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Golden Girls Episodes, Ranked

Twenty-nine years ago Sunday, The Golden Girls, a sitcom following four women in the "golden years" of their lives, premiered on NBC. In honor of its nearly three decades of reruns, I have ranked all its episodes below.

(The "I" above is the Gawker writer)

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by Anonymousreply 74May 4, 2019 12:46 PM

I'm sorry, but any Golden Girls episode ranking that lists the Bob Hope episode in the top 50 is not worth my time.

by Anonymousreply 1September 12, 2014 5:45 PM

Sick and Tired Part 1 and 2 somehow made the top 5!!

by Anonymousreply 2September 12, 2014 6:23 PM

I consider the Sick and Tired eps among the worst in the entire series.

And I like the Blanche ep with her obese daughter and abusive boyfriend, which is ranked near the bottom.

It just shows that all the eps had good things in them, even if the main storyline isn't interesting.

by Anonymousreply 3September 12, 2014 6:28 PM

A list that doesn't have "Isn't It Romantic" in the top 20 (if not the top 10) is just fucked.

by Anonymousreply 4September 12, 2014 6:29 PM

[You do realize that this is a troll, right? It does not believe what it posts. It just craves attention. You might want to stop talking to it.]

by Anonymousreply 5September 12, 2014 6:54 PM

I always have bones to pick with lists but this one bascially doesn't get anything right. My feeling is that he wanted to "spread the weath" among seasons.

So accordingly , a lot of my favorite later episodes (like The one with Edie McClurg? One of my absolute favritie) areaway far down and a lot of those kind of lackluster middle season eps (like those already mentioned, PLUS Sophia's Wedding, and that painfully unfunny ep w Trudy "dropping dead" on the tennis court.

by Anonymousreply 6September 13, 2014 8:47 AM

The Flu at 120? That's one of my favorites!

by Anonymousreply 7September 13, 2014 9:04 AM

I would rather poke my eyes out before ever watching Sick and Tired ever again. Did he forget he wasn't ranking the episodes from worst to best.

by Anonymousreply 8September 13, 2014 9:06 AM

Can we all agree he picked the correct "worst" episode?

by Anonymousreply 9September 13, 2014 11:42 AM

Glad the Empty Nest pilot was at the bottom. Awful! Journey to the Center of Attention should've been too. Can't believe it made the top 20.

The Case of the Libertine Belle was one of the best.

by Anonymousreply 10September 13, 2014 11:52 AM

Remember when Dorothy gave her speech to the doctor about how she has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome a "real" disease and the doctor laughed and said, "That ain't a 'real' disease."

by Anonymousreply 11September 13, 2014 1:54 PM

That's not quite how it went down, R11.

by Anonymousreply 12September 13, 2014 2:15 PM

Well I am just Devastated! Devastated doesn't even begin to describe how devastated I am.

by Anonymousreply 13September 13, 2014 2:18 PM

This list is nice! This list is nice! This list is nice! So I'll say it thrice!

by Anonymousreply 14September 13, 2014 2:28 PM

Did this "writer" do anything other than copy a list of episode titles nd randomly assign numbers? Because most people don't know the titles of individual episodes and I, and I assume most people, ain't whipping out the DVDs or looking them up to agree or disagree. What a dolt.

by Anonymousreply 15September 13, 2014 2:32 PM

R13

Settle down, Blanche. He was a bigamist, stop crying over spilled milk.

by Anonymousreply 16September 13, 2014 2:53 PM

I like the one where they had cheesecake best. One got the knife, another got the plates. I don't remember the rest.

by Anonymousreply 17September 13, 2014 3:31 PM

You all forget that Blanche's breakdown was in one of the "Sick and Tired" episodes. Probably the funniest thing she ever did on the show.

by Anonymousreply 18September 13, 2014 3:35 PM

"Sick and Tired" automatically gets a top 10 ranking for me solely on the basis of the exchange:

Blanche: "Girls, I have writer's block. It is the worst feeling in the world!"

