Over the course of seven seasons Buffy the Vampire Slayer pitted Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy against countless demons, vampires and otherworldly creatures. But each season there was one dastardly villain worse than them all. From The Master, to Glory and the original First Evil, each season posed huge threats to the Scooby Gang and the world around them.
Every fan has their favourite. Whether it’s Angel turning evil in season 2 or The Mayor taunting the Slayer right through her high school graduation ceremony. We love to hate them and love to see Buffy eventually take them down. But which one comes out top in our ranking? Scroll on down to find out…
7. Adam – Season 4
Season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first moment of huge change for the series. After blowing up the high school during graduation it was time for Buffy and Willow (Alyson Hannigan) to head off to college. This being Sunnydale the college happened to be built on top of a huge military bunker, The Initiative, run by the government as a way to try and understand the Hellmouth and its inhabitants.
Buffy’s psychology professor, Maggie Walsh (Lindsay Crouse) was harbouring a secret experiment in the mysterious room 314. That experiment was Adam (George Hertzberg), a Frankenstein’s Monster built from parts of demons captured across the season. Adam’s inquisitive, child-like nature made him a distressing threat to contend with. With his near-limitless weaponry and strength he proved to be more than formidable for the Slayer. But his utilisation in the series, being dispatched in the penultimate episode of the season “Primeval” let some fans with a sour aftertaste.
It wasn’t a case of bad writing or bad acting. Adam was just overshadowed by the sheer volume of things which were unfolding around him unfortunately landing him at the bottom of the pack.
6. The First – Season 7
The First Evil, the ultimate embodiment of all things nasty. Should be the pinnacle of villains for Buffy to face off against right? Well perhaps not so much in the end. The First was introduced in season 3 episode “Amends” where its presence was trying to push Angel towards suicide in penance for centuries of awful crimes across the world. Having been dispatched by Buffy, The First would return in season 7 as the final big bad of the series initial run. This time around its endgame was a little more impressive, seeking to wipe out the entire line of Slayers to leave nothing in its way on a path to… something nefarious…
Its non-corporeal form did provide the series’ writers with a great opportunity: the chance to bring back familiar faces for a greatest hits of villains. What more could a final season ask for? The Master, Glory, Mayor Wilkins. Everyone on this list was able to make a brief reappearance in the series to help Buffy wrap up her story. With its scarred, eyeless monks and vicious Ubervamps, The First really did give Buffy the fight of her life. But here’s the problem. Those minions were far more capable than The First itself. A non-corporeal villain can’t get caught in an impressive hand-to-hand fight to the death with the Slayer.
So the first was instead relegated to posturing and monologuing from the sidelines. Teasing Buffy and utilising others in order to kill-off major characters as the series hurtled towards its conclusion. Impressively high stakes, clever ideas, but ultimately not the best execution.
5. Angelus – Season 2
Hear me out. Someone out there is probably screaming at the screen right now that Angelus (David Boreanaz) deserves to be a lot higher on this list. Introduced as a support character in the series’ pilot episode, utilised as a love interest for Buffy and then revealed to be a centuries-old vampire. All brilliant stuff. Angel was easily a breakout character and even spun-off into his own equally fan-favourite series. But in season 2, after a night of passion with Buffy that broke the gypsy curse holding his soul in place, the villainous Angelus represents little more than a smart analogy for the older boyfriend turning nasty against the teen girlfriend.
Angelus’ actions through the second half of season 2 are well written. Dispatching Giles’ (Anthony Stewart Head) love interest Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte), stalking Willow, Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) and the rest of the Scoobies makes Angelus a truly terrifying threat with ultimate insight into Buffy’s life. But season 2 had already introduced two perfectly delectable villains in Spike and Drusilla. Adding a third player into the mix, causing the writers to sideline Spike at his most evil point, overcomplicates things quite considerably.
The three characters vie for screen time, throwing threat after threat against Buffy. The real drama packed into these episodes comes from seeing Buffy wrestling with the guilt that sleeping with Angel had caused so many lives to fall apart. The drama is what leads to the climatic final sword fight in two-part season 2 finale “Becoming”. The moment often makes lists of the top moments from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and deservedly so. The two are locked in battle as Willow tries to recreate the spell to restore Angel’s soul. She does so right at the last moment as Buffy’s sword pierces Angelus’ chest, sending him to hell and in turn saving the world.
It’s an incredible moment of character development which leads into a devastating cliffhanger ending. The consequences of everyone’s actions in “Becoming” reverberate through the start of the third season. Whilst Angel (and Angelus) would ultimately return, somewhat undoing all the harm his time as the Big Bad had done.
4. The Master – Season 1
I surprised myself in putting together this ranking that The Master would fall bang in the middle of the pack. He’s where it all began back in 1997 and was so popular he continued to pop up in both Buffy and Angel right through to the bitter end. Trapped under Sunnydale following an Earthquake, The Master represented the perfect connection to the Hellmouth and thanks to his grotesque appearance showed just how formidable a vampire big bad could be.
Mark Metcalf played him brilliantly too. Despite all of the prosthetic makeup he was able to emote and monologue in a way that all the best villains should. Plus he was actually able to “kill” Buffy in the season one finale presenting a genuine threat which proved to the audience that the series wasn’t a simple case of good always overcoming evil with little difficulty.
