Please Note: Although this review is tagged for spoilers, it should be noted that it references major plot developments for Buffy The Vampire Slayer – Season Five. Introduction There comes a point in any love affair when you realise that things just aren't what they used to be. In the final quarter of 2001, I was hit with the unpleasant realisation that one of my favourite television shows – "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" – had turned to unadulterated garbage. Plenty of fans witnessed the fall but held on desperately, but I quietly sat back and decided to loyally see the show to its end.
So what happened in season six? A proper exploration of the decline of "Buffy" should begin in season five, when the show began to dumb down its writing, relying on soap opera plots rather than intelligent metaphor, and introducing the loathsome, one-dimensional character of Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg). At the end of the year, show creator Joss Whedon cut back his involvement to focus on new project "Firefly", handing the reins to accomplished writer Marti Noxon. Although she had produced many impressive episodes, Noxon's pieces tended to rely on simple moral points massively overstated, with a focus on drama at the expense of the humour and horror elements that had made the show famous. When she became executive producer, it was only a matter of time until the programme's entire tone would take a massive turn for the worse.
Episode List (Highlights in
bold, lowlights in
italics)
1) Bargaining, Part One; 2)
Bargaining, Part Two; 3) After Life; 4)
Flooded; 5)
Life Serial; 6)
All The Way; 7)
Once More, With Feeling; 8) Tabula Rasa; 9)
Smashed; 10)
Wrecked; 11) Gone; 12)
Doublemeat Palace; 13)
Dead Things; 14)
Older and Far Away; 15) As You Were; 16)
Hell's Bells; 17)
Normal Again; 18)
Entropy; 19) Seeing Red; 20)
Villains; 21) Two To Go; 22) Grave.
Brief Discussion During season six, the show's writers sought to explore the struggles of early adulthood, with a theme of 'Oh, grow up!' Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) had sacrificed her life to save the world at the end of season five, and the year opens with her friends performing a dangerous spell to resurrect her. Although the Slayer is restored, she finds her readjustment incredibly painful, and enters a violent sadomasochistic relationship with the vampire Spike (James Marsters). Meanwhile, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) is forced to deal with her worrying over-reliance on magic, and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Anya (Emma Caulfield) prepare for their imminent marriage. And if that wasn't enough, three geeks named Warren (Adam Busch), Jonathon (Danny Strong) and Andrew (Tom Lenk) begin a cartoonish drive to take over the town of Sunnydale, sparking a chain of events that shakes the gang to their very core.
Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Unfortunately, my description of the year is far more involving than the show itself. The season is incredibly poorly paced, taking 22 hours to say what could have been done in about five, with massive repetition, embarrassingly ham-fisted metaphors and the characters being pulled in some extremely unconvincing directions. The Willow drug addiction plot is the worst, but it's in for stiff competition from the other fake-emotional, humourless tales. Season six is the year when the show's writing lost of all its eloquence, wit and skill, and simply became a supernatural soap opera aimed at the lowest common denominator with explicit sex and violence. If you love it, more power to you, but I can't recommend this to anyone: it's not just bad "Buffy", but bad television. Avoid.
Detailed Discussion Writing about the problems of season six is a difficult endeavour, principally because there aren't isolated incidences you can pull out. Rather, the errors are season-wide, appearing in every episode to varying degrees. Imagine a ball of yarn where every thread is tied to another, and you have an accurate description of my feelings here. If I boil them down, I can roughly group them into three groups – lack of economy, loss of wit, and questionable characterisation.
By far the biggest problem with the year is that the writing lacks economy. A script that is well written will get its point across in the appropriate number of words. Sometimes that requires two hundred, and in others it may be two thousand. In season six, I get the distinct impression that the writers thought the viewers were deeply stupid. Whereas previous years of the show would have 15 or so individual stories coupled with one ongoing tale, season six has five
incredibly simple plots (based on a single thematic point) dragged out over 22 hours.
Lessons in Bad Writing, One:
"You don't need magic to be special!" Let's take the Willow drug addiction plot as an example. Willow's story begins in the two hour opener "Bargaining", where she lies to her friends about the nature of the spell to resurrect Buffy. Over the next few episodes, we see her misusing her magical powers again and again, as the other characters take note and worry. By episode six, the stupefying and dull Dawn-focused "All The Way", you realise that this is all Willow now does. In previous years, she was a fully formed character, but here she transforms into a one-note junkie. Her magic abuse is clumsily analogised as a drug addiction around the middle of the season, in the awful "Smashed" and "Wrecked". In these episodes, Willow gets peer-pressured by a fake friend and goes to a magic-pusher (named Rack – as in
crack!! Get it? Get it?!) She goes from being a casual abuser to a hopelessly addicted prostitute in about ten minutes of airtime, and learns the error of her ways after almost killing Dawn in a car accident. A hideous humour-free after-school special, "Wrecked" is quite easily one of the worst "Buffy" episodes ever, and one of the few that makes the show look no better than "Charmed" or "Smallville".
But the suffering doesn't end there. Willow goes cold turkey ('Cause she's on drugs! Get it?) and finds herself being peer-pressured again. The theme is hammered home repeatedly for the rest of the season, never crediting the audience with an ounce of intelligence. Because, you know,
Drugs Are Bad.
