My Finest TV Hours of 2005, Pt. 2

Here they come… the rest of my TV highlights of the last year. Enjoy.

5. How I Met Your Mother: A Belly Full of Turkey (1×09)
Representing several episodes of the surprisingly wonderful new sitcom â??A Belly Full of Turkeyâ? was my personal highlight of the episodes shown so far, followed by â??Okay, Awesomeâ? and â??The Limoâ?. A set of unexceptionally likable characters, refreshingly witty and funny dialogues and full of creativity that brought us the Thankstini, the Lemon Law of Dating, a Cock-a-Mouse, Bask-Ice-Ball, a sword fight in a living room and a frightening Seven-Layer-Salad in only 11 episodes.
â??And we grew up just fine And we grew to the proper size and then we stopped.â?
In this spirit: Get Psyched.

4. Arrested Development: Righteous Brothers (2×18)
Oh come on, how should I know which was my favorite episode of Arrested Development this year. Though I admit, I really donâ??t care. Following an amazingly good first season came the second one and how. One running gag after the other, a continuity that has yet to find a match in this genre and a bunch auf characters you can only love, despite (or because) their obvious and many flaws.

3. Lost: The Other 48 Days (2×07)
Personally I blame the success of Lost for all the mystery-drama-shows that had their season premiere last fall. Because, honestly: Lost has flaws. I donâ??t really think that the powers that be will ever manage to bring all the mysterious plots and story-arcs to a convincing end.
The brilliance of Lost however is the unique way in which it established a set of characters, so well done that I wouldnâ??t want to live without a single one of them anymore. I anticipated the â??Someone-Will-Dieâ?-episode with great fear, since there was no-one left I really wanted to leave the show.
â??The Other 48 Daysâ? maybe was the bravest episode of Lost. The only real flashback episode did completely without flashbacks, focusing solely on the freshly introduced characters, until finally the stories of both groups meet in the end.

2. House: Three Stories (1×21)
Surely, Iâ??d watch House only because of Hugh Laurie. Add a little bit of Lisa Edelstein and Robert Sean Leonard and Iâ??m in TV show heaven. At the beginning of the season, House ran the risk of becoming too schematic. Patient comes to hospital showing strange symptoms, all treatment fails and just at the end of the show someone says something and suddenly House knows whatâ??s wrong. The introduction of Vogler marked a change though and step by step the main characters came into focus as well. â??Three Storiesâ? is the highlight of the first season, extremely creative, uncommonly told, funny and tragical at the same time. Point is: you donâ??t get much better TV that this.

1. Veronica Mars: Leave it to Beaver (1×22)
What would our life be without Veronica Mars? With the show in its second season, Rob Thomas surprises and delights me week after week and is going straight to earning his rightful place next to Joss Whedonâ??s throne (of course ever since Firefly, Joss Whedon is untouchable anyway). The finale of the first season had me staring at the screen with sweaty hands and my mouth wide open (probably drooling). I want more! I can only hope that the rumours about a third season are true.

What made you cry or laugh or just marvel in awe?