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My 61th least favorite Buffy episode of all time:

Season 4, episode 13.

Written by David Fury.

Buffy finally gets the in to the secretive Initiative (and to Riley), but when she starts asking questions, that's when it appears that someone doesn't want her to get the answers.

This is a funny episode to rank. I think it has better dialogue than "Nightmares", its plot is constructed better, it has funnier lines - and yet, the only thing preventing it from ranking higher is the story itself. Every episode that deals with Riley and the Initiative is automatically knocked down a few notches - I just can't help it. It's like watching a campy rip-off version of the show I love.

But labeling this episode as part of that awful storyline wouldn't do it justice, since it's the one episode when the initiative storyline actually seemed to get on the right path. I liked where this seemed to be going - a story about a government that appeared to be doing good, as long as you don't look too close, but when you start to think for yourself, you're its number 1 enemy. The episode handled that idea very well.

Too bad it soon turned into "guns and soldiers and zombies and robo-monsters galore!". As much as it pains me to say this, Maggie Walsh was needed in order to make this storyline work; otherwise the initiative is just a faceless operation. We needed someone to put the blame on, someone human (although Walsh being human is debatable) to associate the Initiative with, and the "evil bitch monster of death" was the perfect fit. Too bad she good skewered in the end of the episode. I'll delve into the subject at length when I'll get to "Goodbye Iowa", but this is the moment when the season officially went downhill and never recovered. Until that moment, there was still hope, although dim.

While Buffy is busy getting the scoop on her boyfriend's little operation (pun intended), Willow is not happy. She's going through changes and her best friend doesn't seem to notice or care. In fact, her best friend is blowing her off when they were supposed to meet at the Bronze! So that pushes Willow further away from the group and into Tara's open arms. I general, this episode really drives the everyone-is-alienating-everyone plot forward, to the eventual climax I've already talked about in the "The Yoko Factor" write-up. Willow, as I just said, is lesbing it up, Xander is becoming more and more pathetic by the minute with his failed attempt at selling healthy bars, and Giles is forced to pay Spike money for a "favor" and then driven into taking back said money, thus appearing worthless in his own eyes, and the viewers'.

I also have to give David Fury props for a very solid script. He had to work with some very unlikable characters here, and he did a good job. A few scenes that could've been excruciating to watch, ended up just fine:

Buffy and Riley's steamy sex scene was not as bad as it could've been, due to the creative editing, with them blowing off steam with a demon and with each other, alternately, and the montage ending with Buffy asking: "So… what do you wanna do now?".

The scene of Buffy talking to professor Walsh through the monitors also ended up kinds cool, in my opinion, when it could've been much cheesier. I really do believe they could've somewhat saved the season of this storyline wasn't abruptly changed to the much inferior "Adam is talking to himself about life and stuff, while Forrest is being an asshole and Riley is being an unlikable douche" seasonal arc.

High point: there were a few. Buffy raising her hand to ask Maggie annoying questions. Willow and Tara's heartwarming growing relationship. The gang getting electrocuted (as captured above). But the best part for me was the three-hand poker Anya, Xander and Willow had going in the first scene of the episode - especially Anya's antics. This, I feel, is the scene is where Anya truly grew into the character we learned to love. Up until there she was neither here or there, but from then on, she was very consistent in her blunt and out-of-place ways. Some of the quotes she spews out in this scene:

WILLOW: Two please.
ANYA: Five
XANDER: Ahn, I keep telling you: four's the max and only if you have an ace.
ANYA: Okay, four.
XANDER: Let's see the ace.
ANYA: (sighs) Three.

ANYA: Come on, somebody bet already. I got three 'K' cards.

XANDER: Wish the Buff could've made it. This three-hand poker is not quite the game.
WILLOW: Guess she's out with Riley. You know how it is with a spanking new boyfriend.
ANYA: (offhandedly while stacking her chips) Yes, we've enjoyed spanking.

