Started watching at S1. (Sort of).

Buffy, 3,6,5,2,4,1,7. Two and four are interchangeable depending on which way the wind's blowing.

Angel, 2,4,3,1. I'll reserve judgement till five is over. Three ranks above one simply because there were a couple of awful, just awful episodes there.

Ah, it's the breakdown of the bicameral mind, as this is the point we finally differ at Cindy.

I think if I had started watching in season 1, there's a chance my order would be more like yours Matt, or at least, the people I know who watched from the beginning, but respond the same way I do, to the same things in both shows, have lists that look more like yours.

Not only am I incapable of making a list that combines and ranks BtVS and Angel, I get dizzy reading the lists of those who did combine them. Of course, in my head, season 4 of BtVS is Season 1 of Angel. In other words, when I try, I end up thinking in terms of a 'verse list, in which there have only been a total of eight seasons. Must try that later in the day.

If Angel S2 had stopped one episode before Pylea, I'd call it my favourite season of TV ever.

Oh yeah.

S7 BtVS (So much potential... sigh.)

Every single ad ever aired during BtVS and AtS, including the ones for feminine products.

S5 BtVS.

COMM! (even though we disagree, that was hysterical)

Even though S7 makes me more angry.

That's the thing that makes me cut 5 more slack. Season 7 makes me angry because of where it could have gone, and because it followed 6, and should have given us back our Buffy, but in so many ways, it didn't. I do think 5 and 7 had the exact same kinds of problems in terms of wasted potential, but because 5 didn't have the SiTs, I deal better.

Once there's nothing on TV but The Swan and whatever it spawns, the Buffistas should have a group project, and rewrite 5 through 7. I would want some rules: same outcomes, same major developments (deaths, couplings, uncouplings, and big bads), but tell the story in a better way, one that supports both the premises introduced at the beginnings of the season.

eta...

The Angel NAFDA thread has finally surpassed the Buffy thread in posts. I've been watching for the day. Sometimes BtVS was a whole thread (maybe even 2) ahead of A:ts. It took A:ts 18 episodes to surpass BtVS.

Right now Angel 4 has 7829 posts, and BtVS 4 has 7692. It looks like Angel 4 caught up—the two threads first were tied at 7667 posts with this A:ts post (warning, Angel is NAFDA) at tommyrot "Angel 4: Well, It's a Start." Apr 21, 2004 6:53:59 pm PDT at 6:53:59 pm PDT.

Buffy will diminish, and go into the West, and remain just a girl. Or something.

I like season 5 of Buffy. Heck, I like Glory. I was actually really surprised to find how many people don't like it here. And I don't like season 6 at all. I guess my hardcore status is lacking, but ...

It's not the quality of season 6, magic!crack aside, it's the depression levels. I'm just not into that much badness happening to characters I like. It just gets gratuitous. Tara's death being a prime example.

Now season 7 dislike, that's about the quality.

Season 3 took my favorite fictional platonic relationship EVAH and turned it into an ill-conceived romantic one that had less convincing chemistry than the real life pairing of Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, in the process making me loathe one of my three favorite fictional characters and seriously diminishing the affection I felt for a second.

Word. I find some of their great moments together are now tainted on rewatch. Like the bit in Dead End where Angel buys Cordy all different kind of food because he can't remember what she likes. And the classic "Oh, I'll kill you dead."

I think Cordelia/Angel could have worked had Greenwalt been gone. I think there was a lot of shorthand and telling us there were feelings. I think they could have built a believable romance between them, but the show was sort of rudderless. I don't think it's a relationship I would have chosen, but that has more to do with Angel's stated reasons for leaving Buffy. I think they could have written those away and made it believable and workable.

I think Cordelia/Angel could have worked had Greenwalt been gone.

NO! Bfyy (sic) NAngle 4EVAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

I didn't see much that *needed* forgiving.

I think I agree with Matt - my problem with season 4 was the residual bitterness over what they did to Cordy. I LIKED her turning into the bad guy, and I thought ConCord was wonderfully wrong (and put a stake in A/C - Angel's mystical happy aside, which I also thought worked), but the early parts of the season were hard to take with Angel going on about his lost love.

I think trying to get Angel and Cordy together was a bigger error than the Magic=Crack of BtVS 6. And the fact that they had to basically de-snark Cordy in the process was salt in the wound.

I think they did explore it from "Shiny Happy People" through "Home".

Oh, I agree with you in general, but I meant Jasmine's motivation, specifically. Because up until then, we saw her as the villain because she was, she was eating people all the time. But in "Peace Out," it was so interesting to hear her defend herself, and I suddenly wasn't sure whether she had actually been evil to begin with.

but the early parts of the season were hard to take with Angel going on about his lost love.

I think trying to get Angel and Cordy together was a bigger error than the Magic=Crack of BtVS 6. And the fact that they had to basically de-snark Cordy in the process was salt in the wound.

I think it suffered far more because they cheated and took shortcuts, and told us too much, than because it was an impossible pairing. It could have been possible, but it was never given a believable foundation, and the execution was spotty and poor.

I'm having flashbacks to watching Cordy and Angel go at it in Waiting in the Wings.

Make it stop! Make it stop!

So, what's the consensus on last night's Angel? I'm dying to see it, and I keep looking longingly at the Angel thread. But I'll remain strong.