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| Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 6 |
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This is a year in which chickens come home to roost: everything from the villainy of the three geeks to Xander's doubts about marriage come to a head, often--as in the case of the impressive wedding episode--through wildly dark humor. The estrangement of the characters from each other--a well-observed portrait of what happens to college pals in their early 20s--comes to a shocking head with the death of a major character and that death's apocalyptic consequences. The series ends on a consoling note which it has, by that point and in spite of imperfections, entirely earned. --Roz Kaveney
Product Description
Customer Reviews
Season Six of BUFFY is the show's most controversial by far. Sarah Michelle Gellar has stated that she found the mid-season episodes between her and Spike to be degrading and unpleasant and many fans would agree with her. This was the season that Joss Whedon left the show as the day-to-day show runner and turned over the reins to Marti Noxon, though he nonetheless remained deeply involved with the show, supervising the story arcs and individual episodes, as well as writing and directing several episodes.
There is no question that Season Six contained some very memorable moments. There is also little question that the season had some weak episodes--especially at around the two-thirds mark--as well as some not-very-popular story arcs. The least popular aspects of the show was the self-destructive tendencies and actions of all the major characters and the lameness of the show's "big bads," the geek threesome known as The Trio. But in fact, the Big Bad of Season Six is each individual against him or herself. Buffy, struggling with her inadvertent removal from heaven by Willow, suffers economic difficulties, eventually taking a fast food job, eventually numbing herself with a demeaning sexual relationship with Spike. Willow becomes more and more addicted to using magic, to the point that it first threatens to destroy her relationships and eventually the world. Xander, fearful that his impending marriage to Anya cold lead to the same kind of family that he grew up in, leaves Anya a the altar. Anya, crushed by being deserted by Xander, reverts to being a vengeance demon. Dawn's kleptomania gets out of control until the others discover her problem. Giles makes an error by going back to England, imagining that Buffy needs to learn to live on her own. Only Tara does not engage in self-destructive behavior, but her accidental killing spurs Willow's killing spree at the end of the season. The season's motto could be: We have met the enemy and he is us.
There are titular villains. Warren, the robot-constructing geek from Season Five's "I Was Made to Love You," Jonathan, the geek who first appeared in the BUFFY pilot (he was considered for the role of Xander before Nicholas Brendon got the job), and Andrew, whose brother was involved in a flying monkey incident no one seems to remember, team up to take over Sunnydale. They are uber dorks, obsessed with the whole panoply of comic book culture and Star War action figures. Though them manage to pull off some stunts, apart from Warren's accidental killing of both his ex-girlfriend and Willow, they are a pretty silly lot. They are more like perpetual comic relief. BUFFY was always trying to do new things and I applaud them for doing so (the effort to always be fresh was one of the reasons it was such a great show), but I think it is safe to say that having them as the Big Bads was a bit of a mistake. In the end, their greatest contribution was in providing victims for Willow's rampage at season's end. Indeed, the single most horrifying moment in the history of the show had to be the terrible instance in which Willow, after catching and briefly torturing Warren for killing Tara, magically removes his entire epidermis. Not just on BUFFY, apart from some moments in THE SOPRANOS, I know no more terrible instance in the history of TV. Clearly they wanted to demonstrate just how far Willow had gone.
Although the season's story arcs were not especially satisfying, there were a number of unforgettable episodes. The season begins with a great sequence of episodes, as Willow with the assistance of Tara, Xander, and Anya raise Buffy, who had died a mystical death at the end of Season Five, from the dead. Their fear, based largely on Angel's being sent to a hell dimension at the end of Season Two, was that Buffy was suffering unspeakable torture in a different hell dimension. But we later learn that she was, in fact, in a place of great peace and repose, a place she could only describe as "heaven." The first six episodes see Buffy struggling to deal with her return to a place that now felt like hell. All these early episodes, even if not strong all the way through, contain at least some great moments.
