History YMMV / BuffyTheVampireSlayer

** The show in general is infamous for a series of UsefulNotes/EmmyAward snubs; it won two technical awards in the early years, but in its entire run only earned the sum total of ''one'' '''nomination''' for the majors (Whedon, for Best Writing for "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E10Hush Hush]]"). In one infamous instance, "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E7OnceMoreWithFeeling Once More, With Feeling]]" was nominated for Outstanding Music Direction, but due to a typo was left off the ballot form. Several writers considered it somewhat indicative of the Academy's attitude towards the show.

* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: The show has two terrible portable games, a painfully shallow and repetitive BeatEmUp for the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor, and a generic and frustrating side scroller for the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance. It also had some X-Box and Play Station releases that largely avoided this trap, being mostly favorably reviewed, though they didn't fare too well financially.

* SugarWiki/NoProblemWithLicensedGames: The first Buffy game on XBOX is regarded as a must have title, even if you've never watched the show. ''VideoGame/BuffyTheVampireSlayerChaosBleeds'' is pretty good as well. ''Sacrifice'' and the UsefulNotes/GameBoy versions would be closer to the trope below.
* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: Strongly averted in the first game, which nails the right tone of when the story's set and hits all the right notes. The UsefulNotes/GameBoy versions on the other hand follow the trope to the letter, and the DS ''Sacrifice'' to a lesser extent.

** Season 7 introduced Caleb, a smug, hateful, misogynistic serial killer, who was one of the most evil and depraved characters on the show, yet was entertaining to watch thanks to Creator/NathanFillion's natural charisma. The same can't be said for Kennedy and Rhona, who stand among the most unlikable characters in the series, for their whiny, petulant, selfish, ungrateful, entitled attitudes towards Buffy despite the number of times she's saved them. The former was a particular sore point as she replaced Tara as Willow's girlfriend, despite the short amount of time since Tara's death and the fact that the two had no chemistry with each other.

** For the first half Season 6, The Trio is presented as little more than incapable comic relief, posing no real threat to The Scoobies or society. The murder of Katrina in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E13DeadThings Dead Things]]" however, cements Warren as a full-blown misogynist with no care for anyone (including his lackeys) and no chance for redemption.

* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/HilarySwank as Kimberley, one of Buffy's GirlPosse, and Creator/DavidArquette as Pike's friend Benny. Creator/BenAffleck and Ricki Lake in bit parts, as a baseball player and a waitress respectively. Though his scene got left on the cutting room floor, Creator/SethGreen (Oz from the series) does appear on the tape, and DVD covers.

** There's also Spike in Season 7. For some reason, Buffy (and the writers) seem to believe Spike is in the right when he tells Robin Wood that his mother never loved him. And frankly, that's only the worst time by a small degree. The ''Angel'' Season 5 writers tried to do an AuthorsSavingThrow for all this, giving Spike more than one episode where he actually has to confront bad he's done, and how self serving he's been even post-soul.
** We're supposed to think Riley is Buffy's "real shot at love" and everyone treats him like he's the nicest guy ever. Despite the fact that he's a teaching assistant dating one of his students, thinks it's A-OK to torture demons, or "animals" as he calls them (demons are evil, but kill them quickly, don't experiment on them), and whines and complains like a two-year-old when he thinks Buffy isn't giving him enough attention... when she's distracted by her ''mother being in the hospital due to a '''brain tumor'''''. His way of dealing with the latter is going to a vampire "whorehouse" (to get off on getting bitten by them), [[NeverMyFault thinks Buffy is entirely to blame for his behavior]], and gives her an ultimatum: he's leaving if she doesn't forgive him. What's worse is that, from how it's written, we're supposed to be taking ''Riley's'' side, not to mention that Xander calls Buffy out on letting Riley go and Buffy is led to believe that she ''was'' in the wrong. Sickening doesn't even begin to describe this, and the fact that the writers utterly failed to see the implications (and instead blamed fans for liking the vampires Angel and Spike too much) just makes things worse. Then, when he returns in Season 6, he goes around believing his opinion is better than everyone else's, everyone loves him again despite what he did, has married someone below his rank (which is a no-no in the US army) and he makes Buffy (who's suffering from depression, struggling with money and raising a teenager) feel terrible... but she listens to him anyway. It's kind of obvious that the writers wanted to make us think "look what you made Buffy throw away!" but instead made him look like an even bigger jerk than before.
** Xander can often come across as very hypocritical and judgmental - he wants Angel to be punished and held accountable for crimes he did as Angelus but then in Season 7 objects to Buffy wanting to do the same to Anya, and his only defence is "you don't love her like I do" (not caring about the twelve people she killed). The show never seems to frame his pettier actions as wrong or anything more than 'bad but justified'.

