Your favourite and least favourite Buffy arc.

[Nikita]

Sorry if there is already a thread for this, but I'd like to know what you other fans think is the best story arc on either shows. A top 3 and a bottom 3 would be great!

Buffy:
1. Glory vs. Buffy - Season 5 (I rather the 2nd half of this arc more, when she brain sucks Tara and a little bit before that, I started REALLY getting into it when Buffy found out that Glory was a god in Checkpoint.)
2. Evil Faith - Season 3 and 4 (I love this arc simply because of the fact that it has Eliza in it, whom I love. It wasn't so much the mayor that I loved here, but he helped. I just loved the whole arc and it wasn't that she was evil, it was how evil she was.)
3. Angelus - Season 2 (I think saying 'amazing' explains how much I love this arc, David Boreanaz is amazing here and as is SMG. The whole arc just works well with the dark season, and Jenny's death and the episode 'Passion' is just amazing)
Bottom 3:
1. The Annointed One - Season 1 and 2 (God, I hate this character and his whole arc, The Master was pretty cool in season 1 but he just made him seem...less scary, he just annoys me, ugh.)
2. The Judge - Season 2 (I loved the quote that was made in Innocence, but I just hate him as a character, he had a good build up with Dru and Spike, but he just annoyed me and he wasn't scary at all.)
3. The Initiative - Season 4, 5, 7 (It wasn't the ARC that bothered me, it was the execution that bothered me, namely Adam. They could've used Maggie Walsh and used her to be a manipulative bitch and ruin Buffy and her friends and stuff, and use Riley to help her do it, but they had to bring in Adam. >.<)

Angel:
1. Darla - Season 2 (I loved this arc because it was just done so well, we got some dark Angel without him reverting to Angelus and a lot of Darla and Drusilla. We also got some Lindsay, which is always good. I've always respected this arc as the turning point for Angel.)
2. Darla - Season 3 (Don't kill me for separating these, but they deserve to be in 2 different sections, since they are my two favorite arcs of the series. I loved Julie Benz in this one, she just did amazing, the introduction of Holtz added to the plot and just increased the suspense that was used through Darla's pregnancy. This also created for the best 3 parter in the series' history, if you ask me.)
3. Faith vs. Angelus - Season 4 (Notice that I do not use The Beast, Cordy or Conner here, I love Cordy but she was just horrible in season 4 so I refuse to mention her. Eliza and David were amazing here and as was Alexis, I just love the whole arc, as a reintroduction of Faith to the series and as another awesome 3 parter, JUST below the Darla one in season 3, and only because of the Cordy+Connor+The Beast action)
Bottom 3:
1. Uh, durr...Jasmine - Season 4 (So much potential and could've been done another way without killing Cordy off, Season 4 started off very strongly but it just became so lacking after Faith left, and it's sad that it dropped when she left because it shows that that Season 4 of Angel can't stand on it's own two feet. I liked Jasmine as a character but this whole thing just PISSED. ME. OFF.)
2. The Shanshu Prophecy - Season 5 (I loved the idea of the Shanshu prophecy until they used it as a device in season 5, Spike SHOULD NOT get shanshu'd. It is Angel's rite and not Spikes, considering that I dislike Spike generally, I hated that he ran around thinking he could get sanshu'd, just no. Hate this whole idea.)
3. Circle Of The Black Thorn - Season 5 (I liked members of the black thorn on their own, and I liked some of the episodes involving certain characters, eg. Origin and Not Fade Away. But it just made me 1) they were so easy to kill, the leaders I mean 2) that it was such an out of the air idea and a stupid way to end the season 3) They could've done so much more with it had they used it as the season's big bad, but they didn't.)

So, what do you guys think? You can also comment on mine cause I know some of them are questionable. 😛

 

[Goldilocks]

Favorite:
1. Angelus vs. Buffy in season 2. At some point young people can relate to it.. It's the typical "He is not the same person after we slept together"-thing many young teenager go through. The episodes of season 2 where Angelus stalks Buffy and kills her friends are amazing. The final episode of S2 was so touchy.. And Buffy turned out to be a real hero killing the man she loved so much, to save the world (after he got his soul back).
"Passion" is an amazing episode too. So thumbs up for David Boreanaz in Season 2!

