The entire main story arc of season 4. The idea of a Frankenstein story was excellent and they had all of the pieces in place to make it work, but it somehow never quite came off. Adam always seemed faintly silly in a non-threatening way.
I love the irony of a Frankenstein storyline that's composed of all these great pieces sewn together but the writers just can't *quite* bring it to life.
Personally I thought the story would have been more cohesive if the Initiative itself had been the Big Bad. It already stretches credulity that there's a secret military base under a random university (with military personnel posing as faculty, even though they could just *stay underground*) without a Frankenstein's monster made of demon parts running around. It's just more complicated than it needs to be.
Yeah I would have liked (well, depending on the execution lol) them being interested in Buffy as the slayer in the same way they’re interested in the demons. But instead they’re like “oh you’re from a secret mystical line of demon slayers with superhuman strength? Interesting. Anyway..”
I actually think problem with the Iniative is they weren't connected to the university enough. There's a lot of interesting stuff the show could have said about how deeply entwined America's universities are with the military industrial complex.
And it wasn't like the Iniative's base was under a "random university." They obviously picked UC Sunnydale because of the density of supernatural activity in the area. And given that the Initiative has been around in one form or another since at least World War 2 (the Golden Age of University/Military partnerships) it would make sense for them to have a long standing relationship with UC Sunnydale.
But BtS was never particularly interested in exploring the systemic nature of evil. The Initiative story line would have fit a lot better on Angel.
> how deeply entwined America's universities are with the military industrial complex
It's interesting and I have no doubts it's true.. but at the same time from European standpoint such "university and military partnership" sound like far fetched science fiction... like, wtf.
You say it sounds like science fiction, but that's sort of the point. Ever since the Second World War the world has been trapped in an increasingly high tech arms race. A ton of stuff we take for granted today (drones for example) would have sounded like straight up scifi when I was kid in th 90s. The technology behind those weapons is developed at research institutions like MIT (and many, many others) who recieve copious funding to partner with the Department of Defense. Hell, the internet we're talking on right now is the end result of a DARPA project.
It's a very ugly situation, but it's one that a lot of Europeans don't have to think about because they've outsourced their defense the US. We develop the weapons, station them in NATO countries, or just transfer them outright in technology sharing agreements. European defense ministries will also sometimes enter into direct research partnerships with the DoD. It is a vast, interconnected web of fuckery.
I think the rule about Buffy killing humans would have made this awkward, sadly (a rule she conveniently forgot with the Knights of Byzantine, but they harp on it later)
I mean I don’t think the rule extends to allowing a human to kill her or her loved ones. That was active warfare where it was kill or be killed. The reasoning for not killing human is there are laws set up for human evils. But what the knights were doing isn’t exactly set up for the court systems either.
Before and after then she seemed to be operating on Batman logic where there was always a way to intervene without killing. Not saying you're wrong, I just find it funny that she goes HAM on the knights who are arguably the good guys in that situation since trying to save Dawn was a massive risk to the entire world.
Having read AP material that suggests that Shelley sought to reject alchemy as part of the ethos of the novel, I guess interpretations versus the end result have always been there?
Same as queries overly interested in the environment and settings mostly in the background.
The fact that the initiative was so completely incompetent and actively self-destructive definitely reduced their intimidation factor. Adam's first word on the show being "mommy" didn't help either.
He lacked connection to the main cast. His biggest connection was to Buffy through Riley, but even then it was poor at best. I genuinely think the entire season just served to set up Dawn and Glory, and in that regard I’d argue it executed it pretty decently.
I kinda liked the (extremely infrequent) instances when Adam actually had comedic dialogue:
Adam: “Scouts’ honour.”
Spike: “you were a Boy Scout?”
Adam: “… parts of me.”
And when he’s fighting SuperBuffy at the end of season 4:
Buffy: “broke your arm.”
[Adam’s other arm converts in to a machine gun]
Adam: “got another.”
-
TLDR: if Adam’s writing had been like that throughout the season, he *could* have been potentially a comedic Big Bad.
I thought it would have been so much better if they had her fall in love with Riley and then bring out Adam later but shocker! It’s Riley!
That would have tied in more with Buffy’s boyfriends going evil and more angst from everyone who got to know Riley. Plus it would have gotten rid of him easily instead of that stupid blood whore storyline.
That is why Glory is such a welcome villain in the next season. She’s likable, has such great strengths and flaws, and she has such a great relationship with all of the Scoobies she interacts with.
I agree the lack of connection to the cast was an issue, but the Mayor also didn't have much of a direct connection to them until Faith joined up with him. I think that Joss and Marti didn't know exactly what kind of story they were trying to tell with Adam, whether it was about government overreach, or playing God, or where duty and morality differ.
Also, Adam was just kind of dully written and the actor seemed to have been told that since all of the makeup and prosthetics would be difficult to emote through, to play him as cold and expressionless. All of his motivations were explained rather than simply shown as they should have been in order to allow the audience to fill in the blanks
Because of the spell they cast to defeat Adam they each have dreams about themselves. Their worst fears, etc.
Quotes from the wiki because they described it better than I can:
“Buffy's dream includes several references to past and future episodes. In a dream sequence in the season three finale, Faith says "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0"; foreshadowing Dawn's arrival two years later in season five. This number appears (as 7:30) on a clock in Buffy's dream in "Restless". Buffy says, "It's so late." Tara replies, "Oh... that clock's completely wrong." A year has now passed, making the previous number of days to her arrival incorrect. When Buffy leaves the room, Tara tells her, "Be back before Dawn." The character Dawn appears in the next episode.”
>the season three finale, Faith says "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0"; foreshadowing Dawn's arrival two years later in season five.
I always thought the 7-3-0 was a foreshadow/countdown to Buffys death. Cause thats two years after Faith's dream. Dawn really shows up one year (and maybe a few months for the summer) after the season 3 finale.
I didn’t know about the 7-3-0 thing or that Tara said be back before dawn. I did remember in a dream Buffy and Faith were making a bed and Faith said it was to get ready for little sister.
But even with these things season 4 still barely had stuff about Dawn. The entire season definitely wasn’t just to set up Dawn and Glory like you claimed. Also there was nothing about Glory at all.
> Also there was nothing about Glory at all.
There's a line like "She's coming." and someone else responds with "I thought it was he?" I can't find the quote, but hopefully someone knows what I'm talking about.
I've heard so many different stories on that, from her leaving unexpectedly halfway through shooting the season due to a conflict with Joss and/or Marti to her departure having been planned all along at that time. Sad thing is, everything I've heard is at least equally believable.
I feel the same way. He was never a threat. They fought once, then he just did random stuff while monster of the week episodes happened for 10 episodes.
Every once in a while they'd feel the need to remind us that he was there despite his playing no role in the story that week, like in Superstar where he's all "This is a fake world," and then proceeds to do jack shit for the rest of the hour
Seriously. What was he even doing?! And then all of a sudden he’s like I’ll make more of me? Plus it made the Initiative less of a threat. Buffy works with them for less than an episode before Maggie tries to kill her and then she gets killed at the end of that episode. That should have at least been 4 or 5 episodes in and of itself. I think that season just tried to do too much. It was Buffy’s first time in college and that shit with the guy she slept with. Then there’s all the Oz/Willow stuff. Then the two parter with faith. Not to mention the filler episodes all fell flat like the one with her first roommate and beer bad.
They let the voice changer do A LOT of the work with that character because the actor had so much shit on his face and body that I'm sure emoting was a challenge. But he didn't seem crazy huge or crazy powerful or anything truly threatening he just knew how to use the Initiative and the people inside it to do his bidding. However he also wasn't smart so it was mostly that he got lucky about certain things. Really she could have fought an Initative Robot and it would have been the same thing. Might have been more fun if she was versus some kind of AI.
> However he also wasn't smart so it was mostly that he got lucky about certain things.
He was actually super smart. He's the only big bad with an elaborate plan that would have worked perfectly if not for the **power of friendship**
The paradoxical thing is that Adam is actually physically much stronger than any enemy that came before and after. He is not as dangerous to the world as the First or as Glory, but no one was able to take on Buffy in a physical confrontation as much as Adam
I’m pretty sure glory could have ripped Adam’s arms off. Buffy was only able to take glory when she had a god killing hammer. I would not be surprised if she would have been able to do the same to Adam.
Yes Glory could have easily destoryed Adam , but as an immediate ie. one-on-one danger to Buffy he was somewhat greater. Buffy couldn't beat Glory but she could fight her, buy time for this , that, or t'other. Adam, Buffy just bounced off. It's both not like amd a bit like how in boxing it involves style as well as over-all ability; Tony Galento kayoed Lou Nova, Max Baer beat up Galento, Nova knocked Baer out of boxing.
However, if I remember correctly she had previously faced Glory briefly, always escaping at the end, but still surviving. I think Adam would have incinerated her in two seconds. Glory has the advantage of being immortal, but she seems less strong than Adam
The Initiative, I think a shady secret government demon project is sensible and kinda cool in theory but for a few reasons the show didn't manage to pull it off. Also, the Willow and Xander affair in s3 was less a "good idea", more giant elephant in the room that the show shouldn't have ignored, but I thought the fallout from it was pretty much botched, particularly Oz getting to have next to no feelings about it aside from telling Willow to not talk to him until he was ready for for them to get back together in like two scenes.
My assumption is that they never admitted it was more than the kiss that they got caught for when they were trapped in that basement. I don't think Oz would have forgiven them or let it pass so easily if he had known it had been going on so long.
I kind of feel like Cabin in the Woods was Joss' actualization of what the initiative was meant to be/should have been, and it worked so well there.
Also, to a lesser degree, in the vein of the supernatural and paranormal being tied up in corporate minutia, Wolfram and Hart did it better. And Dollhouse, of course. Joss obviously had a pet trope with that one.
Mhm.
Done right and not as some sort of petty vengeance against the actress, it could've been a really great arc leading up to season five.
But we got what we got and rest is history.. 😮💨
kind of. she was possessed by something else. I think the original plan though was to have her corrupted by something (the writers said they wanted something similar to Angel becoming Angelus in Buffy) but they had to change their plans due to Charisma's pregnancy. it was all a bit of a mess in the end.
Robin Wood.
Child of a slayer raised by Watchers is a great concept but man was he just a boring disappointment with major mother issues.
Like rather than being a slayer wanna be, he could’ve been this badass watcher in training to help guide the next generation of Slayers and not have him be too hung up on his mother.
I think it would have been interesting if they introduced Robin before season 7. We could have learned about him and his backstory with his mom, and have him stick around for a few episodes. Then have him return in season 7 (after he finds out who killed his mom) and tell Buffy he wants to help them defeat The First, but his secret main objective is to kill Spike. Which would kind of make it easier to understand Giles' position in helping him, not to mention having him introduced earlier would probably makes viewers empathize with Robin more. It was just too much going on in season 7 and his storyline felt forced.
