Just finished the entire series..

[tokyomonster]

And I'm so sad it's over, so I searched out a few fan forums to feed by buffy craving..

I had watched a few seasons when it was on TV, but lost track of the series, and recently regained interested after watching the first season on hulu.com..

Joss really needs to make a movie..

Oh well, at least I have angel to finish, and there's always the comics..

[NileQT87]

make sure you've also watched angel: the series... otherwise, you've only seen half of the same story.

[BlasterBoy]

Congrats on finishing Wonderful series, yeeeeeesh?

Anyways, Angel's fantastic, and, IMO, much superior than Buffy. Joss spent less time on it, but Tim Minear, Jeffery Bell, David Greenwalt, and Mere Smith kinda picked it up. And it's awesome. Where are you at now?

[tokyomonster]

My girlfriend and I tried watching Buffy and Angel in parrallel but at the time there was a particularly suspensful story arch in Buffy so we just went straight through..

We had made it through about the first 8 episdoes of Angel, but we'll probably start over from the beginning to make it last longer

[KingofCretins]

Highly recommend moving on to Season 8 of Buffy, a canon comic published by Dark Horse -- so much has already happened since "Chosen"! The comics are available for order online and probably at local comic stores -- you can buy single issues or trade paperbacks as they are released. In the meantime, there are transcripts of each issue on this site as a way to stay caught up

And after you've watched the "Angel" televised seasons, a canon continuation of that series is also being published a comic called "Angel: After the Fall", by IDW.

[NileQT87]

season 4 btvs... suspenseful? season 1 ats is better, imo, even if it is ats' weakest season!

just wait until you get beyond 8 episodes of ats. you have watching to do! 102 more episodes to go!

and yeah, ats knocks btvs' socks off. especially ats seasons 1-4 vs. btvs seasons 4-7. no contest. but i do love btvs and ats both! ats is more consistent, however, and never had the weak points that btvs did in the later seasons. and ats went out at its peak--making the cancellation even more brutal than btvs' two ends (it was canceled also in season 5, but got picked up by upn for 2 more seasons until smg decided to leave the show.). ats felt like a loss at the end. can't say the same for btvs.

part of why i consider ats: after the fall the main continuing story and btvs: season 8 just extras--and a bit lacking in characters i still care about--i think faith, giles (and this might be too hopeful) and the lead-up to fray's timeline are about the only parts over there that i feel have something left--and i still think faith should be on ats (she's way closer to angel and wesley than she ever was to buffy and giles!!!). angel, wesley and fred/illyria are my focus right now.

just you wait for all that wonderful ats!

[Enisy]

You know, I would also highly recommend Angel, but I don't think it ever came close to Buffy's level of quality until its fifth season. Opinions obviously vary.

[skinless]

You know, I would also highly recommend Angel, but I don't think it ever came close to Buffy's level of quality until its fifth season. Opinions obviously vary.

I agree with Enisy as I thought that Angel season 5 was the only season as a whole that Is any where near as good as some Buffy seasons. But U should watch it ATS anyways

[NileQT87]

well, i disagree.

ats 1 > btvs 4
ats 2 > btvs 5
ats 3 > btvs 6
ats 4 > btvs 7

ats 5 is good, but the first half is weaker than ats 3-4. ats 3-4 are the most consistent. when the fred/wesley stuff came to the forefront is when ats 5 got amazing (and really--i've only ever cried during 3 episodes of the entire jossverse--and they were all in the second half of ats season 5). but the angel/darla/holtz/connor/wesley stuff is probably my favorite thing in the entire jossverse along with buffy/angel and fred/wesley.

ats was way more consistent with high quality, imo.

[Nina]

I agree with Nile, but I think that you must like the characters and the style. If you start watching with the 'Angel is boring, humorless and not cool and I want to see more BtVS' attitude, you probably never like the series. Ats and BtVS are different series, and some like it and some don't, season 5 is more like BtVS and it has Spike & Harmony, that attract some people more than the season 2-4. It's a matter of taste.
And you know, if you hate Angel ... forget it, Ats is all about Angel, the others can be replaced.