** There are some who like to think that [[spoiler:Anya and Amanda]] could have survived the final battle, due to [[spoiler:Anya]] seeming to go down too easy despite her powers and [[spoiler:Amanda]] being killed by something that isn't always fatal in real life (a NeckSnap).

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter:
** Whistler, the mysterious agent of the PowersThatBe, who was originally supposed to ''be'' Doyle on ''Series/{{Angel}}'', but the actor was busy with other projects and they created the character of Doyle instead.
** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E11OutOfMindOutOfSight Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight]]", an episode was about a student Marcie Ross who can turn invisible and by the end of this episode was taken by F.B.I agents to be trained in assassination and espionage. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse She never appeared again.]] Then again, it's debatable to see whether she [[ObligatoryJoke "appeared"]] at all.
** Kendra, the secondary Slayer introduced in Season 2 who was called after Buffy's temporary death in Season 1. Very little of her character and background was explored before she was killed off towards the end of the second season. Given the show's habit of sparing characters originally intended to die once they realised their potential (Jenny, Oz, Spike, Faith) it begs the question how no one could have seen Kendra's - especially since her death in "Becoming" could have easily been rewritten to just have her taken prisoner without changing the story too much.
** Dracula. A famous vampire with mysterious powers[[note]]including the ability to survive even being staked, making him a tough vampire to beat[[/note]], has history with both Spike and Anya and is able to ''really'' get under Buffy's skin. [[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E1BuffyVsDracula}} His single episode]] ends with him being mocked and leaving, most of the episode really more focused on foreshadowing things about the main characters. The comics at least make more use of him, in particular his weird relationship with his friend/meat puppet Xander.
** Professor Maggie Walsh was shaping up to be an interesting arc villain in Season 4 - a human WellIntentionedExtremist who shared many of Buffy's goals, had personal relationships with Buffy, Willow and Riley, and at one point even eclipsed Giles as a mentor figure for Buffy. Alas, she was killed halfway through the season and replaced by her own creation, the far less relatable human-demon-cyborg hybrid Adam, who barely interacted with the main cast.
*** Adam himself could have been an even more interesting antagonist, perhaps exploring his genesis and the morality of the organization that made him, which might have lead to a HeelFaceTurn or at least him becoming an AntiVillain who developed his own goals and motivations who might even end up [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters turning on his masters]]. Instead, he remained a shallow one-note villian until his demise in the finale. It didn't help that he was introduced very late in the season.
** The original plans for Sunday, the vampire Buffy faces in the first episode of Season 4, was that she was a previous slayer turned vampire. Seeds of this storyline remain in the episode, particularly in Sunday’s uncanny savviness against Buffy. One has to wonder why ''that'' idea wasn’t resurrected when Walsh had to be written out, rather than the introduction of pretty universally disliked Frankenstein {{Expy}} Adam.
** Dawn is an ''inter-dimensional key to hell dimensions in human form'' but was given no powers, and is largely used as a helpless DamselInDistress for most of her time on the show. The comics take better advantage of Dawn's origins, granting her portal-opening powers in Season 10, but even then it was used rather scarcely.
** Amy Madison feels like she could have been a more regular character after being restored to her human body, and maybe even a member of the gang with some nice new personality traits instead of only having a few more (somewhat antagonistic) appearances.
** Vampire barfly Sandy, given a bit of flirtation with Riley and seeming like a rare non-murderous vampire. The fact that she was turned by Vampire Willow also gives her an interesting connection to the main cast, but she's killed off in her third appearance without doing anything of note beyond kick-starting Riley's vampire bite addiction arc.
** Principal Robin Wood was a great addition to the cast in Season 7, an easy-going principal who's the son of the Slayer that Spike killed in New York in 1977. Following the resolution to their feud, he fades into the background in the last few episodes, as if the show didn't know what to do with him beyond that arc, beside having him hook up with Faith. In fact, the reason his fate is ambiguous in the finale is because Creator/JossWhedon literally couldn't decide whether to kill him off or not.
** Potential Slayer Amanda is viewed as one of the only potentials with an entertaining personality and skillset that is vident even when she spends many of her appearences just being a SpearCarrier with a rounded personality. She has enough geeky interests to play D&D with Xander and Andrew, and is a Sunnydale native who has known Buffy and Dawn for some time and gets some good ActionGirl accomplishments. All of this gave her the potential to be developed a lot in post-Season 7 media, where it would be easier to broaden the character focus beyond the main cast. [[spoiler:Instead, she is apparently killed in the Season 7 finale to provide a little extra CollateralAngst and is never mentioned again.]]
** Many of the surviving Sunnydale High one-shot students such as Chris Epps (a ReluctantMadScientist and friend of Willow), Eric Gittleson (Chris’s less reluctant fellow MadScientist), The Pack (whose reactions to coming to grips with their actions as cannibalistic werehyenas are only covered in AllThereInTheManual sources), Buffy’s first boyfriend Owen (an aspiring WarriorPoet), Homecoming Queen candidates Holly and Michelle, Michael (the only boy in the magic group Willow is part of), and Xander’s car-obsessed RomanticFalseLead Lysette. It would have been interesting seeing such characters recur, have different views of the main cast, and maybe get scenes and lines during the "The Wish" and/or "Graduation", but none of them appear in any episodes besides their debuts.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: This movie did okay for a low-budget film in its theatrical release but proved to be a cult favorite on videotape. It was this cult status that ultimately inspired the TV series, which ironically now tends to make the movie look bad by comparison.

