In Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Big Bad is defeated because Xander insists on following Buffy when she goes to fight the Master. He is thus able to resuscitate her after she drowns, which Angel (representing Buffy’s emotional link to the supernatural world) explicitly could not have done. This illustrates one of the big themes of this season: the idea that Buffy’s connections to the ordinary world and to the people in it who love her are not a weakness but in fact a source of great strength. Contrary to her mentor’s insistence earlier in the season that she should focus on Slaying above any and all other interests, she is ultimately able to save the world precisely because she is still a part of it.
In Season 2 the Big Bad is defeated because, on the one hand, Spike does think his love for Drusilla is more important than the fate of the world (and so he is willing to betray her and work against her plans because of his own feelings of jealousy) and, on the other hand, Buffy does not think her love for Angel is more important than the fate of the world (and so she is able to send Angel to hell even after his soul is restored). This illustrates one of the key themes of the second season: the idea that romantic love should not be something that you allow to control you, however tempting that might be and however much it might hurt not to. While Angelus and the Judge both argue that ‘passion’ is what makes us who we are, the show itself suggests that to allow yourself to be ruled by passion is to become something not quite fully human.
In Season 3 the Big Bad is defeated because, a few episodes before the finale and against all reasonable odds, the Mayor just so happens to contact an old acquaintance of Giles when looking for help in getting Angel’s soul removed, and this acquaintance passes the information on to Giles. This entirely unexpected coincidence, this stroke of astronomical bad luck for the Mayor, directly leads to both the failure of his current plan and to Faith unwittingly letting slip crucial details of the Ascension to Buffy ahead of Graduation Day, a mistake which ultimately allows Buffy and her friends to research, prepare for and prevent it. And this in turn illustrates what I can only assume is intended to be the central theme of the third season: which is that proper vetting and background checks are of vital importance when recruiting private contractors to work for local government.
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