Top 10 reasons the Troika rocks.

If you haven't started to watch 'Buffy' yet, I'm afraid you're too late. Not because the show has ended -- you can buy the DVDs for that. I'm talking about the fact that you've already missed the best supervillains to date. Enter the Trio.

The trio consists of Warren (the wonderful Adam Busch), Andrew (the hysterical Tom Lenk), and five-season veteran Jonathan (the fantastic Danny Strong). The Trio doesn't appear until season five and lasts (sort of) until the last season. They're ubergeeks, so there isn't a time I don't see myself relating to or acting just like them. And to prove it, here's a list of the top 10 reasons why the Trio (also known as the Troika) rocks.

  1. They're Lone Gunmen Lite! Yes, I'm a long-time "X-Files" fan, and seeing that show end as well as LGM leaving (permanently) left me with a yen for a trio of geeky nerds who know everything about "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

    The LGM are good, but the Troika is better.

  2. Who doesn't want to be a supervillain? The time the Trio stole the diamond to create the freezing ray gun thing always reminds me of the time I... er, anyway, there's a reason why I was voted "most likely to take over the world" in high school.

  3. Adam Busch's band rocks.

  4. They're the type of people everyone would like as friends. You can never have enough people to play D&D or "Magic: The Gathering" against. You know you'd want to chill with them on those boring Tuesday nights when "Buffy" was over and there was nothing else to do. Until a vengeful, black-haired Willow came after you. That would kind of suck.

  5. It was about time that Buffy had a human archnemesis, let alone three archnemesises... es.

  6. After five seasons, and the episodes "Earshot" and "Superstar," it's very nice to see Jonathan have some friends, even if they are supervillains.

  7. Imagine if they featured Warren's gadgets in an episode of "Fresh Gear." They've got gadgets that make even Sumi Das go weak in the knees.

  8. They use Macs! Their evilmobile (the one with the "Star Wars"-theme horn) is fully equipped with several Mac plasma screens. However, they're not using OS X. (And Joss Whedon doesn't think we notice these things.)

  9. Andrew supplies the best lines to quote for those special moments. Example: Your friends are talking about James Bond and all the actor incarnations. You say: "...I like Timothy Dalton." After you're told that Roger Moore or Sean Connery is superior, you go in for the kill: "Timothy Dalton should win an Oscar, and beat Sean Connery over the head with it!" Say with gusto to achieve maximum potency.

  10. Do you really need another reason to know that they rock? How about this: Watching them on the television is the most fun I've had watching television in a very long time. All of my favorite episodes are about them or feature them. However, this isn't to say they should have their own TV show. Besides being plotline-impossible, it would just be a wrong move. (Remember "The Lone Gunmen"?) It's just incredibly wonderful to have characters who reflect the superior nerd in all of us.


For all your Troika needs, visit these websites: