BtVS Weekly Group Rewatch

Currently rewatching Season 3

[btvs-weekly-group-rewatch]

Season 3 Rewatch Schedule (Part 1)

The weekly group rewatch will resume at the end of May.

Starting on Tuesday May 26, we’ll be watching the first ten episodes of the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As before, we’ll be watching one episode each week, at the exact same pace that the show originally aired back in 1998. Whenever a week passed with no Buffy episode twenty-eight years ago, we'll take a break as well.

The planned schedule for these first ten episodes is:

May 26: Anne [originally aired September 29 1998]

June 2: Dead Man's Party [originally aired October 6 1998]

June 9: Faith, Hope & Trick [originally aired October 13 1998]

June 16: Beauty & The Beasts [originally aired October 20 1998]

June 23: [break // no new episode this week]

June 30: Homecoming [originally aired November 3 1998]

July 7: Band Candy [originally aired November 10 1998]

July 14: Revelations [originally aired November 17 1998]

July 21: Lovers Walk [originally aired November 24 1998]

July 28: [break // no new episode this week]

August 4: The Wish [originally aired December 8 1998]

August 11: Amends [originally aired December 15 1998]

You are very welcome to join in with the Season 3 rewatch, whether or not you were following along with the rewatch before now. There is no obligation to rewatch or to comment on every episode (or to go back and watch earlier episodes from previous seasons), but this is a rewatch and not something I'd recommend for first-time viewers of the show. There will be spoilers and there will not be explicit spoiler warnings.

A few more details below the cut.

As of now there are no plans to watch the episodes live as a group (but if you want to organize something like that yourself you're free to do so). Instead, you should think of the official “airing” of the episode (Tuesday at 8pm ET (UTC -5)) as the deadline we all agree to wait for until we start talking about the next episode. Once an episode “airs”, everybody is free to share their thoughts about it (and, remember, these thoughts can include spoilers for upcoming episodes). In practice, most people seem to wait a day or two before posting but you can post sooner (or wait longer) than that if you want to.

Remember as ever to tag your posts as #btvs-weekly-group-rewatch so that other people can find them. Please don’t post about an episode in the group rewatch tag until after that episode has aired. If that isn’t clear, or if you have any further questions about how this works, check here or send me an ask.

If, for any reason, the schedule at the top of this post ever changes then I will make a new post to announce this change (and also edit this post).

[clarkgriffon]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER ➤ Episode Roulette 3x03 | Faith, Hope, & Trick

[buffygifs]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 3.03 | "Faith, Hope & Trick"

[btvs-weekly-group-rewatch]

S3E03 | Faith, Hope & Trick

Did you rewatch this episode this week? What did you think of it? Was it better or worse than you remembered?

Please only vote in this week’s poll after you’ve rewatched the episode (if you’re planning to rewatch it).

What did you think of S3E03?

5 stars - this episode was very good

4 stars - this episode was good

3 stars - this episode was okay

2 stars - this episode was bad

1 star - this episode was very bad

I didn't (and don't plan to) rewatch this episode

Remaining time: 1 day 1 hour

If you did rewatch the episode this week, and you want to join in the discussion, please remember to tag your posts as #btvs-weekly-group-rewatch so that other people can find them.

[winchestress]

[lesbvffy]

BTVS: dead man's party (3.02)

[mikimeiko]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 3x02. Dead Man's Party

[btvs-weekly-group-rewatch]

S3E02 | Dead Man's Party

Did you rewatch this episode this week? What did you think of it? Was it better or worse than you remembered?

Please only vote in this week’s poll after you’ve rewatched the episode (if you’re planning to rewatch it).

What did you think of S3E02?

5 stars - this episode was very good

4 stars - this episode was good

3 stars - this episode was okay

2 stars - this episode was bad

1 star - this episode was very bad

I didn't (and don't plan to) rewatch this episode

Voting ended onJun 10

If you did rewatch the episode this week, and you want to join in the discussion, please remember to tag your posts as #btvs-weekly-group-rewatch so that other people can find them.

[mikimeiko]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 3x01. Anne

[lesbvffy]

anne (3.01)

[loisfreakinglane]

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER // 3.01 "Anne"

[btvs-weekly-group-rewatch]

S3E01 | Anne

Did you rewatch this episode this week? What did you think of it? Was it better or worse than you remembered?

