Season 6 review.

[juniorwatcher]

i dont understand why people hate on season 6.
and the fact that some dont understand that the big bad this season isn't the trio or dark willow but LIFE.
This season was incredible.
I loved Tara this season, she was amazing and when she died i felt the pain that willow felt.
Xander leaving Anya was predictable Joss doesn't like his characters to be happy.
Buffy coming back storyline was believable she was in paradise for god sakes and got sent back to hell, almost literally.
Dawn, has lost her mother, her sister, her father's estranged, her sisters back from the dead and isn't paying her any attention and the girl she thinks of as her mother is becoming a junkie! She has a reason to be whine!!

[El Diablo Robotico]

Mar 3, 2010 3:06:05 GMT -5 Tea - Total said:

I think the only reason their produce Willow into a junkie for because their need to show the audience how willow is coming more powerful every day

I think that's it exactly. But the problem that I think many of us have who don't like that storyline is with the way it was done. It feels very crude and sloppy, as if not a lot of thought was put into it, which is the exact opposite of how awesomely many of their previous real-life/supernatural metaphors were handled ("Beauty and the Beasts" being one notable exception ). So yeah, the idea behind it was a good and interesting one--the execution of it was pretty damn poor.

[gumgnome]

Mar 2, 2010 16:08:52 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

The wedding thing is really the worst offense (by the writers) of all, because it clearly wasn't planned as a set-up for anything. It didn't launch Xander or Anya into any great new character arcs. It was done only because it fit with the overall theme of the season: "Pain and misery--the more, the better!! " There's nothing that happened in the remainder of S6, or in S7 that would've been majorly upset by Xander and Anya being married, and it would've made all the other painful happenings of S6 so much easier to take if there'd been even one nice, happy event to cling onto...

Not only this, but then they could have explored the new, perhaps darker, aspect of the marriage itself. I think that the writers missed out on a huge chance to give Anya and Xander a more meaningful part in the show from this point and also to show the difficulties of starting a life together. Imagine a scenario where Anya is pregnant, or where her worry for their future leads her to try to dissociate Xander from Buffy and the rest of the Scoobs. These could have been really interesting and testing plotlines. But instead we get the instant, but more quickly healed wounds that allow everything to go back to normal again. It's definitely symptomatic of the general trend of less risk-taking on the parts of the writers from S6 onwards, where they seem eager to hit the reset button after anything seemingly cataclysmic happens. This is why, in comparison to other seasons of Buffy, I would rate S6 7/10

[Tea - Total]

^^ Anya came into to her true self again a vengeance demon,which to me explored the whole bitter way of marriage which to me it was dark. It continue in season 7 at the beginning when Anya killed again. Going threw redemption again. Which explored the after math of the marriage the emotion where their in season 7.

[El Diablo Robotico]

Mar 4, 2010 5:11:03 GMT -5 Tea - Total said:

^^ Anya came into to her true self again a vengeance demon,which to me explored the whole bitter way of marriage which to me it was dark. It continue in season 7 at the beginning when Anya killed again. Going threw redemption again. Which explored the after math of the marriage the emotion where their in season 7.

The vengeance demon thing was such a short and unsatisfying arc, tho. They didn't really do much of anything with it outside of "Selfless", after which she was back to being human, and she and Xander were left to stand around with pretty much nothing to do for the final 17 episodes.

I agree with gumgnome that there were so many more opportunities for great storylines with them had they gotten married. Xander backed out because he was worried they'd turn into his parents. Well, what if he'd had those fears but gone thru with it anyway, and then as S7 began he started to notice those fears coming true? Does he leave her right away, or stick it out and try to turn things around? And like gg suggested, what if Anya tells him she's pregnant, and now he has to weigh not only his commitment to her, but his responsibility to the baby in trying to decide whether or not to leave?

Instead, the wedding didn't happen, Anya became a vengeance demon again, and it led to one interesting episode for the two of them--"Selfless". On the other hand, had they gotten married, it would've opened up so many more great possibilities, both happy and painfully-angsty, that could've kept them going all thru S7, and many seasons after that. No two ways about it: the writers screwed this one up, big-time.

