SMG: Yes and no. I believe the finale of Buffy should have been two hours. I think a lot of the characters, specifically Xander, didn’t get enough screen time. But I loved the idea that she was going full circle and sharing her power. I know some stuff had to get cut like a scene where I was walking down a hall in the high school having flashbacks so it was fun seeing all of us from eight years ago.
If it is to be true, I’m glad they decided to cut the flashbacks scenes. Flashbacks are so tacky. Whedon achieved full circle with the story in a great way. but Sarah is right, the finale should have been longer, and they didn’t really express well the death of their friends - Hello, Xander, anya is DEAD! show emotion or something.
The reason why I watched Buffy in the first place was Xander. He’s the most realistic character of them all, not to mention funny and cute. The Zeppo was the episode that made me a fan and, yes, season 7 is the worst of all the Buffy seasons, it’s even worst than season 1. Too much characters, bad plot, questions with no answers, lack of Xander along with the lack of Buffy/Xander/Willow/Giles together scenes. I’ve always thought the last season should have been about the original four charaters.
That’s too bad about the cut scene... but the choices you make when you _have to_ cut something out are usually the most logical ones for the story.
Joss did the best he could with Chosen and it is extraordinary!!
To those of you who misunderstood season 7 and think it "sucked", well... Trust me, it gains in strength with every re-watch!! The whole theme of Power is so well thought through and used in every single episode of the season.
As to Xander, his storyline was there too - as the foundation of the household. Him being injured in Dirty Girls led to the house falling apart. His relationship with Anya also developed throughout the season, leading up to a place of closure. And her death was not in vain! She used to not care about humans, but now she gave her life for the world. Xander knew that and the emotions he displayed at the end of Chosen were signs of admiration and love.
Andrew: "She was incredible. She died saving my life."
Xander: "That’s my girl. Always doing the stupid thing."
=)
Season 7 sucked because buffy, the main character became this aloof, unsympathetic bitch, who didnt deserve to get such a glorious ending. if she hadnt been alienated, then maybe i would have liked it, and it would have resonated with me, but it didnt. because buffy suddenly became this cruel perosn, who deserved everything that was thrust upon her in that episode where she got kicked out of the house- ESPECIALLY anya’s speech about her not being BETTER, but LUCKIER. oh yeah, and conversations with dead people- cool episode, again, HATED the bit where buffy announced that she thought she was superior. xander and willow, who started off as normal kids were the superior ones- she had super-powers to start with! it was her destiny. THEY are the ones who risked life and limb to help their friend, because it was the right thing to do, rather than them having some great fate to adhere to...
But I don’t want the last season to be a theme abbout power. I want it to be about the characters, with the action going on at the same time, like all the other seasons. In s7, they tried to fit the characters in to the action, and thats not btvs.
I reckon they should bring out a dvd with all the bloopers and scenes that were removed...including this part of Buffy walking the halls and rememer-ing back........That would be soooooooo kool .
I disagree, season 7 was one of the stronger seasons of BtVS. It not only portrays the accumulation of the development of all the characters in the past seasons, it also gave the viewers a chance to see the true essence of each basic character. Buffy as a protector, a bit of a leader and as a mother. In some way you can compare Buffy to the First Slayer. As all slayers came forth from the death of the previous slayer, the First could be considered as a mother or Eve in biblical terms. Buffy like the First Slayer has spawned other slayer, like Kendra and Faith. The Potentials turning into slayers makes the circle round: Slayers coming forth, not from the death of a slayer, but from the life of a slayer.
Willow is just like we saw her in the first season. A person with strong doubts and fears, but some times also a glimpse of the power and courage that resides in her. Season seven turns that around and lets her fight those fears and doubts, culminating in the activation of all slayers and Willow achieving (temporarily?) Goddess status.
Xander, what can i say? Most people liked him because of his warmth, his normalness. Season seven stresses that fact. i mean, he is the "normal factor" surrounded by slayers, witches, ex-demons, ex villains and potentials. it is also in the Potential episode, where this fact is stated and said during the episode. How warming was it. when he gave that speech to Dawn about giving away the power?
Furthermore season 7 gave a new perspective. We have seen villains using psychological warfare to battle the Slayer. but this season is the first where it is almost entirely about psychological warfare. I mean, battling a non-corporeal entity which seems to be
one step ahead of you everytime? Doesn’t get more psychological than this. it also shows the growth of the series from the beginning, where every problem was solved with pure brutal physical force. Every season final has showed how Buffy uses more of her cunning and wits, instead of just relying on her strength, like in Season 1 when she defeated the Master.