Sophia: "Try ten days without a bowel movement sometime."

by Anonymousreply 19September 13, 2014 3:48 PM

That's one of my favorite scenes, R18

My absolute favorite scene is Rose's story about the herring circus, never fails to make me laugh

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by Anonymousreply 20September 13, 2014 3:51 PM

I love the Rusty Anchor episode.

by Anonymousreply 21September 13, 2014 3:56 PM

I would assume (hope) that the CFS episode was so high because of the B story about Blanche's writing a novel. The sequence of her going delirious is hilarious, and maybe the funniest scenes on the show.

by Anonymousreply 22September 13, 2014 4:42 PM

I've already contacted the Mexican mafia to put out a hit on the guy who wrote this list.

by Anonymousreply 23September 13, 2014 4:45 PM

That's almost as goodas that Three's Company episode where there's a misunderstanding and a bunch of double entendres.

by Anonymousreply 24September 13, 2014 4:46 PM

I actually never found that side storyline with Blanche funny, and I usually love Blanche. But it just seemed way too forced and never worked for me.

Season 5 is probably my least favorite of the seasons because there were way too many "issue episodes." The first two seasons have most of the "classics" and I personally think the last season is a riot (they had new writers then which gave the show some now life, IMO). With a couple of exceptions I would put most of those near the top. Libertine Belle is a great choice but the list is such crap I think it's just more a random coincidence then anything remotely thought out.

Like I mentioned before, I think many of the weakest episodes are from the middle seasons.

by Anonymousreply 25September 13, 2014 4:53 PM

R20 that wasn't the story she told in that two-parter. She told another, more elaborate one about some guy mistakenly buried alive so they go back to try to dig him up only to discover he died of asphyxiation. Then the IRS shows up at the cemetery to arrest his business partner because they had evaded their income taxes for years, so the partner shoots himself with the sheriff's fun. Since everyone was right there, anyway, they decided to put the partner in the same casket and have a double burial. It was so hilarious, especially since it was supposed to comfort Sophia about her daughter possibly dying (they didn't know it was CFS yet).

by Anonymousreply 26September 13, 2014 4:53 PM

"New" life, before some "oh dear" troll runs around. Duh.

by Anonymousreply 27September 13, 2014 4:56 PM

Is there even an attempt at an analysis of the episodes in which the author defends his choices.

by Anonymousreply 28September 13, 2014 4:59 PM

R28, yeah, I was dismayed that he didn't provide any reasons, just a list. How boring.

by Anonymousreply 29September 13, 2014 5:00 PM

Why was The Golden Girls videotaped and not filmed?

by Anonymousreply 30September 13, 2014 5:01 PM

I'm probably in the minority here, but I loved the last episode, especially when Sophia dressed up like Aunt Jemima and was gonna cook "a mess-a somethin'"

by Anonymousreply 31September 13, 2014 5:06 PM

[quote]Season 5 is probably my least favorite of the seasons because there were way too many "issue episodes."

I agree. The new writers came in that year and obviously had something to prove, but mercifully they got that out of their system. But it was the last season Terry Hughes directed. Season 6 and 7 have some great episodes but a handful of forgettable ones redeemed by some memorable jokes or a more interesting B-plot than the A-plot was.

R31: I liked the final episode, too. In fact that was my favorite part of the episode. The only thing I thought needed more time was the aborted sub-plot where Rose thinks about moving away. But by 1992 it was obvious the amount of commercial time on network TV was increasing. It's very obvious if you own the DVDs. You can watch the average running time per episode go down each season. And that gives you less time to resolve a situation. That's what I think has hurt so many subsequent network sitcoms.

But I still must ask, what are those round things on the dress supposed to be?

by Anonymousreply 32September 13, 2014 5:13 PM

[quote]Why was The Golden Girls videotaped and not filmed?

