I was more enamored with Dawson's Creek for a long time, but the WB was the golden channel to me when I was a teenager (nineteen is not teenaged. it's almost drinking-aged. there's a difference) and I watched it every night religously. So, like, I knew everything that went on but I wasn't addicted. I cried like a baby at The Gift, and I'd watched steadily from Welcome to the Hellmouth to The Gift, with a short bypass in season four 'cause I thought it Buffy was acting to stupid to live. (I have since edited my opinion.) I really only got back into it with the musical episode and the Year of Boredom that was my senior year of high school. Plus, we didn't get UPN, so I had to beg off tapes from a school friend.

Then I found my friend Lee, who had her husband instal an antennae on the roof so she could get UPN, and watched with her. Sometime in fall term I'd discovered fanfiction, by January I'd discovered Herself, and she linked me to WX. Became a Buffista, never looked back.

I'm starting my relationship with Angel, though I started watching again in Season Three. I lost Angel when I shied away from Buffy, so I missed a lot of the first and second seasons.

And I turned out warped on a fundamental level, so maybe you were better off without.

I'd wager that Warped by Buffy=Not a Bad Thing.

If I had it when I was 10, I'd never have had a hard time picking a Halloween costume.

Came back to school in eighth grade with a Willow-instilled sense of self-confidence and a whole new kind of geeky.

This seriously made me sniffle. I wish there'd been a BtVS when I was younger. I really needed it.

No. Shit. Cindy. (to the whole thing, I got sniffly, too)

I wonder how different my high school years could have been with a Rosenberg/Harris role model set.

And I turned out warped on a fundamental level, so maybe you were better off without.

HOLLI, NO!!!!

Your fundamental warpedness (along with the warpedness of our other young'uns - Hil, SA, RLiz, there's somebody else I'm forgetting...) is our HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY!!!

It's a good thing. I promise.

But particularly Passion as it shows a major supporting character death. I can't think of anything that would shatter my friends illusion of Buffy as a goofy teen show than to show him that they are perfectly happy to kill a fairly major character and deal with the consequences.

My one caveat is that if you don't know who Jenny is, the impact isn't nearly as big.

First episode was Bad Eggs. I wasn't impressed, although some of the lines were funny (especially the opening in the mall) and I got the Gorch brothers reference, which I thought was a nice touch.

Still, I gave it another shot the following week - Surprise. Then Innocence followed. That pretty much did it. I refrained from taping for longer than I should have, but I've more than made up for it since.

My one caveat is that if you don't know who Jenny is, the impact isn't nearly as big.

I'm willing to live with it. He'll know what he needs to know just from watching the episode and a setence's worth of setup - Jenny is Giles' girlfriend, and has been a cherished recurring character up until now, not just Giles' girlfriend of the week.

There's just no way to recreate the emotional investment in Jenny for him, I think. Heck, I never went through it. I got the recap myself after the fact, when MM and Aimee were giving me the gist of What Had Gone Before, during the commercial breaks in Anne.

My one caveat is that if you don't know who Jenny is, the impact isn't nearly as big.

Ah, but I didn't know. It still floored me. The ep itself contains all you need to know about her relationship with Giles to feel it in your gut.

We have a number of X-Files fans here who migrated as it descended into crapulence.

t raises hand

I blame several ex-Phile Buffistas for sucking me in. Blame, owe toasters, whatever. (Btw, why toasters? Why not a microwave? Or a coffee grinder? I've always wondered.)

I started after The Body aired, because of the web-wide critical praise. The only other ep I had seen prior to that was parts of Reptile Boy, and boy, I was not impressed. I started with the season 1&2 VHS boxsets, and was instantly hooked. Wepted like a leaky faucet at Jenny's death although I had no idea who the hell she was, since she wasn't featured at all in the S1 set (They didn't have Prophecy Girl in the S1 box set! That's pretty cracked, I tell you.) Then I started watching late S5 in real time. I believe Intervention was the first episode I watched, which may explain why I feel so freaking ambivalent about Spike's character, even now.

(Btw, why toasters? Why not a microwave? Or a coffee grinder? I've always wondered.)

I *think* -- but I could be wrong -- back in the day, banks gave people toasters for opening an account with them.

Because really, what's better than a perfectly toasted slice of bread, with melting butter and some awesome jam?

YEAAAAAHHHHH, TOAST!