So now you know my opinion.
*shakes her head* I don’t know, it would have been extremely better if it had been about the original four characters. It is not fair to end the Buffy/Giles relationship with her closing the door in his face, with her not trusting him! And I really didn’t like the part where the Scoobies kicked Buffy out of her house, Xander and Willow *are* her best friends! Giles is the father figure! Dawn is her sister!!!!! Did Xander, Willow and Dawn kick Buffy out of her house when she tried to kill them?! NO! Most of the scenes were also poor written, and what’s the deal with "Buffy is not gonna choose you" speech that First/Joyce told Dawn about? That was one of the questions that didn’t have answers. And who said there was a development in the relationship between Xander and Anya? There wasn’t! Their story was done poorly except for Selfless. And it seems that the writers got so bored with them coz they had what? 5 or 6 scenes together in 22 episodes? S7 sucks big time!
I think that Joyce meant something entirely different from what we all think when she said "Buffy is not gonna choose you". I think that, like prophecies, they can be tricky, it is very difficult to interpret what they really mean. My guess is that the First/Joyce really told the truth, but gave too much importance to it.
I think that the meaning is more: "Buffy is not gonna choose you" .... to die. Didn’t she ask Xander to take Dawn somewhere safe, out of Sunnydale? In the end she chose for Dawn to stay alive and not stay in Sunnydale to fight with the others and problably die.
I like Xander because of his warmth and normalness too, but he didn’t get enough screen time in season 7 and all of you know it, even SMG admitted it. That what is bugging the fans who like him the most, the lack of him in the last season.
I think the best thing in season 7 was the Buffy/Spike story line. It was well written and it showed how much the writers worked their asses to make it as great as possible. But the rest of the season? Nu uh, I wish there was more Xander/Willow scenes like it used to be in the first seasons. More Xander/Anya, a make up Buffy/Giles scene, a Buffy/Dawn scene on Chosen and there was no Xander/Giles scene at all in season 7! I know Giles is not as close to him as he is to Buffy and Willow but c’mon! Also, a scene of Spike with someone other than Buffy. I always thought that Dawn would forgive Spike eventually but I think Joss wanted Spike to be friendless so we’d pity him more. It would have been great if Xander and Spike ended up being friends or sort of friends, I mean what’s the point of Spike living with Xander for the second time if there wasn’t gonna be any development between the relationship of two characters!
They cut such a wonderful scene out of the final episode? There were plenty of scene from which they have cut it. And yes, Xander got a ridiculous lack of screentime, especially for one of the main characters.
Xander simply got a serious lack of screentime. He got replaced in a lot of stuff he usely did. Let Toth (The Replacement) use his staff on him, give both Xander’s a different background and you have Andrew and Robin. Both got more screentime and plot than he did, which is simply stupid.
Xander/Giles is very strong. Maybe even the strongest. They barely talk, cuz they mostly think the same and they have no direct working relation. But, with Xander, Giles is relaxed and not so stressed as he was in S7. Giles is very fond of Xander. Who do think invited Giles for a game of ADD? Or Giles making fun of Xander? Or Xander being very worried by the thought alone that Giles could be dead. That said, there was a lack of a serious conversation between them. Also between Xander and Anya and Xander and Faith.
Spike was not so friendly in S7. Only showed care for Buffy and strangely enough he had positive screentime with Xander. (Spike was seriously concerned for Xander in First Date, and Xander helped him with his ’trigger’ problem. But he distanted himself from the rest (compare it with S5). Friendship comes from both sides. I think it’s only because his stay with Angel needs to be believable.
Season Seven was spectacular.
The Buffy/Giles story did not end badly, they very clearly reconciled in Chosen, with one short, beautiful and totally BtVS exchange
Giles: “I think it’s bloody brilliant...if you want my opinion"
Buffy: “Really do"
The look between them is one of complete respect and love for one another, with no animosity at all, and that means a thousand times more to me, than if they had spent half an episode talking around it.
As for the subject of Xander not getting enough screen time, Xander didn’t need huge chunks of an episode to make a mark on the season, even when he was quietly sat in the background, taking things in, it’s clear he truly is the heart of the group. From the way the others act around them, to the way he addresses people, how he unequivocally stays loyal to the people he loves, regardless of being left out of the loop at times, Xander’s presence is always felt whether he has 2 lines or 20.
