A batch of episodes that aren’t fully terrible but are ultimately bogged down by boring or unnecessary content. Hence the disproportionate number of episodes from Buffy Season 7.
211. Shadow
Buffy Season 5, Episode 8
Written by David Fury
Directed by Daniel Attias
Part of this episode is compelling - Buffy’s Mom gets diagnosed with a brain tumour, and Buffy has trouble dealing. But then Glory summons a CGI snake monster with arms(!) and it becomes awful.
210. Get it Done
Buffy Season 7, Episode 15
Written and Directed by Douglas Petrie
After the First convinces a potential to kill herself, Buffy tells the others the dead girl was an idiot and maligns everyone for being useless. I get that she is frustrated, but no one wants to follow a sullen know-it-all. Then Buffy endangers everyone by jumping into a portal without considering the consequences. At least we learn about the “Shadow Men” and the misogynistic roots of Slayerdom.
209. Hells Bells
Buffy Season 6, Episode 16
Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Directed by David Solomon
Xander leaves Anya on their wedding day and it is totally cliché and poorly explained. It feels like the writers were tasked with making the characters miserable and worked backwards from there. A shame, because the first 2/3 of the episode are highly entertaining.
208. A New World
Angel Season 3, Episode 20
Written by Jeffrey Bell
Directed by Tim Minear
This episode confirms that haircuts in hell are terrible. Angel’s son Connor returns from a hell dimension and he is sullen and petulant and will remain so for most of the series. At least in this episode his character is intriguing. Also intriguing: Dark Wesley and Lilah. Gimme more of that.
207. Out of My Mind
Buffy Season 5, Episode 4
Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Directed by David Grossman
It’s hard to care about what happens in this episode. Riley acts like a whiny child because he needs a life-saving operation from the Initiative and Spike kidnaps the doctor to remove his chip…which ultimately doesn't happen. The only remotely interesting moment is when Joyce looks at Dawn and asks “who are you?” before collapsing.
206. Blood Money
Angel Season 2, Episode 12
Written by Shawn Ryan & Mere Smith
Directed R.D. Price
While it is delightful to see the return of Anne, who is now running a teen shelter, this episode is very “meh”. We already know Wolfram & Hart is evil, we don’t need a whole episode about how they try to steal money from homeless kids to get that point across. You can basically fast-forward to the moment that we learn Angel has a role to play in the upcoming apocalypse and be done with it.
205. First Date
Buffy Season 7, Episode 14
Written by Jane Espenson
Directed by David Grossman
This is one of those episodes that is actually better upon a re-watch. Once you accept that Ashanti is not the most dynamic guest star and that it is just another version of the Xander-falls-for-a-sexy-woman-who-turns-out-to-be-a-demon plot, you can just sit back and enjoy the humour.
204. Him
Buffy Season 7, Episode 6
Written by Drew Greenberg
Directed by Michael Gershman
This episode is hella problematic. But if you ignore that, and the fact that the jacket-that-makes-women-crazy makes no sense from a continuity standpoint, you can enjoy the hilarious montage of women doing ridiculous things to impress RJ. Buffy trying to kill principal Wood with a rocket launcher is elite stuff.
203. Older and Far Away
Buffy season 6, Episode 14
Written by Drew Greenberg
Directed by Michael Grossman
Dawn’s annoying is cranked up to 11 in this bottle episode. Being stuck in a house with her would be terrible because she has a penchant to make everything about her. “Oh, people stayed up all night hanging out with me, but I feel personally attacked when they have to leave in the morning to go live their lives". Or “Oh, a guy got stabbed in my house and he might be dying upstairs, why don’t I have a toddler-like temper tantrum?" Thankfully, this episode includes some nice Willow/Tara moments to balance out the whiny nonsense.
202. Slouching Toward Bethlehem
Angel Season 4, Episode 4
Written by Jeffrey Bell
Directed by Skip Schoolnik
I often forget about this episode, which tracks thematically. Cordelia abruptly returns from a higher dimension and doesn’t remember anything. The overwhelming focus on Cordelia's lack of memory gets boring fast. More scenes with Wesley and Lilah, please.
201. The Yoko Factor
Buffy Season 4, Episode 20
Written by Douglas Petrie
Directed by David Grossman
This episode is brought down by Adam (obviously) and Angel randomly showing up. If you didn’t watch the crossover episode, Angel’s appearance makes little sense. If you did watch “Sanctuary”, then Angel showing up cheapens the significance of his confrontation with Buffy, which did not require further closure. A misuse of crossover capabilities, I say.
