Sarah Michelle Gellar Reveals Her Top 3 Favorite ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Episodes

Honestly, they’re probably yours, too

Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Body
20th Century Fox

More than 20 years after “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” premiered on the now-defunct WB network, fans and scholars (yes, seriously) are still philosophizing about the Sarah Michelle Gellar-led teen drama and how it continues to affect pop culture to this day.

And while there are many important questions that can be asked about the Joss Whedon-created show, you gotta love a good, “What’s your favorite episode?” answer from a “Buffy” alum. And now we have three, courtesy of Buffy herself.

“‘The Body,’ ‘The Prom,’ and the silent episode, ‘Hush,’” Gellar told BuzzFeed in an interview published Friday, while promoting “Other People’s Houses,” a new series she has in the works at Fox.

As “Buffy” fans know, those three installments of the show — which aired from 1997 to 2001, first on The WB and then UPN — could not be more different, but definitely have all scored slots on dozens of lists ranking the Whedonverse show’s hours, each for different reasons.

“The Body” follows the immediate events after the sudden death of Joyce Summers (Kristine Sutherland), Buffy’s mother, and opens with one disturbingly long shot of our heroine finding her mother’s body. The Season 5 episode has no music, unlike every other episode of the series, and features the first kiss between Alyson Hannigan’s Willow and her girlfriend Tara (played by Amber Benson). It is widely considered the best episode of the show, and several critics have counted it as one of the greatest episodes of television.

“The Prom” is a Season 3 episode that, as it hints in the title, focuses on Buffy as she prepares for her senior prom at Sunnydale High. The hour saw Buffy and her vampire boyfriend, Angel (played by David Boreanaz), breakup and then reunite in the closing moments, both knowing it’s just for that night and that they must move on as she looks to grow up and attend college.

Speaking of the college years, “Hush” is an episode from the fourth season of “Buffy,” the first to take place at UC Sunnydale instead of Sunnydale High. A group of evil creatures called The Gentleman come to town and steal everyone’s voice and, as a result, the majority of the episode is done without any dialogue, forcing our heroes to mime a lot as they try to defeat the bad guys.

While it’s now been almost two decades since “Buffy” ended, the show’s fanbase is still incredibly strong and there is even a reboot series from original creator Whedon and Monica Owusu-Breen in the works. There is currently no network or stars attached to that project, including Gellar.

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