[Randy Barnett, February 15, 2005 at 8:21am] Trackbacks
" 'Dja Get That? "
Great final line by Keifer Sutherland on last night's 24. And it wasn't even a season finale like this final line from ST TNG: "Mr. Warf, Fire." Do you have a favorite line from a TV series? I think this will be my last TV blogging for a bit, so I thought I would enable comments (a first for me) to let readers post their favorites. No fair quoting Deadwood. There are probably 15 to 20 good lines per episode.

Update: I don't seem to be able to make comments function. I need to go to class to teach now. Perhaps by the time I get back I will get instructions on how to make this work. I will post another update indicating that comments are working. Sorry for the inconvenience. I do want to hear about other great lines.


Update: COMMENTS NOW WORK!

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  5. Star Trek Enterprise Cancelled:
Bithead (mail) (www):
"Would you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most interesting!"

"I am NOT a merry man!"
2.15.2005 1:47pm
Ted Barlow (mail) (www):
This is more of a "great series ending" than a "great final line", but here you go.

Twin Peaks. If I remember correctly, Agent Cooper had gone into a dream to enter the mystical Black Lodge, hoping to save his girlfriend Annie from the demon "BOB". Extended dream sequence, blah, blah, blah... At the end, he comes out of his trance and asks his nurse, "How's Annie?" She says that Annie's fine. After the nurse leaves him alone, Cooper walks over to the mirror. To our shock, "BOB" is looking back at him in the mirror. He didn't prevail in the Black Lodge, and is now inhabited by a demon. Cooper/BOB starts cackling and smashes the mirror with his forehead, mockingly shrieking, "How's Annie? How's Annie?"

Evil wins. The end. I loved it.
2.15.2005 1:58pm
Kevin Baker (mail) (www):
"FREEZE! Or I'll fill you full of... little, yellow bolts of light!"

John Crichton, Farscape
2.15.2005 3:07pm
Eric S. (mail) (www):
Related note - last night's "24" ending line reminded me of the penultimate line of "Die Hard," with William Atherton's Thornburg character saying "Did you get that?" to his cameraman after Bonnie Bedelia breaks his nose. In each case, the line reflected an earlier exchange between the characters using the same language. And all four times, the answer, explicit or implicit is "I got it."

Of course, the final line of "Die Hard" is itself pretty good: "If this is their idea of Christmas, I've *got* to be there for New Years."
2.15.2005 3:18pm
Sean O'Hara (mail):
From Futurama:

Bender: Fine, I'll go build my own lunar lander, with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the lunar lander and the blackjack.

***

Professor Farnsworth: Most videotapes from that era were damaged in 2443 during the second coming of Jesus.

***

Zapp Brannigan: If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.

***

Narrator: You watched it, you can't unwatch it!

***

Best line from 24:

Chloe: Fine. I was going to quit anyway.
2.15.2005 4:36pm
Addison DeWitt:
Well echoing what Kevin said I have to go with a line from Farscape. "Was it a bass or a trout?" - John Chrichton
2.15.2005 4:40pm
Kevin Baker (mail) (www):
Crichton's line "Frau Blucher!" had me rolling on the floor, but it's a visual gag...
2.15.2005 5:45pm
David A. Smith (mail):
Not a final line, but a great one:

"6 for 2!" from The Prisoner. It was his campaign slogan in one episode.
2.15.2005 6:15pm
M. Richardson (mail):
Andy: "Yeah, but don't the trees seem nice and full?"
2.15.2005 9:29pm
Greifer (mail):
"Did he have hands? Did he have a face? Then it wasn't us!"

(From The Wire.)
2.15.2005 10:57pm
DonBoy (mail) (www):
From the Picket Fences pilot:

Douglas Wambaugh (Fyvush Finkel), making an obviously pro forma objection:

"I have never been so insulted in my life! ...Go ahead."

BTVS: too many to list, but:

Faith, aggressively coming on to the still-virginal Xander: "What's the matter, not up for it?"
Xander: "Oh, I'm up for it all right...it's just that I've never been...up...with people...before."

And going wayyyy back: I, Claudius: the dying Lydia realizes that "simple-minded" Claudius...isn't:

"Ah. Lost your stutter too, I notice."

