Since the year 2000, British telly has been evolving at speed. We’ve had the inception of Big Brother, reality TV’s true genesis. We’ve had The Office, undeniably the most influential comedy series anywhere in the world. We’ve seen Charlie Brooker turn his low-budget, high-concept Channel 4 show Black Mirror into a global, Hollywoodised phenomenon on Netflix. As their counterparts in America wielded robust budgets in the height of the ‘prestige TV’ era, the BBC and Channel 4 continued to overperform, launching series that would go on to develop major worldwide fanbases, even if they did at times – particularly in the early years of the century – look like they’d been shot on the same camera as the moon landing.
As a result, we’ve been blessed with dozens of era-defining episodes of TV over the past 23 years. Episodes that have held the nation in a monocultural chokehold, like Line of Duty’s heart-pounding season finales. Episodes that have birthed timeless memes, such as Come Dine With Me’s “What a sad little life, Jane” and Celebrity Big Brother’s “David’s Dead”. Moments that have made us bawl our eyes out, like Inside No. 9’s devastating nun tale featuring Sheridan Smith and Colin’s horrendously sad death in It’s A Sin.
In celebration of what we’re dubbing “British TV Week”, we’ve called in the help of some of our favourite writers in TV to help us collate a definitive ranking of the best episodes created on these shores since the turn of the century. We sent out requests for rankings of their top five, and received over 40 responses, from writers such as Russell T Davies (Doctor Who, It’s A Sin, Years & Years), James Graham (The Crown, Quiz, Sherwood) and Bolu Babalola (Big Age) and leading critics from The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and more.
Our top 10 was collated through the first callout; we then returned to each contributor for a second round of voting to rank entries 30-10. Our honourable mentions are unranked selections from voters. It’s probably worth mentioning that our winner came out on top by quite a significant margin.
Here we go…
HONOURABLE MENTIONS, 50-31 (unranked):
- Dead Set – “A Way Out”
- Stath Lets Flats – Series 1, “A Pushy Boy”
- Love Island – Series 5, “Episode 31”
- This is England ‘86 – “Finale”
- Skins – Series 2, “Sid”
- Patrick Melrose – “At Last”
- Extras – Series 2, “Daniel Radcliffe”
- Giri/Haji – “Finale”
- Small Axe – “Lovers Rock”
- This Country – Series 2, “Threatening Letters”
- The Inbetweeners – Series 1, “Caravan Club”
- Industry – Season 1, “Sesh”
- Time – Season 1, “Episode 3”
- The Crown – Season 1, “Hyde Park Corner”
- Catastrophe – Season 4, “Episode 6”
- Black Mirror – Season 1, “The Entire History of You”
- Peep Show – Season 4, “Sophie’s Parents”
- Peep Show – Season 4, “Wedding”
- Chewing Gum – Season 2, “Replacements”
- Sex Education – Series 2, “Episode 7”
30. Top Boy – Season 3, “Bonfire Night” (2019)
For a show so grounded in East London and the complex rivalry between Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kano), its finest episode largely leaves Hackney behind, and the two anti-heroes barely interact. Directed by The Marvels’ Nia DaCosta, the episode sees Sully and his friend Jason down in Ramsgate and captures the disquieting grimness of Brexit Britain’s coastal towns. Sully and Jason fish for crabs, talk about their hopes for the future while surrounded by the banality of racism, and connect with a harassed immigrant family who cannot afford to feed their baby.
In an uncharacteristically gentle moment for the show, they invite them to eat in their home, but this being Top Boy, a cruel twist of fate awaits. Local thugs burn down the house and a screaming baby and Jason are reduced to charred remains. Back on Sully’s turf, things are just as brutal. The unusually charming Jamie throws a man out of a high-rise window with unnerving detachment, and the episode ends with Dushane and Sully setting in motion events that ultimately lead to the finale’s bloody climax. But Top Boy’s strength came from capturing the humanity among the tragedy, with the gentle joys of crab fishing being just as memorable as immolated infants. The world was always crueller than the characters, and nothing could incinerate that. – Leila Latif, freelance TV and film critic
29. Big Brother – Series 1, “Day 35” (2000)
“How can you be so two-faced?” When Big Brother began, the now-familiar grammar of confined reality shows, where contestants voting each other off leads to plots, factions and criss-crossing accusations about making plots and being in factions, was still new. Big Brother generally was, meanwhile, still an interesting social experiment, in which people from different backgrounds were forced to rub along together. All that came to a head in a scene that still makes the mouth dry and the pulse quicken: jovial Scouse bricklayer Craig Phillips, who will go on to win series one, calls a house meeting to confront snake-like City broker Nick Bateman, who has been trying to manipulate the eviction vote by giving different housemates different advice on who to nominate. The ensuing row is like watching a corrupt politician get skewered, as Bateman – filmed in unforgiving close-up by the house’s fixed camera rig – makes attempts at denial that instantly dissolve on contact with his outraged, gradually emboldened former friends. “Nasty Nick” was booted off the show, arguably for doing exactly what the format encourages – but in an unforgettable reality TV moment, a new category of telly villain had been born. – Jack Seale, freelance TV critic
