Ah...marriage. Something truly evil for these two to deal with.

Typically speaking, a demon is a bad thing.  Not so on some of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of it’s superior spinoff, Angel.  What’s that?  You don’t think Angel was better than Buffy?  Write your congressman!  This is my blog!  Anyways, I’ve decided to include some of the purer demons on this list, instead of half demons like Doyle or even the vampires.  Some of them had very limited screen time (in one case here, roughly five seconds), and some were around for years.  Either way, they made an impression on me, and so, let’s look at some demons after the jump!

Awwww...look at the little guy!

10.  Unnamed Sewer Demon – He was onscreen for less than ten seconds, but he was so cute!  I felt so damn sorry that after his brush with fame, he was taken out by Gio and the rest of Gunn’s old gang in the Angel episode “That Old Gang of Mine“.  The rest of the episode isn’t all that great, but this little guy’s (Sorry, he was actually huge) small appearance almost left me in tears.  Mostly because they’d already telegraphed what was about to happen to him.  Unlike most of Buffy, not all of the demons in LA in Angel are bad, and this guy certainly wasn’t, as Wesley points out.  Sorry little guy.  I wish we could have gotten to know you a little better.

Antlers and slime. Spike didn't exaggerate on those facts.

9.  Unnamed Chaos Demon – Sure, he’s all antlers and slime, but he caught the vampire Drusilla’s eye, proving once again that any alternative to Spike is a good one.  (Disagree?  See above statement about congressman).  Again he has very little screen time, but he seems so pathetic there holding his beer and trying to seem cool while Spike and Drusilla argue in front of him.  The episode he appears in is one of the better ones (Fool For Love), and you’ll remember the guy after the episode is over.  Unfortunately, they never showed what he was capable of.  Damn it.

Heh...Loan shark. HA!

8.  Teeth (Bro’os) the Loan Shark – They never say what kind of demon he is, but once you get a look at him, I don’t think it really matters.  He’s a loan shark (Oh..I get it.  No, it’s clever.  Really!) who Spike owes some kittens to over a game of poker. (I’m not making that up.  I’m not that creative.)  Take a look at his picture.  How do you think that thing would sound?  Yep, he pretty much sounds like he looks.  In the Buffy episode Tabula Rasa, he got up to all sorts of shenanigans when Buffy, the Scoobies and Spike all lost their memories.  It’s a decent episode, but had the misfortune of following perennial fan favorite Once More With Feeling.  That’s like going on stage to sing after Krisitn Chenoweth has just shaken the rafters with…well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? 

Do not taunt the Fear Demon.

7.   Gachnar the Fear Demon -  In one of Buffy’s better episodes, Fear, Itself, a demon was accidentally raised and wreaked all kinds of havoc at a college party.  Everyone had to face their worst fears, and this demon fed on that.  Yeah, this is the episode where we find out that exdemon Anya’s greatest fear is, of course, bunnies.  None of that was the point, however, as the episode wound to a close, and we find out that horribly frightening things can come in very small packages.  Gachnar the Fear Demon is roughly three inches tall.  After reading that, you care to take a guess as to how Buffy vanquished him?  That’s right.  She squished him like a bitty bug.

Does it look like he needs any more skin conditions?

6.  Sahjhan – Oh, we’re getting up there in power, now, ain’t we?  First sighted in the Angel episode Offspring, this demon is constantly up to no good.  However, there’s not a whole lot he can do directly, as all of Sahjhan’s species of demon, the Granok, was made incorporeal by evil lawfirm Wolfram and Hart(Who I would totally go work for, if they existed).  He can, however, skip about through time and various dimensions, which is how he knows that Angel’s son Connor is prophecied to kill him.  And, he’ll get around to it too.  The reason he’s so high on my list?  I love the way he talks.  Since he skips about in time, he’s picked up some odd vernacular, and isn’t afraid to use slang anachronistically.   He also deals Angel one of the toughest blows the 250 yr old vampire had to deal with by allowing one of Angel’s enemies escape into a hell dimension with Connor, Angel’s son.  Good stuff!

What big teeth you have, grandma!

5.  The Gentlemen – I swear to God, these guys creeped me out wholly the first time I saw them, and they continue to do so.  In a memorable episode of Buffy called Hush, The Gentlemen were the big bad that rendered the entire town of Sunnydale without speech.  Why would they do that?  Well they needed to harvest MacGuffins…sorry, human hearts and, apparently, a screaming slayer makes their heads explode, and no one gabs more than Buffy.  Okay, that’s an oversimplification.  But, do you remember these guys?  They didn’t walk anywhere, they floated!  It creeps me out just to think of it!  I, for one, was sad to see them go because we never saw them again.  And, the episode, Hush, is one of the best hours of TV I ever watched, no matter what genre it was.