Then come Episodes 7 and 8, not just the best episodes of the season, but among the best in the run of the show. "Once More, with Feeling" is often cited as the very best episode of BUFFY, and to those who wish the show had ended at the end of Season Five, my response is always, "Would you really have wanted for there never to have been "Once More, With Feeling?" This was the musical episode and while many shows have attempted musical episodes, this one stands far above what any other show has either attempted or achieved. What is amazing is how fine the episode was despite not having a world of musical talent on the show. Only Anthony Stewart Head (who had taken over the lead in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW in London in the original production and sung on albums by his brother Murray, the original Judas in JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR), James Marsters (who headed his own rock band), and Amber Benson (who played Tara) had especially good voices. Though not a trained singer, Sarah Michelle Gellar nonetheless acquitted herself quite well both singing and dancing, and Michelle Trachtenberg, though not a singer, put her dance training to good use. Joss Whedon contributed a very fine group of songs. In one of the best guest appearances in the run of the show, veteran Broadway hoofer Hinton Battle (perhaps best known as the Scarecrow in the entire run of THE WIZ on Broadway) played the demon Sweet, who was accidentally summoned to Sunnydale, and who was responsible for the singing and dancing afflicting everyone. The most amazing thing about the episode was the way that the songs advanced every story arc in the show and greatly accelerated the action. The best songs were Buffy's Disneyesque "Going Through the Motions" that started the episode; Tara's singing of "Under Your Spell" to Willow (ironic in that she learned she was literally being controlled by Willow through magic); Spike's passionate expression of his love/hate for Buffy in "Rest in Peace"; the wonderful duet between Tara and Giles; and the great production number that preceded the battle-that-never-occurred with Sweet, "Walk Through the Fire." Not should also be made of Anya's great bit in an early group number in which the Scoobies are trying to figure out why everyone is singing and dancing. After singing that she has a theory that it "must be bunnies," the group very ignores her only to have her scream in a great hard rock voice:
Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposed
They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses
And what's with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies! Bunnies! It must be bunnies!
The popularity of the episode can be seen in the fact that it is the only episode to have its script published separately and the soundtrack has been released on compact disc.
"Once More, with Feeling" was followed by "Tabula Rasa," probably the funniest episode ever on BUFFY. After Tara catches Willow manipulating their relationship through the use of magic, Willow complicates things by attempting once more to make them all forget that she had used magic to control others. But the spell misfires and instead everyone in the group, including Willow, forgets who they are. The scene in which everyone tries to figure out who they are is a classic, the best part being Spike, who has been going about in a dreadful suit as a disguise to escape a loan shark (a demon with literally the head of a shark, the only really awful note in an otherwise stunning episode), deciding that his is Giles's son and that his name is Randy. When Buffy finds no ID, she tellingly decides that everyone should call her Joan, with echoes of St. Joan in her choice.
Unfortunately, while there are few out and out bad episodes, there are few absolutely stunning episodes until the ones that end the season. The one major exception is "Normal Again," which resembles many of the alternative reality stories of Philip K. Dick. Buffy is injected with some venom by a demon she fights, and the result is that she imagines that she is actually in a mental institution where she has been fantasizing for several years that she was a vampire slayer in a town called Sunnydale. Or is reality breaking through to make her cease fantasizing for a while. We fans, of course, can't imagine that all six seasons were a delusion, but it is nonetheless a brilliant episode.
Although I don't believe that this is one of BUFFY's best seasons, I can't give this less than five stars simply because even during this season BUFFY remained one of the most brilliant shows on TV. Not everything in the season succeeded, but they nevertheless continually strove to produce a special show. The show took risks; they never played things safe. The problem with taking risks is that sometimes things don't work out. Still, all in all this was a season with more to delight over than to regret.
Moreover, this season had many of the best episodes of the series. Once More, With Feeling is brilliant, I think in anyone's estimation. Tabula Rasa also is very funny. The finale of the season was a slam dunk, and Xander's yellow crayon speech was incredibly poignant. All the characters faced their inner demons by the seasons end; some triumphed, others were left in the following season to pick up the pieces from their disastrous choices.
