One New York Life

Due to my current situation of being on antibiotics following vacation, I can sadly not consume alcohol for the next five weeks. I have one first draft left in the hopper (the last Sam Barrel Room) which will go up next week.

Everyone who knows how easy it is to lose weight has told me if I quit drinking I’ll lose like 20 lbs immediately. I can’t wait!

As most of you know, I shamelessly lifted the idea of a travel diary off Bootleg whose travails at airports always made me feel better in that “at least I’m not the only person this stuff happens to” kind of way. Some long-time friends and readers know I hate flying. I start having small-scale panic attacks 48-hours before the flight, I can think about nothing else, I meticulously call most of my family to unofficially “say goodbye”, I wear my old St. Christopher medal, and am very careful that my iPod contains the entire Pure Moods library. All of this irrational panic is then then exacerbated by the fact flying is one of life’s most miserable experiences (#FirstWorldProblems). First wait in line to check in with people who don’t have stuff ready. Then wait in line with people who are somehow still caught off guard by having to remove their shoes (we get it, it’s stupid, just f*cking do it) and their laptops out of their bags. Then, if fortunate enough to not be randomly selected for some kind of invasive pat-down, wait in a pen with 4500 other miserable people (every person under 12 counts as ten miserable people) to then wait in line to cram in to a seat specifically designed to pen as many people in to the smallest space possible. On an international flight, this is NINE people per row. Two on each side and FIVE across the center because, heaven forbid the center seat in the five-row come out so the person in that seat doesn’t have to create a major ordeal to use the bathroom. Between my irrational and inexplicable fear and the completely miserable experience of it, I often used the first part of these diaries to vent my frustration at the whole process.

Until this time. Y’see, due to circumstances, I ended up buying round-trip business class. I have never flown anything other than coach. The round trip business class ticket from JFK to Heathrow was just about exactly double the coach ticket. I really had no idea what to expect on the trip since my knowledge of American Airlines’ business class was walking through the section on my way to Coachland.

Using the new diary rules I invented just now, entries that are bolded were originally posted to the Twitter feed via my Blackberry.

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8:00 pm: Take inventory of my stuff for roughly the 270th time. I have never flown alone before and am totally convinced I’m going to forget something. I comfort my cat for roughly the 500th time, because I feel horrifically guilty about leaving an animal who won’t even know I’m gone.

8:15 pm: PLR is always insistent about getting to the airport 3 hours early. I am always insistent that this is insanity for an 11:30 PM flight. I bask in the freedom of not having to get a cab at 7:45 for an 11:30 flight.

8:40 pm: In a stroke of “this might not be so bad” I find a cab in under two minutes at prime going out time. I’m pumped.

9:02 pm: Arrive JFK. That’s right… 22 minutes to JFK… on a summer Saturday. I’m floored.

9:03 pm: Enter JFK at the American Airlines terminal. I see a line of about 25 at the check-in counter with one person at the desk. This line is not for me. My line is around the corner in a walled off area. And by “line” I mean “well-staffed room with four employees at the counter and nobody waiting.” Four people at the counter. It’s 9 pm. Total time spent checking in: two minutes.

9:06 pm: Wander aimlessly around JFK trying to find the security line I can never find. Finally find it. There is a line waiting to have their boarding passes checked before getting to security. This line is not for me. With a look at my boarding pass, the TSA agent waves me in to the “employees” line, where I go to a 2nd agent who gives my papers a cursory look before sending me to the scanners. Total time spent in pre-screen line: nil. In fairness, I’ve heard this is a JFK only feature.

9:07 pm: I choose my security line based on my normal method of “shortest line + people with their shoes already off”. I get my stuff on the belt and the screener simply walks away. No explanation, no “back in a second”… just walks away. After 30 seconds, I hop to the line on the other side. Other people stay in line. As I pass through security, the people on the other side continue to wait. He’s still not back. Ladies and gentlemen: the future of healthcare in America.

9:15 pm: As part of the business class ticket, I gain access to the business class lounge. The business class lounge is upstairs at JFK, well away from the gate pens most people stay in. I hand my ticket to a lady who may or may not be an extra for the Jersey Shore. After checking my ticket to confirm I belong in the special club, she presents me with two complimentary drink tickets.

9:20 pm: My first complimentary drink is a Makers Mark Manhattan. Being as I’ve been in a state of constant panic for 48 hours, it gets destroyed.

9:26 pm: Manhattan number two.

9:53 pm: French dude: Parle Francais? Me: Petit peu, pourquoi? FD: C’est votre jour chanceux. Make that 5 drink vouchers. Widro and I have this theory that once you get in to the rich dude’s club, it’s a special place where you all kinda look out for each other and just work at keeping your money and screwing the poor and middle class people. This would be an example of that. There was no reason for Mr Frenchman to give me his three leftover drink vouchers, but he just did because, well, I fooled him by being inside the velvet rope.

10:00 pm: I make the executive decision to switch over to Sam Summers because, well, five Manhattans would have been the end of me.

