And while I'm glad he included Surprise...how is Becoming I/II an also ran?
Buffy ,'Get It Done'
Buffy and Angel 1: BUFFYNANGLE4EVA!!!!!1!
Is it better the second time around? Or the third? Or tenth? This is the place to come when you have a burning desire to talk about an old episode that was just re-run.
What? A top 10 without Hush or The Body? Nope. A few more of my personal faves that didn't make that list:
- New Moon Rising
- The Wish
- The Prom
A top 10 without Hush or The Body?
Seriously.
Also Graduation Day 1&2 and Pangs
I haven't seen "New Moon Rising" in awhile. time for a rewatch!
Have we ever done a poll of our Top 10? I wonder how many people would vote for which.
Have we ever done a poll of our Top 10? I wonder how many people would vote for which.
I feel certain there was a deathmatch at some point. Damned if I can remember the results.
As the comments note, it's not a Top Ten, but a Ten Most Representative Episodes.
Ten Most Representative Episodes.
I'm still pretty sure Hush and The Body should be on there. Cheat and call Surprise/Innocence a single ep if you have to.
(And take out...I dunno, The Zeppo probably. As much as I love it, it doesn't touch those two.)
I think the author has a point for leaving out "The Body." The exercise is to pick the 10 episodes that will give the newbie the best idea of what the series as a whole is about. As pitch perfect as "The Body" is, a lot of the punch depends on context. Joyce was just starting to date again after surviving a life-threatening illness. Buffy had just put Riley behind her for good (or so she thought). Things were starting to come together -- and Joyce dies in the blink of an eye. The newbie won't have that context. And also won't have Anya's demon background, which adds an extra dimension to the fruit punch speech.
Looking at it from that angle, they almost have to include a non-Buffy-centric episode. "The Zeppo" fills that niche nicely, but other episodes (Dark Willow, maybe?) could do the same.
He basically said as much in his comments on Once More with Feeling. He also mentioned Hush, but I don't know why he didn't have it on the list over, say, Earshot, which was never one of my favorites.