Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions

[Danny Franks]

On 1/31/2022 at 4:45 AM, sistermagpie said:

I don't think Julian Fellowes could wrap his mind around anything else, though. In his world anybody who criticizes the upper classes would love to be upper class and that's that.

You're saying that Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, son of diplomat Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes, doesn't have a great understanding of the poors?

As far as I can tell, Downton Abbey was a fantasy show made for validating and exporting the archaic British class system - complete with grateful servant classes who knew their place and didn't try to grasp at anything more - which is still going strong even though it should be in its death throes.

It's also really not well written.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Danny Franks

[proserpina65]

On 1/30/2022 at 10:16 PM, andromeda331 said:

I tried to get into Downton Abbey because the setting and clothes were amazing. But except for Sybill and at times Cora. I really thought the rest of the Crawleys were horrible people. Robert was a jerk and so horrible at managing the estate that he twice had to have someone else's money bail him out. Mary and Edith were both horrible. I really disliked how as the series went on anyone who was against the upper class was made to be horrible. Or like Tom who forgot all about his previous objections. 

To be fair to Robert, they needed Cora's money to bail out the estate because of his father's bad management, not his.  Not to say he was a good manager, though.

[Suzn]

On 1/9/2022 at 12:34 AM, Crs97 said:

Since they show so little of an actual episode, she doesn’t need the rubber face.  In real life she didn’t make all those manic expressions.  Nicole did a good job.

Nicole Kidman's face doesn't move normally and it is distracting.  Between Botox and fillers, she just couldn't portray Lucille Ball in real life either,

[Hyacinth B]

Thank the gods that I'm not alone in my Downton Dislike! Unlikable characters with very few exceptions, repetitive plots, inability to maintain a logical storyline, characters whose personalities change at the drop of a hat for no discernible reason, and just plain BAD, LAZY writing. Fellowes as a writer is massively overrated. 

As other posters have said, the first 2 or 3 seasons had some interesting episodes, but when it turned into the weekly equivalent of Bates trudging around that prison yard in circles over and over and over and over, I was out of there for good.

 

 

 

[Zella]

21 minutes ago, Hyacinth B said:

when it turned into the weekly equivalent of Bates trudging around that prison yard in circles over and over and over and over, I was out of there for good.

 

Part of the reason I stayed to the bitter end with Downton was I watched it with my grandma, and I enjoy spending time with her, so the company made up for how bonkers the show could be. But sometimes out of pure meanness, I'll still bring up Bates and his moody prison brooding to her, and her response is always some variation of "Oh no not that asshole!" LOLOL 

[JustHereForFood]

I watched it with my mother and we would also often snark about it. In our case it was mostly Carson.

[GreekGeek]

On 1/20/2022 at 2:18 PM, sistermagpie said:

I don't know how unpopular my follow-up opinion, but I also think that sometimes when people don't like the teenager characters people say it's just because they're teenagers as if there's nothing else to the criticism. For instance, it never seemed like Sally Draper was very unpopular and I don't think it's that the character was somehow not like a teenage characters. Sometimes there's good reasons for people not liking what's done with teen characters!

That said, I am often annoyed when people want to focus on the teenager as the true hero just because they're the teenager (and therefore are mostly all potential). Like people who would randomly announce that Mad Men was "really Sally's story." 

On 1/21/2022 at 10:43 AM, BlackberryJam said:

 

I remember when I was seven or so and we'd first gotten cable and I came across The Honeymooners. When the husband threatened to punch the wife, I came out of my seat, horrified and in tears that someone would think that was funny. We never, ever watched that show again. 

 

Yes! Some people wanted Mad Men to turn into The Wonder Years, with a girl instead of a boy.

My UO is that while I think The Honeymooners is overrated, I never minded the "to the moon, Alice!" stuff. The threat was BS and Alice knew it.

[SusanM]

11 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

My UO is that while I think The Honeymooners is overrated, I never minded the "to the moon, Alice!" stuff. The threat was BS and Alice knew it.

Same.  I haven't seen that show in years but I never felt that Alice was afraid of Ralph - he wa a blowhard and she knew it.  The thing that always bothered me about that show was why on earth didn't Alice put some curtains up on those windows!!  I understand that in a '50s sitcom her going out to work was probably not going to happen but she could have done a reverse Gone With the Wind and turned an old dress into curtains at the very least!

