PEEL viewers' greatest episodes (group consensus)

[on:]

Ok guys, on Svip's idea, I have decided to do a "group consensus" episode list.  We'll start from the best episode and work our way down.  Every day (or 2 days at most if there is fierce debate), we will move 1 slot down the list.  Everyone gets one vote per slot and the episode with the most votes will earn that slot....for the sake of convenience, movies will count as 1 episode.

Enjoy and let the madness begin!

[Reply #1 on:]

Day 1....Vote for Slot 1 (ie, the best episode ever)

[Reply #2 on:]

Well, I could have chosen one of a dozen episodes, but I will choose "The Luck of the Fryrish"

[Reply #3 on:]

How Hermes Requisitioned his Groove Back.

[Reply #4 on:]

The Prisoner Of Benda

[Reply #5 on:]

The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings

[Reply #6 on:]

Roswell That Ends Well

[Reply #7 on:]

hmm... I'm going to have to go with Roswell That Ends Well too.

[Reply #8 on:]

Amazon Women In The Mood

[Reply #9 on:]

The Sting.

[Reply #10 on:]

Roswell That Ends Well

Second that. RTEW is the best episode. Period.

[Reply #11 on:]

The Sting

[Reply #12 on:]

The Sting.

[Reply #13 on:]

The Sting.

[Reply #14 on:]

Roswell That Ends Well

Second that. RTEW is the best episode. Period.

The Sting

The Sting.

The Sting.

Made me laugh.

[Reply #15 on:]

Interesting concept. My Survivor games have done this from the worst to first perspective, but I never remember anybody trying the first to worst approach. The problem with the worst to first is that there's more bias involved so people will try to get an episode they really dislike but know others love out earlier.


Okay, I'm going with Roswell That Ends Well. It has the best combination of sci-fi, humor, and heart. The truest Futurama episode. Second place for me will be The Prisoner of Benda, because it also captured that essence, not so much on the heart but much heavier on the humor.

[Reply #16 on:]

The problem with a 'greatest episode', is that there are going to be a majority of episodes not ranked at all.  The problem is, if you want a real list, you need a lot of data.

There are several issues involved.  In order to get enough data, you need people to arrange enough episodes to their liking.  And while that isn't as easy as just spewing out your favourite episode, it does provide the data you need.  Instead, I recommend building a sophisticated interface to allow people to easily and intuitively (and quickly too) order all episodes too their liking.

And if you are lucky, you might get me to build it.

[Reply #17 on:]

I'm not sure you quite get how this works.

No episodes will be left out because eventually all the episodes people normally go for will get through to the ranking list and it'll become a case of people picking the lesser of two evils (I'm using the phrase there, not referring to the episode with that title).

98 episodes from now, we might be left with only 2 episodes that haven't been chosen. For sake of argument, let's say these are The Cryonic Woman and Attack of the Killer App. People then have to choose their favourite from those 2.

[Reply #18 on:]

Plus, people generally have a rough idea of what, say, their top 10 or 20 episodes are anyway (likewise, they probably know what their 10 or 20 least favorite episodes are). So, if "The Sting" won out over "Roswell That Ends Well" for the top spot, those who still rank Roswell number one will just continue to vote for it until it wins the day. I think this is more a matter of individuals working through their own Top 10 or 20 or whatever list (then, when those episodes are gone, by necessity having to formulate a new top 10/20 list) seeing how it compares to the lists of others, and from that data composing a somewhat definitive list.

That said, for a list more representative of the entire fan community's opinion, we'd need a few more participants...

[Reply #19 on:]

The Late Philip J. Fry.

...no?

[Reply #20 on:]

I'm not sure you quite get how this works.

No episodes will be left out because eventually all the episodes people normally go for will get through to the ranking list and it'll become a case of people picking the lesser of two evils (I'm using the phrase there, not referring to the episode with that title).

98 episodes from now, we might be left with only 2 episodes that haven't been chosen. For sake of argument, let's say these are The Cryonic Woman and Attack of the Killer App. People then have to choose their favourite from those 2.

I assume I was confused by 3 people in a row naming The Sting.

But this also introduces another problem that the survivor system has.  Your opinion will only be heard if you meet up.

[Reply #21 on:]

I''m torn between The Sting and The Late Philip J Fry.

I'll go for TLPJF - the shooting Hilter out of the window line edges it for me.

[Reply #22 on:]

the late philip j fry

[Reply #23 on:]

ok...just a quick update...

For the #1 best episode ever, the voting is so far:

4 votes for Roswell that Ends Well
4 votes for The Sting
3 votes for The Late Phillip J Fry

If you want to change your vote to give an edge to an episode (for those that did not vote for these 3, feel free so we are not left with a tie).


Ok...on another note, if anyone has an idea so we can get more people voting...or if they think of another way to do this so it's not one slot at a time (which will take awhile), feel free to share it with me and we can try to tweak this so a LARGE population of viewers is represented...16 total votes, while a nice start, is not good enough for what we are trying to do.

I am open to suggestions as I want this list to be a very good representation of what people think.