11:07 pm: In the midst of my final Sam Summer, I was screwing with my phone when they made the announcement my flight was boarding. I packed up my stuff, walked out of the lounge, and headed to my gate. There were about 30 people waiting in line. That line was not for me. There was no one in my line. Time spent in boarding line: nil.

11:18 pm: 10 minutes after sitting down, just handed a free champagne. I bet in coach there’s a screaming child. Hahahahahahahahahahah. In reality, I took two plastic flutes of champagne, crushed them, took a free newspaper, this sack of goodies, and ordered a steak for dinner with a glass of merlot. Before dinner arrived, I was given a complimentary set of Bose soundproof headphones to quiet the total lack of noise. Sadly, I had to give those back but they do, in fact, live up to their marketing. Putting them on, I couldn’t hear anything other than what I was listening to. Not even the noise of the airplane. Also, my seat turns in to a bed. There’s that much room. Also: so in business class, you sit in a lounge boozin, they announce you’re boarding, then you walk right on the plane. Then, you get to watch the poor people get on. hahahaha Suffer, poor people! #TooMuchBooze I became drunk on both power and booze simultaneously.

The rest of the flight is somewhat hazy. I do recall ordering a Dewars on the rocks which turned out to be a double (also free). I recall putting on a BreatheRight and informing the flight attendant to wake me up if I was snoring too loudly. I vaguely recall that our flight had the Under 23 World Cup Women’s team which led to a rousing “USA!” chant which I hope included more people than myself. I recall watching the first five minutes of Shutter Island before passing out hard until “express breakfast”. Also, as I was sitting in the fourth row, which was the first row of business, I got off the plane first. Time spent waiting to get off plane: nil.

10:30 am (GMT): Flight arrives an hour early. For the first time in history, I’m annoyed by a flight getting in early because I was actually comfortably sleeping and my plan of getting 6 hours of sleep is reduced to 5. I go to passport services and am certainly still drunk. I have a conversation with the British passport lady that didn’t go well because I could neither remember how long I was going to be there or the name of my hotel at first. I probably also smell like a mix of bourbon, wine, and meat. I get a harsh speech. I don’t remember any of it but I fully deserved it.

10:45 am: Walk to the luggage carousel to wait. The carousel, however, is not for me. My bags, with their orange priority tag, are already waiting for me next to the carousel. Time waiting for bags: nil.

So, to recap — for the approximate cost of “double”, the customer basically gets to skip all lines, be boozed up and happy, and not wait for anything. I’m pretty sure there’s something to be said here about legacy airlines and the American public’s demand that flights be cheap. PLR warned me that the first business class flight would ruin me forever and, I have to say, she’s right. I can’t imagine flying a legacy airline in coach again… especially when it’s such a miserable experience. And this is before even getting in to Heathrow’s business class lounge. Heathrow’s lounge featured all of the above but with free everything. A spread of sandwiches, snacks, chips, soda, and desserts on top of a selection of top shelf alcohol, wine, and refrigerator of beer in a do-it-yourself bar. The flight back to the US on Saturday was extremely crowded. When we eventually got to the gate from the lounge, there was a line of over 200 people waiting to check in. In London, there’s another quick screening process — which randomly involves full pat-downs, interviews, and bag searches — before getting in to the gate. We walked to the front of that line, too.

Somehow, I have a bad feeling that Oktoberfest 2 just got about $1000 more expensive.

22) You always hear about how much better the trains run in Europe, but it’s really different to experience it. It was quite an a-ha moment when I realized it’s because the country manages the rails (like the FAA manages the air) and allows the train lines to just compete amongst themselves for service. I don’t know if we could ever duplicate that model because the country is SO much bigger but there’s got to be something better than Amtrak’s crappy service on rails built in 1894.

23) We took three trains during our trip. London to Stockport, Stockport to Edinburgh, and Edinburgh back to London. Each one featured its own level of service. Personally, Virgin trains were the best for me. It featured a first class lounge in London, a quiet car for both standard and first class, and free Wi-Fi on first class.

24) Given the choice between standard service with quiet car and first class service with no quiet car, I’d take standard/quiet every time. I can’t wait for the day cell phone calls are allowed on airplanes to make that little slice of hell just a little bit bigger.

25) I complained about the income tax rate last week. It didn’t occur to me until a couple days later that when Pelosi and Obama get their way in a few weeks, the Bush tax cuts will expire and between federal (30%), New York State (6.85), and New York City (3.86) tax I’m already there. So, I guess moving to a country where you only have to work 40 hours/week and actually get vacation time wouldn’t be so bad.

26) Company X decided against giving me an international plan on my Blackberry so I didn’t have any service for two straight weeks. I have to say, the freedom from having a cell phone is intoxicating. At no point did I miss it.