28. Brass Eye – “Paedogeddon” (2001)
Could Chris Morris’ satire of paedophilia as a source of moral panic possibly be made today? You’re free to stream it on Channel 4’s app, but it’s hard to imagine it debuting on weeknight telly now – if anything, in retrospect it’s only got more shocking and is all the more impressive for that. Morris was already a marked man on account of the regular Brass Eye series shown on C4 in 1997, a six-part detonation of the cant, hypocrisy and ludicrously pompous hyperbole that had come to define TV news. Four years later he returned with a one-off special, a furious shit-or-bust parody of the way a media that is happy to sexualise minors also exploits paedophilia as a titillating, ratings-pushing bogeyman. So much of the programme is deliberately disturbing - see the sketch about an American primary-school prom queen who has been given breast implants - but a giddy half-hour is also stuffed with meme-able Morris classics, particularly in the celebrity hoaxes, from Dr Fox saying paedophiles share DNA with crabs - “there’s no real evidence for it, but it is scientific fact” - to Phil Collins in a “NONCE SENSE” T-shirt. At the time, delighted Morris fans couldn’t believe Paedogeddon had actually been allowed to air. Certainly there’s been nothing like it since. – JS
27. The Royle Family – Series 4, “The Queen of Sheba” (2006)
The Royle Family was supposed to have ended in 2000, three perfect seasons and out: in the years afterwards, co-creator Caroline Aherne moved to Australia, while her collaborator Craig Cash made Early Doors. But when Cash heard Aherne was struggling with depression, he reached out in the hope that rekindling their classic sitcom about a sofa-bound northern family might help his friend to recover; Aherne agreed, but was also processing the death of her grandmother. The result – a special episode in which Nana, played by the peerless Liz Smith, passes away – was the show at its saddest and funniest, with Nana resident in the Royles’ famous lounge, sharing one last interaction with each member of the clan. In the centre is a masterful, devastating one-taker between Smith and Sue Johnston, the latter playing Nana’s daughter Barbara. The line where Nana thanks the perennially put-upon Barbara for years of loving, previously thankless devotion is a moment of piercing, guileless sincerity, of a kind unique to great British sitcoms: when they’ve spent years making us love their characters through laughter, they’ve fully earned the right to become sentimental. “The Queen of Sheba” cannot be watched with a dry eye. – JS
26. Never Mind the Buzzcocks – Series 20, “Episode 3” (2007)
Simon Amstell’s chaotic reign over Never Mind the Buzzcocks saw a late-night quiz show that should’ve just been a vehicle for entertainers to flog their latest project become a penance. Stars were poked fun at by a comedian who still looked about 12 years old with hydrated curls and a thinly veiled disdain for his guests.
His schtick was a disaster for anyone who takes themselves too seriously, like Preston, the crooning frontman of Sussex-born indie band The Ordinary Boys (famed for their ska-infused “Boys Will Be Boys” which peaked at number 3). Amstel’s introduction for Preston poked fun at his marriage to fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant Chantelle Houghton, months before. She was Ashley Tisdale meets TOWIE, and a non-celeb tasked with convincing other contestants of her fame, who still went on to win the series.
From the beginning of the episode it appears that Preston is dissociating, perhaps arrested by visions of punching Amstel in the face, as if he’d never actually watched the show and didn’t know what to expect. Jokes about his tiny fanbase, fame-clamouring, songwriting ability, and then the vapid nature of his wife’s memoir led to Preston storming off the set leaving Bill Bailey to search through the crowd for a Preston lookalike to fill in. This masterful sardonicism was the antidote to feverish celebrity worship where pop stars were deified – a golden era of deliberately ruffling the feathers of “talent” for the viewer’s delight. – Kemi Alemoru, freelance pop culture writer
25. Utopia – Series 1, “Episode 1” (2013)
“Where is Jessica Hyde?” Two men with a question walk into a comic book shop. It sounds like the start of a bad joke; it is not. It is the prelude to creeping dread and dawning horror, to a cold, methodical massacre. Even children are not spared. It is less of an opening scene than a statement of intent. Aesthetically bold, thematically rich and ferociously, uncompromisingly violent: the first episode of this bracing conspiracy thriller announced Utopia as a show like none other on British television.
Set in a world of blazing technicolour – an England of striking yellows, cyans, magentas – Utopia follows a group of misfits who are caught up in a grand conspiracy to manufacture a pandemic. (It was a different time). First episodes tend to be a delicate dance between exposition – setting up the concept, the characters and so on – and the drama that compels you to keep watching. Many shows misstep. Writer Dennis Kelly makes it look effortless. Few scripts establish its characters with such economy, explain its ideas with such elegance, escalate its stakes with such precision.