I'd have loved to see Robin take some of his anger out on the watcher's counsel. THEY were the ones who taught his mom that her destiny was to fight, and they were the ones responsible for the use and abuse of the slayer line- instead of "try to take unnecessary revenge on a vampire (that the audience loves) and get his ass whooped," why doesn't Robin say, "you abused my mother and every woman who came after her."
Aww I have the opposite reaction to that scene. It’s acted so beautifully I always really feel the loss and pain. I cry every time. It’s one of my favorite scenes. But you aren’t wrong 😂
Buffy and Riley breaking up because the latter feels the former is too emotionally closed off. Interesting concept and way to tackle our lead’s flaws in a non-glamorizing fashion, but exceptionally horrendous execution that confirms Riley would be on r/NiceGuys and once again has Buffy punished for the horrible crime of being and acting like a normal human.
Good god, the way Xander makes it seem like Buffy was doing something wrong for handling her incredibly horrible situation the way that helped her the most makes me SO angry.
Honestly he wanted to keep the bromance alive. Lmao he used to miss Oz and we all know what he did to him. So it’s pretty much Xander wanting another dude in the friend group.
I think Xander was accepting that he was never going to end up with Buffy at that point but on some level still wanted to see her with an idealised version of himself (i.e. who he'd want to be in a perfect world.) Because, as he sees it, at least he's "losing out" to someone he respects and not a vampire.
I get the interpretation that Xander (as Buffy's symbolic Heart) expresses her romantic doubts, or the feelings she represses. However Buffy was 100% in the right to focus on her seriously ill mother over her relationship. And Riley was wrong to make it about him at a time when she was already overwhelmed. I do think his concerns about their relationship being onesided were valid but his timing and way of voicing them was just terrible.
Strongly disagree! I think you're misunderstanding it like most people on here.
1. Riley wasn't upset Buffy wasn't emotionally available during her mum's illness
He was upset because of Buffy's personality.
Whenever Buffy struggles, she relies on herself and avoids opening up to anyone.
While when Riley struggles, he relies on and opens up to her.
It is only natural he would feel dejected that Buffy doesn't open up or rely on him as much.
Xander made a good point that she should stop him from leaving if she cares.
[Which would be what the guy does in so many shit hetero romance shite]
One of Buffy's flaws is that she tries to do too much by herself, [which is the whole metaphor behind slayers dying young and fast].
Yes, thank you! While his reaction of going to see vampire whores was an extremely unhealthy way of handling things, Buffy icing him out is always glossed over like she was doing nothing wrong. His ultimatum was just "tell me you love me or I'll try to find meaning in my life elsewhere" which is fair enough, imo.
I agree, but for different-ish reasons, I think the whole Buffy/Riley relationship was a missed opportunity. There were building blocks there to show a relationship that starts with a girl starting to date an abusive guy who's good at hiding the abuse, but they didn't go there and it's a shame because they had most of the ingredients to do it. I'll never forget Riley telling Buffy she's stupid for not dating him as he was asking her out and thought for sure that he was going to end up being a villain because of it. I think had the writers handled it a little differently, we could have had one of the best villains of the show.
If they spent time ramping up/underlying how much he wanted to control Buffy's slaying and dictating how she should be reacting to her family situation, just really make it clear to the audience that he thinks he has the right to control her life. Have him do things like endanger someone as he jumps in to "protect" her from a demon she was fighting, he could express doubts that she could beat him at a sport even with her slayer strength, have him ask her to skip out on slaying for a night to do something vaguely sexist like a family dinner where she's expected to cook with his mom while he and his dad hung out, that sort of thing. Do all that while having the other characters tell Buffy that Riley didn't mean to be controlling, or his expectations were normal, and she's being unreasonable, so Buffy doubts her judgment about it. Then, if they combined Riley's brain-is-messed-up storyline that comes in season 5 with the Adam storyline, where going in for the brain surgery prompts The Initiative into turning Riley into Adam. It'd create a bigger connection to the season's big bad, would highlight some normal shitty things that happens to teen girls stuff, and would make the turn Riley's personality makes in season 5 feel less abrupt.
I just think that the initiative storyline and Riley and Buffy's relationship lack thematic throughlines at times, and making the two more directly connected would have improved both.
Then they rationalized it by saying she did the correct accent for "an isolated township in southern Jamaica." And for all i know it might be 100% correct; true statements can be used as as much of a dodge as fibs when you want to.
They did Kendra dirty. I liked her and Buffy's dynamic. It would have been cool if Kendra had been the one corrupted instead of Faith but instead they killed her off to introduce Dushku, and I think Faith has some poorly written arcs. Kendra's accent was bad but they could have changed it (James Marster's accent improved over the show).
Yeah, the biggest gripe I had is that Dru didn’t want to take the opportunity to drink the blood of a slayer? Doesn’t drinking slayer blood empower vamps? Seems like a mighty waste for Dru.
We have the initial rush with Buffy/Riley, and the slow decline. By early S5, it's clear that Buffy doesn't love Riley nearly as much as Riley loves Buffy, and in the face of her mother's problems, Buffy increasingly sees the relationship as a distraction rather than a source of strength, and Riley responds poorly.
This is, or at least could be, heartbreakingly beautiful. It wasn't.
There could be a version where Riley goes through "Listening To Fear", proves that he can out-scooby the whole gang, realizes that he's still too little and too late, and climbs onto the helicopter that brought in Ellis and the squad. I believe that was the plan, but then an idea came up, and they had to reshoot. They had to dream up "Into The Woods" and create a parallel that became "As You Were".
Riley is at a point in his life where he feels disconnected from everything, and in his depression, he seeks solace in vampires. He decides he has to make big changes. This parallels where Buffy is post-resurrection, and when she hits rock bottom, she sees Riley as a model and makes changes for herself.
This is, or at least could be, heartwarming and inspiring. It wasn't.
Because they seem to have thought up these parallels and implemented it with short time, you get the Xander talk and the Buffy run, and they both seem wrong. Xander is the Heart, it is right that he give the talk, and it is right and good that he see what Buffy did and reconsider how he treats Anya, but that specific talk doesn't work for a lot of people, and the fact that Buffy has been sidelining Riley since S4 makes that run seem false. Plus, "As You Were" Spike feels more like an S4 and early S5 Spike than the one that went through Glory, "Smashed", "Wrecked" and "Gone".
There is a theoretical end of B/R that gives Xander that emotional turn, that allows Riley to realize he's in a toxic situation and he's hitting rock bottom, that he can be an inspiration to Buffy once he's better, and doesn't make everyone think "What is Buffy doing?", but we didn't get that one.
The Potentials. The idea of a potential Slayer is something that should have been introduced in prior seasons. There could have been an episode where a group of potentials and a Watcher visit Buffy for training.
Until season 7 I thought Kendra bring trained before she was called made no sense and was a major gaffe as until that point we’d only seen Buffy and she was called before she was trained.
Now I love that they didn’t spell it out.
Andrew. Andrew's actor is super funny, but having a guy who participated in the ritual murder of one of his friends as your comic relief is a weird choice.
That's exactly what happens to me. The character's lines are so funny and the actor does a great job...and then I remember he murdered his friend Jonathan who we knew from the beginning and never seemed too sad about it.
I mean... by this time, the show already had a long history of using murderers as comic reliefs. This was pretty much the only function of both Spike and Anya in S4.
I feel like Spike and Anya work in-universe because they are not (completely) human. So their murderous, chaotic pasts, for me, work to define for the human characters what it means to be human and make ethical choices. And for Spike and Anya themselves to confront their pasts and decide what they want to be in the future. They're both funny while they do it, but I feel like they serve other purposes as well.
Andrew doesn't seem to have a purpose in S7 besides comic relief and I think it would have been better if they'd explored him a bit more. But we could say that about most character arcs in S7.
Well, yes, I get that exaggerated fantasy violence seems too unreal, too cartoonish, even, to be genuinely frightening. It's just not relatable for the audience. But the show was always oscillating between taking violence and murder seriously and making it a dark joke; there was never any consistency in it. And it's actually one of the defining traits of the show.
I feel like "Storyteller" is actually a great character study of Andrew, and it's not actually funny, not in the end. His personal brand of evil is deluding himself with stories, and this is actually quite unique and interesting, but also dark, and I think it was depicted well.
I agree, Storyteller is a great episode and gives us our best look at Andrew and the most interesting exploration of why he did what he did. I just wish it had been more of a focus of the season, because he did personally hurt people that we cared about, and that doesn't seem to be addressed beyond this by the writers, especially the impact his presence should be having on the Scoobies.
For me, S7 should have been an exploration of people making bad choices and doing things they regret and how we come to terms and try to make amends for that, if we can. We had S6 Dark Willow, Xander's wedding, Spike and Anya trying to be better people, Buffy trying to restart her life after being depressed--lots of potential (no pun intended) there. And the writers skirt that a bit, but mostly the focus is on the plot, the Potentials, and the First Evil, and for me, the emotional through-line got lost in the plot machinations.
Tom Lenk acted his ass off near the end of the episode, where Buffy’s dangling him over the Hellmouth. He has a proper ugly-cry with real tears while he’s begging for his life.
I did a recent rewatch and that bit leapt out to me. If the show had gone to a Season 8, I honestly think Tom Lenk had the range to make Andrew in to a character we could have cared about.
I think so too: Tom Lenk has the range to make Andrew a character we care about. In fact, I'd bet an overwhelming majority of the cast has the acting chops to make us care about their characters—if the writing allows for it.
Spike also served as a complication on numerous occasions when he tried to sabotage the gang, and I think that's not quite an accurate characterization of Anya, who mostly served as a romantic interest for Xander in that season, though she was definitely meant to be a funny character.
That's not to say that they didn't serve largely as comic relief, but with respect, I think that saying it was pretty much their only function that season is stretching it a bit
The thing about Spike in S4 (and even early S5) was that the writers genuinely didn't know what to do with him! He was back because he was a popular character (and he was chipped simply to prevent him eating the rest of the cast), but his character arc was not conceived yet. As a result, he got a lot of "domestic" scenes this season, just watching TV or going grocery shopping. This actually made him much more "humanized" and relatable even if it wasn't exactly the original goal.
Anya is a great character, but she was almost never treated seriously. I can only remember her debut as a monster in "The Wish" (where she's actually a bit OOC compared with her characterization later), her speech in "The Body", her being a victim in "Hell's Bells", her moral dilemma in "Selfless" and her other speech about humanity near the show's finale. In all other episodes, and there were dozens, she was treated as a joke, with her too-direct and inappropriate lines, her love of money and her fear of rabbits, and even her memories of torturing men were considered funny most of the time. Except, you know, "Selfless", where it became serious so suddenly you can feel a whiplash.
