Top 10 TV Episodes Directed By Women

Greetings, reader!

Last week's post was a ranking of the best TV episodes written by women. This week, I'm following up with a post on a profession with an even worse equality track record - TV directors. For the longest time, female directors weren't given any opportunities in mainstream, prime time TV, and the learning curve from there has been painfully slow, with glaring disparaties still reigning between the opportunities that male and female directors get (not to mention directors belonging to gender minorities, which is a whole different rabbit hole). But, yeah - from the many great hours of television brought to us by female directors, these are my all-time favorites!

Here are my honorable mentions:

- Bryce Dallas Howard - Chapter 11: The Heiress (The Mandalorian, Season 2 Episode 3)

- Deborah Chow - eps1.5_br4ve-trave1er.asf (Mr. Robot, Season 1 Episode 6)

- Desiree Akhavan - Uncle Naseem (Ramy, Season 2 Episode 9)

- Maja Vrvilo - Children of the Comet (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 1 Episode 2)

- Runyararo Mapfumo - Episode 7 (Sex Education, Season 3 Episode 7)

20. Megan Ganz - The Gang's Still in Ireland (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Season 15 Episode 6)

Megan Ganz is known best for her work as a screenwriter, penning some of the most hysterical episodes across Community, Modern Family and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (this combo means that Ganz is probably in the all-time top 10 of people who have made me laugh the most). More recently, she has also taken up directing, and from what I've seen so far, I'm dying to see more. The whole four-episode Ireland arch is probably the best thing It's Always Sunny ever did, and with this gem of an episode, Ganz does exactly what is required of a sitcom director - building an end product that elevates all the jokes and line deliveries into the funniest possible versions of themselves.

19. Kim Friedman - The Jem’Hadar (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 2 Episode 26)

When researching last week's post as well as this one, I was sad to see that Deep Space Nine, my favorite series in the Star Trek universe, hadn't given nearly as much space for female writers and directors as many of the other Star Trek shows. It's important to acknowledge this, as we nerds need to be just as critical of our favorite media as the media we don't like - and at least I still get to praise the franchise as a whole, because many of the shows (Voyager in particular) were very much ahead of their time when it came to equality in writing&directing hires.

Deep Space Nine still makes it onto today's list, because the relatively few episodes that were trusted to various female directors are quite excellent - in particular, the season 2 finale The Jem'Hadar. Without spoiling too much to people who haven't seen the show but might want to watch it sometime, this episode was surely a challenging one to direct, as it takes some major leaps into the unknown in terms of what we had seen so far in the series, and what its major long-term storylines were building towards. Kim Friedman really makes the most of this challenge, rising to the occasion and providing some well-built, great-looking science fiction, truly in the core of the franchise's "to boldly go where no one has gone before" thematics.

18. Jennifer Lynch - JSS (The Walking Dead, Season 6 Episode 2)

David Lynch's daughter proves that the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Now, with her old man gone, it really warms one's heart to know that a good degree of his genius was passed on to the next generation. In what is one of The Walking Dead's most intense episodes (and that's saying something), Jennifer Lynch does a brilliant job coordinating the sequence of the murderous 'Wolves' attacking the Alexandria safe zone, with the chaotic action taking up all of the episode's runtime while being so exciting that the relentless action never falls flat or starts to bore the viewer.

17. Pamela Fryman - The Final Page (How I Met Your Mother, Season 8 Episodes 11-12)

This used to be my #1 favorite How I Met Your Mother episode - and while that slot has been overtaken by How Your Mother Met Me (also directed by sitcom goddess Pamela Fryman), I retain that this two-parter is still the show's best-directed episode. I mean, the climactic scene where Barney's long-con marriage proposal is revealed - every detail is just perfect. The script itself might have made the moment come across as goofy and unserious, but Fryman's expert directing elevates it into its full potential, thus making it one of the most legen - wait for it - DARY moments in sitcom history.

16. Janicza Bravo - Juneteenth (Atlanta, Season 1 Episode 9)

If you're familiar with Jordan Peele's acclaimed film Get Out, you'll get why the subtlety of the uncomfortable atmosphere in its first act is one of its most praised aspects. But what if you took a similar milieu and made the anxiety and discomfort even more subtle?

That's what you get with this magnificent dose of social satire and dark comedy. In this episode, two Black characters are invited to a Juneteenth party, hosted by some well-intentioned but awkward white people, and as they mingle, they start to notice that some things are off. Janicza Bravo's directing is just right, with so much nuance creating the perfect balance between unsure feelings, painful cringe, clever hilarity, and dark undertones.