Low point: I didn't really care for the Spike-is-getting-traced plot, but It was handled alright, I guess. There worst part, though, was the cliffhanger with Adam spiking Maggie, calling out "Mommy". A scene stolen straight from a bad eighties horror movie, and, like I stated above, the season took a turn for the worse following it.

Quality Quote:

BUFFY: Will, I think you better get used to-- a Twinkie!? That's his lunch? Oh, he is *so* gonna be punished.
WILLOW: (pouty) Everyone's getting spanked but me.

Riddle: Adam killing of professor Walsh is not the first time on 'Buffy' that someone offs his or her "creator". When did this happen before?

Correct :)
It's now a tie between you and ncassaro for the title prize... I guess we would have to have a tiebreaker. I'll post it later today.

I present to you another mini-ranking to break the monotony of this thread, this time concerning the four shows Joss and co. have created. So here goes, for your amusement, or indifference:

4. Angel

The show was great. It had great characters, great stories to tell, great action sequences, great twists and turns. It's just that it didn't have the right to be on the air in the first place.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "A Joss show about giraffes with saws has the right to be on the air". And you're right. But it doesn't matter how good the execution is. Once a show is born not out of a need to tell a unique story, but rather out of the desire to use characters from your former show, something would always feel just not right.

A vampire with a soul who seeks redemption. Sounds okay on paper, but how can this idea carry an entire series? For me, there was never a dilemma concerning Angel's past "sins". He has done them without his soul, and thus, it wasn't his soulful fault. As simple as that. So his sulking about his dark history did not work on me in 'Buffy' and it certainly wasn't strong enough of an idea to hold this spin-off together.

So although I'm in love with Fred, and although I think that Wesley's transformation is probably the best piece of character development we've ever had in the Whedonverse, and although Angel's character became relatable in this show (unlike in 'Buffy', at least for me), and although some of the seasons' plotlines blew my mind, the show always seemed to me like a very good carrying out of a very bad, almost non-existent idea.

3. Dollhouse

This is kind of the opposite to 'Angel' - while the former had ready characters and an excuse for a show built around them, 'Dollhouse' started with an awesome idea (at least in my opinion) and had the characters, along with everything else, built around said idea. That's sometimes the characters feel like they're representing a part of the conflict the main theme is presenting, instead of standing on their own two feet.

Another problem with the show (of course we've only seen the beginning of it, so that's all I have to go on) is that the concept of the main characters being wiped and slowly finding out who they are is a great concept, but a little hard to connect to while it slowly takes form in front of your eyes. A little hint here and a little tiny step there is not enough to keep us on the edge of our seat, while we're supposed to root for or against characters that their entire existence is debatable.

So why is it ranked above 'Angel', which is a great show in itself? Because 'Dollhouse' has the most complex, disturbing and intriguing concept out of all the Joss shows, and I have a feeling it'll come into fruition in the next season, because in the last half of season 1 the show kind found its rhythm. Plus, the execution is as professional and slick as they come - Joss has learned something over the years.

And also, Joss is not known for his strong first seasons. The only season that started out with guns a'blazing is…

2. Firefly

This show could very well have been number 1, if not for the retarded decision to cancel it before it has really begun for no apparent - or unapparent - reason.

This is the most coherent, solid first season I have ever watched, from any series. Let's just take a look at the shows we're ranking here:

Dollhouse took half a season to figure out its style, and it's still struggling in some aspect to hit the right tone.

Angel's season 1 was basically 22 stand-alone episodes, with a cast of 3 people, without a strong concept.

And Buffy started out as a campy horror\comedy\thriller, with only hints of brilliance in the first few episodes.

Firefly, unlike the other first seasons, knew what it was from the very first second and never wavered. It had nine great already-established characters, a defined "feel", and you always felt like there's a story that is about to be told, and the writers know exactly what that story is. Of course, there were some weaker episodes (I'll get to that in another write-up), but overall, It was seemingly-impossible fit to start out so strongly. Too bad we'll never know if it was just luck, although I'm willing to bet a lot of money that it wasn't.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

With all due respect to the three shows listed above, there's only one 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', and even if some one did manage to make a good imitation of it someday, that's all it would be: an imitation.