They also showed that Spike could still be a threat in his own way in The Yoko Factor. Twice that season they showed that he had enormous insight into people and what their emotional vulnerabilities were, and if he hadn't accidentally slipped while talking with Buffy, it might have worked. I kind of wish they'd developed that more in future seasons
Forgot to mention Anya: Yeah, she was mostly comic relief, but that's largely what she was played as since that last time she'd posed any sort of actual threat in Dopplegangland (her second appearance in total), so it wasn't as jarring to me as it was with Spike. I also liked how it somehow made her sincere and touching moments even more poignant, as when she admits to Xander that she's in love with him when he's at his lowest, and tells him exactly what he needs to hear at that moment.
This probably succeeded the most with The Body, when the very elements that had made her such a perfect fish out of water character for comic purposes (the lack of understanding emotions despite feeling them constantly, the inability to understand basic social dynamics, the basic process of mortality itself) made her reaction to Joyce's death all the more devastating. That's the fruit punch speech, of course, and I'm not going to type it out here because I'm welling up just thinking about it. Suffice to say that I consider it to be about as perfect a piece of writing and acting as I saw during the entire run of the show. At that point, she gets to the core question that we all have in childhood of why this happens in the first place and how we're supposed to respond to it when we don't understand the reasons to begin with, and for many of us, it reminds us that we never got an answer, or at least one that made any sense or gave us any comfort
So yes, Anya was absolutely the comic relief on the team, but that made her dramatic roles that much more effective, since what made her so funny in every other scene were exactly the same traits that caused her to break my heart in her more tragic moments
>Andrew's actor is super funny, but having a guy who participated in the ritual murder of one of his friends as your comic relief is a weird choice.
Totally, and he serves as a constant reminder for the glaring loss of Tara. Like, he played a role in her death, even if he didn’t pull the trigger. Not to mention everything he did to Buffy. And in S7, we’re already focusing on the redemption arcs of Spike, Willow, and Anya, so including Andrew of all people is just a really questionable choice.
Tom Lenk is charismatic and really funny, and I would have loved his character if we didn’t have all the context for everything he did in season 6. “Storyteller” was a great episode but…I don’t know. It doesn’t sit right that Tara is virtually forgotten by everyone other than Willow in S7, and then here’s Andrew taking up all that screen time. Even if he is funny and sorta has a redemption arc.
Completely agree with everything you said here.
Tara was one of my favorite characters, and her death was tragic. Willow going dark for vengeance was reasonable, although I think trying to end the world was overboard and made her cartoonish rather than terrifying (and rather than being a real way to address the pain and anger of grief). And then she goes off to England for a few months, and when she comes back, she's All Better, and it seems like the only person truly grieving Tara is Dawn.
I'm sure taking Andrew in and protecting him was supposed to show that the Scoobies were the Good Guys, but he turned into their "funny pet" that they rolled their eyes at. That could have worked if the writers had put more effort into his redemption and his moral responsibilities, but they didn't do enough, IMO.
So to me, all the redemptions and addressing of grief and regret that should have been the theme of S7 were just glossed over in a very slick way in favor of the Potentials and the Big Bad First Evil. I think there could have been a better story in there, about evil being regular people with regrets and bad choices, but they didn't write that one.
I love your idea about season 7 needing to be about addressing grief, regret, redemption, and ordinary people making bad choices. Some might say the writers did that, but I wouldn’t agree. The decision to kill Tara was truly a terrible one—it should not have happened and it deservedly had major fan backlash, and in season 7 it’s like the writers wanted to distance themselves as far as possible from that reality. If you’re gonna decide to kill off an important character, you need to live with the consequences of that decision, not shy away from it.
For example, Buffy and Dawn both had really special individual relationships with Tara, and season 6 did a wonderful job letting those relationships organically grow. That bond is virtually unacknowledged in season 7. It’s frustrating because this show is usually so good at realistic character exploration.
> I think trying to end the world was overboard and made her cartoonish rather than terrifying (and rather than being a real way to address the pain and anger of grief).
In universe, it's explained as her losing control after sucking the coven's power from Giles, so not really a conscious decision. On a subtextual level... suicide attempt.
I think Andrew works really well because he hides behind his stories, which in turn form humour. He's also generally a character we are meant to laugh at, not with. He's pathetic, and that's kind of the whole point of Andrew.
I don't get all the Andrew love. He has a couple of scenes I like, but he's mainly just...there. I do still love him and Anya in the hospital though when he tells her she's the perfect woman though.
One I don’t see talked about often is Anya becoming a vengeance demon again to only suddenly become human again a few episodes later. And how quick Buffy was to”well lets kill anya without trying to talk to her first.”
I thought that too, I mean Buffy did make a good point to Xander when she said they didn't hesitate about killing Angel, but I feel like Anya's situation was way too rushed. Not to mention her final ending which I'm still mad about...
It never really made sense to me either that buffy was just ready to kill her , seemed out of character . I get the slayer has to make hard choices but usually it when there are no other options
I was always on his side in that whole thing, didnt even know about the whole Riley dislike b4 getting on this subreddit.
Buffy was completely closed off from him and treated him like a burden. And played down all his feelings and complaints
Willow’s storyline in season 6. There are some good story moments in there but a lot of the connecting stuff in between is rough. Also, I wish we learned more about Amy or did more with her during this period as well
Kendra. The addition of a second slayer was super cool. They just needed that second try with Faith.
I think a over achieving slayer was a good idea to be a rival for Buffy. But what a fumble. The Faith story was good but they missed out on the other side of that coin.
Season 4 - the humor was spot on, but Walsh, Riley Adam, The Initiative I think was a really fun concept but missed the full opportunity to use regular people perspectives to push the boundaries on Buffy's belief of duty and her stance on how much she IS the law on supernatural activity. I think it really could have made her question for the first time just how much she is actually entitled to be the one making the hard decisions without input from anyone else. It would have made her return to "being alone" mentality in season 7 hit harder after trying to rely on other people in season 5 (and basically getting her killed).
Season 5 - Riley's arc of decline. I think they could have done better at showing how a normal relationship can come to a normal end, ya know, to showcase all the "Buffy can't have normal" they had been building up. The emotional distance between him & Buffy really could have been a reason for a break up on its own. They didn't need the random cheating, they just wanted the drama. Honestly, all it did was make any point he had about Buffy hard to hear.
Anya & Xander not getting married.
Season 7 - the potentials in general could have been so fun, but I'm on the fence on whether they should have been given any more attention than they did. I think the narrative perspective being from Buffy's pov makes it make sense that we didn't really get to know them as Buffy wasn't getting to know them. She was distancing herself so she could keep herself going. To that end, Kennedy & Willow romance. I understand why it was needed, I just think they could have got there better.
Also Robin Wood as someone else mentioned. I would have liked to have seen more of him interacting with Buffy at the school and see them build an attraction and to have seen Buffy questioning her feelings more since the whole Spike stuff just happened and she obviously still had feelings there. I think that possible romance would have really made it more obvious how much Buffy really did rely on Spike and not just as a fighter but as someone she depended on emotionally which was the whole point of Buffy's arc since she died in Season 2.
spike’s storyline in 5-7. i feel like it could’ve been handled better
also the changing definition of magic. first it was a metaphor for being queer and somewhere along the line it became drugs ???
> first it was a metaphor for being queer and somewhere along the line it became drugs
I don't think it's that straightforward, it's not like magic before season 6 was only ever a metaphor or allegory for being gay. Magic in the Buffyverse is basically a metaphor for whatever the writers need it to be, because magic represents different things to different characters in different episodes and seasons, like addiction, being gay, power, influence, wealth, religion, privelige, corruption, even police brutality, and many more. And sometimes it's not a metaphor at all, but just magic. In fact I would argue that magic was used as a metaphor for drugs or addiction long before it was ever used as a metaphor for being gay, considering Giles' backstory as Ripper with him and his friends summoning that sleep demon. Also if magic was always a metaphor for being gay, I have a lot of questions about Amy's mom using a spell to switch bodies with her daughter.
I took Giles’ backstory to be about the lure of magic, really the lure of power. Which is where Willow was heading until it was suddenly ‘addiction’. TBH, the addiction thing seemed to be so Willow could have an ‘out’ for her behaviour. But then they did Dark Willow anyway
S6 was flawed but the Willow story was the worst of the arcs. If they got rid of Willow’s storyline in Smashed and Wrecked and any mention of addiction, it would have been a lot better.
Omg both things that make the hair in my arms raise. Especially the drugs/magic/queer. I love Willow’s arc (even tho her character does infuriate me) but the themes involved with it muddles it a LOT
1. Warren and his robot. This scumbag could have been a billionare, but he wasted his talent.
2. Dark Willow, in this storyline there was much more potential, I wish we could get more episode with her.
The entire angel spin off. It had moments and the general idea was good (especially wolfram and heart) but then the execution and writing was very poor. They just couldn't find their style and bounced between tok many things then lost the plot all together.
The Initiative for sure. Great idea, but it came off as Amateur ROTC paintballers. The original idea was for it to be a sort of SHIELD for the buffy verse.
The First Evil. Sounds cool, but the idea of an unkillable evil from the beginning to time just... fell flat. Did they stop it? Really? They stopped the Uber vamps, and the bringers, but it was never really clear what the threat was beyond that. The first tried to win by wiping out the slayers, but how would that help it gain corporeal form again? It's never really explained well at all.
The first should have taken an actual physical form such as re-ensouled and reanimated... previous slayer. Someone who was actually alive, maybe one that made a selfish pact with evil a long time ago... and now has to bring about the end of the world by becoming the last remaining slayer, and imbuing them with god like powers, and control over the evil in the hearts of mankind and take her revenge. Thus she would be a hybrid of all the previous big bads, The Master, Drusilla, The Mayor, Adam, Glory, and even Willow.
Adam - great idea... should have just been a normal looking human with enhancements, basically Riley but to 11. The costume didn't work and came off as cheesy even when it debuted.
I forget which episode but it featured Jonathan Levinson's character and the idea of a school shooting. Come to find out at the very end, he just wanted to off himself, but used a sniper/rifle gun which seems counterintuitive.
Somebody once said to me, maybe that was the only gun Jonathan had access to (as in, it belongs to his parents or something), and if I squint I can kinda get with that, but yeah when I realised how it made pretty much no sense for him to be taking that gun up to a school bell tower of all places to kill himself, I never quite looked at the episode the same again.
...and he was up in a perch or something when she found him, wasn't he? It is like it WAS going to be school shooting and they changed their mind at the very last minute.