[Gharlane]

I never watched and have no intention of watching Game of Thrones.

 

On 12/8/2021 at 6:23 PM, Mabinogia said:

Wait, so they are basically like Saturday Night Live skits? WTF? Why?

I loved both of those shows when I was younger, but this is a hard pass for me. 

I think it's more like when people were re-enacting episodes of The Brady Bunch in the 1990's. 

 

On 1/16/2022 at 2:38 PM, Mabinogia said:

I miss the TV Guide fall edition when they did a rundown of all the new shows coming out and the timetable for each network. This was an event for me. I'd make a viewing schedule, then put first and second choice for time slots with multiple possibilities. Now I have no clue when new shows "drop" so by the time I hear about something everyone else has already moved on. 

Aw man, I had forgotten about those days! 😢

 

On 1/21/2022 at 6:59 PM, Mabinogia said:

I loved Will and Grace until one day I just didn't anymore. It's not that I think the shows quality went down, or it ran out of ideas, it's just that I finally got sick of the characters. 

I liked Will and Grace for the firsts season or two, then kept watching them because there was a writers' strike, then eventually quit when I realized I had been watching new eps without noticing! 

[Mabinogia]

6 hours ago, Gharlane said:

then eventually quit when I realized I had been watching new eps without noticing! 

That's a bad sign. For me it was when I'd watched eps and the next day forgot what happened and didn't really care. Like, it was on, but I had stopped paying attention long before I stopped tuning in. 

[Shannon L.]

Will and Grace eventually lost me because the writers did what most sitcom writers do:  Jack got dumber and Karen got both dumber and meaner. I hate that. I just couldn't take the two of them anymore after a few seasons.

I was thinking about the sitcoms that I count amongst my favorites and one thing they all have in common is that the characters didn't become caricatures of themselves. They either grew, without compromising their core personalities, or they stayed the same throughout the series.

[Hiyo]

Quote

Aw man, I had forgotten about those days! 

For me, it was when EW would do their issue. I miss EW as a real good magazine and website. For me, the decline of that publication started when they suddenly became huge Twilight cheerleaders and were posting about it non-stop.

[Spartan Girl]

I hate the Scoobies.

[Katy M]

33 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

I hate the Scoobies.

Scooby Doo and the gang, or is that some kind of award?

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, Spartan Girl said:

I hate the Scoobies.

OK, I'm once again admitting my Stuck in the 20th Century Luddite-ness here, but what are these Scoobies you are referring to?  Are these anything to do with that big talking dog using his front paws for hands who unmasks frauds pretending they're ghosts-along with his quasi-teen human cronies, as @Katy M seems to be implying?

Edited February 4, 2022 by Blergh

[SusanM]

Scoobies? We have neighbours whose last name is Scobie.  But we don't hate them. 

[Spartan Girl]

My bad, I should have been specific: I hate the Scoobies on Buffy.

Scooby-Doo on the other hand, is good in my book.

[Katy M]

20 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

My bad, I should have been specific: I hate the Scoobies on Buffy.

Scooby-Doo on the other hand, is good in my book.

I never watched the show Buffy.  I did see the movie.  But, now I think we need the Scoobies award show.  I've given this some thought and it should be given to people who unmask those who aren't who they say they are.

[Blergh]

23 minutes ago, Katy M said:

I never watched the show Buffy.  I did see the movie.  But, now I think we need the Scoobies award show.  I've given this some thought and it should be given to people who unmask those who aren't who they say they are.

Oh, I like that one a great deal! Hannibal Buress (who 'jokingly' revealed Mr. Cosby's very sordid shadowside onstage ) would be a good candidate! 

[Ohiopirate02]

2 hours ago, Blergh said:

Oh, I like that one a great deal! Hannibal Buress (who 'jokingly' revealed Mr. Cosby's very sordid shadowside onstage ) would be a good candidate! 

I would hate to give all of the credit for that to Hannibal.  Some of the women Cosby raped were vocal about it for years, but they were painted as "difficult" or led less than perfect lives.  Janice Dickinson comes to mind as someone who publicly talked about Cosby, but was immediately dismissed if anyone even noticed what she was saying.  

