She picked the good ones, well all except "Ted", but I can respect the picking it because John Ritter is cool. (I just didn't really like that episode- despite the Ritterness)

nna_funk | October 20, 09:40 CET

I liked Ted a lot up until it was revealed that Ted was a robot.

ringworm | October 20, 10:10 CET

Awww to #4. Aly and Alexis are the cutest couple ever.

electricspacegirl | October 20, 10:20 CET

I wonder if you could get Sarah to do a list like that. She'd probably be like "I liked the finale.. and the pilot."

KBP | October 20, 11:33 CET

Edited to include tags.

Simon | October 20, 12:45 CET

KBP - Sarah has mentioned her favourite episodes, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. You can see them here.

cleverlittleslayer | October 20, 12:58 CET

My two favorite episodes have always been "Once More, With Feeling" and "Hush". I've never actually thought about how opposite those episodes really are, yet how much the same. One has absolutely no sound whatsoever, and the other is a virtual cornicopia of sound. At the same time, they both communicate their respective "dialogues" in a manner completely foreign to television. Pure genious...

Oh, and Mrs. Joker loves ASH's singing voice....

The_Joker | October 20, 13:00 CET

My favourite 4 episodes (with a 7 word description! Cos I’m bored!) are…

1.Restless: Rasta slayer. Cheese guy. Giles sings? Props?
2.Passion: bad puppy angel, dead jenny gag gift
3.Family: half camel, lesbian loving, CuTe, birthday floatyness
4.once more with feeling: Giles sings? We all sing! Bunnies…midgets?

willowzbitch | October 20, 13:15 CET

My two favorite episodes have always been "Once More, With Feeling" and "Hush"

Joss calls OMWF a kind of sequel to Hush on the DVD commentary of the musical episode - because in both it is "when we stop speaking that we begin communicating". In Hush, that's literally. In OMWF, the characters stop talking - expressing things they never would/could otherwise through song.

Top 4?
1. The Body
2. Becoming, Part 2
3. The Gift
4. Hush

crossoverman | October 20, 13:41 CET

KBP: Were you trying to make it seem as though SMG has no knowledge of the 144 episodes of the show she starred in by any chance? If so, you should perhaps go back and read all of the interviews she has given on the subject. Whatever else people say about her, she has always been pretty eloquent and gracious when talking about the show. And as has been pointed out, it is a question that she has answered on more than one occasion.

Impossible | October 20, 15:02 CET

I like both of their lists; I think it is the cutest thing ever that Alyson got such a reaction from Alexis when she wore the Vamp Willow outfit, and I think that the body switching between Buffy & Faith WAS great (but I think SMG was the one who knocked it out of the park).
These lists remind me of how much I loved BtVS, and why I bought all those DVDs. I have too many favorites to name, but around Thanksgiving I love to rewatch 'Pangs'.

embers | October 20, 16:22 CET

Aly's as lovely as ever. Bless her heart for mentioning the talented John Ritter. I believe Kristine Sutherland also mentioned how it was a blast to have John on the set. Several scenes had to be shot several times because John kept cracking up the other actors.

Madhatter | October 20, 16:29 CET

Zach Braff often talks about how great it was to work with John Ritter, too. It makes me really sad to know that more people cant work with him anymore.

And really, Aly's too cute. I can just imagine her walking around as vamp Willow, all crushing on a co-worker and just having no idea she'd be happily married to the guy in years to come...

numbereleven | October 20, 16:41 CET

I loved both those lists, too. I thought SMG praising Eliza in there was nice, too - and I think both of them were great, and it must have been such fun/such a good experience to act each others' characters.

I'd find it hard to come up with a definitive list of best episodes out of 144, but like many others I'd always have Hush, The Body, Once More With Feeling, Restless in there, and also The Wish, Dopplegang Land, The Zeppo .

And how could I miss Innocence, Band Candy, Tabula Rasa... Oh, there's too many!

Thinking about them all is great, and reminds me how much I loved the show, too.

Kiddo | October 20, 16:49 CET

I agree with all of those praising Eliza and Sarah for the great job they did with the whole bodyswitch deal. The subtle difference between the jobs they had to do is also interesting. Eliza had to try and play Buffy, while Sarah had to try and play Faith for some of the episode, but also Faith pretending to be Buffy (probably for more of the episode). Both of them really were great.

