Buffy

slogging thru season 6... i love buffy but have never felt less compelled to watch another episode following having just finished one (which has been the case seasons 1-5). it just really feels dawdling at this point... the trio are by far the worst villains to have ever appeared on this show, and none of this is in a measure of "whos badass"

great/annoying meta-commentary on that in the insane asylum episode

slogging thru season 6... i love buffy but have never felt less compelled to watch another episode following having just finished one (which has been the case seasons 1-5). it just really feels dawdling at this point... the trio are by far the worst villains to have ever appeared on this show, and none of this is in a measure of "whos badass"

― kelpolaris, Friday, 13 May 2011 04:46 (16 minutes ago)

The nerd trio as villains was one of the worst ideas in the history of series television.

Except Jonathan is awesome, sorry

as was andrew, come on. in fact it was just warren that was lame. also caleb wasn't the major villain, he was the mr. trick to the first evil's mayor. or something.

Marti Noxon became show runner season six onwards Hoos. I guess it became like a Lorne Michaels thing, with only so much time to work effectively between projects, even if their fingerprints still be on everything.

Marti Noxon works on Mad Men now, I noticed. How come she doesn't ruin that show /grudge /yes I am petty

and it wasn't obvious feminism that was the problem it was the terrible bodice-rippyness and omg melodrama! I just remember it being yuk

the trio would've been great for comic-relief ((exclusively)). i mean this in the same way that - ok, here it goes - team rocket was to pokemon (if they hadn't overplayed that role ad infinitum)

whedon & co i thought absolutely nailed a feeling of the ominous with seasons 3 and season 5. season 3 was just really the first encounter with something being possibly invincible (before season 4 utterly strangled that concept) and 5 carried on the same mistakes of a predictable villain - but redeemed itself by making the target not buffy, but dawn. it added this whole new dimension of vulnerability and a very real threat i hadn't seen since season 3.

i'll have to see how the trio works out but it seems so far that they've taken the worst bits of all the big bads of the past and pint-sized them into ridiculous caricatures i'm never sure if i'm supposed to take seriously or not.

pretty sure season six exists solely to give every academic a chapter in their thesis

you're usually not, which makes it awkward when you are, later (xpost)

the trio are essential for being the show's internalization of the worst part of their natural audience of sci-fi geeks.

think its worth it just for the episode where they have jet packs tbh.

marti noxon didn't ruin buffy. joss spreading himself too thin and not really having a PROPER EVIL VILLAIN for two seasons killed Buffy. Hell she wouldn't kill the trio because of humanity and the first evil was incorporable - so being able to slay things became p fucking redundant.

the trio are essential for being the show's internalization of the worst part of their natural audience of sci-fi geeks.

― j., Friday, May 13, 2011 5:58 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

it was a bastardization of the show's mythology and mood in so many ways. They made a fucking RAY GUN ffs. And for what? So the writers could have a laugh at some of the show's fans? It was narcissistic, juvenile and ridiculous.

I remember episode 3 or 4 of that plot line when I was like "holy shit, they really are this season's big bad aren't they?" and I quit cold turkey.

the whole "mocking our audience" thing seemed especially hollow since they turned Spike into the show's Fonzie in large part to satisfy the appetites of slashfic authors.

ummm junkie willow and spike were the actual big bads of s6.

well ya see, I quit watching...

junkie willow was truly awful.

"Season 6
The main villains in Season 6 were the Trio - Warren Mears (portrayed by Adam Busch), Jonathan Levinson (portrayed by Danny Strong) and Andrew Wells (portrayed by Tom Lenk) - followed by Willow (known in this phase as Dark Willow), portrayed by Alyson Hannigan. Series creator Joss Whedon stated on the Season 6 DVD that the true Big Bad was life itself, and how as time goes on, it becomes more and more people's worst enemy"

Caleb was totally a major villain. They even made a point of his ultimate indestructible powers, which he frequently invoked to not kill Buffy, and which failed him when he turned out to be easy to dispense of. Same with the uber-vamps. The First Evil ... I don't know what the fuck that was supposed to be.

Not all of the Big Bads could be as good as the Mayor, who was best of all time imho. The First / Caleb was maybe poorly executed but that sort of cosmic disembodied capital E-vil was kinda necessary given that everyone knew the show had to wrap up and it's not like Buff beating up a baddie for the millionth time was gonna be a suitable end to the series.

I thought the Trio was actually good fun, in a way that kept a lot of silly banter & popcult references in the show as it got more "serious."

Also the whole point of the Trio was worthwhile in that they kind of embodied the a more realistic, even human side of evil pretty well. I mean Warren was the only villain to ever use a gun, which broke the supernatural convention of the show in a way that was ultimately really effective.

That's sort of one reason I tell people to stop after season 6. It beats around the bush less re: ultimate, real, non-fasntasy evil, whether it's Warren actually using a gun, to kill, or Willow's gruesome revenge, driven entirely by pure emotion and grief (and making good on hints dropped really early in the series). And of course it makes the Big Bad not just one of the Scoobies, but a Big Bad powerful enough that you actually believe the fate of the world is at stake. After all that angst and pain and death, the S7 Ultimate Evil shit was just a non-starter.

OTM. Also, the penultimate (or possibly 3rd-to-last) episode of season 6 has the best HOLY SHIT NO WAY! ending.

spoilersssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

the thing that happens w/ warren?

Of all the Big Bads I think that Adam -- the human-demon cyborg dude? -- was probably my least favorite.

xp SPOILERS AHOY!