Xander had a huge storyline last year, and this was ongoing throughout the season, unlike Buffy and Angel, or Buffy and Spike, Xander and Anya quietly got on learning how to interact with each other once more. This wasn’t given major focus throughout the season because that would be unrealistic, when you break up, or divorce someone, generally the couple, and those around them accept what has happened, acknowledge it’s importance and begin to move on. This was shown in season 7, and the fact that it wasn’t constantly forced into the foreground, only makes it more real and effective.
People should also start getting used to the idea that people change, these guys aren’t same teens we met in Welcome to the Hellmouth, they’ve been through too much, lost too many loved ones; their outlooks on life have changed. Buffy is not cold and unsympathetic, she understands her destiny, her calling and, rather than fight it, embraces it and helps the potentials to do so also, people like her make amazing teachers because they tell it how it is, not sugar-coating it to make it more palatable.
Willow can’t stay perky and fun forever either, she’s lost her true love, killed people, hurt loved ones and tried to destroy the world, to be honest I think her handling of her situation in S7 is astonishing, to remain calm, focused and thoughtful after all that, that speaks of true maturity and humanity. Also beautiful is her relationship with Kennedy, who helped Willow release all the grief and guilt she had been holding on to for so long. Kennedy, with her fresh eyes, saw things for what they were, Tara was amazing, wonderful and beautiful, but you can’t hold on to a ghost, and Willow had to understand that, Kennedy was the perfect person to help Willow out of her purgatory because she wasn’t loaded with emotional baggage from the past 6 years, and this made her accessible and fun for both Willow and the audience.
Xander can’t crack stupid jokes until he dies because he’s seen when being serious and heartfelt is important e.g. Into the Woods, Grave etc. He also understands that he doesn’t need to say anything, because the rest of the group get comfort from just knowing he’s there and ready to help them in any way he can
Spike distanced himself from most of the group because he wasn’t sure how to act around them any more, given the events of “Seeing Red” and the restoration of his soul, only Buffy, who he connects with on so many levels, Xander, who he never really had much of a friendship with anyway and who understood that Spike was a different man than the one who tried to rape Buffy, and Faith, whom he never really knew anyway, really spent any time with him in a non-hatred capacity.
Spike couldn’t talk to Dawn or Giles or most of the other Scoobies, because of their emotional irrationality when it came to Buffy. His storyline, like Buffy’s, was one of accepting one’s true self and discovering what it means to be a hero, but in a quiet, beautiful manner, rather than Buffy’s in-the-forefront- training of the potentials.
Another thing, new characters honestly needed to be introduced, because it gave us the chance to see how the Core Four (although I always maintain my belief that Cordelia was an original Scooby, but that’s a different argument) reacted to an influx of fighters and new Scoobies, making them all much less “special” and putting their battle against evil into perspective. This was summed up beautifully in Potential, with Dawn accepting that she is not a superhero, she’s just regular person, doing what’s right because she wants to, not because she was “called” or made to, which in Xander’s and my own eyes, makes her a true heroine.
Faith came back and demonstrated that she had truly taken that rocky redemptive road, by, in her own words, “do[ing] right, however it works”. She wasn’t there to make waves, and force things to revolve around her, she was there because she wanted to avert the apocalypse any way she knew how, she always accepted other ideas (unless they sucked) and, after a brief spell, realised that she wasn’t capable of leading because she still needed to guide herself, and quietly, and unashamedly, handed the reigns back to Buffy, with a full understanding of how Buffy’s life is and how lonely the girl she has envied all this time, truly feels.
The potentials, like Vi, Rona, Molly and Annabelle, cast new ideas and opinions on a familiar scenario, because it honestly can’t be too surprising for the Scoobies to be facing yet another apocalypse. Their reactions gave us a sweet and subtle reminder of where we’ve come from, with Vi as a mirror to what Willow was, Rona’s constant pessimistic attitude vocalising what most of the viewers would be saying, if thrust into that situation and Molly’s British perkiness demonstrating that sweet and funny side of Giles we occasionally saw on the days when the world wasn’t in great peril.
Season Seven was astounding because it did all this whilst in the throes of a major apocalypse and dealing with the need to wrap the show up nicely. It maintained its sense of inappropriate humour in bad situations, but it also knew when to shut up and “get it done”. The sense of impending doom was always palpable in the later episodes and the growing ranks of both good and bad guys let us understand that this was THE BIG ONE. The final episode said everything that needed to be said about the show and its achievements, with no time for grudges or agendas. Conflicts, such as the final one between Buffy and Dawn, are put into perspective with lines as simple as “Dumbass.”, “If you get killed, I’m telling.” And “Anything you say is just gonna sound like goodbye”.
