Most shows just offer random titles
for their episodes. Some, amazingly enough, offer titles that refer to something that happened in the episode.
Yawwwwn. BOOORINNNG.I like the shows that follow a pattern when naming their episodes. Why? Because I want to see if they can keep it up! Some shows, like Friends and Seinfeld, painted themselves in a corner very early on with episode names, not thinking the show would last for 200 episodes or so. By the end of such a show's long run, you can tell the writers were really stretching to keep the pattern going.
Here are five of my and my fellow Squadders' favorite examples of episode naming patterns that took on a life of their own:
Friends - "The One....": Except for the pilot, each and every episode of Friends starts with the words "The One". I guess they were riffing on when people say things like, "You see that episode of Friends last night? You know, the one where Underdog gets away?" Looking over the complete episode list, it looks like it worked pretty well for them, especially with episode titles like "The One With All The Thanksgivings."
Seinfeld - "The...": The pilot and one very early episode did not follow this format ("Male Unbonding", where Jerry tries to dump an annoying friend), but the rest of the 180 episodes did. Some titles in this format were classic: "The Contest", "The Marble Rye", "The Puffy Shirt". The title told all. But some of the others? It's almost like the "The" was placed in front as an afterthought: "The Yadda Yadda", "The Serenity Now", "The Abstinence" (By the way, The O.C. has ripped off this pattern; let's see how long they sustain it).
Scrubs - "My...", "His...", and "Her...": The overwhelming majority of episodes start with "My", like "My First Day" and "My Giggly Ball". This makes sense since most of the time we're in J.D.'s head and hear his narration. You can tell which episodes are narrated by other characters when the episodes start with "His" and "Her". I hope I see more of those in the future...
Monk - "Mr. Monk...": I guess this works because Monk is the central part of the show, right? And it's pretty descriptive, so when you see "Mr. Monk and the Red-Headed Stranger" or "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again", you pretty much know what it's about. What's the last episode gonna be? "Mr. Monk Stops Cleaning Everything"?
Grey's Anatomy - Song titles: This pattern is a little different from the rest, and, to be honest, it's going to be the hardest one to maintain. Every episode name is a song title, one that describes the overriding theme of the episode. For instance, the most recent episode was called "What Have I Done To Deserve This?", the name of a Pet Shop Boys song. The two-part "Code Black" episodes were called "It's The End of The World" and "(As We Know It)", which means somewhere, Michael Stipe is cashing an R.E.M. royalty check. But what's going to happen if this show goes as long as ER? Are they going to start reaching back into the doo-wop era?
Other patterns we've seen here at TVS: Nip/Tuck's patient-named episodes, My Name Is Earl's karma-list-item-named episodes, 24's time-of-day-named episodes (duh!).
Has anyone else noticed any funky episode naming patterns, either in current shows or old favorites? Let me know in the comments.
[Thanks to TV.com for the episode lists]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2-28-2006 @ 9:56AM
Chris W said...
A sitcom I used to watch (and must say I enjoyed a great deal) was Grounded For Life. The episodes would have song titles (similar to Grey's Anatomy) except they would often be altered to refer to something specific in the episode. So, puns galore with the episode names (i.e. Jimmy's Got a Gun). I thought that was very rock 'n roll of them to do.
Reply
2-28-2006 @ 10:07AM
faultier said...
I too like these patterns, they are a fun and welcome change to otherwise dull episode names.
a few additions:
That '70s Show has songnames as a pattern since season 5, aired in 2002. up yours grey's anatomy! ;D
the pattern is (with a few exceptions):
season 5: Led Zeppelin
season 6: The Who
season 7: The Rolling Stones
season 8: Queen
further episode naming patterns:
Everybody Hates Chris - Everybody hates...
The Simpsons:
since season 8 nearly every episode is named after a
song, movie or quote twisted into the simpsons context.
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2-28-2006 @ 10:20AM
A Boy Named Mole said...
Aqua Teen Hunger Force has its own very unique naming scheme aswell, hmm what else, Veronica Mars has some of the better original episode names i have witnessed in quite sometime.
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2-28-2006 @ 10:27AM
Stephen said...
The L Word on Showtime. Well into Season 3 all episode titles begin with the letter "L" sans the pilot episode.
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2-28-2006 @ 10:29AM
Heather said...
