Re: OT: My Season 6 review

["tvs_wanderer" <tvs_wanderer@xxxxxxxxx>]

I promised myself I wasn't going to say anything. I was going to be a 
quiet little lurker, read away every so often, and never issue comment. 
I should've bloody well known better.

That said, hi. I'm new. I found myself signing up for this list while I 
was poking around, reading "Buffy" fanfic (I'm thinking of writing some 
myself, for submission to Pocket Books (I'm optimistic)). As a 
disproportionate amount of the good "Buffy" fanfic is 'shipper-
oriented, and Buffy/Willow is the only non-canon 'ship that I can both 
suspend disbelief regarding, *and* read without a shudder (does anyone 
else want to track down and individually slap the Willow/Spike 
'shippers?), I figured I'd check this list out.

So, hello, nice to make your acquaintance. I've got a thing or two to 
say, here...

Oh. Before I start, I should note, Mr. Spector, that I've read and 
enjoyed your "Straight Through the Heart." Might as well start off with 
some feedback.

--- In buffywantswillow@y..., danspector@w... wrote:

> It's less than a week to the new ep, so I might as well get this over
> with. All seasons are really 3 mini-seasons (eps 1-10, 11-16, and
> 17-22) and the just completed Season "6A" may well be the worst "Buffy"
> has ever been. Since lots of people have been going on about how
> wonderful it is, I figured it's time for a new, counter-thread.

This is the first thread about the season as a whole that I've seen, 
actually.

> (Although I think many pro-B/S fans are overrating the season because
> they're only looking at their fave couple kissing, and not the dreadful
> eps said kissage takes place in.)  

Agreed.

> However, things have gone exactly the opposite way. The season-long arc
> looks nice: Willow isn't evil, just battling an addiction.

The thing I don't like about this is that it's being presented as an 
addiction, rather than recurring addictive behavior. Willow's had 
something like this plotline coming to her since she resouled Angel, 
but I think it was a mistake to try and make the magic addiction into a 
drug addiction analogy, which in turn is only an analogy because it's a 
botched attempt at a metaphor.

> B/S isn't a romance, it's being 
> portrayed as just as destructive as Willow's addiction, and Spike has
> proven that he still wants to be an evil killer (as well he should, he
> was much more interesting and witty then). 

Oh, good gods, yes. Spike as a "hero" has had a couple of good moments, 
but the writers seem to be trying to keep him dangerous, *and* sort of 
halfassedly redeem him. A direction should be chosen, and I'm hoping 
that direction comes out of the inevitable crash and burn of the Spuffy 
relationship.

Hee hee. "Spuffy." I love that.

> The parallel arcs, which
> must cross, seem to indicate that a strengthened B/W bond is in the
> works.

I'll agree with that assessment. Personally, I find myself wondering 
how much of Willow's new "addiction" is her own fault; it would not 
surprise me at all to discover that Willow's actions have been 
influenced by an outside agency.

'Course, the only reason I think that is because I recently saw "The 
Witch" for the first time (I know, it's appalling), and Amy's mom had 
the same black-eyes effect going on that Willow got after cracking the 
Forbidden Magick book open. I wonder if that's a coincidence. There 
seem to be precious few o' those in the Buffyverse.

> Indeed, I could go OT and talk about the fact that I'm 
> seeing a lot of things that point to the possibility of the 
> B/W romance I so deeply desire. Certainly, if that's the end point, it
> would make this season a joyful memory--but it wouldn't make the eps
> we've already seen anything but the drek they are.

My issue with this post is that I think you're underrating the 
episodes, or at least those that I've seen.

> In other words, I thought I'd hate the themes and love the eps, but
> instead it's the reverse.

I'm curious about the themes, and enjoy most of the eps, personally.

> Let's review the episodes, and I guess the easiest way to indicate the
> lack of quality is to note that I haven't even rewatched any of them,
> except for "OMWF" and "Smashed". And I'm a guy who rewatches favorite
> eps many, many times.

For my credibility's sake, I've rewatched all the episodes I've 
actually seen.

[snip]

Sadly, I've seen neither part of "Bargaining," so I'll skip this. I 
have read the transcripts on buffyworld.com, for the sake of knowing 
what the hell's going on, however.