It is remarkable how much happens in one hour. People are shot, stabbed, gassed, hit, thrown off buildings; characters meet, bond, get drunk, have one-night stands, get blackmailed by Russians, get framed for sexual assault, get wind that something is very, very wrong. The story crackles with wit, but it is also pervaded by the gnawing unease of living within a system that can be wielded against you. – Stephen Kelly, freelance TV critic
24. The Blue Planet – Series 1, “Episode 1” (2001)
It was clear that The Blue Planet had taken the nature documentary game up a notch from the opening aerial image of a rarely-glimpsed blue whale: the largest animal on the planet, "far bigger than even than the biggest dinosaur", says Sir David Attenborough, his disembodied voice a globally-understood shortcut to authority and wonder. The blue whale, Attenborough tells us, is a symbol for "how much we still have to learn about the ocean" – despite it covering more than 70 per cent of the globe, and influencing all life on it. The Blue Planet was a landmark step forwards in addressing this, an unprecedented feat of documentary filmmaking that took cutting-edge technology, 200 locations and almost five years to capture. Many of the underwater scenes and behaviours shot had never been seen before, meaning it not only enlarged audiences' understanding of marine life and ecosystems but the scientific body of knowledge as well.
The BBC also did testament to the hard-won footage with its pacy editing and post-production designed to amplify awe. The blue whale is swiftly followed by a spectacular "bait ball" sequence, whereby hundreds of sharks, dolphins and seabirds together make short work of a shoal of sardines. (Try saying that quickly). The stirring score by Hans Zimmer emphasised nature's cinematic potential, and the life-or-death stakes beneath the waves – and, by extension, for those of us thinking ourselves safe on land. – Elle Hunt, freelance pop culture writer
23. Sherlock – Series 2, “The Reichenbach Fall” (2012)
The triumphant conclusion (which, as it turned out, wasn’t really a conclusion) to Steven Moffat’s initial Sherlock run was a tour de force in TV suspense, pitting Benedict Cumberbatch’s eponymous super-detective against his greatest frenemy, genius villain Moriarty (Andrew Scott). All anyone could talk about for the next two years — until the third season finally arrived in 2014 — was that devilish cliffhanger when, right at the end of “The Reichenbach Fall”, Sherlock and Moriarty meet for the final time atop St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.
Moriarty offers his nemesis-slash-wannabe-boyfriend a choice: dive from the roof to his death, or allow his closest friends and loved ones – among them, Una Stubbs’ Mrs Hudson, Rupert Graves’ Lestrade and Martin Freeman’s Dr Watson — to be murdered instead. He then pulled his cruellest trick of all, putting a bullet into the roof of his mouth, forcing Sherlock’s hand. The result, Sherlock apparently falling to his death, fuelled rampant fan speculation for months. Until he turned up spick and span in the next season, that is. – Jack King, GQ
22. Happy Valley – Season 3, “Episode 6” (2023)
It ended with a showdown between criminal mastermind Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) and police officer Sgt Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire). I mean, it had to. But while other police dramas may have been tempted to have a ten-year storyline conclude on the edge of a cliff, their final fight was over a family kitchen table in Yorkshire.
It was this that made Happy Valley so special. Because it was so much more than just a police drama. It was about family. A family torn apart but trying to find a way forward. And two people, Tommy and Catherine, with very different interpretations of the events that had caused all this pain in the first place. Most of all, this drama had heart and humour. “We’ve had another bit of a tussle,” says Cawood, completely downplaying that their showdown had ended with Tommy setting himself on fire and Catherine extinguishing him. With her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran) hugging her, Catherine then said: “I won, obviously. I think I might have singed one of your crocheted blankets.”
There was such a power in “I won, obviously” too. Catherine had won ‘obviously’ because she was now hugging her sister. But she had won, obviously, because this was Catherine. And no one gets past Catherine Cawood. – Scott Bryan, TV critic at Must Watch podcast on BBC Sounds
21. EastEnders – “2 October 2001”
Since its launch in 1985, there have been almost 7,000 episodes of EastEnders. Four times a week, every week, the residents of the fictional borough of Walford in London’s East End revel in the kind of hysterics that make you feel like you’ve run some kind of emotional marathon. That’s a lot of telly, and telly that weaves so seamlessly into the fabric of British post-dinner lives that the idea of any one episode out of thousands sticking out is a quite fantastical thought, especially as soaps, by design, are meant to live and die in real-time.
But then there’s this episode from 2001. Episode 2,176 to be exact. You probably don’t remember either of those details, but you will remember its defining dramatic cataclysm, as Kat Slater chases her ‘sister’ Zoe down the street telling her she can’t leave England to go work with her ‘uncle’ in Spain, with Zoe shouting “You can’t tell me what to do, you ain’t my mother!” and Kat screaming “YES I AM!” in reply. Cue the show’s iconic drum fill. It’s a perfect snapshot of soap insanity that comes around once in a blue moon. At the time, though, the revelation rocked the nation, solidifying the newly introduced Slater family into the hall of fame of soap families forever. – Lucy Ford, GQ
20. Broadchurch – Series 1, “Episode 8” (2013)
Murder mysteries are a game of cat and mouse for both the characters on screen and the audience at home, as both try to beat each other to nail down the killer. Bad ones make it too easy, good ones pull the wool over our eyes and great ones change the rules entirely. After seven hours of Broadchurch hunting down the possible killer of 11-year-old Danny Latimer, we knew we’d leave hour eight with an answer, expecting a final-minute reveal born from some intense action sequence that would mask the tragedy in adrenaline.
