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There’s no question in my mind that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the most significant fantasy shows ever created. It’s influence on science-fiction and fantasy programming in the fourteen years since it first arrived on our screens – the blend of Monsters-of-the-Week and seasonal arcs, the juxtaposition of the supernatural and the mundane, and the use of horror tropes as metaphors for life, can be seen underpinning everything from Doctor Who to True Blood. In fact it paved the way for so much great stuff that it’s easy to forget that at its best, this show was right up there among the very best. Here are my choices for the ten best episodes of Buffy.

10. Fool For Love
Fool For Love is, in many ways, my perfect Buffy episode. Every element that makes the show great – humour, drama, romance, revealing back-story, crisp dialogue, stylish editing, great acting – is here in abundance. The layered discovery of Spike’s life and death and life is handled brilliantly, and the episode speaks intelligently about the darker side of Buffy’s character.

9. Becoming
To an extent, Becoming is on this list for legacy reasons. Back when the show was still running, especially in the days of the early seasons, this was the episode. A heartbreaking end to the brilliant second season, Becoming was, for a long time, considered the pinnacle of the show. These days, its sheen has been lost a little, especially as we now know that everything kinda turned out okay for everyone, though I can’t deny it’s a well-crafted piece of television.

8. Amends
A criminally underrated episode, Amends was, in my opinion, the show’s best treatise on the nature of good and evil. While his own series would go on to cover the subject in greater detail, Angel’s struggle to accept his rebirth, and his unexpected and unexplained salvation provided a thoughtful and moving surprise in the middle of an action-packed season.

7. Restless
While season four is rightly considered the show’s weakest, it did provide us with two outstanding episodes. Of Hush, we will discuss more later, but at number seven on my list is the season finale. This surreal episode marks the show’s turning point, as it moved from a very well-executed urban fantasy drama series to something more creative, more thoughtful, and more surprising than pretty much anything else on television. Every time you watch it, you’ll notice something new - some new clue to the forthcoming season or a new insight into the four main characters.

6. The Wish
Without question, The Wish is one of the most fun episodes of the show. The episode which introduced us to Anya takes place in an alternate reality, and this allows the writers to explore a number of fascinating what-ifs: we see our first glance of Dark Willow, a Buffy with Faith-style attitude, and pretty much every major character getting killed in the violent final showdown.

5. Passion
While Becoming was generally seen as the shining moment of early Buffy, it is Passion which has best stood the test of time. The episode still contains one of the show’s darkest scenes, as Giles returns home to find rose petals strewn across the hallway leading to his bedroom and Puccini playing on his stereo. Jenny was the first major character to be killed off, but this episode was more than just a milestone – even looking back with older eyes, the discovery of her body was shocking and brilliant.

4. Hush
It is impossible to talk about the show’s best eps without mention of Hush. The scariest, most chilling episode of the show, with its fairytale villains and its forced cardiectomies, Hush is of course best known as the one with no dialogue (or at least very limited dialogue). To create a 42-minute television episode with virtually no lines is impressive, but to create one this good staggers belief. And this is no gimmick episode. The lack of spoken word is used to show how language can be used as barrier, as a tool to keep other people away – it’s no coincidence that this is the episode in which Buffy and Riley share their first kiss, and also the episode in which they each learn of the other’s secret life.

3. The Gift
The 100th episode of the show, and originally planned as a potential final episode, The Gift is one of the most emotionally powerful, well-constructed season finales ever made. The episode contains more great moments than I can list, but my own favourite is Spike’s conversation with Buffy at her home, moments before the episode’s final battle, a small moment of quiet acceptance before an epic finale that really felt like the end of the world. The Gift epitomised the heart of the show, with top-tier performances from all of the cast, and an ending that surely had the entire audience in tears.

2. The Body
This is the episode you show people. Those annoying, supercilious people who say, “Buffy? Really? You like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” Those people who are happy to condemn a piece of creative work without seeing it based purely on preconceptions. This is the episode you show them, because it is surely impossible to watch The Body and not accept it as being a masterpiece. Anyone who has experienced the death of a family member will recognise every scene of this episode – the feelings of helplessness, and of anger, and that heartbreaking inability to understand why things can’t just go back to how they were before. I’ve never seen death treated so honestly and so artfully on a television programme before, and I never have since. This is not just the most accomplished hour of television in the show’s history, but one of the most significant pieces of television in the past 15 years.

1. Once More, With Feeling
Of course, there was only ever going to be one choice. It may not have the technical brilliance of Hush, or the artistry of The Body, neither the grandiosity of The Gift nor the philosophical weight of Amends, but it stands alone, regardless, as the greatest episode of one of the greatest TV shows ever made.

The Body is, as I’ve stated already, probably the best piece of work in Buffy’s 144 episode history, but ‘OMWF’ is the greatest episode. Confused? Don’t be. Television is, ultimately, there to be watched. And this episode is just so damn watchable. Much of this is, naturally, down to the music – so varied, so catchy, and most of all so apt. Joss and the team inject humour, pathos, excitement and irony in just the right amount and in just the right places. Comedic moments such as Anya cutting into I’ve Got A Theory with her Bunnies interlude, or Giles ordering two of the Scoobies to provide backup fit as seamlessly into the episode as the sublime revelation of Buffy’s afterlife. And it’s the reveal, along with the Hollywood-style kiss at the finale, which really makes the episode. Every time I reach the end of Once More With Feeling, I’m filled with this thirst to watch it again, right away. Try doing that with The Body.

You can see Buffy from the beginning every weekday at 6pm on Syfy.

Written by Nim Thanigasapapathy

Okay, admissions first: I work for Syfy, and not in a particularly creative role – I’m Research Manager, which means it’s my job to tell them to pull anything good if it doesn’t get the ratings. I am also a massive sci-fi/fantasy geek though, so don’t judge me too harshly.

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