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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Reassessing Buffy Season Six

  
  

Page: 1(2)3

 
 
Jack The Bodiless
14:17 / 06.11.04
Essentially season six doesn't work for me because it focuses on Buffy, and she's the least fully-realised, least interesting, least important character on the show. It's Roseanne/Seinfeld syndrome - the character the show is named after is, so often, the least interesting part of the show.

Gellar isn't a great actress, and Buffy isn't a great role. I don't think she had the wherewithal to carry what, in season six, was intended to be a fundamental shift in the way Buffy viewed the world. Instead, as others have pointed out, we got a variant on her "the world sucks and I hate my life" schtick Buffy had been harping on about since the very first episode, but upgraded to the primary dramatic thread of the season as opposed to background noise.

To be honest, I don't think it would have worked as the primary dramatic thread of a season even if Gellar was a better actress. Her ex had a much bigger "my life is shit" problem going on, largely because his life was utter shit, and for centuries - that's sufficient reason to brood and angst. He also got sent to hell, for what was indicated to be subjective decades - Angel lived with it. Is Angel stronger than Buffy? I think he's a stronger character - he's established as having lived with and through more angst and horrible experiences than Buffy could ever understand, even though they're superficially similar experiences. This last is underlined by the many times that Buffy shouts at/slags Angel for not doing what she wants him to do and brings up his evil past/vampire nature to score points - they're both living a life they didn't choose, they've both died and been reborn, they're both heroes in a world that doesn't know or care - but Angel, in every conceivable way, has things worse. He bitches about it on occasion, but he gets on with it. Buffy dying, going to heaven and getting dragged back - sorry. Doesn't have the same kick as being taken over by your demon self again, having people think you're a murderer, and getting your self back just before your girlfriend sends you to hell for A HUNDRED YEARS.

She's a whiny brat, and she was never the reason I watched the show.
 
 
I'm Rick Jones, bitch
04:38 / 07.11.04
Oi, Flux:

The Zeppo B-

BEE MINUS? No way, that was the best thing ever.



I want you to stand in the corner and think about what you've done.
 
 
I'm Rick Jones, bitch
04:53 / 07.11.04
In short (because it's very late):

Seasons one and two: top wednesday entertainment. Really fucking good. The plot threads towards the end of season two are amazing, and the climax (while a real "huh, where the hell did that doomsday plot device spring from?") was jaw-dropping.

Season three: after a shockingly weak, angsty start, the series rose to a pinacle of amazingness for TV in general: the zeppo, (which made me dance around in my kitchen for a full two hours afterwards), and all that fantastic bulidup to the mayor warping out. This time the end of the world is signposted early, set up right, and the big fuck-off battle that ensues was ace.

Seasons four to seven: The spirit of the show evapourates into thin air, Xander and Willow become awful characters you just want to punch, SMG stops eating, a series of increasingly contrived and wooden love interests come onto the scene (Tara, Riley was that his name?) to no applause whatsoever, the angst is ramped up to intolerable levels, none of the villans ever recapture the sheer gleeful joy of the mayor (Adam was a great design but he was introduced too late to be a convincing threat and to be honest I'm being gentle on him because I love living weapons and super-soldier body horror) and there's no Seth Green to carry it anymore. It's just big-budget fanfic.

And then they warp reality to introduce a sister. Christ, that was fucking horrible. Joss Wedon lost a lot of respect from me for that, which AXM is slowly clawing back.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
12:00 / 07.11.04
I thought the idea of Dawn was a pretty smart piss-take of similar audience-grabbing attempts at adding new elements into the mix in other ongoing series (for the latest example, check the sudden appearance of yet another previously unmentioned member of the Slater family in Eastenders). It could have been handled a lot better - after series five the writers had absolutely no idea what to do with the character - but it was a clever enough idea when she first appeared.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
15:16 / 07.11.04
About the 'weak angsty' start of season three... episode one was a bit placeholdery and I always thought that, as the Scoobies probably had some idea of the circumstances around Buffy leaving home throwing a party was a rather stupid thing to do, but I actually liked the confrontation scene where most of them, but especially Buffy, has to face up to bad decisions they've made. It's something that Buffy is made to do too rarely in my opinion.