> "After Life": Now the garbage begins. 50 minutes wasted on a
> poorly-executed, uninvolving, unimportant Monster of the Week plot, just
> to kill time until the big arc scene at the end.

I think one of the mistakes "Buffy" often makes is shoehorning a 
monster into the show every episode. Some eps would've stood up just 
fine without the intrusion of the supernatural, and stayed as a 
character study; that said, the monsters pay the bills. It's 
unfortunate, I'll admit, but...

> Jane Espenson breaks
> up boring us with the "hitch-hiker" plot (which is basically a way to
> avoid paying a guest star to be the villain) by giving us poorly-written
> scenes designed to beat us over the head with how wonderful Spike is
> because he remembered how many days Buffy was dead, and because he
> dreamed about saving her every night.

The "hitch-hiker" was a good villain right up until it appeared at the 
end of the episode looking like something from Edgar Allen Poe's 
wastebasket. I have to give Emma Caulfield credit, as the scene where 
the possessed Anya is slicing at herself is easily one of the top ten 
creepy moments in the show's run.

> Meanwhile, anybody who isn't in Marsters-drool mode is screaming at the
> set "What, WILLOW didn't know how many days it was? GILES didn't dream
> about saving her? DAWN didn't suffer horribly?" 

Actually, I wasn't in Marsters-drool mode at all, and I wasn't 
screaming.

The point of this scene, as far as I could tell, was that of the whole 
cast, the only one who isn't out to utterly suffocate Buffy is Spike. 
Willow, Xander, Tara, Dawn, and even Anya are being supportive and 
solicitous to a fault, which in turn is the last thing Buffy needs.

Spike, on the other hand, is quietly glad to see Buffy again, and is 
offering a sort of quiet, muted friendship, blended with sympathy (the 
first reaction he has to seeing Buffy again is to notice she's hurt, 
understand why, and let her ask all the questions; he's *been* dead, he 
has some idea of what she's feeling). As we see in later episodes, he's 
doing it for all the wrong reasons (and depending on the writer, Spike 
either seems to want to find out what the right reasons are, or is 
merely treating this as another step in Operation Schtup Buffy), but 
for now, he's providing Buffy with company without being so damn 
concerned. She "can be alone when [he's there]."

It also cannot be ignored that of the lot, Spike and Dawn are the only 
ones who Buffy does not actively resent for what they've done.

Now, don't get me wrong. Spike/Buffy gives me the wiggins, and I wish 
they'd make up their god damn mind about what they're going to do with 
Spike, but I can understand the character dynamic going into "After 
Life."

> But Espenson's
> hamhanded attempts to make Spikey her true love contradict each
> other--

I think you're exaggerating. Spike's not a "true love" yet, and he 
won't be. This episode is setting up Buffy for a seasonal theme, in 
that she's making the first of some very poor decisions. Mistake #1: 
letting Spike in.

Why does she do this? It's hard to say. A moment of weakness? Is she 
drawn to Spike as a result of the "darkness?" Is she just gravitating 
towards this tall blond cute guy because she's trying to find something 
to feel something about? (That last is the pet theory of the chief 
Buffyhead at Salon.com, and I think it has some merit in light of 
OMWF.) I think it's a mixture of factors, and Buffy cannot be 
thoroughly blamed for this particular mistake. When you've hit the 
bottom, *anyone* looks like a friend.

> And, since we later find out the chip works just fine, what was up with
> Spike slamming Xander against the tree and barely wincing? Faking out
> the viewers does not qualify as a reason to blow the show's consistency.

Spike has shown in the past that the chip works on intent, not on 
action. He didn't intend to hurt Xander, just make sure he couldn't 
move (with vampiric strength, he could very well have slammed Xander *
through* that tree; Spike is clearly demonstrating a certain degree of 
restraint), so the chip didn't kick in. The best example of this, I 
think, is in "Fool For Love," and the mock fight he has with Buffy in 
the alleyway.

> David Solomon, as usual, gets some nice creepy effects from the horror
> movie sequences--and as usual, he just plants the camera during the
> character scenes and lets the performances fall flat.

Now, see, I didn't get that at all. Keeping up a steady viewpoint 
during character interaction places the crux of the performance value 
on the actor, where I'd argue it belongs.

