Buffy: Seasons 6 and 7 [WARNING SPOILERS]

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What went wrong? vs Blimey How to Finish Strong!!

mark s (mark s), Friday, 4 April 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)


(this is the last time i will read this thread for at least 18 months!!)

mark s (mark s), Friday, 4 April 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

then they all les it up, oh that was season 5.

jel -- (jel), Friday, 4 April 2003 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay so Carey asked what happened in Season 7?

Well jesus fuck everything happened in season 7. The spike redemption plot has been going on since 5 at least, but maaaan I just watched the episode where buffy discovers spike's feeding again and the whole crossing with a jealous-lover theme is just chilling.

And all the stuff with everyone just fraying at the edges? I just love the acting and the style itself, everyone hard and scared and angry and alone. And bringing in the slayers in training is like a masterstroke coz it it reminds us how far buffy has come.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 April 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, the "nothing has happened during season seven" line blew my mind, considering: death of Jonathan, destruction of entire Watchers' Council, introduction of three million new characters, Anya thing, complete weird shift in tone, revelation of how-the-Slayer-came-to-be and subsequent Buffy rejection of the entire source of the Slayer's power (also revelation of Buffy as "last Slayer") ... I mean, geez, it's only working up to the end of the series.

(That said, there hasn't been much actual action, true.)

nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 April 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

What was your take on the buffy rejection thing? I couldn't quite ken it. I suspect this will turn out to be a good thing in the end coz i suspect this is gonna be another "sacrifice for the world" finale except maybe buffy will flame out like willow last season and spike will be there to save her.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 April 2003 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Or maybe Angel. He's supposed to pop up in the finale.

Charles McCain (Charles McCain), Friday, 4 April 2003 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

We need more action on this thread.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 April 2003 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm disappointed. I've been a fan for a while, but I side with the group of long-time viewers who feels that the cast is bored, the writing is sloppy, the arc is interminable ("The First Evil is coming any day now! ... He's coming! ... Any week now! ... Watch your back! ... "), the new characters are mostly boring (all the talented young actresses in Hollywood and these are the best Potentials they could dredge up?), I miss Willow and Xander - what? They're still on the show? I didn't notice, Spike with a soul is not as interesting as it should be - everything that made him really popular has been taken away, and nothing replaces it yet - leave the brooding to Boreanaz, it's what he does best, I can't even remember most of the episodes I've watched this year, and six largely sucked as well.

But another thing: why doesn't anyone talk about Angel? That show kicks major ass. It's seriously underappreciated but has done nothing but get better from year to year, the cast is great, the characters are engaging, the production values are much, much higher - if you disagree, ask yourself how sick you are of the entire Buffy season taking place in her goddamn house, it's funny, it's moving, it's thematically much stronger ("redemption" will last you longer than "high school sucks" - especially after you graduate high school), the actors actually seem to give a shit about being on it, the arc has actual plot twists - plot twists, for you Buffy viewers, means that something unexpected happens regularly and not just in sweeps (UK viewers, that's the November/February/May period when American stations pull out stunt episodes to attract advertiser dollars, then they slough off dull-ass stories and repeats in between), and best of all, every time I think Angel's about to let me down with a story that I don't buy into or a situation that seems weird, lame, or outright sick ("Connor ... I want you to have one thing that's real ... "), they do something later to show that it was a good idea all along.

Angel's a great show. If you've seen one or two dud episodes and don't buy it, give it another chance. It's great.

Okay. Thanks.

Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Friday, 4 April 2003 17:14 (twenty-two years ago)

S7's had some great moments, but the last two or three eps have been pretty lame. Robin Wood was a nice opportunity that they seem to be blowing in the writing.

Gotta dig the LoTR rip, though.

J (Jay), Friday, 4 April 2003 17:15 (twenty-two years ago)

introduction of three million new characters

But this has been a bad thing, no? Andrew and Principal Wood are cool with me, but all of the slayers in training have been awful and a terrible distraction. Does anyone actually give a fig about any of them? I've actually been rooting for their deaths.

Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 4 April 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Especially Millie from Freaks and Geeks.

The writing has been mostly shit this season, and even the good bits have, yes, been sort of slopped out with more than a bit of boredom. At this point it's just the plot that's tugging it along: I just want to get through the season to a rich resolution and have done with the whole thing. The sloppy presentation has made the show pretty damned meta at this point.

Sterling, I'm not sure where the rejection-of-Slayerdom thing is supposed to head, but as it stands it was the culmination of an entire history of Buffy gradually pulling away from being "the Slayer" and moving toward individualizing her role. (Obv: her initial reluctance to be a Slayer, tensions with the Watchers Council during the first seasons, full break from the Council later on ...)

nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 April 2003 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm okay with this season, and the high points have been high, but if this was my first intro to the show, I'd be turned off. Things that either don't sit well with me or annoy me as part of a larger pattern:

* The "holy crap Giles is The First OH NO HE ISN'T" thing pissed me off because it meant they'd gone to the trouble of having Giles -not- touch anything on camera for several episodes as a complete red herring, which is cheap, especially for a show with experienced writers and directors.

* Spike's mama didn't wuv him enuff when she got vamped. Oh boohoo. It worked okay for this episode, and I have come to accept the Spike-redemption uberplot, but it just smacked of "redemption through revision." Redemption plots are great when done well, but the whole "this evil character, see, he actually had a good heart way back when, oh, and also, he was treated poorly, so don't you kind of feel a little bad for him -- even though he was evil more often than not?" thing is sloppy.

* Buffy goes all Paper Street Soap Company with the Slayerettes, but no one over the course of the season has said, "You know, there's this whole other Slayer who's like already trained and everything, and since she lives in the world, she'd probably be cool with saving it, why don't we spring her from prison?" I'm not saying I'd expect the Scoobs to agree with it, but the fact that it wasn't even brought up just screams "the writers didn't want to deal with the Faith issue until they were ready to bring her into the show."

* The drawn-out "here's us training, there's The First cackling" bits, prolonging everything so that it takes up a full season. If we hadn't already had a season devoted to "oh crap, Gloria's a god, there's no way to defeat her, and by the way, there's no way to defeat her, and holy shit, guess what, there's no way to defeat her," it might not be so bad. I think I would rather the show simply end by ... not having any more episodes. I used to watch Hercules once in awhile, and have to give em credit for doing that: the last episode ends with Herc wandering off, with presumably a bunch of adventures in his future that we just don't happen to see.

All in all, this is one of those seasons that I'm enjoying as it unfolds, but that I doubt I will rewatch when it's in reruns.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

What I tried to say was that yes, in themes and thought a lot has happened in season 7, but in the execution of writing and rounding up the story, no. And the pacing has been horrible. YAWN! Yes the Anya centric episode "Selfless" was great and it's nice that Giles is back but the casting for the SITS (Slayers in Training) is horrible, the three episodes of "Bring on the night", "Showtime", and "Potential" was a waste of time when the season should be trying to get its climax on. Meaning there are very few episodes to go for the entire series and I want each one to be something worthwhile. I think the season started great and there have been highlights here and there but Mutant Enemy has dropped the ball alot this season especially with passporting key scenes that would have been nice to see. Who else was bothered that the revelation of Spike getting a soul told to the rest of the Scoobies was not shown?

Oh and question, we can talk about spoilers for what has aired in the US or like spoilers in general meaning if we happen to know what is coming up?

Carey (Carey), Friday, 4 April 2003 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I just love how the point is made to the viewers that *anyone* could be killed off at moment's notice. It's even better that they might not even be killed off by "evil", but by each other (Wood & Spike, Buffy's willingness to sacrifice anyone of the Scooby Gang for the greater good). Everyone's on edge and the addition of Faith will only add to the explosive mix. No one's on the best of terms; the last solid bond (Buffy & Giles) has now been broken. I just can't wait until the season's over so that I can re-watch in its entirety without interruption.

