TV's 20 Best Musical Episodes, Ranked (Plus The One Absolute Worst)

THIS RANKING WAS UPDATED AUGUST 2021 — CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST.

"Musical episode." No two words strike fear in the hearts of network executives — and snark in the minds of critics — with greater expedience. But when done right, the result can be a beautiful thing.

On the heels of The Magicians conjuring its latest (and final) musical offering and with Riverdale ready to size up Hedwig and the Angry Inch, TVLine decided to take a look back at some of our favorites from days (and shows) gone by. (Updated from Spring 2017.)

Now, before you start claiming that a favorite was omitted, take CAREFUL NOTE of our criteria!

* The show must be non-musical. (Sorry, Glee!)

* The episode must feature multiple musical numbers, rather than just a one-off song. (Sorry, How I Met Your Mother!)

* The songs must come about spontaneously, rather than being part of/confined to a play within the show. (Sorry, Supernatural!)

Now, time to get things started....

20. Grey's Anatomy: "Song Beneath the Song" (Season 7, Episode 18)

Some of the cast members' singing may be a little cringey, but Sara Ramirez's powerhouse performances of songs like Brandi Carlile's "The Story" redeem the medical drama's otherwise uneven hour. Seriously, if that number doesn't make you weep like a baby, your pulse is even weaker than Callie's.

19. One Life to Live, "Babes Behind Bars" (July 2002)

What do you get when you put Lindsay Rappaport in Statesville? (Besides custom, prison-themed opening credits?) You get an imagined cell block tango in which the likes of Blair, Roxy, a tarted-up Jessica and that pesky Allison Perkins croon tunes such as "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and, for the big finish, "Celebrate" (below).

18. Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "Mayhem of the Music Meister!" (Season 1, Episode 25)

Here's something you didn't see in the Supergirl/Flash musical crossover episode (coming up later in this list): a love ballad between Black Canary and Green Arrow. (Sigh.)

17. American Housewife: "A Mom's Parade" (Season 3, Episode 23)

Rather than grumble about the way her family takes her for granted, Katie sings about it — spectacularly, we might add — in an installment energized by four original songs by The Greatest Showman's Justin Paul. We'd no more play favorites with them than Katie would her kids... Wait, she's always playing favorites, so we will, too. The number that it took us the longest to get out of our heads — and the one we missed most when it was gone — was "You Can Do You," Cooper's One Direction-al earworm about the upside to a lack of parental supervision.

16. Psych: "Psych: The Musical" (Season 7, Episodes 15 and 16)

We're docking points for the episode's unnecessary length — 90 minutes? Seriously?! — but Psych's foray into the musical world is still a relative success.

15. Passions: "Spellbinding" (2008)

A hilariously shameless Wicked rip-off homage, "Spellbinding" took us back to Tabitha's early days as a magical student, where she and her black hat eventually abandon the side of good in favor of a self-serving future of evil. The lyrics are meh, but we're giving extra points to Kim Huber (aka "Young Tabitha") for singing her damn face off in the title number:

14. Clone High: "Raisin the Stakes: A Rock Opera in Three Acts" (Season 1, Episode 9)

Everything about this short-lived Phil Lord/Christopher Miller/Bill Lawrence comedy — set at a high school populated by teenage clones of historical figures, including emo Abe Lincoln (voiced by Will Forte) — is pure brilliance. So, yeah, why not throw in a rock opera about the entire school becoming addicted to hallucinogens?

13. The Magicians: "All That Hard, Glossy Armor" (Season 4, Episode 10)

During its five-year run, the Syfy series had no shortage of musical episodes and isolated song numbers (such as when the gang marched into battle to the tune of Les Misérables' "One Day More"). But this Season 4 installment, in which Margo goes on a hallucinatory mind trip, stands above the rest for its excellent renditions of The Pretenders' "Don't Get Me Wrong," Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again," Roy Orbison's "Beautiful Dreamer" and Gnarls Barkley's "Storm Coming." Each song acts as the perfect accompaniment to badass Margo's journey of empowerment.

12. Community: "Regional Holiday Music" (Season 3, Episode 10)

An instant Christmas classic, this wacky little departure — from Community's already wacky little world — features Taran Killam as a deranged glee club instructor. (Wait, is that redundant?)

