Re: "Chosen" and the show's last three years.

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

My reply to Patrick veered into general critique of the post-HS years
with a severe anti-Spuffy and anti-redemptionist p.o.v. Appropriate
things for me to mention in an ep review (where I was evaluating the
treatment of B/W in an ongoing series) but, I came to feel, a little too
OT for a general retrospective post here. There are lists for detailed
analyses of How I Feel Spike, Harmony, Spuffy and Cute Demons Ruined The
Show, but this really isn't one of them, so I kept it private.

That said, if anyone wants to see what I've said about things like this,
I recommend they take a trip to the anti_buffyspike list and check out
the archives from, say, last August. It's not like my thoughts on this
are a secret, after all.

Just so you know, 

Dan

PS--although I got into general S5 criticism in my reply to Patrick,
the "last three years" comment in my original post was merely about how
in S5 the gang stopped protecting the innocent and became about only
fighting off threats to themselves. About the closest Buffy came to
helping the general population in S5 was when she rescued Brother Idiot
Jeb from Glory at the end of "No Place Like Home", and that's only
because he has Important Exposition (which the entire episode is an
excuse to provide) About Precious Dawnie to tell her. The whole rest of
the year, the gang is only concerned with fighting off threats to Dawn,
Dawn and Dawn. Or Xander, or Tara, or Joyce, or Riley.

And I'll grant you that she does save Katrina from April in "I Was Made
To Love You". But, generally, if you're not a Scooby, you're off
Buffy's radar, and you're dead meat. Which is an enormous change from
S1-S3, and even from Season 4 and Buffy and Riley's dueling patrols of
the campus, and possessed frat houses and saving civilians from the
Gentlemen and so on. After that, the people went away, and that really
hurt the character of Buffy, and the show, IMO.