A Lighter Side Of "BTVS"?

Blayke

Blayke

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Ever since the beginning of November I have been watching BTVS from Season 1 onwards and recently have discovered in a more better view that from Season 4 and onwards, BTVS lost its dark edge.

Don't get me wrong, i LOVE every season after that, but it didnt have that dark essence that Seasons 1, 2 and 3 had.

I don't know if it was because of Production spending got higher or location changed, it just seems that BTVS got a bit too glossy from the jagged dark side it once had - comedy was even heavily introduced.

According to Joss, Season 6 is where they take the show to the dark place, but i don't think nothing could've gotten darker than Season 2 and 3.

Does anybody feel / understand what I'm saying?
 
I understand what you're getting at. I think.
I think the show show in general plays with dark themes and elements of horror obviously, but the first half of the show is different from the second half. What always stood out to me in the first season was how immume to death everyone was. Like, they're always finding dead people in lockers and students are always disapearing and it's just expected, you know? No one seems too bothered. But when Buff comes along, and starts questioning things, it makes people more aware and less ignorant of the world around them. I also think that the difference in the second "half" of the series had to do when it was switched from the WB to UPN for the last two seasons. On UPN, they were able to get away with more and instead of a PG13 rating it was NC17.

Anywho. I digress..
Hope this helped 🙂

I think that Buffy has always been about irony. And if you don't appreciate that, you're not going to get the show. And in general, I feel the first 5 seasons were more ironic.
 
I see it too, things just had a more colourful and cartoon-ish tint. Though there was still very dark moments in Season 4-7. I'd say some of it beats what we saw in the earlier 3 seasons.
 
Things may have been more colorful and the lighting less moody...but content-wise there's no way seasons 1, 2 and 3 topped seasons 6 and 7 in terms of darkness.
 
PurplePoof said:
Things may have been more colorful and the lighting less moody...but content-wise there's no way seasons 1, 2 and 3 topped seasons 6 and 7 in terms of darkness.
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I agree. I often even sort of thought it was the other way round (but to be honest, I haven't seen every episode of the first seasons yet). However, that could be because of the whole Buffy skipping around in pigtails thing. I don't know. The first three seasons have some pretty dark episodes, but they can't top most of the season 6 and 7 episodes, in darkness terms, that is. And what about, say, Hush?
I do believe they used the comic intermezzo episode more and more in the later seasons. But even then they still had a purpose, like Storyteller, where, after all, we found out quite a lot about andrew and the seal and everything.
 
I agree mostly with itsxpaperdoll and PurplePoof in that while 4/5-7 had more "colorful" lighting and the whole presentation was shown in a lighter, less gothic manner the story arcs and themes were no way lighter than the earlier seasons. Things became more human as the series went on, but just because they dealt with less demons and more real-life horrors definitely, in my opinion, does not make those seasons lighter by any stretch of the imagination.

Seasons 1, 2 and 3 pale in comparison darkness-wise to the hardships the characters all faced in season 5 and 6. The earlier seasons just had more demons, but I stand by my opinion that supernatural beasties don't automatically make something darker.

And as for the humor- Buffy has always undercut serious and/or horrific moments with comedy- it's the ultimate style of the show and perhaps you were just noticing it more in the later seasons because it was needed more often to counteract the dark moments.

I mean in the first few seasons you considered central characters safe but by the end of season 6 Joss was offing characters and corrupting them left, right and center.
 
Airam
Airam
just what i would have said :)
palabravampiress
palabravampiress
Gimmie back my brain, woman!
I agree with Joyce mostly, I think it's definitely do to with the change of the show's themes though. The first three seasons focused on high school as hell, there were demons the scoobies fought them, they blew up the school. But for the most part, there is a distinct difference between who they're fighting and who they aren't fighting.

From say season 4, Buffy is basically tossed into the big wide world as such. It's not just about school being hell anymore, it's about life being a struggle and the things that you might need to fight are less obvious...your daytime demons, shall we say, and that in a sense also makes it darker in terms of content, because know you're dealing with things like addiction and natural death. Yes, they used a lot more "lighter schemes" in the later season, but I think it works well with placing Buffy and the gang in a more realistic light.
 
I like that so many people have tried to understand where you're coming from... But I just don't get it. I always watch the early seasons thinking how much lighter they are. The brightness of the filming can't change that at all for me!
 
J
Joyce Summers
My sentiments are your sentiments...I just tried to sound all clever and analytical haha
Joyce Summers said:
I mean in the first few seasons you considered central characters safe but by the end of season 6 Joss was offing characters and corrupting them left, right and center.
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I think that's indeed one of the main reasons why I would call the later seasons darker, and, in a way, also more realistic. In the first couple of seasons you could always be reasonably sure Buffy and teh Scoobies would survive it. Whereas, I'd say since the death of Joyce, you couldn't be so sure anymore. They were tossed into the real world, with matching reponebilities and dangers.
 
J
Joyce Summers
I agree. I mean it just snowballed from Joyce...heck within six weeks of that BUFFY died.
Yeah, I'd say so too, that the later episodes get darker and darker as they prepare more and more for war and in Season 7 they are in fact at war. I don't think they can get any darker than that, but in a way I found that Season 2 and 3 were also quite dark, but in a different shade of dark. After all yes, when Joyce died and later Buffy, anything could basically happen to the Scooby gang, but if you listen to the voice over of the very last episode, joss admits, that he couldn't really kill Buffy, Xander or Willow, or even Giles, as they formed the core of the Scooby Gang from the word go onwards. That last epic battle was extremely dark and the lead up to it, looked very gloomy and everything. I even thought that they are all going to die and be murdered in their beds.

My father used to phrase it like that: With every season they got better at making it very funny on the one hand, but at the same time perfectly sad too.
 
The high school years were so bright and bubble-gummy.
The second season was def. the darkest of the first 3...but Buffy and her friends are still these young kids thinking they're so powerful and can do anything.

I always think of "Innocence" when Xander and Willow are all "We're gonna go SAVE BUFFY!" and then start to march out of the library to go face The Judge. It's like they thought they were invincible. Complete naivety.

Cut to the seventh season when Willow's afraid to use her magic, and Xander's getting his eye poked out.
They were smarter by the 7th season...they had lived..and they know that life happens. They can't just go fearless into the fray....cause of all the crap that has happened to them.

Season 4 was light in the "Yay, we're in college! We're FREE!" way...it was the transitional year as people say.
And then the last 3, the Scoobies were all grown...dealing with life...not just metaphors.
 
Airam
Airam
nice post :)
itsxpaperdoll said:
I think that's indeed one of the main reasons why I would call the later seasons darker, and, in a way, also more realistic. In the first couple of seasons you could always be reasonably sure Buffy and teh Scoobies would survive it. Whereas, I'd say since the death of Joyce, you couldn't be so sure anymore. They were tossed into the real world, with matching reponebilities and dangers.
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Gaaah spoilers =\

I'm currently watching through the series for the first time and am only up to halfway through season 4.
 
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