11. Once Upon a Time, "The Song in Your Heart" (Season 6, Episode 20)

The premise was wobbly (something about a curse in the past that also had present-day characters singing...?), but the octet of original tunes by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner was solid, including a love song (newlywed Emma and Hook's "A Happy Beginning"), a jaunty pirate shanty ("Revenge Is Gonna Be Mine"), Zelena's soaring "Wicked Always Wins" and one outright, sexy banger (below):

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On the heels of The Magicians conjuring its latest musical offering and with Riverdale ready to size up Hedwig and the Angry Inch, TVLine decided to take a look back at some of our favorites from days (and shows) gone by. (Nos. 20 through 11 can be found on Page 1.)

10. Fringe: "Brown Betty" (Season 2, Episode 20)

Of all the worlds explored during the Fox drama's five-season run, why are we not surprised that one of the weirdest — and definitely the most musical — comes courtesy of Walter's special strain of weed for which the episode is named?

9. Futurama: "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" (Season 4, Episode 18)

Fry's desire to master a complicated instrument — all part of a ploy to impress Leela, naturally — leads him to make a deal with the Robot Devil, triggering a series of unfortunate appendage-swaps. Fortunately, it all culminates in a wonderfully weird opera chronicling Leela's past... as well as her future with Fry.

8. Daria: "Daria!" (Season 3, Episode 7)

Unlike the ominous storm approaching the town of Lawndale, this episode definitely did not blow.

7. The Flash, "Duet" (Season 3, Episode 17)

Thanks to the mischievous Music Meister, Barry Allen and Supergirl's Kara Danvers woke up in a musical — and in the midst of a gang war that had shades of Romeo & Juliet. In addition to standards such as "Moon River" and "More I Cannot Wish You," this mini-crossover featured a contribution from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's own Rachel Bloom (the superbly silly "Super Friend"), while La La Land's Benj Pasek and Justin Paul had Barry "Runnin' Home to You" aka Iris. [Warning: This is oh-so-soft.]

6. Even Stevens: "Influenza: The Musical" (Season 2, Episode 21)

Four years before High School Musical bopped its way into our hearts, Disney Channel gifted us with this toe-tapping tale of angst, revenge and — most importantly — America's history of interstellar travel. (Bonus points for #BabyShiaLaBeouf!)

5. Scrubs: "My Musical" (Season 6, Episode 6)

"Doctors! Nurses! Patients! Dead guys!" No one at Sacred Heart Hospital can, ahem, refrain from bursting into song during this Emmy Award-winning episode. And with music from the likes of Jeff Marx (Avenue Q) and Robert Lopez (The Book of Mormon, Frozen), who could blame them?

4. Dexter's Laboratory: "LABretto" (Season 2, Episode 38)

This operatic retelling of Dexter's birth — as well as the birth of his rivalry with Dee Dee, his destructive older sister — earned the Cartoon Network staple a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in 1998.

3. The Simpsons: "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious" (Season 8, Episode 13)

Remembered fondly as one of the series' finest, this episode introduces Sharry Bobbins, a delightful British nanny who — after spending just a few days with the Simpson family — is driven to alcoholism. (Sadly, given the nature of Sharry's exit, I doubt we'll ever get a sequel in the vein of Mary Poppins Returns.)

2. Xena: Warrior Princess: "The Bitter Suite" (Season 3, Episode 12)

How do you mend a broken friendship between two women when each believe the other is responsible for her child's death? Xena goes the non-Jerry Springer route, sending its characters to the land of Illusia, where their hatred is manifested into a nightmarish enemy that can only be defeated with the power of forgiveness — and song, of course.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Once More, With Feeling" (Season 6, Episode 7)

Sorry for ending on such an anticlimactic note, but did you really expect another episode to snag the top spot on this list? Nearly every song in this hour-long masterpiece is an earworm, courtesy of series creator Joss Whedon, and performed flawlessly — or at least with a lot of enthusiasm — by the cast. (Plus, it blessed us with "I think this line's mostly filler," something we've since quoted too many times to count.)

There you have it, folks — TVLine's updated Top 20 musical episodes of all time.

And as a special thank-you for making it this far into the post, here's our No. 1 worst pick: 7th Heaven's inexplicably heinous "Red Socks" (Season 9, Episode 15). Tone-deaf both literally and figuratively, this 60-minute torture session found the Camdens bursting into off-key song, complete with awkward choreography that screamed, "We're all doing this against our will!" Alas, the worst number isn't available on YouTube, so you'll have to settle for this pretty terrible one:

What's your favorite musical episode? Any we missed? Drop a comment with your picks — as well as your complaints about our order — below.