Whedon Week: The top 30 episodes of Joss Whedon's shows

This was, by far, the hardest list to produce.  How do you narrow a total of 294 episodes down to a list of 30?  After a long and difficult ranking process, I finally was able to do it.  I wanted to try to have a well-distributed representation, or else it would mostly just be Buffy episodes, due to the fact that it's my favorite, and the nature of the show allowed for there to be more standouts.  So the order might be a little wonky, so as to not clog the top 10 with one show, and also because every episode here is so good that it doesn't matter whether something is 24 and another is 23.  I tend to have pretty different favorites from others (I love "Doublemeat Palace" -- that's all you need to know about me), so I imagine many Whedon fans would be pretty annoyed by this list, seeing as there are some big ones missing.  But overall, I'm pretty happy with it.

Whedon Week: I love season 6 of Buffy and here's why you should too

Although the order of preference may shift, there seems to be a general consensus when it comes to Buffy seasons.  Season 1 is rough compared to the others, the back half of season 2 is ridiculously good, season 3 is the most consistent, season 4 has the best standalones, season 5 contains "The Body" and "The Gift" which overrides anything else that happens in the rest of the season, and most people prefer not to speak of season 7.  But it's hard to get a gauge on how the fandom feels about season 6 as a whole.  There are some who hate it with a fiery passion, but then there are also some fervent defenders of it.  Season 6 isn't my favorite season of the show (my order would be: 5, 3, 6, 2, 4, 7, 1), but I'm in the fervent defender camp, because I absolutely adore it.

It seems like some people's thoughts on season 6 are colored by the narrative that it technically shouldn't have existed.  "The Gift," the season 5 finale, was so perfect of an ending that many people jokingly say "Buffy ended with 'The Gift'" and pretend that the last 2 seasons didn't happen.  Buffy had been killed off and The WB didn't want the show anymore, so many fans were already turned off by the idea of it continuing on UPN.  But to me, the show justifies its existence the moment it brings Buffy back to life at the beginning of season 6.  It's not so much the act itself -- once you know that the show is continuing and you figure that Buffy: the Vampire Slayer needs Buffy, it's pretty easy to then conclude that bringing her back will involve some sort of spell -- it's the implications that the act has.  From the brief bits we get of the Scooby Gang continuing their slaying without Buffy, it's clear to see that they're doing relatively fine, so bringing her back is something that they do because they miss their friend.  But what was done out of longing ended up being a really selfish act, when it's revealed that Buffy was in heaven and that she was actually happy.    I can't stress how much I love that moment in "After Life," when Buffy tells Spike about the true nature of her being brought back to life.  I think it's the boldest thing I've ever seen on television, and I remember my jaw dropping as I gasped and shouted "WHAT?!" once the gravity of the moment hit me.  After all of the struggling that we saw her go through in the 5th season, she was finally at peace, and then her friends ripped her out of Heaven, forcing her to return to everything she had escaped.  All of the responsibilities, all of the loss, all of the bills, all of the drudgery.  All of it.

This reveal, and her determination to keep it from her friends, leads to alot of the resentment and listlessness she feels.  The beginning of season 6 is all about keeping secrets.  In fact, the first 7 episodes are an interesting little mini-arc to start off the season.  As we all know, this is a Joss Whedon show, and in Joss Whedon shows, the truth always comes out.  And it's unleashed in a big way, as everything finally stumbles out into the open in "Once More, with Feeling," an episode upon which every fan can agree.  It has the gimmick of being "the musical episode," but what's most impressive about it is just how much plot is stuffed in there.  Buffy's resentment about being ripped out of heaven, Willow using magic on Tara to make her forget their fighting, Anya and Xander's anxieties about their future, Buffy and Spike's budding romance, Giles feeling the need to let Buffy go -- all of those tensions clash together and explode near the end of the hour.  It's an episode so monumental, that the rest of the season is spent dealing with the fallout of the revelations that occur in it.

One of the big problems that people have with season 6 is its middle section.  After "Once More, with Feeling" it's hard for anything afterward to not feel like a disappointment, and on my initial run through the series, I do remember feeling like the middle sagged a bit.  But looking back, there are actually only three episodes that I don't like.  I hate "Smashed" and "Wrecked," and I was never into Riley and therefore wasn't big on his return in "As You Were," but aside from those, there's some strong stuff in there.  I know I'm the only one who feels this way, but I love "Doublemeat Palace," so that, "Dead Things," and "Older and Far Away" is just a killer 1-2-3 punch.  Listen, I think the Willow addiction metaphor is pretty weak, and the middle/end of the season takes a relationship I really adored in Spike and Buffy and sends it to very ugly places, but all of the good material elsewhere in the stretch outweighs those two problems.  Plus, I could argue that the Willow storyline is worth it, simply because of where it ends up, and that Buffy's self-sabotage is a natural reaction to the pain that she's feeling.