Anyway, you know in 'The Weight of the World' (IIRC), when Willow is in Buffy's head and Buffy moans about how tough life is and Willow goes "Is that all? Get over it!" Each episode of season six should have had Willow doing that, perhaps with a slap as well, until Buffy got the idea.
 
 
PatrickMM
23:45 / 09.11.04
They gave the title character exactly the same (lack of) motivation that she'd had for the previous two years and expected the fan-base audience to lap it up. And, what's more, Gellar simply wasn't up to the task of acting depressed for three years and making the audience care.

I wouldn't say that Buffy is depressed for most of season four. At the beginning, there's a bit as she's still getting over Angel and that Parker shit, but by the time her and Riley get into the relationship she's probably as happy as she's ever been on the series. It's not the best era of the show, and Xander and Giles are certainly depressed, but Buffy is not. Who Are You? basically makes this point, by showing how jealous Faith is of the life that Buffy has.

I'd call Buffy's depression a two season arc, starting with the diagnosis of her mom's cancer. She'd basically mastered being a slayer, and there wasn't that much further they could go with her fighting evil again and again, so she needed to confront the emotional problems of real life. And I'd argue that Buffy isn't even seriously depressed in season five until The Body. It's her mom's death and the overwhelmingness of the situation that leads to her sacrificing herself, and for the first time she's given a taste of peace.

The depresion she has in season six is an outgrowth of the end of the season five. I consider the two seasons companion pieces more than any other two Buffy seasons. It's not just a retread of previous themes, Buffy had always had trouble with being the slayer, but this is different becuase she's having trouble living a normal life. She can't relate to her friends, is overwhelmed by having to care for and provide for Dawn.

I know this might sound like she was depressed before, but in six she's really depressed, and that's true to some extent, but in the previous years, the depression was never really explored. Weight of the World/The Gift might be the best example. We see Buffy depressed, but then she's got to fight Glory, so we ignore it. The brilliance of six is to take away the crutch of the big bad, leaving Buffy with no distraction from her personal problems.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
11:46 / 10.11.04
Oh, rubbish. Utter rubbish. Buffy moans, therefore she is. From season one right through to the end of season seven, she was always whining on about not wanting to be a slayer, and wanting to have a normal life. For YEARS. Every time she stopped complaining about something really nasty that had happened to her (her mum dying, being dragged back from heaven, her boyf going all evil on her ass, sending said boyf to hell), she returned to this like a dog to its vomit.

The Many Problems Of Buffy

S1: I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? That vampire with the brood on is sexy. That vampire with the skin problem is scary. I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life?

S2: Being killed by that vampire with the skin problem was scary. That vampire with the brood on is sexy - I shall have him as my boyfriend. I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? Sex with my boyfriend is sexy. Oh no, my boyfriend has got his evil on. I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? I wish my boyfriend didn't have his evil on. Shall I kill him? Shall I? Shall I? Well, he's killing everyone in the world, so maybe I should. I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? My boyfriend's got his brood on again, but I sent him to hell anyway. Let's leave town! I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life?

S3: I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? My boyfriend's back in town. I'm pretty sure he still has his brood on. I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? Hey, broody boyf, let us kiss till we reboot! No, let's not. Ok, let's! Wait. Hang on. I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? I hate replacement slayers, especially when they're sexier than me. Oh, she's got her evil on, cool. I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? My boyfriend has left town to star in a better show. Sucks to be me.

S4: I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? College boys suck. As still does it to be me. But I like playing soldiers, yes I do. You know why? Because I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? Wait... being a slayer involves all kinds of cool shit and I just kicked ass. I like being a slayer.

S5: Slaying ROCKS! Sisters suck ass. Shit, my mum's dead, and a hellgod's trying to whup my candyass. And there are portents. Soldiers don't like to be played with. I think the actress playing me stopped caring around a year and a half ago. Uh... season finale began with a zoomy montage of the entire series to date. Is this a portent too? I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life?

S6: Ahhhh! Sucks to be me! Ahhhh! That vampire with the sarcasm on is sexy, in a self-destructive kind of way. Oh, god, am I still a slayer? But I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? The sexing up of my sex is good, though. We made buildings fall down. Bang! Shit, my best friend's gone loopy with grief. I shall patronise her till she begs for mercy! Oh. A hug would have been better? Sigh. I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life?

