BUFFY THE VAMPIRE POLLSTER

not including the comics bc i haven't read them

anyway the answer is 2

Ultimately Season 8 (the comic) was a load of shit and I assume S9 will be too.

Either 2 or 3, voted 3 because of Faith

3, come on. It doesn't have a dud all season and has about as many classic episodes as most 'great' tv shows ever do.

2 and 5 have the highest highs tho, in Surprise, Passions, Becoming, The Body and The Surprise.

Surprise? Gah I meant Innocence obv. I watched the end again, in the car w/ Giles and on the couch w/ Joyce and omg dunno if any telly has ever been that good. Ever.

a hoy hoy, how long did it take your series re-watch you mentioned some months back?

SEASON TRES

season 1 wasn't half bad tho - i surely hope it gets more votes than 6 &7. it was responsible large part for hooking me onto the show in the first place, bizarre enough (given context of subj. matter of the rest of the series)

I didn't start watching the show until season 5, and I still have a great deal of affection for that season. I think it is underrated.

Went for 2, but 2,3, and 5 are all completely classic.

season 3 really struck a chord w/ me, tho. a lot of it was just due to the coincidence that it was set during the last yr of high-school.. a pretty pivotal time for most everybody... but b/c it really had the last great cast as well.

anya was great but her novelty wore off her first season

obligatory rankings:

3,5,2,1,7,6

5 but not "because" of dawn

it's best season but i didn't notice until rewatch. 1 holds up the worst even though it's soooo snappy when you first see it

4's the hardest season to sit through and the payoff is the lamest (7 takes the most offensive quality dive but there's still plenty to see - <3 andrew)

s1 - ehhhh. it has its moments though, such as the first two episodes, Witch, Angel and Prophecy Girl. 6. Best Ep- Witch.
s2 - wooey. Starts slow, like you could take School Hard and skip the first 5 episodes and then BAM! Lie To Me, WML, Surprise, Innocence, I Only Have Eyes For You, Passions, Becoming - and we have the best romantic arc in TV history. 9.8. Best Ep- Shhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit, how to pick... Passions?
s3 - wooah. I guess I'd give Dead Man's Party a 7. Maybe Gingerbread too. Almost every episode is perfect or close to perfect television. Faith and the Mayor are sublime. 10. Best Ep- Graduation Day Pt. 1
s4 - sighh. Kinda rushed. Kinda confused. So obv they didn't know how to do two shows at once. Still one of the best shows in history w/ Fear Itself, Wild At Heart, Pangs, HUSH, the Faith arc, Superstar as the most meta thing not done by Community, the last two plus Restless. 8. Best Ep- This Year's Girl?
s5 - ;_;!!. Holy shit I <3 this show. I mean look at it. Family, Fool For Love, Shadow, The Body, I Was Made To Love You, Intervention, the Tara arc at the end and The Gift. Never will I wash dishes listening to the rumba the same again. 9.9
s6 - baddd. They sing, they raise the dead, they get depressed and drugged up, Giles leaves and it should have ended as a figment of crazy buffy's imagination. 7.
s7 - talky, speech after speech after speech after speech also the first good black guy in the show (in which we take kendra's accent into account). Oh but Selfless, Storyteller and Conversations With Dead People are amongst the greatest tv i've ever seen. 5.

rankings on the whole with replayability factored in: 5 >> 3 > 2 >>> 6 >> 4 > 7 > 1

noooooo i haven't finished this yet & want to cast an informed vote

andrew revived a lot of the nerdery i missed from xander. he dropped a lot of that after getting high construction job

2, 3, or 5 tho

Season 1 - lol
Season 2 - ANGEL
Season 3 - FAITH
Season 4 - um riley
Season 5 - DAWN

^lol these are p otm season synopses

xpost

I can do it in like a week but I no longer have s6 on dvd so its been years since i watched it all b2b.

Anya's best moments are in The Body and Selfless so meh to "wearing off" after her first season. She hadn't even warmed up!

Also Season 5 shouldn't be DAWN it should be SPIKE imo. What a fucking character arc.