Postmodern filmmaking tends to place an emphasis on the director and 
his choices of film angles when accentuating character-driven scenes, 
and Solomon is clearly not a postmodernist. There's nothing inherently 
wrong with that, particularly when postmodernism's brought us people 
like Michael Bay, and with the exception of Caulfield (whose problems 
dwell mostly with her character, not with any lack of acting ability on 
her part; I would very much like to see an episode where Caulfield gets 
to play someone who isn't Anya), "Buffy's" cast is strong enough to 
handle fixed-viewpoint scenes without a negative impact.

> Rating: 5 out of 10. Pointless (except for the last scene) and
> painfully overwritten,

It's odd that you say that, in an episode where most of the big lines 
are surrounded by pregnant silence.

> but the last scene was good, Solomon did get nice
> creep moments, and Sarah and Aly did well by making clear the
> resurrection was about Willow's bond with Buffy, thus making the
> "betrayal" all the more painful. Still, when I'm praising the actors
> for doing what the writer and director didn't?

Gellar and Hannigan are doing excellent work, I'll agree, particularly 
with the sort of fucked-up dialogue they're forced to recite this 
season.

That said, I'd argue that the director has less to do with the success 
or failure of an episode than the actors, but that's a different 
debate.

> "Flooded"--Very easy to classify. It's The Worst Episode Ever. Makes
> "Beer Bad" look like "Innocence" by comparison. Makes you wonder how
> Jane Espenson ever wrote a decent line, and Doug Petrie looks like he
> can't direct traffic.

This is where I really break away from you. I've seen a lot of people 
complain online about "Flooded," using similar language, but 
personally, I think it was an interesting episode, and certainly not 
the "worst episode ever" (I'd hand that distinction to "Band Candy" or 
maybe "Enemies"). I'll illustrate my point.

> We get mediocre comedy about Buffy's finances (Sarah is good prepping
> with the loan officer and complaining about her skirt) in a plot that
> has twelve easy solutions any five-year-old could spot and basically
> just exists to set up "Life Serial" and its Buffy-goes-to-work plot.

I could accuse myself of liking the opening finances scene simply 
because of the Spider-Man reference (I'm a big Spider-Man fan), but I 
won't.

The feeling I got, from Gellar's performance and the dialogue, is that 
"Flooded" is about Buffy's unwillingness to deal with the mundane, and 
her friends' lack of sensitivity in that regard. Buffy is in no shape 
to deal with the upkeep of the house, but her friends dump that on her 
because they can't do it, either. It's an ordinary person problem, 
which in turn feels like another betrayal to Buffy; she got ripped out 
of heaven so they could get her signature on some paperwork? What the 
hell?

I can see "Flooded's" place in the Whedon-stated "Time to grow up" 
theme of the season, as well as its place in the S/B arc. It's a very 
mild episode, featuring a mild real-world problem, and serves as 
evidence of a deliberate deceleration in the overall pace.

> Not to mention little things like the fact that no plumber would put in
> new pipes without pumping out the basement.

He hadn't put in the pipes yet. He said that's what they *needed*, not 
that it was what he'd *done*. As Buffy is wearing the same clothes in 
the teaser and in the first segment, it's obvious that no repair work's 
been done just yet.

> Or that 
> Joyce's health insurance would have covered the medical bills, since no
> one knew she was going to die, and the doctors wouldn't have been
> waiting on her life insurance. And what about the gallery, which Joyce
> co-owned and which was the source of her income? Why is what kept Joyce
> and Buffy and Dawn in the money not able to keep Buffy and Dawn 
> fed? The Summerses didn't depend on Joyce drawing a salary, so her
> death shouldn't have led to any financial situation at all.

For a single-parent household, which apparently has no real ties to 
Hank Summers anymore, Joyce's tumor and the funeral expenses could've 
quite easily depleted the available funds for her children, 
particularly since she wasn't actually working during many of the 
episodes leading up to her death. Speaking as a man who's buried his 
father, funeral expenses will knock your ass out, even with life 
insurance to soften the blow. As Joyce has always existed on the 
periphery of the show, we have no idea about the gallery's status; for 
all we as viewers know, it may have declared bankruptcy after Joyce's 
death.

There is a certain degree of plot convenience here, in that I wonder 
what Willow and Tara were doing all summer, knowing that they were 
living on rapidly-diminishing funds; I further wonder why the magic-
addicted Willow didn't, y'know, do something about that, unless Tara 
stopped her. This isn't a flawless plot development by any means, but 
it's not entirely impossible, either.