S7: Wait... oh yeah, all that power! I love being a slayer. Doo doo de doo doo... damn. An unstoppable bad guy. I think. What's going on? It's almost like the circle of the internal logic of my life has turned into a corkscrew. I curse the heavens! Still, I get to boss teenagers about. Doo doo de doo... hey, they threw me out on my ass! I don't want to be a slayer. Why can't I have a normal life? Sigh. Beat the bad guys, in an improbable manner, but hey! Everyone's a slayer! I don't have to be a slayer. I can have a normal life!

Something like that, anyway.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
19:04 / 21.11.04
Season Six also features the biggest collapse in the show's internal logic up to that point. Xander, Willow, Tara and Dawn are going to bring Buffy back from the dead! Yeah!

Wait. Why are they doing that again? Oh yeah - because they think she's in a hell dimension. Like Angel was when Buffy killed him. Yeah!

Wait. Why do they think that? Wasn't Angel, like, host to Angelus and therefore an oddity in the whole heaven/hell thing? Wouldn't it be pretty obvious that Buffy, as one of the main soldiers for the celestial good guys, was headed in the direction of those celestial good guys after she popped her clogs? Didn't Willow have access to that spell that lets you contact the dead?

And Season Six is based on this complete disregard for internal logic. Which is fine for new viewers and those not all that bothered about consistency, but could still have been handled a lot better than it was.
 
 
PatrickMM
01:05 / 22.11.04
But, Buffy didn't exactly die, she leaped into the fissure between dimensions. Considering what was coming out of said fissure, it's not illogical to think that Buffy would have wound up in hell.

And, I don't think getting her out of hell was their only motivation. Much like Dawn in Forever, they wanted their friend back, and if that was the excuse they needed to justify their actions, they would use it.
 
 
The Natural Way
12:18 / 22.11.04
Hell = guilt. They're not rational. Simple.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
21:17 / 22.11.04
Yeah, but why? They had the usual summer break between seasons. If they'd tried it straight away, you can argue that grief makes the scoobies do dumb things... but this is supposed to be, what, three months later? That's moving beyond irrational to really, really dense, and like the man says, the internal logic goes right out of the window.

And Patrick, dude - Buffy didn't fall through a hole into some hell dimension. One more time for the hard of reading - Angel was not killed by Buffy at the end of season two (since when does an iron sword kill a vampire in the Buffyverse?), but was sent through a portal to a hell dimension for around a subjective century, where Bad Shit happened to him. Buffy jumped off a big crane thing through a lot of mystical energy stuff, ending the apocalpypse in a manner never fully explained (because it's dumb), and then hits the ground, going splat in a comedy manner.
 
 
The Natural Way
13:19 / 23.11.04
3 months? It's not that long. And it may take time for the guilt to grow and a narrative to form around it. I don't know, Jack, I'm not sure this is indicative of bad writing/plotting or just the demands you make of a story/yr dislike of all things 6.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
20:55 / 23.11.04
Well, originally the plot was based around the school year at Sunnydale High, hence the large gaps in continuity/narrative between each season which are briefly explained away in the initial episodes of the new one. And, yes, it's an entire summer between each, as referenced in the opening episode of Season Six, where they've been killing vampires as a team with the Buffybot acting as Buffy so that no one knows she's dead (remind me, someone - what happened to the slayer that replaced Buffy after she died at the end of S5? What was she called again? What happened to her, jog my memory?).

So, yeah - two to three months between Buffy dying and Buffy being resurrected. During which time the scoobies' guilt (based on, what - not being able to defeat a hellgod? It's not like it wasn't Buffy's decision to sacrifice herself. Why are they feeling all this rampaging guilt again?) festers until they completely lose all trace of rational thought, despite clearly having enough rational thought to rationally decide that Giles can't be in on it, because he'd try to stop them, because what they're doing is bad... yes. That all makes perfect sense. They're guilty for no discernable (certainly no explicable) reason. They're wholly irrational yet cunningly rational. They have no concept of consequences to using powerful sorcery, despite the many magical errors made throughout the preceding five seasons. They've never read the story of the Monkey's Fucking Paw, and despite most of the shit they've been through having been caused by the EVIL RESURRECTED DEAD, they don't think anything bad will happen.

