Hannah Boyens 
Buffy vs. Angel: Which Had The Better Killer Puppet Episode?
The killer puppet is a standard horror trope, and both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff show Angel managed to flip that trope on its head. Both Buffy and Angel contained a one-off episode dedicated to fighting evil puppets inspired by the likes of Chucky from the Child’s Play series. However, the two episodes differed drastically in tone and plot, which begs the question: which series had the better puppet episode, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel?
Much of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is based on horror tropes. Joss Whedon decided to turn the trope of the blonde victim who suffered in every horror movie into a superhero instead. Through this idea, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie was released in 1992 and later adapted into a television series in 1997. The show followed Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a high school girl who battled the forces of darkness. Buffy eventually fell in love with Angel (David Boreanaz), a vampire cursed with a soul. After three seasons on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel left to star in his own spinoff series, wherein he ran a detective agency that helped the helpless.
Both Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1, episode 9, “The Puppet Show,” and Angel season 5, episode 14, “Smile Time,” centered their plots around killer puppets. This trope has continued, as seen in the puppet episode of Doom Patrol. While Buffy the Vampire Slayer covered the evil puppet trope before its spinoff, Angel’s episode “Smile Time” was ultimately a better exploration of the concept. The creators of the Angel episode “Smile Time” had the benefit of experience as well as a substantial budget in 2004 that the creators behind the first season of Buffy didn’t have in 1997.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1, episode 9, “The Puppet Show” followed Buffy as she tracked down a demon who was harvesting organs from participants in the student talent show. At first, Buffy believed the sentient dummy Sid (Tom Wyner) was behind the murders. Eventually, Buffy discovered Sid was a demon hunter trapped inside the body of a puppet. While the episode subverted the evil puppet trope by making the possessed puppet an ally instead of an enemy (as is usually seen in movies like the Puppet Master franchise), “The Puppet Show” had several shortcomings. For one thing, Buffy’s budget was limited at the time since its first season was a mid-season replacement for the show Savannah and was not expected to last. Thus the fight sequences were staged so that the audience didn’t get to see much of the fighting that involved Sid the Dummy because the creators couldn’t afford to create a more complex fight scene. Besides the low budget, Sid was a shallow character who kept making sexual innuendos about his underage allies.
Angel season 5, episode 14, “Smile Time” showed Angel and his team investigating the mysterious illness of children who watched the program “Smile Time.” Angel infiltrated the show and found himself turned into a felt puppet. In response, Angel rallied his team and confronted the producers of “Smile Time,” who were themselves a gaggle of demonic puppets. Angel season 5 had the benefit of experience that the first season of Buffy did not have and a bigger budget. By turning Angel himself into a puppet and having him do battle on-screen with other puppets, the show could fully explore the silliness of the concept without sacrificing entertaining fight sequences. Also, the characters in Angel season 5 were much more developed than the characters in Buffy season 1, so Angel was able to revel in the genre tropes that came with puppet media while furthering the character development of Angel, Wesley (Alexis Denisoff), and Fred (Amy Acker).
While both Buffy and Angel approached the killer puppet trope from different angles, Angel was ultimately more successful because they were able to do more with the concept thanks to experience and budget. While neither show had puppets as terrifying as Saw’s Billy the Puppet, “Smile Time” was full of exciting moments, whereas “The Puppet Show” was limited by its budget. The contrast between “The Puppet Show” and “Smile Time” indeed showed how far the Buffy the Vampire Slayer team had progressed in entertainingly executing and subverting horror concepts by the time of Angel.
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