There’s a lot right with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there’s a lot wrong with it, too, and critical thinkers, as opposed to mere fans, have identified much of what is the matter with the series. Although many of the diehard fans of the series continue to regard it as flawless, many others have either long recognized or recently recognized that the show had its share of glitches, non sequiturs, and mistakes. When did the show jump the shark? Opinions vary. Some contend that the show’s quality never declined noticeably, but many believe that, while the first five seasons are superb, the latter two are pretty much garbage. My own contention is that the series jumped the shark when its creator, Joss Whedon, handed off the show to Marti Noxon--in other words, at the beginning of season six; under her guidance, the series went steadily downhill and never recovered its original verve.
A better-than-average, but uneven, writer, Noxon fails as executive producer. Early on, as a writer, she gave the series a couple fairly good episodes, some so-so episodes, and a few horrible episodes: in the “Fairly Good” column: “What’s My Line,” Part 1 and Part 2, and “I Only Have Eyes For You.” In the “Horrible” column, I'd include “Bad Eggs,” “Buffy vs. Dracula,” “Wrecked,” “Villains,” “Bring On the Night,” and “End of Days.” Her others belong in the “So-So” column.
“Bad Eggs”: “The problem with ‘Bad Eggs’ . . .[is] that it’s deeply mediocre, about as ordinary and as straightforward as the series ever gets” (63).Personally, I agree with virtually all of the author’s criticisms, although I don’t think that “Wrecked” is quite as bad as they so, and I think that “End of Days” is much worse. The authors’ choice of the best Buffy episodes for each season are:
“Buffy vs. Dracula”: “It’s a strange episode all around. . . . Since Buffy got past the point of sending up horror movie ‘standards’ in Season One, the decision to go through the same old Abbot and Costello schtick [sic] four years later just isn’t very wise” (179).
“Wrecked”: “A real instance of the series falling on its face. . . . The show now throws any sense of subtlety or characterization out the window--replacing it with a crude ‘drugs’ metaphor. This entails using every drug-culture cliché on television, yet ironically ‘Wrecked’ has precious little to actually say about the subject.” Moreover, and even “worse, it rewrites the rules of Buffy in the most absurd way possible. As the past five years have shown, magic isn’t heroin--it’s chiefly been used as a metaphor about individual responsibility. . . . But now the entire moral context shifts into the realm of ‘drugs’ with an embarrassingly clumsy stroke” (238).
“Villains”: “A hollow story, putting its focus on the final sequence--Willow’s torture and murder of Warren--and thereby making everything that comes before it more or less irrelevant” (256).
“Bring On the Night”: “A mess, really. . . . ‘Bring On the Night’ has no focus of its own. Instead, it comes across as a ragbag of contrived plot-points (Annabelle bolting for no good reason to insure the Ubervamp kills someone), dull conversations (Drusilla’s never been less interesting) and recycled ideas (the series somehow thinks a stake-proof vampire will shock and amaze us, even though it’s now the second we’ve seen. . . . Buffy’s final declaration of war is obviously meant as a major turning point, but it’s barely distinguishable from the ‘We’re taking the fight to them,’ speech she pretty much gives every year” (281).
“End of Days”: “All the flaws of late Season Seven are still in evidence. There’s very little plot, over-extended conversation scenes and--of course--the massive deus ex machina of the scythe (the guardian isn’t very convincing, either)” (304).
Season 1: Joss Whedon’s “Prophecy Girl”My own picks:
Season 2: Joss Whedon‘s “Becoming”
Season 3: Joss Whedon‘s “Doppelgangland”
Season 4: Joss Whedon’s “Hush”
Season 5: Douglas Petrie’s “Fool For Love”
Season 6: Joss Whedon’s “Once More, With Feeling”
Season 7: Jane Espenson’s and Drew Goddard‘s “Conversations with Dead People”
Season 1: Joss Whedon’s “Prophecy Girl”Other episodes that I would put on the “A” list:
Season 2: Carl Ellsworth’s “Halloween”
Season 3: Joss Whedon’s “Amends”
Season 4: Joss Whedon’s “Restless”
Season 5: Joss Whedon’s “Family”
Season 6: Joss Whedon’s “Once More, With Feeling”
Season 7: Jane Espenson’s and Drew Goddard‘s “Conversations with Dead People”
Season 1
Ashley Gable‘s and Thomas A. Swyden’s “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”Season 2
Howard Gordon’s and Marti Noxon’s “What’s My Line?”Season 3
David Greenwalt’s and Joss Whedon’s “Ted”
Ty King‘s “Passion”
Marti Noxon’s “I Only Have Eyes For You”
Joss Whedon’s “Becoming”
David Greenwalts “Faith, Hope, and Trick”Season 4
David Fury’s “Fear Itself”Season 5
Tracey Forbes’ “Beer Bad”
Tracey Forbes’ “Where the Wild Things Are”
Douglas Petrie’s “Fool For Love”Season 6
Joss Whedon’s “The Body”
David Fury’s and Jane Espenson’s “Life Serial”
No comments:
Post a Comment