15. Hiromi Kamata - Ladies of the Willow World (Shogun, Season 1 Episode 6)

First of all - one of the many important jobs a director has is pushing their actors to be the best versions of themselves in their roles. Mariko, played by Anna Sawai, was most definitely the best and most intriguing character in last year's hit series Shogun, and Sawai does her very best work in her award-winning role in this episode. She's great in every episode, but clearly Hiromi Kamata said the exact right things to really channel her into even further greatness in Ladies of the Willow World.

Also, it's just a fantastic episode. The production values are high as they are throughout Shogun, but somehow the directing is the most impressive in this subdued hour - there aren't any major battle sequences or anything of the sort, but the slow-paced, dialogue-heavy episode just flows with a beautiful atmosphere, while looking absolutely mesmerizing.

14. Pamela Fryman - Something Borrowed, Someone Blue (Frasier, Season 7 Episodes 23-24)

Sitcom directors don't always get the love that drama directors do - but let's be real, it takes some serious talent and vision to pull off a classic like Something Borrowed, Someone Blue. In the two-part finale to Frasier's seventh season, a chaotic wedding takes place as emotions run high, meddling and misunderstanding is in the air, and a storyline built across all seven seasons comes to a climactic point of no return. Pamela Fryman's expert directing keeps the episode flowing in just the right style, keeping the comedic and romantic tension sky-high until the last seconds, making for one of the great episodes in the sitcom hall of fame.

13. Gabrielle Beaumont - Lower Decks (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 7 Episode 15)

This cult classic from The Next Generation's final season is so good that its premise inspired a whole other TV show (and a DAMN good one at that) decades later. In this concept episode, we take a break from the ship-running senior officers and bridge crew whose POV we had followed throughout the entire the series, and instead give the point of view to the low-ranking ensigns aboard the starship Enterprise.

This makes for a fascinating contrast, and Gabrielle Beaumont's magic touch really underlines how different life on the Enterprise is for those in the 'lower decks'. Beaumont's prolific career saw her become one of the grounbreaking, glass-ceiling-shattering directors of her generation, as she was one of the very first women to regularly direct prime-time TV episodes throughout the 80's and thereon out - and this gem has got to be one of the many high points in her career.

12. Amy Sherman-Palladino - Raincoats and Recipes (Gilmore Girls, Season 4 Episode 22)

It's the best, most iconic episode of Gilmore Girls for many reasons, and the directing by showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino herself is among the big ones. Directing-wise, I'm guessing that the season 4 finale must have been the hands-down most challenging in the entire show; between the call for a truly magical feel as the Dragonfly Inn is finally opened after four seasons of build-up, the need for balance between characters as everyone in the main cast is under the same roof for once, and the task of conveying a large range of emotions due to the episode's roller-coaster story, it makes sense that a showrunner wouldn't trust the episode's direction to anyone but herself.

11. Gail Mancuso - Las Vegas (Modern Family, Season 5 Episode 18)

Sitcom directing at its finest. Las Vegas is the all-time great example of Modern Family's trademark episode archetype (the one where a fuck-bunch of misunderstandings are set up like tiny little threads, only for it all to pay off in a chaotic series of events where everything goes to hell in the most amusing manner). This is obviously thanks to the script as well, but directing plays a massive part in how funnily such an episode plays out - and this is perfection right here. All of the visual gags, from Rebarka the dog and the Scottish dancing troupe to the ex-boyfriend in the bathtub and the accidentally perfect magic trick, are set up like a series of Chekov's guns, only for them to go off in the most hilarious way one could imagine.

10. Susanna White - The Eye (Andor, Season 1 Episode 6)

In this season 1 gem from the greatest TV show in the Star Wars universe, Cassian Andor and his team of rag-tag misfits attempt to pull off a heist they've been planning for several episodes. Susanna White directs every little detail with aplomb, making for a thrilling, intense and thoroughly engaging episode to follow. With proper production values and grand visuals at her disposal, the director really leaves her mark on the franchise, producing moments that are as riveting as the best of them.

9. MJ Delaney - The Hope That Kills You (Ted Lasso, Season 1 Episode 10)

The season 1 finale of Ted Lasso is many things - an emotional roller coaster, a proper culmination of the debut season's many plotlines and character archs, and a high point for the football side of the show that is about a lot more than just football. All of this was thankfully trusted to the care of the brilliant MJ Delaney, who molded the premise and script into what I consider to be the best individual episode of the entire series.

First of all, the actual football scenes are at their best here - they're a bit corny and unrealistic throughout the series (which I don't mind - they had limited production values and the sport isn't the primary focus really), but never did they look as riveting, entertaining and close to real football as they do under MJ Delaney's vision. But more than that, it's the atmosphere that she creates into the episode's key moments - the Richmond squad getting fired up to do the 'Lasso special', the players reacting to the relegation, You'll Never Walk Alone starting to play as Jamie receives words of encouragement from Ted after being berated by his dad - that seals the deal.

