Dear God No: Joss-less 'Buffy' Film in Works

Wrapping up Serenity and, on a larger scale, a multi-month retrospective of the work of my favorite T.V. auteur gave me a sense of bittersweet release. I will certainly watch it all again, much of it before the year is up, but working through his series takes an emotional toll on viewers. I actually spent my Sunday in a funk because I felt almost directionless after reaching my goal. And just as the gloominess finally lifted, I went on over to Whedonesque to make my daily check-and-see-if-I-can-register-finally look around, only to spot an article that chilled my blood more than ever before.

According to The Hollywood Reporter:

A new incarnation of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" could be coming to the big screen.

"Buffy" creator Joss Whedon isn't involved and it's not set up at a studio, but Roy Lee and Doug Davison of Vertigo Entertainment are working with original movie director Fran Rubel Kuzui and her husband, Kaz Kuzui, on what is being labeled a remake or relaunch, but not a sequel or prequel.

Just when I think I'm out, they pull me right back in.

You read that right: Fran and Kaz Kuzui, the people who brought Joss Whedon into the limelight only to jeopardize his career at the start with their neutered take on his vision with the 1992 original film of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, are planning a reboot. Without Joss' involvement. And here we all were thinking FOX was terrible.

I'll be perfectly honest, I'm still not sure this isn't just a good prank, despite quotes from Fran Kuzui that confirm the story. Ergo, I don't want to completely lapse into a fanboyish rage lest I look like a fool. Then again, I'd look like a fool if I did so regardless of the article's merit -- it's since been corroborated on several publications, notably EW -- so let me instead rationally iron out why this is, as objectively as I can process it, one of the worst ideas I've ever heard and why it should never be brought up again.

Right off the bat, the justification for such a move seems ludicrous. Several have pointed to recent, highly successful reboots of such disparate series as the Batman, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica franchises to suggest that this Buffy remake might not be as terrible as your brain -- and your heart -- might lead you to believe. The problem with this line of thinking is that the franchises cited all had strong followings, but the franchises themselves were deeply flawed. The original Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, for all their charm, were overly campy with low production values (BSG wasn't that bad, though), and they aged terribly. Even JJ Abrams' optimistic take on Star Trek introduced a darker tone than the one that underscored the original and even The Next Generation, while the post-9/11 take on BSG made what had originally been little more than a Star Wars knockoff into one of the most complex dramas on television.

Buffy doesn't have that problem. For one thing, it's barely over a decade old, and it's yet to age. Now, I'm not promising that the series will never seem dated, but I am confident that the subtlety of the acting and the quality of most of the scripts will give it a much longer shelf life than the old sci-fi series. The only thing that potentially could use a touch-up are some of the demon costumes (the same holds true for Angel). But effects will always date; the important thing is that the stories were as fresh for me when I watched the series for the first time last year as they must have been to fans back in 1997. Furthermore, the show itself was a reboot of the original movie: when Joss got the T.V. deal -- admittedly with the help of the Kuzuis -- he took the light, campy tone of the film and spun it into a dark, thematically rich series with enough character development to fill ten normal programs. At the end of the final season, the characters wouldn't even recognize the people we met in the first episode, having been through so many upheavals that only the core of their personality remained constant.

What, then, could a reboot bring to the table? Kuzui says she'd like to make a "darker, event-sied movie" to carve out new territory in the Buffyverse; I assume she means "darker" in comparison to other event movies, because how on Earth could she make Joss' series any more dire? Put them all in a concentration camp? This is the man who killed off characters with an almost casual coldness, yet never made any of them feel unnecessary nor like a ratings ploy. He ripped apart Buffy's world more times than most could bear to endure, to the point that she actually sacrificed herself to keep the last thing she had in this world alive. Willow suffered tragedy and went mad, and poor Xander was maimed. The idea that you could make a two-hour film that could contain all this and more borders on the insane.

Of course, they at least don't have to worry about upping the ante on our favorite characters, because none of them will be in it. Yes, supposedly the film "would have no connection to the TV series, nor would it use popular supporting characters like Angel, Willow, Xander or Spike." It would also not feature Sarah Michelle Gellar. No, the focus would be on either a recast Buffy or another slayer entirely, in a different place, in a different time. Why call it a Buffy remake then? Kevin Beaumont, the webmaster of Dollverse and a regular contributor to Whedonesque (under the name gossi) puts it succinctly: "$$$$$$$$$$$$." Buffy has name recognition, and tying it to the franchise avoids allegations of plagiarism as this is really nothing more than a Buffy knockoff.

However, Beaumont underestimates, in my opinion of course, fan reaction. He alleges that the average viewer will not understand what Joss' absence means as they do not recognize his name over Buffy's. While to some extent I believe he's right, I also think that the internet, which has yet to sustain hype, could conceivably get people to steer clear. If this project is not shut down -- and to be honest, Fox's lawyers will likely make mincemeat of Vertigo Entertainment -- Whedonesque and every other fan site on the web will organize "boycotts" and do their best to spread the word.

But fans won't be the only ones against this: Buffy the film was justifiably dismissed by most critics, but the T.V. series stands as a cultural landmark and one of the most praised series of the last 20 years. Only a few critics seem to outright hate the show, and many of those people for arbitrary reasons; the rest recognize it for its superb character growth and its examination of feminist themes. They're going to rail against this as well, and people will trust a professional critic more than us nerds and bloggers. They'll have their claws out months before this film could hypothetically make it all the way to a theater and, combined with what is sure to be a terrible word of mouth, they'll destroy this movie's box office potential.

Now, in fairness, I'm reacting quite strongly to something that hasn't even been written yet. Who's to say that it will be terrible? I mean, the furor over the BSG re-imagining was huge, but that didn't stop it from mopping the floor with the original. While I don't think anyone, even the haters, think that this could possibly beat out the series, surely it at least stands a chance to be interesting? Well, maybe, but the central problem with all of this does not come from Kuzui's comments, but the Reporter's own take on things. They rightly kept opinion out of the news piece, but they throw in a poll at the end of the article that sums up exactly what's motivating this and exactly why it will fail:


It's long been a misconception that Joss had a weak eye for casting, and that he really picks his actors based on how he gets along with them. With the exception of Fillion as Mal, the leads for all of his shows have been routinely criticized by people as flat without ever noticing how perfect for the part every major character was. SMG changed with Buffy, and if people don't like her in the later seasons it's because the character has become so different than the person they met in '97. When I watch Dollhouse, I can't understand why people insist on bringing up Faith when Dushku has yet to play any of her imprints as such, even the ass-kicking ones (in fairness, the previews for some episodes suggested this, though), nor did she play Faith on True Calling: while she may not always connect with her shifting personalities, she's played Echo differently than the other Dolls because Echo is different. I saw an article recently, one of the umpteen stories that inexplicably pits Whedon against JJ Abrams, and it said that Abrams had a gift for casting where Whedon fell short. Hogwash; Whedon can take a total unknown and make them live and breathe the part. Abrams, though not one to pick star names, focuses on making the characters iconic and memorable over letting the actors explore their characters (he's still got some fantastic characters, mind you, and I'm not at all turning this into a Whedon v. Abrams debate).

This poll shows that people really just want to put a "star" in the role. That's what it's all about: not a desire to explore a universe that is still being explored and fleshed out by its creator, it's an attempt to cash in on a beloved franchise. And of course Kristen Stewart brings up the inevitable truth that when Kuzui says "Everything has its moment. Every movie takes on a life at some point, and this seems like the moment to do this," what she really means is that vampires are hot right now because of Twilight, and there's a fat paycheck in it for them.

The Kuzuis have gotten rich off of Joss Whedon: they received executive producer status on every episode of both Buffy and Angel and they retain the rights to the core character (but not Xander, Willow, etc. which is why the film won't feature them). While they don't rule out Joss' involvement, it's a slap in the face that they would enter talks without consulting him. But all of this opens up a very strange, very interesting possibility: in the same year that Fox renewed Dollhouse (though they tampered mightily with it, of course) despite abysmal Nielsen ratings, opening up the possibility that time-shifted numbers might finally play a role in shows' fates, how wonderful would it be if they also killed this unholy beast before it ever came to fruition? It'd be like Spike getting a soul. Well, more like a chip that lets him still be an ass as often as he pleases. But now he doesn't kill the things we love, at least not outright, and that's a start.

