Is 'Once More With Feeling' Buffy's best episode? - BtVS

No. It's a tie between Hush and the Body.

Put it this way, if there was one Buffy episode I'd want to rewatch right now it would be the musical.

This episode is the one I avoid as often as possible.

I think The Body is the best one (should have won an Emmy), but OMWF is my favorite episode to watch. I still listen to the soundtrack in my car all the time.

mossome | November 02, 20:36 CET

Does anyone else try to do the dance moves when they listen to the soundtrack? Or is that just me?

Simon | November 02, 20:38 CET

No. It's a great episode, but I've always felt its ambition is slightly more impressive than its execution. Or another way to put it is -- of the great Buffy episodes, its the one that I find to have the most flaws.

I'd rank The Body, Restless, Hush, Innocence, The Gift, Becoming, Passion, and possibly a few others ahead of it.

bonzob | November 02, 20:38 CET

Not just you, Simon. How can you listen to 'I'll Never Tell' without dancing around? And I always do the monster dance moves in 'Going Through the Motions' when they sing "but lately we can tell." Gosh, I'm going to have to watch this now! (And dance)

mossome | November 02, 20:41 CET

I try to watch OMWF at least every couple of months. It somehow keeps me tied to the series. And I have the soundtrack on my iPod.

kmb99 | November 02, 20:58 CET

Yes. It's the only episode I ever watch by itself (i.e. separately from the rest of the season).

If only one episode is ever released on Blu-ray then let this be the one.

linux | November 02, 21:00 CET

Any time I've ranked episodes, I have to put the Whedon-helmed ones aside. As wonderful as "Fool for Love" is or how great "the Wish" is, or how much I love "Insert Episode name here," most of his are always going to be way at the top, like "Hush", "the Body," "Restless," and "OMwF." Those 4 are all first place to me.

CaptainB | November 02, 21:25 CET

Voted yes, although actually for me it's propably more of a tie between "Once More with Feeling," "Hush," "The Body," and "Earshot."

Truly outstanding eps all.

ETA: "Selfless" is another favorite of mine but just a little less special than those other four.

[ edited by the Groosalugg on 2011-11-02 21:38 ]

the Groosalugg | November 02, 21:37 CET

The musical was just such an amazing achievement: every single song moved the plot forward, revealed important things about the character, AND was written specifically for the singing ability of the actor. This is a unique and brilliant episode, I don't thing I could come up with anything better from any other show I've ever seen.

But having said that, it certainly wasn't Joss' only achievement: there was a lot to admire on BtVS, and on his other shows.

embers | November 02, 21:44 CET

OMWF is definitely an extraordinary episode and the songs are great, but I never really understood all the hype about it being the single best episode of the series. I personally think that the show has better episodes to take that spot.

My favorite episode is probably Fool For Love, but I consider The Body to be the best. That's just remarkable 40+ minutes of cinematography.

Anuris | November 02, 22:30 CET

I actually don't think OMWF is the best episode. It has great elements, but having Xander do the spell ruined it, because a big theme in Buffy is 'abuse of magic/power has consequences', and then having him not fess up when the bodies started to drop (Xander even wonders if that's the cause of the deaths, without showing any sign of regret or fear, in the middle of the episode) is bad writing that killed the episode.

Skytteflickan88 | November 02, 22:45 CET

I'm with Anuris. Great ep, one of the best. The Body is tops for me though.

danregal | November 02, 22:48 CET

Can I answer that the following episodes are all equally favorites?

- Once More with Feeling
- Innocence
- Becoming. Parts 1 AND 2
- Graduation Day. Parts 1 AND 2
- Pangs

These are the episodes I tend to watch most often.

skyroom80 | November 02, 22:54 CET

Passion. :)

The Dark Shape | November 02, 23:04 CET

It's not the best episode of Buffy, it's the best episode of TV, period.

dispatch | November 02, 23:26 CET

I like the plots of "Once" and "Hush", I really like this ones because they're so different, plus, making 'Buffy' a beautiful, unique series.

But "The Gift" is my favourite episode in the whole show. You know, see Buffy sacrificing herself to save the world, I can't watch that without tearing eyes. Very beautiful scene of the best episode in my opinion.

abitca | November 03, 00:26 CET

Couldn't agree more SinceWeChangedTheWorld! "The Gift" is the best Buffy ep of them all, in my opinion (and the favorite episode of our team when we did our personal poll on Buffyfest.) I've seen it what feels like a hundred times.

"OM,WF" is incredible, though. No doubt about that.

buffyfest | November 03, 00:40 CET

I wouldn't say it's the best episode, but for me it is definitely the most ambitious. It does contain one of the best and most delicious moments of the whole show for me: When Spike (James) begins Let me rest in peace, and he gets to you can make me feel, like it isn't so, we get his big exasperated head back/eyeroll expression and rueful smiling shake of his head that he is singing these inner thoughts/feelings to her because it's beyond his control. They're also true, which makes it even more sublime.

Tonya J | November 03, 00:57 CET

My favorite is New Moon rising; the one I think is best is The Body. The most innovative ones are Hush and OMWF.