But I think that Ats is every season better than BtVS and the Ats comics are better than the BtVS ones. But again, all taste.

[skinless]

But I think that Ats is every season better than BtVS and the Ats comics are better than the BtVS ones. But again, all taste.

I agree on the comic part. After reading the first 2 season 8 comics Im saying that Im disappointed at them and not reading them anymore, Im sticking with Ats:ATF cuz theyre great.

[BlasterBoy]

Well, I actually think Ats Season 5 is the only season that is destroyed by most Buffy seasons Along with BtVS Seasons 1 and 7, I think it's the worst season in the Jossverse.

However, I think the Buffy comics are much better than ATF. At first, the Buffy comics sucked, but now they're pretty good. I got the first ATF and I can't read anymore. I hated it *shrugs*

[Enisy]

As I said, opinions and tastes vary. Way I see it...

BtVS S4 > AtS S1 (Angel tends to have really strong arcs and really weak standalones, and Season 1 was full of the latter)
BtVS S5 > AtS S2 (love them both, but Season 5 is my top favourite Buffy season, and it doesn't suffer from any weak storylines, unlike Angel Season 2 with its Pylea arc)
BtVS S6 > AtS S3 (I adore Darla and Holtz, but I really really dislike saintly!floaty!Cordelia, Groo, Cangel and baby!Connor, at least in this season)
BtVS S7 < AtS S4 (both were convoluted and all-over-the-place, but at least Angel Season 4 took the time to wrap up its plotlines, and focused on its main cast, instead of a bunch of new characters that no-one cared about)
BtVS S8 < AtF

Spoiler:

I won't go into detail. Just compare and contrast the twists that caused the biggest ruckus in the two series: Angel becoming human vs... Buffy sleeping with a girl. Speaks for itself, doesn't it?

[bishopcruz]

IMO every Angel Season was better than its Buffy counterpart. I think a LOT of that especially early on had to do with David Greenwalt, you can sense his departure from Buffy and his move to Angel. This surprised me a bit because I HATED Angel on Buffy, like with a fiery passion hated him. I LOVED him on his own show.

I thought Angel S1 was better than Buffy S4 even though it was mostly all stand alones. I thought it was a gret way to get into a new series, Doyle and Wesley were great, and the piecemeal way you got introduced to all the W&H people was awesome. Not to mention the Angel Faith Episodes DESTORYED their Buffy counterparts, and that is saying a lot because I loved TYG and WAY.

Season 2 of Angel started off kinda weird, but man, by the time you got to Reunion all bets were off. The rest of the season went well, but the early departure of Julie Benz did hurt it a bit. While I love parts of Buffy S5 it never resonated with me like Angel did the elevator ride in Epiphany still gives me chills. Plus, evil hand.

Season 3 was possibly the greatest Angel season ever. talk about a huge arc done perfectly right. S6 never stood a chance.

Season 4: Best season opening in the verse. Shame the season lost steam as they hastily wrote around CC's pregnancy. Still it was miles better than S7. If you want to see the difference in the relative quality of the shows look at the three episodes of Salvage, Release and Orpheus, and compare them to Dirty Girls and onwards then tell me that Faith and Willow don't seem more in character on Angel than they did on Buffy.

Season 5: Mixed feelings on this one, probably because the first half was full of a good amount of suck. No Cordy nearly sank this season. However it got a LOT better in the second half, when this season first aired I stopped watching for a while after "You're Welcome" that was my mistake, there are some great episodes in the latter half of the season, and the finale reached a level of emotion that 'Chosen' wished it could.

[ThePoet's<3]

Definately need to start the comics!! The beat goes on!!

There's a lot more story left in the Slayer, the Scoobies and Angel and the A-Team! Many of the writers from the shows are lending their talents to the comics so you get some of the same quality writing as the TV series!

[Sosa lola]

I suggest you watch Angel then read the comics. Both After the Fall and S8 Buffy are interesting and enjoyable. I don't know why fans need to compare the two, I even hated comparing Buffy the series to Angel the series, Buffy and Angel have very different styles.