Every girl who could have the power, will have the power, can stand up, will stand up – Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Seven

And here we are. End of the line for the Sunnydale crew. Season 7 is problematic and flawed but in the end it pulls a pretty impressive victory from the jaws of potential defeat and ends what is surely undoubtedly one of the most pivotal shows in TV history in fine style.

And said flaws are not the fault of this season per se but a combination of circumstance and the actual format of the series starting to fall apart.

A show like Buffy required a big finish but because the decision to actually end the series was taken somewhat late in the day, how this was going to be achieved was done on a rather ad hoc basis. Joss’s attention was still taken up on the now-disintegrating Firefly and that no doubt took its toll on Buffy (as it also did on Angel s4).

So, mistakes were made. The first of these was making The First the season’s Big Bad. The problem is that The First is too vague, a concept, rather than a tangible adversary. Literally in this case. As Buffy points out, the First’s non-corporeality means that it should be more accurately described as The Taunter. On the surface of it, it’s an odd decision. The First was barely a passable dramatic entity in s3’s Amends, let alone recurring across an entire season (but because the episode was essentially one of those laying the groundwork for s1 of Angel, it didn’t in the end matter too much). But here in s7, the return of The First promises much (like that nice ‘greatest hits’ of Big Bads at the end of the first episode) but ultimately is just not in any position to actually deliver.

Things improve greatly with Nathan Fillion’s arrival as Caleb. Fillion — great as the lead in Firefly — was another refugee from that show’s implosion (Gina Torres would similarly be slotted into s4 of Angel with, I think, less success.) And as a Night of the Hunter-esque misogynistic and unstoppable preacher, he brought a nice focus to The First narrative.

But either through accident or design, it is Caleb who is the true Big Bad of the season (and possibly the entire show). His religious garb is no accident. He is another version of the four men who started the Slayer line in the first place, and therefore of the Watchers’ Council who perpetrated their abuse of the first Slayer.

Caleb represents the institutions of control — the Watchers, prophecy in all its manifestations, the men who see Buffy and all the Slayers, and quite possibly all women full stop, as instruments of pawns in their respective games. The First is essentially the backdrop for that conflict, not the conflict itself. But because Caleb is introduced so late, The First has to adopt the role of the main adversary — a role that it’s not really up to — and this leads to the middle of the season feeling kind of flat. The whole thread of the hunt for the first Turok Hahn has a definite feeling of treading narrative water about it. (And interesting in how they quickly want from nigh on impossible to kill, to being easily dusted by the likes of Giles and Wood in the finale.)

A second problem is that the Scoobies in general had gotten too old. Part of the appeal of the best, earlier, Buffy seasons is that the characters were so engaging because they still had their whole lives ahead of them. They were embodiments of hope in their own ways — and this contrasted with the darkness of the supernatural enemies they faced. Their innocence, their being blank slates — full of hope and potential — were a big part of the point of the show.

Their lives are far from over, of course, but each of the Scoobies now carries too much baggage. And they’re all damaged in their own way. Buffy is humourless and harsh — more reminiscent of her Wish-Universe version rather than the s3 ‘real world’ equivalent, Willow is a recovering addict, Xander is a half-blind commitment phobic. Even Giles is rather sad now, having less life than he appeared to have when he was merely a fusty librarian cum Watcher. In seasons 1-4, we have a love of these characters because what we feel they’re in the process of becoming, the greatness and potential of their lives. Now it’s hard to escape the nagging feeling that they’re very close to becoming a bunch of losers.

Perhaps more so than many other TV formats, Buffy had a definite shelf life. We really weren’t meant to see them far beyond high school, I suspect. There is an unresolvable conflict here. The natural progression of the characters contains within it the demise of the show. It’s to be commended that it constantly pushed its characters out of their comfort zones but there comes a point when the characters are too old and a little too broken. Buffy as a 16-year-old calling Kakistos ‘kissing toast’ in s3 was endearing and funny, but as a 22-year-old she’s too old for the same trick to work with the Turok Hahn because it makes her look more silly and arch than anything else.

