Buffy: Graduation Day Part 2 (3.22)

The end of Buffy part one. The high school years have come to a close, recurring characters are killed, Cordelia and Angel appear as regulars for the final time. The decision to blow up the school was a grand, apocalyptic and ultimately fitting end for these episodes. Buffy left Sunnydale High with a bang, embracing her destiny and defeating evil in the most spectacular way she could think of. Watching all of the Sunnydale High graduating year come together to fight off against the Mayor was visually stunning, a real war against the machine. Here are a bunch of kids who join together not only because they know it's the right thing to do, but because they trust Buffy, and they know that she's a strong leader. It's a really, really great closer.

Buffy: Graduation Day Part 1 (3.21)

I loved that Buffy had to, in some ways, become Faith in order to fight her. She got dressed up in tight leather pants, applied some heavier make-up, appropriated that ruthless, take-no-prisoners attitude. She even had Faith's kicky new knife. For her last real episode in this arc, Faith gained back some of her vulnerability right at the end. Sure, she was still gloating, but there was a resignation to the fact that she was beaten which had to hurt. One of the most successful elements of the Faith story was that, in the end, she's just somebody who's in a lot of pain. She has awful preconceptions about men, horrible ideas about how men see her, and has major attention-craving issues. She's a basket case, but was never written as a one-note crazy-train Slayer. She had levels, and while those layers are explored deeper as the series goes on, season three did a great job at reflecting the basic 'layers' of her persona.

The X-Files: Tithonus (6.10)

Tithonus starts out feeling like an episode with elements cribbed from various other X-Files hours. There's the traumatized guest star-with-abilities of Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, the ability to spot coming demise of Leonard Betts, and the death photographs of Unruhe. But what this episode does so well is constantly subvert your expectations, opening as an ordinary pursuit of a supposed murderer, before becoming something far heavier at the end.

Nip/Tuck: Sheila Carlton (6.14)

Kimber appeared in two sequences here, both in Christian's subconscious and both likely reflective of how he saw her. The Kimber glimpsed at McNamara/Troy was subservient and quick to put herself down, apologizing to Christian for not 'being good enough' for him. The second Kimber appearance was confident and angry, confronting Christian after he sleeps with her mother and exposing him for who he really is. When Kimber was alive, Christian liked to pick and choose which elements of her character he wanted. He ridicules her and calls her a whore, then later wants her to act like a porn star in the bedroom. In the end, Kimber could never win with him. Now she's dead and Christian is unhappy. It's an interesting idea to explore, but only renders Christian more ugly as a character.

Charmed: The Demon Who Came in from the Cold (3.19)

Zzzzzz. This episode always bored me to tears. It's an incredibly misjudged idea, made even worse by a script that really doesn't appear to know what its doing or how to make a bad idea palatable. At the center of the story is Cole's moral ambiguity, a tried-and-tested idea that has been explored to far greater effect in any of the various Cole-centric stories earlier this season. But so much of that element is drowned out by the hugely flatlining story of corporate greed, corporate mergers and body swaps. Gah.

Charmed: Sin Francisco (3.18)

This is one of the series' funniest episodes. Prue's interaction with the TV crews; Piper getting electrocuted; Phoebe's account of seducing her professor; Phoebe checking out the old delivery man; Piper's various ugly purchases (the swan!); Phoebe about to fall out the window; Piper and the boxing gloves; the sisters getting thrown into boxes and Piper getting buried under an enormous crate. It's all just so, so silly, but hugely fun at the same time.

Buffy: The Prom (3.20)

Buffy and Angel's break-up was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, inevitable. The back-end of this season has been deliberately inconsistent in regards to their relationship. They've dated, they've been on a break, they've shared a bed. The status of their relationship is constantly changing, a symptom of a coupling that can never truly be consummated, in any form. The problem is that they're ridiculously in love with one another (an emotion that can't just be ended), and that they can't exactly leave their 'social circle' with both of them existing in the same world and the same town. As the (much) older party, it's Angel who needed to initiate the break-up, knowing that in the long run it'll save both of them.

Buffy: Choices (3.19)

Choices has the unfortunate distinction of featuring the one truly crummy Buffy moment in a long while: the Mayor's awkward speech about Buffy and Angel's doomed love affair. I like the Mayor, but this felt completely out of place, an annoying excuse to raise the issue of their flatlining relationship, and out-of-character for somebody who ordinarily wouldn't give a damn about Buffy's love life. The fact that before the climactic showdown in the cafeteria Buffy and the Mayor hadn't actually met also dented whatever power that moment could have had.