Review - Buffy: The Original Unaired Pilot

What we have here is the original pilot for the series, shot somewhere around 1996, which was made to present to the studio. The idea behind it was that the studio had ordered Whedon to produce a half hour pilot for them to see what he would do with the show. This pilot is ultimately what got the show picked up, and it was never meant to be seen by the public, just by executives.

The availability of this is pretty low, although it is considered to be one of the most widely pirated television pilots in history. Whedon is on record as saying that it will never see the light of day, because it's terrible and he doesn't want it out there. After seeing it, I can understand where he's coming from.

First, most of the cast is here. Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy, Nick Brenden as Xander, Tony Head as Giles, Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia, etc., and we even get appearances by Harmony and Jonathan. What is different is that instead of Alyson Hanigan, we have Riff Regan as Willow. My, what a different show this would have been with her as Willow. Now, I know that I'm saying this after living the last 12 years having known Alyson as Willow, but this just doesn't feel right. I've included the above picture of Riff in the role so that you can see how different she is. First off, to my eyes, she looks to be at least mid 20s, maybe older. Second, she doesn't have the shy awkwardness that Alyson did, and thirdly...there's no hint of inner sexiness waiting to be revealed. If Riff Regan had remained Willow, we'd never have gotten sexy vampire Willow or the hot first Halloween episode Willow. Who knows if they could have played up romantic tension between Xander and her, either. It's certainly not in this pilot.

It starts off like the televised Pilot, with Darla breaking into school with a boy, but then it's different. There's not a lot of moody atmosphere, and it takes place on a play stage. In fact, several scenes take place on the auditorium stage, including the finale. You get the impression that they didn't have much money and were just using what was available, which HAS to be the case. I like that aspect. If you can separate yourself from this being Buffy, it's kind of neat to see how much like an amateur student film this is. There's no music in it other than a few grunge songs, so it feels very raw.

Much is the same in the plot, with Buffy meeting Flutie and Giles, then having to go rescue Willow, but the way it is all played out is at about 1/10 of the level that it played in the final televised pilot. It's just so raw and cheap that it feels like it was shot for no money at all. I wonder what the principal actors got paid for this. We even get to see the first dusting, which is not a CG effect, but instead seems to be a stop motion shot of a man being replaced by salt, which progressively piles higher and higher as he "decomposes."

There is no Angel. There is no Master. There is no interior for the Bronze. We see the same school, an auditorium, and an exterior shot of a building that says the Bronze. Instead of the actor we know who played Flutie, we have Stephen Tobolowsky, who was in Groundhog Day and who is now recognizable for his role in Heroes. I actually preferred this Flutie, and wonder why he didn't return. Maybe he had something else going on by the time this was picked up a year later.

All in all, it's not really fair to judge this too harshly, as it was never meant to be seen by people like me, and was intended just to show executives what Whedon wanted to do with this show. But having seen it, if I was one of those executives, I can't say that I would have let this go on to be a series, because there's just not enough good stuff here. It feels VERY much like an ultra low budget version of the movie from the early 90s, but without the polish that the movie had. Crazy, right? But clearly Joss saw the things that needed to be changed and did what he had to do, because when the pilot made it to television, it was a vastly different show. The skeletal frame was the same, but the meat was so different.

I'm not going to grade this, as it wouldn't be fair. This exists as a curiosity for fans like myself, and is worth watching if you can find it, just to see what could have been different. If you can bear seeing your beloved Buffy in a not so great light, it's worth seeking out.

Review: 2008 Buffy cast Reunion DVD

This review is for an exclusive bonus disc available at Best Buy that contains the entire 90 minute Buffy 2008 cast reunion panel which took place at the Paley Festival earlier this year. I was able to go into my local Best Buy and walk out with it for free. It's supposed to be free with any Buffy purchase, but since I have them all already, they told me I could take it.

What a fantastic little gem this is. It consists of Matt Roush, from TV Guide, talking briefly about the impact of Buffy as a show on our culture, and then they show the audience Once More With Feeling. When the panel begins, it consists of:

Joss Whedon, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendan, James Marsters, Emma Caulfield, Michelle Trachtenberg, Marti Noxon, Charisma Carpenter, Seth Green, Amber Benson, and David Greenwalt.


Now, what's notable to me is that this is the first time I've ever seen Sarah Michelle Gellar participate in anything like this. She's never been on any of the extras for the DVDs, she's not on any of the panels that I've seen, and I've never even heard her talk about the show to fans before. The only time I ever saw her do any promotion for Buffy was on a documentary that aired on cable that was included on the season 6 DVD set, and even then, it was very limited interaction. So to have her here, talking about the role that she made famous, is really a blessing.

This is the most fun I've ever had with Buffy outside of an episode. Everyone is loose, everyone seems comfortable, and everyone is funny. Seth Green, in particular, is absolutely hilarious. He had me laughing non stop with his one liners and his revelations about David Boreanez proudly pooping in Seth's trailer in the morning. "Left something for you, Seth!"

It's good to hear the rest of the cast being praised outside of Whedon too. Clearly this show is Whedon's baby, but just as much praise is given to Amber Benson, Emma Caulfield, and James Marsters as is given to Gellar and Whedon. Matt Roush was a great moderator, and I think it was clear that what made Buffy a hit show was not just Joss, but the tremendous efforts of everyone.

More revelations came out during this as well. This took place 5 years after the wrap of the series, so even more secrets are coming out. When questioned about season 6 and it's darkness, Sarah says that it got so bad that she actually went to Marti Noxon and told her that she didn't even know the voice of Buffy anymore. She couldn't find the hero in the pain because of all the darkness. Joss said that on the same day Sarah told Marti this, he went to Marti and told her the same thing. They'd taken the show to such a dark place that there was nowhere else to go, and they'd lost the hero.

I also learned that after season 5, Joss left the show in the hands of Marti. His involvement was seriously cut back, and while I found out that he'd taken a break on the Chosen Collection bonus disc, here they talk about how Marti was running the show now. Joss had punched up all the scripts before this, but he was not doing that anymore. He had left. He came back every now and then, and he was still involved with the writers, but he was not there in the capacity that he had been. I knew it!

This is just a remarkable little DVD that I think you guys definitely need to get ahold of. There are transcripts on the internet of what was said, but it's nothing like seeing these guys 5 years later, talking about things that are current. I know it's not an episode, but I gotta rate this thing anyway. It's a 10/10, and I imagine I'm going to spend a lot of time re-watching this in the future.

Review: Buffy - The Chosen Collection Exclusive Bonus Disc

This review is for the exclusive bonus disc that comes with the Chosen Collection, which is the 200 dollar mega-box set of all the Buffy seasons. Fox has pulled a fast one here by not making this DVD available to the general public and making it available only through this set, which I think is a real disservice to the fans. I bought all the seasons as they came out and paid full retail for them. I think it would have been kind of 20th Century Fox to offer this as a mail in exclusive with proofs of purchase from all seven seasons, but that's neither here nor there, I suppose.

Bottom line is that this DVD is out there by itself if you know where to look. Perhaps your local library has it. It just takes a little looking.

Anyway, the disc consists of about 90 minutes worth of features that aren't seen anywhere else on any of the DVDs and were produced just for this set that was released in 2005.

The first of the extras, and the one with the most value, is a 2005 round table discussion consisting of the following people: Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard, David Fury, Jane Espenson, Charisma Carpenter, Nicholas Brendan, Danny Strong, Marti Noxon, and Emma Caulfield.

There's some interesting revelations that came out of this round table, but what I came away with most was that everyone looked much happier than they do on the normal DVD features. Joss Whedon was full of smiles, he seemed comfortable, and he seemed rested and at peace. His labors were done, and this was 2 years after the show had finished, so he had been given enough time to be able to look back on it without still being in the thick of it.

One of the things I learned that confirmed my suspicions was that Joss was absent for a lot of season 6. In a previous panel I had watched, that didn't seem to be the case, but here, Marti talks about how he took a few months off and left her in charge. He still had a hard time cutting all his ties back completely, but this time off is when he came up with the idea for the musical. At his home, over two months, he crafted the songs and the story, and it built from there. This is something I've suspected, but never knew for sure.

Each of the cast got to talk about their first memory of working on Buffy or being exposed to Buffy. Several of the writers talked about how bad the Buffy film was, and Joss agrees.

