Season 6 - Life is the Big Bad

[henzINNIT]

Life is the Big Bad?

Didn't they already do that toward the end of season 5 with Joyce? I understand the idea but I think "The year we throw every possible shitty event at our characters" would be a better title for season 6.

I know Season 6 has been talked to death, but who else thinks that maybe we didn't need to endure 21 episodes of misery to get the point?

[Just Willow]

season six was awesome!

I agree with Raz. every character was reaching a tough point in their lives, and that happens. life really IS the Big Bad, and season six was the complete embodiment of that. i think it was all necessary.

[Greer]

May 18, 2009 12:13:41 GMT -5 henzINNIT said:

I know Season 6 has been talked to death, but who else thinks that maybe we didn't need to endure 21 episodes of misery to get the point?

I'm pretty much with ya there. I do understand that they needed to do the whole "life is the big bad" thing, but I think that they dragged (or is it drug? idk) it out for a little too long, or maybe some of the episodes were rather repetitive. Spuffy sex, Tillow awkwardness, more and more Spuffy sex, bad Willow, etc. I guess I just wish that it wouldn't have taken Buffy so long to figure out things, but don't get me wrong, I love the beginning of S6 and the end. Just some of the filler episodes in the middle get tedious at times.

[Just Willow]

but wasn't it all worth it to see Giles burst out laughing in Grave when Buffy told him all about what had happened that season?

[Midnight Butterfly]

I can understand why alot of people dont like season six but I love it.
It needed to be that dark to show us the misery the characters are going through.
Its the point where all the characters and to really grow up and make really difficult choices in there lifes.
It was really great ;D

[henzINNIT]

I like select slices of misery in the show. Once More with Feeling is tonally prefect. Utterly depressing, and being a musical of all things - even better.

[ambersknight]

My views of Season 6 are well known amongst my friends and I've never held back from it. For me it is without doubt the worst season of Buffy, as it fails on almost every level. That the musical is great only makes what else was in the season all the more starker by its presence.

What annoys me are many factors and I will briefly go into them (and I really can expand on these);

1) The Road not taken. There is a quote from a poem, wonderfully used in Dead poet's Society that goes - 2 roads diverged in a wood and i, I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference". Season 6 failed in part because it started the characters on one road, knocked all of them off that road onto another one without any logical rhyme or reason (and they were roads far less interesting0 and then proceeded to take them the rest of the season on roads that were well worn, not only on Buffy but in drama in general.

20 Gallows Humour has its role. Buffy season 6 really didn't have much of the zesty humour one expects from the show. It could be argued that the darker tone of the season negated a great deal of humour as it would ahve been out of place, and its a strong argument, but its almost complete disappearance makes no logical or dramatic sense. look at Angel season 3 that ran along with it. There is a show with a very dark tone (darker even that Buffy season 6 one might argue) and yet it still managed to find the right tone of necessary humour. it wasn't fun humour, but it still managed to deflate the tension at the right points and show the humanity of the characters. Misery for misery's sake, with no let up for the audience, does not great tv make.

3. Life is the big bad, so let it be. I actually have no problem with life being the big bad, and the idea of 3 nerds (although rather feebly done) being the very embodiment of immatiruty was a good notion. But once you get near the end all the fantasy elements seem to creep in as if the writers, and this is a big problem with the season, don't have the courage of their convictions. i mean, come on, an apocalypse with 20 minutes to go that serves absolutely no purpose other than to have a big finish. Sad, sad sad.

I have other major problems with the individual storylines of which Willow's Magic Addiction and tara's death are worthy of a long sepearate post alone. Suffice as to say i think there were some spectacular miscalculations made by the writers that utlimately left a stale, dull season only enlivened by a musical that whilst excellent, is rather tarnished by the 21 episodes surrounding it.

[Mathieu]

I used to think that Season 6 was indeed a let down but when I count all the outstanding episodes we got during this season, it really puts everything back into perspective:

Bargaining 1 &2: Buffy's resurrection, major episode and gotta love the Buffybot.

After life: pretty cool too, the whole consequences theme

Once More With Feeling: Best episode of the entire series

Tabula Rasa: an all-time favorite among many fans

Smashed/Wrecked: I personally loved the Willow storyline, how she dramatically changed from Season 1 thru Season 6, how she went from being the weakest to being the most powerful

(then we had a series of average episodes I have to agree on this)

Hell's bells: I liked the twist, no happy ending, it's the Buffyverse, what do you expect?

