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Mar. 17th, 2009 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightOkay, because work is boring and I’m miffed about not getting to watch the last series of BSG yet, what with next week’s TV books going on and on about how good it is etc, I thought I’d make a post about BtVS, just to be different.
One thing no one new to the fandom could help noticing is that season 7 comes in for a lot of stick. Lots and lots of people don’t like it for various reasons. In fact, with one representative of one of the extremist factions of fans, it seems to have become a major article of ‘faith’ that during the last two seasons of the show, the other writers formed a conspiracy to ‘ruin’ it behind Joss’s back, and that Joss himself had nothing whatsoever to do with seasons 6&7 (presumably, he was tied up and gagged in a closet while Marti Noxon, urged on by rabid Spike fans, wrote ransom demands to his family with one hand while penning show-trashing episodes with the other).
Nonsense like that aside, as I said, many people don’t like season 7, so what I wondered is, if you could have written the season, what would you have done differently?
I think, to be fair, suggestions have to conform to the restrictions of character and RL that Joss was faced with at the end of season 6. For instance, you can’t decide arbitrarily that Tara never died or that Spike didn’t get his soul back because it’s established that both those things happened in season 6. Nor can you write Spike out of season 7 after only one episode just because you don’t like him. You have to remember that JM had signed a contract for 22 episodes. Similarly, you have to take on board that SMG had said she didn’t want to do another season, making 7 the final one, that ASH had only a limited number of episodes and that if DB did make a guest appearance, it was only going to be a cameo, what with AtS being on a different network.
It also seems only right that Joss’s seasonal/end of show theme of female empowerment should still be the same, so if your big beef is with the Potentials, another way has to be found to incorporate the female empowerment theme into the story or to make the Potentials more palatable. Or something.
I have plenty of nit-picks about season 7 myself, but overall I like it. I think if I was going to change anything, it would revolve around the annoying Guardian – talk about lame dea ex machina!- who I would either write out altogether or make a very different character and introduce somewhat earlier (or possibly only in Slayer dreams), Caleb, who I loathe with a fiery passion and who I would get rid of completely, finding some other way for the First Evil to be more physically menacing, and Andrew, who I would probably replace with Jonathan, because I like him more.
One thing no one new to the fandom could help noticing is that season 7 comes in for a lot of stick. Lots and lots of people don’t like it for various reasons. In fact, with one representative of one of the extremist factions of fans, it seems to have become a major article of ‘faith’ that during the last two seasons of the show, the other writers formed a conspiracy to ‘ruin’ it behind Joss’s back, and that Joss himself had nothing whatsoever to do with seasons 6&7 (presumably, he was tied up and gagged in a closet while Marti Noxon, urged on by rabid Spike fans, wrote ransom demands to his family with one hand while penning show-trashing episodes with the other).
Nonsense like that aside, as I said, many people don’t like season 7, so what I wondered is, if you could have written the season, what would you have done differently?
I think, to be fair, suggestions have to conform to the restrictions of character and RL that Joss was faced with at the end of season 6. For instance, you can’t decide arbitrarily that Tara never died or that Spike didn’t get his soul back because it’s established that both those things happened in season 6. Nor can you write Spike out of season 7 after only one episode just because you don’t like him. You have to remember that JM had signed a contract for 22 episodes. Similarly, you have to take on board that SMG had said she didn’t want to do another season, making 7 the final one, that ASH had only a limited number of episodes and that if DB did make a guest appearance, it was only going to be a cameo, what with AtS being on a different network.
It also seems only right that Joss’s seasonal/end of show theme of female empowerment should still be the same, so if your big beef is with the Potentials, another way has to be found to incorporate the female empowerment theme into the story or to make the Potentials more palatable. Or something.
I have plenty of nit-picks about season 7 myself, but overall I like it. I think if I was going to change anything, it would revolve around the annoying Guardian – talk about lame dea ex machina!- who I would either write out altogether or make a very different character and introduce somewhat earlier (or possibly only in Slayer dreams), Caleb, who I loathe with a fiery passion and who I would get rid of completely, finding some other way for the First Evil to be more physically menacing, and Andrew, who I would probably replace with Jonathan, because I like him more.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 07:32 pm (UTC)Heh! Oh yes!
I think the major problem with Giles in season 7 was this stupid idea they had to try and make out that he was the First Evil in disguise for I don't know how many episodes. It was a lame idea to start with and when it was definitely shown that he wasn't the FE, we were left with the knowledge that Real Giles had said all these things to Buffy that were calculated to undermine her. I really don't see what the point of all that was and it they'd ditched that I wouldn't really have too much to complain about re: Giles's arc, except for in LMPTM, where he got lumbered with the role of Agent of Patriarchal Oppression just for one episode.
Agree that the actresses playing the Potentials could have been an awful lot better and that Kennedy (that was her name) got way too much screen time because Joss wanted to give Willow a happy ending. Mainly, I agree with you, though, the problem wasn't the plot as such but that there were too many glaring holes in it.