It's not as long as I wish it could have been, but for about an hour, we see these guys talking about their behind the camera experiences.

Other features on the disc include a few shorter puff pieces, each running about 10 minutes. There's one on the stunts, one on the monsters, and one, that is pretty cool, that has members of the cast and crew talking about what their favorite Buffy episode is.

The last feature is a short conversation with Joss Whedon were he recounts his 10 favorite episodes and why they are his favorite. They aren't always as obvious as you would think, either.

All in all, I had a good time with this bonus disc, and I think it shed some light on some things that needed to be addressed. It's a shame that Fox couldn't make it more available, but if you get a chance to get your hands on it, it's worth it.

Stay Tuned!

I may have finished with Buffy the series, but there's loads more. Watch this space (or better yet, subscribe to the blog) because I'm just getting started. I've got Dark Horse comics Buffy Omnibus volumes to review, 25 Buffy novels I plan to read and re-read, the season 8 comic that I will be reviewing, bonus features like the Chosen One Box Set exclusive bonus disc featuring new interviews and a roundtable discussion in Joss' house with the cast, the 2008 Paleyfest Cast reunion panel, and many more Buffy goodies to talk about.

Plus....in a few weeks, there's a little show called Angel that I will be reviewing right here.

Don't touch that dial.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Looking Back at Television History

41 days.

That's what it's taken me to watch the entire run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from start to finish. Longer than some, shorter than others. 41 days ago, I posted the very first entry to this blog, called "So Begins the Journey." I outlined that I planned to re-watch the show that I had loved as a slightly younger man, and that I wanted to go on that journey of laughs and tragedies again.

What a journey it has been.

I started watching Buffy from the very first episode. It was 1997, and I was 18 years old, a senior in high school. That's the perfect age, I'd say, for where the show was at that point. And as I grew older, the characters grew older with me. I was in college when Buffy and Willow started college, and I was trying desperately to figure out what to do with my life when Xander was searching for a career.

I watched for most of seven years. Dates came and went, events, parties, and life took over, and so I missed large parts of season 5, but by the time season 6 started, I was with the woman who is now my wife, and we watched season 6 and 7 faithfully, every week. I was there when it all ended.

But over the last 5 years, the memories had faded. I'd forgotten what made this show so special. I had come to laugh at those who wore shirts that said "Whedon is my master" and relegated Buffy to something from my past, something that I loved, but that had been put away.

Never again, I vow, will I put this show in the past. In the 41 days I've watched this show, these characters have been like family. I've laughed, I've cried, and I've mourned them as if they were real. I've spent hours thinking about them. I've followed them through the events of my own life and through more than one apocalypse.

What is it that makes Buffy so special?

Maybe it's the writing. The crackling Whedon-speak dialog. When you catch yourself saying things like "creepy much?" and "what's your childhood trauma" in regular conversation, you know that something has had an influence.

Maybe it's the fact that none of the characters are one dimensional. They feel real. They have their triumphs, the things they are proud about, but they also have their flaws. People lose their tempers, they say things they shouldn't say, they reap consequences that they must face. They feel like real people. There's a Cordelia in all of us, just as there is a Xander in us all, and a Willow in us all. People are not able to be labeled and put into boxes. Real people have many layers, and are all things. A jock, a nerd, a hero, a coward. We are all these things.

Maybe it's the wonderful plots, the epic bad guys, the clever endings? The ability of Buffy to make you laugh, and then in the final 3 seconds of an episode realize that what you are laughing at is really tragic? Or the ability to use that black credits screen to it's ultimate impact, making you remember what you just saw for weeks.

I think it's all these things. Buffy is a show like no other I've ever seen. Angel and Firefly, though both similar, still had a different feel from Buffy. Buffy was unique, and will never be duplicated. It's a show of legend, and while it has spawned it's imitators, it will forever be the superior original.

As for the seasons, I have to say that season one, two, and five are my favorites. They resonated with me like no other. In season seven, I found myself longing for the days of a Hyena demon or a praying mantis teacher.

And I've said that Buffy should have ended after season 5. Maybe it should have. I'm of two minds on this really. I thought I'd have a definitive answer when I finished season seven, but I don't. I'm still torn.

Season 5 was the last perfect example of Buffy. You had the comedy, the darkness, and the sacrifice. The final episode of season 5 began with Buffy slaying a vampire, something we'd not seen in a long, long time. It ended with her saving the universe, but more importantly, her sister. What better way to send the show off? I truly feel like this was the end of the show for Joss. I don't think he had anything else in him. His concept was done. He'd told his story, and it was over. By coming back for two more seasons, we got to be with these characters for 44 more episodes, but we also didn't get them in their purest, most loved form. We had to have Buffy come back after her job was done. We had to have her wonder why she was back. We had to deal with the doubt of Xander over Anya. By continuing the story after it was done, they left us with hours and hours of pain and angst. In the end, it probably was worth it, but I still think there's a strong argument to be made that Buffy should have remained dead.

I'd like to think of it that if the show had ended at season 5, Buffy would have had more meaning in death that she did in life. Her last sacrifice would have been that much more potent. If you want to continue, spin it off with Faith. Have the rest of the cast pop in and out. But when season 5 ended, I think an era ended for Buffy. Christopher Beck, the fantastic composer behind the music of seasons 2, 3, 4, and 5, was gone. The story had been told. WB had dropped the show. Buffy would never again have innocent moments of youth, she would never again laugh with abandon. She rarely smiled after this. She became something different, and so did the characters around her. Xander lost his humor. Willow lost Tara and was shrouded in both darkness and doubt. Giles was absent for most of the remaining two seasons, and Buffy without Giles really isn't Buffy at all. So I think there's a strong case to be made there.

But then I think...I love these characters. Just to be able to have them around for 44 more episodes is a gift. When it's over, it really is over. Part of me wishes this show could go on and on for ever, but that's not how reality works. We've got the season 8 comic, and that's something, but we'll probably never see Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicky Brendan, or Alyson Hannigan in the roles that they made famous. To have them for 2 extra seasons, even though those seasons were tumultuous and often difficult to wade through, really is a blessing.

And when the show was over, I fought the urge to run and put in the first season again. I need these characters to be a part of my life. I love them, and I feel like I know them. Now I understand why so many people have watched these episodes dozens of times. They aren't characters, they live in us. It sounds corny and overblown, but it's really true. Joss did something that I've never seen done before. He gave us characters that we can love as if they are real.

And maybe that's the real gift of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That we can always go back and take the journey once more. The journey ends, but you can always go back to the beginning. By crafting multi-dimensional characters, funny and moving dialog, and not fearing to go outside the box, Joss Whedon gave us his ultimate gift, something that never gets old, and friends who will never die.

Thank you, Joss.

Season Seven: Looking Back

Season seven of Buffy was just as rough for me as season six. While Joss seemed to be aware of the problems with darkness in season 6, he didn't do an awful lot to rectify that in this final season. I guess it wasn't as dark as season 6, but it suffered from the same lack of the unique Buffy voice, unhappy characters, and general misguided intentions.

The potential slayers thing annoyed me to no end. I was supposed to care about them, but I never did. Buffy doesn't work like that for me. It's a girl, fighting vampires, by herself. Put her in a position of power and it loses appeal for me. It's the one against a horde of evil that I like.

Joss, clearly, was absent for much of this season. He got it kicked off, then I think his attention went to Firefly. When that show failed, you can see when he came back, because the season united for a strong finish. I have no doubt that Whedon was in on every step of the creative process for this season, but when you've got your passion in another place, it shows.

There were some bright spots. Conversations with Dead People and Storyteller are some of the best episodes in all of Buffy. And like I said, it amped up for a tremendously satisfying final 4 episodes.

As an overall season, I think it was too thin of material, and when I look back on it, I feel the same way about season 6. They had ideas that weren't necessarily bad, but were just stretched too far. If you could condense season 6 into 11 episodes and condense season 7 into 11 episodes, that would have been one epic season. There wouldn't have been so much filler and stories would not have dragged on quite so much. In the early days of Buffy, things didn't dangle that long. There were season long arcs, but each episode felt like a chapter. In this season, some of these episodes felt like blurbs that were stretched into an hour's worth of content.

