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.

Character resurrection

So to tie loosely into the Easter weekend I have decided to look at 5 shows that have characters that have been resurrected. Also, a warning that there will be spoilers within for Lost, Alias, 24, Heroes and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so you have been warned:

 

1. Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): this girl has died several times, ranging from a few minutes to several months. When she first dies this brings about the calling of another slayer, which first gave us the somewhat annoying Kendra and then the super Faith so it isn’t all bad when your main character dies for a few minutes. However she will let you know through song how unhappy she was about being dragged out of ‘heaven’ when she died for real and had to climb out of her own grave. As Buffy is a show about demons and the undead there are many others that have been resurrected but none so spectacularly than Buffy herself.
2. Jack Bauer (24): Jack has technically died more times than I can remember from the time they faked his death at the end of season 4 to the countless other times that he has been tortured to death with his torturer having to resurrect him. Although the case of Tony Almeida returning this season after ‘dieing’ in season 5 is a little more unexpected, it seems a little ridiculous but even though 24 is a show that is meant to be close to reality it is expected that there will be some crazy plot twists like this one. I’m not sure how much I buy it but then again I have only seen the very start of this season so I need to watch the rest before I can properly judge this plot point.
3. Michael Vaughn (Alias): In the opening episode of season 5, Vaughn was gunned down in front of his pregnant fiancé, super spy Sydney Bristow. He wasn’t shot once but suffered a hail of bullets to the chest. Vaughn died, there was a funereal and Sydney mourned the father of her unborn child. Now this being Alias I was always a little suspicious of whether he was dead as they had a habit of ‘killing’ people and then bring them back due to the ‘doubling’ technology that existed in the world of the show. These suspicions proved to be correct when Vaughn returned soon after the birth of his daughter and the whole thing had been an elaborate ruse that Sydney and her father had been part of. This made fans very happy as there had been an internet campaign to save Vaughn after rumours starting flying that he was being ousted due to personal issues.
4. Everyone in Heroes: It would seem at one time or another that everyone in Heroes has either died or come very close to death. Obviously Claire has the ability to die and come back so it is never a surprise with her, the same can be said about Peter and Sylar who have both at points had her power. The surprise moments in Heroes are when characters are not resurrected rather than when they are. The most surprising was in season 2 when Adam Munroe who also had the power of regeneration had his power stolen by Arthur Petrelli thus killing him, I kept expecting him to come back but unfortunately this was a point when Heroes surprised me. It is hard to trust a show that often resurrects its characters; this is definitely an issue I have with this show especially when with the powers they have so many of them seem invincible. Alternatively, they will resurrect someone through the soap opera classic of another sibling, in the case of Heroes: the Ali Larter triplets, the third of which we are sure to see before the season is out.
5. John Locke (Lost): At the end of last season we learnt that it was Locke who was dead in the coffin but in true Lost style all was not as it seemed. We saw this season that it was Ben who killed Locke, staging it as suicide and stressed the importance to Jack that Locke must accompany them on the plane back to the island. On return to the island Locke is no longer in the coffin and appears to be living and breathing. This weeks episode appears to have a resurrection theme or the reverse as the title ‘Dead is Dead’ appears to suggest, nicely timed for Easter. Lost as we know has a habit of also having the dead appear to the living and it is still unclear as to the living status of characters such as Christian Shephard and Claire. A key theme in Lost is about resurrection and resolution; this is best highlighted by Charlie who was resurrected from death in season 1 and then sacrificed himself in season 3.

 

So there are my suggestions for the shows with the best resurrection plots, I’m sure I’ve missed some so if any one has any other suggestions feel free to add them in the comments below.