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Pop Culture

Someone asked 'What's the single best episode of TV you've seen?' Here are the top 20 responses.

What's the best TV episode you've ever seen?

best tv episodes, best tv show ever, reddit
via Marques Kaspbrak /Unsplash

A TV set on the Disney+ streaming channel

It’s often said that we live in the "Golden Age of Television," also known as “Peak TV” or “Prestige TV.” Although some say this era goes back to the turn of the millennium, since 2010, we have had the joy of watching shows such as “Game of Thrones,” “Girls,” Better Call Saul," “Ted Lasso,” “Orange is the New Black” and “Stranger Things,” just to name a few.

Over the past decade, there has been so much good TV that people’s biggest complaint is that they don’t have enough time to get to it all.

A viral Reddit thread started by a user named Head_Hauncho may give you some ideas to choose the next show you’d like to binge. He asked the online forum, “What is the single best episode of television you’ve ever seen?” There were responses from shows as old as the ‘80s, but most of the responses were from the past 20 years.

What criteria does one use to choose the best TV series episode? It gets complicated when one considers how much television is produced yearly. A record 599 original scripted drama, comedy, and limited TV shows were aired in 2022 and Americans have produced regular content for broadcast television shows since 1939.

How do we choose one episode of one show?

To rank the responses on the Reddit post, I looked at the number of upvotes each suggestion received on the Reddit thread and then ranked them in order. It’s not the most scientific way of doing things, but it gives us a pretty good idea about who people think should make it to the monument.

Here are the top 20 most popular responses to the burning question: “What is the single best episode of television you’ve ever seen?”

1. Chernobyl - “Vichnaya Pamyat” (Memory Eternal)

“When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies.” — KinmdaQuixotic

2. Band Of Brothers — "Bastogne"

"It came out the weekend before 9/11. I had never been looking forward to a TV series like that. There was football (the Saints beat the Bills), then Band of Brothers, then high school the next day, and all the guys hyped over BoB. Then 9/11 on Tuesday... and I remember watching the rest of the episodes but it wasn't really the same." — TheresA_LobsterLoose

3. The Simpsons — "You Only Move Twice"

"You Only Move Twice had the best Simpson one-off, Hank Scorpio." — Graehaus

4. The IT Crowd — "The Work Outing"

"When Jen turns around to Moss. I know it's coming every time and it breaks me." — Bi_gone_era

5. Doctor Who — "Blink"

"I'm not a fan of the series, I haven't watched all episodes, I've seen this very episode accidentally, years ago and it is stuck in my head ever since. It is based on one of the most creative, original, and disturbing ideas I have ever seen in my life." — Canred

6. Haunting of Hill House — "The Bent-Neck Lady"

"This absolutely gets my vote. It’s an example I use all the time when talking about excellent television. No explosions, no action, no insane stakes…Just a family sitting in a room confronting their trauma. The tail end of that episode had me in tears." — Vengeance2All

7. Community — "Remedial Chaos Theory"

"ROOOOOXXAAAANNNEEE." — Nathan Collier14

8. Arrested Development — "Top Banana"

"First non-pilot episode nails so many of the characters down and introduces an inside joke I repeat in nearly every scene." — Stuebbins

9. Scrubs — "My Lunch"

"Bill Lawrence said something that really stuck with me and that's that the guiding principle of the show was that everything could be goofy aside from the medical side. Made for a show that could do some great tone shifts on a dime." — Patrickwithtraffic

10. The Sopranos — "Pine Barrens"

"Mayonnaise! MAYONNAISE!" — PrincessBucketFeet

11. The Simpsons — "Marge vs. The Monorail"

"It’s probably been almost 20 years since I saw it last, but I can still remember the entire 'See My Vest' song." — Racer_24_4evr

12. Star Trek: Deep Space 9 — "In the Pale Moonlight"

"I can live with it... I can live with it." — Coffeehousebum

13. Firefly — "Out of Gas"

"Some of the love for Firefly on Reddit is a little overblown, but this episode, in particular, was spectacular television." — whitedevilwhitedevil

