This isn’t a bad idea, but be warned, the show doesn’t look very good in the first season. I mean literally; the show was shot on the cheap (very small budget), and the finished product reflects it. The budget much improved, and so did the look of the show, in later seasons. So don’t be turned off by the fact that the show looks cheap in season one; its a reflection of budget realities and not evidence of poor skills by the directors/editors.
Sua
If your viewing plate is really full, then enjoy the meal you have!
When you’ve got more time, begin with Buffy, Season 1, Episode 1. Proceed in order.
If you want to pick just one episode that represents Buffy at its best, without spoiling the whole series, watch Hush. It needs minimal setup, has enough intriguing bits to make you want to watch more to find out what certain relationships are, but doesn’t really spoil anything major. On top of all that, it’s the best episode Buffy ever had, as well. Almost completely without dialogue, on a show famed for it.
There. If that doesn’t start a war, nothing ever will! 
Bzzzt! 
I’d save Hush and The Body until you can appreciate what’s going on. I think a lot of Hush won’t make any sense unless you know what’s going on, and it requires a lot of setup. The Body won’t have any impact unless you’re already connected to the characters.
Season 1 frankly wasn’t that good. Season 2 or 3 is where I’d start.
I second this. If you already know the gist of the Buffy-verse, I’d suggest maybe watching the last ep of season 1 (or maybe the last two) and then start with season 2. Season 2-4 were my absolute favorites. I cried like a baby during some of those episodes.
Hush and Once More, With Feeling were two of my favorite eps, but out of context I think they’d come off as a bit weird.
I get that everyone thinks Once More With Feeling is the shit of the shit, but you have to realize that it won’t work for someone new to the show. That episode works because of the excellent character development that had happened in the first five and a half seasons. A new viewer to the show isn’t going to appreciate it as much taken by itself.
Look, I think we can all pretty much agree that to really appreciate Buffy, you need to start at or near the beginning and work your way through the series, stopping at some ill-defined place between the end of Season 5 and the end of Season 7. But that wasn’t the question asked. The OP said “no intention of watching the whole thing soon.” This is a crime, of course, and in a just world would be punished as such, but let’s stay focused on the question. IMO, Hush gives you a bunch of the flavor and texture, a large dose of the relationships as they existed at that point, and is intriguing as hell. You don’t need to know the background of Xander and Anya to appreciate their interplay during the episode. You can understand the basics of The Initiative and Riley with minimal background.
OMWF, OTOH, becomes totally meaningless without 5 seasons of context.
About a year and a half ago, I hadn’t seen more than half a dozen episodes of Buffy. Then I watched them all in syndication one right after the other. While I feel I might have missed out on some discussions of upcoming developments and predictions on what new developments would occur, there was a sense of instant gratification as even “summer breaks” wouldn’t stop the next episode from airing the very next day.
So with that said, as a new viewer, I really think season 3 was by far the best of any season. The main characters all changed significantly as they get closer to graduation and realize what choices they have. The mayor is a fabulous evil character both in writing and Harry Groener’s acting. Faith as the alternate slayer brings an interesting story arc into the mix. Plus there’s enough callbacks to earlier seasons and very subtle hints to what’s to come in season four, to appreciate in multiple viewings.
So if you’re limited on time, season 3 as a whole is the way to go. No, you won’t get all the great episodes like Hush or Once More with Feeling, but that’s irrelevant. The season itself is the best.
For a one-off episode that really combines all the elements that make the series work, I recommend (from Season 1) “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.” The line between horror and high school is pretty thin sometimes.
Good point. This is especially evident whenever vampires are “killed”. In the early seasons you just see a puff of CGI dust, which looks a little silly, but in later seasons, you actually see their features dissolve and their skeletons collapse, which is kinda cool. Even the end of Season 3 is a bit too ambitious for the effects budget at the time, which detracts from what should’ve been a nearly perfect finale. I think right around Season 4 the show must have gotten some extra money and better software, because the effects are pretty decent after this point.
Agreed. When Buffy sings: “Its do or die — Hey I’ve died twice” it really helps to know that she is not kidding.
My family had no interest in Buffy, but they all love musicals. I typed up a handy one-page guide introducing them to everything they NEEDED to know in order to appreciate “Once More, With Feeling,” and showed my mom and brother the episode after they read it. Would you fellow fans say I did a good job in summing everything up?