[bluegirl147]

37 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I would hate to give all of the credit for that to Hannibal.  Some of the women Cosby raped were vocal about it for years, but they were painted as "difficult" or led less than perfect lives.  Janice Dickinson comes to mind as someone who publicly talked about Cosby, but was immediately dismissed if anyone even noticed what she was saying.  

How sad is it that the allegations were taken seriously only after a man brought them up?

[JustHereForFood]

4 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

My bad, I should have been specific: I hate the Scoobies on Buffy.

Scooby-Doo on the other hand, is good in my book.

I have never understood why people call them that. I don't have problem with those characters, other than Xander half of the time, but I find that nickname stupid.

[Raja]

41 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

I have never understood why people call them that. I don't have problem with those characters, other than Xander half of the time, but I find that nickname stupid.

Do you know the Scooby Doo cartoon? The non powered, for most of the show's run, gang dealing with the supernatural is the root of the collective nickname

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, bluegirl147 said:

How sad is it that the allegations were taken seriously only after a man brought them up?

I agree that it IS sad and infuriating that this seems to have been the case. In some ways, it's not unlike how the Europeans in the Dark and Middle Ages ignored  other merchants' and travellers' accounts of the exotic splendors and bounties of China and the Far East for centuries  until Marco Polo's account became widely circulated. 

  I'm by no means dismissive of the actual victims' accounts nor in any way  saying it was right or just that they appeared to have been  , by and large, ignored until Mr. Buress's  sharing the open secrets in the entertainment industry about Mr. Cosby  to the general public but that IS essentially what happened. 

However, considering that his unmasking of Mr. Cosby in his standup act IS what opened the public's eyes and got the ball rolling to have legal justice meted upon Mr. Cosby (in spite of intense pressures upon Mr. Buress ) I believe that it is something to be commended on Mr. Buress's part and would merit a Scooby Award! 

[Blergh]

10 hours ago, Raja said:

Do you know the Scooby Doo cartoon? The non powered, for most of the show's run, gang dealing with the supernatural is the root of the collective nickname

Except, of course, during the initial network runs of the cartoons, virtually all the purported 'supernatural' foes got unmasked as   purely mortal human criminal frauds despite Scooby and Shaggy wholeheartedly believing they WERE 'supernatural' until Scooby's actual unmasking of  them - even after the 500th or so said unmasking. 

Edited February 5, 2022 by Blergh

[SusanM]

13 minutes ago, Blergh said:

Except, of course, during the initial network runs of the cartoons, virtually all the purported 'supernatural' foes got unmasked as   purely mortal human criminal frauds despite Scooby and Shaggy wholeheartedly believing they WERE 'supernatural' until Scooby's actual unmasking of  them - even after the 500th or so said unmasking. 

It really annoyed me in the reboots of Scooby Doo where they changed this and made it all about the gang vs the supernatural.  The  best part of Scooby Doo was the inevitable "...and I would have gotten away with it if weren't for these meddling kids!"

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by SusannahM

[Blergh]

4 minutes ago, SusannahM said:

It really annoyed me in the reboots of Scooby Do where they changed this and made is all about the gang vs the supernatural.  The  best part of Scooby Do was the inevitable "...and I would have gotten away with it if weren't for these meddling kids!"

 

I agree! However, I would have found it refreshing had Scooby and Shaggy at least once towards the end of the series' run had become blase about the frauds' claims with a ' A ghost? Yeah, right. Scoob, just go ahead and pull of his mask so we can get this over with in time for us to get home to watch Wheel of Fortune!' 

[Mabinogia]

47 minutes ago, Blergh said:

I agree! However, I would have found it refreshing had Scooby and Shaggy at least once towards the end of the series' run had become blase about the frauds' claims with a ' A ghost? Yeah, right. Scoob, just go ahead and pull of his mask so we can get this over with in time for us to get home to watch Wheel of Fortune!' 

