Which Buffy (and/or Angel) episodes get you through the dark times? Which ones inspire you, get you fighting again, or otherwise lift your spirits?

Checkpoint is always a winner with me, when I feel defeated but need to kick some real world ass. And although The Body is one of the most frank and stunning portrayals of death I'm likely to ever see, it's never any comfort for me. When my father died, and even before, when I was missing my Nana, I found the next episode, Forever, much more cathartic, when a loss is hitting me particularly hard.

Prophecy Girl is good for a lift, which has as much to do with a few good lines, and SMG's heartbreaking, "Tell me my fortune!" breakdown, as anything else, but it works.

The Gift broke my heart when I first saw it. I knew SMG would be back, and back as Buffy, and that the series would be back, but I still cried for about a week, and I needed to believe she was dead. I needed to believe this young woman died to save the world, because she couldn't allow her sister to die to save the world. I don't find it uplifting, but I find it satisfying (despite any monks-made-her-from-me jazz hands I might employ) in a calming and reassuring sort of way--that a hero would die for the world. I like messiahs, though. I always have.

Fear, Itself, which I've just recently re-watched, really hit me the first time I ever saw it. I know it's a little clunky maybe, but when it first aired, I really needed the reminder that our fears feed the beast, and the fear demon is this tiny, crushable thing, in the end. It still speaks to me.

Finally, of course, there is Becoming. It's chocked full of inspirational goodness. When everything else is gone--what do you have left? Yourself. The big moments are gonna come, it's what you do afterwards that counts.

That's probably it for episodes I watch for a specifically inspirational purpose, and more often than not, I usually fall back on Checkpoint. I'm asking about it tonight, because it's been a while since I watched it, and after this week in the real world, I think I need a dose of it. There are lots of inspirational moments in episodes though, that are just as key, the episode as a whole may even inspire me, just not in a way that I turn to it, like a key that fits a certain lock.

I also have certain make-me-laugh episodes. Pangs still leaves me chuckling. There's also The Replacement, A New Man, Superstar, and I'm sure there are others I am forgetting.

Which episodes do you turn to, under which circumstances?

Smile Time is oddly comforting for me. It's the first episode I played when my AtS S5 DVDs showed up. The "Self Esteem" song gets stuck in my head at the oddest time. The ep is funny and wacky and touching in places, and if you ignore everything that happens afterwards, it's hopeful. It makes me happy.

I was just thinking about "The Body" last night and how it reached in and touched me on levels that no other fiction has as an adult. I can't say that I like it... my initial viewing was so traumatic that I've never gone back for a second watch. But it's the most powerful hour of mass media entertainment that I've ever run across.

Actually, despite the fact that it's a little non-sensical, Buffy's speech to the First Slayer in Restless is very moving to me, and can get me a little misty just thinking.

"I walk. I talk. I shop. I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones."

Yeah, I find Restless to be very moving and comforting.

I think I'm one of the few who've gone back for repeat viewings of The Body. I don't know, maybe I'm a masochist, but for those of you who've been wondering?

It's still just as much of a gut punch on the fourth viewing (which is, I think, as much as I've been able to stomach).

Actually, despite the fact that it's a little non-sensical, Buffy's speech to the First Slayer in Restless is very moving to me, and can get me a little misty just thinking.

"I walk. I talk. I shop. I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones."

Oh, yeah. I don't even think it's particularly non-sensical. That's probably an episode I use for plain old escape. Where some episodes are inspirational for me, and some just lift my spirits because they're funny or sweet, Restless takes me away.

I've watched The Body at least 4 times, probably more, and Restless probably 10. I think that they're the two most perfectly crafted hours of television I've ever seen. I agree that The Body hurts just as much the nth viewing.

I'm still not familiar enough with the full body of Buffy to be able to name episodes I would use to lift me out of specific moods, generally, though i have found myself itching to watch Tabula Rasa on more than one occasion. Something about the sheer funny of it most of the way through followed by the total, if melodramatic, downer of the end really works for me, but I couldn't really put a finger on what moods inspire the desire.

I turned on the TV one morning to watch Buffy before work, and The Body was on. I LEPT for the remote. I just didn't want to go through that again.

Oh yeah. It zoomed right past "moving story dealing realistically with death" into I'm-only-supposed-to-feel-this-sad-at relatives'-funerals territory.

We have a standing argument about whether Buffy cracks Joyce's ribs when applying CPR in "The Body." Unfortunately, neither of us are psychologically ready to watch the episode again, so the argument remains ongoing while the DVD remains on the shelf.