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Yet Another, Perhaps (Slightly) Different, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Top Ten List, Part 2

 To continue my additional raindrop in the maelstrom that comprises Buffy: The Vampire Slayer top ten lists:
(Note: See part one here)

5. Season 2, Episode 10: What’s My Line, Part II

When I was making up this list it surprised me, looking back on it, how underwhelming the first half of Season 2 is, especially when I had consistently disregarded people who said as such. Oh, they’re just so focused on the Angelus arc that they’re missing out on all the gems! I said, with the casual dismissive wave that a deposed pontiff gives to his jailer in denial of his incarceration. For whatever reason I remember the first half of season 2 being much better than it actually is, perhaps due to blowback from the earth-shattering awesomeness beginning with episode 13; not to mention that the first half of the season does contain Angel and Buffy in the happy-go-lucky all-is-rainbows portion of their relationship—the only time that’s so in the whole series—and we’ve already mentioned how I feel about sappy romances. There’s also the specter of newness—when you watch something the first time you are caught up in what seems like an interesting story and the Buffyspeak and Spike and Sarah Michelle Gellar prettily bouncing around. It’s only after you look back over it that you realize there are few episodes you have any desire to see again, and reviewing the episodes from the first half of season two—even just a few weeks after I watched it completely through the first time—the survey says “lackluster.”

To wit, of the twelve episodes comprising the ‘pre-Angelus’ arc of season two, only “Halloween” and “School Hard” are regarded with any monumental praise (maybe you can throw “The Dark Age” in there as well, if only that it gives us backstory on much-beloved Giles), and another, “When She was Bad,” is at most divisive and fits the mold for some hack's “Out-of-the-way” top ten list. Otherwise, we have such stalwarts as  “Inca Mummy Girl” and “Reptile Boy,” both entrenched firmly in the “Ugh” category; “Ted,” which even John Ritter could not save; the Invasion of the Body Snatchers/ Alien ripoff “Bad Eggs,” and the confirmedly “meh” “Some Assembly Required.” There’s also “Lie to Me,” an episode a lot of people find noteworthy but I find pretty well tedious, excepting the last five or so minutes and the introduction of the character that becomes known as Anne.

But even if you include “Lie to Me,” at most we have four well-regarded episodes out of the first twelve, which is not exactly a stellar track record. And two episodes that are either ignored or guilty pleasures or simply personal favorites. One being “When She Was Bad,” the other being “What’s My Line, Part II.”

“What’s My Line, Part II” (or part one, for that matter) are by no means great or singularly compelling episodes (they wouldn’t really be making this list if they were), but I find the second part specifically favorable for two reasons: one, it’s the introduction of Kendra, the Vampire Slayer who was called during Buffy’s (technical) death at the end of season one, a fan favorite black Irish woman who for some reason keeps insisting that she’s from the Caribbean.

The second, of course—see continued emphasis on sappy romance—is Xander and Cordelia’s wonderfully farcical romantic get-together, which is perfectly fitting in tone and presentation, and the expression of pent up angst and aggression the two feel not only towards their situation, but towards each other, a cycle that cements Xander and Cordelia’s relationship as my second favorite in the series after OMGBangel!.

Add to that an eventual curb-stomping for Spike that leads to his wheelchair-bound arc that, in turn, leads to the season finale, and you have a recipe for a—well, for a decent episode with enough good moments to make a list like this.

I think “What’s My Line, Part II” also accomplishes the overlooked function of digging deeper into what being the Slayer means—or rather, is supposed to mean. For Kendra, it means isolation and lifelong training and study, straight by the book; there’s an insidious implication that that’s how it’s supposed to be, and that what Buffy’s doing is not only inappropriate but outright revolutionary. As Giles says (paraphrasing), the handbook didn’t work so well for her. I don’t recall an episode before this one that really digs into this dynamic, save for a few times Giles becomes exasperated with Buffy’s obstinacy. But Kendra, for all her Caribbean-Irish brogue and character change, personifies the less-savory aspects of the whole Slayer bent.

There’s a decent percentage of people who very-much dislike the reveal in Season 7 that the creation of the Slayer was in effect a product of demon-raping a helpless young girl and removing all free will and volition in order to make her solitarily combat the demon menace. And while I agree that it’s not exactly the most inspiring of origin stories, I have to ask: what else was it going to be? There was always this shadow of suspicion over the Slayer mythos, something that you look at with cocked-eyebrow: a young girl—and only a young girl, mind you—gets “chosen” to be railroaded into a destiny that ideally (according to the authorities) removes her from all meaningful contact with the human race and ends for the most part with her demise before the age of 20 or so, all the while lorded over by the evolved form of those creepy old men (though there are some women now. Some.) who still want to control her and ask her to sacrifice all hope of living in pursuit of an impossible goal that they themselves refuse to get actively involved in (as Giles says sometime in season three, Buffy’s fighting a war while the Council’s just waging one).

That more than anything is what makes this episode more than what it appears on the surface. It’s the first true, extended (and wonderfully subtle) look at what a Slayer’s expected to be, do, and give up, something that’s expanded upon and brought to fruition five years later.

PICTURED: Come on, people, you know they belong together.