In a contemporary setting The Master would probably survive beyond one season. Perhaps becoming a recurring theme throughout the series run rather than a returning guest star when the story called for flashbacks or alternate universes. But in the moment Whedon needed a villain to set the scene in a shortened, mid-season replacement set of episodes and that meant The Master’s time on this Earth was only to be short.
3. Dark Willow – Season 6
For its sixth season Buffy the Vampire Slayer moved from The WB network in the US to UPN, a brand new home on a brand new network. It was big news at the time with The WB not able to keep up with the licensing fees on a series beyond its 100th episode. When the show did return it taught us all a valuable lesson about how much growing up can suck. Everyone went through the wringer in season 6: Buffy was brought back to life despite being in heaven and Anya was left at the altar by Xander.
But none faced quite as much heartache as poor Willow. Fearing her best friend was in a hell dimension she summoned all her power to bring Buffy back and the consequences saw her spiral into a magic addiction. That addiction threatened all of the relationships around her with the biggest casualty being her romance with Tara (Amber Benson). Bubbling away in the back are a trio of villains: Warren (Adam Busch), Andrew (Tom Lenk) and long-time recurring character Jonathan (Danny Strong). When Willow and Tara reconcile the moment is short-lived when Warren, seeking revenge on Buffy with a gun, takes aim at the house and accidentally kills Tara.
The moment is forever etched in the minds of Buffy fans as it pushes Willow over the edge creating the real big bad of the season: Dark Willow. Named so because she sucked up all the magic from the books at The Magic Box, changing her usual flame-red hair and her eyes to an inky black. Her revenge tour sees Willow takes Warren’s life in the most disturbing way possible before she tries to dispatch both Andrew and Jonathan as well. Barely anyone, even Buffy, can stand in the way of one of the most powerful witches in the world. It takes the return of Giles, imbued with powers by a coven back home in England to even slow her down.
In the end, after tearing up Sunnydale and attempting to to destroy the world rather than live in it without Tara, it’s down to Xander to save the day with an emotional speech about their childhood connection as best friends.
Seeing one of our heroes, a fan-favourite character to this day, becoming the villain and almost destroying the world was heartbreaking for fans and easily lands Hannigan a respectable third place on this list.
2. Glory – Season 5
The top two villains are close it could almost be a dead cert. I love both of them but The Mayor edges out Glory for the winner because season 3 was my proper Buffy introduction. But we have work to do before we get to that one…
Season 5 is – in my opinion – peak Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we get to meet Dracula, the visual effects got an upgrade and after a lacklustre villain in Adam we finally got a memorable big bad in evil hell-god Glory (Claire Kramer). Glory was as charming as she was threatening and spent the entire season being unpredictable in her actions. She presented the kind of threat to Buffy and the Scooby Gang which we hadn’t seen since The Mayor. Only now there was the added bonus – and audience confusion – around Buffy’s kid sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) who hadn’t existed for the four seasons prior.
With the realisation that her mysteriously newly arrived sister was the key to Glory’s return home Buffy literally would stop at nothing to save her. Even running scared from Sunnydale in a camper van to escape Glory’s clutches. Meanwhile the Slayer was also dealing with the grief of losing her mother to a brain aneurysm but that’s a story for another day. Glory’s limitless power and reach was really a high point in the series’ writing, able to stop every punch, counter every spell and with millennia of knowledge Glory could easily have been written too powerful. But in true Buffy style the writers were able to craft the Slayer vs. God storyline into something much more meaningful.
Glory was the kind of grandiose villain who fit perfectly with the show turning 100 episodes old. Particularly when it also then culminated in the death of Buffy herself and the close of the series’ run on The WB network. Only a god could cause that much chaos in the Buffyverse…
1. The Mayor – Season 3
Which leads us to our number one. The greatest Buffy Big Bad of all time. None other than Mayor Richard Wilkins III. Founder of Sunnydale, probably its oldest living citizen (The Master was already dead) and the only man in this world we’ve ever found who was desperate to turn himself into a ginormous snake. Especially on graduation day.
If season 5 was peak Buffy the Vampire Slayer then season 3 was stratospheric Buffy. The Mayor was perfectly woven in to the entire season having been name dropped in season 2. It was clear even from first mention that those in power in Sunnydale were aware of its shadier activities. So to discover the Mayor himself was trying to get in on the action was a stroke of television writing genius. Played by Harry Groener, Richard Wilkins is every part the politician. He’s charismatic, great with the people and yet behind closed doors he’s a bit of a creep. Groener perfectly embodied both sides of Wilkins, imbuing him with enough likability to turn impressionable Slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) into a cold blooded killer.
In a similar vein to Glory, the Mayor presented a credible threat which weaved his way in and out of the storyline throughout the season. Something The Master would easily have done given a full season and not 13 episodes. There were plenty of room for villain-of-the-week episodes amongst the building tension as the Mayor headed towards what became known as his Ascension. In classic Buffy style he would become more prominent throughout the season, eclipsing the rest of Sunnydale’s creatures in the final episodes ready for the grand finale.
What a grand finale it was too. A two-part episode which would focus on the Scoobies own ascension, their graduation from high school. The episodes itself featured some of the series biggest ever set pieces and most action-heavy sequences making the Mayor’s eventual defeat one hell of a blockbuster moment for fans and earning him the top spot in this ranking.
Which of these villains was your favourite? Let us know in the comments below. Stream Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons 1-7 now on Disney+ or alternatively all seven seasons are available to purchase on digital platforms.
