Sarah's Sober Second Thought Series: Uncoupled

[Primetimer]

Welcome to The Marti Noxon Magi-Crack Grudge-Bone Family Hour. Does the fun ever start?

Read the story

[Erratic]

Whilst I can never get on board with any aspect or visualisation or reality where Spuffy Sex is something that would work for me, I really feel that Willow's arc in Season six is a disappointment because it really should have/ could have worked, and because the show doesn't quite ever work out what the exact nature of her problem is (and even gets ret-conned again in Season Seven) it annoys the piss out me.

When she snarls at Giles about not being a rank amateur, that works with her concern in Season Five and the start of Season Six that she needs to step up and protect everyone at any cost. Her power becomes essential in her existance, especially after she can't save Tara from being mind sucked by Glory, and she can't prevent Buffy's death. By the start of Season Six, she becomes the leader, and the others let her. Her power and arrogance stems from initially wanting to save everyone - something that Tara (too gently) points out to her a few times.

This is a great start to her 'power addiction' leading her into a natural Anikin Skywalker to Darth Vadar arc. But, then an abrupt switch in direction makes her addicted to the magicks (!) itself, taking the responsibility for her descent out of her own choices, and blaming the 'bottle' instead. A substance addiction does not make sense, especially given what the show itself has shown us about magic over the past 5 years. And, unless Amy has switched with her mother again, neither does Amy's sudden personality transplant. Gah.

I like the swing that the Willow arc is about to take at this point of the story, but again, I will have comments once you get to that point about the terrible depressing nature of Dark Willow and the let down that she is compared to the wonderful Vamp Willow..

Edited March 5, 2015 by Erratic

[AndySmith]

Gellar was definitely better than much of the material she received this season. She definitely rose above it and actually gave a good performance overall, even with the horrible plots.

As for Spike and Buffy...my initial reaction to that was 'ugh'. And it still is.

OMWF just felt like such blatant Emmy-baiting, for some reason. And it still does. I know the episode gets much love, but it's actually one of my least favorite Buffy episodes.

Willow's arc did get off to a good start, but gets derailed by the magicks(!)-as-drugs-angle.

[Sarah D. Bunting]

"OMWF" really lands in a heap for some people, doesn't it? My SIL loves musicals, is in a barbershop group, and haaaaated "OMWF," so much that she quit the show at that point in her marathon and never went back to it. Her complaint was that it was excessively self-regarding, which is to your point, @Andy, and I don't disagree (and didn't back in 2001). I think it gets over despite it, and I admire the layering of the writing, music and lyrics, a great deal.

But I think that smugness is maybe what harms the show most in the last two seasons. The treatment of the Trio typifies this too-cool attitude -- because the Trio is annoying, but 1) not for the reasons the writers think, and 2) Buffy, Willow, and Xander WERE the Trio not three years before. Their evolution into "cooler" kids seems to parallel a certain similar increase in Whedon's standing at the same time, and as a result BTVS in general goes from having an Angela Chase kind of feel to a Brandon Walsh one.

I don't know Whedon personally, but if there came a point at which he stopped being able to take teasing? I'm guessing it was right around here.

[Erratic]

Buffy, Willow, and Xander WERE the Trio not three years before.

And was why we loved them. When did Xander become a douchebag? When did Willow become aggressive and selfish, and what made Buffy so down on her supportive friends?

[Tetraneutron]

I don't think the trio parallels the Scoobies. I get what you're saying about Willow and Xander, especially, being nerds and outsiders in season 1, but they never pitied themselves. Have you ever seen the original pilot with the different Willow? It doesn't work because that girl plays her like a sad sack, while Alyson Hannigan made a conscious choice to play Willow in a more positive way. That's the defining characteristic of the trio to me: that they're MRAs years before the term caught on.

 

As for Giles leaving, it was a problem, but I don't think it was because Giles was a necessary character. I'll go farther: after season 4 or so, the appeal in the character was 95% ASH. The appeal was in his maturity and kindness, and the balance he brought to a group that, understatement, did not have much of those things. Giles was always (1) father figure and (2) MOTW exposition provider. Once the show no longer needed those the character made less and less sense. (In the comics, they killed Giles and I suspect that's why). The Dawn years are strange, in that the show makes such an all caps point that they're adults and they have adult responsibilities and the weight of the world on their shoulders, but then they act like such brats. I mean, mafic addiction? Whatever sub-Sheldon-Cooper thing Anya was doing? Kennedy? Buuut we'll get to that in season 7 when Buffy becomes the WORST.

