Now that I actually think about it, I don't know if I've actually published an entire post about Buffy (besides the recasting post). I've started a few, but I don't think I've ever published them because I feel like I write about Buffy a lot. That may be true, but I probably don't write about it enough. Because it's awesome.
So here it goes. Quit reading now if you have no interest in Buffy and go watch Buffy.
1. Favorite Season
This is already hard... I'll have to narrow it down. Not 1-3 because "Angel's lame. His hair sticks straight up and he's bloody stupid."
Not 4 because besides Hush and Spike coming back as a regular, nothing really sticks out to me.
5 is a contender even though Dawn is the worst in that season.
I like 6 more than most people I know. I like how dark it is and seeing Buffy deal with issues the way imperfect people would. Then there's Dark Willow and you meet Andrew. Plus it's got two of my favorite episodes (Once More With Feeling and Tabula Rasa) and one of three most heartbreaking episodes (Hells Bells [the other two are New Moon from season 4 and The Body from season 5, just FYI]).
7 is up there. Spike kind of blows my mind, Principal Wood is pretty awesome, it's got a fantastic story arc, The First is crazy creepy, we're introduced to Nathan Fillion and one of my favorite vilains in the Buffyverse, it's got the Scythe, Felicia Day, Light Willow (!!!), and the show Joss created to be a feminist show comes to the perfect feminist conclusion. I'm getting chills right now just thinking of Buffy's final speech.
Maybe 7 is my favorite? But just barely, because I really do like 6. They might be tied so I'll put the trailers for both seasons below.
2. Favorite Episode
It's a three way tie between Once More With Feeling, Tabula Rasa, and Hush. One musical, one hilarious, and one terrifying. The perfect trifecta.
Once More With Feeling:
Tabula Rasa (not the best clip, but the only one I could find):
Hush (also not the clip I would have picked, but apparently copyrighted material is hart to come by on YouTube. Still though, gives me chils). Seriously, this episode won an Emmy and that's huge for genre shows:
3. Favorite Song Used in an Episode
The earlier seasons of Buffy generally featured an up and coming band, but I'm too lazy to try to remember those. I'm using the musical episode for this one.
I'll Never Tell sung by Anya and Xander. I really wanted to show the scene and this is the best I could find. I guess Fox doesn't really like their property up for free on the internet. And apparently this one you have to watch on YouTube. But it is the karaoke version so you can catch all the wit.
Tell me you're not curious. I dare you.
4. Favorite Female Character
I love Anya, I really do, but my favorite female character award goes to Willow.
Willow. I always felt like a spaz as a teenager. I still do (I just have awesome self esteem now). One line in the first episode has always rung true with me:
"When I'm with a boy I like, it's hard fo me to say anything cool, or witty, or at all. I can usually make a few vowel sounds, and then I have to go away."
Now, maybe I didn't dress this dorky in high school, but I still sure did identify with her.
We were kindred spirits from the very beginning and I love watching her change. Just look at season one above versus season seven below. But so many other things make her a phenomenal character.
There's Eskimo Willow (consequently the same Willow that stole the heart of Oz [aka Seth Green]),
Vampire Willow, shown here breaking another vampire's fingers,
Willow pretending to be Vampire Willow,
Doppelganger Willow (she thinks she kinda gay),
Flying Willow (that's right, I'm pulling from the comics here),
Dark Willow,
and (one of my favorite scenes), Light Willow.
I just love everything about her. Everything she starts out as and everything she becomes.
5. Least Favorite Female Character
I really don't like Dawn in season 5. Really, not at all. However, Dawn is I think 14 in season 5 which is a perfectly valid excuse to be so freaking annoying. Kennedy, on the other hand, is in her 20s and should not be so insufferable. She's only in season 7 as far as the show is concerned, so that's a bonus I guess, but I still don't like her in the season 8 comics. I haven't started reading season 9 yet, but I have a feeling I still won't like her. And I know Willow broke up with her at the end of season 8, but come on. When has an ex of any Scooby stayed out of the picture for good? Answer: Once. I have a feeling they'll keep with the trend they've generally been on.