27) We went to Roslyn Chapel when we were in Scotland, which only means anything if you read or saw the DaVinci Code. It’s a bit smaller than I anticipated (which was dumb on my part considering it was a family’s personal church) but the carvings in there were everything I expected. I do wonder as to whether or not the town is happy Dan Brown turned their little few blocks in to a mess of tour buses, but it is nice that the chapel will be maintained now. It’s really amazing inside. One of the more interesting tidbits being the carvings of Native American corn over one of the windows… which wouldn’t be that interested except in that the chapel was built about 50-100 years before America was “discovered”, leading to speculation that the Knights Templar visited North America well before Columbus. WHAT WERE THEY HIDING????

28) Watching the World Cup final in a pub was all I expected it to be and more. The soccer haters in the US crushed it for being a bore-off where no goals were scored until the 116th minute and ended 1-0. Meanwhile, they’d slobber over a 7-3 football game (which, mind you, is 1-to-0.5) as a defensive masterstroke.

29) Guidos also exist in Europe… they’re just actually FROM Italy instead of “celebrating” their Italian heritage with hair gel and tanning. Must be in the DNA.

30) Edinburgh is a weird little city. It seems to be Scotland’s version of a tourist trap with a castle and just statues and evil wizard towers everywhere. Every street corner has a statue. It reminded me a lot of Salzburg in its creepy, 1000 year old, how many creepy secret tunnels are under these streets vibe. The only difference here being that Edinburgh has a bustling, modern city around the creepy tourist trap inside 300 year old buildings.

31) I’m currently on the train back to London for one more night before getting on the plane back to New York. It occurred to me sometime in the last two months that I was very much over New York. These last two weeks have helped confirm it. Maybe the insanely hot weather for the last two months have had something to do with it, I don’t know, but two weeks away from the city have me absolutely dreading going back.

32) I have desperately tried over the previous week to understand cricket. All I know so far is this: Pakistan and Australia have been playing for three days. Not different games for three days, but ONE GAME has been going on for three days. And its not over yet. I still have no idea how a cricket match ends, but it seems like it might go on forever.

16) Guys in London apparently wear suits everywhere. Bring some nice clothes unless you want to feel perpetually underdressed. The tourist uniform of shorts, polo, sneakers, and bag stand out here more than anywhere else, unless you’re near a tourist hotspot like Westminster Abbey

17) The Iranian woman will not be stoned. She will likely just face either life imprisonment or hanging. Go UK Media!

18) Currently on a train from London to Stockport, England. I’ve been told it’s Upstate England.

19) From what I’ve seen of the rest of the country, it seems like England is laid out much like California. A few gigantic cities and a whole lot of nothing in between.

20) Do not assume “it’s only one subway stop, we can totally walk it” is valid.

21) Regarding Abbey Rd — it seems also that many Beatles’ fans mistakenly thank Paul McCartney instead of John Lennon for the Beatles’ contributions to the world of music. Weird.

1) Pubs know how to pour a cask beer.

2) Joins Paris as one of the now two other places I’ve been more expensive than New York.

3) I’ve spent about three hours watching cricket and still find the game incomprehensible. I’ve gotten that you get 10 outs per inning, that a home run is worth six runs, and a ground-rule double is worth four runs, but I still can’t figure out what constitutes an out other than catching the ball in the air… without a glove… which seems like it should count for more than one out.

4) No one roots for Germany in the pub.

5) The only shows on the BBC are The Good Wife and My Name Is Earl. So, Americans are either cheatin husbands, shady lawyers, or rednecks. Which, really, fair enough.

6) I hate countries that have 8 different types of change. Do they really need a .02 cent piece? Is it just for joke purposes so one can actually physically give somebody their two cents pence?

7) Sky Sports 3 airs Raw and Smackdown seemingly on a loop every night.

8) In a sentence I never thought I’d say — ESPN’s production on the World Cup games is actually better than ITV’s.

9) The “every day is gray” stereotype is, in fact, not a stereotype.

10) There are a lot of Indian/Middle Eastern people here and less Asians. Big news in the paper is 1) BP potentially going under and 2) a woman who was convicted of adultery in Iran is facing stoning. In other news, I can go to jail for smoking a Cuban cigar, but we’re kinda good with Iran, who stones people to death and really good with India, who still has honor killings if a girl has pre-marital sex. Yay!

11) I’ve learned British folks don’t really seem to care much for the VAT. Here it is a seemingly capricious tax levied on anything considered a “luxury” item. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. For instance, a ham, egg, and cheese crepe is affected by the VAT, but a plate of eggs, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, and beans was not. It is also being raised from 17% to 20% next month. That’s a 20% bump on anything some dude in a suit considers a “luxury”.

12) High miscellaneous value for the city. I could totally live here. The Unmentionable Accounting and Copier Company X offices are looking really good save for the 40% income tax. But, hey, at least I’d actually get the benefits of everything I’d be paying for.

13) I really hate subway systems with tiered zones with different charges.

14) Apartment rentals are listed by week. It seems much less terrifying seeing an apartment listed at 400 lbs/week until you realize that it’s roughly equivalent to $2400/month.

