Remember when I wrote about how a Buffy movie might happen without Joss Whedon?  Well, it’s offically happening.

Sigh.

So what does Joss himself think about it?  You can and should read his thoughts here, but his point is essentially that it seems strange to remake something when the original is still so fresh in people’s minds.

And he’s right.  The thing is, people bemoan remakes and reboots and endless sequels, but enough people (possibly the same ones bemoaning, perhaps not) still shell out for tickets to see these movies.  This summer’s The Karate Kid was both bemoaned AND extremely profitable.  (I’ll stop using the word “bemoan” now.)  And show business is, after all, a business, so you can understand why countless remakes are being greenlit – an established name is a safer financial investment than a purely original concept.

Even though The Karate Kid is something I fondly recall, it had been 21 years since Daniel-San’s last fight (and 16 years since The Next Karate Kid – shudder.)  That is at least a decent amount of time to wait before starting again from scratch.  I have written about this before as well, specifically how Warner Bros. – the same people rebooting Buffy -  decided to reboot their Superman franchise just a few years after Superman Returns.   Should there at least be some sort of time limit – say 20 years – in between attempts to restart what could be a possible franchise?  Or will it only be a matter of time before something like this happens?

The trouble with a time limit is that then the moviemakers would just set their sights on older movies.  Hell, that’s happening now, too -  there is talk of a Wizard of Oz remake for crying out loud.  So maybe there should be an independent council set up, made up of regular folks, hardcore fans, and industry professionals, who would have to approve any remakes.  They would be able to give the go-ahead to specific projects, or deem certain ideas as “classics” that are not allowed to be remade.   Of course the problem with both that idea and establishing an arbitrary time limit is that they don’t take into account the legalities of the current properties – certain individuals and corporate entities own the rights to beloved characters and stories, and they can do what they want with them.

So how about this idea – why not remake BAD movies and TV shows?  Sure, sure, I get that such an idea flies in the face of the whole “safer investment” argument, but hear me out: Take an old property that was at its core a good idea, but the execution was just way off, then attach a writer/director/star who really want to do justice to the core of the original story.  That way you get to cash in on an established name, while at the same time not alienating scores of die-hard fans.  I guess you’d piss off the people involved with the original, but that’s their own fault for making a crappy show or movie.

Perfect example: Waterworld.  The concept – in the future, the polar ice caps have melted, the world is covered by oceans, and dry land and drinking water are next to impossible to find.  That sort of eco-friendly, green message would play great now!  And who would be offended by remaking Waterworld?  Costner?  Too bad.  Bring in a good creative crew, and turn that into a tentpole movie.  Sign the actors for three pictures and make it a trilogy.  Market the hell out of it – make some obligatory comparisons to The Dark Knight, say that this version will be the Waterworld that they just couldn’t make 15 years ago!  It will be better!  Darker!  More dramatic!  Actually watchable!  Everybody wins!

Taking classic films that have stood the test of the time and needlessly updating them is a real shame.  So is bastardizing a franchise that has only recently hit screens.  The system of what gets rebooted needs to be rebooted.  Any other ideas?

The good folks over at Entertainment Weekly (or as I call them, EW) have made a list of the 25 best Whedonverse episodes – in other words, the best shows of Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse, and Firefly. (And one chapter of Dr. Horrible for good measure.) Now I still haven’t watched Firefly (it’s just been hanging out on my Netflix queue for a very long time, but I feel I’m enough of a Whedon fan to appreciate and pass along the list to anyone who missed it.

I dug the list, though I have to dispute the inclusion of the Angel episode where Angel turned into a puppet. I don’t know, maybe it was a good episode and it was just hard for me to watch it, what with my eyes rolling uncontrollably throughout the 42 minutes. But hey, Joss Whedon is still a freaking genius, and it’s nice to see him getting some love.

And a belated congrats to Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) on becoming a mom – even if it was with that Freddie Prinze guy.

Here’s a great idea: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie.

Here’s a terrible idea: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Joss Whedon’s involvement.

And yet – it could happen!

This is purely ludicrous. There is a beloved franchise that fans are obsessed with, that has a creator that fans are obsessed with, and they want to hit the reset button the whole thing? Why? It made sense to reboot Batman and James Bond and Star Trek, because the franchises grew old, stale, and tired. But Buffy only ended a few years back, and the comics continuation is even newer!

Now, if they were going to launch a new property about another vampire slayer, that would be less blasphemous. That way you could do away without the canon of Giles and Angel and Xander and Willow, and open up a new franchise that is related to but separate from the original. But if you’re calling it “Buffy” it had damn well better be the Buffy that we know and love.