Instead, halfway through the episode, the killer, Joe, our lead detective Ellie Miller’s (Olivia Colman) husband, gives himself up, sick of being consumed by guilt and shame. It knocked the classic whodunnit structure on its head, changing the focus from the murderer to the fallout of his crimes. There’s Danny’s parents’ grief, which is finally felt in all its horrendous weight now that there are no longer question marks over the case, the town’s reckoning with the aftershock of such a harrowing crime, and Ellie’s life imploding before her eyes. Even though many viewers had worked out that Joe was the murderer, the real shock came from the horror of what it meant to be right. – LF
19. The Office – Series 1, “The Quiz” (2001)
There is a certain type of British man who got too into The Office at a formative age and now speaks in permanent Brent-inflected tones: I know this because I am one of them (there are two other types of men, loosely connected to the first because they emerged in the same era: they got ‘too into Jack Black’ and, the darkest timeline version, ‘way too into Mighty Boosh live shows’. Truly, British secondary schools in 2003 were not a place of honour.) “The Quiz” is stuffed with everything that makes The Office so great: the strange power dynamics, of Brent desperately trying to impress Chris Finch, or of Gareth trying to get a joke with the inflatable penis; both Tim’s yearning looks at Dawn and also the sheer patheticness of him spending his 30th birthday at work; Ricky the temp and his Blockbusters gold run. But what makes “The Quiz” so special are those everyday Office quotes that have ruined my vocabulary ever since – “next!”, “and that’s Crufts”, “he’s thrown a kettle over a pub – what have you ever done?”, “don’t grab it if you’ve not got one ready”. And that’s the real quiz. – Joel Golby, freelance TV critic
18. Inside No. 9 – Series 2, “The 12 Days of Christine” (2015)
At its best, each episode of Inside No. 9 is a perfect short film, not an ounce of fat on it, with a twist at the end that makes you immediately watch it again to spot all the nudges and hints and clues (at its worst, obviously, it’s just Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton doing angry camp accents at each other for 30 minutes before revealing it was ‘actually all a dream’). “The 12 Days of Christine” is the show’s finest episode: a perfectly drip-fed half-hour of TV with a virtuoso central performance from Sheridan Smith: she plays every texture of a young woman’s life, from flirty, fancy-dress nun, to shy daughter, to young straight-haired blonde in love, through to huge and pregnant, and then a harried single mum who can’t believe she still lives here, like this (I truly don’t believe any actress in the country could have gnawed through this role like she did). The ending – and the reveal that these were the flitting, random memories of a dying mind, and she’s going so soon, with so little really achieved – hits like a full-on punch in the chest. Watch that final, quiet “I don’t want to” as she sits at the dinner table with her assembled family, and try not to cry. You can’t do it! No one can! – JG
17. Happy Valley – Series 1, “Episode 4” (2014)
Filming it gave James Norton violent nightmares, and broadcasting it gave the Daily Mail an easy win with an accusation that the hated BBC had gone “too far” with brutal scenes at primetime. But the fourth episode of Happy Valley’s first season in 2014 was where it confirmed it was several levels above your average terrestrial cop show – this was more like the sort of unflinching portrait of darkness in a rotten small town that viewers would normally look to HBO or Showtime to provide. Sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), on the hunt for a young woman kidnapped by psychopathic rapist and murderer Tommy Lee Royce (Norton), finds the hostage in Royce’s basement. When Royce returns unexpectedly, the fight that ensues, between a raging man and a canny but vulnerable middle-aged woman, is messy, chaotic, horribly real and utterly terrifying: it really feels like the lead character in a BBC One drama might be gruesomely stomped to death in front of us. Happy Valley was so finely written by Sally Wainwright and honestly acted by her cast, however, that none of it was gratuitous: it had to happen and so, in a show as tough and as brave as this one, it did. – JS
16. Fleabag – Series 2, “Episode 4” (2019)
Throughout its two seasons, Fleabag became a beacon of rare relatability. It was a show about a woman actively not trying her best, self-sabotaging to bury emotion and hoping that none of it ever found its way to the surface. In its fourth episode of season two, it finally did. The episode is a bait and switch of sorts, as Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s titular Fleabag takes rejection from her hot priest crush (Andrew Scott) as a challenge, aiming to get him to relent on his spiritual allegiances and give into some good, old-fashioned carnal sin. For so long, it seems as if it’s not working, despite the pair dancing around the kind of sexual tension that feels like lightning in a bottle. But then she finds herself alone with him in the church late at night. He has had a few drinks. What starts as Fleabag in control ends with her walls breaking, the vulnerability she feels with the first person she’s connected with since the death of her best friend Boo corroding the armour that’s kept her feelings of guilt and shame and sadness locked away. He commands her to “kneel” and, well… you know the rest. – LF
15. Peep Show – Series 4, “Holiday” (2007)
“Holiday” is as likely to be your favourite as your least favourite episode of Peep Show, but its steadfast commitment to taking the joke too far is what makes it so queasily brilliant. You can see the fingerprints of co-creator Jesse Armstrong, who went on to mastermind another dark comedy, Succession, in the moment where Jeremy (Robert Webb) gnaws on a dog leg as if it were a turkey leg at Disneyland. Rewatching it recently, I was reminded of Tom Wambsgans chomping on Logan Roy’s chicken drumstick on a yacht in a similar moment of madness.