 

Speaking of Dawn, it just occurred to me while I was reading this that Dawn is the same age as the Scoobies in the beginning of the show. But there cannot be more of a difference. The Scoobies saved the world, took on the Wathers, the school administrators and the clueless town, and outsmarted and bested their enemies. Dawn shoplifts and whines. Again, I don't know why anyone thought we'd need her as a character. Seriously, the episode with her frirnd Joan plays like an unironic social hygiene film.

[Chaos Theory]

I am one of the few people who didn't outright hate this season but I do admit it is probably the shows weakest. I actually liked Willows Magic addiction storyline and I still say Once More With Feeling is one of my fsvorite episodes of the series.

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

I don't think the trio parallels the Scoobies.

 

I don't think so either but I do agree that Buffy, Willow and Xander becoming the "cool kids" was really sad to see and it did seem to coincide with Joss start to believe his own hype.

 

 

When she snarls at Giles about not being a rank amateur, that works with her concern in Season Five and the start of Season Six that she needs to step up and protect everyone at any cost. Her power becomes essential in her existance, especially after she can't save Tara from being mind sucked by Glory, and she can't prevent Buffy's death. By the start of Season Six, she becomes the leader, and the others let her. Her power and arrogance stems from initially wanting to save everyone - something that Tara (too gently) points out to her a few times.

 

That might have been the intent but it was totally ruined by the shoddy execution, IMO. Why should the Scoobies be desperate to revive Buffy in order to defend the Hellmouth better? I totally get wanting to bring her back because seeing your friends die is horrible and you naturally prefer them to be alive but from a purely strategic perspective, they really shouldn't have struggled with run of the mill vamps and demons as Bargaining seemed to imply, also, in general S6 has by far the weakest enemies. Why would Willow (or anyone else) grow so desperate? How come she was much more relaxed back in the beginning of S3 when they had to hold the fort all summer without using any superpowers whatsoever? Two years later they have Willow's immensely stronger magic, the Bot, Spike (as much as I hate him sticking around for no reason), Tara's magic. Kind of reminds me of Buffy quaking in her ill affordable boots when the First threatened her a season later but at least his minions were somewhat formidable.

 

And I really want to post a lengthy rant about Giles's "rank amateur" nonsense but sadly I don't have the time to do so right now. Stay tuned.

 

One last complaint, I promise - I don't buy that Buffy would bone Spike. Never have, never will. Even if we ignore the elephant in the room, namely that had any of the Scoobies been allowed to stay in character Spike would have been dusted in Pangs, getting involved with a serial killer is a little different than liking the run of the mill bad boys. I mean, if anyone suggests that Buffy should have boned say Warren instead, the usual reaction is "no way, that guy is so awful", never mind Spike's crimes are many orders of magnitude worse. Mind you, so are Anya's, which is why Xander/Anya is also an object of my scorn.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Jack Shaftoe

[Fat Elvis 007]

As much as I loathe Spuffy and MagicCrack, I don't think they would be quite as ill regarded had they not taken place at the exact same time.

Remember when the writers knew how to balance the heartbreak with the joy? Oz and Willow have that wonderful moment in "Surprise" when everything else is going to hell, and that relationship as well as Xordelia (Cander?) continued to grow throughout the season. In Season 6, everyone descends into the gloom. One of the most common pieces of praise the show always got was its ability to balance the darkness with levity and real warmth, but that was mostly gone this season. Not that there wasn't humor, it's just that most of it (the Trio, Doublemeat Phallus, Clem, Buffy laughing at Spike's jokes about killing her friends) didn't work for me.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Fat Elvis 007

[Kel Varnsen]

I don't know Whedon personally, but if there came a point at which he stopped being able to take teasing? I'm guessing it was right around here.

Was Whedon ever able to handle any kind of criticism or teasing? If you look up his response to why Alien Resurrection, whcih he wrote the script for, was so bad he talks about how everything else was wrong other than the script (even the casting and the line readings).

[Sarah D. Bunting]

 

As much as I loathe Spuffy and MagicCrack, I don't think they would be quite as ill regarded had they not taken place at the exact same time.

 

Completely concur.