The 25 Best (and Five Worst) Buffy Episodes

[WARNING- CONTAINS SPOILERS]

Few shows grabbed me as immediately as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even in its shaky, skin-deep first season, it displayed enough quirky wit and character development to keep me interested. But from that campy, American horror version of Doctor Who came one of the greatest character dramas ever put on television. While I prefer the darker tone of its spinoff Angel, I cannot deny that Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the bigger beast, and one of the greatest shows of the modern era. But unlike Angel, picking the best episodes of this series is fairly straightforward; I imagine my top 25 would not differ wildly from any other fan's, and I'm almost certain the top 10 I came up with contains the exact episodes in everyone else's, give or take one or two and with differing orders based on the ranker's preference. Of course, this doesn't mean that there are only 25 good episodes, but that the payoffs of this show are more apparent than the more subdued tone of Angel. And even though most of us pick the same episodes, the best of Buffy varied considerably in tone, where Angel's highlights tended to be the ones that plunged it to knew depths of existential despair. But enough talk, let's get down to business:

25. Villains (6x20)

While the Dark Willow arc occasionally seeped into the realm of the overly melodramatic, it remains a high point of the show, and "Villains" is the single strongest of the four episodes. Willow's been building to this all season, and she really comes unhinged in a terrifying way in these 42 minutes. Alyson Hannigan was, like most of the actors on both Buffy and Angel, so effortless and natural in her acting as to almost pass under the radar, but here she unleashes with fine fury. I never thought someone so cute and unassuming could be so terrifying -- not even her alternate reality vampire-self pointed to this level of horror. The final scene with Warren must be one of the two the most shocking of the series.

24. The Zeppo (3x13)

This has no lasting importance to the third season arc, but it is one of the more brilliant high concept episodes of the show. In it, the typical A/B plot structure is turned on its head, pulling Xander's quest to figure out his importance to his friends and his own sense of self-worth while shuffling a (presumably) action-packed apocalypse prevention story to the background. It is likely the series' most instantly quotable episode and remains my favorite of that short but oh so sweet list of Xander-centric episodes.

23. The Wish (3x09)

Hi Anya! "The Wish" introduces what would become one of my favorite characters in a fantastic alternate reality episode in which Buffy never came to Sunnydale. It is equal parts disturbing and disturbingly hilarious, though the character deaths at the end are rather sobering and show just how close their real-life doppelgangers come to death at every moment. I actually felt my heart skip when the Master snaps alternate-Buffy's neck.

22. Doppelgangland (3x16)

Of course this would have to come right along with "The Wish." Seeing Vamp Willow interact with the real Willow is both funny and foreshadowing ("I think I'm kinda gay"), but it also gets across a deep level of character development and arc advancement. While it bears little importance to the bigger arc, this episode stands as likely the best example of Season 3's impeccable ability to move things forward without ever letting on.

21. Earshot (3x18)

What starts as an amusing concept (Buffy can read minds and thus hears the salacious simple-mindedness of the men around her and learns just what Joyce and Giles did under the influence of band candy) turns into a harrowing post-Columbine drama, even though it was written before that terrible tragedy. It takes yet another twist at the end which, though it moves away from a school attack, is every bit as relevant to examining the mindset of kids who snap. A true gem.

20. I Only Have Eyes For You (2x19)

One of the big sleeper hits of the series. It starts off seemingly as a disconnected, kooky concept and ends up eerily holding up the mirror to Buffy and Angel's relationship when the spirits of two dead lovers -- a teacher who incurred the wrath of the student she loved when she broke it off -- imbibe them. The possession ends up bringing out Buffy's guilt in unleashing Angelus while serving to remind us that Angel is still buried in that demon, even without his soul.

19. After Life (6x03)

The opening salvo of season six immediately put to bed my fears in reviving Buffy after her noble death in the last season's finale. This early mini-arc culminates in the darkly atmospheric "After Life," in which Buffy confesses to Spike that they did not rescue her from Hell, but tore her from Heaven. Many complain that Buffy went too dark this season, but thank God they never shied away from the implications of this episode.

18. Superstar (4x17)

Probably the funniest spin on fanfic ever. Watching little Jonathan make himself into a combination of Buffy, Superman, James Bond and Bill Gates was a riot and a half, and then you mix in everyone's fawning adulation and you've got a winner. You can see a lot of the initial antagonism of Season Six in this episode, what with a nerd manipulating others in an unethical yet pitiable attempt to fit in. Bonus points for finally turning Marc Blucas' lack of talent into intentional comedy (they also managed this in the season finale).

17. Lies My Parents Told Me (7x17)

Just when you thought you couldn't learn anything else about Spike. Buffy's most fascinating character gets yet another episode to shine, this time revealing the tragedy of his relationship with his mother and hammering home just how different a vampire he was long before he fought to win his soul. The juxtaposition between Spike's and Robin's relationships with their mothers is brutally effective. It also finally breaks Buffy of her dependency on Giles.

16. Chosen (7x22)

Season 7, though action packed and never really dull, too often neglected its characters at the expense of just making everything bigger. Funnily enough, the biggest episode of them all managed to make it all worth it. It ended up a stunning action climax mixed with moving character and story resolution, all of which remained true to the characters. And I dare you not to cry when you realize it's all over.

15. Conversations With Dead People (7x07)

After a season exploring the very depths of Buffy's constant inner turmoil, the writers let her really flounder throughout much of the final season, but she gets across some astonishing late-game progress in this episode, which also advances most of the other characters. Andrew and Jonathan reappear, only for the two more innocent members of the Trio to suddenly take a dark turn. And anything and everything to do with Dawn's segment (in which the First poses as Joyce) is just shiver-inducing. It also marks the first -- and one of the only -- time that The First Evil really unsettled.

14. Who Are You? (4x16)

"Face/Off" with hot chicks. I could stop there, but that would rob a superb hour of TV its due. Faith's body swap with Buffy could have been played up for laughs or just been unintentionally hilarious, but -- apart from a few amusing bits -- it mainly serves to get deep down into what they each think of each other and particularly brings out the more sympathetic and wretched side of Faith. It's also genuinely suspenseful and marks one of the few times the Watchers Counsel comes off as frightening instead of just a complete annoyance.

13. Normal Again (6x17)

Mix the finale of the show "St. Elsewhere" with the early alternate reality gem "The Wish," then add a dash of "The Twilight Zone" and you've got a recipe for the most fundamentally disturbing hour of Buffy ever produced, made all the more unsettling by the fact that you never know which reality is the true one. It's also darkly funny when the doctor lists all the plot holes and contrivances of the show to convince Buffy that Sunnydale and Slaying are just a hallucination. And, like any good piece of head-screwing, it leaves us totally unsure of whether or not it all really was just a fabrication.

12. Selfless (7x05)

I make no bones of my love for Anya, so this ranking might be biased. Then again, this whole list is because I made it and I can only speak for myself, so leave me alone. We finally learn what motivates Anya and we see her start to create her own sense of identity after so many centuries defining herself by that which is related to her (vengeance demon, Xander's gal). On the humorous side, there some nice winking references to her past as a virulent communist, and the scenes from 880 are only more funny as they're shot in the style of an old hand-cranked camera as if they were really in 50s America (which itself is a sly reference to how little a difference there is between the sexism of these medieval warriors and a moment of our own past we've yet to fully outgrow).

11. Innocence (2x14)

The episode that firmly established Buffy's direction. Before this, the series was little more than a subversive take on horror clichés with flashes of pathos and depth, but even Joss believes that this episode drew a line in the sand, establishing just what the writers could do and what the series could achieve. Even years later, he Angelus arc remains untopped for many fans, and it's not hard to see why even from this arc-opener. Also, it contains the best demon killing of the series ("What's that do?").

10. Graduation Day, Pt. 2 (3x22)


People say Season 3 was short on emotional impact, and they're right. But who can ignore the visceral thrill of this finale, which packs action on top of action and sends Sunnydale High out in the best possible way. For many (including myself), they never found a better villain than the Mayor ever again -- even though I prefer seasons 5 and 6-- and he goes out in top form. There may be no single episode of any of Joss' programs as exhilarating at this.

