The best big bad ever was The Mayor. No doubts about it. He'd kick your mother's ass and you'd enjoy it.

The 2nd best big bad IMO was Caleb. Anybody who kills some potential slayers, beats the living hell out of Buffy, and pokes Xander's eye out within a matter of minutes deserves some props. Only problem is he should've been developed halfway through the season and not brought in with 5 episodes of the season left (with him only appearing in 4 episodes... okay 4 full episodes and 1/5th of the final episode ).

Glory was fun, The Master should've been in it more, Willow doesn't make a good big bad, and Drusilla/Spike/Angelus were okay.

The problem with Adam, as Doughboy said, he had barely any depth. He was just thrown into the mix when Lindsay Crouse bailed. I don't need a two-parter about him, just give me 45 minutes to explain him and don't have stupid Riley in it.

But in season 5, I was hoping when Riley got into that helicopter, it would've blown up. Hell, his apperance on Season 6 was awful as well (except when Willow called his girlfriend a bitch).

Wow. It sometimes amazes me that some people have such differing opinions. The Faith two parter was the emotional climax of Faith's character arc- Who Are You is one of my favorite episodes of all time- There's no way I'd be convinced that they should've scrapped it.

As for Adam, I thought his entrance was very cool and well done. It shocked the hell out of me when Maggie Walsh bit it, and I couldn't wait to find out more about him. Then again I love it when shows turn the tables and don't automatically give you what you're expecting- You think Maggie will be the big bad? Nope! Sorry...

As for the worst episode of Season 4, I'd have to go with Where the Wild Things Are- but I found I enjoyed it a lot more than I remembered when I rewatched it on DVD- thanks in part to Anya's and Spike's scenes together, plus Spike's scene where he talks himself out of sticking around to help save Buffy and Riley.

I totally agree. Actually, I think Caleb might be my favorite....but he was horribly under-developed. You're right, he should have entered the picture much MUCH earlier.

For me the worst episode in season 4 was "Restless" and in 5 it was "The Body". I know both of those were critically acclaimed, but I thought they were boring. I liked "Beer Bad" and thought even if it wasn't the best episode, it was still pretty funny.

tasha
(As for Big Bads, I loved the mayor. His cleanliness thing was hilarious.)

I agree....well I agree 50%. Restless was one of the handful of Buffy episodes I couldn't wait to finish, so that I could get on with my life. Usually I would hope they wouldn't finish.

I did love The Body though.

What does that really say about the show....the 2nd best villain was in three episode and had virtually no development as a character, a villian for villain's sake, one step above MOTW.

No, but unlike the other big bads, he was a total badass. Just look at his first apperance. Five minutes into the episode, he picks up a girl, calls her a whore, stabs her, and throws her out of his truck. He's one of the few big bads to have the balls to do that. You would never see The Master, The Mayor, or Willow do that!

I totally agree--Faith/SMG pounding on Buffy/Eliza while screaming "You're disgusting!" was such a terribly sad & poignant moment. Faith finally gets what she always wanted that Buffy always had--the loving mom, the friends, respect (as a Slayer). Then she sees herself again and realizes how worthless her life has been. Emotionally, she's actually at a lower point at the end of "Who Are You" than she was when she got out of the coma.

That whole Faith four-parter (including "Five by Five" and "Sanctuary") was just awesome. God, I love her.

Personally (and this might be because I watched the last part of season four over a single weekend, without enough time between episodes), I felt that the season didn't quite recover from "This Year's Girl" and "Who Are You". We get Faith and a cameo from the Mayor, both of whom are oozing with charisma & personality, we get a big emotional moment of realization from Faith---THEN we have to go back to freaking Adam and his boring monologues? How did you all feel about it back when the original episodes aired?

Maybe I'll just have to re-watch those post-"Who Are You" episodes separately so that I don't have Faith on the brain while watching them.

Making Adam into a Big Bad is like if they had made Luke or The Judge into a Big Bad. He would've been good as Maggie Walsh's henchman for a few episodes, but not as the main villain of the season.

Too bad Lindsay Crouse bailed. After Buffy's ****ing awesome "you have no idea what a Slayer is. Trust me when I say you're going to find out" speech, I was so looking forward to some kind of epic Walsh/Buffy showdown. Then Walsh dies a couple of minutes later. Ugh.

He was just thrown into the mix when Lindsay Crouse bailed.

Can someone explain this? I had never heard this before. What happened? Why did the actress want out?

From what I've read, she herself enjoyed doing the show, but her agent wanted to get her out of there.

