I agree about Adam being a boring bad who's goal wasn't made clear until to late, so he was far and away the worst big bad of all. But up until his arrival I thought 4 was a ton of fun and the adjusting to college theme really struck home for me. Riley didn't bug me so much, although I found him less interesting after the reveal of him being a soldier in the Initiative. I would've liked him more had he just been a regular guy all along, I think. Willow/Tara was fantastic, though. As was Spike/Harmony. Spike and Willow are probably my favorite characters as well and season 4 used them well.
The Mayor was great, but I felt how they handled Faith was a little to much of a retread of what happened with Angel in season 2 only far less interesting, because Faith was a tad underdeveloped at the point where she turned. I loved Angel's turn as big bad of season 2, but the Buffy/Angel doomed romance quickly grew tiresome for me in season 3. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if I weren't marathoning 3 or 4 or more episodes a night far more often than I'd care to admit. I wish he'd been gone longer at the start of the season. But I think it only takes 4 episodes or so before it's back to Buffy and Angel moping about how that can't be together, and then making out a lot, and then moping that they shouldn't have done that, and so on. Maybe I underrate the whole season because that annoyed me so much.
The finale for 3 was underwhelming as well. compared to 2, 5 and 6 which all have great finales, and 4's at least made up for a boring foe with Scooby combo Buffy.
Season 6 had a weird dichotomy where the Trio started off as pathetic but fun, while the scoobies were mostly all super depressed, so I enjoyed watching villain focused episodes more than the typical episodes. But then it all went really depressing after Warren killed his ex. Tara's death and Willow's turn made the last 3 or 4 episodes of it fucking great though. Although I liked Tara a lot and was sad to see her go.
Oddly little about Season 5 stands out much in my mind, beyond Joyce's death (which unfortunately I'd spoiled for myself) and Dawn's presence (but she spent much of the season being somewhat annoying, and also I kept expecting someone would suggest her presence is somehow what caused her mom's tumor in the first place, which no one ever did right?) and Glory, who was pretty awesome. Oh, right Riley left as well. On the one hand he'd long outlived his usefulness, but on the other his vampire junkie ways had made him more interesting than he'd probably ever been before. I can't remember a whole lot of specific episodes though, like I can for the other seasons. Or maybe they all just blend together because at this point I was binging Buffy. I went through season 5 in a week.
And of course, 1 was just not very good. 7 was off to a decent start but the Potential Slayers just arrived, and they aren't helping.
Also Giles is totally dead right? He's only back as a ghost of some sorts? That's just a guess, but no one's touched him, he hasn't held a weapon, or handled any objects. I'm thinking his head got chopped off back in England and now I'm just trying to figure out if he's the First evil playing a trick, or maybe some counter to the first evil (the first good, or what have you) using the same trick but for a different goal, or perhaps he's Giles the White, a la Gandalf, brought back to fulfill some purpose. Honestly I'm hoping that he's not dead and is in fact plain old Giles, but... I don't want the answer to that, as I've mostly avoided spoilers so far (aside from the one I mentioned the only things I knew going in was that Spike would try and rape Buffy at some point, and Willow would eventually become a lesbian and the only episode of Buffy I'd ever seen was the one where Oz leaves after sleeping with the werewolf chick.)
All in all, this has me thinking I'm overrating season 4 and underrating season 5. So maybe 2 5 3 4 6 1.
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