Sarah's Sober Second Thought Series: Nasty, Brutish, And Taking Too Long

[Primetimer]

When Riley's livening things up, your show gots probs.

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[Fat Elvis 007]

"Hell's Bell" is the best episode of Season 6 and the worst episode of Season 6, depending on the scene. The Scooby moments are wonderful, with the Willow/Xander and Buffy/Xander friendships getting more sweet moments than they have in at least a season. Even Anya has some sweet moments. The "haha, wacky demons!" stuff at the wedding is terrible. Why is Anya inviting current murderers to her wedding? Why is everyone OK with this? And then the whole future plot and Xander leaving Anya at the altar, not because of her unrepentant murders, but because of his insecurities, is terrible.

[EricJ]

I may have said it before here, but "Nick and Nora Fury" is my favorite multi-layered nerdish reference of all time. (And it was at least 80% nerdier at the time, before Nick Fury was a supporting character in some of the highest grossing movies of all time.)

[AndySmith]

This season seems to be the perfect counter-argument for Whedon's eye-rolling "give the people what they need, not what they want" ethos.

Of course, one could argue that the people running the show misjudged what they thought the people needed...

[Sarah D. Bunting]

I'm not opposed to that sentiment, and if it were that easy to make TV, we'd all do it. But you need to execute on what you think people need in the second place...and if you haven't done that, you need to be juuuuust a bit less lofty about knowing better than the viewer what's good for her.

 

There were good ideas here, and going darker with the show as the heroine got older is indicated. The execution is usually a B-minus/C-plus, though, and sniffing that we just didn't get it missed an opportunity to figure out what didn't play and avoid making the same mistakes in S7. And we see how that went.

[Jack Shaftoe]

 

"Hell's Bell" is the best episode of Season 6 and the worst episode of Season 6, depending on the scene. The Scooby moments are wonderful, with the Willow/Xander and Buffy/Xander friendships getting more sweet moments than they have in at least a season. Even Anya has some sweet moments.

 

And let's not forget Willow and Tara flirting with each other.

 

 

The "haha, wacky demons!" stuff at the wedding is terrible. Why is Anya inviting current murderers to her wedding? Why is everyone OK with this?

 

Why are the demons okay with vising a wedding where the Slayer will be present? How the hell does Anya have so many demon friends who had shown no interest whatsoever in her well-being in the previous three years? Just how stupid are Xander's relatives? Why are we supposed to be okay with the fake visions guy being killed by Xander and Buffy?