"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is famous for its blend of comedy and drama, silly rubber monster suits, and '90s dance sequences. But it's perhaps most famous of all for its villains. That's not just because they're super memorable (not all are, but we'll get there), but also because of how the use of seasonal villains on "Buffy" completely changed the way most serialized TV was written. That format will surely continue in the recently reported "Buffy" sequel series at Hulu.

The concept of the "Big Bad" of a season overshadowing all the smaller "monster of the week" episodes and tying together a cohesive story with a climactic finale every year basically came from "Buffy." That narrative model, which had worked in various forms in the comic book medium for years, gave the show a distinctive feel on TV in the late '90s and early 2000s. It also became hugely influential for the whole medium of dramatic television. The villains mattered not just because of great performances or evil plots, but also because of how they were built up and used repeatedly throughout a season. But which "Buffy" Big Bad is the best of the best? That's what we're here to figure out.

For the purposes of this extremely scientific ranking, we're only going to be considering the Big Bad of each of the seven seasons of "Buffy." No short-term villains like the Judge (though he's great), no one from the "Angel" spin-off series, and no one from the "Buffy" sequel comics. We also won't be ranking antiheroes or main characters briefly turned bad, although Faith (Eliza Dushku) and Dark Willow (Alyson Hannigan) certainly get honorable mentions. With all that out of the way, let's get to the list.