The Thanksgiving episode is the very best kind of holiday TV, but it's slowly disappearing

It's that time of year to roast the turkey, bake a pumpkin pie and click on the episode of "Friends" where Monica (Courteney Cox) accidentally cuts off Chandler's (Matthew Perry) toe.

The Thanksgiving TV episode is a distinctly American TV tradition for a distinctly American holiday. It’s not to be confused with a holiday special like "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." We’re talking about your favorite TV characters sitting down (we hope) for a delicious turkey dinner together and comedy and/or drama ensuing, as it did most memorably on "Friends," but also on countless other series. Who thought turkeys could fly in “WKRP in Cincinnati”? How many bet on the outcome of “Slapsgiving” on “How I Met Your Mother”? How many tears were jerked after watching the doctors of "Grey's Anatomy" try to celebrate just one holiday?

But just as many TV traditions are fading into the past with the domination of streaming services and big changes in Hollywood, the perennial Thanksgiving episode is falling out of fashion. As all TV creators, even the broadcast networks, embrace a year-round release schedule, there's very little reason for the timeline of those shows to hew to the real world of ours. It's a shame, because holiday TV episodes – and Thanksgiving episodes especially – can bring out the best in a series. It makes sense, because TV series thrive on conflict and chaos, and nothing is more conflicting and chaotic than family and friends sitting down for a meal.

The best Thanksgiving episodes reveal something about the characters because of the holiday setting, as when Denise (Lena Waithe) finally comes out to her mother (Angela Bassett) on "Master of None." There's Randall’s (Sterling K. Brown) obsession with tradition on “This Is Us” or Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Lorelai’s (Lauren Graham) self-destructive desire to please their friends and family on “Gilmore Girls.” Turkey day episodes can also draw big name guest stars: Brad Pitt showed up on “Friends” as a man who hated Rachel (Jennifer Aniston, his then wife), and Jamie Lee Curtis and Rob Reiner appeared as Jess’ (Zoey Deschanel) divorced parents on “New Girl.”

Here’s the thing about Thanksgiving: Regardless of your religion or background, most Americans celebrate it, and there are a million ways to do so. So we get strippers and Ecstasy on “The Sopranos,” or a pumpkin fight on “Modern Family” or the precinct getting stuck in lockdown on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

It's not just the Thanksgiving episode that is dying out; other very special holiday installments are, too. In the streaming age, some Christmas episodes are released in July ("Ted Lasso" Season 2), if at all. Time was when, during an entire week in late October, every sitcom would put its characters in costumes. Now we settle for the daytime TV hosts and Heidi Klum writhing around on the red carpet.

We'll probably never see the "Stranger Things" kids haggle over pie, or what a real Dutton table spread looks like on "Yellowstone." It's a shame. So few moments on TV unite us anymore, when everyone can stream whatever they want whenever they want. The opportunity for classic quotes like "As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!" is just one more communal experience gone.

But at least we can always pull up that episode of "Friends" where Monica dances around with a turkey on her head.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: TV Thanksgiving episodes are the best, but they're disappearing