And why not? A real, Whedon-sanctioned Buffy movie continuing from where Buffy/Angel/the comics left off could definitely do well at the box office. OK sure, maybe it wouldn’t put up Star Trek or The Dark Knight kind of numbers, and there’s the whole Firefly/Serenity thing, but movies based on TV shows with a cult following are nothing new. Sex and the City did well for an HBO show, but it’s movie did far better than its ratings might have predicted. And they’re maybe possibly eventually going to make an Arrested Development movie, so why not Buffy?

I just fail to see the point at trampling over characters and stories that people love and is still fresh in their minds. In twenty years if there has been no new Buffy material, and some hotshot filmmaker wants to breathe new life into it, why not. But now? I declare shenanigans.

Not that long ago, I had a shameful geek secret: I had never watched a single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Seven months and 144 episodes later, I am now an official convert, a worshiper at the house of Buffy.   As sad as I am to be finished with the show, I have to admit that the series finished on an incredibly strong note.

When I last left you, I was convinced that Giles was dead, and that the Giles who was walking around Sunnydale was actually The First.  It didn’t take long for that theory to be debunked, and I was extremely grateful to discover that the ever resourceful Rupert had managed to get the better of the axe-wielding Bringer.  Killing Giles off camera would have been blasphemy, and it would have been a cheap move.  Just like having Dawn be another potential would have been hackneyed, the show once again allows you to believe that they are going in one direction before totally turning things around.

Another example of that was the set up that Principal Wood was up to no good, only then to reveal that he is the son of the Slayer that Spike killed in New York.  Wood made for a great ally in the fight, and even though I didn’t really think that he and Buffy had a chance, it was nice to see her have some romantic chemistry with a human for a change.

After Buffy killed the first Turok-Han, she seemed to be doing a great job as a leader of the Potentials, but from that moment on the show did an excellent job with casting doubt on her role as General.  The events at the winery in “Dirty Girls” were downright upsetting, and even though we didn’t get a ton of background information on Caleb, he very quickly established himself as one hell of a badass.  Even though it was a given that some of the Potentials wouldn’t make it, seeing him brutally murder a couple was sort of hard to watch.

And then, if that wasn’t enough, he goes and gouges out of Xander’s eyes!  Holy crap!  That was seriously just a smidge too much.  What the hell did Xander do to deserve that?  I get that it was another way to show that Buffy and company were in for the fight of their lives, but damn, I kept waiting for Willow to do some sort of eye-puncturing reversal spell or something, but nope.  The dude’s a cyclops, and that’s that.  Although I have to wonder why Caleb didn’t go for both eyes instead of settling for just one; it’s not like the young Mr. Harris could have stopped him.

It was nice to see Faith come back, although it was a little frustrating knowing that I clearly missed some stuff with her that happened on sister-show Angel.  But they did a good job at giving me the Reader’s Digest version, and I was grateful for that.  It’s hard to imagine her rejoining the side of good, but I’ll get there in good time.  Faith was still the same old gal deep down though, using Wood for sex and taking the Potentials out for a good time, and hey, why not add another reformed murderer to the team?  And speaking of reformed murderers, Andrew was given a great chance to redeem himself in “Storyteller.”  Though he did bad in the past, he ended up showing off a human side and ended up actually coming in handy.

As for Spike, I have to admit that I was kind of behind the whole Giles and Wood plan to take him out.  The First specifically said that he was going to play a part in his plan, and so keeping him around just seemed foolish and wrong.  They never said specifically that by deactivating the trigger he wasn’t able to be used anymore, but I guess that must have been the case because once Spike was able to sing the song his mother sang without any ill effects, The First mostly left him alone.  And while I can appreciate that Buffy didn’t want Spike dead because he is strong, she should have more actively tried to find a way to turn off his trigger.  In the end it was turned off by more of a happy accident than anything else, which I guess is just as good, but I wonder what exactly The First was going to have him do, and when his “time” would have been.

The final battle made for an exciting finish to the season, but it left me with a few more annoyingly nit-picky questions.  First off, why were these Turok-Han vampires so much easier to kill than the first one Buffy squared off with?  Secondly, was the seal always the entrance to the Hellmouth?  In Season Four, a couple of demons tried to open it up by sacrificing themselves, and then it was just sort of a hole in the ground.  Did I miss something there?  And weren’t all of the Potential Slayers either dead or fighting in Sunnydale?  How come all those other girls, like the abused woman and the little leaguer were also potential chosen ones?  I also don’t fully understand all of the logistics of The First’s plan.  So the Turok-Han are ancient vampires, but The First said that his army was growing by the day.  How do they make more ancient vampires?  And he had to wait until there were more of them than people?  It didn’t look like there was anywhere near a billion of them down in that pit, so how long was it going to take for that to happen?  And why didn’t he take Buffy out long ago – he kept saying that she would die later, but why did he need her around until some never fully explained end game?  I assume that ties into his plan with Spike in some way, but I would love to know what that plan was.

