Top 10: Buffy/Angel Characters

       One thing Joss Whedon is exceptionally good at is character development and writing.  So to celebrate that I wanted to dive into his characters, so I broke it down to his longest running series, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and its spin-off Angel.  Before we begin I want to start with a Spoiler Warning, since these characters developed over years and some are tied to major plot points I don't want to ruin the series for anyone.

10) Xander Harris

       Xander barely made it onto this list, and he did so for one reason, he lived longer than my number 11, and they both had the same role.  Xander was the only normal human with the Scoobies by season 7.  Which meant as the show developed he watched as everyone he knew became more and he was helpless to change it.  Xander was the heart of the team, the one who kept them where they needed to be and despite his limitations he was willing to lay down his life over and over again to save his friends.  By the end of season 7 he lost an eye fighting against someone who clearly outmatched him, yet he still returned for the final battle against evil to save the world.  He was also the only one who was skeptical of Angel and Spike joining the group.

9) Illyria

       Illyria is the only pure blood demon to fight on the side of good.  However this is because of a mutual understanding rather than her being a good guy.  Illyria is stuck in the body of Fred, a girl everyone liked, thus adding tension between Illyria and everyone else.  The twist is Illyria doesn't want to be, she was summoned by one of her followers and is now unable to return home.  She also has almost Godlike powers, but again these are restrained due to the body she is stuck in.  Then there is how she understands the world around her, in short she doesn't.  She has only been in the mortal realm for a few months by the end of the show and has to discover everything that everyone else already knows.  This all adds up to make a character the viewer feels sorry for.

8) Faith

       If someone were to ask you to describe a female vampire slayer, Faith is probably what you come up with.  Faith's watcher was killed by a vampire early in her career, leaving her all alone.  She is ruthless, violent, and lives each day as though it were her last.  In season four she suffers a minor psychotic break and goes evil, but again this is what you would expect from a girl who was bred to hunt monsters and doesn't have the support group Buffy has.  She later saw the errors of her way and Angel rehabilitated her, she now is a part of the Slayer organization.

7) Fred

       There's no getting around it, Fred is awesome.  When she is introduced she is a wild girl living in a cave in a parallel universe.  When she returns to civilization she is still insane and living in the hotel owned by Angel.  Eventually she regains her mind and becomes the head science person.  This is when she is murdered, but not just regular murdered, her soul is destroyed to make room for the demon Illyria.  The only thing I didn't like about her is the period of time she dated Gunn, not because I disliked him, but I just felt they were a bad pairing, she eventually realizes this and ends up with Wesley before she dies.

6) Wesley

       Speaking of Wesley, when this guy was first introduced he was Watchers' Council's replacement for Giles.  However he allows Giles to remain because he sees the benefit of his experience, making it impossible to hate him.  Then when Angel started he got far more development as a comic relief character who acted as the researcher for Team Angel.  But then around season four he falls apart.  After doing what he believed was the right thing with Angel's Son Conner, he was kicked out of the group and he became a far darker person.  Even when he returned to Angel Investigation he wasn't the same man, but he did resemble himself again.  Wesley is the only person in this series to ever kill a demon with a gun, seriously nobody else pulled it off.  Wesley died in the last episode of Angel during the final assault on the Council of Black Thorn and was avenged by Illyria, as the only one who treated her like a person she felt a connection, and as Wesley died in her arms she took the form of Fred.

5) Lorne

       Lorne is a unique character, he's a demon from another dimension who left because he discovered music.  Lorne has the power to read people's fortunes after hearing them sing to him, and for a while he owned a karaoke bar that as a running gag kept getting destroyed because of Angel.  He acts as a sort of guide to the team and the conscience in the last season.  In the after the fall series he was one of the Demon Lords of LA and turned his domain into a sanctuary.  Lorne is the only member of Angel Investigation who never compromised his values for a goal.

4) Anya

       Anya was once jokingly described as the perfect woman, well to be honest I have to agree.  Anya is a former vengeance demon who lost her powers at the hands of the Scoobies.  She then started a relationship with with Xander that resulted in a near marriage.  Anya is blunt, which is the best part about her, she speaks her mind at all times and no topic is off limit.  She also has a crippling fear of bunnies that is introduced in a Halloween episode where she dresses as one as the scariest thing she can think of.  After Xander leaves her at the alter she is given her powers back and acts as a vengeance demon until she realizes she doesn't like it anymore.  She dies in the last episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer saving Andrew from the Bringers.