9. Fool For Love (5x07)


I've explained my Achilles heel for Buffyverse flashback episodes in my Angel reviews, so let's get right down to the meat: "Fool For Love" is a subtle gem that shows how Spike grew from a timid, awful poet into the killer of two Slayers. It does so in the form of slowly piecing together the modern physical appearance of Spike, from his hair (which goes from naturally brunette and wavy to blond and curly and finally to the streaked platinum we know) to his coat. As the pieces come together, we see why a soulless vampire might fall for a Slayer, and that Spike was always more than meets the eye.

8. Dead Things (6x13)


For the first half of Season Six, the Trio dicked around and basically were like the Three Stooges of Evil (with a liberal dash of Kevin Smith-esque pop culture arguments). But with "Dead Things," we see the boys cross a threshold that forces them to finally confront serious consequences of their actions. Meanwhile, it gets to the core of Buffy's post-resurrection issues without letting her off with any simple solutions. Few episodes of this or any other series are as psychologically dark and complex. It got Season Six back on the track to excellence after a noticeable downturn in the middle.

7. Passion (2x17)


"Innocence" matured the show, but "Passion" showed just how dark Joss Whedon could go. Angelus' cold, swift killing of Jenny remains forever seared into my mind, and it is the most shocking moment of the show, even above Willow skinning Warren. This episode leaves me numb whenever I watch it. Yes, Angelus may have been little more than a mustache-twirling villain, but the greatest villain of all time (Iago) had no motivation, and look how scary he is. Boreanaz's acting throughout the first season was at the very least borderline laughable, but he brought his A-game when Angelus emerged, and this is the finest example of how far he could go.

6. Hush (4x10)


Some people say that Joss Whedon desperately wanted an Emmy and created his most out-there concepts to win one. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, I'm almost glad he never got one because it means we kept getting some of the best TV ever made. The first of these high concept pieces, "Hush," remains a deserved fan favorite and the episode that even non-fans know. Robbing the characters of the speech that makes them so funny was daring, but it resulted in a brilliant silent comedy with vital character and story development. Special props go to Giles' flashcards, which made a barnstorming reappearance in the seventh season.

5. Once More, With Feeling (6x07)


What better foil to an episode of silence than a musical? It's so funny that it's easy to miss all the rich character development, but there's a lot of pathos buried in these peppy numbers, the sort of narrative and character progression absent from nearly any other musical show or film. The Anya/Xander bit hints towards Xander's fears about becoming his father and points towards the dissolution of their engagement, while Spike gets to let off some steam over his confusion regarding Buffy's new attitude. And nothing can compare to SMG morosely admitting (through song, of course) to her friends just what they did when they resurrected her.

4. Restless (4x22)


Released a full year before David Lynch got back on the horse after a decade of misfires with "Mullholland Dr.," "Restless" is the best and worthiest successor to "Twin Peaks:" an endlessly deep, ambiguous, foreboding and complex dreamscape. After a season full of rich but sporadic character growth, it forces the heroes to find their footing and sets up the show to come. Each of the dream sequences has something that earns a good laugh, but soon it spirals into cryptic and disturbing warnings to the slumbering Scoobies. The fact that this is not number one should be telling you something about the fierce quality of the top three.

3. The Gift (5x22)


Really, only one season finale in the series ("Grave") was less than excellent, but "The Gift" stands out even among its brethren. As with the whole season, it manages to cram the action and character reaffirmations of S3 with the intense emotional force of the second season. The fight with Glory is spectacular (not to mention full of enough remembered continuity to make even the most examining viewer squeal with delight), but the final moments in which Buffy gives her life to save the one thing she has left in this world are devastating. If you don't cry when you see Buffy's tombstone you have no soul, and if you don't get out a teary chuckle when the camera zooms out to see the last line of the epitaph you have no sense of humor.

2. The Body (5x16)


Has there ever been an hour of TV more depressing than this? If there is, I don't know if I could withstand it. The greatest of those so-called "Emmy grab" episodes, it is the ultimate rumination on death from a man who gave us so many memorable character demises. Its simplistic, brutally realistic look at mortality reminds us that death can come at any moment and it doesn't have to be epic, even in entertainment. And to think that it was the first death of natural causes in the whole series. I tear up just thinking about it.

1. Becoming, Pt. 2 (2x22)


You don't know how much I debated with myself over the ordering of the top three. Any one of them would be the single most defining hour of any other program, and I have to choose between them. Ultimately, I picked "Becoming" over the others because, apart from being an emotionally draining, darkly poignant thrill-ride, it works as a self-contained, utterly frank coming-of-age story that strips Buffy of just about everything, until the fifth season showed just how much more she had to lose. By all accounts, the show could have ended here and it would have been utterly compelling (but thank God it didn't). Beautiful, haunting, and exhilarating: television doesn't get any better than this.


Honorable Mentions:

Consequences (3x15)

While Season 3 may have been short on emotion, the fallout from Faith unintentionally killing a human cut the core of her character and why she so completely envied Buffy. Anyone else would have made this into some growing up moment for her (and indeed it was...for Buffy), but the writers took a more realistic turn and threw Faith into her darkest area yet. This is pretty much what they wanted to do with "Ted" but couldn't risk with their star player.

No Place Like Home (5x05)

A terrific mix of humor, character development, and story advancement, NPLH gets to the bottom of just what's up with Dawn and sets her down as a character truly deserving of pity. It also sets up a more mature Buffy, although she's still not ready for what she's about to go through (could anyone be?).

Angel (1x07)

The first episode that hinted that Buffy could be something more. Eventually, they took the Buffy/Angel relationship too far in their third season "just get me to my spinoff" section, but here Whedon got across with actual subtlety the doomed-but-maybe-it-will-work-after-all-OK-it-won't-but-it's-fine-for-now poignancy of their relationship. The final image of Buffy's cross burned into Angel's chest is one of the most iconic to me. This, along with "The Prophecy Girl" pointed to the Buffy we came to know and love.


The Five Worst Episodes of Buffy

Unfortunately for Buffy, just as picking out the top 10 takes no time, so too is it easy to pick out the duds. I had to really rack my brain to come up with 5 bad episodes of Angel, but I actually had to leave a few off this list. Buffy was a bold first show with a constantly evolving foundation, so slip-ups were inevitable. So, as we celebrate the finest the show had to offer, let us also reflect on the moments that were thankfully all too brief.

5. The Killer in Me (7x13)

What disappoints me so much about this episode is that it had not one, not two, but three potentially magnificent storylines and promptly wasted them all. Spike's malfunctioning chip was both funny and deadly serious, but they bring back the Iniative complex (which I guess wasn't totally destroyed when the Iniative shut it down, proving that they truly can do nothing right); Willow turning into Warren after kissing Kennedy could have been a great subconscious expression of her guilt and grief over Tara, but it turns out it was all the work of Amy, who had no reason to hex Willow; and the notion that Giles might be the First would have explained his off behavior as well as delivering a killer gut-punch to both the Scoobies and the audience. Instead, it all gets solved in one episode, hugs are had, and heads are placed in hands to absorb the shock of such bad writing. What a terrible waste.

4. Where The Wild Things Are (4x18)

The last of Tracey Forbes' three episodes and the first of two to appear on this 'worst of' list, "Where the Wild Things Are" took pretty much the exact concept seen in the season's earlier, vastly superior "Fear, Itself," only to remove everything interesting and fill the gap with incessant shots of TV sex between Buffy and Riley. Of course, considering how stiff Blucas is, there's really no better job for which he is suited. Plus, the subtext of a religious nutbag who left the children in her care sexually repressed was too over the top and bluntly overstated to be of any interest. Let us thank the TV gods that they banished her to permanent obscurity following this pile of tripe.

3. As You Were (6x15)

The fact that they brought Riley back is enough to gain my scorn, but the actress who plays his wife makes Marc Blucas look like '70s De Niro; her performance is so awful that she won an Emmy for it in a parallel universe. The Finns aside, the episode is still dumb and utterly pointless and throws off the momentum "Dead Things" gave to the season after that noticeable drag in the middle. Thankfully, things got back on track once Riley left for good and the season barreled magnificently towards its wonderful conclusion.

2. Beer Bad (4x05)

Aside from one or two admittedly funny lines, this is the worst episode I've ever seen to warn teenagers against alcohol. Think about all the terrible, pandering, condescending episodes of TV ever devoted to the dangers of underage drinking, and despair. Some lines are genuinely funny ("Fire bad!"), but everything is just so insulting to the audience and so much of the dialogue misses that the few bits that connect cannot hope to make up for it. At least it finally broke Buffy of her childish sulking after the Parker debacle.