15) London’s subway system shuts down at midnight, but it seems like every neighborhood has its own pub. There are four within reasonable walking distance of our hotel and we’re neither in a touristy area of town nor near a major hotel. In fact, Google Map Sydney Street London and play “spot the hotel on street view”.

Heading away for two weeks. I’m hoping to be able to post stuff from the UK, but I have no idea if I’ll have any service or Internets there.

Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection — American Kriek

Brewed By: Boston Beer Company
Brewed In: Boston, MA — also aged there, per the press release.
ABV: 7%
Type: Kriek, although Beer Advocate calls it an “American Wild Ale”.

What They Say: The intense black cherry character in this beer comes from Balaton cherries, which were discovered in Hungary and are now grown in Michigan. These special cherries are prized for their depth of flavor. The tartness from the cherries is balanced by a rich, malty character with toasted oak notes added from the barrel aging. Our American Kriek undergoes a secondary fermentation on a bed of Balaton cherries from Michigan. The taste isn’t like the jarred candy cherry flavor but instead tastes like the deep red ripe fruit. The resulting beer is blended with a small amount of our Kosmic Mother Funk™, to add another layer of flavor and character.

Presentation (5): This was part of Great Big Show Trade. I believe this one cost me a Black Ops. This is the second of three beers in the Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection Series.

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Presentation (5): Check out the first post to see my thoughts here. 5

Originality (5): They seem to be using their Belgian recipe here and doing some other nonsense involving trademarked Balaton cherries and “Cosmic Mother Funk.” They get an extra point for non-ironically using “Cosmic Mother Funk.” 3

Body (10): It pours a rather nice red with a about a finger of head which dissipates quickly. Healthy carbonation which is probably necessary given the big flavors. The mouthfeel is is not heavy in the least, and it finishes more like a soda than a beer. Even though the carbonation is bold, it’s one of the few cases where the beer could use even a little more. I don’t know if that would take it fully over to cherry soda. 8

Taste (10): While I’m usually not a fan of Sam’s “Fruit The Beer” offerings, I have to say this one is pretty good. The aroma here is of cherry and yeast. The cherries are used as a subtle, sour flavor that helps the base recipe. In this case, the cherry flavor is a souring enhancement as opposed to the Cranberry Lambic (which I hate) and the Cherry Wheat (which I’m also not a fan of) where the sickly sweet fruity flavors are the star. I do struggle to find any flavor elements — or even aroma — from the oak. This tastes like a nice little ale with some cherry tartness. As an oak-aged beer, I do expect a little more, though. 7

Efficiency (10): This comes in slightly lower than the first review if only because the ABV is lower. At “only” seven percent, the cherry tartness can be overwhelming by the time you get to the end of the bottle. For myself, I want a 22 oz offering to be nine percent or better at a reasonable price for a full score. At 7% for 22 ozs, I’d need two of these to take me home. I’d rather only get one. 6

Versatility (10): This beer gets a few more versatility points than the previous offering. With a much gentler flavor, it’s more accessible for a wider audience. While the corporate marketing of the Barrel Room Collection is trying to get back the snobs they’ve lost, this may at least pick up the burgeoning market of the new “them” snobs while giving the old “us” snobs something to look down their noses at. 5

The Snob Sez: Surprisingly good offering all things considered. I usually have a strong dislike for fruity beer offerings. However, this beer uses the fruit as an enhancement rather than a star. That makes all the difference.

Final Score: 34 (of 50) — OK beer.

Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection — New World Tripel

Brewed By: Boston Beer Company
Brewed In: Boston, MA — also aged there, per the press release.
ABV: 10%
Type: Belgian (style) Tripel

What They Say: Pale gold in color, this ale is big, flavorful and complex. A special Belgian yeast strain adds tropical fruit and spice notes to the crisp dry ale, while Saaz hops add a subtle herbal note. (~10% ABV). Sadly, the neck booklet didn’t make it to New York on this beer.

Website: Other than the press release, I can’t find much info on this beer on their website. According to my newsletter, these are still available at the brewery but I don’t know if they’re anywhere else.

Why I Picked It: In various trades with The Big Show, I managed to get my hands on all three of these. I saw the press release a (long) while back, really wanted them, and eventually got them. They sat in my refrigerator for quite awhile waiting for the perfect weekend. As it turned out, Mets/Yankees Subway Series 2 + UFC + World Cup turned out to be that weekend. This is the first of three beers in the Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection series.