3) Cordelia

       Cordelia is the embodiment of the series.  The original idea for the show is that the least likely person fights evil, Buffy started out doing it whereas Cordy had to ease into it more.  When she was introduced she was the stereotypical popular girl, air-headed and self involved with a following of other girls.  But once she learns there is a such thing as monsters she joins the Scoobies uninvited and even loses all her old friends in the process.  Fast forward to Angel season 1 and she is the founder of Angel Investigation and secretary until she decides to take up a sword herself.  She then inherits the visions that Doyle had, and due to her human physiology is forced to choose between the life she always wanted, or becoming part demon to continue saving the people of LA.  Then after that even she ascends and becomes a higher being where she remains the rest of the series.  That is except for one episode in the last season where she returns for the sole purpose of showing Angel he was headed down the wrong path and she corrected him.  Her body then dies and she hasn't been seen since.

2) Angel

       Angel wouldn't make the list if it wasn't for his spin-off show, and when he turned evil.  Whenever he was with Buffy he was boring, as was everyone else when they were with her.  However once he got out on his own he was funny, a badass, and all around awesome.  He makes offhand remarks about knowing celebrities in his past that are hilarious.  However Angel does have his complexities.  He was the most feared vampire of all time, terrorizing Europe for almost 200 years, but he was cursed by a Gypsy who put his soul back.  But if he ever has a moment of true happiness he will lose his soul again and become the monster he once was.  There is another prophecy introduced in Angel that stated a vampire with a soul would become human again once his destiny was fulfilled, and it's automatically assumed to be him.  He loses out to my number one choice simply because of how one dimensional he was the whole first season of Buffy.

1) Spike

       Spike in a word is amazing.  He starts as a villain who's first act is to kill the previous big bad's legacy.  He and his girlfriend Dru go about simply causing mayhem for the sake of it.  After he is defeated he returns periodically to cause problems with some hair brained scheme.  He was captured by a government agency during one of these plans and implanted with a chip that makes him unable to harm humans, so he joins the Scoobies.  He starts a secret relationship with Buffy where she treats him horribly until he finally leaves for a while, returning with his soul returned.  This makes him the only vampire to chose to have his soul returned.  As he puts it "He knows he's love's bitch, but he's man enough to admit it."  At the end of Buffy he sacrifices himself to save the world by closing the Hellmouth for good.  But he then is resurrected in the final season of Angel acting as the antagonistic rival of Angel within the group.  Spike was the comic relief character who could kick most anyone's ass, even Angel on an occasion.  And that is why he earns the number one spot on my list.

       You may have noticed Buffy didn't make the list, its because I think she is a boring character that was done better with other characters in the series.  So do you agree or disagree with my list?  Feel free to post a comment below.

Television Reviows: Angel

       Angel was a spin-off to Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  It aired from 1999 to 2004 in parallel with Buffy, which means they happen at the same time and even have crossover episodes.  The overall plot is that Angel decides he can no long stay in Sunnydale with Buffy, so he moves to Los Angeles to fight evil his own way.  Growing up I was more of this show than Buffy and I remember liking it more, when I finally got around to watching it in its entirety I realized why, this show has more complex and likable characters, which I'll go into more when I do a Top 10 list.  The show also seems to have more grey areas than Buffy, particularly with the villains and how they are dealt with, which I love in a show because it allows the viewers to connect better.

