Here's what I wrote down while listening. Question marks mean I'm guessing from the music/lyrics, I actually have no idea what they're from.

Sherlock
Harry Potter
Doctor Who
Pokemon?
LOTR
HP again
Something that apparently used Wayward Son
My Little Pony?

I kind of meant to post this a few days ago on the Smashed post, but I forgot, so I'll put it here. Buffy and Spike's relationship (or at least Buffy's end of it) in these episodes always reminds me of this quote. It's from High Fidelity, right after Laura's father dies.

Laura: Listen, Rob, would you have sex with me? Because I want to feel something else than this. It either that, or I go home and put my hand in the fire. Unless you want to stub cigarettes out on my arm.
Rob: No. I only have a few left, I've been saving them for later.
Laura: Right. It'll have to be sex, then.
Rob: Right. Right.

None of them have got a rock this big.

Like the Reavers throughout Firefly. :-0

The next episode is the only episode of Buffy that I've never rewatched. Much like I've never rewatched Pan's Labyrinth.

My family has the full boxed set of Buffy (all compact and in one stacked box thing, it's very cool). We lent Season 6 to a friend, and he scratched the disc that has rot13ed[Fznfurq, Jerpxrq, naq Tbar, naq fvapr zl snzvyl unf n uvtu cebcbegvba bs Fchssl snaf, gung jnf gentvp.]. We had to buy an extra copy of Season 6 to replace the disc.

Either Season 1 or Season 4, I think. People have already explained the issues with Season 1-- a little all over the place, some forgettable episodes, limited character development or arcs. But it is the first season, so I have trouble blaming it for its issues. Very few shows start off at their high points.

Which is a scary thought-- we've only got half a season of Firefly, and it's brilliant. How good would its third season have been, if it had one?

Season 4, however... it felt like they were trying to redirect the show but couldn't figure out where they wanted it to go. There are a handful of episodes that try to explore college issues the same way they did high school in earlier seasons--Living Conditions, The Harsh Light of Day, Beer Bad--and a lot of them fall flat. It wasn't until Season 5 that they made the jump to adult issues, adding Dawn and [xvyyvat Wblpr] to age Buffy very fast. Season 4 hangs in this in-between state (kind of like college, actually). Also, I've always disliked Riley, and a lot of the Season 4 arc hangs on caring about his and Buffy's relationship. I didn't have much emotional connection to the Initiative storyline.

That said, Season 4 does have a couple of brilliant episodes: Something Blue is one of my top Buffy episodes, and Hush is of course Hush.

By the way, are spoilers now supposed to be rot13ed on this blog? I've seen people doing that for some plot points, but not others.

I'm a Riley-hater, but your point is valid. I think his flaws wouldn't drive me so mad if there was any indication that he was working through them, though. As far as I can tell, though, he never recognizes them (and possibly the writers never recognize them). His issues are interesting, but they're not fully explored and I don't feel like he grows as a person over his time on the series. If anything, the bad parts of his character get more emphasized. What makes him unacceptable to me is that his flaws are never portrayed as flaws, really. He's presented as a model boyfriend, and he so isn't.

Va pbagenfg, Jneera vf n ubeevoyr crefba, ohg uvf cerfrapr ba gur fubj qbrfa'g znxr zr jnag gb guebj guvatf ng gur fperra gur jnl Evyrl qbrf, orpnhfr uvf nffubyr-arff vf erpbtavmrq naq rkcyberq. Vs Evyrl'f onq genvgf jrer erpbtavmrq, V pbhyq znlor fgneg gb yvxr uvz sbe uvf tbbq genvgf.

RILEY RILEY RILEY. How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways...

1. He's really boring. And takes up a lot of screen time with his boringness. I like Spike's description-- Captain Cardboard.
2. He doesn't trust Buffy. First he doesn't trust her evaluation of whether she wants a relationship with him ("Doomed"). Then he doesn't trust her to be around her ex-boyfriend ("The Yoko Factor"). Then he doesn't believe her when she says she loves him, unless she's giving him 24/7 attention to prove it (like all of his time in Season 5).
3. He makes passive-aggressive demands on Buffy while her mother is seriously ill and she's carrying a lot of extra responsibility.
4. When she doesn't meet his demands, he breaks up with her without giving her a chance to fix things or understand how he feels-- while her mother is recovering from surgery.
5. When he leaves Buffy, he doesn't man up and say that the relationship isn't working out because of his issues and needs. He pushes all the blame onto her in the most hurtful way possible, then leaves.
6. This is really the writers' fault, not Riley's, but it makes my hatred increase exponentially: all of the above points are presented as good boyfriend traits for a healthy relationship. URGH.

LETS ALL KILL RILEY.

It's a close tie between Tara, Anya, and Willow, but...

Willow. Partly because she's adorable, and partly because I identify with her very strongly. She starts out as the nerdy, socially awkward high schooler. She grows out of it in college, gets more self-confidence and builds a new identity, but... it's hard to leave the outcast identity behind. I think a lot of Willow's issues in season 6, when she feels like magic can solve everything and she has to be a powerful super-witch, come from her feeling that now she has this identity she has to hold on to it.

Two heartbreakingly revealing moments: in Restless, Willow is frightened that people will find out her secret, and we're set up to think that it's that she's gay. But it's not-- it that at heart she's still the high school nerd. And in Wrecked, we get this exchange:

Willow: It was. But I mean, if you could be, you know, plain old Willow or super Willow, who would you be? I guess you don't actually have an option on the whole super thing.
Buffy: Will, there's nothing wrong with you. You don't need magic to be special.
Willow: Don't I? I mean, Buffy, who was I? Just... some girl. Tara didn't even know that girl.
Buffy: You are more than some girl. And Tara wants you to stop. She loves you.
Willow: We don't know that.
Buffy: I know that. I promise you.
Willow: I just... it took me away from myself, I was... free.

I was very much the class nerd in high school, and while I think I've grown away from that, it's really heard to stop defining yourself by your high school identity. Either you continue in the same pattern, because that's what people know you as and expect from you, or you try things (college parties, for instance) that you're not that interested in because you feel like they will push you away from this identity you don't like very much. It makes me very self-conscious (well, I guess I already was), like I'm constantly reconstructing my identity. Add in that I'm bisexual and it took me a long time to be comfortable with not being labelled "straight" or "lesbian," and I'm a nice self-identity mess. They don't really address how Willow's change in sexuality affects her, but I think it probably reinforced her feeling like she's suddenly this different person. She likes her new identity, but she's scared that it's not really her, and if she doesn't hold onto it, she'll go back.

Anyway, I think Willow's really interesting.