TV used to be the medium that film types looked down on as a lesser sibling.

But in the last decade or so, it has matured into a place for some of the more exciting creative work - and even before then could sometimes attract big name talent.

We thought we'd take a look at some of the megaphone-wavers who made the leap back for an episode or two - including some who created entire shows and one who switches easily between the worlds of cinema and telly...



Quentin Tarantino

The Show: CSI

The Key Episode: Grave Danger (Season 5, May 2005)
 
While QT had motor-mouthed his way into a gig on a favourite TV show before (he called the shots for ER's episode Motherhood back in 1995), CSI was a driving passion for him.

Working from a story by the man himself, the writing staff concocted a tale of CSI team member Nick Stokes (George Eads) getting kidnapped and buried alive in a coffin.

The Trademark Flourishes: It's full of 'em. Not only does QT play around with different film formats (a nightmare scene of the show's coroners happily slicing into Nick is shot in black and white), it's also bloody, frenzied and loaded with the close-ups that are all over his regular work.

And keeping with the director's love of pop culture, the episode has cameos from Tony Curtis and the original TV Batman Riddler, Frank Gorshin.

Not to mention that it has a huge link to Kill Bill with the buried alive plot, though The Bride didn't have the advantage of a webcam in the coffin to help people find her - she had to scrape her way out.

Finally, the episode's two parts were broken up into Volumes One and Two. Yeah, they went there.

Next: JJ Abrams