 

  4. Season 6, Episode 5: Life Serial

A lot of season six is regarded with a slight tinge of nausea, and that’s understandable. I finished reading the Joss Whedon critical companion a few days ago (1), and one of the essays brought up a good point, that though the apathy and distance Buffy has in six makes complete sense, it’s hard to relate to such a protagonist, and that is explanation for the sharply divided opinions on the UPN boot up.

I can't argue with that. I still contend that not having seen the previous five seasons before I saw (most of) six helped me be much more lenient on it than I otherwise would have—but at the same time, it is hard to cheer for a protagonist whose just so damned depressed.

Which is why I found “Life Serial” to be so wonderfully hilarious while simultaneously being so heartbreakingly sad. It’s one of the few times in entertainment I can remember laughing and wanting to give someone a hug at the same time.

The episode boils down to Buffy trying to be all upbeat! in her attempt to get back on track—efforts that will be consistently foiled by the Trio in their laughable Bond-villain best. Fittingly, an argument about who, exactly, is the best Bond provides a significant  piece of dialogue among the three.

I never did hate the Trio as much as many others—although I think their early season appearances were actually better, before everything turned so GRIM AND GRITTY. Right now they’re just a bunch of adulthood-resisting doofuses that spray paint Death Stars on their child molester van and make jokes about magic bones.

PICTURED: Although...that is pretty nice.

Still, there’s nothing beating the completely true-to-life parody of the retail industry in the latter part of this episode. Jonathon’s time-loop torture provides a stunning metaphorical reality on the doldrums of minimum wage customer service, and as with “Doublemeat Palace,” my own true-life retail experience endears me to this episode, because who in the retail industry hasn’t had that moment where you are entirely sure you’ve gone through this same play of customer interaction before, and all the shoppers faces are melding together, and you’re bending over backwards just so they don’t yell at you because getting yelled at for $7.25 an hour’s just not worth it; while every hour seems to take on distinct similarities until you’re not really sure that time is moving at all anymore and nothing you do matters.

So when Buffy, during one loop, does nothing but burst into tears while Anya and Giles look on, perplexed, I simultaneously howl with laughter and want to run up and tell her everything’s going to be okay.

Ironically, “Life Serial’s” time loop ends with one of the happiest finales in the Buffy series, with a minimum wage associate actually satisfying a customer. Truly a fairy tale for the ages.

3. Season 3, Episode 2: Dead Man’s Party

If there’s one rogue bit of licorice in the chocolate froth bonanza that is season three, most people would peg it as this one. It’s probably the most underwhelming episode in Buffy’s best season, chock full of melodrama, angst, conflicting characterizations, and a clichéd, dull zombie story.

And man oh man, do I dig it.

I like the angst. I like the melodrama. I think it makes total sense.

It’s safe to say that none of the Scoobies are completely right in this situation. Xander et. al don’t, despite what they say, grasp exactly how traumatizing it was for Buffy to run a sword through someone she loved to save the world. And Buffy never quite gets the emotional torment that she put her friends, and most saliently, her mother through. And you know what? That’s perfectly acceptable to me. It’s how a lot of heady arguments end up, and most of the time they don’t get resolved by the convenient attacks of a zombie horde that kills half the people in your house…well.

“Dead Man’s Party” also has the distinction of containing another of my favorite bits of dialogue in the whole series:

GILES: Unbelievable. "Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead!" Americans!

The episode does a respectable enough job exploring the distance between people who not only have not seen each other for months, but are harboring unspoken resentment towards one another. Xander et al are doing what they think is best and Buffy’s trying to do the same, but neither of them, in reality, feel comfortable enough with each other to really talk to one another, and when it finally does boil over in the (in?) famous argument in Buffy’s living room, I don’t know, it just feels sort of natural to me. The volanco’s been building, it explodes, and everything cools down again—with the help of Zombies, in any case.

“Dead Man’s Party” remains perhaps the worst episode of highly-praised season three. But unlike a lot of people, I don’t mind friends airing out their grievances against one another. There’s always the chance that it might ruin the relationship, but at the same time, if the relationship survives, it’s all the stronger for it.

PICTURED: Angst. And is it just me, or was SMG absolutely smokin' this season?

2. Season 4, Episode 1: “The Freshman”

I’ve already pretty well covered my unashamed love for Season four in my jot about “Pangs,” but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate here just how good of a season I think it is, and how well of a transition I think it works for the series as a whole. Season four is the literal mid-point of the series—three seasons before, three seasons after—and as such not only serves as the epilogue to the adventurous days of yore—or maybe just high school—but the prologue to the darker story lines to come—I mean, a lot of the point of “Restless” is the foreshadow to entire rest of the series.

Now that I write that, I could argue the juxtaposition comprises a lot of the problems Season 4 has. In a way, it's season 1 again with a larger budget: a show that is no longer sure where it’s going. It tries to capture the fun and hijinks of the previous, adolescent seasons while also moving forward into the darker, grimmer version of the adult seasons (Note: And on that parcel, has anyone ever thought about just how dark and oppressive season 5 actually is? I mean, even before “The Body,” with Joyce getting her tumor and all the drama surrounding that—it’s really very heavy stuff. –E), and in doing so it spreads itself thin, which is where I believe most of the reaction towards season 4 comes from, said reaction comprising a really violent form of shrug. It’s funny to me, because an average fan can rattle off about ten or so episodes from the season that they really really love, and still say it’s their least favorite, which either says something about willful denial or about how important a good season-long arc is.