But this all sounds overly critical because s7 is actually perfectly fine aside from these structural problems. It’s got no really duff episodes (except maybe Him, which tried to be a pastiche of early Buffy but which I think did it far too self-consciously to ever have a chance of succeeding) and it has a lot of first-class ones, as good as anything in other seasons. And the season finale, did a fine job of bringing both the season, but more importantly, the entire series itself to an appropriate conclusion. (Although for my money, I still consider the Angel finale to be more satisfying than the Buffy one.)

A few brief notes on various characters:

GILES — he really should have been gone by now and served absolutely no useful purpose in this season, seemingly still hanging on in there because of sentimental attachment to the character. But this in the end caused more harm than good. It was right and necessary that Buffy be seen to be ‘cutting the strings’ from Giles but it was kind of done in a ham-fisted way. It didn’t seem credible that he would fall in Robin’s suggestion to kill Spike — especially as Giles had history with both Angel and of Spike. And by having his final significant act in the series being an act of betrayal, the character was ultimately done a disservice.
I feel it would have been wiser for Giles to have perished with the rest of the Watchers’ Council — heroically, of course. But this would have sent a devastating message to both Buffy (Giles’s head sent to her in a box a la Seven?) and the viewers that The First were something more serious than the common or garden evil.

SPIKE — Having given Spike a soul at the end of s6, the writers were clearly at a loss as to what the hell to do with him and so we have yet more treading water — triggers, sleeper agents and so on — until they were ready for him. The reveal of the soul to Buffy is very well done though — an extremely affecting scene by Marsters and SMG — and his final sacrifice is a great moment (slightly undone later in Angel) and his laughter as he burns the Hellmouth is a great moment, and the perfect character beat. Spike has a poet’s soul — no, it’s not a poetic delusion, he’s the genuine article, just one born out of time in the stultifying era of the Victorians (we’ll see a scene in a future season of Angel that reveals that he finally finds his poetic place and affirmation). But a poet he is — and one who revels in chaos and irony at that — and that is why he both understands and embraces his ‘final’ destiny as a force of change, as well as conforming and confirming his original role as a puckish Lord of Misrule.

But the real power of the finale is that it chimes with the whole ethos of the show, confronts the constrictions that have dogged Buffy from the outset of Welcome to the Hellmouth and lays them to rest. Buffy’s victory is absolute. And it is a reward too. She finally gets what she’s most consistently wanted and asked for throughout the past seven years — to be a normal girl.

But let’s end with a couple of quotes from out own Watchers. First, @purofilion:

what I liked about Whedon’s vision was not shying away from the idea of empowerment for all girls who become women: and all ‘potentials’ as slayers. The fact he even mentions women bleeding together -in a commentary – was quite a shock. But a good one.

And I think @cathannabel sums it up nicely:

And that bit where the potentials become actuals – that beautiful sequence of young women taking that power on, without understanding it but knowing that its theirs, and standing up, literally or figuratively… Lord, that moves me so much, I can’t even speak about it without choking up. Over the last, very tough, year, it has played in my head at so many moments when I’ve felt powerless and defeated, and made me stand up straighter too.

On the subject of Buffy, very little more needs to be said than that, I think. However, do leave your thoughts and musings below. No spoilers for Angel seasons 2-5, which I’ll now try to zip through in short order.


9 comments

  1. @pedant @ScaryB @CathAnnabel thank you for taking the ride with me.

    @JimTheFish thank you for the Blog -the last one for Buffy. Such a lot of work and you referred to issues which I found hard to express -so I’ll repeat what you said!

    Part of the appeal of the best, earlier, Buffy seasons is that the characters were so engaging because they still had their whole lives ahead of them. They were embodiments of hope in their own ways — and this contrasted with the darkness of the supernatural enemies they faced. Their innocence, their being blank slates — full of hope and potential — were a big part of the point of the show.”

    Absolutely. I recall discussing my reactions to Season 3 Buffy (on my 2nd re-watch now) and realising it was exactly that hope, the engagement with the limitless future of the Scoobies lives, indeed their liminal stance on the edge of middle America which connected me to the show in a way that no other season has -before, or since.

    Importantly, I could be part of their happy circle: they were filled with hope, their lives not yet a rummage sale, not found wanting. I could create an expendable future for these people -and so this made me part of the show. Like a kid, I could be Buffy, I could imagine meeting guys like Oz and girls like Cordelia who changed and embodied less of the upstart tart and more of the loyal defender.