Angel's been good, but I find that the climax usually happens a bit after mid-season and then sputters towards the end, e.g. the Darla storyline followed by the (ugh) Pylea. We've had the high point with Angelus/Faith and I don't know if I'm terribly excited by the Cordelia storyline. It doesn't help that she's been exposed as a *horrible* actress when forced to increase her range. On the other hand, Wesley has gone from the cringe-worthy Watcher on Buffy to hands-down the most compelling character on Angel. I'm starting to dig Gunn and Lorne's a great minor character, though he hasn't been given a lot to work with thus reduced to basically a caricature.

It's weird watching Seasons 2 and 3 of Buffy on DVD and see how *nice* she was compared to now. When Wood asks her out on a date and discusses it with Willow, I believe that's the first time in a year I've seen her smile and light up like that.

alex in montreal, Friday, 4 April 2003 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, the "nothing has happened during season seven" line blew my mind, considering: death of Jonathan, destruction of entire Watchers' Council...

To add to what Carey just said -- both of those things were boring. Yeah, the consequences weren't, but they were relatively major events which occurred uncontested. Someone nuking Los Angeles is boring. Jack Bauer trying to stop them from doing so isn't (presumably). There has been very little actual conflict this season: it's mostly been reduced to the bad guys doing stuff over here, and the good guys doing stuff over there.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes the Anya centric episode "Selfless" was great

I think that this was one of the best episodes of the show evah which is why I was disappointed in how the season has been going for the past few episodes.

Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 4 April 2003 18:17 (twenty-two years ago)

A lot of people's problems with the show is that Buffy is such a drag now and this season was supposed to lighten up a lot. So now whenever Buffy quips it feels forced.

I only watch Angel if I know there is a crossover of storyline that I need to be aware of. Otherwise, how old Cordelia looks is too distracting now. I just decided recently to sell my 2 Cordelia action figures.

Carey (Carey), Friday, 4 April 2003 18:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I totally agree that there has been a lot of missed opportunities and follow-ups (destruction of Watchers' Council, Anya, Giles being horribly misused), but I'm still enjoying it. I think it comes from the fact that there's acutally *too much* going on. This season could've easily been stretched out into two, particularly the whole mythology of the Watcher's Council destroyed and the evolution of the Anya character. I think they're just squeezing too much into the time allotted and the quality suffers a bit as a result.

alex in montreal, Friday, 4 April 2003 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I think a lot has been going on but they have been mismanaging the time to tell it. Those 3 back to back episodes I mentioned above "Bring on the Night, Potential, Showtime" could've been dealt with in one episode leaving room to actually give presence to Willow, Xander, Anya or Giles. Granted we might have had to cut one of the Buffy inspirational speeches, or give Andrew one less Star Wars joke to make but you could've actually have seen how a character reacted to revelatory news instead of just having it happen with all the other noise. And I cannot wait for more Slayerettes to die. They were a huge dissapointment.

Carey (Carey), Friday, 4 April 2003 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

It worked out with Wood I think coz he was just a sounding board for Spike's character development & it wasn't like "poor spike" but rather his coming to terms with "the game" which was powerful in the last episode. That's what I like -- how everything is becoming rigid and vicious. There's something elegant and furious to the what it's building.

& I thought "Bring On The Night" was great too coz it was all atmosphere and dread.

Also the stuff with Andrew has been particularly poigniant.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 April 2003 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

(Heheh I was beginning to experience the initial sparks Buffy fandom but this thread done killed it stone dead.)

Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 April 2003 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh no! Go find a thread about season three or season four!

nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 April 2003 19:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't really care about seasons three or four unless they happen to feature Willow stripping the skin off of people while her friends aren't looking.

Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 April 2003 20:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh no! Go find a thread about season three or season four!

Season three, anyway ... (nabisco may be the first Buffy fan I've even heard of who liked season four).

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Season 4 could've been up there if not for Riley summoning the great potato from within. And the whole Adam, Initiative thing.