That was the standard for all Witt/Thomas/Harris shows and for almost all 1980s sitcoms. When the show began, Disney was still in the early stages of recovering from a progressive decline that started when Walt died, so they didn't have a lot of money. Not counting [italic]The Wonderful World of Disney[/italic], they hadn't had a hit TV series since [italic]Zorro[/italic] and they didn't even try until 1982. Three sitcoms, two based on movies, all flops. Their big releases that year, [italic]The Black Cauldron[/italic] and [italic]Return to Oz[/italic], were flops. They had an hour-long western that flopped up against [italic]The Cosby Show[/italic]. The animators were afraid Michael Eisner and the other new executives were going to close the animation division down and outsource everything for Saturday morning cartoons that didn't look as good as even the worst of Disney's theatrical cartoons, but was still better than a lot of the junk from Hanna-Barbera and Ruby-Spears we subjected ourselves to every Saturday morning, not to mention the glorified toy commercials. That's why the first few episodes almost as cheap and monochromatic as [italic]All in the Family[/italic], and why they reused the kitchen from [italic]It Takes Two[/italic].

And that's why the execs were so relieved when this show was such a big fat hit.

by Anonymousreply 33September 13, 2014 5:32 PM

R32, whoever picked that wedding dress should've been shot. It made her look like a crown roast.

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by Anonymousreply 34September 13, 2014 5:32 PM

R33, Golden Girls was on NBC.

Disney owns ABC and only since 1996, four years after GG ended.

by Anonymousreply 35September 13, 2014 5:44 PM

[quote]Disney owns ABC and only since 1996, four years after GG ended.

Touchstone, which was owned by Disney, produced the show.

by Anonymousreply 36September 13, 2014 5:46 PM

R34, I know, right? The outfit she planned to wear when she was gonna remarry Stan a year earlier was so much better.

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by Anonymousreply 37September 13, 2014 5:54 PM

R35 And it was taped at the Disney studios lot in Burbank. I was in the audience for the Mangicavallo curse episode.

by Anonymousreply 38September 13, 2014 5:57 PM

I like the meta reference when Stan was gonna marry Ellie and Maude says "Excuse me, Oh how's Andy and Marcus Welby"?

by Anonymousreply 39September 13, 2014 5:57 PM

Yes, that was more like Dorothy's style. Her Uncle Lucas wedding dress ranks up there with the unflattering, frumpy, sateen dress Blanche was going to wear in the pilot episode.

by Anonymousreply 40September 13, 2014 5:59 PM

R39 She didn't call her Princess or Miriam?

by Anonymousreply 41September 13, 2014 6:02 PM

R36, no, the production company was Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions; Touchstone was the distributor.

by Anonymousreply 42September 13, 2014 6:03 PM

I always suspect that part of the popularity of the The Libertine Bell ep, comes from Dorothy acting out the whole matricide sequence, which while funny, also seemed like well-deserved payback for both her and audience for the previous several seasons of really nasty behavior on Sophia's behalf toward her daughter.

by Anonymousreply 43September 13, 2014 6:10 PM

Why do people think Sophia was nasty or a bad mother to Dorothy? I thought she was hilarious.

by Anonymousreply 44September 13, 2014 7:18 PM

R32 are you sure the new writers came in season 5? I always thought it was season 6. I know Marc Cherry came on board in season 6. That's when I noticed a shift in tone in the show - more 90s, more campy, more Will & Grace-ish for lack of a better description. I know I'm in the minority but in repeats I tend to enjoy those seasons the most - I actually get bummed when the end of season 7 (I don't love the last handful of episodes, but the rest of the season is hilarious I think) rolls around and it's time to go back to the beginning.

