Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Seasons 5-7

I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's , there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore. It's stupid. It's mortal and stupid. And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why. -Anya in The Body

Buffy: You ever heard the expression, "biting off more than you can chew"? Okay, um, how about the expression, "Vampire Slayer"?

Vampire: What the hell are you talking about?

Buffy: Wow! Never heard that one? Okay, how about, "Oh God, my leg, my leg?"

Vampire: (Buffy breaks his leg) Oh God, my leg! Ah!

Buffy: See, now we're communicating. (dusts vampire) Wow, been a long while since I met one didn't know me. You should get home.

Guy: How'd you do that?

Buffy: That's what I do.

Guy: But... you're just a girl.

Buffy: That's what I keep saying

-exchange in The Gift

Season 5: In either the first or second best season of the series, the main cast returns, with the exception of Seth Green. Blucas leaves in the 10^th episode. Emma Caulfield joins the main cast and Michelle Trachtenberg does as well in the 2^nd episode as Buffy’s younger sister, Dawn, a development that will be explored throughout the season. Amber Benson might as well be part of the main cast, appearing in all but 4 episodes. Kristine Sutherland also appears in quite a few episodes. The Big Bad of the season is Glorificus, Glory for short, and is portrayed by Clare Kramer. The season also contains what I hold to be either the first or second best episode of television I have ever seen.

Best Season 5 Episodes:

-Buffy vs. Dracula—The episode title says it all, but the episode is so much more, beginning the discussion about what it means to be a Slayer.

-Real Me—Dawn is seamlessly integrated into the gang and the members’ lives as though she has always been around. Also, Harmony returns and boy has she changed a lot.

-The Replacement—Xander is split into two people, a cool, successful half and an uncool, far less successful half by a demon.

-Out of My Mind—As Riley’s super-soldier enhancements kill him, Buffy enlists Spike’s help to get him help, but Spike instead kidnaps the doctor to get the chip out of his head.

-No Place Like Home—Glory is looking for The Key. After being whooped by Glory, Buffy meets a monk who relates some startling news. This is a truly amazing episode that receives not one ounce of the praise it deserves.

-Family—In the series’ only Tara-centric episode, her family comes on her 20^th birthday to take her away, but the gang won’t agree until they find out the whole story. The whole deal about overbearing parents is, I admit, clichéd, but the episode was well done enough to at least overcome it a bit.

-Fool for Love—Spike, in love with Buffy, tells her about the Slayers he killed. Buffy turns back his advances, angering him, but he comforts her when she finds out about the extent of Joyce’s illness. This is another astonishingly great, and criminally underrated, episode

-Shadow—Joyce has cancer and Buffy worries about how to tell Dawn.

-Listening to Fear—Buffy and Dawn help Joyce prepare for surgery, while an alien preys on people’s mind, turning them into mental patients.

-Into the Woods—Buffy learns of Riley’s unfortunate habits, confronting and thereby causing him to give her an ultimatum on their relationship and his own future. This is a powerful look at relationships and the issues that come when expectations are different and neither party is willing to enter into any sort of discourse.

-Checkpoint—The Watchers’ Council comes to help Buffy but puts her through tests instead. Buffy takes a stand against their short-sighted practices.

-Blood Ties—Dawn discovers the startling news Buffy learned from the monk and has a close call.

-Crush—I always love a Spike-centric episode, so this was just a damn good time.

-I Was Made to Love You—An incredibly odd, but still good, episode in which Warren builds himself a female robot but runs away. Also, Buffy’s scene with the robot at end is incredibly poignant.

-The Body—This is that monumentally perfect episode I mentioned earlier. Joyce dies and Buffy, Dawn, and the rest of the gang are left reeling. Featuring absolutely no music in a show that made its name on its dialogue and use of music, the episode also features a fantastic 3-minute-long single-shot scene right at the beginning. It also contains a towering performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who should have won an Emmy for it. There is only one scene with supernatural activity, allowing the entirety of the episode to focus on the immense difficulties associated with grief, mourning, and unimaginable loss. And even that supernatural scene is placed in order to show that the world isn’t going to stop crashing against Buffy just because she’s suffering immense personal loss. The episode isn’t too complex, but the emotions are. Everybody will react differently to the episode, but pretty much everyone will at least tear up: I don’t cry, or really even tear up, at movies or TV shows really ever, but every time I see this, I’m tearing up about 12 minutes in when Giles arrives and Buffy yells at him.