Season 3 is nearly all duds and doesn't have a single great episode.

how far are you kev btw?

you...take that back xp

how far are you kev btw?

― Ravaging Rick Rude (a hoy hoy), Monday, September 26, 2011 3:43 PM (24 seconds ago)

u_u school started again - halfway through 6

Season 3 is nearly all duds and doesn't have a single great episode.

― Melissa W, Monday, 26 September 2011 20:43 (47 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

srs trolling going on here.

cool kev you can stop there. maybe watch normal again, selfless and cwdp.

2-4 was the peak for me, voted 3 because it had the best villains (faith and the david lynch-esque mayor)

anya is the best character in the history of television just fyi

could've used more rabbit scenes

oh god yeah

also kitten poker

honestly not a huge faith fan

even though it's always hilarious how she always thinks she's good at manipulating people or turning angel evil again and it never works

her daddything w the mayor's fun though and she's great in buffy's body

2 and 5 have the highest highs tho, in Surprise, Passions, Becoming, The Body and The Surprise.

― Ravaging Rick Rude (a hoy hoy), Monday, September 26, 2011 3:17 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

ya this is correct. the body is probably the best single episode of a show i've ever seen, at least for network. and the angelus arc is incredible.

gotta rep for S6 though, i'm a part of its small cult (and i'm not even a OMWF stan)

3 or 5 now i will read the thread

2
3
6
5
4/7
1

7 also has a bunch of really great episodes. opposite case with 6 -- OMWF is good and so is tabula rasa and nothing else, but the season arcs are great (ok i just really enjoy the dark willow story, which is probably challops but whatev). 7 has an awful full season arc but it also has selfless, conversations with dead people, storyteller, maybe a couple others i'm forgetting

6 has both better arcs and episodes than 7 u crazy. 7 is hard to defend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O06DGow63c

yeah i don't know. that episode feels like it's trying too hard with too slight a payoff to me. that whole season is so going through the motions.

oh and + wheelchair fight

um i think people are generally against moving the poll craze into ILE but would anyone be interested in a proper episodes poll (volunteering myself to organize if so)

that song >>>> all of omwf

gtfo

do you mean like with proper email voting or just a poll thread for each season?

only great song on omwf is the tara one, the rest gets by w/ joeks and context.

i mean proper email voting

i will help iyw. its not like my buff knowledge is limited (really should have spent this time on something more productive)

It would be a race for 2nd place with "The Body" taking the big prize, but it could be fun.

i dunno, i genuinely couldnt pick an obv winner from innocence, becoming, hush, body, gift and omwf.

voted 6

just to make sure it gets rep'd as underrated

3 prob best imo

It would be a race for 2nd place with "The Body" taking the big prize, but it could be fun.

― Antonio Carlos Broheem (WmC), Monday, September 26, 2011 7:38 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

probably but it's not so much a sure thing with OMWF around

this is a case where a bottom 5/10 would be necessary too, i think everyone would contribute votes for that

I appreciated Faith on basis on Whedon's constantly clever dialogue , but I absolute hate that personality type where one's personality *is* an attitude

... never dated the type, but had to work w/ plenty

oops, forgot to quote (kiss out the jam)'s comment

Beer Bad, I Robot, You Jane 1-2 punch for a *worst* list.

lol i wouldn't put either of those on my worst list (caveman buffy was adorable, i'm a faux-luddite and i liked giles' rants)

yeah i was about to say i love cave buffy

i robot, you jane is terrible, though

beer bad also has bartender xander. i robot you jane is probably The Worst Episode but it's also obnoxiously essential because it introduces miss calendar.

actually i take that back it's not the worst. it's just the cheesiest/most dated/most s1 of s1.

i have to say miss calendar is really annoying in that episode and forever after. she is v v pretty though.

i like miss calendar but i also like how thoroughly giles gets over her.

i only like her inasmuch as giles likes her; robia lamorte might be the worst actor on that show.

was at barnes & nobheads today and saw a Total Film (UK) special edition mag I think it was that presented the top 20 sci-fi heroes according to them. included with the magazine was a card/bus pass holder laminate with a buffy image inside and a firely poster

