Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2010-2011 television season below, in no particular order. And a few spoilers ahead, including that one episode of "Mad Men." I've decided to adjust my personal rules for this series a bit, and allow the inclusion of two episodes from a show that happens to be having a very good year.
The Walking Dead, "Days Gone Bye" - It started so well, didn't it? Frank Darabont directed the pilot of AMC's long-running zombie action series, where Deputy Rick Grimes begins his long journey through dystopian America. "The Walking Dead" was one of a handful of ambitious genre shows that helped to fuel the rise of television series with higher production quality and more risky content. Fifteen years and seven spinoffs later, I'm not surprised it's still going.
Game of Thrones, "Baelor" - However, if you want to talk about game-changing genre shows, nothing matches the first season of "Game of Thrones" for cultural impact. The HBO fantasy series was perhaps the final major television show that just about everyone watched and used as a point of common reference. It broke so many narrative rules the first year, especially in this episode, which concludes with killing off a major character who nobody expected to die.
Parks and Rec, "Flu Season" - "Parks and Rec" continued to steadily improve in its third season, and spends most of this episode maneuvering various romantic partners closer into each other's orbit, and helping to squash some minor squabbles. And it's the episode where everyone is sick, loopy, and off their game, which is always great for the comedy. Amy Poehler shines, but Chris Pratt's "network connectivity problems" ad lib is surely one for the ages.
Community, "Cooperative Calligraphy" - "Community" was also regularly delivering great episodes as part of the same Thursday lineup, often rife with metatextual commentary. So we have to have the bottle episode that popularized the term "bottle episode." And what an episode, where everyone being stuck in close proximity quickly devolves into madness. A close runner up was "Paradigms of Human Memory," the clip show featuring clips from episodes that don't exist.
Mad Men, "The Suitcase" - No surprise that this episode is here, where tensions between Don and Peggy boil over when Don forces Peggy to work late on her birthday. It's such a joy to watch Jon Hamm and Elizabeth Moss let loose, revealing so much about their characters' priorities and worldviews as they clash and reconcile. I especially appreciate that the scope of the show narrows down to focus almost entirely on Don and Peggy, giving them the space to really make an impression.
Sherlock, "A Study in Pink" - This is where we were first introduced to Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson, reimagined as modern day sleuths by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss. The show had its ups and downs, but the premiere was so much fun because Cumberbatch nailed the character, and Moffat did a fantastic job of getting the tone right, doing an updated version of "A Study in Scarlet" with nicotine patches and texting.
Futurama, "The Late Philip J. Fry" and "The Prisoner of Benda" - The Comedy Central era of "Futurama" had some of my favorite episodes of the show's entire run, including these two. I couldn't pick between them. You've got a time travel episode that runs through a dozen major metaphysical and philosophical concepts (most notably eternal recurrence), and the body-switching episode that Ken Keeler created a new mathematical proof for. This is the kind of absolute nerdery I adore.
Top Gear, "Series 15 Premiere" - First aired in June of 2010, this is the episode where a Bentley Continental Supersports is reviewed, a Chevrolet Lacetti is retired, and a Toyota Hilux is driven up an Icelandic volcano. It is also the episode that features the segment on the three-wheeled Reliant Robin, which is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen on television. The sight of Jeremy Clarkson rolling that car over and over again never fails to make me guffaw with glee.
Louie, "Bully" - Finally, I want to give a little love to the first season of "Louie," which really felt like something fresh and unusually creator-driven at the time it was released. With a tiny budget and not many resources, Louie C.K. was able to deliver an insightful, delightfully unvarnished look at life in New York from a very personal point of view. I'm picking "Bully" as the standout for its casual disregard of the rules of time and space, and pitch perfect writing.
Honorable Mention: "Luther" Season One
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