[ edited by Impossible on 2005-10-20 15:01 ]

Impossible | October 20, 17:00 CET

It's really nice to see AH choose 'Ted', which also happens to be an episode I'm very fond of. Lists like this that include the occasional "off-the-beaten-track" episode are always a bit more interesting than the the more obvious choices. It goes without saying that the likes of 'Hush' are clearly the "best" episodes, but favourites are another matter. All choices are absolutely valid, with no need to justify them.

Regarding SMG, if she were to be asked again and chose "...the finale... and the pilot" (no matter what the inference behind that suggestion may be) it would actually still be two perfectly valid choices. Quite simply, choose any 'Buffy' episodes and you've got some of the greatest television ever made, such is the brilliance of this show.

It's all rather academic, in any case, since she never actually did this, but do we really believe any of the people involved in making this show sit down and obsessively watch the DVDs over and over again in the way that many of us do? I recall listening to John Peel interviewing Keith Moon many years ago after the release of 'The Who by Numbers'. Moon admitted he had never actually heard the album, having played no further part in its making after he completed recording his drum parts.

My own four all-time favourites would probably be 'Never Kill A Boy On The First Date', 'The Freshman', 'When She Was Bad' and 'Dead Man's Party', choices that clearly would not appear in many lists, but really I have 144 favourites.

alien lanes | October 20, 17:47 CET

Aww. Just how adorable is she? She's even adorable in print!

Desilu | October 20, 20:30 CET

I like that Aly mentioned "Ted" because it's probably one of those episodes that must have been more fun to make than it was to watch. (If only the S2 DVD had outtakes.)

cjl | October 20, 23:21 CET

She mentioned Ted! Ah, how I love the late, great John Ritter...he made me laugh in Three's Company, impressed me with his turn in Sling Blade, and really knocked one out of the park with his supporting role in the excellent overlooked film Panic. When he died, oh how I cried...

Anyway, on with the comment. I really liked Alyson's choices and yes, as someone else said, she is just as adorable in print as she is on TV and in the movies (then again, I didn't find anything adorable in those godforsaken American Pie movies...).

As for my four favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Here they are, in ascending order, with comments:

4. Conversations with Dead People (7.7) - This episode is so much different from the others, right from the beginning with its random title card. It's such a small episode played on such a huge scale...all of the conversations are fascinating and compelling, and the whole Dawn/Joyce thing? Amazing (especially that whole blink-and-you'll-miss-it creep-out shot). I just wish that Eric Balfour (Jesse needed some mention, people; one of the only real holes in Buffy) and Amber Benson had been available. That would've made things all the more terrifying.

3. Restless (4.22) - Such an underrated achievement. The entire episode is a brilliant creative tour de force. The perfunctory final battle episode in each season of Buffy was luckily pushed up to episode 21 and not episode 22 as usual. Primeval was a good episode, yes, but it does not even come close to matching the power, insight, and raw emotion of Restless. Everything about the Scoobies is revealed here, and it is by far the most brain-bending episode of the series. Everything in the episode is symbolic for something. The cheese man may seem random, but he still means something...

2. Once More, With Feeling (6.7) - What self-respecting Buffy fan doesn't love this episode?! OMWF is an incredible achievement of network television...though I did once hear a disgruntled Xena fan say that Xena: Warrior Princess was the show that really kicked off the whole genre show musical kick, it did not take it to the heights that Buffy does. I knew Joss could write, I knew he could direct, I knew that he could even do a little acting if the need arose...but I didn't know he could write music! And lyrics! Just a great, great hour of television. The songs are so insightful, and some are really truly beautiful. Under Your Spell, I Wish I Could Stay, Walk Through the Fire, and Rest in Peace are my favorites...

1. The Body (5.16) - The best hour of drama ever created. This surpasses any feature film in cinematic history, and quite possibly any entry in episodic television history (though Firefly's pilot episode Serenity and Angel's swan song Not Fade Away challenge it). It's such an emotionally devastating episode, and so crushing...every little detail is sad and full of emotion. The blank look on Joyce's face, Buffy's daydream, Buffy cleaning up her own vomit while the windchimes tinkle softly in the background, Dawn dropping to the floor of the school, Willow and Tara's kiss, Xander punching a hole in the wall, Anya's absolutely heart-rending speech about death, and that haunting final shot of Dawn reaching to touch her mother's face...all brilliant. I cry every time.

UnpluggedCrazy | October 20, 23:54 CET