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Presentation (5): I love the whole idea of these bottles. I like the caged-cork, I LOVE the BRC logo, and I like the bottles looking vaguely like barrels. Sam usually does a pretty bang up job with the packaging of their specialty offerings and these are no exception. This is what being big enough to have a marketing department allows. 5

Originality (5): This is more “eh” in originality than the other two. I’ve mentioned this before: I’m not a huge fan of American breweries doing Belgian styles because, well, they really don’t do them better than the abbeys that have being doing them for, in some cases, hundreds of years. As also mentioned before, there is one brewery that does Belgians well, and it should, by law, be served on taps at every baseball stadium due to its location in Cooperstown. 2

Body (10): This smells, pours, and looks like a Belgian. The expected heavy-yeasty aroma is cut a bit by citrus. The beer pours a hazy gold with some yeasty, floating sediment. Decent head in a tulip glass that reduces with some nice lacing. It’s a satisfying thickness for the type, with a smooth, creamy mouthfeel that’s quite nice. The carbonation here is just right, but slightly difficult to separate from the burn of the alcohol. 5

Taste (10): I originally decanted in to a Guinness glass until I read the press release which suggested a tulip glass. The rest of the bottle went in to the tulip. The flavors and yeasty aromas really did become much more intense. Honestly, I had a hard time picking up any flavors other than the yeasts, alcohol, and a touch of fruit. Between the citrusy acid, the carbonation, and the strong alcohol it had a very warm finish. The barrel aging, if anything, took away some of the Belgian flavor. As fake Belgians go, the flavor here wasn’t my favorite. Ommegang, as usual, does it better. 6

Efficiency (10): The 10% claim almost seems low. It’s possible I was tricked by the strong alcohol warmness in the finish. I’m not sure if the aging process (about three months) made the alcohol more distinct, but this would be tough to call efficient. Due to the trading situation, I’m not really sure what this cost so I’m working on the assumption the bottles were $7 – $12. The pinnacle of efficiency for this type is Three Philosophers from Ommegang and, well, this just doesn’t get there. 6

Versatility (10): Incredibly low. This is a cute beer and I love Sam trying to claim some of the “we’re going to make some obscure stuff” title from Dogfish and Brooklyn but there are many better Belgian styles on the market. As a Sam completest, this was worth it for me, but I’d never recommend this over some of the other, better ones. 3

The Snob Sez: Acceptable beer, but like I implied in the review of Saranac’s Belgian: it’s a crowded market between real Belgians and Ommegang. If a brewery’s going to bring it, they need to bring it hard. This doesn’t quite bring it hard enough.

Final Score: 27 (of 50) — Good beer.

Rogue XS Imperial Red Ale

Brewed By: Rogue Ales
Brewed In: Newport, OR
ABV: 9%
Type: Red Ale, Imperial

What They Say: 8 Ingredients: Crystal 40, Chocolate, Rogue Micro Barley Farm Dare(tm) and Risk(tm) Malts, Rogue Micro Hopyard Alluvial & Williamette Hops, Free Range Coastal Water, and Top Fermenting Pacman Yeast. According to this beer’s web page, though, that appears to be a lie. The web page claims 12 ingredients and also offers the normal Rogue tasting notes: A big beer with a spicey [sic] fruity aroma, chewy mid palate of figs and spice and a long lingering finish. Deep burgundy in color with tremendous drinkability.

Website: Discussed in depth last week. Still love it.

Why I Picked It: This was purchased from the Whole Foods Bowery Beer Room on the same day I picked up the Half-E-Weizen. A box of small 7 oz bottles were next to the register. Since it was there, I grabbed one.

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Presentation (5): The “7oz nip”-sized XS bottles exist to be placed at the register and grabbed as an impulse purchase. It’s sneaky, but effective. Considering the presentation, in this case, was the only reason I bought it, it would be really dishonest to not go full points. Otherwise, it’s a Rogue-styled bottled with an odd painting of a mustachioed dude in a red cloak. 5

Originality (5): It’s an imperial red, so there’s nothing here setting it apart from others of the type. They also claim a proprietary style of hops on the bottle, but this claim is disputed by the website. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I do know it’s a red with a high ABV. 1

Body (10): This pours a deep, almost-crimson red with a small head. I decanted in to a regular pint glass which, obviously, only filled about halfway. It didn’t seem to require a tulip glass. There’s a strong, spicy carbonation that pairs well with the heavy malts. Everything works pretty well together. 8

Taste (10): It smells and tastes malty. It’s really all about malts. I notice the chocolate first which struck me as out of place in a red. The raisin and fig flavoring come in well behind the bolder flavors. The conflicting ingredient lists are screwing me up here because I’m not sure what I’m tasting. Ultimately, the beer tastes like a mash-up of a high-quality, dense red bittered up with chocolate malt. Dry finish leaves the lingering flavor of chocolate. I love the flavors here, and they work together, but I don’t know how much of this I could drink. I guess that explains the serving size. 7

Efficiency (10): At nearly $1/oz ($4.99 plus tax and deposit for 7 oz), this beer would have to reach Utopias-levels of ABV to be efficient. It doesn’t have that. Really, it’s an overpriced sample. I complain about cask festivals that charge $3.50 for an 8 oz pour, so it would be disingenuous to not complain about it here. The 9% ABV saves a little face but, really, why would I pay bar prices for a high ABV beer when I could, you know, go to a bar? 2

Versatility (10): Incredibly low. What am I going to do with a bunch of 7 oz bottles that cost $5 each? These are like the Coronitas… except if an 8 pack of Coronitas cost $40. They exist so people can look at them and go OHHHHHHH THEY’RE SO CUTE!!!!! There’s hardly enough in the bottle to get into. Just as I started enjoying it, it was over. 1

The Snob Sez: A tasty beer destroyed by its serving size. I’d support the idea of sample-sized bottling. I won’t support it at bar pricing. If the Bowery Beer Room ever gets this in Growlers, we’ll revisit.

