Yeah a lot of people lost some enthusiasm for the show in the last couple of seasons, when it “went dark.” In my opinion, that’s when the show grew up, and went from good teevee to great literature.
Yes, that pretty much describes my situation- losing enthusiasm throughout S6 and S7. But we basically rewatched S7 recently, and I was utterly charmed by it. This time around, i really felt like Buffy had learned the lessons from S6. We tried to rewatch S6 too, but it’s still too, well, painful. I identify too much with Buffy’s sense of hopelessness right now, I think
The only episode I’ve seen is the musical episode. Are the other ones better? Is any of the show like Angel, which I actually liked?
“Hush” is amazing. “The Body” is a work of Art so powerful that I can’t watch it.
So, yeah.
The musical episode works best if you watch it in context; out of context I would imagine it would be about a solid hour of WTF. In context, it interweaves and solidifies a huge number of ongoing arcs.
I came in here to say what Alessan posted.
BTVS isn’t for everyone, but if you liked what you saw so far then things can only get better. Innocence (ep. 14) is probably the most famous episode in season two. My favorite episode of the series is Passions which is at episode number 17.
Once you get pass those let us know what you think.
I do enjoy seeing the “I just watched Firefly/BTVS” threads pop up every week or so. We’re doing good work here guys, keep spreading the message.
Oh, yeah, you will love it.
It gets way better from where you are at. Haloween is one of the first cute and good ones, but it is far surpassed later.
**
Stick with it.** 
I never saw it during its orginal run, and have only seen seasons 1-3 so far, but I think it’s generally brilliant, even if I’m not quite ready to say it’s The Best TV Ever Made. Although most people find halfway through Season two is the turning point, for me it was the final ep of season 1 and “When She was Bad”, the season 2 opener (er, I think), that cemented it for me. Some powerful stuff there.
One aspect that I think maybe obscures the greatness of this show, is that selling the plots often relies on heavy usage of special effects that frankly, the producers didn’t have the budget or technology to do properly. Seeing yet another ropey computer-assisted morph or crappy makeup job tended to take me right out of the story, even if I was consciously making allowances for these limitations.
I loved BtVS back then and enjoyed watching the seasons 2-5 on DVD, but, all in all, I prefer Angel, even though I was either bored or annoyed, mostly both at the same time, by the character on Buffy.
But the surrounding characters worked so well that Angel had the time to grow on me. And though the fifth season of Buffy deserves the praise it gets, it doesn’t stand a chance against Angel’s fourth, imo.
Sure, they failed there – but they did so ambitiously, trying to tell a seriously epic tale.
Of course, neither BtVS nor Angel play in the same league Firefly does … oh well, never mind.
You’ll quite probably enjoy the arcs of Buffy’s seasons 3-5 the most and many episodes from all seasons are great tv (I have always been fond of “Phases”, “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” and “Killed by Death” from the season you’re currently watching), but the last two seasons are an atrocity, despite the musical and the occasional gem. But who knows? You might like them the most. Stranger things have happened. 
Had to add at least one quote from the mentioned episodes (Killed by Death):
Buffy (in a hospital bed): Homework.
Willow: It’s my way of saying get well soon.
Buffy: You know, chocolate says that even better.
Willow: I did all your assignments. All you have to do is sign your name.
Buffy: Chocolate means nothing to me.
No, I have seen at this point ten or eleven episodes of season three. Lack of shattered earth. I will note that I had the same reaction to Firefly as olives did.
Eh. No biggie. Different strokes, and all that. Joss failed miserably with me when he did Dollhouse.
I agree with you entirely about the show - it’s not earth-shattering, just fun. The best season is the one with the Mayor (3?) and after that, meh.
Without spoilering anything, I gotta say that while I loved seasons 2, 3 and 5 (plus parts of season 4–any non-arc episodes. The arc/big bad of season 4 sucked bigtime), I had a couple of major issues that I’ll share.
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There’s no real character growth. Any change is merely the illusion of change and most character’s personalities will end up right back where they started in terms of growth. (many people will disagree vociferously.)