I think their characterization as always thinking it was a ghost fits with a dog and a stoner. While I don't know any hard core stoners, I do know many dogs, every one of which has always falled for the "I threw the ball....no I didn't, it's still in my hand" trick. lol

[Zella]

1 hour ago, Mabinogia said:

every one of which has always falled for the "I threw the ball....no I didn't, it's still in my hand" trick. lol

Mine doesn't, but he's a Chihuahua with the personality of a Bond villain. 🤣🤣🤣 He doesn't do fetch. 

 

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, Zella said:

Mine doesn't, but he's a Chihuahua with the personality of a Bond villain. 🤣🤣🤣 He doesn't do fetch. 

Are you sure he's not a cat in a Chihuahua suit? 

[Zella]

Just now, Mabinogia said:

Are you sure he's not a cat in a Chihuahua suit? 

I've owned several Chihuahuas over the years, and I firmly believe they are the most cat-like of dogs, so it is entirely possible. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

Piggy-backing off of this:

1. I've always hated that they're called "the Scoobies". That's so derivative. I actually think they should have gone with "the Slayer-ettes". Yeah, it's lame, but at least it's not as egregiously unoriginal. And, no, I'm not just saying this because of my hatred of Joss Whedon (okay, maybe that's a little bit of the reason).

2. I fucking hate Scooby Doo. There, I said it, and I ain't taking it back. 

[Crs97]

2 hours ago, Zella said:

Mine doesn't, but he's a Chihuahua with the personality of a Bond villain. 🤣🤣🤣 He doesn't do fetch. 

I've never owned a chihuahua, but my childhood dog was a husky with the personality of a mafia don/king.  If you threw a ball, he looked at you like "one of us needs to go get that and we both know it won't be me."  Sure enough, you'd trudge across the lawn and bring it back to him, and he may or may not deign to take it from you.

I enjoyed Scooby, but Scrappy can take a long walk off a short pier.

[Zella]

1 minute ago, Crs97 said:

I've never owned a chihuahua, but my childhood dog was a husky with the personality of a mafia don/king. 

Mine is named after a Roman emperor, and he plays the part well. When I fail him, which is often, the look of disappointment he gives me is indescribable. 

[Crs97]

A family several streets over had chickens, and every so often we would see a trail of feathers down the street and come home to find a dead chicken in our yard.  Not every time was our dog outside when this occurred.  We realized neighborhood dogs were killing them and bringing them to our dog as tribute;  that's when we realized we had raised a crime lord.  God, he was a great dog . . .

[Danny Franks]

2 hours ago, Zella said:

Mine doesn't, but he's a Chihuahua with the personality of a Bond villain. 🤣🤣🤣 He doesn't do fetch. 

 

Mine doesn't. He almost runs after the phantom ball, but then stops and looks right at you as though he's saying, 'come on, please have some respect for me. Do it properly.' He's a Springer Spaniel, so he loves nothing more than chasing balls.

[Spartan Girl]

37 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I fucking hate Scooby Doo. There, I said it, and I ain't taking it back

I don’t blame you. It’s a series that’s been milked to death.

If I may share another Buffy UO: I didn’t like Joyce, I didn’t think she was that great of a mother, and I think she definitely played favorites with Dawn for being the “normal one” (or so she thought) and that’s was why Dawn was an unbearable brat—that, and Whedon’s obvious animosity toward teenage girls.

[GreekGeek]

On 1/21/2022 at 7:05 PM, Mabinogia said:

I LOVED Nick at Nite. Burns and Allen was my favorite, along with The Donna Reed Show, that's where I watched Soap, the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Topper, The Patty Duke Show. Oh, the memories.

I also watched this show called I Married Joan, and all I can remember of it is part of the theme song. lol "I married Joan, what a girl, what a whirl, what a wife..." is all I remember and it randomly pops into my head at the oddest times. 

Here is a link to one of the I Married Joan episodes, so you can hear the full theme song. I vaguely remember seeing some of it when it was first run. I rented a DVD of it ten years ago, and didn't find it particularly funny. Kind of a mediocre I Love Lucy knockoff.

I don't know if this is a UO or not, but I'd love to see more of those classic sitcoms of the 50s and 60s, and the dramas (that aren't Westerns or sci-fi) too.

