Over the last seven years, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer has taken fans on an adventure that is sure to inspire movies, television, magazines, comics, books, web pages, clubs, cults, and conventions for decades to come. It succeeded where shows like the X-Files failed by maintaining its quality from start to finish. It is the Dark Shadows and Twilight Zone of my generation.

With such a monumental show coming to an end, we felt it necessary to mark the occasion by honoring some of our favorite and least favorite moments over the last seven seasons. Derek and I came up with the concept of an award presentation called The Andrews, in honor of Andrew, the biggest fanboy on Buffy.

A variety of categories and nominees were suggested by the fanboyplanet.com staff. The final winners were chosen by me, because it's my column and there is not much they can do to stop me. Much like any other awards show, everyone is free to disagree with me and pick a fight with me in the forums if necessary.

And that's my opening monologue. Now, on with the show!

Best Season Villain
A hero is nothing without a powerful and evil villain to thwart. But evil does not a great villain make. They must also entertain us, shock us and in the end, fill us with such hated that we long to see them perish at our hero(ine)'s hands. No Buffy villain did this better than Mayor Richard Wilkins III (Harry Groener, Season 3.)

Runner up: Glory (Clare Kramer, Season 5.) Glory was the only character to try and take over the world and look stunning in heels while doing it.

Favorite Member of the Scooby Gang
He has no powers. He can't keep a girlfriend! He has no left eye. He's Xander! Willow is quirky and Giles is dashing but when the team needed real heart and soul or just a good laugh, Xander was the man.
Runner up: Anya. She didn't have the same warmth Xander did, but she made me laugh just as hard.

Best Dressed
No one looked better on the show than Buffy and I'm sure that was no accident.
Runner up: Glory. Mmm…Glory.

Worst Dressed
Adam (season 4's laughable Big Bad). I could do an entire "Worst of" awards show but I'm sure that Adam would win most of them. Nice concept for a villain but it just never quite got there. Clearly the writers knew this as he's the only Big Bad to die in the episode before the season finale.
Runner up: Spike. Black pants, black shoes, black jacket, black tee shirt, red and white collared shirts. I understand Spike's a vampire, but Mr. Trick proved you can still look cool while undead.

Most Emotional Episode
Derek said it best when he called The Body (season 5, episode 16) the most emotionally draining episode of television ever. Joyce's death came as a shock to all of us and watching Buffy deal with the news and break the news to Dawn was just heart wrenching. No one has an easy time dealing with the loss of a parent and for Joyce to die in such a normal way, fans couldn't help but acknowledge that there are horrors in real life far beyond demons and devils.

Runner up: Chosen (series finale) Emotional for an entirely different set of reasons. We were happy about the episode, sad for Spike and Anya, happy for Buffy about her new world of possibilities, sad because our beloved show had reached an end and thrilled because it kicked ass.

Best Death
Joyce wins. No contest. It was completely unexpected and totally real. They didn't even score the episode because when people die, they don't do it to a John Williams soundtrack. Runner up: Buffy's sacrifice at the end of season 5 was perfectly written and made perfect sense, story and character wise. The show could have ended there and the world would have still been a pretty okay place.

Best Written Episode
Hush was the only Buffy episode nominated for an Emmy and it was well deserved. Giving the Best Written Episode award to the one episode without dialogue seems ironic but telling a story without words is no easy task.

Runner up: Conversations with Dead People Our characters are visited by the ghosts of Slayings past. Dawn talks with her Mother, Buffy gets analyzed by an old undead classmate and Willow shares a moment with The First. An excellent episode that gave us real insight into the characters.

Best Couple
Spike and Buffy? Tara and Willow? Anya and Xander? They all had their moments but Buffy was built on the romance between Buffy and Angel. You never fall as hard as you do for your first.
Runner up: Andrew & Warren. It reminds me of my first man to man crush (tears welling.) Let's move along…

Best Running Plot Thread Across Multiple Seasons
One of the first things that hooked me about Buffy was its episodic nature. The happenings in one episode directly impacted the next. Along with that we got to see characters progress along the way. My favorite running plotline involved Jonathan (Danny Strong.) He was just another face in the background of the Buffy pilot but by season 7, Jonathan had been the major focus of two early Buffy episodes (Earshot & Superstar) and a member of the Legion of Dorks (season 6 Mini Bads.)

