As I've said before I loved Buffy right up until the end of the sixth season, even though conventional wisdom holds that it started to suck from season five onwards. However even I am forced to admit that season seven, to put it delicately, sucks balls in comparison to the rest of the show. It certainly started out with a lot of promise, as some interesting plot hooks were introduced at the end of the last year. On one hand we have Willow, who as you probably recall went batshit crazy in the climax to the previous season and started killing people. There could have been a lot of dramatic potential in watching her come to terms with her actions and learn to keep her power under control, right? Spike has also just been granted a soul, completing his years long journey from villain to hero. Unfortunately it seems to have driven him mad, leading to a very cool scene at the end of the second episode in a church, when Spike collapses Christ-like onto a crucifix. (Rather painful for a vampire.) Finding out what happened to him, at the same time as he learns to deal with his rediscovered humanity, should be pretty compelling, right?
If the writers had just carried on from there they could have produced something really good, but knowing that it was the last season they preferred to hedge their bets. Firstly they introduced the biggest, nastiest, most overdone baddie they could think of: the First Evil, ultimate source of all pain and suffering. Secondly they tried to recreate the thing that made the first few seasons of the show so popular, the high school setting (slash painfully obvious metaphor). Unfortunately these calculated moves failed to pay off and in fact did more harm than good.
The First Evil is not an interesting character. Up until this season the show always did an excellent job of creating memorable, entertaining villains who were also genuinely well thought out characters with real motivations and personality. The First Evil is just a plain old clichéd cackling villain. Possibly the reason it never exhibits it's own identity is because it always manifests as another character. They could have gone in some interesting directions with this, as at times it seems to take on the personality of whoever it's appearing as, but I suspect that this is just bad acting.
The high school is reintroduced by having it rebuilt (after being blown up at the end of season three) and Buffy employed as a guidance councillor. Why they thought this would work is beyond me, as the central characters are all four years older. Just as in real life you can't go back to high school again, trying to wedge these characters back to where they came from is an exercise in stupidity.
A few of the standalone episodes are quite good. In 'Him' the female characters are enraptured by a love spell cast on the football jacket of a high school jock. This episode is arguably the best they do at a decent high school analogy in this season, and this is probably because it's played completely for laughs (the Charlie's Angels scene and Buffy trying to take out the principle with a bazooka are some of the most memorable things about the season). 'Selfless' is even funnier, showing flashbacks to Anya's transformation into a demon in first millennium Europe, complete with hysterical subtitles: “Her hips are wide and unattractive, like those of a baltic woman. Your hips are slender and arousing, like those of a baltic woman from a more arid region.”, “The troll is doing an Olaf impersonation, hit him with fruits and various meats!”
'Conversations With Dead People' is kind of stupid in a few ways (especially Buffy's long, pointless conversation with a vampire psychologist), but Dawn's plot thread, in which she is visited by her mother's tormented shade (who may or may not be the First Evil in disguise) contains some of the entire series only successful attempts at horror. It only took him seven years but Joss finally figured out that genuine horror isn't bought about by a scary monster hiding in a dark alley (unless you're a five years old), but by the subtle undermining of the familiar and comfortable by the disturbing and evil, in this case the threatening and sinister manifestation of a departed family member.
Aside from those three instances (and the first two episodes of the season) the show mostly just slowly drags it's way through the main plot, introducing new characters who add little (those Slayers in waiting are really annoying) and throwing in dramatic revelations that fall flat. The Watcher's Council gets blown up. Who cares? We haven't seen them for three years. Buffy has to fight a super powerful vampire from the dawn of time. Well that would have been cool if it didn't take three episodes for her to kill it. What is this, Dragonball Z?
Anyway, in conclusion I shall present the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Relative Hotness Table (all scores are out of 10):
Buffy: Season 1: 8, Season 7: 5
I have been accused of finding Sarah Michelle Gellar more attractive at the beginning of the show because then she was playing a sixteen year old schoolgirl, but I insist that that is not the case! It's because she has become another victim of the Hollywood 'starve yourself into a skeleton and tan your skin leathery' school of beauty treatment.
Willow: Season 1: 10, Season 7: 10
Nerd with a touch of goth. According to Joss the network execs tried to convince him to replace her character with a blonde cheerleader.
Anya: Season 3: 9, Season 7: 2
I'm not sure what happened to her, but the most probable baseless accusation involves drugs.
Faith: Season 3: 9, Season 7: 9
I think being evil automatically provides bonus points.
Cordelia: Season 1: 10, Angel Season 4: 4
Mostly just because of that haircut, and possibly the transition of her character from brainless but entertaining bitch to bland and boring love interest.
Xander: Season 1: 4, Season 7: 10
Man did that guy get macked fast.
Dawn: Season 5: 2, Season 7: 7
The only female character to get a higher score at the end of the show than when she was first introduced. This has nothing to do with her being the youngest. Next up on 'The Real Reason TV Shows Get Cancelled': The Golden Girls...
See also:
Buffy Season 5 Part 1Buffy Season 5 Part 2
Buffy Season 6 Part 1
Buffy Season 6 Part 2
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