Turkey Day Greatness

Happy Thanksgiving, my dearest Freaks!

I have a lot to be thankful for. I've got a great family, awesome friends, I make a mean chocolate pie.

And of course, my true love...

Television.

Top Ten Thanksgiving Episodes

Will and Grace, "Lows in the Mid Eighties"

Like most long-running sitcoms, Will and Grace has a few great Thanksgiving episodes, but none more amazing than this flashback-centered episode. It showed how Jack met Will, how Karen met Stan, and how Will met himself when a disastrous trip home with his then-girlfriend Grace led him to come out of the closet. It's hilarious, it's sweet, it's got amazing 80's wigs, what more could you ask for?

Best line:

Will: I'm not gay.
Jack: This well worn copy of the Dreamgirls soundtrack begs to differ.

So does that haircut. 

Friends, "The One with All the Thanksgivings"

Another show with a plethora of great Thanksgiving episode choices, the one that remains my favorite is this multiple-flashback gem, where Thanksgiving stories leave Chandler (the "King of Bad Thanksgivings") depressed, Monica trying to cheer him up with a turkey on her head, and the couple's first I-love-yous. Aw! (Plus, more bad 80's wigs!)

Best line:

Phoebe: I've got a Thanksgiving story that's worse."
Chandler: Worse than 'More turkey, Mr. Chan-deh-ler'?
Phoebe: Oh, did the poor little rich boy have a problem with the butler? Yes, mine's worse!

Everything is funnier with a fez.

Mad About You, "Giblets for Murray"

I don't remember this show all that well, despite the fact I know my family watched and liked it, but I do remember this episode really specifically. The Thanksgiving dinner takes on a life of its own as Jamie and Paul try to make all of their various relatives happy, and end up going through like five turkeys due to comedy-of-errors style miscommunication and Murray the dog.

Best line:

Jamie: (Asking Paul to go to the store for brussel sprouts) Come on Fran's alone, she's feeling vulnerable, and she loves brussel sprouts.
Paul: So let her eat a valium.

Roseanne, "We Gather Together"

Roseanne was better known for its great Halloween episodes (I'm still traumatized by the thing with Dan's hand in the disposall) but this great episode, which featured both sets of in-laws and Jackie trying to hide her new career as a cop, was hilarious and sweet. I adore Roseanne's mother, who is just the most perfect charactature of the passive-aggressive mother ever on television, and makes this episode with her guilt-inducing whining.

Best line:

Roseanne: I don't think you should tell Mom about you being a cop.
Jackie: Why not?
Roseanne: Because I don't want Mom to drop dead of a heart attack at the dinner table!
Dan: Why not?

How I Met Your Mother, "Slapsgiving:

There's singing. There's screaming. There's slapping. It's the perfect Thanksgiving! I won't lie, I love the saluting thing Robin and Ted do (I don't say it out loud, but you can bet my brain goes "General Knowledge"!) and guest star Owen Bean is great at the perception of Robin's older date, but you just don't get better than the awesome slap and even more awesome song about the slap. God dammit, Jason Segel, I love you.

Best line:

Marshall: Why is your right cheek twitching?
Barney: It's not.
Marshall: Maybe it's because Future Me slaps Future You so hard it reverberates back to the present, shattering the Time-Slap Continuum!

Marry me, you fabulous psycho. 

Cheers, "Thanksgiving Orphans"  

Shouldn't all Thanksgiving dinners begin with a food fight? The one at Carla's did, after a slow-cooking turkey, missing dates, and Diane being...well, Diane. A classic Thanksgiving episode made perfect by the appearance of the long-awaited Vera, whose face we still couldn't see due to all the pumpkin pie covering it.

Best line:

Diane: What could be more enjoyable than opening your heart this holiday season?
Carla: Opening yours with a can opener?

Um, your wife is lovely.

The West Wing, "Sibboleth" 

A powerful episode that still manages to be really funny, with CJ choosing a turkey for the President to pardon and the guys with not much to do until a group of stowaway Chinese immigrants are found seeking asylum. This is West Wing at its best.

Best line:

CJ: The most photo-friendly of the two gets a Presidential pardon and a full life at a children's zoo. The runner-up gets eaten.
Bartlet: If the Oscars were like that, I'd watch.

Gilmore Girls, "A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving"

This classic Girls episode sees Lorelai and Rory attending four different Thanksgiving dinners, after they can't bear to tell anyone no. It's fast-talking, banter-y holiday fun!