1. I, Robot...You, Jane (1x08)

Even the worst episodes of Whedon television have something going for them. In fact, it's usually bad execution that makes them memorably weak. But not "I Robot, You Jane." No, it starts with a broad, uninteresting concept --the Internet is a dangerous place? Even for 1997 this was redundant-- and combines it with an inane MOTW villain, wheel-spinning character development (the last thing we needed to see even in this early stage was a nerdy, shy, helpless Willow), and just plain unfunniness and you've got the most insufferable hour of Whedonverse television ever produced. Thank God they got it out of the way in the first season of his first series.


So there you have 'em. Agree? Disagree? Feel free to post your own favorites and comments.

(See also: my picks for the 25 best (and 5 worst) Angel episodes)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Season 7

At last, after months of diverting my attention elsewhere, I finally return to finish my retrospective on Buffy. I'm sure the six people who infrequently stumble across this blog in their search of real criticism have been on pins and needles (though, strangely, one of my Angel posts was placed on Whedonesque, assuredly earning it the title of Most Poorly-Written Article on Whedonesque. So, there's that). Anyway, I got back on the horse, ready to see what the final season would hold for me on a closer inspection.

When I first sat down and finished this season (strangely almost exactly a year ago), my impressions were somewhat mixed: after so much character development in the previous two seasons, Buffy's send-off struck me as the sort of action-packed finale befitting a franchise, the Return of the Jedi to the initial wonderment and camp of A New Hope and the hopeless depths of The Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, I didn't like the Potentials, and some continuity seemed to fall by the wayside, but overall I found it to be an exciting way to say goodbye to the characters I'd truly come to regard as real people.

At the end of the last season, our characters were thrown into deep personal turmoil. Willow's rampage not only left her frail and wracked with guilt, it greatly shifted what had been deeply established character ties. Buffy, who spent an entire season distancing herself from the friends who resurrected her, suddenly had to deal with her best friend becoming the enemy. Having already dealt with killing or considering such to both her boyfriend and her sister, it pushed her over the edge, but also helped her reconnect. Dawn lost her idol, while Xander managed to save the day by going back to roots established before any events in the show and appealing to his fundamental friendship with Willow. The last few episodes tore up the chart of character relationships and reformed it into a new, weaker one that could potentially become stronger than ever.

"Lessons," the season premiere, reflects this seismic shift by going back to the show's roots: Sunnydale High. We saw it being rebuilt in the last season (by Xander's crew, no less), but here it is ready to accept students to learn and be eaten by whatever comes out of the Hellmouth this week. Buffy's worrying in this episode is great, to the point that she bursts in on Dawn in class to preemptively warn her of danger. While there, she meets the new principal, Robin Wood (DB Woodside), a younger, much more attractive foil for the crabby goblin that was Snyder. Wood knows Buffy's extensive file of high school misdemeanors, but surprisingly offers Buffy a job as a sort of counselor for "other" troublesome students.

The most foreboding ribbon ceremony ever.

Meanwhile, Willow accompanies Giles to England, where she enters a sort of magical rehab -- forgive me for furthering the "magic as drug" theme that was the main flaw of the sixth season. Eventually she returns to Sunnydale, but is so afraid of facing what she fears will be judgmental friends that she subconsciously casts a spell that renders her friends invisible to her and her invisible to her friends. In a wonderful twist, Anya, whom Willow never liked, can see her, forcing Willow to rely on Anya and also setting up a great deal of tension between the two that plays out in the early part of the season.

Anya, actually, becomes the focus of the first defining episode of the season, "Selfless." Structured as a sort of Anya-centric "Fool For Love," "Selfless" finds Anya, who returned to the vengeance business after Xander broke up with her, standing in a frat house surrounded by boys she killed for humiliating a young lady. As Buffy debates whether or not to kill Anya, Willow confronts the vengeance demon, only for Anya to throw everything Willow did last season in her face while noting the fact that everyone was so quick to forgive and forget when it came to her rampage. But the most interesting aspects are the various flashbacks through Anya's life. We start with Anya as Aud, a young, headstrong housewife in 880 Scandinavia. Compared to her current capitalist greed, she expresses textbook notions of communism, wishing to give the excess produce of her home to the needy. When she tires of her husband, Olaf, cheating on her, she casts a spell that turns him into a troll, attracting the attention of D'Hoffryn. Then we move forward through her days as a demon, leading up to the present.

Unlike Spike's background episode, where we learned what kind of man he was and how his current persona formed, "Selfless" -- as its title suggests -- reveals Anya as someone without a concrete identity, who only ever latched onto her title, be it demon or the future Mrs. Xander Harris. Anya was never a character who had a real raison d'être: she fell in love with Xander for no discernible reason and stuck around essentially because she was hilarious. But this acknowledgment of that lack of purpose, and not in the sly, winking way that the writers on the show often employ, is genuinely affecting and finally gives a great character a chance to come into her own.

Another big highlight of this first half is "Conversations with Dead People," the finest piece of pure introspection since "Restless." Opening with a custom-made song that brilliantly sums up where Buffy is at emotionally (an excellent analysis of which can be found at this wonderful Buffy review site), "CWDP" examines Buffy's relationship traumas via a discussion with a former classmate turned vampire who was majoring in psychology; Willow talks with the ghost of Cassie, a young girl who died earlier in the season of a heart defect and who claims to be in contact with Tara's spirit; and, most disturbingly of all, Dawn receives a visit from "Joyce," who attempts to create strife between the sisters. We learn later that this was all the work of the First Evil (first introduced back in Season 3), but even with that information this is one hell of a creepy, yet insightful, episode.

Don't let yourself think that it's all doom and gloom, however. First up, there's "Him," the first time since S4 that we get a completely zany, campy episode. At first, I thought that the writers shoved Dawn, who really progresses into a great character this season, over the deep end. She falls for a boy so hard that, when Buffy attempts to calm her sister down with reason and logic ("You didn't even know who this boy was yesterday"), Dawn cranks the whine up to 11 and I at last agreed with all those who hated her. Then we learn that she's under a spell (which Xander picks up on immediately in an excellent callback), and soon every woman in the Scoobies is fighting for the lad's affections. There are simply too many golden lines to quote, but the highlight has to be Anya debasing Willow for loving R.J. the least because she's a lesbian. Later, "First Date" shows just how immaturely the Scoobies and the Potentials are treating the around them, even if the actual date between Xander and a girl he wins over is extremely flawed and calls to mind the terrible "Teacher's Pet" from the first season.

Andrew has a redemptive arc of his own, but really he's just the funniest character on the show.

Sadly, like the previous season, the show hits a serious roadblock for a few episodes and, like the previous season, it comes right in the middle. Unsurprisingly, this downturn coincides with the introduction of the Potential Slayers. Apparently, destiny doesn't have enough time on its hand to single out one girl from the millions of young teenagers around the world each time the current Slayer bites it, so instead fate has a pre-determined pool of talent from which to choose. Then, when a Slayer dies, these select few have their names put in a metaphorical hat and one (un)lucky contestant gets the grand prize. The First, seeking to eliminate the Slayer line once and for all, wisely sends minions out to destroy the Potentials before finally turning on the real Slayer, thus ensuring that, when Buffy dies, the power dies with her.

God, I hate you all so much.

A slight problem here: as has already been obviously demonstrated, the Slayer line moved on after Buffy briefly died at the end of the first season, activating Kendra, who in turn activated Faith when she died. Logic would dictate that Buffy's life no longer had any importance when it comes to passing Slayer powers to the next teen, as her second death did not (to our knowledge) activate a new Slayer. It certainly makes sense that the First would terrorize the Scoobies for their efforts to monitor and seal the Hellmouth, but Faith should play a bigger role in the season. But with her vital arc on Angel playing out at the same time, so she doesn't come in until the final third of the season.

Faith's return to Sunnydale coincides with another great late-comer, the psychotic, misogynist preacher Caleb. Played by Firefly's very own Nathan Fillion, Caleb not only gives the Scoobies and Potentials a corporeal villain to rally against but is downright terrifying. "Dirty Girls" continues the swing back to high quality television started by its two predecessors, the alternately funny/serious "Storyteller" and the superb "Lies My Parents Told Me," which juxtaposes Spike and Wood's relationships with their mothers. Wood, the son of the slayer Spike killed in the 70s (also where he got his nifty coat), figures out that the First triggers Spike's recent killing sprees by playing the vampire a song that his mum used to sing to him and uses it to seek revenge. Spike already got an entire episode to himself to define his character, but LMPTM offers up a piece of backstory we never got while also getting us into Robin's head.

