Season openers are cool! Let's
do this!
Best to worst:
(The first 8 are really close to each other in quality)
1.
Lessons: In terms of plot, this isn't anything special (except for the final scene, which is MINDBLOWING), just solid all the way through. But the episode's real strength is that it just gives me such a constant, heartwarming sense of "my little kids are all growed up!"
🙂 Businessman Xander, mom Buffy (her mom-hair is adorable!), "zen" Willow, Dumbledore Giles, mini-Buffy Dawn... They all grew so much over these 7 years, and I'm just so proud of each and every one of them in this ep! Add to that crazy-Spike as a very intriguing mystery, tons of clever foreshadowing ('Lessons' and 'Chosen' work
perfectly as the bookends of one story), lots of scenes from all around the globe (Istanbul, Sunnydale, England, back to Sunnydale, back to England...) that give it a truly epic feeling, and that fantastic ending (ALL of the chills!), and this is the best of the best. Season 7 has its flaws, by my GOD does it begin and end well.
2.
Bargaining: This episode suffers from a problem - it feels like it started as one episode, but the writers had too much story for one episode, so they turned it into two episodes... But they didn't really have enough story for two episodes, so they dragged some scenes out a little too much. And so, the episode doesn't have as much fast paced momentum as I would have liked. BUT... The story in this episode, no matter how stretched, is freakin' HEARBTREAKING. This is the first episode after Buffy's death in 'The Gift', and it's just PACKED with amazingly moving examples of grief - my heart breaks when the Buffybot says "you're my sister" and hugs Dawn, and my heart breaks when Spike tells Dawn that he won't leave her to get hurt
again, and my heart breaks when Willow explains why she wants to resurrect Buffy ("Her soul, her essence -- that could be somewhere else, trapped in some hell dimension, like Angel was. Suffering eternal torment, just because she saved us, and I am not gonna let her... I'm not gonna leave her there. It's
Buffy"), and my heart breaks when I see Spike's reaction to the Buffybot talking about his "washboard abs" (he does have nice abs...), and my heart breaks when Dawn cuddles with the inactive Buffybot at night because she misses Buffy, and my heart breaks when Giles says goodbye to everyone, and GAH, just typing this is heartbreaking. And it's not just heartbreaking - it's also HIGHLY disturbing (Willow killing the deer, the Buffybot getting torn to pieces, Willow VOMITING SNAKES, seeing Buffy's rotten body, seeing Buffy crawling out of her own grave, seeing Buffy's dead expressions throughout - this is one of the darkest episodes of the entire Buffyverse), and ridiculously entertaining (mostly the Buffybot - "that'll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo!"), and thrilling (Buffy fighting savagely after her ressurection), and just everything that I want in a Buffy episode. Also, this episode is, like, the golden standard of how resurrections should be handled in fiction.
3.
The Long Way Home: If 'Lessons' gave me a constant sense of "my little kids are all growed up", this one gives me a constant sense of "my little kids are f#%$ing SUPERHEROES!" Seriously, I cannot explain how satisfying it is to see my favorite characters being so POWERFUL. Watching little clown-y Xander being all Nick Fury with an army under his care, watching little nerdy Willow being an all-powerful witch-goddess, watching my little innocent valley girl Buffy being a freakin' GENERAL with an ARMY under her command, jumping out of hellicopters... It's just so PERFECT! These guys were always heroes to me, and it's amazing to see the world finally seeing them that way too. And since these characters are so relatable to me, I guess this is what you'd call a "power fantasy". In contrast to 'Bargaining', The story here is a little TOO packed for my taste, but this is still totally awesome. If this was live-action, it would have been my number 1.
4.
Buffy vs Dracula: The haters are crazy - this episode is SO MUCH FUN, ya'll! Dracula is one of the greatest recurring villains of the Buffyverse, like Ethan Rayne and Drusilla and pre-chip Spike. AND, at the same time, it is a surprisingly layered character study, with Buffy's dark side emerging in a MUCH more interesting way than in season 3 (Bufy wasn't "dark" in 'Bad Girls', she was just irresponsible), and Giles' final conversation with Buffy is amazingly moving.
