Wednesday 28 October 2009

Top 5 Halloween TV episodes


1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 'Halloween'

In this second season episode the Scooby gang become what they have dressed for Halloween due to a spell that Ethan Rayne (with his first of several appearances) has put on all the costumes from his shop. As Halloween is normally a day that demons have off this would normally not be an issue, however Spike uses the opportunity to try and take down the Slayer who unfortunately dressed as an eighteenth century lady, losing all of her slayer knowledge and fainting at the sight of a monster. Willow becomes a ghost, having the power to walk through walls but not touch anything and Xander becomes a soldier, which will prove useful for later episodes when he retains all his soldier training and codes for military buildings. What makes this episode great is to see Buffy vulnerable in this role reversal 'come as you aren't' theme for Halloween. It is also the first time we get to here the name Ripper in relation to Giles, realising that he is much darker than his library man exterior suggests.




2) Bones: 'The Mummy in the Maze'
What makes this a great Halloween episode is that all of the characters end up trying to solve the murder and mummification of two girls as well as attempting to stop the death of another girl whilst dressed up for the Jeffersonian Halloween party. The costumes are varied as seen in the picture above, Angela is Cher, Hodgins the captain of the Titanic, Zack is the end of a cow (miss you Zack), Cam is Cat Woman, Brennan is Wonder Woman and perhaps funniest of all is Booth dressed as one of the squints and he attempts to be a nerdy as possible (though none of them dress as badly as his interpretation). Debates about who is better between Wonder Woman and Cat Woman (Wonder Woman is the consensus) and Brennan spinning around are some of the highlights. Though I think Booth and Brennan tracking down the killer in full costume and saving the girl is the highlight as well as the continuing joke of Brennan wanting a gun and then accidentally shooting Booth with a ricochet.





3) Chuck: 'Chuck versus the Sandworm'
The Halloween element of this episode is relegated to the subplot however it deserves a mention for several reasons, the nerd element is pretty high with Chuck and Morgan's costume being the Sandworm from Dune and Sarah comes as slave Princess Leia which is enough to drive any fan boy crazy. Awesome and Ellie in a continuing joke about how perfect they are goes as Adam and Eve with leaves covering the bikini suit areas. The highlight for me as a fan of Josh Schwartz though is the moment where they recreate the moment from the New Years episode of the OC where Ryan rushes to get to Marissa before midnight strikes and Dice by Finley Quaye (featuring Beth Orton) is playing, instead it is Chuck rushing to get to Morgan so they can do their Halloween costume together.



4) The Office: 'Halloween' and 'The Employee Transfer'
The above pictures are from the season 5 episode 'The Employee Transfer' in which it is only the opening that concentrates on Halloween but it is definitely worth noting and is perhaps one of my favourite starts to an Office episode. The Joker was probably one of the most popular costumes last year and it was brilliant to see Kevin, Dwight and Creed all as the Joker with varying degrees of scary with Creed being particularly frightening. It was also great to see Dwight have his pencil disappearing trick ruined by the lift door closing on him. The costume nightmare that Pam had in the Dunder Mifflin branch in New York also made me chuckle as she was the only person who had dressed up, her Charlie Chaplin costume would become Hiltleresque if she removed her hat.



Three hole punch Jim is from the season 2 episode 'Halloween' and demonstrates the extreme effort that can go in to a costume, or rather a lack of effort and it also shows how opposite Jim and Dwight are with Dwight spending over a hundred dollars on his Sith Lord suit. Though Jim's costume does give Dwight the excuse to punch. Also from seeing promo from this years Halloween episode it looks like it will be another humdinger.




5) Ugly Betty: 'The Lyin', the Watch and the Wardrobe'
Recently I haven't been enjoying Ugly Betty as much as I use to but I picked this episode mainly for Marc dressed as Betty (which Wilhelmina says is so cruel that he deserves a raise). Betty has also been fooled in to thinking that everyone in the office will be dressing for Halloween, which is not the case, but I do like he butterfly costume very much.


I know there are many other great Halloween episodes (Angel, My So Called Life and Friends to mention a few) but I thought I would go with five. Are there any show that you would like to see do a Halloween episode? Are there any shows that should have done a Halloween episode? The X-Files springs to mind as a show that could have done a great one but never did.

Happy Halloween everybody, I have to go and make some birds for my costume.

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