PART I: The Path of the Righteous Reviewer is beset on all sides... -- Biene

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Date Posted: 18:24:43 05/27/03 Tue
Author: 3Strikes
Subject: PART I: The Path of the Righteous Reviewer is beset on all sides...

Expanded S7 Review: The Path of the Righteous Reviewer is beset on all sides...
... by the Inequities of Lemmings, and the Tyranny of Evil Pollyannas. Yea, Blessed is He, who in the name of Snark and Veracity, shepherds his Review through the Dark Valley of the BC&S, for he is truly the Golden Years's Keeper and the Defender of Lost Arcs. And I will Strike down on Season 6 and 7 with Great Vengeance and Furious Anger, those who attempt to Slander and Villify my Review, and you will know my name is 3Strikes when I layeth the Smack Down upon Thee. : )

So...

How shall we proceed ?
Shall we start by acknowledging that for all its flaws, this season gave us many exceptional moments ?
Be it in Lessons, with Willow's heart rending admission of guilt and repentance, or the FE's chilling Morphing through the great Evils that plagued Buffy's journey throughout the years, Beneath You, with Anya and Spike's struggles with what they had become, Same Time Same Place, and Buffy gently lending Willow of her strength, Help, showing the desperate and ultimately unsuccessful fight to save Cassie's life, the Brilliant Selfless, which in many ways gave Anya her greatest opportunity to shine while allowing the spotlight to rest if too briefly on Xander, Buffy and Willow, Conversation with Dead People, and its sharp dialogue and character analysis (even if it wasn't paid off properly), or Never Leave Me, with its blend of surprises (Adios Watchers! Hello Noodle!), humor ("The weasel wants to sing...he just needs a tune") and intense characterization,
the first 9 episodes set up what could have been the basis for an exceptional season. Even the catastrophic collapse that started with Bring On The Night, putting the lie to the promise of the first run, can't obscure the quality of some of the ulterior scenes: the conversation between Dawn and Xander in Potential, Get it Done as a whole, the humor of Storyteller and *technical* merits of Lies (substance is another matter), Caleb and his shocking actions in Dirty Girls, Xander's speech in the same episode, and Willow and Xander's interaction In Empty Places ranks among the best scenes/moments in the show's run...
Alas they are as Pearls in the Muck, shiny jewels amidst a morass of mediocrity, well written and executed exceptions to a generally poorly conceived endeavor. Because a Season can not be reduced to the sum of its parts. It must be judged as a whole, as a project executed following a blueprint. In so doing, Plan and Intent, Process, Method and Execution must receive as much scrutiny as the Finished Product.
And to examine Season 7 on the sole merits of Process, Method and Execution would be to condemn the work to the death of a thousand cuts. A facile and unworthy execution.
What would be the point of listing the innumerable flaws of logic, continuity and characterization ?
Why ask where the First Evil was throughout Season 6 and how it can be manifested without chanting Bringers ?
Why it attacked the Slayer line thus revealing its return ?
What its interest and plans for Spike were ?
Why ridicule plans and methods that would shame the three stooges ? The convenient unearthing of the Scythe ?
Why pick apart the failure by the writers to make the FE remotely threatening, while claiming as often as possible that it constituted the ultimate threat ?
Why scoff at the laughable depiction of the Uber Vampires, scourge of Slayers in Bring on the Night, fodder for pen knives in the Finale ?
Why question the wisdom of using recycled material from the failed animated series (Him), or cannibalizing concepts from a Buffy Novel (the SITS)?
Why criticize the introduction of hordes of useless characters at the expense of the regulars in the foolish hope that these parasites would generate enough interest or loyalty for a spin off ?
Why wonder at the consistent failure to provide dramatic material for the vast majority of the regulars (Giles, Xander, Anya, Dawn, and in a lesser measure Willow) when these characters have been the very life and blood of the show for the past seven years?
Indeed why bemoan the broken promises of the show's creator regarding the role of Anya and the level of participation of Emma Caulfield ? Or the shabby treatment of the character throughout the season, transforming her life altering epiphany in Selfless into nothing more than the prelude to months of meaningless sex jokes and wishy washy reconciliation attempts with her ex-fiance ?
Why deplore the gross mischaracterization of Rupert Giles, and the scandalous misuse of the talents of Anthony Stuart Head? Why deride the pod-Giles mini-arc, or the mockery that was made of the character in Lies My Parents Told Me ?
Why regret Xander being reduced to endlessly fixing windows, or his physical mutilation only serving as means to an end, and not as a way to explore dramatic avenues for the character ?
Why weep while the resolution to Willow's journey is reduced to a forced pairing with a goose stepping Cardboard Platypus that understands nothing of the pain Willow has undergone, nothing of her fears, and nothing of her power or history ? Why laugh when Willow's final moments on the show are summarized by the ridiculously melodramatic "You're a Goddess...You're a Slayer"
Why lament the forced, fake, chemistryless, and time and story wasting pairings of Platypus and Willow, Buffy and Wood, Spike and Faith, and Wood and Faith, when none of these characters have any history or commonality together?
Why ridicule the introduction of not one but 2 Dei ex Machina (3 if you count the arrival of Angel in the sweeps of time) in a single episode to resolve the mess created by the aimlessness of the arc ?

No.

To answer these questions would be to end the contest before it has begun. An indictement on this basis far too easily proven (and already accomplished by many worthies in many different threads on many different boards, with far better arguments than my poor questions)...I seek tougher game by far. Nothing less than bearding the Whedon in his den will do. To tilt the lists at full speed in a brutal frontal assault and show that the very basis for the past 2 seasons is both unworthy, and terminally flawed...worse yet, that the Story chosen by the author is one that should not have been told, and that because of it, Buffy as a character, and the the Buffyverse itself are poorer today than they were 2 years ago, is the gauntlet I choose to pick up. A risky, even foolhardy proposition, given the quality of the opposition on this board, but a vaincre sans peril, on triomphe sans gloire.

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