FUCK DO THEY KNOW THEIR AUDIENCE

it was $20 for the issue (US import here) and i was seriously contemplating ripping the thing open

that which kept me back was knowing i could reproduce both at kinkos for about $4

my god print media is depressing

Calling season 3 flawless is a bit of an exaggeration; Beauty and the Beasts is pretty terrible. I feel like it's the most accomplished and well-designed season, yet doesn't have quite the emotional power of 2. Most of the relationship developments feel a bit more honest in s2, as opposed to say the infidelity subplot, which is all kinds of contrived. On the other hand, so many classic episodes, even the dumb throwaways (eg "Band Candy") are miles beyond the s2 ones.

i always say willow is the season 6 villain, i like this better.

the run from about halfway through season 2 when it finds its feet to the end of season five is amazing. six is p much all out of ideas and seven is a good idea and the first episode is great but they blow their wad with it so quickly whereas the reveal should have been slower and later and they end up just having to pad out the entire season with inspirational speeches and stirring pronouncements before the climax which is weirdly similar to the season three finale (season three has the best finale tho so)

it eats you from your bottom

God, I hated all those inspirational speeches.

i liked beauty and the beasts xpost! oz eats a dude [posts out of context]! the girl kills it w/ her scene in the bathroom. willow does her adorable groupie thing. ok the plot kinda sucks and is a bit too on the nose but they make it work.

xpost

It always seemed like mates & family unfamiliar with Buffy would walk in right on them, thereby officializing their opinion of Buffy based on the one scene. It's a problem that they're so long and so seemingly often.

3

Based on no of fave episodes, 7 wins for me.

1: nada
2: Lie To Me, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, Killed By Death
3: The Wish, Amends
4: Hush, Who Are You?, Restless
5: Family, The Body, The Gift
6: Once More, With Feeling, Normal Again
7: Beneath You, Potential, Storyteller, Chosen

But I think the writing / acting / production improved with every season.

... apart from season 8, which was a travesty. Issue 5 was amazing however. Called "The Chain". Some of Whedon's best writing in that.

Killed By Death but no Innocence or Becoming?

Potential? Really? Was it the Xander speech? Chosen also kinda sucked imo although I can't really get into it without kev spoilers.

idk i liked chosen

I just did the whole run for the first time - 7 starts out great but the whole Big Bad thing is so, so crap. And the ending...hoo boy.

3 > 5 > 6 > 4 > 7 > 1 > 2

explain your dislike of 2 plz

yeah how the hell do you have 2 last?

5 > 4 > 6 > 2 > 7 > 3 > 1. 6 and 2 are a toss-up, though.

Was it the Xander speech?

Absolutely. Made me weep many man tears.

Killed By Death but no Innocence or Becoming?

Have never found either that satisfying. Killed By Death wins because it's one of the few times I remember being genuinely scared by the show.

Re: 2, the whole Angel/Buffy thing generally did nothing for me, ergo the ending had no impact, especially since it was pretty clear there were no real stakes (ha!) since he'd be back shortly. (Plus there are a bunch of crap MOTW eps like in S1.)

7 is vastly underrated but couldn't in good conscience vote for it over 3. 6 is the worst, the "dark willow" arc verged on self-parody.

I find the Angel/Buffy stuff much more tiresome in 3 (though I do love the parody of it in The Zeppo).

Oh man, The Zeppo - that might be my overall favorite ep.

The only redeeming factor about Dark Willow was that I genuinely found her sort of scary. Not "boo!" scary, but scary in ways that this was a character you had known for so long and was now an entirely, entirely different person. The concept is easy to imagine and pretty unimpressive in theory, but I just found that it - sorry, gonna be vague here - *worked*. There were bits that exposed Whedon at his worst - "I don't want to hurt you, Willow!" >> "ha ha ha i dont even consider these base deliberations" - but otherwise that she was defeated via a speech by Xander than any karate chops or super-weapons I really thought a neat departure, and appropriate.

