Billy the Vampire Slayer (Season 5)

The fifth season of the television series Billy the Vampire Slayer premiered on October 1, 2014, on FOX. It moved from its previous timeslot from the previous few seasons, now airing Wednesdays at 8:00 pm ET, but it moved back to its regular previous Tuesday 8:00 pm ET, timeslot begining on January 20, 2015. Beginning with this season, the character of Angel was given his own series, titled Angel, which aired on The WB following Buffy. Various Buffy characters made appearances in Angel, including Buffy herself; Cordelia Chase, formerly a regular in Buffy, and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who appeared in Buffy season three.

Plot
Season four sees Buffy and Willow enroll at UC Sunnydale while Xander joins the workforce. The vampire Spike, having left Drusilla, returns to Sunnydale and is abducted by The Initiative, a top-secret military installation based beneath the UC Sunnydale campus, led by Maggie Walsh. They implant a microchip in his head which prevents him from harming humans. He reluctantly helps the Scooby Gang throughout the season and eventually begins to fight on their side after learning that he can harm other demons. But Buffy and her friends don't trust him except Willow who opts to give him a chance to redeem himself, which they eventually do.

Oz leaves town after realizing that he is too dangerous as a werewolf and after a horrific encounter with The Initiative. Willow falls in love with Tara Maclay, another witch. They begin a relationship.

Another focus of the season is Xander's relationship with a former vengeance demon named Anya Jenkins, who becomes infatuated with him due to him making her feel human and Xander returns these feelings as she makes him feel like a man. However, Anya tries to get Xander off her mind but their feelings are developed and they begin a relationship

Buffy begins dating Riley Finn, a grad student who she later discovers is a member of The Initiative. He tries to get her recruited but she becomes an object of negative attention from Maggie Walsh. Walsh believes Buffy to be a bad influence to Riley, threatening his ties with The Initiative. After Buffy and Riley's first sexual encounter, Walsh tries to get Buffy killed, which causes Riley to cut ties with Walsh and The Initiative.

It is realized that The Initiative has more sinister plans as its cyborg demonoid hybrid secret project, Adam, escapes and begins to wreak havoc on the town after killing Walsh. After getting Spike to temporarily work for him, Adam plots to create a cyborg demonoid race to overthrow humanity, though Adam sees Riley as a "brother".

Buffy and her allies, upon learning of Adam plans, unite to defeat Adam and destroy The Initiative. The demons and other supernatural creatures fight back against their former captors, while the Scoobies temporarily transfer all their powers into Buffy to fight the physically superior Adam. She kills Adam by ripping his uranium core. Soon The Initiative is defeated and the Scoobies recover. The government recognizes that Maggie Walsh's plan is a failure, and orders her project to be terminated. The Scoobies later encounter the spirit of The First Slayer, with Buffy receives a cryptic message.

Main cast

 * Billy Harrison (23 episodes)
 * Emily Hart (11 episodes) / Katherine Winters (2 episodes)
 * Sam Knight (21 episodes)
 * Alaric Ford (23 episodes)
 * Belinda Bennet (23 episodes)
 * Chloe Haywood (23 episodes)
 * Tyler Smallwood (22 episodes)
 * Dean Winchester (20 episodes)
 * Meredeth Sulz (15 episodes)
 * Damon Salvatore (23 episodes)

Recurring cast

 * Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins (15 episodes)
 * Amber Benson as Tara Maclay (12 episodes)
 * Leonard Roberts as Forrest Gates (12 episodes)
 * Bailey Chase as Graham Miller (10 episodes)
 * Lindsay Crouse as Maggie Walsh (9 episodes)
 * George Hertzberg as Adam (9 episodes)
 * Adam Kaufman as Parker Abrams (5 episodes)
 * Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers (5 episodes)
 * Mercedes McNab as Harmony Kendall (4 episodes)
 * Paige Moss as Veruca (3 episodes)
 * Conor O'Farrell as Colonel McNamara (3 episodes)
 * Phina Oruche as Olivia (3 episodes)
 * Jack Stehlin as Dr. Angleman (3 episodes)
 * David Boreanaz as Angel (2 episodes)
 * Eliza Dushku as Faith (2 episodes)
 * Dagney Kerr as Kathy Newman (2 episodes)
 * Elizabeth Anne Allen as Amy Madison (1 episode)
 * Ethan Erickson as Percy West (1 episode)
 * Sharon Ferguson as First Slayer (1 episode)
 * Harry Groener as Mayor Richard Wilkins (1 episode)
 * Saverio Guerra as Willy the Snitch (1 episode)
 * Jason Hall as Devon MacLeish (1 episode)
 * Robin Sachs as Ethan Rayne (1 episode)
 * Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder (1 episode)
 * Danny Strong as Jonathan Levinson (1 episode)
 * Andy Umberger as D'Hoffryn (1 episode)

Crew
Series creator Joss Whedon served as executive producer and showrunner, and wrote and directed four episodes including the season premiere and finale. Marti Noxon was promoted to supervising producer and wrote or co-wrote five episodes. Jane Espenson was promoted to co-producer and wrote or co-wrote five episodes. David Fury was hired as producer, having previously wrote for the show freelance in seasons 2 and 3, and wrote or co-wrote four episodes. Douglas Petrie was promoted to executive story editor and wrote three episodes. The only new addition was Tracey Forbes, who served as a staff writer and wrote three episodes.[2]

James A. Contner (also co-producer) directed the highest amount of episodes in the fourth season, directing six episodes. Joss Whedon and David Grossman each directed four.

