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Season three, when all is said and done, is a very different season that either one or two was, and maybe that's a good thing. Season one fell a bit flat half the time and season two was emotionally draining, which is great, but would have been exhausting to repeat. It feels to me like season three establishes it's own rules and brings the show into a new era.
In this season, we have many more standalone episodes that focus solely on the characters. Not on a particular monster of the week (which is totally fine sometimes...I just don't want that 4 out of 5 episodes...not that we ever got that with Buffy. Smallville, I'm looking at you) but instead focuses on enriching the depth and our understanding of the characters we follow each week.
Some shows handle character development by throwing those characters at elaborate enemies or long, drawn out family drama. Again, Smallville comes to mind with the way they incessantly pit Lex Luthor against his father, Lionel. The X-Files had show mythology episodes that found a few questions being answered while raising dozens more. Buffy handled this better than any show I've ever seen. Want to know what makes Willow tick at this point in her life? Well, watch The Wish or Doppelgangland and find out just how different Willow could have turned out. Not only that, but these episodes revealed lots of hidden subtext that wasn't on the surface of her character, but were lurking deep down. What at first seems like throwaway stuff is later learned to have been an early glimpse into the future direction of the character. Foreshadowing. That's something I'm seeing a lot here. Strands are dangled, glimpses are given into what may take years to come to pass.
In this season, we see, albeit only for one episode, an ancient evil called the One. The first evil. Then, it just goes away. But not for good. It comes back in season 7. And the show embraces it's rich history, too. In almost every episode, one of the characters recalls a previous event in the show. Oz turns into a werewolf and mentions something about having that wild feeling, and Xander mentions that he can relate. He was a hyena boy in season one. This stuff happens all the time.
While I am not a fan of the Mayor and not a fan of the direction that Faith's arc took her this season, I am a huge fan of the rest of the episodes that made up this season. It's okay to absolutely love a show without loving all the elements of it. In fact, I'd say that's the greatest compliment to a show. Accepting it and embracing it even though there are things that you wish you could change.
I think the show truly found it's voice this season. It found it's niche. It learned what it could do and it learned what it should not try to do. The cast had played these roles long enough to get inside their character's heads and that's when the fun really starts. When you can take a character like Giles and play him like he's a teenager, or take a shy Willow and show her full of sexy evil.
There were hiccups and bumps, like the Columbine tragedy delaying several episodes, including the finale for months, this season did sooo much right. It is still fantastic, and I love being a part of these character's lives.
1 comment:
From what I've heard or read, this was most people's favorite season and alot of viewers were turned off after high school was over. They would state that the show was a metaphor for the horrors of high school and it lost it's way after. I would disagree. I loved this season, but I think 4 is the one I go back to the most...I do watch 3 occasionally, and rarely go back to 2 (it's too draining). In fact, all of those High School seasons are hard to watch because as Heath stated, it never leaves you entirely and the nostalgia is sometimes a killer.
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