Ultimately what is better, BTVS or ATVS?

Buffy was better. Consistently brilliant from beginning to end. Angel irritated me at times, to be honest, it sometimes felt like one step forward and three steps back (especially seasons 2 and 3). They finally made it something great in season 4 and, while not quite as good as 4, 5 was a cut above too, making it a shame that it got axed when it was finally all coming together.
But in the end, Buffy wins hands down.
 
codyw1 said:
Buffy was better. Consistently brilliant from beginning to end. Angel irritated me at times, to be honest, it sometimes felt like one step forward and three steps back (especially seasons 2 and 3). They finally made it something great in season 4 and, while not quite as good as 4, 5 was a cut above too, making it a shame that it got axed when it was finally all coming together.
But in the end, Buffy wins hands down.
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i agree that angel has some "irritations;"..........but more with seasons 4 and 5 (not 2 and 3). seasons 1-3 were cool with me. what was is about 2 and 3 that irritated you?
 
They didn't do a story arc I liked until season 4! Darla bored me, Holtz bored me, and W&H drove me crazy, they never did anything and never had any real motivation behind anything they DID do. There were some decent standalones in 2 and 3 (The Thin Dead Line, Disharmony, Fredless, Billy) but once the 'big arc' for the year kicked in, I started to fall asleep. Season 4 was the first time that the "big arc" actually interested me.

Season 1 is pretty good, but it's very different to what came after, more of an anthology show than the "turgid supernatural soap opera" (as Gunn so aptly described it) of 2 and 3.
 
For me, Angel is definitely the better series (except for season one).

Angel is darker, more complex, I like the method of storytelling better, Wolfram & Hart is one of the coolest villains ever, and I do feel that the characters grew and matured much more naturally than on Buffy. And from a production standpoint Angel is much, much better, it's beautifully filmed and looks excellent in widescreen, it looks much more expensive, the sets are excellent, the editing is better, the special effects are better...

Buffy is a great, great show to be sure but just doesn't quite measure up to the show it spawned.
 
Buffy! definitely! I sometimes find some angel episodes a bit dull and a lot of it is 'freak of the week' type thing if you get my point. i have never watched a buffy episode that I havn't enjoyed though i have of angel. Another thing- Wolfram and hart bored me to tears! i really couldnt stand them!
 
Angel...freak of the week? Are you sure we have the same show? Because Buffy had the monster-of-the-week thing MUCH much more often than Angel did.
 
BTVS. I only started watching Angel because of Buffy and it still never really touched me like Buffy. That didn't come out right.
 
L
Lou
Am I the ONLY one who watched Angel first? Of course, I only watched BtVS because of SPIKE, not really Angel.
lol, yeah i get your point, tabularasa! I did too! (I'm hoping that the 'touched' part was not literal! lol)
 
Favorite or better the answer is the same for me, its BtVS. I watched Buffy religiously. In fact I would watch episodes over and over again to pick up things and analyze (sad of me, I know). With Angel, while I watched the show, more so in the earlier seasons never held the same appeal for me. Maybe it was because it was darker than Buffy and the adultness of it didn't appeal to me. Or because I prefer shows with strong woman with supernatural powers and even though Cordy was a great character who inherited visions I couldn't separate her from the shallow, selfish girl from Sunnydale (and before I get beaten to death by the Cordy fans, she was a great character, she brought much needed lightness to Angel, but she wasn't hard enough for my liking). Faith was a much needed addition to the Angel cast but I think it came to late for me to draw my interest from Buffy to Angel 🙂
 
I don't think that ANGEL was darker than BUFFY. Both shows managed to become pretty dark. But I think that BUFFY was a slightly better written show.
 
It may have been better written but idk. Im so much more attracted to ANgel. Its outside of the box. I like it Better than BTVS. I know. Go on and bash me but its true. I mean i love them both alot but Angel alittle bit more.
 
Angel had the advantage of airing at 9PM, the beginning of "adult time," whereas Buffy, airing an hour earlier, was still considered to be in "family time," making it somewhat more limited in the material it could present. At least, that's what I read somewhere. Personally, I couldn't tell much difference in story content, and I preferred Buffy as long as it was on. In fact, I didn't even watch Angel on a regular basis until the final season,
 
Ahhhh...interesting and hard, because I love both shows for different reasons.
If we were talking about favorites, that probably be Angel. I've seen it LOTS more times and it has less SMG and Dawn whining. Which is a plus. They all seem "tougher" and I just love "Smile Time" with a passion that's not normal.