    In S7 they were raw and brutal people at times -they’d suffered and whilst this is the stuff of life, of tragedy (and of pay -off in drama), I didn’t really want to see it. There’s that hidden flaw running through my own life -I wanted to stay comforted and closeted.  By the end, I was consumed with a general sense of dread, imprisoned within the dreary overcrowded round of Buffy’s home, the vineyard and the basement with mooning Spike. These were the circumstances, which to me, at least, presented sound empirical argument for gloom. Giles is mean, Xander and Anya are lost, Buffy’s house is a wreck and there are confused fledglings wandering haplessly about. I felt things would doubtless continue in such depressing vein. In short, the Buffy existence seemed tainted -in some subtle but essential way.

    I guess I missed the simple ideas of the original seasons: a stiff, tweed wearing Giles, self-consciously formal at Sunnydale High; Xander, a cheery and relentlessly funny ‘dude’, with a nasal tone unselfconsciously snogging the Super Bitch Cordelia while Willow says “I used the word date. About me.” These are my own flaws and opinions and I admit to that quite openly.

    In the last set of episodes the fledglings create themselves, Willow finds her earth in Kennedy (a character I found arch and a bit pop: with the “tongue piercing” it became a touch seedy) and innocence lost is spun around into a battle stance where each person in the original circumference of the show finds their particular shape and space -even Dawn grows into a young woman over night -particularly in her realisation that Amanda is the ‘new slayer born’. Buffy’s tale of The Chosen One becomes the Many who are Chosen. And that’s a triumph. These girls are not beautiful in the way that may excite the senses -that isn’t the point – but they tear at the heart -and that’s enough. Almost.

    I have reservations. By S7 these characters, which we helped shape to our own liking, are a little unapproachable and unforgiving. It’s understandable as they’ve suffered terrible losses which must wreak havoc: from Buffy’s and even Kennedy’s fatuous show of The Generalissimo to Giles’ febrile hatred of Spike and his suspicion or even distrust of Buffy -an attitude I don’t resile, by the way, I just wish it wasn’t quite so necessary or so confused.

    Is Giles really there or is he somewhere else? His absence is explained and yet I find it incomprehensible. Is Spike tortured because of his terrible deeds or is the Hellmouth making him ‘crazy’? I think in previous seasons such developments would have occurred as a backdrop, an adjunct, rather than the story’s point. I found S3 and S5 fuller, and dare I say, comfortable.

    And I’ve decided I like comfort; whether that’s due to a strong puritan streak in my nature which I’ve discovered of late or an inability to look past the simplicity of things, I’m not sure.

    I do not now nor did I ever have anything in common with these characters -but I like to pretend I did. Nothing except an enjoyment of their own love and acceptance of each other and the four months I spent in their company. And if love is a thing held in common and if that binds the story so I become a little part of it, then I had that too.

    Kindest, puro.

  2. @scaryb and @purofilion — many thanks for the kind words.

    @purofilion — yes, we did lose the optimism in Buffy but at the same time it had no choice but to do go in that direction. An aborted spin-off was for an animated Buffy show that would have been set during the season 3 era, retrofitted to include Dawn. It got very close to happening, with half a dozen scripts by writers like Espenson and most of the original cast were on board too. Had it happened, maybe our final memories of the Scoobies would not have been quite as bittersweet. Here’s a bit of the concept art:

    I do hope you’ll stick with Angel though. It’s mission statement is very different — it’s looking at the consequences of past actions, rather than looking forward to the future, so it does share the later Buffy’s slight edge of introspection and its humour is darker and more mordant as opposed to the quirkiness of early Buffy. But it’s well worth the journey and suspect you’ll enjoy s5 particularly.

  3. @Jimthefish

    it’s interesting this back n’ forth that I have about S3, 5 and 7. There’s a definite concrete clarity to the roles of the characters in S3 and these develop but within certain bounds, still, in S5.

    S7 is a tremendous step -sometimes falling over and sometimes standing triumphantly. It’s the quirky in S3 that I like the most and the metaphors so beautifully set up (in S3) that are exposed in S 5.

    There’s no way one can stay in high school with these characters. The Thing must progress and with it, we find  great pathos  -it’s rounded out fully. And that’s life. It’s why sometimes I want to escape from it!