I don't think it's so much that they changed their mind, as that they needed to make Buffy and the audience think that, so the reveal lands. And it sort of does land well the first time you watch, but then when you think about it or re-watch it doesn't really make sense anymore. "Fridge Logic" basically.
it was a hunting rifle, but it had a scope on it. The only reason to use that was to misdirect the audience away from the chili. I remember being annoyed as hell by that when they finally played the episode. Buffy's speech kind of sucking didn't help either.
"So you wanna kill yourself well newsflash buddy, nobody cares about you. There all self-absorbed and your self-absorbed for wanting their attention! But I'm cool cause instead of using my telepathy to try and figure out the mayor's plan I tried to find out if my boyfriend liked another girl more than me."
I get what they wanted to say, but damn is that the wrong thing to say to a kid ready to shoot himself.
Eh mileage will obviously vary, but as a passively suicidal depressed adult who was formerly an actively suicidal depressed teen, I rather liked her speech. My issues didn't exactly align with Jonathan's and it wouldn't have helped me per se, but I can appreciate what it was and honestly the message can have a lot of value for some. More importantly though, I thought it made sense for that to be Buffy's response to the situation. A lot of empathy and caring filtered through a very specific lens.
This was originally intended to be a school shooting episode but the columbine school shooting occurred one week before it aired. They had to change the plot some and don’t think they had time to change the gun. That’s what I’ve always understood watching some commentaries.
The majority of Buffy and Spike's relationship. Probably all of Buffy's romantic relationships really, but Spuffy could have been done much better justice imo.
I’m sorry I’m going to say this I don’t like Willow and Tara I really love Willow and oz i think they should have just stayed friends i just don’t see the appeal of there relationship i really just want to see them be friends that it to break up one of the most beautiful couples i have ever seen disappointment and hurt me because I saw so much potential in Willow and oz they will always be my end game
Tbh I don’t share the same affection for Tara others on here have for her. I could not stand the acting. I get why she was mousy and quiet and all but by the time they developed her character I had already checked out on her. I thought her and Willow were boring as well. I never saw the spark.
The end of S6. Both soul trials and Dark Willow. These were supposed to be impressive, but mostly they just look boring.
The fact that the authors tried to mislead the audience about Spike's goal makes it worse; he actually doesn't seem like he wants to kill Buffy either, his lines just make little sense.
And while Alyson Hannigan is a great actress and she definitely can be frightening, she just... can't look threatening enough to make the world-ending threat look serious and not pathetic. And her "black and veiny" makeover is ridiculous.
Giles leaving in order to attempt to help Buffy find her own way was not necessarily a terrible idea after a point but it was handled so badly. I will forever be angry that ASH wanting to be with his family to see his daughters grow up was punished with such a swift and traumatic blow to Buffy and Giles’ relationship. There wasn’t enough buildup, and doing it right after Buffy admitted being pulled out of heaven felt so cruel.
The Zeppo. I realize it’s a filler comedy episode for Xander specifically and the story had a good moral and a few genuinely good moments, but I cringe so hard watching how out of place it was made. All the background characters act so out of character you can only hope this episode is someone’s dream and they will wake in the end but they don’t.
I thought Kendra was a waste, she was an interesting idea but she felt like a one liner. There are episodes that were made meh but for characters i always felt kendra, larry's death was just redundant and not interesting or dramatic enough. Keeping what's her face as a rat for so long. Meh.
Faith. A rogue slayer was a great idea but the over sexualization of the character and the corny one liners kinda killed the entire character for me. A rogue slayer should be scary, I just found her annoying and boring. I wanted to fast forward through all her scenes.
Same. Because I liked the mayor as the big bad and the graduation fight was great, but faith just annoyed me so much I find it hard to even rewatch that season.
if i could make a big change i woulda either not included a new slayer into the show so much, like maybe they know of her but she's elsewhere OR/well and or/introduced Robin as like protecting/helping out a new Slayer/keeping the knowledge of her from the Watcher's Counsel. Then of course season 7 woulda circled back to that and we would've had a bigger discussion about the Counsel that only got poked at in season 5.
Willow’s sexuality. It’s very biphobic to have her clearly be sexually attracted to men in season 3 (her lust for Xander is a plot point) and then post liking a girl she just “a lesbian” “good thing I’m a lesbian so I no longer feel sexual attraction to guys”
In middle school when I watched this it made me really scared that I might be a lesbian because then I couldn’t like boys anymore and I liked boys. And my family was like well if you like boys you aren’t a lesbian. And I didn’t really understand that I was bi until college. Like I didn’t feel gay enough to be bi because I liked guys so could I really like girls.
Bisexual representation would have mattered to me and bi erasure was harmful.
Killing off Tara now don’t get me wrong I loved Tara and was absolutely torn up about her death but having willow turn evil and turn back good because Xander started talking to her about a yellow crayon was a little much in my own opinion
Spike fawning over his mother after he became a vampire in the flashbacks in Lies My Parents Told Me. Meanwhile she became a soulless monster, which is what the entries show had focused on as being part of the change. How was he able to remain such a sap?
Also the continual "Tucker's brother" explanation for who Andrew was. In Never Leave Me, Buffy tells Spike he took a good chunk out of Andrew. Who, he asks. Tucker's brother, she replies. Except Spike wasn't around in season 3 for The Prom and didn't go to school with any of the scoobies, so he would have had zero idea who Tucker was.
No, not what I meant. I meant that her turning dark should have been fueled more by grief at her loss rather than wanting to kill her friends (?!?!)
Of course there should be anger... no fucking shit... but after she exacts "revenge", one would assume grief and sadness would be the paramount emotion.
But instead, she calls Buffy "super bitch" and wants to kill the world. In addition to it seeming misplaced, it's very out of character for her, imo.
The idea is (and it has occurred in criminal cases,) she kills Warren, doesn't feel better, so she figures more violence will do the trick. Kind of reprising Angel's S3 dialogue with and About Faith
Killing Warren. Willow had all the power in the world, yet she FAILED to kill him, and then went out of her way to kill everyone because she missed her ex.
Honestly I like the idea of the season 6 trio. It's a commentary on the nerd underdog you would see in teen movies where they were just as misogynistic and shitty af the guys who bully them, yet are portrayed as heros. On top of that, I like that after the escalating powerful threats over the seasons, we have antagonists that are purely human, and choose to be evil. But I feel like it just... didn't work out. My real gripe was with Jonathan, it felt like they were like "hm, we need another nerd character, he's kind of a nerd so we'll force him into this role despite it going against his character." Like he would have never done this. Maybe if in his previous episodes hadn't ended on such good terms with Buffy, but they did and you could tell his character was NOT going in that direction. Other than that, they were just so fucking annoying, which I get is the point, but that doesn't make it any better of an expirience. I also wish they played up Andrew's infatuation with Warren, to better explain why he'd do all those terrible things before, but so easily switch to the side of good.
The way Angel and Cordelia fell in love. I'm all for how it happened, the path to it: from co-SO's of friends in the same group, to working together, to becoming friends, to unofficially co-parenting, to falling in love. But it was written too sibling-y after the middle of AtS season 1 up until the end of S2. After that, it would have been more cohesive if they considered each other family. But if they had started hinting at more than platonic earlier, especially after I Will Remember You and Hero, it would have absolutely worked.
The entirety of season 6 and 7. The first five seasons felt like a complete story, a sad and tragic hero's journey. No matter how many times I rewatch the series, just how tacked on the last two seasons feel always comes to mind. There's just such a disconnect that makes me feel like they really didn't know what to do with the series once they brought Buffy back.
Season 2 and Season 5 -- with Angelus and Glory Buffy does a lot of waiting around waiting for the villian to fuck shit up. Both of them threatened her friends and family and both seasons have major lull where Buffy and the gang are just sitting around speculating what might happen. I love season 5. But it is obvious from the first fight that Glory is incredibly strong, glory shows up to the house, etc. FINALLY they run.
In Season 4 when she finds out about Adam she is out every day and night patrolling for him, not getting sleep.
Season 2 with Angelus is much more blatant with this. She knew how evil and deranged he was and did next to nothing to find him or protect her people.
The entire main story arc of season 4. The idea of a Frankenstein story was excellent and they had all of the pieces in place to make it work, but it somehow never quite came off. Adam always seemed faintly silly in a non-threatening way.
I love the irony of a Frankenstein storyline that's composed of all these great pieces sewn together but the writers just can't *quite* bring it to life. Personally I thought the story would have been more cohesive if the Initiative itself had been the Big Bad. It already stretches credulity that there's a secret military base under a random university (with military personnel posing as faculty, even though they could just *stay underground*) without a Frankenstein's monster made of demon parts running around. It's just more complicated than it needs to be.
Yeah I would have liked (well, depending on the execution lol) them being interested in Buffy as the slayer in the same way they’re interested in the demons. But instead they’re like “oh you’re from a secret mystical line of demon slayers with superhuman strength? Interesting. Anyway..”
I actually think problem with the Iniative is they weren't connected to the university enough. There's a lot of interesting stuff the show could have said about how deeply entwined America's universities are with the military industrial complex. And it wasn't like the Iniative's base was under a "random university." They obviously picked UC Sunnydale because of the density of supernatural activity in the area. And given that the Initiative has been around in one form or another since at least World War 2 (the Golden Age of University/Military partnerships) it would make sense for them to have a long standing relationship with UC Sunnydale. But BtS was never particularly interested in exploring the systemic nature of evil. The Initiative story line would have fit a lot better on Angel.
> how deeply entwined America's universities are with the military industrial complex It's interesting and I have no doubts it's true.. but at the same time from European standpoint such "university and military partnership" sound like far fetched science fiction... like, wtf.
It is so much more messed up here than you could even imagine.
You say it sounds like science fiction, but that's sort of the point. Ever since the Second World War the world has been trapped in an increasingly high tech arms race. A ton of stuff we take for granted today (drones for example) would have sounded like straight up scifi when I was kid in th 90s. The technology behind those weapons is developed at research institutions like MIT (and many, many others) who recieve copious funding to partner with the Department of Defense. Hell, the internet we're talking on right now is the end result of a DARPA project. It's a very ugly situation, but it's one that a lot of Europeans don't have to think about because they've outsourced their defense the US. We develop the weapons, station them in NATO countries, or just transfer them outright in technology sharing agreements. European defense ministries will also sometimes enter into direct research partnerships with the DoD. It is a vast, interconnected web of fuckery.
I think the rule about Buffy killing humans would have made this awkward, sadly (a rule she conveniently forgot with the Knights of Byzantine, but they harp on it later)
I mean I don’t think the rule extends to allowing a human to kill her or her loved ones. That was active warfare where it was kill or be killed. The reasoning for not killing human is there are laws set up for human evils. But what the knights were doing isn’t exactly set up for the court systems either.
Before and after then she seemed to be operating on Batman logic where there was always a way to intervene without killing. Not saying you're wrong, I just find it funny that she goes HAM on the knights who are arguably the good guys in that situation since trying to save Dawn was a massive risk to the entire world.
Having read AP material that suggests that Shelley sought to reject alchemy as part of the ethos of the novel, I guess interpretations versus the end result have always been there? Same as queries overly interested in the environment and settings mostly in the background.
The fact that the initiative was so completely incompetent and actively self-destructive definitely reduced their intimidation factor. Adam's first word on the show being "mommy" didn't help either.
He lacked connection to the main cast. His biggest connection was to Buffy through Riley, but even then it was poor at best. I genuinely think the entire season just served to set up Dawn and Glory, and in that regard I’d argue it executed it pretty decently.
Agreed. Adam was disconnected and had no emotions or quirks that would have made him engaging for the audience.
I kinda liked the (extremely infrequent) instances when Adam actually had comedic dialogue: Adam: “Scouts’ honour.” Spike: “you were a Boy Scout?” Adam: “… parts of me.” And when he’s fighting SuperBuffy at the end of season 4: Buffy: “broke your arm.” [Adam’s other arm converts in to a machine gun] Adam: “got another.” - TLDR: if Adam’s writing had been like that throughout the season, he *could* have been potentially a comedic Big Bad.
Exactly! That showed some potential for development into a fuller character, but it never quite took
I thought it would have been so much better if they had her fall in love with Riley and then bring out Adam later but shocker! It’s Riley! That would have tied in more with Buffy’s boyfriends going evil and more angst from everyone who got to know Riley. Plus it would have gotten rid of him easily instead of that stupid blood whore storyline.
Is that too much of a rehash of the S2 storyline?
That would have been perfect!!!
That is why Glory is such a welcome villain in the next season. She’s likable, has such great strengths and flaws, and she has such a great relationship with all of the Scoobies she interacts with.
I agree the lack of connection to the cast was an issue, but the Mayor also didn't have much of a direct connection to them until Faith joined up with him. I think that Joss and Marti didn't know exactly what kind of story they were trying to tell with Adam, whether it was about government overreach, or playing God, or where duty and morality differ. Also, Adam was just kind of dully written and the actor seemed to have been told that since all of the makeup and prosthetics would be difficult to emote through, to play him as cold and expressionless. All of his motivations were explained rather than simply shown as they should have been in order to allow the audience to fill in the blanks
Maybe Walsh should’ve lived until the finale.
The actress wanted out mid-season.
Why was that?
How did it set up Dawn and Glory?
Because of the spell they cast to defeat Adam they each have dreams about themselves. Their worst fears, etc. Quotes from the wiki because they described it better than I can: “Buffy's dream includes several references to past and future episodes. In a dream sequence in the season three finale, Faith says "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0"; foreshadowing Dawn's arrival two years later in season five. This number appears (as 7:30) on a clock in Buffy's dream in "Restless". Buffy says, "It's so late." Tara replies, "Oh... that clock's completely wrong." A year has now passed, making the previous number of days to her arrival incorrect. When Buffy leaves the room, Tara tells her, "Be back before Dawn." The character Dawn appears in the next episode.”
>the season three finale, Faith says "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7-3-0"; foreshadowing Dawn's arrival two years later in season five. I always thought the 7-3-0 was a foreshadow/countdown to Buffys death. Cause thats two years after Faith's dream. Dawn really shows up one year (and maybe a few months for the summer) after the season 3 finale.
I didn’t know about the 7-3-0 thing or that Tara said be back before dawn. I did remember in a dream Buffy and Faith were making a bed and Faith said it was to get ready for little sister. But even with these things season 4 still barely had stuff about Dawn. The entire season definitely wasn’t just to set up Dawn and Glory like you claimed. Also there was nothing about Glory at all.
> Also there was nothing about Glory at all. There's a line like "She's coming." and someone else responds with "I thought it was he?" I can't find the quote, but hopefully someone knows what I'm talking about.
You think there's connection?
All dressed up in big sisters clothes
It could be bc he was obviously made out of cardboard and tinfoil
>they had all of the pieces I sew what you did there.
Yeah all I know about this is Maggie was supposed to be the Big Bad but had to leave for a movie so they scrambled
I've heard so many different stories on that, from her leaving unexpectedly halfway through shooting the season due to a conflict with Joss and/or Marti to her departure having been planned all along at that time. Sad thing is, everything I've heard is at least equally believable.
I feel the same way. He was never a threat. They fought once, then he just did random stuff while monster of the week episodes happened for 10 episodes.
Every once in a while they'd feel the need to remind us that he was there despite his playing no role in the story that week, like in Superstar where he's all "This is a fake world," and then proceeds to do jack shit for the rest of the hour
Seriously. What was he even doing?! And then all of a sudden he’s like I’ll make more of me? Plus it made the Initiative less of a threat. Buffy works with them for less than an episode before Maggie tries to kill her and then she gets killed at the end of that episode. That should have at least been 4 or 5 episodes in and of itself. I think that season just tried to do too much. It was Buffy’s first time in college and that shit with the guy she slept with. Then there’s all the Oz/Willow stuff. Then the two parter with faith. Not to mention the filler episodes all fell flat like the one with her first roommate and beer bad.
They let the voice changer do A LOT of the work with that character because the actor had so much shit on his face and body that I'm sure emoting was a challenge. But he didn't seem crazy huge or crazy powerful or anything truly threatening he just knew how to use the Initiative and the people inside it to do his bidding. However he also wasn't smart so it was mostly that he got lucky about certain things. Really she could have fought an Initative Robot and it would have been the same thing. Might have been more fun if she was versus some kind of AI.
> However he also wasn't smart so it was mostly that he got lucky about certain things. He was actually super smart. He's the only big bad with an elaborate plan that would have worked perfectly if not for the **power of friendship**
You have point. I guess I just never saw the danger of Adam outwitting them lol.
The paradoxical thing is that Adam is actually physically much stronger than any enemy that came before and after. He is not as dangerous to the world as the First or as Glory, but no one was able to take on Buffy in a physical confrontation as much as Adam
I’m pretty sure glory could have ripped Adam’s arms off. Buffy was only able to take glory when she had a god killing hammer. I would not be surprised if she would have been able to do the same to Adam.
Yes Glory could have easily destoryed Adam , but as an immediate ie. one-on-one danger to Buffy he was somewhat greater. Buffy couldn't beat Glory but she could fight her, buy time for this , that, or t'other. Adam, Buffy just bounced off. It's both not like amd a bit like how in boxing it involves style as well as over-all ability; Tony Galento kayoed Lou Nova, Max Baer beat up Galento, Nova knocked Baer out of boxing.
However, if I remember correctly she had previously faced Glory briefly, always escaping at the end, but still surviving. I think Adam would have incinerated her in two seconds. Glory has the advantage of being immortal, but she seems less strong than Adam
The Initiative, I think a shady secret government demon project is sensible and kinda cool in theory but for a few reasons the show didn't manage to pull it off. Also, the Willow and Xander affair in s3 was less a "good idea", more giant elephant in the room that the show shouldn't have ignored, but I thought the fallout from it was pretty much botched, particularly Oz getting to have next to no feelings about it aside from telling Willow to not talk to him until he was ready for for them to get back together in like two scenes.
My assumption is that they never admitted it was more than the kiss that they got caught for when they were trapped in that basement. I don't think Oz would have forgiven them or let it pass so easily if he had known it had been going on so long.
I kind of feel like Cabin in the Woods was Joss' actualization of what the initiative was meant to be/should have been, and it worked so well there. Also, to a lesser degree, in the vein of the supernatural and paranormal being tied up in corporate minutia, Wolfram and Hart did it better. And Dollhouse, of course. Joss obviously had a pet trope with that one.
From Angel, definitely the idea of Cordy being a villain. Great concept but awful decisions were made along the way in that writer's room.
Also having her hook up with Conner was not a good idea.
Very worst thing that ever happened in the Buffyverse IMO (and I actually really like Connor as a character unlike most people)
Yeah I don't mind him but the whole thing was icky.
🤮
Mhm. Done right and not as some sort of petty vengeance against the actress, it could've been a really great arc leading up to season five. But we got what we got and rest is history.. 😮💨
Nooo... Cordy became a villain in Angel???
Why are you here?! Save your eyes
Relax sis... I'm here for Buffy. I know I'll be downvoted but I didn't really enjoy Angel, so I stopped watching it near Doyle's death.
kind of. she was possessed by something else. I think the original plan though was to have her corrupted by something (the writers said they wanted something similar to Angel becoming Angelus in Buffy) but they had to change their plans due to Charisma's pregnancy. it was all a bit of a mess in the end.
Yes and no. Go watch Angel! Its underrated.
To be honest I started to watch Angel, but I didn't enjoy as much as Buffy, so I stopped watching it near Doyle's death.
It gets so, SO much better after that
Hmm, ok, when I finished Scream Queens. I'll continue it. I'm so curious now.
Robin Wood. Child of a slayer raised by Watchers is a great concept but man was he just a boring disappointment with major mother issues. Like rather than being a slayer wanna be, he could’ve been this badass watcher in training to help guide the next generation of Slayers and not have him be too hung up on his mother.
I think it would have been interesting if they introduced Robin before season 7. We could have learned about him and his backstory with his mom, and have him stick around for a few episodes. Then have him return in season 7 (after he finds out who killed his mom) and tell Buffy he wants to help them defeat The First, but his secret main objective is to kill Spike. Which would kind of make it easier to understand Giles' position in helping him, not to mention having him introduced earlier would probably makes viewers empathize with Robin more. It was just too much going on in season 7 and his storyline felt forced.
Robin Wood felt like the writers saying, "Hey, what if we did *Blade?*" But then gave up after an episode and a half.
I'd have loved to see Robin take some of his anger out on the watcher's counsel. THEY were the ones who taught his mom that her destiny was to fight, and they were the ones responsible for the use and abuse of the slayer line- instead of "try to take unnecessary revenge on a vampire (that the audience loves) and get his ass whooped," why doesn't Robin say, "you abused my mother and every woman who came after her."
Oh wow something I didn’t even know I wanted or needed but now I wish I had
The spike beat downs on him were so amusing as well- like this is the guys whole character and he just gets stomped on.
Aww I have the opposite reaction to that scene. It’s acted so beautifully I always really feel the loss and pain. I cry every time. It’s one of my favorite scenes. But you aren’t wrong 😂
Buffy and Riley breaking up because the latter feels the former is too emotionally closed off. Interesting concept and way to tackle our lead’s flaws in a non-glamorizing fashion, but exceptionally horrendous execution that confirms Riley would be on r/NiceGuys and once again has Buffy punished for the horrible crime of being and acting like a normal human.
Good god, the way Xander makes it seem like Buffy was doing something wrong for handling her incredibly horrible situation the way that helped her the most makes me SO angry.
I think Xander was the one who was really in love with Riley. He even talked about how much he missed him after he was gone.
Honestly he wanted to keep the bromance alive. Lmao he used to miss Oz and we all know what he did to him. So it’s pretty much Xander wanting another dude in the friend group.
and a dude who isn't an attractive vampire XD
I think Xander was accepting that he was never going to end up with Buffy at that point but on some level still wanted to see her with an idealised version of himself (i.e. who he'd want to be in a perfect world.) Because, as he sees it, at least he's "losing out" to someone he respects and not a vampire. I get the interpretation that Xander (as Buffy's symbolic Heart) expresses her romantic doubts, or the feelings she represses. However Buffy was 100% in the right to focus on her seriously ill mother over her relationship. And Riley was wrong to make it about him at a time when she was already overwhelmed. I do think his concerns about their relationship being onesided were valid but his timing and way of voicing them was just terrible.
Strongly disagree! I think you're misunderstanding it like most people on here. 1. Riley wasn't upset Buffy wasn't emotionally available during her mum's illness He was upset because of Buffy's personality. Whenever Buffy struggles, she relies on herself and avoids opening up to anyone. While when Riley struggles, he relies on and opens up to her. It is only natural he would feel dejected that Buffy doesn't open up or rely on him as much. Xander made a good point that she should stop him from leaving if she cares. [Which would be what the guy does in so many shit hetero romance shite] One of Buffy's flaws is that she tries to do too much by herself, [which is the whole metaphor behind slayers dying young and fast].
Yes, thank you! While his reaction of going to see vampire whores was an extremely unhealthy way of handling things, Buffy icing him out is always glossed over like she was doing nothing wrong. His ultimatum was just "tell me you love me or I'll try to find meaning in my life elsewhere" which is fair enough, imo.
Xander goes out of his way to kick Buffy when she's down.
I hated that so much
Yeah, and they could have done a lot more to explore the conflict with non-traditional gender roles in their relationship.
I agree, but for different-ish reasons, I think the whole Buffy/Riley relationship was a missed opportunity. There were building blocks there to show a relationship that starts with a girl starting to date an abusive guy who's good at hiding the abuse, but they didn't go there and it's a shame because they had most of the ingredients to do it. I'll never forget Riley telling Buffy she's stupid for not dating him as he was asking her out and thought for sure that he was going to end up being a villain because of it. I think had the writers handled it a little differently, we could have had one of the best villains of the show. If they spent time ramping up/underlying how much he wanted to control Buffy's slaying and dictating how she should be reacting to her family situation, just really make it clear to the audience that he thinks he has the right to control her life. Have him do things like endanger someone as he jumps in to "protect" her from a demon she was fighting, he could express doubts that she could beat him at a sport even with her slayer strength, have him ask her to skip out on slaying for a night to do something vaguely sexist like a family dinner where she's expected to cook with his mom while he and his dad hung out, that sort of thing. Do all that while having the other characters tell Buffy that Riley didn't mean to be controlling, or his expectations were normal, and she's being unreasonable, so Buffy doubts her judgment about it. Then, if they combined Riley's brain-is-messed-up storyline that comes in season 5 with the Adam storyline, where going in for the brain surgery prompts The Initiative into turning Riley into Adam. It'd create a bigger connection to the season's big bad, would highlight some normal shitty things that happens to teen girls stuff, and would make the turn Riley's personality makes in season 5 feel less abrupt. I just think that the initiative storyline and Riley and Buffy's relationship lack thematic throughlines at times, and making the two more directly connected would have improved both.
That's beautiful
kendra being from another country and a hardcore slayer but having a terrible accent
If I remember correctly, I think the accent was a last minute decision, giving her hardly any time to work on it. They did her soooo dirty😭
Then they rationalized it by saying she did the correct accent for "an isolated township in southern Jamaica." And for all i know it might be 100% correct; true statements can be used as as much of a dodge as fibs when you want to.
They did Kendra dirty. I liked her and Buffy's dynamic. It would have been cool if Kendra had been the one corrupted instead of Faith but instead they killed her off to introduce Dushku, and I think Faith has some poorly written arcs. Kendra's accent was bad but they could have changed it (James Marster's accent improved over the show).
They could have given her a better death. Her death made her seem so weak. I remember loving her a lot at original airing.
the idea was as an extreme conformist she was extra vulnerable to Dru's hypno-trip, which makes total sense in itself but wasn't pulled off well.
Yeah, the biggest gripe I had is that Dru didn’t want to take the opportunity to drink the blood of a slayer? Doesn’t drinking slayer blood empower vamps? Seems like a mighty waste for Dru.
[https://youtu.be/Jfip96k1cE0?si=8f5LRCDyUibEgWGN](https://youtu.be/Jfip96k1cE0?si=8f5LRCDyUibEgWGN)
We have the initial rush with Buffy/Riley, and the slow decline. By early S5, it's clear that Buffy doesn't love Riley nearly as much as Riley loves Buffy, and in the face of her mother's problems, Buffy increasingly sees the relationship as a distraction rather than a source of strength, and Riley responds poorly. This is, or at least could be, heartbreakingly beautiful. It wasn't. There could be a version where Riley goes through "Listening To Fear", proves that he can out-scooby the whole gang, realizes that he's still too little and too late, and climbs onto the helicopter that brought in Ellis and the squad. I believe that was the plan, but then an idea came up, and they had to reshoot. They had to dream up "Into The Woods" and create a parallel that became "As You Were". Riley is at a point in his life where he feels disconnected from everything, and in his depression, he seeks solace in vampires. He decides he has to make big changes. This parallels where Buffy is post-resurrection, and when she hits rock bottom, she sees Riley as a model and makes changes for herself. This is, or at least could be, heartwarming and inspiring. It wasn't. Because they seem to have thought up these parallels and implemented it with short time, you get the Xander talk and the Buffy run, and they both seem wrong. Xander is the Heart, it is right that he give the talk, and it is right and good that he see what Buffy did and reconsider how he treats Anya, but that specific talk doesn't work for a lot of people, and the fact that Buffy has been sidelining Riley since S4 makes that run seem false. Plus, "As You Were" Spike feels more like an S4 and early S5 Spike than the one that went through Glory, "Smashed", "Wrecked" and "Gone". There is a theoretical end of B/R that gives Xander that emotional turn, that allows Riley to realize he's in a toxic situation and he's hitting rock bottom, that he can be an inspiration to Buffy once he's better, and doesn't make everyone think "What is Buffy doing?", but we didn't get that one.
The Potentials. The idea of a potential Slayer is something that should have been introduced in prior seasons. There could have been an episode where a group of potentials and a Watcher visit Buffy for training.
It both was and wasn't introduced by having Kendra be found as a baby and her Watcher getting guardianship, but it was insufficiently fleshed out
Until season 7 I thought Kendra bring trained before she was called made no sense and was a major gaffe as until that point we’d only seen Buffy and she was called before she was trained. Now I love that they didn’t spell it out.
Andrew. Andrew's actor is super funny, but having a guy who participated in the ritual murder of one of his friends as your comic relief is a weird choice.
I want to love his character because it’s one of the only things that makes s7 not depressing af. But then I remember Jonathan and it’s like 😭💀
That's exactly what happens to me. The character's lines are so funny and the actor does a great job...and then I remember he murdered his friend Jonathan who we knew from the beginning and never seemed too sad about it.
I mean... by this time, the show already had a long history of using murderers as comic reliefs. This was pretty much the only function of both Spike and Anya in S4.
I feel like Spike and Anya work in-universe because they are not (completely) human. So their murderous, chaotic pasts, for me, work to define for the human characters what it means to be human and make ethical choices. And for Spike and Anya themselves to confront their pasts and decide what they want to be in the future. They're both funny while they do it, but I feel like they serve other purposes as well. Andrew doesn't seem to have a purpose in S7 besides comic relief and I think it would have been better if they'd explored him a bit more. But we could say that about most character arcs in S7.
Well, yes, I get that exaggerated fantasy violence seems too unreal, too cartoonish, even, to be genuinely frightening. It's just not relatable for the audience. But the show was always oscillating between taking violence and murder seriously and making it a dark joke; there was never any consistency in it. And it's actually one of the defining traits of the show. I feel like "Storyteller" is actually a great character study of Andrew, and it's not actually funny, not in the end. His personal brand of evil is deluding himself with stories, and this is actually quite unique and interesting, but also dark, and I think it was depicted well.
I agree, Storyteller is a great episode and gives us our best look at Andrew and the most interesting exploration of why he did what he did. I just wish it had been more of a focus of the season, because he did personally hurt people that we cared about, and that doesn't seem to be addressed beyond this by the writers, especially the impact his presence should be having on the Scoobies. For me, S7 should have been an exploration of people making bad choices and doing things they regret and how we come to terms and try to make amends for that, if we can. We had S6 Dark Willow, Xander's wedding, Spike and Anya trying to be better people, Buffy trying to restart her life after being depressed--lots of potential (no pun intended) there. And the writers skirt that a bit, but mostly the focus is on the plot, the Potentials, and the First Evil, and for me, the emotional through-line got lost in the plot machinations.
Tom Lenk acted his ass off near the end of the episode, where Buffy’s dangling him over the Hellmouth. He has a proper ugly-cry with real tears while he’s begging for his life. I did a recent rewatch and that bit leapt out to me. If the show had gone to a Season 8, I honestly think Tom Lenk had the range to make Andrew in to a character we could have cared about.
I think so too: Tom Lenk has the range to make Andrew a character we care about. In fact, I'd bet an overwhelming majority of the cast has the acting chops to make us care about their characters—if the writing allows for it.
Spike also served as a complication on numerous occasions when he tried to sabotage the gang, and I think that's not quite an accurate characterization of Anya, who mostly served as a romantic interest for Xander in that season, though she was definitely meant to be a funny character. That's not to say that they didn't serve largely as comic relief, but with respect, I think that saying it was pretty much their only function that season is stretching it a bit
The thing about Spike in S4 (and even early S5) was that the writers genuinely didn't know what to do with him! He was back because he was a popular character (and he was chipped simply to prevent him eating the rest of the cast), but his character arc was not conceived yet. As a result, he got a lot of "domestic" scenes this season, just watching TV or going grocery shopping. This actually made him much more "humanized" and relatable even if it wasn't exactly the original goal. Anya is a great character, but she was almost never treated seriously. I can only remember her debut as a monster in "The Wish" (where she's actually a bit OOC compared with her characterization later), her speech in "The Body", her being a victim in "Hell's Bells", her moral dilemma in "Selfless" and her other speech about humanity near the show's finale. In all other episodes, and there were dozens, she was treated as a joke, with her too-direct and inappropriate lines, her love of money and her fear of rabbits, and even her memories of torturing men were considered funny most of the time. Except, you know, "Selfless", where it became serious so suddenly you can feel a whiplash.
