If you were to watch a few episodes out of context of Star Trek or Doctor Who or Babylon 5 or The X-Files or Farscape or almost any other genre show you might also cringe. Buffy and Angel might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I don't know that you can get a real sense of their quality with such a small sampling.

I was a pretty serious Buffy fan back when it was airing. Outside of the hardcover version of "Tales" I haven't taken the time to read the comics. I do have volume 1 in TPB for season 9, but I really don't want to read it before getting a hold of all of season 8, which is something I just keep putting off. Fortunately, it's a lot easier to not get spoiled than some other things.

I came in at the start of Angel. I wasn't that interested in Buffy at first, but I got pulled into that too. Before long I had all of the DVD's and ran them on rotation more or less full time while I went about doing whatever else I had going on. I like me some Buffy, but I'm not so sure about trying to bring it back at this point.

I know TV resurrection is turning into a popular thing, but there is a bigger problem with this series in that it has been a story being continued elsewhere, and that some of the characters aren't supposed to be aging. James and David visibly aged over the course of the show. David seemed to stop aging, but it has been a lot of years.

I would also be really worried about how you reconcile the inevitable issue with not being able to get cast members back. Somebody isn't going to be able to do it, and I know from what I've seen on Twitter Nicholas Brendon has had some serious depression issues going on. It may be a lot to ask as far as "getting the magic back" goes.

I'm a big believer in that stories need endings. Sucks every time, but trying to stretch a story past a certain points does bad things to it. It can get convoluted, is more at risk of contradicting itself, and the constant need for upping the stakes eventually starts to marginalize or weaken the meaningfulness of past events. I hated it going off the air, but I felt it left things in a place that made sense, and it's OK to just leave it there.

I do feel a little different about Angel. It felt like they got the rug tugged out from underneath the story. As I recall they really didn't expect to get canceled, and ended up having to figure something out.

I will also say that both stories had gotten really, really dark by the end. They lost most of the humor and lighter qualities that gave the series the emotional contrast that made it so interesting. The kids grew up, and life got depressing. That makes sense for the path of the story, and some of that sadness was great, but I have to wonder what we would be jumping back into, season 4 or season 7? I don't know if I want to do season 7 again.

I think a Whedon resurrection would be better spent on Firefly. I had trouble getting into it, but it was loved, and didn't have as much content to reconcile with. It just feels to me like it would be much easier to just jump back in on that one.

They were good for their time. Now I'd much rather have richer universes like World of Darkness or The Darkness getting movies and tv shows. Whether or not I'd opt for a Buffy universe reboot/continuation depends strongly on how well the Xena one does. They're not doing so great with X-Files atm. :P

After Buffy grew from crappy teen drama into a self-aware parody, it became one of my favorite shows of all time. But it wasn't trough the show's universe - it was trough its constant nods to other similar shows, trough the way it was capable of constantly ridiculing cliches of the genre while also abusing them to grow the shockingly well-written character. But that's all that particular 'universe' was - a parody. A joke. Partly a metaphor. Not something you can effectively work with for an entirely different show. I've not seen Angel yet and don't intend to very much (as I hear it just goes full on the teen drama aspect), but I honestly do not know what is worth replicating about Buffyverse.

It was self-aware from the first episode, but I wouldn't call it a parody. It's filled with humor, but the emotional moments are played for real.

You've heard wrong. Like the complete opposite of reality wrong. Angel is the more adult show and gets pretty dark. In my opinion, it eventually surpassed Buffy in quality. If you like Buffy, you owe it to yourself to watch all five seasons of Angel.

I have mixed feelings on his stuff. I loved Buffy and Angel, but I couldn't get into Firefly when it first aired. I did love Dollhouse, but then Agents of Shield was garbage for me at first. Everyone was boring and flat. Story wise he runs things a bit shallow on events, and I don't think he really cares about what happens so much as how it affects the characters. When stuff works for him it's more about developing the characters, which takes time. I ended up enjoying Agents of Shield season 2 much more than the first. I'm not sure what's going on now, so I will reserve further judgment until the next Netflix cycle.

He is clever enough in his way. What I really liked about Buffy and Angel was that it wasn't comedy, or horror; it was both. Most stuff is one or the other. Everything is a joke, or everything is super serious. Life isn't like that, and Buffy wasn't like that. It represented range of emotion really well. It was funny at times, but when things sucked, it was awful. And it was awful partly because there was a scale to measure things by. Most things aren't like that, and it can be very hard to know how "bad" things are when everything is "bad" all of the time.

Another thing I will give the man props on is, he is willing to kill. Most people in the "geek" crowd toss death around like it's something they picked up on a run to the dollar store. They act like they want it to mean something, but most writers won't actually kill anything. In the end it's meaningless. Death isn't real in geek culture. It's a blow horn or whoopie cushion used to freak you out for just moment (if it's lucky). Joss never got the memo on that. I used to think Jenny Calendar was one of the sexiest things I had ever seen. It sucked what he did to her, but it was amazing TV.

I enjoyed the vampire/fantasy aspect of Buffy, but I was annoyed by all the teen drama. Like Felicity, only with vampires. I couldn't relate to any of that.

You should give Angel a watch then. It's got the vampire / fantasy aspect without the teen drama.

James Marsters and David Boreanaz wouldn't be front and center in a spin-off. Even if they did appear, there are ways to handle it. With Spike, perhaps he Shanshued. Basically there was a prophecy that a vampire with a soul would become human again. Angel famously signed away his destiny to Wolfram & Hart in the series finale, but perhaps Spike ends up fulfilling the prophecy which would allow him to age naturally. With David, like you said, he has seemed to stop aging. He actually look healthier than he did in the final season of Angel.

Once again, if we're talking about a spin-off he needn't be involved beyond cameos, his metal health permitting. It's also worth pointing out that Nicholas Brendon has a twin brother, Kelly Donovan, that could sub in for Xander in a pinch.

I didn't like Angel nearly as much as Buffy. While it was unique in being so dark, I didn't find it particularly great. I thought the writing was rather pedestrian. Without all the witty banter, it exposed all the plot holes and "plots of convenience" to overcome some of the team's superpowers. Kinda like Superman is practically indestructible, but somehow every enemy has access to Kryptonite.

Surpassing Buffy? Not a chance. Whedon's strength is the dialogue between characters. Plot not so much. And the Buffyverse? Not all that interesting...

So what? Because you can find one article somewhere saying it, it's completely true? Sometimes you are rather annoying...

My opinion, it isn't even close...to each their own...

https://www.inverse.com/article/4690-the-series-angel-was-joss-whedon-s-best-work

For the sake of clarity, have you seen all five seasons of Angel and, if not, how much of it have you actually watched?

Shared universes are basically just one step up from reboots which are themselves just one step up from sequels.

They're something that happens primarily out of sloth and lack of imagination. Occasionally, they'll be the result of spin offs, but I've rarely seen any of these that didn't feel like lazy writing.

I've watched it all. It had its moments. Just not nearly as many as Buffy did. Generally speaking, I found the general plot and episodes rather uneven. Ironically, that first link of yours says the same thing. If it was so great and everyone adored it so much, why did it get cancelled?

Frankly, it looks like Netflix has a few TV "journalists" on its payroll...

Angel was worth watching if you were a Buffy fan, not sure how good it was if you weren't. And a new series, is begging to disappoint just like these TV remake movies and the new X-Files...