And maybe cliche. I don't know. I don't watch an awful lot of other TV but I have to admittedly imagine this having been done elsewhere.

it's the speech meg gives charles wallace in a wrinkle in time.

well, it's not a speech in wrinkle in time, but it's the same idea

i dislike some of the execution of the dark willow arc and question alyson hannigan's ability to act it fully, but it is a good arc and is definitely exactly where willow's character was headed. so full of rensentment + insecurity + grandiosity.

i guess it was less willow's character itself that i liked, but the overall conflict that surrounded her. i adore every episode, every season of buffy just about until those last 3 episodes when the big bad's ready to execute their big plans... not so b/c i think it's overly "done", but that buffy always defeats them in such seemingly convenient ways. immortal mayor? explosives! evil incarnate? look, i found a super axe!

i mean i think on these things and am full well conscious i couldn't come up w/ anything better, and that this ultimately is television - it needs a bad guy, it needs a hero(in), it needs a resolution. but i don't hesitate to say that i find buffy unlike most shows in way that its filler episodes were always more memorable that the ones that concerned the arc.

that said, season 3 and 5 are exempt. 2 was great as well, but i always felt spike & drusilla could've just been reduced to a team-rocket sort of duo (i'm young) and fans wouldn't mind otherwise.

dark willow was never even my favorite, just the general atmosphere of all characters in despair made it one of the best imo--put your people in crisis and you'll see shades and colors more compelling than you ever would ime

yes you are very smart on season 6 in general, hoos

ahh team rocket

aw thx hs

I sorta feel like S6 is one of those moments in a life--you hear Nevermind when you're 15 or you read On the Road on a college off-year or whatever--where I encountered the point in the narrative at a near identical junction in my real life, and like any of those sorts of things, you don't give up on your favoritism easily, if ever. Maybe even defend it a little harder.

I, of course, watched S6 right after being resurrected from the dead.

"Beer Bad" is a bit of a fave of mine not just for the lols, but becauser it was written by my namesake!

yeah silent hedgehogs was one of the show's more underrated writers

lol

Hahah :)

i think i first really started watching buffy while the sixth season was still airing, because i heard about the musical episode and watched it and was charmed that anyone would even try such a thing (and i had basically zero experience with or affection for musicals).

OH nvm what I said earlier, the Spike and Dru stuff is what made S2 tiresome IMO.

the spike and dru stuff was p tiresome in s2 but in later seasons with the other character tensions i was kinda interested in how that dynamic might play out tbh

spike: a lot of people never really got dru

xander: she was insane

Love Dru. Still occasionally say "Yore face is loike a poem" to the missus.

Plumped for S3, mostly because of the mayor.

Worst episode is clearly Dracula. Feels like they wrote a deliberately shitty season opener to spite the channel or something?

Love Dru. Still occasionally say "Yore face is loike a poem" to the missus.

:D :D :D

Still occasionally say "Yore face is loike a poem" to the missus.

lol this is awesome

xp!

Worst episode is clearly Dracula. Feels like they wrote a deliberately shitty season opener to spite the channel or something?

That episode was sort of meta-funny to me because I used to watch All My Children when SMG's character was married to the dude who played Dracula.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wmjMH8BitE

oh wau

s6 - baddd. They sing, they raise the dead, they get depressed and drugged up,

As a proud owner of the Once More With Feeling soundtrack CD, gotta disagree. What's always confusing about these threads is I mix up the story arcs with Angel and never stopped loving the show: The rumored dip in quality seems to coincide with it taking me exactly where I wanted to go at the time, which was down into cathartic sadness.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I made the bold declaration a few years back that season 5 of Buffy was the best season of any TV show ever. That might've since been trumped by Breaking Bad or The Wire, but it's still up there.

Season 6 is the best hardest to watch season of any TV show ever. Hugely underrated, hugely depressing.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Season 4 - um riley 0

lololol

I'm diving in. S1 E1 About 15 minutes in and the overacting is killing me already. TV just sucks...

Might give season recaps but not sure I'm going to make it. I ended up loving the first five or so season's of True Blood so I need to give this a chance. I think?

RIP Giles

Bee you can watch like three eps of season 1 and skip ahead if you’re open to recs

Yeah recommend that. Gets so much better in S2 and on

I think the last episode of season 1 is a perfect episode of television so I would at least watch that one.