14. BoJack Horseman — "The View from Halfway Down"

"BoJack Horseman is, I can confidently say, the only cartoon about talking animals that can make me absolutely inconsolable. Seriously, seriously amazing show." — Poopiverse

15. Severance — "The We We Are"

"Unbelievably suspenseful the entire duration. So good." — the_pain_train24

16. M*A*S*H* — "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen"

"Honestly this show ended almost a decade before I was even born and yet it’s single-handedly the best show I’ve ever watched." — rebelxghost

17. WKRP in Cincinnati — "Turkeys Away"

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." — Silent-Revolution105

18. Mindhunter — "The Lone Wolf"

"That Ed Kemper hug scene." — westzod

"The beauty of that scene is that Kemper hadn't really shown himself. Sure, he talked about his crimes. He was crazy. He performed theatrics. They knew his history. But, in that moment, Kemper was making him aware of the Pantheon and his sister wives. He was showing how incredibly, batshit crazy he was. He was being intimate the only way he knew how." — Canterbury Terrier

19. Buffy the Vampire Slayer — "The Body"

"'But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens, how we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's...There's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore." — Campmoore

20. House — "Three Stories"

"It’s so good...I love when they delve into the who/why of House, it really helps make him more than pill-popping Sherlock with a doctorate." — Deathsblade2002

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television
Community

Mom breaks down in tears after receiving call from another parent about her daughter's lunch

"Well now we're all crying."

Photo by Katerina Holmes|Canva

Mom in tears after another parent calls about daughter's lunch

People say having children is like having your heart walk around outside of your body. You send them off to school, practices or playdates and hope that the world treats them kindly because when they hurt, you hurt. Inevitably there will be times when your child's feelings are hurt so you do your best to prepare for that day.

But what prepares you for when the child you love so much winds up accidentally healing your inner child. A mom on TikTok, who goes by Soogia posted a video explaining a phone call she received from a parent in her daughter's classroom. The mom called to inform Soogia that their kids had been sharing lunch with each other.

Soogia wasn't prepared for what came next. The classmate's mother informed her that her son loves the food Soogia's daughter brings to school and wanted to learn how to cook it too.

That may seem like a small thing to some, but the small gesture healed a little bit of Soogia's inner child. Growing up as a Korean kid in California, Soogia's experience was a bit different than what her children are now experiencing.

"I guess I just never thought that my kids would be the generation of kids that could go to school and not only just proudly eat, but share their food with other kids that were just so open and accepting to it," Soogia says through tears. "Knowing that they don't sit there eating their food, feeling ashamed and wishing that their fried rice was a bagel instead or something like that. And I know, it sounds so small and it sounds so stupid, but knowing their experience at school is so different from mine in such a positive way is just so hopeful."

Soogia's tearful video pulled on the heartstrings of her viewers who shared their thoughts in the comments.

"Soogia! It will never be small. Your culture is beautiful & the littles are seeing that every day. You've even taught me so much. I'm grateful for you," one person says.

"Beautiful! I can see your inner child healing in so many ways," another writes.

"Welp. Now I'm sobbing at the airport. This is beautiful," someone reveals.

"These Gen Alpha babies really are a different, kinder generation. I love them so much," one commenter gushes.

You can hear the entire story below. You may want to grab a tissue.

@soogia1

These kids, man. They’re really something else. #culturalappreciation #breakingbread #sharing #

This article originally appeared on 3.23.24

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Joy

17 heartwarming, funny and creative compliments that changed people's lives forever

"I wish you were my dad."

via Katie Treadway/Unsplash

A woman is complimented on her laugh.

Being the recipient of a great compliment can be really uplifting, especially if it is unexpected and makes you feel great about something you’re insecure about. Whether it’s our looks, personality, or how we handle our jobs, there’s always something we don’t feel right about and when someone gives an honest compliment, it can make you feel like a million bucks.

The great Mark Twain once said: “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

Some compliments, when given by the right person at the right time, can be so powerful that they change the way we see ourselves. A Redditor named Curious-Repair-2606 asked people to share a “compliment you’ll never forget,” and nearly 2,000 people recounted the positive remarks they'll always remember.