[Tea - Total]

Mar 4, 2010 14:53:58 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

Mar 4, 2010 5:11:03 GMT -5 Tea - Total said:

^^ Anya came into to her true self again a vengeance demon,which to me explored the whole bitter way of marriage which to me it was dark. It continue in season 7 at the beginning when Anya killed again. Going threw redemption again. Which explored the after math of the marriage the emotion where their in season 7.

The vengeance demon thing was such a short and unsatisfying arc, tho. They didn't really do much of anything with it outside of "Selfless", after which she was back to being human, and she and Xander were left to stand around with pretty much nothing to do for the final 17 episodes.

I agree with gumgnome that there were so many more opportunities for great storylines with them had they gotten married. Xander backed out because he was worried they'd turn into his parents. Well, what if he'd had those fears but gone thru with it anyway, and then as S7 began he started to notice those fears coming true? Does he leave her right away, or stick it out and try to turn things around? And like gg suggested, what if Anya tells him she's pregnant, and now he has to weigh not only his commitment to her, but his responsibility to the baby in trying to decide whether or not to leave?

Instead, the wedding didn't happen, Anya became a vengeance demon again, and it led to one interesting episode for the two of them--"Selfless". On the other hand, had they gotten married, it would've opened up so many more great possibilities, both happy and painfully-angsty, that could've kept them going all thru S7, and many seasons after that. No two ways about it: the writers screwed this one up, big-time.

Yeah but you should consider Anya had a experience of human feeling , so she feels guilty, so probably thats why is wasn't satisfying for you. But i think the whole arc with Anya at the beginning in season 7 was an brilliant arc. Its just proved Anya preferred of being human because she cant kill because she consider them feeling backing her, to do her vengeance duties.
Anya decides that she had been too dependent on others , she condisder to resolve, to find an independent purpose in life for herself.

[El Diablo Robotico]

I'm not sure what you're implying by saying that a storyline must've been unsatisfying for me because it dealt with human feeling, so I'll just ride right past that part of your post, and simply hope that something got lost in the translation there.

If you want to call it a brilliant arc, I won't disagree. It was certainly "interesting", at the very least. But it was unsatisfying for me because it was so damn short. Anya got 2 good episodes out of it ("Beneath You" and "Selfless"). Xander got 1 ("Selfless"), and then neither one had anything real meaningful after that. If the writers were going to blow up one of the best relationships on the show, they should've had more to follow it up with than they apparently did.

It seems like a lot of your praise for S6 is with how realistic it is, how the characters go thru things that people in real-life deal with. I agree. But it's hard to relate to a character struggling to find joy in her former mass-murdering ways because all her new human feelings are causing problems for her. It would've made for a much more realistic storyline that a lot more people could've related to if they'd gotten married, and then struggled adjusting to married life and the idea of starting a family. Like addiction, or life after college, that's something a lot of people have gone thru. It also would've made for much more of an ongoing storyline, with a lot more possibilities, than what they ended up with.

[Tea - Total]

Mar 5, 2010 3:28:02 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

I'm not sure what you're implying by saying that a storyline must've been unsatisfying for me because it dealt with human feeling, so I'll just ride right past that part of your post, and simply hope that something got lost in the translation there.

If you want to call it a brilliant arc, I won't disagree. It was certainly "interesting", at the very least. But it was unsatisfying for me because it was so damn short. Anya got 2 good episodes out of it ("Beneath You" and "Selfless"). Xander got 1 ("Selfless"), and then neither one had anything real meaningful after that. If the writers were going to blow up one of the best relationships on the show, they should've had more to follow it up with than they apparently did.

It seems like a lot of your praise for S6 is with how realistic it is, how the characters go thru things that people in real-life deal with. I agree. But it's hard to relate to a character struggling to find joy in her former mass-murdering ways because all her new human feelings are causing problems for her. It would've made for a much more realistic storyline that a lot more people could've related to if they'd gotten married, and then struggled adjusting to married life and the idea of starting a family. Like addiction, or life after college, that's something a lot of people have gone thru. It also would've made for much more of an ongoing storyline, with a lot more possibilities, than what they ended up with.

I am just saying that it not unsatisfying for you but it was satisfying for me.I do agree , if i look back Anya as a vengeance demon was short.
But again life isn't easy, thats why it was realistic to me, because i don't have it easy in life,thats why i appreciate this season because life is hard and all the characters shown how life is hard and you don't know whats around the corner. Even if you're not perfect at it, even if it's hard and scary. To me growing up just means having to make difficult decisions, rather you choose wrong or right. Really growing up is learning from your mistakes and I think Buffy and Willow both did that, so did Anya and Xander.

