From: daviderl31@yahoo.com   
      
   http://www.denofgeek.com/us/tv/joss-whedon/256475/5-best-tv-epis   
   des-written-by-joss-whedon   
      
   5 Best TV Episodes Written By Joss Whedon   
      
   Joss Whedon turned 52 this week, and we're choosing to celebrate the   
   anniversary of his birth by focusing on the first medium the writer,   
   director, and showrunner had an indelible effect on: TV. Though Whedon has   
   made his mark on the film world with major franchises like The Avengers and   
   smaller, art films like the glorious Much Ado About Nothing, television   
   would undoubtedly not be the same without Whedon's contributions to it.   
      
   From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Firefly, Whedon has not only created some   
   of the most beloved genre shows in TV history, but has championed   
   female-driven, found family, genre-mashed TV at the birth of the second   
   golden age of television. In honor of his birthday, we're looking at some of   
   the best epidodes that Whedon himself has written. In the spirit of not   
   rambling on forever, we're limiting ourselves to one episode per TV show.   
      
   Here are five of our absolute favorites...   
      
   "Vows"   
      
   Dollhouse   
      
   "I like my scars. They bring out my eyes."   
      
   Dollhouse is a divisive show, even within the Whedon fandom. Personally, it   
   is one of my favorites — a show that only got better (though, also, far   
   fewer viewers) once it dropped the formula of a personality-of-the-week and   
   embraced its strength as a highly-serialized, character-driven ensemble   
   drama about the perils of using other people's bodies more or less without   
   their consent. It's an episode of Black Mirror, but stretched out over two   
   glorious seasons and one that addresses so many of the murky, topical issues   
   we still need to get better at discussing on a pop culture level.   
      
   That being said, the Dollhouse episodes written by Whedon himself are not my   
   favorites of the series, though he undoubtedly had some influence over the   
   ones that were. Out of the few episodes Whedon did write, the season 2   
   premiere, "Vows," is the best. Like most episodes of Dollhouse, the   
   highlights don't come in the Echo-centric plot, but in the exploration of   
   the relationship between Topher and Dr. Saunders. Saunders, continually   
   struggling with the knowledge that she was once a doll and her original   
   personality has been lost forever.   
      
   Is she still a doll? She pranks and psychologically tortures Topher because   
   she can't answer this question. No one can, really, though — in one of the   
   best lines from the episode — Topher tells her: "You don’t know me.   
   That’s   
   the contract. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. Not fully, not ever.   
   I   
   made you question. I made you fight for your beliefs. I didn’t make you hate   
   me. You chose to."   
      
      
      
   "Act III"   
      
   Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog   
      
   "Give my regards to St. Peter — or, you know, whoever has his job... but in   
   hell."   
      
   OK, so this isn't technically a TV episode, given that it was made during   
   the TV writers strike and first "broadcast" over the world wide web. But our   
   definition of TV has stretched a lot in the last ten years, and I think Dr.   
   Horrible's Sing-Along Blog deserves a spot on this list. Not only is it a   
   tragic, hilarious, thought-provoking exploration of what is heroism and what   
   is villainy, but it was also a new form of television-tangential   
   storytelling in a period when Netflix had only just begun streaming and had   
   yet to create any original content.   
      
   Also, the soundtrack is so darn catchy.   
      
      
      
   Firefly   
      
   Serenity   
      
   "We're still flying." "That's not much." "That's enough."   
      
   As much as it pains me not to give this spot to "Objects in Space," I will   
   always be impressed with Firefly's original, two-hour (or 86 minutes,   
   without commercials) pilot for how it immediately throws its viewers into a   
   new world and makes us care about these characters. It plays like a movie in   
   so many ways, but, come the end, we have a whole (though, sadly, far too   
   short) TV show to watch. It's glorious.   
      
   Firefly was special amongst Whedon's many, lovely shows for the ways in   
   which it knew exactly what it was from the very beginning. That hasn't   
   happened with any other of his shows so far. It happens with so few TV   
   shows, to be honest. From the first, tragic moments that showcase Mal's   
   defeat at the Battle of Serenity to the final moments that show a new,   
   complicated, reluctant found family, "Serenity" is something special and   
   utterly unique.   
      
      
   "Waiting in the Wings"   
      
   Angel   
      
   “I don’t dance, I echo.”   
      
   One of those special episodes that Joss Whedon both wrote and directed,   
   Angel's "Waiting in the Wings" is a relatively quiet episode of the   
   supernatural show, but no less powerful for the limits it sets for itself.   
   Plot-wise, the episode is about the gang at Angel Investigations going to   
   the ballet. While there, they free a prima ballerina (played by Summer Glau,   
   in her first TV role) from a century-old curse that makes her repeat the   
   same performance every night, because of course.   
      
   More that that, though, it is about the roles these characters play in their   
   own, complex social group. It is a highly romantic episode, with Cordelia   
   and Angel becoming possessed by the spirits of the ballerina and her lover   
   and passionately tearing each other's clothes off. Meanwhile, both Gunn and   
   Wesley explore their romantic interests for Fred. It is an episode about   
   fate and the choices we have in our own stories. It is an episode about the   
   power of performance and narrative. And it is an episode that is just   
   beautifully written, directed, and acted.   
      
      
   "Graduation Day, Parts 1 and 2"   
      
   Buffy the Vampire Slayer   
      
   "We survived." "It was a hell of a battle." "Not the battle. High School."   
      
   Choosing a Joss Whedon-written episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to   
   feature is like choosing a family member to save in the face of the   
   apocalypse. Bad metaphor, you say? Well, I just wanted to segue into the   
   subject of the apocalypse, which was a thing Buffy & co. so bravely foiled   
   in two-part season finale "Graduation Day." Now, seeing your favorite TV   
   characters preventing a giant snake-monster that used to be the mayor from   
   eating the world might not seem so novel, but we live in a glorious time   
   where pre-apocalypse, apocalypse, and post-apocalypse TV stories are a dime   
   a dozen. Buffy was ahead of its time in this way.   
      
   Famously postponed a month due to a perceived insensitivity of showing it   
   following the Columbine massacre, "Graduation Day" was more than an   
   excellent, scary, fast-paced, character-driven episode, it was the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)