[cheezwhiz346]

Thank you for this post/this thread, so much. Agree with everything about Xander/Willow/Buffy evolving from outsiders to insiders (and YES to the Angela Chase-->Brandon Walsh comparison). And the thing is, I could totally see Xander ragging on the trio because they represented the high school nerd he saw himself as and was trying to get away from (see all the times he gets their stereotypically 'nerdy' references and then backtracks, and his general high school-tinged meanness towards them ["you've never had one tiny bit of sex, have you?" etc.]), but I don't think that was framed quite clearly enough. Either way, though, to me it's irrelevant because we liked Buffy/Willow/Xander partly because they were outsiders, and the move to insiders just left me as a viewer feeling disconnected.

[Kel Varnsen]

Thank you for this post/this thread, so much. Agree with everything about Xander/Willow/Buffy evolving from outsiders to insiders (and YES to the Angela Chase-->Brandon Walsh comparison). And the thing is, I could totally see Xander ragging on the trio because they represented the high school nerd he saw himself as and was trying to get away from (see all the times he gets their stereotypically 'nerdy' references and then backtracks, and his general high school-tinged meanness towards them ["you've never had one tiny bit of sex, have you?" etc.]), but I don't think that was framed quite clearly enough. Either way, though, to me it's irrelevant because we liked Buffy/Willow/Xander partly because they were outsiders, and the move to insiders just left me as a viewer feeling disconnected.

The thing with Buffy/WIllow/Xander going from being their own version of the Trio to the "cool kids" is absolutely true now that Sarah mentions it. The problem with it I think though is that they never really evolved into cool kids. In high school it was easy to see that they were outcasts because there were cool and successful people around them. But once they left high school, they didn't really change but the viewers had nothing really to compare them too, so by default I think they became cool and successful. But other than Xander almost magically getting a job as a construction manager or whatever, what did they ever do earn that status?

[Fat Elvis 007]

Great point about the Scoobies' social status or lack thereof, Kel. You're right about having no one to compare the Scoobies too--once they left high school, the gang just had no social lives outside of each other.

The first three seasons were full of so many recurring characters, and it helped Sunnydale feel like...well, not a real place, because it was such a weirdly inconsistent place, but it gave the series a sense of environment and community. We had a sense of how outsiders viewed the Scoobies and what their lives might be like without each other, which helped us appreciate their relationships more, and gave their lives stakes beyond just life and death, which can come to feel very rote on a show like this. And those stakes were always treated as important on this show--we never wondered whether Buffy would survive, but we did sometimes wonder whether or not she would be recognized for her sacrifices, or if she would be able to live a normal life.

In Season 4 there was at least an attempt to continue to ground the show in something approaching a relatable world, and Buffy, Xander and Willow continued to meet new people and have struggles related to their social lives. They still struggled to "fit in" and find their places in the world.

After that, though? Nada. The world is supposed to get bigger after high school, but for Buffy and co., their worlds got smaller and more insular. We rarely see recurring characters, apart from holdovers like Jonathan and Amy (who are both basically victims of character assassination, IMO), but there is no sense of community anymore, no sense of where any of these people fit into their larger world. Aside from Xander, none of them really work. We don't know what Willow is studying or what her goals are outside of magic. The show gains a sort of claustrophobic feeling because everything revolves around the main characters and their problems, which start to feel increasingly petty. Dawn apparently has no friends other than her sister's friends, and the few times we do see people she hangs out with, they are sinfully boring.

I can see why it was hard for the show to grapple with life after high school, especially since they pretty much gave up on college, but it would have been nice to at least see them try.

[Bitterswete]

"OMWF" really lands in a heap for some people, doesn't it? My SIL loves musicals, is in a barbershop group, and haaaaated "OMWF," so much that she quit the show at that point in her marathon and never went back to it. Her complaint was that it was excessively self-regarding, which is to your point, @Andy, and I don't disagree (and didn't back in 2001).

 

I love musicals too, and I think that's part of the reason OMWF left me so completely underwhelmed. Because I've seen some great musicals. (Repeatedly, in many cases.) And I couldn't help thinking of them when watching OMWF. Which wasn't good for the episode.

 

At the same time, I did kind of admire that everyone gave it a shot, and the actors really seemed to be trying. That just wasn't enough to really make me like the episode.

[Tetraneutron]

What we're talking about in terms of the show going downhill after high school (and it did, especially after season 4) is true, but is there ANY show originally set in a high school that doesn't get terrible once they graduate and put everyone in college? And have them all hang out together and stop introducing other characters?

