[Note--If you are simply willing to acknowlege that there are two tastes in Buffy episodes and do not care about how this was determined, skip to the bottom of the page.]
Readers of the Phi-Phenomenon know that there are three distinct tastes in film. Some people have a Highbrow taste. They like silent films and films in languages other than English much more than other people do. Others have a Popular taste. They like recent films and genre films much more than other people do. Still others have a Mainstream taste. They like classic Hollywood films more than other people do.
In order to determine if there are separate tastes in Buffy episodes, an analysis was performed on a subset of lists that met the following criteria: (1) they considered all 144 episodes, even if they did not rate or rank all 144, and (2) no rating or category of episodes (including unranked or unrated episodes) contain 50 or more episodes. Joss Whedon's list from USA Today as amended by his list of his 12 favorite episodes not written by him was also included for curiosity's sake even though these two lists had only 20 episodes.
Generally, these 128 lists were similar to the larger group of 1673 lists in terms of which episodes were liked and disliked. There were some episodes that this group liked more than the larger group did (most notably "The Initiative" and "Consequences") and some that this group liked less than the larger group did (most notably "Touched," "Nightmares," "Smashed," and "Lies My Parents Told Me").
The results suggested that there might be two different tastes in Buffy episodes. The more widely held of these two tastes, which, for now, will be called "Loyalists," are held by fans who may not be all that fond of the first season, but liked all the other seasons equally. However, a significant minority, which, for now, will be called "Jumpers" after the website Jump the Shark, believe that the show was consistantly increasing in quality for the first three seasons and consistantly declined in quality after that. The most commonly cited reasons are graduation from high school, the introduction of Tara and her relationship with Willow, the introduction of Riley and his relationship with Buffy, and the Initiative arc.
The pages below compare a compilation of the 57 strongest Loyalist lists with a compilation of the 44 stongest Jumper lists (each weighted by how strongly each list fit the particular taste). They are used to highlight differences between the tastes.
Episodes Ranked--How people with each taste would rank each of the 144 episodes.
Seasons Ranked--How the season in which an episode aired may affect the extent to which fans with each taste like or dislike Buffy episodes.
Characters Ranked--How major characters may affect the extent to which fans with each taste like or dislike Buffy episodes.
Writers Ranked--How the writers may affect the extent to which fans with each taste like or dislike Buffy episodes.
Directors Ranked--How the directors may affect the extent to which fans with each taste like or dislike Buffy episodes.
Note that the differences between these tastes are exaggerated. Most fans fall somewhere between thes two tastes, and there may be other tastes that are too rare to be detected with this method. Also, raters had to view all 144 episodes of Buffy, so these analyses exclude Jumpers who were so disgusted with changes in the show that they stopped watching. Overall, the factors that this site examines explain 75.4% of the quality of episodes as seen by Loyalists and 78.3% of the qualilty of episodes as seen by Jumpers. For those who are curious, the addition of the list of Joss Whedon's favorite episodes not written by him clearly moves him from a clear Loyalist to being more of a Jumper than a Loyalist. However, he was not included as being one of the strongest lists for either taste.
