1. Star Trek: TOS: That moment in "Mirror, Mirror" when we pan over to Spock, and he's got a beard. The seminal moment from which all future AU fantasies stemmed, I think. The whole episode, really, was a revelation. I'm sure I'd read science fiction and fantasy novels by that point, about different worlds and places, but AUs don't have deep impact--you don't really *get* their thrill--unless you have an OU, an original universe that you care about, to compare against.
2. Star Trek: TOS: There's a bit in "City on the Edge of Forever" where Spock is in the rooming house, working on some equipment, and he's out of his own time and he's on earth, and it all drives home this sense of the displaced alien. I think that's one of the things that's helped define the archetype in my mind. Every time I have an AU fantasy, and I have a lot, I picture people stuck somewhere with a much lower technological level, getting by in those same types of rooms. It's amazingly consistent.
3. X-Files: The Mulder/Krycek kiss, of course. That was huge when it happened, and felt very much like a validation of the UST. I was giddy for days after that.
4. X-Files: That bit in "Demons" where Mulder is so desperate to recapture the memories of his past that he allows that guy to drill a needle of ketamine into his skull. Fucked-up men are the hottest.
5. X-Files: I can't remember the ep or even the context, but there's this scene in Mulder's apartment where he's alone and he slumps down slowly against a door frame and just cries in grief over something.
6. Sentinel: In the pilot, when Jim grabs Blair and shoves him against the wall of his office, getting in his face. Heh. On such moments are pairings born.
7. Sentinel: Likewise, in "Warriors" where Jim is losing it just after Incacha's death and Blair tries to calm him down, and they jostle together in the middle of the loft, and it's like they're dancing in intense anger and grief. Amazingly well-choreographed and very intimate. Seen in a hundred vids.
8: Sentinel: Jim reviving Blair when he drowns. Why is it we only get to see men kiss when they're giving the breath of life? In fact, I might was well make this a trifecta: in "Smallville" we have Clark life-kissing Lex, and in "Due South" we have Fraser giving RayK a mouthful of air as they struggle underwater. All intensely memorable moments for slashers in these fandoms. Duh.
9. Due South: See above. But also--one of the most intense scenes ever--the end of "The Wild Bunch." Dief is behaving funny, and Animal Control thinks he's too feral and must be destroyed, so Fraser tracks him into the countryside, prepared to kill him. And Dief runs out across the snowy field, and Fraser takes aim with his rifle and then just stands there, finger on the trigger, and he's so torn up that he can only stare out at Dief, but you know he'll take the shot eventually, and the moment gets closer and closer, and then Dief suddenly meets up with Maggie in the snow, barking in joy, and Fraser *gets* it and whips around suddenly and shoots the bad guy instead, the bullet kicking the gun right out of his hand. And we learn later that Dief had gotten Maggie pregnant and was being crazy because he was protective of her.
10. Stargate: That moment in "Absolute Power" when Jack realizes that Daniel really is going to nuke Moscow, and he empties his gun at Daniel, who just sits in his command chair like a prince on his throne, safe behind his shield and calm as anything as he waits it out. And then Jack tries one last desperate time to talk him out of it, saying that all this alien junk has been put in Daniel's head, and is making him do this. And Daniel says coldly, "There's only one flaw in that theory. You're assuming this is not what I wanted all along." And presses the button.
11. Stargate: Jack putting his golf club through Hammond's car window after Daniel's funeral.
12. Stargate: In "The Other Side," when they're about to gate out and then Jack lays his hand over Daniel's to stop him from activating the gate, and after all their fighting, he acknowledges that Daniel was right, there's something bad and wrong going on and they need to stay and look into it.
13: Buffy: That moment in "Once More, With Feeling" where the demon is singing in the graveyard: "She's not even half the girl she--owww!" Oddly enough--maybe because I came in fairly late--that was when my love of the show coalesced into true fannish commitment. It was just so fucking brilliant and funny and meta; aware of itself, in a good way. It's like, a show can have a kind of consciousness, a sentience that makes you identify it as a living universe. I don't know how else to put it. (Of course, such shows can also get *self-conscious* in their later years, which is not so good.)
14. Buffy: The end of OMWF, when Buffy and Spike kiss. Which was when I became not just a fan, but a *rabid* fan, amazed at where the show was willing to go. I'd come to the show as a regular watcher midway through season three, so I wasn't there for the first run of the Buffy/Angel arc, the heart of it. Somehow Buffy with Spike struck me as much more cutting-edge, maybe because he wasn't a romanticized, soulful figure, but a true monster. I mean, he *was* romanticized, but it was the darkest, night-blooming shade of romance.
15: Buffy: The end of "Tabula Rasa," which literally kicked my ass out from under me. I was blown away that they'd do an ending kiss two episodes in a row--making a pattern where none could have been expected.
16: Buffy: The instinctive way Spike grabs and holds the sword between his bare hands in "Spiral," when the knight thrusts it through the roof of the RV near Buffy's head. His pained, stoic expression as he tells Buffy she might want to go up there and deal with it. And god, "Intervention," where he calculatedly tells Glory off, gets kicked out of his chains into the hallway, and then staggers down the hall to the elevator, falls onto its roof, descends. That fucking kills me. Then, later, the kiss Buffy gives him when he's so throughly thrashed. And oh, this is all familiar territory, but of course the scene in "The Gift," when he thanks her for treating him like a man. And when she comes back and he tells her, "Every night I saved you." The hopeless, grimly loyal love of a fucked-up man. Yeah, baby.
17: Buffy: The mutual look between Spike and Xander in whateverthehell that ep was, when Nancy asks if anyone there hasn't slept together. Snerk.
18: Buffy: The first sight of Vampire!Xander in "The Wish," looking Cordelia up and down with cold eyes.
19. Angel: Wes opening his closet door to reveal Justine bound and imprisoned there, after he's just had sex with Lilah. That changed my vision of Wes *forever*. For the better, frankly. I like crazy bastards.
20. QAF: The moment on the way to New York City, when Brian and Michael stand off to the side of the road smoking a joint. At this time, Michael is just about to decide whether to move in with David--though that's not what this conversation is about. Brian is actually telling Michael how incredibly great he is, and it's so fucking sweet and heartwarming you can feel little roses blooming from your left ventricle, and then...Brian kisses him. And on a *dime*, the moment turns and you think: Brian, you FUCKER! You manipulative bastard! You love him, you hate him: Brian Kinney.
21. QAF: The prom dance in the season one finale. Holy. Crap.
22. QAF: The moment in the season two opener when Brian is undressing in the dimmed loft and Michael surreptitiously watches and sees...the scarf.
23: QAF: The prom dance reprised to try and recapture Justin's memory, which is just breathtaking and heartbreaking.
24. QAF: That scene in season two where they're all over at Deb's having dinner and Justin starts clearing dishes, and asks Brian to help him and grab the platter, and Brian *does*, and there's this tiny, collective indrawn breath as everyone notices and goes carefully still and exchanges glances in amazement, as it suddenly sinks in how thoroughly Justin has undermined Brian's aloof detachment and ensnared him into boyfriend mode. I think I love that more than ice cream. With sprinkles.
25: Wiseguy: The moment when Vinnie and Sonny have thrashed it out, and they sit and stare at each other for the longest, anguished, lovestruck eyefuck in the history of television, while "Nights in White Satin" plays.
And those are my memories for the day.