In spite of those questions, the climactic battle was still really cool, and I loved the way that Buffy and Willow changed the rules of the Slayer game to even the odds.  (Although it might have made more sense for Buffy, Faith, and the Potentials to not open the seal until Willow’s spell had been cast, but that wouldn’t have been as dramatic…)  Spike got to die an honorable death, and despite my issues with his character lately, seeing him sacrifice himself for the good of the world was a nice way to let the guy go with dignity.  I wish they had explained the amulet a little bit more, although it occurs to me that perhaps they did on Angel.

I was sad to see Anya get taken down without much fanfare, and I was surprised that she ended up falling in battle instead of Andrew.  But I loved the way that the four original Scoobies  got to share a special moment before it all went down, joking about going to the mall afterward.  And hell, name another show where an entire town could be wasted and it would still be a happy ending.  Am I right?

So it all ended nicely, but I am jonesing for more.  There have been a few videogames – are any of them worth checking out?  And what about this Season 8 comic that I’ve heard about?  Joss Whedon has his hand in them, right?   So that’s got to count for something.  And of course I can still go back and watch the DVDs again, listening to all of the commentaries and such, but before I get to that, I feel like I still have some unfinished business in the Buffyverse…

Hey Raf, can I borrow your Angel DVDs?

After watching the first half of Season Seven, I have come to realize even more just how weak Season Six was. Where the previous year sort of meandered around, this season has really hit the ground running: The First is pissed off and looking to open the Hellmouth. The feeling of high tension and imminent danger was established fairly early, after a couple of silly episodes with an invisible Willow and a magical varsity jacket that is, but it hasn’t really let up since.

I liked the fact that Giles was taking some time working on Willow’s rehab; it seemed like a fair way to deal with her murderous actions. Although I have to admit to being a little confused as to why people keep saying that Willow killed “people” – by my count, didn’t she just kill Warren? It looked like she caused a lot of damage at the police station, but I thought the show made a deliberate point of not showing that anyone else had been gravely injured – did I miss something? Even if it was just Warren, was Willow or anyone else wanted in connection with the death? I guess Sunnydale sees so many people die and disappear all the time that they’ve gotten used to it, but I would think that enough cops got a good look at Evil Willow so that she would have some ’splaining to do with the law on her return to town. It’s a minor quibble, but still…

I liked the Anya-centric episode “Selfless,” as it was nice to see how the gang viewed Anya since she returned to her vengeance demon ways. I kind of wondered after the end of Season Six if she was going to be written out of the show. I mean, I like her character and all, I just wondered if it made sense for her to still be around – she had no ties left to Sunnydale after she and Xander were done and The Magic Box was completely destroyed, so why would she need to stick around? Maybe she just liked being close to the Hellmouth? Maybe some part of her wanted to stay close to Xander? Either way, I was glad that she hung in there, and that she got a whole episode serving her back story and her return to evil. And while I understand Buffy’s point on why she had to kill Anya, I felt like Xander had a good counterargument, in that Buffy seemed to make exceptions to her “kill all evil creatures” policy when the evil thing was someone she had recently slept with. (Like Spike, but I’ll get to him in a second.) I also thought it was weird how quickly Buffy and Anya were able to move past the whole fighting-to-the-death thing, and it seemed weird that D’Hoffryn would go after Anya in the very next episode, after they had seemed to be all square.

Now, seeing Spike with his soul was not at all the revelation I thought it was going to be. I was expecting him to be a full on good guy, part of the Scoobies, and maybe even be a “normal” boyfriend for Buffy. But nope. As it turns out, if you don’t use your soul for a couple of centuries, it starts to lose it’s polish. There’s something they don’t teach you in health class. Even though I haven’t been the biggest fan of Spike lately, I thought seeing him wander the halls of the new school’s basement utterly insane was pretty jarring, and I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. That said, once he started killing people, it seemed pretty irresponsible of Buffy to not to stake him. Sure, she needed to keep him around and alive to try to figure out what The First wanted with him. But come on, the guy was seriously dangerous, and it’s not like The First would have spilled his (“hers?” “its?”) secrets to a guy she was torturing just for fun.

It was fun to see Jonathan and Andrew back, though I was bummed to see poor Jonathan get killed. He was never that into the whole supervillain thing, and I guess that’s why he ended up getting stabbed in the back. Or in the front. And again, the Scoobies were pretty harsh to Andrew for committing murder under the influence of The First, while being far more forgiving of Spike for doing the same thing.

