Kathy here's a link. The list doesn't necessarily speak for me, but the essay above it sure does.

Great essay.

My first episode was The Pack. I have a vivid memory of turning the channel and hearing an English guy say something like, "So Xander is dressing differently and treating his old friends unkindly. Sounds like an ordinary teenager."

Within three weeks I was hooked, and haven't missed an episode since. Oy. Long time.

Thanks! I definitely don't agree with that list, but the essay is great.

I'll have to debate my own list (maybe assemble it later this summer), but offhand, along with the usual top eps (OMwF, Hush, etc.), I'd put Band Candy pretty high up on my list. After three seasons of somewhat unattached viewing (enough to follow the storyline, but not enough to make it Must See TV), Band Candy made me really fall in love with the show. I don't know why, but the goofiness combined with the fun character revealing moments among those adults we didn't get to see much of (I'm including Snyder in with Joyce and Giles, here) really had me enjoying this ep tremendously. The next ep I happened to catch was The Wish, which was a completely different style, but equally engaging.

I loved the essay. I agree with the fact that there has not been a bad episode of Buffy ever. I believe there has not been a bad episode of ME television ever.

Quality control folks, it's in Joss Whedon's blood.

there has not been a bad episode of Buffy ever

Puppet Show.
The Weight of the World.
Into the Woods.
As You Were.

Non-spoilery sum-up of the series from the Chicago Tribune (registration required--use "salon/tabletalk"). You can follow the links in the right sidebar to a photo gallery and interviews with fans at the convention a few weeks back. There is an article about what to watch on Tuesday from the TV columnist, as well, but it has a vaguely spoiler-y last paragraph, so I'll just repost it below with judicious editing:

'Buffy' was the perfect metaphor for teen life

By Steve Johnson, May 20, 2003

Granted, the final "American Idol" sing-off is tonight, pitting teddy bear Ruben Studdard against Gummi Bear Clay Aiken.

But the evening's TV event is the sign-off of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," one of the most improbable pop-culture phenomena of recent times.

It only got a chance back in 1997 because a new network, WB, needed something distinctive, and it was desperate enough to gamble on a TV remake of what had been a very feeble B-movie. The writer of that movie, Joss Whedon, turned out to have a lot more to say than what was suggested by the fluff that ended up onscreen.

His vision was for an almost hallucinogenic amalgam of pop-culture savvy, girl empowerment, high-kicking martial arts and teenage allegory, featuring, smartly, a high school that was also the "hellmouth," a sort of Ellis Island for the undead.

Amazingly, it worked. Buffy, the California teenager reluctantly chosen as "the slayer," the one to fight evil as it tried to overrun Earth, was a perfect metaphor for every teen's conflicting feelings of specialness and isolation.

And Whedon was lucky enough to find the perfect lead in Sarah Michelle Gellar, an actress who looked like a dime-a-dozen bottle-blond but had the smarts to reel off Whedon's hyperconscious dialogue and the brass to vaporize demons.

[Edited example of a quote from the finale]

The series has had its ups and downs, including the big down of moving to UPN in a narrow-eyed financial decision by WB. (It didn't want to pay a premium price for the show.) But there have been many more ups, including a transcendent all-musical episode.

And Tuesday's farewell (7 p.m., WPWR-Ch. 50) counts as one of them....[edited]

I know Allyson will deathmatch you over As You Were (or at least, liked it a lot).

I LIKE the Puppet show.

I personally can't think of an ME episode that there wasn't at least a redeeming moment, although I might need the chance to rewatch if people are going to challenge that remark.

And, yes, I would re-watch Doublemeat Palace except for the part where I know what I liked there.

ETA - on that Chicago Tribune article: DRU as one of the not-liked characters. Somebody needs a spanking when daddy gets here!

I've been on record since the day it aired about my As You Were hatred. Don't threaten me with Allyson -- I love her to bits, but she isn't going to change my mind on that one.

And I actually liked DMP too.

A decent, mostly spoiler-free article from the San Francisco Chronicle--my favorite paragraph is:

Just briefly about [the show's title]: The title may have deterred people from watching. But that title also meant that people had to look beyond it, not to judge the show on its face, to open their minds to possibility. Most television works very hard to keep viewers' minds closed, to provide tried-and-true laughs for weary working folk who need it and to foist upon us cookie-cutter familiarity that allows us to know that the cops will catch the criminals and, when the world gets a little too weird, that someone like Jessica Fletcher will be there to put the world to right.

WARNING!!—third to last paragraph has a spoiler-y quote from the finale in it—you might want to stop reading at the “So how does one conclude…” paragraph.

Article here.

I did not hate As You Were, but that's largely because of the "My hat has a cow on it" line. Also, if you watch S4 all at once and come in at the middle of S5 and watch everything out of order, the Riley arc doesn't suck as much.