How many times have you read this or some variation thereof? "Buffy hit its high point in Seasons Two and Three, but from there on out it was all downhill." For a person who has enjoyed the bulk of what "Buffy" Seasons Four through Seven has had to offer, I find such statements disheartening and closed minded. But that's not really the point of this post.

Why lump these two seasons together? If you're looking at the high school years, or when Angel and Cordy were on the show, why not include Season One? Because of perceived qualitative differences, mostly. The first season was perceived to be weaker than the other two creatively. Which brings me to a form of the title question: was Season Three as good as or better than Season Two? Does it deserve such accolades?

Now don't get me wrong. I like the Third Season. Faith was cool, the Mayor was funny, and it was the last time we had a truly enjoyable AND menacing season-long Big Bad. "The Zeppo" and "Earshot" would probably both make my top ten Buffy episodes list. Hell, the Third Season was what got me hooked on "Buffy". So why am I questioning its place in the upper echelon? One, because I don't think it was as good as Season Two, the best season so far and two, I think Season Five was clearly better.

I won't go into too much detail here, but here's my rundown of the three seasons, as a unit. Season Two not only mastered the monster-of-the-week format started in the First Season but also gave us the Angelus story arc, perhaps the best series of episodes in the show's history. The one-two-three punch of Angel going evil (thus saving the show's two leads and lovers from Sam and Diane syndrome), Jenny Calendar's murder (the show has rarely been as bold since) and Angel being sent to Hell by Buffy took the show to new heights of creativity.

Season Five is less spectacular, getting off to a slow start from trying to repair much of the "damage" from Season Four, if you believe such a thing existed. The first ten episodes are the weaker part of the season, although they do produce some good 'uns: including the very funny Dawn-introducing "Real Me", "No Place Like Home" and "Fool for Love", it's the final twelve that set this apart from the remaining seasons. There's nary a weak entry in the bunch (OK, maybe Weight of the World, although that does have a certain psychological allure to it). Also, we get the instant classic "The Body" where Buffy's mother dies of natural causes and then "The Gift" where Buffy herself dies to save the world. (Both moves bold enough to rival Ms. Calendar's death.)

However, Season Three is much more of a mixed bag. It doesn't get off the ground creatively until "Band Candy" (up to which point we endured the worst season premiere in the show's history, "Anne", the preachy "All Men are Beasts" and the horror that was Scott Hope). Despite some solid entries from that point on, including "Lovers Walk" and "Helpless", the show faltered down the stretch, particularly after the aforementioned "Zeppo" episode. Only one ep not penned by Joss was very good after that point, and that was Marti Noxon's "The Prom"*, which was a tad angsty, but not by Noxon's standards.

But if the show had one major problem over the season, it was Angel. What to do with a character who you brought back, thus cheapening the previous season's finale, just so he can have his own spin-off show next year? Answer: have him skulk around doing precious little and playing a pivotal role in very few episodes. "Amends", "The Prom", the list pretty much stops there, doesn't it? What other episodes would have suffered without him in it? And if the Angelus arc allowed the show to dodge Sam and Diane Syndrome, Season Three had the pair wallow in it. Their scenes were overwrought, overplayed and underwhelming, so much so that "The Zeppo" took perhaps its best pot shot (and there were many) at their dwindling relationship.

There are other things I could get into (the longterm irrelevancy of the Willow-Xander-Cordelia-Oz 'romantic quadrangle', the poor treatment of Cordy after said quadrangle ended, the lack of anything to do with Mr. Trick, etc.), but I don't want to lambast the show during this period too much. After all, every season has its flaws, while every year of "Buffy" has been enjoyable on the whole. Still, I'm too much a fan of the entire series' run not to point out that Season Three wasn't as perfect as a lot of people think. When you're watching your Season Three DVDs (released today here in the U.S.) see if you can catch what I mean.

ThomasMalthus

*Thinking I forgot "Earshot"? It's a distinct possibility, but let's not forget that this episode didn't air until September, thus making it almost more a Season Four episode than a Season Three one. Like the finale, "Graduation Day, Part 2", it was postponed because of the incident at Columbine. Such network mismanagement (and the incompletion of the season until months after the season was scheduled to be finished) is not lost on me as yet another reason why this year doesn't deserve to be conjoined with S2.