Best line:

Lorelai: Who's that?
Rory: It's Lane. It just says 'bible kiss bible'.
Lorelai: What does that mean?
Rory: No idea. Good band name, though.

Can't you just feel yourself talking faster? 

Everybody Loves Raymond, "No Fat" 

When Marie goes on a diet, she demands a healthy thanksgiving dinner, which means (dun dun dun!) Tofurkey.

Best line:

Ray: Where's your dog, Robert?
Robert: I don't think Shamsky would eat this.
Ray: Yeah, but we could eat him.

The Cosby Show, "Cliff's Wet Adventure" 

Cliff is forced to make four trips to the store for things Claire forgot. Trust me, it's hilarious. Just watch the clip from 1:30 and tell me you haven't heard your parents have the exact same conversation:

Best line:

Russell: (starting grace) Heavenly Father...
Cliff: You got that right.

Television Medium

Sometimes I like to do weird and random stuff on this blog, Freaks.

What can I say? It's just part of my charm.

To that end, I give you:


Ten TV Crossovers We Wish Could Happen



Happy Endings and How I Met Your Mother

This might be a little personal on my part, because these are the two shows that simultaneously remind me of my friends and contain people I want to be friends with. So shouldn't they be friends? Here's all I have to say to convince you this would work: Penny and Ted. Done!

Together, they would reach new heights of neuroses.

Once Upon a Time and Castle

This is my favorite one, because it seems really strange at first glance, but if you think about it long enough, it starts to make sense. Castle loves "theme" episodes, so the fairy tale thing works great for them, and you could even work Castle and Beckett into the "Fairy Tale Land" as Grimms or Beauty and the Beast. It would be a total blast. Plus, and I believe this wholeheartedly, Nathan Fillion can pull off anything.

Oh, god. Ok, not anything.

The USA shows

It makes sense, given the very specific vibe that all of the USA shows have, that you could see any of them meshing up pretty well, Burn Notice could cross with Covert Affairs or Royal Pains with Suits, but I think the one I'd most enjoy watching is Psych and White Collar. Not only because I would like to watch James Roday and Matt Bomer on the same screen, but also because the tone of the shows would fit really well together. Shawn and Gus would be enamored of Neal, who would bask in the adoration, and trying to watch Peter put up with Lassiter would be hilarious. See, you're thinking about it now, and it totally works, right?

Yep. It's like a good hair buffet.

30 Rock and Parks and Recreation

This one pretty much writes itself, with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey being besties and all, but god, wouldn't it be awesome? The Parks and Rec department somehow ends up winning a trip to The Girlie Show in exciting New York City, and wreaks all kind of havoc on the 30 Rock crew. Jack could become obsessed with Ron, feeling like he needs to get closer to his everyman American roots, Leslie could follow Liz around, April could scare the crap out of Tracy. Are you listening, NBC? I'm giving you gold here. God knows you need it!

Nah, you'll be fine.

Justified and Sons of Anarchy

Again, I think this one springs to mind because of the gritty FX look, but it would be pretty easy to do. Just mix up all those drug rings and all the sudden Jax is making deals with Raylan.

I have no other reason for suggesting this crossover.

The Office and Modern Family

This is the one that I have no idea how you'd pull off, I just think it would be really great to see Phil and Andy in the same place. Hey, look, I didn't say they were all going to be gold.

Bones and Ringer

Buffy reunion! You know if these shows were not on different networks, this would already be in the works. Well, except for how SMG seems to be trying to hard to remind us that she's not Buffy. Whatever, you totally are. Now get Angel involved with the FBI case surrounding the missing friend!

And then proceed to remind us how old we've all gotten.

True Blood and Supernatural

Um, duh.

The Vampire Diaries and Glee

Let me just get this right out there: I have no interest in singing vampires. (Well, at least since Spike hung up his coat.) I just want to figure out some strange way for the Glee kids' bus to get stranded in Mystic Falls so that Damon can kill the hell out of Rachel.

Hey, Damon, while you're at it...

Community and Chuck

If you can make up a reason that Chuck and the gang have to infiltrate Greendale, I think this could be a weirdly perfect combo. (Which, let's face it, weird is kinda what these shows do.) Abed and Morgan would be instant friends, and Annie could fall in love with Chuck, undercover as a regular student. And it would be awesome to see Casey face off with Jeff, or even better, crazy Pierce. NBC, if one of these shows isn't back on my TV next year, I'm giving up on you all together.