No, I was actually thinking about the return of a character.

great/annoying meta-commentary on that in the insane asylum episode

― Gukbe, Friday, May 13, 2011 4:59 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

haha yes

Yeah, Adam was totally worthless. I just couldn't really deal w/ the big bad not being supernatural - again where the trio is failing. It enters that realm of reality where you're actually questioning the believability of all this... it just makes them so much less threatening.

But .. but ... Adam was part robot, part DEMON! That's totally supernatural.

Also, he was part lame.

also part boondoggle

The only redeeming part of the Adam storyline was how he was defeated in Primeval, which was pretty awesome imho.

Ha, I think I already ragged on it upthread but ugh
http://images.wikia.com/buffy/images/c/c2/PrimevalBuffy.jpg

I mean, guys, I mean, the fuck is this
http://www.whedon.info/local/cache-vignettes/L254xH450/buffy-primeval-diamond-figure-20272.jpg

in many a ways i consider my own opinion invalid b/c i saw, and continue to see, nothing wrong with season 1

giant lol @ doves

lmao.

kel: nothing wrong? incl. 'i robot you jane'? i <3 s1 but i also totally understand how it can feel dated and all over the place and hard to get into etc. I guess the characters haven't been fleshed out yet (would you ever guess giles was a punk warlock with velvet underground records*?)

*and yet he admits that the bay city rollers was more his style in 'the dark age'. crazy rupert.

Finally finished the series!

Not sure where all the hate for season 7 stems from - it was definitely sloppy, but contained some much much much needed lol's so cruelly absent from season 6.

Now admittedly the whole inclusion of Caleb at the very end seemed...desperate? weird? unnecessary?... and I'm still a little unsatisfied that the method of beating the Big Bad involved, basically, a magic axe that conveniently appears when all hope is lost. It's nice that Whedon is conscious of these things - when Rupert admits to never having known a thing about it - but it def feels like getting gipped of a *real* ending, something worthy of having spent 7 years watching a show.

truth said, i've never really felt satisfied w/ any of the season endings apart from season 3... and it just might be b/c it reinforces some trope i'm used to as a logical end to all things (big boom).

***spoilers***

1 (Prophecy Girl - Buffy dies v. Master), 2 (Becoming - Buffy & Spike & Willow v. Dru & Angel & Rock), 3 (Graduation Day - Faith omg also big snake), 4 (cheese man, prophecies and giles singing) and 5 (buffy v. glory for dawn) all have perfect endings imo.

lolll cheese man

yeah that is a weird criticism to make of this show in particular

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/10/15/1008591/violentacrez-buffy-the-vampire-slayer/?mobile=nc

have not read this but will post it so i read it later

predicted? not a bad article though, it suffers a bit by somewhat ignoring the whole andrew and jonathan were kinda gay thing

One of the great things about season 2 is that you can really feel the show stretching and straining to become a bigger show in real time.

One of the biggest mistakes I've ever made as a parent is forgetting to skip season one, forcing myself to convince the kids that yes, it does get a lot better, and quickly, too!

I binged all of How to Get Away With Murder last month and was looking up a bunch of the actors and saw that Frank was on many Buffy episodes. He surprisingly was Ben! Maybe not surprising since I blocked out most of that season.

Soon to be repeated from the beginning on E4

which saves me digging out my DVDs

however, the clip they showed was 16:9 but the show was 4:3 for the first 3 seasons, which makes me wonder if they are going to show the apparently terrible HD remaster

One of the biggest mistakes I've ever made as a parent is forgetting to skip season one, forcing myself to convince the kids that yes, it does get a lot better, and quickly, too!

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, February 14, 2019 12:47 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hey Josh, I just started watching Buffy with my daughter a couple weeks ago. We did not skip S1, but she liked it a lot, with a few exceptions at some obviously dud episodes.

How old were your kids when you watched it with them? My kid is 9 and - not having actually watched Buffy in almost two decades - I just now kinda realized that there are upcoming storylines involving sex. For instance, last night was Reptile Boy, which is a metaphor for date rape, and then the whole Buffy/Angel/soul thing is coming up in a few episodes. And I'm kinda thinking that there are some points in the series where I might want to skip episodes or at least have serious discussions that I think she might still be a year or two too young for. It's a bit of a jump from Scooby Doo and such. But at the same time, she's super into it right now and the last thing I want to do is ruin the fun.

I actually posted basically this same question to the Buffy subreddit earlier this morning and received a decent reddit mixed-bag of responses. But when I came back here and saw that you watched it with your kids, it was obvious that ilxor opinions are what I really need. Anyone else can weigh in too; it doesn't have to be just Josh.

Hmm. I want to say when we first dipped in to the show both my daughters were old enough for the subject matter, though the younger one was older than 9, iirc. So yeah, your daughter could be a year or two too young. However, neither of my kids particularly liked the show, mostly because it was "old," so if your kid is into it it might be good to just go with it. And if there's something you need to talk about with her, that could be good, too, seeing how it would be a conversation sparked by a thoughtful, clever show.

Sometimes when I ask questions like the other ones you're asking Ialso have to remind myself that this was prime time network TV in the '90s. So any sex (and violence) is going to be pretty mild, relatively speaking. Like, compared to "Stranger Things," with its language, gore and teen sex stuff, "Buffy" might as well be a Disney deal.

This is way the hell down the road, but in the last season there's that fairly graphic for network TV montage of numerous characters giving into desire and having sex before a battle with the First.