As a very high level and probably unfair caveat - I will say I am only comparing the first five saesons of Buffy vs all of Veronica Mars - otherwise it seems about crazy to compare a show with seven years of histroy with one of three.
Veronica Mars wins 8-2
The Lead (Veronica Mars / Kristen Bell vs. Buffy Summers / Sarah Michelle Gellar)
I'll fast forward - I am calling this a draw at 5v5. I didn't score anything a 5-5 in my London v New York list, but I think I have to here. It is so hard to say one is better. I think Kristen Bell is the better actor, but the Buffy character also had to do way more in terms of the physical work, the stunts. The biggest difference between the two shows is there was nothing supernatural about Veronica Mars (which will help its case in further categories). There was a lot of that in Buffy, and SMG got most of that and she knocked that out of the park. If I'm grading on difficulty, it is even, though I guess to close, I am not sure if SMG could play Veronica Mars equally well, but Kristen Bell proably could do the Buffy role. This isn't grading teh actresses though, just the character and actress combo. So let's go with a draw. To summarize, these are two of the best female lead characters ever written in television and two great, great performances perfectly balancing spunkiness, smartness, sexiness. Just awesome work.
Draw 5-5
The Gang (Xander, Willow, Giles v Keith, Wallace, Logan)
It's hard to define who should go in this group given not every character was there every season, and many can work in my next category. But if we limit it to these - the three characters who were omnipresent in every season in Xander, Willow and Giles for Buffy and Keith, Wallace and Logan for Veronica Mars, it gets super tough. I kind of want to chicken out and go 5-5 again, but I do think there is an advantage here for Buffy - and namely that her love interest was almost never Xander while of course Logan was the primary will-they/won't-they for Veronica. It gave the three of Buffy side a bit more family nature. A bit more of the true gang - and of course all three were brilliant performances. Alyson Hannigan as Willow was one of my first TV crushes (she remains in my HOF). Giles may not be Keith Mars good, but pretty damn close. Keith is the only thing giving me pause here because he was so damn instrumental - in a way Joyce Summers never was, but ultimately I have to lean Buffy - there's a reason why the "Scooby Gang" concept was named after the Buffy folks.
Buffy wins 6-4
The Dark Gang (Angel, Spike vs. Weevil, Logan)
I have big bads later, so for this I am excluding Angel's half season as the big-bad in Season 2. Anyway, despite loving Spike and Angel being instrumental, I am going to go Veronica Mars here. Weevil may be one of the most interesting, nuanced characters written on a mass audience type show, a very gray character in a world that still was mostly black and white. And Logan's brilliance as a character and performance shouild go without saying. On the other side, Spike was largely too black or white (vs being black and white) and while Angel was great and Boreanaz good in that role, I almost unfairly want to dock points for him being too good for the show in some ways and starting his spinoff. VM wins here, but still close.
Veronica Mars wins 6-4
The Extended Folks (Joyce, Dawn, Cordelia, Oz, Anya, Jenny, Jonathan vs. Mac, Duncan, Vinnie, Sheriff Lamb, Cliff, Dick, Beaver, Clemmons, Leo, Madison)
VM wins pretty easily here. Buffy for better or worse was about the core group, their anti-hero equivalents, and the big bads. The rest of the show was all window dressing. For this comparison, I trued to limit myself to people that showed up in more than one season. And it is so clear that the extended cast of Veronica Mars was far more enriching, enthralling and interesting. Buffy created an interesting stage to show some focused sotries with its core cast. Veronica Mars created a real world with dozens of 3D characters that all brought something. Also, reading taht VM list, it is clear how much of the comedy in the show (and it was very funny) came from this set of extended characters. It helps when Rob Thomas seems to have the Ken Marino's of the world on speed dial. Also a super underrated VM character is Principal Clemmons - which is also a nice testament to the differing views / points of the show. Buffy turned its high school principal into a Big Bad. VM turned it into a unwitting but ultimately caring ally.