Episode 1 of the season, while being nothing to write home about, resonated with a person less than a year out of college. Remember what I said about timing? College aged Buffy virgins, I think, would be a lot more invested in what happens on screen this season than younger fans, because as usual the writers capture enough about the rigors of college to make it “feel real,” including those feelings of displacement and loneliness that comes with such a life change and having to cope with someone you’re forced to live with but don’t click with. There are some obvious unrealities involved, not the least of which is that Buffy and what’s-her-face’s dorm is about the size of a suite in the Waldorf-Astoria, but on the other hand I just love the part where we’re in the vampires' lair and they’re hanging up a poster they took off a student they've killed, and said poster is one of about three all new students seem to buy, in one fell swoop revealing just how much of a shallow tool the average college freshman is (yours truly included). Considering my college had a poster sale every first week back, and considering how many of the same ones tended to pop up in every “deep” proto-Heidegger's dorm, this is an aspect of the college experience that the writers nailed on the head—as is the snoring roommate.

A lot of people have a problem with Buffy’s fighting techniques in this episode—how she’s basically manhandled by a queen bee and a bunch of loser vampires, but Buffy’s powers have always been at the mercy of metaphor and confidence—just look at the season 1 finale “Prophecy Girl.” Throughout the series she’s portrayed as being at her best when she’s focus, confident, and sure of herself, qualities of which she possesses none in this episode until the end, where she (gratifyingly) comes through and kicks butt.

Plus, it includes the famous .gif-worthy “stake twirl”:

PICTURED: The Spin. And is it just me, or was SMG absolutely smokin' this season?

And by the end Buffy’s once again reassured of her place as a slayer and as a human being.

Come to think of it, “The Freshman” fits my thesis of season 4 being caught between two worlds. Everything before season four had a season opening episode where Buffy’s concerned about being the Slayer and coming to terms with its attributes, most blatantly in season 3’s opening “Anne,” but true as well in “When She Was Bad” and even in the very first (two-parter) “Welcome to the Hellmouth”/”The Harvest.” Everything after four is much more complicated. “Buffy vs. Dracula” (Season 5), had a bit of the “what a Slayer is” theme, but Buffy was never really down or complacent about what she was doing and the goings-on with Dracula mainly serve to make Buffy take the calling more seriously. Season six (“The Bargaining” Part 1 & 2) is mostly concerned with the Scooby gang and everyone figuring out Buffy’s alive. And season 7 has her completely okay and even passing on some of her knowledge to Dawn. The whole series, of course, deals with Buffy’s questions about destiny and life and what being a Slayer entails, but the season openers before 4 have a very clear, defined arc:

• Buffy tries to forget about her duty; (starting over, repressing, running away)
• Buffy comes under some trial of fire; (vampires appear, the Master’s getting resurrected, slaver demons come-a-calling)
• Buffy reaffirms her place and identity.

The first three seasons do this, the latter three do not, and therefore it’s all the more indicative that season 4 is trapped between two worlds: adult 5-7, adolescent 1-3. Four opens up with the usual arc elucidated above, and ends with a highly experimental and foreboding episode hinting towards what is to come.

So maybe that's why I love this episode; it's the last time we see the old formula, before the break.

1. Season 5, Episode 17: “Forever”

How do you end a list like this? Seriously asking. Conventional wisdom says you’re supposed to end these “top ten” things with a “bang,” right? But how do you end with a bang when said list is comprised of episodes that you’ve said right from the beginning carry very little bang at all? Quite a conundrum.

I gave some serious though to the issue—maybe up to three minutes; my solution? To conclude with what many consider to be a “very good” episode, but one that most don’t put in their top ten or twenty. “Forever” might be someone’s #21, and you won’t find many people who don’t like it--but it’s not part of the elite either (well, not usually. I sure someone has it as one of their top-ten favorites somewhere).

Yes, it’s cheating, but sue me; “Forever” is not “Out-of-the-way”—but really people, what choice do I have? Am I supposed to end this list with “Gone” (which, by the way, I also really like)? I could, but let’s face it, no matter how much I like “Gone” (and it barely missed this list), it is, at the end of the day, a one off episode with huge weaknesses that most people would like to forget, and that even I wouldn’t really miss if its negative got lost in some great conflagration.

So we’re going to end on a high note, and make no mistake “Forever” is the highest of the high for a list like this. I’m talking Olympus Mons-to-Mariana Trench high. Still, despite it being well received, I’d posit that it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. A lot of that has to do with it being in the unfortunate position of coming subsequently after “The Body,” one of the highest (and deservedly so) rated episodes not only in the Buffy canon, but in television period. Whatever follows such an episode, no matter how good, is going to, even minutely, undergo a type of erasure, like a brilliant yet small star being shadowed by the well of a quasar.

