Prompted by the current monster-thread where **olives **is working her way through all seasons of Buffy and Angel, what are your opinions on the sixth and seventh seasons?
Personally, I’m a fan. My favorite seasons are the third and fourth, probably, but the sixth is my third favorite, and the seventh is fairly decent as well. The only season of Buffy I don’t care for is the first.
Can’t vote because I never saw enough of season 7 to comment.
But I did like season 6.
Season Six had moments, but over-all they were sub-par.
I think season 6 was ok. It is not my favourite season, and I don’t like some of the things that they did there, but I certainly don’t think it was bad overall.
Season 7, on the other hand, I would rank it only barely above season 1. The slayerettes were so friggin annoying. And Kennedy can just go fuck herself.
I recently rewatched S7 and it was quite good. Far better than I remembered it from the first-run. It’s not S5, but I think it’s close to the top in terms of consistency, theme, plot, and creepiness. I had a hard time rewatching S6 because I’m still going through my own 20s angst and depression. it all felt very real to me this time around.
I just rewatched season 7 after having only ever seen it once during first run. Not a fan; now I remember why I always skipped this season during the FX syndication run. Loved season 6, though.
I generally find the complaints about season 6 to be shallow. For example, the complaint that Xander all-of-a-sudden and out-of-the-blue reverts to an immature kid by bailing on Anya. That’s fine for a complaint except for the fact that he voiced cold feet just about every episode in the season up until he bails. Kind of the opposite of what the complaint is about, but hey, people love to bash the season so it’s all good, right?
Or the magic addiction thing. In the monster thread, the complaint seems to be that at first the addiction was psychological, but then it became physical. This is stupid and bad for some reason, despite the fact that that is actually how real addiction works. I confess I really don’t understand thihs complaint at all. I think season 7 went back and explained the whole thing again – and more slowly – for the complainers, but I don’t think they’re listening.
Skipping ahead to season 7, it started off really, really strong. But after a few episodes it competely bailed on the monster of the week season structure that had served the first 6 seasons so well. Because of this for the majority of the season they never seemed to leave Buffy’s house, and with so many people there it was just a nightmare of claustrophobia for the viewer, both literally and figuratively from a plot standpoint. Get out and see other things, just for aen episode, to break up the monotany, please!
I didn’t vote in the poll - both seasons I thought were worse than previous seasons, but they both had their bonuses. There are some very good episodes in both seasons.
I voted “I like the sixth season, but dislike the seventh season” but I’m not sure that’s true. Totally offhand: Season 6 I liked the trio, loved the musical, like Willow’s descent, liked Spike, but did not like the ‘drug’ metaphor, or Buffy’s unemployment issues, or Giles’ stupidly written plot arc to accommodate the actor leaving. Season 7 I liked the potentials, and the cameos, Faith, white Willow, most of the episodes that concentrated on one character, but didn’t like the leadership power struggle, or the endless speechifying, or Giles’ general dickishness. I think when I think about season 7 I tend to remember the mishmash of unpleasant boring and annoying potential training, whining, and leadership speechifying and forget about the nifty character episodes. So let’s see:
Season 6
Like - (15) - 5,6,7,8,9,11,12,13,15,17,18,19,20,21,22
Neutral or mixed (6) - 1+2,3,4,10,16
Dislike -(1) - 14
Season 7
Like - (14) - 3,4,5,7,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,20,22
Neutral or mixed - (7) - 1,2,6,8,9,10,21
Dislike - (1) - 19
Looks like overall they were a bit even. Season six started off a but slow, but then hit it’s stride except for a few stumbles. Season 7 was uneven to start, hit a real rough patch in the middle, then got it’s wind back with the occasional stumble. I think the major determining factor here is that the slow start to season six wasn’t as annoying as season seven’s rough patch of boring repetitive potential training and hell mouth opening episodes that set the scene but didn’t have a strong theme for each individual episode.
This was just badly and randomly written to serve the needs of whatever the plot was in a particular episode.
I liked that Willow was slowly starting to abuse her magic, and become slightly arrogant about it, and Tara’s concerns, their breakup, and Amy’s bad influence, and that when Tara died, Willow went magical apeshit with dark magic and tried to destroy the world, and reformed earth loving white Willow.
I didn’t like the whole “use too much magic, or for too trivial of things, and you will become physically addicted and need to attend a 12 step group”. That was sooo awful. No one should have been bitching her out for making magical party decorations or a quick change outfit. That was ridiculous. The whole thing with the ‘magical drug dealer in his magic crack den’ was ridiculous. Willow wanted power to do things, not a magical crack high.
Willow’s real problems were 1) being overconfident and risky with her magic 2) overuse of dark magics rather than the white magic that they didn’t acknowledge til season seven and 3) using the magic to abuse her friends (magical forgetting spell).
They should have only delved into those issues, instead of trying to tack on the ‘trivial use’ and ‘druglike effects’ hokeyness in an attempt to be socially relevant.
Not doing small mundane things is a big red flag in addiction. I’ve heard it referred to as ADL, “Adult Daily Living.” Bathing, shaving, cleaning; the basic mundane things in life adults do every day. Addicts don’t do these things, and so that is a warning sign that they’re going off the rails. In a sense, using magic to take care of the mundane things is not doing your ADLs, and would be a bad sign in the context of addiction.