Veronica Mars win 8-2
The Big Bads (The Master, Spike, Angel, The Mayor, Riley, The Fiath vs. .... Aaron Echolls, I guess)
This one is hard to judge because each show took very different approaches to its villains, but by design. Veronica Mars was a film noir, in that the mystery was the story, so the big bad was only revealed at the end. When we realized it was Aaron Echolls who killed Lily, it made the way he was presented to that point so much richer, and made his brief actions in SEason 2 so much more meaningful. That was a great big bad, but ultimately, Veronica Mars wasn't about Bid Bads, it was about story. Buffy was - hell it helped coin the term. The Buffy Big Bads were a special group, each quite terrifying and different. It's a credit to the creative team that they could cycle through so many good ideas there. Buffy wins by default, but VM would have had a super hard time matching it anyway
Buffy wins 9-1 (only because Aaron was a pretty damn perfectly composed and performed character)
The Season Long Arcs (self-explanatory)
Well, Veronica Mars clears up here; the fact that they are mysteries helps a ton, because Veronica Mars generally did a great job of giving enough clues, enough progress throughout. Yes, maybe they waited a bit too long to do that in Season 2's main storyline, but the last then four to five episodes were phenomenal in making up for that lost time. Season 1 was about as perfect a long form mystery can be told, including the rape storyline as well (even if that was later somewhat retconned in Season 2). Buffy had season long arcs, but it is a bit lesser when you know from the start who the bad guy is and what his motivations are. Veronica Mars did about as good a job of mixing this in a dramedy as any show since maybe Season 1 of Desperate Housewives (which, even if it doesn't sound that way, is high, high praise).
Veronica Mars wins 7-3
The Mystery of the Week (self-explanatory)
The other flip side then is Buffy generally did better in mystery of the week (mini-big bads). Not by a ton, as there were some phenomenal ones with Veronica Mars, tackling all sorts of real world stories and anguishes for teenagers. But still, Buffy was able to make the stakes that much more, and more interesting on a week to week basis. Granted, there was some lows, but some of the mystery of the weeks on Buffy were damn compelling truly standing on their own, at least a slightly better hit rate there than Veronica Mars - you can tell when as mentioend earlier, in Season 2 they tried being a more "Story of the Week" type show, but struggled a bit. Just a bit
Buffy wins 6-4
The Tone:
Tone may silently be the biggest thing I look from in my TV shows I watch - things like The Wire or Arrested Development that set up tone so early are loves for me. Well, here one of these does it perfectly because it almost has to, and the other wwaffles a bit. Veronica Mars is a noir and that is the tone and it is that from day one, from moment one with the voiceovers and it is so damn good in that. You never have a question of what type of show VM is - a noir and class divide. Buffy changes tone all the time by design - at its heart it is a coming of age mixed with fantasy, but it almost intentionally remained a bit changeable week to week. This is not a bad thing, given the category I will go to next, but it does hurt its consistency a bit.
Veronica Mars wins 8-2
The Flexibility:
In a weird way, this and the last category are extensions of the prior two around season long arcs and mystery of the week. As here too, I generally think because Buffy wasn't built on such a solid, required tone as film noir in a class war setting like Veronica Mars, it had the flexibiltiy to be so many things. They could get away with an episode that is a musical, or one where everyone loses their voice, or random asides with mystics and Aztec princesses Part of that is Whedon's brilliance, and the performers, but mostly it is because by nature Buffy was less grounded in reality, so it could be zanier, more flexible, more strange. It played that beautifully.
Buffy wins 7-3
The Portrayal of High School Dynamics:
Veronica Mars clears this a ton - the upside of being a show grounded in reality. Veronica Mars also did a lot better placing Veronica. Like, it is obvious that Kristen Bell is attractive, so there is no point pretending she wouldn't be popular - so the conceit that she was popular but then made an outcast, worked so well. It allowed it to be reasonable she would associate more with Neptune's lower class, and the more dork/dweeb/d downsides of high school world. The actual high school related plots, from proms to college sports to the school newspaper, to fairs, to so much else, was just almost always so well done - especially the running thing around the Kane grant keeping even grades as meaningful. Buffy did some of this - mostly stuff around relationships, but when the main characters are all fighting the end of the literal world each week, it is ahrd to focus on who stole the school mascot.
Veronica Mars wins 9-1
The Portrayal of College Dynamics:
Buffy takes this, but nowhere near as one-sidedly as VM on high school. Part of this is almost by default - we got multiple years of Buffy in college; even using Season 5 as a cutoff it was two years. Veronica Mars got one, and then was cancelled and might be somewhat because it didn't adjust all that well to college enviornment. The stories did high school so well, they didn't age up appropriately. Buffy though was almost always a college show masquerading in high school for years - going to college allowed them to get much more ersious with relationships, with deaths of parents, with mentoring, with being real adults. Maybe Veronica Mars would've gotten there, but hard to give it credit on some level of faith.
