Buffy The Vampire Slayer Vs. Angel: Which Show Is Better?
7. Antagonists
Both Buffy and Angel rely heavily on their villains, who come in two forms: One is the Big Bad of the season, the final force of evil they must face; the other is the monster of the week, the one-off baddie who comes onto the screen to wreak havoc for an hour, only to be dead by its end.
Angel follows this pattern more loosely, its Big Bad spreading across all five seasons. For Angel and his friends, that overarching villain is the shady law firm Wolfram & Hart, which represents all the evil in the underworld and seems to have a plan for the Apocalypse.
Over on Buffy, the Big Bads change every year, peaking with a vile, de-souled Angel in season two, soaring with season three's Mayor Wilkins and five's sassy god Glory, and hitting an all-time low with season four's Frankenstein homage, Adam.
The monster of the week side of things is an easy Buffy victory, since the show basically invented and perfected the practice from day one, and Angel often went episodes without having a one-off creature to face. Buffy, then, wins on both fronts, but Angel's law firm deserves heaps of credit for its daring.
Winner: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.