Sixteen Best Episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

Buffy and all of the supporting characters are charmingly introduced with lots of thrills and humor. Buffy is never more likeable than she is as the reluctant superhero and new kid in school. The stakes keep getting higher as Buffy is forced to give up her dream of being an ordinary teenager and accept the role of the slayer. We meet her allies, including Angel, and her adversaries, including the wickedly funny Master and the plain funny Principal Flutie.

Spoiler alert: There’s a cliffhanger. You don’t have to watch the next episode, but you will probably want to.

Who is sabotaging the cheerleader tryouts, and what’s up with Amy and her mom? I have seen this episode a dozen times and still have not figured out exactly where "the transition" takes place, but you won’t care. In this spooky, funny episode, Buffy and friends are further developed: Mr. Giles, Xander, Willow and Buffy's mom, Joyce continue to surprise as funny, endearing characters. As always, Buffy and her team find out who the antagonist is, are attacked by them and finally defeat them, but the fun is getting there.

This episode makes it clear that Buffy fights other supernatural beings besides vampires.

Best title of a BtVS episode ever. Buffy has a crush on Owen, a smart but gloomy fellow student who invites her out on a date. When Buffy has to take care of a major vampire emergency, she can't shake Owen who insists on tagging along.

Giles: All right. I'll just jump into my time machine, go back to the 12th century and ask the vampires to postpone their ancient prophecy for a few days while you take in dinner and a show.

Buffy: Okay, at this point, you're abusing sarcasm.

Some of the best episodes are "sorcerer’s apprentice" stories where someone does a magic spell that goes wrong, leaving Buffy and her Scooby gang to undo the damage. In some stories, though, the spell that “goes wrong” isn’t a mistake. The mischievous Ethan Rayne arrives in Sunnydale at Halloween to make every wish come true. Be careful what you want to be for Halloween. Seth Green appears as the deadpan Oz. The use of humor and the way the story intertwines the paths of multiple characters in a fast-paced plot make this episode a classic.

Giles: And your - your costume? Willow: I'm a ghost. Giles: Yes, um - the ghost of what, exactly?

Buffy encounters Ford, an old flame, who turns out to be the cynical leader of a cult of vampire worshipers. Issues of trust and betrayal are explored, not only between Buffy and Ford but between Buffy and her friends. Humor and plot twists abound.

Some fans actually think of this episode as the Halloween entry.

The sorcerer’s apprentice strikes again. This time, Amy (from the episode “Witch”) helps Xander cast a spell on Cordelia, who just broke up with him on Valentine’s Day. When the spell goes awry, Xander finds that Cordelia is the only woman who ISN'T insanely attracted to him. Funny, sexy, and – oh, yes, Buffy does the hair-flip from the classic movie, “Gilda”.

Buffy is touched by the ghostly traces of a decades-old tragedy, finding herself drawn into a series of re-enactments of the murder-suicide of star-crossed lovers. Angelus' quest to torment Buffy ultimately converges with the ghost story to create a poignant and cleverly plotted parable about redemption and forgiveness.

Parts 1 & 2 inclusive: The conflict between Buffy and Angelus comes to a head in these two epic, opera-like explorations of destiny and love, ambition and folly. Angelus tries to bring about the end of the world through a mystical ritual. He kidnaps Giles to help him perform it. Buffy comes to rescue Giles – and kill her former lover. Buffy and Angelus are each betrayed by an ally. Willow takes a step toward her occult destiny when she tries to turn Angelus back into Angel. Meanwhile, Buffy’s mom, Joyce, has discovered her daughter’s true calling and adds an ultimatum to Buffy’s burdens. It is difficult to imagine anything more tragic than the outcome of this episode.

Ethan Rayne returns to play a vicious new trick on Sunnydale. This time he is working for the evil Mayor Wilkins and his not so trustworthy lieutenant, the vampire known as Mr. Trick. But the real treat is how Rayne’s spell gives Giles, Joyce, Snyder and others the opportunity to act completely and hilariously out of character. Xander: Who wants to marry Miss Barton? Cordelia: Get in line.

Having been betrayed by Xander and Willow, Cordelia decides that it’s really all Buffy’s fault. So when Anyanka, a wish-granting demon, appears, Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. She suddenly finds herself in an alternate reality where vampires have taken over half of Sunnydale by day and rule the whole town at night. The differences in this other world are harsh and frightening, yet also funny in a macabre way. Willow and Xander are deliciously out of character as vicious vampires, and the Master is back on top, Buffy never having killed him.

Anyanka: How do you know that other world is better than this one? Giles: It has to be.

Having been turned into a mortal by Giles in “The Wish”, Anyanka, now a high schooler named Anya, tries to trick Willow into helping her with a spell to get her mojo back. It is another sorcerer’s apprentice plot, and what goes wrong this time is that Willow’s vampiric alter-ego from that other world is transported into this one. Vampire Willow tries to take over Sunnydale, and the Scoobies efforts to foil her plan are both dramatic and comic.

Alyson Hannigan, playing both versions of Willow, once again proves that she is a treasure and possibly the most talented actor in the regular cast.

Parts 1 & 2 inclusive: The evil Mayor Wilkins reveals his plan to become a giant monster on graduation day, but first he must keep Buffy distracted. Having turned Faith, the redundant slayer, into his ally, he sends her to poison Angel and thwart Buffy at every turn, leading to an epic battle between the two slayers. The conclusion unites the Sunnydale Class of 1999 in a mass battle against all the forces of darkness at the mayor’s disposal. Oz: We survived. Buffy: It was a hell of a battle. Oz: Not the battle. High school.

Willow is the sorcerer’s apprentice, casting a spell to get over her lost love, Oz. Instead the spell turns arch-enemies Buffy and Spike into a couple with wedding plans, Giles into one losing his eyesight, and Xander into a veritable “demon magnate”. Setting this right will mean getting Willow to take responsibility for what she has done. Until then, laughter abounds.

A group of ghouls, who want to cut out people’s hearts, cast a spell on Sunnydale to make everyone mute and vulnerable. Buffy has a premonition but struggles to understand it. Meanwhile, her boyfriend, Riley’s secret identity as a super demon hunter is about to be exposed by the crisis. In a crucial subplot, Willow’s new friend, Tara, proves to be an invaluable ally. While funny, this episode is also possibly the scariest of the entire series.

Creator, writer and director Joss Whedon was nominated for an Emmy Award for his script, which manages to tell a compelling story without any dialogue for a large part of the episode.

Buffy and her three closest friends all fall asleep in front of the TV, and each dreams revealingly about their inner demons – in addition to having a collective feeling that all four are being pursued by a spirit they have unwittingly unleashed. Because she is most intimately connected to it, only Buffy can take on the mysterious entity.

Joss Whedon has said that he wrote the skimpiest outline of where he wanted to go and then, uncharacteristically, wrote each of the dream sequences in a stream of consciousness. The result is a remarkable feat.

The sorcerer’s apprentice strikes once more as Willow tries to make her girlfriend, Tara, forget about a fight they had. Instead, everyone forgets everything. Each character tries to work out their identity and relationship to the others, which is hilarious when they misinterpret clues and then try to live up to their erroneous assumptions.

Note: Show-runner Joss Whedon, though he did not write this script, may have responded to complaints that BtVS had “jumped the shark” by having the episode include a subplot about a loan shark who has a man’s body and a shark’s head. Indeed, this episode might be reminiscent of the series’ earlier glory, but it does not last.