Season 7 – hit or miss?

[Dagenspear]

It's not called "The Adventures of Spike" either yet many storylines in S7 center around Spike. Heck, it even had an episode centered around Andrew.

Spike had a story to tell and it tied into Buffy's. I agree with the Andrew thing though. Lol.

---------- Post added at 12:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:26 AM ----------

The same final battle where she had a bigger number of people on her side than in any other battle except for the one in Graduation Day? And where an amulet provided by the villain of another show saved the day? And where there is a (clumsy) callback to The Harvest ("The Earth is doomed") as an attempt to show that Buffy is not that distant from her friends? Not that I bought any of that, to be honest, but I would argue that the breach between the Scoobies and Buffy is more a result of bad writing than the intention of the season.

If you watch that scene with them walking together, you'll see them slowly seperate, leaving only Buffy. And help is great in any battle, but in the end it always came down to Buffy and the Big Bad. And the slayer army is apart Buffy, as she is apart of them. They fight together. Wasn't that the whole point of sharing the power? So she wouldn't fight alone anymore?

---------- Post added at 12:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:52 AM ----------

Not nearly as often as it has been said and more importantly shown that Buffy would have been dead if not for her friends (and vice versa). She hasn't defeated a single Big Bad without other people's help, yet somehow you think the message is she needs no help and needs to fight alone?

Like I said, help is great, and it, well... helps. But in the end, Buffy fights alone. She IS alone.

---------- Post added at 01:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:59 AM ----------

Not nearly as often as it has been said and more importantly shown that Buffy would have been dead if not for her friends (and vice versa). She hasn't defeated a single Big Bad without other people's help, yet somehow you think the message is she needs no help and needs to fight alone?

Like I said, help is great, and it, well... helps. But in the end, Buffy fights alone. She IS alone.

 

[Icarium]

Spike had a story to tell and it tied into Buffy's.

And Willow, Giles and Xander didn't? Willow had tried to destroy the world and she was the most logical target for the First's attempt to bring people to the dark side, not Spike. Giles must have lost many people he knew in the destruction of the Watcher's Council and felt guilty for having abandoned Buffy the previous year - none of this is reflected in his sorry excuse for a storyline, though.

Wasn't that the whole point of sharing the power? So she wouldn't fight alone anymore?

Beats me, the season is so contradictory I can't make heads or tails of it. But what I do know is that Buffy would have been dead many times if it weren't for other people's help. If after seeing all that we are supposed to conclude that she needs to be all alone (except for Spike whose role in itself makes the claims that she was all alone and all about the mission this season a complete joke) this would be a textbook example of telling us one thing but showing the opposite.

Like I said, help is great, and it, well... helps. But in the end, Buffy fights alone.

But she doesn't. Especially not against the strongest opponents who tend to require teamwork to be defeated. Not to mention that planning is an essential part of any fighting campaign. Even if the non-Buffy characters never saw action (which is so not the case), their contribution would still have been immense. We saw the friendless Buffy in The Wish, it didn't work out too well for her, did it?

 

[Dagenspear]

And Willow, Giles and Xander didn't? Willow had tried to destroy the world and she was the most logical target for the First's attempt to bring people to the dark side, not Spike. Giles must have lost many people he knew in the destruction of the Watcher's Council and felt guilty for having abandoned Buffy the previous year - none of this is reflected in his sorry excuse for a storyline, though.

Willow wouldn't go down that road again. Especially after Tara, out of respect for her. And even if, Dark Willow would be more of an enemy. Spike was just an easier target for The First, plus it played into the Spike and Buffy romance and Spikes soul storyline, which was a continuation from s6. I actually liked Willow & Giles' storylines, except for Kennedy. Had a few issues them both a little, and even a little lack of Ubervamp consistency, but, hey, no final season of a series can be perfect, right? Very few are even good. SMALLVILLE, for example. What story did Xander have to tell?

---------- Post added at 02:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:34 AM ----------

Beats me, the season is so contradictory I can't make heads or tails of it. But what I do know is that Buffy would have been dead many times if it weren't for other people's help. If after seeing all that we are supposed to conclude that she needs to be all alone (except for Spike whose role in itself makes the claims that she was all alone and all about the mission this season a complete joke) this would be a textbook example of telling us one thing but showing the opposite.

As said, help is great for any warrior. But what it always came down to was Buffy. Of course, she had help getting there, but she needed to go at it alone.

 

[Ripper666]

All quotes are from [MENTION=10542]Hale Caesar[/MENTION]! This guy brought some very hot anti-season 7 points. Unfortunately he is right very often.

- Why the hell were these boring a$$ Potentials getting more screen time than Giles, Xander, Dawn, and Faith?