Episodes
See also: List of Billy the Vampire Slayer episodes

Crossovers with Angel
Beginning with this season, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel both aired on The WB Television Network. Both shows aired on Tuesdays, Buffy at 8:00 PM ET, and Angel at 9:00 PM ET. The fourth season of Buffy aired along with the first season of Angel. Both shows featured crossover episodes, in which characters of one series appeared in the other. Angel (David Boreanaz), Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), who had been introduced in Buffy, became main characters in the spinoff series.

The first crossover appeared in the premiere episodes, where Angel calls Buffy but doesn't say anything; on Buffy, she is seen answering the phone. After the events of "The Harsh Light of Day", Oz (Seth Green) visits Los Angeles in the Angel episode "In the Dark" to give Angel the Gem of Amara (a ring that makes vampires unkillable), and Spike (James Marsters) follows him.

In the Angel episode "Bachelor Party", Doyle (Glenn Quinn) has a vision of Buffy in danger. This causes Angel to secretly visit Sunnydale in the episode "Pangs", to protect her. After learning that he was in town, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) visits L.A. in the Angel episode "I Will Remember You" to express her displeasure in his not telling her that he was there.

Buffy season three recurring character Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof) makes his first appearance on Angel in "Parting Gifts" and would become a series regular in the next episode for the remainder of the series.

After the events of the two-part episode "This Year's Girl" and "Who Are You", Faith (Eliza Dushku) leaves Sunnydale and goes to L.A. in the Angel two-part episode "Five by Five" and "Sanctuary" and is hired by Wolfram & Hart to kill Angel. Buffy makes her second and final appearance on Angel in "Sanctuary".

Angel visits Sunnydale again in "The Yoko Factor" to apologize to Buffy after the way he treated her in "Sanctuary". Angel meets Buffy's new boyfriend, Riley Finn (Marc Blucas).

The vampire Darla (Julie Benz), who was killed in Buffy episode "Angel", is resurrected by Wolfram & Hart in the Angel season one finale, "To Shanshu in L.A.", and subsequently becomes a recurring character there.

Billy discovers that Emily is alive during In the Billy episode "6x08", Chloe has a vision of Emily in danger. This causes Billy to visit L.A. in the Vampire Chronicles episode "The Old Flame" and "Close Your Eyes" to express his displeasure in her not telling him that she is alive. On its original airing, the episodes "1x08" and "1x09" of Vampire Chronicles aired as part of a 2-hour event, with Billy airing episode "6x09" the following week without Vampire Chronicles airing that week, the episode focused solely on the group, with Billy not taking part in much of the episode since hes suppose to be in LA, none the less the episode is an alternate universe episode, where Chloe finds herself stuck in the alternate universe seen in the opening two episodes of season six, Billy returns at the end of the episode from LA.

Note: If one watches both shows, chronically Billy episode "6x8" should be viewed followed by Chronicles "1x8" and "1x9" then Billy "1x9". Then both Billy and Chronicles "6x10" and "1x10" happen around the same time, both show episodes mention that it had been one day since Billy and Emily said goodbye.

Reception
The series received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, for Outstanding Hairstyling for a Series for "Beer Bad", Outstanding Cinematography for a Single Camera Series (Michael Gershman) for "Hush", and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (Joss Whedon) for "Hush".

The series was nominated for two Television Critics Association Awards, for Outstanding Achievement in Drama and Program of the Year.[4]

In particular, the episode "Hush" was highly praised when it aired. Robert Bianco from USA Today comments, "(i)n a medium in which producers tend to grow bored with their own creations, either trashing them or taking them in increasingly bizarre directions, Whedon continues to find new ways to make his fabulously entertaining series richer and more compelling. With or without words, he's a TV treasure."[5] Alan Sepinwall in The Star-Ledger calls it a "magnificently daring episode", explaining "(w)hat makes it particularly brave is that, even when Buffy has been failing to click dramatically this year, the show has still been able to get by on the witty dialogue, which is all but absent after the first few scenes. Whedon finds ways to get around that, with several cast members—particularly Anthony Head as the scholarly Giles and Alyson Hannigan as nervous witch Willow—proving to be wonderfully expressive silent comedians."[6] In the New York Daily News, David Bianculli states that the episode is "a true tour de force, and another inventive triumph for this vastly underrated series."[7] Robert Hanks from The Independent in the UK writes that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in most weeks the funniest and cleverest programme on TV, reached new heights" with "Hush".[8] Noel Murray in The A.V. Club calls it an "episode unlike any other, with a lusher score and some of the most genuinely disturbing imagery I’ve yet seen on Buffy."[9] The episode was included among 13 of the scariest films or television shows by Salon.com, and justified by Stephanie Zacharek, who states it "scans just like one of those listless dreams in which you try to scream, and can't. Everybody's had 'em—and yet the way the eerie quiet of 'Hush' sucks you in, you feel as if the experience is privately, and unequivocally, your own."[10] Following the series finale in 2003, "Hush" continued to receive praise. Lisa Rosen in the Los Angeles Times states that the episode is "one of TV's most terrifying hours".[11] Smashing Magazine counted "Hush" as one of the top ten television episodes that inspire creativity.[12] Keith McDuffee of TV Squad named it the best Buffy episode in the series, writing "(i)f someone who had never seen Buffy (blasphemy!) asked me to show them just one episode of the show to get them hooked, this would be it".[13] TV.com named it as the fourth most frightening episode in television history.[14]

The Futon Critic named "Restless" the best episode of 2000.[15]

The fourth season averaged 4.7 million viewers, slightly lower than the first season of Angel.[16]