Season 1

       Season one starts the show off right.  Angel arrives in LA and starts saving people the best he can.  One day a man shows up at his apartment named Doyle, a half-demon who was granted visions of the future by the powers that be, the higher power of good as opposed to the countless evils from the series.  Doyle sends Angel to a party where he runs into Cordelia, an old acquaintance from Sunnydale.  After saving her from a rich vampire Cordelia decides to work for Angel as a secretary, (she starts Angel Investigations first so the job exists) turning Angel's crusade into a business.  Angel soon learns that evil works different in LA than in Sunnydale, in that they all have lawyers, and are untouchable to the authorities, enter Wolfram & Hart, the evil law firm run by 3 powerful demons that are on a different plane of existence.  As the season progresses Doyle constantly is trying to make Cordelia fall for him, but to no avail, about halfway through the season Doyle sacrifices his life to save hundreds of lives, ironically this act is what makes Cordelia finally see how much she cared for him.  Doyle also passes his visions to her before dying.  We then are reunited with Wesley, a now disgraced Watcher and rogue demon hunter.  Wesley is broke and assists Angel as a consultant while trying to convince them he's fine.  After about 2 episodes Angel hires him full time.  The season also introduces a character named Gunn, who becomes a main character next season.  The final confrontation is with Wolfram & Hart who summon a powerful demon in order to bring one of the senior partners into this realm.  This ends how you would think, team Angel arrives to stop the big bad, does, however there is a twist, Wolfram & Hart brought back something else, but they are not able to find it, setting up for the next season. B.

Season 2

       Season two begins by promoting James Gunn, a former street kid who grew up fighting vampires his own way, to a main character.  It also reveals what Wolfram & Hart brought back, Angel's old vampire lover Darla.  she causes problems for the group all with the purpose to get Angel to change her back into a vampire.  The season also introduces Lorne, an empath demon who runs a demon sanctuary/karaoke bar.  He also has the power to read people after hearing them sing.  For the first half of the season Darla and Lindsey, a lawyer at Wolfram & Hart simply screwing with Angel.  After she becomes a vampire again to save her life Darla reunites with Drusilla, and they go on a rampage through LA.  Angel realizes he must be just as ruthless as them in order to stop them, which he does.  Darla then seduces Angel, but the next day his soul is still in tact, this is when Angel realizes he is over Darla, and it's time to let her go.  So for the last few episodes team Angel is pulled into a parallel universe where they must save Cordelia, or so they think.  Because of her visions Cordelia is made queen, and with the help of Lorne's family they are able to return to LA, with a new member, Winifred Burkle, or Fred for short.  The last scene is of Willow telling Angel that Buffy had died (See Buffy Season 5).  B+.

Season 3

       Season 3 is the first season of Angel to have a classic "Big Bad".  Sahjhan, a demon who has it out for Angel for an unexplained reason awakens a man named Holtz, whom Angel tortured and killed his family 200 years ago and has wanted revenge ever since.  And if that wasn't enough Darla returns with a surprise, she is pregnant with Angel's child.  Angel and Cordelia slowly begin to fall for each other, and team Angel must reintroduce Fred into society.  This is one of my favorite seasons, and if it wasn't for the rather boring villain it would have been my favorite.  Darla is sharing a soul with her unborn child making her realize all the bad she has done over the years, this ultimately results in her staking herself because her dead body is unable to give birth, so in order for her child to live, she had to die.  Angel names his son Conner and all seems good for the group, until Wesley discovers a prophecy involving Conner, more specifically that Angel will kill him.  Wesley keeps it to himself until he has a plan to save Conner.  Meanwhile Wolfram and Hart have spiked the blood Angel buys with traces of Conner's blood to make him more aggressive.  Sahjhan grows tired of waiting for Holtz to kill Angel and decides to go to Wolfram & Hart.  Wesley then kidnaps Conner to take him to Holtz where he'll be safe from Angel, only to be double-crossed and his neck cut by Holtz's number two.  Holtz then takes Conner through a portal into a hell dimension to protect him from Wolfram & Hart and Sahjhan.  team Angel then goes on a hunt for Wesley, they found him in a hospital recovering.  Here Angel tells him he will never forgive him for what he did, and Sahjhan altered the prophecy because it's Conner, not Angel that he has a problem with.  Conner returns from the Hell dimension having aged many years and wanting to kill Angel for being a monster.  Holtz also returns much older and finally realizes that Angel is not the same person he was when he was Angelus.  Holtz tells Conner to return to Angel before having his number two kill him.  She tricks Conner into thinking Angel did it so Conner will kill him.  But instead Conner devises a far worse punishment by trapping Angel at the bottom of the ocean.  Cordelia then ascends to become a higher being because of all the good she has done.  A-.

