Birds of Prey: Lady Shiva (1.8)

It's not exactly a challenge, but Barbara is clearly the most interesting character on the show, as she has the most potential for psychological depth. She's confined to a wheelchair after a life of fighting crime, is locked up in a tower all day, and has the burden of playing den mother to two annoying females. There's a lot of regret and pent-up anger within her, and the show finally exploited that in what was probably the best episode so far. I was just a little disappointed that we actually had resolution to all of this at the end. When Barbara told Alfred that she doesn't feel sad about giving up her Batgirl cowl, it felt like a major wasted opportunity. An interesting character-driven storyline about what she has experienced? Nope, we'll just wrap it all up in forty minutes...

Undercovers: Assassin (1.7)

They always say that you can correctly guess who the killer is on Law & Order as soon as the famous guest star appears. It's that guy! So when David Anders, aka Alias' Mr. Sark, showed up in the teaser sequence, introduced himself as a flirtatious photographer, and then left... well, it wasn't totally surprising when he turned out to be the villain of the episode. It was a little disappointing, however, that the same executive producer who blessed Anders with one of the last decade's finest TV villains failed to give him anything to work with here. Go figure.

Charmed: Something Wicca This Way Comes (1.1)

Charmed is the definition of 'guilty pleasure television'. It's a show I'd never confess in public to enjoying. It's also a show that I've tuned into more times than I'd like to admit. Throughout its shockingly long run, it was fun, energetic, dumb and frequently appalling. But through most of it, it maintained its heart. The chemistry between its three leads (both sets of them) was always palpable, and while the show regularly aimed for the lowest common denominator in terms of storylines, character growth, antagonists and love interests, once in a blue moon it came up with something that had considerable power. Seriously.

Nip/Tuck: Diana Lubey (4.12)

Maybe it's the accent, or the seemingly everlasting beauty, but French women just have this classy, glamorous way about them, and Catherine Deneuve displayed all those things in her guest spot. Seriously, how the hell did this show land her? The Diana Lubey story was really moving, even with the mistress twist near the end. On paper the whole "ashes in implants" idea may seem silly, but the show portrayed it in such a poignant, beautiful way that you can completely understand why Diana would want the surgery. I also loved how she managed to get through to Sean, and her farewell kiss was awesome.

The X-Files: Kaddish (4.15)

Kaddish is a slow-burner episode, one which takes a while to get going but once it does proves to be a surprising improvement on similarly plotted X-Files hours. We're pretty used to both minority group exploration and revenge tales on this show, and both types have been done with varying success in the past. Kaddish goes a little deeper than similar hours, with an interesting script that is by turns horror movie, cultural expose and love story.

Undercovers: Xerxes (1.6)

This was probably the first episode in which the mission overshadowed the flawed character plots. I mention this because pretty much every episode so far has featured some pretty woeful espionage stories. There's always a MacGuffin of some sort or a person to find, and while Xerxes doesn't totally see a turnaround in plot devices, it does feature some strong guest stars and some decent twists along the way. If only the show's protagonists could equally get out of the rut the writers have stuck them in.

Nip/Tuck: Conor McNamara, 2026 (4.11)

It's interesting to view this episode after the series has ended, as it's not totally as show-destroying as everybody perceived it to be when it first aired. I remember a lot of anger over the show's decision to basically reveal everybody's future (bar Liz and Kimber, who don't appear), and it wasn't helped by Ryan Murphy commenting that everything seen here is real. I don't know what happened between then and the end of season five, but the episode was eventually retconned. However, even with that complaint proven irrelevant, the episode is still pretty weak.

Birds of Prey: Split (1.7)

As annoying as most aspects of the show are, this is arguably the strongest episode so far, principally because it featured a Metahuman storyline played mostly straight, featured some decent performances and a faint stab at handling the touchy subject of mental illness. Yes, viewers, I am still talking about Birds of Prey. The Crawler/Darkstrike story worked pretty well, if only because there was some mystery to it and decent execution of the whole 'serial killer' motif. The twist was signposted from the beginning, albeit the whole thing was mildly entertaining. At least compared to every other Metahuman story so far.