With Sweeney Todd's taking home a Golden Globe and the commercial success of Hairspray, Dreamgirls and High School Musical we're certainly past the days when the movie musical is considered box office poison.

But as much as I enjoy popping Chicago in the DVD player, I really like it when episodic television takes a musical turn, and lately we've seen some great additions to the genre (along with a few disasters ... yes, we mean you, Viva Laughlin). A good musical number can make an episode especially memorable, as in the following examples ...

30 Rock: "Midnight Train to Georgia"

Last week's 30 Rock (the season finale, unless the writers' strike is resolved soon), ended with a performance of Gladys Knight and the Pips' "Midnight Train to Georgia" inspired by Kenneth Parcell's (Jack McBrayer) deciding to leave New York to return his home in Georgia. The Motown classic is used to express the friendship between Kenneth and Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan), Jenna (Jane Krakowski)'s need to be in the spotlight and the divide splitting Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and his liberal congresswoman girlfriend C.C. (Edie Falco) apart. The highlight of the number arrives when Tina Fey changes the meaning of "I've got to go" into a cry of "TMI!" Coming from the 30 Rock characters, the meaning of "Midnight Train to Georgia" changes hilariously.
(Thanks to scribegrrrl for finding the video.)

Pushing Daisies: "Hopelessly Devoted to You"

Pushing Daisies' Kristin Chenoweth is well known as a Broadway performer and when her character, Olive Snook, broke into a performance of "Hopelessly Devoted to You" it was an apt marriage of Daisies' fanciful tone and Chenoweth's talents. The original version, from Grease, comes when Sandy realizes how strong her feelings are for Danny, no matter how angry he may make her. On Daisies, however, Olive is fighting her love for Ned, a feeling she hasn't felt free to express honestly.

More recently, Daisies gave us Ellen Greene (who played Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors) singing "Morning Has Broken" as her character breaks out of depression. As with 30 Rock, these moments offer more than a catchy tune: they're a way of expressing where these characters are emotionally in a way that dialogue can't.

X-Play: The Musical

A program consisting of video game reviews shouldn't have much of a shelf life. I mean, who needs to know if The Movies is any good at this point? However, X-Play's snarky, irreverent tone and pop culture references make reruns watchable months and even years afterwards. One of X-Play's more unusual episodes treated viewers to a musical where the devil corrupts hosts Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb with the promise of an X-Play video game (you can watch it here). Spoofing everything from current games to X-Play's own game rating system ("One out of five, it's the only game I know that lowers your sex drive."), the musical has all the smarts and sass you'd expect to hear in an X-Play review.

Scrubs: "My Musical"

When everyday life becomes a musical for a patient (played by Avenue Q's Stephanie D'Abruzzo) at Sacred Heart, we got an episode where well-established character quirks inspired musical numbers. My favorite is "The Rant Song" where a rant from Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) becomes a song reminiscent of the "Major-General's Song" from The Pirates of Penzance. Other character-focused numbers played on the bromance between JD and Turk ("Guy Love") and Carla's racial identity ("For the Last Time, I'm Dominican"). Meanwhile, "What's Going to Happen" played to Scrubs' poignant moments, contrasting the show's absurd comedy with very real matters of life and death.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More with Feeling

Like with Scrubs, when Buffy gave its audience a musical episode there was reason why people were breaking into song: a demon had cast a spell compelling people to sing their deepest emotions, forcing secrets to be revealed and for several simmering subplots to move forward. The episode is full memorable tunes ranging from silly ("I've Got a Feeling") to deeply heartfelt. I remember being especially thrilled to hear "Under Your Spell", Tara's (Amber Benson) sweet love song to Willow (Alyson Hanigan), for its queer inclusiveness. Since then, the episode has spawned Singalong screenings of the episodes, though Fox has put a ban further performances, citing a need to figure out the royalty payments for such an event.

Ugly Betty

Put this one on a "Coming Soon" poster: sometime after production resumes on Ugly Betty, we're promised a musical episode. The episode is expected to feature music from Marc Shaiman and his partner Scott Wittman, who worked together on the musical Hairspray.

There's one select audience that got a taste of what this episode would be like: at the upfronts (where the networks pitch their upcoming season to advertisers) the Ugly Betty cast performed a musical number, one that hasn't been leaked onto YouTube yet ... damnit.