    I had no idea of a comic-idea with ‘art’ and Dawn! How interesting. Nonetheless, I was glad we got the show we needed and Whedon the praise he deserved -though Noxon, Espenson and Greenwalt are contributors to this heavyweight and obviously iconic story.

    Upwards with Angel now.

  4. On the subject of the animated series, here’s a promo that was done at the time. Frankly, it makes me wish they’d done it.

     

  5. @JimTheFish

    Thank you for that link! I enjoyed it and I can see that the familiar voices & humour would be as brilliant. I know that on this site, saying this is not a good out-loud phrase: but generally, I’m not fond of animation.

    That could change.

    With animation you get to use enormous Big Bads -even for just a minute -like the dragon – which, with Buffy’s expense account, was pretty limited? The rocket launcher in S2 was expensive from what Joss said and dusting each vampire (with skeletal impressions) became ludicrously expensive too.

    I don’t know where I stand with favouring each season of Buffy -the first seemed odd when I look back on it and yet from womb to tomb, in Act I was “Buffy’s bitch”  (to borrow @pedant ‘s phrase) and was keen to move to S2 immediately.

    I favour  S5 and S3 equally (for reasons I mentioned way back on the other thread), probably 1 and 2 after that, 7 and then 6. Though, with more thought I could write a convincing explanation of why s 6 and 7 tend to flop in places which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. However, having said that, I could probably favour S7 above S1 and S2 depending on the day -which suggests I’m fickle. It’s why I can’t complete surveys. I change my mind endlessly: a sufferer of Decision Making Disorder. Or delusional about what I infer from the show-which may never have been the writer’s intention.

  6. @JimTheFish Thank you for the kind mentions, and for this heroic blogathon – not done yet, of course, we await your Angel analyses with bated breath!

    I agree with everything you say about S7 – but it seems to me one aspect of the true greatness of this series, one of the reasons why it stays with you, becomes part of you, that it allows us to see these people, many of whom we love,  so damaged and scarred (good call that they resemble more the versions of themselves from The Wish).  Not bouncing back with a merry quip, not any more.   We used to mock so many TV series in the 70s in which, whatever happened in the episode, whatever traumas, terrors, dangers and disasters were visited upon the characters, at the end they got to go home and have tea, and have a bit of a chuckle.  Buffy never did that – if there was a gag at the end it was tightly tied in with the preceding narrative, and had a bit of a kick to it, or a poignancy that stopped it being trite.  But here over a whole series (and going back to S6) we see these battered veterans, hanging on as best they can to their loyalties and loves and to whatever humour they can find, but unable to be what they were, carrying the weight of so many losses.  It’s right we leave them there, but I’m glad we got to go that far.

     

  7. @cathannabel

    we see these battered veterans, hanging on as best they can to their loyalties and loves and to whatever humour they can find, but unable to be what they were

    Totally true in the contexxt of them being heroes. But as being human beings, with potential to do the equally great things of careers, families, travel, personal human achievement, so on, they become rather depressing and, well, near to failures. I’m grateful that we got all the seasons of Buffy we did, but in many ways I’d have been equally happy for them to have moved on from Sunnydale, to have become tbe brilliant young adults they clearly had the promise to be in s3

    Angel blogs coming up. I was holding off slightly to give puro a chance to catch up but I’ll do s2 this weekend.

  8. @JimTheFish  ooh, S2 Angel.  Will finish the last 5 eps of that by Fri night – some needed time off tomorrow.

    “I’d have been equally happy for them to have moved on from Sunnydale, to have become tbe brilliant young adults they clearly had the promise to be in s3”

    And it was so much about the promise -that far horizon where anything joyful and magnificent can happen.  Dreams -no matter now silly or vacuous can still play out. But, they created an army of slayers and ….slayed the Hell mouth for good -I’d say that was an achievement.

    There’s that epigram, “in times of trouble, it’s best to go to one’s own people”.  I think the last Act, where the original quartet meet in the hall, the crossroads, before departing for their respective jobs brings back that feeling of newness, originality, of intriguing ‘trouble’. Just for a second, you’re back in the Land of Hope in S3 with Xander yelling “fire, left flank” and Willow and Giles coordinating their actions.

    A fitting end.

    Yesterday I re-watched Beer Bad -boy-oh-boy; Tracey Forbes was it? I’m not sure what else she wrote for Buffy? if in fact I have the name right at all.

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