Random review of the week
Been rewatching Buffy over past months, and finally got to Season 7. I wrote a rather optimistic mini-review of the first half way back when, so here's part 2...
Somewhere amidst all the beatings, mutilations and deaths, Buffy lost its raison d'être during season 7 -- that little blonde girl in the alley, instead of kicking the monster's ass, slunk home with a black eye and cracked ribs. While it was interesting to see the origins of slayers & watchers in Get It Done, morphing the battle between good & evil into a battle between the sexes seems a mistake.
Season 7 is the most arc-heavy season of them all, and as the arc cut in straightaway in episode 1, all momentum had drained away well before the end. With no standalone episodes at all during the second half of the season, too many episodes repeat minor variations on the same story -- the sheer inventiveness that characterised the Jossverse seems to have evaporated.
The climax of the season relies heavily on a couple of convenient gizmos that recall the magical sword of Angel's dreams in Awakening -- I kept waiting for Buffy to wake up and realise her shiny mystical scythe was just a mirage. Even the finale itself, despite bags of cgi, seems unimaginative & humourless compared with the epic battles of, say, season 3 or 5. And isn't there something anti-feminist about changing a bunch of women without their consent?
With the unremittingly dark storylines, Andrew provides a welcome streak of humour, especially in his episode Storyteller. Principal Wood's story unfolds nicely, meshing well with the history established in earlier seasons to climax in the half-season high point, Lies My Parents Told Me. Along the way, he became one of the more interesting recurring characters to appear in the show.
On the other hand, having all those potentials with paper-thin characterisations crowding almost every episode did the season few favours, and I regretted the focus on the annoying Kennedy as the signature potential. Even bringing Faith into the mix in Dirty Girls just added yet another body. There became simply too many characters hanging around with too little to do: Dawn, Anya & even Xander often felt surplus to requirements.
I felt the season also suffered by failing to replace the magic shop with another colourful focus setting. Far too many episodes were set almost entirely in boring Revello Drive, generic graveyard or dismal school basement.
Though there are a few good episodes to be found, somehow the whole feels less than the sum of the parts. All in all, I fear Buffy went out on the whimper end of the spectrum.
Episode Verdicts:
12: Potential: 5.5/10
13: The Killer in Me: 4/10
14: First Date: 6.5/10
15: Get It Done: 6/10
16: Storyteller: 7/10
17: Lies My Parents Told Me: 8/10
18: Dirty Girls: 4/10
19: Empty Places: 3/10
20: Touched: 3.5/10
21: End of Days: 2.5/10
22: Chosen: 6/10
Somewhere amidst all the beatings, mutilations and deaths, Buffy lost its raison d'être during season 7 -- that little blonde girl in the alley, instead of kicking the monster's ass, slunk home with a black eye and cracked ribs. While it was interesting to see the origins of slayers & watchers in Get It Done, morphing the battle between good & evil into a battle between the sexes seems a mistake.
Season 7 is the most arc-heavy season of them all, and as the arc cut in straightaway in episode 1, all momentum had drained away well before the end. With no standalone episodes at all during the second half of the season, too many episodes repeat minor variations on the same story -- the sheer inventiveness that characterised the Jossverse seems to have evaporated.
The climax of the season relies heavily on a couple of convenient gizmos that recall the magical sword of Angel's dreams in Awakening -- I kept waiting for Buffy to wake up and realise her shiny mystical scythe was just a mirage. Even the finale itself, despite bags of cgi, seems unimaginative & humourless compared with the epic battles of, say, season 3 or 5. And isn't there something anti-feminist about changing a bunch of women without their consent?
With the unremittingly dark storylines, Andrew provides a welcome streak of humour, especially in his episode Storyteller. Principal Wood's story unfolds nicely, meshing well with the history established in earlier seasons to climax in the half-season high point, Lies My Parents Told Me. Along the way, he became one of the more interesting recurring characters to appear in the show.
On the other hand, having all those potentials with paper-thin characterisations crowding almost every episode did the season few favours, and I regretted the focus on the annoying Kennedy as the signature potential. Even bringing Faith into the mix in Dirty Girls just added yet another body. There became simply too many characters hanging around with too little to do: Dawn, Anya & even Xander often felt surplus to requirements.
I felt the season also suffered by failing to replace the magic shop with another colourful focus setting. Far too many episodes were set almost entirely in boring Revello Drive, generic graveyard or dismal school basement.
Though there are a few good episodes to be found, somehow the whole feels less than the sum of the parts. All in all, I fear Buffy went out on the whimper end of the spectrum.
Episode Verdicts:
12: Potential: 5.5/10
13: The Killer in Me: 4/10
14: First Date: 6.5/10
15: Get It Done: 6/10
16: Storyteller: 7/10
17: Lies My Parents Told Me: 8/10
18: Dirty Girls: 4/10
19: Empty Places: 3/10
20: Touched: 3.5/10
21: End of Days: 2.5/10
22: Chosen: 6/10