Dana5140 | November 03, 01:01 CET

I agree with Skytteflickan88. OMWF is a good episode but it's flawed because of the Xander thing. And it's a flaw that was never addressed later.

menomegirl | November 03, 02:01 CET

For me, OMWF is the Bach of Joss's work. And a whole bunch of other brilliant Buffy epis compete for the Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy et al. positions.

Once is just amazing. Within minutes you forget that it's a musical because songs are propelling the plot and providing character information.

Xander's summoning made a lot of sense by the time Hell's Bells aired, further cementing OMWF's brilliance.

Reddygirl | November 03, 02:41 CET

For me,my favorite concept episode of Buffy is Hush.OMWF is good and fun but Hush is the one that does it for me.The Body might be a better episode then either Hush and OMWF but it's a very hard episode to sit through.For all the right reasons of course but still hard.

Buffyfantic | November 03, 03:02 CET

Whenever I see the acronym, OMWF, my first thought is Oh My, What the Fuck? As it happens, that was my reaction when I first watched it. I thought it was kinda boring; the songs were not well sung (except ASH's) and went on too long; the Sweet character struck me as a bad stereotype; and the Xander revelation at the end made no sense.

But I grew to love the episode, REALLY love it, and I've now seen it more times than any other. I too have the soundtrack on my iPod, and this lets me experience Buffy even when I can't watch it.

That said, Hush and The Body are still tied for number one in my book as the best episodes, though there are so many others that are fantastic too.

Another all time favorite of mine, but one that others don't seem to love much, is Normal Again. Am I the only one? I've met people who like the show but hate that episode.

[ edited by Squishy on 2011-11-03 05:16 ]

[ edited by Squishy on 2011-11-03 05:16 ]

Squishy | November 03, 05:15 CET

Favorite is Becoming--which is my favorite anything ever.

But I think the best is a tie between The Body and OMWF. Impossible for me to choose.

Squishy,

I love Normal Again, but I know several people that hate it as well. I can understand not enjoying watching it (a little like The Body), but I think it's brilliant storytelling.

guidedby | November 03, 05:53 CET

Nope! The best one is "Restless."

...what?

ManEnoughToAdmitIt | November 03, 06:23 CET

@Reddygirl

How do you figure about the summoning?

Skytteflickan88 | November 03, 11:23 CET

I love OMWF so much. I remember when I first started watching the show I missed the first airing so I had to download the episode off of Kazaa so I could see it unedited. It took me almost 2 days to download that episode. And when it finally loaded I was just blown away. Everyone did a good job, the cinematography was great(it looks so much different from the other episodes, the lighting, the bright colors in the day scenes.), and the songs as everyone else has already pointed out propelled the story. No matter how many times I watch that episode I always sing along with the songs. The episode is just pure magic I think.

eddy | November 03, 12:19 CET

I love OMWF. I love The Gift. I love Fool for Love. Hush is an awesome episode. I could go on and on. I love many, many episodes. I hate The Body. I'm not saying it's not good, but I hate it. I probably only watched it twice.

Xane | November 03, 15:03 CET

Hush or Once More ... it's almost a coin toss as to which is the best. Both episodes left me exhilarated and amazed when they first aired. Both convinced me more than any other episode in the series that this writer/director/producer named Joss Whedon was some kind of marvel, a real artist trying to give us something new and wonderful. Once More, because of the unexpected brilliance of the music, is an even more dazzling display of Joss's powers than the tour de force of Hush. Even so, I reserve the top spot for Hush. It's the supreme example of the show's original premise: a horror superhero story ... told with a wink and a smile (and plenty of metaphor).

1starbuckstown | November 03, 15:18 CET

I don't think I could even begin to list my favourite Buffy episodes, I truly love them all, obviously there were episodes that stood out to me, but to rank a single episode as #1 is impossible.

Winchester | November 03, 18:15 CET

"Best" and "Favorite" are such implosion inducing words. I was wondering though, (because Post-Apocalyptic is so "in") in the event of an actual apocalypse...

What would be the one episode that needs to survive in order to best represent the show after society rebuilds itself and the archaeologists stumble upon some fragment somewhere mentioning "the television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer"?

I think I'd choose "The Gift" for the Deserves Apocalyptic Survival Award (the DASA's).

Which... is kinda weird since Buffy was stopping an apocalypse and all. I'll bet it'd be this really big discovery and everyone would be wishing they'd had their own Buffy to stop their apocalypse.

BreathesStory | November 03, 18:47 CET

[ edited by Puck on 2011-11-04 19:38 ]

Puck | November 04, 13:47 CET

Once More, With Feeling is not the best episode, but comes pretty close. Top 5 without a doubt.

The best, for me, is The Body, as it is the best piece of television I've ever seen. Near perfection. My favourite though is Restless. Not for everyone, but it has to be the most radically different episode in Buffy and I always see something new on every watch.

Vandelay | November 04, 18:51 CET

If you want to feel old, the episode aired 10 years this Sunday.

Simon | November 04, 18:58 CET

I just watched it AGAIN tonight.

[ edited by Squishy on 2011-11-05 10:23 ]

Squishy | November 05, 05:10 CET

November 02 2011