But when it's all said and done, I love the show and I can forgive it for it's missteps. The glory days were gone, but the show still had bite.

7.22 - Chosen -

That's all, folks.

***

I've got to be really careful here that I don't let the thoughts that I have for the season seven: looking back post blend in with this one. Where to start?

Well, Joss Whedon did it. He succeeded.

I have to admit. I've moaned and I've complained. I've said the show was miserable. And it truly was. I whined that Joss was absent and that his presence was gone, that he'd left the show in less capable hands and that I felt like he'd checked out. And while I still stand beside that theory, what he did here completely brought me back to every reason I loved the show. He guided his ship home, out to sea, and into eternity. In nerd terms, he took one of the best shows in television and sailed it to the Grey Havens.

What he managed to do was this: take characters that I haven't truly cared about for a year, some more, take a dangling plot that felt like it was going nowhere, take potential slayers that I couldn't care less about, and make me love it all.

It's the gift he has.

It's his dialog. It's his way with the camera. It's his uncanny ability to know when to cut in a scene, and how long to hold a shot before you cut.

What happened in this episode is almost too intense to talk about, but I gotta try.

Angel gives Buffy an amulet to be worn by someone with a soul but more than human. Spike. Buffy and Angel have a talk about their future. Buffy says she's like cookie dough. She's not done baking, she's not a fully formed cookie yet. She wants to keep living her life. But she tells Angel that sometimes she does think about the future. It gives us hope at home that one day they may be able to be together. And I hope that one day Joss makes that happen. I need it to happen, really.

Our Scooby gang hatch a plan that uses each one of them with their abilities. Willow is to take the scythe and use it's slayer gifted powers to transfer that power into every potential slayer in the world. It sounds so ridiculous on paper, and I remembered it from 5 years ago when it aired. I'd grown cynical about it. Too much female empowerment, Joss. it's just cartoony now, Joss. But when I see it again, I can't deny the impact, the power that I felt from it. His mission statement for Buffy was always that it was a feminist show, that it showed the power within women. Well, he's taken that concept to an extreme degree, but I can't fault him for it. It moved me.

There's a fantastic scene that takes our gang to the high school where they each split into groups to go to their tasks. For a few moments, there's our original gang: Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles. Standing in the school hallway, just looking at each other. It's a call back to the beginning of the show itself, our original cast, back where they started, full circle. Giles even says a line that mirrors one from the end of "The Harvest:" "The earth is definitely doomed." It almost made me cry.

So Buffy leads her potentials into the fight, and there are thousands of them. Spike is there, wearing his amulet, and Willow's spell takes effect. As she does it, she turns into a goddess, full of white energy. All over the world, girls are given the power of the slayer.

Back under the school, the fight rages on, and there are some casualties on both sides. In the high school, Anya is killed and almost cut in half. Robin Wood is seriously injured. And below, Spike realizes that the amulet is giving him the power to destroy them all. He radiates sunlight, destroying all the vamps. And as he does, it all begins to crumble around them. Buffy tells him to come on, but he tells her he has to stay, to see it to the end. She tells him that she loves him, and he replies "no you don't...but thanks for saying it anyways." Then she leaves, and he says "I want to see how it ends." Then, as the sunlight radiates out of him, he ignites and turns to dust.

Above ground, all of Sunnydale is collapsing into the pit that has been created. The gang board a school bus and ride it out of town until the are outside the damage radius. When they stop, all of Sunnydale is gone.

Then we are faced with the losses. It hits home. Xander asks about Anya, and finds out she died defending Andrew.

As the gang stands at the edge of the drop off, they stare into what was their homes for years. Buffy looks concerned. Willow asks "What do you think we should do, Buffy?"

Dawn agrees, and says "yeah, Buffy, what are we gonna do?"

Buffy looks into the distance, thinking about the future, thinking about the fact that she is no longer the only slayer, and then, slowly, she smiles.

The screen goes to black, but this time, there is not Joss Whedon's name. Not immediately. It's just black. And then the music stirs it's final note, and his name fades in.

At this point, I am unashamed to say, I cried like a baby. Not teared up. Not sniffed. I was shaking with sobs. I felt like my friends had just died. No more Buffy. No more Sarah Michelle Gellar. No more Xander. No more Dawn. No more Anya. It's literally over. There is no more.

The tremendous sense of loss, coupled with the fact that the characters I loved now had their whole lives ahead of them, free lives to do with as they wished, was just too much to process.

And in that moment, it didn't matter to me that season 6 and season 7 were rocky, and that there were lots of episodes that left me feeling bored or betrayed. All that mattered was that at that moment, I appreciated them all. Cinderella sang a song called "Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone" and it's true. In that moment, I just wanted them back. I've said that I wished the show had ended after season 5, and part of me still does, but then I wouldn't have gotten to spend 2 more years worth of shows with characters that I loved. If it could go forever, I would let it. It's so hard to say goodbye to something that you love so much.

But it's not over. I can always go back and relive the journey of Buffy and her friends. They aren't mere characters. They may die on screen, they may die in the pages of comics, but to me, they are real.

These characters will never die.


Rating: 11/10

7.21 - End of Days

The End is Near.

***

Buffy and the gang try to figure out what exactly this scythe weapon is that she has found. Also, Buffy and Spike come closer together. Spike tells Buffy that the night they spent holding each other was the best night of his life, and when he explains it, it makes me all weepy. He says that he's been close to lots of people and women, but he's never held anyone before. Not the way that he did Buffy. It's really sweet. I'll say it again. Spike is awesome, and when he's used right, he's a fantastic character. This incarnation of Spike is fantastic. He gets some joy in his life.

So at the end, Buffy goes to seek an explanation of the scythe from a really old chick in a crypt kind of thing, and while she is there, Caleb comes and kills the lady. A showdown ensues, and Buffy is just about to lose when she is saved by...

Angel! hoorah! And there was much rejoicing. They kiss, and we cut to credits.

With this being the end of it all, it just feels appropriate that Angel be back. I'm really apprehensive about the end. And very sad that it will soon be over.

Rating: 8/10

7.20 - Touched

Buffy and the gang prepare for the end.

***

This episode seems to really be about how our characters are coping for the end. Faith and Robin Wood get busy. Xander and Anya get busy. Willow and Kennedy get busy (eww...Kennedy is a terrible person, Willow), and Buffy gets the solace that she needs in the most unlikely of places: Spike's embrace.

It's sweet really. Yeah, it feels a lot like a storyline, but having Buffy get the motivation to go on from one of her worst enemies who now has a soul is pretty sweet and touching. I truly do love Spike. I love the duality. I love that he was incredibly evil, but as a man with a soul, while he still has the qualities that made him the big bad, he's trying to use them for good. It's the ultimate redemption.

The coolest part of this episode is at the end when Buffy finds the scythe of the slayers, which we've seen in comics form as Fray's weapon. It's pretty cool, and I want one. It's the weapon she's holding in the banner at the top of this page.

Anyway, great episode. I really feel the end coming, and it's great to have the gang back together, including Faith. Faith is a fantastic character, and I much prefer her being a rebel while working for the side of good. If anyone could have held a show after Buffy ended, it was Faith. And Spike too, but it never happened. And Spike got his second chance later, anyway.

Rating: 9/10

7.19 - Empty Places

Mutiny on the H. M. S. Buffy

***

Residents are fleeing Sunnydale and turning it into a ghost town. Meanwhile, Buffy must contend with a group of potentials who no longer think that she is qualified to lead them.

And really, I can't blame them. She gives a lot of speeches, and we know she's the chosen one, but she just isn't really cut out for leading. That's one of the many weak points of this season, Buffy should not be in a position of power. I like the show the best when it's just one girl against the evil of the world. Isn't that the credo that started the show? "Into each generation is born a slayer. She alone must fight the vampires, the demons, etc...".

So at the end of the episode, Buffy relenquishes (or is fired, really) control to Faith to lead the potentials and walks off into the night. Serves you right, Buffy. You can't treat people like that. Bad plot idea. Just bad. The episode wasn't really bad, though. From here on out, I think it's gonna be balls to the wall.

Rating: 7/10

7.18 - Dirty Girls

Caleb comes to town.

***

Holy crap, man. Holeeeeeeee crap.