> Tons of
> idiocy for a poorly-thought-out plot that lasted all of two weeks and
> was promptly forgotten.

It wasn't forgotten. It was postponed. If I remember correctly, the 
next new episode ("Doublemeat Palace," which sounds like a great name 
for a porn movie) has Buffy dealing with more financial problems.

> And yet that's masterful compared to the howlingly unfunny Geek Trio
> plot. Painful to watch in every aspect, including Jonathan suddenly
> being evil (huh?)

Jonathan's not evil. None of 'em are. If they were evil, they'd've 
shrugged off the demon wanting to kill Buffy.

What they *are* is the picture of bored villainy for villainy's sake, 
however. Evil seems to connotate a certain degree of malevolence, and 
the Troika aren't even willing to whack a freaking *security guard*.

> and the sickening feeling of watching a show that's
> always championed social outcasts now going into nerd-bashing mode.

Oh, c'mon. It's an obvious shaggy-dog joke. Warren, Jonathan, and... 
that other guy... are the kinds of people who we're always told to be 
nice to, because they're going to grow up and take over the world.

They're also readily identifiable as a sort of villainous past 
metaphor. The "Buffy" cast has largely grown up and become adults, with 
jobs, serious sexual relationships, and their own places, with the few 
exceptions (Buffy, Dawn) being excusable for understandable reasons.

The Forces of Dorkness are the same age, with appreciable skills, and 
yet, they aren't willing to take on the same responsibilities. They 
scored a major cash bonus with the bank robbery, for gods' sake, and 
they're *still operating out of Warren's mom's basement*. It's the 
forces of moving on, vs. the forces of remaining a child.

> What's next, Willow turning bad because lesbianism is a sin?

Now you're just being silly, 'shipper boy. We all know lesbians are the 
chosen people of God. :)

> Still, you've got to admire guys who somehow pull off a bank robbery and
> don't worry about security cameras because the M'Fashnik demon will
> distract the tellers. What, were the cameras on him, too?

Jonathan's become a weirdly proficient mage and Warren's well-versed in 
Buffyverse science. The cameras, I would presume, weren't the problem. 
The problem was the people, and the use of the demon to deal with them 
was another excuse to bring a monster into the mix.

> Willow trying to pull Buffy out of her funk was okay, but Dawn
> researching was just an excuse for a bad penis joke and the unfunny and
> too-long debate over how to pronounce the demon's name.  

Yeah, that joke crashed on the runway, I'll agree. C'est la vie.

> And all of this is gold next to the grotesque sight of Giles going
> completely out of character and screaming at Willow (he KNOWS that's not
> the way to handle her) and Willow promptly going into supervillain mode,
> which is completely unsupported by future developments, and childishly
> overwritten even if it were.

I thought this scene was really great, actually. Head was in top form, 
and Hannigan chose to play Willow as in mild shock, as if Willow 
honestly had no idea how anyone would possibly see this as a bad 
thing... which seems supportable.

The thing about Giles is that in the last couple of seasons, we've been 
reintroduced to him as a character with emotions, albeit ones that he's 
often "too British" to express. He also knows Buffy on a different 
level than all her friends, and thus is more sensitive to her various 
moods; Giles' bullshit detector is, like, Buffy-specialized. Buffy is 
clearly in pain about something more serious than her finances, Giles 
knows it, and Willow is sitting in the kitchen, chirping happily about 
how cool this all is. Of *course* Giles is going to blow up at her, and 
even moreso when he finds out that Willow brought Buffy back via the 
magickal equivalent of playing Russian roulette with a semiautomatic.

Willow's reaction is first to try and mollify him, and then *she* 
snaps. Giles is pissed off enough to conveniently ignore the fact that 
she's done dumber things than this, for worse reasons, and come out 
basically okay, which in turn pisses her off, and her reaction is to 
say, in translated Willowspeak, "Hey, man, I knew I could handle it, I 
know what I'm doing, and I'm not a child anymore. Fuck off." It's easy 
to understand.

> Then we get the thuddingly unsubtle cut to
> B/S on the back porch (okay, Doug, "Willow 
> bad, Spike good", I get it, now stop hitting me over the head with that
> hammer!) and a ludicrous scene where it turns out they overheard the
> whole scene inside, yet don't even comment on Willow threatening Giles
> (because, you know, that happens every day).

