Yay, I like this poll. The answer is an unqualified "yes." Also, for reference, the answer for Angel is "no." I actually loved watching it, I loved the sweeps of emotion, and I enjoyed almost every episode on its own terms. But when I look back and try to put it together - "no." But I am glad it exists, if that makes sense. I just see it as a big failed experiment, whereas I see Buffy as a big successful experiment, albeit with a few mis-steps along the way.

I deliver an unabashed and resounding "YES" to this poll.

There is little (if any) of the narrative that I actually don't enjoy. (I've accepted that I'm in the minority on this.)

Easiest poll ever! :)

There are a handful of episodes that I find dull and all, of course; as a whole, the only season-long arc I didn't enjoy much was the Initiative, and even that had its redeeming details. So yes. Without a doubt!

My response was, of course, yes. I would vote the same for Angel as a series.

Yes, indubitably. I can't think of any individual episodes I couldn't watch without enjoyment, even those generally considered not so good - because weaker is generally better than most other stuff. I'm less certain about - must give it thought.

There's a lot of people out there, it seems, that don't like S6 & S7. I do.

Hi, here via the Herald. I had to put a 'no' here just because I think Season 7 really misses the boat. I love BtVS but a narrative is about a beginning, a middle and an end, and I find the ending of BtVS deeply unsatisfying.

Absotively yes. It was perfect, from beginning to end. PERFECT I SAY!!!

Hmm. YES!

Can't do the Angel poll cos I've only seen most of season 5...

After posting my reasons why I didn't like the narrative of Angel in your other poll, it's nice to come here and give a more positive response! My answer to this question is a resounding yes. Sure, the first season or so is a little too campy for my taste, but personal preferences aside, the story is honestly good. And I liked the whole arc that was established, from our first introduction to a cheerleader who can also save the world to the somewhat cheesy but still effective conclusion of girls all over the world becoming heroes. (Also, I love season 6. Just putting that out there.)

On a most basic level, I think if you have more than 10 favorite episodes of a show (which I do for Buffy), it's safe to say you like the narrative. :P

I love the overall narrative of Buffy coming to terms with her power and taking control of it. I think I love the characters more than the narrative, but I still have enough narrative love to want to draw squiggly hearts around it. I also have issues with some of the execution of that narrative, especially in the later seasons, but not enough to dampen my overall love for the show.

I don't like all the the places they took the characters-- I love early Willow for example, and I really don't much care for her in the last few seasons. And I think they writing got kind of hit-and-miss that last few seasons. But that actually feels realistic to me. I love the journey and the story as a whole!

Of course!
While I don't like every episode and every season, I love BtVS as a whole. As I said at the AtS poll there are a lot of BtVS characters I can't stand, definitely more than the characters I love but the ones I love...they make it worth it. And as a whole I think the show was really good, deeper then it seems, fun but serious when it should be, sad but amusing too, supernatural and painfully real. It wouldn've been one of the best shows out there but Spike made it the best! *g*

*goes for the short and heart-lighted light-hearted answer*

Yes! ♥ I sure like it, and the parts I immensely disliked (which is, what, less than 5%?) I can always fanwank into liking. :) I'm mostly thinking the drug metaphor here.

Yes, except I loathed the whole season 7 empowerment spell malarkey. I just felt it really didn't work on sooooo many levels.

Only one other fictional story feels as real, traverses as much territory, for me & seems to have found the world that surrounds the world. The Lord of the Rings & Buffy feel like they tell the story of the world with the right amounts of joy & terror, dream & desire.

While Tolkien's more neatly closed off, Buffy has the sort of finish that's undone through the artists' reach exceeding their grasp ("or what's a Heaven for?"). BtVS has the right kind of flaws where it has flaws. It's always more than the sum of the parts.

Wow, LOL. I expected to be in the minority, but not by that much. But I chose no because there ARE whole swaths of seasons I'd have to exclude in order to answer positively, if that's the criteria we're voting by.

Edited at 2010-08-15 01:19 pm (UTC)

BtVS is certainly not without it's flaws. Even the best television shows have weak episodes, but I was most disappointed with the progressive trend to add more characters to create new dynamics rather than focus on the core relationships already present. I especially felt this way in S7: with the death of Tara, the Xander/Anya breakup, the return of Giles, and Buffy's promise to Dawn, I came out of S6 hoping/expecting that S7 would provide a return to the Scoobies. Instead, we got Robin (meh) and Kennedy (eww) as well as the other Potentials, and only a few bones tossed to us for the main relationships.