Starts off with Nathan Fillion (hooray!) in a truck picking up a girl who's running from the Bringers. She thinks he's there to save her, but he's not. He's using her for a message. After a scummy faux religious speech, he brands her and kicks her out the door. The car behind them stops and Willow gets out to investigate, along with (!!!) Faith.

Just having Faith back brings a great new dynamic to the show. But that's not the only thing. Caleb is awesome. Now, I'm not happy about his southern preacher man persona, as Joss clearly has issues with religion, referring to God as the big bully in the sky. He's an atheist, and I think it colors his work sometimes in a negative and intolerant way, but I digress...I love Fillion, even if I find his southern accent annoying. He's also just what the show needed. A physical threat instead of some looming psychological oogy boogy.

The real impact comes at the end when Caleb kills a few potentials, kicks the crap out of Buffy, and then, in a really chilling and sad moment, puts out Xander's eye. This is the first time this season that I've felt the threat of looming consequences. As of this episode, I feel the stakes being raised, and I'm finally sensing the end coming. Because of that, I'm getting invested in the journey.

Rating: 8/10

7.17 - Lies My Parents Told Me

Turns out Spike was a mama's boy.

***

They're still milking the Wood hating Spike thing (I called it for 5 episodes, it's been 4) and we see some flashbacks of Spike and Dru. He wants to turn him mom into a vampire. Now, I know that I didn't create this show, and I know that I'm just a viewer, but I find the Spike (or William, here) that they present me with to be inconsistent of the guy I've been watching for so long. In other words, you can tell me that Spike was a mama's boy, but when I see it, it doesn't ring true for me. I can buy that he'd want to read poetry to his mother, but I don't buy that when he was turned, he'd want her to come along and lay waste to the world. You can disagree with me, that's fine, I just think it's a plot mcguffin for this episode. They needed a trigger for Spike's brainwashing, and this seemed like a good idea at the time.

Although it is really nice to see Spike beating the crap out of someone again. I was starting to feel like we'd never have Spike as a relevant character again. I think this show has really mistreated James Marsters and given him some truly crappy and soap operatic trash to work with the last few years. You can't have a bad guy on the team, so you've got to make him impotent. And in doing so, I really think they cheapened the character. This is the best he's been since season 3 or 4.

Anyway, again, it's not bad stuff, but it's not particularly great stuff either. The show I loved is dead.

Rating: 7/10

7.16 - Storyteller

Andrew narrates the tale of the Slayer of the Vampyres.

***

Jane, I love you! You gave me another show that I can get excited about! It's like a drop of water in an endless desert, refreshing, but gone before I even knew how great it was.

Espenson has crafted a really fun episode that hits all the beats classic Buffy would have, back when Joss cared about this show. Andrew is making a video that chronicles the lives of the gang, and it's really funny. I laughed a lot during this one. It's just hilarious.

Not too much plot, just sealing back up the portal that got opened up a while back. This was really, really, really great. And it's episodes like this that remind you how far the series has gotten from it's roots.

Rating: 9.5/10

7.15 - Get it Done

Or how Spike Got His Groove Back.

***

Wood hates Spike and wants him dead, still...Wood gives a bag to Buffy that he hasn't opened in a long time (convenient) and it has a thing that creates a gateway to the desert world that they've been getting a lot of mileage out of since season 4. These old dudes offer Buffy more power by making her less human and she refuses. Then they show her what she is up against and we see thousands of the ultimate vampire guys waiting to wreak havoc.

Meanwhile, Spike has to track down a demon that came through when Buffy went to the desert set, and to do it he has to get back in touch with the big bad within him. It's a kodak moment.

I don't think even Doug Petrie can save this mess now.

Rating: 6/10

7.14 - First Date

Principal Wood and Buffy go out?!

***

This is an episode with a few revelations, and I am glad to say that Jane Espenson delivered. It's strange, isn't it, that the one writer who I started out hating is the one of the only writers I count on to deliver quality at this point. My, how times change.

So Robin Wood asks Buffy out, and they get jumped by vamps. We learn that Wood has a lot more to him than meets the eye. Turns out his mama was the Slayer we saw Spike kill in Fool For Love, the one who was all Pam Grier/blackspoiltation awesome. And yeah, Spike killed her.

So Buffy finds out about him and he finds out about Buffy. He meets Spike. At the end of the episode, The First messes with Wood in the guise of his mother. It tells him that Spike killed his mom. It's kind of cool, but at the same time, I'm not really looking forward to them dragging it out for 5 episodes, which I suspect they will do.

And for a restaurant in the back end of an alley with no signs around whatsoever, it's packed! it's really posh inside too. I'm supposed to overlook stuff like that, aren't I? My bad.

Rating: 7.5/10

7.13 - The Killer in Me

Willow is turning into Warren.

***

Give me a freaking break. This is just tired, going through the motions-bull crap. Willow's getting closer to Kennedy, one of the new potential slayers, and when they kiss, voila, Willow turns into Warren physically. Turns out that Amy is behind it all, and while it's good to see Amy again...how about a little depth of character? Amy was never out and out evil, she was just a slave to her urges and had no discipline. They've taken her and made her a very one dimensional character. Not feeling it. Much like this episode.

Oh, please end soon. The only thing in THIS episode that I liked was the B plot where Spike gets his chip taken out.
Rating: 4/10

7.12 - Potential

Is Dawn a potential Slayer?

***

No. She just thinks she is for a while and almost gets herself killed. The only redeeming part of this episode is the conversation that Xander has with Dawn at the end. It's the first time I've liked Xander in a long time. Probably since the beginning of season 6.

Other than that, yawn.

Rating: 5/10

7.11 - Show Time

Buffy continues to train her peeps.

***

Hey, folk rocker Tracy Chapman is now on Buffy. It's not her, but it might as well be. Maybe this new slayer chick can find a "fast car."

Basically, there's some more training, and then Buffy shows the potential slayers how to kill this new vampire and lets them know that it dies just like any other vamp. Just got to take it's head off. Oh, and she gives another speech.

Then she goes and saves Spike. Poor guy, he knew she'd come, and it was good to see him be justified.

Rating: 6/10

7.10 - Bring on the Night

Giles is back with a bunch of potential slayers.

***

Giles shows up at Buffy's house and he's got a gaggle of girls who are potential slayers. It's potential slayers that we've been seeing killed for a few episodes.

Willow tries to track down the First using magic and it backfires on her and hurts her badly.

Buffy tries to fight the new vampire dude and gets her butt kicked. So she goes back home, regroups, makes a speech to her slayers, and says they are done waiting, they are taking the fight to the First.

OH! And Buffy keeps seeing her mom. AND NOT FREAKING OUT. Am I the only one who thinks this is weird of her? Bad writers! Bad! From this point forward, I'm honestly not looking forward to what's coming next...maybe there will be some surprises I can't remember, but I'm really just waiting for the end.

Rating: 6/10

7.9 - Never Leave Me

Buffy watches Spike, Andrew gets busted.

***

Drew Goddard, 3 for 3! He seems to be just the thing to breathe fresh life into the gloom that has become Buffy.

So Spike has some clear moments with Buffy where they talk about what he did, why he did it, and how he feels about it. Andrew had been trying to open a gate in the basement of the high school with Jonathan's blood, but failed, so he goes for some pig's blood but gets caught by Willow. Awkward!

They take Andrew back and tie him up, Xander and Anya do the good cop bad cop routine on him, and Spike gets taken from Buffy's house by the ancient order who is in service to the First. They bleed Spike over the symbol in the basement of the school and it opens, and out comes a true vampire, not diminished or weakened by interbreeding with humans. It's all orc looking. I remember when I saw this the first time in 2003 thinking that Joss Whedon must have been a big fan of Lord of the Rings, because it's influence keeps popping up. This guy really reminds me of something like an orc. Or from Nosferatu. It could go either way.

Anyway, great episode.

Rating: 8/10

7.8 - Sleeper

Spike's killin' folks again.

***

But he doesn't mean to! It's the result of tampering with his mind and brainwashing by the First, I guess. it's in this episode that Buffy and the gang learn what they are up against. It's the first evil, the one that we got a glimpse of in season 3.

Buffy vows to keep Spike close and to help him with what he's facing.

Rating: 7/10

7.7 - Conversations with Dead People

Exactly what the title says.

