Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 3

Every episode contains essentially two plots: the "real life" plot, dealing with, more often than not, the trials and tribulations of being a teenager in America, and the vampire plot, dealing with, obviously, monsters and demons and such. What makes the show great is not that it simply shows that teenage problems = monsters (though that aspect is undeniably part of what makes it great.) The greatness derives from the show's refusal to simply allow the monster plots to "stand in" or symbolize the "real life" plot. By allowing both aspects of the show to have equal emphasis, and by not ever allowing one to stand in for the other (the best episodes achieve a perfect fusion - to the extent that there is only one plot) both aspects are allowed to feed into one another, which ultimately enriches both (the silly monster plot is given meaning and emotion, while the "real life" plot achieves a kind of sublime mundanity through the fantastical extremes of the situation). In one episode about recrimination (and digging up the past to throw in someone's face) zombies attack Buffy's house, which, in this below average episode, is the only moment where the two plots converge.

Update: This is interesting, to say the least. (pdf file)