Buffy wins 7-3
The Portrayal of Real World Dynamics:
When I first laid out the categories, and before giving it much thought, I assumed I would score this as a huge win for Veronica Mars, and I still think that wins out and mainly because the class politics were so well done. Again, using the narrative device of a girl who can toe both sides of that equation was genius, and characters like Weevil, the Fitzpatricks, the random other non-09ers were so well done. Also, so were the 09ers. There were some written as complete bozos (Madison Sinclair, mostly) but the show went to good effect to give some shades of light to your Logans (even at his worst), Duncan, hell, even Dick. It showed lfie wasn't always perfect on teh right side of the tracks either. Anyway, for Buffy - it still did some of this better than I remembered - around class as well, ironically. But also around desertment, jealousy, resentment, and longing. Thsi starts bleeding into my next topic, but to give Buffy some credit, it was more grounded in teh real world than I remembered.
Veronica Mars wins 7-3
The Portrayal of Metaphysical / Emotional Dynamics:
I hate to have this but I need to, but of course Buffy wins by default here. I added the emotional tag because if it was just metaphysical, well Buffy is literally a fantasy show competing against a noir real world one. Emotionally though, Veronica held its own mostly in the relationship between Veronica and Keith, which was maybe the single best parent - child relationship I have seen on screen. You really felt every time Keith's life was in trouble that Kristen Bell herself was sobbing. it was raw, it was real. But still the show has nothing on Buffy - from exploring love, faith, destiny and so much more, Buffy took on heady topics, philosopchical topics with deftness.
Buffy wins 8-2
The Creators Extended Universe (The World of Rob Thomas vs. Joss Whendon)
Here's a random upset - I think this goes to Rob Thomas, even before docking anything on Whedon for whats come out about how he treated certain actors. The Whedon-verse is much beloved, as Angel was a good show and he was involved in other successful projects before notably penning The Avengers and Age of Ultron. Well, the devil's in that last bit - Age of Ultron was not good, and honestly on Rewatch, I personally think the Avengers is now almost overrated. Whedon was a genius - but you know what, so is Rob Thomas. A little show called Party Down anyone - which also spawned or re-spawnred careers of Adam Scott (right before Parks), Lizzy Kaplan, hell arguably even Jane Lynch. Thomas then created his own Vereonica Mars inspired iZombie, which was excellent. And from what we know, Thomas has not verbally abused and demoralized any cast members and generally seems like a super well beloved guy. So Veronica Mars nabs this one.
Veronica Mars wins 7-3 (6-4 with a docked point because of Whedon's now understood awfulness)
The Timeless-ness:
The challenge at the end is Buffy is just more lasting - it was more popular at the time, had the crazier fanbase and lives on in the consciousness more than Veronica Mars does - for better or worse. Things like the Scooby Gang, the Big Bad, there are seminal terms in TV-world that are based on Buffy. So many leading teen heroines are compared to Buffy Summers before being compared to Veronica Mars. Noir is still a popular genre - but mostly still on film. Buffy in teh end will last in the zeitgeist longer, and that does mean something.
Buffy wins 7-3
Final Score: Veronica Mars 78 defeats Buffy the Vampire Slayer 72
Damn clsoe in the end - some of this is a manufactured result because so many were two sides of the same question where Buffy was better in one and Veronica Mars the other (best example - the High School v COllege questions). But I do think there is a reality where Veronica Mars is the better show. Now, what may help is it did end after three years - Season 3 was definitely the weakest and maybe if it continues, it struggles. But Season 4 (put out 13 years later) was technically part of this and showed that while they may have struggled in College, they wouldn't have struggled in straight adult hood.
Overall though, both are absolutely fantastic shows that anyone should watch. They are far better, deeper and more well made, well acted, well written and well done than their silly taglines or "explain it to me in a sentene" would on. It starts with the two incredible lead performances, adn then how they branh out of that. I won't go and undo my earlier rankings which placed Buffy ahead of Veronica Mars on my favorite TV show list, but I do think people are missing out on Veronica Mars.
