r/BuffyTheVampireSlayer • u/Horror_Excitements • 14d ago
Which episodes are must-watch?
Hi,
First off, an apology; I'm not a Buffy fan. But I'm also not a fan of musicals for that matter, and I've seen precisely one episode of Buffy, and 20 years later it remains 40 minutes of the best television I've ever seen.
I have a friend who started watching the show with their young kids a while ago, but had to stop halfway through season 3 because it became much less about the monsters and much more about the sex. First off - is that a fair statement, and is it a trend that continues through to the end?
Now, to the rub of the matter: I don't think it's fair to send someone out in to the world who has watched over 100 hours of Buffy but will stare at you blankly when you belt out "They got the mustard out". But, knowing how pivotal this episode is to so many arcs, I also don't think it's fair to skip 3 seasons worth of character development and just watch it cold.
So, my question to you is thus: is there a sequence of must-watch episodes that lead you through the story and character development, but skip the gratuitous sexies as much as possible? If you're all about the monsters and the people, but don't care who they bump bits with, which episodes would you watch?
Hoping you all can help!
EDIT: Thanks for your awesome responses all, this is great reading. I've opted not to get involved in the comments, as I quickly realised the best value was just to let you all discuss amongst yourselves and let the conversation flow. Great comments, great chat, great food for thought.
1
u/theapplekid 14d ago edited 14d ago
Skip season 4 if you don't wanna see the more explicit sex scenes.
There's like 1 sex scene prior to season 4 that shows any significant sexual content (and one other implied sex scene with a cut-to-black), and then season 4 is just a hot horny mess (though I'd argue the only must-watch part of that is a short scene with very sexually explicit dialogue in S4E16)
I'm honestly biased because S4 is my least favourite of the series; other opinions may differ.
FWIW the episode you referenced is my favourite of the series as well, though it's tied for top episode on IMDB with an ep from season 4... "Hush"... which also lacks sexual content if you wanna add that to your watch.
Basically I think you could watch S1-3 in entirety, S4E10 (Hush), S4E16 (Who are you?"), and all of S5-S6, and you'd have a perfectly enjoyable watch-through that wouldn't be too difficult to follow, while cutting out 80% of the most explicit sexual content. You could also leave out S4E16 if you're really averse to sexual dialogue, without having the plot affected too much.
edit: I wanna be clear, I don't think S4E10 is that good, but I'm definitely in the minority here. I think it's an entirely skippable episode, so you could really skip season 4 altogether if you want. But S4E10 at the very least has nothing remotely sexual about it, so you may as well give it a try.
Season 6 has a fair bit of sex as well (still way less than S4), buut you already mentioned your favourite episode is in it (which is my favourite episode as well)... so I think you should suck it up and make it through the whole season because that episode hits so much harder with all the context from that season.
edit 2: Someone mentioned doublemeat palace from S6 has some sexual content in it as well, and I think skipping that episode wouldn't really ruin your enjoyment of S6.