Also, I think by season 5 the show was REALLY straining to come up with a seasonal big bad. We've already discussed all the problems with Glory, and the biggest problem with the Trio was the only reason they did any damage because the Scoobies were too busy fighting with each other to focus on them. And then the silly magicrack story handicapped the writers by giving them a reason not to use magic to do a locator spell. The Trio should never have presented a real threat and the show had to write problem after problem, incompetence after incompetence for the Scoobies to get them to.

And then the bad thing they did was non-magical anyway. After Joyce died of a brain tumor, why kill Tara with a gun? It's like having Buffy needing to deal with social services. It's not that kind of show, and not done well in the second place.

I wonder if Angel had never happened, this show would have been better post-high school. They could have had Buffy work as a Slayer as a job, with her friends helping. It would have made the world larger. It would have avoided the fact that Buffy never should have needed to work in fast food.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Obviously

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

And then the silly magicrack story handicapped the writers by giving them a reason not to use magic to do a locator spell.

 

That's not entirely true. In Flooded Willow wants to cast a locator spell to find whop sent that demon and Giles inexplicably shoots the idea down. And even in the midst of the magic crack, in theory the door was always open for Tara casting said spell instead. Or Anya, or even Xander or Buffy who at times when the plot needed them top do so had shown some aptitude for magic.

 

 

The Trio should never have presented a real threat and the show had to write problem after problem, incompetence after incompetence for the Scoobies to get them to.

 

Agreed. And on the flip side, it was mighty convenient that no villain with any real power showed up all season long, unless we count Sweet who wasn't defeated anyway - instead he grew bored and left (a metaphor for how boring the show has become?).

 

 

We don't know what Willow is studying or what her goals are outside of magic.

 

I would go one further and say that Willow of S5-7 (and the comics) has virtually no goals outside of magic.

 

And I agree that the Scoobies became so annoyingly insular in the latter seasons. Even the monsters of the week rarely involved actual imperiled human characters to save or investigations to conduct which would have brought the protagonists in contact with people outside of their circle and given the audience the chance to feel that Sunnydale is larger than Buffy's house, the Magic Box and the cemeteries. For instance, the only monster of the week in S5 who did not deliberately target one of the Scoobies or someone close to them was April. Basically, instead of Buffy searching for the bad guys, they often came looking for her or her friends. Buffy's connection to normal life was (I presume) supposed to be Dawn which was both silly to begin with since there is literally nothing about Dawn that is not a product of magic, and very simplistic.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Jack Shaftoe

[Bitterswete]

and the biggest problem with the Trio was the only reason they did any damage because the Scoobies were too busy fighting with each other to focus on them. [snip] The Trio should never have presented a real threat and the show had to write problem after problem, incompetence after incompetence for the Scoobies to get them to.

 

That was kind of the whole point of the Trio. We weren't supposed to see them as a real threat, or actually take them seriously most of the time. And we were supposed to see that the Scoobies being so distracted by their personal issues was a big reason the Trio was able to run wild for so long. So, on that score, the writers succeeded in doing what they were trying to do. The problem was that it just didn't work for me. 

[Fat Elvis 007]

I actually love the musical and re-watch it frequently. It is, IMO, the one bright spot of Season 6. Tabular Rasa is pretty good too, other than the character assassination of Willow at the beginning. It's one thing for her to try another memory erasure spell--I buy that--but it's another thing that she smiles giddily while doing so. That hurt.

[paramitch]

For me, Dark Willow was a missed opportunity in more ways than one. She should've/could've been a true corruption of Willow, and that I thought Vamp Willow did much better, turning the childishness into creepiness, and that hunger for approval into a reach for power and affection from all sides.

 

"OMWF" really lands in a heap for some people, doesn't it? My SIL loves musicals, is in a barbershop group, and haaaaated "OMWF," so much that she quit the show at that point in her marathon and never went back to it. Her complaint was that it was excessively self-regarding, which is to your point, @Andy, and I don't disagree (and didn't back in 2001). I think it gets over despite it, and I admire the layering of the writing, music and lyrics, a great deal.

 

I can see this, even though as a songwriter and playwright, I do love "OMWF." I'd agree that there are are moments where it's overcooked and a little pompous, but to me it's still a major achievement, and one of the best, smartest and loveliest things I've ever seen on TV (and I love that it directly led the way to "Doctor Horrible"). My only minor quibbles with it would be (1) the heavy lifting it has to do plotwise (and it doesn't always deliver), and (2) the absolutely awful screen kiss at the end between Buffy and Spike. Seriously, that thing is utterly unsexy and looks painful as all hell (almost as bad as what for me is the end-all, be-all bad screen kiss in "When Harry Met Sally"). I wish directors would learn that you can't make something sexier by having people mechanically chew each other's faces off.

