15 best Valentine’s Day TV episodes of all time

We choo-choo-choose the greatest February 14-themed installments to grace the small screen

By Saloni Gajjar, Jen Lennon, Cindy White, Jenna Scherer | February 8, 2024 | 1:00pm

TV Lists The Gene and Courtney Show

15 best Valentine’s Day TV episodes of all time

Clockwise from bottom left: Parks And Recreation, Arrested Development, The Simpsons, Futurama (Screenshots: YouTube) Graphic: Rebecca Fassola

February 14 is just around the corner, people. Which means it’s high time to rewatch those Valentine’s Day-centric TV episodes, whether they toast the holiday, revel in its craziness, poke fun at it, or what-have-you. From Michael Scott’s tour of Times Square in The Office to a survey of what love actually is in Orange Is The New Black to the greatest card of all time on The Simpsons, these are, in chronological order, The A.V. Club’s favorite Val-Day-focused TV installments to date.

This article originally published in 2023. It was updated in February 2024.

The Simpsons, “I Love Lisa” (1993)

I choo choo CHOOSE you

“I Love Lisa” is a fantastic example of showing its softer side. The episode boasts that famous “I choo-choo-choose you” valentine, the one Lisa gives to Ralph when she notices he hasn’t gotten any from the rest of their classmates. Ralph, of course, develops an instant crush (“uh, so, do you like…stuff?” remains iconic), and Lisa spends most of the installment trying to figure out how to let him down gently. The series would later offer a more cynical take on Valentine’s Day in season nine’s “Trash Of The Titans,” in which a department store owner invents “Love Day” to boost summer sales (and winds up creating a lot of trash). But our heart always goes back to this one. [Cindy White]

27 Comments