They knew there was an argument, but didn't necessarily listen to it. 
Most folks, if they walk into an argument, turn around and walk away. 
Hell, Buffy's supposed to feel emotionally detached; even if she did 
hear the whole thing, maybe she wouldn't react.

> Now since I still have two functioning brain cells, I'm 
> wondering, if Buffy doesn't want to pretend and if it isn't working, why
> does she keep doing it? After all, there are only two motives for a
> course of action: your own enjoyment and a larger purpose. Since she
> doesn't enjoy it, and it isn't serving its purpose, why not stop?

But it *is* serving its purpose. As we see from "Tabula Rasa," the 
truth about Buffy's resurrection nearly destroys her friends. They've 
apparently decided to just not talk about it and hope it never comes up 
again by the time of "Smashed" (which is an understandable decision, 
because how are you *supposed* to deal with something like that?), but 
that scene at the beginning of TR does a good job of indicating that 
they do, in fact, feel bad about this... bad enough that Willow's 
amnesia spell might've postponed the kind of fight that would result in 
the whole group splitting asunder, maybe forever.

Buffy knows this in "Flooded," so she keeps up the pretense. She 
willingly shoulders the burden of her resurrection to keep her friends 
safe, because *that's what Buffy does*. She takes on whatever comes, 
and does it alone. She has one gap, though, and that's when she tells 
Spike about it.

That decision was a dumb one, and Buffy comes to regret it. Telling 
someone was probably wise for Buffy's sake, but she chose the wrong 
person... but who else would she tell? It'd be way too much for Dawn, 
and she certainly can't tell any of the participants in the ritual.

> So instead we have Spike joking about killing Buffy's 
> friends and Buffy smiling, because it's not like Spike has spent a
> century brutally murdering people or has actually tried to kill all of
> them before, right? I don't doubt he could joke in bad taste, but for
> her to find that amusing?well, hey, we're selling a romance, why worry
> about character consistency?

Gellar played Buffy's reaction to that line as resigned and weak. It 
works for me, for an emotionally detached and exhausted girl to manage 
a weak smile at even a lousy joke. The Buffy of previous seasons 
might've punched Spike and walked away, but this ain't that Buffy. For 
better or worse, this is a new girl in the same skin, and we're getting 
to know her all over again.

> "Life Serial"--better quality, but still not up to par.  
> Espenson's geeks are still not funny, but at least they're less
> annoying. David Fury's main plot is rather formulaic (3 acts, 3
> tests), and admittedly derivative, but decently executed. Nick Marck
> shows what a director can do, nicely capturing confusion (the college),
> action (the job site), and physical comedy (the mummy hand). 

Oh, yeah. I really enjoyed all three scenes, particularly the Magic Box 
sequence. "It's you! You're doing this!"

> The ep is
> killed, however, by the last act, [...]
> Not to mention that Buffy knows how to get information, she was looking
> for violent release, which you'd think he'd understand. 

And Buffy knows how to get violent release. She was talking about 
getting information, and Spike's poker game is his attempt to show her 
how he'd do it.

Unfortunately, the poker game, as you said, is another example of an 
inconsistent depiction of Spike. Here, he's the comedic defanged hero, 
trying to impress Buffy with something that wouldn't impress Dawn. The 
basic idea is good--Spike introduces Buffy to the demonic underworld of 
Sunnydale--but the execution is bewildering. It's *funny*, but it's 
utterly ridiculous and arguably surreal.

> And if I'd
> never heard the term kitten poker, I'd be a much happier man.

I wonder what they do with the kittens later, myself. I bet they're 
crunchy.

> Rating: 6 out of 10. Entertaining enough, in places.  
> Benefits from following utter crap, obviously. And the bit about "the
> social construction of reality" may prove 
> interesting if "Restless" echoes pan out, but right now it's just a
> tease.

I need to see "Restless."

> (of course, even though I was thrilled to see no trace of Evil Willow,
> it makes no sense in light of what happened last week?) 

Why would Evil Willow show up at all? No one went out of their way to 
piss Willow off, and even when Giles *did*, Willow went all scary for 
all of a single sentence. Willow isn't evil, and won't be without more 
serious changes to the character; she is, however, a very powerful 
witch who seems to believe that her abilities and knowledge give her 
rights she doesn't possess.

So is she evil? No, not really. But she isn't good, either.

> "All the Way"--back to awful. Like "After Life", exists only to waste
> time until the final scene, which isn't as good as it was there. Like
> "After Life", David Solomon doesn't direct humans well, and the only
> creep factor he gets is in Act 1. Main plot is notably lame, and Steve
> DeKnight's scripts have clearly gone downhill since "Blood Ties". 

I'll disagree here, too. I've already defended Solomon, and DeKnight's 
script has a couple of grace notes. I thought his handling of that poor 
old man was a very nice touch, reminescent of the horror-genre lampoons 
of first-season "Buffy." The Willow/Tara Bronze scene was nice, and 
Hannigan and Benson had very good chemistry going into it. I liked the 
Dance of Capitalist Superiority.

Finally, any episode with Giles getting to be a vamp-slaying badass, 
and the Buffy/Dawn/vampires pre-fight dialogue ("I didn't know he was 
dead!" "Living dead." "Shut up!"), cannot be wholly awful.

> And
> what is up with Spike being angry at the vamps for breaking the "no
> badness on Halloween" rule? (Which still hasn't been explained, btw)
> Since when does Spike care about rules?

It may have to do with why the rule's there. Spike seems to like and 
abide by the Halloween rule, for the most part, as seen in "Halloween."

> Why would Buffy even like him if he's suddenly turned into
> Xander? 

You lost me there, man.

> (No knock on Xander, but an un-Spike-like Spike seems very dull
> indeed.)

Yeah. This would be Hero Spike, Spike's good twin.

> And did Spike forget his own actions in "Halloween"? Well,
> probably just Steve DeKnight did.

That's possible, but still explainable as above. Spike would've stayed 
down and quiet in "Halloween" if Ethan Rayne's trick hadn't gone off.

> Not to mention it's a little odd Buffy resents saving Dawn, since that's
> why she died to begin with?

She doesn't resent saving Dawn. She resents that Dawn, for the sake of 
teenage rebellion, is doing stuff like this after all Dawn's seen and 
done. Granted, Buffy herself has done similar things ("Reptile Boy" 
comes to mind), but now that she's the "parent," Dawn should know 
better.

> Rating: 3 out of 10. Waste of time, lacks drama, 
> consistency with the series as a whole, or anything like a good
> performance. At least Giles gets to throw a punch.

I'd rate it higher for the good fight scene at the end, slightly marred 
by Dawn somehow coming up with a crossbow bolt in time to stake her 
first kiss. (I could see where she might've gotten it, as Spike's shot 
goes wild when the vamp tackles him, but it's like they ditched a few 
seconds of footage in the wrong place.)

> Of course, I understand, they're just churning out filler 
> eps while waiting for Joss. Still, I've seen much better filler.

Y'know, I find myself thinking that the term "filler" doesn't apply to 
throwaway episodes of a Mutant Enemy production. Even in the most 
filler-y episode of this run, "After Life," the episode was 
establishing Buffy's major character arc for the season. No episode can 
be discounted in a "Buffy" season, even if we'd sometimes like to. :)

> "Once More With Feeling"?Worth the wait, if not the 
> diminuition of quality that went on while waiting for it.  
> Original, nothing that feels like padding except Dawn's ballet and Marti
> Noxon's song. Willow needs a song, though (Aly could have muddled
> through).

Yeah, it would've been nice, but exactly which song would you have cut 
to make room for hers?

> Some bad choices by Lisa Lassek in the editing (why is the
> camera on ANYA when Buffy reveals she was in heaven, for example?), but
> not enough to stop me from loving it.

My biggest problem with OMWF is the way everyone stands around like a 
jackass at the end, watching Buffy dance and sing. They look like 
scenery; why doesn't anyone, oh, say, throw something at Sweet?

Still a damn fine episode, though.

> "Tabula Rasa"--God, I wanted to love this one. I enjoy Rebecca Rand
> Kirshner, David Grossman makes her work better (loved "Tough Love"), the
> setup scenes are nice (although Xander's wanting to reach out to Buffy
> and Willow's guilt over the "heaven" revelation are never followed up)

Not yet, anyway. C'mon, there's a lot of season left. We can return to 
this bitch if the credits roll on ep. 22 and they still haven't had it 
out.

> and Michelle Branch makes for a nice closing montage. Note 
> Grossman's direction as he cuts closer and closer to Willow sobbing in
> the bathroom--it's his idea (not in the script) and it's also a nice
> homage to Michael Gershman's similar shots in "Consequences".

I didn't know that. Nice touch, I agree.

> And the comedy in the amnesia bit came off fine. Except I don't see the
> point of having Joan and Randy mock "Angel". Why run down the sister
> show? 

It's additional layers of self-parody. No big deal. We are talking 
about the show that put "The Zeppo" on the air, after all.

> And Buffy certainly didn't find him "lame"--did Spike slip the
> Buffybot back in there somehow?

If Angel had showed up, she wouldn't've found him lame because Angel is 
supposed to be remarkably attractive. As a concept, a souled vampire 
is, y'know, goofy.

If you want to get that nitpicky about this bit, please note that both 
Joan and Randy automatically know about Buffyverse vampire theology, 
specifically the soul issue, which is seemingly unique to Buffyverse 
vampires. I found that harder to swallow than the jab at Angel.

> But the comedy wasn't very revealing. No "true selves coming out under
> the spell". Willow likes Tara and Spike likes Buffy; we knew that. If
> there were follow-up to the Anya/Giles attraction or Tara's being more
> assertive, I'd rate this higher.

See above. It seems too early to dislike an episode on the basis of 
what has or has not happened yet, when the season isn't over.

> Rating: 7 out of 10. Liked it, but not memorable (pardon the pun).
> And more lameness on the villain front, with the return of kitten poker.

I would've enjoyed the Loan Shark more if Buffy had actually taken him 
up on the job offer. Buffy as some kind of unassuming bodyguard or debt 
collector would be an interesting episode.

> "Smashed"--[...]
> Plus, hey, it's an actual B/W scene! Hey, something happens (Amy
> returns) that isn't just soap opera! Comedy that comes from the
> characters and past continuity, rather than tacked on jokes! 

The Amy/Willow and Amy/Buffy scenes were *very* nice. I tend to 
undervalue this episode based upon its ending, which I didn't care for 
at all, but the first half-hour is very good.

> The geeks
> were almost funny, but got killed by the ETERNAL minute-and-a-half with
> the Boba Fett doll that 
> sucked the life out of the screen. Come on, guys, that's a
> one-and-done: Spike threatens doll, Warren caves, audience
> smiles--next!

I really do think you're far too critical. Ninety seconds does not an 
overlong joke make.

> The show was hurt by a lack of focus, what with B/S, 
> Willow/Amy, Tara/Dawn and the geeks all fighting for time. 

Nah. I thought it made good use of the ensemble cast, although Xander 
and Anya are still horribly underused. I'm cool with that on Anya, but 
Xander's the heart of the show, as far as I'm concerned; he's the only 
cast member who's still an ordinary human being, and as such, is the 
show's grounding element. No Xander = less fun.

[snip]
Didn't get to see "Wrecked," either.

> Not one of Marti's better efforts.

Something is *up* with Noxon. There's a tendency in current fandom to 
demonize her, and I'll be the first to admit that she's done a lot to 
deserve it. It shouldn't be ignored, on the other hand, that it was 
Noxon who gave us "Surprise," "The Wish," and (I liked it, anyway) 
"Buffy vs. Dracula." She's far better than she's given credit for 
being; she just shouldn't, under any circumstances, be allowed to touch 
a relationship-driven episode.

> And I didn't even
> mention the three huge continuity errors.

Oh? Do tell.

> And we suffer greatly from the fact that Marti Noxon would rather be
> writing soaps, as the external plot, which should drive the inner
> character conflicts (see seasons 2 and 3--they tried but failed with
> this in 4; 5 lacked character arcs) is completely lacking. 

What external plot, exactly? This season's plot is all internal with an 
occasional external excursion, and that's okay. Buffy got hit with a 
major character problem, and the show has to deal with that before it 
can honestly deal with any other plotlines. Otherwise, we'd be 
complaining that Buffy bounced back from death and resurrection awfully 
damn quick.

> The geeks
> are boring and we should know more about their plot by now (at this
> point, for example, we knew what the Initiative was doing, and that
> Glory wanted the Key and it was Dawn).