[lightandmagic]

Gonna give Season 6 a 5/10. Why? I think pretty much every single character's arc was mishandled and was poorly delivered. Out of all the characters I think the only two characters who got arcs that seemed mostly realistic to their characters were Buffy and Anya. And even they had problems.

Buffy - I liked the idea behind Buffy's arc. As someone who was ripped out of heaven, the idea of her simply 'going through the motions', to borrow a phrase, seemed true to her character. She should have been ungrateful, distant, depressed, and well mostly bored with her life on this plane. What I didn't like is how much they beat her down. Being ripped out of heaven is enough for one person to deal with in a season of television.

Just adding a really trivial money issue and a crappy part time job seemed juvenile and unnecessary. It especially bothered me that the money was solely Buffy's problems when there's both Willow and Tara living there, it's out of character for them to not help in some way. Plus, as much as I do not like Xander at times, he had a relatively successful job and along with Anya's financial know-how, plus Giles money loan, Buffy could have gotten past any potential money problem without much difficulty. Her job at the Magic Box was still open, it seems stupid for her to turn it down permanently because of one spell. She didn't stop going to high school forever because of how many times she was attacked there, did she?

Willow - By far the worst one of the season. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of Dark Willow. They just totally went about it the wrong way. There was five freaking seasons of buildup of Willow's power abuse, it's clear even in Season One that Willow will abuse her knowledge/intellect to harm others ("Press Deliver", yes Cordy was being a bitca, but it definitely hints at Willow's obsession with power). Willow should have lost control of magic. She should have possibly been the big bad, or an antagonistic force. But how she got there should have been totally different. It would have been much more rewarding of a storyline to achieve that end through becoming obsessed with the power that she had, not some tacked-on crack metaphor. It was clumsy and had no foreshadowing and just simply was not a good storyline. Why they ditched the power abuse plot line for this one halfway through the season is just beyond me.

Xander - AUGH! As pretty much everyone else said, leaving Anya at the alter was a mistake. It makes sense for him to be nervous, even a bit afraid, most people about to be married are. It's a huge decision. The large majority do not leave their brides at the alter. It made his character irredeemable to me.

It always bothers me because Xander has two large character traits that have always been very prominent prior to Hell's Bells. He does not want to become his parents or his relatives and as much as he may be afraid of some things he always ultimately overcomes that fear (look at The Zeppo). Not only would Xander and Anya being newlyweds open up a million plot opportunities that had never been explored in Buffy before; but it would have been, in my opinion, so much more in his character to look at his parents after realizing those visions were fake and choose to go through with the marriage. To realize he loves Anya, he wouldn't become his parents, and to get over his fear of commitment/marriage. It seems so out of character for me for Xander to leave after realizing the visions were lies. I'm on the side of the writers made the marriage fail to fit into the theme of "LET'S MAKE EVERYONE MISERABLE THIS SEASON!" rather than a natural character progression.

I will give them that Anya become a vengeance demon after this makes sense in terms of her character, but as El D pointed out, it never really led to a whole lot. Granted, I love Selfless (it's my favourite episode), but even after that episode ended Anya's character mostly stopped developing despite the million plot lines that could have happened.

Dawn - What plot arc? Dawn mostly sat back and was all angst-y. It made sense in Season 5, but by the end of the season she was mostly over her angst. A much better plot arc for Dawn, personally for me, would be almost parallel to Buffy's. Buffy is on a quest to find out why she's here, what she should do etc. Shouldn't Dawn, who knows she's not even a person but rather just some object, also be on a quest for identity. Making her steal is not a way to give her identity. She should be questioning who she is, what makes her a person, what she likes doing, and now that her major purpose is mostly gone, what's the point of her being here? Would have been a much more satisfying and natural plot arc, at least in my opinion.

Finally, Spike shouldn't have raped Buffy. Yes he's a vampire and slightly evil. But he knows what rape is. And this is coming from someone who is very neutral on Spuffy (I don't care either way if they are together or not). I don't think he would have ever raped Buffy. I loved the end result of him fighting for a soul for her, but I don't think raping Buffy should have got him there. Buffy should have eventually rejected him, and it should have been the rejection that spurs him to get a soul. Not him raping her.