Runner up: In the second episode of Buffy, Amy Madison appears as a young girl trying to make the Sunnydale High Cheerleading team. Her Mother is using witchcraft to give Amy an edge over the other girls. Amy returns in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (season 2, episode 16) this time using her own witch crafty powers. Amy eventually ends up transformed into a rat which Willow adopts as a pet. Flash forward 4 season when Willow suddenly one day realizes she can undo the transformation spell and release Amy. That kind of attention to continuity makes me weep with joy. It rewards long time viewers that pay attention and enriches the Buffy lore.

Best Writer That Isn't Joss Whedon
A Best Writer award would automatically go to Joss, without question, but a runner up is a more difficult task. However, the winner is…Jane Espenson. Jane was partially or fully responsible for writing the episodes Band Candy, Conversations with Dead People, Superstar, Doomed, Checkpoint, Flooded, Life Serial, Doublemeat Palace, Same Time, Same Place, Storyteller, First Date, Triangle, After Life, I Was Made to Love You, Intervention, A New Man, Pangs, The Replacement, The Harsh Light of Day, Earshot, Sleeper and End of Days. Hey, both of the really cool Danny Strong episodes! I think someone has a crush on Jonathan and I don't mean Andrew.

Runner Up: Marti Noxon and Douglas Petrie. The amount of writing talent on Buffy is simply amazing. Joss couldn't have done it without them.

Best Season Finale
The Gift (season 5.) Buffy sacrifices her life to save the world and her sister in the ultimate act of heroism. Xander proposes to Anya and Spike shows his first signs of bravery. Everyone shines in this episode but it has my favorite all time Giles moment. He knows that Ben has to die in order to prevent the return of Glory but that Buffy can't commit murder. "She's a hero, you see. She's not like us," he says grimly as he suffocates the helpless and broken Ben.

Runner up: Graduation 1 & 2 (season 3.) The Mayor has turned into a giant snake thing! The principal gets eaten! Angel and Buffy say brooding goodbyes! The graduating class is armed and Sunnydale H.S. goes ka-plooey! Good stuff, Maynard.

Best Murder
Again, Giles firmly placing his hand over Ben's nose and mouth gave a whole new depth to his character. It was a darker side that only hinted at the possibilities of his previous life as Ripper. I still say a small prayer that the Ripper spin off will see the light of day. Runner up: Warren kills Tara. Not so much a murder as an accident, since he was aiming for Buffy. Shocking and enjoyable (um, I mean dramatically) nonetheless. The Willow/Tara relationship started to get on my nerves during their duet in Once More With Feeling. It needed a shake up and death is about the biggest shake up you could have.

Best Running Joke
Anya hates bunnies. The writers always timed Anya's unusual fear of bunnies perfectly, from having her dress as one for Halloween to it being the inspiration for her final battle in the series finale. Well played. And in that Halloween outfit, she may have been the sexiest bunny since Bugs disguised himself as Carmen Miranda. Not that I've fixated on that or anything…

Runner up: Xander dates demons. Joke or satire? You decide.

Best Secondary Villain
Legion of Dorks (Warren, Andrew and Jonathan). They were the Big Bad for season 6 for most of the episodes, but turned out to just be a device to turn Willow evil. But as devices go, they rocked. There were lots of fun bad guy of the week villains, but the L.o.D. were the first ones that I really identified with. They weren't really bad guys. They just made poor choices and had a few bad rolls of the 20-sided dice. Their banter was so funny that you almost found yourself cheering for them. And they taught me a valuable lesson about displaying limited edition Boba Fett action figures.

Runner up: The Gentlemen from Hush(season 4, episode 10). They were speechless that they did not win.

Biggest Wasted Potential
Legendary actor Joel Grey appears in three season 5 episodes, The Gift, Weight of the World and Forever and he's given nothing to do but grin and look mysterious. Granted, that's pretty much how he won the Oscar for Cabaret,, but it's still a complete waste of his talent.

Most Enjoyable Switch From Good to Evil or Evil to Good
Willow turning evil after Tara dying was good, but the fruition of the gypsy curse that removed Angel's soul after knowing a true moment of happiness was the best. It continues to define his character to this day. On a side note, it also proves that Freddie Prinze, Jr. had no soul to lose.