I really like The First as a Big Bad, and the way they tied his (I’m going with “his” until someone tells me it should be something else) plan into Buffy’s second resurrection was a nice addition. But I have to admit that I don’t totally get how that happened – if the Slayer line now ends with Faith, why would Buffy dying and coming back throw off the whole lineage thing? Maybe it’ll be explained later on, but for now I just don’t get the exact logic behind it, if there is any. Still, watching The First assume the spectre of so many departed people makes for a really spooky feel, and the fact that he is seemingly unkillable makes for one hell (mouth! sorry, bad joke) of a challenge for our favorite Slayer. “Conversations With Dead People” really showed just how dirty The First was going to play, and it made for one of the show’s more unsettling, disturbing, and really great episodes. And even though the ancient vampire was defeated in a matter of a couple of episodes, I really enjoyed his and Buffy’s fight scenes; it felt like it had been a while since the show had a really good drag ‘em out, Buffy vs. Vampire punch-and-kick fest.

A few other random questions, some of which probably shouldn’t be answered in the comments, since I’m so close to the end and want to avoid any spoilers as I finish the show. Is Giles dead, and is he really The First? At the very end of “Sleeper,” we see a guy behind him swinging an axe at him. Next time we see the guy, he’s in Sunnydale, with his head still firmly attached to his body, and without an explanation as to how he escaped this attack. I’m really, REALLY hoping he’s not dead, because it would be a seriously massive shame for such a major character to receive such an unceremonious and off-camera death. Not to mention that it wouldn’t make much sense, given his actions in helping Buffy once he got into town. And what’s up with David Palmer’s brother? We have yet another Sunnydale High principal with sinister motives? Is he also The First? And why did the Watcher’s Council drag it’s feet so much in responding to the war that had been declared against it? From what the potential Slayers were saying, it seemed to me (and I could be wrong here) that a lot of the girls’ Watchers revealed themselves to their girls, and began training with them. Which, I would think, they would have only done knowing about the crisis that was going on, so what took them so long in getting the girls together to a safe location? I’m guessing that question will never be answered, and it will just be chalked up to the Watchers being arrogant and bureaucratic and slow, and Giles has even said as much. I just found it odd that some of the girls knew about their Watchers before they were “called.”

So I only have 11 episodes to go, and I’m both excited to see how the show ends and dreading the day when I won’t have new Buffy to watch. But I’m really enjoying the fast pacing of this season, and I’m hoping that they can keep it up for the remainder of the series.

Finally! With my busted DVD player, I had to resort to borrowing a friend’s (thanks, Jason Z!) and I was finally able to finish up the penultimate season of Buffy. I wasn’t ecstatic about the way Season Six started, but I think the show managed to end the season on a stronger note, even though there were some weaker episodes in the mix.

Despite the dread I had going into “Doublemeat Palace.” I appreciate what the show was trying to do here – despite the fact that Buffy is a superhero, she still has bills, and she has to pay them anyway she can, even if that means taking a fast-food job. If they had gone the predictable “it’s made of people” story line, I would have been disappointed, but the bait and switch made it better.  After Giles left, Buffy was forced to start acting like an adult, and part of that is having a job that you know, pays.  Will Buffy have jury duty in Season Seven?

Xander and Anya’s wedding was a really tough episode to watch. Maybe I’m biased as a newlywed, but the fact that Xander would skip out on their wedding day made me really angry. First of all, HE proposed to HER; if he wasn’t ready to get married, that’s fine, but nobody was forcing him to do it. And it’s not like he didn’t know how his parents turned out, so why was he all of a sudden so squeamish about the idea of getting hitched? I didn’t buy the “future vision” guy, and neither should Xander. But even if he did, he shouldn’t have left. If for no other reason than leaving a former demon, who used to torture men who hurt women, just sort of screams “bad move.”  As much as I was angry with the X-man, I did sort of feel his pain when he came back and tried to patch things up with Anya, but any way you slice it, he really screwed the pooch when he walked out, so he has to blame himself for driving Anya into Spike’s arms.

Which was annoying for me mainly because I thought that when Buffy called it off with Spike, I wasn’t going to have to watch anymore of James Marsters’ thrusting.  Oh well.  As much as the Spike-Buffy thing bothered me at first, in the context of the whole season it made more sense; Buffy was having a really tough time adjusting to coming back to life, and dealing with the responsibilities of being an adult, and sleeping with Spike was the only way she could feel anything.  She did the right thing by breaking it off, and the way Spike repaid her, by trying to rape her, was not something I saw coming.  The way he took off to get back to “the way he was” seemed like an overt red herring; we were SUPPOSED to think that Spike wanted to lose his chip, but ACTUALLY he really wanted to regain his soul.  Although if that was his goal all along, it seemed a little odd that he kept referring to his beloved as “that bitch.”

