There are two kinds of people in this world:

I, obviously, belong to the second group.

Give me a cast bursting into song for absolutely no narrative reason and I am instantly 14 years old watching the WB on a school night, fully feral and emotionally invested. I love a musical episode. I love the brilliance, the chaos, the tonal whiplash, the moments where actors who have no business singing get handed a power ballad and told to “sell it.”

And yes, let’s just get this out of the way:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Once More, With Feeling sits at the top of the mountain. Untouchable. A masterpiece. A pop-culture relic so perfect it deserves its own museum wing. It is television alchemy. Peak millennial culture. The reason many of us think we can sing.

But not every show can be Buffy. Some musical episodes… well, they’re ambitious in a “should we call someone?” kind of way.

And that’s why I defend them even more.

Because musical episodes aren’t meant to be flawless. They’re meant to be bold. They’re meant to break the rules. They’re an excuse for writers to indulge their inner theatre kid and for actors to attempt notes usually reserved for shower acoustics.

Take Scrubs, for example. “My Musical” was heartfelt, sweet and weirdly profound, proving that even a hospital dramedy can pivot into Broadway mode without falling apart. Or Fringe, which decided that a noir musical dreamscape was the perfect vessel for daddy issues, trauma bonding and alternate-universe tension. And they were right.

Then there’s Futurama, which treated musical numbers like chaotic hyperlinks: quick bursts of song to underline something absurd, sexy, or scientifically impossible. Xena: Warrior Princess said “what if camp, but louder?” and delivered musical episodes dripping in earnest sincerity and bisexual chaos.

The Simpsons practically invented the “every episode is secretly a musical” genre, giving us bangers that still live in our heads rent-free. (“Monorail,” your influence is eternal.)

And let’s not forget Oz, a maximum-security prison drama that decided the best way to process trauma, violence and existential dread was… an a cappella Greek chorus. Could it have been a wildly different show? Yes. Did the singing somehow work? Also yes. Against all odds.

Then there’s Community, which understood the musical episode not as whimsy but as mind control. “Regional Holiday Music” weaponised Glee-style cheerfulness as a cult tactic, turning harmony into indoctrination and choreography into psychological warfare. It was smart, self-aware, and deeply committed to the bit, which is always the difference between parody and cowardice. Community didn’t just do a musical episode. It did a musical episode about musical episodes, and somehow made it catchy.

More recently, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds proved that even legacy sci-fi isn’t immune to the siren call of jazz hands. “Subspace Rhapsody” justified its songs through canon, quantum nonsense and emotional repression finally hitting critical mass. It shouldn’t have worked. It absolutely did. Watching Starfleet officers process duty, desire and disappointment through earnest show tunes felt like the franchise admitting what it’s always known: feelings are the real final frontier.

And yes. We need to talk about Grey’s Anatomy. “Song Beneath the Song” is messy. It is earnest to the point of danger. It asks you to accept near-death trauma being processed through pop covers while surgeons whisper-sing in scrubs. Is it good? Debatable. Is it important? Unfortunately, yes. Because it represents peak network-TV audacity: the moment a wildly successful medical soap looked at its own emotional excess and said, “What if… musical?” You don’t have to love it. You just have to respect the nerve.

Even Fringe and Xena were out here reminding us that musical episodes don’t need to match the show’s tone. In fact, they work better when they absolutely don’t.

But perhaps the crown jewel of unhinged brilliance belongs to Supernatural. Not for its songs per se, but for the absolute chaos of casting teenage girls to play Sam and Dean in a school musical based on the fictional book series inside the show. It was meta. It was camp. It was theatre kid genius. A stroke of brilliance that turned fan culture, self-insert fiction and Winchester codependency into art.

Musical episodes are ridiculous. They are indulgent. They are often deeply unnecessary.
And that is exactly why they’re essential.

They remind us television doesn’t have to stay in its lane. That a drama can become a musical, a comedy can become a cabaret, and a sci-fi thriller can suddenly become Glee with guns.

And honestly? In a world full of grim prestige dramas, gritty reboots and CGI sludge masquerading as television, I will take a misguided musical episode over another beige streaming drama any day.

Bring on the songs. Bring on the chaos. Bring on the actors sweating through harmonies. I’ll be there, popcorn in hand, ready to spiral.