And AH, and ED, and EC, and CC.
Just saying.
Buffy wins on pacing alone.
Joss Whedon knows how to plot. Each season begins with stand alone episodes which also hint at big dangers to come. As the season progresses the Big Bad becomes more apparent and more of a threat until there is a final explosive confrontation. The seasons stand alone and have more thrills than entire series of other shows. Whedon learned a good lesson from comix: If you have a big setup, you need a big payoff.
The X-files fails miserably in this regard. It had one big bad–the aliens–and they didn’t do anything! Even in the last show, you’re still waiting for them. The show kept piling portent upon portent without any resolution.
And what were you watching on Sunday? Your videotape of the previous Friday’s episode? 
Seriously? I coulda sworn XF was on Sunday nights. Was it on Fridays instead? Guess I got my shows confused.
It started out on Fridays and switched halfway in its run to Sunday
The basic problem with X-Files is that Chris Carter kept painting himself into a corner and cutting through the wall to escape, occasionally severing a load-bearing pillar in the process.
Buffy- based on this factor-
who would I want to hang out with?
Mulder & Scully would get boring pretty soon (tho I could at least admiringly ogle Scully). And they were both intensely serious & questing.
As serious & dire & emotional as the Scoobys could get, someone who say something that would lighten things. There would eventually be hugs & kissies (Willow kissies hmmmmm!)- well, not from Faith, unless she just wanted to boink & that might be a good thing also (tho not always).
You do, of course, have the right to state your opinion, but you’re also claiming to be able to state other people’s opinions. To whit, that “most people” see Buffy as a kid’s show, and that UFOs have more popular appeal than vampires. Those are statements of objective fact, for which you have provided no support. Largely, I suspect, because they are insupportable.
Buffy.
Joss had planned all his arcs well in advanced, several years in advanced for the original 5 year arc.
Okay the Season 7 arc left alot to be desired (it had the classic build up at the beginning of the season… it just fell flat as soon as the Slayerettes came on board).
But still, as another poster mentioned as much as the arc was grating, it was satisfying all the same in the grand scheme of things.
I am also one of thos people that was a big fan of Season 6, I thought it was wonderful and just what the show needed, so I have to admit that isn’t a negitive season for me.
The X-Files in the end just didn’t do it, mainly because of the lack of direction on the arc. It was the proverbial animals in the boat, the elephant, giraffe, hippo et al get in the boat, yet the mouse sinks it.
The mouse for me was sometime in the summer between season six and seven. The season six finale was interesting enough, but it just didn’t draw me back for another season because I knew exactly what they’d do in the first one or two episodes. It was like a freaking cartoon, everything back the way it was at the end of an episode.
Plus I have to admit, moving to LA did ruin the feel of the show as well.
Heh, I don’t mean to come off as a basher, I love the show for the first five seasons. ADORED it. But every tower of cards has to fall.
And that is why I prefered Buffy. Joss never tried to build a tower of cards, heck the one time the arc had to be changed mid-season due to an original big-bad actor (Lindsay Crouse) quitting, the way he set it up enabled Adam to come right in and take Prof. Walsh’s place. Okay it was a little arkward, but if Chris Carter was faced with something like that, I am not sure how he would’ve coped, but I feel it would’ve been to the detriment of the storyline and he wouldn’t of been able to keep on chugging.
I don’t really think there’s any way that the X-Files can be seen as a “cult” show… the poster who compared it to something like LotR is exactly right. While there was certainly a crazy core there, X-Files was VERY mainstream for a year or two in the height of its run. It was one of those shows that you talked about by the water cooler on the monday after it aired, and you sort of assumed that everyone else there had watched it. X-Files had a mainstream, cultural impact that I think a lot of people tend to forget… whereas Buffy’s only real impact was the division between the people who watched it, and the people who made fun of the people who watched “that teenie vampire show”.