No, I clearly see the internal logic throughout all of this. It. Makes. Perfect. Sense.
 
 
PatrickMM
22:09 / 23.11.04
First, on the issue of calling another slayer. When Buffy died the first time, the line of inheritance passed to Kendra then to Faith. So, if Faith died, another slayer would be called, but Buffy is an anomaly, she is a slayer, but not the slayer, in the sense of the line passing through her.

They've never read the story of the Monkey's Fucking Paw, and despite most of the shit they've been through having been caused by the EVIL RESURRECTED DEAD, they don't think anything bad will happen.

I think it's quite clear they realize that what they're doing treads on bad territory. Xander explicitly says it, but Willow is determined to go on anyway, becuase she feels that she owes it to Buffy. About the guilt, as Willow justifies it, it would be the guilt of leaving her in the hell dimension. I believe she specifically says this in the scene in Xander's apartment, that Buffy could be going through untold suffering, and they have to save her.

Here's the flaw in your logic. You're approaching it from a purely rational, removed standpoint. Yes, their reasoning doesn't neccessarily make sense, but what Willow wnats more than anything is to have Buffy back, they will use any justification if it means being able to do the spell, and ressurect Buffy. It's as much for themselves as it is to help Buffy. Also, is there anyone who wants to be dead? You'd think, no matter where the person was, you'd be doing them a favor by bringing them back.

As for why they waited so long, it was to get the urn of Osiris. One hadn't become available until the time of the premiere, which was coincidentally when Giles was leaving. I'm sure it took them a while just to get over Buffy's death, then a while to get the spell ingredients, so the three month gap makes sense.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
23:03 / 23.11.04
Here's the flaw in your logic. You're approaching it from a purely rational, removed standpoint. Yes, their reasoning doesn't neccessarily make sense, but what Willow wnats more than anything is to have Buffy back, they will use any justification if it means being able to do the spell, and ressurect Buffy.

And where's Tara in all this? Anya? The guilt argument doen't work for their characters at all, nor does the one about selfishness. Internal logic. Lack of.

It's just exceptionally poor plotting. There are so many different routes the writers could have gone down to bring Buffy back to life, and they use the one that really doesn't stand up to close (any) scrutiny. Even the last bit of your explanation:

As for why they waited so long, it was to get the urn of Osiris. One hadn't become available until the time of the premiere, which was coincidentally when Giles was leaving. I'm sure it took them a while just to get over Buffy's death, then a while to get the spell ingredients, so the three month gap makes sense.

contradicts what's come before. It's impossible to square "it took them a while to get over Buffy's death, then x, y and z" with "their reasoning doesn't neccessarily make sense, but what Willow wnats more than anything is to have Buffy back, they will use any justification if it means being able to do the spell, and ressurect Buffy." Either they had time to get over Buffy's death, or they didn't. Wanting to bring her back to life is an immediate thing - again, check the episode in Season Five where Dawn tries to bring Joyce back - yet we're honestly supposed to believe that either

A) it took them that amount of time to become sufficiently upset about her passing that they finally got around to doing something about it, or

B) that during that time nobody said "hang on, maybe this isn't such a hot idea"?

Doesn't work. If this had been Season Two or Three, where the supporting cast list and number of characters who were aware of the whole Slayer deal was still relatively small, yeah, okay, maybe. By Season Six we've got at least two recurring characters who would have known about Willow's plans and stepped in to do something about it, but instead Whedon & co have them sit on their hands for the summer and ignore what's right in front of their faces.
 
 
PatrickMM
23:55 / 23.11.04
I figure there's an inital period of shock, like in The Body, and this probably lasted for a while. During this time, I'd imagine Willow decided she wanted Buffy back, and, and just had to figure out a way to do it. So, it was an immediate desire, it just took a while for them to get things together to act on it.