Honestly -- and pardon me for making a blanket statement -- I think that people who don't like season 6 of Buffy have never been really depressed.  I suffer from depression, and I watched the show while being at a particularly low point, so this season was some of the most raw and real television I've ever seen.  Buffy may come off as whiny and mopey to some, but to me it's one of the best depictions of clinical depression on television.  The unrelenting bleakness turns many people off -- and to be clear, it is an exhausting and unpleasant season to watch -- but when you're in a certain mindset it's easy to let the mood just envelope you.  Another big gripe that people have is that there's a tonal inconsistency to the season, complaining that the usual goofier standalones don't mesh very well with the dark tone of the season.  I call BS on that complaint too, as it displays a fundamental misunderstanding of depression.  I was recently having a conversation with a friend of mine about how miserable I am, and she responded, perhaps disbelievingly "but you never seem that way when I see you."  People who are depressed aren't incapable of happiness, and it's true that I'm quite a jocular person when I'm around others, but the season understands the nuance of the shifting emotions that come with mental illness.  So episodes like "Gone," "Doublemeat Palace," and "Tabula Rasa" work for me in the midst of all the emotional turmoil.

Season 6 of Buffy puts every character through the grinder and by the end, you feel like you've been on a long, grueling journey with them.  So when Xander talks Willow down at the edge of that cliff or when Buffy climbs out of that ditch her and Dawn got stuck in -- LITERALLY CLIMBING OUT OF HER STATE OF DESPAIR -- it's so freaking cathartic and oh my god I can't take it.  There's so much pain in these episodes: the pain of losing a loved one, the pain of clinical depression, the pain of being betrayed, the pain of growing up and realizing that life isn't going to turn out like you hoped and dreamed it would.  If you can't find the beauty in that, then I don't know what to tell you.

Whedon Week: Ranking the Joss Whedon deaths

Whedon is nothing if not a master of death, truly believing that there are no happy endings in life and that nobody is safe.  While researching this list, it really hit me just how many major characters die in his work.  What's worse is that it usually happens right when that person finds some sort of peace and happiness in their lives.  Although The Whedon Death may be sudden, they often come with a great deal of emotional weight.  I tried to include every death that seemed relatively important, but I'm sure I've missed a few (seriously, there are so many deaths!).  My criteria for these rankings is a mixture of how well-executed I thought a given death was and how much it specifically affected me.  Obviously, there are many plot reveals in this list so:

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EVERY JOSS WHEDON SHOW/MOVIE AFTER THE JUMP

Whedon Week: The Top 5 Joss Whedon Characters

Only in an alternate timeline, Jonathan

Joss Whedon shows are known for their distinct characters and the way that they naturally progress over the course of many seasons.  Not only do they grow and change throughout the years, the change comes slowly and subtly, almost always building logically.  These characters are strong on their own, but they also work well as smaller parts of a larger ensemble.  I could easily just have any character on this list (give or take a Riley), but I've managed to narrow it down to five.  But first some honorable mentions...

Honorable mention: Buffy Summers (Buffy), Xander Harris (Buffy), Fred Burkle (Angel), Wash (Firefly), Adelle Dewitt (Dollhouse)

Whedon Week/The Canon #5: Buffy - "The Body" (2001)

The Canon is a recurring feature where I look back on movies, tv episodes, albums, books, etc. that I love; inducting them into my own imaginary canon of all-time favorite things.  (Inspired by the podcast, Extra Hot Great)

There's such a specificity in grief -- both in terms of the vivid emotions we feel and how it can vary with each individual case.  "The Body," the 16th episode of the 5th season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is the greatest expression of grief that I've ever seen put to film, and certainly my favorite episode of television.  I've never lost anybody in my life, yet I still feel such a deep connection with the Scooby Gang dealing with the death of Buffy's mother.  Stylistically, the episode is unlike anything the show had done before, and to this day it still feels different from every other TV episode I've ever watched.  Buffy and the gang have just experienced something that has shaken their world, and everything has been rendered slightly off because of it.  Sights and sounds that usually have no significance become vivid and bold -- the numbers on a phone, the patterns on the rug make their previously unobtrusive existence known.  But what strikes me the most about "The Body" is how quiet the whole thing feels.  The scene in Dawn's art class (where the picture up top derives from), which is about the negative space between objects, is kind of a description of the whole episode -- exploring all of the emotions that occupy the gaps between grief.

