So our new post-COVID world gave my wife and I freetime to jump back into the early 2000s and watch two series I hadn't gotten a chance to watch. Thought I'd share some thoughts on both series. I'm just gonna randomly jot down a few thoughts so don't expect a big coherent summary of what I thought of the entire series.
First lets talk about Buffy...
The earlier seasons of Buffy are very much monster of the week episodic stuff with a few episodes dedicated to an overarching plot, but I think I sort of prefer that style to the more season-long stories of the later seasons. Also, I was officially sold on this show when an ancient demon was awoken by a computer scanning pages of an ancient text and building a robot body for itself. I was generally a bigger fan of high-school era Buffy and thought the show lost something when it semi-rebooted itself for college.
Because I'm just rambling, here's how I'd rank the final bosses of every Buffy season.
Kinda surprised they went 7 seasons and nobody called out how Xander seems bigtime racist against non-humans. Oh, and there's no fucking way Sunnydale is (or was) a town of only 38,000 people.
Okay, now for Angel...
So, I think Angel ended up being the better show. Or at the very least the more consistent show of the two. I kind of love how it starts off as almost like an island of misfit toys from Buffy and ends up doing a lot with those characters. Angel is way more interesting in his own series instead of the wounded puppy act he constantly did on Buffy. Cordelia is actually interesting and gets some nice growth during this series (and then season 4 happens...). Wesley evolved into a less naive and more jaded Giles who's seen a ton of shit by the end. Spike's run on Angel is only for a season but I thought post-save-the-world Spike was a treat and his banter with Angel was great. The new characters introduced in this series were pretty great too. Lorne's a much needed comic relief character. Fred was just really fun as a character (which makes the whole Illyria arc brutal). Gunn was a fun sidekick who kind of fits the Xander role on this show, except not as racist as Xander was.
Connor sucks though and it got to the point where I actively hated any scene he was in. Fuck that annoying little shit. Oh and that cop lady from the first two seasons was lame too, kinda glad she got written out.
All of the seasons of Angel were generally pretty good in my opinion, with season 4 being the exception (albeit the final adversary of this season was pretty solid). I kind of liked how Angel was less afraid to shake things up in comparison to Buffy. Season 5 of Angel was damn near perfect. And Smile Time is possibly the best hour of television produced in the history of mankind.
Additionally David Boreanaz is the best actor on either show, hands down. I haven't followed any of his post-Buffyverse stuff so I'm not sure if his work here was a fluke or not but he's kind of awesome as this character.
Also, the ending of Not Fade Away... God. Fucking. Damnit.
First lets talk about Buffy...
The earlier seasons of Buffy are very much monster of the week episodic stuff with a few episodes dedicated to an overarching plot, but I think I sort of prefer that style to the more season-long stories of the later seasons. Also, I was officially sold on this show when an ancient demon was awoken by a computer scanning pages of an ancient text and building a robot body for itself. I was generally a bigger fan of high-school era Buffy and thought the show lost something when it semi-rebooted itself for college.
Because I'm just rambling, here's how I'd rank the final bosses of every Buffy season.
- Angelus (Season 2)
- Dark Willow (Season 6)
- The Mayor (Season 3)
- Glory (Season 5)
- The Master (Season 1)
- Adam (Season 4)
- The First Evil (Season 7)
Kinda surprised they went 7 seasons and nobody called out how Xander seems bigtime racist against non-humans. Oh, and there's no fucking way Sunnydale is (or was) a town of only 38,000 people.
Okay, now for Angel...
So, I think Angel ended up being the better show. Or at the very least the more consistent show of the two. I kind of love how it starts off as almost like an island of misfit toys from Buffy and ends up doing a lot with those characters. Angel is way more interesting in his own series instead of the wounded puppy act he constantly did on Buffy. Cordelia is actually interesting and gets some nice growth during this series (and then season 4 happens...). Wesley evolved into a less naive and more jaded Giles who's seen a ton of shit by the end. Spike's run on Angel is only for a season but I thought post-save-the-world Spike was a treat and his banter with Angel was great. The new characters introduced in this series were pretty great too. Lorne's a much needed comic relief character. Fred was just really fun as a character (which makes the whole Illyria arc brutal). Gunn was a fun sidekick who kind of fits the Xander role on this show, except not as racist as Xander was.
Connor sucks though and it got to the point where I actively hated any scene he was in. Fuck that annoying little shit. Oh and that cop lady from the first two seasons was lame too, kinda glad she got written out.
All of the seasons of Angel were generally pretty good in my opinion, with season 4 being the exception (albeit the final adversary of this season was pretty solid). I kind of liked how Angel was less afraid to shake things up in comparison to Buffy. Season 5 of Angel was damn near perfect. And Smile Time is possibly the best hour of television produced in the history of mankind.
Additionally David Boreanaz is the best actor on either show, hands down. I haven't followed any of his post-Buffyverse stuff so I'm not sure if his work here was a fluke or not but he's kind of awesome as this character.
Also, the ending of Not Fade Away... God. Fucking. Damnit.
Last edited:
