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The 7 best sci-fi/fantasy TV episodes of 2023

The Last of Us, Loki, The Wheel of Time and more all turned in great hours of TV this year. What was the best sci-fi/fantasy episode of 2023?

By Dan Selcke

Tom Hiddleston as Loki in Marvel Studios' LOKI, Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.
Tom Hiddleston as Loki in Marvel Studios' LOKI, Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL. /
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The Last of Us Episode 3 /

1. The Last of Us, "Long Long Time" (HBO)

The Last of Us was one of the biggest hit TV shows of 2023, and deservedly so. Yes, it's yet another zombie drama, but this show was always first and foremost about characters, whom it forced into situations that required them to confront harrowing truths about themselves, the world and the people they cared for. What, The Last of Us asked, is the cost of love? Can it hurt as well as help, destroy as well as save?

The peak of the first season came early, in the third episode, "Long Long Time." This episode is mostly a side story about two characters largely unrelated to the main action: the embittered survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman) and a rather more optimistic man named Frank (Murray Bartlett) who wanders onto Bill's danger-proofed compound sometime after the outbreak of the zombie apocalylpse. We watch their relationship develop over the decades, continually expecting the episode to pivot into a story about fighting zombies or roving gangs of desperate survivors. But it never does. "Long Long Time" is a panorama of an epic romance that managed to thrive in the most impossible of circumstances. It doesn't spare us the hard times, but it does turn them into something affirming and beautiful.

"Long Long Time" is way more touching than an episode of an HBO zombie drama has any right to be. If it has a problem, it's that the rest of the show can't quite compete. By isolating Bill and Frank's story in one episode, The Last of Us gives it a potency it might not have it were spread out over an entire season of TV. There's no question in my mind that this is the best sci-fi/fantasy episode of 2023. And like most great sci-fi/fantasy, it's really about the humans at the center of the story. "Long Long Time" is just a bit more direct about it than usual.

And those are the best sci-fi/fantasy episodes of 2023! But if I can wander into the realm of ordinary drama for a minute, I can't end this list without mentioning one more great hour of TV:

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