[continued from previous message]   
      
   completely.   
       The point of her pairing with Parker was somewhat to undo what they had   
   done in “Innocence”, stripping the concept of the first boy a girl sleeps   
   with turning into a monster the next day and dealing with that bluntly and   
   realistically.   
       Fans did not react positively to this development, though, and even   
   though it did what it meant to do, Parker was a bad spot on Buffy’s dating   
   life.   
      
      
           3.   SAVED: BUFFY AND ANGEL   
       For most people, this is the pinnacle. This was the relationship that   
   broke through to the mainstream. It was a pairing so popular that it allowed   
   Angel to move on to his own spinoff series even after he and Buffy broke up.   
       It was a classic doomed romance. They were never going to last, but   
   never really had to deal with that until the third season.   
       When Angel lost his soul and went bad, that was when Buffy really began   
   to grow up and become one of the most story-driven and influential TV series   
   of all time.   
       There’s something incredibly archetypal about this romance. Even though   
   they shouldn’t be together for so many reasons, that was always part of the   
   appeal in the first place.   
      
      
           2  HURT: BUFFY AND RILEY   
       While no one was going to match up to what she had with Angel right   
   away, fans hated the Buffy and Riley relationship.   
       At first, his whole appeal to her was that he was boring and normal,   
   which is never as interesting to watch.   
       However, as they stayed together and Riley began to doubt if he was   
   enough for her, he went to extreme lengths to try and connect with her and   
   embrace a darkness and pain that he just didn’t come by naturally.   
       Riley knew she didn’t love him. Her relationship with Angel was doomed   
   and painful and he was misguided enough to think that the fact that he wasn’t   
   causing her pain was a bad thing.   
      
      
           1.  SAVED: WILLOW AND TARA   
       Willow and Tara might have been the best relationship across the entire   
   run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.   
       Willow was one of the first characters to be established as straight and   
   come to terms with her orientation throughout the course of any television   
   series.   
       Ironically, Tara was introduced as a friend for Willow but upon the   
   writing and the casting the creators quickly realized there would be much   
   more to the couple than that.   
       It’s precisely because this relationship was so profound and meant so   
   much to so many people that the loss of Tara is still a gut punch, even now,   
   and will likely always be one of the most brutal sendoffs in TV history.   
      
      
   David   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)