-Forever—Angel comforts Buffy after Joyce’s death. Dawn tries to resurrect Joyce, but Buffy convinces her not to.

-Intervention—4 Words: “Death is your gift.”

-Tough Love—Buffy is forced to drop out of college to care for Dawn and herself, losing yet another tie to normal life. The Buffy/Dawn exchanges and Willow/Tara scenes are pretty great.

-The Weight of the World—After Dawn is kidnapped, Buffy becomes catatonic and Willow must bring her back.

-The Gift—In this excellent season finale, Buffy and the gang set out to rescue Dawn, and Buffy finally realizes the meaning of the 4 words from Intervention, realizing the death of childhood and welcoming the challenges of the adulthood that follows.

Overall Season 5 Review: This season, for some ridiculous reason, isn’t usually ranked as one of the best seasons of the show, and I remember even seeing it called the worst someplace, but I personally thought this was probably third-best season overall. Actually, now that I think about it, this is absolutely the second-best season, after season 2, and it’s a close battle for first. It really is a truly amazing season of television. Season 3 has more A+ absolutely outstanding episodes, but this season has episode after episode of incredibly solid B+/A- work. The story arc is extraordinary, with the character of Glory harkening back to the Big Bads of seasons 2 and 3. And even the stand-alone episodes are strong.

The two main themes of the season are family and the issue of belonging and finding your place in the world. The second of these includes a large amount of development of what being a Slayer means, of who Buffy is because she’s a Slayer. It explores everything physical she does: the love, the sex, the violence, the power. The season attempts to define the Slayer while Buffy attempts to shatter that mold. The season also explores her relationships: how her relationship with Riley dies and her important revelations about the nature of relationships that follow. Willow and Spike also receive fantastic character development as well.

Every episode has beautiful cohesion thematically, and every single one is intelligent and funny.

Season Score: 10/10

Dawn: Oh my god. You will never believe what happened at school today.

Buffy: Everybody started singing and dancing?

Dawn: I gave birth to a pterodactyl.

Anya: Oh my god, did it sing?

-exchange in Once More, with Feeling

Warren: Say goodnight, bitch.

Buffy: Goodnight, bitch.

-exchange in Seeing Red

The first day of kindergarten you cried 'cause you broke the yellow crayon and you were afraid to tell anyone. You've come pretty far, ending the world, not a terrific notion... but the thing is, yeah. I love you. I love crayon-breaky Willow and I love scary veiny Willow. So if I'm going out, it's here. If you wanna kill the world, well then start with me. I've earned that. -Xander to Willow in Grave

Season 6: In the second-to-last season of the series, Anthony Stewart Head departs the regular cast, instead appearing as a guest star in a handful of episodes. The rest of the main cast returns, and Amber Benson essentially joins the main cast, special guest starring in every episode she appears in, except for one in which she is in the main cast. Tom Lenk, Danny Strong, and Adam Busch act as the Big Bads, Andrew Wells, Jonathan Levinson, and Warren Mears, for at least the first half-to-three-quarters of the season, before disastrous events lead to a dark path.

Best Season 6 Episodes:

-Bargaining, Parts 1 and 2—Giles leaves town and the gang attempts to resurrect Buffy.

-After Life—A truly amazing episode exploring Buffy after being brought back by the gang and all of the painful issues she has to deal with. Incredibly underrated is an understatement.

-Life Serial—Buffy is in financial trouble and tries to get a job, but instead has to go through a series of tries devised by Andrew, Jonathan, and Warren

-Once More, with Feeling—The best episode of the season, Joss Whedon spent months writing the score and lyrics to this excellent musical episode. While not everybody is up to the task, particularly Willow, Xander, and Dawn, the episode is carried by Anthony Steward Head’s, Amber Benson’s, and Emma Caulfield’s fabulous singing, James Marsters’ great Billy Idol-style singing, and Gellar’s decent voice. The episode occurs when a singing demon causes the citizens of Sunnydale to randomly burst into song. Two-time Musical Tony award-winner Hinton Battle guest stars as the demon. There are some truly great songs including Rest in Peace, Under Your Spell, Standing, Walk Through the Fire, Going Through the Motions, I’ll Never Tell, and What You Feel, which actually is pretty much all of them. There are also two hysterical 10-to-20-second numbers entitled The Mustard and The Parking Ticket featuring series writers and producers. The show is, similar to Hush, all about the limits of regular, spoken language.