ETA: I now realize that I could not have seen I Married Joan when it was first run, since it ended the year I was born. A bit of research showed that it was one of the first series to have an after life in syndication. The leading lady, Joan Davis, died just six years after the end of the first run. She was only 53.☹️

Edited February 5, 2022 by GreekGeek

[Bastet]

7 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

I enjoyed Scooby, but Scrappy can take a long walk off a short pier.

While we both loved the original season and the two seasons of the one-hour movies (with guest appearances by the Harlem Globetrotters, Sonny and Cher, Jerry Reed, the Addams Family, Don Knotts, etc.), a friend and I discovered enjoying them as an adult requires being drunk or stoned.  But not even as a child could I abide Scrappy.  I don't even remember Scooby-Dum, but I remember Scrappy because I hated him so much I'd turn off the TV if it was one of his episodes.

[Zella]

Based on the responses here, I'm assuming this isn't an unpopular opinion, but count me in as another one who hated Scrappy as a child. I enjoyed Scooby Doo very much, though I also never watched it after I turned 8. I doubt it would hold up as well as some of my other childhood favorites, so I'm fine with leaving it in my memory. Scrappy can GTFO though. 

[Kel Varnsen]

7 hours ago, Raja said:

Do you know the Scooby Doo cartoon? The non powered, for most of the show's run, gang dealing with the supernatural is the root of the collective nickname

Except I don't recall Buffy and her friends solving a lot of mysteries. It was usually get attacked by a monster and figure out how to stop it. At least in the original Scooby-Doo Where Are You, the gang was solving mysteries, so not quite the same thing. Plus the whole travelling the world thing.

[Bort]

1 hour ago, Crs97 said:

I enjoyed Scooby, but Scrappy can take a long walk off a short pier.

Which is why, in one of the Scooby Doo feature films, I loved the scene of them abandoning Scrappy on the side of the road because he was so obnoxious.

[kathyk24]

2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I don’t blame you. It’s a series that’s been milked to death.

If I may share another Buffy UO: I didn’t like Joyce, I didn’t think she was that great of a mother, and I think she definitely played favorites with Dawn for being the “normal one” (or so she thought) and that’s was why Dawn was an unbearable brat—that, and Whedon’s obvious animosity toward teenage girls.

I stopped watching Buffy when they added Dawn. Buffy was an only child Joyce may not have been the best mother but Buffy's father abandoned her.

[Hiyo]

Quote

a friend and I discovered enjoying them as an adult requires being drunk or stoned

Which does tend to make you notice (or think you notice) certain things the writers may or may not have sneaked into the cartoon...

Quote

I'm assuming this isn't an unpopular opinion, but count me in as another one who hated Scrappy as a child

I have a feeling that isn't an unpopular opinion at all. Especially since characters are sometimes described as being a "Scrappy" type, and it's never meant as a compliment (kind of like Cousin Oliver).

[SVNBob]

3 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

Especially since characters are sometimes described as being a "Scrappy" type

Naturally, TVTropes has a sizable section on The Scrappy, which includes what defines a Scrappy and separates them from other disliked characters, and examples from all kinds of media.

[Blergh]

At least Scooby 's gang had a few seasons to make the best of things before Scrappy came along to annoy everyone! And while we're on the subject of UO Scooby deals, just because Velma was a nerdy brain in glasses, I never thought that that alone meant she could have ONLY been a lesbian. Talk about stereotyping and/or projecting (and absurdly  since NO unmarried  Saturday morning network cartoon characters back then were supposed to   have ever had sex). 

[Lugal]

18 hours ago, Blergh said:

In some ways, it's not unlike how the Europeans in the Dark and Middle Ages ignored  other merchants' and travellers' accounts of the exotic splendors and bounties of China and the Far East for centuries  until Marco Polo's account became widely circulated.

I personally think that had more to do with the Pax Mongolica making it possible for Europeans to actually travel to China in Marco Polo's time.

17 hours ago, SusannahM said:

It really annoyed me in the reboots of Scooby Doo where they changed this and made it all about the gang vs the supernatural.  The  best part of Scooby Doo was the inevitable "...and I would have gotten away with it if weren't for these meddling kids!"

My UO is I actually liked when they introduced the supernatural elements to Scooby Doo, although it only started around the time I stopped watching.  But the "meddling kids" bit was the best part.  I half expect a lot of press conferences/congressional hearings to include that line.

