From: daviderl31@yahoo.com   
      
   This Is The Definitive Ranking of Joss Whedon's TV Shows.   
      
   LARA RUTHERFORD-MORRISON   
      
           After the huge success of his first outing with Marvel, there’s no   
   doubt that Whedon is going to smash the box office once again when Age of   
   Ultron hits theatres in May. But as we prepare for him to blow our minds on   
   the big screen once again, let’s take a moment to appreciate the format that   
   made Whedon famous: television. It’s in Whedon’s TV work, from Buffy the   
   Vampire Slayer to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that many of us first discovered   
   our undying Whedon devotion, fueled by his snappy humor, his kickass female   
   leads, his tightly-knit ensembles, and his gift for combining genres like   
   horror, sci-fi, fantasy with emotionally compelling drama.   
      
           Joss Whedon has been active in a variety of formats—including   
   television, film, web series, and comics—but in this post, I’m looking only   
   at his work on TV (which sadly cuts out the excellent, hilarious Dr.   
   Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog), and only at shows that he’s helmed   
   (eliminating   
   from contention his work on shows like Roseanne, Parenthood, Glee, and The   
   Office). That leaves five series, spanning 18 years, 17 TV seasons, and   
   hundreds of episodes, to duke it out in this definitive ranking. Let’s get   
   this party started:   
      
   5. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013- present)   
           After a huge amount of hype leading up to the premier of the Marvel   
   Comics Universe spin-off, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., many viewers were   
   disappointed with the show’s first season, arguing that the series failed to   
   deliver the well-drawn characters and absorbing storylines they’d come to   
   expect from a Joss Whedon production. After its shaky start, Agents has made   
   major strides in its second season, transforming into a twisty-turny drama   
   with increasingly complex characters and a solid bit of humor. Only time   
   will tell if this latest entry into the Whedon canon will live up to its   
   predecessors.   
      
   4. Dollhouse (2009-2010)   
           Dollhouse has arguably the most ambitious premise of any Whedon   
   show, but, unfortunately, the final product didn’t quite live up to its   
   potential. The first season is particularly weak, being basically an   
   episodic “adventure of the week” series, and ignoring the inherently   
   horrifying aspects of having rentable-people with erasable memories (The   
   first half of the first series, for example, barely addresses the fact that   
   the primary use of the dolls is to rent them out for sex. The fact that this   
   is a show essentially about sexual slavery doesn’t really get addressed   
   until late in the season, which drove me CRAZY.) For all the weak episodes,   
   one can only admire the about-face that comes at the end of the first   
   season, when the show sends us into a nightmarish apocalyptic future in   
   which people can be remotely “wiped”; throughout the rest of the series,   
   gone are the light “filler” episodes—instead we get an increasingly   
   intense,   
   dark descent into global chaos.   
      
   3. Angel (1999-2004)   
           Never quite reaching the heights of its parent show, Angel is   
   nevertheless a solid presence in the world of Whedon. The show took a while   
   to find its footing, but by the end of its 5-season run, it had established   
   itself as distinct from Buffy, darker in tone with more moral gray areas.   
   Angel as a character became both funnier and more complex the further away   
   he got from Sunnydale, and Cordelia Chase convincingly transformed from   
   stereotypical mean girl to a complex, sympathetic, grown woman.   
      
   2. Firefly (2002)   
           Firefly, Whedon’s space-Western about a group of misfit travelers on   
   the fringes of society, was famously cancelled after only half a season,   
   much to the eternal grief of the show’s fans. Firefly boasted a cast of   
   compelling characters, including the charismatic Mal Reynolds, the   
   perpetually cheerful Kaylee Frye, and the ugly badass Zoë Washburn. Amid the   
   interpersonal dramas between characters and their continuous battles to stay   
   afloat in a universe that doesn’t welcome them are broader mysteries: Who   
   are the Tams, and what happened to River? Why are the Reavers so completely   
   terrifying? What’s going on with the Blue Sun Corporation? Some of the   
   questions get answered in 'Serenity', the film sequel to the series; others   
   will remain a mystery forever. The Browncoats will never get over it.   
      
   1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)   
           With Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon took a concept that should   
   have been little more than a joke—a teen cheerleader who kills   
   vampires!—and   
   made it into an epic saga of good versus evil, real life and fantasy, and   
   the universal struggles of growing up. Throughout its 144 episodes, the   
   series had its hits and misses, but the hits were so good and so   
   memorable—“Hush”   
   (terrifying!), “The Body” (completely devastating!), and “Once More With   
   Feeling” (musical!!) spring immediately to mind—that the general impression   
   that we’re left with after finishing the show is one of sustained   
   awesomeness. Buffy was funny, scary, engrossing, and, at times, incredibly   
   moving.   Buffy4Life, y’all.   
      
      
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