There are a handful of season 5 episodes I likes lot, like the one with the sperm bank - which Im pretty sure was nowhere near the top of the list - and the Mangiacavallo wedding. And as far as issue eps go I actually enjoy the gambling one, for whatever reason - I'm a loser but i cant help but laugh at the line about Rose living with The Temptations.

by Anonymousreply 45September 13, 2014 7:35 PM

Libertine Bell is fun but way overrated. There are much better episodes. In addition, several sitcoms did "Murder Mystery Dinner Theater" episodes in the 80s and 90s.

by Anonymousreply 46September 13, 2014 7:39 PM

One if those seasons was during the Hollywood writers' strike. It was a season comprised almost entirely of clip shows. I wonder if there were scabs working for them on the interim dialogue (which was pretty embarrassing)?

by Anonymousreply 47September 13, 2014 8:51 PM

At least the Frieda Claxton episode made the top five.

by Anonymousreply 48September 13, 2014 8:56 PM

R48 that would be my number one but yeah. I also love From Here to the Pharmacy which he ranked I think third from bottom. Isn't that the one where Sophia makes the will and Dorothy does her whole "have some tea...it will relax you" schtick? I love that. And La Law. I also love the end credit tags on season 7 that Hallmark cuts out. Was GG the first major show to do that?

R47 there was no one season that was mostly clip shows. Starting with season 3 they usually had about one 2 part clip show per season. Probably just to give the writers a break as they tended to run out of steam towards the end of any given season.

by Anonymousreply 49September 13, 2014 9:10 PM

There's a difference between flashback episodes and clip shows. The former had flashback scenes written/filmed specifically for that episode, and the latter merely used footage from previous episodes/seasons. I loathe clip shows, because it's such lazy writing. Besides, I prefer to watch the episodes from whence those so-called flashbacks originated.

FLASHBACK EPISODES: [quote]SEASON 1: "The Way We Met": The girls remember how they came to live together.

[quote]SEASON 2: "Bedtime Story": As the girls figure out how they plan to accommodate some upcoming guests, they recall other unusual sleeping arrangements they've had to endure in the past.

[quote]SEASON 2: "A Piece of Cake": As they plan a surprise birthday party for a friend, the girls recall prior birthday celebrations.

[quote]SEASON 3: "One for the Money": The girls recollect past attempts at starting their own businesses.

[quote]SEASON 3: Three on a Couch": The girls go to group therapy to deal with the growing problems in their friendship.

[quote]SEASON 3: "Mother's Day": On Mother's Day, the girls, who are all mothers themselves, recall past celebrations of the day.

[quote]SEASON 4: "Valentine's Day": The girls Valentine's Day dates all stand them up, so they sit around, eat cheesecake, and look back at memorable Valentine's Days past.

[quote]SEASON 4: "The Rites of Spring": As the girls vow to get in shape for an upcoming beach party, they recall past attempts at self-improvement.

CLIP SHOWS:

[QUOTE]SEASON 3: "Golden Moments: Parts 1 & 2": Sophia decides to move out of the house and live with her son Phil and the girls reflect on Sophia's importance.

[QUOTE]SEASON 4: "We're Outta Here: Parts 1 & 2": A wealthy Japanese businessman offers to buy the house and the girls reminisce on the good times they've shared.

[QUOTE]SEASON 5: "The President's Coming: Parts 1 & 2": A Secret Service agent comes to the house to make sure none of the girls pose a threat to the President's security and performs a background check on them.

[QUOTE]SEASON 6: "Never Yell Fire in a Crowded Retirement Home: Parts 1 & 2": Police suspect that Sophia may be responsible for the fire that destroyed the Shady Pines Retirement Home.

As you can see, the dreadful clip shows started to take over from Season 4 on. Also, there were only four, but they seem twice as more because they were two-parters.

by Anonymousreply 50September 13, 2014 10:13 PM

The show wasn't worth watching after the pilot.

by Anonymousreply 51September 14, 2014 12:23 AM

I can't believe the Magda episode comes in at number 6.

Fidel Santiago at number 137?

For me, "My Brother, My Father" is the best, and that comes in at 57.

by Anonymousreply 52September 21, 2014 5:58 AM

"Goodbye, Mr. Gordon" is on now. I fucking love that episode.

