I watched this show many years ago and remember it as being superb. I don’t remember a lot of details, or specific episodes (except Once More with Feeling and The Body, which are two very memorable episodes for very different reasons). My wife has never seen it so we started bingeing it recently. But I am rather appalled at how bad the first few episodes have been. My wife generally trusts my judgement in TV shows, but she has expressed bafflement as to why I think this show is so good, and based on what we’ve seen so far, I completely understand her feeling.
I’ve done a little research and it seems that many people think the show doesn’t really start to get good until well into the second season. Do you think it would be reasonable to skip some episodes to get to the good stuff sooner? I remember that there are a number of long story arcs, so I wouldn’t want us to miss anything important. If we really need to just grit our teeth and get through the tripe, I’ll accept that. But do you have suggestions on episodes that we could just as well skip over?
I definitely do this with Babylon 5, a show that had about a 50% good-episode rate in its first season, then improved tremendously in its second season.
Buffy? Hmmm…we usually watch them all. Season 1 is silly and less good, but most episodes contain enough fun to be worth it.
BTVS/Angel are likely my all time favorite shows. But I acknowledge some of the earliest Buffy’s are overall weak, but perhaps being such a geeked out fanboy, I’d suggest even the worst ones are worth watching. I would wager there are at least a couple of good guffaws and character development in each episode - which is more than can be said for a lot of TV.
IIRC, Teacher’s Pet was likely my least favorite of the entire series.
I looked at that guide. I think the identified most of the weakest - but I STRONGLY DISAGREE with skipping The Puppet Show. Taste is personal, but that was one of my personal faves.
And they call Bad Egg a skip? That was the first ep I ever saw when broadcast. That thing coming out of the egg seriously creeped me out and hooked me on the show right away.
I’m brand new to Buffy. I’m in the first part of season 3 (and upset that they took out the scream in the theme song).
I wouldn’t have wanted to skip any of the earlier ones.
Does the show get even better? Or, will it be like this the rest of the way.
And if I like the show is it likely that I will like Angel? At this point he’s not as fun as the other characters. I don’t see the humor when he’s involved. I’m still planning on giving it a chance in the near future.
Seasons 2 & 3 are definitely the high point of the series dramatically-speaking. 4-onward is definitely a mixed bag with no real compelling villains (not even S7’s First Evil, tho you can debate if S6’s “villain” really is one), but certainly has some solid individual eps.
It takes a while for Whedon and the other writers to figure out where the characters fit in, and what the right tone is, but the early episodes are good enough, and also establish a lot of the future-going structure. I’d say watch ‘em.
True dat. I wonder how long a typical S1 is. For BtVS it’s 12 episodes/about 9 hours, which gets you less than 4 movies. But I think a lot of shows have longer S1s.
From what I recall, I enjoyed the earlier episodes in a sort of camp way. They were fun. It wasn’t like a big slog to the part where it got good. I just remember it was fun and campy and then suddenly holy shit this is great.
I dunno if it really gets BETTER. I mean, I was never a big fan of Riley, Tara, or Dawn…. But I still loved the show. And some of the eps in the last few seasons are among my alltime faves.
My recommendation is, when you get to the point where Angel leaves Buffy, watch 1 Buffy, then 1 Angel. The way it was when they were broadcast. There are some crossovers that work better that way.
I first started watching Buffy when season 3 was being broadcast. Band Candy is actually the first episode I watched and was immediately hooked.
This was in the '90s, so I was never able to go back and watch the earlier seasons until they hit syndication a couple years later. When I finally did, I was horrified by how awful I found the first season to be. The second season is obviously better, but I wasn’t particularly impressed by it either.
Interestingly to me, I rewatched both Buffy and Angel in their entirety earlier this year after having not seen anything from either in decades. I thought the first season of Buffy – that I previously found almost unwatchable – to be great. Just slightly not as good as the other seasons.
But I still recognize how it could be perceived as significantly worse than the other seasons. Feel free to skip ahead as far as you want. Hell, skip straight to Band Candy as your first episode. It worked for me!
Assuming you end up loving the show, you can always go back and watch the earlier seasons you skipped. If you don’t end up absolutely loving the show, at least you skipped the worst parts.
I remember when my wife and I first watched this about 10 years ago. It seemed like season 1 was just “monster of the week.” It wasn’t until season 2 that you got season-long arcs that actually made the show absolutely compelling to watch.
The problem with starting the series mid-stream at almost any point means you’ll spoil earlier episodes. Just the existence of this or that character or how they’re portrayed differently counts as a spoiler for earlier episodes, possibly an entire arc.
My first episode was Inca Mummy Girl, which didn’t impress me enough as an entry point to watch more. But after all of the hullabaloo over delaying Graduation Day because of Columbine, I decided to give it a second chance during summer reruns and it clicked with me.
