Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Ranking Every Season From Worst To Best
1. Season 2
Why It Was Great
Like with Season 3, Buffy's second season sees the show firing on all cylinders. After a solid but patchy first season, it rounds off those rough edges to fully become the show it promised.
Willow meets Oz, Xander starts dating Cordelia, Buffy sleeps with Angel and unleashes Angelus, the most captivating and purely terrifying villain the show has produced, painting the show's greatest romance with tragedy. It gave us Spike with a roaring introduction, and Drusilla by his side. It was intense, it got dark, and it was super emotional, but it also had a lot of fun, humour, and heart.
The side characters were more far more developed, the actors settled into their roles, bringing new notes to them, and having an easy chemistry with each other. The writing and direction was much improved, and it laid the foundations for Season 3 while building towards its own beautiful two-part finale. Season 3 was Buffy at its most consistent, but Season 2 saw Buffy at its absolute best.
Why It Wasn't
There is a small element of the show still figuring things out a bit here, which means that there are occasional filler episodes - Bad Eggs, Killed By Death, to name two examples - that, while not necessarily terrible, are completely forgettable. But when you've got that Angelus arc and the introduction of Spike and that finale, who really cares?
Best Episode: Becoming Parts 1&2 (S2 E21/22)
Agree with this list? Share your own season rankings down in the comments.