Nathan Fillion should play the villain in everything based on this role.

As the season draws to a close, the action ramps up to an all-out war with evil itself, and you can cut the tension with a knife. Buffy's constant speechifying and her unyielding attempts to exact revenge on the First and Caleb put her at odds with the Potentials. Annoying and self-centered from the start, the girls do at last have a point when they object to being led constantly to the slaughterhouse, and they and the Scoobies throw her from the house and elect Faith as the new leader. It forces Buffy her status as a leader of a potentially powerful army while proving to the girls just how necessary she really is.

It all culminates with the epic finale "Chosen," a non-stop thrill ride that gives Caleb a fitting end, hatches a so-crazy-it's-brilliant plan that reaffirms the show's feminist slant, and lets us bid a fond farewell to the characters that, over the course of only a few months of DVD binging a year ago, seemed as real and tangible as my actual friends -- I can't imagine how painful this was for the people who'd been there from the beginning. The final moments feature a shocking death, a noble sacrifice, and a brief moment of release before the credits roll for the final time. Though it does not match the emotional level of Angel's cataclysmic end, it stands as one of the most fitting send-offs I've ever seen.

The continuity issues and every single Potential (except Vi, played by Felicia Day[!]) aside, S7 offers up a great deal more character advancement than I'd previous noticed. Spike's post-ensoulment arc is one of the most rewarding of the show's run, and Xander's penchant for observing the best and worst in his friends is finally addressed as something no less important than Buffy's strength or Willow's magic. Dawn, too, grows out the immaturity that defined her in the previous two seasons (though I never thought her to be obnoxious like most), and the way she deals with being the only unexceptional girl in a house full of warriors shows just how far she's come.

A strange thing happened to me as I reached the end of the series. Having already finished my recap of Angel, I knew that, once I left Sunnydale, my time with this world was over. Not in the literal sense, of course; I can and will return to these two series for the rest of my life. But the Buffyverse has such a weight to it, such a rich web of character drama and action, that even a repeat viewing affected me at the end. The final shot, in which Buffy allows herself a small smile at what she's accomplished, is a release as much for the audience as it is for her. Buffy had its up and its downs, but the fact remains that it connected more than it missed, and I can't think of five series that affected me more. Five bucks says I can't go 'til the end of the year without watching it all again.

Don't even act like you didn't cry when you reached the end, too.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer — Season 6

**warning-- contains spoilers**

Here we are at last: my favorite season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When I first went through the series I loved pretty much all of it (save Season 4), but S6 immediately placed itself at the top of the heap; so much so that I was stunned to learn of its controversial status amongst fans. In retrospect I shouldn't have been surprised: its darker tone and radical shift in direction surely put off fans who wanted things to remain the same, and they expressed their confusion and frustration by decrying the season as a whole. With all this is mind, I went back into this season with a touch of apprehension; now looking for flaws, what would I take away from this much-contested season?

Really, my opinion barely changed at all. I firmly believe this to be the emotional high point of the show, above even the arcs of S2 and S5. Whereas those two seasons relegated their emotional punches towards the end, S6 overflows with trauma. Buffy and her friends left high school at the end of the third season, but it is here that they must truly and finally face adulthood.

At the end of the preceding season, Buffy gave her life to save Dawn's (and, once again, the world), and left the Scoobies devastated. We resume, as always, after a summer off to contemplate events and find the gang doing their best to fill the hole Buffy left. Willow and Tara watch Dawnie (and Spike often babysits), while the whole gang patrols the graveyards at night. But we can't got long without Buddy and Willow, growing ever stronger with her magics, concludes that the stars are in alignment and prepares a resurrection spell.



Understandably assuming Buffy is trapped in a hell dimension after sealing off the portal in "The Git," the gang agrees to help Willow and soon our blond heroine digs her way out of her grave. But the Buffy who emerges seems...off somehow.

Thus begins a deep, dark arc for a character who, by normal standards, had reached her apex. Cynical fans cite numerous moments where the show "jumped the shark," but here's one place where it really could have applied had the writers not brought their A-game. But they come out swinging in the two-part premiere "Bargaining" and especially "After Life," in which Buffy drops a bombshell when she admits to Spike that her friends did not rescue her from Hell but tore her from Heaven.

The opening nine episodes comprise undoubtedly the strongest opening of any season of Buffy. Apart from the excellent premiere and "After Life," "Flooded" and "Life Serial" display Buffy's maladjustment not only to regaining her life but entering adulthood itself. Meanwhile, "Tabula Rasa" moves forward Willow's arc by showing how dangerously her reliance on magic has become.

But even among these superb offerings, one episode rises above them. "Once More With Feeling," the best "gimmick" episode of the series and second perhaps only to "Smile Time" in the course of both shows of the Buffyerse, eclipses even "Hush" in its ability to mix a wild and fun standalone with vital character and story development. After a demon turns Sunnydale into a giant musical, the Scoobies must figure out how to stop it before people dance and sing until they burst into flame.



The songs range between achingly hysterical and solemn and contemplating at the drop of a hat. Not only do we get a tune of Anya rocking out and the immortal line "I have a theory/It could be bunnies," but the Scoobies finally learn, through song of course, just what they did when they resurrected Buffy. It may be the only episode of television you'll ever want to memorize the words to.

Unfortunately the season hits a big snag in the middle. After the underrated "Smashed," in which Buffy turns to Spike in order to feel something, we must contend with "Wrecked." For seasons the writers have been laying down Willow's increasing reliance on magic and how it gave her a sense of confidence, but now that's all out the window because magic is now almost literally a drug. In order to fit her arc within the context of the season, which is a focus on life itself, the writers abandoned her subtle, complex arc and turned her into an addict. It's facile, ill-fitting and would have totally derailed the character had they not gotten Willow back to her roots near the end.

Combined with "Gone" and "Doublemeat Palace," which play like first season MOTW storylines, they kill a lot of the momentum set up by the superb first section. However, things pick up magnificently with the subsequent "Dead Things."

The Trio form the ersatz Big Bad for most of the season and, though they remain hotly contested by fans, I maintain that they were perfect. In a season all about having to grow up and face adulthood, what better foes than some kids who seem thoroughly incapable of doing so? Andrew, Jonathan and Warren obsess over making the Slayer's life hell, for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of her. At first the Trio just sits around marveling at their "genius" while making endless comic book and Star Wars references. They conjure time repeating spells, demons, and all sorts of irking items to drive Buffy crazy, which in any other season would have been insignificant but at this point in Buffy's life sends an unstable woman to the brink.

Andrew may be the best character ever. Just sayin'.

But, as time goes on, the Trio's actions get more and more sinister under the leadership of the overtly sadistic Warren. In "Dead Things," the boys must face the consequences of their actions in an instant when Warren attempts to place a mind-control device on his ex-girlfriend to use her as a sex toy. When she snaps out of it, she calls them on what the boys just committed --attempted rape--and tries to flee, only for Warren to kill her in a rage. Suddenly, they've crossed a line from childish antics into serious crimes.

Meanwhile, Buffy herself has to do some growing up when she finally admits to someone (Tara) that she's sleeping with Spike and that she realizes she's using him. It's one of the rawest and most insightful moments of the entire series, and gets the season back on the right track. She breaks off her relationship with Spike, as much for his benefit as hers, though Spike doesn't see it that way. This eventually leads to surely the most contested moment of the season (and maybe the entire series), in which Spike, utterly confused and angered by his conflicting emotions, attempts to rape Buffy. It's a very tough scene to watch because there's no...I don't want to say "romanticizing," because that implies that other people make rape "appealing," but I do think that many soften rape so as not to permanently lose an audience. Not this show; the scene lacks music and leaves you gripping your seat in terror. This horror sends Spike to his emotional nadir and sets up his eventual redemption in Season 7.