Season4

       Season 4 is much like Buffy, it is the weak point of the series.  The season starts with whats left of team Angel searching for Angel and Cordelia.  While Wesley, having being changed by the events of the previous season simply locates Holtz's followers and torturing them until they take him to Angel.  Wesley rescues Angel and Angel acknowledges he understands why he took Conner, and finally forgives him.  They return to Angel Investigations, and Angel is unable to forgive Conner, kicking him out of the team.  The group continues their search for Cordelia for a while, but then she returns with no memory of who she is.  Around this time a powerful demon called The Beast comes to LA and kills everyone at Wolfram and Hart.  The Beast seems to know Angel, or rather Angelus from a long time ago.  So Wesley decides to unleash Angelus in a controlled environment to learn what he knows.  This sets up a Hanibal Lector element to the series.  Meanwhile we find out Cordelia may not be Cordelia, but someone in her body.  She is in complete control of The Beast and seduces Conner.  Angelus eventually gets free and goes on a killing spree, he manages to kill the Beast before Team Angel, with the help of Willow and Faith manage to put his soul back.  The being possessing Cordelia is then released putting her in a mystical coma.  This is where the show falls apart.  The new villain is Jasmine, a fallen higher being that has the power of mind control over anyone who sees her, that is until her blood gets into their system.  This leaves team Angel to fight Jasmine and Conner, they win, but Conner then completely loses it and tries to kill himself and Cordelia.  Angel stops him just in time.  In the final episode wolfram and Hart offer the LA branch to Angel Investigations, every member is targeted by a specific branch, and they agree to the deal.  Angel's terms however is that Conner's memories are altered so he gets a normal life, and that everyone forgets about him.  If it wasn't for Jasmine, Conner, and how horribly Cordelia is handled this could have been the best season, but because of all the problems it ends up as the worst, B-.

Season 5

       After Buffy ends, this season starts.  Team Angel is now running Wolfram and Hart at various levels.  The team sees it as doing what they have been, but with a budget.  They have everything they need to hunt monsters, but there's a catch, many of the monsters they usually hunt are now clients.  So in order to hunt evil, they have to let others go free.  The season brings back Spike as the newest member of the team, and Harmony, one of Cordelia's old friends turned vampire is now Angel's secretary.  The team feels they are being corrupted, but they can't do anything about it, and all their former allies, namely Buffy and the slayers no longer trust them.  The team finds themselves once again being messed with by Lindsey, this time he has found a way to hide from the senior partners to do it.  Gunn was given the knowledge of the law by the senior partners in order to run the legal department.  They are also given a liaison named Eve, who is a child of the senior partners, and is revealed to be working with Lindsey.  When the partners finally find out they lock Lindsey in a Hell dimension as punishment.  But when Angel and his team decide to finally fight back, they realize they need Lindsey's help.  They free him and Eve is replaced by another child of the Senior Partners named Marcus Hamilton.  Towards the end of the show Fred becomes very ill because of an employee who worships a pure demon named Illyria.  The illness eventually kills her and Illyria takes over her now vacant body.  Illyria however is unhappy with the world and want's to return, but she is unable to.  Illyria learns that her powers are too great for Fred's body and Wesley finds a way to take most of them away saving her life.  The last few episodes Team Angel takes the fight to the Circle of Black Thorns, a council made up of all of Wolfram and Harts most evil clients.  They divide the targets and strike them all at once.  Lindsey is killed by Lorne after they succeed because he is evil.  Wesley is also killed and Illyria avenges him.  She also comforts him until he dies.  The series ends with Team Angel about to start the final battle with the partners, then it just ends.  This being my favorite season, it earns an A.

Overall

Season 1 B

Season 2 B+

Season 3 A-

Season 4 B-

Season 5 A

Average B+

Television Reviews: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

       Buffy The Vampire Slayer was a series that ran from 1997 to 2003, this means I was 6 when it started, so obviously I didn't get around to watching it until later, in fact I just finished it, and to be honest, I'm happy I waited until I was able to appreciate it.