Thanks everyone, I'm watching the second episode tonight and will give three a chance too. Thanks for the advice.

I started watching at the fifth season. I bought the whole season on VHS after my first breakup - it seemed appropriate. I went back and watched 3, but I’ve never seen 2 or 4.

Skip to the last 2 or 3 eps after #2, you’ll be fine

2 and 4 are good shit, 4 has all that Initiative bs sure but some all time greatest individual eps (including of course Hush!).

The problem is I'm a complete est, I finished watching the Walking Dead way past the expiration date. But that cured me as I never watched a spin off show.

Bad acting and even worse props but this story of telling Buffy she's a vampire slayer is starting to be told...

End of s2 into pretty much all of s3 is worth whatever you go endure in s1 which is frequently kinda shaky & a little uh, off. But there’s an underlying spirit that permeates through the whole series. Imo

Yeah they couldn’t get to seasons 2 & 3 without going through season one, the show and cast had to gel. But I agree that watching all of s1 isn’t necessary.

Some of us actually put in the hard work yknow

J/k

My friend introduced me to Buffy and he lowered my expectations of S1 so much that I was pleasantly surprised to find it was decent. I think it can be partially enjoyed on a "so bad it's good" level

I’m pretty sure the first episode I saw in real time was s2 ep. 6, the Halloween one. Then saw the rest of s2 and caught up to the first half of the season in summer rerun. Watched basically the rest of series as it was broadcast, and I guess I caught up to s1 also in reruns at some point. But s2 was my real introduction.

I love that vampires don't go out on Halloween because they think it's tacky.

Is Sunnyvale northern or southern Cali? I know it’s supposed to be SoCal but it always had Santa Cruz/Davis vibes to me

It always seemed firmly SoCal to me! I live in Sac, I def never got Davis vibes … nor Santa Cruz

Ha, it’s been so long since I’ve seen an episode I might be confusing it with The Lost Boys.

Los Angeles is clearly not far, so my hunch was that Sunnyvale was something like Santa Barbara. iirc dialogue in Angel establish it as "up the coast" from LA

two hours north of LA according to Wikipedia. the maps they use are actually Santa Barbara. the high school used during filming was in Torrence.

Sunnyvale is Northern California, it's between San Francisco and San Jose, right in the middle of Silicon Valley.

lol true, I believe Chuck meant Sunnydale

Makes sense, this show is very SoCal vibe so far. I'm at S1 E5, show is sort of fun but ridiculous.

Yeah the ridiculousness is baked in — it's called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after all. But at its peak, it did a pretty remarkable job of balancing horror, humor, and real pathos.

Just finished the first season. I would normally pull the plug now but going to give season 2 a chance because of the feedback here and my friends. It was bad but is interesting enough to continue. I can deal with corny ie Evil Dead 2 but this corny is definitely TV overload.

Seeing this on Disney+ and the commercials alone makes me want to quit. Four commercial breaks on a two hour movie is fine, four in 42 minutes is frustrating!

season 1 is one of the weaker seasons, gets better

can one skip season 1?

I don't remember well enough now tbh. obviously there is going to be some expository value you'll miss out on. I think there's some important angel stuff in s1 too

Season 1 is enjoyable, just watch it.

S1 is worth it just for the last episode

I know what you mean about the corniness, but I think the show understands that it's working inside this basically ridiculous framework and then uses that framework to tell complex stories about its characters over the course of several seasons. I agree it takes a while for it to get there, but I just watched an S2 episode picked somewhat randomly (spurred to it by Anthony Head's death) and immediately remembered why I liked it.