Like Succession, Peep Show knew that special occasions like weddings and holidays are often shrouded in misery and resentment. The episode of Mark Corrigan’s stag do, snidely titled “Holiday”, is the perfect set to a ruinous wedding day, in which a beloved pet dog is barbecued and eaten out of a bin bag.
Really, the episode should be titled “Mummy”, difficult as it is to forget the dog’s name after hearing the howl of “They ate mummy!” coming from one of the sisters that Mark (David Mitchell) and Jeremy are attempting to romantically commandeer. “Holiday” remains the only episode my own mother has seen, thereafter refusing to watch the show again after seeing the chaos spiral that the episode ends in. Mummy is dead, long live Mummy! – Olivia Pym, GQ
14. The Thick of It – Series 2, “Spinners and Losers” (2007)
Armando Iannucci’s The Thick of It is the only good thing to come out of the unmitigated shit show that has been the past few decades of British politics. His election special, broadcast a few days after Tony Blair stepped down to make way for Gordon Brown, saw The Thick Of It crew in a tailspin, desperately securing their future relevancy among the new status quo. Though Gordon’s proxy Tom has long been established as the next in line, over 17 hours there’s increasingly unhinged panic over who might rock the boat and send our characters out to pasture. Peter Capaldi’s iconic spin doctor Malcolm Tucker is never better, manipulating the press, threatening colleagues with tsunamis of scandals before inviting one to lunch for a “tête-à-tiny-tête”, or just blankly scowling at the hapless Ollie even as he says he’s “very happy”. He ultimately secures himself a further era of terror but others are not so lucky, as Glenn puts it “One minute you are indispensable. The next you're just landfill." But “Spinners and Losers” is an embodiment of why no matter how absurd politics is and was, The Thick Of It never lost its relevance. – LL
13. It’s A Sin – Series 1, “Episode 3” (2021)
Russell T Davies’ five-part miniseries was the zeitgeistiest show around in the mid-Covid years, and broke poignant new ground as the first major series to centre on the historical AIDS epidemic in Britain. Set across the 1980s, it centres on a group of queer friends (led by Olly Alexander’s Ritchie) growing up amid the tumult and terror of anti-gay London; all the while, the bony fingers of a new biological terror threaten to capture the queer city in its deathly grasp.
The third episode finds the epidemic in full swing, and centres on the diagnosis, and eventual death, of starry-eyed Welsh boy Colin Morris-Jones (a brilliant Callum Scott Howells). It’s steeped in personal tragedy, but also greater political rage, as the great AIDS texts always are: that this was all too avoidable, that this was death driven by a negligent state and social prejudice, is a theme which hums in the background, compounding the episode’s profound sadness. – Jack King, GQ
12. Black Mirror – Series 2, “Be Right Back” (2013)
The best Black Mirror episodes tend to do one of two things: deploy a stripped-back plot in service of stylish terror (“Metalhead”) or marry the big technological anxieties of our moment with poignant sentimentality (“San Junipero”, “Entire History of You”). The brilliance of “Be Right Back,” the second season’s first, deeply melancholic episode, is that it’s a mix of the two. In this tearjerker Domhnall Gleeson (Ash) and Hayley Atwell (Martha) star as a loving couple torn apart by the former’s tragic death. A friend tips Martha off on new-spangled post-life tech, powered by AI – eerily prescient, as Black Mirror tends to be – which allows a cyberspace facsimile of Ash to return on Martha’s phone. All’s well until an Ash-droid is thrown into the mix and Martha is forced to recognise that the real Ash is never coming back.