***


Holy crap.

I'm blown away. This is the best Buffy episode for me since Once More With Feeling a year ago. I can't get over how awesome it was. It's written by Jane Espenson and new Golden Boy Drew Goddard. Take what I said about Drew Goddard 2 episodes ago and multiply that, because now we've got Jane Espenson helping out too.

For me, there is not a sour note here. From the beginning, you know you are in for something special. A band tunes up their instruments and then begins to play and with it, we see Sunnydale and out gang going on about their lives as usual. Buffy is patrolling when a vampire hand pops out of a grave. She raises her stake and says "here we go." Cut to black. When you've got an opening like this, you know you're in for a real treat.

So we start with Dawn, who is home alone, and judging by her behavior, maybe I understand why Buffy wanted her to have a babysitter for the last 2 seasons. but anyway, Dawn ends up being haunted by the ghost of her mother and by something that her mother tells her is trying to harm her. It's EERILY effective and creepy. Especially the strobe like flashes of light where we see some presence looming over the body of Joyce on the couch.

Willow is in the library of the college studying when what seems to be the ghost of the girl Buffy couldn't save a few episodes ago comes to give Willow messages from Tara.

Buffy is fighting the vampire when they realize that they went to high school together. They stop fighting and talk for a long time, and the vampire, Webs, being a psychology major, analyzes Buffy and makes her realize a lot about herself.

it's one of those episodes that not just moves the plot along but takes you on an emotional journey while you are at it. You get the laughs with the vampire, you get some sadness with Willow, and you get outright chills with Dawn and the presence. The way that "Joyce" communicates with Dawn, through a series of bumps that shake her house, is outright creepy. And I just re-calibrated my surround sound system, so those bumps sounded like they were real, and in my house.

I'm really glad that Kristine has had the chance to come back a few times too, since what happened to her. Only on a show like this does she get to still be a working character on the show, even though she is dead.

And of course, the classic awesome Buffy ending is in full effect here. Each character copes with what they've been through in the episode, while the music eerily parallels what we're seeing. Jonathan is killed by his friend, Andrew, over a symbol in the basement of the high school. Buffy dusts Web. It's downright powerful. This is one of my favorite episodes of Buffy, period.

Rating: 10/10

7.6 - Him

Another Love spell.

***

The title sums it all up. It's a lot like the love spell episode from season....2 or 3, I can't remember, but it's not as fun as that one was because Dawn is not as lovable as Xander was. I don't know...I saw what they were going for, I just didn't dig it most of the time. I give them kudos for the Charlie's Angels 4 way split screen thing they did, though. And for the plaid skirt Buffy wore. It was still kind of fun, though, and I welcome the lighter tone that this brought. Lord knows we need some laughs.

Rating: 8/10


Best line:

Willow, in love with the football jock and confronted with her being a lesbain: This isn't about physical presence...it's about his heart!"

Anya: His physical presence has a penis!

7.5 - Selfless

All Anya, all the time.

***

What we have here is an Anya episode. It focuses on her origin and what she's doing now. And I loved it. It's written by a newcomer, Drew Goddard, and this is his first episode on this show. He did, I think, an amazing job of capturing Whedon's tone and the essence of these characters.

We get Anya in the here and now committing horrible acts of vengeance, then we get flashbacks to her mortal life a millenium ago, her life with Olaf, and her first encounter with D'hoffryn.

Intercut with all of this is the gang finding out that Anya has done something terrible, Buffy deciding that she has to kill Anya, and Xander trying to save her. It's great stuff for an Anya fan like me. Of particular note is the song that she gets to sing, and they do the "Whedon" signature of cutting out of the highest, happiest moment of the song to her body, impaled on a sword and stuck to the wall.

Suffice it to say that Anya doesn't die, but she does cause the death of Halfreck. Good good stuff, I love it. Also, great Buffy ending of Xander and Anya sort of coming to terms and speaking to each other again after so long, then walking in their separate directions. It gets me a little choked up, and it's been a while since that's happened on this show.

Rating: 9/10

7.4 - Help

Buffy tries to stop a girl's impending death.

***

Buffy is the counselor chick at the high school, and one of the students, a girl, tells her that she's going to die. Buffy investigates and does everything she can to save her. In the end, it turns out one of the kids from Home Improvement was going to summon a demon and sacrifice her. Uh huh.

So Buffy kicks the dude's butt, beats the demon, and they almost get the girl out alive, but she falls over dead. Before she does, though, she prophecizes that Buffy will make a difference.

Hmm...I think this was pretty sub standard, to be honest. I wasn't really feeling it too much, but I guess it's not BAD, per se. It's perfectly in line with the less than great version of Buffy that's been on the air since season 5 ended and Buffy moved to UPN. I still feel like this show is just going through the motions most of the time these days. They walk like the characters I love, they talk like them, but the magic just isn't there most of the time.

Rating: 6/10

7.3 - Same Time, Same Place

Willow is back in Sunnydale, but something goes wrong.


***

Hmm..Not sure what I think about this one yet.

Willow comes back from England, but when she gets to the airport, no one is there to greet her. We see Xander and Buffy and Dawn at the airport waiting for her, but she doesn't get off the airplane. Something's up.

I'll let you in on it now. Willow did some spell by accident that shifted her out and made her invisible to them. Now, if you ask me, if she's able to do something like that on accident, maybe she has no business being back in Sunnydale. but I digress.

Spike gets a really cool scene here where he has invisible Willow talking to him on one side and invisible Buffy talking to him on another side. you don't realize it yet because of the way it's shot. You see him have a crazy conversation with Willow that doesn't seem to make much sense. Then you see the conversation from Buffy's perspective and it all clicks. I think Marsters did a really good job with this scene. But I gotta be honest, this crazy stuff he's doing is going to get old really quick.

There's also a scene I loved where Willow and Anya take out a map of Sunnydale and do some magic-fu on it to show all the demons in Sunnydale as little lights. There are A LOT of little lights. I thought it was cool, and I guess I never really thought about how over run Sunnydale really was.

So Willow goes to this cave where this monster lives (oh yeah, this dude turns up skinned, and people think Willow did it. It was really this monster guy), and I tell you, this thing looks, acts, and talks just like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Not from the movie, per se, but from the books. He lives in a cave, he talks out loud to himself, he sings songs, and he walks around all froglike. I think Jane Espenson was rocking some LOTR when she wrote this.

Anyway, Gollum paralyzes you when he scratches you, so he gets Dawn with his claw and paralyzes her, which is funny, because she gets to play it for cuteness, not annoyingness. Then Gollum stabs Willow and gets her frozen, and actually starts carving her skin out of eating it. I couldn't believe they got away with this on television. Pretty gross stuff, but really I couldn't believe that they were letting it happen to one of the main cast.

Anyway, Buffy figures it all out with the help of Anya, kills Gollum (my precious!) and Willow appears to them all. Then Buffy gives Willow some of her strength so that she can heal using magic.

Awww. It's a Kodak moment.

Rating: 8/10

7.2 - Beneath You

Anya has caused trouble by wreaking vengeance.

***

We again open with a girl, this time in Germany, running from men in black cloaks. Again, they kill her.

Buffy wakes up and we find that she has been dreaming this. It's probably a vision, Slayer style. So Buffy now works at the high school as a...well, just someone for the kids to talk to, but it works for me, because it's a reason to get back into the high school.

There's this big worm/rancor/sarlacc pit/monster from Tremors thing that is scooting around under the ground and trying to hurt this chick, so Xander helps her out. As it turns out, it's Anya's fault. She turned the girl's ex boyfriend into the wormy monster because the chick made a wish. Turns out Anya isn't liking being a vengeance demon so much. Man, they sure are getting a lot of mileage out of the whole Xander/Anya breakup. As evil Willow would say, "bored now."

What really confuses me is Spike. He's here and he's cleaned himself up, wearing blue instead of black, and for most of the episode he seems completely in control and compassionate. Then a switch gets flicked and he goes nuts. He hits Anya, he hits Buffy, and he makes a douche out of himself. I'm confused. I hope they explain before too long. Anyway, Buffy finds out that he has his soul back.

They also give us a cool catch phrase.

From beneath you it devours.


