Josh and I finished watching the ENTIRE seasons of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off show Angel last night.
Watching every episode of both shows is no small accomplishment. The Buffy set contains 40 DVD discs. FORTY. The Angel series contains 30 discs. That’s a total of 70 discs we’ve been through. Josh could probably tell you when we began watching, all I can say is that it’s been a long time. It’s what we do after the kids go to bed.
In terms of episodes, there were 145 Buffy episodes, 111 Angel episodes. That makes 256 total episodes, mostly 43-ish minutes long (they aired in an hour-long time slot). That’s a lot of TV.
When Josh first suggested watching these, I thought for sure he was kidding. It sounded so cheesy to me. These shows aired on the WB, right? Right. Josh had read reviews that these shows were actually good, critically acclaimed even. I trust Josh, so I gave them a try.
It took a few episodes to get into Buffy – the premise, the actors, the style of the show, but I quickly found it wasn’t awful. It was entertaining. As we got into it more and more, I found an appreciation of the writing and acting, the story. It’s truly unique.
Angel was a character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer – a very popular character, mind you. I’m sure that’s why Angel was so successful as a spin-off show. I found that being familiar with Buffy made Angel enjoyable from the very first episode.
The creator of both shows, Joss Whedon, has written/produced/directed so many projects in Hollywood. The link will take you to his IMDB page. I found dude to be a creative genius. You can just sense his quirkiness and awesome sense of humor through the characters and dialogue.
In the end, we’d watched so many episodes, I was ready to be done with the shows, but I am glad I watched them. I think it’s safe to say that Josh enjoyed the shows more than me. I’ll get him to post his recap for the he said/she said analysis.
Have any of you watched either or both of these series? Please comment if you have! Chime in and be a part of the discussion: what did you think? Favorite show? Waste of time? We’d love to hear from you.
Here is my opinion: Buffy is the best. Angel is also very good. The end.
I love hearing other people’s first impressions right after they’ve watched the entire series.
Buffy is my favorite show of all time and I think it’s the best thing ever made for TV. Angel follows closely. :)
Buffy is by far my favorite show. The first episode I ever saw was a re-run of “Beauty and the Beasts” then every week until “Graduation Day pt2.” At first It was just amusing but as I kept watching I discovered the show had richly textured and complex characters and themes, which was what hooked me. All around Buffy it’s a tv show I always recommend.
Jessie….just wanted to say …thanks for doing this blog as I just had to create one for my state library internet course. I really goofed on the address…didn’t put a dot after www and there is another blog with the ….
Anyway, no comments about your shows but I was glad I at least had some knowledge about what a blog was and wouldn’t have known anything if I hadn’t read yours.
Go to wwwlinesfromthelibrary.blogspot.com and you can see pictures of my school kids…one is on the bottom.
Thanks for the warning about the episode ALL about the ventriloquist dummy. Only to follow the episode about nightmares INCLUDING clowns.
Yep, that was a treat to watch at night… alone… in my apartment.