How To Watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer & Angel In Order (Together with The Crossovers)

In a 1992 comedy flick, a carefree cheerleader learns about her future to search out and kill vampires. Though this teenage lady is initially flippant about her burgeoning talents, a sequence of occasions forces her to take vampire-hunting severely. Amid a botched promenade and an antagonistic showdown within the college basement, the lady and her allies emerge victorious, having put an finish to the tyranny of vampires hounding Hemery Excessive College. Principally unserious and wholly slapstick, this Fran Rubel Kuzui-helmed movie obtained a unfavourable to lukewarm reception on launch. This comedy was none aside from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

However this is not the model of Buffy that entered the worldwide popular culture DNA. In spite of everything, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the tv sequence we all know and love, is remembered by way of its enduring imagery: Black leather-based jackets, occult/spiritual iconography, passionate romance, and gothic structure, to call just some. At its middle lies the horrors of approaching maturity, and the way the supernatural mingles with the mundanities of highschool to create a heady, harmful power tugging at its central characters.

Collection creator Joss Whedon (who wrote the script for the 1992 movie) determined to revamp the core premise into one thing extra thrilling and severe, which led to some of the influential teenage-centered reveals ever created. Positive, “Buffy” sports activities its campy points like fangs glinting beneath the moonlight, however the sequence additionally unpacks some complicated themes throughout the mould of an unconventional coming-of-age story. Furthermore, the crossover spin-off sequence “Angel” goes to some actually darkish locations, permitting the related tales and themes to weave out and in effortlessly.

Because the “Buffy” and “Angel” viewing patterns can get fairly convoluted, this is a whole watch order to take advantage of out of the Buffyverse.

Most dad or mum reveals and spin-offs are solely related by way of a shared universe, however “Buffy” and “Angel” make issues a tad difficult by taking the crossover route. Curiously, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) meets Angel (David Boreanaz) as early as the primary season’s pilot, however the latter evolves into a fancy character worthy of his personal spin-off present, which began airing after season 3 of “Buffy” ended. With “Buffy” and “Angel” airing concurrently, the storylines typically bleed into each other. With that in thoughts, I’ve created this watch order so as of chronological occasions, with sure episodes meant to comply with a selected viewing sample if you wish to perceive the lore to the obsessive diploma it calls for. Here is the watch order:

1. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 1

2. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 2

3. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 3

4. Watch each episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 4 and “Angel” season 1 in an alternate sample. For instance, after watching season 4, episode 1 of “Buffy” (“The Freshman”), comply with it up with season 1, episode 1 of “Angel” (“Metropolis of…”). Comply with this sample, preserving the next exceptions in thoughts:

• “Buffy” season 4, episode 10: “Hush”

• “Buffy” season 4, episode 11: “Doomed”

• “Angel” season 1, episode 10: “Parting Items”

• “Angel” season 1, episode 11: “Somnambulist”

Then the alternate viewing sample ought to resume till you hit this level:

• “Buffy” season 4, episode 18: “The place the Wild Issues Are”

• “Buffy” season 4, episode 19: “New Moon Rising”

• “Angel” season 1, episode 18: “5 by 5”

• “Angel” season 1, episode 19: “Sanctuary”

The alternate viewing sample ought to resume once more.

5. Watch each episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 5 and “Angel” season 2 in an alternate sample. Exceptions embody:

• “Angel” season 2, episodes 14-16: “The Skinny Lifeless Line,” “Reprise,” and “Epiphany”

• “Buffy” season 5, episode 14: “Crush”

• “Angel” season 2, episode 17: “Disharmony”

• “Buffy” season 5, episodes 14-17: “I Was Made to Love You,” “The Physique,” “Without end”

The alternate viewing sample ought to resume till you hit this level:

• “Buffy” season 5, episodes 20-22: “Spiral,” “The Weight of the World,” and “The Reward”

• “Angel” season 2, episodes 20-22: “Over the Rainbow,” “By means of the Wanting Glass,” and “There’s No Place Like Plrtz Glrb”

For the sake of everybody’s sanity, let’s take a breather right here to debate why this admittedly convoluted watch order works. The joint continuity of “Buffy” and “Angel” is extra than simply overlapping views, because the crossover nature of the reveals makes each Buffy and Angel’s particular person story arcs related. The vast majority of the crossover episodes happen between seasons 4 and 6 of “Buffy” (and seasons 1 and three of “Angel”). Please be warned that issues would possibly get complicated from a timeline perspective, as there’s a number of leaping round when it comes to chronology and the way the identical occasions are perceived, particularly within the subsequent chunk of the watch order.

Let’s decide up proper the place we left off:

6. Watch each episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 6 and “Angel” season 3 in an alternate sample. Exceptions embody:

• “Angel” season 3, episodes 15-16: “Loyalty” and “Sleep Tight”

• “Buffy” season 6, episode 15: “As You Had been”

• “Angel” season 3, episode 17: “Forgiving”

• “Buffy” season 6, episode 16: “Hell’s Bells”

• “Angel” season 3, episode 18: “Double or Nothing”

• “Buffy” season 6, episode 17: “Regular Once more”

• “Angel” season 3, episode 19: “The Worth”

• “Angel” season 3, episode 20: “A New World”

• “Buffy” season 6, episode 18: “Entropy”

• “Angel” season 3, episodes 21-22: “Benediction” and “Tomorrow”

• “Buffy” season 6, episodes 19-22: “Seeing Purple,” “Villains,” “Two to Go,” and “Grave

7. Watch each episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 7 and “Angel” season 4 in an alternate sample. Exceptions embody:

• “Buffy” season 7, episodes 7-9: “Conversations with Lifeless Folks,” “Sleeper,” and “By no means Go away Me”

• “Angel” season 4, episodes 7-8: “Apocalypse, Nowish” and “Habeas Corpses”

• “Buffy” season 7, episodes 10-11: “Convey on the Evening” and “Showtime”

• “Angel” season 4, episodes 9/11: “Lengthy Day’s Journey,” “Awakening,” and “Soulless”

• “Buffy” season 7, episodes 12-14: “Potential,” “The Killer in Me,” and “First Date”

• “Angel” season 4, episode 12: “Calvary”

• “Buffy” season 7, episodes 15-16: “Get It Achieved” and “Storyteller”

• “Angel” season 4, episodes 13-14: “Salvage” and “Launch”

• “Buffy” season 7, episode 17: “Lies My Mother and father Informed Me”

• “Angel” season 4, episodes 15-17: “Orpheus,” “Gamers,” and “Inside Out”

Resume the alternate viewing sample till you hit these episodes:

• “Angel” season 4, episodes 20-22: “Sacrifice,” “Peace Out,” and “Dwelling”

• “Buffy” season 7, episodes 20-22: “Touched,” “Finish of Days,” and “Chosen”

8. “Angel” season 5 (watch in chronological order, as “Buffy” ends with Season 7)

We’re (nearly) completed, as season 5 of “Angel” can also be its ultimate one, with the titular character gearing up for a combat that can decide the destiny of the world with most of Los Angeles on the cusp of change. Whereas these two reveals are sufficient to relish the Buffyverse, you’ll be able to additionally give the official comics a strive, which incorporates “Angel: After the Fall” and “The Lengthy Method Dwelling.” Till then, immerse yourselves on this thrilling, campy world that options each being within the supernatural roster. In spite of everything, that is the place a resilient teen slayer and her associates are eternally able to vanquish all evil whereas experiencing probably the most harrowing rising pains recognized to mankind.