Final Score: 24 (of 50) OK beer.

I was innocently bumming around on Twitter during Mets/Orioles when Low Res Joe started talking about LOGO’s list of top Buffy episodes. Joe soon turned it in to a (rightfully) indignant post over a horrifically conceived list which was clearly stuffed by Team Spike fangirls.

Now, I like Spike. I think he was probably one of the most valuable characters in the show’s run minus the wholly out of character and stupidly conceived “Spike kinda rapes Buffy” scene. The problem I have is that the Spike/Buffy relationship wasn’t wholly responsible for the show’s best. The other problem is it wholly ignores the great stuff that happened between Buffy and Angel in early seasons and totally marginalizes the rest of the characters. Specifically, almost nothing with Anya or Oz.

Three episodes this list doesn’t include and why:

Hush: This is the much lauded episode which was written specifically so Joss could prove dialog wasn’t the only thing he was good at. I know this is a popular episode because it’s so memorable. But, I think it’s a gimmicky episode that sits by itself in the universe. Outside Tara’s first appearance, it didn’t really contribute anything to the rest of the narrative. That said, if I’m creating a list of Creepiest Bad Guys In Television History, The Gentleman would be high on it.

Once More With Feeling: See above. I love this episode, I have the soundtrack, and whenever Going Through The Motions or Walk Through The Fire hits the iPod it makes me happy. Just writing this paragraph will be sufficient to make me sing “The battle’s done, and we kinda won / so we sound our victory cheer” and “The curtains close on a kiss, God knows / We can tell the end is near” for the next two days. That said, it’s also a gimmicky episode — albeit a great one — and didn’t really do much. It just kind of served as a weird way to make all the characters admit things to each other that they’d been hiding. Not including it doesn’t mean I dislike it… it just means I want my episodes to be memorable outside of their gimmick.

Conversations With Dead People: I know a lot of people love this episode. I hated it. If The First was going to mess with Willow, he would do it with Tara — not with some random girl that nobody remembered for anything outside her creepy voice. If they couldn’t use Tara (and the Wiki entry states Amber Benson refused) then they should have used Willow’s guilt over killing Warren or used a different character entirely. I’ve never been able to get past this and it’s why I think the episode is hugely overrated.

Anything From Season 7 After The Potentials Are Activated: As the show pushed toward the end, I thought it fell apart down the stretch. I didn’t like the forced relationship with Kennedy and Willow. I didn’t like Anya’s gratuitous, pointless death in the finale. I didn’t like the silly storyline with the Battle Axe Of DOOM. I didn’t like the Faith/Buffy interplay at the end. I largely didn’t like The Slayer Army. As an aside, though, I’ve always thought this pile of potentials is what they should have used to launch a movie franchise. Take the Slayers and turn them in to a Bond-esque franchise where one girl gets followed for a few movies. When she gets too big, kill her off and move to a new girl. Or, have the first movie start with a Slayer Armageddon and go back to having one Slayer. Just because all the Slayers were activated due to Willow’s spell doesn’t mean that new ones aren’t being born. Faith is currently the Slayer Of Record, so we even have roles for Sarah Michelle Gellar and Eliza Dushku in the first movie. I digress.

Below is my personal top 15.

15) Graduation Day (S3E21/22): The finale of season three. I didn’t love the episode as a whole, but I loved the message. That being that your principal is a secret demon and everyone can fight evil if they worked together…. and blew up their school. If, for nothing else, it gave me Harmony the Vampire, who became one of my favorite characters in the final season of Angel.

14) Wild At Heart (S4E6): This was the culmination of the far too short Oz/Willow/Veruca love triangle. It was everything that a Whedon love-triangle should be. Oz’s werewolf self fell for Veruca’s werewolf while his human self still was in love with Willow. Great twist on the standard love triangle and awesome parallels between guy’s bad halves and good halves. Oz’s werewolf form saves Willow from Veruca as Willow was considering doing something awful to him. If you believe the Wikipedia entry, Joss had a much longer arc for this storyline planned before Seth Green decided to leave the show. Another reason to hate Seth Green, though it wound up working out because it let Willow and Tara happen.