6. Favorite Male Character
No question. Spike. Although Andrew takes a close second. I love Spike's story (especially seasons four through six), he's the only vampire I've ever been attracted to, and he's just all around awesome. Here are some of those awesome moments. And trust me, they're all worth watching.
This one is from Angel, but it's still a fantastic moment.
7. Least Favorite Male Character
Angel. Don't get me wrong, I love the show Angel and David Boreanaz (I spelled that right on the first try!) is great in his own show. He's just not great in Buffy. Their relationship is the worst and he's unbelievably broody. That's another thing I like about Spike: when he gets his soul, he doesn't spend 200 years sulking over everyone he killed when he was a soulless demon. Angel, on the other hand, does. It gets old real quick. Except when he's Angelus (soulless Angel). I love it when he's Angelus. That's the only time I can handle him in Buffy. To be fair, this happens in Angel and makes up for three seasons of lame Angel in Buffy:
8. Favorite Friendship
Buffy and Willow. From beginning to end, their friendship is perfect.
9. Favorite Romance
Willow and Oz. They were just so freaking cute and tragic. Although Willow and Tara have grown on me over the years as a couple. Despite their both being witches, their relationship always seemed the most real. Willow and Kennedy, however...
10. Least Favorite Season
No such thing.
11. Least Favorite Romance
Ugh, Buffy and Angel for sure. It's all drama-y and they're both so moody and blah, blah, blah... It's a pretty toxic relationship. I'm in the minority here though, because SO many people love Buffy and Angel (aka Bangel). I couldn't find a video of a scene with the two of them without it being a tribute video to their eternal love. Bleh.
I can't embed this video from Angel where Cordelia and Wesley are showing Fred and Gunn what Buffy and Angel's relationship is like, but it's well worth a watch:
http://youtu.be/Bzr7JSUIIQE
12. Least Favorite Episode
Teacher's Pet. The substitute teacher turns out to be a giant praying mantis and uses teenage virgins to fertilize her eggs before eating them (the teenage virgins, not the eggs). It's really not entertaining. Although that's where we first learn about Joss Whedon's love of schwarma. Ah, season one.
13. Favorite Potential Slayer
Pff, no question. Vi played by none other than Felicia Day. If you don't know how much I love Felicia Day, read any other post I've written on the subject of anything remotely geeky. I'm sure I mention her because I love her so much.
The picture below is of her right after she receives her Slayer Power. She's looking down at a pit full of hundreds of Ubervamps saying, "These guys are dust." SO AWESOME! I'm bummed she's only shown up once very briefly in the season 8 comics.
Since there aren't any clips of Vi on YouTube (part of that could be that she is a very minor character), I'm putting the first episode of The Guild here. Felicia Day created, writes, and stars in the only web series I watch regularly. In fact, her channel (geek and sundry - check it out here) creates my favorite videos in general.
The production quality goes up, as well as the episode lengths, and this show has gotten so popular that one season when the guild goes to Mega-Game-o-Rama-Con we get cameos by CRAZY people including, but not limited to: Nathan Fillion, Eliza Dushku, Zachary Levi, Tom Lenk, Neil Gaiman, STAN LEE (!!!) and others. Seriously, watch it.
14. Favorite Female Villain
Glory. Who wouldn't want to see the Slayer fighting a god?
15. Favorite Male Villain
Caleb. There is nothing Nathan Fillion can't do. Too bad he was only in a few episodes.
16. Episode You Like That Everyone Else Hates
It's got to be something from season 6... Probably Normal Again. I don't know too many Buffy fans in real life, but there was some message board where a lot of people didn't like this episode and I was very surprised. I love it.
The Trio (Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew) unleash a demon on Buffy that has a poison that causes hallucinations of another life. In this other life she's in a psychiatric hospital and her life in Sunnydale as the Slayer is a prolonged delusion. She spends the episode going back and forth between the two trying to figure out which is real.