The thread is a beautiful reminder to all of us to stop holding back on compliments and give them as freely as possible—that is, of course, if they are genuine.



Here are 17 of the best compliments that people will never forget.

1. "I wish you were my dad"

"Son's girlfriend: 'I wish you were my dad.' Could have cried."

2. "You're cute"

"A drunk girl at a concert told me I was cute. Still holding onto that one 5 years later."

3. A different type of guy

"She told me I was a 'man written by a woman.' Still not sure if it was a blessing or a curse I didn't pick up on the hint."

"As a lady, that usually means you’re doing a lot of things right. You’re a woman’s ideal."

"Definitely sounds like a blessing. Women often write fiction with emotionally competent, kind, passionate, hardworking men as the lead, so I'd say she was complimenting you."

4. "You're so beautiful"

"My fiancée Kayla, a few weeks before I lost her in a car accident, was watching me while I was doing something around our small apartment. She just kept smiling at me, and I asked her, 'Whatca smiling at baby?' She said so sweetly. 'You! You’re so beautiful.' I melted. As a man. I’ve never had such a wonderful compliment. My face turned bright red. She always made me smile."



5. The best dad

"My old boss and best friend were having lunch with a client and the subject of kids because the client was expecting. My boss said 'If you want to know how to be a good parent look at him (me) he's the best father I've ever known.'"

"That's a great compliment."

6. You're calm

"A friend called me calm and collected while I was dealing with social anxiety. They didn't know it, ofc m, but it made me question how I perceive myself compared to how others see me and helped me regain my self-confidence."

7. A princess

"When I was leaving my house for senior prom, a little girl walked by with her dad and said, 'Look, Daddy, a princess!' And i cried all my makeup off."

8. A great conversationalist

"14 years ago, a man sitting next to me on an airplane told me that I was the best conversationalist he'd ever met. He pointed to his headphones and said that he never talks to anyone on flights, but talked to me the whole time because I was so interesting to talk to. He gave me his business card and said he'd give me a sales job right now. It was SUCH a powerful complement that it changed the trajectory of my life and made me a much more confident person. Thanks, Monty, wherever you are now."



9. Radio voice

“'You have a great voice for radio.' Oddly enough I’ve gotten that same compliment a few times. Random for sure but was nice to hear."

"Same. I sometimes respond with 'Thanks. My wife also tells me that I have the face for radio too.'"

10. Great laugh

"Someone once told me my laugh could light up a room and it stuck with me."

11. Word to your mother

"I was 20 years old and working the ticket counter at the Amtrak station and I was chatting with a customer from Germany who was traveling solo around the US. It seemed like a friendly and standard conversation. I helped her with a smile, and she thanked me and walked away. Twenty minutes later she came back to my counter and handed me a small box of chocolate-covered blueberries and said, 'Please tell your mother she did a wonderful job raising you' and headed off to her gate. She didn't know that I had lost my mother to a drug overdose a couple months prior and was absolutely devastated on the inside. That single compliment and interaction has stuck with me for 22 years and I still think about that moment when I'm in a dark place. Wherever you are, friendly German tourist, thank you for giving me the strength to get through all those years ago."

12. Good-looking couple

"My ex and I were at Waffle House, and the waitress said, 'Wow, you two look like a couple out of a soap opera.' She sounded like that was a good thing."



13. A lively compliment

"My best friend got married a few months ago. I traveled to her city and stayed at her house for a week or so to help out and support her. Her sister has a 9-year-old son, and we spent some time together. It was my first time meeting them. After I got home from the wedding, my friend told me that the little boy had said, 'She breathed life into the place.' I just can’t forget what he said.

14. Good vibes

"Someone told me they liked my vibe. I’ll never forget that because it was about my personality and not my looks or style or something in that realm."

15. Great veins

"A nurse once said I’d make a great heroin addict because my veins are very visible."

16. Any hair will do

"My ex’s mom said 'I’ve seen you with long hair, a short bob, a long bob, and now a pixie, and you look absolutely beautiful with any hairstyle you choose.' I will never forget this compliment. I hated my ex, but her mom was such a sweetheart."