Runner up: Spike's gradual turn to good, but only after being really pissed about it first.

Best Fight Scene
Faith vs. Buffy in Graduation part one (season 3, episode 21). Almost every episode of the show had someone slugging it out with someone else, but Faith and Buffy kicked the most ass in their final battle. "You did it. You killed me."

Runner up: Giles vs. Willow in Grave (season 6, season finale.) Willow: "I get it now. The Slayer thing really isn't about the violence. It's about the power and there's no one in the world with the power to stop me now."

Giles: "I'd like to test that theory."

Giles returned just in time to save Buffy and Anya from an evil Willow. He also got to show why you don't mess with a guy nicknamed "Ripper."

Most Annoying Unresolved Plot Thread
When BtVS moved from WB to UPN, we thought the era of the Buffy/Angel crossovers was gone and we were right. It makes it all that more frustrating when the writers plant a crossover indicator and never explain it. That's exactly what happened in Flooded (season 6, episode 4.) At the very end, Buffy gets a phone call, hangs up and says Angel needs her. A similar thing happens on Angel but neither provide an explanation for what happened the following episode. I guess we will have to wait for a TV movie or novel to fill us in.

Best Pop Culture Reference
Andrew painting the Death Star on the side of their surveillance van (and the L.o.D. arguing over its accuracy). Andrew and the other dorks had all the best geeky pop culture references. *snort* (pushing glasses up nose.)

Most Evolved Character
The characters in a long running series should evolve. For the most part, Buffy, Giles and Xander remain unchanged. Older and wiser perhaps, but they are still very similar to their initial characterizations. Willow and Faith have changed a great deal but Spike had the biggest evolution. He started as an evil Billy Idol wannabe vampire, fell in love, got his soul, learned about true love and then sacrificed his life. Even the flashbacks to his pre-vampire life showed how far his character has come.

Runner up: Anya. Maybe Demons just have the advantage in the character evolution department because they live so much longer.

Most Shocking Moment!
Buffy finds her mother dead. Commercials and previews ruin a lot of surprises in a TV show, but this is not something we saw coming. Death is random, sudden and out of the blue in real life.

Runner up: Warren shoots Buffy and kills Tara. You may have seen this one coming if you knew that Amber Benson's contract was running out and they needed a way to turn Willow to the dark side. Plus, Warren was holding that gun all wrong.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. Drum roll please…(drum roll.)

Favorite Episode
I'd be willing to bet that if you asked the average Buffy fan what their favorite episode was, they would name one of the following: Once More with Feeling, Hush, The Wish or The Body. All of those are fantastic and worthy of the lofty title Best Episode. However this is the category of Favorite Episode and for my money, the winner is Lovers' Walk (season 3, episode 8.)

Before you run to your Buffy episode guide, let me just tell you what happened. Spike, having been dumped by Drusilla, returns to Sunnydale in a drunken stupor. Angel and Buffy have sworn off their love for each other and promise to just be friends. Xander and Willow recently shared a kiss and let each other know about their feelings for the other despite the fact that they are in relationships with Oz and Cordelia. Joyce finds out that Buffy did exceptionally well on her SATs and wants Buffy to start planning for college.

Eventually Spike kidnaps Willow and asks her to perform a love spell on Drusilla. Xander finds Willow and as they share a kiss, the second rescue team led by Oz and Cordelia arrives. Uh-oh.

Spike, Buffy and Angel have a brawl with a pack of vampires during all this and they all learn a thing or two. Cordelia falls in the abandoned factory and gets cold lead through the belly. They tease us for a moment by making us believe that she died. Angel and Buffy learn from Spike they will never truly be friends.

While not a monumentally memorable episode like Hush or Once More With Feeling, Lovers' Walk has all the elements that made me love Buffy. It's a great story that plays with the characters we love. All of the relationships are advanced rather than sitting idle. It has ramifications that are seen for seasons. The battles are all cool and the humor is damn funny.

Season 3 became the measuring stick for the rest of Buffy because it was so good. Lovers' Walk is a prime example of all the things the show did well and why Buffy The Vampire Slayer will be terribly missed by fans.

Granted, there will still be comics and novels and conventions, but it's just not the same.

Until the Angel awards…I'm Michael Goodson.

Michael Goodson