Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3-4

Cordelia: When did you become Martha Stewart?

Buffy: First of all Martha Stewart knows jack about hand-cut prosciutto.

Xander: I don't believe she slays, either.

Oz: Oh, I hear she can, but she doesn't like to.

-exchange in Faith, Hope, and Trick

Angel: It told me to kill you. You were in the dream. You know. It told me to lose my soul in you and become a monster again.

Buffy: I know what it told you. What does it matter?

Angel: Because I wanted to! Because I want you so badly! I want to take comfort in you, and I know it'll cost me my soul, and a part of me doesn't care. Look, I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man.

-exchange in Amends

Xander: You girls need a lift?

Buffy: What is this?

Xander: What do you mean, what is it? It's my thing.

Willow: Your thing?

Xander: My thing!

Buffy: Is this a penis metaphor?

Xander: It's my thing that makes me cool. You know, that makes me unique. I'm Car Guy. Guy with the car.

-exchange in The Zeppo

(eating Gavrock spiders) Mmm. My god, what a feeling. The power of these creatures. It suffuses my being. I can feel the changes begin. My organs are shifting, changing, making ready fo the Ascencion. Plus, the babies are high in fiber. And what's the fun in becoming an immortal demon if you're not regular, am I right? -the Mayor in Graduation Day, Part 1

Season 3: In another great season with a few brilliant episodes and a lot of great ones, all of the regular cast members return and are joined by Seth Green. Kristine Sutherland, Armin Shimerman, and Danny Strong all return as recurring characters. Eliza Dushku, Harry Groener, and Alexis Denisof join the cast as Slayer Faith, a misguided slayer with emotional problems and a dangerous love of excitement; the Mayor; and mega-British Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce respectively. Emma Caulfield, future series regular, also makes a handful of appearances as vengeance and then former vengeance demon Anyanka and then Anya Jenkins. The Big Bad is the Mayor, who just happens to be a demon.

Best Season 3 Episodes: -Anne—Buffy, living in LA after the unfortunate events of Becoming, Part 2, helps a transformed previous acquaintance and the other down-and-outs of LA from losing their sense of selves.
-Faith, Hope & Trick—Another Slayer, Faith, comes to Sunnydale and meets Buffy. Together they try to take down a vamp named Mr. Trick.

-Homecoming—Buffy and Cordy compete for Homecoming Queen, and Buffy and Cordy are stranded together fighting in Mr. Trick’s SlayerFest ’98, where they reconcile their differences.
-The Wish—In a wonderfully imaginative episode, Cordy, feeling betrayed by some of Xander’s actions, summons the vengeance demon Anyanka and wishes that Xander never came to Sunnydale. This transports her to an alternate reality where the Master completed the Harvest and in which a number of notable characters, including Willow and Xander, are vamps.
-Amends—In a very underrated episode, Angel fights against the First Evil as it drives him insane by appearing as victims of his past crimes, trying to get him to kill Buffy, but driving him to the brink of suicide instead.
-Helpless—In a dangerous ordeal created by the Watchers’ Council to test Slayers on their 18^th birthday, Giles helps Buffy, forever altering his future.
-The Zeppo—This great, Xander-centric episode (there aren’t nearly enough of those) is a very underrated look at the nature of popularity and being content with who you are. Nicholas Brendon’s best performance.
-Bad Girls—New Watcher Wesley Wyndam-Pryce arrives. Buffy and Faith go to the Bronze, where Angel imparts some info to them. Faith does something unfortunate.
-Consequences—Faith blames her unfortunate actions on Buffy. Angel confronts her, but Wesley intervenes and Faith plots her escape.
-Doppelgangland—In an excellent episode. Willow’s vampire counterpart from The Wish returns after Anya tricks Willow into helping her try to become a vengeance demon again. This is the best performance given by Hannigan at least until the end of season 6 and probably for the entire series.
-Enemies—The Mayor and Faith plot to bring Angelus back to eliminate Buffy.
-Earshot—Very controversial and actually released after the rest of the season because of Columbine, this episode examines the issues that come with popularity again, but in a very different way than The Zeppo. It delves into the problems associated with what happens when a person thinks everyone hates them when in fact they are just ignored. The episode revolves around Buffy’s newfound ability, and curse, to read minds, allowing her to hear somewhat thinking violent threats to the whole school before she goes insane.
-Choices—Buffy attempts to stop the Mayor’s Ascension while Faith continues to try to eliminate her.
-The Prom—Angel breaks up with Buffy, devastating her just before the prom, which ends up being okay because she has to save it from formal-wear-craving hellhounds anyway.
-Graduation Day, Parts 1 and 2—In the two-part series finale, the Mayor prepares for Ascension while Faith ties up loose ends, including Angel, poisoning him. Buffy makes a tremendous decision in saving him and later fights Faith.

