From: daviderl31@yahoo.com   
      
   ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Big Bads Ranked from Worst to Best   
      
      
       Night has fallen on Sunnydale High School as a young couple looking to   
   find some privacy wander the darkened hallways. Spooked, the girl asks the   
   boy to take a look around, but as he turns to assure her they’re safe, the   
   once-helpless beauty easily sinks her teeth into his prone and unsuspecting   
   neck. So begins Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of the most iconic series of   
   the ‘90s and what would become Joss Whedon’s first indelible mark on pop   
   culture.   
      
       The concept for Buffy is simple, centering around a “Chosen One” called   
   upon by the universe to protect the innocent world from various (and   
   seemingly endless) demonic shenanigans. That One is Buffy Summers, a clever   
   subversion of the “little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and dies in   
   every horror film,” who reserves as much affection for frosted lip gloss and   
   miniskirts as for a freshly sharpened stake and a witty zinger. The series,   
   which ran on the WB (and later UPN) for seven glorious seasons, featured   
   Sarah Michelle Gellar in the titular role as a member of the eventually   
   nicknamed “Scooby Gang,” with Alyson Hannigan as the witchy Willow and   
   Nicholas Brendon as the ever-dopey Xander in tow. And while the scope of the   
   show was never what you could call small, each season was devoted to the   
   vanquishing of a unique “Big Bad” (a term eventually coined by Whedon in   
   Season 3), meaning a specific evil generally hell-bent on bringing   
   destruction to the world as we know it.   
      
       Impossibly, it’s been 19 years since ‘Welcome to the Hellmouth,’ the   
   series’ first episode, aired, beginning a legacy of female-centric   
   television and Whedon witticism that continue to this day. In honor of its   
   anniversary, we’ve got all seven of those Big Bads, ranked from the totally   
   silly to the deliciously evil. Cue that Nerf Herder theme song.   
      
      
   7. The Initiative/Adam (Season 4)   
           While season four is home to the truly fantastic ‘Hush,’ it’s   
   largely notably for the series’ most lackluster Big Bad: The Initiative, a   
   shadowy government entity looking to develop a demon-human hybrid for the   
   purpose of creating super soldiers with otherworldly powers. If that sounds   
   ridiculous, that’s because it definitely is, and when a successful   
   experiment named Adam arrives as the season’s Big Bad incarnate, things   
   don’t   
   really improve. A misunderstood monstrosity modeled after the sentimental   
   Frankenstein character with none of his interesting qualities, Adam is a   
   poorly rendered and ultimately ludicrous villain. Thankfully, Whedon   
   jettisons him before the finale with little more than a sucker punch from   
   Buffy, allowing the truly brilliant ‘Restless’ to unfold untethered by the   
   silly mythology that preceded it.   
      
   6. The Master (Season 1)   
           Though his heavy-handed prosthetics aren’t the most well-aged effect   
   the show ever produced, The Master  earns the distinction of inducting the   
   concept of the Big Bad into the Buffy lexicon, with a simple yet evil   
   mission: to undermine the world order and release hell on earth. Sure, those   
   kind of machinations looked at in the context of the series’ run sound a bit   
   like a yawn, but this Big Bad has enough accouterments (including a creepy   
   little child minion) to be plenty interesting. The Master combines genuine   
   threat with plenty of witty verbal gymnastics, and while he’s probably best   
   remembered for that iconic fruit punch mouth, it is worth noting that he is   
   one of the few evil forces to actually kill Buffy. That is, just before she   
   returns the favor by slamming him right through a glass ceiling.   
      
   5. The Trio/Dark Willow (Season 6)   
           In true Buffy form, the Big Bad of Season 6 is revealed through a   
   bait and switch, with many of the season’s episodes devoting time to The   
   Trio: a group of Dungeons & Dragons aficionados whose love for fictitious   
   land grabs soon turn into a desire to overtake the very real town of   
   Sunnydale. They’re taken less than seriously for much of the season, but in   
   one of the most shocking deaths of the series (I still don’t really want to   
   talk about it), Willow’s witchy powers turn from mildly grey to pitch black.   
   Devastated, she goes on the war-path, and at the height of her powers Willow   
   succeeds in looking particularly ominous. But as soon as Xander arrives and   
   the episode tips up into the yellow crayon denouement, you realize that not   
   even the darkest magic could split up this trio. Joss Whedon has gone on to   
   say that the true Big Bad of Season 6 is life itself, which explains the   
   season’s lack of real punch, but with Dark Willow’s help, one of the   
   show’s   
   most heartbreaking seasons is bolstered by one of the Scooby Gang’s more   
   human adversaries.   
      
   4. The Mayor (Season 3)   
           Richard Wilkins, mayor of Sunnydale and half-demon mensch, is a   
   fascinating and especially Whedon-esque combination of the psychotically   
   cheerful and the diabolical. Referred to simply as “The Mayor,” Season   
   4’s   
   Big Bad is singularly self-absorbed and focused only on his ascension, which   
   will find his mortal being transmuted into a higher form. Ultimately, he   
   finds his partner in crime in Faith, a slayer whose reckless spirit pushed   
   her away from her would-be partner, Buffy. Falling for the promise of   
   unmitigated demonic power (and the gift of a kick-ass apartment), Faith   
   develops a father-daughter relationship with the wannabe despot that is   
   almost kind of sweet until, you know, it’s not.   
      
   3. The First Evil (Season 7)   
           The personification of all the evil on earth able to assume the   
   appearance of any dead person to compel others to do its bidding? Count me   
   in! The series’ last Big Bad was specially calibrated to end the slayer line   
   as we know it, and remains the series’ most abstruse villain. Though The   
   First Evil is non-corporeal, it becomes best defined by a zealot-like   
   preacher named Caleb intent on tearing apart Buffy and her supporters. It   
   seems especially appropriate that the final season’s central antagonist   
   remain unvanquished even at the end of series, but without a specific figure   
   to pin your fear on, the First Evil is one of the series’ more muted Big   
   Bads.   
      
   2. Glory (Season 5)   
           Adding a little spice to the humdrum demon fighting is Glory, a god   
   from a hell dimension doomed to earth and forced to share a body with a   
      
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