200. Never Kill a Boy on the First Date
Buffy Season 1, Episode 5
Written by Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali
Directed by David Semel
It’s the episode featuring Owen as a love interest for Buffy. What? You don’t remember Owen at all? How shocking. But seriously, Buffy does a much better job examining the loneliness of being the Slayer in other episodes.
199. Killed by Death
Buffy Season 2, Episode 18
Written by Rob Des Hotel &
Dean Batali
Directed by Deran Serafian
I guess this is a decent horror episode about a Freddy Krueger-like demon who attacks children at a hospital. Problem is, it exists as a standalone episode during a pretty epic arc. It’s not a surprise that the best scene is the confrontation between Angelus and Xander at the hospital.
198. The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco
Angel Season 5, Episode 6
Written and Directed by Jeffrey Bell
Hard to care about the history of five random wrestling brothers, which takes up the A plot of the episode. All the good stuff – Angel questioning whether his heart is still in the fight, the significance of the Shanshu prophecy – exists in the margins.
197. Belonging
Angel Season 2, Episode 19
Written by Shawn Ryan
Directed by Turi Meyer
This episode can be summed up in three words: portals, portals, portals. A dimensional portal opens at Caritas, depositing a nasty Drokken demon, and Cordelia gets a vision of Fred disappearing into a different portal. And then Cordelia accidentally gets sucked through a third portal to Pylea (after an extended and unnecessary scene where she is in a bikini). Too many portals.
196. Gingerbread
Buffy Season 3, Episode 11
Written by Jane Espensen
Directed by James Whitmore Jr.
MOO is stupid. They have a dumb acronym and they burn people at the stake indoors.
195. Real Me
Buffy Season 5, Episode 2
Written by David Fury
Directed by David Grossman
Dawn is introduced and she is immediately annoying. Part of that is the script because Dawn is written like a 10 year-old even though she's supposed to be a teenager. She does make some amusing observations in her journal entries, though. Like the reference about Tara and Willow “doing witchcraft together”.
194. Into the Woods
Buffy Season 5, Episode 10
Written and Directed by Marti Noxon
Spike brings Buffy to a vampire brothel where she sees Riley choosing having his blood sucked by a female vampire. Romantic drama ensues. It all ends with Buffy watching Riley depart in an initiative helicopter. I would care more about this if their relationship hadn’t already fizzled out, and if Xander had not just given Buffy a truly annoying speech about how great Riley is.
193. Dead Man’s Party
Buffy Season 3, Episode 2
Written by Marti Noxon
Directed by James Whitmore Jr.
Everyone is mad at Buffy for leaving and they all confront her at her welcome home party in front of a bunch of strangers. Oh yeah, and the party is attacked by zombies and Buffy saves everyone yet again. In the end, everyone kind of sucks. Except for Giles. Giles is the best.
192. Showtime
Buffy Season 7, Episode 11
Written by David Fury
Directed by Michael Grossman
There is no question the Potentials bring down Buffy season 7. Rona arrives in this episode and all she does is complain about people trying to save her life. Less whining, more badass fights between Buffy and Uber-vamps, please.
191. The Ring
Angel Season 1, Episode 16
Written by Howard Gordon
Directed by Kick Marck
It's as predictable as you would imagine an episode about a demon fighting ring to be. Angel gets forced into the fighting ring, blah, blah, the demons eventually fight together against their captors, blah blah, happy ending.
190. Doomed
Buffy Season 4, Episode 11
Written by Jane Espenson, David Fury & Marti Noxon
Directed by James Contner
The most memorable part of this episode is Spike wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I try to forget the will-they-or-won’t-they of Buffy and Riley.
189. Revelations
Buffy Season 3, Episode 7
Written by Douglas Petrie
Directed by James Contner
The gang finds out that Buffy has been kissing Angel and hiding his return from them. Aside from a few understandable reactions to this - Giles saying “Angel tortured me for hours, and for pleasure” - the righteous anger is annoying. No one trusts Buffy even though she saves their lives over and over (especially Xander, who behaves like such an ass). And Faith shows herself to be extremely gullible, trusting her duplicitous Watcher and Xander over a fellow Slayer.
188. Sleeper
Buffy Season 7, Episode 8
Written by David Fury and Jane Espenson
Directed by Alan J. Levy
Spike is clearly killing people again, and Buffy decides not to kill him in order to, er, get to know the First? I’m not sure I see the logic in not killing Spike at this point, but I’ll forgive it because I want Spike around, too.
