal of the conflict and the reality of being caught in the middle. It’s the normally-snarky host at his most eloquent, and riveting TV.
6. South Park, “Trapped in the Closet”
It makes fun of Scientology. It makes fun of R. Kelly. It makes fun of Tom Cruise. And as always, it does it brilliantly. Enough said.
7. Lost in Austen
This BBC miniseries is every girl’s wet dream. Modern British girl Amanda Price gets trapped in the world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice after magically trading places with Elizabeth Bennet. It’s great writing, with lots of jokes for those of us (totally not me) who have watched the legendary Colin Firth all-wet version a million times, and has a lot of interesting twists and turns for even the casual Austen fan. It’s just a really well done production, with great acting by lots of Hey-it’s-that-guy! Brits and, of course, a fairy-tale ending.
8. How I Met Your Mother, “Zip Zip Zip”
This awesome with-a-capital-A first season episode features Marshall and Lily stuck in the apartment bathroom because Ted is trying to romance his then-girl Victoria. Now I was never a huge fan of the cupcake girl, but the dynamic between her and Ted in this episode is great. It’s Ted at his most ridiculous, completely over-romantic and sappy, balanced by the real heart of the show, Marshall and Lily, facing a new level of closeness in their relationship when Lily is forced to pee in the bathroom they are sharing. Hannigan and Segel are always hilarious, but this episode is a perfect example of just how good their timing can be. It’s also the episode that introduces is to Bro-Robin, who suits up to drink scotch and play laser tag with Barney. Legen-wait for it….
9. Alias, “The Box”
This is another show with really high-highs and really low-lows. (I’m looking at you, giant red ball over Russia!) But this episode, written by and starring Quentin Tarantino, is one of its best. Being a Tarantino project, it is of course fast paced and kinda bloody, and has lots of power walking shots with people in sunglasses. But, you know, in a cool way. Sidney is trying to break into the SD-6 building when the employees, including Dixon and Marshall, are taken hostage by Tarantino’s gang of thugs. It’s got lots of action, great Spy Daddy/Daughter bonding time, and Vaughan running around looking upset. Which is just the best, isn’t it?
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| I couldn't find anything from this actual episode, so you will all have to muddle through with this really ugly picture. |
10. Coupling, “Dressed”
This show gets referred to as the “British Friends” a lot, which is entirely stupid. It’s much more like a modern Noel Coward play, complete with slamming doors, mistaken identities, and double (sometimes triple) entendres. This episode is one of the best, and features Jane (Gina Bellman) showing up for a date in a trench coat and nothing else. Trouble is, not so much a date as a dinner party. In a scene that only the British could pull off, Jane ends up trapped in the bathroom, trading her coat for a doll’s dress for the next-door neighbor’s little girl. Trust me, one of the funniest things you’ll ever see.
Well, that’s the first list done. What do you think, Freaks? Am I crazy? Did I leave out the greatest episode in your history of ever? Let me know!
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