17. Character You Relate to the Most
See above, re: Favorite Female Character
18. Character Who Didn't Get Enough Screen Time
Again, this is Caleb. Seriously, one of my favorite villains and I think he's only in 5 episodes. He also makes my favorite exit from the show - Buffy cuts him in half with a scythe balls first. It's pretty awesome.
19. Character That You Like That Everyone Else Hates
The only characters I know a lot of people hate are Dawn and Kennedy and we've already talked about them. I don't think I'm against the tide on this one.
20. Best Spike-centric Episode
Um... all of them? Remember how his story is my favorite? If I had to pick one, it would probably be Fool For Love. There's a lot of fun Spike history in there (not only do we see how he killed two slayers, but we get to see him as William before he was turned) and there's a moment at the end after he's done telling Buffy his story that just gets me every time. The clip below isn't it ("You're beneath me.") but it's still a very interesting look at Spike. He's on his way to kill Buffy but sees her crying and decides to sit with her. There's a whole story about how he loves her, but he can't really love her since he's a vampire and therefore has no soul. His progression in this season (juxtaposed to the stark reminder of what he really is at the end of season six) is just fascinating to me.
21. Best Willow-centric Episode
For a second I was thinking of Two To Go/Grave. Willow goes dark and evil and kills Warren by flaying him and tries to kill lots of other people and eventually the world. But the Xander comes in and saves the day. It's kind of awesome.
Anyway, as good as those two episodes are, Doppelgangland is definitely the best Willow episode. Vampire Willow gets teleported from an alternate reality into the actual reality. Everyone thinks she got vamped and are super sad, then Willow pretends to be Vampire Willow and shenanigans ensue. It's fantastic. And the two Willows have more in common than you'd expect.
22. Best Xander-centric Episode
The Replacement. Xander is split into two, each holding different attributes of the same person. Hilarity ensues. It's a great episode.
23. Two Characters You Wanted to Get Together but Never Did
Everyone got together with everyone except Buffy and Xander. And Xander and Spike. And Spike and Willow. And Buffy and Willow. Okay, not everyone got together. But there was enough getting together that there's no one I felt like should have gotten together. Cause really, there was a lot of getting together. Although, do Jenny and Giles count? They dated a little but they never got that far...
24. Favorite Example of 90s Special Effects
The werewolves. They started out terrible, and they stayed that way. It's just a person in a hairy suit running around on all fours with a very non-wolfy face. I think the very first werewolf you see had a wolf face, but they deviated from that and never got better. I don't know how they'd do it differently given the time and budget, but it's still hard to get past.
25. Favorite Buffyverse Saying
Gotta love the Buffybot:
26. Favorite Scooby Moment
I don't think I could pick one moment... Maybe when they realize that they all dreamed about the weird cheese man in Restless at the end of season four. Also a fantastic episode.
27. Cutest Moment
Well, pook. This video doesn't allow embedding. It's season 7 (Touched) when Spike gives his speech to Buffy. Knowing their history makes this a lot cuter, but still. It's all sorts of tender.
http://youtu.be/w6cWagC3IXI
28. Character You Love to Hate
Again, Caleb. Nothing like seeing a crazy misogynist being sliced in half balls first.
29. Episode That You Hate That Everyone Else Loves
Once more, I don't know many Buffy fans in real life and I don't go against the tide much. Although it's probably an episode that involves Angel when he's not Angelus.
30. What you Think Made Buffy So Great
Joss Whedon. Specifically, his philosophy and the way he writes women. Skip to about minute 3 if you want to bypass Meryl Streep's introduction and get to the meat of his speech.
Jenna! I must say, you nailed this. I agreed with every word you said. Now I want to go watch some Buffy.
ReplyDeletei stumbled across your blog searching for pictures of Willow on google! Literally the whole of this article, as Hilary above says, you hit the nail on the head.
ReplyDeleteI read the whole thing simply because it caught my eye haha, i guess that's some good blogging!
Now, I too want to watch Buffy. I miss it - but it's great to know that fans of the show keep it alive, just like you have in your blog. :)