Home page All episodes sorted by rank All episodes sorted alphabetically All episodes sorted by writer All episodes sorted by director All episodes sorted by season Episodes with the most polarized opinions Episodes largely forgotten by fans Best and worst streaks of episodes An analysis of what makes episodes great Angel writers sorted by the quality of their episodes Angel directors sorted by the quality of their episodes Seasons of Angel sorted by the quality of their episodes Angel characters sorted by their possible contribution to episode quality Predicted episode quality based on writer, director, characters, and when aired Episodes that are much better or much worse than predicted How the results on this site were obtained Frequently Asked Questions The links page Sitemap

Method

This page explains how this site analyzes data. As a result, it is probably the least interesting page on this site for most people. If you are willing to accept that each episode has the point total that it has, then you might want to go elsewhere.

The webmaster started by obtaining lists through a thorough search of the web for lists of best, worst, favorite, top, greatest etc. episodes. Lists were included if they contained at least eight different episodes for best episode lists or at least five for worst episode lists, and if they considered at least 88 episodes (four seasons). The list below describes how the points for each episode were determined. If you are confused, an example is provided below the list.

  1. The webmaster records the rank of each episode listed.
  2. If an entire list or a group of episodes within a list is unranked, all episodes in that list or group are considered to be tied and are given the average rank for all in the group of episodes.
  3. All unmentioned episodes are considered to be tied and come after the last mentioned episode.
  4. If the list either explicitly excludes episodes from consideration or was made before some episodes aired, all ranks were put into the following formula: rank × (N+1)/(n+1) with rank = the rank of the individual episode, N = the total number of Angel episodes (that is, 110), and n = the number of Angel episodes that were considered.
  5. The ranks for each episode are averaged across all lists.
  6. The average rank for each episode is subtracted from 111 to determine the number of points that the episode has.

An Example

Suppose that on May 18, 2004, a person (we will call her "Winnifred Wyndam-Gunn") were to present her best and worst episodes as follows:

Favorite Episodes:

  1. "Smile Time"
  2. "You're Welcome"
  3. "Awakening"
  4. "Sleep Tight"
  5. "The Pylea Episodes"
  6. "Lullaby"
  7. "A Hole in the World"
  8. "Orpheus"
  9. "Lineage"
  10. "Shells"

Honorable Mention (in chronological order):
"To Shansu in L.A."
"Darla"
"Loyalty"
"Spin the Bottle"
"Rain of Fire"
"Habeas Corpses"
"Home"
"Hellbound"
"Underneath"
"Power Play"

Worst Episodes (in chronological order):
"Happy Aniversary"
"Double or Nothing"
"Supersymmetry"
"That Old Gang of Mine" (least favorite)
"Carpe Noctem"

"Smile Time" would be ranked as #1, "You're Welcome" would be ranked as #2, and so on through #4, "Sleep Tight." However, Winnifred seemed to have forgotten that there were three episodes in Pylea. This means that they take up the #5-7 spots. They are assigned the average of the two and are both put in the #6 spot. This means that "Lullaby" is really the #8 episode and so through "Lineage" which is in the #12 spot.

The honorable mention episodes are not in order of quality, so they are treated as being tied. They take up the #13-#22 spots. They would all be treated as being in the #17.5 spot, the average of the ten spots.

"That Old Gang of Mine" would fall in last place. However, the list was made before "Not Fade Away" aired publicly in the United States (or anywhere else for that matter), so only 109 episodes were considered for this list. Therefore, "That Old Gang of Mine" gets the #109 spot. The other four episodes are not in order of quality, so they would be considered to be tied. They would take up the #105-#108 spots. The average is 106.5, so all are treated as being the #106.5 episode.

Other than the unaired "Not Fade Away", there are 82 episodes that were not mentioned. There is no evidence that Winnifred has any preference between them, so they are treated as if they are all tied. They would fill the #23-#104 spots, so they all get the #63.5 spot, the average of all those spots.

We do not know where Winnifred would rank "Not Fade Away" because she had not even seen it when she made the list. It might displace "Smile Time" for first place or "That Old Gang of Mine" for last place. It might fall on the favorite episode list, the worst episode list, or with the other 122 unmentioned episodes. To account for the probability that "Not Fade Away" would be ranked higher than any given episode, the rank for each episode would be multiplied by approximately 1.009 [(110+1)/(109+1) = 111/110 = 1.009].

Once Winnifred's list and the lists of about 245 of Winnifred's fellow Angel fans go through this procedure, the average rank for each episode is calculated and then subtracted from 111 to get the point total for the episode. For example, the average rank for "You're Welcome" is 25.83. This average is subtracted from 111 to get 85.17 points for "You're Welcome." This makes all results look simpler; the better an episode is, the more points it has.

This page was last modified on August 23, 2004