Carey (Carey), Friday, 4 April 2003 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but that leaves how many episodes? :) The camera guys were also overly fond of the X-Files' really-low-lighting bits that season, for some reason.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 20:23 (twenty-two years ago)

"summoning the great potato from within"? DAMMIT WHY DON'T I LIKE THIS SHOW MORE????????

Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 April 2003 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

The Great Potato would get its ass kicked by the Great Pumpkin. Oh I know.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 4 April 2003 20:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah except Riley, despite being just massively boring on-screen and being played by an actor with the worst name ever, ever (Blucas), was just a terrific fit as the Brendan Fraser Iowa smiley square-jaw of Buffy: I've come to love him, especially the end bits where he becomes all fuzzy and pointless and impotent. (If I wrote Buffy he would have become a vampire, in basically an exact reversal of Spike's getting a soul for Buffy-related purposes.)

Season four was terrific, I think. See: Xander and Anya, Harmony, Hush, etc.....

nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 April 2003 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Not to mention Faith's return in "This Year's Girl" and "Who Are You", the latter featuring some of the best acting EVAH on Buffy.

For the record, I "like" seasons 4-7, and "love" seasons 1-3.

Charles McCain (Charles McCain), Friday, 4 April 2003 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Argh, I just hit New Answers instead of Submit, and my post disappeared.

Good things about season 4: Xander and Anya. Harmony's needed comic relief. I'll grant Hush, but it wasn't a stand-out episode for me. Superstar, on the other hand, was -- and the ending of the Halloween episode ("don't taunt the fear demon") was classic.

Bad things: The guy Buffy sleeps with early in the season; the amazingly bland Tara -- I still wonder if they had Amber Benson play her as mousily and timidly and dishwaterfully as possible just to ward off "you're playing up lesbians as titillating" complaints; the mystique of "who are those commando guys" utterly failing to pay off when the Initiative turns out to be a caricatured red-tape-and-timesheets government agency; subsequently, the contrived science vs. mysticism conflict with Riley/the Initiative and Buffy, which looks even sillier in retrospect when the combined portrayal of the Buffyverse in both shows makes All Things Mystical seem commonplace enough that we should expect the gov't to be aware of them; the increasingly vague portrayal of All Things Slayer with the introduction of the First Slayer; the general lack of direction of the show once the cast was removed from high school.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 21:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Ok gotta go but I loved the thing with buffy and that guy who pulled her early in the season and the whole lack of direction DID capture what a freshman year at college is all about I thought -- which is why I like the season so much.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 April 2003 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

the whole lack of direction DID capture what a freshman year at college is all about I thought

Yeah, but I don't think that was the intent. It wasn't so much "the characters lack direction," because the characters lacked it just as much in season 5 -- and they still do, in their normal lives, they're just busy doing jumping-jacks in the Paper Street Slayer Factory's backyard right now, so it doesn't come up. The show itself lacked direction, and I can't believe that even Whedon is meta enough to say, "You know, freshman year tends to mostly involve snacking on Ramen until three a.m. and then doing a shit job on an assignment to turn in at the last minute, so I think that's what our writers should do this year."

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 21:18 (twenty-two years ago)

More than "lacked direction," I think season 4 is one where the show was "searching for direction," actually -- and it found it, from 5 on, pretty much. The first three seasons had the high school setting to provide the obvious structure, turning points, filler-plots, etc. They seem to have toyed with the idea of using college the same way -- season 4 starts out that way -- and then abandoned it after hitting the obvious notes (one-sided casual sex, new experiences of college ending a high school relationship, Beer Bad). The Initiative as a foil, an adversary, and a replacement for the Watchers Council's authority for Buffy to rebel against, just didn't provide enough of a focus -- especially when the Prof left abruptly because the actress wasn't available, and the Big Bad turned out to be twinky, unfunny, and spouting the show's worst villain dialogue.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 21:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay. Regarding season four: I don't think it lacked direction in the least. On the surface it concerned itself with a lot of allegories and representations of typical college-freshman stuff, some of them quite funny (the de-evolving beer episode), some of them quite serious (Buffy's first hook-up), and some of them sort of both (Buffy's first roommate). But the main thrust was the general college-freshman trope of friend-groups splintering and shifting and individuals finding their own interests and niches, which I think was handled well and applied consistently pretty much all along. The Buffy / Willow split (cool-girl vs. geek) starts to matter again, as does the Oz / Willow split (cf episode in which Oz is taken with the she-wolf in the other band), and once Willow's "abandoned" by both of them she's forced to carve out her own role. Xander's doubly cut off from the action, living in his parents' basement and only really getting any attention from Anya, who's even less a part of the group than he is: there was something sort of great and bold about leaving Xander "behind" in this sense and making him struggle over it. And each of them, along the way, pick up their significant others as accessory characters: Anya's a foil to Xander's sudden crises about success and direction; Tara's the emblem of Willow's movement into witchcraft and lesbianism; Riley is Buffy's engagement with a type of living and slaying that's completely removed from her own.

