[aside]Got a shock when watching Bring It On to find out that the Glory was one of the bitchy cheerleaders. Actually her dialogue was fairly similar to the stuff she had in Buffy.[/aside]
Worst Big Bad: Adam
Worst Little Bad: Ted
Mrs. Chastain and I fully agree on this one:
Fave Big Bad: Mayor Wilkins
Fave Little Bad: Drusilla (mrrrroooowwww)
Honorable mentions go to the Geek Troika, who gave us some of the FINEST Buffy lines, EVER.
“We’re your arch-nemesis…is…ses.” 
I liked Faith as a Little Bad. I hope they retool her character for Season 7. It wouldn’t make sense for her to remain the pouty teen she was, especially after all the growing Buffy’s done.
Note : Spoiler tag fixed. - E.
Favorite big bad- The Mayor
Favorite little bad (and overall winner-- by alot) The Gentlemen-- creepy. . .
Worst: Glory (and and/or Professor Walsh).
The Mayor was a perfect Big Bad: droll, anal-retentive, obsessive compulsive, totally all over family values, ambitious, and finally, a giant-ass snakey thing. Angelus is a real close second, particularly when he dispatches Miss Calendar and sets up the Giles seduction scene. That’s one death that really hit me hard. And with all the drawings . . . shudder. I also like the fact that there’s always an opportunity for Angelus to come back, so that every time we see him evokes memory of him torturing the Scoobies in various and deeply personal ways.
The Gentlemen were one of the few Little Bads that truly scared me. Like I had a hard time looking at them.
Would Anyanka count for a one-off? Although she became a central character as Anya, I think her presence as a vengeance demon gave us the opportunity to see things like Vamp Willow and Vamp Xander, as well as a glimpse of Sunnydale without Buffy.
I think my vote for worst Little Bad is going to have to go to the Chumash tribe. That episode was nothing but post-colonial apologist claptrap. But they did give Xander the “funny syphilis,” so eh.
I have to agree that Angelus was probably the best Gig Bad as far as coming down on the Scoobies is concerned, but I just found him irratating as hell so my vote goes to the Mayor. Just because as tacky as he was, he was still better than the others. And we actually knew about some of his dealing at least a full season prior to his even appearing in the show.
Little Bad: Prolly Mr. Trick. The man was all attitude.
Best One-off: Tough one. I think Ted is up there (and “John Ritter can do no wrong” … best line in thread). Or maybe the Fear Demon. Or maybe Iegon (sp?). That was a good one.
Worst Little Bad: The hated, worthless, annoying piece of s__t Harmony. Grrrrr …
Worst Good Guy: The hated, worthless, annoying piece of s__t Dawn. Grrrrr …
My favorite Big Bad was probably Mayor Wilkins, but he didn’t really have the menacing love of emotional torture that Angelus brought to the screen. I mean, when Willow found her fish all strung together, I wigged. It was so cool and so cruel…
For Little Bad, I’d say the pre-chip Spike. He had all the best lines (“We still to kill people. Sort of our raison d’etre” “Let’s see, what rhymes with lungs…?”) and was actually sorta menacing for a whole three episodes…
However, my the coolest one-off, by far, was the demon (Sweet) from “Once More, with Feeling.” He wasn’t really all that threatening (ooo, they burn up, I’m so scared), but he was funny, and he made the whole town sing! How cool is that? And if that wasn’t enough, he was played by Hinton freakin’ Battle!
I get annoyed when a villain is too much Ernest Stavro Blofeld. All evil, with little or no nuances. We get to see a villain do something bad early on, so as to justify us, the audience, into hating him: “throw her to the sharks.”
It get’s a lot more interesting when the villain has some good. The Mayor actually cared for Faith, wheras Adam was just going to smash everything. The dynamics of the story gets far better when we can relate to the villain, in some way or another.
Why is Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley so fascinating? Because there is evil in all of us, that we can relate to and making a good villain makes a show/movie/book/play far more entertaining. Yay for Joss Wheadon, when he makes those gutsy choices and doesn’t take the easy way out.
I disagree. Only one character (Willow) espoused that viewpoint, and doing so was entirely consistent with her character. On the other hand, both Giles and Spike argued effectively against “post-colonialist apologist claptrap,” and the show didn’t give any more weight to one side or the other. I doubt you’ll find a more intelligent and even-handed approach to the topic in any other television entertainment. This was, BTW, one of my all-time favorite episodes, and, along with Something Blue and Hush, makes the fourth season one of Buffy’s strongest over-all.
I’d have to agree (shock!) that Adam was the worst big bad. I think the main problem was that he over promised, under delivered (though I thought the way the Slayer defeats Adam was genius–almost wish they could’ve saved it for a better villian). I think the whole story arch (the Initiative) suffered the same symptom. The anticipation far exceeded the execution.
It’s a lot harder (for me anyway) to pick a best villian.
But at the same time, that sure was a great great big battle at the end of fourth season, eh?
Yahoo! The death! The chaos! The burning bodies! The concrete!
Hell yeah!
[spooky reverb voice]“You will never comprehend the source of our power…yours is right here.”[/srv]
I got goosebumps from that. That and “Restless” went a long way toward redeeming the more wretched bits from earlier in that season.
I saw the episode again last night on FX, and I admit I forgot about a lot of what Giles and Spike had to say (which made great points in amusing ways); Willow’s views kind of overshadowed anything else for me. I do agree that her zealousness was perfectly in character, however, as annoying as I thought it was. I’m also not really a fan of seasonally-themed episodes, in any TV show. I just felt there was something contrived about making the episode into a Thanksgiving show, and trying to inject something political into it with the presence of the Chumash warriors. Good points, though, Miller. I wish I’d read this before I watched it again.
At least there was anticipation and a cool fight at the end. Adam wasn’t half as annoying as Glory was.