5.
New Rules: I usually don't like it when stories are so fan-service-y... But this arc makes me want to reconsider that opinion. This arc is BUILT around the idea of nostalgia - writer Christos Gage (with producer Joss Whedon) knew that most fans just wanted the story to feel like the old TV show, and so he decided to build the entire season as a discussion about the ways in which people hold on to their old habits and familiar environments. It doesn't always work perfectly, but in THIS arc, it DOES. Fun, heartwarming, engaging, heartbreaking, inspiring... This arc has it all. I didn't put it higher only because Gage's control on the characters' voices isn't perfect here, yet.
6.
Anne: Like 'Bargaining', this episode does a great job of capitalizing on the amazingly heartbreaking season finale the preceded it. Unfortunately, it also has the un-enviable job of retconing the amazing ending of Buffy running away from Sunnydale in 'Becoming'. Buffy returning home after just 1 episode was disappointing, but it was probably unavoidable, and this episode did the best it could with this constraint.
7.
Live Through This: Faith! FAITH! FaithFaithFaithFaithFaith! This is the first arc in the history of the Buffyverse that contained Faith in a regular (STARRING!) role, and since Faith is one of my favorite characters of all time, and since Faith was CRIMINALLY underused in the first 13 seasons of the Buffyverse, this arc just makes me unbelievably, ridiculously happy. Add to that the fact that Gage's control of the voices here was perfect, and that this book contains the best art of ANY Buffyverse comic, and that the London premise seemed to fit the story like a glove, and that Angel's "quest for redemption" finally seemed to make sense (since he finally had things to atone for that WEREN'T his soulless past) and you've got one HELL of a story. The only reason this isn't higher is because the story really takes its time to get moving.
8.
Conviction: The new premise of season 5 of AtS was just a BRILLIANT decision by Whedon. Watching the gang trying to function in 'Wolfram & Hart' is a delight ("You have reached ritual sacrifice. For goats, press one, or say 'goats'."), and it provides a never-ending stream of conflicts and surprises, and it challenges the core values of EVERY character in fascinating ways. This season changed the premise of the show COMPLETELY, and since I always considered the premise of the show to be deeply problematic, this change was the best decision in the show's history. If the previous premise was just "Batman with fangs", this new premise was "Batman with fangs... If he sold out". It brought back the element of
subversion, that 'Buffy' always had and 'Angel' always lacked.
9.
Deep Down: Everything about Cordelia is terrible here, and Connor's character is a huge mess (and not in the good way), and the word "champion" continues to annoy the hell out of me, but everything else about this episode is terrific. Watching people abuse Connor is very satisfying (and the fact that this is true is a huge FAILURE by the writers), and Gunn & Fred are adorable as the lone survivors of the season 3 gang, and Angel's hallucinations are interesting, and Wesley continues to be a much better Batman than Angel, and Lilah finally gets the central role she deserves, and the overal DARKNESS of this episode is just very impressive. It's really something.
10.
The Freshman: Apparently, I'm just a sucker for premise-changers. This episode is too slow for my taste, and Buffy suddenly being weak in the beginning and then suddenly being strong in the end doesn't make sense, but everything else is stellar. The slow and depressing first half means that the second half is very uplifting (Xander's "What would Buffy do" speech always gets me), and the lady vampire here is VERY entertaining, and the university setting always seems very promising (despite the fact fact that the second half of the season kinda falls apart).
11.
Heartthrob: Just a perfectly solid season opener. Nothing especially impressive, but nothing wrong either. I like the flashbacks, I like the Angel/Cordy dynamic (her smiles in this episode are just adorable), I
love the Angel/Fred dynamic (fatherly Angel is the
best Angel), the gang is tight, the villain raises some mildly interesting questions about love and obsession and revenge, and the cliffhanger is strong.
12:
Freefall: The first Whedon-written issue of this arc is PERFECTION ITSELF, with drunk-Buffy being all adorable, and an interesting down-to-earth mystery (what did Buffy do when she was drunk?), and some VERY clever foreshadowing for later twists, and just tons and tons of fun all around ("When you get right down to it, a nice hot shower is just thousands and thousands of scalding water drops screaming down at you like kamikazes in a never-ending wave of wet hate"). The problem is that the other 3 issues were written by Andrew Chambliss, and Andrew Chambliss is just NOT FUNNY. He doesn't have the penchant for witty dialogue that DEFINES the Buffyverse (yes, witty dialogue is THAT important to these stories), and that really bothers me. I like his plots and characterization, mostly, but without the witty dialogue, it just doesn't really feel like Buffy. Still, in this first arc he's at his best. The first issue is 10/10, and the others are, like, 8/10.
13.
Judgement: A solid opener. It loses points for being even more Batman-y than usual, and I
really dislike the karoke, but it's nice all around, with a full gang, an entertaining duel at the end, and a lovely, blink-and-you-miss-it appearance from Faith. Although, that appearance just reminds me that Faith is gonna stay in prison for 2 and a half seasons, and that pisses me the hell OFF.
14.
When She Was Bad: 'Buffy', to me, doesn't REALLY start until 'Innocence', because all of the earlier episodes just have this constant feeling of "I don't
really care about any of this". This is no exception. The annoying one is boring as ever, the characters are still pretty shallow stereotypes, Angel is all stalker-y, and bitchy isn't a good look on Buffy. I appreciate the fact that Whedon wanted to show the consequences of Buffy's not-a-death, but having it resolved so simply, in just one episode, is hardly the appropriate treatment of this issue. I did really like the Giles-is-The-Master dream fake-out, and I liked the sexy dance, and I love the musical themes that are introduced here and will continue to appear throughout the season.
15.
City Of: This episode is actually quite good, for 'Angel', with a very good villain and a tight script and great performances from Doyle and Cordy, but I rate it this low because it introduces a premise that just doesn't WORK for me. Angel just isn't authentic as a Batman type. I never buy it. I don't buy his brooding, and I don't buy his anger, and I don't buy his badass moments, and I don't buy his loner attitude. David Boreanaz is none of these things. David Boreanaz looks like a fun-loving goofball, and that's all I see when I watch him trying to be Batman-y. It just doesn't work. The only parts that really work are the comedy bits, and the other characters around Angel.
16.
Where the River meets the Sea: Boring. Just boring. Writer Victor Gischler just doesn't get how the Buffyverse works, and he doesn't know how to create long-term plots in it, and this book really suffers for it. The art is really good with the likenesses and with thedetailed backgrounds, but the charatcers always feel very stiff, like they were copied off of pictures... Because they were. The fact that Angel and Faith are in 2 different continents, dealing with 2 completely seperate threats, despite being in the same book, is also a huge flaw. This gets point for including Faith, and for the fun little crossover in the beginning, and for some nice bits here and there, but it's really weak.
17.
Welcome to the Hellmouth: The first time I started watching Buffy, I dropped it after 5-6 episodes, because it was really weak, and deated, and uninteresting. I only picked it up after incessant recommendations, and I only kept at it because episode 7, 'Angel', finally showed some serious potential. This opener suffers from all of these season 1 problems - terrible CGI and make-up, terrible stunt choreography, shallow characters, INCREDIBLY dated looks, TERRIBLE musical score (seriously, this 1997 score sounds like it came out of 1980), boring, uncinvincing, cliched villains, and so on... It gets points for some witty dialogue and for planting the seeds of MUCH greater things to come, but this is BAD. I guess it looked better in 1997, because today it just looks like... Blah.
