All the major and semi-major and small-but-still-made-a-semi-major-impact characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel , ranked in reverse order of excellence. This is going to be controversial!
20th Television / Photo illustration by Justine Zwiebel for BuzzFeed
Residing in a shared creative landscape referred to by fans as the Buffyverse, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel spawned dozens of richly drawn, deeply moving, totally hilarious characters from the 1997 Buffy premiere to the 2004 Angel finale. To celebrate these characters — even the ones I'd just as soon never see again — I've ranked them from worst to best.
Criteria: To be included on this list, a character has to have a name, appear on Buffy and/or Angel for at least three episodes, and meaningfully participate either in the episodes' plot or in a larger, season-long storyline. (Sorry random teacher or Wolfram & Hart flunky!) When it made sense, I grouped some characters, and there are also a handful of special exceptions for standout characters in just one or two episodes who have significant arcs of their own. Also, for the persnickety, since an actor's performance plays a definite role in the success or failure of a character in these rankings, I did not factor in the post-finale comic books.
A bias: I'm more of a Buffy person than an Angel person, but my editor in this endeavor is die-hard Angel fan Shani Hilton, and she successfully argued the case for several Angel characters. (Also: I really do like Angel very much!)
Kennedy
Played by: Iyari Limon
Number of episodes: 13
First episode: "Bring on the Night," Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7
Last episode: "Chosen," Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7
This potential slayer is a self-admitted "brat," but that doesn't even come close to describing her profoundly obnoxious presence in Buffy's final season. Her aggressive pursuit of Willow makes me question Willow's fundamental romantic taste — Oz and Tara make total sense for Willow, but this self-important rich girl feels all wrong for her (and not in a deliberate, Whedon-y way). She also comes off like such a clear ploy to keep Willow's lesbianism alive — and outraged fans happy — after Tara's death, that the character is that much more infuriating for being so unmistakably unlikable. And not to put too fine a point on it, but the acting here does not help the character's case at all. Put it this way: Season 7 of Buffy is arguably the worst season in the Buffyverse, and Kennedy is a major reason why.
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The Anointed One
Played by: Andrew J. Ferchland
Number of episodes: 6
First episode: "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date," Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1
Last episode: "School Hard," Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2
The worst "villain" in the Buffyverse is barely a villain at all. He's just a not-even-that-creepy kid whose lines are pretty much all overdubbed, until he and the rest of us are put out of our misery with the arrival of Spike and Drusilla.
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