Buffy the Vampire Slayer

By turns clever, emotional, scary, funny, insightful, thrilling, and heartbreaking. Has some of the best characters and writing to come out of a "genre" show. Great stuff.

Though it looked cheap (though was full of charm) at the beginning and had run out of steam (though looked nice) by the end, through its middle five seasons this was a great and important show, almost singlehandedly introducing to the medium of TV ideas like killing off major characters without warning and the seasonal "Big Bad" shifting villain structure. Great core arcs but also great "gimmick" episodes (like the S6 musical). Characters like Faith, Spike, Willow, Xander, and the Mayor delight.

The toneshifts are marvellous, shlocky camp one minute and serious issues the next. A lot of it has dated of course from the politics, to the "fetch" slang, to the effects, to the Whedon of it all. However, they managed to lovingly pastiche a giant swathe of classic monster and adventure tropes with their own fresh takes while maintaining substance. The actors are super locked in to their characters and it just zips along charmingly with its growing ensemble always getting a chance to shine.

People complain about how Whedon-esque everything is these days, but that's only because genre TV plagiarises successful ideas like crazy. At the time, this teen-friendly show shook up/rewrote every concept of what a TV series was. Long-form story arcs, experimental genre-breaking episodes, possibly the best YA drama long before YA became a genre. There are some rough patches but they can be overlooked when considering just how original and trendsetting this show was overall.

The early stuff is pretty cheesy and it was often limited by budget/technology, but it was masterful at its tongue in cheek horror/teen melodrama mix.

i have a small clone of joss whedon trapped in a jar on my desk

Hasn't aged well but still a very good show.

My favourite tv show of all time! It has everything you need: great story, great characters, humour, drama... I watch the whole show every year. I just withdrew 2 points for Dawn... Really not my favourite.

Series 6 can largely get in the bin, but I still love the show

did not finish. Would consider trying it again except for whedon

Most splendid up until the final season or 2. Tara is the first weak link, then it’s all downhill after Dawn.

Season 1 & 2

4 eps

Buffy was a badass, loved this show when it was on. I was often charmed, intrigued, curious and frightened by the this show when it aired when I was younger. One of the many things about watching and exploring new genres is getting themes explored through the eyes of well written and well developed characters. Buffy had both those things. Crazy good storytelling efforts by the writers.

I remember being impressed with Sarah Michelle Geller as she was one of the first women I saw fighting men in a tv show and was made to look super powerful. I watched the series of this, it was pretty good actually.

As a low budget weekly TV show in the late nineties, it can be very hit-or-miss. The episodes written and directed by Joss whedon are often masterful, and almost always great TV. This is a must watch for any fan of the medium, as this show helped shape what television is, and even what it can be.

Starts out weak, starts building up to something half-way decent, and then blows it's load too soon. And then it spends too long trying to go the dark and edgy route and I just wanted it to be over with. In the end, the only characters I didn't hate were Giles, Oz, and Tara.

It's my favorite show ever, because of so many reasons and I'm watching it again for the 10th-11th time. Awesome, experimental, bold, thematically rich, with such lovable characters and zippy lines or daring masterpiece episodes (Hush, The Body, Once More with Feeling), this never gets old. Yeah, it has plenty of problematic elements, in a way it's very 90s progressive, but my love for it cannot be budged.

A show that defined a generation...or at least entertained them.

Buffy may be one of the greatest action series of all time. Joss Whedon's totally unique style of dialogue is ever present. The themes and style of some episodes are at a higher quality than some of the greatest films. Each of the cast members brings something unique and charming to the mix. All in all, Buffy is non-stop entertaining and if not for a few story hiccups, would be entirely flawless.

After 1 ep. Provisional rating. Tries some twists on convention. The acting seems sub-par so far. "Clueless" + "Dracula" comes off as mostly strange.

25 years on, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is still an incredible watch--and for a budget genre television show to still be so watchable a quarter of a century after it aired is a testament to the incredible talent and luck that created it. It's not perfect but it's memorable. I'd argue it's defined a generation of popular Western culture.

Great series

Early seasons are bit cheesy and off putting but if you stick with it enough it become true top quality stuff. In the sea of bad and mediocre vampire series, this one irght here comes close to the very top. Good combination of horror, comedy and drama.

Best work of art of all time.

You have no idea what it will turn out to be.

Sort of created a genre, not that the genre is doing well with Supernatural and Lost Girl as the best disciples...

Based off distant memory of a dozen or so episodes. There are certain things like this, Firefly, Star Trek and Doctor Who where the huge cult followings don't make sense to me.

Got better and darker as it went on, but also admittedly started to wander and trip itself up every so often. Fun and cheesy.

Entertaining mix of teen-soap, comedy, and fantasy with season-long story arcs and some memorable, experimental episodes. Bit less filler and it's be a 4.