Everyone raves about how well “The Body” interprets death and what its immediate emotional response feels like (which they should). But few(er) people dwell on how well “Forever” manages to take it one step further, and truthfully express how the aftermath of death feels, when a few days have been put between the initial trauma. How do people deal, what are their reactions, where do they turn? If “The Body” is a quintessential exercise in the suddenness of death, then “Forever” is a quintessential exercise in how we move on.  Dawn wallows in her grief, Buffy tries to keep everything inside and act the adult. This culminates in one of my top ten favorite moments in the series, when it is Buffy—not the impulsive, emotionally devastated Dawn—who almost answers the door, ready to welcomes a half-dead zombie substitute Joyce into their home. This few seconds is so effortless heartrending, creepy and moving, and I might just appreciate it more than I did any comparable single moment in “The Body.”

And as if to put icing on the cake, Angel shows up! Now isn’t that just jolly? After a funeral? For a beloved character?

PICTURED: :sob: Those two had only each other.

I’m sad again.

“Forever” is one of those fly-under-the-radar episodes that does little great, but everything right. Its tone and feel, its subject matter and the way it treats the characters are all the perfect follow up to one of the greatest episodes of television of all time; and while it certainly is doomed to live in “The Body’s” shadow, it deserves its own recognition, because it does what Buffy does best: treat the themes and characters with respect and truth. And that’s all anyone can ask for.

In Summation:

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little—tiny—almost nonexistent—experiment in the realm of top ten lists. Buffy: The Vampire Slayer was and is a remarkable show. This goes without saying; what can never be overstated is the courage and conviction with which it was created: the incorrigible desire to try new things, many of which didn’t work, but plowing on ahead anyway to foster an environment where anything could happen: where all the characters could lose their speech for 2/3s of an episode, or burst into song, or inadvertently turn their boyfriend evil in a succinct, touching and terrifying metaphor—all these are hallmarks of a piece of entertainment that somehow is able to go beyond, to move higher. When even the truly flaccid and picayune episodes of a television show still have some merit: a line here, a look there, an action scene that takes the cake—you know something special is taking place, and the culture seems to agree. Many great television series become sort of “lost to time,” subsumed in the popular culture, and even those that escape that fate all-to-often are reduced to parodies (Bewitched) or That One Thing they did (Newhart, St. Elsewhere). But with Buffy, there are too many moments too list. Too many “one things” and too many unique ideas. Too many great characters and stories. It’s too touching, too true to life, too conversation-worthy to be forgotten. At least, I sincerely hope so. Because any world where something as great as Buffy: The Vampire Slayer can be relegated to a one-off on Family Guy is a sad world indeed.

Until next time,

Mr. E

(1) I encourage everyone to check out this companion, chock full of most of Whedon's career, including what was (at the time) some pre-release ruminations on what The Avengers might look like. A lot of the essays are short and very basic, but there's plenty of good stuff in there.

And that's to say nothing of the cover:

It's like someone combined an Obama poster with Oh Brother, Where Art Thou's color scheme. And I just love how they have him looking off to the left all deep and philosophical. Still, there's no denying it's a good buy. Everything from Buffy to his comic work is in there.

Yet Another, Perhaps (Slightly) Different, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Top Ten List, Part 1

My relationship with Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is rather odd. I’ve liked the show for closing on thirteen or fourteen years now. I finished watching all the episodes just a couple of weeks ago. Contradiction? Not back in 1999, where bootlegging actually involved “legging” VHS tapes from friend to friend and DVD players were just being pronounced the greatest and final evolution of the home entertainment market (Note: There might be some slight exaggerations. –E).

I was about eight or nine when I very first saw Buffy, in its nascent state as a mid-season replacement on the fledgling WB network, and as a young child I hadn’t yet grasped the intricacies of either taping things on VHS or interpreting the time management involved with watching serialized television shows. When I caught Buffy, it was a one off episode here or there, maybe a marathon I stumbled upon. I didn’t become extremely attached to it—and be advised that my memories of the period are nebulous at best—but I do remember being unable to change the channel whenever it was on. I didn’t quite get everything that was happening, but I knew there were fight scenes, vampires, and some spine-tingling, smile-inducing moments that I would later discover go by the name of “good writing.”

For whatever reason, I recall that most of the episodes I did see were during season 2/3, though I do remember seeing the end of “The Gift” and having no idea what in Glory’s name was happening—but that might have been later.

See, as much as I liked Buffy, it never really was on my radar more than just something that was interesting on television if I happened to skip across it on a slow day. I was much more into Dragonball Z at the time (and you were too, so zip it). Buffy didn’t really transcend into a consistent interest until much later, after the series had ended and reruns had started popping up everywhere.

I want to say it was on the CW where I first began to watch Buffy in earnest, and I want to say it was around 2005 or 2006, but no later than 2007. But I spotted it on whatever-channel-it-was on Saturday mornings, and after the obligatory recognizance light went off, I made it a point to watch it. Every Saturday morning, usually two episodes back to back (at first, anyway). The season most salient? Six.

Dum--Dum--DAAAAA…..

To this day I feel that my leniency towards season six is partially due to this juncture, watching it weekly while eating cereal on a non-school day. I’m aware, now, of just how divisive six is—yet I can’t summon up any great rage against it, and I think these Saturday mornings were the reason why. Partly because of nostalgia glasses, sure, but partly because I think I can look at six more objectively since I hadn’t had as much investment into the Scooby Gang . Since I hadn’t canonized their characters in mind, the “darkness” and “despondency” of six never really annoyed me, and in fact I thought it was exceedingly well-played. I remember vividly seeing the end of “Dead Things,” where Buffy learns, from Tara, that she didn’t “come back wrong” and cries that she doesn’t want to be forgiven. I also remember seeing parts of Grave and the entirety of "Doublemeat Palace"—a fact that will come back to haunt this list later.