Rating: 7/10

7.1 - Lessons

It's Dawn's first day of High School at the new Sunnydale High.


***

Joss has written his first episode in 10 months of the show, and all is right with the world. He didn't direct, but that's fine, he had Firefly going on now, he was a busy man. It doesn't even matter, because if Joss is writing, that's enough.

We open in Istanbul, where a girl is running from men in black cloaks, who catch her and stab her. Then we're back in Sunnydale.

Sunnydale High School has been rebuilt, right over the foundation of the last high school that was destroyed at graduation.

Things have immediately changed since last season. Dawn is patrolling with Buffy and Buffy is letting her get her hands dirty, teaching her to stake vamps. Dawn gets to wear black, a promise Whedon made to Michelle Trachtenberg between seasons. Spike is back, with his soul, but he's completely nutters. More on that later.

So with the new High School, a new cooler principal, played by DB Woodside, and a new attitude, Buffy season 7 already has me happier than season 6 did. The bad guys here are some ghoulies that have been resurrected to exact revenge on students...kind of like zombies. So here we have Buffy, in Sunnydale High, with teenagers, fighting monsters. There's an old school beauty about it. It just feels right. For me, Buffy will always belong in high school. That's where the show started, that's where it should end. It's full circle, and it's appropriate.

Willow is in England being trained by the coven that gave Giles the power last season. She's come to see her power as good and white, and looks at nature as the source for her power now.

So Spike is crazy. I'm not sure what to think about this. Is it the soul that drove him crazy or is it the big bad evil who we meet at the end of the episode and is tormenting him? Speaking of the big bad, it's very cool. They've gone back to the evil entity that we met in season 3, the first evil (though they haven't explained it again yet) who was tormenting Angel when he came back. This bad thing starts off with the bad guy of season 6 and morphs into each baddie from each season until he stands before Spike as Buffy. We get to see Warren, Glory, Adam, The Mayor, Drusilla, and the Master again. It's a VERY cool scene.

I'm back on board with season 7. If they can maintain this level of balance, I think the show will be much more accessible.

Rating: 8.5/10

Season Six: Looking Back

Season 6 was a departure from what I have come to love about the show, and I found it to be too dark and depressing. The big question to me is: Where was Whedon? He only wrote and directed one episode this year, which was, of course, quite awesome, but his presence has never before been this scaled back. Why was he so absent? What was he doing?

On the special features of the DVDs is a panel that took place after the filming of season 6 had completed, and Whedon is joined by Marti Noxon, the principal cast (with the exception of Gellar, of course, who doesn't seem to do these things) and some behind the camera guys. Whedon seems like he was present and aware of exactly what was going on with the show, mentioning that they had weekly play readings with the cast at his house on the weekends.
So if that is the case, why did he only write one episode? Why is his presence in the scripts largely absent?

We've had dark on this show before. Season 4 was dark, and I'd say that season 5 had some terribly dark moments. But Buffy has always managed to leverage the darkness with funny moments. For instance, in season 4, Buffy is in college, she's floundering, Giles is unemployed and miserable, none of the Scoobies are on the same path at all. The group isn't really together anymore, but we still get some fun episodes like Giles being turned into a demon, Harmony and Spike playing off of each other with wacky bitterness, and the Jonathan episode, Superstar. Where is that stuff here?

Really, it's not here. There were some laughs from time to time, but this season started dark and only got darker. Uncharacteristically, too, if you ask me. When the moderator of the panel I watched asked Joss Whedon what he thought about people's complaints that the season was too dark, he answered "Oops." But it was clear, between he and Noxon, that they didn't realize that things were going to be this dark until it was already too late.

So I've got some real problems with this season. After Once More With Feeling, everything went downhill. This show doesn't work without Giles. It just doesn't. He's as crucial to the dynamic as Buffy is. Dawn seemed like she had no direction. They wrote her like she was 10. Buffy hated herself and wanted to be dead. Spike was a fool for love and made himself miserable because he couldn't leave Buffy alone. Xander leaves Anya at the alter. Tara gets killed. Willow goes evil. Any of these things would have been fine if they had been going on along with a more traditional season long arc, but by having them all running concurrently, it's just too much. And I think that Whedon knew that when it was all said and done.

There are very few highlights for me in this season. I love the musical episode, of course, and I love Willow going evil at the end of the season. Honestly, that's about it.

Joss said that the villain of this season is life. Well, they made that very clear. They made characters that I love act like completely different people, and they made a show that was addictive and impossible to miss VERY hard to watch. I don't think that's the goal of a show, to make their viewers so miserable that they don't want to watch.

I really hope that season 7 is better than this one was, or else I will have to become a believer in my theory that maybe Buffy should have ended at season 5 when the Slayer died.

6.22 - Grave

Willow is going to end it all.


***

Willow and Giles fight for a long time, then Willow makes a giant fireball that is going to track down the nerds with Xander and Dawn. This effectively splits up Giles and Buffy, with Buffy having to go save her friends.

Willow sucks out Giles' power and soon realizes that she is now the most powerful thing on the earth. She feels the pain of everyone, and decides to end that pain. She's going to end the world.

Buffy is trying to protect her friends when the ground opens up beneath her and Dawn and they end up in a catacomb fighting dead things made from the earth, or something like that, that Willow has set upon them.

Willow has raised an evil church from underground that she is going to use to channel her power into and end the earth. Xander shows up and tells her he loves her. We cut back to Giles, who is wounded on the ground telling Anya that the power he had came from a council of magic type users who's power comes from the true place of magic, that of love. So by her taking his power, she has opened herself up to be vulnerable to love again. So by Xander telling her he loves her, he basically talks her down and Willow goes back to her old self and cries a lot.

I think this is just a little lame, the explanation they gave us, but it's okay. It's better than it could be. Buffy realizes, as they are fighting bad guys underground, that Dawn can take care of herself. She tells her that from now on she wants to show Dawn the world, not protect her from it.

Then she says she's so sorry about how dark things have gotten. I'd like to think that this is the writers telling us as an audience that they are sorry for how dark the season got, but we'll never know. If they were sorry, they lied, because season 7 was pretty dark too.

Anyway, it's a relatively satisfying end, but it's really awesome when we get to the cliffhanger. Spike is in the cave, and has completed the last of his trials. He is lying on the floor when the monster he has come to approaches him and tells him he has done well and passed every trial that has been put to him. Therefore, the monster picks him up, puts his hand on his chest, and says "I will restore your soul."

say wha-huh? This is going to make for a verrrrrrry interesting season 7.

Rating: 10/10

6.21 - Two to Go

Willow goes after the other two nerds in the Trio.

***

My boy Doug Petrie does it up real nice.

Spike is in Africa doing his test. He beats this flame fisted guy and thinks he's done when the creature he has come to for help tells him that he has passed the first test. Then a new test beings.

Willow tracks the nerds to their prison cell, where Anya has appeared to try to get the cops to let them out. Willow starts dismantling the thing from the back wall, but Buffy shows up in time to bend the bars and get the guys out.

Next we have a cool car chase with Willow riding on a semi truck's hood as it chases the guys down, but she taps out of power. Where can she go to get more power? Remember Rack, the creepy drug dealer magic dude? She goes to him and takes it all, leaving him dead.

Then she turns on Dawn and seems like she's about to turn her back into the mystical energy that Dawn came from Before Buffy shows up. What follows is a knock down drag out fight.

Just when it seems like Buffy is going to get her butt kicked, something happens. Willow tells Buffy, "there is no one in the world with the power to stop me now." Then green energy blasts Willow across the room. She looks up, and Giles is standing in the doorway with in a hero pose, looking pimp. He says "I'd like to test that theory." Boom! Credits!

It!

Is!

On!

Rating: 10/10

6.20 - Villains

Willow's out for justice. Like Walker, Texas Ranger, but all gothy.


***


After Tara was killed last episode, Buffy is rushed to the hospital. Willow finds out that Warren did it, goes to the magic shop, and ingests everything on dark magic there is. her hair goes black and her clothes change too, and now she looks like she's been listening to My Chemical Romance and has joined the Black Parade.

She goes to the hospital, uses magic to heal Buffy, then they get in the car to track down Warren. They find him on a bus in the desert, but it's one of Warren's robots. Willow is pretty ticked off now, and she disappears. Later, we find her in the woods hunting Warren. It's here that we see how powerful she is now. She ties him up, tortures him with the bullet she took from Buffy, and then, when she's about to get caught, she skins him alive. It's the most gruesome yet coolest thing I think we've seen on Buffy.

Meanwhile, Spike has left town because he's going to get what he needs to give the slayer what she deserves. Seems like he's going to try to make himself not so much of a wimp, right?
He has to endure a series of trials before the monster he has gone to for help will grant him his wish. The trials begin.

Meanwhile, back in the woods, Willow has killed Warren. When her friends try to stop her, she says "One down," and disappears. Cue the credits.

What's awesome is that the title of the next episode is "two to go." Stuff like that is awesome.

By the way, you know why this episode was so good? Marti Noxon wrote it. Marti's back!

Rating: 10/10

There are spoilers in the comments below.

6.19 - Seeing Red

Warren takes the Trio too far.


***

It's all fun and games and jet packs for most of this episode, but it's got a kicker.

So the Trio, as they seem to be called now, have gotten some orbs that make them super powerful. Warren, being the self proclaimed leader of the group, uses them first and gets into a bunch of trouble. Buffy kicks his butt. Warren runs away. The other two members of the Trio are taken into custody and put in jail.

Meanwhile, Willow and Tara have been doin' it all day.

Warren comes into Buffy's yard the next morning with a gun, shoots Buffy, and a stray bullet hits Tara in Willow's room. Tara falls dead, and Willow, in grief and anger, looks up to the sky and her eyes flood with magic.

It's on, mutha humpa!

On a more insightful level, it took a commentary from Espenson for season 5 (I Was Made For Loving You, to be exact) to point something out to me that is sadly true. In that season 5 episode, Warren has built a female robot who he abandoned and who is now searching for him. When the Scoobies are sitting around the table discussing how sick Warren is and judging him, Tara says that she can understand, that maybe he's just sad and lonely. She has no ill will toward him and is the only one in the group willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Ironic, then, that he is the one responsible for her death a year later.

I am really going to miss Tara. She really fit in and brought something fresh to the dynamic. She was kind, she was quiet, and she was, above all else, incredibly insightful. She saw the good in people, and never seemed to have an ill word about anyone.

Rating: 8/10

6.18 - Entropy

Anya is back after the events of Hell's Bells.


***

Anya is back, and she's a vengeance demon again. She's trying to get the Scoobies to wish bad things on Xander so that she can curse him, but he's Xander and they love him, so no curse.

Spike and Anya meet in the Magic Box on happenstance, start drinkin', and lo and behold, later that night, they do the wild naked monkey dance. The kicker is that the evil nerd trio has cameras everywhere that Buffy has found, and Willow is tracing the feed. In short, Buffy and the gang see it all. It hurts Xander because it's his fiancee, it hurts Buffy because it's Spike (MAKE UP YOUR MIND, BUFFY!), and it just kind of freaks everyone else out.

The real meat of the episode for me is that Willow and Tara get back together at the end of the episode. Everyone else is left hurting.

This is better than the last few have been. This one actually feels like the show I love.

Rating: 7/10

6.17 - Normal Again

Buffy gets drugged up and thinks that maybe her life in Sunnydale is all in her mind.

***

Yawn.

That's my honest opinion. I was so freakin' bored. Every show does this, from soap operas to Smallville to Supernatural, to ALF. The old "what if reality isn't really reality and I'm somewhere else dying or crazy?"

I don't even have much else to say about this. I didn't even hate it, I'm just completely apathetic at this point. Someone put this crap out of it's misery.

Rating: 3/10

6.16 - Hell's Bells

It's Xander and Anya's wedding day.


***

How do I hate thee, episode? Let me count the ways.

A) Fake old Xander. I want to punch you in the face. We've known Xander for 6 years now. He's not the type to beat a woman with a skillet. Puh-lease.

B) Spike and Buffy seem to immediately be circling each other again. Spike should not have been seen for a couple of episodes after the events of last week. Well, Marsters is an actor with a contract, he probably had to be here. But I don't have to like it.

C) Xander leaving Anya at the alter? Yeah, right. How selfish can you get? first off, like I just said, we've known Xander for 6 years now. The greatest character trait he has is his loyalty. Once he's said he'd do something, he'd do it. I just don't buy him doing this. He would have said something earlier. I see this as sloppy soap opera writing that betrays the character development we've come to know over the last 6 seasons. I've watched this stuff in less than a month, and the Xander I've seen would not do this.

It's just lazy to me. If you really want to shock your audience, have them actually go through with the wedding. Everyone and their brother had to have expected that this wedding would not succeed (they never do on genre shows), so throw a monkey wrench in the works and have it really go on. But no, we have to put our characters through hoops so that we can extend angst for a few more episodes and have more pain and misery for the rest of the season. I've said before that this show doesn't feel like a TV show. It feels like people's lives. Well, for me, this didn't. This felt like an episode of Smallville. It felt like a story line, and I saw it coming, and I am not used to feeling like this show is predictable, because it rarely is.

This is symptomatic of what I've seen since Giles left the show. Pain pain pain and more pain, but it's not teaching anyone anything and it doesn't seem to be building to anything. It's just angst for the sake of it with no greater goal. I've never been bored with this show until a few episodes ago, but now I really am struggling to keep my mind on what is going on.

Rating: 5/10

6.15 - As You Were

Riley's back--

***

--But he's married.

Riley comes back to town to get the help of the Buffster in tracking down some nasties that could annihilate the human race. Of course. But with him comes his new wife of 4 months. The bad part is, she's a great person and they seem perfect for each other.

You know why this episode is awesome? 2 words. Doug Petrie. He is one of my trinity of writers (Petrie, Espenson, and Noxon) who I completely trust outside of Joss. I believe this is his directorial debut, as well, and he did a fantastic job. I just love the guy. He comes from a comics background (as in loving them, not writing them, though he has done that as well) and his episodes frequently reference something that a geek like me picks up on. He also never seems to tread water with his scripts, but instead writes powerful episodes that always seem to move things forward without feeling like they are bogged down with narrative. He makes it fun.

Buffy gets the closure that she (and we) needed when Riley left suddenly last season. It's also weird, because having him back really casts a light on how dark things have gotten. And they've gotten really, really dark.

I love that Buffy dumps Spike at the end (well, I don't love that she does it, but I love how she does it) by speaking to him like a man. She calls him William, his name. He finally gets it when she says this.

Not that it matters, because we're back to the will they or won't they almost immediately. But Doug tried.

Rating: 8/10

6.14 - Older and Far Away

The gang finds themselves trapped in Buffy's house by Halfreck.

***

Basically, Dawn makes a wish to Halfreck the vengeance demon, not knowing what Halfreck is, and because of it, Buffy's birthday party lasts for a couple of days because no one can leave.

This is alright on the surface, but the deeper I dig and think about it, the more upset I get thinking about it. I ranted last episode about how these characters just don't feel like the ones I'm used to. I don't know if it's bad writing, but something is off. On second thought, yes, I think it's bad writing. It's inconsistent.

They don't know what to do with Dawn, so they write her as way younger than she actually is, have her be really annoying, and serve to move the plot along. It's pretty bad. She's at the age now that Buffy was at when she was called. I can't see Buffy stealing a bunch of stuff and then when she gets caught going "Get out get out GET OUT!" It's just absolutely atrocious to me. It makes me want to throw up because it's so mediocre.

I'm getting fed up with the "will they or won't they" of Spike and Buffy. He loves you Buffy. He's saved you, he's saved Dawn, he's helped you in all the ways he can, he's not hurt anyone in over 2 years now, and he would do anything for you. You are using him because you feel dead inside, and you've been doing it for what feels like ages, even though it's only been a few episodes. I'm tired of it already. Get with it or move on.

Can you tell that my patience is wearing thin with so many of these characters? It is. I'm starting to get really bored during my viewings. Magazines and comics are starting to look really appealing to me when I'm supposed to be focusing on the story.

I don't think it's me, I think it's the writing on the show. It's just dragging everything out.

There were some good points to this episode. I love Spike's "muscle cramp," I love Tara knowing about Buffy and Spike, and I love Clem, the loose skinned demon who we previously saw playing poker with kittens.

but the rest of them...to quote Once More With Feeling, it's just going through the motions.

