Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, at face value, a pretty campy show. At its best, it could be an expertly crafted a mix of quirky humor and genuine creepiness, and at its worst — well, it could be downright cringe-worthy. As far as the season-long arcs and Big Bads go, while some were stronger than others, most of them achieved some level of success on the whole. The area where the series mostly fell flat was during some of the Monster of the Week filler episodes, with one-off villains could range anywhere from laughable to horrifyingly embarrassing. Here are eleven of the worst.
11) Ted — Season 2 — “Ted
This was probably Buffy’s biggest cameo in the entire series, shot only about five years before John Ritter’s death (RIP) — and although John Ritter is great, he deserved better than a sexist robot from the 1950s who wanted to kidnap Buffy’s mom and lock her in an underground bunker. Ritter would have actually made a perfect Mayor — the season three big bad — so talk about wasted opportunities.
10) A Demon Loan Shark That Was Literally A Shark — Season 6 — “Tabula Rasa”
Overall, “Tabula Rasa” was actually a pretty good episode, which left the Scooby Gang amnesiac and vulnerable thanks to Willow’s magic f*ckuppery — an overall plot arc that season. But it doesn’t change the fact that Spike was being pursued by a demon loan shark. Because he owed it kittens. What, that doesn’t make perfect sense to you?
9) A Jacket — Season 7 — “Him”
Not only was this a dumb episode, which involved a high school football player named RJ’s enchanted letter jacket which caused women to fall in love with him — but it featured Dawn at her screechiest, most awful worst. It did have one somewhat redeeming scene in a multiple panel montage that involves Willow trying to cast a spell to turn him into a girl and Anya inexplicably robbing a bank, but on the whole it was a pretty crappy episode. Especially for a final season episode.
8) Anya’s Troll Ex-Boyfriend — Season 5 — “Triangle”
Anya and Willow were fighting, because blah blah blah, Anya was Xander’s boyfriend and Willow was Xander’s best friend, and Anya ran the magic shop and Willow kept stealing sh*t to do magic, and then they both screw up and release Anya’s ex-boyfriend who she formerly turned into a troll. It wasn’t a very good episode.
7) A Reptile Demon Summoning Fraternity — Season 2 — “Reptile Boy”
As a series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured some pretty heavy handed messaging about the evils of drinking and addiction, and this was one such episode. After shirking her slayer duties to accompany Cordelia to a frat party, Buffy finally gives in and takes a drink — but finds herself and Cordelia drugged and chained into a basement where the fraternity plans to sacrifice them to a reptile demon. As one does in a fraternity. Unfortunately for the fraternity, they managed to kidnap the one high school girl in all of Sunnydale with super powers, so Buffy quickly ruins their plans.
6) A Giant Praying Mantis — Season 1: — “Teacher’s Pet”
When Xander, who is stupid, is presented with the following two possibilities: That A) his hot teacher is a man-eating bug or that B) a hot older woman wants to have sex with him — he stupidly goes with Possibility B despite the fact that he lives in a town full of vampires and monsters and that his teacher being a giant praying mantis is much more likely than her wanting to have sex with a dorky high school student. You can barely even see the bug but I’m pretty sure the costume came from the Halloween Adventure store. Mmm. Sexy bug.
5) Human Fish Creatures — Season 2 — “Go Fish”
After the gang noticed some odd behavior from the Sunnydale High swim team members and Xander goes undercover (see previous thing about Xander being stupid), they figure out that the swim team is being turned into giant fish because the coach is performing fish DNA experiments on them from the Soviet Union, that were supposedly conceived to ensure a better swim team. It wasn’t a very good plan, mostly because man-eating human fish are typically disqualified from athletic participation.
4) Hyena-Possessed Students — Season 1: — “The Pack”
This entire list could have practically been comprised of episodes from the first season, and this is a perfect example why. After a high school field trip to the zoo — because seriously, what high school kids go on field trips to the zoo — Xander and a bunch of other kids get possessed by hyenas, which just gives hyenas a bad rap. Spoiler alert, turns out the hyena’s zookeeper did it. A bunch of high school kids also murder and eat the principal in this episode, which is uncharacteristically morbid, even for Buffy.
3) An Old Lady With A Demon Head — Season 6 — “Doublemeat Palace”
Buffy gets a job at a fast food restaurant because her mom is dead and she has to support her whiny, pain in the ass sister. Because trouble follows her everywhere, she soon notices that fellow employees of the Doublemeat Palace start disappearing. After some investigation, Buffy finds out that it’s one of the restaurant’s sweet old lady customers (character actress Pat Crawford Brown) whose wig hides a head with a demonic lamprey in it. Also the lamprey looks like a penis.
2) The Internet — Season 1: — “I Robot, You Jane”
1997’s The Internet, everyone! Giles has Willow scanning some told texts onto a computer and because this is how the internet worked in 1997 according to TV — the demon that was released by scanning the texts (which apparently had the same effect as reading them) could access the internet everywhere once he was on a computer that didn’t even have wifi or high speed internet, and decides to stalk Willow and try to become her internet demon boyfriend. I’m sorry, web demon boyfriend. Then he builds himself a robot and transfers himself into the robot. The ’90s were a weird time for technology.
1) Beer That Turns People Into Cavemen — Season 4 — “Beer Bad”
See: Previous Thing I Said about Buffy’s whole moral standpoint when it came to alcohol and underage drinking. This might be not just the worst episode villain, but the worst episode of Buffy of all time. When Xander gets a job as a bartender at the local college bar, Buffy abuses his power to go drinking with college boys. Oops! The beer has actually actually been chemically brewed by a bartender who wants revenge on college kids for being a-holes to him by turning them into neanderthals with the beer. Wouldn’t it be easier to just like, put cyanide in the beer? And if the bartender possess the kind of scientific know-how to turn people into cavemen, why is he working at a bar and not at like NASA or something, since he clearly does not enjoy his job? And then the cavemen burned down his bar anyway, so great plan. This episode is garbage.
