It's not essential, but if you like Buffy you'd probably like Angel. There was an episode in season 4 or 5 where a crossover looks really different if you've seen both shows. On Buffy, you only hear what she's mad about from her point of view, but on Angel, you see what really happened. It's not a big deal, but after I saw Angel, I thought ohhhh, so that's what happened.

tasha

Season three was absolutely firing on all cylinders. There wasn't a turd in the bunch.

Even the most "could've been a bad season two monster of the week/after school special" episode, "Beauty and the Beasts," was well-handled. It blended the abusive boyfriend afterschool special with the Jekyll and Hyde type of story so well that I didn't really mind. (And those two types of eps, to me, are the series low points). Add a pretty cool action sequence at the end involving Hyde/Ozwolf/PrimalAngel, and it's a good episode.

Season two had the occasional bad episode -- Bad Eggs, Go Fish, Ted (okay, I liked John Ritter, but it was weighed down by silly things like drugged food), Inca Mummy Girl, Some Assemby Required (to high schooly) -- but when it was good, it was excellent. They took a huge chance with the events of "Surprise/Innocence" and it paid off.

Just found this, a pretty nice little package on Buffy. Warning: Tread carefully if you are strictly a DVD watcher and haven't seen Buffy beyond season three as there are some spoilers sprinkled about:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/televis...ffy-main_x.htm