Buffy Season Six thoughts

[jetpack_monkey]

I've been randomly watching S6 eps over the weekend, mostly Trio eps, and... really wondering how in the hell I became so enamored of this show that year. I mean, there's so few episodes here that are really worth noting.

Some stuff that I used to like that I really don't now:

- The interminable tower scene from Bargaining Part 2. Used to make me weep like a little girl. Now? Would like it to end now please.

- Flooded. Slight episode, nothing really accomplished that couldn't have been done (and, really, was done) in Life Serial.

- All the Way. Still amusing in places, but certainly one of Dawn's more annoying hours.

- I never liked Wrecked and I freaking hate it now.

- For some reason, I used to really like Dead Things.

- I never understood why nobody ever seemed to like Sam. Now I don't understand why I never saw why.

- Older and Far Away. Dawn's most annoying hour. And Xander actually asking Willow to perform magick? What the hey?

- Hell's Bells. The last stop on the Xander Character Assassination Express. Also, no Giles, which is pretty inexcusable.

- Seeing Red. Completely misses the point of the whole show.

- Villains through Grave. A - Spike was so getting that chip out. If he wasn't, he was acting grossly out of character. B - They completely failed to earn Evil Willow. Dark Willow, maybe, but not Evil Willow. C - Xander's awfully whiny. I don't care if he saves the world, it's annoying.

Life Serial, OMWF, Tabula Rasa, and Normal Again remain the only four episodes that I really truly like in that season. And I maybe have a soft spot for Gone (which I didn't like so much the first time I saw it).

Comments

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should have said that the character assassination express started with Hell's Bells. While he probably was acting in character (and hey, being a guy who's still not on the ball about the whole commitment thing, I sympathize), after that it became all about what Xander did wrong. Never mind that it was Anya who ended the relationship itself and became a vengeance demon who tried to wreak her wrath on him (played for laughs).

Relationships end, and it's not always pretty. But it's almost never just the fault of one of them (except where there's abuse, in which case I'm all about the finger pointin'). Nobody asks Xander about the false visions. Nobody cares. They let him take the brunt of him and he accepts it.

It's probably part of the reason he was so backgrounded in S7. The larger part of the guilt and blame rested on him, but he couldn't exactly be redeemed since it wasn't exactly deserved. So you stick him in the background, have him crack wise on cue, give him his wacky slapstick episode, a few rousing speeches, and a poke in the eye...

I'm not bitter.

I'm of the opinion that Seeing Red was nothing but misogyny dressed up as feminism. And not very well, either. "He has to try to rape her to be redeemed!" This isn't General Hospital, people (thankfully).

I contend that Dawn could be a really interested character if they would have just rewatched Season 1 and taken notes on how they used to write characters who were around that age. She was in permanent 13-year-old land, and you could almost see Michelle Trachtenberg's embarassment. The character became a little more tolerable in S7, though.

[skipp-of-ark.livejournal.com]

First off, when Liz gets pissed? Run. :)

Second, I was recently reminded of the poll that UPN supposedly ran in-between seasons Sux and Sux More (or 6 and 7) whose results were that Spike was the most popular character on the show, Willow the second most popular, Buffy a distant third, and both Xander and Dawn were running neck and neck for dead last. Some (but not all) Spike fen rush to this poll as justification for making the show All. About. Spike. and for the sidelining of the less popular characters. Strangely enough, the title of the show had *Buffy's* name in it, not Spike's. Yet for all of Joss's oft-repeated "I give the viewers what they need not what they want" bullshit, it seems he relied very much on what he thought the audience wanted and didn't want. (As I've said elsewhere, the beginnings of Xander's marginalization had their seeds planted in Season Three, which was right after Season Two and the hostile reaction to The Lie.)

Third, not only was Seeing Red and the attempted rape of Buffy only about Spike and his pwecious journery *spits*, but it's also arguably when Buffy's story stopped being about Buffy Herself and became windows to Joss's favorite themes: Female Empowerment, Forgiveness & Redemption, and The Burdens of Being Special. Where these themes had in earlier seasons been far more successfully woven into Buffy's personal story, they became Large Themes that were illuminated only by what Joss has claimed was his attempt to parallel Bush's handling of the war against terror through Buffy's efforts to lead the Potentials. Five and three-fourths seasons of examining Buffy's personal journey only to be sidelined to the journey of Joss's favorite Shiney Blonde Toy and morphed into a hamhanded attempt at political criticism? No wonder Sarah Michelle Gellar seemd to have given up.

And lastly, given the soap operatic approach of "Rape leads to redemption" *vomits*, the attitude of "man leaves woman at altar for whatever reason = unforgivable bastard" is, unfortuanately, not very hard to make. They both draw from the same wellspring.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

I'd have to dig, but I'm almost sure Joss denied the General Buffy storyline being political commentary. You know, "he planned it well in advance" of Iraq and all. And really, I believe that S7 was planned. Joss knew what he was doing in Chosen and he told everybody else to figure out a way to get there. Oh, and more Spike. Because abs = happy.

Although I'm not fond of the marginalization of Xander, I'm less fond of what they did with Willow in S6 and S7. Almost wish they had marginalized her. Season 6 - "I'm an addict! Now I'm mopey because I'm on the wagon! I'm evil! Now I'm not!" Season 7 - "I'm mopey cuz I have power and I inexplicably turn dark when I use it, which really makes no sense. So I'm going to be a complete load except when I hop over to Angel and actually start resembling Willow for a brief, shining moment."

Joss was very open about dropping the metaphor and going for the text in S6 and S7. If the show had reached a point where metaphor just wasn't doing it anymore, it needed to end. It's a show built a metaphor and storytelling. When those elements start disappearing in the big suck-vac of "bored now," it's a sign that you've overdone it. Sometimes I'm convinced Joss let the show run an extra two seasons so he could do OMWF, Evil Willow, Souled Spike, and Chosen, and that he didn't give a damn about what else happened. It's not hard to believe that, of the regulars in those seasons, Joss had the best relationships with Marsters and Hannigan.

Still, when Xander did have moments, they tended to be pretty good ones. I still believe that his speech to Dawn in Potential was written (or heavily rewritten) by Joss, because it smacks of his theory of "earned sentiment." The Xander/Anya scenes in late S7 were kind of touching when they didn't focus on "Xander did bad. Xander bad." I didn't like how he was Andrew's straight man much of the time (and what kind of skewed universe do we live in when Xander's the straight man?), but it was nice to be reminded that he is a dorkus maximus at heart.