Rank the Season 5 Episodes

[MrX]

I know I am in the minority but I think this is the worst season. As bad as Riley was in season 4, he is worse in this season. Dawn. More like Yawn. The main arc is meh compared to the other seasons (with the exception of season 4 which is the worst). Other than Fool For Love, there aren't any episodes that really stand out for me.

1. Fool For Love: Spike's backstory. A lot to love in this episode. The B plot with Riley I can do without though.

2. No Place Like Home: Not a huge fan of Glory. We see way too much of her and she keeps doing the same thing over and over again. But being the first time, she comes off as fresh. The revelation of what Dawn is and how it was executed is really good.

3. The Gift: Entertaining showdown at the end. But Glory went from being invincible to too easily beatable.

4. Intervention: Quite a few things to enjoy in this episode. The Buffybot and Buffy's journey in the desert.
"Bob Barker! We will bring you Bob Barker."
"It is not Bob Barker, you scabby morons!"

5. Listening to Fear: Demon is kind of freaky and Kristine Sutherland's performance is really good. But seeing the Initiative again bugs the hell out of me.

6. Blood Ties: It has its moments, Dawn cutting herself and finding out that Ben and Glory share the same body, despite Ben being really dull.

7. The Replacement: Average. Watch the Zeppo and Doppelgangland from season 3.

8. Forever: Nothing spectacular. But seeing Angel again is enjoyable. Is it me or is Doc way more interesting than Glory? Explains why they brought him back for the finale.

9. Family: Tara's family was dull, the demons again were generic, the message was cliche. It gets points because the relationship between Willow and Tara is kind of sweet, especially in this episode.

10. Crush: Drusilla is back. And so what? When they brought Spike in season 3 for one episode it was epic. Here it was just boring.

11. Tough Love: You have to wait until season 6 to get Dark Willow done right. Glory really starts to feel repetitive.

12. Shadow: Despite focusing a lot on Glory, it feels a lot like a filler episode.

13. The Real Me: Buffy is now a show for young teenage girls.

14. The Body: I understand what they were going for here, but I'm trying to watch a supernatural show. Jenny's death in Passion was way more emotional and what you expect from a show about Vampires and Demons.
Also having this episode follow "I Was Made To Love You", made it difficult for me to get into the emotional state Joss was aiming for. It probably would have worked better if they kept the dark tone from season 2.
On repeated viewings I find myself just bored.

15. Out Of My Mind: Everything here is just meh. Spike falling for Buffy felt like lazy attempt to justify him sticking around.

16. Buffy vs Dracula: More like Buffy fan fiction.

17. I Was Made To Love You: Robots are just not interesting in the Buffyverse. "Ted" was also way better and this episode feels even more like a filler than "Go Fish".

18. Checkpoint: I honestly don't see the point of this episode. True you find out that Glory is a God, but you don't need an entire episode for that. The Watcher's council here isn't interesting and then don't return.
Also the Knights of Byzanthium are boring and look terrible.

19. Spiral: Again the Knights of Byzanthium are boring and look terrible. Buffy should have realised earlier that keeping Dawn in Sunnydale was a mistake.

20. The Weight Of The World: How to drag the story in order to make the 22 episodes quota.

21. Triangle: The troll is just awful. I don't understand why some fans complain about the monster of week episodes in earlier seasons and then state that season 5 is perfect from start to finish.

22. Into The Woods: Good riddance and unbearable to watch.

 

[littlemisscooby]

Into the Woods was awful so I definitely agree it should be somewhere close to the bottom. I know this has been discussed and debated time and time again but I really feel the need to reiterate the fact that Riley’s emotionally abusive tendencies came out after this. Giving Buffy an ultimatum (‘reason to stay’) after cheating on her with that vampire prostitute was low. Season 5 was my least favourite too.

Buffy Vs Dracula would have to be my least favourite episode of the entire Btvs series I would have to say. I see what they were trying to do by doing something out of the ordinary but it lacked creativity and made all the characters sound stupid even talking about ‘taking down’ Dracula.

Listening to Fear was a reasonably good episode. I like that it’s quite scary and it sort of reminded me of the Monster of the Week episodes in the earlier seasons.

I also like that Angel came back to comfort Buffy after Joyce’s funeral.