17. Never letting go

"That it took me 41 years to find you and I’m never letting go of you. That’s what my partner said to me the day we decided that we were more than friends and since then, our lives are just full of love and mutual respect."

From Your Site Articles
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Family

Mom recalls the uncomfortable moment an older man complimented her 6-year-old's appearance

When she didn't say "thank you," he accused her of having bad manners.

@yourejustliz/TikTok

“Nice is different than kind."

It might have been pretty universally accepted during our childhood for daughters to be expected to reciprocate affection from adults, whether they liked it or not. A non consensual kiss to grandparents here, a forced “thank you” there. But times have changed.

However, this change in parenting style can sometimes make for some, well, awkward or even downright uncomfortable situations as moms and dads try to advocate for this kid’s autonomy.

Recently, a mom named Liz Kindred detailed just such an incident with her six year old daughter, which has a whole lotta other parents discussing how to navigate these unideal interactions.

As she recalls in a video posted to TikTok, Kindred was waiting in line with her daughter when a grown man turned around and said “My goodness, you sure are pretty” to the child.

“My six-year-old is gorgeous, yes, but she is also very in tune and perceptive, and she's an introvert so she grabbed my leg really tight,” Kindred said.

Doubling down, the man repeated himself, saying “You sure are pretty. Look at those blue eyes,” which only made her shy daughter grab her leg harder.

Noting that being in a 12 step program has taught her to be less “knee jerk reactionary,” the mom bit her tongue and offered a polite smile to the man, hoping that would be the end of it. It wasn’t.


@yourejustliz I need to get my brows done
♬ Succession (Theme Song) - The Theme System


“He's a boomer and, God love him, he said, ‘I guess your mom didn't teach you manners.’ And I let out an uncomfortable little [chuckle], and the pause was long. It was long. And under his breath he said, ‘Guess not,’” she said.

In what she called the most ”Jesus loving way” she could muster, while still bluntly making her point, Kindred told the man "If you assume that I didn't teach my six-year-old daughter to say ‘thank you’ to a grown, consenting man when he compliments her appearance, then you would be correct."

What followed was the “longest silence” of Kindred’s life.

The video, which has been viewed over 6 million times now, prompted a ton of parents to share how their own kids have established boundaries in similar situations—with their support, of course.

“An old man called my 4 yr old daughter a sweetheart at the store…she boldly responded ‘I am NOT YOUR sweetheart!’ I was so proud,” on person recalled.

Another added, “My 3 year old says ‘NO THANK YOU MY BODY DOESN’T LIKE TAHT.’”

Still another said “My 2 yo knows the boundaries song and just starts singing that anytime someone talks to her.”

While the response to Kindred’s video was overwhelmingly positive, there were a few comments defending the man as simply being “kind.” This prompted Kindred to do a follow-up video doubling down on her decision.

In the clip, she shared how she herself has dealt with seemingly innocent compliments in her life from men, which later turned into something else. Feeling like she “didn’t have a voice” to say something, “because I’m a nice Christian, Southern girl,” Kindred ended up being in unsavory situations (she didn't explicitly say what those situations were, but it's easy enough to piece together). She doesn’t want her daughter to have the same issues.


@yourejustliz #stitch with @Liz Kindred ♬ Succession (Theme Song) - The Theme System

“Nice is different than kind. The kind thing to do is to teach our daughters and our children in this next generation that when you are uncomfortable with something you listen to your body and you set a firm boundary with that and you provide language around that. And you start that really really young.”

Yep. Well said.



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Family

15 tweets that only married people will understand

Even the perfect marriage (if that exists) would have its everyday frustrations.

Photo from Twitter.

A typical... frustrating day.

Being married is like being half of a two-headed monster. It's impossible to avoid regular disagreements when you're bound to another person for the rest of your life.

Even the perfect marriage (if there was such a thing) would have its daily frustrations. Funnily enough, most fights aren't caused by big decisions but the simple, day-to-day questions, such as "What do you want for dinner?"; "Are we free Friday night?"; and "What movie do you want to see?”

