Top 5 eps of Season 7

Huh? Why BOTN? Why not Chosen? Chosen is the one that didn't follow what was laid down.

It's a moot point anyway. The difference in power of the two sets of Turok Han is explainable. The explanation is buried, but obvious once you see it.

If you watch the end of Never Leave Me a few times you'll notice they used a special ceremony with Spike to open the seal. Why? It wasn't to unlock the seal. Jonathan had already unlocked it. He did have enough blood. Notice in Get it Done the small amount of Wood's blood it took to open the seal.

True, the First Evil as Jonathan said Jonathan didn't have enough blood to open the seal, but guess what? The First Evil is evil. It lies. It didn't want to open the seal with Jonathan, only to unlock it. It couldn't tell Andrew he had succeeded in doing what was intended, because Andrew would have wanted his reward.

Also the bringers didn't use the special seal-unlocking knife with Spike. They used different knives, and carved mystical symbols into Spikes body. It was a ceremony with an intent other than simply opening the seal. A super-powered vampire appears. We discover later in the series it has more power than the average Turok-Han. It's not far-fetched to assume the special ritual used with Spike was designed to empower that particular Turok-Han.
 
nerd, yeah but I'm tired of making assumptions and creating my own take on everything. It's a interesting theory you have there though, but it's just an excuse in the end......maybe I am blaming the episode for future episodes like you said, but with this ep they wrote themselves into a corner. I mean Willow gets taken over by the First Evil but when she uses magic again in future episodes, the First Evil never overpowers her again. Joyce appears in the ep, but we never find out if it's really her. Plus, I wasn't too keen on the "no one shall touch Giles" introduction. Why did Annabelle flee the house anyway?? She was scared sure, but running out into danger is such a smart move......Looks like it's time to make yet another assumption......
 
Well... you tell me you're not interested in what you call assumptions, (what I would call well-supported explanations), so I won't bother offering any more.

I will tell you, I believe I can explain everything except the Annabelle thing. I agree with you. The Annabelle thing should have been explained. Again though, the blame shouldn't fall on BOTN. Someone should have taken responsibility for it at a later date. The ball was in their court.

I have a theory. Wanna hear it? Too bad. I'll tell it to you anyway. 🙂

I supect that at the time of BOTN the writers were planning to make Kennedy evil at a later date, then they had second thoughts. They decided they wanted to keep her. Making her evil would have required killing her off. Thus the explanation for why Annabelle ran (Kennedy as demon) died.
 
Well it's okay to make assumptions, but I just wish they would of explained the season more clearly. Every other season of Buffy was explained well enough....oh and Kennedy is evil...well she is in my book, I hate her character.

Since you seem to have constructed some logic around the season, I might as well ask your take on a few other so called plot holes:

Did the First Evil want Spike killed, or did he want Spike to serve a purpose in the end? I mean in Sleeper the First Evil was trying to get Buffy to kill him. But later on, The First Evil seemed to want him alive because it wasn't time for him yet, but The First Evil also seemed to want to kill Spike because the first evil clues Wood in on who killed his mother, which almost got Spike killed again. And I'm annoyed with how stupid the First Evil was throughout the season. He didn't know Andrew was wearing a wire, nor knew anything...but the evil should be everywhere at all times...and if the First was smart, it would of built it's army and not gave everyone the heads up that it was planning something. It should of finished getting the army prepared, then struck and wiped out most of society. This season is like some meticulously complicated puzzle with missing pieces!!!! I still really enjoyed the season though......but those missing pieces kill me.....
 
Originally posted by GrimsWatcher
Well it's okay to make assumptions, but I just wish they would of explained the season more clearly.

I sympathize with that point Grim. I even agree with the sentiment that Season 7 stopped making sense at a point and as a result got weaker.

Here's my personal take on it though. There seems to be 2 season 7s; the first half that ends with Bring on the Night, and the second, where things disintegrated into a kind of semi-organized chaos.

The first half has a delicious feel of tension and suspense. Mysteries are expertly presented, and there is the inherent insinuation they will eventually be resolved. It's a page turner.

In the second they seem to inexplicably forget the mysteries and the issues of character development they set up in the first half.

I blame the lesser writers; Drew Z Greengerg and Rebecca Kirshner. They're given an unprecedented amount of work, and control over the storyline in the second half.

Greenberg (Him, Killer in Me, Empty Places) never has made sense, and he never will. He stuffs unnecessary nonsense into his screenplays on the assumption it's clever. It's not. It's disorienting, disrupts continuity, and creates a whole new set of issues that need to be resolved.

Kirshner (Potential, Touched) is actually a good writer when you give her a stand-alone like Help, but if you get her too much involved with the story arc, you get something like Hell's Bells where she seems to want to create a whole new type of ugliness and sends the story off in another direction.

Consequently you have a situation in the second half of S7 where the brilliant feel of mystery, suspense and tension set up by the first half is forgotten and the storyline dashes madly off in multiple directions.

The better writers make a brave attempt to patch the holes, but it's hopeless. Espenson resolves the Andrew thing in Storyteller. Goddard resolves Spike and Wood in LMPTM. It's not enough. Greenberg and Kirshner have done too much damage.

The coup de gras to this insanity happened in the final 5 episode arc. Unbelievably the better writers were pulled from the lineup and replaced by Greenberg and Kirshner. G and K did what you would expect them do to. They ignored the responsibilities of resolution, and created a whole new set of questions, ignoring continuity and even common sense. This left Petrie and Espenson (End of Days) with the impossible task of trying to patch the holes. It couldn't be done in 42 minutes. Really all they could do was create a buffer between the stupidity of the two previous episodes and what had to be a power episode in Chosen.