No skipping seasons! buy the ticket take the ride #oldmanyellsatcloud

tbf i don't think watching the first two seasons of star trek TNG is a worthwhile endeavor

(apart from 'the measure of a man' and 'q who')

anyway i've started buffy a couple times and always petered out after at most six episodes

S1 is worth it just for the last episode

I mentioned this upthread but I LOVE the last episode of the first season. I went back and rewatched it when this thread got refreshed, and every time I watch it I'm blown away by how many things it does and how perfectly it does them. It feels big and small at the same time: it manages to be an epic season-ender without ever losing sight of the fact that it's set in a high school at prom and that these are teenagers with teenage lives and priorities and hopes and fears. It has room for the hellmouth opening and also for Xander lying on his bed listening to "I Fall to Pieces." Every single character gets a scene that encapsulates what they are capable of in a crisis, that acknowledges their frailties and weaknesses, but also allows them to rise to who they are at their best. And you can say what you want about the acting in Season 1, but Sarah Michelle Gellar delivering the line, "Giles, I'm sixteen years old, I don't want to die," is 100% perfect, cannot be bettered, makes me tear up just thinking about it.

Otm!!

can one skip season 1?

as discussed itt in June 2026, you know the characters now so yr fine skipping to the last two eps

ty

If you want to do the budget version of the first season, I'd say the first three episodes, Angel and the last two episodes will set you up for what comes after. But I do think ultimately they are all worth it.

skip the robot one tho

Four commercial breaks on a two hour movie is fine, four in 42 minutes is frustrating!

That's basically what we had to deal with (and then some!) watching anything back then.

for some reason i thought Willow said "bored now" for the first time in one of season 1 episodes, so was going to advocate for watching it based on this reason alone (apparently it actually happens in season 3)

To be fair I actually think Sarah Michelle Gellar can act or is learning to act, it's the rest I had a problem with.

I love that S1 ending episode was a homage to "Little Shop of Horrors" 1960, didn't see the remake.

SMG did 2 years on All My Children before she did Buffy - “can act” is facts!
She never met an emotional close-up that she couldn’t nail <3

She's so charming and then also convincingly hurt and angry and sad. One of the great TV matches of actor and role.

a tangent:

over a year or so of watching pluto dot tv, the ads for the 'royal kingdom' game(s) have gone from featuring complete randos to influencers i've never heard of to ppl like SMG and mccaulay culkin

it's vaguely embarrassing, but fine -- they're decades out of date and it's easy money

but mainly how does 'royal kingdom' -- which is both free to play and seemingly annoying as fuc -- make its money?

In-app purchases, I assume. People spend a lot of money on that stuff.

wild

I don't know, A list actors are all over commercials like never before.

it's the rest I had a problem with

Curious who you have the problem with, I think most of the (main) cast are good to great! Boreanaz isn't a great actor, and he doesn't really have chemistry with... anyone except Lorne in Angel come to think of it... but he's somehow a really good fit for the role. It's good that he isn't an over-serious Robert Pattinson type.

I hope no one rags on Alyson Hannigan's performance or I might end up succumbing to k-pop stan/swiftie levels of vitriol.

Boreanaz always my least favorite of the OG crew, imo he doesn't have the sufficient level of brooding charisma to carry the role. But SMG makes up for it, she supplies like 80% of the chemistry — I believe she's smitten with him even if idgi.

DB does much better once Angel (the show) gets going and he's no longer playing the heartthrob imo. I think he has decent chemistry with everyone in that cast

but yes he is spectacularly awful on Buffy S1

it's been a long time, but Charisma Carpenter is probably the best in S1 after SMG (maybe I'm thinking of S2 though). ASH should be good but his character is pretty one-note at first

I do not believe in ai but I’d honestly be interested in seeing how much more watchable the show is with no Xander

I remember being surprised that James Masters was so much older (relatively) than the rest of the cast, because at the time being in your late thirties seemed Very Old

xp haha yeah it sucks what a sour note he is in the otherwise peak seasons. I don't think I can ever rewatch this show, mostly for Whedon reasons plus over familiarity, but also Xander (as the Whedon stand-in) is such a bummer

Yeah, he forgot how old he was in relation to the rest of them too

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/ok-we-have-to-talk-about-that-song-james-marsters-wrote-for-michelle-trachtenberg

Boreanaz had never really acted before being in Buffy! he maybe had done a couple of sitcom guest spots but he was VERY green. It shows in S1 but also they didn’t give him a ton besides “be handsome & brood a lot”. I think as they expanded Angel’s role in s2-3 he was able to be more comedic & sarcastic & mean & he got a lot better . Having SMG as scene partner obviously shows his weaknesses but from what I read she helped him learn the ropes in the early days .

