Friday, October 24, 2008

The Week's Most Popular TV Episodes



#1 Family Guy (S7E3 "Road to Germany")
Last week's rank: New to list
Weeks on list: 1
Stewie, Brian, and "Mort the Jew" journey back through time to do battle with Hitler and the WWII era Nazi party. A great opportunity for Stewie to masquerade as Hitler, with an excellent Chaplin reference thrown in for good measure. I particularly like the random musical parody of Little Shop of Horrors.

#2 The Office (S5E3 "Baby Shower")
Last week's rank: NA
Weeks on list: 1
Oh God, this show is just getting funnier and funnier. Michael is devastated when Jan shows up with her baby after having frozen him out of the birthing process. Michael browbeats the staff into throwing her a baby shower, which goes spectacularly wrong. Dwight tests her stroller while she's occupied creeping out the Dunder Mifflin staff. Don't forget to watch the extra clips that didn't make the original episode.

#3 Family Guy (S7E2 "I Dream of Jesus")
Last week's rank: #1
Weeks on list: 3
Three straight weeks on the list? That's unprecedented (at least, unprecedented in the three weeks I've been compiling this list). The episode, in which Peter meets Jesus working in a video store and befriends the son of God, is filled with funny sacrilege.

#4 Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday (S1E2)
Last week's rank: NA
Weeks on list: 1
This was a solid half hour of comedy, with the best moment being when the crazy McCain rally lady (who in real life told McCain that Obama was an "Arab") wandered onto the set spouting inacurracies. There was also a parody of the plumber-centric debate between McCain and Obama.

#5 Heroes (S3E6 "Dying of the Light")
Last week's rank: NA
Weeks on list: 1
Last week, Heroes nabbed the #4 slot, so this bow at #5 seems to mesh with reports that the show's ratings are in a state of decline. I'll make it easy for the Heroes folks: less time travel, more fights! Although at least they're utilizing Sylar this time around.

#6 The Simpsons (S20E3 "Double, Double, Boy in Trouble")
Last week's rank: NA
Weeks on list: 1
It's a Prince and the Pauper redux when Bart trades places with a wealthy and accented look-a-like. How does this show keep coming up with stuff they haven't done before? The show has been heavy on the relationship between Homer and Marge over the years; in a refreshing change of pace, this episode has two great scenes with Marge and Bart being cute and cuddly together at bedtime.

#7 The Daily Show With John Stewart (S13E134)
Last week's rank: NA
Weeks on list: 1
This episode has a real gem in it when Rob Riggle travels to Palin's hometown of Wasilla, where she served as mayor. They draw a biting contrast between the actual Wasilla and the small town values that Palin espouses, and also the assertion that the Wasilla mayor is a good training ground for executive decisions.

#8 Family Guy (S7E1 "Love Blactually")
Last week's rank: #4
Weeks on list: 3
Three spots on the top ten list? Family Guy is a fricking monster on this site. This is the episode where Stewie convinces Brian to take it slow with a new girlfriend, only to see Cleveland, of all people, move in on her.

#9 The Daily Show With John Stewart (S13E133)
Last week's rank: New to list
Weeks on list: 1
This episode has a lot of Joe-the-plumber talk, which I'm frankly getting very tired of.

#10 House (S5E4 "Birthmarks")
Last week's rank: na
Weeks on list: 1
Every once in a while, House squeezes its way onto the bottom of this list. This is one of several shows that are being posted regularly onto Hulu, 8 days late. I'm not sure what the theory is there.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You're an internet sloth