“Normal Again” was an interesting premise for an episode, but the way it ended was really annoying.  You DON’T let your audience believe that what is happening to the main characters isn’t even real to them. (See my thoughts on Super Mario Bros. 2 for more on this.)  The episode really made it clear that Buffy was not in an institution, but they just had to throw that curveball at the end, that maybe she really is.  That’s not cool.  I don’t accept that six seasons of adventures were all the delusions of a mental patient, and the insinuation that they actually could be is sort of insulting to viewers.

The evolution of The Trio took a dark turn when Warren bumped into his old gal pal Katrina. She called them out for what the guys were really trying to do – rape.  It would have been easy for the show to ignore that, and pretend that they were just pathetic guys trying to get girls to like them, but they didn’t hold back, and Warren committed his first act of homicide. But not his last!

The way that Warren shot Buffy and Tara was incredibly powerful and sad, and it fit perfectly with Warren’s descent into desperation, that after failing with science and magic and demons, he went for a simple gun. Although I don’t understand why Tara FINALLY made it into the credits as a cast regular in the episode when she dies. And why did the DVD-box-art-maker-people go through all that trouble of spoiling the fact that Willow turns evil when the transformation doesn’t even happen until the last second of episode 19? WTF?

At least they didn’t spoil the fact that Giles was going to be returning by putting his credit at the beginning of “Two to Go.”  The battle royal between Willow and the Scoobies, Giles included, felt a little hollow, mainly because it was so clearly not the *real* Willow.  But I loved the fact that Xander was the won who got to save the world for a change.  And I was worried they were going to kill off Giles, and I’m glad they didn’t do that, because that just would have been too much death right in a row.  I was a little disheartened when he didn’t show up for Xander and Anya’s wedding, but he more than redeemed himself with his late-season cameo, especially when he cracked up when Buffy told him all that he missed.

I saw that one of the special features on the DVD was called “Life is the Big Bad: Season Six Overview,” and that kind of clicked it all into place for me.  The main villains of the year weren’t the gang of nerds or evil Willow, it was just the gang getting acquainted with life as adults, and all the drama that entails.  With that perspective, the season did kind of retroactively make more thematic sense, but at the same time it does still feel a little disjointed as compared to seasons past.  All of the of attempted rapes, fully clothed humping, and the word “bitch” being thrown around constantly might have been a little much, and the season definitely took a dip from the awesomeness that was season five, but it was still enjoyable.  And now ladies and gentleman, I move on to Buffy’s final six discs!  How sad…

Well wouldn’t you know it, Buffy didn’t stay dead for long. The Scoobies were trying to live life as normal as possible, having the Buffy-bot do the usual Buffy jobs, but it just wasn’t the same, and Willow decided to bring Buffy back from the beyond. It seemed almost like a given that we would find out that Buffy had been suffering in some hell dimension like Angel did before her, but the twist that she was actually in Heaven and that now the real world was her own private version of hell was a great twist. The show also didn’t rush having Buffy being back to her old self, as the experience has clearly changed her, and it’s not going to be easy for her to just get back into the swing of things. (Side note – now that Buffy died again, does another new Slayer pop up somewhere in the world? Or since the line split into two when she died the first time, would a new one emerge only if/when Faith dies?)

Giles had been threatening to leave for a while, and it makes sense that once Buffy was gone he would finally get up and go. And though it might have been frustrating for him to have to turn around and come right back thanks to Buffy’s resurrection, at least he’s building up valuable frequent flier miles. Still, it wasn’t much of a shocker that he was going to leave again, especially with him being removed from the credits and getting the old “guest starring” routine. It might have been slightly more surprising had they kept him in the main credits and then suddenly dropped him like they did with Oz and Riley before, but it still probably would have blown away no one. That said, even in light of Joyce’s death, I found Giles’ leaving to be pretty emotional. I understand his point that he feels he is holding Buffy back, but at the same time he has become more or less family to her, and so his active decision to leave was still harsh and painful.

The teaming up of Warren the robot-builder, Jonathan the nobody/superstar, and Andrew the who-the-hell-is-this-guy as super-villains seemed a little arbitrary, but they are just so darn nerdy that it is fun to watch them. Although they aren’t anywhere near as threatening as some of the other bad guys who have come through Sunnydale before, which is a shame.

On the other hand, Willow is getting more and more powerful, and given her descent into power and the not-at-all-subtle DVD cover (really, there was nothing else they could have put on the box?), it seems like one hell of a safe bet that she’s going to become more of a force to be reckoned with as the season goes on. But Willow’s transformation has been handled well, as a gradual process over the years. It seemed like last season the writers were using Willow’s magic as a crutch; whatever was going on, Willow had a spell ready to help move the plot along. But it has taken it’s toll on her, and that redeems some earlier writing that may have just seemed sloppy.