 

And was why we loved them. When did Xander become a douchebag? When did Willow become aggressive and selfish, and what made Buffy so down on her supportive friends?

My unpopular opinion is that Xander was always a douchebag. Always. I occasionally found him hilarious, and loved him anyway, but to me, Xander's mileage meter starts at douchebag and goes from there. He was always so passive-aggressive and unrelentingly nasty to the objects of his affection. I also think Willow was always a bit self-centered, and that she often overplayed the "I'm so cute and childlike" angle when the girl always had the potential for some truly serious issues.

 

Also, I think by season 5 the show was REALLY straining to come up with a seasonal big bad. We've already discussed all the problems with Glory, and the biggest problem with the Trio was the only reason they did any damage because the Scoobies were too busy fighting with each other to focus on them. And then the silly magicrack story handicapped the writers by giving them a reason not to use magic to do a locator spell. The Trio should never have presented a real threat and the show had to write problem after problem, incompetence after incompetence for the Scoobies to get them to.

And then the bad thing they did was non-magical anyway. After Joyce died of a brain tumor, why kill Tara with a gun? It's like having Buffy needing to deal with social services. It's not that kind of show, and not done well in the second place.

I wonder if Angel had never happened, this show would have been better post-high school. They could have had Buffy work as a Slayer as a job, with her friends helping. It would have made the world larger. It would have avoided the fact that Buffy never should have needed to work in fast food.

 

These are really interesting points -- I actually found the Nerd Trio to be an interesting potential Big Bad option because they were manifesting that toxic reaction to bullying and disregard that does so often unfortunately manifest as rage in countless school shootings, for instance. The Trio also is even more interesting as a villain choice when you look at issues today like GamerGate -- there was this toxic sexism and narcissism built into the Trio that I was really fascinated by, and I thought it offered a lot of dramatic potential. I still think it could have worked.

 

My main problem is that again, I feel like the writers clumsily mapped out the plot and then fit the characters' actions into those beat points, and they just didn't work naturally.  Your point about the gun is a perfect example -- why shoot Tara? Why not lash out against Buffy herself -- or each other -- and have that impact or kill Tara somehow? The necessity for Tara's death is the problem -- the writers need it for Dark Willow -- but there were so many other ways that could have been written. But I just don't agree with them on that -- I think Willow always had the potential to go dark (and we've seen her giggle uncomfortably while suggesting all sorts of potentially troubling things).

 

Meanwhile, I really can't blame "Angel" for Buffy's problems -- first off, because it was far more Greenwalt's baby -- and primarily because I truly think "Angel" was ultimately a better, stronger and richer show, and one that allowed its characters to shape the plot in more organic ways. I will always love "Buffy" but I think it was far more uneven.

 

And the weird thing is, "Buffy" rushed right into its plot problems by completely nuking college from the equation in 6, when in actuality everyone would have been knee-deep in college and classes for the next few years.

 

ETA: Parentheses are not my friends. Sigh.

Edited March 13, 2015 by paramitch

[Kel Varnsen]

For me, Dark Willow was a missed opportunity in more ways than one. She should've/could've been a true corruption of Willow, and that I thought Vamp Willow did much better, turning the childishness into creepiness, and that hunger for approval into a reach for power and affection from all sides.

As I am sure has been said many times by many people, if they had actually planned out what the hell the magic addiction was, what it meant, and where it came from it could have been interesting. But like a lot of things on this show they really didn't (although sometimes that worked in spite of the lack of planning). I mean was she actually addicted to the magic, like magic was liquor with actual addictive properties, or was it the power/control that she was addicted to (which would have been the best thing to really explore) or was she possessed like they suggested in later episodes?

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

And the weird thing is, "Buffy" rushed right into its plot problems by completely nuking college from the equation in 6, when in actuality everyone would have been knee-deep in college and classes for the next few years.

 

Not in S6, in S5. There are like three college scenes in all of S5. And at least in S6 only Willow and Tara were enrolled in UC Sunnydale, in most of S5 Buffy was supposedly a college student but we barely saw her on campus.

 

 

But I just don't agree with them on that -- I think Willow always had the potential to go dark (and we've seen her giggle uncomfortably while suggesting all sorts of potentially troubling things).

 

What troubling things (I mean, prior to S6)? I can't really think of any examples.