Please only vote in this week’s poll after you’ve rewatched the episode (if you’re planning to rewatch it).

What did you think of S3E01?

5 stars - this episode was very good

4 stars - this episode was good

3 stars - this episode was okay

2 stars - this episode was bad

1 star - this episode was very bad

I didn't (and don't plan to) rewatch this episode

Voting ended onJun 3

If you did rewatch the episode this week, and you want to join in the discussion, please remember to tag your posts as #btvs-weekly-group-rewatch so that other people can find them.

[btvs-weekly-group-rewatch]

Buffy Rewatch: Season 3

Reminder that we'll be starting the weekly group rewatch of the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer this coming Tuesday. Check the pinned post for the full timetable.

We've been running weekly polls, asking people to score the most recently rewatched episode from one to five stars, for two seasons now. So I thought it might be worth checking to see what the group consensus was for the show's best episodes so far (based on average score).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the top 10 contains only one Season 1 episode. A little more surprisingly, there's no space on this list for fan favorite episode I Only Have Eyes For You (which only made it to position 11).

S2E22: Becoming (Part 2)

S1E12: Prophecy Girl

S2E14: Innocence

S2E17: Passion

S2E03: School Hard

S2E12: Surprise

S2E21: Becoming (Part 1)

S2E07: Lie To Me

S2E10: What's My Line? (Part 2)

S2E06: Halloween

The average score for Becoming (Part 2) was 4.77, just beating out Prophecy Girl at 4.74. The average score for tenth place Halloween was 4.25, making that the minimum average score needed to break in to the top ten.

The top seven episodes were the only ones that a proper majority of people gave a 5/5 score to (exactly 50% of people responding to the poll gave Lie To Me a perfect score; no other episode had as many as 50% of people give it a perfect score, though I Only Have Eyes For You came closest with 48.8%).

No real surprises at the bottom of the list either.

The group's least favorite episodes include Go Fish, The Pack and perennial fan unfavorite Bad Eggs (this was the only episode which more than 50% of people answering the poll gave a 3/5 score to, making it the most overwhelmingly "it was okay" episode so far). The least popular season one episode was Teacher's Pet (with an average score of 2.85) and the least favorite episode of all was Inca Mummy Girl (with an average score of 2.59).

[btvs-weekly-group-rewatch]

Wait, season 3 wasn't released in order? That's kind of insane (and giving me war flashbacks from mlb), how have I never heard of this? Anyways, to me it kinda feels like we should watch it in release order, no? Isn't the point to rewatch the series through the eyes of a viewer at the time?

(however I don't know what that order is. Maybe it really is completely ludicrous. Just wantee to share my uniformed opinion, hope that's ok!)

Sorry for the slow reply: I meant to answer this sooner but real life intervened.

Yes, technically season 3 wasn't released in the intended order when the show first aired (at least in the USA). That wasn't an artistic decision though: it was something imposed by the network at more or less the last minute.

Two episodes towards the end of Season 3 -- S3E17 Earshot and the season finale S3E22 Graduation Day (Part 2) -- ended up getting pulled just before they aired in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shooting. Earshot was meant to air on April 27 (barely a week after the shooting), while Graduation Day (Part 2) was meant to air on May 25 (a week after a copycat school shooting in Georgia). Instead, Graduation Day (Part 2) ended up airing on July 13 (at least in the US; I think it aired on the intended date in Canada) while Earshot wouldn't make it to the screen until September 21.

There are a couple of reasons I'd rather avoid following this order, but the more prosaic is that it would require us to skip Earshot until after finishing the rest of the season, which I think is maybe a bit much.

[mikimeiko]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 (1997-98) | B-sides

[btvs-weekly-group-rewatch]

Season 3

Tentative plan is to start the Season 3 rewatch late next month, on Tuesday May 26.

That means that -- even though we've given up the idea of watching each episode on the anniversary of the day it first aired -- we'd be picking up a week (and 28 years) after Becoming (Part 2) first aired. But hopefully we'd have time to finish all of Season 3 within this calendar year. (And for clarity we'll be watching this season in the intended order, not the order the episodes actually aired in 1998/99.)

If you have any strong objections to this, or suggestions for starting sooner or later, please let me know.

[mikimeiko]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Scooby Trio in every episode | Season 2 - Part 2