You...uh...got a little something on your head, there.

4.  Skip – One of the scarier looking demons that ever graced a TV screen, Skip, was, for all intents and purposes a good aligned demon whose job it was to keep half demon Billy in a fiery hellcage(That Vision Thing).  Like the evil little bastard he was guarding, Skip turned out to be more than he appeared.  He made two appearances where he claimed to work for The Powers that Be (don’t ask), and then he just turned out to be an asshole.  That’s okay, though.  His goofy mode of speech and manners made him likeable for the times when we thought he was good.  His conversation with Angel about his twenty minute morning commute is still one of the funnier things I’ve ever heard.

Congratulations. You beat the bad guy in a completely hollow victory.

3.  Sweet – Here’s where things get sticky.  Rabid Buffy fans who claim that Once More With Feeling is their favorite episode of the show claim that Sweet(actual name is never given) is the best bad guy ever.  I’m not one to make waves (riiiiiight), but I disagree, and not just because I want to be different.  For all that argument, however, they make a powerful point.  Charismatic and just up to no good, this demon’s modus operandi is to make people sing until their emotions get the better of them so bad that they burst into flame.  No one…no villain except maybe Angelus has hurt Buffy and the Scoobies as fundamentally as Sweet did when they were forced to reveal all the secrets and emotions that they would normally keep to themselves.  In the end, they run him off (kinda), but not before he delivers one of the best sarcastic lines of all time:  “Say you’re happy NOW…once more with feeling.”

CLEM ROCKS!!!

2.  Clem – My single favorite demon on Buffy was the hound faced Clem, and I used to watch the show hoping for an episode he’d turn up in.  You see, unlike Sweet, who was a one time bad guy, Clem was a go-to guy for Buffy, and perhaps the one case of a demon NOT being a villain on the show.  He made several appearances, and my favorite was in his first, Life Serial, mostly because he’s playing kitten poker.  I would play kitten poker.  Granted, I wouldn’t eat the kittens, but maybe I’d lose to Clem on purpose.  He’s just such a stand up guy.  The last time we see him, he’s on his way out of town, and for good reason.  It’s not long after the Sunnydale is completely destroyed.   I remember when Buffy was first run, actually bouncing up and down and clapping everytime Clem would turn up.  Y’know…I still do that when I watch the DVDs.  That’s how cool he is.  Clem!

The coolest demon of all time. Nothing more needs to be said.

1.  Lorne – Lorne, or The Host, or Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan is my favorite out of all the demons ever presented in either Buffy or Angel.  Green skin, red eyes and horns, and one hell of a killer voice…and, for all that, he was the most human of anyone in the cast of chracters on Angel.   You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned the names of the actors who played these demons up to this point, but here, I feel I have to.  Andy Hallett was a grounding force on that show, and it can’t have been easy for him to be in that makeup day in and day out, and yet, through all the makeup, if Lorne was in a good mood, you were in a good mood.  If he was disappointed, you were disappointed.  It was a masterful acting job by a truly gifted young actor, and the art world is a worse place without his voice or other talents in it.  Back to Lorne, however.  He was an anogogic demon who could read parts of your destiny in your aura as you sang.  He ran a karaoke bar called Caritas until Angel and his group found ways to destroy his bar not once, but three times!   In the final episode Not Fade Away, Angel asked Lorne to kill the human Lindsey MacDonald, which Lorne did with one caveat.  He told Angel that he was leaving forever, and wanted nothing further to do with him or his mission.  It’s all there on the screen.  When Lorne kills Lindsey, you can see part of him die too.   He was one of the reasons I kept coming back to Angel, and he’s one of the best reasons to watch the show, if you’ve not seen it yet.

There’s my top ten.  I love these guys!  Some are good, and some are bad, but I remember all of them after the episodes they appeared in.  Hell, Lorne was on Angel for YEARS, and the show was much better for it.  If you haven’t seen these shows, if you’ve been resisting for some reason, give them a try (though season one of Buffy is very, very rocky) and I think you’ll find that if you keep your mind open, you’ll be entertained.  As for me, I’m in the middle of rewatching Angel, so I think I’ll get back to it.  What can I say…I’m a Joss Whedon fan.