For me, the story had an amazing beginning, a strong if sometimes controversial middle, but a slightly weak ending. Still, the overall narrative was a very enjoyable one, so I definitely vote yes (and hope that Whedon can improve on the ocmics to provide a better ending).

I voted yes all the way. There's hardly any episodes of Buffy that I don't enjoy on SOME level. I love the characters, I love the stories, I mostly love the execution of the stories, I like the ambitions the show has (even if they don't always live up to those ambitions) I love where we start and where we finish. I love all seven seasons. It's just so very, very pleasing!

Yes. Basically, it's my favourite long-run show (there may be a few shows that run fewer than ~20 episodes that I prefer overall, but that's another question). Its central story is Buffy's, and that one is wonderful and complete; and there are I'd say three major series-long (or nearly series-long) satellite arcs that, while imperfect, feel to me to be very strong: Willow's corruption, Spike's redemption, and Xander's slow climb to self-actualization in the shadow of his Strong Woman idol/hero. I feel like Giles qua Giles doesn't have a complete story arc but does have a complete arc as Buffy's Watcher and as the surrogate father figure to the gang; this doesn't bother me because of the possibility, never actualized but always in potentio, for the Ripper series to explore his own edges. (I think a lot of his story was deliberately being saved up for a series that, sadly, never happened.) And along the way there are shorter stories that take up a half, a third, a quarter of the series: Dawn and Buffy's relationship, Faith's negotiating her power as a person and as a contrast to Buffy, Cordelia's transformation from mean girl to moderate hero, Riley's "good patriarchy" slowly imploding in the presence of Buffy, Anya's introduction to humanity, Jonathan's flitting in and out of the gang's sphere of influence, Andrew's redemption and role as a commentary on fandom, Tara's growing confidence, etc. Even Oz, whose arc eventually gets compressed into Wild at Heart and New Moon Rising, has a good story. And many of the season villains (Angelus, Dru, the Mayor, the underrated Glory & Ben, Warren) are given exceptional development both as their own characteers and as symbols to the central story. Fundamentally the show itself follows the standard growing up template, which is pretty ready-made, but it dares to follow the template to its illogical conclusion and see it break apart entirely with "The Gift" (tentatively) and especially season six, transforming the entire story into something far greater, and of course thornier, than it would have been. I guess I should mention that I think season seven ultimately was botched in ways that undermined a lot of what season six did well: Xander and Anya's arc as a couple and as individuals is/are amazing up to Selfless and then meanders uncontrollably until End of Days/Chosen awkwardly (but satisfyingly) rights it (with his moment with Dawn in Potential one of the highlights), Giles is given little to do in his new role (or lack of role) until LMPTM, and so on. But ultimately season seven succeeds conceptually even when it misses some of the key elements in execution. The whole thing is just great.

I love the show, yeah, but I answered 'no' to the poll.

There are big black holes in the greatness of the plot for me; I don't DISlike Seasons 1-4 and 7, but the only ones I can say I really LOVED were Seasons 5 and 6... mainly because Dawn and Spike are my favourite characters and they had really significant roles in those seasons (and no, I'm not talking about the many naked!Spike scenes in S6, although they certainly didn't hurt ;D).

As a whole, I find I dislike most of the characters in BtVS (most notably, Xander and Giles) for one reason or another, and those traits just bug the heck outta me and I can't enjoy many of their positive aspects. Not that this really impacts the STORY any, but it DOES detract from the overall enjoyment of the show. I spend so much time during the plot thinking "What the hell did s/he do that for? Can't s/he see that's just making it worse?!" (Xander is the most common offender in this regard - Becoming pt.2 ["Kick his ass"] and Into the Woods [where the hell does he get off making Buffy feel like it's her fault?!] being my most hated Xander scenes).

And then there are the characters that I just find so boring and whose story arcs I wanna zap through *coughAngelandRileycough* when I watch them.

The thing that Buffy does for me is mainly villains. S1's Darla villain, S2's Spike/Dru/Angelus combination and S5's Glory made the story worth watching for me. Season 6 was great character development for the Scoobies, where the villains were lacking, but Season 7 just keeled over and died a horrible death; the only thing that made that Season watch-able was watching Spike struggle with his soul.

...I just realised how much I hate most of the characters, and now I find it weird how much I enjoy the show...

My answer is YES, YES, YES. And even though there's a lot that could have been handled better, I still think of it as a good try at showing a female character defying stereotypes. It's a show I'd want my hypotetical daughter to watch.

Btw, I actually like S6 and S7 more than the rest of the series.

I don't know about Angel.