187. Sacrifice
Angel Season 4, Episode 20
Written by Ben Edlund
Directed by David Straiton
It’s hard to care about Jasmine. Therefore, it is hard to care about everyone rallying in the sewers trying to defeat Jasmine.
186. Soul Purpose
Angel Season 5, Episode 10
Written by Brent Fletcher and Elizabeth Craft
Directed by David Boreanaz
Angel experiences wonky hallucinations as part of Lindsay’s nefarious scheme. In other words, it’s mediocre.
185. Lonely Hearts
Angel Season 1, Episode 2
Written by David Fury
Directed by James Contner
A largely boring episode about loneliness in L.A. Too many scenes with the MOTW and not enough developing the main characters.
184. Wrecked
Buffy Season 6, Episode 10
Written by Marti Noxon
Directed by David Solomon
Magic as a metaphor for addiction = great in concept but not so great in execution. That said, the scenes with Willow are extremely moving. Alyson Hannigan is great in this episode, especially when she finally admits she needs help after nearly getting Dawn killed. It’s compelling stuff, even if the everything to do with Rack is whack.
183. Shiny Happy People
Angel Season 4, Episode 18
Written by Sarah Fain & Elizabeth Craft
Directed by Marita Grabiak
Gina Torres is wonderful but this episode is boorrrring. It mostly involves everyone worshiping her, resulting in far too many flowery speeches. Fred sees the real Jasmine toward the end of the episode, and things get more exciting. Unfortunately, it’s just too little too late.
182. End of Days
Buffy Season 7, Episode 21
Written by Jane Espenson and Douglas Petrie
Directed by Marita Grabiak
In the Buffy series penultimate episode, we meet a woman who is part of a secret female order she claims has been protecting Slayers forever. It is a retcon worthy of J.K. Rowling. After that out-of-the-blue info, the episode ends with Buffy kissing Angel while Spike watches from the shadows. Kind of feels like we are back to teen drama territory.
181. Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered
Buffy Season 2, Episode 16
Written by Marti Noxon
Directed by James Contner
Too many bizarre tonal shifts. On the one hand, we have Xander casting a spell causing all of the women in Sunnydale to obsessively love him. Cue amusing shenanigans and hoards of screaming women. But in the middle of that, we have Angelus preying on Buffy and her friends. It just doesn’t gel well.
180. The Bachelor Party
Angel Season 1, Episode 7
Written by Tracey Stern
Directed by David Straiton
Come for the "ritual of eating the first husband’s brains", stay for the nice moments between Doyle and Cordelia. It's unfortunate that Doyle’s limited screen time on the show diminishes the significance of these moments.
179. The Prodigal
Angel Season 1, Episode 15
Written by Tim Minear
Directed by Bruce Seth Green
Try as I might, I just don’t care about Kate, and I especially do not care about her relationship with her father. While it’s great to get more background on why Angel killed his family after he was newly sired, flashbacks are only so useful when the main plot is uninteresting.
178. Primeval
Buffy Season 4, Episode 21
Written by David Fury
Directed by James Contner
The writers did the best job they could ending the Initiative plot line. Adam is a terrible villain and the initiative is a nonsensical organization. But the gang using an enjoining spell to combine their abilities (and, uh, Xander’s enthusiasm) to defeat Adam is pretty cool.
177. That Old Gang of Mine
Angel Season 3, Episode 3
Written by Tim Minear
Directed by Fred Keller
On paper, Gunn’s old crew killing demons indiscriminately sounds terrible and preachy. Despite some bad dialogue that was undoubtedly written by white people, the episode mostly works because the personal stakes are so high after the the demon-hating crew target Lorne. This leads to a tense and riveting confrontation at Caritas and many personal revelations.
176. Peace Out
Angel Season 4, Episode 21
Written by David Fury
Directed by Jefferson Kibbee
The culmination of the Jasmine plot line poses a neat philosophical question: is world peace worth sacrificing free will? It's just regrettable that it took Evil Cordelia birthing a full-grown woman/maggot monster to pose it.
175. Weight of the World
Buffy Season 5, Episode 21
Written by Douglas Petrie
Directed by David Solomon
The focus on the gang trying to figure out how to defeat Glory is exciting. The other stuff about the one second when Buffy considered quitting is not. It’s as if the Buffy writers deliberately made a filler episode to delay the gratification of the finale.
174. Players
Angel Season 4, Episode 16
Written by Sarah Fain, Elizabeth Craft, and Jeffrey Bell
Directed by Michael Grossman