Normal Again: This episode was mind blowing! In my top 5.

Entropy: Very entertaining, with all the drama unfolding.

Seeing Red/Villains/Two To Go/Grave: My favorite arc throughout the entire show. But maybe I'm not objective, I like when the characters' world gets torn apart and everything gets apocalyptic.

And I do consider that the best thing the writers could do in a show like Buffy was kill off one of the most popular characters in an outrageous way. It makes for great discussions and debates and it keeps us hooked. Never give the viewers what they want, but what they need to stay entertained. Tara's death was my biggest thrill in the whole show.

[ambersknight]

But what is the point of killing off a character in an outrageous way in order to simply cause debate? I see no dramatic purpose to that. tara's death, simply put, wasn't earned. There was no dramatic value on her death and the idea that killing off a character alone is justification simply isn't a valid one for me.

As for the addiction storyline, it was flawed as I ahve explained. It simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny and that is its biggest failing.

[ambersknight]

And yet I see nothing but mere window dressing in Tara's death. It had no dramatic impact other than "Oh my God" which is somehwat lessened when for large numbers of us the cry of "Oh my god!" was immediately followed by "How pointless was that?"

Check the other threads on Season 6 I've posted on as my thoughts, albeit very gneral thoughts as space only allowed for the broad strokes rather than depth, of how the magic addiction story failed is mentioned there.

[ambersknight]

Yes, but you make the presumption that the magic addiction storyline played out logically. its my belief it didn't. I like the character of Willow, and I ahve watched all the episodes up to Wrecked and I simply don't see whre the magic Addiction started prior to that episode. it seemed shoed in as if the writers were lacking in courage to continue their less stylistic but more substantial drunk on power storyline that it had been up to that point.

As I simply don't accept the magic addiction storyline was handled properly, fairly or even dramatically, I simply feel that any plot point attempted from that point on falls flat by default.

[ambersknight]

I actually found the storyline once it was changed, haphazardly and without any dramatic logic or finesse, to an addiction to be handled very sloppily indeed. No matter how I look at it, I cannot help but feel that the storyline as played out made substance abuse and addiction seem far easier to ahndle than it truly is, which i found very insulting having seen how terrible addiction can be. My fear is that the writers, having decided to change course, couldn't allow Willow to go down the road the story demanded for fear that we the viewers wouldn't stand for it. As such, any point it wishes to make about the horrors of substance abuse are lost as the writers choked on their own storyline.

Worse, a far more damning charge can be laid against the writers. that Tara's death had nothing to do with the natural progression of a storyline, but was in fact the reverse. It was the writers wishing to kill off the character and trying to find a storyline that would pay it off. I feel they failed utterly in this regard.

Shock and awe, is not enough. Shock and awe must be earned as it was in the Jenny and Joyce deaths. tara's wasn't, for my money. Once the flimsy excuse of the magic addiction storyline is exposed, the pointlessness of the death in dramatic terms becomes more apparent. A shock twist is only truly worth pursuing when it is a one-off, and one that has been earned. When it is not the first, when it hasn't been earned, and when so much more drama, tension and characterisation could have been achieved through keeping Tara alive, its a storyline I simply can't defend.

[ambersknight]

I understand where you are coming from, I really do, and it is ultimately down to point of view. For me though, Tara's death felt less like kick-starting the downfall of Willow and more about the writers desperate for a big finish when actually a quieter more emotional arc was called for.

Much has been written about the "Dead/Evil Lesbian" cliche and I think a great deal of it applies which is aad in a show that was built on the premise of subverting cliche. And as the Willow going off the deep end was just a re-hash of previous stories on Buffy (and all done better) it really did look like a cheap, knock-off mega-mix of Buffy's past.

[ambersknight]

Not saying that they've had quiet seasons before, only that for the season they were attempting, the "apocalypse from nowhere" in the last 20 minutes was inconsistent with the tone that the first half of the season had brought up. But given the downbeat tone of the season (although done far better on season 3 of Angel) a quieter more emotionally wrenching season was in order rather than the bells and whistles from nowhere.

