Top Five: Favorite Halloween Episodes

Welcome back to my Halloween posts! Today, I have a list of my top five Halloween episodes. Halloween episodes are usually the best holiday-themed episodes on TV. They skip the touchy-feely stuff and get right to the fun. Genre series will usually up the ante and try to surprise you. Comedy series will pull out thoroughly entertaining satire. Sure, they fall short a few times but the population of great Halloween episodes is huge. Picking my favorites was difficult, but I think that I have a great list for your today.

1. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester (Supernatural)

This episode is Supernatural’s own Urban Legends of Halloween. People in a small town are dying (as they usually are) in freaky, Halloween-myth related incidents. These incidents end up being a string of ritualistic sacrifices to summon the demon Samhain. The summoning of Samhain will lead to an all out Hell-on-Earth party, so our intrepid heroes do all they can to stop the witch behind this plan. The first half of this episode is ultimately better than the second half, but it’s still really exciting and has some of the most iconic of the grisly death scenes that define the series. If you haven’t seen this episode before, check it out. And if you’re a Supernatural fan, maybe this is how you should spend your Halloween?

2. Vampire Weekend (Castle)

Castle just wants to believe, and Beckett won’t let him. In this episode, our dynamic duo (and, you know, those other guys) investigate a staking. Yes, a staking. A boy dressed like a vampire was found staked in one of the local cemeteries, and Castle and Beckett investigate their way through his vampire coven in order to find out whodunit. I may have mostly included this episode for the brief moment where Nathan Fillion dresses up as Mal Reynolds, but it’s still a really good episode!

3. Fear, Itself (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

I think that Fear, Itself is the best Buffy Halloween episode, though some might say that it’s Halloween (we don’t talk about that other one). The Scooby Gang goes to a Halloween party, but the fake haunted decorations at the fraternity house have turned into real horrors. It still has a great dose of the Whedonesque humor, though, to counter the horror of the middle acts. Ultimately, the episode teaches you that you should never copy down a random symbol in an old book because you never know what you could be unleashing. And you’d be lucky if it was just one of the funniest sight gags in Buffy history.

4. Life of the Party (Angel)

Awkward.

Where the Buffy Halloween episodes were more scary than anything else, the only Angel Halloween episode goes more for the laughs than for frights. Lorne gets the Wolfram and Hart gang to throw a Halloween party for all their clients. Of course, the party itself ultimately coincides with Lorne coming down with a case of the… I have no idea how to put this succinctly. People start obeying him, following his advice to the letter. Fred and Wesley get completely schwasted, Angel and Eve get a room, and Spike hilariously acts more positive. Of course, this funny issue ultimately results in a case of giant demon, but it’s not like we don’t know how to handle that. All in all, it’s a great, lighthearted Halloween episode.

5. Epidemiology (Community)

Greatest. Halloween Costumes. Ever.

In its early seasons, Community always took a tongue-in-cheek approach to its themes. This certainly held for Season 2’s Halloween episode, where the show tackled zombie tropes. Dean Pelton throws a costume party and, whoops, accidentally unleashes a zombie virus on the school. Every zombie movie trope is present, and there’s a good sprinkling of horror movie clichés, as well. None of it seems over used or dry, as Community was able to play it right and evoke all the laughter that it aimed for. 

Review: Revolution

When I first saw the promos for Revolution this summer, I was insanely excited. Why? Because I thought that they had decided to turn S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse series into a television show. I have only read the first two books so far (my mom introduced me to them only recently), and I have found them to be highly engaging. And with the media’s current love affair with apocalypses (apocalypsi?), I thought it was an obvious choice for network television.

Of course, I then went on Stirling’s website to see what he thought of the adaptation. And that was when I found that there was no connection to the book series. It was strange, I thought, that they would make something so similar without any connection to Stirling’s camp.

I decided to wait until the show premiered to make any judgments, though.

The first episode of Revolution aired on Monday night (NBC 10/9c). The episode opened with scenes from the “night the lights went out” and then progressed fifteen years into the future. I found the first scene to be very effective—it really showed the enormity of the situation. I think the planes just dropping out of the skies really did it.

The future, however, was a little strange. I like that they decided to go forward far enough that civilization was starting to come back—it distinguishes this show from other post-apocalyptic shows.

The main character is Charlie (the creators decided to show you she’s sassy by giving her a boy’s name), and she reminds me of another Kripke creation. I’m talking about Jo Harvelle from Supernatural. Apparently, Kripke likes young female characters who can talk the talk, but often need to rely on others to save their butts. Luckily, Charlie runs into the obligatory Mysterious Forest Hunk. Just like Jo, however, Charlie has a sharply intelligent matron at her side—though this is her disliked step-mother Rachel. I found that no matter how much Charlie seems to dislike her, I liked Rachel more than I liked Charlie. I also always enjoy Billy Burke (here as Uncle Miles).

Their group is threatened by the militia, run by the (also obligatory) ruthless individual who seized power after the “apocalypse.” They kill Charlie’s father, and take her brother—which is the catalyst event which sets her on her journey and connects her with her long-lost uncle. They think that Charlie’s dad and her uncle know how to turn the lights back on.

At there end, though, there is some evidence that electrical power is not completely gone—which is something I don’t quite understand. How can only a few people have a power grid that connects them across a country? Of course, there are some other issues that may or may not be answered later on. If you want to enjoy this show, you’ll probably just ignore them. Another issue I have, though, is that individuals don’t have guns because it’s illegal for civilians to own them. Since when does that stop people? Also, can’t we use wind or hydropower?

The rules of Revolution seem to be that the electrical grid is gone (and very difficult to turn back on). The rule of the Emberverse are different—all technology since gunpower is obsolete. It makes things more interesting, but the laws of Revolution are probably easier to get past a mass audience.

I would definitely suggest that you give Revolution a try. The news outlets seem to think that it will be a hit, and I can see why it would be popular. I, however, won’t be watching. It’s mostly due to the scene at the very end of the episode (which I won’t spoil), but also due to the fact that I see it as a poor man’s Emberverse. I would give it a score of 5/10, though that may just be the stereotypical pissy geek. I didn't find most of the characters to be enjoyable or intriguing--Charlie especially turned me off to the series--and I'm not sure if the creators even know what's going on with the power. 

If you don't mind a little fantasy mixed with your sci-fi apocalypse (though that element doesn't present itself until later), I would suggest that you check out the Emberverse series instead.