 

[Synch]

That's from my last rewatch:

1. The Body (5x16): 10
2. The Gift (5x22): 9.5
3. Fool for love (5x07): 8.5
4. No place like home (5x05): 8.5
5. The weight of the world (5x21): 8
6. Checkpoint (5x12): 8
7. Blood Ties (5x13): 8
8. Family (5x06): 8
9. Intervention (5x18): 7.5
10. Forever (5x17): 7.5
11. Spiral (5x20): 7.5
12. Crush (5x14): 7.5
13. Triangle (5x11): 7.5
14. Into the Woods (5x10): 7.5
15. Shadow (5x08): 7.5
16. Out of My Mind (5x04): 7
17. The Replacement (5x03): 7
18. Real Me (5x02): 7
19. Tough Love (5x19): 7
20. Buffy vs. Dracula (5x01): 7
21. I Was Made to Love You (5x15): 6.5
22. Listening to Fear (5x09): 6.5

 

[MrX]

Into the Woods was awful so I definitely agree it should be somewhere close to the bottom. I know this has been discussed and debated time and time again but I really feel the need to reiterate the fact that Riley’s emotionally abusive tendencies came out after this. Giving Buffy an ultimatum (‘reason to stay’) after cheating on her with that vampire prostitute was low. Season 5 was my least favourite too.

Buffy Vs Dracula would have to be my least favourite episode of the entire Btvs series I would have to say. I see what they were trying to do by doing something out of the ordinary but it lacked creativity and made all the characters sound stupid even talking about ‘taking down’ Dracula.

Listening to Fear was a reasonably good episode. I like that it’s quite scary and it sort of reminded me of the Monster of the Week episodes in the earlier seasons.

I also like that Angel came back to comfort Buffy after Joyce’s funeral.

What did you think of the Body?

 

[littlemisscooby]

What did you think of the Body?

To be honest I felt very sorry for Buffy, and I love her 2 minute scene where she’s walking around the house. I thought that was done well. However I thought the rest of the episode was strange and bit drawn out.

It was definitely an emotional episode in it’s own strange way (the no background noise contributed to that) but there were definitely episodes that got to me more. Passion in season 2 had me more upset overall than The Body when Jenny Calendar died - Willow, Buffy and Giles’s reactions.

On a different note, the Knights were ridiculous IMO. They were lame lol. I don’t like Game of Thrones (don’t yell at me those who do! 😂) type of stuff and that’s what they reminded me of.

 

[littlemisscooby]

22. Listening to Fear (5x09): 6.5

Out of curiosity, why was this episode ranked lowest on your list?

 

[MrX]

To be honest I felt very sorry for Buffy, and I love her 2 minute scene where she’s walking around the house. I thought that was done well. However I thought the rest of the episode was strange and bit drawn out.

It was definitely an emotional episode in it’s own strange way (the no background noise contributed to that) but there were definitely episodes that got to me more. Passion in season 2 had me more upset overall than The Body when Jenny Calendar died - Willow, Buffy and Giles’s reactions.

On a different note, the Knights were ridiculous IMO. They were lame lol. I don’t like Game of Thrones (don’t yell at me those who do! 😂) type of stuff and that’s what they reminded me of.

Passion is my favourite episode and Jenny's death is very emotional. It also advances the plot a lot.
In the Body episode, I didn't find the performances convincing and the plot barely advances.

I agree about the Knights. They are just plain ridiculous.

 

[MrX]

Out of curiosity, why was this episode ranked lowest on your list?

I personally don't like the Initiative reappearing. But I've noticed that a lot of Buffy fans don't like monsters of the week despite it being a show about monsters.

 

[littlemisscooby]

I personally don't like the Initiative reappearing. But I've noticed that a lot of Buffy fans don't like monsters of the week despite it being a show about monsters.

Yeah I've noticed that, too. I personally quite like a lot of the monster of the week episodes.

I don't really like the Initiative as a whole either. They interfered with things they had no idea about on a mystical level. They were always 'Demon bad. Kill Demon'. They never really bothered to try and understand mystical energy, why it was there and how the demon came about and if it was part of anything bigger. I guess some would argue that this is totally irrelevant and it doesn't matter, but it bugs me lol.

 

[littlemisscooby]

That's from my last rewatch:

1. The Body (5x16): 10

Why was The Body your number 1? Again, Curious 😊

 

[MrX]

Yeah I've noticed that, too. I personally quite like a lot of the monster of the week episodes.

I don't really like the Initiative as a whole either. They interfered with things they had no idea about on a mystical level. They were always 'Demon bad. Kill Demon'. They never really bothered to try and understand mystical energy, why it was there and how the demon came about and if it was part of anything bigger. I guess some would argue that this is totally irrelevant and it doesn't matter, but it bugs me lol.

I blame the fans' criticisms of monster of the Week episodes for the deterioration of the series.
I know a lot of fans will criticise Machida from season 2 and then for some reason give the crappy snake from episode "Shadow" a pass. Can fans of season 5 please explain this?

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

I know a lot of fans will criticise Machida from season 2 and then for some reason give the crappy snake from episode "Shadow" a pass. Can fans of season 5 please explain this?

The snake from "Shadow" is commonly refereed to as Fake the Snake. I've never heard of anyone being impressed with it.