You see addiction, I see drunk on power. And for me, Tara's death wasn't a relapse, it was an artifical contrivance by the writers cos they wanted an evil Willow for their last 4 episodes and having dragged their feet with first one story then the other they ran out of time to do their story justice so they fudged it and for very little gain. Not compared to what they could ahve had.

[ambersknight]

And as someone else mentioned on another thread, Tara's death wasn't exactly revolutionary. it was merely business as usual. Given that it was a hotch potch of previous storylines, it hardly made for superior tv. What makes it worse is that each of the individual strands it stole from were far better, in terms of emotional, dramatic and logical depth, than the death and subsequent "evil Willow" storyline. And the writers should hang their heads in shame for the symbolic rape scene that just really underlined the man-hating lesbian they were writing.

[ambersknight]

No, because the apocalypse from nowhere had nothing to do with trying to be allegorical, it was all about the storyline was boring and they wanted a big finish cos it was the end of season. it simply didn't work as a dramatic function.

it also leads to a dual question: if Willow can all of a sudden find a church that has never been mentioned just to perform armageddon, then why couldn't she resurrect Tara? Unlike the church, the resurrection was at least canon.

[ambersknight]

The more I've watched it, and I've seen it a few times now, the more the cracks are exposed. So much potential, both dramatically and socially, was possible with keeping that couple together and yet for what was at the end of the day, just an excuse for Alyson Hannigan to say "Bored Now!" was just such a waste.

[gumgnome]

I agree with some of your points in the dialogue above ambersknight, especially the "20-minute apocalypse". I find it unnecessary that Xander has to save the world as well as Willow, and the change seems to occur so rapidly in the episode from Dark Willow wanting revenge to her wanting to end everything.

But there are some points that you've made in the last couple of days that I must contend.

1) You argue that S6 has fewer funny moments, less 'gallows humour' as you put it. I would argue to the contrary. S6 is much funnier than S5 and S7 simply due to the relatively smaller world-saving burden that everyone is under. The second half of season 5 is depressing as it comes, with practically no all-out humour episodes (I Was Made To Love You the only example i can think of). S6 has several episodes with comedy a key theme (by which i would say the ep sets out to make you laugh as much as any other emotional response): Life Serial, OMWF, Tabula Rasa, Gone, Doublemeat Palace come to mind immediately. Laugh for laugh i would say that S6 has as many as most and more than 5 or 7.

2) Evilwillowrocker touched on this, but i definately think that you can see the Willow addiction to magic coming before it does. Even the very opening of the season with her actions in Bargaining, Giles' warning in Flooded, Tara leaving her because of All the Way, OMWF, Tabula, then the crash in Smashed and Wrecked. That's half a season, as long as it takes, for example, Buffy to fully fall for Angel and turn him evil! I would not say it was rushed (even if the analogy is one the series' weakest).

3) Tara's death fits very well with the way Joss kills his characters: put them through a miserable time, make it look like things are getting better, then kill 'em. Look at Jenny (an example you yourself make): she betrays the gang and is isolated and rejected, then Giles sets up the make-up and she dies before she gets back to good times. Joyce recovers from an emotionally and physically draining few months, then dies when things are looking better. Tara's death does not feel at all out of place in a series created by a man who feels that characters who aren't suffering aren't interesting.

[ambersknight]

Will briefly answer your 3 points:

1) The episodes you mention are all in the first half of s6, before the rot sets in. And by humour I do mean the Gallows humour that often managed to give the characters if not the audience a momentary relase from the surrounding misery. Season 5 as you say has very few laugh out loud comedy eps but there is a good vein of gallows humour through all the epsiodes, even the really dark ones.

20 On this point we will simply have to agree to differ. To me the first half of the season was "drunk on power" not "magic addiction".

30 You kinda make my point for me with this last paragraph. When Jenny died (and the way you describe it does hold many similarities to Tara's death) it was interesting and powerful because it was unexpected, and served the storyline completely. But when the same trick is used again 4 years later, it doesn't have the same punch. And as I've already mentioned, this storyline of Tara dying and Willow going nuts is really a watered-down re-hash of several previous storylines that were individually more powerful and logical in terms of their dramatic plotting, than the Magic Addiction storyline. So thanks for kinda making my case for me, albeit without realising it.

[ambersknight]

Actually know pl;enty of people who agree with me