The 25 best episodes of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', ranked

Rhoda dominated the domestic side of Mary Richards’ life, but occasionally she would pop her head into the world of Mary’s job as well. Usually, this didn’t tend to go well. Here they get a chance to produce a show together, which is fraught for a friendship as is. That’s even before you add in the talent on the show, WJM’s most difficult personalities Ted Baxter and Sue Ann Nivens.

Once again, Sue Ann figures heavily into “A Girl Like Mary.” While she was not a character in the first few seasons, she soon became indispensable, especially after Rhoda and Phyllis left for spinoffs. Of course, it helps Sue Ann was played by none other than the iconic Betty White.

Dream sequences and fantasy episodes are polarizing, but late in the show’s run “Mary Tyler Moore” pulled off a fun one. The three main men in Mary’s life, Lou, Murray, and Ted, fantasize about what it would be like to be married to, well, Mary. Was this a bit of an excuse for all the characters to play future versions of themselves? Sure, but that’s still amusing to see.

It’s a common sitcom trope for everything to go wrong on a big day. What happens here when Mary gets a big nomination for a Teddy Award, which is the biggest television award in the Twin Cities. Everything is disastrous after Mary’s nomination, including at the award show. It’s a farce with a high degree of execution.

You know “The Peter Principle?” The idea that people tend to get promoted up to a level that they aren’t qualified for? That’s at the heart of “Who’s in Charge Here?” Sure, Lou seems like he can handle being the new program manager of his station, but Murray is decidedly not up to the task of being the new boss of the newsroom. He just doesn’t have Lou’s ability to manage through intimidation.

Lou Grant is the perfect foil for Mary Richards, and Ed Asner was absolutely fantastic in the role. He was gruff but lovable, able to get mean but then be sweet in equal measure. That persona plays a perfect role in the humor of “Baby Sit-Com,” where Mary finagles Lou into babysitting Phyllis’ daughter Bess so that she can go on a date instead. Lou and a precocious child? That’s a comedic match we like to see.

Any storyline involving Lou and Ted tends to be all about Ted annoying Lou until he’s at the end of his rope. Now imagine Lou being stuck in the hospital with Ted visiting, unable to leave. It could become a bit too much of the same comedy beat, but in this episode, it really works well and allows Ted a smidge of redemption.

We go from Lou having a medical issue to Ted, as in this final-season episode Ted has a heart attack on air. This leads to Ted having a total change of perception about life, but given that it’s Ted of course it still ends up annoying everybody he works with.

Mary’s first apartment is an iconic sitcom set. That’s so much the case that you may forget she moved early in the sixth season. Rhoda and Phyllis were no longer on the show so they decided maybe a change would do Mary (and the show) good. That makes this a memorable, significant episode, and it’s also a good one.

The fourth season ends with Mary getting a chance to work on a big local-interest piece, and she decides to report on singles bars. Of course, when they finally go live at the bar, it leads to everybody clearing out. This episode also features a pre-fame, pre-Laverne Penny Marshall, who is quite good in her supporting role.

We’re pretty sure sitcoms of a certain era were contractually obligated to do an episode where a character buys a bar or restaurant. In “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” that honor went to Lou, who decided to buy his favorite local dive but finds himself not up to running a bar. It turns out it helps to actually like people if you are running a customer-forward business. Who knew?

Ted Knight was fantastic as Ted Baxter, a character that served as a precursor to the “Anchorman” films. He’s stupid, yes, but he’s also smarmy and arrogant. There’s something decidedly unlikeable about him, even when he’s being funny. This is a real tour de force for Ted (a Ted de force?) as he manages to get a new contract that allows him to shoot commercials as a pitchman, and unfortunately, those (often terrible) commercials are airing during the WJM news program.

Very early in the show’s run, they decided to introduce Rhoda’s mother into the mix, a brassy New York woman who has an extremely complicated relationship with her daughter. She’s passive-aggressive, while Rhoda is just aggressive, and that comes to a head when Mrs. Morgenstern visits Minneapolis. This also introduces Mary into this mother-daughter dynamic, though not for the last time.