Sorry for really long post. Season 6 just gets on my nerves a lot.

[Tea - Total]

^^^ 5/10 really , wow was it that bad for you?.
These character grown up, anyway to me anyways.
Xander realizes he should have been more truthful and more honest with Anya from the beginning about his reservations about their marriage. Either way, Xander has still grown up cause he's learned he needs to think things through more and be honest with the people he loves and with himself.

Buffy finally realizes that taking care of Dawn doesn't just mean shielding her from the world, but showing her the world. Not just sticking her with a babysitter but spending time with her and being the sister, friend, and role model that Dawn needs.So Buffy train her to fight and Dawn learn very well , plus Dawn grew more individually and independent , stronger as character. Buffy also has given up her unhealthy relationship with Spike, despite the inner emotion she does actually have for him.

Willow gives up magics because it was hurting her close Friends , so she stopped completely but until Willow reached her inner dark side, but then again Willow did go to England to train how to channel her inner power with the help of a powerful magic carven.


life isn't easy, thats why it was realistic to me, because i don't have it easy in life,thats why i appreciate this season because life is hard and all the characters shown how life is hard and you don't know whats around the corner. Even if you're not perfect at it, even if it's hard and scary. To me growing up just means having to make difficult decisions. Life isn't easy ,so this season is so realistic.
I give this season a strong 8/10.

[El Diablo Robotico]

Life is hard, but "Buffy" is supposed to be an escape from that--a chance to sit down for 45 minutes, forget all your real-life troubles, and be entertained. Yeah, it's nice to see the characters go thru things that you can relate to, but I think the problem a lot of people have with S6 is that it just wasn't necessary to make every character as miserable as possible all at once. One or two would've been plenty. Too often, I wasn't entertained--I was just depressed.

Hypothetical situation about Xander and Anya: Xander has all those fears about getting married, but goes thru with it anyway. As S7 begins, the marriage is off to a rocky start--they're arguing a lot, Xander's sleeping on the couch some nights, and he's starting to drink too much. To his horror, he realizes that exactly what he was afraid of happening is happening: they're turning into his parents. After a couple of episodes of struggling to decide what to do about it, he leaves and asks for a divorce, Anya becomes a vengeance demon again, and that whole storyline still ends up taking place, but just later on in S7. In the meantime we got the wonderfully-happy moment of their marriage in S6, amid all that other painful stuff, and Xander and Anya actually had a storyline in S7 that extended beyond ep5. Don't you think that might have been a little bit better choice than what they actually went with? It's still the same story, after all--just with more "meat" in the middle.

Buffy deciding to "show the world to Dawn" is such a small moment that I really can't give the season any credit for it at all. Maybe if she'd had that realization a little earlier, and followed thru on it, but instead it was a tiny little thing at the end of the last episode, and didn't extend beyond the teaser of the next episode.

And I agree with magic that Buffy's money troubles were the exact opposite of realistic. The writers completely ignored realism or logic, just so they could drive Buffy to the point of desperation where she'd have no choice but to work in a fast-food place. Willow and Tara were living in her house, and should've been chipping in rent money. Willow seemed like she came from a well-off family, and even if she wasn't getting any money from them, she and Tara both could've gotten part-time jobs and still gone to school. Coupled with the money she got from Giles, that would've been enough to let Buffy look around long enough to find something better than slinging burgers--but that didn't work for the story they wanted to tell. (And I, too, have a lot of trouble buying the idea that she'd rather keep working at the Doublemeat Palace than give the Magic Box another try, just because of one weird incident.)

magic, the one thing I'll disagree with you about, tho, is Spike. I don't think what he tried to do was really OOC or hard-to-believe. I'm absolutely not making excuses for him (or blaming Buffy) here at all, but the two of them had a brief relationship that was all about sex, and violent sex at that. Hell, the first time they did it, they slammed each other around so badly that the house they were in fell down! She dumped him, he tried to get her back by reminding her of what they'd had, by being aggressive and violent, same as always, and in the heat of the moment he lost track of where the line was that shouldn't be crossed. Again, not excusing what he tried to do--just saying that when you have a violently sexual relationship with a mass-murderer who has no conscience, what happened wasn't exactly shockingly unexpected.

