I agree. Just start with season 3; if it doesn’t grab you, you gave it a reasonable shot. If you like it, you’ll enjoy checking the season 2 backstory later. (Season 1 is not good.)
It was good enough to hook me back when it was new. But yes, it suffers by comparison to what came after, esp starting with 3.
I’m watching season 5 now, which is my favorite. One thing that’s really striking to me this time around is what a good actress SMG is. My memory was just that she was good enough to play Buffy, but now I see that she’s really got the chops.
Wow, this thread was geeky enough without the spreadsheets. 
I printed them out and put them in a folder for later use.
Oh my. I quit Buffy late in Season 4 because I so hated the plotline. But now this thread is making me thing I should go back and finish out the series.
I think lissener should take the original spreadsheet and put it up on Google Docs (both in converted and non converted format). Of course, anyone else could do that, too, including Ellis, and even me, but I figure lissener might want first crack.
I did. Doesn’t the link work for you?
I’m sorry. I thought that was the one you made yourself from the text. And how do you get the original Excel file? I’ve never had luck printing directly from Google Docs–something always gets formatted wrong.
Ellis dee and **lissener **-- thanks so much for the spreadsheets. I didn’t realize this would be quite so complicated. Oh well, at least the first two seasons are easy.
Season 3 is finished. I didn’t find the last two episodes terribly exciting, but overall Season 3 is fantastic.
Rank so far would be 3, 2, 1. The way it should be. 
As I’ve explained before, I jumped into Buffy halfway through in re-runs, then saw the whole thing on DVD. (And all of Angel, too.) So I can appreciate even the non-sterling episodes a bit & don’t really hate any of the seasons–just like some of them better. Anybody wanting to try the show can either start with Season 1/Show 1–or just watch an episode that sounds interesting.
Concerning Season 3: Many of us see The Mayor as The Best Villain Ever.
Concerning Season 4: Since I didn’t watch Buffy 4/Angel 1 in the original run, I really need to use that spreadsheet to recreate the experience.
Nevermind, lissener. I just emailed Ellis for the spreadsheet, and was told I could host it. As predicted, the Google Docs version takes 3 instead of 2 pages. So I decided to offer the file in several forms.
[ul]
[li]The original Excel file (also works with the free Gnumeric Spreadsheet)[/li][li]A PDF for people without a Spreadsheet program. (Box.net’s PDF viewer is more reliable than Google’s, which breaks every other time I use it.)[/li][li]A Wordpad/TextEdit file for slower computers that can’t handle the PDF or want to edit. Not guaranteed to print right, but I tried.[/li][li]The Google Spreadsheet, to see if you can make it work right. Editing is disabled unless Ellis tells me it’s okay, but you can “Save a Copy” and edit that.[/li][/ul]
So, to watch Buffy as it should be seen, is Angel a concurrent show, or after* Buffy *is done? Are there any other spinoffs?
Angel is concurrent to Buffy. It was spun off of after the third season of Buffy, so that Buffy S4 and Angel S1 run concurrently. I don’t think it would be difficult to follow one without the other, but there are a couple of crossovers and it’s nice to see the two shows interact, and there are a few times when a storyline that starts in one show is completed on the other. (Although they obviously take place in the same universe, they have somewhat different themes, motifs, and goals. Angel isn’t just an extension of the same story as Buffy - it goes off it its own direction and has its own stuff going on.)
There aren’t any other spinoffs. There is a comic book, Season 8, that picks up where Buffy leaves off. The canon-ness of Season 8 is a bit controversial, because it’s…well, it’s a comic book. Stuff happens that probably wouldn’t have happened on the show because TV shows and comic books are different mediums.
That’s because I put season 5 of Angel after season 4, instead of before season 1 as Ellis had done to save printer real estate. I made it a googledoc so you could view it online, and not worry about printing issues. There’s no reason to think the googledoc is going anywhere, so feel free to use it as an online guide.
Even hers became three pages. Apparently Google spreadsheets have a minimum cell height, and I can’t change it. And it seems to map font sizes differently, as it was four pages until I reduced the font.
And, yes, once I got started, my OCD took over, and I got carried away. I doubt many people will use it, but now you’ve got the version that fits on two pieces of paper. If someone is using DVDs instead of watching online, it might come in handy. But I’ll probably only leave the PDF after the thread dies.
It might be controversial among fans, but Joss has made it pretty clear he considers it canon (the Angel comics, on the other hand, are not canon).
TBH, I haven’t read any of the comics. Am I missing out on something great?
No. I firmly believe nobody should read the comics, that the comics should have never happened, and honestly, if Joss doesn’t pull something amazing out of his ass for the “season finale” I may never be able to enjoy the Buffyverse (on any level, even rewatching the episodes) because I’m so deeply disgusted (and honestly betrayed) by some of the choices he’s made. (Choices that essentially destroy all of his characters and nullify everything the universe is supposed to stand for).
But I hear other people like them. Nobody I know, but I guess somebody must.
I’ll try this. I think I can even stream it from Netflix on my Wii.
No. I’d skip them. I can’t even begin to express how bad a recent poor decision in them was.
Beer Bad is one of my favorite silly Buffisodes. Especially that parting shot. Priceless.