The magical crack den was pretty silly, but that didn’t play a big enough role in the season to ruin it.
I liked them, but not as much as others. Since there are at least two seasons that I dislike more (1 and 4) I voted for ‘liked both’. Also it is impossible to dislike the season that brought us Once More With Feeling.
Sometimes I feel as though Whedon and other writers just didn’t know what to do with Xander. My big problem with Xander is that he never really mans up. In season 3 he’s afraid of what he thinks is a normal teenage bully (it’s a zombie but Xander doesn’t know that). Whereas Willow grew into a powerful character in her own right that never really happens with Xander even though Riley and Principle Wood demonstrate that normal humans can fight the supernatural. While Xander did demonstrate that he had some worries about his impending wedding I think it was a pretty big surprise to most people when he bailed on Anya. Though given that Whedon has serious issues with happy relationships maybe this shouldn’t have been a surprise. Essentially Xander was left to flounder by the writers and even by season 6 he was still rather cowardly.
My problem with it is that the magical addiction thing was just plain stupid. It would have been far better had Willow simply decided that she could do so much good with all her powers even if it meant doing someone bad in the short term. The magical crack aspect of magic just felt so tacked on and out of place. Was magical addiction even talked about in seasons 4 or 5 because I don’t remember if it was.
Season 7 is the only one that dragged for me and I even like season 1 better. (3 is my favorite.) I really disliked the idea of the slayerettes and I didn’t much care for the army slayers at the end but I do respect them for blowing up Sunnydale. While I didn’t care for the season as a whole I thought the finale was pretty impressive.
In season six I thought the whole subplot with Buffy getting a job was really rather silly. I don’t care what her relationship with the Watchers was (she HAD reached some sort of accord with them by then) there’s absolutely no reason why she’d have to work at a fast food restaurant in order to keep her house (as if she could afford to keep the house on those wages). I’m pretty sure the Watchers would have been more than happy to provide enough funds to keep Buffy’s financial life in order so she could concentrate on the slaying.
I will say that seasons 6 and 7 are only bad in relation to the other seasons. I thought the series would have had a much better ending if it had been canceled after the 5th season. That said, as much as I complain about seasons 6 and 7, I still watched them and enjoyed them. They just weren’t as good as the previous 5 seasons.
There were good individual episodes in S6 & S7, but the seasons as a whole just didn’t work for me. The total screwing up of Spike’s character, the unspeakable screwing up of Xander’s character, the “idiot-plotting” dumbing down of all the characters (they couldn’t figure out that if they were gonna bring Buffy back, they needed to not have the body six feet under? :rolleyes:) the whole Dark Willow arc. Bleh. I loved the Musical episode, and there were a bunch of other one-off episodes that were just primo quality, but as far as I’m concerned, the series ended with S5 (it’s also a better ending)
I like both seasons and am surprised at the “hate” they sometimes get.
While neither season may have been the best Buffy, they really are very good and don’t ruin the show for me, the way some other shows or sequel movies have.
I mean, compare those seasons to the Matrix sequels or the Star Wars prequels.
Now those were bad and negatively affected the franchises.
Perhaps they were not my favorites, but there were good shows in both seasons. And some stinkers in earlier ones. Hoever, I didn’t watch the show in the original run, discuss every episode in home room & write “Angel & Buffy 4-ever” on my book covers. I dived into the series in the middle, during-reruns. Then watched it from the beginning, very quickly.
About “magic as crack”–was that a writers’ problem or a problem the characters had? They thought the only way Willow could stop abusing magic was to go Cold Turkey–Just Say No. But, for her, magic was part of her being. It was like trying to fight obesity by never eating again. Impossible. (Trying to visualize an obese Alison Hannigan. Impossible.) I even found Rack interesting–he reminded me of certain characters I knew in my lurid past.
In the last season, with the help of Giles & the Coven, Willow learned to use magic wisely. Was it true they wanted Tara to come back from the dead but Amber Benson was not available? Kennedy was *not *one of my favorite bits of the last season.
And I find the hatefulness directed towards Marti Noxon rather silly. Why wish violence against her? After all, Joss was the one distracted by having 2 other series going. And Marti now writes for Mad Men.
They were a slight drop-off, but still good television.
Loved the sixth season, hated the 7th on first viewing. Then I rewatched the series on DVD and found that S7 was a lot better than I originally thought. Upon reflection, I think I hated S7 at first viewing because I knew it was the last season of Buffy and I didn’t want it to end.
There were some very good episodes in each, but as a whole - suck. Mostly because of the usual answers - the Slayerettes were awful and Willow and her whatever was just stupid. It wasn’t consistent with plot OR character and it was just plain ass dumb. It could have been done well, but it wasn’t.
I don’t know if I can vote - there were some bad episodes and it was definitely a drop off from the series, but there were some high points and was still Buffy - a great show.
So, I liked them in the general sense, but I kidn of disliked the direction that they took the show.
No vote for me. Call it disappointed, but still way, way better than most of the drek on TV.