[lightandmagic]

Tea - Total: Xander didn't really grow up at all. If anything, he regressed. He went back to being whiny Xander who is unsure of his capabilities as a person and complaining about how he's useless. Something that had already been covered all the way back in Season 3 with The Zeppo and once again in Season 5 with The Replacement. Both times he learned to be more confident in himself and both times he grew and became more confident as a person. Then he left Anya at the alter and proceeded to whine about it for the rest of the season. It wasn't until Season 7 that he finally became confident with himself.

As El D said, the I want to show you the world moment from Buffy at the end of the season didn't really have any buildup and also barely led to anything in season 7, so I can't really count it or credit it as a good moment.

Dawn also didn't really grow into an individual or as an independent person. That didn't really happen until Season 7 when she begins to be a junior watcher type. As I stated in my previous post, she mostly had no visible plot arc, and when she did it was just her being angsty. Which was simply a retread of the season before it. Considering the massive revelation to Dawn that she isn't even a person and the million ways they could follow up on that, the writers just remained with Dawn is a teenager therefore she should whine a lot.

With Willow the plot arc of her using spells too much made sense, in the beginning. It made sense because Willow was clearly abusing magic for power, she enjoyed the feeling of being in control and being more powerful than those around her. There was clear implications that Willow was abusing her power, and I liked that plot arc cause there was clear foreshadowing to it. Something Blue in Season 4, the episode in Season 5 where Dawn wants to resurrect Joyce and Willow subtly points towards the right book. They should have gone to the place they did with Willow. But they should have gone there without this stupid tacked-on magic is crack metaphor and rather with Willow being consumed by the clear addiction to power she has. It made Willow incredibly pathetic and if I didn't enjoy her so much beforehand would have made her character irredeemable.

Misery does not equal realistic. I understand the concept of life is difficult, and it makes sense to portray the difficult element of life in television as it does make it more realistic. But just slamming it down on viewers in bricks and boulders made it by far the most unrealistic season to me. Other seasons dealt with the issue of life being difficult much more realistically and not just dumping a thousand and one problems on for the sole sake of making characters miserable. For example: Season 2 dealt beautifully with a bad breakup/sleeping with someone who turns into an asshole and the consequences of that. I think Season 4 has a natural plot arc of high school friends becoming more distant when you first go to college. Etc. Etc.

Almost none of the characters followed natural character progressions, which is incredibly disappointing because most of the time Whedon shows nail how a character should evolve and adapt over time, but season 6 got so many things wrong with so many characters.

Mar 7, 2010 15:49:22 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

magic, the one thing I'll disagree with you about, tho, is Spike. I don't think what he tried to do was really OOC or hard-to-believe. I'm absolutely not making excuses for him (or blaming Buffy) here at all, but the two of them had a brief relationship that was all about sex, and violent sex at that. Hell, the first time they did it, they slammed each other around so badly that the house they were in fell down! She dumped him, he tried to get her back by reminding her of what they'd had, by being aggressive and violent, same as always, and in the heat of the moment he lost track of where the line was that shouldn't be crossed. Again, not excusing what he tried to do--just saying that when you have a violently sexual relationship with a mass-murderer who has no conscience, what happened wasn't exactly shockingly unexpected.

Hrm.... While it is true their relationship was centred around using and abusing each other, specifically through violent sex, I still don't think Spike would have attempted to rape Buffy. I don't think it's that out of character and I do think it's one of the more minor problems with the season in the grand scheme of things.

Whenever I think of Spike, I always think of the episode Fool for Love and Lies my Parents Told Me, both of them demonstrating that while Spike is a monster in many ways as a vampire he has still managed to retain his sentimentalism that he had as a human. This is a vampire who after being turned turned his mother into a vampire because he loves her so much. A vampire who turned into a whiny cry-baby when Dru left him and was willing to do almost anything to get her back. For a man who is so hung up on love, it just seemed a bit off for him to force his love on her. Ultimately, I don't think it's wildly out of character for Spike to attempt to rape Buffy -and once again it's one of my more minor quibbles- but it just seems a bit off to me.

Sorry for the long post again!