Lessons in Bad Writing, Two :
"But then I left, and ever since... I've had this painful hole inside!" The year's Xander 'plot' has many of the same problems. Early on, it's very clear that he has worries about his upcoming nuptials with Anya ("Flooded", "Life Serial"). The characters end up being relegated to token scenes for most of the season, always with an obvious moment of Xander stressing. The same simple story plods on until episode sixteen, entitled "Hell's Bells". Another atrocious edition, the long-time-coming wedding crams in every ridiculous sitcom cliche you could think of, trying to induce laughs but simply being painful. It climaxes predictably with some horribly fake soap opera tear jerking, and the monster plot is stupidly thought-out. Sadly, Xander's motivations are never convincingly explained, leaving his entire arc a stilted mess. It doesn't help that Anya remains a one-dimensional irritant, endlessly repeating the same 'sex and money' jokes beyond the point of amusement. If you're looking for a meaningful exploration of the challenges of marriage, please search elsewhere.
Lessons in Bad Writing, Three :
"And say what? 'Two guys and a mime took me out with their freeze ray'? That's likely!" Season six's carousel of bad writing shifts beyond characterisation flaws and bad pacing when it comes to the 'Trio' story. Another simple exploration of the dangers of not growing up, it shows how the geeky Warren, Andrew and Jonathon transform from losers into genuinely evil men. However, with the exception of two episodes (the hopelessly melodramatic "Dead Things" and "Seeing Red") they're played for laughs, endlessly repeating the same geeks-like-Star-Wars jokes. Something like that is okay for one scene in one episode, but the gags are recycled constantly. It's truly depressing to see a show once famed for its intelligent wit resorting to an endless barrage of cheap pop culture gags, and almost none are funny. The nerds themselves end up being simple stock characters; especially questionable is the 'comedy homosexual' Andrew, whose orientation is the root of a number of jokes. Considering that "Buffy" was a show that used to rejoice in 'slaying' stereotypes (and indeed had the first major primetime gay couple on air with its tender portrayal of the relationship between Willow and Tara), this is just tragic. We're three for three in the garbage can.
Lessons in Bad Writing, Four :
"You can't understand why this is killing me, can you?!" The most controversial plot of the year sees the relationship between Buffy and Spike, which dominates most of the season. After being resurrected, Buffy is truly unhappy, and reveals why to Spike ("After Life"). The two grow closer, with Buffy dying to feel and ultimately initiating a relationship with Spike in the season standout "Once More, With Feeling". This episode is truly brilliant, an alternately hilarious and emotional musical that sees the town suddenly bursting into song. It's the only edition of the year where the audience truly feels what the characters feel, and boasts excellent writing and performances by all. Sadly, the rest of the episodes just don't stand up. The Buffy/Spike plot tries to explore why young women are drawn to 'bad boy' figures, but in order to do this both characters become simple caricatures of themselves, divorced from the past. Many fans ended up supporting the relationship (you weren't supposed to), leading to the writers forcing in plot twists to try and turn them off (cumulating in a disgustingly cheap use of rape in "Seeing Red", complete with an act break in the middle of the scene!) In short, the writers failed in their theme and overcompensated to try and right it – and it sadly shows. I'll admit that some of the sex between Spike and Buffy is erotic (especially in their first time together in "Smashed"), but it's a cheap thrill in a show that used to be far beyond such things. The season leaves both Buffy and Spike shells of their former selves, damaged beyond all believability by their badly-conceived and planned plot. And when two of your most important characters are totally trashed, you're in trouble. It's worth noting that Sarah Michelle Gellar was very unhappy with the treatment of Buffy this season, and this is reflected in her flat, monotone performance. Thankfully, James Marsters remains as reliable as ever, and his multi-faceted and complex portrayal of his character ends up the only interesting thing in the majority of the episodes here.
DVD Extras The season six box set is attractively packaged, spanning six discs. The transfer quality is good, with clear sound and visuals. The excellent "Once More With Feeling" comes with an interesting commentary and karaoke sing-a-longs, while featurettes on the main seasonal theme, the cast and crew's previous jobs, and a panel discussion are all fairly interesting. Other episodes like "Bargaining", "Hell's Bells" and "Grave" also get commentaries, but they're mostly as uninteresting and repetitive as the episodes themselves. Overall, the set ends up being glossily presented garbage.
Conclusion Unlike with my previous "Buffy" reviews, I have tried to structure this one differently. The massive pacing, plotting, humour and characterisation flaws of season six are present in every episode, and I hope that my discussion of each main character thread has helped clarify these. There are a few additional things worth mentioning, such as Dawn's constant screaming and whining ("Older and Far Away; "Normal Again") and the mind-numbingly stupid closing episodes ("Villains; "Two To Go; "Grave"), but a full discussion of the issues of the year would require far more space than is feasible here. Suffice to say, season six of "Buffy" is not worth your money. I would certainly recommend seeing "Once More, With Feeling", but the storytelling and humour for most of the year isn't worth your time. For die-hard fans only, and even they might be disappointed.
More "Buffy":
Season One Season Two Season Three Season Four Season Five Season Seven
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