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Joss cannot plot a story-arc to save his life…season 5 is the exception…most seasons open with a few strong arc stories, then have a bunch of monster-du-jour episodes (some of which are abso-frickin’-lutely magnificent–“Hush” for example), then the last 4 or 5 episodes are desperate arc-episodes where they try to cram in all the stuff that should have been spread out among the 14 episodes in-between. Season 4 is terrible this way. I would personally pay $100 for a 24 episode mini-series where JMS (of Babylon 5) collaborated with Joss–they jointly come up with the concept, JMS plots out the arc and determines what happens in each episode, then they write the episode together with Joss doing the majority of the dialogue.
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Someone on the show (Joss, whatshername-Nixon? Noxon?) has major relationship issues. And it shows.
It’s absolutely worth watching the series, but keep those issues in mind.
OK - I have a question. Before you started watching the series, did you watch the original movie?
Because you have to watch the original movie and how bad that was, to understand how much of a row Whedon had to hoe to prove he was not Pee Wee Herman fodder.
I forced my bf to watch the movie right before we started watching seasons 1 & 2. Then he understood why it was just not worth comparing.
(oh, and when we chronologically got to where Angel started - we have now started watching them together - 1 BtvS, 1 *Angel *- so you get all the cross-over references.)
I just finished re-watching the episodes in order. Nathan Fillion is awesome!!
BtVS will always be one of my favorite shows. Come back and tell us what you think after you finish this season, olives. I love seeing the reaction of people to seeing it with fresh eyes.
Season 5 and Season 3 are probably my favorites, but there are so many great single episodes in other seasons as well.
Same here. Some things on the screen can be sick and entertaining but that one wasn’t. Though I wonder if it might work on DVD …
The Mayor was the best villain they ever had, Eliza Dushku was surprisingly good as Faith and the whole ensemble had interesting things going on, even Xander.
The Prom
Anya (former vengeance demon for scorned women, now highschool girl): You know, you can laugh, but I have witnessed a millennium of treachery and oppression from the males of the species. And I have nothing but contempt for the whole libidinous lot of them.
Xander: Then why are you talking to me?
Anya: I don’t have a date for the prom.
Xander: Well, gosh. I wonder why not? It couldn’t have anything to do with your sales pitch.
Anya: Men are evil. Will you go with me?
Xander: One of us is very confused, and I honestly don’t know which.
Well, Fenris is almost totally wrong here. 
Season 4 was a great season. It faced the problem of shifting focus from high school to college, but it did it well. The Big Bad was appropriate as well.
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I disagree vociferously.
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I disagree with the first part, but would sell my mother to the Arabs if Joss and JMS would collaborate on a project.
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Marti Noxon. P-tooey!
Fenris
I bought an episode guide off of Amazon a couple of years ago. http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Slayer-Unofficial-Unauthorized-Episode/dp/B000HT2OMG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273673516&sr=8-3
It is out of print, but available used. In it, the author speaks to Noxon’s writing style as well as the other writers. You might enjoy it.
Disagree–Season four had a bunch of great episodes, but I hated the uber-lame bigbad and the arc itself was uber-lame.
The lady professor was forgotten until–oops–she became a cult leader for instance.
Also the silly big-bad robot-demon was just embarrassing.
Season 5 was (to me) the best season–Glory just rocked as a bad-guy, Willow finally comes into her own, the Xander/Anya thing was never better and the finale "
SHE SAVED THE WORLD
A LOT"
was breathtakingly good. The episode where mom dies is so heartbreaking I have trouble watching it and as far as I’m concerned, that was the last episode.
See? 
For me, the easiest example I can give is
[spoiler]
Xander. There’s absolutely no excuse what was done to him in seasons 6 and 7. He grew up and became a responsible adult…until they decided to reboot the character back to his irresponsible teen-age self when he stood Anya up at the alter.
Also Buffy never actually learns to make good relationship choices (Spike rapes her and that makes her like rough sex?!) or to stand up for herself (except at the very, VERY end of the show…she should have been telling the Watcher’s Council to go screw themselves back around S4 or so.)
Willow never learns to be assertive (because assertive means that you go nuts, mess with the minds of your friends and try to take over the world) [/spoiler]
Oh, come on. Season 4 was stupid. Riley? Riley? And no, it did not weather the shift to college. At all. It did a terrible job and totally never got back on its feet. Urgh.
Not to mention, man, Joss has serious daddy issues. “Guess what, it’s another bad dad!” I enjoyed the show, don’t get me wrong, but it has serious flaws. Every time we’re watching something else and somebody turns out to have a Bad Dad we always muse whether Joss Whedon was somehow involved. (Deadwood, we’re looking at you.)