[wytchcroft]

Mar 7, 2010 20:04:30 GMT -5 lightandmagic said:

see above

one of the reasons i love season 5 so much is the graceful way every darned character has an arc, they all grow and develop - the last episodes and the finale itself show a profoundly different bunch of scoobies from the opening of the season. You mention Xander and i have to agree that S6 is indeed regressive from the man we see in S5 valiantly trying to throw off his 'butt monkey' rep, whose friendship with Riley gives him insight into Buffy, who endevours to start a life and a home with Anya etc etc

and this can be extended to all the characters; Willow whose blase early attitude ends in a determined effort to boost Buffy from her mental slump even as she tries to deal (or not) with her power and the reality of a damaged lover.

Dawn most of all - but now i'm probably just echoing your post! -
i do think you've nailed one of the two key factors that bug me in S6. That is the fact that the character development mostly isn't, actually. Despite the plots of the stories and the yadda yadda as PEOPLE, really? Not so much with the developing. Most of the problems and solutions are (IMO) less mature seeming in S6 than S5 or S7. Which leads me to factor two. The big bad is always being touted as Life, and that is a nifty idea for true. But - what life? The action on the screen is hardly a realistic depiction - and the use of metaphor so often Buffy's strong point gets real wobbly. Compare the struggles Cordy has early on in Angel moving to LA and whatever. Or Buffy herself in S3 during Anne. S6 is a cartoon in comparison. S7 shows us Xander working, Anya working, Buffy working (though all these threads get truncated) - and not in a 'you still working at the Doublemeat?' kinda way. The first series of Heroes worked for me because it showed super-characters in the real world. S6 - there IS no real world.

Mar 3, 2010 9:59:49 GMT -5 juniorwatcher said:

i dont understand why people hate on season 6.
and the fact that some dont understand that the big bad this season isn't the trio or dark willow but LIFE.

Actually we do understand that i think you'll find.
But we've already seen that life is the big bad - and we know how the scoobs can cope with it. It's called The Body.

..........................
edit to reiterate; there are a whole bunch of very fine individual episodes (including a couple of my favourites) and some great characters in S6 what i think we're discussing here though is the overall - and for me it's a rough ride at times is all.

[Tea - Total]

Mar 7, 2010 20:04:30 GMT -5 lightandmagic said:

Tea - Total: Xander didn't really grow up at all. If anything, he regressed. He went back to being whiny Xander who is unsure of his capabilities as a person and complaining about how he's useless. Something that had already been covered all the way back in Season 3 with The Zeppo and once again in Season 5 with The Replacement. Both times he learned to be more confident in himself and both times he grew and became more confident as a person. Then he left Anya at the alter and proceeded to whine about it for the rest of the season. It wasn't until Season 7 that he finally became confident with himself.

I think every character development grew with time, realistic themes to show understanding of the responsibilities of true life. Each character had development and their took on a path threw life and they all took on responsibilities and consequences and even choice , god even some characters make the wrong decisions but thats good because its realistic to the real world.

Xander had the experience of consequences and choice, he had inner regret of his relationship because he thought life was going fast and he wasn't ready. Xander realizes he should have been more truthful and more honest with Anya from the beginning about his reservations about their marriage. So he made the wrong turn in life, but when the season progress so has his confidants about relationships so he dealt the hatchet with Anya.
Growing up doesn't necessarily mean making all the right choices, but learning how to make good choices by making bad ones and learning from them. Which they all did.
They all still make mistakes of course, cause not matter how old you get, you're gonna screw up sometimes. But from where they started in the beginning of Season 6, it's evident they've all grown up a lot. To me anyways.

Misery does not equal realistic. I understand the concept of life is difficult, and it makes sense to portray the difficult element of life in television as it does make it more realistic. But just slamming it down on viewers in bricks and boulders made it by far the most unrealistic season to me. Other seasons dealt with the issue of life being difficult much more realistically and not just dumping a thousand and one problems on for the sole sake of making characters miserable. For example: Season 2 dealt beautifully with a bad breakup/sleeping with someone who turns into an asshole and the consequences of that. I think Season 4 has a natural plot arc of high school friends becoming more distant when you first go to college. Etc. Etc.

But to me its nice to see a TV show deal with real life issues.
Everyone make choices and some choices are wrong and some are right, but thats life.
I Think every character has the theme of growing up ,which is a good thing because for that reason the show could be really boring, so if we relate to them of our own experience we will watch them go threw their path,which makes Buffy so appealing and realistic to the audience.

