It has been FIFTEEN YEARS since Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired on the WB network.  Seems crazy that it could even have been that long ago!

I will admit, I was a late bloomer where BTVS was concerned.  If it had not been for my good friend, Jennie, sitting me down and making me watch the episodes off of the TV onto VHS tapes (oh, the cruel world before DVR!) I doubt I would have given it a second look.  And what AMAZINGNESS I would have missed.

In honor of the BTVS I am going to list for you my favorite episode from each season!!  *runs over to my DVD shelf, carries over all seven seasons!*

Season 1:  ‘Welcome to the Hellmouth’ (s1.e1)

EPISODE ONE!  For me, more epic then Star Wars, ha ha.  Out of this short season I have always enjoyed the introduction episode the most.  It embraced some of the campy nature from the movie and introduced great characters.  Buffy, frustrated with her destiny, eager to be anything else.  Giles, bookish, BRITISH!  Xander, the lovable loser.  Willow, unknowingly every geek’s fantasy.  It’s fun to watch this episode and think WOAH, those clothes were just so bad!  This was also the world’s mainstream introduction to Joss Whedon’s brilliant writing.

Season 2:  ‘School Hard’ (s2.e3)

SPIKE!  SPIKE!  SPIKE!  OMG SPIKE!  I was never a real Angel fan (However Angelus was brilliant).  I loved Spike’s bitchin’ bleach blond hair, bad-ass bad boy attitude, and his amazing jeans.  I mean, um, yeah, I meant jeans.  He was a breath of fresh air and gave moody and mope-y Angel a worthy nemesis.  I thought his best episodes were the ones with Druscilla (Juliet Landeau), caring for her crazy, devious but loving.  His beginning on the show was a pure unapologetic of the dirtier side of a delicious life.  I would enjoy his flash backs and most of his character development in the future, but you can never beat when he first busts into Sunnydale High.

Season 3:  ‘Bad Girls’ (s3.e14)

This was a difficult season to choose for.  Anyone who knows me probably expected me to choose “Band Candy” because who doesn’t love when Giles embraces ‘Ripper’, cigarettes rolled into cuffed sleeves, slicked hair, he was an older James Dean!  Or even “Ear Shot” because I think this episode spoke in a way about bullying that still very relevant today.  For me though, “Bad Girls” was finally Buffy giving into Faith’s influence, that being a Slayer didn’t have to be the life suck that Buffy thought it was.  Two hot chicks with super powers!  What could go wrong?!  Well, a lot apparently.  I enjoyed the idea of Buffy’s flirting with a darker side (something we see more of in Season 6 with her relationship with Spike), and I LOVED Faith—extremely flawed, always looking for a good time and pretending it doesn’t hurt.  Her relationship with the Mayor is incredibly written and very nuanced.  I chose this episode really more for Faith, that deeper look into her life.  I still wish there had been a spin-off.

Season 4: ‘Hush’ (s4.e10)

Season 4 is probably my least favorite as a whole, but has some awesome stand alone episodes.  “Hush” is pure Joss Whedon brilliance.  The ‘Gentelmen’ come to town to steal everyone’s voices so that when they cut out your heart there will be no screams.  The ‘Gentelmen’ float while their straight jacketed henchmen/demons hunt down their victims.  In my opinion they are the scariest Big Bads in the Buffy-Verse.  ‘Hush’ addresses the limitations of language and verbal communication, and what happens when there is a total break down.  Emphasizing this is the closing scene between Buffy and Riley (who can talk at this point), when explanations are necessary there are no actual words.  Worth a mention (and a huge round of applause) is the stunning score.  In an era long past that of silent films I think the music is perfection.  I think this was a great move my Joss, to do a silent episode, to prove that he didn’t need just witty dialogue in order to write an amazing show.

Season 5:  ‘The Body’ (s5.e16)