However the magic=drugs analogy felt really hackneyed. I mean, I get that power can be like a drug, but come on, going to a dealer who provides you with extra powerful “spells” that feel great but then make you come crashing down? How is that magic? How is that even an analogy? I’m pretty sure nothing like that has happened to Harry Potter…

On to “Once More, With Feeling.” This episode had been hyped up for a while, but I have to say that it didn’t disappoint. The songs were all really well written and well sung, but not only was it just amusing to see everyone singing and dancing, but the episode really moved some serious plot threads along well. Given this episode and Dr. Horrible, maybe Joss should give up on TV and focus on musicals for a living. I hated to see the cracks in Xander and Anya’s relationship, but they are moving pretty quick, and despite the fact that Anya is technically over 1,000, in her new form they are both fairly young to be getting married. And it seemed like only a matter of time before the gang found out that Buffy was in Heaven, and that Tara would discover Willow was messing around with her mind, but it is truly remarkable how so much could happen in what very easily could have been a simple throw-away episode.

As for Buffy and Spike, the second they hooked up I found myself angry. Actually angry, which is a weird emotion to have over two fictional characters getting together, but I couldn’t help it. Their history alone seems destined to keep them apart, not to mention their exes. If Angel hated Riley, how would he feel knowing that his true love is shagging Spike of all people/creatures? And how could Buffy reason to date a guy who dated Drusilla and Harmony? I understand that on some twisted level Spike is the only one who gets Buffy, and that he provides her with a real need, but honestly, she should have some better judgment here. I think I’ve heard that there’s a porn spoof of this show called Buffy the Vampire Layer, and at this point it’s almost not even a parody, as Buffy has slept with just as many vampires as she has humans. For a Vampire Slayer (emphasis on that “S”), you’d think that would be somewhat of a no-no. One exception might be bad enough, but two? Really?

So far the show has maintained it’s momentum from Season Five, and despite the weird range of emotions it puts me through, I am still hooked, as evidenced by my blinding speed going through as many episodes as possible. I might slow down for a bit to catch up on some other DVDs I’ve been meaning to get too, and I’m afraid I might have hit the downturn that Raf mentioned with episode 11, “Gone,” which featured an invisible Buffy. Cough.

Eh, I talk big, but I’ll be back to Buffy before I know it…

Well, I got to that “big thing” that happens at the end of season five, and I can honestly say that I did NOT see it coming. At all. But I’ll save that for the end.

First off, I have to say that this show has handled big reveals about its characters really well before, but I was still blown away when the Watcher’s Council told Buffy that Glory is a god. Sure it was totally out of left field, but it was the way they brought the Watchers back into the fold. With the way they made Buffy and her friends jump through all their hoops, I was thinking that they were bluffing on their great intel. But the way Buffy politely informed Quentin that the Council needed her just as much as she needed them, if not more, which led to him responding that Glory was a god, and all Buffy could muster was an “Oh,” all made for one of the best endings to a non-finale TV episode I’ve seen in a long time.

The further reveal that Ben and Glory shared a body was also done really well, even though at first I thought the way that Dawn conveniently forgot about witnessing the transformation was a cop out, the writers were eventually able to go back and explain it later.

But speaking of things that weren’t explained, what happened to all those people on the train in “Crush?” Buffy decided it was just vampires, but was it really? The way the camera panned up to that doll in the luggage compartment made me think there was a killer Chucky-wannabe on the loose. Was I over-thinking that? She never did find the vampires responsible, if it was vampires…

On to the death of Joyce. For a show about vampires and demons, the portrayal of death in “The Body” and “Forever” was amazingly realistic, and extremely haunting. The lack of music in “The Body” was a nice touch, but it was all of the little things that made it really great, from Buffy pulling down Joyce’s skirt to Willow’s stressing about which sweater to wear. It was also important that Angel came back – the episodes would have felt like they were missing something had he not paid his respects. All of the drama and sadness felt incredibly real, and I found myself getting pretty choked up watching these episodes. And keep in mind I watch these on my commute, so I’m sure a lot of subway riders were wondering what the hell was wrong with me. But dammit, it was really sad stuff.

Meanwhile, Dawn learns that she’s the Key, which makes her grieving process that much harder. And as Glory systematically goes through the Scooby gang, Buffy is scared that she won’t be able to protect Dawn, and she worries that losing her sister right after losing her mom would just be too much to take. Her inner journey, where she learns that death is her gift, failed to make much sense at first, but again, the writer’s were able to pay that off, and in a really big way.

I knew that the season was going to end with something big, and I was thinking that it might end with Dawn tragically dying (perhaps at the hand of Giles or Xander or someone within the group who was wiling to sacrifice her to save the world), or with Glory escaping, or worse yet, with all of the evil dimensions coming in to take over our world. But man, I was shocked when Buffy went all kamikaze on that dimensional rift. It made perfect sense, especially with everything that happened when Willow went into Buffy’s mind. There was absolutely no way that Buffy was going to let Dawn get hurt, and in hindsight I guess I should have seen the pieces coming together, but I’m glad I was surprised.