Here are some hilarious tweets that just about every married couple will understand.

grievances, irritable interactions, dissastifsfaction

The dinner debates...

Image from Twitter.

texting, resentments, bummer

What do we need from the store?

Image from Twitter.

competition, team, newlyweds

A silent competition.

Image from Twitter.

misplaced items, vanished, missing keys

Stop moving things around.

Image from Twitter.

altercations, , remedy, healing

Lack of empathy.

Image from Twitter.

breakfast in bed, bickering, quarrels

Breakfast in bed!

Image from Twitter.

deliberation, disputes, agitations

Load it; then start it.

Image from Twitter.

espoused, mated, joined in holy matrimony

Marrying up.

Image from Twitter.

united together, walking the path, joined at the hip

Watching shows together.

Image from Twitter.

little forms of affection, affectionate, considerate

Putting the seat down... or up?

Image from Twitter.

tolerant, understanding, all heart

Like me on Instagram. Like me!

Image from Twitter.

inside jokes, tweets, frustration

We both get up when I get up.

Image from Twitter.

funny marriage jokes, marriage memes, marriage tweets

Share and share alike.

Image from Twitter.

marriage, couples, relationships

There are rules to the bedroom.

Image from Twitter.

married life, wives, husbands

Fun with pets.

Image from Twitter.

This article originally appeared on 09.06.17

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relationships
Science

The longest — and probably largest — proof of our current climate catastrophe ever caught on camera.

It was the largest such event ever filmed.

Exposure Labs

All GIFs and images via Exposure Labs.


Photographer James Balog and his crew were hanging out near a glacier when their camera captured something extraordinary.

They were in Greenland, gathering footage from the time-lapse they'd positioned all around the Arctic Circle for the last several years.

They were also there to shoot scenes for a documentary. And while they were hoping to capture some cool moments on camera, no one expected a huge chunk of a glacier to snap clean off and slide into the ocean right in front of their eyes.


science, calving, glaciers

A glacier falls into the sea.

assets.rebelmouse.io

ocean swells, sea level, erosion, going green

Massive swells created by large chunks of glacier falling away.

assets.rebelmouse.io

It was the largest such event ever filmed.

For nearly an hour and 15 minutes, Balog and his crew stood by and watched as a piece of ice the size of lower Manhattan — but with ice-equivalent buildings that were two to three times taller than that — simply melted away.

geological catastrophe, earth, glacier melt

A representation demonstrating the massive size of ice that broke off into the sea.

assets.rebelmouse.io

As far as anyone knows, this was an unprecedented geological catastrophe and they caught the entire thing on tape. It won't be the last time something like this happens either.

But once upon a time, Balog was openly skeptical about that "global warming" thing.

Balog had a reputation since the early 1980s as a conservationist and environmental photographer. And for nearly 20 years, he'd scoffed at the climate change heralds shouting, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

"I didn't think that humans were capable of changing the basic physics and chemistry of this entire, huge planet. It didn't seem probable, it didn't seem possible," he explained in the 2012 documentary film "Chasing Ice."

There was too much margin of error in the computer simulations, too many other pressing problems to address about our beautiful planet. As far as he was concerned, these melodramatic doomsayers were distracting from the real issues.

That was then.

Greenland, Antarctica, glacier calving

The glacier ice continues to erode away.

assets.rebelmouse.io

In fact, it wasn't until 2005 that Balog became a believer.

He was sent on a photo expedition of the Arctic by National Geographic, and that first northern trip was more than enough to see the damage for himself.

"It was about actual tangible physical evidence that was preserved in the ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica," he said in a 2012 interview with ThinkProgress. "That was really the smoking gun showing how far outside normal, natural variation the world has become. And that's when I started to really get the message that this was something consequential and serious and needed to be dealt with."

Some of that evidence may have been the fact that more Arctic landmass has melted away in the last 20 years than the previous 10,000 years.

Watch the video of the event of the glacier calving below:

This article originally appeared on 11.04.15

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