For whatever reason, the Saturday morning thing dried up, and I can’t remember specifically why. I think it was a combination of factors: I started having to be places on Saturday mornings more often than not—work? Football practice? And the fact that I think CW or whatever channel messed with the lineup, showing one Buffy episode instead of two and then not showing them at all in the mornings, or something. So that pipeline dried up, and Buffy once again fell to the backburner as a show I remembered enjoying but never quite got around in the pre-streaming world to finishing.

So imagine my jumping at the chance when I discovered Netflix streamed not just part, not just most, but every single bit of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer? Finally, at long last, I had a convenient and easy way to finish this remarkable series, and accomplished in three months what I hadn’t been able to do for thirteen years—follow it from episode one right on up to the end.

Now the question is—what to say about it?

I mean, you have to say something if you have a blog. That’s practically a mandate: finish landmark entertainment, blog something about it. At least that’s what I interpreted from Bloggers’ Terms of Use. But what is there that can be said about Buffy: The Vampire Slayer that hasn’t been said ad nauseum (and more eloquently) before? Am I condemned to repeat what everybody already knows, about how great the show is, the depths of the characters (and their salty goodness), its sometimes heavy-handed but always earnest use of metaphor, the doldrums of season 6, the unmitigated quality of season three, the shocking turn in season two, the groundbreaking hours of television in season four, five, and six (again); the outrageous elision by the Emmys and the heaps of praise of which this series deserves every single letter?

What is there to say that’s not covered by the Buffy conventions and the Buffy books of criticism of the Buffy fan sites and the hundreds and thousands of blogs out there that mention Buffy and the Joss Whedon critical companion?

And then it came to me: a top ten episode list! No one’s ever done one of those before!

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II: A (Slightly) Different Take On the Top Ten List

I’ve mentioned before the difference between “objective quality” and “favoritism,” and how it’s hard to separate the two within our minds. Someone’s “favorite” whatever can be influence by a number of factors: nostalgia, circumstances in life, the characters involved, etc. I loved and still love Dragonball Z—even though it obviously has severe weaknesses, even in its unaltered Japanese incarnation.

So that being said, this is a top ten favorite episode list, not necessarily the best episode list. Objective quality is hard to gauge even at the best of times, and I have no real desire to delve into that minefield just now (although I probably should put what I think are the top ten best episodes in footnote--oh wait, there it is: (1)).

Now, top ten episode lists are about as rare as corn in Iowa, and that holds even more true in regards to Buffy. How, I can practically hear you asking, can the indomitable Mr. E craft an even minutley-unique perspective on a top ten list? Why, by making a top ten list that’s not about the top ten episodes!!!

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Okay, this is proving a bit more tortuous than I thought.

Let me put it this way: objective quality, despite hot debate, tends to rise to the surface, like delicious cream, and in the Buffyverse, there is a pretty well-understood census of agreement as to which are the best and favorite episodes. After having trawled the ENTIRE INTERNET (well, maybe the first five pages of Google) for Buffy top ten episode lists, for the most part said lists will consist of 10-20 of the following episodes, in no particular order:

• Restless
• The Body
• Once More, With Feeling
• Hush
• Becoming (1 and 2 combined)
• Graduation Day (1 and 2 combined)
• New Moon Rising
• The Gift
• Passion
• Surprise/Innocence
• Conversations with Dead People
• The Prom
• Earshot
• Prophecy Girl
• The Wish
• Who Are You?
• The Zeppo
• Chosen
• Grave
• Doppelgangland
• I Only Have Eyes For You
• Normal Again
• Fool For Love

The order might be different, and an odd episode or two might pop up, but generally these are the eps that make the list—including mine.

Which is why I wanted to take a different tack. Because, like my fellow bloggers, fact is if I were to make an out and out top ten favorite episode list right now, it would look something like this (again, no particular order):

• Hush
• Restless   
• Amends (more on this in a moment)
• Surprise/Innocence
• Graduation Day 
•  Five by Five This Year's Girl (Note: Embarrassing mistake noted by a shrewd commenter. --E) /Who Are You
•  Passion  
• Becoming (1 and 2)   
• The Zeppo
• The Body

And then I would write a small paragraph about them, basically saying the exact same things everyone else has already said, more often than not better than I could.

So I decided not to do that.

Instead, I’m going to make a different sort of top ten list. One of the lesser eps. The forgotten ones. The “out of the way” episodes that you rarely replay on your DVD player unless you’re trying to watch the entire series over again.

You can call this “favorite episodes 21-30,” if you want. Or the bad ones I liked the most. Or something. And yes, I’m sure a few of these episodes have, at one point or another, popped up on a top-ten list somewhere—I’m almost certain that every Buffy episode is on someone’s top ten list. But these don’t make the cut all the often.