Another stand-out episode of the season is the terrifying yet darkly funny "Normal Again," in which the Trio conjures a demon that causes Buffy to hallucinate that Sunnydale is simply a figment of her imagination and that she's locked up in an institution in Los Angeles. In this vision, the doctor in charge tries to convince Buffy that Sunnydale cannot be real by systematically listing every major plot hole you can think of. Even in this, the most daring season of the show, that took some balls on the writers' part. The episode ends on an element of ambiguity that leaves you wondering if it really is all in Buffy's head a la St. Elsewhere, although I don't believe it for a second.

Eventually the Trio gets too serious and Warren ends up shooting Buffy and killing Tara, opening up a terrifying new arc in which Willow, mad with grief, uses magic again and becomes the most powerful witch on the planet. Instead of that stifling addict nonsense, the writers go back to Willow's original reasons for magic use: power and insecurity. She cuts a swath through Sunnydale looking for the Trio and, in a horrifying scene, captures and tortures Warren before flaying him alive.

The finale, though a bit too mawkish in Whedon's absence, perfectly encapsulates the season's themes. Willow, wanting to end the pain, decides to destroy the world (which is a bit ridiculous, to be honest) and traps Buffy in a pit with Dawn to prevent her from intervening. In a surprising yet brilliant move, Xander must save the day. Xander, whose path to maturity was the most understated of the season, finally understands his relationship with his friends, and "defeats" Willow purely through his love for her. Whatever flaws the finale may have --and it is easily the weakest of the series-- it scores high for that.

Yellow crayons: saving the world since 2002.

The writers claim that the Big Bad of the season of life, and that's spot on. Giles leaves near the end of that excellent first chunk of episodes in order to force Buffy and, to a lesser extent, everyone else to grow up, to show them that they cannot always rely on him to fix things. Xander, who proposed to Anya at the end of the last season, discovers he may have rushed into things. He certainly loves Anya--deeply so-- but he knows how many in his own family turned out and is terrified of turning into such a person. The episode "Hells Bells" broke my heart the first time through, because I love Anya so much and to see her crushed like that was terrible. However, now I see that Xander made the right choice, albeit with lousy timing. He's the same age as Buffy and Willow, who are also slowly entering adulthood, yet he was considering marriage.

Apart from that three episode dip in the middle, things remain rather consistently brilliant. The lone exception is "As You Were," a decidedly awful entry that must surely rank amongst the series' worst. What went wrong? Well for starters, Riley comes back and, as much a subjective bias as it may be, I hate Riley. When he left the show, I danced. For you to understand how this reappearance hurt me, imagine if, two months from now, Obama gives a press conference, only to rip off his face and reveal himself to be Dick Cheney. Now Riley is married to a woman named Sam, who somehow manages to be even more infuriatingly boring than her husband. Together they make a couple so wooden and uninteresting they'll one day give birth to either Hayden Christensen or (assuming talent skips a generation) Marlon Brando. The episode is chock-full of retreads and atrocious dialogue, and marks the low-point of the season.

DO NOT WANT.

I cannot objectively call this the best season of Buffy; its mid-season dip in quality derails things a bit and the sudden gear-shift into the subject of addiction is neither insightful nor even entertaining. Yet pound for pound, this contains more emotional development and more relevant commentary than any other season, all of which is even more amazing when you consider how late in the game we are. Really, the reason I love this more than any other season is that it comes the closest to the feel of Angel; Buffy is always great, but it does lock itself into more adolescent issues to deal with its younger characters. Yet this season rose above and showed its characters moving into the real world, and even if S7 was a bit too eager to run back to its roots in the wake of this season's mixed response, it stands out from an already excellent series.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer — Season 5

**Warning- contains spoilers**

Why didn't I rate this season higher when I first watched it? I never had a problem with Dawn, I didn't hate Glory; since those are the only two complaints ever leveled at this season, why didn't I count it amongst my favorites? Whatever the reason, as I sped through it a second time, I've come to regard this as perhaps "Buffy's" finest season.

Opening with the so-damn-bad-it's-kind-of-hilarious "Buffy vs. Dracula," the fifth season doesn't exactly instill confidence and almost leaves one wondering if "Restless" was one last fluke on the slide into mediocrity. But a funny thing happens at the very end of the episode that demands your attention: Buffy's sister Dawn appears.

What's all this, then?

"Who?" Yeah, that's just about the only reaction you can have to the situation. Buffy has a sister named Dawn, and she's always been there. I wonder how flummoxed people were when they watched it as it happened. The mystery continues for a few episodes until we learn the truth: Dawn is actually "The Key," a ball of energy that unlocks the boundaries between dimensions. She was made human by a group of monks who wished to hide the key from a god named Glorificus (or Glory, as everyone calls her), who is trapped on Earth and will destroy the universe by using the Key to get back to her dimension.

Glory is the most subversive Big Bad of the show; she's vapid, vain, and nearly invulnerable. She's annoying, but then that's the point: Glory is Joss' tongue-in-cheek image of what a god might actually be like. Of course a being that inspires unwavering worship would have a massive ego, and Claire Kramer plays up Glory's vanity and her insanity for a killer combination of creeps and laughs.

Think Veruca Salt, but with god powers.

Apart from Glory's quest to find the Key and Buffy's attempts to protect Dawn, we get a slew of fascinating subplots. Perhaps as a result of the strain of added memories, Joyce develops a brain tumor and requires surgery. Riley comes to realize that Buffy views him more as a rebound and a convenience than a serious partner, and starts visiting vampire brothels to be fed upon out of a perverse desire to be "dark" enough for Buffy. Eventually their relationship crumbles, and the ashes are stomped out under the steps of my joyous dancing.

Some people say that "In the Woods," the episode in which Buffy and Riley's relationship ends, is a bit too sudden, and the notion of Riley returning to the military after what they've done to him, even as some bizarre resentful message to Buffy, is a bit senseless. To them I caution the dangers of looking gift horses in their mouths. I don't care if the Scoobies got lost on an island, or if they ran into the actual Scooby gang and conversed with a dog; if it means Riley leaves, Buffy could literally jump over a shark for 42 minutes and I'd pass out cigars like I just had a child.

Meanwhile, Giles, still jobless and still trying to ween Buffy of her dependence on him, opens a store selling mystical trinkets, called The Magic Box. Along with hiring Anya (and thus setting up no end to the hilarious exchanges between the two), it allows him to exert some independence of his own and brings back a bit of the feel of the first three seasons, even though those relatively halcyon days are shortly coming to an end.

Relevant? Hardly. But awesome? I think it speaks for itself.

But the biggest development is Spike's crush on Buffy. In the absolutely excellent "Fool For Love," we see how a lovesick lad named William was sired by Drusilla, and how he eventually evolved his persona into the Spike know and love. We also learn in these flashbacks that Drusilla, a psychic, could see this coming and threw Spike out because she knew long before he ever did that he was in love. At this stage, his crush is both hilarious and oddly endearing; it took a whole season, but they finally justified keeping Spike around for reasons other than "because he's awesome."

As the season progresses it seems to just get better and better. Starting exactly at the halfway mark with the episode "Checkpoint," the pathos involved with Dawn coming to terms with the fact that she is a fabrication sends the emotional levels into the red, and it just keeps ramping up. At the end of the surprisingly moving "I Was Made to Love You," we see Buffy come home to find her mother dead on the couch. The resultant trauma spills out in perhaps the most brutal episode in TV history, "The Body."

Filmed with crushing realism with only the occasional diegetic music as a soundtrack, "The Body" is the most honest portrayal of death ever put on the small screen. Wisely, it leaves out Giles' and Spike's grieving, because the episode is about youth coming to terms with the deaths of a loved one. I think I cried even harder when I watched it a second time. Particularly devastating is Anya's monologue in which she states that, as a former demon, she simply doesn't understand this sort of death.

Just hand me the Kleenex, now.

Joyce's death launched the final part of the Buffy saga, one significantly darker than even the material that preceded it. From here on out, there would be no hanging out on campus (especially since Buffy had to quit college to support Dawn), no happy sitcom endings. No, things would never be the same for Buffy, and many fans have yet to cope with it.

The last episodes in which Glory chases down and captures Dawn and the Scoobies mount an all-scale assault to rescue her are uniformly excellent, with the possible exception of "Spiral," which features the moronic Knights of Byzantium, a religious sect sworn to destroy the Key at all costs (though considering how the Key was a collection of pure energy until a few months ago, I don't understand why there's a medieval group after it).

