Buffy

tho yeah, season 5 leaned into the tragedy and humor in equal measure.

good show!

I think the first season finale of Buffy is a great episode of television and it would be a pity to miss it. But then I also don't think the first season is that bad; it just has a bunch of dud episodes in the middle. I would just suggest skipping #4, #5, #6 and #8, and then you've got a compact little Season 1 with an excellent finale.

Angel Season 4 is my fave. I don't really like Angel at all until Season 3; Season 2 has its moments but overall I think it's a show that took a very long time to reach its full potential.

season 4 of angel was one of the best televisual rides i've ever been on so when i refer to it as fascinatingly messy it is with deep affection

also made it impossible for me to take mad men guy seriously when mad men was still on tv, which i cherish

fucked up what happened with cordelia still

the thing that kept me from getting through buffy for like a six month period was how bored out of my skull i was during season one, maybe i'd like it more now

xp totally. charisma got done wrong.

Angel is such a genre stew with so many tone shifts and major cast changes and eventually it works super great, no regrets on that series as a whole. If it went 7 seasons, maybe it would've petered out like Buffy did (and the Angel Season 6 comics were not good)
Season 4 is great but there's SO much lore and backstory leading up to that (and into the final season) from previous seasons

i watched most of Angel/Buffy after their runs; I do wonder if watching Buffy 3/Angel 1 and so on was interesting. but they didn't really connect much, I only remember one or two crossovers

agree about the first season finale of buffy, lily, i think it's one of the best episodes of the show. but i do think it took a minute to get the alchemy right. the first season also feels dated (or of its time) in a way that the rest of the show doesn't really. show got a lot better when xander stopped skateboarding lol

Agree about it being more dated; I rewatched The Puppet Show the other day, and while I do really enjoy that one, there is a lot of sitcommy acting in it, especially from Willow and Xander.

I honestly can't recall if we watched the S1 finale. We might have.

Last time I watched it, S1 was fun mostly *as* a time capsule of a mode of television that feels very distant now. But yeah it's probably best experienced after you've already become a fan and then it's kind of interesting in terms of things like, wow Boreanaz came a looong way as an actor from Buffy S1 to the later Angel seasons.

iirc angel (the show) has a v uneven season one, a great seasons 2-3, a fascinatingly messy season 4, and the fifth season is the best one

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Friday, January 15, 2021 10:33 AM (one hour ago)

this is totally otm, S4 is nuts the first time through when you don't know what is going to happen next, but ime re-watching it makes its flaws super glaring, e.g., Conor is a terribly written character, such a drag and I don't think Kartheiser is to blame based even just on his S5 appearances let alone Mad Men.

Fuck Xander

I should probably rewatch all of this sometime to see if I still stand by my pronouncement (from like 15 years or so ago) of Buffy season 5 as the greatest season of tv ever. I mean I doubt it's held on to the crown after all these years but it's probably still up there.

(And also my declaration of Buffy season 6's year-long depression narrative as the greatest difficult to watch season of tv ever.

nick brendon absolutely nails xander straight out the box in the unaired pilot and the whole of season 1 proper, the rest of the actors take a while to find their characters imo.

spike a terrible character, perfect that he's a utd fan.

angel and the mayor are the only really good buffy villains. the master okay but can't go anywhere. adam = dud (tho i love the s4 post victory finale episode.) glory/ben = yawn. crackwillow! = even more yawns. first evil = wtf i'm not even awake to yawn.

s6 has some good episodes but i'm the kind of rube who needs most of the characters to be likeable in order to love smthg, of course what i consider likeable might not be the same as what others do*, and in s6 they all suck bar tara and anya, and only buffy has a good reason for her suckage.

*i like all the main characters in seinfeld and mark zuckerberg was the only character i liked in social network.

I think you should at least do the first two episodes, Angel and Prophecy Girl from Season 1.

Season 2 - When She Was Bad, School Hard, maybe Halloween, Lie To Me, maybe What’s My Line or at least explain the two slayer thing, Surprise/Innocence, Phases, Passion, Becoming.

Season 3 - easier to say which ones to skip - Dead Mans Party, Amends, Gingerbread, maybe The Zeppo

the zeppo isn't my fav episode, but come on, people should def not skip it

the xander pov when interrupting buffy/angel clinch in zeppo is great, as is oz/xander convo in that episode.

Yeah I definitely wouldn’t, but it seems like the least important plot wise in such a ridiculous season. Personally I would just encourage watching all of it. Even Gingerbread explains Amy the rat.

just watch everything. if you're gonna commit, commit. lesson for the kiddies

I rewatched it all + 3 seasons of Angel in lockdown. It’s still amazing. I can understand cutting out some of Season 2 though, some of it might feel quite dated and hacky, and put someone off before they get to the good stuff. (My major take from rewatching as an adult was how otm season six is about how depressing adulthood is, and that season seven is wellllll better than I remember it. Also season 3 Angel is a slog and I never finished it - sooo much whining about holtz and the baby and seemingly making the plot up episode by episode)

i really like the little exchange in the telepathy/school shooting episode - "Is it just me or is the school newspaper getting kind of dark?" "I dunno, I always just skip to the obits." Probably kind of hard to do a fun show about teenagers these days with the same body count.