13) Entropy (S6E18): Anya and Xander recover from their broken wedding. Anya does it by returning to D’Hoffryn to become a vengeance demon. Xander sulks. Anya tries to grant her own wishes to get back at Xander but can’t. Anya spends most of the episode trying to get someone to wish harm on Xander before eventually getting drunk with Spike, revealing their secrets to each other, and then banging. This episode was significant only in that it finally revealed Spike and Buffy’s secret relationship and Xander’s insane issues with becoming too much like his awful father. By the end of the episode, Anya prevents Spike from making a wish. Not much, but something.

12) After Life (S6E3): I wasn’t a huge fan of the premiere episode of season six. I did love the follow-up though. Toward the end of this episode, Buffy describes to Spike where she was the 140 or so days that she was dead. Wherever I was… I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time… didn’t mean anything… nothing had form… but I was still me, you know? And I was warm… and I was loved… and I was finished. Complete. I don’t understand about theology or dimensions, or… any of it, really… but I think I was in heaven. And now I’m not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out… by my friends. Everything here is… hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch… this is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that… knowing what I’ve lost… (h/t to tv.com). This is the (conveniently ignored by Christian protesters) closest Whedon’s universe gets to admitting that there is a higher power on the good side, rather than just the load of evil beasties on the evil side. The first time through, I got sick of Buffy’s annoyingly fatalistic attitude. It took the second trip through season six before I realized she was in Heaven and got ripped out (or finally became lucid in the real world… more on this later) and had to start fighting again. I’d probably be trying to get back, too. This episode is the reminder.

11) Villains (S6E20): Willow’s various adventures in to the evil side always made me happy. It was just such a departure from the normal character. This is the episode following Tara’s untimely gunshot death by Warren and Willow’s quick descent in to batshit insanity. This is one of the more brutal, drawn out deaths given to a mortal in the show’s run as Willow first takes the bullet that killed Tara and slowly uses magic to push it in to Warren’s chest before flaying him alive. It’s also one of the few times we get Buffy’s view of the mortal justice system. She disagrees with what Willow is doing, because the justice system is for people. It’s not on them to be judge and jury. Dark Willow disagreed.

10) Prophecy Girl (S1E12): The finale of Season One. Buffy discovers that prophecy says she will die while fighting The Master. She quits slaying before deciding to do her job. This is the first of many times we see Buffy trying to fulfill her death wish. They’d explore it much more in later seasons, but they really didn’t waste any time talking about the unfairness of The Slayer’s life. Buffy protests she doesn’t want to die at sixteen, then So that’s it, huh? I remember the drill. One Slayer dies, next one’s called. Wonder who she is. Will you train her? Or will they send someone else? They say how he’s gonna kill me? (quietly) Do you think it’ll hurt?.

9) Fool For Love (S5E7): This is one of the few episodes where Buffy faces the fact that she will be the Slayer until she dies and that the Slayer spell is such that all Slayers are destined to die young. She decides to research how they died to keep herself alive longer. Eventually, she asks Spike to describe his final fights with the two Slayers he’s killed. Spike is the first one to publicly call out Buffy’s (and all Slayer’s) death wishes. He says that all Slayer’s secretly wish for death because they know that it’s the only way this work ends.

8) Hell’s Bells (S6E16): Xander and Anya’s wedding episode. As it goes with wedding episodes on shows like this, it gets broken up. A man who Anyanka turned in to a demon returns to exploit Xander’s issues. He gets in to Xander’s head and shows him a future of nagging Anya and himself an injured mess at the hands of demons. After Buffy kills the demon, Xander can’t go through with the wedding after watching his drunk parents fighting. This was one of the few episodes where they let Xander do something other than comic relief — showing him as a real character with real demons. Even though the bad guy died, he got what he wanted — ruining Anya’s life as she ruined his. I also loved that they told Xander’s family that all of Anya’s demon friends were “circus performers.” I liked this relationship even more than Spike and Buffy. Maybe just because I liked Anya — even though she was a crazy man-hating demon.

7) Normal Again (S6E17): Strange pick, I know. This was the episode in which Buffy “wakes up” in a mental hospital due to a demon’s poison. She finds herself back in Los Angeles, with an alive mother and a happy father. It also essentially renders the entire Buffyverse (including Angel) as a hallucinogenic dream. The final shot of the episode, after Sunnydale Buffy’s been “cured”, is of Los Angeles Buffy catatonic in the hospital. If she was cured, and real Los Angeles was the dream state, then the dream would no longer exist and this image would not be possible. Joss has hand-waved this interpretation, but really it’s the only one. The episode that defines the entire universe as a crazy-girl’s hallucination probably deserves a spot in the top ten.

6) Selfless (S7E5): Anya’s backstory, becoming a vengeance demon in 880. Anya, after spending five years as a mortal, finally gets back in to the vengeance business. A girl wishes for all the members of a fraternity to “have their hearts ripped out”. Anya complies in the form of a giant spider demon. Buffy decides to kill Anya over Xander’s objections. Lots of stuff comes out here, including Xander’s deliberate not telling Buffy that Willow was working to restore Angel’s soul in season two. Her admission to Xander that Willow succeeded and she had to kill Angel to save people from demons stops Xander cold. Anya can’t handle what she’s done, eventually decides to not to be a vengeance demon anymore, and D’Hoffryn kills her friend Halfrek before stripping her powers. This is really the last major storyline for Anya before becoming “main character Joss kills in the finale”.