Yeah, but make sure this plays at least three times a week. That will make it stop sucking.

I'd like to give a special shout out to one of my friends, who despite the fact that he does not watch either of these shows, suggested a crossover of Bones and Castle. Um , yes please!


Dear TV,

Get on that.

Love,
The TV Freak




Add your brilliant crossover ideas to the comments, and if you still haven't (despite my copious reminders) like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter (@theTVFreak)!

Heart...Wait For It...Break

I haven't cried at TV in a long time, Freaks.

If you discount weddings, deaths, or series finales, I can count the number of times on one hand.

But the end of last night's How I Met Your Mother had me bawling like a baby.

It's hard for a half hour comedy to pull off simultaneously funny and heartbreaking. That's not a lot of time to swing your audience's emotions so drastically, and though HIMYM has always been really good at it, last night's episode was absolutely the best they've done.

The episode is framed by Einstein's theory of relativity (that time moves at different speeds), a conceit that works just beautifully with the A-plot, Barney and Robin dealing with the repercussions of a night together, and the well-done B-plot, in which high (after "eating sandwiches"- great job with continuity, guys!) Marshall and Ted freak out about getting older. If those two things seem incongruous, I promise, they are not, and were a great compliment to the "relativity" theme of the show. It's an episode full of great moments, big and small (shout out to Lily eating the trash nachos and the "cloves and mediocrity" line) and the perfect tone.

I could talk about a lot of things from this episode, and I will, actually, in just a second, but let me say first that this episode succeeded in large part because of the superb talent of Neil Patrick Harris. He acted the hell out of every moment of it, and it was really spectacular to watch.

And heartbreaking.

This show has always been about the theory of relativity, because it has always been about perspective. Ted is telling the story of his life with the benefit of hindsight; he's willing to share the worst of himself, the terrible things that happened because he knows that everything turned out OK in the end. This show is about the mistakes that we make in life that get us to where we are going, which means they weren't mistakes at all. It's about knowing, at some point, that all the heartache, all the turmoil, all the pain, is leading to a place that we wouldn't have gotten without it. Future Ted already knows this, and sometimes even Current Ted (in his better moments) understands, but Barney doesn't. Or he didn't, before this happened. He saw, for a moment, that this awful thing that he and Robin had done, could be not "the story of how [they] both made a horrible mistake...but the story of how [they] got back together."

It's about perspective.

Robin is too insecure to trust that. She needs to know why Barney would want to be with her before she can consider taking a risk with her heart again, even though he, this previously scared, distant, emotionally avoiding playboy stepped up and offered his to her. He told her it was because she was almost as much of a mess as he was, and everyone watching smiled in agreement. It's why we believe in these two and why we want so badly to see them find their way to each other.

He was ready, when it was his turn, to take a step towards Robin by telling Nora the truth, about not only what he'd done, but what it had meant to him. This was a perfectly crafted scene, from the great montage moment to the clock ticking in the background, and we cheered because Barney Stinson was ready for a real relationship. The show has done a really great job with developing Barney's character slowly and realistically, with the occasional two-steps-forward-one-step-back feeling, which I think serves to make us only more invested when we can see, like in this episode, how clearly he has changed.

Unfortunately, Robin hasn't quite followed suit. (Pun!) Robin asked Kevin, too, after he told her he loved her, why he wanted to be with such a mess. His response was filled with compliments and romantic flattery, and a picture of herself that she wanted to believe, so she listened to him instead. Kevin's answer was perfect (Worst. Therapist. Ever.), and Barney's was real, and Robin is too damaged, too scared to deal with that. So she stayed with Kevin, the one who says he loves her, even though she knows that she lied when she promised him she was just as in their relationship as he is, because she wants to be who he sees.

It's about perspective.

Barney is left standing in MacLaren's, waiting for the happy beginning he isn't going to get. There's a moment, when she walks in, that he thinks she's alone, that she's coming to begin with him. You can see his world shatter when he sees Kevin behind her, when he looks at her with this mix of heartache and hope to silently ask if she still wants him.

She just shakes her head.

As Ted voiceovers, it was the longest moment of Barney's life. From his perspective, everything is over. This is a man who promised himself he'd never care again, after the last girl he loved hurt him enough to turn him into the callous, detached, suit-wearing lothario he became. But he did. He couldn't help himself, he fell in love. And he owned it, he stepped up and said, (even if it came at the end of a joke), "Let's start a new life together." And she said no.