But, as for "better shows", I think I'd have to say Buffy. But, only because Angel got dealt some crappy hands. Like Charisma's pregnancy. All of season 4 seems kind of like it was forceably tossed in a certain direction because of it. I can't say how much would have happened anyway without the pregnancy, but it does appear to have been slightly more "thrown together" than any other parts of ANY of Mutant Enemy's projects.

And the the early cancellation did it's part too.

The potential was there, but the PTB just didn't come through for Team Angel....again!
 
For me, BtVS is better because I love the idea of the Slayer and her friends. Buffy also happens to be my favourite character in the whole whedonverse, although I like most of them. I love Angel, the character, to bits as well. I just love Buffy more.

Angel the series was excellent. I just did not like the treatment of Cordelia's character in s4. I still watched s5 out of loyalty to Angel. I enjoyed it too but not as much as when Cordy was around. It felt incomplete. It was like watching a new Ats.
 
Definatly buffy was the best. Dont get me wrong I still really enjoyed angel. Airing times didnt come into it for me as they all aired very late at night in oz. I think some of episodes of buffy could be watched on more levels than angel. Like a teen/kid could watch buffy for the entertainment value and still get the storyline, where as an adult might see the subtext aswel as the entertainment and understand the whole show a bit better. Angel on the other hand didnt seem to have as many 'levels' you couldnt really just watch it for the fun parts you had to pay more attention to subtext and if you missed an episode you could get lost!
 
Bored of the Dead said:
don't get me started on wasted potential in Xander.
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Totally agree with that statement, Xander is exactly the same guy at the end of Chosen as he is at the start of WTTH: unsure of himself and feeling inferior to his fellow Scoobs. There was a podcast I listened to once, I believe the link is on the boards somewhere, all about this, it was titled: "Xander: 'Dude, where's my character arc?'" Thought the title was kinda funny.

On the two questions at hand (BotD, you had to go complicate matters didn't you?! Just kidding 😉) my answer has to be:

Favorite show: Angel
Better show: Angel

Both favourite AND better because I feel the characters (all of them, heroes, villians, fodder, e.t.c.) were simply stronger characters. Angel's story arc is way more fulfilling than Buffy's in my opinion, and the transformation of Wesley alone is enough to make the series really stand out. There are many other reasons, but I'd be here all bloody day!
 
I think I'll go with the majority here and say that I definitely preferred Buffy. I also think it was the better show of the two. The concept of the Slayer was much more original than a good vampire to begin with, but that's not the only reason. Even though both Buffy and Angel had wonderful plots, Buffy seemed to execute them better. Not to mention the fact that Angel was a bit dull at times. In fact, the only Angel season I can watch all the way through without getting bored of it is season 5, whereas I can watch most seasons of Buffy continuously and never lose interest.

I think the main reason I prefer Buffy, though, is because the characters are far more likable, and the majority of them went through much more character development. Willow started out as a shy, weak, and stereotypical nerd, and by the end, she was practically a goddess. Spike started out as an evil vampire and wound up being a hero. Buffy began just wanting to quit her job as the Slayer, but at the end, she was determined to change the world and to be a good warrior. In fact, Xander, as many others have said, was really the only character who remained static in that show. In Angel, on the other hand, most of the characters didn't change too much. Angel was always just a vampire seeking redemption, Cordelia was always pretty shallow (even after becoming a higher power), Fred was always awkward yet intelligent...the list goes on. The only character that had a lot of development on AtS was Wesley. I could go on and on about his character, but the point is, about 90% of the Angel characters only went through minimal changes. Maybe that's just because they had less seasons than Buffy, maybe not.

So, yeah. In a nutshell, I definitely think BtVS > AtS.
 
Randy Giles said:
For me, Angel is definitely the better series (except for season one).

Angel is darker, more complex, I like the method of storytelling better, Wolfram & Hart is one of the coolest villains ever, and I do feel that the characters grew and matured much more naturally than on Buffy. And from a production standpoint Angel is much, much better, it's beautifully filmed and looks excellent in widescreen, it looks much more expensive, the sets are excellent, the editing is better, the special effects are better...

Buffy is a great, great show to be sure but just doesn't quite measure up to the show it spawned.
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I agree that the production values and special effects were much better on ATS, but not the rest. The characters and their storylines were much better written on BTVS, with more emotional depth. ATS just doesn't have the same impact. ATS seems more forced, like they just threw a bunch of elements together to see how it ended up, where BTVS seems more well-crafted.
 
Buffy for me. But this is merely opinion. You really can't say whether it's better or not because it's all about how we individually feel.
 
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