Shopping for my SO is always a bit of a PITA. He really used to enjoy watching Buffy with me. Which season would you recommend I purchase as a gift? He has seen most of the later ones (with Dawn) but missed a lot of the older ones (he never saw Hush for example).
Suggestions?
Also, we never watched Firefly, but enjoyed Serenity. Would you recommend?
You’ll get several different suggestions for Buffy. (I suggest you buy the whole thing for yourself & let hubbie watch if he’s really nice.)
Make it simple: Go with Firefly!
Firefly.
Firefly. There’s all those seasons of Buffy to worry about, but only the one Firefly set. Also, I keep trying but just haven’t managed to get on the Buffy fanwagon.
Firefly
And we rule over this land, and we will call it… “This Land”
Another one that says go with Firefly, especially if you enjoyed Serenity since it is only one season. Because if you get on the Buffy bandwagon, you wil soon want to get Angel, then the season 8 of Buffy in comic book, then…
Split the difference and get the first season of Supernatural. (Or Firefly)
I’m rewatching my Buffy DVDs. Individual episodes are fine, but as a whole, it’s not as good as I remembered.
If you have to pick a season of Buffy, Season 2 is a good one. There are a few kind of silly episodes, but lots of very good ones. The second season is when the show really came into its own, and stands up well even if you know the major plot points from having watched later seasons.
As a huge Buffy fan and also realizing there are quite a lot of mediocre episodes, I’d say S5. It really stands well on its own, it has a season long arc with a tangible conclusion and, in retrospect, ten years after the beginning, this it how it should’ve ended*.
Buffy improved over its lifetime. This means, of course, that the first season is the weakest. If your hubby is skeptical, start with season 3; that’s when Buffy started to grow up. He’ll likely be inspired to go back and catch up, but sometimes people who start at the beginning get turned off by the highschool-comedy tone that is the first season’s greatest weakness. Once he sees, from later seasons, that there is darkness and depth beneath the comic layers, he’ll be better able to recognize it in the earlier episodes.
I’d start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. When you read you begin with a-b-c. When you dvd, you begin with young Buf.fy.
Young Buf.fy.
S1.
That’s my vote.
FIREFLY!!! 
I think people just want to see Buffy’s Big Boobies.
just my opinion {{slinks away slowly}}
Buffy? Miss Anorexia 2003? That Buffy?
Kaylee had bigger boobs, and Inara had a nicer ass. Still doesn’t change the fact that Buffy is the place to start here.
Watch the complete Firefly series. Then curse the gods that it was cancelled after one season.
And it wasn’t even one whole season. Fourteen episodes–of which 11 were originally shown. Currently $29.99 at Amazon–#51 in the Best Selling DVD’s list, years after the show went off the air.
(The only way to get more Whedon TV: Buffy, then Angel!)
Go with Firefly, and then, if you haven’t already seen it, top it off with Serenity.
I believe the OP says they’ve already seen (and enjoyed) Serenity.
I’d go with Firefly. It’s far, FAR superior in quality to the movie Serenity, so, although seeing Serenity may have taken some of the mystery out of Firefly (and given you TMI in terms of who bites it in the end), I think you’ll like it a lot. Plus, unlike one season of Buffy, it is, by default, self contained.
Tenar (who thought Serenity wasn’t so hot).
Meh. I’m a huge Buffy fan, and I’ve never really cared for Angel. I watched it all. It was good. Just not that special.
And I vote for Firefly as well, especially if you’re only getting one season.
Firefly, you can’t go wrong. Buffy? Meh.
Once again I’m trying to get this Buffy thing. Last night Buffy and this other chick are both trying to be homecoming queen and Buffy is all like totally bummed out because she was like totally everyones favorite at her old school and then there was a slayer-fest and Good Eats was totally on so I didn’t watch any more.
Get Firefly.