9 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Which does tend to make you notice (or think you notice) certain things the writers may or may not have sneaked into the cartoon...

I think that's more the animators.  They love to sneak things in.

9 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Especially since characters are sometimes described as being a "Scrappy" type, and it's never meant as a compliment (kind of like Cousin Oliver)

TVTropes explains The Scrappy pretty well.

[SusanM]

10 minutes ago, Lugal said:

My UO is I actually liked when they introduced the supernatural elements to Scooby Doo, although it only started around the time I stopped watching. 

I ended up watching most of the episodes of a recent incarnation of Scooby Doo called Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated which was totally on team supernatural.  I felt it was really well done and if they were going to go supernatural anyway they might as well go all in - which they definitely did.

[Mabinogia]

13 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

Here is a link to one of the I Married Joan episodes, so you can hear the full theme song. I vaguely remember seeing some of it when it was first run. I rented a DVD of it ten years ago, and didn't find it particularly funny. Kind of a mediocre I Love Lucy knockoff.

Thank you for that. I didn't realize it was on youtube. I'm going to have to check it out. I was never an I Love Lucy fan so actually preferred I Married Joan back in the day. I'm going to check out a few eps to see if that still stands. I'm not overly optimistic. I was much more naïve and easily amused back then. haha (just watched a few minutes of it. It really doesn't hold up. lol) 

All this Buffy/Scooby talk made me wonder who would be who. So Dawn was totally the Scrappy Doo of the show, Willow was Velma, the smart one.  I'd put Oz in the Shaggy spot because he's the most "hippy"ish of the crew being a cool, laid back musician. I'd put Giles as Fred since he's kind of the leader and the one most likely to wear that natty cravat deal Fred sported. Buffy would have to be Daphne the "pretty" one, and also the one SMG played in the Scooby movies so there's that. Scooby Doo triumphs over Buffy in that it does not have a Xander. Any show without a Xander is automatically better. If I had to cast him he'd be some random moron baddy in a lame costume pretending to be something he isn't (in his case a good guy). 

[JustHereForFood]

On 2/4/2022 at 9:39 PM, Raja said:

Do you know the Scooby Doo cartoon? The non powered, for most of the show's run, gang dealing with the supernatural is the root of the collective nickname

I know about it and I think I even saw some episode once. I meant, why were Buffy characters called that. I don't think it's common to refer to a group of characters from one series/book/etc by a name of completely different, unrelated characters. As a TVtrope, sure, but not like this. I still think it is stupid.

20 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I don’t blame you. It’s a series that’s been milked to death.

If I may share another Buffy UO: I didn’t like Joyce, I didn’t think she was that great of a mother, and I think she definitely played favorites with Dawn for being the “normal one” (or so she thought) and that’s was why Dawn was an unbearable brat—that, and Whedon’s obvious animosity toward teenage girls.

Joyce was a horrible mother. She barely cared what Buffy was doing in earlier seasons and was only there to ground her, or to have an argument with her once she found out about her being a slayer. Plus don't get me started on how she and also the "Scoobies" except Giles treated Buffy in Dead man's party when she came back after months. With those kids, I can accept them being dicks when emotional, but Joyce was an adult and she acted worse than everyone else. 

I hated how the show in season 5 suddenly started to treat her like this awesome mother, who was almost like a mother figure to the others as well (are you freaking kidding me?), just because they were planning to kill her and wanted us to feel more sad for her. I felt sad watching, but that's because I identified with Buffy and something happening to my mother is my worst nightmare (I hated most of season 5, if you can't tell by now), but that's not because I suddenly cared about Joyce.

My Buffy UO is that as much as I hated season 7, I don't subscibe to that part of fandom that thinks the show should have ended with season 5. That was the worst finale for me and would have been a terrible ending. After a bunch of the most depressing episodes I have ever seen, Buffy is so obviously depressed, going on just on automatic with one goal to save Dawn and as soon as she sees an option to both save Dawn and sacrifice herself, she takes it, which makes me see it not like a sacrifice, but like a suicide. Not that I have any problem with TV depicting suicide, it can be done well, but it's a terrible ending for a protagonist like Buffy.