This actually required a lot more direction to the plotting, I think, just on a logistical level. During the first seasons the characters were usually together and usually knew where to find one another when they weren't. Suddenly in season four their locations and their levels of communication became the basis of a ton of plotting: suddenly they don't know and often don't care what the others are up to, and a great deal of the movement of the episodes had to do with their skipping out on one another, ignoring one another, not being able to get in touch with one another. Awkward Buffy / Willow encounters in their dorm room became a sort of sad staple; suddenly our omniscience as viewers gave us loads more action. It was also a great shift from the direction the show had been moving through high school: it opened with a lot more attention to the characters' attempts at normal social lives, then sort of necessarily narrowed to their group slaying activities. Season four blew them open into social creatures again.

All of this basically leads up to the resolution moment where they're going to fight Adam, assuming I have my sense of the seasons' starts and finishes right: on their way down into the Initiative they have their amusing huggy "why have we drifted apart we must always be friends" moment. Which is both great to see, as a viewer, for the same reasons those moments are great to have -- but also rings completely hollow, as such moments always do, because soon enough they're back to moving in their different directions again.

nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 April 2003 22:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, I completely forgot Giles's feeling completely unnecessary and pointless and abandoned.

Feelings of impotence and/or pointlessness seem to be the biggest theme of Buffy between high school and Dawn, which is maybe one of the bits I relate to well: pointless Giles, abandoned Willow, impotent Spike, useless Riley, inferior Xander, hopeless Tara, confused Harmony -- even Faith and Adam have no idea what they're trying to accomplish. Seasons four and five seem to be the ones during which the plots and characters as a whole turn to The Big World Out There and just shiver in fear and impotence.

nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 April 2003 22:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I wish I'd seen the season four you did, nabisco :) You make a good case, and there isn't much I can argue with, per se -- it just didn't strike me the same way. I agree with your entire first paragraph, applied to the first third or half of the season -- but I think the actuality of the show was a lot weaker because Tara and Riley, while serving their purposes, just didn't engage me at all, or add much to the chemistry of the group.

It was also a great shift from the direction the show had been moving through high school: it opened with a lot more attention to the characters' attempts at normal social lives, then sort of necessarily narrowed to their group slaying activities. Season four blew them open into social creatures again.

A great shift in direction I'll agree with, if you want to say that season four was a turning point for the show as a whole -- the time when it shifted from the focus of the high school years to the setup of the show now, the quasi-collegiate twentysomethings (I guess they're only barely twentysomethings, but they're not really portrayed as "barely"). I think that in the long view, the show has done a much better job of transitioning from high school to post-high school than other shows in that position have done -- I just don't think that was evident until season five.

(It's also why I warmed up to Dawn, somewhat. I don't like the character very much, but her presence has kept the group together more than if she hadn't been introduced, I think, and has made it easy to pretend that the Scoobys are older than they are.)

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Feelings of impotence and/or pointlessness seem to be the biggest theme of Buffy between high school and Dawn, which is maybe one of the bits I relate to well: pointless Giles, abandoned Willow, impotent Spike, useless Riley, inferior Xander, hopeless Tara, confused Harmony -- even Faith and Adam have no idea what they're trying to accomplish.

