KissingSunlight said:
It's good to see someone else liking Season 4 as well.
Yeah, I see it as a great blend of the show's inherent b-movie cheese, superbly realised post-Sunnydale High character development, and humour. Beer Bad was absolute dross (and Seth Green aside, I wasn't keen on some of the wolfie focused eps)... but like all Buffy eps (at least for me) it had a few really good lines or moments that just about make it worth viewing if you're going through a season. I think the most skippable S4 gets for me is Where The Wild Things Are. Though Giles' rebuke to the abusive puritan was satisfyingly cutting.
The storyline was trying too hard to be adult.
We'll agree to disagree on that one - though I'll return to one element where I feel that probably was the case. Well, not trying too hard to be adult, per se, just a tad misguided or tonally off.
The Big Bads in the last two seasons were pathetic. (The three nerds and incorporeal spirit of The First Evil)
Ah, but that's the thing; S6's was pretty much
Life as the Big Bad... The trio were quite clearly distractions (that's how they're presented when they take turns testing/trolling Buffy), and I loved how they developed Andrew across the last two seasons (without the Troika and their 'banal evil', Storyteller couldn't have happened).
S6 was the most on the nose with its existentialism. Was it too much? To some, perhaps (I remember Sarah Michelle Gellar wasn't overly keen on how dark the show and her character got), but Buffy's always been a tonal tightrope that took risks. It may've sometimes stumbled (right from S1 up to S7), but I feel it always headed in the right direction and had the right intentions, and so managed to create some phenomenal TV at the same time.
After the Troika, S6 also pretty much had Willow as the Big Bad, as she struggled to cope with what her life and happenstance had thrown her way. Again, without S6 you couldn't have those rather beautiful, painful scenes between she and Giles at the start of S7 in England.
Honestly, I prefer Vamp Willow over Dark Willow.
Eh, maybe if it's Vamp Willow licking
Willow-Willow[footnote]Disclaimer: that's a reference to an actual moment in the show, not me wackily shipping Willow with herself...[/footnote]. ;-) Clearly I loved the Darth Rosenberg line (pretty sure it was from Andrew, as well), and I enjoyed seeing her fall to the [Wicca] Dark Side. It was always teased that she was the most powerful amongst the group, and her fall certainly juxtaposed with the stereotypical wallflower she was introduced as. Edgy characters going off the deep end are fairly mundane, but with Willow I feel it had real (ahem... ) bite and pathos.
I simply hated the addiction storyline in Season 6. It completely hamstrung her character.
To throw back to the 'trying to hard' accusation: yeah, when that parallel started to dial up to 11, I really wasn't keen on it. However, I disagree it hamstrung the character; her 'fall' was pretty much stretched across several seasons (so it wasn't rushed), and the worst moments weren't flaying sociopaths alive, they were her betrayal of Tara and her friends. The addiction angle could get overbearing, but the arc still worked as character narrative, especially given those moments of very personal and private betrayal.
I didn't like the resolution in The Chosen. The burden of responsibility that Buffy struggled with, being the chosen one. She now puts that on millions of unsuspecting women. So, she can ride off in the sunset and do whatever she wants.
That's really not how the episode ended thematically, though. If an arc can be drawn for Buffy herself across the whole show, then that final shot and moment was she finally finding a resolution and a contentment - with her burden, and with her own choices. There was nothing in the dialogue or the shot that indicated she was simply about to kick back (it sets up another Hellmouth, and the storyline of maybe tracking down the other Slayers).
Seven years of death, slaughter, and heartache, and it ends on a half-smile. I loved that.
As for "unsuspecting women"? S8 does muddy the waters with reading that, but the show itself is absolutely unequivocal: BtVS had Joss's feminism hardbacked into its DNA (excuse the mixed metaphor... ), and so the final transition was from one woman having power, to a woman sharing power with other women. The moments they show of the other 'Chosen's' becoming active were all empowering. As a basic feminist statement, it was well earnt and, I felt, satisfying.
I will circle back and say I did like The Potentials better in the Season Eight comic books. However, near the end of that season, I was completely confused about what was happening and stopped reading them.
Yeah, as much as I looked forward to it, S8 was-- I dunno, maybe one of the worst things Joss has put his name to. It was incredibly misguided, and his note either at the end of S8 or the start of S9 admits that they tried some things and they didn't work, ergo a course correction was what was needed.
Still, it wasn't all bad; I bought them in TPB's, and Wolves At The Gate was superb. Only bought vol.1 of S9 years ago, but I do intend to go back and buy the rest.
