10 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Characters Who Deserved More Than a Single Episode

?In the multiverse of nerdery, the relatively young Buffy-verse has grown to be almost as complex as the Star Trek and Star Wars universes. And no, the alt rock werewolves and ditzy vampires of Buffy aren’t as nerd-iconic as the Jedi Knight or the Red Shirt, but that hasn’t stopped a ridiculous amount of talented writers from building more graveyards and high school dance clubs (seriously, what the hell was the Bronze?) within Sunnydale’s city limits.

But within the confines of the original series’ 144 episodes, a handful of pretty awesome characters only crossed paths with Buffy and her Scooby Gang once. And that’s actually a rarity in this universe since the BtVS writing staff tended to bleed the supporting cast dry… like a vampire (rimshot, please!). Giles’ mid-life crisis girlfriend Olivia? Three episodes. Percy West, the douchebag jock? Five episodes. Lily, the vamp-worshipping runaway? Two episodes on Buffy and another three on Angel. Even some random victim of vamp Willow in season three came back as a vampire for two episodes in season five. So if Random Victim #3 can come back for a multi-episode arc, here are 10 characters we can’t believe never rose again on the Buffy television show.

10) The Boxer Rebellion Slayer in “Fool for Love”

?A blaxploitation slayer fighting Spike in a graffiti’d out subway car in 1977, a.k.a. the coolest year ever? Nothing can top that. Know what comes close? A martial arts slayer with moves right out of a Bruce Lee flick, that’s who. Sure, Spike killed this slayer over a hundred years ago, but death rarely put an actor out of work on this show.

9) Zachary Kralik from “Helpless”

?Sure, Angelus was evil, but he was the type of evil that wears leather pants and has a Costco-size tub of hair gel hidden in his crypt. Zachary Kralik was a straight-up serial killer before getting bitten, donned a straight jacket instead of a leather jacket and talked about eating his mother. A lot. This guy was no dreamboat. I shudder to think of the trouble he could have caused if he hadn’t accidentally drank holy water (hey, I never claimed he was the brightest vampire).

8) Michael from “Gingerbread”

?The main cast of BtVS never once included anyone remotely goth. Yes, Oz gets goth points for the painted fingernails, but he also gets Barenaked Ladies points for the bowling shirts. The cast never featured a full-on warlock as well. One would figure they would kill two Judges with one rocket launcher by adding Michael (played by Salute Your Shorts and Rilo Kiley alum Blake Sennett) to the cast, who appeared in “Gingerbread” as a persecuted Sunnydale High wicca-practitioner. The cast acted as if they hung out with Michael regularly, but alas Michael never appeared after “Gingerbread.” Maybe he turned invisible from the Scoobies ignoring him…

7) Sunday from “The Freshmen”

?Between the key party that was Angel’s Victorian vampire gang and modern day sires like Harmony, BtVS never hurt for recurring vamps to torment/bone Buffy. But Sunday, who showed up in the fourth season premiere to give the Buff a gruff welcome to UC Sunnydale, seemed a little more fleshed out than other dust-in-one vamps. Her snarky personality mirrored Buffy’s and the two of them could have traded cut-downs for at least a season.

6) Dracula from “Buffy Vs. Dracula”

?

Despite
its campy premise, Buffy’s battle against Dracula was actually kinda
cool, kinda funny, and kinda important to where her character was headed
(it was Vlad himself who first hinted at Buffy’s inner darkness). It’s
respectable that the show never trotted the king of darkness out for
another stunt episode, but I wouldn’t have minded another round if it
was as enjoyable as this episode. At least he had a significantly
awesome comeback in the Season 8 comics from Dark Horse.

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5) Any of Dawn’s Friends

?Any BtVS fan would boil Dawn down into one word: whiny. Two words? Whiny brat. Three words? Whiner Brat McWhinerson. But that’s just in context of Buffy and her Scoobies. Dawn might have been tolerable amongst her peers. A smattering of friends appear in both “The Body” and “All the Way” and she even had a BFF in the oft-mentioned but once-seen Janice, but the writers never gave any of them more than one episode. They even spent the entire season seven premiere building up a multi-cultural Dawn Patrol (a Latino in Sunnydale? Whaaaaa?) before shooing them all off. Maybe whiny Dawn’s friends only ever appeared once because that’s all they could stand of her.

4) The Guardians from “End of Days”

?A return appearance of the Guardians would have cleared up a big WTF moment that came way late in the series. Seriously, the BtVS staff waits until the next-to-last episode to pull the entire rug out of from under the show’s mythology knowing they don’t have enough time to clear it up? That’s some Lost-shit right there. So the Guardians are the women behind the Watchers? Where did they come from? Why are they in hiding? How many were there? Do they have any powers? Why do they have the Fray scythe? Why do they live in a cave? Why didn’t the writers think of them six years earlier?

3) Gwendolyn Post from “Revelations”

?Gwendolyn Post showed up for one episode and tricked everyone into thinking she was Faith’s new Watcher before showing her hand way too early when confronted with an all-powerful gauntlet. Just like it was edge-of-your-inflatable-chair-seat action watching Faith turn evil over the course of season three, just imagine how much more dramatic it would have been if her Watcher was going to the Dark Side as well. I would have spent hours on AOL’s Buffy boards trying to figure out who was going to be the bigger threat: the Mayor, a rogue Slayer or a rogue Watcher. And yes, I watched Buffy season three from an inflatable chair and yes I was obsessed with AOL message boards. 1998 happened to you too.

2) Ted Buchanan from “Ted”

?John. Freakin’. Ritter. Imagine a multi-episode arc starring one of America’s most lovable TV goofballs as Buffy’s sadistic stepdad. His singular titular episode was not enough! Ritter’s overall charming menace and dramatic reveal as a robot would have elevated the following episode, “Bad Eggs,” considerably. Plus the episodes after “Bad Eggs” are the heart-stakingly dramatic “Surprise” and “Innocence.” Just imagine how painful the last scene of “Innocence” would be if both Buffy AND Joyce had just had their chances at long-lasting love destroyed. How did the pain-bringers at Mutant Enemy overlook this?

1) Marcie Ross from “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”

?Lesser creative types would build a whole series (either television series or young-adult-supernatural-romance-fiction-novel series) around a government run assassin school for invisible angst-y teens, but not Joss Whedon and company. They introduced this killer concept in season one and then ignored it for six years. They even forgot this pre-existing spook for all of season four when the government was the bad guy. To satisfy your nerd need for more Marcie Ross and her invisi-ssassins, imagine them pantsing the government Initiative grunts just after the camera cuts away throughout season four.