8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Excursion Into Heaven
This is a
spoiler for anyone who is still hoping to see a TV show that ended its run over ten years ago, so if you haven't made it to season six yet then you should skip to the next one. At the end of season five Buffy dies (again) to save the world (again), and at the beginning of season six her friends resurrect her by using a complex spell, because the show was going to be on for another two seasons. Willow and the rest of the gang think they are doing Buffy a big solid by bringing her back from hell, but it turns out that Buffy was actually in heaven during her latest venture into the afterlife. But we only get that information after she emotionally confesses it to Spike, and we never actually see what heaven is like in the Whedonverse. The realities of a TV show budget probably played a role in this, but the biggest reason for not showing the audience what heaven was like for Buffy was probably that any depiction of actual paradise is going to be disappointing (see the end of
This is the End for proof). Also, Buffy's description of heaven as a peaceful and serene place gave you enough detail to realize that her return to her constantly hectic life as the slayer was going to be a difficult transition. So it was, "Point made, time to move on."