I like both costumes. And the CGI for Fake the Snake is not the most horrible in the franchise, even though it stands out. It is a pretty big upgrade from the Mayor.

I also love Glory speaking with Fake. She often manages to look other than human herself without any effects or prosthetics.

 

[Puppet]

Yeah, I think the difference lies in the episode, not the snakes; Shadow is considered a better episode than Reptile Boy (understandably, imo). Also, at least one snake doesn't look like genitalia.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

I don't think they are stand out episodes of either season, but I find a lot to enjoy in both. There are monster of the week episodes that are much better, such as "Hush."

However, as the show went a long, there became fewer and fewer pure MOTW episodes. Fake the Snake is a fairly minor part of "Shadow". The episode may have been better without him.

 

[littlemisscooby]

Passion is my favourite episode and Jenny's death is very emotional. It also advances the plot a lot.

Jenny's death was definitely the most emotional death in the series for me, even more so than Tara's in Seeing Red and Buffy's in The Gift. Unsure why. Perhaps it was Angel's 'Passion' commentary at the end, the music/sound effects, Buffy and Willow's reactions on the phone etc all rolled into one big emotional scene lol.

 

[littlemisscooby]

I don't think they are stand out episodes of either season, but I find a lot to enjoy in both. There are monster of the week episodes that are much better, such as "Hush."

However, as the show went a long, there became fewer and fewer pure MOTW episodes. Fake the Snake is a fairly minor part of "Shadow". The episode may have been better without him.

Did you like Living With Fear as a Monster of the Week episode in S5? That one would be one of the S5 episodes that stood out for me as I'm not a big season 5 fan.

 

[MrX]

I don't think they are stand out episodes of either season, but I find a lot to enjoy in both. There are monster of the week episodes that are much better, such as "Hush."

However, as the show went a long, there became fewer and fewer pure MOTW episodes. Fake the Snake is a fairly minor part of "Shadow". The episode may have been better without him.

My appreciation of individual episodes depends a lot on my appreciation of the whole season. I think Hush is a great concept and was for the most part really effective. But being a season 4 episode I can only give it 8 out of 10. Reptile Boy I would also give an 8 out of 10 because season 2 is really good. It may be a filler episode, but like most filler episodes in season 2 they complement season 2's main story really well.

 

[Synch]

Why was The Body your number 1? Again, Curious 😊

Perhaps it's the finest single episode I've ever seen in my life. Of course it's hard to see (I lost my dad back in 2007) but is so GOOD that it blow my mind every time I see it.

 

[littlemisscooby]

Perhaps it's the finest single episode I've ever seen in my life. Of course it's hard to see (I lost my dad back in 2007) but is so GOOD that it blow my mind every time I see it.

I'm sorry about your father, I can see why this would be such an important episode for people who have lost a parent. From others I have spoken to, what did it for most people in that episode is that is was of natural and not mystical causes.

 

[vampmogs]

I always feel guilty for not loving The Body more than I do. I can objectively recognize that it's a really amazing episode and that Whedon is completely successful in what he sets out to do, but I do find it a bit of a chore to get through sometimes. The Scooby scene at Tara and Willow's dorm room and the hospital scenes kind of drag for me. Joss actually said that he wanted to explore the tedium of death so I think it's intentional but as far as viewing goes it does result in those scenes being a bit of a slog for me. I think it's probably because the subject matter is also so heavy and relentless.

That said, I still really like it and would include it in my Top 20 BtVS episodes. The opening scene with Buffy at her house is amazing and I especially love the moment where she opens the door to her backyard and hears the world continuing on as normal and how wrong that feels given how her world has just stopped. If that doesn't capture the reality of death/grief I don't know what does. I'm also seemingly a rare fan who really likes the vampire scene at the end and I don't feel that it's misplaced at all. If this was a Very Special Episode where no vampire or demon appears at all then that simply wouldn't be truth to death or life, or at least Buffy's life anyway. Our world doesn't stop to recongise a loved one passing and parking inspectors still hand out tickets and vampires still rise. Buffy's duties as a Slayer are relentless and never ending and it would be dishonest for this episode to be the one episode where she doesn't have to slay something just because her mother died. I totally get what Whedon was going for there and I agree with his reasoning in the DVD commentary.

I guess my other unpopular opinion about this episode would be that I don't absolutely love Anya's speech like most people seem to. If I'm in the right mood the moment she mentions Joyce "not yawning or brushing her hair again" can really effect me in horrible, awful ways, but unfortunately I don't quite buy that Anya would be this upset over Joyce's death. I know it's meant to tie into her own difficulties facing her mortality earlier in The Replacement but it's a bit of a strain for me that Joyce's passing would hurt her this much.

Nevertheless, a great episode and objectively one of the best episodes of BtVS.