Some of them are legitimately good episodes that just didn’t reach the highest tier. And a couple are episodes that most of the fandom regards as forgettable to mediocre to outright bad, but that, for whatever reason, appealed to me. But remember: this is not a list of objectivity, but subjectivity. These are favorite episodes that I am well-aware of the weaknesses of, or strengths of. But I think most Buffy episodes deserve at least some praise, even the truly terrible ones, and so here’s a little nod to a couple of them:

III. My Top Ten "Off-the-Beaten-Path" Episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Honorable Mention: Season 3, Episode 10, "Amends"

 It’s probably bad form to start off a top ten list with specifically delineated goals with something of a cheat. "Amends," by no means, is an “out of the way” episode. In fact, it’s rather famous. Or rather, infamous. Which is why I included it here.

Honestly, I had no idea this episode was so divisive, and I didn’t discover it until this blog on the Great Buffy Rewatch (which everyone should check out) that I read while doing research for this list. As it happens, "Amends" is apparently highly controversial, from its vague baddy to its final conversation to its quite-obviously-a-miracle that occurs at the end. And I was absolutely astonished by this, because I didn’t see how anyone couldn’t just fall in love with this episode. I know I did.

I’m a sucker for two—well, for lots of things, but two of them are: sappy romance and divine intervention (if used well). "Amends" covers this latter portion, and in my opinion, is used very, very well. The entire episode is about a force of nature trying to convince Angel he has no place in the world and so should give in to evil—that as it is, how else could the episode end without a resounding reminder that Angel does have a place in the world? Yes, it’s a deus ex machina, but remember, deus ex machina is just a function of storytelling, and can be used as well or as badly as any other function of storytelling. In this case, it’s used in a subtle way, and fits with the episode perfectly: the white purity of the snow itself, compounding with the visual idealism of Christmas, and the follow through on the implication that snow was the last thing expected to occur on a hot Southern California holiday.

But really, my overarching love for this episode down to the Conversation. You know the one. Some call it melodramatic. I call it gut-wrenching, and personally I think it’s some of Whedon’s best dialogue, perfectly captured by some of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s and David Boreanaz’s best acting. I get chills every single time Angel grabs up Buffy from where she lays on the ground and desperately pleads: “Am I a thing worth saving? Am I a righteous man?”

Or the insinuation that “It’s not the monster than needs killing in [Angel], it’s the man,” a wonderful and thought-provoking epiphany.

And hey, at the very least, the episode more or less sets up the entirety of Angel: The Series, not to mention the Big Bad for season 7…though the latter may not be a point in its favor.

Number 10: Season Six, Episode 12 "Doublemeat Palace"

So let’s start off the list proper with some decent size controversy: I. Love. "Doublemeat Palace."

Remember (and I hope you do, because it was just a few paragraphs ago) when I said there’s a difference between objectivity and favoritism? My number 10 pick is pretty much the encapsulation of that. The fandom hates "Doublemeat Palace" (for the most part). And, objectively, I can see why. It’s depressing, it’s by and large pointless, its plot is oft-tread ground (hey guys, did you know fast food restaurants appear a bit sketchy sometimes?), and there’s the Ugh! bit where Buffy sneaks off between a double shift for a wall-grinding ugly-bumping with Spike.

But dang it, I can’t help it. I love this episode.

Maybe it’s nostalgia: remember when I said above how seeing "Doublemeat Palace" when I was younger would haunt this list? Behold, the shoe dropping. I can’t help but have some lasting affection for this episode I saw as a young scamp in the carefree days of high school. It brings me to back to adolescence.

Or maybe partly, it’s because I worked fast food, and not only that, but I worked fast food in Buffy’s situation: someone with at least some college education, who could probably do better, but is stuck there because of circumstances beyond her control. And while a lot in "Doublemeat Palace" is (understandably) exaggerated—a lot of it hits home for me as well, right up to not quite knowing what’s actually integrated into the products being served.

And partly, it’s the old lady: What about the cherry pieeeeee!?

So yeah, I love Doublemeat Palace in all its glorious mediocrity, from its one the nose portrayal of lifers in the fast food industry to the stupid cow-based uniforms to the Alien rip-off phallic shaped bad guy—or snake, or whatever—I simply love. I’m sorry. Please don’t kill me.

Number 9: Season 2, Episode 1, "When She Was Bad"

The general consensus is that while Buffy showed some sparks of quality right from the beginning, and signs that it could become something transcendent, it didn’t really hit its stride until the middle of season 2—with the Surprise/Innocence whammy. A fair assertion.

It’s obvious that the writers were in uncharted territory, and it took them a while to figure out both the tone and intent of the show. Whedon and Co. should be given props just for attempting some of the insanity they were trying to put on screen. If there was anything that could characterize the entire Buffyverse, it was courage, and a penchant for pushing past the false starts—like giant praying mantis bug ladies.

“When She Was Bad,” gets sort of lost in the shuffle. It’s not considered a bad episode, just not a particularly great one. It comes in the up-and-down first half of season two (before the infamy) and deals with Buffy attempting to bury the trauma she’s undergone at the hands of the Master—you know, dying and all that jazz.