If it had been cancelled after the first season, it probably would have ranked dead last. It was having huge, excruciating birth pains, but somewhere in its second season, or maybe it happened in the first season finale, something clicked. It all came together to create something special. A show that wasn't willing to settle in one genre, and in result created its own genre - television for smart people.

Of course this is an exaggeration, but you se where I'm getting. It was a show that had a silly name, only to stand against everything this name represents. It was a show that had caricatures for characters, only to break those caricatures in every way imaginable. It was a show about vampire slaying, only it really wasn't, at all. It was a show that talked about our lives while pretending to talk about the lives we would never have.

I guess this whole thread is about 'Buffy', so I don't have to go into detail too much. The fact that I decided to write more than 139 entries on the show is enough to explain what I think about the series.

You're free to post your own ranking, though, and explain to me why I'm completely wrong.

Oh, and a riddle, this time for ncassaro and Level Banks' use only.

How many episodes of the Mutant Enemy shows were broadcasted in FOX, WB, and UPN, in total? The one that comes closest to the number (or the first one to get it exactly right) over the next 24 hours will get to replace Mikester as the luckiest person on earth, or in other words, make a guest appearance in the thread's title.

Congratulations, Level Banks! You beat the hell out of the competition (who didn't even show up), and although, by my count, there were 278 broadcasted episodes in the 4 networks I mentioned and not 281 (as three episodes of Firefly were never aired) you're still the winner of the most pointless prize in the history of the universe - appearing in the thread's title!

And now moving on to...

My 61th favorite Buffy episode of all time:

Season 4, episode 1.

Written by Joss Whedon.

Buffy goes to college, what fun! Well, Turns out it's not fun at all, as Buffy has no clue how to fit in, and on top of that, a simple vampire is giving her more trouble than she would like to admit.

'Buffy' was initially all about high school as a metaphor for the hell teenagers go through. That was the entire concept. So what do you do when the group graduates, or, in Byffyworld, when the high school blows up?

You go back to the beginning. There's just no other way. You gotta strip everything away so that the new start for the viewers will also be a new start for the characters, namely Buffy. And that's what's happening in "The Freshman".

Buffy, who had built a system around her that somewhat enables her to have a semi-normal life while fighting the forces of evil, is now forced to start over from scratch. She finds herself in a new, bigger environment. She doesn't have Xander to keep her grounded or Giles to give her advice. Nobody there knows her worth or her resume. Everything is too big, too bright, too unfamiliar. It's a strange alterative dimension Buffy has gotten into, a dimension where she appears to herself as a - god forbid - weak person. And Buffy is not used to having no control.

And that's what I liked about "The Freshman". It's not epic or dramatic in any way, but Buffy is more relatable here than in most episodes. Because a superheroes shine the most not when they're acting as a well-oiled life-saving machine, but when they're presented as people with vulnerabilities and insecurities. Only then can we find a way to connect to them and cheer them on whey they conquer their hardships and come out on top.

So when Buffy even give Sunday a run for her money, my first reaction was scoffing in disbelief. And then I got it. I remembered all the times my insecurities prevented me from succeeding at something that was easy on paper. I remembered all the times I wasn't acting like my usual self because of some inner turmoil I was going through at the time. And suddenly Buffy not being able to perform the simple task of driving a wooden stake through Sunday's heart made perfect sense for me. Buffy forgot her worth, so it's inevitable that she'll become worthless. It's a simple equation.

But of course, by the end of the episode, most of Buffy's fears turned out to be smoke and mirrors. Giles is there to support her, and so is Giles, and she still kicks ass at kicking ass. So some of the novelty of the episode wore off, as Buffy is once again a well-oiled life-saving machine by the end of it, but to be fair, Buffy is one of the more complex and twisted well-oiled life-saving machines out there, so it's not such a great loss for her to gain her confidence back.