Would Tara and Anya have challenged her? I think Tara would have, and probably did, but at this point, she hadn't realized just how powerful Willow was. I think everyone except Willow sort of assumed the spell wouldn't work, and as a result let Willow go ahead with it. They figured if it did work, it'd be great, but it probably wouldn't, however, if doing the spell would help Willow grieve, it'd be worth doing. And, Willow had stepped into a leadership role, she probably heavily influenced everyone to go along with her plan, and to keep it secret.

Buffy was their best friend, and the center of all their lives. I don't think it's a stretch to think that two months could pass, and Willow would still have that desire to bring back her friend.

But, this whole argument is based on stuff that happened offscreen. Bringing Buffy back from the dead as was done was neccessary to set up the character arcs for Buffy and Willow that season. Would it really make a difference if it had been a month earlier that they had done the spell? The pain was still there two months later, the absence of Buffy was felt whenever they were around the Buffybot.

I can see your points, though I also see the counterargument, however, I don't think that's really that important to the story. Buffy had to be pulled out of heaven, and Willow had to be the one to do it. It was neccessary to the story of season six.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
19:48 / 24.11.04
Didn't it, like, take Willow several months to work out the spell? And she's already clearly wacked out on the magic, as she pulled down some heavy duty stuff to go after Glory when she hurt Tara, and when Willow is wacked out on magic rational thought takes a holiday, as evidenced by season six's disastrous and ill thought out idea to make magic addictive, positing Giles as a legalised crack dealer. No wonder he left the country. Yes, Willow has absolutely no rational reason to believe Buffy has gone to hell, but she wants her friend back, she has the power, she's unstable, she rationalises it. Makes sense to me and I dislike the season with a fiery hatred.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
20:53 / 24.11.04
It's not just Willow, though. That's the point.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
21:35 / 24.11.04
The whole 'they probably thought the plan would fail' rationale makes no real sense. It's just bad plotting, and actually rather lazy at that - like Spat says, there were a hundred ways to resurrect Buffy. They just chose one that didn't make any sense considering the characters involved.

It's not like it's the only reason that season six sucks, though. Buffy was never about this kind of Dawson's Creek style mediocre melodrama - it always had a healthy sense of its own ridiculousness which season six entirely lacks, lame attempts to keep the ironic humour intact notwithstanding.

As far as I'm concerned, it should have died a death when they left high school. The concept never really had the legs to go on after that...
 
 
PatrickMM
02:31 / 26.11.04
The season finale certainly has a sense of humor about the whole thing, in the scene where Buffy describes the events to Giles, and they both end up cracking up.

But, I think we view the series on a fundamentally different level. The high school years were great, but I think the characters were much more interesting in s5/s6 era than in the high school era. Spike/Anya/Tara are much more interesting than Angel/Cordelia/Oz, and I loved the playing out of the emotional conflicts that had been building for so many years. Season two especially is great, but the show was about the characters more than the high school itself.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:08 / 26.11.04
Season 6 Spike is NOT more interesting than, say, Oz. He's just a lot less subtle, a lot more melodramatic, a lot more of a cliche - and in the end, the most worrying thing about Season 6 and the people who love it is how often they buy into the romantic idea of that cliche - the Spike = noble theory.

Equally, Tara in Season 6 is barely interesting, since she becomes far too obviously the 'good' character, and this is what really rankles when she dies - see also Fred just before she turns blue in Angel - saints are annoying.
 
 
Seth
10:14 / 29.11.04
I disagree, Flyboy. Tara was there purely to be a season 1-3 Willow, as geeky, clever and plain as that character used to be, purely to show by contrast how Willow had changed throughout the series, as if that wasn't obvious to the viewer. Pretty insulting and lazy writing. She only existed to get reactions out of Willow at specific times, and the lesbian relationship was cringeworthy (male witchy lesbo wank-fantasy stuff. They're empowered, they're into dark stuff, let's watch them les up!). Tara is symbolic of how utterly impoverished this series became.
 
 
Seth
10:18 / 29.11.04
Actually, reading that back... I don't disagree, Flyboy. I just think you were scratching the surface of exactly how appallingly one dimensional that character was.
 