-Smashed—While not great by itself, this two-episode arc titled using alternate vocabulary for drunkenness is pretty powerful in showing Willow’s descent into addiction to magic.

-Wrecked— While not great by itself, this two-episode arc titled using alternate vocabulary for drunkenness is pretty powerful in showing Willow’s descent into addiction to magic.

-Dead Things—An incredibly good, very underrated episode that I frankly overlooked when I first saw it.
-Older and Far Away—Dawn, feeling left out and unimportant, makes a wish in front of one of Anya’s old vengeance demon friends, a wish that comes true.

-As You Were—Riley returns to Sunnydale with his wife and enlists Buffy’s help to track down a demon. It's not great, but I loved Riley's character, so I liked the episode.

-Hell’s Bells—At Xander and Anya’s wedding, an older Xander convinces him that marrying Anya is a terrible move. Misfortune follows.

-Normal Again—The second-best episode of the season, Buffy is convinced by a demon unleashed by the Trio that her friends are figments of her imagination and that she’s been lying in a mental ward for the entire series.

-Seeing Red—Willow and Tara reconcile, Tara tells Willow about Buffy and Spike, and Buffy stops the Trio, but Warren escapes. He goes to Buffy’s house with a handgun with disastrous consequences.

-Villains—Pushed over the edge by the horrendous events of Seeing Red, Willow, racked by immense grief, becomes Dark Willow and hunts the Trio, starting with Warren.

-Two to Go—In the first part of the powerful season finale, the gang struggles to protect Jonathan and Andrew from an immensely powerful Willow.

-Grave—In the second part of the powerful season finale, Giles returns from Britain with a huge amount of temporary magic, but Willow still defeats him. Set on ending her suffering by bringing on an apocalypse, Xander must find the wherewithal to stop her. The final scene (pictured) is heartbreaking. Meanwhile, Spike completes a set of challenges given to him in order to be granted a soul.

Overall Season 6 Review: After the first season, unfortunately, this season may be the worst. Okay, that makes this season sound bad. It’s not. Actually, it’s probably comparable to season 4, quality-wise, which means it’s still a rewarding watch. Most detractors say it’s too dark and humorless, and while it could use more wit, the dark tone is an excellent development for the series. I mean seriously, the characters are now adults, you can’t honestly think that the show can keep up with the same, relatively lighthearted storylines of old? I truly loved this season for its riskiness. It’s certainly not flawless, but it does what Star Trek only discussed doing in the opening credits: it boldly goes where no one has gone before. That doesn’t just have to do with Buffy as a series, but with just about any series out there. The sixth season is an emotional powerful rollercoaster examining depression, love, addiction, loss, belonging, and the nature of power. The season can certainly be depressing, but viewed in a rapid fire setting (like two-to-three episodes a day for seven-to-eleven days, or even faster if you're up to it), its emotional effect is incredibly powerful. The series has created characters so likeable and supportable, that we can’t help but feel for them and root for them during their darkest hours. And there are a lot of dark hours for each and every one of them. But in the end, hope prevails and the season is remembered as a humorless, but immensely rewarding season. One of the major ideas I got out of this season was that we can’t really recognize every single amazing, gorgeous thing we are blessed with unless we first face the demons in our lives that plague us, fighting the darkness in our lives allows us to turn on the light and take in the beautiful world around us.

The main issue I found with the season as a whole was with the Big Bad. The Trio (Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew) are introduced very early on as the Big Bads, but they never really amount to anything more than comic relief. Warren becomes a villain, and a reasonably compelling one at that, but Jonathan and Andrew never really amount to much, though I really like their characters for various reasons. The only great episodes they’re involved in are Flooded, Life Serial, Smashed, and Dead Things. By the time the season’s magnificent final octet of episodes comes around, the Trio is already beginning to split. Warren has distanced himself from his partners in crime through his cold-bloodedness. Warren as a villain is great, but the Trio is not. But honestly, I think I would’ve preferred an earlier transfer to Dark Willow, although I don’t know how much I would have liked it if she had come about her transformation the same way and we had missed out on the always wonderful Tara for the interim episodes.