All the titles on Smallville are one word long, describe the episode in some way and are usually said sometime during the episode.
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2-28-2006 @ 10:41AM
Radical Bender said...
Anyone remember Boston Public? They always named their episodes "Chapter [X]" with [X] being the episode number.
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2-28-2006 @ 10:43AM
Danny Edwards said...
All of the episodes of Love, Inc. (except the pilot) are named after other TV shows. (http://tviv.org/wiki/Love%2C_Inc./Season_One)
La Femme Nikita had an odd naming convention. All season one episodes had one word titles; all season two episodes had two word title; all the way up to season five having five word titles.
Still Standing episodes all start with "Still".
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2-28-2006 @ 10:48AM
Aaron Khoo said...
how about Gilmore Girls? not a completely consistent naming pattern, but they almost always reference either something that's happened in the epsiode, or a line of dialogue in the episode, or a song title.
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2-28-2006 @ 10:52AM
nancyofthepants said...
Freaks and Geeks had cool titles playing off the show name, i.e. "Looks and Books", "Noshing and Moshing", "Chokin' and Tokin'" but was only consistent part of the way through - titles like "The Diary" or "The Little Things" were kind of a bummer.
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2-28-2006 @ 10:59AM
Derek said...
"Degrassi The Next Generation" does the episode titles are songs thing as well, mostly songs from the 80's, go figure.
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2-28-2006 @ 11:14AM
Walter said...
The episodes of "Bones" so far have started off with titles like "The Man in the Bear", "The Girl in the Fridge", "The Woman at the Airport"...
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2-28-2006 @ 11:21AM
doc said...
Another nod to Veronica Mars. It's not really a consistant thing, but they have a bunch of altered movie title episode names.
The Wrath of Con
Silence of the Lamb
Clash of the Tritons
Lord of the Bling
Mars vs. Mars
Ruskie Business
Cheaty Cheaty Bang Bang
Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner
One Angry Veronica
Rashard and Wallace go to White Castle
The Quick and the Wed
The Rapes of Graff
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2-28-2006 @ 11:22AM
Lesley said...
Two and a Half Men always uses a snippet of dialogue from the show as the title... more for the funny than to tell you what the episode is about. Ex: Santa's Village of the Damned, or I Always Wanted a Shaved Monkey
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2-28-2006 @ 11:39AM
Lampbane said...
Every episode of Cowboy Bebop has some kind of musical reference in the title:
Sympathy for the Devil
Heavy Metal Queen
Hard Luck Woman
Toys in the Attic
Mushroom Samba
The Real Folk Blues
Episodes of Pokemon starting somewhere around the end of the first season started using very "punny" names with different Pokemon (or other show elements), some with pop culture references:
Enter the Dragonite
Viva las Lapras
Don't Touch That 'dile
Wobbapalooza
Ariados, Amigos
The Screen Actor's Guilt
Xatu the Future
Takin' it on the Chinchou!
Hoenn Alone!
Tree's a Crowd
The Winner by a Nosepass
Let Bagons be Bagons
I Feel Skitty!
Me, Myself and Time
Solid as a Solrock
Beg, Burrow, and Steal
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2-28-2006 @ 11:50AM
Mike said...
If I remember correctly, News Radio went trough a stint in the 2nd season where the titles were all Led Zeppelin songs.
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2-28-2006 @ 11:58AM
Gig said...
On "Two and a Half Men" the title is a phrase of dialog from the show. Example from this week, "My Tounge is Meat."
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2-28-2006 @ 12:00PM
Chris W said...
Season 3 of Black Adder did a play on Jane Austen's book titles.
Dish and Dishonesty
Ink and Incapability
Nob and Nobility
Sense and Senility
Amy and Amiability
Duel and Duality
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2-28-2006 @ 12:47PM
yatesy said...
actually all newsradio eps are named after zep tunes.
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2-28-2006 @ 12:52PM
Gig said...
Let's not forget the worst. Surface... Episode 1, Episode 2...
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2-28-2006 @ 1:29PM
Das_Klaun said...
No one remembers the Tick? On the original animated version, each episode would be "The Tick Vs." whether it was about a villain or not. So you could have the perfectly logical "The Tick Vs. Chairface Chippendale," followed by "The Tick Vs. Arthur's Wedding."
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