 
PatrickMM
15:32 / 29.11.04
I think Tara works as a character through the series, but especially in season six. There is some commonality between her and early Willow, but she's by no means a carbon copy. She goes through a big evolution from season four to season six, an evolution which does parallel Willow's, but has different underlying reasons. Willow always has the fear that she's still the same weak, geeky person, but Tara doesn't have that. By season six, she's confident enough that she's able to dump Willow and still be ok on her own. She's unique from all the other characters because she doesn't speak in "buffyspeak," she has her own style, and is much more gentle and content than the other characters.

Yes, she is the 'good' character in season six, but this gives her some of her best moments, particularly the scene with Buffy at the end of Dead Things, and when her and Willow finally get back together.

Is there an element of wank-fantasy in her relationship with Willow? At first maybe, but I think the characters are so well drawn that I don't think of them as lesbian witches, I just view them as people who happen to be lesbian witches. There's no tokening or anything surrounding their relationship, it's just integrated into what happens on the show, and I feel like it couldn't have gone any other way.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
16:16 / 29.11.04
Tara is symbolic of how utterly impoverished this series became.

I think that's completely right. It felt like a new character came along at a time when the show suddenly lost its ability to create a person and when you think about Tara and then all the other new characters from that time onwards who weren't played for laughs... Riley, Dawn. It was like they couldn't get a funny angle on a lesbian or a soldier so they couldn't get any angle at all.

There's no tokening or anything surrounding their relationship

Where is the relationship? Oh sometimes they put an arm around the other's waist and talk to each other in a patronising tone. Newsflash: a relationship between two women isn't that different from a relationship between a woman and man so why did Willow and Tara behave so differently from Willow and Oz, Anya and Xander? Oh rabbits and bunnies and squirrels, we're girls so everything's softer and more patronising. How DARE you claim that their relationship was well presented! It was an insult. A bloody insult. It did nothing for the show but show it up. I'm under your bloody spell in a green corset after years of no dialogue and looking confused? Arrrggghhh.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
06:12 / 30.11.04
What about that bit in 'Once More With Feeling'? Anyway, Flux will probably be along in a moment to talk about the baby steps approach to alternative sexualities on screen. Wasn't JW banned from using the 'L Word' or from showing any real physicsl contact between the girls in S.4?

What annoyed me was that you have Andrew, who's a gay male character, but he is only allowed to be the neutered, non-sexual hag fag, whimpy and whiny. Yeah, positive role-model there.

I also think Fly's portrayal of Saint Tara is unfair. She's merely the steady rock about which all the others characters founder. Neither she or Fred are saints. It's just a overused Joss-trick where, just before he kills them off, they start developing a new relationship with someone, Tara will Willow, Fred with Wes, Cordy with Angel (at the end of S.3), Joyce with some guy, Anya with Xander (in the last episode).
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:14 / 30.11.04
What annoyed me was that you have Andrew, who's a gay male character, but he is only allowed to be the neutered, non-sexual hag fag, whimpy and whiny.

Nor allowed to be gay, ultimately - he seems to "grow out" of his homosocial attractions to men, suggesting that this was a functon of geekiness rather than sexuality... or just that he accepts that he is bi, which would be nice.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:54 / 30.11.04
Or he and those girls were all going out looking for Totti together.

Or we all agree that 'The Girl In Question' never happened. Lalalalala...
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:09 / 30.11.04
Well, I read that more as the ultimate in hag-faggery, the girls as going out with him because he's witty, looks good in a tux and there's absolutely no danger of having to sleep with him.

Otherwise, I'm asking Santa for Mind-Erasing Pencils just so I can forget that episode. Oh yes.
 
 
Lurid Archive
15:52 / 30.11.04
You guys really didn't like the relationship between Willow and Tara? I'm slghtly surprised. I mean, most of the relationships on Buffy were pretty dysfunctional and one of the only couples who had a positive relationship were those two. Surely some leeway should be given for trying to present a lesbian couple as a natural part of the show, especially when you consider the comparisons with the hetero couples.

As for the series as a whole, I think it was one of the weakest, but I didn't dislike it nearly as much as everyone else. The pacing was wrong and there were some low points, but there are also some episodes I really enjoyed in there. I think it was trying to do something new and break away from the simplisitic morality of the show, which didn't entirely work for various reasons but was, in my view, something they had to do.
 