2. Glory vs. Buffy. Once again Buffy shows that she is a real hero.. She sacrificed herself and saved the world. And the fact that Buffy wasn't able to defeat Glory made it much more interesting, because we were used to see Buffy kicking everyone's ass and save the world. She did saved the world, but she wasn't able to kill Glory NOR Ben herself. I really liked season 5 - even though Dawn annoyed me BIG TIME.

3. Buffy vs. The Master. It might be a bit weird, but I liked the first big bad. And I felt so sorry for Buffy when she heard that she had to die. It was so sad when she said "I'm 16 years old, I don't wanna die".

Bottom 3:
1. The Trio. Hate them, hate what they do, and hate Warren!
2. The Initiative + Adam. Hate James Bond-like stuff. And Adam was so annoying.
3. Faith in season 3. Simply because I am not fond of Faith because she turned out to be a betrayer in season 3.

 

[Fenrik]

Favourite

1. Faith as the bad slayer in season 3 and 4. I love everything Faith! And Eliza really act best as a bitch/evil person. Love it!

2. The Initiative. Unlike many others I loved this story arc (not a fond of Riley though! Eww!). I`m a military guy myself so I guess this might be some of the reason for why I liked it so much. lol!

3. The First. Again, probably unlike many others, I loved season 7 and I think the story about The First and all the Potentials was really exciting + it brought Faith back! 😉

And I just have to mention that I really really liked the "Glory vs Buffy", "Angelus vs Buffy" and "Evil Willow" ones as well. 😛

Least favourite

1. The Nerd Trio. So lame!! 😱
Thank God season 6 ended with Evil Willow and not some lame big nerdy trio battle!

2. Spuffy. I found the whole Buffy sexing Spike just to be able to feel was awkward and boring and it was so depressing.

3. Spike falling in love with Buffy AND getting a soul later on. Hated all those long scenes with Spike`s whining and crying. He was so much cooler when he was evil and wanted to KILL Buffy and not DATE her.

 

[TheVoid68]

I'm gonna combine Angel and Buffy here.

Top 3:

1. The Angelus arc in S2. Just an amazing, epic collection of episodes. Innocence... Passion... Becoming... Angelus was such a powerful character, there has never been a better villain in all the Jossverse.
2. The Faith arc in S4 of Buffy and S1 of Angel. Four very powerful episodes, that got right to the core of my favourite character. I fell in love with Faith after watching these episodes, and who wouldn't?
3. Darla getting bitten, Angel turning dark and firing Gunn/Wesley/Cordy, then having his "epiphany;. I just loved those three kicking arse together, and equally I loved Angel's descent into darkness, and how he snapped out of it.

Bottom 3:

1. Willow's magic addiction in S6. I've never seen such an insultingly awful piece of writing in any show as good as Buffy. It was just painfully awful in every single imaginable way. I can't even write about it, because words alone would not be able to describe the mind-destroying horror I felt when watching it.
2. The Circle of the Black Thorn/Angel turning from a hero who "lives in the world as thought it were the way it should be" to a utilitarian jackass who gets all his friends killed and feels justified in forcing his pacifist friend to assassinate someone who has the potential to reform, but Angel doesn't deem his soul as worth saving.
3. General Buffy and the Potentials in S7.

 

[Nikita]

Spikefan31 agrees: You dislike Spike?

No, well, to a point yes. I disliked him in Season 5 of Angel, his character seemed forced and pointless to me. I'm also a Bangel more than a Spuffy (I don't like either though.)

 

[Taake]

The Good
1. Buffy/Angelus arc in s2. Took the show to a whole new level.
2. Faith's character arc season 3 and onwards, I found it interesting and compelling.
3. Buffy's character s7-8. I like her as general Buffy once she gets that groove going.

The Bad
1. Dawn. I could have dealt with it if she would have gone away at the end of s5 but c'mon... still around? Go away already...
2. The potentials. Robbed our usual characters of screentime. I would have wanted more Scooby action.
3. The Anya/Xander break up. Really? Really was that necessary? And for what - to make her a demon for half a season, a human struggling to find herself again and then bam... woops, end, no more? Would it really have hurt to have given her some joy before the end? Did we need another miserable character in that already gloomy bunch?