This is what I think happened, and why what could have been one of the most amazing seasons of television in the history of the medium was turned into a confusing, disorienting shambles.

As to your other questions... I agree The First Evil was badly handled. Again, this happened in the second half. The First Evil became comedy relief.

Did the First want Spike dead, or did the first want Wood dead? I believe it's the latter.

Why did the first want Spike alive? I believe this is anwered once you understand the resolution to the riddle of Beljoxa's eye. I posted a thread where I gave my take on that. If your interested it's in the Season 7 in the USA section.
 
I agree with your take Greenberg, he doesn't understand the characters and when I watch an episode from him it's like watching some alternate universe that makes no sense. I don't think Kirshner is that bad really, I enjoyed Help, Potential wasn't that terrible, but Touched was pretty weak. Hell's Bell's was a mixed episode for me, most of the highlights were Anya oriented. It's hard to blame them though when Whedon is the main guy here who oversees the show. I felt like he abandoned the program a little bit. He needs to focus on one or two shows tops, and I wish he wouldn't of done Firefly, not because it was bad, but a show on Fox is always gonna die, and I knew it wouldn't survive. Without Firefly, I'm sure we would of gotten another genius episode or 2 from Whedon the last couple years. I can't wait for the season 7 dvd set, I want there to be many commentaries, explanations, a huge overview of the season, Whedon explaining the unexplained, etc......I think I'm reaching too high though....and we won't get that set for another year or so. ::sighs::
 
Yeah, it would be interesting to know who's actually in charge of what, on top. I agree with you when you suggest someone at the helm took his or her hand off the rudder in the second half of the season. It's almost like they stopped caring.

I also agree with you when you say Kirshner can be a quality writer. My point is she doesn't seem to work well with others. Her vision of where the series is coming from and where it's going doesn't seem to jive with anyone elses. I actually like Potential, but it goes off on this Amanda kick, and the story that should have been told (that of the potentials) gets lost. Consequently you have a viewership confused as to what the Potentials are even doing in the storyline. The "Potentials" subplot begins to look scattered, and superfluous
 
Potentials highlight for me was Dawn and Xander's chat at the end, relating to each other heavily. My main problem with the episode(and it shouldn't be a big deal but it is to me) is the missing Chole. No explanation of where she was all of a sudden. Was it that difficult for them to just say "Chole isn't coming with us tonight, she's sick and resting upstairs". The episode felt like a filler with no context in a way also...it's a fine episode on it's own though.

This is one of those seasons where most of the episodes are good on their own, but as part of a season and overall arc, it's not tightly plotted. I remember half way through the season after watching Buffy take on the Turok Han in Showtime, and I was just imagining the possibilities of what was to come. Well what was to come was a lot of sitting around and hanging out. They needed to get out of that house, it was a overused set this year. I remember the advertisements for Bring on the Night stating the war has begun. Well the next 5 episodes I thought maybe the war went into hibernation.....I'll always remember season 7 as the season that had a great concept, and could of amounted to so much more then it actually did.

I wouldn't of minded a few episodes that didn't pertain to the main focus of the season...they stuffed the First Evil down my throat all year, and in the end they didn't really fight it.....I was so happy when they introduced Caleb just so they could fight something. The fight in Dirty Girls was very well done in my opinion and it gave me a "whoa, what's coming next" feeling.....sadly what was next was two of the weaker episodes of the season!!! Okay I'm just yapping now.....sometimes I go on a long rant and daze out.
 
I decided to rank all of the episodes of the season.
1) Chosen
2) Conversations With Dead People
3) Selfless
4) Bad Girls
5) Storyteller
6) End Of Days
7) Him
8) Help
9) Lies My Parents Told Me
10)Same Time, Same Place
11)Lessons
12)Beneath You
13)Bring On The NIght
14)Never Leave Me
15)Empty Places
16)Potential
17)Sleeper
18)First Date
19)Get It Done
20)Showtime
21)The Killer In Me
22)Touched
 
I'll rank every episode, seems like a good idea

1. Chosen
2. Selfless
3. Touched
4. Get it Done
5. Storyteller
6. Conversations With Dead People
7. Help
8. Same Time, Same Place
9. End of Days
10. Lies My Parents Told Me
11. Lessons
12. Showtime
13. Potential
14. Beneath You
15. Never Leave Me
16. Bring on the Night
17. Dirty Girls
18. Sleeper
19. First Date
20. Him
21. Empty Places
22. The Killer In Me
 
I think I will just stick with the TOP 5!

1. Conversations With Dead People
2. Chosen
3. Get It Done
4. Him
5. Lessons
 
Here's my list of the top 5 best episodes of S7 and the top 5 worst episodes of S7:

Best
1. Him
2. Lessons
3. Sleeper
4. Bring on the Night
5. Never Leave Me

Worst
1. Conversations with Dead People (used to be on my Top 5 best list, but I switched it over)
2. Dirty Girls
3. End of Days
4. Touched
5. Empty Places
 
I like:

1.) Chosen
2.) Conversations With Dead People
3.) Storyteller
4.) Same Time, Same Place
5.) End Of Days
 
1) Chosen
2) Touched
3) Conversations With Dead People
4) Dirty Girls
5) Storyteller
 
1.chosen
2.get it done
3.showtime
4.conversations with dead people
5.help
 
Five Episodes

BEST FIVE EPS of SEASON 7:

1. Lies My Parents Told Me

2. Beneath Me

3. Touched

4. Selfless

5. Sleeper


WORST FIVE EPS of SEASON 7:

1. Bring on the Night

2. Showtime

3. Same Place, Next Year

4. End of Days

5. The Killer in Me
 
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