This might also sum up much of what I disliked about it. The season seemed overly bleak -- which is probably why Superstar is my favorite episode from it -- and lacked much of the humor of the first three seasons. That's always been a large part of the appeal of the show for me: the humor, both in the premise and the execution. I'm much more willing to accept an all-powerful seemingly-undefeatable villain when they're funny, like the Mayor or Glory -- a mold Adam definitely didn't fit into.

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait, is Superstar the Jonathan episode?

nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 April 2003 22:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Yep

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 22:33 (twenty-two years ago)

That one was indeed terrific.

By the way, I love that this thread announced "English people stay out, SPOILERS," and then we sit around talking about season four!

nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 4 April 2003 22:33 (twenty-two years ago)

We should talk about first-season 24 and third-season X-Files, while we're at it. (X-Files keeps coming to mind for me because when I lost patience with it, it felt very much like when I lost patience with Buffy's season four -- but I ditched X-Files and kept watching Buffy, and can't decide why.)

Tep (ktepi), Friday, 4 April 2003 22:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Nabisco, I second that the Buffy you've been watching for the last four years is way fucking cooler than the one I've seen. Do they have reruns?

Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Saturday, 5 April 2003 00:47 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...
The end is nigh! The last episode airs tonight. I hope Andrew and Anya survive, but I fear that is not in the cards.

Nicole (Nicole), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 12:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Was it just me or did last week's preview (courtesy Acuview future-cam) seem to have Willow turning into some kind of white-haired good-witch Willow? I'm giddy with excitement.

nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 12:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Nabisco, I saw this too.

Nicole (Nicole), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 13:03 (twenty-two years ago)

some kind of white-haired good-witch Willow

The Willow of Oz

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 May 2003 13:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Who is Willow's new girlfriend?

Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 04:31 (twenty-two years ago)

that'd be Kennedy.

Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 07:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not actually reading this thread, due to Sky having not quite reached the end yet, but I've been catching up on Angel & Buffy over the last few days, so a few thoughts on the differences between the two (at the moment):

First off, obviously the main difference is that Buffy has characters that can be funny (Anya and particularly Andrew: his underlining of "Break-up Sex" during the briefing in Empty Places is classic), whereas in Angel anyone can be funny (Angel/Connor's duet on "Jasmine" & the rest of the testifying sequence). Angel didn't always have this: the first half of the second series was miserable.

The previously clips for Buffy is "here's the threads of the rich tapestry (oooh-ahh) that we'll be dealing with this week". The previously clips for Angel are all the same, because there's been one fecking plot all year apart from lightning girl.

The way that Sky has staggered the episodes leads to some neat comparisons: last week's was Touched and The Magic Bullet, both of which end in cliffhangers. The week before ended with Buffy/Fred walking off into the dark all alone in the world, and two or three weeks before that was Buffy Vs. Faith's "How far will you go to win?". None of these comparisons does Buffy any favours.

Also they've both had nice horror set-pieces recently: Caleb's introduction is "trapped in car with nutter", and Fred's time as an outcast is "invasion of the body snatchers/some better match that I can't think of".

Buffy's new predicament is interesting because she's nearly always had her gang behind her, while the last season and a half of Angel has had his gang in pieces. This season's had both "the gang is back together oh no it's a dream" and "the gang's back together - oh no it's a fools paradise do you see?".

The love and sex episode of Buffy underlines the lack of either in Angel. CF Spike's monologue from Angel season 1.

Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

The one plot worked really well for Angel last year. There was a stretch of about 10-12 episodes in the middle where each one ended with a fantastic whiplash reversal - great cliffhanger fun, which was always rare on Buffy (though I was super disappointed [spoiler:] Faith wasn't really going to become a vampire). The lack of romance works for Angel as well: the Wesley-Gunn-Fred love triangle was never very compelling, and the Angel-Cordelia will they won't they? was zzzzzzzzzz (I would've loved to have seen Buffy's reaction though). Plus, the more they hook up with each other the less contact they have with the outside world, which used to be totally key to the series' style of drama before Connor showed up. That said, the Gunn-Electro Gwen episode was k-sexy.

