More scattershot BtVS thoughts
May. 10th, 2015 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightI'm now nearly at the end of season 7 in my own personal re-watch.
Some not terribly coherent thoughts behind cut.
Lots of people hate season 7. They think it's badly plotted, incoherent, characterisations all over the place, their favourites got gypped etc, etc.
Have to say, as of where I am now (I just watched LMPTM earlier today), I don't agree (mostly).
Up to this point, I'd say that season 7 is actually quite coherently plotted and very much an ensemble piece. Okay, there are elements I don't care for because they take focus away from the the main characters - specifically, the Potentials and Andrew. But the Potentials at least are integral to the overall story arc, and only Kennedy really intrudes on the main characters a lot (well, and Molly's accent. :Shudder:) . But I actually quite like Kennedy this time around. Iyari Limon never sold the character to me before, but she is this time.
As for Andrew, I can't really explain him being in it so much, beyond the fact that all the writers loved Tom Lenk, but Storyteller is actually a much better episode than I remembered, and it's not like Andrew is a character we've never seen before suddenly thrust into the story (which is the case with Caleb - a character I loathe and find totally unnecessary. Seriously, I'd rather have the Taunter on its own).
But all the other characters - Anya, Xander, Dawn, Willow, Giles too - have some good moments in the season. Potential is a really terrific episode. I loved Dawn in it.
As for Buffy, I think she's great. I'm on board for pretty much everything she does - even calling dead Chloe an idiot in Get It Done and telling Wood she'd let Spike kill him if he tried anything again after LMPTM.
Okay, yes, both things are pretty cold, but I have to admit I like this All Slayer All The Time Buffy.
I also know, in advance, that no matter the very considerable flaws in the last five episodes, I'm going to be okay with the Slayer spell, and okay with Spike being the one to save everyone.
So, I suppose my only real complaint so far are inconsistencies and not explained stuff in Spike's story/characterisation, and this is bugging me a bit.
I'm still not sure if his demand of the First in Sleeper that it make him forget again because he did what it wanted is supposed to suggest that he did to some extent know what he was doing when he killed all those people. I don't think it can be, because if so, why on earth would Buffy (and others) insist that he had no free will when he did those things? But the ambiguity bugs me. I feel like no one checked the script properly.
It also bugs me that, when he puts the duster back on in Get It Done, he not only has a personality reversion (as it were), which I guess I get (Buffy just gave him permission to be himself again, and it's a relief), but people forget stuff he's said beforehand, and he seems to forget it himself.
Okay, I understand Wood seeing him 'as the kind of guy who just careens through life, completely oblivious to the damage he's doing to everyone around him.' Wood hates him, justifiably. But I don't get Giles saying 'Angel left here because he realized how harmful your relationship with him was. Spike, on the other hand, lacks such self-awareness' and Buffy not contradicting him to say that Spike had offered to leave and she told him she couldn't spare him yet ('not ready for you to not be here'). Most of all, I don't get that putting the duster back on seems to have made Spike himself forget this.
Oh anyway, speaking of the duster, I'm sorry, I just can't get bent out of shape by Spike keeping it. I do feel sorry for Wood. I do. I also think Spike stepped over the line when he told Wood his mother hadn't loved him (whereas what he'd been saying to him up to that point had been the truth, if harsh). Clearly, Nikki loved Robin. She just loved the mission more, or rather her calling was just not something she could ignore for her son's sake - and if she'd been a man this wouldn't even be remarked on.
So, as I said, I can't get bent out of shape about it. And I think Wood's actions were very wrong in the context. Just as Buffy said, it was no time for vendettas.
I suspect I won't enjoy the last five episodes so much. I hate Caleb, as I said. I feel like he's only there because Joss wanted to find work for his beloved Firefly actors when that show was cancelled. I also know that the mechanics of the plot get more and more laboured as we go on.
But up to now, it's mostly pretty good.
Some not terribly coherent thoughts behind cut.
Lots of people hate season 7. They think it's badly plotted, incoherent, characterisations all over the place, their favourites got gypped etc, etc.
Have to say, as of where I am now (I just watched LMPTM earlier today), I don't agree (mostly).
Up to this point, I'd say that season 7 is actually quite coherently plotted and very much an ensemble piece. Okay, there are elements I don't care for because they take focus away from the the main characters - specifically, the Potentials and Andrew. But the Potentials at least are integral to the overall story arc, and only Kennedy really intrudes on the main characters a lot (well, and Molly's accent. :Shudder:) . But I actually quite like Kennedy this time around. Iyari Limon never sold the character to me before, but she is this time.
As for Andrew, I can't really explain him being in it so much, beyond the fact that all the writers loved Tom Lenk, but Storyteller is actually a much better episode than I remembered, and it's not like Andrew is a character we've never seen before suddenly thrust into the story (which is the case with Caleb - a character I loathe and find totally unnecessary. Seriously, I'd rather have the Taunter on its own).
But all the other characters - Anya, Xander, Dawn, Willow, Giles too - have some good moments in the season. Potential is a really terrific episode. I loved Dawn in it.
As for Buffy, I think she's great. I'm on board for pretty much everything she does - even calling dead Chloe an idiot in Get It Done and telling Wood she'd let Spike kill him if he tried anything again after LMPTM.
Okay, yes, both things are pretty cold, but I have to admit I like this All Slayer All The Time Buffy.
I also know, in advance, that no matter the very considerable flaws in the last five episodes, I'm going to be okay with the Slayer spell, and okay with Spike being the one to save everyone.
So, I suppose my only real complaint so far are inconsistencies and not explained stuff in Spike's story/characterisation, and this is bugging me a bit.
I'm still not sure if his demand of the First in Sleeper that it make him forget again because he did what it wanted is supposed to suggest that he did to some extent know what he was doing when he killed all those people. I don't think it can be, because if so, why on earth would Buffy (and others) insist that he had no free will when he did those things? But the ambiguity bugs me. I feel like no one checked the script properly.
It also bugs me that, when he puts the duster back on in Get It Done, he not only has a personality reversion (as it were), which I guess I get (Buffy just gave him permission to be himself again, and it's a relief), but people forget stuff he's said beforehand, and he seems to forget it himself.
Okay, I understand Wood seeing him 'as the kind of guy who just careens through life, completely oblivious to the damage he's doing to everyone around him.' Wood hates him, justifiably. But I don't get Giles saying 'Angel left here because he realized how harmful your relationship with him was. Spike, on the other hand, lacks such self-awareness' and Buffy not contradicting him to say that Spike had offered to leave and she told him she couldn't spare him yet ('not ready for you to not be here'). Most of all, I don't get that putting the duster back on seems to have made Spike himself forget this.
Oh anyway, speaking of the duster, I'm sorry, I just can't get bent out of shape by Spike keeping it. I do feel sorry for Wood. I do. I also think Spike stepped over the line when he told Wood his mother hadn't loved him (whereas what he'd been saying to him up to that point had been the truth, if harsh). Clearly, Nikki loved Robin. She just loved the mission more, or rather her calling was just not something she could ignore for her son's sake - and if she'd been a man this wouldn't even be remarked on.
So, as I said, I can't get bent out of shape about it. And I think Wood's actions were very wrong in the context. Just as Buffy said, it was no time for vendettas.
I suspect I won't enjoy the last five episodes so much. I hate Caleb, as I said. I feel like he's only there because Joss wanted to find work for his beloved Firefly actors when that show was cancelled. I also know that the mechanics of the plot get more and more laboured as we go on.
But up to now, it's mostly pretty good.