It’s to the show’s credit Mary never got married on the show. However, that doesn’t mean “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” didn’t milk weddings like other sitcoms. The show did something clever with the wedding of Ted and Georgette, though. Instead of it being a big, romantic thing, Georgette calls Ted’s bluff when he insincerely proposes yet again, and before we know it there’s a wedding happening in Mary’s apartment.

Midway through the run of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” Lou and his wife Edie separate. That separation eventually becomes final, and Lou is really laid low by it. Some of the most dramatic scenes in the show came between Lou and Edie, and Asner was no slouch at drama. After all, the eventual spinoff “Lou Grant” was a drama, and an Emmy-winning one at that.

Well, we’re still talking Lou and Edie, since these two episodes come back to back. This is actually the aforementioned episode where Lou and Edie begin their trial separation. It doesn’t sit well with Lou in many ways. He’s an old-fashioned man, for starts, but he’s also heartbroken to potentially lose one of the few people he loves in Edie, his longtime wife.

Given that “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” is set in Minnesota, obviously, winter weather shows up occasionally. That’s the case in “The Snow Must Go On,” when a blizzard suspends election results during live election coverage. Mary is in charge of the show, and can she keep things from completely falling apart?

This is, as you may have guessed, the series finale of the show. It’s not just the final episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” but also the final episode of WJM news for many of the major characters. Not Ted, though. In a bit of cynicism from James L. Brooks and company, only the incompetent anchorman is kept on by the new station manager. However, the very final moments are still uplifted, and also pretty iconic.

The fifth season of the show began with an episode that really delved into Mary as a journalist. Mary refuses to name a source and takes it so far that she goes to jail for contempt of court for it. That’s more something you would usually see in a law drama or a serious movie, not a famous, beloved sitcom. Mary’s contempt case does become a recurring thing in the show as well.

We’re back at the Teddy Awards, and this one is something of a disaster as well. Lou has his first date post-separation, but due to confusion, he ends up escorting an elderly senior citizen. Meanwhile, Edie shows up at the Teddys as somebody’s date, making things more awkward. In the end, though, Lou acts like a standup guy.

It’s a running gag in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” that Mary is bad at throwing parties. She tries her best to flip her luck here because a congresswoman is coming over for dinner. Even with the help of Sue Ellen, though, Mary’s party heads toward disaster. We also get a notable appearance from a young Henry Winkler, a few years away from playing The Fonz.

“TV Guide” called this the 27th-best episode of TV back in 1997, and while we aren’t quite as high on it, we do still have a spot for it in our top five. This episode is the first appearance of White as Sue Ann, the Happy Homemaker of WJM. Of course, she’s also a bit of a homewrecker, as her man-eating appetite has come for Lars, Phyllis’ never-seen husband. Phyllis is a polarizing character, but she’s used well here.

OK, so to get the name of this episode you have to know that there is an episode of “That Girl” called “Christmas and the Hard-Luck Kid.” Let’s set that aside, though, and we get a great episode of television. In the first Christmas episode of the show, Mary is left to work on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve, including being in the office alone at night. It’s somber and a little melancholic, but also extremely funny.

Talk about making a splash out of the gate. This is the pilot episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and it’s also second on our list. It’s a perfect opening episode for a show. We’re introduced to the key characters, they all feel like real, fleshed-out people, and it’s sharp and funny like they have been doing it for years. Mary shows up, gets a job at WJM, gets a new apartment, and of course, shows Lou that she has spūnk. Alas, Lou hates spūnk.

There really was no other choice to top this list. “Chuckles Bites the Dust” is not just the quintessential “Mary Tyler Moore Show” episode. It’s one of the quintessential sitcom episodes. Back in 1997 “TV Guide” called it the best TV episode ever. Nick and Nite often agreed as well. In 2009, “TV Guide” moved it down the list, all the way to third. It’s hilarious, it’s beloved, and it’s the peak of an all-time great sitcom.