The 10 best New Year's Eve TV episodes, from 'Friends' to 'Futurama'

There's nobody better to spend your New Year's with than your "Friends."

Well, in lieu of in-person celebrations with our real friends this year, the fictional Monica (Courteney Cox), Chandler (Matthew Perry), Ross (David Schwimmer), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) are pretty good substitutes. Although not as common as Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas episodes, plenty of great TV shows have offered New Year's Eve installments that are celebratory, funny, sad and affecting (and sometimes all of the above).

Here are the 10 best New Year's TV episodes, from hilarious sitcoms to somber dramas, with each show ringing in its new year with some of the same apprehension and excitement the rest of us usually have.

10. 'My So-Called Life'

Season 1, Episode 16: "Resolutions"

"My So-Called Life" had no shortage of tear-jerkers during its too-short run on ABC, but this emotional installment remains one of the series' best episodes. Angela (Claire Danes) and friends all make resolutions, and while Angela is able to stop doing Jordan's (Jared Leto) homework, Rickie (Wilson Cruz) facing the reality of being homeless and finding where he belongs proves more difficult, and more heart-wrenching.

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9. 'The X-Files'

Season 7, Episode 4: "The Millennium"

In 1999, there was a veritable cottage industry of turn-of-the-millennium-themed New Year's episodes – everyone from "Seinfeld" to "The Simpsons" to "Frasier" took a crack at the ball dropping. The best among many good entries is Fox's "The X-Files," which takes Y2K panic to its sci-fi extreme as Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) must stop a literal zombie apocalypse. But when "Auld Lang Syne" plays, the episode becomes much more notable for the partners' kiss.

8. 'Futurama'

Season 1, Episode 1: "Space Pilot 3000"

Not a traditional New Year's episode by any means, the pilot for the beloved adult animated comedy, which aired on Fox and Comedy Central, finds its hero, pizza delivery guy Fry (Billy West), accidentally cryogenically frozen for 1,000 years, waking up to the 31st century instead of the 21st he expected. The episode is an excellent pilot that sets up the daring series for success while bringing a whole new meaning to "new" year.

7. 'Mad Men'

Season 4, Episode 3: "The Good News"

As the employees of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce ring in 1965, there isn't any particularly good news in this glum installment of the AMC series. This episode from the superb fourth season focuses on Don (Jon Hamm), Joan (Christina Hendricks) and Lane (Jared Harris), showing a different side of each. Don reveals he has the capacity to actually love when confronted with his friend (the wife of the man whose identity he stole) Anna's (Melinda Page Hamilton) terminal cancer; Joan briefly softens to her terrible husband Greg (Samuel Page); and Lane participates in the kind of "Mad Men" debauchery he had thus far eschewed.

6. 'The Office'

Season 7, Episode 12: "Ultimatum"

Pam (Jenna Fischer) tries to get co-workers at the "Office" to follow through on publicized resolutions, but the real story here is between Michael (Steve Carell) and his longtime crush Holly (Amy Ryan). Holly gives her boyfriend an ultimatum to propose by new New Year's or lose her, and Michael takes the countdown to the extreme. It's the beginning of the end of Carell's tenure on the NBC sitcom, a bittersweet period of transition for Dunder Mifflin.

5. 'That '70s Show'

Season 8, Episode 22: "That '70s Finale"

"That '70s Show" ended the same way the '70s did: On December 31, 1979. The long-running Fox show bowed out in a New Year's episode where the gang gathers in Eric's (Topher Grace) basement for one last smoke before the '80s changed everything.

4. 'Friends'

Season 5, Episode 11: "The One with All the Resolutions"

Infamous for a single fashion item (Ross' dangerously too-small leather pants), this episode was one of the NBC series' best for physical humor. This is also the episode in which Rachel finds out that Monica and Chandler are dating, a near-endless source of humor for the show.

3. 'The O.C.'

Season 1 Episode 14: "The Countdown"

Fox's beloved high school series knew how to harness the drama of a holiday, most famously in its "Chrismukkah" episodes. But here the countdown to New Year's serves as a perfect backdrop to Ryan's (Ben McKenzie) race to tell Marissa (Mischa Barton) that he loves her before the year is over. Like the best New Year's events, it includes a kiss.

2. 'How I Met Your Mother'

Season 1, Episode 11: "The Limo"

Sitcoms like CBS' "Mother" find some of their best humor in the relatable, and the writers perfectly understand the mismatch of hype and actual fun that occurs for many on New Year's Eve. Ted (Josh Radnor) rents a limo to try to keep the gang together and happy during the holiday. Of course, things do not go as planned, but the episode is a comedic success, as the action includes our main cast of characters cracking jokes in a limo. When "Mother" focused on its core five, it always soared.

1. 'Friends'

Season 6, Episode 10: "The One with the Routine"

Sometimes all you need is a dance routine. Monica and Ross' goofy and absurd moves at a taping for Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve is one of the most iconic moments in the sitcom's 10-year run. Although it doesn't take place on the actual eve of the New Year, it embodies both "Friends" at its silliest (always a welcome version of the show) and lovingly pokes at the artificial veneer of the holiday.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Best New Year's Eve TV episodes: 'Friends,' 'Futurama,' 'The O.C.'