Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Every Season Ranked Worst To Best

From the first vampire to the final battle.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
FOX

One of the most widely celebrated and beloved television shows of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran for 144 episodes across seven seasons between 1997 and 2003. Centred on Buffy Summers, a girl who discovers that she is the Chosen One destined to face vampires and evil, while all she wants to focus on is surviving high school. The premise turned out to be a recipe for success.

Joined by her friends Willow, Xander, Giles and others, Buffy battles the forces of darkness while managing to stay witty and find time to date a couple vampires she should really be slaying. The show is smartly written, often hilarious, yet also dramatic and tense when it needs to be.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer itself would vary in quality over the years, with different aspects of the show changing drastically throughout. From the amount of levity in a season, to how captivating the core plotline was, to how compelling the main villain (or Big Bad, as they were known) could be on screen.

Whatever it chose to be, Buffy was often trailblazing and unique in its approach, raising the bar for what genre storytelling could accomplish.

7. Season Six

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Mutant Enemy

It's not outright bad, but it isn't great either when compared to the rest of the show. Season Six was the darkest season of Buffy, mainly due to the focus on Buffy dealing with her post-resurrection depression. Her violent sexual encounters with Spike aren't exactly the heart-warming romances she had previously, and the resulting attempt of sexual assault by Spike is one of the more ugly moments of the show (whether it led to his later redemption or not).

The Trio are simply awful antagonists for the Scoobies to face, and they fail to generate either excitement or interest whenever they're on screen. Xander leaving Anya at the altar, Giles leaving the show as a core cast member, and a lack of general momentum are all moments that keep the season down and dreary.

If you hadn't been kept low enough, Tara is also killed by Warren which leads to the magic addicted Willow to become Dark Willow, killing humans and attempting to end the world. Sadly, Willow's turn is over as quickly as it began, leaving little room to take it all in.

The best thing about the season is it gave actors such as Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan and James Marsters strong dramatic material for them to work with.

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Opinionated pop-culture commentator who aspires to be a writer so people can opinionatedly comment on the pop-culture I put out.