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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.
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Date: 2009-03-17 08:56 pm (UTC)I guess my biggest problems revolve around Buffy and Willow. I have to see the opening again, but I'm pretty sure Willow says something along the lines of "I let the magic take control of me," when really, she's the one with the power.
Buffy's the biggest problem though--she didn't learn a fucking thing last season, which makes me want to heave. Especially since she's the lead and the heroine--I hate how all of the wrongs she's done was glossed over.
Also, how assbackwards is the theme "going back to high school" when you were supposed to have dealt with life and grown up the previous season? Yeah, I guess it makes sense since she didn't grow at all anyway.
If s7 was supposed to represent female empowerment, it completely went over my head.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 03:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 03:23 pm (UTC)Season sex was by no means my favorite, but I don't expect everyone to agree with me ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 11:52 am (UTC)When I rewatched season 7 a couple of years back, I didn't get the impression that Willow was still blaming the magic for taking her over rather than blaming herself, or that Buffy learned nothing. Her wrongs were glossed over to some extent, agreed, but they were acknowledged by her to my satisfaction (as long as I ignore the comic).
Also, I don't think the back to high school idea was supposed to mean literally that. I think it was more bringing things full-circle.
Obviously, though, most people commenting here see it very differently.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 03:04 pm (UTC)The high school thing...it can only come full circle if everything else was resolved, where for Buffy, it wasn't. I may have made a mistake about Willow, and for that my bad, and Xander did learn things about himself, but Buffy was at the least, stagnant.