Season 1

       Season one was our first introduction to Joss Whedon's abilities as a show-runner, and it was rather good.  The story is a girl moves to a new town called "Sunnydale", which happens to be on a Hellmouth.  The girl's name is Buffy and she is a vampire slayer, a girl that is granted superhuman powers in order to fight evil.  When one slayer dies, the next one in the line gains powers.  In this season Buffy is in high school and she is introduced to her watcher, which a society of guardians who are tasked with aiding the slayer, her watcher is named Giles.  She also meets her best friends Willow and Xander, as well as an airheaded cheerleader named Cordelia who's only purpose is to annoy the main characters.  Throughout the season she is aided by a man named Angel who tends to show up, tell Buffy about a new enemy, tell Buffy how to stop it, and repeat.  He and Buffy eventually develop a relationship and it is revealed he is a vampire, however he is different because he is cursed with a soul.  While all this is going on an ancient vampire named The Master is trying to find a way to open the Hellmouth and be freed from his prison.  This leads to a final showdown in which Buffy is killed, but then revived even stronger and she finishes off The Master.

       This season was good, the villain was cool, the characters were likable, even the pointless ones, and the premiss was unique, and the vampire/human romance was totally ripped off years later in Twilight.  This season's rating only takes a hit because I need to scale for the later seasons that I think are better, thus it earns a B.

Season 2

       In season two the new big bad are a vamp couple named Spike and Drusilla, who terrorized Europe with Angel back when he had no soul and went by the name Angelus.  There plan is simple, kill the slayer because they are bored, however as they continually are beaten, their motives get more personal.  This season introduces us to Jenny Calendar, the computer science teacher who also has expansive knowledge of demons.  Also we meet Oz, a werewolf rocker with an incredibly zen attitude towards everything and becomes Willows boyfriend for the next few seasons.  And another new character is Kendra, another slayer who was granted powers after Buffy died at the end of the last season, meaning for the first time ever two slayers are active.  Cordelia, who was a a minor character in the previous season witnessed the final battle with The Master and is now a part of the group.  About halfway through the season Angel's curse is broken and his soul is removed, making him the new main villain for the second half, leading Spike and Drusilla.  Angel kills Jenny Calendar, and Drusilla kills the other slayer Kendra, who stays dead, this Buffy is forced to fight her former lover to the death.

       This season was even better than the last one, Angelus and Spike are my personal favorite characters from the series, and Drusilla is nuts, but in a fun way.  The promotion of Cordelia from annoying side character to reluctant sidekick is a great move.  Plus bringing in characters who actually die and add gravity to the situation is always good.  This Season earns a B+.

Season 3

       Season three's big bad is the immortal mayor of Sunnydale, who want's to use the Hellmouth to become a demon.  Angel is brought back to life by as of yet unknown reasons (his character was to popular to kill for good), and Giles is fired from the Watchers council for warning Buffy about s potentially fatal test that they give her and consequently he is replaced by a new watcher, Wesley Windham-Pryce, who is willing to accept help from his predecessor and even treats him as a mentor.  Because of the slayer Kendra's death in the last season a new slayer is called, Faith.  Faith's watcher was killed by a powerful vampire so the council decrees she share watchers with Buffy.  However over the course of the season Faith is turned to the dark side and joins the mayor.  As the season goes on Buffy begins to question the Watchers council which eventually leads to her leaving them and doing things her own way.  At the end of the series Buffy knocks Faith off a roof that puts her into a coma.  The final showdown however happens at graduation, the mayor fulfills his plan to be turned into a giant snake demon and the entire senior class is enlisted to fight him.  The battle costs the lives of many unnamed students and the school is destroyed.  In the aftermath of the battle Angel approaches Buffy and tells her he is leaving for Los Angeles for good.

       This was another good season, the mayor is hilarious and Wesley and Faith are among my favorite character in the series.  This season also wraps up the story pretty well, if the show ended here I would have been OK, B+.