It’s a heart-wrenching story of grief, reconciling loss, and the all-too-human desire to speak to our loved ones just one more time. But given that opportunity – when would it end? A decade later, the tech in the episode’s near-future places it around our present. And it bears acknowledging that, with the AI surge of the last couple of years, chatbot replicants of our deceased partners can’t be far off. Hopefully the likes of ChatGPT take notes from Charlie Brooker on the tragically diminishing returns. – JK
11. Fleabag – Series 2, “Episode 6” (2019)
Bringing back Fleabag didn’t seem like a good idea. Its beautifully constructed first season felt like the classic case of a one-and-done, particularly because of its gut-punch ending (the reveal that Fleabag had slept with her best friend Boo’s boyfriend shortly before she had died by suicide). And we’ve seen worse shows tarnish their legacies with ill-thought-out second runs. But, as evidenced by its dominance on this list, Fleabag series two went on to eclipse that first outing by every metric. This finale is a devastating conclusion to Waller-Bridge’s tragic romcom, with Andrew Scott’s sexy priest ultimately choosing God over love. Before that, we get to enjoy her father’s wedding to her ridiculous stepmother (Olivia Colman), her sister Claire (Sian Clifford) finding love with her Finnish namesake and a deeply moving and funny sermon from the hot priest (“Love is awful. It’s awful”). And, boy, that ending. The grim, bus-stop bench, the CGI fox, the priest’s devastating reply to her “I fucking love you”: “It’ll pass.” I defy you to see a fox at night on the streets of London and not think of it. But somewhere in here there’s a glimmer of hope, a sense that we’re leaving Fleabag better off than we found her. – Ben Allen, GQ
10. Peep Show – Series 4, “Sophie’s Parents” (2007)
Peep Show was excellent throughout its nine-series run, but it arguably peaked in year four – which opens with the appearance of Mark’s very unflattering beardstache. This change in aesthetic sets up an episode which shows his character at his most watchable and pathetic, repressing his true emotions and preparing to marry a woman he doesn’t love, Sophie (played exquisitely by national treasure Olivia Colman), while meeting her family for the first time at their country pile. Jez, along for the ride, is up to his usual problematic sexual antics – most memorably sucking jam off the finger of Sophie’s mother, and betraying his girlfriend in the process. This is the joy of Peep Show, even when everything is, on paper, going quite well for the characters, they find a way to screw things up (or in Mark's case, accidentally pull the head off a pheasant). This episode is a standout because it marries this ongoing trope in the series with a sharp pinch of satire of the British class system; without it being said explicitly, Sophie’s gun-toting, jam-making, countryside-living parents are the type of toffs that are the real villains of British society. Mark and Jez might have their fuck-ups, but the real evil is lurking out there in the wilds of southern England, not in the dilapidated ex-council flat in Croydon where they live. – Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, freelance writer
9. Doctor Who – Series 3, “Blink” (2007)
Every episode of Doctor Who leans on existential wonder, conjuring concepts of the far reaches of time and space as the Time Lord navigates existence. “Blink” is a fascinating non-linear episode that introduces arguably the most terrifying monster yet – The Weeping Angels, lightning-fast creatures that can send someone through time with a single touch.
The perspective is switched from the usual Doctor and companion to place you in the shoes of Sally Sparrow, a normal girl roped into the world of the Doctor. She is tasked with deciphering the Doctor’s cryptic messages as he warns of the Weeping Angels. However, they turn into stone statues if they are laid eyes upon by a living creature – hence the iconic phrase “Don’t Blink”.
This anxiety-inducing episode prompts you to think at every moment what would I do? Every little action could prove to have deadly and unchangeable consequences. The prospect of being whisked away into another time is an unbearable thought. It is one of the best episodes of the show as it exemplifies everything wonderful about Doctor Who; evoking horror, mystifying time and space, as well as drawing upon emotion as the results of these life-changing stakes steadily come to fruition. – Jude Yawson, freelance writer
8. Come Dine With Me – Series 7, “Episode 16” (2016)
Some quotes are just so delicious, so exceptional, that you can’t stop repeating them weeks, months, or even years after you originally heard them. Such is the quality and timelessness of one quote from this heavily-memed episode of Come Dine With Me, first aired in 2016, in which contestant Peter Walsh unfolds the little scroll that announces that he’s lost, and utters the words: “You won, Jane… Enjoy the money. I hope it makes you very happy. Dear Lord, what a sad little life, Jane. You ruined my night, completely, so you could have the money. But I hope now you spend it on getting some lessons in grace and decorum, because you have all the grace of a reversing dump truck without any tyres on.”
Jane, who is among the other contestants, cramped together on the sofa, desperately trying not to laugh, says, “I don’t get it.” Walsh then looks towards the camera, David Brent-like, stiff striped collar against his neck, and goes, “Well you wouldn’t, because there’s nobody in there love.” Like all great British comedies, this particular Come Dine With Me episode fuses a few key ingredients: intense awkwardness, tragedy, perfect timing and an element of the absurd. The only difference is, unlike other great British comedies, this one happens to be real. – Daisy Jones, GQ
7. The Traitors – Series 1, “Finale” (2022)
Twenty years after Big Brother, we've become so inured to reality television that it's rare for a new format to feel genuinely fresh. The more showrunners seek to shock us with "social experiments", the more predictable the results. When The Traitors was first trailed by the BBC, it seemed conspicuously lacking in luxury locations, stunts and sex appeal (with the honourable exception of handsome Dr Amos; my DMs are open). It was little more than a televised parlour game, like Werewolf or Mafia, with a cash prize. Yet, from that simple concept, the stakes climbed sky-high to culminate in a finale truly deserving of its "shocking" billing. After nerve-wracking weeks of pulling the wool over the eyes of the Faithful, Traitor Wilf was within reach of victory, only to be betrayed at the 11th hour by Keiran, a fellow Traitor, who (controversially, still) tipped off the others to Wilf's betrayal. The final vote, with Claudia Winkleman presiding over a CGI-enhanced fire pit, was truly edge-of-your-seat, shout-at-the-TV tension – yet somehow managed to come to a feel-good conclusion. You don't get that by dangling a Boohoo deal. – EH
6. Derry Girls – Series 3, “Good Friday Agreement” (2022)
From Fleabag to Friends, some of the greatest comedies ever have ended with main characters turning their backs on us and walking towards a brand new future. This feels most poignant in the final shot of Derry Girls, where we see our gang, arm in arm, having just voted for The Good Friday Agreement. Suddenly the camera glides in on beloved Granda Joe, hand-in-hand with his toddler granddaughter, innocently jumping feet-first into peace.