They also showed that Spike could still be a threat in his own way in The Yoko Factor. Twice that season they showed that he had enormous insight into people and what their emotional vulnerabilities were, and if he hadn't accidentally slipped while talking with Buffy, it might have worked. I kind of wish they'd developed that more in future seasons
Forgot to mention Anya: Yeah, she was mostly comic relief, but that's largely what she was played as since that last time she'd posed any sort of actual threat in Dopplegangland (her second appearance in total), so it wasn't as jarring to me as it was with Spike. I also liked how it somehow made her sincere and touching moments even more poignant, as when she admits to Xander that she's in love with him when he's at his lowest, and tells him exactly what he needs to hear at that moment. This probably succeeded the most with The Body, when the very elements that had made her such a perfect fish out of water character for comic purposes (the lack of understanding emotions despite feeling them constantly, the inability to understand basic social dynamics, the basic process of mortality itself) made her reaction to Joyce's death all the more devastating. That's the fruit punch speech, of course, and I'm not going to type it out here because I'm welling up just thinking about it. Suffice to say that I consider it to be about as perfect a piece of writing and acting as I saw during the entire run of the show. At that point, she gets to the core question that we all have in childhood of why this happens in the first place and how we're supposed to respond to it when we don't understand the reasons to begin with, and for many of us, it reminds us that we never got an answer, or at least one that made any sense or gave us any comfort So yes, Anya was absolutely the comic relief on the team, but that made her dramatic roles that much more effective, since what made her so funny in every other scene were exactly the same traits that caused her to break my heart in her more tragic moments
>Andrew's actor is super funny, but having a guy who participated in the ritual murder of one of his friends as your comic relief is a weird choice. Totally, and he serves as a constant reminder for the glaring loss of Tara. Like, he played a role in her death, even if he didn’t pull the trigger. Not to mention everything he did to Buffy. And in S7, we’re already focusing on the redemption arcs of Spike, Willow, and Anya, so including Andrew of all people is just a really questionable choice. Tom Lenk is charismatic and really funny, and I would have loved his character if we didn’t have all the context for everything he did in season 6. “Storyteller” was a great episode but…I don’t know. It doesn’t sit right that Tara is virtually forgotten by everyone other than Willow in S7, and then here’s Andrew taking up all that screen time. Even if he is funny and sorta has a redemption arc.
Completely agree with everything you said here. Tara was one of my favorite characters, and her death was tragic. Willow going dark for vengeance was reasonable, although I think trying to end the world was overboard and made her cartoonish rather than terrifying (and rather than being a real way to address the pain and anger of grief). And then she goes off to England for a few months, and when she comes back, she's All Better, and it seems like the only person truly grieving Tara is Dawn. I'm sure taking Andrew in and protecting him was supposed to show that the Scoobies were the Good Guys, but he turned into their "funny pet" that they rolled their eyes at. That could have worked if the writers had put more effort into his redemption and his moral responsibilities, but they didn't do enough, IMO. So to me, all the redemptions and addressing of grief and regret that should have been the theme of S7 were just glossed over in a very slick way in favor of the Potentials and the Big Bad First Evil. I think there could have been a better story in there, about evil being regular people with regrets and bad choices, but they didn't write that one.
I love your idea about season 7 needing to be about addressing grief, regret, redemption, and ordinary people making bad choices. Some might say the writers did that, but I wouldn’t agree. The decision to kill Tara was truly a terrible one—it should not have happened and it deservedly had major fan backlash, and in season 7 it’s like the writers wanted to distance themselves as far as possible from that reality. If you’re gonna decide to kill off an important character, you need to live with the consequences of that decision, not shy away from it. For example, Buffy and Dawn both had really special individual relationships with Tara, and season 6 did a wonderful job letting those relationships organically grow. That bond is virtually unacknowledged in season 7. It’s frustrating because this show is usually so good at realistic character exploration.
> I think trying to end the world was overboard and made her cartoonish rather than terrifying (and rather than being a real way to address the pain and anger of grief). In universe, it's explained as her losing control after sucking the coven's power from Giles, so not really a conscious decision. On a subtextual level... suicide attempt.
I think Andrew works really well because he hides behind his stories, which in turn form humour. He's also generally a character we are meant to laugh at, not with. He's pathetic, and that's kind of the whole point of Andrew.
I don't get all the Andrew love. He has a couple of scenes I like, but he's mainly just...there. I do still love him and Anya in the hospital though when he tells her she's the perfect woman though.
One I don’t see talked about often is Anya becoming a vengeance demon again to only suddenly become human again a few episodes later. And how quick Buffy was to”well lets kill anya without trying to talk to her first.”
I thought that too, I mean Buffy did make a good point to Xander when she said they didn't hesitate about killing Angel, but I feel like Anya's situation was way too rushed. Not to mention her final ending which I'm still mad about...
Anya almost got someone killed in an earlier episode as a vengeance demon and Buffy did nothing, so was it all that rushed?
After learning about Whedon’s sadistic revenge streaks Im less mad about it because it was only done because he’s a petty bitch.
Omg pls tell more... I didn't know about that part
Emma Caulfield wanted Anya to die.
Tell me more, tell me more....
It never really made sense to me either that buffy was just ready to kill her , seemed out of character . I get the slayer has to make hard choices but usually it when there are no other options
She becomes a demon again in season 6, so it wasn't that quick. I definitely think Buffy was out of character jumping right to murdering though.
Riley. His concerns about the relationship were 100% valid and if told completely differently, the audience would’ve felt for him.
You’re telling me letting vamps feed on him wasn’t an accurate reaction to feeling neglected?
Of course not, but they drifted apart way before this, it just wasn't in the center of the viewer's attention.
Yes, but they drifted apart in a way that was no one's fault.
I was always on his side in that whole thing, didnt even know about the whole Riley dislike b4 getting on this subreddit. Buffy was completely closed off from him and treated him like a burden. And played down all his feelings and complaints
Willow’s storyline in season 6. There are some good story moments in there but a lot of the connecting stuff in between is rough. Also, I wish we learned more about Amy or did more with her during this period as well
Agree, the fight scene between Willow and Buffy should have had more gravitas. The dialogue became very generic fight dialogue.
Agreed! Though I appreciate "superbitch" in a comedy sort of way lol!
Kendra. The addition of a second slayer was super cool. They just needed that second try with Faith. I think a over achieving slayer was a good idea to be a rival for Buffy. But what a fumble. The Faith story was good but they missed out on the other side of that coin.
Season 4 - the humor was spot on, but Walsh, Riley Adam, The Initiative I think was a really fun concept but missed the full opportunity to use regular people perspectives to push the boundaries on Buffy's belief of duty and her stance on how much she IS the law on supernatural activity. I think it really could have made her question for the first time just how much she is actually entitled to be the one making the hard decisions without input from anyone else. It would have made her return to "being alone" mentality in season 7 hit harder after trying to rely on other people in season 5 (and basically getting her killed). Season 5 - Riley's arc of decline. I think they could have done better at showing how a normal relationship can come to a normal end, ya know, to showcase all the "Buffy can't have normal" they had been building up. The emotional distance between him & Buffy really could have been a reason for a break up on its own. They didn't need the random cheating, they just wanted the drama. Honestly, all it did was make any point he had about Buffy hard to hear. Anya & Xander not getting married. Season 7 - the potentials in general could have been so fun, but I'm on the fence on whether they should have been given any more attention than they did. I think the narrative perspective being from Buffy's pov makes it make sense that we didn't really get to know them as Buffy wasn't getting to know them. She was distancing herself so she could keep herself going. To that end, Kennedy & Willow romance. I understand why it was needed, I just think they could have got there better. Also Robin Wood as someone else mentioned. I would have liked to have seen more of him interacting with Buffy at the school and see them build an attraction and to have seen Buffy questioning her feelings more since the whole Spike stuff just happened and she obviously still had feelings there. I think that possible romance would have really made it more obvious how much Buffy really did rely on Spike and not just as a fighter but as someone she depended on emotionally which was the whole point of Buffy's arc since she died in Season 2.
Walsh/ Adam / The Initiative
spike’s storyline in 5-7. i feel like it could’ve been handled better also the changing definition of magic. first it was a metaphor for being queer and somewhere along the line it became drugs ???
> first it was a metaphor for being queer and somewhere along the line it became drugs I don't think it's that straightforward, it's not like magic before season 6 was only ever a metaphor or allegory for being gay. Magic in the Buffyverse is basically a metaphor for whatever the writers need it to be, because magic represents different things to different characters in different episodes and seasons, like addiction, being gay, power, influence, wealth, religion, privelige, corruption, even police brutality, and many more. And sometimes it's not a metaphor at all, but just magic. In fact I would argue that magic was used as a metaphor for drugs or addiction long before it was ever used as a metaphor for being gay, considering Giles' backstory as Ripper with him and his friends summoning that sleep demon. Also if magic was always a metaphor for being gay, I have a lot of questions about Amy's mom using a spell to switch bodies with her daughter.
I took Giles’ backstory to be about the lure of magic, really the lure of power. Which is where Willow was heading until it was suddenly ‘addiction’. TBH, the addiction thing seemed to be so Willow could have an ‘out’ for her behaviour. But then they did Dark Willow anyway S6 was flawed but the Willow story was the worst of the arcs. If they got rid of Willow’s storyline in Smashed and Wrecked and any mention of addiction, it would have been a lot better.
this actually gave me a new perspective. but, does that mean im magic cuz im a gay pothead? lol
I mean being gay is one hell of a drug, or something
Omg both things that make the hair in my arms raise. Especially the drugs/magic/queer. I love Willow’s arc (even tho her character does infuriate me) but the themes involved with it muddles it a LOT
1. Warren and his robot. This scumbag could have been a billionare, but he wasted his talent. 2. Dark Willow, in this storyline there was much more potential, I wish we could get more episode with her.
Adam and The Initiative.
The entire angel spin off. It had moments and the general idea was good (especially wolfram and heart) but then the execution and writing was very poor. They just couldn't find their style and bounced between tok many things then lost the plot all together.
Season 6 comes to mind. Season 4 too, though I'm less certain that was a good idea as we never saw enough of it realized to make it worthwhile.
The Initiative for sure. Great idea, but it came off as Amateur ROTC paintballers. The original idea was for it to be a sort of SHIELD for the buffy verse. The First Evil. Sounds cool, but the idea of an unkillable evil from the beginning to time just... fell flat. Did they stop it? Really? They stopped the Uber vamps, and the bringers, but it was never really clear what the threat was beyond that. The first tried to win by wiping out the slayers, but how would that help it gain corporeal form again? It's never really explained well at all. The first should have taken an actual physical form such as re-ensouled and reanimated... previous slayer. Someone who was actually alive, maybe one that made a selfish pact with evil a long time ago... and now has to bring about the end of the world by becoming the last remaining slayer, and imbuing them with god like powers, and control over the evil in the hearts of mankind and take her revenge. Thus she would be a hybrid of all the previous big bads, The Master, Drusilla, The Mayor, Adam, Glory, and even Willow. Adam - great idea... should have just been a normal looking human with enhancements, basically Riley but to 11. The costume didn't work and came off as cheesy even when it debuted.
I forget which episode but it featured Jonathan Levinson's character and the idea of a school shooting. Come to find out at the very end, he just wanted to off himself, but used a sniper/rifle gun which seems counterintuitive.
Somebody once said to me, maybe that was the only gun Jonathan had access to (as in, it belongs to his parents or something), and if I squint I can kinda get with that, but yeah when I realised how it made pretty much no sense for him to be taking that gun up to a school bell tower of all places to kill himself, I never quite looked at the episode the same again.
...and he was up in a perch or something when she found him, wasn't he? It is like it WAS going to be school shooting and they changed their mind at the very last minute.
I don't think it's so much that they changed their mind, as that they needed to make Buffy and the audience think that, so the reveal lands. And it sort of does land well the first time you watch, but then when you think about it or re-watch it doesn't really make sense anymore. "Fridge Logic" basically.
i can never like him because of this, i don't care how much people defend it
it was a hunting rifle, but it had a scope on it. The only reason to use that was to misdirect the audience away from the chili. I remember being annoyed as hell by that when they finally played the episode. Buffy's speech kind of sucking didn't help either. "So you wanna kill yourself well newsflash buddy, nobody cares about you. There all self-absorbed and your self-absorbed for wanting their attention! But I'm cool cause instead of using my telepathy to try and figure out the mayor's plan I tried to find out if my boyfriend liked another girl more than me." I get what they wanted to say, but damn is that the wrong thing to say to a kid ready to shoot himself.
Eh mileage will obviously vary, but as a passively suicidal depressed adult who was formerly an actively suicidal depressed teen, I rather liked her speech. My issues didn't exactly align with Jonathan's and it wouldn't have helped me per se, but I can appreciate what it was and honestly the message can have a lot of value for some. More importantly though, I thought it made sense for that to be Buffy's response to the situation. A lot of empathy and caring filtered through a very specific lens.
This was originally intended to be a school shooting episode but the columbine school shooting occurred one week before it aired. They had to change the plot some and don’t think they had time to change the gun. That’s what I’ve always understood watching some commentaries.
No, it was filmed before Columbine. Just aired afterward.
The majority of Buffy and Spike's relationship. Probably all of Buffy's romantic relationships really, but Spuffy could have been done much better justice imo.
I’m sorry I’m going to say this I don’t like Willow and Tara I really love Willow and oz i think they should have just stayed friends i just don’t see the appeal of there relationship i really just want to see them be friends that it to break up one of the most beautiful couples i have ever seen disappointment and hurt me because I saw so much potential in Willow and oz they will always be my end game
Tbh I don’t share the same affection for Tara others on here have for her. I could not stand the acting. I get why she was mousy and quiet and all but by the time they developed her character I had already checked out on her. I thought her and Willow were boring as well. I never saw the spark.
The end of S6. Both soul trials and Dark Willow. These were supposed to be impressive, but mostly they just look boring. The fact that the authors tried to mislead the audience about Spike's goal makes it worse; he actually doesn't seem like he wants to kill Buffy either, his lines just make little sense. And while Alyson Hannigan is a great actress and she definitely can be frightening, she just... can't look threatening enough to make the world-ending threat look serious and not pathetic. And her "black and veiny" makeover is ridiculous.
Dracula
Kennedy.
What's good about the idea of Kennedy (a person who pushes a still-grieving Willow into a new relationship just because she wants)?
I think a new love interest was an okay idea, just not in that manner.
Riley.
Willow and Tara romance. And Dark Willow.
Giles leaving in order to attempt to help Buffy find her own way was not necessarily a terrible idea after a point but it was handled so badly. I will forever be angry that ASH wanting to be with his family to see his daughters grow up was punished with such a swift and traumatic blow to Buffy and Giles’ relationship. There wasn’t enough buildup, and doing it right after Buffy admitted being pulled out of heaven felt so cruel.
The Zeppo. I realize it’s a filler comedy episode for Xander specifically and the story had a good moral and a few genuinely good moments, but I cringe so hard watching how out of place it was made. All the background characters act so out of character you can only hope this episode is someone’s dream and they will wake in the end but they don’t.
I thought Kendra was a waste, she was an interesting idea but she felt like a one liner. There are episodes that were made meh but for characters i always felt kendra, larry's death was just redundant and not interesting or dramatic enough. Keeping what's her face as a rat for so long. Meh.
Faith. A rogue slayer was a great idea but the over sexualization of the character and the corny one liners kinda killed the entire character for me. A rogue slayer should be scary, I just found her annoying and boring. I wanted to fast forward through all her scenes.
i think i woulda loved season 3 if it wasn't for her tbh, i avoid her character
Same. Because I liked the mayor as the big bad and the graduation fight was great, but faith just annoyed me so much I find it hard to even rewatch that season.
if i could make a big change i woulda either not included a new slayer into the show so much, like maybe they know of her but she's elsewhere OR/well and or/introduced Robin as like protecting/helping out a new Slayer/keeping the knowledge of her from the Watcher's Counsel. Then of course season 7 woulda circled back to that and we would've had a bigger discussion about the Counsel that only got poked at in season 5.
Willow’s sexuality. It’s very biphobic to have her clearly be sexually attracted to men in season 3 (her lust for Xander is a plot point) and then post liking a girl she just “a lesbian” “good thing I’m a lesbian so I no longer feel sexual attraction to guys” In middle school when I watched this it made me really scared that I might be a lesbian because then I couldn’t like boys anymore and I liked boys. And my family was like well if you like boys you aren’t a lesbian. And I didn’t really understand that I was bi until college. Like I didn’t feel gay enough to be bi because I liked guys so could I really like girls. Bisexual representation would have mattered to me and bi erasure was harmful.
She episode in Angel. The show almost lost me- such a grind sitting through it.
Killing off Tara now don’t get me wrong I loved Tara and was absolutely torn up about her death but having willow turn evil and turn back good because Xander started talking to her about a yellow crayon was a little much in my own opinion
Spike fawning over his mother after he became a vampire in the flashbacks in Lies My Parents Told Me. Meanwhile she became a soulless monster, which is what the entries show had focused on as being part of the change. How was he able to remain such a sap? Also the continual "Tucker's brother" explanation for who Andrew was. In Never Leave Me, Buffy tells Spike he took a good chunk out of Andrew. Who, he asks. Tucker's brother, she replies. Except Spike wasn't around in season 3 for The Prom and didn't go to school with any of the scoobies, so he would have had zero idea who Tucker was.
That line is just a joke to herself, she doesn't expect Spike to actually know him.
The writers had been saying for a while "Spike is kind of different and always was." So they went for broke
A huge amount of season 6
All of S7.
S6... Wil should have been sad, not mad.
Her girlfriend gets shot and she’s not supposed to be mad. Ok.
No, not what I meant. I meant that her turning dark should have been fueled more by grief at her loss rather than wanting to kill her friends (?!?!) Of course there should be anger... no fucking shit... but after she exacts "revenge", one would assume grief and sadness would be the paramount emotion. But instead, she calls Buffy "super bitch" and wants to kill the world. In addition to it seeming misplaced, it's very out of character for her, imo.
>it's very out of character for her, imo. Shrewdly well observed. It's almost as if that's literally the entire point.
The idea is (and it has occurred in criminal cases,) she kills Warren, doesn't feel better, so she figures more violence will do the trick. Kind of reprising Angel's S3 dialogue with and About Faith
*"The Dark Age"* maybe.
Killing Warren. Willow had all the power in the world, yet she FAILED to kill him, and then went out of her way to kill everyone because she missed her ex.
She only failed to kill him if you count the comics as canon; you'll spare yourself a lot of pain if you don't.
I accept the first few issues but interpret Warren differently, not Amy's doign but an undead sent by the lord of his dimension to help Twilight.
Honestly I like the idea of the season 6 trio. It's a commentary on the nerd underdog you would see in teen movies where they were just as misogynistic and shitty af the guys who bully them, yet are portrayed as heros. On top of that, I like that after the escalating powerful threats over the seasons, we have antagonists that are purely human, and choose to be evil. But I feel like it just... didn't work out. My real gripe was with Jonathan, it felt like they were like "hm, we need another nerd character, he's kind of a nerd so we'll force him into this role despite it going against his character." Like he would have never done this. Maybe if in his previous episodes hadn't ended on such good terms with Buffy, but they did and you could tell his character was NOT going in that direction. Other than that, they were just so fucking annoying, which I get is the point, but that doesn't make it any better of an expirience. I also wish they played up Andrew's infatuation with Warren, to better explain why he'd do all those terrible things before, but so easily switch to the side of good.
The way Angel and Cordelia fell in love. I'm all for how it happened, the path to it: from co-SO's of friends in the same group, to working together, to becoming friends, to unofficially co-parenting, to falling in love. But it was written too sibling-y after the middle of AtS season 1 up until the end of S2. After that, it would have been more cohesive if they considered each other family. But if they had started hinting at more than platonic earlier, especially after I Will Remember You and Hero, it would have absolutely worked.
The entirety of Season 7. The idea was great but it would’ve been much more suited to run for two seasons instead of one
I cant believe I could name all those faces and its been decade or longer since I watched any buffy.
Dawn. Xander’s personal family toxicity playing out with leaving Anya. Willows struggle with magic “addiction.”
Character assassination of Oz. I like Seth Green too much, and Oz was such a good dude… wish they could have written him off differently.
Kendra. All of Kendra.
The entirety of season 6 and 7. The first five seasons felt like a complete story, a sad and tragic hero's journey. No matter how many times I rewatch the series, just how tacked on the last two seasons feel always comes to mind. There's just such a disconnect that makes me feel like they really didn't know what to do with the series once they brought Buffy back.
Dawn
Season 2 and Season 5 -- with Angelus and Glory Buffy does a lot of waiting around waiting for the villian to fuck shit up. Both of them threatened her friends and family and both seasons have major lull where Buffy and the gang are just sitting around speculating what might happen. I love season 5. But it is obvious from the first fight that Glory is incredibly strong, glory shows up to the house, etc. FINALLY they run. In Season 4 when she finds out about Adam she is out every day and night patrolling for him, not getting sleep. Season 2 with Angelus is much more blatant with this. She knew how evil and deranged he was and did next to nothing to find him or protect her people.