I personally think this is a really good episode. Whedon’s always been good as digging into psychological trauma and expressing it in a believable fashion—even Buffy’s catatonia from the end of season five made sense in context—and “When She Was Bad” does an admirable job portraying a young girl that represses a traumatic event by building a wall of distance and egomania. The Buffy of “When She Was Bad” is nothing if not foreshadowing her constant—throughout the series—need to be reminded that she not only can’t handle everything on her own, but doesn’t have to, a motif that comes full circle in the series finale, a whole five years later (man, do I love Whedon’s ability to synchronize serialized television!).

Plus, it features a sexy Sarah Michele Gellar doing a sexy dance with Xander set to some sexy music.

What’s not to love?

Number 8: Season 1, Episode 7 "Angel"

This is purely a personal opinion of mine (although I don’t think it’s an opinion that’s overwhelmingly rare): I love sappy romances. Call it a guilty pleasure. It’s one of the many anathemas of English majordom—you can’t have a good relationship anywhere in literature because it’s not angsty enough—but I can’t help it. Yes, sappy romance can be done badly. It can very easily be done badly. In fact, more often than not, it’s done badly. But Buffy provides one of the rare exceptions. Is it perfect? Well, no; honestly, I don’t know if sappy romance can ever be done perfectly…but it gets the job done.

Any story can be well done. Really. All it takes is the proper consideration. And the relationship between Buffy and Angel is, quite literally, Twilight if Twilight was competently written. To wit: we have a much older, mysterious and very pale vampire (though he doesn’t sparkle) going after a young, underage girl to the point where the word “stalking” might be apropos. Underage girl, however, sees this not as creepy, but adorable, and the two start a whirlwind romance with lots of angst and drama.

It's essentially same story. The only difference is the writing. When you have a 244 year old vampire and a 16 year old girl, it's hard work to make it even a little bit un-creepy, and the fact that Buffy succeeds at all in doing so is a true testament to the talent of the staff.

Because their relationship is creepy at its most basic. But that consideration is stymied by a host of factors: the obvious caring the Angel has for her, the knowledge that Buffy's self-reliant and, in fact, rescues Angel on a regular basis, and of course the performances from Boreanaz and Gellar to make the whole thing not only seem believable but also seem like the most natural thing in the world: of course these two would be together!

Angel is probably the most Twilight-ish part of the entire romance, what with Angel hanging around Buffy’s house shirtless and sleeping in her room even though they barely know each other and what not, and that’s without mentioning the terrible season one “sound-track” that evokes charming images of the worst sort of overacted soap operas. But it also has one of my favorite scenes in Buffy, where Buffy confronts Angel (whom she now thinks she has to slay) in the Bronze.

David Boreanaz’s season one performance was stiff, to put it kindly, but I think here’s a moment where we see a glimpse of the ability that he actually has, as well as one of my favorite bits of dialogue:

BUFFY: You play me like a fool. Come into my home. And then you attack my family . . .

ANGEL: Why not? I killed mine. I killed their friends, and their friends' children. For a hundred years I offered an ugly death to everyone I met. And I did it with a song in my heart.

BUFFY: A hundred years.

ANGEL: And then I made an error of judgment. Fed on a girl about your age. Beautiful. Dumb as a post, but a favorite among her clan.

BUFFY: Her clan?

ANGEL: The Romani--Gypsies. It was just before the turn of the century. The elders conjured the perfect punishment for me. They restored my soul.

Boreanaz, for all his weakness during this season, pulls off an interesting bit of menace here, a hazy toeing the line between a good/ensouled person evoking the cruelty he was such a willing participant in.

Of course this becomes a fight scene between Buffy/Angel and Darla that encapsulates everything wrong with the direction and budgeting of season one, including the way Julie Benz holds those akimbo pistols (bothers me every time) and the fact that they seem to have bottomless magazines, and since I’m not seeing a Solid Snake Infinite Ammo bandana on her person, I’m just going to assume it was something the writers didn’t want to deal with—but you know what, that's okay. Because the ending of this episode more than makes up for it, in one beautiful visual encapsulating the entire relationship these two characters will have.

The point of Angel is illuminated in its title, and as a sappy romance fan I have no choice but to heap showers of praise.

Number 7:  Season 4, Episode 8: "Pangs"

Put on your helmets, kiddies, because I’m about to blow your mind: season four is probably my favorite season after the biggies (i.e., 2 and 3). It’s regarded as forgettable by a large majority of the fan base and outright loathed by a not-insignificant portion, but I’ve never quite understood why.

I think timing has a lot to do with the way Buffy’s received. I’ve already recounted how I’m favorably inclined towards season 6 more because I wasn’t carrying the expectations of the previous seasons with me when I saw most of it. To take that a step further, I think when you 're first exposed to the Buffyverse makes a huge difference in how well you regarded certain seasons. You start watching as a youngster, and the high school stuff is what relates to you more, and when they get to college there’s a sort of distancing. You start watching as an adult, and season six doesn’t bother you near as much because you totally get the adult issues that the characters are going through. So as a relatively recent college graduate, I’ve never minded season four. Yes, Adam is a little bland—but to counterbalance, I don’t mind Riley at all. Four contains two of my favorite episodes (“Hush” and “Restless”) and some of my favorite individual moments, and is really the last time Buffy felt completely like Buffy to me for a sustained period of time, i.e. the whole season. Season five was really good and had some great episodes, but also marked Buffy’s start into the adult drama that characterized the latter half of the series. There’s no compelling season long arc in four, and the Initiative is a pretty weak exercise, but I never minded that. The fact that there are so many standalone episodes might keep the season as a whole from being as compelling, but it also makes it much more re-watchable, and that leads us to “Out-of-the-way” episode number 7.