We know what their plot is. They want to take over Sunnydale and make 
Buffy their "sex bunny." (Lousy lemon writers, start your fucking 
engines.) Their methods of *doing* so are still obscure, but what they 
want is and has been established. Their motivation seems to be sheer 
boredom.

> As for the individual eps, there haven't been any convincing opponents
> to hold our interest. Some bikers, a random spirit, the M'Fashnik
> demon, a non-confrontation with the geeks, the teen vamps, Sweet (who
> they didn't fight), more random vamps, no villain in "Smashed" and a
> random demon 
> makes for a sucky roster of foes. Compare this to, say, Sunday,
> Invincible Spike, Veruca, Hus and The Gentlemen, all of whom we got in
> the first 10 eps of Season 4.

The thing I've noticed so far about Season 6 is that they're 
deliberately turning things down a notch. Season 5 can't readily be 
topped, what with Buffy bitchsmacking a demigoddess an' all, so they're 
opting for a different class of low-powered foes, and keeping the focus 
on Buffy and her personal problems. For this, the Troika, a group of 
villains who aren't really all that *mean*, is a perfect foil for 
Buffy.

> And outside of "Bargaining", we haven't seen any group action to get us
> excited.

We don't see much group action at the best of times, man. Buffy has 
always had a regrettable tendency to run off by herself.

> Buffy fights alone (with spell backup) in "After Life", with
> minimal assistance from Spike in "Flooded", not at all against the bad
> guys in "Life Serial", with some help (Giles, Spike, Dawn) in "All the
> Way", there's no real fight in "OMWF", two separate ones in "Tabula
> Rasa", no fight in "Smashed" and just help from off-camera Willow in
> "Wrecked". 

I really, really miss Jeff Pruitt, but "All the Way" had a good fight, 
as I mentioned, and "Smashed's" big rumble had definite potential 
before it turned into "Zalman King's Red Fang Diaries," so there's 
potential here.

> (Is it weird that Willow's 
> power is a key plot point and yet she goes EIGHT eps between being in
> fights, or what?)

It's not all that weird. It's like that ring in "Angel," season one; 
Willow has become too powerful to make just about anything a credible 
threat to the Scoobies anymore. She was able to fight Glory to a 
comparative standstill, and she did it from a distance with *lightning 
bolts*. If you bring Wills in to deal with most anything Buffy's faced 
this season, they're vaporized within fifteen seconds, or she teleports 
them to Budapest, or freezes them with her mind, or stakes 'em with a 
telekinetically thrown piece of furniture. It does not make for a good 
action sequence.

No wonder they're trying to get Willow away from magic.

> And the year has been marred by a zillion dropped plot threads.

[clip]

I think that has to do with one of the core weaknesses of the show: too 
much focus on Buffy. Yes, Buffy's plot this season is a huge, monstrous 
thing with plenty of dramatic potential, but they're neglecting the 
supporting cast to tell more about Buffy and, in the odd instance, 
Willow. Xander and Anya have been consistently shortchanged, Dawn 
pretty much ran "All the Way" but was an idiot for most of it, Tara has 
never really been used to her full potential (unsurprising, for a 
character whose heroic flaw is a lack of confidence), and Spike is the 
most haphazardly characterized guy on TV.

This is why, in my mind, the Buffy fandom seems as a whole ambivalent 
about Buffy herself. Even for a title character, the show focuses too 
damn much on her, and there's a distinct underuse of what, to my mind, 
is one of the best supporting casts in television, and possibly the 
present best in the genre.

> So, in summation, the themes are working nicely, but too much soap
> opera, forgotten details, lack of credible opponents, lack of group
> interaction, lack of anything resembling an external catalyst, and
> generally poor work by the writers and directors (exceptions: Joss,
> Drew Greenberg, Nick Marck, and David Grossman on "Tabula Rasa" have
> given us a distinctly subpar run of eps and made "Season 6A" the worst
> ever, all pro-or-anti-Spuffy 
> considerations aside.
> 
> Just my opinion,

And you're welcome to it. I disagree, however, and respectfully at 
that. I think that this may, in fact, be a weak run of episodes, but 
it's too early to start handing out "worst ever" titles; the last shows 
aren't as bad as you say they are; and as a fandom, we all could stand 
to be a little less damn critical. :)

$0.02,
Thomas Wilde
a.k.a. Wanderer