This is one of Joss's less impressive hours of television, in that it's very grounded and chooses to deal with little insecurities rather than life or death situations (although there are those as well). But thanks to the master's skill in making everything that comes out of his mouth sound interesting, even if it's through the actors' mouths, the episode does a good job of making you feel part of the situation Buffy is confronting.

Plus, the villain is kinda awesome and the Joss dialogue is witty as always.

High point: Xander saving the day by arriving in town and cheering Buffy up. He really shows here what an integral part of the gang and of the show he is.

Low point: the introduction of Riley. Not because the introduction itself was done badly, but because it led to us being introduced to the character of Riley.

Quality Quote (just because it's so awkward):

BUFFY: You got a nice set-up here, but you made one mistake.
Sunday: Yeah? What was that?
BUFFY: Well, I'm not actually positive, but statistically speaking people usually make at least...

Riddle: someone who appeared in this episode also appeared in "I Only Have Eyes for You" and in "Conversations With Dead People". Those are the only three episode that someone appeared in. Who is it?

My 60^th least favorite Buffy episode of all time:

Season 5, episode 1.

Written by Marty Noxon.

Dracula pays Sunnydale a visit.

A little recap, in case you haven't been debriefed:

The season 1 opener deals with Buffy acce[ting her fate as vampire slayer, and the formation of the group of close friends that would help her in the challenges she's about to face.

The season 2 premiere revolves around Buffy getting over the death she had just experienced.

Season 3 starts with Buffy feeling lost and confused, in a foreign city, after she had killed her true love in order to save the world.

In the beginning of season 4, Buffy needs to adjust to a whole new life, without Angel and in a new college.

And in the first episode of season 5, Buffy faces off against Dracula.

Wait a second. Are they for real? Are they really gonna kick off a season by making a parody of the Dracula franchise? Is this show a joke? Are they completely out of ideas that they would succumb to something as low as this?

That's the impression this episode gave me the first time I watched it. It had the what-the-fuck affect on me, to put it lightly. Shows like 'Supernatural' and 'Charmed' would not have surprised me had they brought Dracula for a guest appearance. I did not expect it from BtVS.

And maybe that's why this kind of episode does belong in 'Buffy' - because this show is all about getting what you wouldn't normally expect. Just when you think it's a lighthearted children's horror\comedy show, a gut-wrenching scene comes and turns your world upside down. And just when you think it's a sophisticated, subtle, philosophical TV experiment, they go for the Dracula spoof.

Of course, that's not accurate. It's not just a parody. Dracula's visit raises issues the main characters will be dealing with throughout the fifth season. That's the beauty of rewatch - the first time, it just looks like a lot of pointless plots thrown together. The second time, after you've watched the entire season, you realize just how carefully Joss and the writers had planted the characters' upcoming storylines, how it all makes sense in retrospect, even when it seems random at first. Kinda like evolution (no offense, religious people).

Willow, who becomes a powerful witch by the 22nd episode, is presented here as a rookie who needs to learn how to control her powers.

Xander, who gets his life on the right track as the season progresses (buying a house, landing himself a respectable job, asking Anya to marry him) is showcased here as a staggering pathetic loser who is nothing but the butt of everyone else's jokes.

Giles, who discovers his role as shopkeeper, rediscovers his role as watcher, and regains his role as a father figure - all by the end of the season - feels here like he's done all he could, and that now is the time to go back to England and get himself a life.

And Buffy, who ends up fully accepting her purpose as a slayer with dark roots (no pun intended) in "The Gift" - by jumping off a tower, no less - is trouble here over her ongoing yearning for violence and darkness and pain.

Yes, everything makes total sense in retrospect. But still, it would have been nice if it had made sense without the benefit of knowing what's to come.

High point: Dracula coming back after being slayin by Buffy, slain again, and then deciding not to show up a third time simply due to politeness.