 Season 4

       In season 4 our heroes go off to college, except Xander who opts to start work instead.  This season is a great jumping on point because everything changes.  This season is also unique because the big bad doesn't show up until almost the end.  The majority of this season is watching all the main characters develop relationships.  Buffy meets a guy named Riley, who is a member of the government's monster hunter group, more on that later.  He starts off pretty cool, but once he and Buffy start dating his only personality trait becomes; he has sex with Buffy...a lot, I think they spend more screen time in bed than actually fighting monsters.  Xander is seduced by Anya, who used to be a demon, and a very minor enemy in the previous seasons, and the two of them start up possibly the best relationship in the series.  Willow and Oz drift apart and eventually break up when he leaves to learn to control his werewolf side.  This leads to Willow diving into magic with her friend Tara, and eventually the two of them start a lesbian relationship, again one of the better couples in the series.  As mentioned earlier there is a government monster hunting team called the Initiative. The leader is undercover as the psychology professor and many of the field agents are disguised as frat boys.  The leader does not like Buffy for both being undeserving of her powers and distracting her best agent, so she tries to kill Buffy.  She also created her own super-soldier demon/human/machine hybrid, Adam.  Adam is the big bad and proves to be far stronger than Buffy.  This season also reintroduces Spike, the former villain, who gets a chip planted in his brain that keeps him from hurting humans.  In the final battle Willow uses her magic to channel the attributes of the original cast into Buffy, Willow's magic, Giles' knowledge, and Xander's heart to create the ultimate slayer to defeat Adam.  Meanwhile Riley, Anya, Tara, and Spike are fighting Adam's minions so Buffy can fight alone, which she of course wins.

       I have mixed feelings about this season.  The initiative was a cool idea, but it was executed poorly, same goes for Adam who was the most boring Big Bad in the series.  Riley was only cool until he and Buffy started dating, and the whole season seemed like filler.  On the other hand Anya is awesome, and the "chip plot" for Spike is brilliant.  Also the Tara/Willow relationship is handled way better than most gay characters I've seen.   But is it still the worst season of the series, and it's obvious the new characters are just replacements for all the good characters who left to join Angel in his spin-off, so this season earns a C.

Season 5

       This season was loads better than the previous one, Buffy moves back home with her mother and sister, Dawn, who is randomly introduced with no explanation until halfway through the season.  The new big bad is Glorificus, or Glory as she prefers to be called, who is a goddess trapped within a human body, however she has found a way to break free for short periods of time.  Her vessel is a guy named Ben who is a doctor that has has feelings for Buffy, and once Riley leaves to travel the world she begins to reciprocate, but never acts on these feelings because of Glory.  Throughout the season Willow and Tara continue their relationship and develop their magical abilities.  Anya and Xander become engaged, but keep it a secret for almost the entire season.  Spike starts to develop feelings for Buffy, which drives him crazy, and even Giles has something going with some girl.  About halfway into the season it is revealed that Buffy's sister Dawn is in fact the key to Hell that was transformed into a girl in order to hide her from Glory and everyone in her life is given false memories of her existence.  These memories eventually lead to a brain tumor in Buffy's mom that is removed, but complications with the surgery eventually lead to an aneurysm that kills her.  These episode are fantastic, they were so emotional that I'll admit that I almost cried myself.  The heroes learn that Glory is in fact vulnerable so long as she is locked within Ben.  in the final battle Buffy defeats Glory with the help of her friends and the Buffy-Bot, a robot duplicate built by a minor villain for Spike's "pleasure".  However they are unable to kill her and the gate to hell is opened anyway.  A few demons get out and Buffy sacrifices herself to close it.  Meanwhile Glory, unable to free herself from Ben due to exhaustion is killed when Giles suffocates Ben.  The final scene is Buffy's funeral service.

       This season was way better than the previous.  The villain is extremely vain, which is funny, and the Anya/ xander relationship continues to be a highlight.  Dawn is an interesting character, albeit slightly annoying.  And Willow and Tara's relationship remains one of the best television romances to date.  I rate this season an A-.