Was S2 really that miserable in the beginning? All I can remember at the moment was the Wesley-is-mistaken-for-Angel episode, which was hilarious. I'm anxious for it to be released on DVD; in impressionistic memoryland, that's my favorite season.

chester (synkro), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

On the whole I've also been enjoying Angel a tad more than Buffy this season (we're about two-thirds of the way through each, I think - Willow's about to do the Angel crossover) but I rarely get overly depressed about the state of the show(s). For me Buffy peaked with season 3 (for the handling of the Buffy/Angel relationship and Faith, basically) but i actually developed a disproportionate emotional attachment to it from season 4 onwards due to the coincidence of Buffy and myself starting university at the same time. Since then I've found my ardour isn't really affected by the quality of the show.

There's some really crappy dialogue on it at the moment though - last week we saw the episode where buffy confronted the slayer-makers in the parallel dimension and the dialogue in the scene where Buffy dresses down the Scooby gang, the Slayerettes and Spike was just so weak and unrealistic. Douglas Petrie is pretty unreliable on this score.

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 12:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Rewatching some much-loved S4 episodes last night (hooray new dvds happy happy joy joy) I realized one of the biggest points at which S7 went wrong. In the episode where Buffy goes through the portal to visit the sorcerer-guys who made the first slayer, she rejects their offer to bump up her demon quotient, thus reaffirming her tie to humanity, friends and family rather than single minded sacred duty etc etc. But this is basically a choice we've seen Buffy make before in "Restless", so there's no real tension, no sense that the stakes have changed in any meaningful way. Having Buffy foresee the huge battle ahead of her - and finally give in to her exhaustion & martyr complex - and accept the offer would've not only introduced a new dramatic element into a character WE ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT, but also would've provided an opportunity for the writers to do a lot of the things Buffy is so good at yet were missing from most of this season:

1) It would've provided a strong character/dramatic arc contrast with Faith and her journey of redemption and reacclimation into society.

2) It would've put into question the the real conquering power of the Scoobies' friendship, as seen in "Primeval". By removing Buffy from this power and imbuing her with an alien power, there would've been dramatic interest in seeing Xander, Willow and Giles fight to keep Buffy rather than hey let's give another lecture to a houseful of faceless random girls. To have their love and friendship conquer even uberslayer killing machine would've been reiterating the earlier theme but at a higher pitch, which was supposedly what this season was about anyway (reintroducing a villian from S3, for example).

3) It could've provided a reason to give INTERESTING, CAREFULLY DRAWN SYMPATHETIC PERSONALITIES to the potentials, since they could've served to remind the Scoobies and us what a slayer REALLY is (a sympathetic and resourceful 16 year old girl) while we see Buffy herself move further and further away from this (though rescued miraculously at the end!)

chester (synkro), Wednesday, 11 June 2003 15:27 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...
You know, every season everybody hated the season just preceding it, so I wonder about the 7 hate.

I watched it on DVD, straight through. You can tell that the show got the axe halfway, because Whedon's usual slow build suddenly jumps--Slayerettes! Kennedy! Caleb!--close.

But there are eps here as good as anything in the canon. Conversations with Dead People is just brilliant. Storyteller is hilarious. The one where Anya gives up her demon ways is a real heartbreaker, and *really* slickly penned.

And in the finale, that triple dissolve jump zoom on Willow as she says, "oh. My. Goddess."

C'mon. Pure Buffy bait at its loopy cornball best.

iang, Tuesday, 1 March 2005 06:38 (twenty years ago)

eight years pass...

S7 faith talks like pootie tang

adam, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 23:09 (twelve years ago)

lol

sheer tip (how's life), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 23:22 (twelve years ago)

omg

set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 23:24 (twelve years ago)

sa da tay

Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Wednesday, 1 May 2013 23:42 (twelve years ago)

can't stop laughing now

set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 1 May 2013 23:53 (twelve years ago)


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