 
PatrickMM
22:13 / 30.11.04
Newsflash: a relationship between two women isn't that different from a relationship between a woman and man so why did Willow and Tara behave so differently from Willow and Oz, Anya and Xander? Oh rabbits and bunnies and squirrels, we're girls so everything's softer and more patronising. How DARE you claim that their relationship was well presented! It was an insult. A bloody insult.

First, each relationship on the show is different. Willow and Tara are very different from Xander and Anya, or from Buffy or Riley, and even from Willow and Kennedy. That's because the different characters bring different things. Willow and Tara were both shy, reserved people with clear confidence issues. Do you really expect them to behave like Anya did, when she was seducing Xander in the beginning of season four. It would have been extremely out of character. Because they're both pretty shy, it makes sense for the relationship to be softer.

Second, I don't think the relationship is significantly different from Willow and Oz. They were very soft and cute, right up to the end. It takes a season and a half for them to have sex, and they're nowhere near as big with physical contact as Buffy and Riley or Xander and Anya were. It's just not who Willow is, and to expect her relationship with Tara to be something like that just isn't in keeping with the character. Her and Kennedy were probably closer to what you're looking for, nothing soft there.

Also, as Our Lady said, it just wasn't possible to have them be as physically close as the characters in the male/female relationships were. The network would not allow it. But, I think what Joss did with them was much more romantic and sexier even than Buffy and Riley going at it in Wild Things. The spell scene in Who Are You? is basically a sex scene, and blowing out the candle at the end of New Moon Rising told us exactly what was up with them as a couple. You can pretty easily figure out where it goes from there.

Willow and Tara were probably the most positive relationship on the entire show. They never insult each other, and despite separating for a while, they never inflict scars on each other like almost everyone else does. Now, I could see the argument that this is an example of treating them differently, but should Joss have to change the story he wants to tell just so that one couple is not an exception? I feel like Willow and Tara grow organically as a couple, it's never about them being lesbians, they just love each other, and their personalities dictate the development of the relationship.
 
 
Rawk'n'Roll
21:01 / 01.12.04
God... everyone sounds so bitter and resentfull on this page.
And!! Soo!! Many!! Exclamation!!! Marks!!!

Such vehement responses to the characters and their relationships. You can't enjoy season 4+ the same way you can enjoy the first three seasons. They're very different entities. To judge Willow and Oz's relationship against Willow and Tara's is to miss the point. She's moved on from that type of high school boyfriend deal. Just like Anya and Cordelia's relationships with Xander can't be compared.

The whole "I don't want to be a Slayer" mantra is the point of the entire show. Stealing directly from Mr Lee, with great power comes great responsibility.
It's Buffy's show, remember? So she's the one it, more often than not, will focus upon. She has one overriding motivation. Normal life.
It takes the entire series for her to resolve her sense of forced responsibility and her desire to be a "real girl".

If you hated the final seasons so much I'd offer the suggestion that you pretend nothing happened after Season four. I'm happy with the way it evolved but if I wasn't I doubt I'd be so exasperated about it.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
21:17 / 01.12.04
The whole "I don't want to be a Slayer" mantra is the point of the entire show.

And that probably sums it up better than anything else. Seven years of somebody making the one same complaint, with the last four refusing to provide that somebody with any relief from it, nor a reason to stop making it.
 
 
Seth
22:16 / 01.12.04
If you hated the final seasons so much I'd offer the suggestion that you pretend nothing happened after Season four.

But stuff did happen. And it was shit. And we won't call it gold or pretend that a good show didn't piss on its chips just so you can be happy. Crap show, crap even now that I can rewatch it before my shift at the pub. Unwatchable.
 
 
Rawk'n'Roll
15:14 / 02.12.04
I'm not saying it's gold or asking anyone to pretend that it's good if they didn't enjoy it... but the vitriol and energy put into rubbishing it could probably be better used elsewhere.
I fully agree that there were good parts and bad parts.
For myself I still haven't seen most of season seven, I definitely lost interest during season six but the repeats have made me rethink my initial opinions of that year.
I only keep missing season seven repeats because I'm too busy working. Dammit.
 
  

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