As I write this, I can’t help but change my entire opinion on the series. I still don’t think it’s the best season of the series, nor is it my favorite or even my third-favorite, but I respect its lofty goals and ambitions more than the intentions of any other season of television I’ve ever seen. The best television series nowadays have excellent seasons peppered with daring escapades into difficult-to-deal-with territory, but season 6 attempts to delve into those immensely complex and dark issues every single episode. It doesn’t succeed every time, and really only succeeds almost three-quarters of the time, but I respect it so much for trying every single damn time to push its boundaries in every way possible.

Season Score: 9/10 (the episodes really result in about an 8/10, but the immensely lofty goals of the season elevate it tremendously)

There's only one thing in this world more powerful than evil, and that's us.

-Buffy in Bring on the Night

Buffy: I just... if you knew what I've done, what I've let myself become. My best friends don't even - You'd laugh, you heard some of the things I've done to them.
Holden: Buffy, I'm here to kill you, not to judge you.
-exchange in Conversations with Dead People

Season 7: In the final season of the series, the regular cast returns, minus Amber Benson. Tom Lenk and Anthony Stewart Head are near the point of regular characters. D.B. Woodside also appears in quite a few episodes as the principal of the newly reopened Sunnydale High, Robin Wood. A huge number of previous important characters return in various capacities, many of them as agents of the season’s Big Bad, the inanimate First Evil.

Best Season 7 Episodes:

-Lessons—Dawn discovers vengeful spirits in Sunnydale High, Giles rehabs Willow in England, Spike lives in the high school basement, going insane with guilt after having his soul restored.

-Help—Buffy becomes a counselor at Sunnydale High and meets a girl who predicts her own death. Despite doing everything she can, Buffy can’t save her. Azura Skye guest stars and gives an incredible performance as the girl.

-Conversations with Dead People—In the second best episode of the season, purely because of the series finale, Buffy, Dawn, and Willow face familiar faces from their pasts. Future Angel season 5 recurring cast member Jonathan Woodward guest stars here in a quite entertaining role.

-Showtime—After numerous potential slayers arrive and start to live at the Summers’ household, Buffy must gain their trust and kill the Ubervamp.

-The Killer in Me—Willow faces her inner demons while Buffy contacts the government for assistance.

-Get It Done—Buffy learns more about the First Slayer and the source of her own power.

-Storyteller—In a humorous break from the dramatic story arc of the season, Andrew makes a documentary about the Slayer and the events in Sunnydale.

-Lies My Parents Told Me—The gang investigates what Spike’s trigger while Wood and Giles plot to eliminate Spike.

-Dirty Girls—Faith returns to Sunnydale just as an ultra-powerful, evil ex-priest, Caleb, also comes to town. Buffy leads an attack against him, but it doesn’t go well at all.

-Empty Places—Sunnydale starts to evacuate and the Potentials suffer numerous casualties. Buffy loses their trust and they oust her, putting Faith in charge.

-Touched—Spike comforts a depressed Buffy. Faith tries to do well at her new, unwanted position, but it doesn’t go so well.

-End of Days—Buffy finds an ultra-powerful battleaxe and faces off with Caleb. Just when she is almost certainly doomed to lose, a welcome ally returns and saves her. This isn't great, but Caleb is an incredibly compelling character.

-Chosen—In the best episode of the season, Buffy and the gang regroup and launch a daring attack against the First. Using some powerful magic, Willow changes the field of play drastically and Spike becomes a hero. In the end, Sunnydale is no more, and same with the Hellmouth.

Overall Season 7 Review: This season isn’t bad, but it isn’t nearly as good as all of the other’s, either (well, except for the worst season, season 1). The season has to wrap up everything that has happened in the series. Coming after the gutsy, emotionally powerful season 6, season 7 just doesn’t have the kind of riskiness it needed to measure up.

The season does succeed in a lot of places, but it doesn’t succeed in other where you might expect them to. While it’s incredibly hard to complete every character’s personal journey while simultaneously evolving those same characters, I would think that a series so well known for its entertaining plots would be able to go out in an incredibly memorable way, but overall it’s only marginally successful.

The season, though, is not a waste at all, and my saying it’s not as good as some of the others shouldn’t really deter you at all. It’s a satisfying end to a fabulous series.

Season Score: 8.5/10

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