5 x 5: Buffy's 20th
Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 5:44PM 
One of the most exciting things about great art in modern culture is that it inspires so much other great art as well as criticism with everyone having access to the conversation and their own platforms with which to engage. With the internet celebrating Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 20th anniversary, we can't totally bypass the opportunity to celebrate with them. After the jump five links you should definitely read and five tweets we enjoyed...
5 Links
Instagram -Sarah Michelle Gellar's thank you to Joss Whedon for giving her "one of the greatest female character ever created" Amen
Vulture -Buffy's Legacy" by our virtual friend Angelica Jade Bastién who's written a few times here at TFE but is in such high demand these days we've had trouble snagging her again.
c|net an interview with Tom Lenk, who played the endearing sometime villain Andrew on his history with the show and its LGBT fandom
Vox - Episode Rank -I'm so sad that "Beer Bad" always comes in last. It is not the worst episode of this awesome show (which definitely had a clunk here and there across its 7 seasons). But they're totally right about the best three episodes (give or take the ranking which fluctuates depending on the day)
Vulture - Female Rivalries on Buffy Bastién again on our favorite aspect of the show: Buffy vs Faith
5 Tweets
One of my all-time favorite #Buffy exchanges is probably its least eloquent pic.twitter.com/2dz5R0Fofc
— Jarett Wieselman (@JarettSays) March 6, 2017
Buffy has supernatural elements, but is based on fact: teen girls & librarians will save us all from the Hellmouth
— emery lord (@emerylord) March 11, 2017
Friend: "Do you remember the part in Buffy when..."
— Dark Horse Comics (@DarkHorseComics) March 10, 2017
Me: "I remember all the parts."#buffyslays20 pic.twitter.com/cpgBufmh6y
One of my fave Buffy related pics, in honor of the 20th (!!) anniversary: Alyson Hannigan chilling with her stunt doubles pic.twitter.com/cKvtPdPhIF
— Abbey Bender (@Abbey_Bender) March 10, 2017
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— Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) March 10, 2017
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┻┳| •.•) Season 6 of BUFFY has always been my favorite
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Should we celebrate Buffy the Vampire Slayer a little more this week?
Buffy, Sarah Michelle Gellar, TV, Tom Lenk, Twitter
Reader Comments (16)
My favorite show of all time! It never fails to inspire me.
Nathaniel: What do you think is the worst episode of the series? I really dislike "Beer Bad" so I always usually accept that it's going to be considered the worst.
I don't get Buffy. Please help me.
YES! Buffy is also my favorite show of all time.
And yes, Beer Bad is objectively the worst episode of the series.
Season 6 is my favorite too.
poor xander - always the zeppo [smg didn't mention him in her instagram thanks]
6. lie to me [the episode that got me hooked]
5. the wish
4. becoming part 2
3. doppelgangland [the more willows the better]
2. once more with feeling
1. the body
Yes.
My favourite episode is probably 'Conversations with Dead People' though yes, that top three is unimpeachable.
Favourite of the Vox's bottom ten: "Where the Wild Things Are"
Least favourite of the top ten: The Wish, easily
par - Probably has to do with him being a troublesome wreck in his personal life. Although the Giles absence in her post definitely makes me wonder.
My favorite show ever. So nice to see that it's also so appreciated by others.
One of the all time great series. If it premiered today it would no doubt look way more polished and get more attention, but also mightn't be as good. Like, as entertaining as stuff like Riverdale is, nobody's going to really care about in 20 years time. I doubt shows like Pretty Little Liars or Vampire Diaries and other shows of its kind will. There are too many of them and none as well-written as Buffy (which, certainly, Riverdale is riffing on without ever completely working).
But then maybe it's just because this show timed perfectly to my high school years. Maybe there's a wave of writers coming up now who DO see these shows are pinnacles. Hmmm.
One of pop culture's great modern mysteries is how Gellar couldn't translate her
iconic work to a longer term career. Over seven seasons she proved she could do ANYTHING. Hannigan and Marsters often get better notices from fans and critics, but I always thought Gellar was the best in the show
IanO: I agree about Gellar completely. She should have had a fantastic career beyond Buffy.
I do sometimes question after Buffy why Hannigan distanced herself from dramatic projects. Yes she is wonderful at comedy, but the dramatic levels she was required to do in Buffy was just phenomenal. She constantly broke my heart throughout the whole series.
Basically, there's Buffy (1997-2003) and Gilmore Girls (2000-2007, 2016).
Everything else (The OC, Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson's Creek, Smallville, The Vampire Diaries et al) is second- or third-tier.
Buffy is my favorite show of all time.
I'm about to say something really unpopular in the Buffy fandom universe, but I hated "Once More With Feeling." I love Buffy, and I love musicals, and everything in between, but that episode was hokey, and so few of the cast members could sing, that the whole thing gave me third person embarrassment.
Apart from Hush, which is a brilliant hour of television, I liked how the Vox article called out so many of the season finales as high water marks. They're almost uniformly brilliant and emotional heavy hitters. Seasons 2, 3, 5, and 7 all end by saying something and changing the characters or the universe.
best series ever.
sarah michelle gellar totally deserves a better career.
I will always remember the show fondly (a teenage favorite), but thinking about it, it was very uneven, leaning towards terrible. Season 2 was the best, followed closely by 3. A small gap and season 5. All other seasons are either weak (seasons 1 and 7) or down right terrible (seasons 4 and 6).
Funnily enough, the two best episodes ever spawned from the two worst seasons. Hush (Season 4) and Once More With Feelings (Season 6).
And SMG doing the Glenn Close part in Cruel Intentions will always be a favorite of mine too.