The Best Of Buffy

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I'm feeling nostalgic about the greatest show ever on television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, today. I haven't watched an episode in probably a couple of months, which is totally blasphemous... I might just pop a DVD in after Veronica Mars tonight. But how to choose what episode to watch?

Here are my favorite episodes from each season (I only cheat once!).

Season 1

Prophecy Girl (Season 1, Episode 12)

The first season is the show's weakest; it was really still finding it's footing. But this episode, the season's finale, gives us a taste of the greatness to come.

Buffy: They say how he's gonna kill me? Do you think it'll hurt? Don't touch me! Were you even gonna tell me?
Giles: I was hoping that I wouldn't have to. That there was... some way around it. I...
Buffy: I've got a way around it. I quit!
Angel: It's not that simple.
Buffy: I'm making it that simple! I quit! I resign, I-I'm fired, you can find someone else to stop the Master from taking over!
Giles: I'm not sure that anyone else can. All the... the signs indicate...
Buffy: The signs? READ ME THE SIGNS! TELL ME MY FORTUNE! YOU'RE SO USEFUL SITTING HERE WITH ALL YOUR BOOKS! YOU'RE REALLY A LOTTA HELP!
Giles: No, I don't suppose I am.
Angel: I know this is hard.
Buffy: What do you know about this? You're never gonna die!
Angel: You think I want anything to happen to you? Do you think I could stand it? We just gotta figure out a way...
Buffy: I already did. I quit, remember? Pay attention!
Giles: Buffy, if the Master rises...
Buffy: I don't care! I don't care. Giles, I'm sixteen years old. I don't wanna die.

Season 2

Becoming, Part II (2.22)

Buffy kills her undead boyfriend Angel to save the world, and then leaves town to the saddest strains of Sarah MacLachlan imaginable.

Joyce: "Well, it stops now!"
Buffy: "No, it doesn't stop. It never stops. Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you have any idea how lonely it is? How dangerous? I would love to be upstairs watching TV or gossiping about boys or, god, even studying! But I have to save the world. Again."

Season 3

The Prom (3.20)

In what fights with just one other moment as my absolute favorite Buffy moment, Buffy gets a happy ending, for once - everyone acknowledges the shit she does for them, and she dances with her man. Sigh.

Jonathan: We have one more award to give out. Is Buffy Summers here tonight? Did she....um...This is actually a new category. First time ever. I guess there were a lot of write in ballots and the prom committee asked me to read this. "We're not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you. But that doesn't mean we haven't noticed you. We don't talk about it much, but it's no secret that Sunnydale High isn't really like other high schools. A lot of weird stuff happens here."
Student: Zombies!
Student: Hyena people!
Student: Snyder!
Jonathan: But whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened, you seemed to show up and stop it. Most of the people here have been saved by you. Or helped by you at one time or another. We're proud to say that the class of '99 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history. And we know that at least part of that is because of you. So the senior class offers its thanks and gives you, uh... this. It's from all of us. And it has written here, Buffy Summers — Class Protector.

Graduation Day, Part II (3.22)

Oops, I'm cheating! I love The Prom episode the most from this season, but the third season finale is probably the finest, most exciting, well-written episode of the show, finishing up its finest overall season (seriously, I could've chosen the episodes The Wish or Dopplegangland - Vampire Willow! - for faves from this season, too) beautifully. No better Big Bad than The Mayor! Plus Faith at her ass-kickingest!

Cordelia: I personally don’t think it’s possible to come up with a crazier plan.
Oz: We attack the Mayor with hummus.
Cordelia: I stand corrected.
Oz: Just keeping things in perspective.
Cordelia: Thank you.

Season 4

Hush (4.10)

The episode you show to people who've never seen an episode before. The Gentlemen still haunt my nightmares. And, in an episode where no one speaks for about half its run-time, some of the series' funniest dialogue.

Giles: I have a friend who's coming to town, and I'd like us to be alone.
Anya: Oh, you mean an orgasm friend?
Giles: Yes, that's exactly the most appalling thing you could've said.

Season 5

The Body (5.16)

One of the most harrowing hours of television ever written. The episode that proved that the Emmys aren't worth shit. And the episode where a love that shall never die, for Anya (Emma Caulfield), was born, with her speech (transcribed below) that battles with the Class Protector Award scene in The Prom episode as my favorite Buffy moment ever.

Anya: "Are they gonna cut the body open?"
Willow: "Oh my God! Would you just... stop talking? Just... shut your mouth! Please!"
Anya: "What am I doing?"
Willow: "How can you act like that?"
Anya: "Am I supposed to be changing my clothes a lot? Is that the helpful thing to do?"
Xander: "Guys—"
Willow: "The way you behave—"
Anya: "Nobody will tell me."
Willow: "Because it's not okay for you to be asking these things!"
Anya (crying): "But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore! It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why. (She puts her hand over her face, crying.)"
Willow (after a long pause): "We don't know... how it works... why."

Seriously, I start crying just reading that.

Season 6

Once More, With Feeling (6.07)

The musical! Further proof that Joss Whedon can do everything.

The 6th season gets knocked a lot, but I like this season quite a bit. It's a different season, there aren't specific episodes that stand out too much like in previous seasons, but it's less about moving a rapidfire plot forward and more about capturing that post-college what-am-I-doing-with-my-life ennui.

Season 7

Selfless (7.05)

The Anya-centric episode I'd always wanted. We pretend that, after this episode, she left the show to live happily ever after, and wasn't even around to get TORN IN HALF in the finale. No, that didn't happen. Nope.

Aud: I don't talk to people much. I mean, I talk to them, but they don't talk to me, except to say that, "your questions are irksome," and, "perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river."

I need to rewatch some of the 7th season; it started off with a lot of promise and kinda lost its way about halfway through. I do like the finale, though... besides the aforementioned moment that didn't happen, that is.