By Wesley and Fred times in S5 of Angel, the time between happiness and milking a tragic event for all it was worth was a good bit shorter ;-)

We're meant to know because they told it was Buffy week during episode 1 Monday…

Yes but conversely, past a certain point it's just hard to suspend your disbelief when everybody who is in a happy relationship is struck down at a crucial moment in the season.

Is the battleground not on social media?

Since the First's powers were all psychological (more or less) it could come off as a bit of an impotent force.

Oh god, I can't believe I forgot to mention Lover's Walk (hey my enemy has more insight into my relationship than my friends) and Helpless in my list of favourites up above. Helpless isn't an episode I liked initially and as ever the Watcher's Council plan seems fairly dumb and ill-judged.

"Dead Man's Party" is just a bit ill-judged. Joyce and Willow in particular have extremely valid reasons to feel abandoned and upset with Buffy but having all the gang attack her for it at the party at once just makes them look cruel and insensitive. Plus the others seem to ignore what should have been obvious-that…

I find most of S7 to be a bit of a joyless slog. Other than the finale and Conversations With Dead People I can't think of any episodes that really stood out in it.

Yeah Revelations is a pretty key episode for Faith. Her first watcher gets brutally killed and Faith has to flee and then Gwendolyn Post manages to trick her and then basically tells Faith she's stupid.

Yeah I personally would have preferred the Willow as antagonist storyline done more gradually. It seems like Willow's real issues were with craving power and control over others so they could have spun that out into Buffy and Willow falling out about who would lead the group.

I love Faith's appearances in S4 of Angel in particular for the Faith/Angel friendship.

I loved S2 at the time but rewatching it as an older adult, the world's most tragic romance stuff between Buffy and Angel doesn't really do it for me any more. Also I got increasingly annoyed with the fact no-one gets to be in a happy relationship and have both parties live in the Whedonverse as the show went out.…

The other highlight of S3 is the increasingly twisted Buffy/Faith relationship. Too bad you never got that level-headed Watcher you could trust, Faith.

They didn't really have a choice on Angel, everyone looked mid-thirties by then ;-)

I liked Cordelia on Angel but I also like her "oh get over yourself" type perspective on Buffy ;-)

Mine too, I like it when the villains have some insight into the main characters and come pretty close to winning.

S3 is my favourite season of the show. I love the double threat of Faith and the Mayor and I like the way things are between the Scoobies at this stage. There are a lot of episodes I really enjoyed as well like Anne, Faith, Hope & Trick, Gingerbread, Bad Girls, Consequences, Choices and then the finale.

Fuck my job.
Fuck always going round in circles.
(And just to undercut the general vibe of this comment so far) Fuck not having more time to spend here when it's Buffy week.

Wow that's great on both counts.

Plus depending on where they live it might be really cold a lot of the time.