Why do some people dislike S7?

[Robb Stark]

I'm pretty new to BB, but since I've been here I've heard some pretty split opinions on the last season of Buffy. I don't really understand it, just me, but I thought it was awesome. I get that it was a bit of a stretch in Chosen to have Team Buffy fighting thousands of the ubervamps when she struggled so much with one, but overall, I couldn't find much fault.

 

[brinkster130]

Personally the main reason I didn't enjoy it as much as the other seasons is because of how broken the relationships between Scoobies had become and because of the odd dynamic the season had with Spike and Buffy vs. everyone else. It was disappointing to see the core four being swept to the side to make room for Spike and the potentials.

 

[JCoatsworth]

I like season 7. It's one of my least favorite seasons, maybe even my least favorite, but I think it's good.

But I guess for some people (to me as well, but only to a certain degree) it kind of turned the whole concept of the Slayer upside down with the potentials and all. A bit like with the Star Wars prequels 😉 Suddenly there are microscopic organisms in a Jedi's blood that him or her the ability to feel the force. Fans formed their own picture about how a girl becomes a Slayer etc. through out the whole series and suddenly they tell you how everything is supposed to work. Well, that's how I imagine it, anyway.

 

[Groge]

I personally like it but i understand what JCoatsworth is saying. It just made the whole Slayer thing less special, it made Buffy less special.

 

[Bluebird]

I personally like it but i understand what JCoatsworth is saying. It just made the whole Slayer thing less special, it made Buffy less special.

I disagree. I think it made Buffy more special. She was the only Slayer in history to make the decision to share her power, to give up her uniqueness and break the cycle. I know how you mean, but I don't think it makes for a bad ending or anything. I loved season 7. 🙂

 

[Joshua]

IA, imo it's one of my favorites. plus it has my favorite episodes in it. I prefer it over Season 6 if anything.

 

[ChosenOneK]

I honestly loved it. I thought it was a very good season...season 6 pretty dark...my least favorite is season 4

 

[EVIL UU]

Because it's boring...

Buffy was mostly an action-adventure show and season 7 is mostly soap opera territory. Buffy, I don't care about your deep personality problems and your troubling relationships and the rest of that nonsense, just go and slay something already!

Uh...OK, I'll give you an example which I believe sums up precisely why season 7 sucks.

In season 2, Buffy grabs a stolen rocket launcher, walks into a mall full of people and with a criminally bad pun, blows up a no-good demon into a million little pieces! Because she's THE SLAYER, an unstoppable goddess of mass destruction. And she's beautiful and she's glorious.

In season 7 Buffy takes a rocket launcher again and...NOTHING happens, we get Spike running around with it like the wanker he is. She doesn't even shoot the damn thing.

Do you get it now? Do you understand the difference?

But mostly because it doesn't make sense!

Now there are potentials, they waste precious screen time and honestly, why would we even care about them, but that's not the biggest problem. You know what is? They are pointless, utterly useless. All Buffy needed to do was to strap a shiny whatever that thing is onto Spike's bare chest and drop kick him into a hole in High School's basement. Done, The First is defeated, congratulations, go buy yourself some nice shoes.

And why do they even live in Buffy's house, get a hotel you tramps, it's not like you are special, there are thousands of potentials around the world, thousands and new ones are produced or whatever on a daily basis, sorry Giles, you're officially the worst watcher ever, The First can't kill them all, it's impossible. Uh!

The ending? It's disgusting, it's insulting. So Buffy, having first hand experience of how unbearably shitty, horrible and painful Slayer's life is, being fully aware that the source of Slayer's powers is basically a demonic rape decides to drop that crap onto thousands of...children? Seriously? Potentials are mostly underage, the youngest Slayers were 12 for god's sake.

Can somebody slap some sense into that irresponsible, heartless, dumb little bitch?

Maybe her friends? No, they are all like "Oh jolly good, what a bloody brilliant plan it is!". Have all of them just lost their bloody minds?

And when people say that's she's sharing her power they make 3 lies in one sentence - it's not her power, it's not power - it's a curse and she's not exactly sharing it.

Season 7 is rubbish.

 

[AmelRIOT]

In my opinion I don't really like season 7 cause it was rush, willow didn't have enough time to deal with the loss of Tara and moved on with Kennedy who I thought was a terrible choice I can stand her in some episodes but I hated how she thought she was tougher then the other slayers. I didn't like everyone hanging up on Buffy she didn't need to teach them or let them sleep in her house they should respect her she died for all of them and she gets slapped around the face. I love chosen and storyteller them two episodes are my fav from this season. It isn't the worst season in my opinion. I think people don't like it cause the rush of Willow moving on and how the season rushed and that season 6 was so dark and changed everything season 7 just didn't fit in. Well that's my opinion 🙂

 

[dexeded]

Potentials were a good idea conceptually, but they cluttered up the screen, and I frankly didn't give a damn about them, especially stupid Kennedy. They should have focused more on the Scooby relationship (not that I complain about the lovely Spuffy).

There were too many speeches. Normally, BtVS speeches are awesome. Like Buffy's 'me' in Becoming, Spike's death wish speech, Buffy's The Gift goodbye to Dawn... In S7, the good speeches were few and far between (Xander's Potential speech to Dawn was one of the few good ones). They filled it up with generic speeches that could be applied to anything. Nothing made it special or unique to BtVS.

Plot holes. BtVS isn't big on plot cohesiveness, I admit, but S7 was just swiss cheese. For example, I can overlook the plot holes in The Gift, my favourite season finale, most notably Olaf suddenly being a troll god, and Buffy-Dawn blood link thingy, because they aren't super gaping and don't overshadow the emotional payoff. However, for Chosen, they made a point of saying how powerful the Turok-Han are, and suddenly they can just slay them. Not to mention the ridiculous Guardians, those who watch the Watchers, who basically serve zero purpose. The Slayer scythe by itself would have been fine as a deux ex machina, since it was kind of foreshadowed by The First digging something up, but combined with all the other stuff... just no. The W&H amulet by itself would have been okay too, since it serves a purpose in AtS S5, but as with the Slayer scythe, there were far too many holes elsewhere. Buffy's plan was absolutely redundant, since Spike did all the saving anyway. Going into the Hellmouth before Willow did the spell was stupidity.

Boring. I loved the first seven episodes. I thought S7 would be great. The last few episodes were pretty good too. But the middle portion... that was just... slow. Nothing much changed, just that The First is the Biggest Bad and can't touch anything, and the Potentials are annoying.




Now, S7 isn't my least favourite season--that award goes to S1--but it's certainly around the bottom with S4.

 

[Astral]

I think it's a mix of The Potentials, Andrew, Kennedy & Willow ship, and knowing the show is coming to end that makes it hard to stomach for some people. But overall, it is one of my favorite seasons.

 

[EvilBuffy]

I very much like S7, but it'd never be my favorite simply because it was so rushed. A few friends of mine don't enjoy it because it didn't focus at all on the relationships of the core 4 but honestly, that's one of the appeals of this season to me. Teenagers grow up and friends grow apart. I felt like they all still loved each other but it seemed realistic to me for them to seperate a bit. Back to the point though, S7 was just a cluster of too much happening all at once and not enough explanation behind it in my opinion. It didn't help matters that it led up to a pretty lackluster final battle. I just think it could have been better. On the flip side though, it could have been worse haha. 😉

 

[Kathryn0505]

I like the beginning but then it kinda goes downhill.

I agree with everyone who mentioned the plot holes.

I just feel like season 7 was setting up for this huge epic evil battle and then it was kind of a let down since the only thing that saved their butts was the amulet from W&H which didn't even come in till the very end. It was like Joss & Co suddenly realised that they had built up the evil to the point that the good guys had no chance of winning and they decided to throw in an amulet to save the day.

I actually like the idea that all the potentials became slayers. Buffy might actually get to live a more normal (and certainly longer) life. However, since it was the amulet that really saved them, I thought this was pointless and cheapened things a little.

AND I really didn't like how fragmented the group became. I understand that's what happens as people get older, but it was still painful to watch.

That being said, Lies My Parents Told Me and Conversations with Dead People would make my top 15 easily.

 

[BlessedLunatic]

However, for Chosen, they made a point of saying how powerful the Turok-Han are, and suddenly they can just slay them.

Yeah, that bothers me too. ONE of them was such a huge problem, and Buffy just barely managed to kill it in a fight, and not before she'd gotten beat up a few times.

But suddenly, they can take on a whole cave full of them and not die in two seconds? Even with all of them being slayers, it still seems they couldn't possibly have held them all off for that long. Especially since there was only one scythe.

 

[orpheusxi]

I don't dislike it & think it had a strong start, but after episode 7 or so it started losing momentum. I think its probably Buffy's second worst season because of the following

A boring villain
The First was cool in theory & had a great introduction but as the season went on the idle threats became old.

No real standout episodes, quality episode consistency, or interesting story arc
Conversations & Lies were good episodes but lets compare with season 2-6 where we got either arcs, standalones or a combination both that really pushed the quality up.

The Potentials taking away character development
I don't know if I could say they were a good idea or not, but they took too much screen time when the final season should have been about the characters we've been with over the past 5 years & a group of newbies. I think a Giles centric episode would have been nice in the same vein as Anya or Spike got that season.

The Willow & Kennedy relationship
I get they didn't want to abandon the idea of her being a lesbian but it just felt like a meaningless fling & in the final season I think Willow should have been alone.

 

[Kathryn0505]

I don't dislike it & think it had a strong start, but after episode 7 or so it started losing momentum. I think its probably Buffy's second worst season because of the following

A boring villain
The First was cool in theory & had a great introduction but as the season went on the idle threats became old.

Disagree! I loved the First. It was deliciously, refreshingly evil after "evil but not really because it's still Willow" Willow from S6. Plus the first was surprisingly funny, especially in Buffy's form. "You sure know how to romance a girl..."

The Willow & Kennedy relationship
I get they didn't want to abandon the idea of her being a lesbian but it just felt like a meaningless fling & in the final season I think Willow should have been alone.

Agreed.

I just remembered a few other things that bothered me.

Anya and Giles learn that Buffy's resurrection majorly messed stuff up. Say what? Could we have a little more explanation? This is kind of a major thing that was barely mentioned as an explanation.

The slayer having demonic origins. Again I say say what? Needs more explanation.

And I really wish they would have at some point in the series gone more into how a slayer is chosen. Also, I think it would have been a nice scene if Buffy and Giles had ever sat down and talked about this stuff. As we see in S7, some potentials are trained by watchers. Buffy had no idea what she was until she was actually called. Why? I wish she would have asked at some point.

 

[orpheusxi]

Disagree! I loved the First. It was deliciously, refreshingly evil after "evil but not really because it's still Willow" Willow from S6. Plus the first was surprisingly funny, especially in Buffy's form. "You sure know how to romance a girl..."



Agreed.

I just remembered a few other things that bothered me.

Anya and Giles learn that Buffy's resurrection majorly messed stuff up. Say what? Could we have a little more explanation? This is kind of a major thing that was barely mentioned as an explanation.

The slayer having demonic origins. Again I say say what? Needs more explanation.

And I really wish they would have at some point in the series gone more into how a slayer is chosen. Also, I think it would have been a nice scene if Buffy and Giles had ever sat down and talked about this stuff. As we see in S7, some potentials are trained by watchers. Buffy had no idea what she was until she was actually called. Why? I wish she would have asked at some point.

Sure The First was funny but thats about it. Most of its plans were pretty weak & boring. I'm glad you mentioned the origin of the first slayer because I think that should have been heavily explored more as well as the after effects of Buffy's death & rebirth twice

 

[BangelsBetter]

My thoughts exactly just a little bit more aggressive

 

[Taake]

I would like to quote Sheldon Cooper "it fails as drama, science fiction and is hopelessly derivative" sadly the quote isn't entirely fitting but I think you get my point 😉

My main problem with season 7 is the disappointing thread that the First made and the Potential plotline. I would have liked to see the final season re-focusing on the core of the show, the Scoobies, their bonds, etc... not branching out to a myriad of new characters they couldn't even hope to accomodate in the short amount of time and oing so at the expense of the characters and relationships that we had loved for years and was a big part of why people were still watching the show.

 

[Deus Ex Machina]

There was too much going on that you really couldn't keep track of it all.

Also, I was really beginning to hate how the gang treated Buffy. In season 3, they cannot comprehend what is going on with her in regards to Angel and how that messed her up, so they rag on her without all of the information. They rag on her in S4 when she's bummed out about Parker and they want happy, fun Buffy back. So Buffy dates Riley and everyone is in a couple and off doing their own thing, but Buffy is to blame because she's working with an organization who can handle themselves in combat a lot better than her friends. S5, they rag on her for not trying hard enough with Riley, never mind the fact that Riley's insecurities is what undid them, not Buffy "not loving him enough" (whatever THAT means). Then in S6, they bring her back from the dead. Her sister, the one she sacrificed herself for, is all moody because she wants Buffy time but when she gets Buffy time she doesn't want it. No one can deal with a depressed Buffy (again, like in S3), and they want her to buck up and be who she was before, when they should know full well that coming back from the dead is an experience that kind of changes a person 😛. Lastly, S7, Buffy is being turned to, to lead her friends, a bunch of whiny teenagers and she also has to take care of a very sick vampire. They come to her to lead but get all upset when she decides to LEAD.

It's really aggravating and I just could not anymore with the treatment of Buffy. She has to be all happy-go-lucky but fight and be a warrior but include everyone in on everything on top of being emotionally available. When she can't be everything they want her to be at the same time, it's like their little brains melt.

I have feelings.