But what were people’s reactions when that episode first aired? Were fans crying foul? Did they know that production on Season Six was well under way, so it was kind of shrugged off? I’m just curious. I mean, it stands to reason that most people would assume that Buffy wasn’t going to stay dead, but I’m just wondering how the hardcore fans took it. I’m assuming that Buffy will find her way back, seeing as how there are two more seasons to go, but I’m looking forward to finding out how she cheats death. Again.

But back to “The Gift,” I was really excited to see Xander pop the question to Anya. I kind of saw that one coming, but they’re a great couple, and I was pretty worried when the bricks and stuff started to fall on her that the newly betrothed ex-demon was going to bite it, but fortunately she was spared. I also wasn’t that surprised by Giles killing Ben, as Tara foreshadowed that with her crazy talk. But it was a nice moment for Giles, doing something horrible yet completely necessary, and something he knows he has to do because Buffy wouldn’t and shouldn’t have to end a human life. My only complaint with the episode was that Doc ended up playing a pretty pivotal role, but that we never got to learn much about him or his story. It’s a minor quibble (I always have at least one, right?), but I just felt like his character could have been more fleshed out.

Overall, I really loved this season, and the show more than made up for the slight dip in quality in Season Four. (Slight – it was still great, just not as super amazing as Three and Five.) They absolutely tortured Buffy this year, but it made for some really fantastic episodes. And they finally redeemed Spike and made him an important part of the team. About time!

Oh, and I forgot to mention this in my round-up of the first half of Season Five: It might be about time for Buffy and the gang to get cell phones. I mean, they’re at about the time that everyone was getting them, right? If Buffy had one, she might have been able to get a hold of Riley before his helicopter took off. Just saying…

Buffy’s fourth season ended with hands down the weirdest non-Sopranos dream episode ever. And how does this season begin? With Buffy doing battle with the most infamous vampire of them all, Dracula. It made for a great season premiere, skipping the usual angst of a new beginning, and keeping things pretty funny. Of course, it did also set up Buffy asking Giles to become her Watcher again, Riley’s continued insecurity about Buffy’s love of vampires, and the introduction of Buffy’s lovable little scamp of a younger sister, Dawn.

Wait – what? Buffy has a sister? My first thought was that this would be a pretty lame move by a very cool show, to say that Buffy always had an off-camera sister who was suspiciously never mentioned and had been living with her dad or something but who was now coming to live with them. Of course, that turned out to not be the case, and my next impulse was that she had been wished into the family, à la Jonathan in the “Superstar” episode. But that also felt a little hackneyed, since it had already been done. Then, the way “Real Me” ended, with Dawn saying in her journal that Buffy would be surprised when she found out that she wasn’t *just* her little sister, I was totally convinced that Dawn was evil, making me 0 for 3. (I’m still not sure if that was a deliberate red herring or a goof on the writers’ part.) But after all those false leads, I have to say that the reveal that Dawn was a Key, who didn’t know that she wasn’t a real girl, was really well handled. As an aside, when Buffy cast the spell that revealed that something with Dawn wasn’t on the up and up, did I see Dawn’s shadow turn into a monster in one quick shot, like how Anakin’s shadow turned into Darth Vader really quickly in Episode II?

This half-season has also seen some more great Xander moments, which I’m always happy to see.  (What can I say, I see a little bit of myself in his well-intentioned goofball.) The episode where he got split in two had a cheesy feel when it seemed that one of the Xanders was an imposter, but by exploring both sides of Xander, it ended up giving a great insight into his character. And by the way, I love Anya. She is consistently funny and is a great match for Xander. I loved the way their relationship was cemented in “Into the Woods,” and the troll that Anya and Willow accidentally conjured was a great way of resolving the conflict that had been building between the two gals. As a full-on cast member, Anya feels right at home.

Though I can’t understand why they haven’t done the same for Tara. She has become an integral part of the Scooby gang, and the “Family” episode did a great job of showing how much everyone values her, even if they wish they knew her better. But whenever she’s not in an episode, it feels like something is missing, and that’s a shame. Meanwhile, Spike continues to feel underused, which is also frustrating, since he’s such a great character. Don’t get me wrong, he’s had some great moments, like when he told Buffy the tales of how he had killed two prior Slayers. But watching him just make googly eyes at Buffy just feels like he’s not living up to his full potential. Though he did serve a purpose by driving the final wedge between Buffy and Riley.

