Boy, was I sorry I waited that long.

I hear ya'.

I started watching kind of off-and-on the summer between S3 and S4 - you know what I think made me start? A conversation on Usenet about the postponing of Earshot and GDII. Anyway, I didn't really fall for it until I attached myself to the chunk of the fandom at MBTV, which is a pretty normal pattern for me (see the show, fall for it once I invest in the fandom/conversation).

So I don't think I had a conversion episode as such.

Watched the occasional episode during S1/2 (it aired on game nights, and game started after Buffy), but as we didn't have cable, the only show I was going out of my way (which is to say, driving to someone's house) to watch was The X-Files. Thought it was okay, but was loyal to Another Show. (The episodes I caught during S1/2 included the pilot, Angel, Surprise/Innocence, Passion, and Becoming.)

S3, we had cable. Started full-time viewing with "Anne" and never looked back.

Then some of my friends from the XF fandom migrated to Buffy, and I still resisted. When FX started showing the reruns, I said, "Well, all right."

I was the exact opposite. I started watching XF in S6 maybe because my XF friends were like, "if you watch that, you have to watch this." Now, it did suck that I got into XF when it was turning bad, but that's what syndication is for.

And yeah, I was super sorry I waited so long. I watched 6 seasons of XF in like 4 months, it was over for me way too soon.

I started watching kind of off-and-on the summer between S3 and S4

Me too! First ep - Gingerbread. Hooked? GDII. Hooked my roomie? Fear Itself.

They had me at "John Tesh?" "The Devil." in the very first episode. (Hmm, would have been fun if they'd gotten him to guest as the First at some point...) It was like a religious experience—I've never fallen so completely for a show, before or since.

Shallowest.Conversion. Ever.

Erika cracks my shit up.

Boy, was I sorry I waited that long.

When I started watching, it was with the original broadcast of Anne, and I felt like I had come very late to the show, for some reason. I think when I had declared myself not interested in the show, it was some time during S1 or 2, but for some reason I thought the show had been on for longer.

Anyway, I moved to California just before the new TV season started, and MircaleMan, Aimee, and two other roommates at the time told me to sit down and shut up that Tuesday evening, I told them I'd been kind of "eh" about the show to which they responded "SHUT THE FUCK UP, IT'S STARTING!!!"

For the next hour, I was entertained more than I had ever been entertained by a one hour show. I was hooked instantly.

Even though I had not been a regular watcher of the show before that, I did know that Buffy had sent her good-vampire-turned-evil lover Angel to Hell at the end of the previous season.

That was all I needed to know.

Since then I have reacieved five seasons of some of the finest television I have ever watched, and I'm glad I came to the show when I did (I'm just bummed it took me so long to find the Buffistas).

Cereal:

S3, we had cable. Started full-time viewing with "Anne" and never looked back.

PLEI, MY SISTAH!!!!

I'm loving all these conversion stories.

I randomly left the TV on the WB one Tuesday night and saw "Pangs"/"IWRY." I thought it was funny and snarky and really smart and decided to keep watching, even though my friends mocked me.

Until S4, when I finally had an apartment with a television, I could only watch BtVS in the mod office ("mods" = "modules," I think, i.e. Where The Very Old Reel-to-Reel Linear Video Editing Went On) where the combination of very-old-tv-set and very-bad-basement-reception made everything show up pink, and the sound was much more noise than signal. So, though I technically saw a lot of S2/3 first-run, I wasn't really aware of it because I couldn't see or hear what I was watching. I finally picked up the show again with Fear, Itself.