Correct. Agreement and no answer for this.

- This season lacked any memorable episodes, "Conversations with Dead People" is the closest, but it still isn't as good as other individual episodes like Hush, The Body, OMWF, Passion, etc.

Oh I think there are a lot of memorable episodes. For example "Same Time, Same Place"(Willows return and the skinnless dead man, ate by a demon),"Lessons"(First episdoes with the ghosts at school),"Help" was my favorite. And don't forget the fight between Wood and Spike. Very cool epsides there too!

- Why did the Scooby relationship get fixed? Seriously, they broke up in Season 6 and this season didn't help (refers to "I have nothing else to learn from you" scene)

Correct. There could be more but there was this episode with Willow and the skin-eating demon which fixed the gang together. But I missed a deep discussion too! And the things Giles did was pretty cool too, I mean there was a cool Buffy/Giles dispute, even if they didn't really fit to his character to cheat on Buffy(again...).

- Why did Faith even come back this season? Seriously, if Joss was thinking he should have kept her on Angel

Was a cool surprise for all Faith-fans. At least I was sitting there singing "Yeah Faith is back, Faith is back" all the time.

- The First was so boring. I'm sorry, he went out like a birthday cake candle...

Yes sometimes. It was more there for the psychcial breakdown of the Scoobie- Gang. In the beginning it was pretty cool but Buffy needed somebody for the physical fights. In my oppinion Joss knew that and that's why they needed the upper-vamps. Old vampires are boring too, so they need a new sort of monster. A good decision in my eyes. Or at least one withwhich I can live.

"Chosen" was so disappointing, it was just a big generic battle...Buffy used to be about subversion and quality, what happened?

I agree with the main part. But it was something new, a big battle with lot of sweet chicks. 😀 There was a great single (final)-fight with the first upper-vamp and then there was this second great final-fight with all slayers. Was ok in my eyes but I understand if some wanted a Buffy vs. The first evil fight.

WHY DID YOU KILL ANYA IF YOU WERE NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT IMPORTANT TO THE STORY

YES, WHY??? I think they wanted to give the show more tragedy, show that this fight was the hardest and give the following season something to start with. A broken Xander...

And Dawn went to High school...but the writers completely abandoned that after like 10 episodes. That story had the potential (Pun intended!) to be great...instead they gave up on that like the did the whole season

Yes missed some episodes there too! But I think we saw a lot of High-school-episodes in season 1 to 3. Too much would have been boring too!

 

[sosa lola]

The slayer stands alone.

And dies within a month of being called, if not less. 😉

It's telling that Buffy is the only slayer who lived the longest among other slayers. The other slayers fought alone and died so soon. The reason Buffy made it this far was because she had Xander, Willow, and Giles and the others by her side all these years.

A slayer who doesn't stand alone will save the world more and live longer.

 

[Dagenspear]

And dies within a month of being called, if not less. 😉

It's telling that Buffy is the only slayer who lived the longest among other slayers. The other slayers fought alone and died so soon. The reason Buffy made it this far was because she had Xander, Willow, and Giles and the others by her side all these years.

A slayer who doesn't stand alone will save the world more and live longer.

As I said a few times, help and friends can truly be a strength. They help get her there and even give her a drive and a tie to the world to ensure her not giving up. But in the final battle, Buffy had only herself to rely on.

 

[Hale Caesar]

And dies within a month of being called, if not less. 😉

It's telling that Buffy is the only slayer who lived the longest among other slayers. The other slayers fought alone and died so soon. The reason Buffy made it this far was because she had Xander, Willow, and Giles and the others by her side all these years.

A slayer who doesn't stand alone will save the world more and live longer.

When has there ever been a detailed history of all of the Slayers? It's wrong to assume Buffy is the longest living Slayer unless we know all the information

 

[strawberryeve]

I'd rather have Season 7 than no season but I agree with many of the anti-S7 comments here. I love this show but this Season was one of my least favorites. Fantastic soundtrack though - Chosen was made all the better by nifty music.

 

[sylvanscribe]

I think it had some good episodes. "Conversations with Dead People" and "Selfless" are usually in my list of Top 10 episodes.

However, as a whole it was a miss. Quite frankly, the writing was sloppy and incoherent, and most of the guest stars/minor characters were god awful.

I simply blame Whedon for being too distracted. I didn't give a fig for Firefly and he should never have started a new series without wrapping up the one that made him a name in the first place.

 

[Willow My Love]

Total miss. I didn't like how timid Willow had become. I'm all for her feeling bad about killing people, but they turned her into a completely different character. It's like when they took Tara's light, hers went too. She wasn't anything resembling herself.

And I agree with HisMrs. There were too many new characters. It seemed really frantic. They couldn't focus on one character or the other. We never really got to know them.