These are the reasons I fell in love with Buffy and haven’t fallen out of it yet, the ability the show has to take “complex issue and boil it down to it’s simplest form” yet still keeping it beautiful.
That’s just my opinion though.
I’m a Xander fan. I like him the most, cuz he is the most realistic character. I’ve watched the show for six years, because of him. I have nothing against Spike, but for a Xander fan S7 simply sucks. I mean, he was not strong in for example S6, but at least he was there.
He somin ething bad and something good in S6. In S7 he got nothing.
He got a serious lack of screentime!
He is the most misunderstood character and if you want to see his storyline in S7 you need a microscope. Nobody knows what his view on vampires or demons in general is. Nobody knows why he has left Anya. (Not only the viewers also not Anya.) Nobody knows if he is devastated or not with her death. Nobody knows why he told Buffy ’to kick his ass’. They bring it up, but don’t deal with it. Only his power issue has been dealt with. For the rest nothing.
I also don’t care if his storyline was so strong. I simply want to see him. And the worst part of it all was that he had not one single word with Faith, which is ridiculous. We get some bullshit scenes from Spike, Andrew with Faith, but a serious talk with her was for some mysterious reason not possible.
Xander/Anya didn’t have one single scene together since Touched. Robin has had more screentime and lines. Andrew had more line since he got into the show. Faith got twice as much stuff when she arrived. All gueststars.
You said it, Koos! You said what I wanted to say and perfectly! Xander’s issues were never explained on the show! It’s kinda sad that I have to read a fanfiction about Xander to understand his actions. In fanfiction I discovered that Xander hates vampires because of Jesse (Xander’s best friend who was forgotten by the writers and was never mentioned after he was killed in the 2nd ep of the whole show) turning into a vampire and being something that was completly different from the boy Xander always knew. In fanfiction I discovered how horroble Xander’s home life was. In fanfiction I read about Xander and Anya’s story line in season 4, which was written much better than the show, about how he was using her because he wanted company since Buffy and Willow were too busy at college and he didn’t want to be left alone and about Anya using him knowing how he screwed up his relationship with Cordelia and when he would cheat on her she will get her poweres back, that was before they fell for each other. It was so perfect and so moving and absolotly much better than their flat story line that Joss gave us in season 4. And don’t get me starting on the missing Xander/Faith scene from season 7.
Well, lol, I thought Xander/Anya started simply for the sex, nothing more. But, you makes some very interesting explanations. Did you ever realize the possibility of him having left Anya was because she was still a demon; a demon in human form. That’d fit with your explanation. She never really changed and in End of Days she even placed herself outside of humanity. In Once More With Feeling, he refered to her as as he said: "Am I marrying a demon?"
Again, under the influence of a spell that is forcing others to speak their minds and their hearts, Xander refered to Anya as a demon. Even after two years, those were the words out of his mouth. This fear only came further to the surface when he met Halfrek later in the season. He’s actually forced with increasingly tangible reminders of Anya’s roots. Most of the time he could ignore it. Just brush off Anya’s lack of understanding about humanity and all its little quirks and foibles as her Anyaness. But when faced with it, irrefutably, he freaked out and can’t think of anything else. And in the end it was Anya’s past who used those fears in form of one of her victims.
It didn’t take long for him to discover that he was wrong. She became a vengeance demon again.
Xander turned out to be right: if they’d marry their would be a moment that he would need to kill her (too). Refer that back to Buffy/Angel and his lie. Xander was fully aware how hard it was for Buffy to kill Angel, and for her knowing that Willow would reensoul him, meant that Angelus would have won.
***
Jesse is the source of his hate and distrust for vampires, I agree. Did we see him for example facing him as the First. No, Xander was not graced by it’s visit. All the others, except for Anya, were. His hatred for vampires is not as strong as most think. In Revelations he it was made clear that he was convinced that Angel, not Angelus, was a murderer. But, he when he realized that was wrong he immediately went on Angel’s defense and excused himself towards Buffy. If he’d have hated him so much, he’d never had done that.
I didn’t love the final but I didn’t hate it. To bad the flashbacks were cut out and to bad the episode only lasted for as long as it did. I’m with Sarah on this, I really wanted to see all the caracters from eight years back, from were it all started. It might would’ve been a little to emotional though. Still, I can’t stop crying when I’ve seen Chosen.
yes i do agree that the last episode should have been 2 hrs and yes zander should have beeb in the episode more often. though joss whedon os a great directer and buffy was a brilliant idea to come up with he has great taste in picking such grat characters!
tommy d.
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