The West Wing, during the arc about the legal ramifications of Bartlet hiding his MS from the country:

[I forget whose line this is:] "Sure, because, a hidden recording device in the White House? That's never turned out to cause any trouble."
2.15.2005 11:10pm
israeli reader:
"get this cheese to sickbay!"
2.16.2005 7:41am
israeli reader:
"get this cheese to sickbay!"

Star Trek the Next Generation
2.16.2005 7:41am
FC:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer had some fine season-ending lines.

Season 4. Tara: "You think you know... what's to come... what you are. You haven't even begun."
Season 5. Not dialogue but a gravestone: "BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS. 1981-2001. BELOVED SISTER. DEVOTED FRIEND. SHE SAVED THE WORLD. A LOT."

Then there's something for the legal geeks.

Faith: "You know in your gut we don't need the law. We are the law."
Buffy (four seasons later): "There's no mystical guidebook. No all-knowing council. Human rules don't apply. There's only me. I am the law."

Finally, Buffy deserves special mention for being the only television show to use the phrase "girl on girl action" in context in a sentence.
2.16.2005 8:28am
Mad Anthony (mail) (www):
Okay, I get it. You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I'm just a donut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here... If you're going to lie to me, you lie to me with respect. What is it? Is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don't you ever lie to me like I'm Montel Williams! I am not Montel Williams!

Detective Munch, Homicide:Life On the Steets (inspired by NRO'S TKS)
2.16.2005 11:50am
Scipio (mail) (www):
Det. Francis Xavier 'Frank' Pembleton: What you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship - as silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swampland, or Bibles. But what I am selling is a long prison term, to a client who has no genuine use for the product.

Boy, I miss Homicide.
2.16.2005 11:53am
Brett (mail):
Homer Simpson: "Alcohol...the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
2.16.2005 1:23pm
Scipio (mail) (www):
Homer Simpson: "I'm a rageoholic! Oh no, I'm addicted to rageohol!"

Troy McClure: "Planet of the Apes the planet, or Planet of the Apes the movie?"
2.16.2005 5:06pm
Thief (mail) (www):
Best 24: (After Jack has just shot an informant in the chest) "I need a hacksaw." (Those who know, know.)

Best Sopranos: (Johnny Sack, after Tony proposes a "power-sharing agreement") "What is this, the f***ing UN?"
2.16.2005 5:45pm
Kyle Haight (mail) (www):
A few more from Futurama:

Leela: "Professor, are we even allowed in the Forbidden Zone?"
Farnsworth: "Of course! It's just a name -- like the Death Zone, or the Zone of No Return. All the zones have names like that in the Galaxy of Terror."

Just about any part of Bender's dialog with God in "Godfellas" is worthwhile, e.g.:

Bender: "Do you know what I'm going to do before I do it?"
God: "Yes."
Bender: "What if I do something different?"
God: "Then I don't know that."

or:

God: "Being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependant on you. If you do too little, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket."
Bender: "Or a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money!"
God: "Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing."
2.16.2005 6:47pm
Bruce:
Simpsons: "Don't blame me, *I* voted for Kodos!"

Twilight Zone: "To Serve Man . . . it's a cookbook!"

Star Trek: "I cannot change the laws of physics. I've got to have thirty minutes!" [Crescendo; cut to commercial] (The scene in STTNG where Scotty rambles on practically to himself reminiscing about that line is also pretty good.)

Homicide: A couple people have already suggested lines from the first episode, I would just add: "Biddle, Biddle, Biddle, Biddle, Biddle ... no, no Biddle. Wait; Biddle Biddle Biddle Biddle...."
2.16.2005 11:31pm
Mike G. in San Diego (mail):
Fron the infamous "Turkeys Away!" episode of WKRP in Cincinatti, the final line:

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"
2.17.2005 12:42am
Peter2TheNth (mail):
The TV show's name I can't recall, from about 15 years ago, featured hero a public defender who was something of a hippie in a suit and tie, he asked his client what had happened to lead to his arrest, the client said "He made a move on me and I greased him", to which the hero responded, "You know, I would not use the word "greased" in your statement, it fails to convey your profound sense of loss over the death of the victim."
2.21.2005 9:28pm