Television, Of Course

I've been mentally developing a list of best television episodes of all time. Here is the beginnings of draft one:

1. "Restaurant Wars" - Top Chef (any season)
There is something about the restaurant wars competition that makes for the best episode of reality television ever conceived by a team of high-powered producers. There is something so inherently dramatic about this competition that even the cheesy music and slow-motion action shots that the editors use to pump up the drama, feel suddenly warranted and appropriate.

2. "Blink" - Doctor Who (series 3, episode 10)
This is a strange episode of Doctor Who, because the Doctor has very little screen time, and it mostly focuses on a one-episode character named Sally Sparrow. I usually hate that. I watch Doctor Who for the Doctor, not for some random running around London like an idiot. But, Blink is an amazingly written story and one of the absolute best time-travel stories ever, ever created. It's clever, it's smart, and the parts with the Doctor are also some of his funniest bits all season. So, even though it's a bad, bad intro to Doctor Who, it's the only episode of a tv show that focused on one-episode characters instead of the main characters that I actually enjoyed.

3. "Mac Bangs Dennis's Mom" - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (season 2, episode 4)
I just started watching this show like three days ago, and I'm already near the end of the second season, and the whole show is hilarious, but this episode is my favorite. There is not one dull scene, not one missed line, not one lame b-plot, and the running jokes in the episode are the best example of that kind of cyclical and referential comedy writing that's my favorite to watch.