In reality, I don't think a guy like him comes back from that.

Luckily, this is TV, so it doesn't work like that.

It's all about perspective.

Tiny Adorable Murderers

So Bones came back last night.

I'm.....

Well, it's like.....

I have no idea how I feel. Sure, it's cute. They're moving in together, saying I love you, Baby Hodgela is freaking adorable, it's all happy sunny sweetness.

And I feel like I missed a season.

I'm not going to lie, Freaks, this baby makes me nervous. So does the one over on How I Met Your Mother. Why?

Because babies are show killers.

They come into shows where they don't belong, screwing up the existing dynamic and leading to asinine plot points or bizarre characterization.

Let's get listy!

Ten Show-Ruining Kids

Friends

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, there was a way to do that kid as the perfect ending to the Ross and Rachel story, and they...did not do that. Instead, Emma went the way of Ross' other child, in that we completely forgot that it existed. Except for when they trotted it out for a random, usually silly, plot device.

When else has a baby been less memorable than a haircut?

Murphy Brown

Sure, it was a big deal when this fictional character stood up to the actual Vice President by having a baby as an unwed single mother (Hey, remember when that was a big deal?) but shortly thereafter the show became focused on Murphy's personal life instead of her career and the show lost its edgy zip. Plus, that kid grew up to be Haley Joel Osment. I see dead series?

Grownup Haley wishes I would write less lame jokes.

Will and Grace

The rare instance of a non-existent baby leading a show to its demise, I think W&G's shark-jumping moment was not Leo, but the terrible decision that led up to it, Will and Grace trying to have a baby together. It's a cliched plot that would make more sense when the show is on its last leg, not in the middle of a previously great season. Plus, it made Leo happen. And I hate Leo.

It's like if a fish were a person.  

Charmed

What seemed like an OK idea at the time turned into three seasons of yelling "Wyatt is going to turn out to be evil!" And Chris ended up with the whole, "Oh, crap, I messed up the timeline and now I have to make sure my estranged parents do it or I won't exist to keep Baby Wyatt from turning into Big Evil Wyatt!" thing, which, honestly, was just a little weird for everyone involved.

That child-like face says "Parents, please get busy."

Beverly Hills, 90210

OK, not so much of a show-killer as a character-killer, but Andrea's baby with that guy who was supposed to be a random extra and got to stick around for three years made for some unbelievably boring drama in the midst of an otherwise crazy soap. I'm sorry Brandon never loved you , sweetie, now pack it up for Boston!

Guys don't make passes at girls who wear glasses. Especially when the slut next door isn't wearing anything.

House

It's possible that people just got really sick of hearing about lupus, but my money's on Cuddy's baby as the downturn to this formerly enjoyable procedural. It made House kinda mushy, which no one wanted to see, and led to the disastrous "Huddy" relationship, which has definitely put the nail in the show's coffin. Expect the funeral march to begin any minute now.

No, seriously. How does he keep his license?



Angel
It was a shocking twist when two vampires magically got to have a kid, and they managed to pull several really great episodes out of it before it all went to hell. Literally. As sci-fi shows are prone to do, baby Conner got kidnapped to a hell dimension and came back a twisted teen hell bent on revenge. And also, kinda living out some Oedipal fantasies with Cordelia. Which was just really icky.

Aaaaannnnnddd....there goes lunch....

Full House

An attempt to step up the cute factor after the Olsen twins weren't toddlers anymore, Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky got married and had twins of their very own. And still lived in the house with all of the rest of them. Um, what? You're an adult. Get your own apartment.

With two babies, isn't it awesome that we have that big attic room to live in?

Ally McBeal

Hayden Panettiere kinda messes everything up, doesn't she? This was a weird and left-field plot in which the child Ally never knew she had appears from nowhere and somehow manages to stick around. I know they were lawyers, but were they also magic?

Yeah, magically delicious.

Growing Pains

The worst offender of the 80's sitcoms that magically aged their babies overnight, the Seaver kid went from being in diapers to....the second freaking grade. Did you think we wouldn't notice, show? Guess what! We did.

We also figured out this guy was going to end up a douchebag.

So what do you think, Freaks? Any tiny tots I missed? Are you freaking about the possible babies of doom on Bones and HIMYM? Take it to the comments!



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