I also can't wait for Season 7 to be out on DVD
Many say it was dark, and yes it was the darkest feeling season since Season Two, and later Season Seven, but life itself, can get dark sometimes, and this was the point the series 6th year was trying to point out. If you've noticed, every season's theme has a metaphor in them, and this year was having the Scooby Gang bracing their darkest storm that could be thrown at them.
How is that? You may say, well, I'll tell you...
Ever since the very first episode, we've grown to love these wacky fun loving kids! In the First Season, it was the introduction period, the Slayer, her Watcher and friends gathering in the library, fighting monster of the week big baddies, along with school issues every teenager at one time or another will find theirselves in, plus a trial of a Slayer. In the Second Season it grew larger, they had to battle not only school, but love hormones, a lover gone bad, new annual baddies, like Spike and Drusilla,and the death of a close one, and trials of a Slayer. In the Third Season, still it was school, a rogue Slayer named Faith, a baddie named "the Mayor", and trials of departing loves and trials of a Slayer. The Fourth Season was college life, new baddie named Adam, and a government containment place for studies of demons, and again trials of a Slayer. The Fifth Season was departure childhood, going into adulthood, and fighting a big baddie named Glory, and the death of a dear one they'd miss forever, and also introduction of a sister. And now Season Six takes them farther, somewhere that the Scoobies had never faced before....and that was "life"!
Every year they've faced bad things, but they were never in a position of being left alone, to survive on their own, and to be a grown up. Someone here mentioned that its been six years later since they started their adventures, and that they were adults now, and they needed to center their lives as adults, and that person was right. It was time to move onward, brace whats ahead, no matter what lie uncharted. We had to see how these characters would react, if they were put in a position to where they'd hit rock bottom, to see how they'd reach the top again, to see really, how much strength they really have, besides magic, or mysttical slayer powers, and thats the storm one must face, to overcome their trials with triumph.
In this season, Buffy had to quit her hopes of returning to college, and get a real life job to pay the bills, make sure Dawn doesn't get taken away from her care, and at one point, she comments that her mother was the super woman of the family on how she couldn't believe she could do all the stuff that Joyce did! Xander has to confront the word "commitment" as he gets prepared to marry the woman he loves, and Willow has to overcome her craving for magic, which she deals with throughout the season by trying to give it up. The point, they each failed, they hit the bottom of the boat, as Buffy fell into depression, had an affair with Spike, (who in this season overcomes some major points in his life too), Xander's fear of turining into his father, leaves him leaving Anya at the altar, later turning her in the way of vengeance again, and Willow, she gets the sour lemon, as she gains Tara back,(who left her because of Willow's crave of magic), but she also loses Tara in the one of the most vicious and real murders of the series, which drives Willow into becoming evil with rage, and almost destroying the world. At the end of the season, all of them faces their problems, and they begin the start of rebuilding what they lost as they hit rock bottom througthout the season, as Buffy and Spike seperate, he goes to get a soul, she tries to tear down her gap with Dawn that they made during the season, and Xander and Willow come to terms with theirselves as they each step out of the eye of their own inner demons, their storms!
Note:
This season has great episodes! There's "Bargining", "Once More,With Feeling", "Dead Things", "Normal Again", "Seeing Red", and "Villains" to "Two to Go' & 'Grave". Each actor portrailed each character to heart so much, that their feelings grabbed ahold to you, as if you were the one's who were going through them as well! Also,do know that this season is *very graphical* in some scenes, this was the most *provocative season* in the series whole 7 year run. There is a few gruesome scenes in some episodes, and some very [physical] in tone,(especially with the Spike and Buffy, and Willow and Tara romantic storylines), but they were to make a point, that was needed for the story of the season.
It's a great and wonderful, powerful season,with a powerful message that was overlooked, this season took dangerous risks, and truimphed with their goal. Also know that this season is the *only* season that centers the Slayer and the Scooby Gang around the true hard cold life that we all may face once we reach adulthood, if not already. Many fans should charish this season to heart, it was indeed an unheard, unreconized, classic season for the series! I love this season! Enjoy, you won't regret it!