It all leads up to the astonishing finale "The Gift," one of the best episodes of the series. It's action packed, hilarious, and emotionally devastating in a way that only the second season's "Becoming Pt. 2" could top. The fight with Glory is both personal and epic, and Buffy's sacrifice at the end wins almost as many tears as "The Body."



The character development of this season is off the charts. Buffy deals with the knowledge that her annoying little sister isn't real and in turn comes to treat her like a human more than ever before. When her mother dies, Buffy suddenly has to grow up and support her sister. They took everything from her this season, and when she leaps into the portal to seal the dimensions at the end, part of me thinks it's because she can't take it anymore as much as it is because Dawn is the only thing she has left and Buffy couldn't lose her too.

Meanwhile, Spike gets a solid foundation this season, laying the grounds for the most interesting character arc of the show. His crush on Buffy will lead to some horrifying lows in the next season, but here it's pitiable. Also moving forward are Willow with her burgeoning reliance on magic and Anya, who goes from the hilarious sex kitten to the layered, innocent hilarious sex kitten. Her relationship with Xander grows into one of the most tender in the Whedonverse, and frankly I don't trust anyone who doesn't love her.

There are those who despise Dawn, and she's usually referred to as the "jumping the shark moment." However, I think the writers made her work and, frankly, she's the most realistic character on the show. Anyone who has a younger sister knows Dawn is just as she should be; yes, she can be annoying and self-centered, but then what teenager isn't? Personally, I think she inspired more character growth in Buffy than ever before (even above the Angelus predicament), and she's fleshed out enough in her own right to make her a great character. Eff the haters.

When you get right down to it this is the best season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It mixes the consistency of the third season with the emotional impact of the latter half of the second season and the character development of the fourth season. My favorite is still the sixth for its darkness and its unparalleled character growth, but this moves into an incredibly close second. The finale is so epic and beautiful that, when Buffy returned next season and everyone plunged into depression and addiction, many fans said they it should have ended here.*




*They're wrong, by the way.

The 25 Best (and Five Worst) Angel Episodes

**warning- contains spoilers**

Picking the best episodes of "Angel" is even harder than choosing the cream of the crop of its sister show. Even though it boasted some major arcs, it got across a great deal of story and character movement even in its most inconsequential of episodes. But some are just great even by the standards of the show. Below is a list of the finest hours of one of the best shows ever made.

25. Orpheus (4x16)

As great as Faith was in "Buffy," her limited appearances on this show pushed her character farther than she went in a full season. Her return as a recovering villain hell-bent on saving Angel even at the cost of her own life was the true conclusion of her story. The personal risks Faith takes to save the only person who ever believed she could reform is touching and harrowing, and her story provides a nice juxtaposition to the hilarious take of Angel's tortured recollections that forces Angelus to revisit the heroic deeds of Angel, much to the demon's outrage.

24. Waiting in the Wings (3x13)

"Waiting in the Wings" is one of the more unlikely hits of the series, but then when Whedon's name is attached, you shouldn't be surprised by greatness. The neverending ballet serves as one of the better metaphors for not only Angel's struggles but with his budding feelings for Cordelia, which first start to manifest with this episode. It also marks the first TV appearance of future Whedonite Summer Glau. Everyone wins.

23. Spin the Bottle (4x06)

"Angel" was much darker than its parent, which was dark enough as is, but occasionally it boasted moments of pure Whedonesque glee. "Spin the Bottle" stands up to the very funniest of "Buffy's" romps through silliness. Angel turns back into a young adult in the 1700s in the middle of present-day Los Angeles, Fred a timid pothead, Gunn a solitary street warrior, and we get a glimpse back into the early personas of Cordy and Wesley. There are far too many great lines to even begin to list.

22. Underneath (5x17)

An unrelentingly dark look into the hell that is modern suburbia seems like a total aside after the events of the two episodes preceding it, yet it plunges the characters even further towards their inevitable conclusion. It’s hard not to get chills when Gunn takes Lindsey’s place at the end as penance for his role in Fred’s death.

21. Home (4x22)

The end run of Angel’s fourth season seemed hell-bent on ruining everything; it was so bad that Tim Minear came back after a full season off to pen this stunning, wrong-righting finale that moved the show in a completely unexpected direction. The way Wolfram & Hart perverts the Fang Gang’s victory over Jasmine is the first truly sinister thing they’ve done since Season 2.

20. Power Play (5x21)

The episode that finally completes the theme presented in “Reprise:” that in the grand scheme of things good and evil give way to the simple question of power. On the surface level it’s a brilliant exercise in constant misdirection as Angel moves into darker territory before he finally reveals his plan to the team. But the questions it raises about the true evil of the world pushes this over the edge of a fun episode into a classic one.

19. You're Welcome (5x12)

Cordelia’s arc in Season 4 almost made me abandon the show for good. Even in the great episodes of the season the undercurrent of her possession and the acts she commits made me want to throw my TV away. But this one episode rights almost everything by bringing Cordy back for only a fleeting moment to help Angel get his life back together and to send her off in a surprising yet affectionate way.

18. Sleep Tight (3x16)

One of the most Shakespearean hours of TV I’ve ever watched. Not only is Wesley a tragic hero, but Holtz turns into a true villain after a season of moral ambiguity through his subversive manipulation of both Wes and Justine in his single-minded obsession with revenge. The final scenes where Angel can only sit in anguish and Wes lies half-dead in a hospital is perhaps the most haunting moment of the entire series.

17. Sanctuary (1x19)

I’ll be honest, I struggled on whether to include this or its predecessor “Five By Five.” Ultimately, I came down on the side of this because Five By Five contains the bulk of its excellence to its final gut-wrenching scene while this is transcendent throughout. It juxtaposes Faith’s desire for redemption with Angel’s and proves to be one of the most thematic episodes of the series. Oh, and the philosophical discussion that accidentally spawns from a question about a microwave is both deep and hysterical.

16. Deep Down (4x01)

After the insufferably derivative and hollow Season 3 finale “Tomorrow,” Angel needed a rebound to make the ten seconds it took me to switch discs in my DVD player worth it (to say nothing of the poor sods who had to wait months between seasons). Happily, “Deep Down” fires on all cylinders; it presents some of the darkest developments to come along since “Reprise” and rewrites the thematic focus of the show once more to fit the season ahead. Shame that the season itself so completely failed to deliver.

15. Somnambulist (1x11)

Both Buffy and Angel had their share of standalones that were distant from the seasonal arc but still got across a great deal of development, yet this underappreciated gem inserts its character insights so subtly it almost seems like a throwaway. Penn serves to remind Angel (and we the audience) that his past will always come back to bite him and why perfect happiness eludes him.

14. Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? (2x02)

Quite possibly the most richly metaphorical episode of the series, AYNOHYEB? points to the direction Angel would take later in the season via an entrancing series of time jumps and a dark mystery. The main focus of the episode is fear and how people respond to it. Some of the allusions include xenophobia, racism, the Red Scare, and how these fears can influence a mob. The fact that Angel decides to relocate the gang to the site of his most terrible deed (post-soul, of course) is the biggest display of how he always keeps his demons on his mind.

13. I Will Remember You (1x08)

Yes, it’s melodramatic. But people need to stop equating melodrama with bad acting. IWRY is a devastating episode that teases Angel, Buffy, and us with the possibility of happiness before brutally pulling the carpet from beneath our feet. That Angel would sacrifice his chance at a life with Buffy to help her fight down the road is inspiring, and the final moments of their time together is heartbreaking thanks to SMG’s and Boreanaz’s stellar acting.

12. City Of (1x01)

Just about the best pilot you could hope for. It wastes no time introducing Angel and Cordy to this new world and tweaking their characters to fit it while keeping to their established traits, presenting us with a new character (Doyle), and laying down the fundamental themes of the show. The thematic direction of the series shifted often in brilliant ways, but the immobile core was formed here.

11. Destiny (5x08)

It’s been a long time coming, baby. The fight between Angel and Spike gets right to the core of their relationship, and the fight itself is the best in the series. It also tackles what it means to be a hero. The twist following the battle tops the whole thing off with a big laugh.

10. Smile Time (5x14)

Do I really need to explain this? The most brilliantly crazy concept in the Whedonverse (yes, it even beats out Hush and Once More, With Feeling for pure zaniness), “Smile Time” doesn’t have any real emotional highs or lows (apart from the pure elation of Fred kissing Wes at the end), but it’s such a bellyacher that I chuckle just thinking about it.