Lisa McGee’s ingenious storytelling frames this history-making political referendum, aiming to end years of violent conflict, as actually really rather annoying – because it clashes with Erin's 18th birthday party. What ensues is a timeless finale which never stops being funny, even when Orla dancing through Derry to Dario G’s “Sunchyme” is interwoven with scenes showing archival footage of political anguish and painful loss. It’s a beautifully bittersweet end very much in keeping with the show’s tone. – Jack Rooke, writer, Channel 4’s Big Boys
5. Line of Duty – Series 3, “Episode 6” (2016)
As coppers go, Dot Cottan (Craig Parkinson) was just about as bent as you can get. For three years, he had the run of the ambiguous northern British city that Line of Duty calls home, and AC-12 wrapped around his finger. But as the third series was careening to a close, his dirty dealings were catching up with him, fast. After helping to cover up a paedophile ring and a slew of other bent copper activities, he’d gotten sloppy, attempting to frame little Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) for all of his own misdeeds. This absolute stonker of a finale kicks off a few seconds after he had shot Lindsay Denton (Keeley Hawes) in the face, with Steve about to be taken into custody as the no.1 suspect. What follows is perhaps the most thrilling episode of TV this country has ever produced – something made all the more remarkable by the fact that the majority of it takes place in a grey room with four people sat around a table. The 90 minutes swivels around two of writer Jed Mercurio’s shockingly tense interrogation scenes – Steve Arnott screaming “I’m not bent”, and Dot Cottan arrogantly batting away smoking guns until he sends off that now-iconic text of “Urgent exit required”. Oh, and then there’s the giant chase, with Kate clinging off the side of a lorry (very Line of Duty, that) and Dot meeting his very timely end. It’s exactly the kind of propulsive and tense stuff that would lead to Line of Duty becoming the most-watched show of the century. – BA
4. Celebrity Big Brother – Series 17, “Day 7” (2016)
On 10 January 2016 David Bowie passed away, kickstarting an absurd sequence of events that nobody could have predicted. And all of it happened on one episode of Celebrity Big Brother, Series 17. Housemate Angie Bowie had just been informed of her ex-husband's death and decided to confide in American reality TV star Tiffany Pollard with the immortal whisper: “David’s dead.” Pollard assumed that she was referring to David Gest, the ex-husband of Liza Minnelli, who had been in bed all day with the flu. She began hysterically screaming, doubled over in anguish, which quickly turned to anger upon realising that Gest was very much alive and hadn’t “dropped dead from cancer”.
The magic of the episode doesn’t just lie in the comedy of errors, but in the motley crew of characters at the scene: Danniella Westbrook from EastEnders with a ciggie going “what’s happened now?” Christopher Maloney from The X Factor yelling “No!”. Gemma Collins looking on in shock. West End star Darren Day lifting the sheets off Gest to check whether Channel 5 really had just left his body there. The way that Pollard charges at Bowie, who’s still understandably bewildered. Upon leaving the house, David Gest would go on to announce an upcoming tour, “David Gest Is Not Dead” before sadly dying three months later. – DJ
3. Fleabag – Series 2, “Episode 1” (2019)
“This is a love story,” says Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) from the floor of a restaurant bathroom, dabbing at her bloody nose. So begins the opening episode of Fleabag’s triumphant second season, which turns a family dinner into a tense negotiation, punctuated with cigarette breaks for gasps of air and set to the operatic thrum of classical music.
Arguably the great achievement of the episode is managing a seamless recap of the previous season, reintroducing all of the faultlines within the family while adding a new face to the table in the Priest (Andrew Scott). The tension ratchets up as an annoying waitress hovers in the wings, Fleabag resists the temptation to bite over and over again, and her sister Claire (Sian Clifford) looks as though a vein in her temple might blow like a pipeline from the effort of holding her emotions in. Andrew Scott’s performance throughout the season is astonishing, but the charm he brings to his introduction is irresistible. Among a table of family members who don’t get her, here, finally, is an equal to tempt Fleabag into opening her heart fully. You can see it in her face as she shrugs him off during one of those cigarette breaks, and he says, in that sing-song voice: “Well, fuck you then.” – OP
2. The Office – Series 2, “Christmas Special, parts 1 & 2” (2003)
Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais famously wanted The Office to be finite: two series, one special and then done, following in the footsteps of Fawlty Towers and other classic acts of British TV brevity. Some fans will always wish it could have been different, but it’s hard to imagine a more perfect way to bow out than part two of the finale, which aired in 2003 to six million viewers. The reason was the last thing anyone at the time was expecting: a happy ending.