Delaney's directing is especially world-class in my personal favorite moment: veteran player Roy Kent injures himself with a heroic, game-saving and career-ending tackle, and as he starts to get up and limp off the pitch, he hears fans of both teams chanting what used to be his fan song from his glory days in Chelsea. "He's here, he's there, he's every-fucking-where, ROY KENT, ROOY KEEEENT" - tears, man.

8. Beth McCarthy-Miller - Live from Studio 6H (30 Rock, Season 6 Episode 19)

When watching 30 Rock, a TV show about the people producing a fictional TV show, I kept thinking "man, it would be the coolest thing ever if they did an episode that is made as if it's an entire episode of the fictional show-within-a-show". And finally, they did - sort of, at least. The exact premise of Live from Studio 6H is a bit unclear due to how delightfully unhinged it is - but what we do know for sure is that it was filmed live, which is cool as f**k.

Essentially, the episode was written out and practiced like a play, and finally they preformed it at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, with the unadulterated end result becoming the episode we see in the show's sixth season. I'm guessing it was showrunner and comedy maestro Tina Fey who came up with the idea, but director Beth McCarthy-Miller sure sees it through, having so much fun with the premise and its implications. It must have been quite the hassle to put this episode together, but the end result is deliriously chaotic and hilariously entertaining.

In addition to Fey and McCarthy-Miller, the third woman who needs to be highlighted here is casting director Katja Blichfeld - the flashbacks to the young versions of the main characters are some of the funniest shit I've ever seen, thanks to the comedically genius casting. Donald Glover as a young Tracy Jordan was perfection, Jimmy Fallon showing up as a young Jack Donaghy worked on so many levels - and by the time we get to a young Liz Lemon just being Amy Poehler in a wig, the average fan is bound to be crying from laughter.

7. Michelle MacLaren - To'hajiilee (Breaking Bad, Season 5 Episode 13)

With expert skill and an eye for working with cinematic production values, Michelle MacLaren has brought us some of the better episodes across Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Out of her many masterstrokes, one that I'd single out in particular is To'hajiilee, the fourth-last episode from the mega-acclaimed final season of Breaking Bad.

I've always loved the type of TV episode in a plot-driven series, where a season is close to its end and the stakes reach an unprecedented high, leading to a full seeing-red panic and sense of chaos as shit starts to hit the fan. Y'know - 17 Seconds from Grey's Anatomy, the penultimate episode of every Dexter season, et cetera. And To'hajiilee is possibly the all-time great example of the archetype. After nearly five seasons of intricately built storylines, it all starts to come to a head, as the show's endgame kicks off with just the highest levels of intensity. The adrenaline rush in those last moments is relentless, as MacLaren really pours her heart and soul into the intense atmosphere of the closing sequences.

6. Jamie Babbit - HalloVeen (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 5 Episode 4)

This is sitcom royalty right here. The reasons for HalloVeen being the best individual episode in Brooklyn Nine-Nine's eight-season run are twofold: A) it's the larger-than-life Halloween Heist tradition at its peak, and B) it culminates in (spoiler alert) Jake and Amy's engagement. Jamie Babbit's directing really helps sell both of these developments: the heist scenes are the funniest, most intricate and most over-the-top that they've ever been across the tradition that spanned throughout every season of the show, and the proposal scene is built in a manner where it's equal parts unexpected and heart-melting.

5. Lesli Linka Glatter - Demons (Twin Peaks, Season 2 Episode 6)

Quite often, an individual episode calls for a specific vibe, and the showrunners need the exact right director to make sure the need is met. For Demons, the criminally underrated Twin Peaks episode that aired a week before the notorious episode Lonely Souls changed television history forever, the vibe that was needed was 'calm before the storm'. Lesli Linka Glatter, who would go on to win Emmys for her work directing key episodes of Homeland and Mad Men, was the right person in the right place at the right time, took the assigment seriously and just f**king went places with it.

The scene where the one-armed man Mike is interrogated at the sheriff's station is just prime Twin Peaks, with Glatter's directing creating a haunting, heart-stopping and creepy-as-hell atmosphere. The episode is slow-paced in just the right way, with every little detail feeling like some big shit is about to go down, which makes the episode a perfect bridge into Lonely Souls.