9. Epiphany (2x16)

The episode that preceded this, “Reprise,” was a cataclysmic affair philosophically and thematically, and “Epiphany” rebuilt the show out of the spectacular ashes. It reverts the themes of the show to those outlined in “City Of” while never backtracking. As terse and brutal as “Reprise” was, the idea of suddenly putting pieces back together in one episode seemed like an avenue to contrivance, but “Epiphany” is every bit as deep.

8. Reunion (2x10)

As I get closer to number one I’m finding it harder and harder to rank these. The number next to “Reunion” says 8, but it’s really tied for third or fourth. Wolfram & Hart gets their biggest victory over Angel by re-siring Darla, and it unleashes a being we’ve never seen before, one neither Angel nor Angelus. Wolfram & Hart were always trying to turn Angel, but they got more than they bargained for here. Though I’ve only watched the series twice, I’ve sat down with this one several times, and I still gets chills when Angel utters “And yet somehow, I just can’t seem to care.”

7. Lullaby (3x09)

I feel that Darla’s arc is somewhat overlooked by many because she was never a title character. However, hers is perhaps the most understated evolution on the show (after Fred's pre-Illyria days, of course), and her decision to sacrifice herself rather than lose her newfound love for her unborn child is deeply affecting. The juxtaposition between this touching selflessness and the cruelty both inflicted on Holtz and the cruelty he inflicts is one of the more cinematic touches of the series.

6. Darla (2x07)

I admit it, I’m a sucker for a Buffyverse flashback (the only ones that are actively bad are the retconning bores in “Heartthrob”), and the crossover smash “Darla” (it syncs up with Spike’s flashbacks in “Fool For Love,” only from Darla’s perspective) features my all time favorite looks into Angel’s seedy past. Equally as exhilarating is Angel’s desperate (and doomed) attempt to save Darla from herself which starts ramping up the show’s penchant for noir moods. This style would hit a high after Darla’s re-siring, but here it effectively builds tension for their plight.

5. Shells (5x16)

In the wake of Fred’s death, the Fang Gang is maybe as devastated as we are, and widens the scope of issues covered by its predecessor. Surprisingly, it packs almost as much emotional impact as AHITW with the revelation that Fred’s soul died with her, proving that Joss' series are so well-written, I can identify with them even on a surface level. Angel and co. took over Wolfram & Hart seemingly without consequence, but this was fate’s way of catching up.

4. To Shanshu in L.A. (1x22)

After a first season of disconnected rambling (which had its pros and cons), Angel stunned us all with an abrupt move into something bigger. Angel finally snaps out of his rut and the revelation of the Shanshu prophecy would loom over much of the rest of the series. Yet, until the fourth season at least, the prophecy never got in the way of the personal tale of redemption. A shockingly epic 42 minutes of television.

3. Reprise (2x15)

“Reprise” is the deepest hour of TV I’ve seen. If the thematic foreshadowing and complexity of Buffy’s “Restless” was a subtle dreamscape, “Reprise” is a sledgehammer to the forehead; it tears down the epic themes of “To Shanshu in L.A.” with the blunt admission that evil can never be triumphed over because it exists even within the good. Tim Minear made his mark with the Beige Angel arc, and here he proves himself to be the finest writer Joss ever hired, and the only one who makes me as excited to spot in the credits as Joss himself. Rarely has a series (much less a single episode) so curtly laid out the nature of the world for all to see.

2. A Hole in the World (5x15)

I’ve never put stock in any awards; most are motivated by a desperate desire for ratings and star coverage and the rest are just the industry’s way of patting itself on the back. Yet the fact that Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker didn’t nab Emmys for their heart-wrenching performances shows just how clueless some people are. It starts out with a hilarious and deceptively insightful debate over Cavemen vs. Astronauts (the answer is astronauts, by the way) and winds up a bleak look into religious fanatics (Knox) and never considering the consequences of our desires (Gunn). For my money this depresses me even more than “The Body” from Buffy's fifth season. Fred was the one character who couldn't be corrupted morally (Gunn even killed for her to keep her from doing anything vindictive), and so it was all the more devastating when this ancient evil corrupted her physically. And it gave people the chance to see what an incredible actress Amy Acker really was (as if the rest of her time as Fred wasn't subtle brilliance).

1. Not Fade Away (5x22)

There are those who view this episode as a cheap cliffhanger, a great first half to an unaired two-part finale. However, it is the truest send-off I have ever seen for any show. The depths the characters steep to in order to go out swinging is astonishing (Lorne’s finale in particular shook me deeply), and the last scene encapsulates everything about “Angel:” the daily, unwinnable struggle against evil. The fights manage to look epic without losing the working man feel of the series, and Wesley's death tore me up even more than Fred's, if that's at all possible. This is, quite simply, the best hour of TV I’ve ever seen.


Honorable Mention

Hero (1x09)

I wanted so badly to add this to the list (and high too), but I just couldn’t leave off any of the others. Doyle was a character who never had the time to win our hearts but did so anyway, and the fact that he sacrificed himself so Angel could keep fighting is a harbinger to Angel’s newfound importance in the wake of the Shanshu Prophecy. However, the cheap Nazi allusions really bring it down, to the point that I just couldn’t put it on the list.



The Five Worst Episodes of Angel

Angel is unquestionably my all-time favorite show, but that does not mean it's perfect. To date the only show I've ever watched with not a single weak episode is "Arrested Development" (I'm not counting short-lived British shows like "The Office" and "Spaced" because their runs are so short), but then that show only ran for 2.5 seasons. However, even though "Angel" doesn't always fire on all cylinders, I had a great deal of trouble coming up with even five all-out bad episodes. Comparatively, I can think of 8 clunkers in "Buffy" off the top of my head, and I still haven't finished going back through the series. So, let us take a moment to acknowledge the lesser moments of a great series.

5. Tomorrow (3x22)

To be honest, the whole end arc of Season 4 pisses me off to no end, but separately they aren’t bad enough to be rank as the worst of the series. But “Tomorrow” was hands down the worst finale of either Angel or its parent show. It squandered so much great lead-up in preceding episodes by falling into the trap of rampantly derivative devices. You’ve got your lack of action, waste of tension, all to set up a cheap cliffhanger that smacks of the absolute worst of TV clichés.

4. The House Always Wins (4x03)

The end run of Season 4 was shittier than the sum of its parts, but this early season clunker provides me with all the ammo I need. It’s a microcosm of all the flaws of the season: the initial awe at the bombast quickly gives way to the realization that the writers are dragging a character through emotionally devastating territory only to act like it’s no big deal and not move the character forward. Of course, Lorne’s story wasn’t half as offensive as the protracted ruination of Connor and Cordy.

3. Double or Nothing (3x18)

When he was a teenager, Gunn sold his soul for a pickup truck. I almost want to stop there. Now he has to pay up, so he breaks up with Fred so he doesn’t hurt her when he dies. On the day that he is going to die. Nice “strategery” Charles. I’m sure Fred will move on in the three hours between breakup and the news of your death. It’s stupid, emotionally vapid, and frankly insulting to both the audience and the characters.

2. Provider (3x12)

I have such a hard time writing anything about this episode. Angel Investigations needs money, so they immediately agree when a group of mysterious creatures offers $50,000 to take Fred back to their place to literally solve a puzzle. Of course, once they have her they plan on doing something stupid with her genius mind and the lesson is that money isn’t as important as friendship. That’s right, we have to sit through a moral normally reserved for a preachy sitcom. Man, why didn’t I spot the huge weaknesses in Season 3 the first time around?

1. She (1x13)

Joss Whedon always prided himself on the fact that "Buffy" never operated in the hackneyed "In a very special of..." style that every other show out there used to drum up ratings. But "Angel" got me worried when I watched this early disaster. In a blatant, heavy-handed metaphor of female genital mutilation, we are forced to endure Bai Ling's Jheira and those young girls she protects. Why? Because they have a mysterious appendage known as the Ko, which drives the males of their species to madness, so they remove it. While I agree that such practice is horrifying and deplorable, so what? Does anyone really NOT think that? It so cheaply smacks you over the head with a message that everyone agrees with anyway that it proves far more abysmal than a piece of filler. It is to TV what “Crash” is to film.

(See also: The 25 Best (and 5 Worst) Buffy Episodes)