Leaving out shows where the journey is the premise - like most Star Treks, and Doctor Who - as unfair, here are five of many that come to mind.

1) Thelma and Louise. I love well done road movies in general - this is, after all, the genre that matches inward with outward journeys - , but if pressed, this one is my absolute favourite. I love Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in it. I love Ridley Scott doing his Ridley Scott thing, i.e. epic cinematography, and it always strikes me that even after all those years, his view of American landscapes is one of something slightly alien and fascinating in its alienness. I love that he reveals the faces of his actresses just as those landscapes as the characters grow. (Compare Thelma's strong make-up and lipstick look at the start to her sunburnt face near the end of the film, when she tells Louise "just keep going".) I love C. Khouri's script. I love the music. I just love this film.

2) Brief Lives. Many Neil Gaiman stories are journeys, especially in Sandman, and some days, I'd pick Lyta's journey to the Furies and back in The Kindly Ones as "most interesting", but today, it's Dream and Delirium on the road in Brief Lives. This particular volume is the big turning point of the entire Sandman saga, and it starts so deceptively low scale - Dream wanting some distraction from his latest botched romance leading to his agreement when Delirium asks him to search their brother Destruction with her. And of course, Destruction is whom and what they find, in more than one sense. Brief Lives is so many things, including a blue print of the later novel American Gods with all the former gods working in various jobs to survive these days; it features some of Sandman's funniest scenes (Dream asking Matthew whether he could teach Delirium to drive, Matthew replying "are you kidding? I died in a car crash the first time around" whereupon Dream wrily says "I am not sure that is a recommendation"), and some of the most heartbreaking (the entire sequence between Orpheus and Dream). The various sibling relationships between the Endless - Dream and Delirium of course, but also Destruction and Despair, Desire and Dream, Destruction and Dream, Destiny, Dream and Delirium - all come across so intensely. Death's short appearance when the millennia surviving Bernie finally dies sums up Death's philosophy in the entire series in a single line, her reply to Bernie's question: "You got what everyone gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime." The way Greece is used resonates with every mythology-digging bone in my body. "It is a beautiful day." Oh, Brief Lives.

3) Transamerica. Another road movie I love to bits, and not just because of Felicity Huffman's standout performance as Bree, a transsexual days before her operation. It combines so many things, the odd couple factor - proper Bree and teenage hustler Toby - the parent and child story (because Toby, though he doesn't know it, is the result of a youthful college experimentation of Bree's when she was still Stanley and struggling with her identity) - and a coming of age story for both Bree and Toby. You get a strong sense of personality even from minor figures like Graham Greene's character who flirts with Bree or her parents and sister. And the script is delightfully geeky, as when Toby, who wants to impress Bree, rambles on on why Lord of the Rings is "totally gay".

4) Lord of the Rings. Speaking of: Tolkien was a fantastic world builder, and whether we're talking of the WWI - inspired dead marshes en route to Mordor or the Last Homely House or the white city of Gondor, you can imagine those places sso very well, and you get a true sense of their history. (I always appreciated that the films managed to get that sense of history across as well.) The fellowship he created to undertake the journey to all these places was imitated and paid homage to, parodied and written against in countless fantasy novels in the decades hereafter, and there are actually fantasy sagas that I love better, but if it comes down to it, I'd never dispute the grandfather of all fantasy fiction the rank of most interesting. One ring to rule them all, indeed.

5) Cairo Time. Possibly after a few years I might put another fictional journey there, but right now, the impressions are still fresh, and to repeat myself: love the actors, Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig, love that both they and their characters are middle aged (and beautifully so), love the way the meeting of cultures is handled, and both current day Egypt and the famous monuments (the way the film stays away from more than quick teases of the pyramids until the climactic scene late in the movie is a great example of emotional character journey and outward journey uniting, for example), love that we're dealing with a female director here, and her understated yet pointed commentary (for example, a belly dancer at an embassy reception for the tourists versus shared dancing at an Egyptian wedding in Alexandria later). And yes, it left me with a powerful longing to return to Egypt.

This one was tough, as I have considerable more than five friendships I love in the various fandoms I've fallen for. But here's a selection:

1) Londo Mollari and Vir Cotto in Babylon 5. Oh, let me count the ways in which I adore this relationship. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it grows over the course from the series (as do the characters), and it illustrates beautifully one of the trickiest things about friendship, fictional o otherwise: loyalty doesn't have to be blind. Vir's unlimited affection for Londo never blinds him to what is glaringly wrong about the things Londo does, and during the period of Londo's fall, he never stops doing something about this. Conversely, Vir goes from being the assistant Londo gets stuck with at the start of the show to Londo's reason to live (as evidenced in The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari in season 5).

2) Sydney Bristow and Marcus Dixon in Alias. It's that rarity, a strong m/f friendship without the slightest bit of UST, and thankfully the writers never were tempted to change that. (*glares in the direction of Joss & Co. for the disaster that was Angel/Cordelia which ruined another of my favourite friendships.*) Dixon and Sydney trust and respect each other; the plot-caused lie between them during the first one and a half seasons makes for a terrific resolution once Sydney decides to risk all on her knowledge of Dixon and tells him the truth. I always loved their scenes together, and frankly preferred Dixon as Sydney's partner during her missions to any other. (Well, okay, save Marshall, because that was made of win.)

3) Thelma and Louise in Thelma and Louise. There have been (not nearly enough) takes on f/f buddy movies and shows since, but none touched me as deeply. Everything comes together here; I love that Thelma and Louise are two adult women, not teenagers or in their early 20s but both well over 30, that while Thelma starts out as the vulnerable "girly" one and Louise as the calm sensible one they keep changing caretaker positions and are true equals in the end; I love that they're played by Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis at their best, that their friendship was written by a female scriptwriter, and oh, I love all the gorgeous images in this film. (Scott at his best.) Of all the many entries in the road movie genre, this is my favourite, and it is so because of the friendship between Thelma and Louise.

4) Mal and Zoe in Firefly. Nobody uses the word "Sir" as inventively as Zoe does. Whether she wants to point out to Mal he's being a crazy ass again or just tell him she has his back, the way she says "Sir" shows us and him exactly what she means. Mal and Zoe went to hell and came back together; they're comrades (and, like Sydney and Dixon, without the slightest sexual interest in each other), friends, and the way they're able to use emotional shorthands is never more heartbreakingly conveyed than near the end of the Big Damm Movie, when they talk about Serenity the ship; but what Mal is really asking about is Zoe, and she replies for both.

5) a) Hiro and Ando in Heroes. Their storyline through the first season is a road movie on its own, and an adorable one; and by the time the season ends, they have both become heroes in every sense of the word. There so many Hiro 'n Ando moments to choose from, but my favourite illustraton of this fact is perhaps Ando saving the day in Parasite and what it enables Hiro to do.
b) Hiro and Nathan in Heroes Four on screen encounters do probably not a friendship make, which is why I had to relegate this to an addendum, but in my heart of hearts, I must confess that the... whatever you want to call it... between Hiro Nakamura and Nathan Petrelli makes me even mushier than the one between Hiro and Ando. Because it was so unexpected, because they're such complete opposites in every sense and yet hit it off, because most people in the Heroes-verse bond via shared danger, but Nathan and Hiro after Hiro's initial approach due to the flying just do so because they like each other. Which is why this moment caused me more angst than most other things in the final eps and makes me hope fervently Hiro will find out that ( spoiler for end of s1 ) in s2.