Set three years after the original documentary was supposed to have aired, part one found David Brent more desperate and depressing than ever, still hanging around the office despite no longer working there and spending his evenings pursuing the grimmest form of post-five minutes of fame, doing club appearances to jeering students. With the Wernham Hogg Christmas party looming, he has to find a date to save face. Meanwhile, there’s the small matter of Dawn returning and what that will mean for Tim.
Watching it back, it’s remarkable how many moments of Office canon were squeezed into that final 50 minutes: “Chris, why don’t you fuck off?”, ‘Never Give Up’ and of course that famous kiss. It’s not so much that Merchant and Gervais sprang a surprise sentimental ending, it’s that it all felt so perfectly judged. From Brent standing up to Finchy to Dawn taking off her engagement ring, it’s redemption as small moments of courage. The Office changed how TV comedy was written and acted for a generation; with this episode, it also showed how to do a perfect sign-off. – Sam Parker, GQ
1 – I May Destroy You – “Ego Death” (2020)
Some moments on screen not only floor the audience but shift an entire paradigm. When The Wizard Of Oz switched to technicolour, when Freddie Mercury performed at Live Aid, or when The Sopranos abruptly cut to black, leaving Tony’s fate in the balance. In British TV, the form was revolutionised by Michaela Coel’s 12th and final episode of I May Destroy You in August 2020.
Coel had made a name for herself, creating and performing broader comedy in her sweet but more conventional sitcom Chewing Gum as the pious but extremely horny Tracey, based in part on her Pentecostalist youth. But her genre-defying masterpiece I May You Destroy You was an even more personal project, born in part from her own trauma. She revealed during her 2018 MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival that while working on Chewing Gum, “I emerged into consciousness typing season two many hours later. I was lucky. I had a flashback. It turned out I’d been sexually assaulted by strangers.” Taking on such a difficult moment in her life and spinning it into raw and radical art is just one of the reasons that Coel has distinguished herself as a cultural luminary. Her character Arabella is drugged and assaulted at a bar in the first episode while taking a break from writing her memoirs and only comes to the next morning sitting in her agent’s office, grinning and confused by her bloodied head.
In the final episode, titled “Ego Death”, we come full circle, and a year later, Arabella returns to the bar and sees the man who raped her. Three different versions of events then play out. The first sees her enact brutal vengeance, drugging him in the bathroom and beating him until blood cascades down his face before unceremoniously shoving him under her bed. She then gazes out, hollowed by the brutality. Her eyes briefly meet the camera to confront the audience’s thirst for continued violence. The second, more absurd scenario sees Arabella take enough cocaine to keep her conscious when he drugs her again. He attacks her, but anger gives way to a tearful apology before the police take him into custody. This neat, conventional conclusion ultimately reads just as empty as the first. Coel’s work threw out the rule book and was unconcerned with placating and patronising viewers with simplistic depictions of trauma and closure, so the scene starts a third time.
The bar is now untethered from reality, and the pair are bathed in bright sunlight as they sip gin cocktails. She gently guides him back to her flat, they strip naked, and she enters him from behind. The following morning, they lie in post-coital warmth before she bids him farewell, and both he and the bloodied body from under the bed leave in quiet unison. The three conclusions all exist only in the mind of I May You Destroy You’s complex protagonist, who stares at a wall covered in notes and turns over the different ways her memoir could end but there are meta-textual implications about the writing of the show itself and Coel’s own creative process. In ‘reality’ Arabella stops going to the bar, stops obsessing over what she could have done differently, reconnects with the friends that she’s alienated and makes tentative steps into accepting that she’ll always carry this trauma with her.
Like Coel, Arabella’s creativity is bent but not broken by what she has endured and her long-gestating book is finally published, with her reading the foreword to an enraptured crowd. “Ego Death” leaves us with character and creator in a shared moment of triumph. Not only did both find the courage to turn pain into poetry, but Coel elevated the entire medium of television in the process. – LL
Experts polled:
Russell T Davies, James Graham, Jack Rooke, Jonathan Dean, Anita Singh, Scott Bryan, Joel Golby, Diyora Shadijanova, David Levesley, Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, Jack Seale, Alim Kheraj, James Dyer, Boyd Hilton, Stephen Kelly, Michael Hogan, Stuart Heritage, Radhika Seth, Elle Hunt, Emily Maskell, Kemi Alemoru, Emma Fraser, Jude Yawson, Jessie Thompson, Bolu Babalola, Rebecca Nicholson, Lauren O’Neill, Leila Latif, Amelia Benjamin, Matthew Morgan, Emer Kenny, Emily Baker, Mickey Down, Ben Allen, Sam Parker, Olivia Pym, Jack King, Lucy Ford, Ava Davies, Nick Hilton, Charles Bramesco, Amelia Tait.