[spoiler]“Once More With Feeling”: Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6, episode 7
This is everything you need to know about the characters and the story so far:
Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar): the Slayer, a young woman with super powers and the mission of protecting the world from evil. She sacrificed her life to save the world at the end of season 5, only to be resurrected by her friends’ magic spell at the beginning of season 6. So far, she has been uncomfortable with being brought back to life, even though it was actually her second death and resurrection since the show began.
Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan): Buffy’s best friend, a brainy beauty and a very powerful Wiccan (witch) who masterminded the spell that brought Buffy back from the dead. She is currently in a loving lesbian relationship with:
Tara Maclay (Amber Benson): another Wiccan, a shy and sweet girl. In an earlier episode this season, Willow and Tara had their first fight, and a distraught Willow secretly cast a spell to make Tara forget anything bad had happened between them.
Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon): the heart and soul of the group of friends, Xander doesn’t have super powers or any magic at his disposal. But he is extremely brave and loyal, and has stood beside the others from the very beginning. He is a wiseguy, always laughing in the face of danger. He is currently engaged to:
Anya (Emma Caulfield): formerly a 1,000-year-old Vengeance Demon named Anyanka, she would be summoned by scorned women to brutally torment and punish men who hurt them. She has lost her powers and been given human form, and she is slowly learning what it means to be human. Known for being rude, blunt, and brutally honest at times, as a child might, she fell in love with Xander and eagerly awaits their wedding.
Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head): Buffy’s Watcher, a bookish, brave Brit who serves as her trainer and her friend. More importantly, he is a real father figure to Buffy, the child of an absentee father and a mother who died of a brain tumor in season 5. He cares deeply about Buffy and the gang (the “Scoobies”) and will go to any lengths to protect them. An occult expert, he was originally the librarian at the Scoobies’ high school, but now that they graduated, he owns The Magic Box, a magic shop in Sunnydale, California, where the show is set. Since her mother’s death and her own death and resurrection, Buffy has relied on Giles to cope with adult life a little too much.
Dawn Summers (Michelle Trachtenberg): Buffy’s younger sister, an immature teenage girl prone to getting in trouble. She also has a bit of a problem with shoplifting, but she deserves some slack – she was targeted for death by a hell-god in season 5, then her mother died, and then her sister died, protecting her.
Spike (James Marsters): a 100-year-old vampire who ravaged his way through Europe and earned a deadly reputation, Spike’s murderous ways stopped in season 4 when a government agency captured him and implanted a chip in his brain that wouldn’t allow him to harm humans. He has since used his violent tendencies to help the Scoobies fight vampires and demons in Sunnydale, even though he doesn’t like them very much, and they don’t trust him. Still, he is protective of Dawn and recently realized he has fallen in love with Buffy, his former arch-enemy. A depressed and self-destructive Buffy started confiding in Spike earlier in season 6, even though she treats him badly and doesn’t return his affection. They also shared a few awkward kisses before this musical episode.
[/spoiler]
I’ve gotten a couple folks hooked on Buffy by convincing them to watch Hush. It apparently does stand alone pretty dang well.
Daniel
Perhaps people missed this part of my OP:
** I’m happy assembling any background info necessary to follow them from other sources.**
Likewise, the comments about not being sufficiently invested in the character development without watching all the way through don’t apply to me. But thanks for your thoughts anyway, because it’s handy to know that I should go in armed with info. I think I may just watch season two…still deciding.
Thanks very much for the big list, BBVL.
Just one more person chiming in to say that you should really just start with season 2.
Do NOT under any circumstance watch Once More With Feeling without seeing at least the seasons before it.
Once More With Feeling brings resolution to things that had played for over a season, that is what makes it so utter brilliant.
Not only is it a musical episode, but it also has the most resolutions to separate story lines I have ever seen.
Pretty good. But you left out the bunnies. And, as we learn later, Anya was pretty odd when she was Aud.
Furthermore, Giles didn’t exactly stop being a librarian because everybody graduated–he helped blow up the high school!
Of course, I could go on with the pre-Once More & post-Once More details that add resonance. But we* really* know that, if we convince people to watch “just one” Buffy episode–they may eventually cave & buy the whole series.
But of course. We’re worse than crack dealers with our drug. “Go on…try it. First taste’s free.”
There was a lot more drama/backstory around Dawn than is included in your summary BBVL, but that should provide what someone needs to understand OMWF.
Enjoy,
Steven
I realize that, but I didn’t dare go into all the stuff with Glory and the Key for my mom and brother, who were skeptical to begin with. I figure for a one-page summary, it was best to just go over the essentials.
Actually, I thought it was a great episode. Or is that what you’re saying? To me, saying something is “shit” means it’s really, really bad.