4. Laura Innes - Let Bartlet Be Bartlet (The West Wing, Season 1 Episode 19)

Ah, I get shivers just thinking about this one. In one of the finest hours of The West Wing and a truly series-defining episode, Laura Innes brings the script by my all-time favorite screenwriter Aaron Sorkin into its utmost potential, truly showing what Sorkin at its Sorkin-est should look like, and it's heaven. We start off with a cold open that, while subtly setting up the episode's plotlines amidst the humor, is one of the best-constructed moments of comedy in TV history, even though it's a drama series. That cold open alone shows how perfect of a fit Laura Innes was for directing this series.

From thereon out, more TV history is made. Let Bartlet Be Bartlet is fantastic TV throughout its runtime, but it's rightfully best-remembered for those closing moments - the argument between President Bartlet and Leo, and the subsequent scene of the duo reaching an inspiring agreement and firing up their team with the next orders. Laura Innes' expert directing turns this series of events into absolute fist-pumping perfection - the pacing, the tension, the dynamics and every other detail are just right, making for a scene where the show's trademark idealism can be felt like a physical presence. Hell yeah.

3. Gabrielle Beaumont - Blink of an Eye (Star Trek: Voyager, Season 6 Episode 12)

This 45-minute episode of a Star Trek spin-off from the 90's is honestly a better standalone science fiction story than like 90 per cent of the sci-fi movies I've seen (and I love sci-fi movies). In Blink of an Eye, we follow the USS Voyager as it gets stuck in the atmosphere of a planet where time moves differently - and for the hours it spends there, decades take place on the surface of the planet, where the mysterious object they see in the sky becomes a mythical source of worship, something to inspire them to reach for the stars. Blink of an Eye is one of the finest hours in a beloved franchise, and it's Gabrielle Beaumont's directing that gives it such a peculiar atmopshere that the end result feels as clever and creative as it does beautiful and touching.

2. Chandra Wilson - Give Peace a Chance (Grey's Anatomy, Season 6 Episode 7)

I have to start out by pointing out an incredible fun fact - this episode, which I've ranked as my sixth-favorite Grey's Anatomy episode overall and would rank even higher when looking purely at the show's best-directed episodes, was Chandra Wilson's directorial debut. Not just the first Grey's Anatomy episode she directed, mind you - the first thing she directed, ever. I cannot emphasize enough how amazing that is - you see it time and time again, that even the best directors start out with small and unremarkable projects, before gaining the experience and expertise to try out some stuff and then start making their best work. Mind you, Wilson has kept her level and directed plenty of fantastic Grey's episodes after this one (season 7's White Wedding and season 8's Moment of Truth are some favorites), but I can't help but see her debut as her finest hour.

Well, finest hour in the director's chair at least - you see, for those who don't know, Wilson is known best for playing the role of Miranda Bailey, the show's hands-down best character if you ask me. Quite often, when an actor from a show's cast starts directing episodes, the first few tries are fairly unremarkable - but she struck gold from the get-go. I still can't fathom how good her directing was in her first try - Give Peace a Chance is one of my very favorite episodes specifically because of the directing, as the episode's atmosphere reads out like a piece of cinema when compared to the other, more procedural episodes around it. There's a real sense of magic throughout the episode, making the end result feel like a grade-A mini-movie.

1. Hettie Macdonald - Blink (Doctor Who, Season 3 Episode 10)

Two years ago, my fiancée Martta and I held a Halloween marathon. We watched all sorts of horror classics, from Frankenstein and Dracula to Night of the Living Dead and the original Halloween. But when the night was done, we were both in agreement that the single scariest thing we had watched all day was, in fact, this episode of Doctor f**king Who.

Mind you, Doctor Who is not a horror series - in fact, it's generally very family-friendly, to the point that it's often belittled as a 'kids' show' by people who take life too seriously and have forgotten the concept of fun. But, as a part of the show's chaotic recipe of mixing genres and utilizing its sci-fi premise so they can go bonkers in all sorts of directions from episode to episode, it has been seen from time to time that the show's creepier episodes are a lot creepier than they have any right to be. And Blink rules above all.

Now, Blink is the best episode in the show's over-60-year-old history and one of my all-time top 5 television episodes for many reasons. The horror aspect is the one I'm mainly focused on here, because it's a list about directors, and many of the other reasons have more to do with the episode's writing. But Blink would not be the masterpiece that it is if it didn't have the masterful Hettie Macdonald pulling the strings, intricately putting together a tapestry of pure intensity. I have seen the episode countless times (because again, it's one of the best pieces of media ever produced), and even though I know exactly what's going to happen, I still get swept up in the escalating intensity each time, because it all feels so real. Television history was made with this one, and it will always remain one of the all-timers.

Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I celebrate the newest season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, as well as the show's 20-year anniversary, by ranking the 20 best IASIP episodes.