Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel - Watch Order
There are a few different guidelines out there on how to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel in order because simply going by the air dates doesn’t always make sense. I’m fairly sure I dug up every single guide available and I wasn’t satisfied with any of them, so I made my own.
I’m sure it’s subjective, but this is an order that I do genuinely recommend. I’ve tested it myself and I feel like it hits a good balance of chronology and storytelling while still hitting the emotional beats without interrupting them… all while still being appealing to today’s binge-watching society. ;) I also think this order will work for both Buffyverse veterans and first time watchers (just in case there are any brave souls out there).
With Buffy and Angel available on Hulu, this watch order is pretty easy to stick to, at least with the Hulu interface I work with (Android TV). Once you have both shows in your watch history, at the end of an episode it prompts you at the bottom for the next episode or switching to a new series. No disk switching required! (However, the Hulu version is the HD version, which is kind of horrid in some places… but it’s still the show.)
If you don’t feel like following my exact order, here are the guidelines for using this list just as a rough reference:
- Bold/Italics means you need to watch those episodes in the exact order as listed.
- Bold (no italics) means you need watch those episodes in order; if you reach a bold episode on the list and you haven’t watched the previous bold episode yet, you need to go back to the other series and get caught up to the last bold episode listed.
List is behind the cut.
I wanted to put my explanations for my watch order in a separate post so if any first time watchers come across it they could still have a spoiler-free guide. (Yes, I know that most of the major plot points of Buffy are public knowledge by now, but you never know.)
I’m sure other Buffyverse veterans might be looking at my list and scratching their head, wondering why I did certain things, so please allow me to explain myself.
I didn’t want to prioritize the story over the characters’ emotions, but I also didn’t want prioritizing the emotions to throw the story out of order. When the story is out of order, I get thrown out of the story, and I become disconnected from the characters’ emotions. I came up with my guide in order to make sure that didn’t happen. I feel like emotional beats happen without being drowned in the other show, and it encourages you to take a breather from one show or the other in certain places.
Me being a caricature of the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons is behind the cut.