Other worthy season 5 eps. (IMO) - Intervention, The Real Me, Tough Love, Forever, No Place Like Home (I think that was what it was called), Checkpoint & the Replacement. The rest of the season was soooo weak. I didn't mind Riley going dark, just the way they ended it. But the arc stuff was painfully slooooooow. It makes sense in retrospect (because Glory was Ben a lot), but Ben was such a fount of anti-charisma that it didn't matter. Plus, this was all happening during the beige-Angel arc, so it was a stark contrast.
Ken is me here. Despite what everyone says, season 5 will always be my favorite season (not the one I think is the best) because that is when I found the Buffistas. My viewing experience has been transformed.
My rankings in terms of favorites - 5,2,3,1,7,4,6.
My rankings in terms of quality - 3,2,1,7,5,6,4. (After 3 and 2, though, the list changes by the nanosecond).
Season finales:
"Becoming II" - this episode (and Becoming I should count as well) belongs in the list of the greatest dramatic hours of television ever.
"The Gift" - I actually felt like somebody really died. It took me a couple of days to get over the episode. Plus, it seemed like the internet exploded right after this aired. Since I didn't see "Becoming" "live", this episode had the strongest emotional impact on me for any of the finales.
"Restless", "Prophecy Girl","Graduation Day", and "Grave" - I can't force myself to pick one over the other, because every time I think about a particular episode, I think "how can I rank this behind the other, it's got Dreamsequences Idon'twantodie thinnestmetaphorever brokenyellowcrayon". Points get taken off of "Grave" if you don't include "Two to Go", because that had the Best.Entrance.Ever.