** ''Many'' find the Potentials in the final season as a whole pretty annoying, due to them either being bland cyphers who faded into the background or being insufferable. Plus, they take away precious screen-time from the characters that we actually care about and introducing this many characters in the final season means that they're not going to be explored properly. If Kennedy is the most loathed of the bunch, then Rona is a close second (and maybe even a first for some peopple, since Kennedy was at least occasionally useful while Rona was pure DamselScrappy) due to her ungrateful, bitchy attitude, generally being an asshole to everyone and being no fun to watch due to her constant complaining. It speaks volumes that ''Dawn'' tells her to shut up. The only Potentials that actually were unambiguously likable were Amanda and Violet.

** Potential Slayer Amanda is viewed as one of the only potentials with an entertaining personality and skillset, has enough geeky interests to play D&D with Xander and Andrew, and is a Sunnydale native who has known Buffy and Dawn for some time. All of this gave her the potential to be developed a lot in post-Season 7 media, where it would be easier to broaden the character focus beyond the main cast. [[spoiler:Instead, she is apparently killed in the Season 7 finale to provide a little extra CollateralAngst and is never mentioned again.]]

** Creator/NathanFillion was fresh from ''Series/{{Firefly}}''. Whatever fan glee existed surrounding his arrival was crushed after Caleb's true colors were revealed five minutes in. People watching the show for the first time now, will likely recognise him as ''Series/{{Castle}}''.