Overall Season 3 Review: In either the second-or-third-best season of the series, the series production staff made an entire season out of an excellent villain. The Mayor is easily the second-best villain. He is just such a likeable guy, except that he’s really a serpentine demon that’s been mayor of Sunnydale since it was founded like 100 years before. It’s always the nice guys you gotta watch out for. The story is interesting this season as it centers far more around the Mayor and especially around Faith, with fewer monster-of-the-week episodes than previous seasons.

Anyway, some other reasons to love this excellent season are the character creations. Faith is an excellent character in her own right, and her personality contrasts exceptionally well with Buffy’s. Sometimes rebellious characters can be written over the top and you become angry that they’re written so ridiculously, but instead you hate Faith because of the perfectly believable, but negatively impactful things she does and convinces others to do. Eliza Dushku does a fantastic job with the role and I was so happy every time in following seasons of both Buffy and Angel when I read her name as a guest star. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is also a great character in that way that you know he’s supposed to be unbearable annoying and he succeeds completely. Alexis Denisof does a brilliant job at making Wesley essentially a caricature of Giles in some ways, which was indeed the point, and to differentiate himself in the most annoying way possible in others. Perhaps the best part of Denisof characterization is how much room for character softening he allowed himself once joining the cast of Angel. The introduction of Anya/Anyanka here is also key, and Emma Caulfield does an excellent job portraying her immense lust for vengeance. Seth Green is always priceless as boyfriend-of-few-words Oz. Essentially everything he says is profound and consists of about 10 or fewer words.

The season introduces Jane Espenson (23 total episodes) and Doug Petrie (16 total episodes) as major staff writers and establishes David Grossman (13 total episodes) and David Solomon (19 total episodes) as major series directors.

Season Score: 9.5/10

Adam: You feel smothered. Trapped like an animal. Pure in its ferocity, unable to actualize the urges within. Clinging to one truth. Like a flame struggling to burn within an enclosed glass. That a beast this powerful cannot be contained. Inevitably it will break free and savage the land again. I will make you whole again. Make you savage.

Spike: Wow. I mean, yeah. I get why the demons all fall in line with you. You're like Tony Robbins. If he was a big, scary, Frankenstein-looking -- You're exactly like Tony Robbins.

-exchange in The Yoko Factor

Ah, well, at least you all didn't dream about that guy with the cheese. I don't know where the hell that came from. -Buffy in Restless

Season 4: Buffy and the gang begin college in the somewhat less amazing, but still great 4^th season. Marking the first major shift in the regular cast, both David Boreanaz and Charisma Carpenter depart the show to star in the spin-off series, Angel. Seth Green remains part of the main cast until the 6^th episode, James Marsters joins the main cast in the 7^th episode, and Marc Blucas joins the main cast as Riley Finn in the 11^th episode after a handful of guest appearances earlier in the season. Emma Caulfield appears in pretty much every episode as Anya and Amber Benson appears as Willow’s love interest Tara Maclay. Kristine Sutherland returns in a greatly reduced number of episodes, while Leonard Roberts, Bailey Chase, Lindsay Crouse, and George Hertzberg appear in various capacities. The Big Bad is a composite monster named Adam originally intended for use by the powers of good.

Best Season 4 Episodes:

-The Freshman—While not great, the season premiere is good at effectively and satisfyingly transporting us from high school to college and accurately depicting the confusion that comes with quick transportation to new locales.
-Living Conditions—This essentially fantasy-free episode does a great job at examining the issues that come with living with a roommate.
-The Harsh Light of Day—Spike returns to Sunnydale with a gem that makes him invincible.
-Wild at Heart—Oz meets another werewolf, some unfortunate stuff happens, and he leaves town.
-The Initiative—Spike is held hostage by a group of secret government employees called the Initiative who experiment on demons. He escapes and goes to find Buffy.
-Hush—In arguably the best episode of the season and probably the scariest episode of television I’ve ever seen, a group of demons called the Gentlemen steal the voices of the entire population of Sunnydale in order to extract 7 hearts, because if you can’t scream, it’s harder to get help. The episode examines the limits of speech as a mode of communication and how it impedes societal interactions. The only series episode to ever be nominated for a major category Emmy (Writing-Drama), the episode contains 27 minutes of material without any dialogue. This is the best episode to watch first if you want to get hooked on Buffy.
-The I in Team—The leader of the Initiative attempts to have Buffy killed, causing Riley to question his allegiances and consider leaving the Initiative.
-Goodbye Iowa—Riley becomes unstable and Adam learns more about what he is, but not who he is.
-This Year’s Girl—Faith wakes up from her coma and seeks revenge (of course). She and Buffy switch bodies using a gift left to her by the Mayor. This is a very good episode, but not amazing.
-Who Are You—In the second part of this mid-season two-parter, the Watchers’ Council abducts Buffy in Faith’s body and Faith in Buffy’s body has lots of fun. They eventually trade bodies and Faith feels bad for everything she’s done and then leaves for LA, where she is involved in a short Angel storyline. Unlike the first part, this episode is a masterpiece in pretty much every way.
-Superstar—In a wonderfully entertaining break from the dramatic storylines of the season (though it ends up being a throw-away episode as there's no plot-point carry over anywhere else ever), Jonathan magically makes everyone in Sunnydale believe that he’s a superstar, but the spell comes at a price.
-New Moon Rising—In an excellent episode, Oz returns to Sunnydale after learning to control his inner werewolf, but he loses control when he learns of Willow and Tara’s relationship and is caught by the Initiative.
-The Yoko Factor—Spike works to turn the gang against itself with Adam progressing rapidly in his plan.
-Primeval—In the second part of the end-of-season two-parter, the gang discovers the full scope of Adam’s plans, and, using a composite form of all of them combined, kills Adam in one of the best fight scenes in the entire series.
-Restless—In arguably the best season finale in the entire series and the second-best episode of the season, especially because it’s so unlike all of the others, the spirit of the First Slayer (and a cheese man) haunts Buffy, Giles, Willow, and Xander.

Overall Season 4 Review: Buffy fell off a bit after its third season, but that’s not to say that season 4 isn’t still great. The overarching story arc and villain just aren’t as compelling as in seasons 2 and 3. That being said, I did thoroughly enjoy the entire season, except for Beer Bad, which is possibly the worst episode of television I’ve ever had the misfortune of watching. In all honesty, it probably isn’t that bad, but it is atrocious in comparison with the rest of the episodes in the series.

I really enjoyed some of story ideas and characters in the season, though. I thought the idea of the Initiative was really great and was executed quite well, except that it got kind of old by the end. I guess I just wish they had developed it more quickly. I just felt like Adam had almost no time to develop as a villain, which might also have been a product of him not having much potential as far as story goes. I also really liked Riley Finn, played very well by Marc Blucas. I enjoyed the relationship he shared with Buffy, a relationship vastly different from Buffy’s relationship with Angel. His status as a demon hunter could have come across as a cop-out, but it’s written so well that it never feels like one. The introduction of Tara Maclay, Willow’s lesbian love interest is a great character. Initially not really a part of the gang (she never completely gets there, but almost), she still fills an emotionally quiet niche that the series needed to fill. Amber Benson is great in the role too, though her best work as the character was still to come. Also, the promotion of un-demonized Anya to a more prominent character was also a great move. First of all, the character is absolutely hysterical. Secondly, Xander deserves to have at least a few things go right for him, so I was glad, at least while watching this season, to see him being happy. And I almost forgot (how could I?) about the reintroduction of Spike. Reintroducing the most entertaining character of a show is never a bad move (he’s also probably my favorite character in the entire Buffyverse), and so Spike’s reintroduction was an excellent choice. His obsession with Buffy and his anti-violence brain chip add huge amounts of humor to the series and Marsters does wonders with them.

Some episode ordering decisions and topic choices also greatly improved the season. The Faith-centric, two-episode arc of This Year’s Girl and Who Are You was brilliantly placed right after Adam’s reveal and initial encounter, splitting up the rising action of the Big Bad episodes perfectly. The episodes are also great and memorable for their excellent performances by Gellar and Dushku (the scene where Gellar is standing in front of mirror with Faith inside is priceless). Faith’s emotional transformation is quite powerful. In a similar fashion, Whedon’s brilliant decision to make the season finale unlike any of the other season finales, and unlike any other episode other the entire series really, resulted in one of the best episodes of the entire series.

The issue of transferring the series to college was, I felt, handled quite well. The first few episodes struggled to incorporate Xander into the gang, but that issue seemed to go away as soon as they stop trying to explain why he’s at the university or why everybody else isn’t.

This is a great season that just wasn't as good as it's two most recent predecessors, mostly because its season-long story arc just wasn't as compelling, but it still was an overall quite above average season of television.

As we get later into the seasons, fewer writers and directors are going to join the team, obviously. The only notable addition in either arena this season is Nick Marck (7 total episodes) as a director.
Season Score: 8.5/10