hello! I started watching Buffy last summer but lost steam in season 5. I'm wanting to pick it back up again but I don't really want to start from the beginning. Is there a way to find which episodes contain mostly overarching plot so I can re-familiarize myself with the show/skip some of the filler episodes? Like I know the X-Files wiki denotes which episodes are for the show's overall mythology, but I wasn't sure if there's a Buffy wiki that does the same thing. Love your tswift blog btw!
I don’t believe there’s a list but here’s my list of important episodes prior to season five:
“Angel,” 1.07
“Prophecy Girl,” 1.12
“Surprise,” + “Innocence” 2.13 & 2.14 (a two parter)
“Passion” 2.17
“Becoming: Part 1 & 2,″ 2.21 & 2.22 (a two parter)
“Faith, Hope & Trick” 3.03
“Amends,” 3.10
“Enemies,” 3.17
“Graduation Day: Part 1 & 2,″ 3.21 & 3.22 (a two parter)
“The Freshman,” 4.01
“The Initiative,” 4.07
“Who Are You?” 4.16
“Restless,” 4.22
There are at least a handful of other episodes I could have included, but these are the more *pivotal* episodes leading up to season five. I understand not wanting to restart, but Buffy is a very layered show, and I strongly recommend restarting it. There’s a lot of episodes I didn’t list that are extremely important to understanding Buffy as a character, even if there weren’t any HUGE moments in them, like 2.01, 2.07, 3.01, 3.04, 3.14, 3.18, 3.20, 4.15... etc/etc. It really isn’t a kind of show that you can just randomly sit down and watch, even if there are some fun one-off episodes.