Joel Gray's character would have been a cool big bad; I was always surprised they didn't do much with him after having a really great introduction. You need a solid actor for any big bad; that's why the mayor was great, and why Maggie Walsh would have been better than Adam...

Joel Gray's character was awesome. I wish he was the big bad instead of the terrible Glory for season 5.

I think they should have for the sake of the overal arc, and done it later in season 5. You know, there's so much crap during season five's first half full of moon demons and whatever that they could have done that.

Personally, I prefered 5x5 as an episode.

They probably did the Faith two-parter (well, four-parter, actually) when she had a hole in her schedule. Since she wasn't on contract as a regular, they pretty much had to do it when she was available.

If they had waited until season five, she could've been filming "Bring It On One More Time" or something, and been unavailable to reprise her role.

Has it ever occured to you that at a certain point you must have decided that you really wanted to hate everything about the show and that nothing it did from that point on could possibly satisfy you?

Glory was a great villian. It seems that you are determined to hate the show at all costs.

I'll ask you again, why did you keep watching after season 3?

Why? Because I just said how I loved Joel Grey's character, that Adam was actually an underrated Big Bad?

No, I'm not. I just hate a lot of what happened.

Season 4 wasn't so bad. I watched season 4 because I adored seasons 1 -3, of course. Season 5 was when I first started having my real big doubts on the show, but then the second half of the season was more or less great. Season 6 was terrible almost through out, and I only watched the second half in reruns. After being put to sleep by the finale (which was a first - I loved seasons 4 and 5 finales) I didn't watch season 7 until I was encouraged by friend to, after being told the first several episodes were really good (and they were.) It never was as bad as season 6 after that, but I still found it pretty mediocre...

Would you rather I didn't watch the show and critize it? perhaps I could compair it to X-Files endlessly and say how it's just a teen fluff piece of escapism?

I watched the show, and I loved the first three seasons, I devoted my time into a website, perticipated in forums, and made many friends through the show. Why on earth would I purposly start trying to dislike the show? Surely you can see how many huge changes occuried throughout the show's history and why someone might suddenly stop liking it?

I don't know. That's a good question. But then again the nature of the show is that it seems to attract people who don't like anything about it, who just like complaining about what they wish it was instead.

Visiting any random Buffy-dedicated forum will reveal that about 90% or more of the people who post on them hate just about everything about the show.

Changes happened, yes. The show evolved as its characters grew up. But the attitude you've taken in this thread and others is that all changes are bad and that the show should never have tampered with the formula of its first three seasons.

Buffy's fifth season was one of its best. Aside from the opening episode, the craptastic Buffy vs. Dracula (I have no idea what they were thinking with that one), it didn't have any other bad episodes at all. And Glory was a terrific villain.

Buffy vs. Dracula wasn't craptastic. I thought it was really funny.

tasha

I also enjoyed "Buffy vs. Dracula". How can you not like watching the evil master....bater?

Well... maybe the show attracted a whole bunch of people who liked the early seasons, but then hated the later ones due to the changes made. Is that hard to see?

Changes aren't bad, but I didn't like the ones they made, and yeah, that would be pretty much all of the ones they made. I don't like seeing Spike turned into the crap he became, making excuse after excuse to keep him around because fans liked him. I don't like having Dawn appear to make a season work, then have her be totally useless to everything else.

The first three seasons are full of changes too, but I thought they added to the story, made it better, and made sense to the story. For example, Willow's end of persuing Xander, to going with Oz, to then having a "thing" for Xander is FULL of changes, and at the time, tons of people didn't like them. However, I think they were fine changes, and they made sense. I can't make the same out of Spike is an evil vampire, but then he is made incapable of killing people... so he's kept around... and then... he falls in love with Buffy since he can't kill her... and then Buffy starts having a thing for him, despite the fact he has tried to kill her, has tortured her friends, and killed her classmates... and then he gets a soul... but then he becomes more like he was before, and acts even more like a bastard...

The fifth season's first half was full of Riley stuff, Dawn stuff, or something like a moon demon. It didn't appeal to me, and I felt nothing much grew from it. I didn't find Glory to be interesting in the least bit. She was just someone who was strong and wanted a key. I didn't follow her thought processes, she just wanted power because she was a God. What was her backstory? I don't even remember.

Simply stating it didn't have any bad episodes or Glory is a great villian does nothing to counter my opinion that the first half didn't have any good episodes and that I think Glory is a bad villian. We both just have different opinions on it.

So don't insult me by saying I tried, on purpose, to hate my favorite show off all time. I just stopped liking the choices it made.