# Buffy Season Six **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 26, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237 "2004-05-26T21:08:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/21 "2004-06-02T02:30:55Z")
IMO the series peaked in season 2 and began a long, slow, steady slide downwards, each following season a little weaker than the last, culminating in a pretty poor season seven. _Still_ better than your average pre-packaged TV junk, but nonetheless not great. I think part of that was specific too me, insomuch as they tightened up the mythology of the show it went in many directions that I just was not crazy about. I suppose in effect things were more thrilling for me early on when the backstory was more mysterious and speculative. But that aside, I do think there was a real qualitative slide in at least the last couple of seasons. Buffy for me would probably have best died in season 5. And when I mean died, I mean _dead_ :p. I always favored an ending set some years down the road that shows her finally wearing out and falling nobly, the longest-lived slayer ever in history, but fades out on a new slayer being born, showing the eternal, unwinnable nature of the struggle between good and evil, in both its negative and positive aspects. However if I couldn’t get _that_ episode, **Normal Again** , with an even more ambiguous ending, should have been the series finale :). Further it should have been unannounced, not completeing a full season, with a couple dummy episodes shot to throw people off the trail. Never would happened, but I sure would have been pleased ;). - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Wasabee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f05b48/32.png) [@Wasabee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wasabee)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/22 "2004-06-02T03:21:50Z")
> [@Manda JO](#): > > Throughout the season there is this persistient thread of people who are not entirely evil doing the one thing we have always thought of --and are taught–is irrevocably evil. Meaning having a soul has little to do with being evil or not. Which is why I thought a much better villain for season 7 would be a resouled Spike… who actually, since he has his soul back, would not really be Spike anymore but William the bitter dejected poet. ---
**Author:** ![jellyblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@jellyblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jellyblue)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/23 "2004-06-02T07:20:18Z")
> [@The Asbestos Mango](#): > > Spike had been growing as a character for a season and a half, trying to make himself into someone Buffy could love. Then, Buffy decides to start shagging him because it’s the only thing that makes her feel “alive”. Or is it a subconscious way of getting back at her friends for dragging her out of Heeeaaaavvvven? Either way, this woman who is supposed to be the Archtypal Strong Woman keeps her relationship with Spike secret, when she’s caught with him by Riley, she responds by beating him up. When he tries to stop her from throwing her life away by turning herself in to the police when she thinks she’s killed Katrina, she responds by beating him up. She threatens to beat him up if he tells her friends about them. But he’s always there for her whenever she wants a shag. Then, Spike comes off like a sleaze in some of the season’s later episodes, especially in “Older and Far Away”. I mean, OK, so he realizes that the only thing he’s ever going to get from Buffy is sex, but does he have to come off like the guy in the back alley in a trenchcoat when he comes asking for the sex? Basically, Marti Noxon turned Buffy into the ultimate abusive boyfriend, while at the same time trying to portray Spike as a “bad boyfriend”. > > Then there was the AR… probably the most hated scene in the history of the show. That’s a really interesting way to look at it, **AsbestosMango** , Buffy as the abusive boyfriend. There was always something about Spike supposedly being such a bad guy when she kept beating the living shit out of him that didn’t set very well with me. I hated the AR, too. That being said, I thought that Season 6 had some of the hottest sex I’ve ever seen on t.v. when it didn’t consist of someone getting raped. Maybe I’m just twisted, though 😉 . Loved the musical and I thought “Normal Again” was really creative. From a professional standpoint, I’d have to say that a grandiose paranoid psychosis is far more likely than, well, Buffy. But as my girlfriend would say whenever my suspended disbelief was dangling by a thread, “It’s a _television show_. About _vampires_.” ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/24 "2004-06-02T13:23:19Z")
I don’t get how anybody can say that the reason Season 6 sucked was anything **other** than the three nerdlings. Freeze rays? Jet packs? Give…me…a…freaking…break. The whole Williow story arc was the best thing about Season 6 and was one of the better story arcs from the whole series. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/25 "2004-06-02T14:24:20Z")
I have to confess I get a little tired of people slagging S6 because of the Trio. I can’t be the only one who gets that the point of them was to explore the banality of evil and to further the theme of the consequences of bad choices? I mean, come on, look at their motivations. Jonathan was originally about making the grand gesture. Warren was always about control. Andrew we don’t know why he trained the demon flying monkeys to attack the school play but if we assume it was for reasons as cosmic as Tucker’s for attacking the prom (he was turned down for a date) it’s probably because he tried out and didn’t get a part. And their super-secret origin as an evil team? “You guys wanna team up and take over Sunnydale?” “Yeah, sure, OK.” Yet look what their banal evil set into motion. Not one but two apocalypses. But realistically, what would most people do in their circumstances, given the access to their resources and having made the decision to act for personal gain? Most people aren’t going to try to destroy the world. Most people are going to be about getting money, power or sex or some combination of the three. So much of S6 was about Buffy’s reacclimation to the mundanity of the world and the Trio were representative of the worst aspects of that mundanity. ---