Season 6

      Season six starts with with the gang hunting a vampire with their newest member, the Buffy-bot.  Willow reprogrammed it in order to fool monsters into thinking she is still alive and to fool social services so that Dawn isn't forced into foster care.  Giles returns to England and while he is gone Willow decides to bring Buffy back to life.  Meanwhile a random vampire damages the Buffy-bot and learns that the real Buffy died, so it's open season in Sunnydale for all monsters.  When Buffy is resurrected her friends believe the spell didn't work, but in fact she is resurrected in her grave, forcing her to dig her way out.  She was also believed to be trapped in a Hell Dimension because of her unnatural death, but in fact she was in Haven.  She develops an incredibly abusive relationship with Spike.  Throughout the season Willow's obsession with magic begins to alienate her friends and even Tara leaves her.  This leads to her giving up magic all together in order to get her life back together and win back Tara.  The big bad here are the Nerd Trio, three very minor villains who join forces with no real goal in mind, in fact only one of them is truly evil.  The season ends with Spike leaving to become what he once was.  The nerd trio is stopped and the leader out of anger buys a gun and goes to Buffy's house to exact revenge.  He fire 3 shots wounding Buffy, but more importantly a stray bullet kills Tara just as she returns to Willow.  Willow then snaps and goes after the trio.  She tracks down Warren, the leader who killed Tara, and tortures him before ripping his skin from his body killing him.  Once Buffy recovers from her gunshot wound she returns to protect the remaining members of the trio, so Willow decides with nothing left to live for, she's going to destroy the world.  She proves far to powerful to be defeated and is only stopped when Xander reasons with her and talks her down.  The final scene is Spike who until this point was thought to be trying to remove his chip, but in fact he was earning his soul.

       This was my favorite season, the villains are fun, Spike is the bomb as always, and the plot is well thought out.  In addition this is the season that has fun with some of its episodes, one is a twisted version of a Christmas Carol with Xander's life if he goes through with the wedding with Anya.  My two favorite episodes are Once More With Feeling, a musical episode when a demon forces everyone in Sunnydale to bust out into song and dance, and Tabula Rasa, where the main characters' memories were wiped and they had to figure out who they were.  Because of these reasons, I give this season an A.

Season 7

       The final season, not quite as good as the last, butt a decent send off.  The first evil, who had a minor appearance in an earlier season has gotten tired of the good and evil balance and decides to destroy the slayer line by taking out all the girls in the slayer line.  But because it can't take a physical form it uses its followers to do its dirty work, most notably the Bringers, humans who mutilate their own bodies to pledge their loyalty.  The bringers are hunting down potential slayers all over the globe.  Willow spent the time between the previous season and the current one with Giles learning to control her powers.  Meanwhile Sunnydale high school is finally rebuilt by Xander's construction crew and the new principal is Robin Wood, the son of Nikki Wood, a slayer killed by Spike in the 70s.  Andrew and Jonathan, the surviving members of the nerd trio also return, and Andrew is tricked into murdering Jonathan.  Andrew spends the remainder of the season as the heroes hostage trying to redeem himself.  The Summer's house in this season doubles as a sanctuary for for potential slayers trying to survive the Bringers.  Some of the more noteworthy ones are Kennedy, who instantly tries to start a relationship with Willow, Amanda who goes to school with Dawn and is very awkward, and Vi, who is played by Felicia Day, and acts like Felicia Day.  The First also has more distinguishable villains, such as the Turok-Han, or Ubervamp, an ancient vampire that proves to be difficult to kill for the first couple episodes, and Caleb, a southern preacher who hates women and is even stronger than Buffy.  Faith and Angel also return for the finale, and thus all the characters people like are returned.  Towards the end of the season Buffy discovers the ultimate slayer weapon, the scythe, an ax/steak hybrid forged to compliment a slayer's abilities.  Also they come up with the plan to activate all potential slayers in order to have an army to fight the first.  The final battle pits everyone against the first and his army of Bringers and Turok-Hans, The slayers fight the Turok-Han, Willow uses her magic to activate the slayers, and all the others battle the Bringers.  In the end a couple main characters die, and Spike sacrifices himself to close the Hellmouth for good...or does he?

       This season was awesome, and if it wasn't for the first being rather boring it would have been better.  Robin's obsession with Spike is cool, and all the potential slayers are unique and with a little more development could potentially be among the ranks of my favorites.  Caleb is also a great character who is both creepy and entertaining at the same time.  All in all I feel this season deserves an A-.

Overall

Season 1-B

Season 2-B+

Season 3-B+

Season 4-C

Season 5-A-

Season 6-A

Season 7-A-

       In about a week or two I plan to do an Angel review, but I have to finish the series first, I'm also planning a top 10 list for these series, but I'm saving that until I read the comic series.  Any comments feel free to post them below.