[swanstoon]

I'm a newbie so I'm catching up on many of the threads & I've found the discussion here quite interesting. I've always found S6 tough to watch for many of the reasons that you've all outlined but what surprised me was that three S6 eps are in my Top Ten Favourite Episodes (Entropy,After Life,Seeing Red). I say Seeing Red because of the early scenes with Willow & Tara,the ending of course is shattering & the scene with Spike & Buffy is disturbing. There are some great scenes in After Life,in particular the scene with Buffy & Spike at the end & Spike's little rant about magic & consequences. And Entropy 'cos Willow & Tara get back together.

In articles I've written about S6 I've described it as the fall of the house of Buffy. (For those familiar with the Old Testament it mirrors the fall of the house of David after David slept with Bathsheba after orchestrating the death of her husband) Everything that happened in S6 had its genesis in the ill-conceived spell to bring back Buffy.(as Spike suggests 'the trouble with magic is that there are always consequences.Always.') And consequences there are. The demise of Xander & Anya's relationship,Willow's magic addiction,Dawn's shoplifting,Buffy having 'inappropriate' sex when she had always been so circumspect in previous relationships (with the exception of Parker) & tensions in the Willow/Tara relationship.

All of which make it a confronting season but certainly not as bad as some have suggested.

[bthomas]

To me season six is highly under appreciated. It has some of the best writing ever. It takes you on emotional roller coaster after emotional roller coaster. Buffy dealing with being resurrected, Anya dealing with being left at the alter, Willow dealing with Tara's death, Willow turning on her friends, Xander's battle to save his friend... all of it was just amazing. I love this season and consider it probably my second favorite season of them all.

[Silver]

I enjoyed SEason 6, it got very intense with Willow becoming an Uber-Witch. I always thought that the addiction thing a play on the drugs scene but done in a witchy way. The characters by this time had really amtured. On the down side, if you compare this season with season 1 then you notice that the gang was starting to age [with the exception of Giles and Spke]. Maybe it was a good time to consider the next season being the last. Either way a great season and the best bit for was Xander sticking with Willow no matter what. Tha's what you call true friends.

[PJ]

I agree. Season 6 had alot of good aspects, other than OMWF. Mostly, I liked the darkness of it...being who i am. I mean from Buffy being ressurected to the rise of Dark Willow, what's not to love?

[midwesternwatcher]

I love season 6, and I love many of the things some other people don't like about it.

But there is one thing about it I definitely don't like. I don't like "The Trio" as villains.

That Jonathan, whom I always liked, should "go evil" never made sense to me. It wasn't in character. He might not have fought back or ratted out Warren, but the Jonathan I know wouldn't have followed along either.

But what about Warren? In season 5, Warren is not so bad. He's flawed, but seems to be basically a decent guy. I never believed all the evil he showed in season 6. I believe it even less in season 8.

Finally, if the message is "nerds are evil," which is what I think a lot of people will get out of it, then it's actually offensive, and contrary to the drift of the earlier seasons.

I searched this thread and I'm puzzled that nobody else in this thread objects to the "trio" as villains. Am I the only one who feels this way?

[henzINNIT]

Theme - Life is the Big Bad.

... Basically "The Body", but 22 times longer with none of the finesse. Oh and it doesn't resemble real life in the slightest.

Villains

3 annoying nerds. Warren's descent is interesting but not enough to endure the dialogue for a full season.


Character Arc

Giles sods off, Xander regresses, Anya regresses, Willow becomes a crack-addict, Tara grows beyond mere victim before dying a mere victim, Dawn shoplifts and Spike and Buffy have lots of unnattractive sex.

Buffy's quiet melancholy and Willow's power hungry instability are great early on, but it's all out the window midway.


Overall

A very simple season plan on this one, and an idea that must have sounded edgey and bold in the writer's room. Unfortunately, it's not at all fun to watch, and not in a "it's a hard time for the characters and I don't like seeing it" kind of way, more a "I don't enjoy watching writers throw every possible stupid device conceived at each character in order to ruin their lives" kind of way. It's feel obviously dark, like a teenage death poem, and never as effective as the seasons before. When life started kicking Buffy in season 5, life as a slayer never felt so real; this is the complete opposite.
Individual episode quality went downhill too. Hells Bells, Bargaining, Life Serial, As You Were... erg all so mediocre.