I think Buffy is a “lighter” show, in general, than the X-Files. This isn’t to say that Buffy doesn’t try to address serious stuff at one point or another, or that the X-Files doesn’t have its light moments, but the overall feel of the X-Files tends to be more serious and darker, for me at least. The comparison has to take that into account; I think more people are going to subjectively like the general feel of Buffy, especially as something they follow on a weekly basis.
Most people have covered the strengths and weaknesses of both shows already - it’s pretty indisputable that Whedon had a better overall idea of what he was doing, for one thing. Whedon is pretty well known in all of his series for being great with characters. I would tend to agree that “the paranormal” had a wider audience than “those vampires”, though such a contention seems to be, well, contentious; on the other hand, that was mostly an entry level deterrent, as the charms of Buffy didn’t have terribly much to do with “those vampires”.
At its best, I think X-Files was better. As a complete series package, I think you sort of have to give it to Buffy just based on how completely abysmal the last couple of X-Files seasons were. Buffy’s last two seasons were “less good”, X-Files’ last two seasons were almost unwatchable. Blah, what a waste.
What Sauron said. Well, except for the whole Sunday nights thing.
Buffy was better than X, and Angel was better than either.
Buffy. Even had a better theme song. 
im being honest i started watchin buffy in 2004 and have seen every single ep of btvs and angel, i thought that these two shows would be the best id ever seen, however i started watchin the x files in 2006, and my oh my i was wrong, considering x files came out nearly 5 years b4 buffy, come on the thinking behind the series is incredible, 202 episodes aswell my god lol !!! its hard to grasp and understand the mythology from season 5 onwards, but if u watch for a second time a short while after havin watched the enite series everything slots into place, whats all this about the last 3 season not being up to scratch, all legendary tv shows struggle towards the end, look at sg1, friends, seinfield, lost, the new bsg, cheers, supernatural i could go on, the same applies for buffy and x files, but im not being biased ill always be a whedon fan above ALL ELSE !!! but x files is definitely the superior show !! its like you see nowadays 15-20 years later shows like haven, warehouse 13 trying the compete with the x files or buffy, its like what the hell!!!
Um, yeah. Good luck with that.
Zombie.
Agree with the consensus and I don’t even like Buffy. 
If you rated every episode and season from 0 - 5, X-Files would have far more fives. I’m not sure Buffy would have any.
But the abundance of -154,769s would cancel out those fives and Buffy would win with a solid 3.9 or something.
Buffy.
X-Files was just silly, anti-intellectual crud.
6 years later and I repeat myself: Buffy was a far better show.
I watched the X-Files when I was a kid and loved it. But I got into Buffy after it was already in reruns. It sounds strange to say it, but I would have to say Buffy is the better of the two. And I don;t even think it is close.
And the last seasons of Buffy are by far better than the first ones.
I liked both shows, but come down, along with everyone else, on the Buffy side. Even when it wasn’t great, it was still pretty good, which is more than you can say for most series TV.
X-Files had some great episodes, but it also had the mytharc, which sucked beyond the telling of it.
[Spoiler alert!]
When Buffy got killed in the line of duty, Willow and the Scoobies successfully resurrected her using some pretty heavy-duty magic. OK, series television, you can’t permanently kill off the main character, what else are they going to do? BUT, on any other show, the resurrection would be a pro forma gimmick, and, once accomplished, would never be spoken of again.
On Buffy, the resurrection, and Buffy’s reaction to it, formed a major plot point for the rest of the run of the show. And, completely unique to this show, the resurrection was shown as not being a wholly Good Thing. In fact, it was not at all a Good Thing, and it would have been better for everyone, including (especially) Buffy, to have left well enough alone.
I can’t think of another show that would even have raised this question, much less answered it in the negative. X-Files, as good as it was, never came close to a similar shattering of paradigms.
Chalk and cheese.
I thought that X Files were excellent in the begining because of the mystery/conspiracy hints in the stories, but you can only drag that out for so long before it gets tired.
Buffy endured better, plus I fancied Willow .