Should we open a poll for each episode (vote them 1-10 just like we did for Season 6) and then take the averages of all the votes and compile a "group consensus" list?  Or open a thread for each episode and have people state what they would rank the episode in their list of 88 (as movies will only count as 1...not 4) and then compile this data?  Of course we would not have to do all the episode voting at once to avoid confusion and clutter.

[Reply #24 on:]

TLPJF

[Reply #25 on:]

TLPJF

HA! I see what you did there.

[Reply #26 on:]

Post deleted.

[Reply #27 on:]

Devil's Hands

[Reply #28 on:]

Or open a thread for each episode and have people state what they would rank the episode in their list of 88 (as movies will only count as 1...not 4) and then compile this data?

If you were really gonna do this properly you'd make people rate each part of every movie separately.

As for this crazy group consensus thing, I can't really give a rank for every episode other than like my couple of most favourite episodes so I probably won't participate in this.

[Reply #29 on:]

There are already threads open on each episode, each having their own polls where you can vote on a scale of 1-10 how you liked the episode. There are also rankings for each episode on CGEF, our sister site. The only way to do this right is the way it's already being done in this thread.

[Reply #30 on:]

Or open a thread for each episode and have people state what they would rank the episode in their list of 88 (as movies will only count as 1...not 4) and then compile this data?

If you were really gonna do this properly you'd make people rate each part of every movie separately.

I see what you are saying, but the reason I am having the movies count as one is because they really were just 1 "extended" episode.  I saw the movies before they were on TV, so I saw each run the whole way through.  Spitting the movies into 4 different parts to vote on almost seems like taking every episode and splitting it into Acts and then voting for each Act.  But that would get crazy, silly, and almost impossible.  So that is why I am calling the movies as just 1 "episode".  You don't go to a movie and when telling a friend if it was good or not, break it down into 4 parts.  (you might mention the intro and ending, but that is different than breaking it into 4s).  Besides, it almost seemed when they converted the movies to TV, it detracted from them a tiny bit as well.

As for this crazy group consensus thing, I can't really give a rank for every episode other than like my couple of most favourite episodes so I probably won't participate in this.

I understand it's hard to pick episodes past the first 10 or so (bottom or top).  That is why I suggested voting each episode from 0 to 10.  Then you don't have to say if said episode was your favorite, but rank it on how you feel it was.  Once everyone does this, you could average the votes and compare it to other episodes in order to get a list.

I'll continue this tread, but check a few other things out as well to try and get a few other dynamics to make the list better.

The only way to do this right is the way it's already being done in this thread.

Cool!  Then I'll continue this on.

[Reply #31 on:]

Ok, another update....we have a 3-way tie now.

For the #1 best episode ever, the voting is so far:

4 votes for Roswell that Ends Well
4 votes for The Sting
4 votes for The Late Phillip J Fry
2 votes for The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings

If this is not cleared up by tomorrow, I will create a poll between these top 4 answers (assuming another episode doesn't get 3 votes by then) and have a 24-hr vote off for everyone to pick the #1 episode.

[Reply #32 on:]

I see what you are saying, but the reason I am having the movies count as one is because they really were just 1 "extended" episode.  I saw the movies before they were on TV, so I saw each run the whole way through.  Spitting the movies into 4 different parts to vote on almost seems like taking every episode and splitting it into Acts and then voting for each Act.  But that would get crazy, silly, and almost impossible.  So that is why I am calling the movies as just 1 "episode".  You don't go to a movie and when telling a friend if it was good or not, break it down into 4 parts.  (you might mention the intro and ending, but that is different than breaking it into 4s).

Considering how much better the first half of Bender's Game is than the last half (and how the first part of Into the Wild Green Yonder could almost be one separate episode to the rest of the movie), I'd say rating each half as a second episode does kinda make sense.

As for it being like voting for different acts of an episode or splitting any movie up into four parts, every act of an episode isn't labelled as a different production episode in the credits of an episode, nor are most movies labelled as four production episodes of a TV show in the credits.

[Reply #33 on:]

For the sake of personal sanity, in rankings I consider the movies to be singular units. I cannot remember where the episode breaks exist because the original way all of us (well, almost all of us) viewed them was as singular flowing units. Sure, there are some episodes in the movies that work alright as singular episodes (BG Part 4 and IWGY Part 1), but otherwise most of the components make little sense on their own to the point that a discussion of them would be pointless. Plus, who actually watches them as individual episodes?

[Reply #34 on:]

I don't think anyone actually does watch movies as individual episodes and I, when ranking the movies, rank them as singular units as well, but if you're going to some kind of big group consensus on every episode you might as well take it the whole way and rank every episode including the separate parts of the movies. Or something.

[Reply #35 on:]

ok...since there are no new votes and we still have a 3-way tie for 1st, I am placing a poll of the top 4 vote-getters for us to decide upon.

Vote for your favorite and then we can declare a winner and move on to the 2nd best episode ever.

[Reply #36 on:]

RTEW

[Reply #37 on:]

Going with "Roswell That Ends Well".  Pretty much a perfect episode, in my opinion.

[Reply #38 on:]

you could try something like "name your top 5 favorite episodes" and...

1st gets 5 points
2nd gets 4
3rd 3
ect...

would that work?

[Reply #39 on:]

WAIT!!
I change my mind. I'm going to say "The Late Philip J. Fry"