Nicholas Brendon is definitely another weak link. I think the reason he doesn't bother me much is that Xander is almost always supposed to be kind of lame and pathetic, so his stiff line readings kind of work as a guy who lacks self-confidence and can't put anything across very persuasively.

otoh I just rewatched the first episode where Seth Green shows up, and even with just like 5 lines you can tell he's going to be a featured player.

yeah tipsy otm re Xander. But I’ve seen the show so many times since it first aired I am just naturally kinda fond of all the characters. He’s playing an idiotic awkward selfish teenage boy, it’s not exactly the most forgiving role. Plus he’s the mouthpiece for most of Whedon’s lizard brain stuff

Seth/Oz was gold from the get go, love him SO much

I'm interested to rewatch Xander for the first time, I was definitely one of the many "Xander's my guy, the Zeppo is the best one" people when I first watched it

Xander doesn't have much of an arc, does he, he just keeps on fulfilling the role of a "regular guy" counterbalance to the rest of the gang

many xps
i'm more likely to find it unwatchable without xander tbh. and as for acting, brendon nails the character straight off the bat, he's way better than everyone else in the cast in series 1 imo

on my rewatch a few years back I found Xander (though not Nicholas Brendon) the worst part of season 1, incel Chandler is an exceedingly unappealing character. I think he got a bit better without changing too much, maybe just sanding off some of the worst parts of the incel side.

Plus he’s the mouthpiece for most of Whedon’s lizard brain stuff

The obvious plus to a Buffy without Xander would be no Anya.

hey now

how dare

xpost how would you even read that as a compliment

"i was being patient but it took too long" is the second most used line in this household

I don’t know if it was the intention, maybe it just reflects the different writers and how they responded to the character, but Xander seems like a really good depiction of a normal teenage boy - he’s annoying, he has genuinely positive qualities and can be a loyal and supportive friend, he can also be a reactionary and judgmental asshole, and you don’t really know for sure which side of him will be dominant once he’s an adult.

Yeah and there was also a plotline where they praised him for not raping Buffy. He’s a shit character.

xpost how would you even read that as a compliment

Why else would you mention this in defence of a character’s existence? If anything we should know less about Joss Whedon’s id.

nicholas brendon did his best with playing the thankless role of a total weasel

xxp idk you can also read that storyline as a dumb horny teenage boy inadvertently getting his ultimate fantasy and having enough basic decency to turn it down.
I didn’t think the episode was intended to make him heroic, he fucks up massively and has to demonstrate some of his better qualities to avoid complete disaster.

ivy otm

early seasons Xander is so toxic. tbf I used to like him too, and he's not *just* toxic, but as an adult it's extremely hard to watch him throw entitled tantrums about Buffy's choices, and then see him decide Willow is attractive as soon as she's in a relationship with someone else and isn't pining away for him, etc. The Zeppo is still a good ep and I think he's better in S3 and definitely by S4 where he's cut out of the social dynamic, but oof he's repellant a lot in S2

I think there are aspects of the show that can be more enjoyable to talk about than to watch - like, i think Xander is interesting as a character but he can be unbearable in a number of episodes. The season 6 villains are 10-15 years ahead of the curve in depicting the rancid misogyny in nerd culture and its darker consequences but i sure don’t love watching those guys for most of a season.

also if any aspect suffers from the Whedon fallout, his very pointedly introducing these nerds who are evil, NOT LIKE ME is it

otoh he's more honest about himself in Dollhouse, which I assume is 100% unwatchable now

xxpost gyac. JFC I said it as CONTEXT. All I said is that it’s a thankless role if anything made worse by the lizard brain stuff. It has aged poorly!
I’m not defending or complimenting anyone!
Please back off.

I love the supreme casualness of Oz calling his aunt and finding out how he caught lycanthropy from his nephew, it's so low-key you can miss it entirely

Yes! Such a great little detail, his chillness is unmatched

The season 6 villains are 10-15 years ahead of the curve in depicting the rancid misogyny in nerd culture and its darker consequences but i sure don’t love watching those guys for most of a season.