Starting in season 2 Angel feels like they're doing mini-reboots of the show several times per season, and it's a toss-up as to whether it'll be compelling or godawful. Though season 4 commits to on-the-fly batshit serialization.

xp That was the one they didn't end up airing because of Columbine, right?

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. The only one I can't go with is "make them commit," because there is no way I can get a 16-year old to commit to 20 hours of a show under duress. And besides, she's been great about watching classic movies with me, and if it's a matter of her watching "M" or 2 or 3 "Buffy" eps, "M" wins.

xp yeah i think it got aired after the season ended

I presume that would be Earshot, which is an episode kinda about someone bringing a gun to school to kill everyone

season 6 of buffy is a series of great ideas poorly executed. season 7 is similar but the ideas are bad

i'm guessing i would like season 7 more on rewatch but... imo the other slayers made it unwatchable

also yet another example of a joss whedon show doing one of its best characters dirty (anya)

why doesn't xander die! he sucks

brad completely otm about season 7, especially about anya and *shudder* kennedy. "conversations with dead people" is the only real redeeming quality of that season.

iirc the actress who plays anya specifically requested that ending so she couldn't be brought back

in my mind both show and dialogue have dated badly, and now it's all wrapped up in whedon's apparent toxicity and buryyourgays-ing, but the performances are generally pretty top-notch and fun

dawn is much less of a drag than buffy at the end iirc

i can't imagine this show won't be revived eventually in some non-comics form

Rewatching, the potentials are mostly all fine, some are even interesting, and Buffy is old and tired of her ‘job’ and annoying. She’s Losing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem, or a Karen-in-Middle-Management-Meme

Having not seen an episode in probably a decade, I feel like the thing that might've aged the worst is the fight choreography, which I remember thinking was pretty dodgy back in the day and which is a thing that has largely improved by leaps and bounds in the tv of today.

It's weird how disinclined I am to go back and watch it when you consider what a superfan I was at the time

my excuse is it's a very long show

maybe it's time though, it's been like a decade

i first watched buffy and angel about a decade ago too, and loved it enough that i started a buffy rewatch as soon as i finished angel lol

i'm more inclined to rewatch angel, and have been sorely tempted to indulge that urge throughout the pandemic. haven't done it yet, tho.

I think one of the things that makes Joss Whedon an interesting and distinctive showrunner is that his shows all follow a bell curve; they start out kitschy and lightweight in the first season, take some time to build the characters, then grow in sophistication and complexity over the middle seasons. It's an interesting model that doesn't get much of a chance to work these days, because shows tend to get canceled unless they hit you with everything they've got in the first season. Hence Firefly and Dollhouse never really getting off the ground. But there's something very rewarding imo about watching a show get steadily better and more ambitious; too many shows have a strong first season and then consistently declining returns after that.

I actually think Buffy has a great first season, considering that it didn't have a ready-made audience; no one knew quite what genre it was or who it was for, and it had to train its audience to know how to watch it. It does have some seriously dud episodes in the middle, but the last few episodes + Prophecy Girl are just an amazing progression, imo, the show finding its footing and taking this incredible leap that you couldn't have predicted from the first few episodes.

Prophecy Girl is an almost perfect episode of TV, I think. The pacing alone is a miracle; we start out firmly in the world of high school, where it matters - and it does! - that Xander is going to ask Buffy out and she's going to reject him. By the end, every major character has gone through a painful test of character and come out the other side fundamentally changed, we've watched Buffy herself go through all the stages of death and dying, and Cordelia Chase has driven a car through the damn school. And yet none of the story feels rushed; none of the character development feels stinted. It's all there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ-AdiuY5hM

there are several of those videos from an Entertainment Weekly reunion special - they made Nicholas Brendon film separately because David Boreanaz won't have anything to do with him (understandably) IIRC.

very cold take: "the body" is an amazing episode of tv but the show just isn't as good without joyce (and giles, later on) even though she's kind of a nothingburger character most of the time

of course i am a parent now so i would say that

I agree; I think having two distinct generations was a big part of the show's balance, somehow.

Hence Firefly and Dollhouse never really getting off the ground

yep but also dollhouse got to have this effect anyway, first half of season one is trapped in a formula that the show at first resists then totally abandons

season two of dollhouse is still my favorite joss whedon show

I love season 2 of Dollhouse. Topher is probably my favorite Joss Whedon character ever.

xxxp
I thought in earshot Jonathan wanted to kill himself and it was the lunch lady who wanted to kill everyone else. I may be remembering incorrectly tho.

weird i do not really want to rewatch buffy or angel but i do wanna rewatch dollhouse

I rewatched it early in lockdown. Apart from those first few episodes that I knew would be duds, it holds up.