I think this gawker idiot ranked it close to last.

by Anonymousreply 53September 27, 2014 4:15 AM

The only one I know by title is Sick and Tired. Not only one of the worst episode of Golden Girls but of all sitcom history. My favorite GG joke is when Sophia is practicing her magic act at the kitchen table. She asks Dorothy for her watch. She puts it in a bag and smashes it with a hammer. Then she pours it out onto the kitchen table and says "Dorothy your watch is broken." What episode is that from?

by Anonymousreply 54September 27, 2014 4:54 AM

R54, "Letter to Gorbachev" from Season 3. The A plot is Rose writing a letter to Gorbachev and Reagan about getting rid of their nuclear weapons, but only Gorbachev responds, thinking Rose is a little girl. The subplot is Sophia trying to find an act for the talent show at the senior center.

by Anonymousreply 55September 27, 2014 5:11 AM

LOL the broken watch...I was pretty close

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by Anonymousreply 56September 27, 2014 5:16 AM

It's ok R53 we don't believe in labels.

by Anonymousreply 57September 27, 2014 5:22 AM

He gave me flowers...from a STORE!!!

by Anonymousreply 58September 27, 2014 5:31 AM

How come they're/R57 not lesbians?

by Anonymousreply 59September 27, 2014 6:13 AM

I'll ask her the next time I visit her at... THE HOME.

No more questions.

by Anonymousreply 60September 27, 2014 12:39 PM

In the pilot, Sophia says "the man is a scuzzball." In Bea Arthur's one-woman show, she said NBC wouldn't let her say "douchebag." Yet six years earlier, they let SNL build a whole sketch around that word. What gives?

by Anonymousreply 61October 1, 2014 5:22 PM

R61 Different standards for primetime vs. late night.

by Anonymousreply 62October 1, 2014 5:41 PM

R62 and different times. I'm pretty sure back in '85 you couldn't say vagina either. Now it's on every freaking show.

by Anonymousreply 63October 1, 2014 6:48 PM

I like Libertine Belle, but it's not the best episode. It has some great lines but is way too mean spirited and not the best representation of the four as a whole.

Rose came off as too cold and nasty in this. I just had trouble believing that Rose would deliberately go along with having Blanche convicted for murder all because Blanche took her earrings. And then to not even pretend to be sympathetic when Blanche thinks she's going to jail.

Then the Bea slitting Estelle's throat scene, which I thought was nasty.

And can someone explain how Rose was able to find Sophia's mirror and spray defogger on it? How did she even know Sophia even had a mirror in her purse? And why didn't Dorothy check the pulse!

by Anonymousreply 64October 1, 2014 6:59 PM

R64 I know this splits GG fans but I love the mean spiritedness of the last season. Especially when Rose acts like a bitch : "you don't understand, they'll put you in a WOMEN's prison."

The one where Dorothy is arrested as a slumlord is probably the most mean spirited episode in the whole series and I just love it.

Season 7 is just so much fun to watch - but because of all the two parters towards the end of the season it always feels way too short.

by Anonymousreply 65October 1, 2014 8:39 PM

[65] time, obviously.

by Anonymousreply 66May 3, 2019 8:20 PM

I hate the jacket episode. Just stupid

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by Anonymousreply 67May 3, 2019 8:26 PM

R66, you bumped a 4 1/2 year old thread to not only incorrectly reference a prior post, but to then post something that doesn’t make sense?

Why didn’t you just say “bump”?

by Anonymousreply 68May 3, 2019 9:12 PM

I’ve seen every episode so many times that I no longer laugh at it.

by Anonymousreply 69May 3, 2019 9:26 PM

^^Blasphemy!

by Anonymousreply 70May 3, 2019 9:28 PM

It’s trye

by Anonymousreply 71May 3, 2019 9:55 PM

Crap list

by Anonymousreply 72May 4, 2019 11:22 AM

Am I the only one who hates the Libertine Bell murder mystery episode?

My #1 episode is when they get arrested for prostitution.

by Anonymousreply 73May 4, 2019 12:16 PM

I re-watched Libertine Belle last night and it was very good but not top ten for me. I don't love that many from season 1 as things were still a bit clunky but I think they had definitely found the winning formula by season 2.

by Anonymousreply 74May 4, 2019 12:46 PM
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