So 20 Years...

[infinitewhale]

It's March and this month celebrates the 20th anniversary of BTVS's premiere. To commemorate, I'm sure a bunch of memes will float around about favorite this and that. SyFy and Screenrant have posted some lists. All things that have been said before. Top 5 and Low 5 are usually always a mashup of the same 10 episodes for each. All in good fun, of

Comments

[infinitewhale]

I feel like S7 could have been really, really great with some minor changes. I still think Lessons through Potential hold up pretty well. Then the pacing gets uneven. The middle isn't too bad at all, but after the first act being so peddle to the metal, it comes off as slower than it really is. They really missed the boat not having First!Buffy mindfucking the Scoobies. Those scenes could have been gold and would have sured up The Scene. You know the one.

The character arcs seem to run on a theme that doesn't really make sense. According to Joss on that Buffy thing that A&E aired, S6 was about being ashamed of your power and thinking you don't deserve it. S7 was about getting over that hangup and embracing it. That comes through on screen, I think. None of the other writers seemed to have got that though going from comments, so I don't even know.

But yeah, they were definitely more concerned with setting up spin-offs than ending Buffy properly.

ETA: I find S6 more maddening than anything. Like, I get angry with the characters and what the show seems to be putting across. It's not very fun to watch. Again, though, it seems like the writers all have different things to say about what's going on and little of it meshes with what is on screen.

[frelling_tralk]

Yeah it felt like they really missed the opportunity for The First to stir up some psychological warfare among the characters, instead they basically brought in Caleb as an acknowledgement that they were struggling with writing The First, and didn't know how to end things without the usual physically tough opponent to kick Buffy's ass. They did set it all up really well in Lessons-Potential I agree, the closing of Lessons was a fabulous touch of nostalgia, but then they never bothered using any of those characters again. Well aside from The Mayor in Touched, and that was apparently a last-minute decision after the actor thought to let them know that he was available and in L.A, but it certainly doesn't sound like they had any kind of plan and were reaching out to the actors. And they could have had another fabulous scene like that with all of the past Big Bads to close things in Chosen :(

The only big failure for me in season 6 is Willow's addiction, otherwise I think that it is a really interesting season, but on my last re-watch I found that I just didn't enjoy it as much as I remembered. Honestly at times the characters quipping felt a bit forced and tryhard, so weirdly it was the comedy episodes like Older And Far Away that worked for me the least. The first half of that year still holds up IMO, but then after Wrecked it gets so bogged down that I think it would have been a lot stronger if they didn't have to meander as much as they did with Willow's "recovery" and Buffy's repeated almost coming out of her depression, so again I say that cutting the season order down to 16/17 episodes is something that would have really benefited them

[infinitewhale]

Well, they used Warren and Dru again. And First!Buffy. I think the original plan was to have Spike's trigger song be something involving Dru. In the original script, it's a "I'll Be Seeing You" which didn't come out until the late 30s, I think. They had the Turak-Han, so it's not like they needed Caleb to have an enemy. I don't know, maybe they just really wanted to give Nathan work.

It's really the message of S6 that put me off. The eps themselves are OK, but like OaFA with all the "you were all so selfishly doing things like...going to work, school and slaying you ignored this 16yo who has her own friends!" I'm like, no! But yeah, Willow's whole deal is trash to me, especially Dark Willow.