"Pangs" fits perfectly into a list like this because the episode really stands on its last fifteen minutes. Without them, “Pangs” might just qualify as one of the worst episodes in the entire series. I see what they were going for—taking the metaphors used in the “high school years” into college, where one is more likely to be exposed to such perspectives of how the Indians (We call them Native Americans, Giles) were the victims of mass genocide in America’s plans of “manifest destiny,” and all that—but the metaphor is about as subtle as a scalping and basically boils down to Willow spouting off progressive dialogues. The villains aren’t very interesting and Angel’s appearances—and hiding from Buffy for a very weak reason—also count against it.

And then there’s the final fifteen minutes.

Honest to God, there might be no funnier bit of action in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer than the last act of "Pangs." Everything from “pincushion Spike” to the expressions of the cast at the end of the episode when Xander lets it slip that Angel was in town (setting up the wonderful Angel ep “I Will Remember You”) is laugh out loud hilarity. Some might think it’s a little too slapstick. For me, it’s what Buffy is all about, the self-aware silliness, and really—correct me if I’m wrong—but I don’t think there’s another episode like this, pure, unadulterated goofing off—after season four—until season 7’s “Him.”

Buffy’s insistence on creating the perfect dinner is rote but still an effective Thanksgiving barrel of laughs, especially in her conversations with Giles, who still has trouble not calling his bubbly group of teenagers “Bloody Colonials.”

A weak episode saved by an outrageously fun final act, hilarious as only Buffy can do.

And speaking of season seven…

Number 6: Season Seven, Episode Seven, "Him"

I want to make it perfectly clear that I don’t think any season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is “bad.” I will say that a few seasons of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer are weak. And to my mind, the weakest of all seasons was numero seven. It wasn’t as oppressively dark as season sex—er, I mean six—and it wasn’t as cheap-looking and ill-defined as season one, but of all Buffy’s seasons, it’s simply the least interesting. The episodes blur together, and not in the good the-arc-is-so-awesome-it’s-hard-to-separate season three way, but in the bad there’s just nothing memorable there kind of way. It wasn’t silly enough to be lighthearted nor dark enough to be oppressive. It was just sort of…there.

That’s not to say it’s bad. I quite enjoyed season seven; however if some vengeful god-spirit came to me and said that to save the universe one season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer would have to be excised from existence forever, I would say seven with little hesitation. Other than "Conversations with Dead People," there was not a single episode that made me stand up and go “Wow!” Even the oft-lauded “Storyteller” felt too bogged down by what was happening at that point (Note to self: May have to make later post entirely about season seven. –E).

As such, I feel rather confident in saying that “Him” is the last true injection of lighthearted levity (Note to self: fairly certain that's redundant. --E) into the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer canon, and for a season as depressingly contorted as seven, it’s something I’m very grateful for.

But Mr. E, I hear the three people reading this in a remote scientific research center in Antarctica screaming. “Him” isn’t a good episode! It’s just a less clever version of “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”!

To that I say: I completely agree. “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” is the vastly superior episode, and the two have more than a few things in common.

Still, that doesn’t mean “Him” is completely unworthy and totally devoid of its own unique wit. Sure, the love spell thing has been well-covered ground, but “Him” also provides the series’ last-gasp of magic/demon-as-metaphor that the show was so good at in the early seasons, with its spin on the cliché of the jock with the letterman’s jacket having some sort of insidious influence on the teenage girls surrounding him.

“Him” also had the distinction of having one of the most hilarious moments in series, with a four-way tracking of Buffy, Willow, Anya and Dawn as they each do their own thing in regards to making R.J. theirs, the best of these being, of course, Buffy trying to kill Principal Wood with the rocket launcher from “Innocence," all in a background montage that has Spike wrestling the device away from her. Not to mention Spike and Xander’s grand “plan” of getting the jacket from R.J., which involves running up to him and yanking it away before he knows what’s happening.

I think part of my fondness for "Him" can be attributed to this last-gasp sensibility. As great as “Conversations with Dead People” was, it set the stage for the rest of the season, including the potentials, the ruin of Giles and Buffy’s relationship, Buffy’s megalomania, all of it—meaning in a certain way, “Him” is all the last pure distillation of Buffy, with the high school metaphors and Buffy actually being happy and the general fun of the story; doesn’t make it great, doesn’t make it any less of a “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” rehash, but it does make me appreciate it more than it would otherwise.

Holy Dostoyevsky, did this post expand longer than I thought it would! It’s official people, I’m going to have to split it up. So tune in next time for my top five favorite “Out-of-the-way” episodes of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer!

(Note/Edit: Part 2 is complete! Read it here.) 

Until then,

Mr. E

PICTURED: An absolutely ecstatic Joss Whedon

 (1) If I was going to put a list of what are the objectively best episodes, it would look as follows:

1. The Body
2. Hush
3. Once More, With Feeling
4. Restless
5. The Gift
6. Becoming (1 and 2)
7. Surprise/Innocence
8. The Zeppo
9. The Wish
10. Passion