5) Doppelgangland (S3E16): Speaking of Anya, way back when she was newly mortal, she tried to convince Willow to help her get her powers back. In trying to summon her medallion out of the alternate reality, she brought over Vampire Willow. Vampire Willow was a fun character. This episode also pretty much establishes the reality of what happens when a person becomes a vampire. They simply become who they want to be outside of conscience and morality. The Watcher’s Council teaches who they were in life has nothing to do with their vampire self. Angel starts to protest this but gets cut off. Really, if there’s a demon infection that takes over the body after death, the demon is just a hybrid with the person… unless the person was tortured to the point of insanity like Drusilla.

4) Innocence (S2E14): The first appearance of Angelus. I will set aside the fact that Angel lived with this curse for so many years and didn’t know the trigger that would send him back to evil. Although, props to the gypsies. Give the guy his soul back and the world of guilt associated with the things he’s done. Then make it so if he ever becomes happy, he loses everything. In the world of guilt, he has to know he can’t become happy. It’s great. It took a while for Angelus to really get going. In fact, it took him three episodes.

3) Passion (S2E17): Really, the only way to get the audience to turn on Angelus was to have him kill someone important. Having him kill “Random Sunnydale Student X” wasn’t going to do it because Sunnydale students died all the time. Since none of the A-characters were getting off in Season Two, Ms. Calendar’s ride was over. It wasn’t so much the killing of Ms. Calendar that was artistic — though chasing her through the halls and snapping her neck instead of feeding on her was inspired — it was staging Giles’ apartment as though he was in for a night of passion, and leaving Jenny’s body in his bed. Then standing outside Buffy’s house and watching in glee as Buffy and Willow get the news.

2) Becoming (S2E21/22): The finale of season two, Buffy has to face down Angelus to stop him from ending the world. Spike, in a rare moment of clarity for bad guys who want to end the world, joins forces with Buffy to prevent it. Spike’s monologue was everything that everyone who’s ever been annoyed at the “plot to end the world” storyline wanted. Again from TV.com We like to talk big, vampires do. “I’m going to destroy the world.” Its just tough-guy talk. Struttin’ round with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I like this world. You’ve got dog racing, Manchester United, and you’ve got people… billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It’s all right here. But then, someone comes along with a vision. With a real… passion for destruction. Angel could pull it off. Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester-bloody-Square. You know what I’m saying?. This one moment of honesty — the fact that vampires in this world have a pretty good deal and it makes no sense to end it — made a lot of this finale worth it. The events leading up to Buffy and Angelus’ final battle, in front of the opening portal right before Willow restores his soul, is incredibly well done. Even Xander’s honest belief that he’s doing the right thing is great. The final “Angel, close your eyes” finishing with Buffy being forced to kill him after his soul is restored at the last second is great television. It’s a heavy thing she carries with her for the rest of the series before finally lashing out at Xander about it season six. This episode is also the beginning of the odd and fun Joyce and Spike friendship.

1) The Body (S5E16): The challenge of making a death meaningful in a show where so many people die is an impossible task. Even when characters die, it’s expected they’ll go out in a blaze of glory. That’s what made Joyce’s death so incredible. Buffy’s mom was kept away from the violence. What better way to make that death meaningful than to have her taken by natural causes. In the previous episode, Joyce had gone out on a date and came home happy. At the end of the episode she’s laying on the couch dead of a brain aneurysm. Joss’ approach of having no music made the audience deal with the awful, brutal, natural, helpless suddenness of Joyce’s death. The credits were handled in a two minute flashback. The credits run over this more happy scene with Christmas music playing in the background. After the credits, there is nothing but dialog and dealing with the death. This was also a turning point with Anya’s character. She had only been mortal for three years after 1100 years as a demon so they were able to use her in the child, doesn’t understand what’s happening role. Her speech: But I don’t understand! I don’t understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean I knew her, and then she’s, there’s just a body, and I don’t understand why she can’t just get back in it and not be dead anymore. It’s stupid. It’s mortal and stupid, and, and Xander is crying and not talking, and I was having fruit punch and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever. And she’ll never have eggs, or yawn, or brush her hair, not ever and no one will explain to me why.” Xander and their friends hadn’t realized Anya didn’t get what was happening. She had no idea how to process it. Everyone in the universe was affected by the death. Spike, who cares for no mortals, came to pay his respects in the next episode. It’s been four years since I’ve seen this and it’s still hard to think about Buffy breaking down when she referred to her mother as “the body”, Willow’s inability to select a shirt, and Anya’s speech. Nevermind the best episode of Buffy ever. It’s possibly one of the best episodes of television ever.

That’s my list. Catharsis complete.