Low point: Xander making a full out of himself as Dracula's servant. I know I just explained why it was important to get Xander to the lowest place possible, but got dammit, I hate it when they mock Xander and treat him like garbage. After 4 seasons of proving his worth, he deserves more than that.

Quality Quote (it's all in the delivery, of course):

XANDER: Nice. Look who's got a bad case of dark prince envy.
DRACULA: I have no interest in you. Leave us.
XANDER: No, we're not going to (in Dracula's accent) "leave you." And where'd you get that accent,

Sesame Street

? (As the Count on

Sesame Street

) Vun, two, three -- three victims. Mwa ha ha!

Riddle:

Giles thinks about going to England in this episode. How many times did he actually go to England after that?

I actually didn't intend it to be tricky, but I guess it kinda came out this way...

Three times is the correct answer, but those are the flights I had in mind:

1. In Bargaining, Giles leaves as Buffy is dead (not for long) and he is of no need.
2. In Tabula Rasa, Giles leaves as Buffy is alive and he is of too much need.
3. In Lessons, Giles goes all Dumbledore on Willow.

So you were right with three times :).

Next update won't be up 'till tomorrow
I'll give you a hint as to what episode it's gonna be:
"And that's what it's all about".

I guess you could count that as another riddle.

My 60th favorite Buffy episode of all time:

Season 5, episode 18

Written by Jane Espenson

While Buffy is away to learn more about the source of her power (by following a big cat in the dessert), a robot who looks just like her wanders into the scoobies' lives. Meanwhile, Glory finally realizes who the key is. And is wrong once again.

How do you follow "The Body" and "Forever"? How do you get the show back on track without undermining Joyce's death and the affect it had on the group? How do you go back to Glory and her minions, to Spike and his crush, to Dawn and her keyness, without making it seem cheap compared to matters like death and life following it?

With, with "Intervention", of course.

This was like "Tabula Rasa" after OMWF, only on a smaller scale. Jane Espenson was called to the task of writing an episode that would breing us back to the season's arc without totally ignoring the death of Buffy's mother and the heartache that followed. She did a good job overall.

How did she do it?

Step one: she referenced what happened previously. Buffy's trip to the dessert didn't have any connection whatsoever to Joyce's passing away, but in the script, those two events were linked together in a very believable way. In order to understand why she has a heart of stone that prevent her from showing any emotion, Buffy has to learn more about her slayer origins (which of course takes us back to "Buffy vs. Dracula"). And to do that, she needs to go on her little trip.

And may I just say that "death is your gift" is pure genius. I tried so hard to understand what the fuck it means, only for it to make perfect sence, in the simplest way possible, 4 episodes later.

Step 2: Buffy's character is so somber and reflective. Her depressive attitude will drag the show down. The Solution - bring a new, happier, more upbeat Buffy into the mix. It would add much-needed lightheartedness and would show the differences between the machine's optimistic nature and Buffy's close-to-catatonic state.

But wait! We're not a soap opera! We can't just bring Buffy's lost twin out of nowhere! Yes we can, we're a fantasy show. We can do everything we want and explain in with magic and\or technology.

And so, the Buffybot is born.

Step 3: give the viewers some satisfaction. For them to get over what happened 2 episodes ago, we need to give them something they could chew on, something they've been waiting for for a long time.

Let's give them Buffy recognition for Spike's affection! Let's make her finally understand how devoted he is to her, and appreciate it enough that she would accept him as part of her gang!

"Interntion" was great in brining things back into the fold. The only problem I had with it is that sometimes it felt too back-to-business. Although I can understand why they decided to not make one "Forever" after another, especially when the last few episodes of the seasons are dark enough on their own.

High point: The Buffybot screen showing up whenever she meets a scoobie, summing them up in a few simple descriftions.

Low point: Spike's sex with the Buffybot in the graveyard. I don't know why, but I felt dirty just watching it.

Quality Quote:

BUFFYBOT: Angel's lame. His hair sticks straight up and he's bloody stupid.

Riddle: In a easy-to-miss scene, one characters does something that would become a main theme in next season't arc. What was it?