Rating: 6.5/10

6.13 - Dead Things

The three nerds take things to the next level.

***

Man, this crap is getting too dark. I guess it's necessary, but it's not done with the balance of humor that I'm used to. This season has taken a decidedly darker direction for the last few episodes, and if memory serves, it's not going to get any better. Not this season, at least.

Warren basically commits murder in this episode, and then the rest of the episode is them trying to pin it on Buffy and almost getting away with it. I'm not sure I like where all this is going. Spike loves Buffy, but she hates herself for letting him get so close to her, so she beats the ever loving crap out of him. He didn't even do anything wrong!

All I'm saying is, it's kind of bad when you find yourself not liking any of the main characters in a show like this. I'm not sure what the problem is. I know Joss had Firefly cooking in the background, but it wouldn't come out for another year. Was he just done with this show and had moved on to other projects in his mind? One way or the other, there's a lack of the qualities that made this show so spectacular. I also think that it's got to do with the writing.

Whereas the show up until this point has been written by series mainstays like Espenson, Doug Petrie, and Marti Noxon, with Joss writing and directing two or three episodes each season, this one is a veritable list of nobodies to this show from here on out: Steven S. DeKnight, Drew Z. Greenburg, Rebecca Rand Kirshner, Diego Gutierrez...who are these people? Joss comes in to direct one episode only this season, and I know I said it earlier, but it just feels like he's not really involved anymore.

I'm guessing, but for every season before this, he rewrote and punched up every script that came across his desk, changing dialog to make it more Buffy-like, putting his own lines in, giving it that X-factor. I don't feel that X factor anymore, and I wonder if he's even around at this point. It makes me sad. The show is not bad, but it's darker and largely more humorless than Buffy should be.

Rating: 7/10

6.12 - Doublemeat Palace

Buffy gets a job at a burger joint. But people keep disappearing!

***


This is kind of fun. Buffy's new job is terrible, and to make matters worse, the employees keep turning up missing. Are they the secret ingredient?

More interesting to me, is the subplot of bringing in Halfreck the vengeance demon as Anya's old cohort. She's going to be trouble for Xander and Anya, I can just tell.

This one is pretty fun, not too deep, but I will be honest. I'm starting to notice a lack of Whedon-like charm and magic on the show.

6.11 - Gone

The three nerds zap Buffy with an invisibility ray.

***

Buffy gets turned all invisible like by the Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan, and uses it to her advantage. She does things that she wouldn't normally do and really embraces the ability to let herself go. There's really not too much to say about it. She boinks Spike some more, she freaks Dawn out, and it's a metaphor for how she feels inside since she came back from the dead.

Willow gets kidnapped by the nerds, who hold her hostage. Buffy beats them and finds out who they are. It's a fun little jaunt. Nothing too terribly deep.

Rating: 7/10

6.10 - Wrecked

Willow delves into the darker side of magic.

***

Freakin' Willow! Amy takes Willow to a guy named Rack who juices her up on dark magic. The whole thing is played as a drug metaphor, like she's addicted to the high and can't come down. She endangers Dawn and almost gets them both killed. Buffy steps in and says that it can't go any farther. Willow vows to go cold turkey on magic and Buffy vows to herself to stop doing the nasty with Spike.

Rating: 7/10

Frustration factor with Willow: 10/10 (she should have known better and it really annoyed me)


Warning: There are spoilers for the rest of the season in the comments posts.

6.9 - Smashed

Buffy, I'm gonna get freaky with you.

sincerely, Spike


***


Holy geez!

Well, first off, Amy is back. Willow, now being all super powerful, has figured out how to transform the rat back into Amy. It's been 3 years. I applaud them for not letting this go and always having the rat cage around and for bringing back such an old plot point.

Willow and Amy do some naughty magic, and it just goes to serve as an example that they are bad, naughty witches who are going to have to be stopped.

Spike thinks his chip doesn't work anymore, but what's really going on is that it doesn't work on Buffy because she came back different after she died. He gets in a big knock down drag out fight with le Buff, and lo and behold, right in the middle of it, she unzips him and they have the most graphic non nude sex scene I ever did see on what was basic television. I don't know how that got that past the censors.

Maybe the FCC thought that they were doing Pilates.

Rating: 8/10

6.8 - Tabula Rasa

Willow uses magic to wipe Tara's memory again. Bad things happen.


***

Man, Willow, you just don't learn. She promised Tara that she'd go a week without magic, but she doesn't even make it a day. She casts something to make Buffy forget that she was in heaven and to make Tara forget that she was mad at Willow. It goes wrong, and every one of our main actors ends up in the Magic Box with their memory wiped. It's an awesome and hilarious episode that gives our cast a chance to play outside the box.

Spike thinks he's Giles son, Giles thinks he's with Anya, etc.

Of course, it can't last, and after all the hilarity, real consequences exist for Willow. Tara leaves, Giles goes back to England, and Michelle Branch sings. It's a moving montage.

Stupid Willow.

Best line, from Spike, thinking his name is Randy:

"Randy Giles? Why didn't you just name me 'Horny Giles, or Desperate for a Shag Giles?!" I knew there was a reason I hated you!"

Rating: 9/10

6.7 - Once More With Feeling

This is the musical episode of Buffy.


***

Well, what can you say about something as mind blowing as this?

It's maybe the coolest episode of Buffy ever? Because it is.

That the songs are not only incredibly catchy and well crafted, but that they serve to move the plot along by revealing each character's hidden secrets? Because they are.

That this is one of the funniest and most shocking episodes of Buffy? Because it is.

It's perfect in every way.

Rating: 10/10

6.6 - All the Way

It's Halloween, and Dawn gets cozy with a new boy. Who's a vampire!

***

It's time for the annual Halloween episode again. This one doesn't do a whole lot for me, but it's still fun. Dawn runs off by telling a lie and hangs out with Joan of Arcadia, gets in trouble with some vampires, and has to be rescued.

Willow's magic use is getting out of hand, and Tara has a fight with her. Willow uses magic to make it go away. Bad Willow. No cauldron for you.

Rating: 7/10

6.5 - Life Serial

The nerds are testing Buffy.


***

Oh, man, this episode was hilarious. From the start with the Death Star on the van ("I based it on the plans from the Empire's revised schematics!") to the poker game where kittens are used as currency, I was never bored.

Buffy's experience of trying out all the jobs her friends have found was fun. My favorite was the magic shop job, where she has a groundhog day experience over and over again.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was just incredibly cute and likable this whole episode. She's been gloomy since she came back, but here she gets to have some fun, and I welcome it. The thing she does when she drinks is funny, too. After each swig, she goes "bleurgh!" and sticks her tongue out. My wife does the same thing, and most women I've met do that too. It's a nice touch that adds realism and is also just plain funny.

When Buffy confronts the van, Jonathan transforms himself into the visage of a huge demon to allow the others to escape, and it cracked me up. When she hits him, he says "I am well struck! I call on the misty portal of my demon dimension, where I will lay my head and gently die!" Then he throws a smoke bomb down, turns around and books it. Comedy gold.

Rating: 9/10

6.4 - Flooded

Buffy's reunion with Giles, plus the introduction of the super nerds.

***

Well, the reunion between Giles and Buffy was fantastic for me. Their relationship is the one that I think the whole show hinges on. They are the father and the daughter, and seeing them happy and together again makes me really fuzzy and stuff.

Giles confronting Willow on how foolish she was to delve into such dark magic was awesome. He's absolutely right, too. She's meddling with powers too great for her. Even I can see that! Why don't you see, Willow? And when he gets firm with her, she threatens him! Woman, I know you didn't! This is some really compelling stuff.

And the Super nerds! I don't know if they have an official title. Anyway, they are Andrew, Warren, and Jonathan. They live in a basement and are the embodiment of comic book nerds. It actually scares me a lot that I get every single geek reference they make, from Star Trek jokes to James Bond references. I'm such a freakin' nerd.

Great episode. Jane Espenson and Doug Petrie writing together is like peanut butter and chocolate. It's meant to be. They came up with a hilarious line too, when Dawn is trying to pronounce the name of the demon M'Fashnik. She says "it's got an M then an apostrophe, like Mmm, cookies!"

Rating: 9/10