 

[Mr Giles]

Big hit for me. Lota people say it started of good, well for me it finished of great. When Caleb and Faith came into it, and with classics like LMPTM, it was one of the best few months in the entire series. Last 8 of s7.... as good as the high school years.

 

[Sweet J]

Somewhat a miss for me, but not as bad as season 6. Although they didn't learn from season 6 as they brought Andrew the sniveling weasel along into season 7 for some bizarre reason.

Anyone else wish Jonathan killed Andrew, and not the other way round?

The Potentials were a good idea, but they were annoying, and didn't fit into the show at all. I was also kind of glad when they died as the writers essentially replicated the Dawn character into the hundreds.

Dawn was a mistake, when you multiple a mistake it doesn't get smaller, you get an even bigger mistake.


This quote sums up some of my other misgivings.

Everyone who knows me knows I hate season 7

- Why the hell were these boring a$$ Potentials getting more screen time than Giles, Xander, Dawn, and Faith?
- This season lacked any memorable episodes, "Conversations with Dead People" is the closest, but it still isn't as good as other individual episodes like Hush, The Body, Passion, etc.
- Why did the Scooby relationship get fixed? Seriously, they broke up in Season 6 and this season didn't help (refers to "I have nothing else to learn from you" scene)
- The Scythe has got to be the dumbest plot convenience ever...
- Why did Faith even come back this season? Seriously, if Joss was thinking he should have kept her on Angel
- The First was so boring. I'm sorry, he went out like a birthday cake candle...
- The Uber-Vamps. The writers just stopped caring. Buffy could barely beat one, and then in the series finale they were fighting an army of them...WTF
- Why did Spike turn into a crappy version of Angel? He used to be badass...
- "Chosen" was so disappointing, it was just a big generic battle...Buffy used to be about subversion and quality, what happened?
- WHY DID YOU KILL ANYA IF YOU WERE NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT IMPORTANT TO THE STORY
- And Dawn went to High school...but the writers completely abandoned that after like 10 episodes. That story had the potential (Pun intended!) to be great...instead they gave up on that like the did the whole season

Seriously, this season left a sour taste in my mouth. Thank goodness Angel season 5 is much, much better

 

[Joshua]

For me I'm a huge fan of Season 7 it has some of my favorite episodes from Buffy. I prefer the finale of "Chosen" than the 2 hour finale from season 6. I love Dark Willow but she gets so annoying after a while.

 

[Mr Giles]

Because Giles, Dawn and Xander were done, totally played out.
CWDP was overrated, LMPTM, dirty girls and chosen and more were great.
Faith came back because she belongs.

Agree with the other things Hale says, but then again we could come down on most seasons like that.

And you cant compare s7 to the legendary s5, thats just not fair.

The Chosen Slayer, Dark Willow was annoying from the first second.

 

[Zeppo]

Compared to the classic arc's and moments of seasons past, it was a miss for me. Not saying I didn't enjoy it while it aired but the pay-off of the final season didn't ... well, pay off.

 

[RipperGilesFan]

As I said a few times, help and friends can truly be a strength. They help get her there and even give her a drive and a tie to the world to ensure her not giving up. But in the final battle, Buffy had only herself to rely on.

I think they did a lot more than just 'help her get there', they kept her alive more than once; 'prophecy girl' , 'Witch', 'Ginger bread', 'the wish', and I'm sure there are more. In all those situations she would not have survived without a little help from her friends and watcher.

 

[shadcat]

"Why did Spike turn into a crappy version of Angel? He used to be badass..."

That line just made me realize how much of a different person Spike was with a soul in season 7 of Buffy and season 5 of Angel. Wow, that bugs me lol

 

[sisterofmercy]

"Why did Spike turn into a crappy version of Angel? He used to be badass..."

That line just made me realize how much of a different person Spike was with a soul in season 7 of Buffy and season 5 of Angel. Wow, that bugs me lol

Yeah it seems like he regressed a little bit. But I think a lot of that was to do with him being around Angel rather than Buffy. He brings out the competitive prat side to him I think, like siblings do.

 

[shadcat]

Yeah it seems like he regressed a little bit. But I think a lot of that was to do with him being around Angel rather than Buffy. He brings out the competitive prat side to him I think, like siblings do.

shadcat agrees: 🙂p) I like that idea, to make it make sense!

 

[Hale Caesar]

Agree with the other things Hale says, but then again we could come down on most seasons like that.

Season 7 is the only season where I have a list of things I do not like. It's the only season I really hate, the rest of the seasons vary in quality but none, in my opinion, are as bad as season 7

And you cant compare s7 to the legendary s5, thats just not fair.

Season 5 of Angel or Buffy?