Not only is the episode masterfully directed, the script is just as raw and devastating, featuring several moving passages about death and how we deal with it.  The impressive thing is that there are only about 5 scenes that fill the episode, and as they go on deliberately, endlessly; we hope that they'll just cut away, much like the characters don't want to come to terms with the reality of the situation.  Loss can feel like such a singular, all-consuming thing, and Whedon does a great job of reflecting that sensation.  Just look at the scene where Buffy tells Dawn about their mother's death, and how all of Dawn's classmates seem to be drawn like magnets toward them.  But it also shows how in actuality, the rest of the world just keeps going, so regardless of whether Xander is grieving or not, he still gets a ticket for being double parked.  There's this hyper-real tone to "The Body," and it's so obsessed with the idea of processes.  What do I do?  What do I wear?  How do I act?  Anything to avoid thinking about the real question: why does this happen?  Season 5 of Buffy is about God in many ways, and Joyce's passing is major to the themes of the season, as it's the only death in the entire show brought about by natural causes.

Whenever something really bad happens to me, I get stuck in a stage that's a weird mixture of denial and bargaining.  I imagine it not happening, thinking that maybe if I formulate all of these elaborate alternative scenarios, one will eventually become true.  The minute you snap back to reality and realize that that's never going to happen, you're weighed down by an even heavier sense of pain.  That's why the parts that get me the most in this episode are the two or three scenes where Buffy imagines that her mom is actually alive.  You can see her thinking "If I could just do this one thing differently..."  But in the end, like Dawn in the closing scene, she's reaching for someone she can never truly touch again.  Joyce Summers is there no longer.  All that's left is the body.

"I wish that Joyce didn't die.  Because she was nice.  And now we all hurt." --Anya

Whedon Week: Ranking the works of Joss Whedon

It would be hard enough to rank Joss Whedon's oeuvre if we were just talking about his television work.  How do you compare his shows that had longevity (Buffy and Angel) to his short-lived shows that never had the chance to experience the same peaks and valleys (Firefly and Dollhouse)?  But it becomes even more difficult now that he's made his recent foray into movies.  What's the criteria for comparing movies, which come in a short 2-hour burst, to the weekly installments of television?  Somehow, despite these questions, I managed to concoct a list in which I order his movies and television shows from my favorite to least favorite.  Take these rankings with a grain of salt, because I love everything he does so much that, aside from my number 1 (which is clearly the greatest thing ever), most of these are interchangeable.  So without further ado...

Whedon Week: What makes Joss Whedon so great

Next week, on September 24th, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will premiere on ABC at 8 pm.  This is the most I've ever been excited for a new show, less because I'm a Marvel fan, and more because it's technically Joss Whedon's return to television.  Although he'll only write and direct the pilot, he's giving away the reigns to frequent collaborators like his brother Jed, Maurissa Tanchereon, and Jeffrey Bell; and I'm hoping that it still has that Whedon feel.  So as a way to channel my enthusiasm, I've decided to do something called Whedon Week.  For the next 6 days, I'll be posting various pieces about Joss Whedon's work, ending with a review of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot after it airs.

If you were to ask me for my favorite writers in any medium, there's a handful that readily come to mind: Jason Katims, David Chase, John Green, Todd VanDerWerff, Christopher Ware, etc.  However, Joss Whedon might be the writer I feel the most passionate about.  To me, his oeuvre has no real weak spot (not even Dollhouse, as some people would like you to believe).  One of the greatest strengths of his work is its high rewatchability factor.  Breaking Bad is ending in less than two weeks and even though it's one of my favorite shows ever, I don't imagine rewatching it anytime soon.  But right after I finished Buffy and Angel, I immediately wanted to rewatch them again.  Whenever I have free time, I'll occasionally watch one of my favorite episodes, just so I can revisit the lively worlds and even livelier characters that inhabit them.

Joss Whedon writes how I aspire to write if I were to ever make TV shows or movies.  His scripts are funny, emotional, twisty, experimental -- the list goes on.  Many of the great TV writers are known for making prestige drama, but Whedon's shows always have some sort of sci-fi or supernatural element to them.  He uses genre to play with the exaggerated emotions on display in his shows, and he does it better than anybody I can think of.  Most of his work also has a strong sense of family, with a great mastery of the long game when unfolding relationships.  Characters on Joss Whedon shows grow, change, hurt each other, make mistakes, and act out of deep pain; and it's always well-developed and originates from a logical place.  On top of that, the way that he deals with grief and depression is as raw as it gets.  Some find his excessive need to kill characters (particularly right after they reach a state of peace and happiness in their lives) annoying, and "The Whedon Death" can be very cruel, but the lack of safety regarding the people you love to watch and be around just adds to the excitement.

Most of all, it just boils down to an intangibility factor.  I'm not even sure why he inspires such rabid fandom, but there's something deep within his writing that's so easy to get attached to.  I'm glad he's gained popularity in the movie business, where he was able to extrapolate his knack for experimentation and action-adventure in Cabin in the Woods and The Avengers, because now more of the world will be able to experience the joy of Joss Whedon.  There's a little bit of something for everyone in his work, so dive in if you haven't already.  You'll be in awe of what you find...