This is the episode where Joyce’s (Buffy and Dawn’s Mother) death.  Again, another episode where silence is golden (except for didactic sound, just of closing doors, etc).  The opening scene with Joyce sprawled, dead, on the couch.  Buffy’s “Mom, Mom,…Mommy?”  Buffy’s attempt to give CPR, cracking Joyce’s rib. The flashes of a life where she could have saved her mother.   As Giles comes in, rushing to Joyce, and Buffy says “We’re not supposed to move the body!”.  The downright heart breaking scene where she tells Dawn outside of her art class.  Dawn going to look at her mother in the morgue, almost getting killed herself by a Vamp.  Willow not being able to find the right sweater, Tara and Willow’s first TV kiss.  This is a superbly acted and written episode.  The flashes between reality and fantasy, the absolute numbness that everyone feels is conveyed flawlessly to the viewer.  I could feel each person’s reactions, appropraite or not.  And probably the most poignant line written for BtVS “I don’t understand. I don’t understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean I knew her, and then she’s, there’s just a body, and I don’t understand why she can’t just get back in it and not be dead any more. It’s stupid. It’s mortal and stupid, and, and Xander’s crying and not talking, and I was having fruit punch and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever. And she’ll never have eggs, or yawn, or brush her hair, not ever and no one will explain to me why.” ~Anya

Season 6: ‘Once More, With Feeling’ (s6.e7) Is it bad I didn’t even need to look that up?

Seriously, did you expect anything different from me?  Me, the woman who REGULARLY has ‘car concerts’ to this soundtrack in the car, singing every different part possible.  I know the music by heart.  If Joss’s use of silence is golden, his use of song is EPIC.  I loved Sweet, the most ineffectual demon in the entire series, well except for maybe Klem.  Where as in “Hush” was a reflection of the fact that people kept talking but not saying anything, ‘Once More, With Feeling’ emphasizes the fact that everyone is swallowing their secrets.  Buffy, having been resurrected from what everyone assumes is “hell”, but was actually “heaven”, Spike singing about his frustration with his infatuation with Buffy.  Anya and Xander, on the way to the altar with so many misgivings.  Giles’ feelings of uselessness, that Buffy has outgrown him.  Dawn’s main introduction to kleptomania.  Willow and Tara’s love (which all comes tumbling down an episode or two later, you can never be in love in the Buffy Verse and have it be easy!)….Joss proves that anything is more amazing when set to music.  Even Mustard!  My favorite lyric from his episode though was “Understand we’ll go hand in hand, but we’ll walk alone in fear.  Where do we go from here?” has always been a line that struck a chord with me.  It is simply what society does.  I think this episode was successful because the music covered multiple genres.  The songs were well suited to the character personalities and was great in advancing the storylines.  I will say that coming in at a close second was “Villians”.  Bejesus, Allison Hanigan was stunning as “evil Willow”, all of the pain, rage, heartache just poured out of her and echoed everything I would have felt, had someone I loved been killed.  It also embraced the extreme actions that normally someone would not act out, would not do to another person.  Her flaying of Andrew was truly terrifying.

Season 7: “Dirty Girls” (s7.e18)

Damn it.  They packed so much into this great season.  Demon Anya is back and kicking major man-ass! Dawn is still whining.  Slayer’s son, Robin, is a Scooby ally. Potential Slayers!  Choosing my favorite Season 7 episode is incredibly difficult.  As much as I have always loved “Chosen” due to the women power heavy theme (all girls become slayers, Willow is a goddess) and yet another powerful musical score and pretty kick ass special effects for the time period, I went with “Dirty Girls”.  Why?  FAITH IS BACK!  Fresh from prison she brings a little bad back to Sunnydale in a great way.  Even better then Faith?  Frigging Evil ass Preacher Man (played by Nathan Fillion!!!!) spewing woman hating religious garbage….hmm, makes me wonder if Rick Santorum looks to Caleb for his speeches.  I think the way bigotry is emphasized in the character of Caleb, and in such an enigmatic way is both horrorifying and captivating at the same time.  We learn that Buffy really doesn’t have a great handle on the situation of the First Evil and the Bringers when leading the potentials for a recon mission they get their asses handed to them.  Even worse, when Xander, the “One who see’s everything” has his eye stabbed with Caleb’s thumb, it proves that the Scoobies are out numbered, out gunned, and out witted (at this point).  During this episode you see the over-arching theme of female empowerment at a low-ish point here, which is imparative to the ending of the season-the growth and change.  Buffy is truly alone until she learns to not be, to share responsibility. It takes strong writers and creators to make the characters this falliable and weak, which I think is why this episode is a favorite of mine.

Well, that is all for my breakdown.  I hope you will add your own in the commend sections!  What I liked most about BtVS is that it went to that place in TV where many of the shows at the time wouldn’t consider touching.  Homosexuality, Evil Preacher (good vs evil and that blurry line), School Bullying/Shooting, Suicide, the general nature of figuring out what is right and wrong…and many many turbulations of adolescence done in an intellegent (if sometimes campy) way.