**Author:** ![Sweetums](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Sweetums](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sweetums)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/26 "2004-06-02T14:59:05Z")
> [@The Asbestos Mango](#): > > I blame Marti Noxon. > > I think Marti Noxon has a lot of personal issues that she never worked through. She used the show as a forum for airing her own dirty laundry. I watched the show because I enjoyed it- it was fun until Marti took over. Then we got a season of “Being Marti Malkovitch”. > > I hope she never does lunch again. ``` I agree. If anyone asks me, I would say that the "big bad" of season 6 was Marti Noxon! ``` ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/27 "2004-06-02T15:56:33Z")
I have to… agree with **Otto**. Brilliant analysis of Season 6. I think the climax of the season is what the _mundaneness_ is all about. When Warren, comic relief and mundane college student type guy, shoots and kills another student - no magic, no universe-bending, just another senseless day. Also, the mundane theme appears in the striking and inappropriate reality of Katrina’s almost-rape in what’s supposed to be a purely comedic scene about hard-up nerds. But I’m really here to plug **Entropy** as another fantastic episode. It’s no **Tabula Rasa** , but it’s a good romp. ---
**Author:** ![Izzybella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e56c9b/32.png) [@Izzybella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Izzybella)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/28 "2004-06-02T21:00:51Z")
Okay–I watched all of the episodes. I was trying to tell my sister about it and I’m sort of at a loss for words. I’d heard so much hype about _Once More With Feeling_ that it actually was a little disappointing the first time through, although it grew on me the second time around. Amber Benson has a great voice and I always like it when Giles gets to sing! _Normal Again_ was great though. It’s definitely easier to buy Buffy as a tripped out mental patient than as a mythical superhero. Also liked Tabula Rasa… But the season as a whole? I don’t know. There were definitely great episodes but overall there was just something–I don’t know how else to word it–lacking. I absolutely agree with Asbestos Mango’s assessment of Buffy as the ultimate abusive boyfriend. I guess I just hated the gross soap-operatic feel to it. The characters were still compelling and the show still outshines many, many other television shows out there, but there were moments where the show could have aptly been titled _Days of Our Sunnydale Lives as the World Turns_ . It got a little annoying. Still a big honking Buffy fan though. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/29 "2004-06-02T21:20:22Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > I had no problem with the idea of manipulating vast amounts of magic having addictive properties. Throughout the series it was made clear that using dark forces was dangerous. Willow got in over her head and abused the magic rather than using it. My feeling was generally that the gross manipulation of energy was what was most harmful, with the more ritualized usage through the casting of spells being much less dangerous. Then Giles in season 7 pretty much confirmed for me that viewpoint with his discussion of how it was power rather than magic that was addictive. I’ve heard that dismissed as a cheap fix in response to the hatred of the magic=drugs arc but regardless I was OK with it. I don’t think this is specific enough to be a spoiler. There’s a couple of places in the seasons where someone’s addicted to somethingwillow-magic riley-vampand it’s left vague if the addiction is physical or ‘metaphoric’ eg. about power or attention… This is something I noticed very much in Tolkein (eg. Saruman’s control of Theoden - how much was honeyed words from wormtongue, how much was magic?) who pulled if off wonderfully, but it falls a bit flat in buffy. I think they’re drawing from a wider mythis - in [these] mythoses, xxxx is addictive, so we’ll borrow that - when it doesn’t really fit, since it hasn’t occurred before so it always feels a bit like a one off, not fitting the ‘physics’ of the earlier eps. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/30 "2004-06-02T23:13:27Z")
> [@Rysler](#): > > I have to… agree with **Otto**. Brilliant analysis of Season 6. I think the climax of the season is what the _mundaneness_ is all about. That makes 3 of us. I was always of the opinion they should have evolved into the big bad rather than giving the season over to the Supernatural - although Dark Will was a good BB, too. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/31 "2004-06-03T00:03:27Z")
> [@thwartme](#): > > And yes, **Wasabee** , _Normal Again_ is the mental hospital one. It had it’s cheesy moments, but the little ending bit was great. I wonder if the writers got the idea for this episode from the Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight story “Masks.” It’s the same sort of story: Batman goes unconscious, wakes up in a psychiatric hospital, and seemingly finds out that it’s all a gaslight by the vengeful psychologist son of an embezzler he put away… or is it? (This last revealed in almost exactly the same way as in the Buffy episode.) ---
**Author:** ![Delly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Delly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delly)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/32 "2004-06-03T00:30:59Z")
Many of you have been going on about how you liked the ending of **Normal Again**. I remember the episode for the most part, but how did it end? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237/33 "2004-06-03T00:35:15Z")
> [@Delly](#): > > Many of you have been going on about how you liked the ending of **Normal Again**. I remember the episode for the most part, but how did it end? After getting the shot that makes her remember it cuts back to Buffy in the asuylum with the doctors screaming “We’re losing her!” The camera pulls back to show a catatonic Buffy that makes you wonder “Is the show really all her dream?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buffy-season-six/247237.md?page=1)