I was digging Riley last season, but his whining about not being useful was beginning to get a little grating. But the show did a great job at making this break-up feel very natural and normal, and it is hard to blame just one party. Riley was needy, sure, but Buffy was keeping him at arms length, not including him on the whole Dawn situation, for example, or by really leaning on him when Joyce was sick. It’s too bad that Buffy had to have her heart broken again, but it does stand to reason that a Slayer might have a hard time hanging on to boyfriends.

But back to Joyce. I for one thought that she was going to meet her end last year when Faith paid her a visit, but thankfully Buffy got there in time. Watching Joyce deteriorate and get healthier has been an emotional ride for Buffy, of course, but the fact that she is sharing it with her sister who isn’t really her sister just adds a whole extra level to the drama. I’m not totally sure about the nature of Joyce’s disease; was it biological or supernatural? When she was sick she was able to see that Dawn was not really her child, just as the other “crazy” people could see. But there was no hope for the other loonies, whereas Joyce seems to have been cured by her surgery. Maybe her tumor was normal,  it just happened to have a paranormal side-effect?

And of course, there are still a lot of questions about the non-Voldemort evil who-cannot-be-named, Glory. Who is she? Why is she so hot? What does she want the Key for? And why is her buddy Ben working as a male nurse? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to be apprenticing as a locksmith or something? I have no idea where this story is going, and I can’t wait to see how it ties into the “big thing” that happens at the end of the year that Faith hinted about so long ago.  So far this season has been really strong, and has largely skipped the silly monster-of-the-week premises that have brought down episodes in the past.  Hopefully they show will be able to keep up this momentum.

Four seasons down, three left to go with my newest favorite show. The second half of Buffy’s fourth season continued down the same road as the first part of the year, with some downright ridiculous plot points alongside a handful of really amazing episodes. Allow me to elaborate.

Episodes like “A New Man,” “Superstar,” and “Where the Wild Things Are” all have premises that are pretty out there. There’s another haunted house, except this time it’s possessed by sexually repressed teens? Come on. Even still, I have to admit that even though these stories are pretty outlandish, they’re still always entertaining. The way they inserted Jonathan into the credits of “Superstar” was a nice touch to the episode, and it added to the surreality of this minor and meek character instantly becoming the coolest man alive. And seeing Giles as a demon couldn’t help but make me laugh.

The developments with The Initiative and the reveal that Professor Walsh had sinister motives weren’t all that surprising, because if Hollywood has taught us anything, it’s that when the government is interested in studying something dangerous, it’s really because they also want to turn it into a weapon. The introduction of Adam was pretty cool, and his brute strength coupled with his smarts made him a really formidable foe for Buffy. Their final battle with Buffy was pretty cool, even though the show jumped on the Matrix popularity train by doing some hokey bullet-time effects. Though to be fair, Keanu never turned bullets into doves. Unfortunately, Adam felt pretty under used during the latter half of the season, as there was a lot of other stuff going on at the same time while he was on the lam.

Like, for example, Faith coming out of her coma and making all kinds of mischief. The Scoobies’ reaction to her – pure fear – felt authentic, especially considering the rage she harbored against Buffy and her friends. The way she called out Buffy for moving on so quickly after Angel was a nice touch, and you just knew she was going to make a move on Riley. I was not expecting Faith to ever come around after her actions last season, but spending some time in Buffy’s body made her actually understand some things about right and wrong, even though she mocked those ideals at the beginning.

The return of Oz also made for some poignant moments. Oz was Willow’s first love, but the romantic tension between her and Tara was coming to a head at the same time, and of course the fact that Oz transforms into a werewolf when he’s upset made for one complicated love triangle. Willow’s discovery of her sexuality was handled tastefully, though I don’t understand why the WB refused to show any girl-on-girl kissing. Was Alyson Hannigan shy about it? Sarah Michelle could have showed her what she picked up on the set of Cruel Intentions, after all. Either way, the fact that Willow was afraid to talk to her friends about what she was going through was just another example of how the circle of friends had grown apart this year.

That theme was played up in “The Yoko Factor,” with Spike playing on the gang’s insecurities about each other to get in good with Adam. Which was good for ole Spike, since he also wasn’t given much to do for most of the year. I like having him around and all, but since he became an official cast member, it seemed like the writers have been struggling to figure out what to do with him. He was leaning towards helping out the gang when he discovered the only violence he could inflict was on demons, but then out of the blue he decided that he hated the Slayer and company again, before jumping back on the Buffy bandwagon at the tail end of the fight at The Initiative. It feels to me like he should either be an ally or a nemesis, but not keep going back and forth.

Now on to the season finale, “Restless.” If I had to sum up my reaction to this episode in three letters, they would definitely be WTF. I get that when the Scoobies invoked the power of Slayers past, they upset the First Slayer, who is now seeking revenge on them, but there’s clearly a lot more going on in this episode. I’ve been told that it’s chock full of foreshadowing, but I have no idea of what. I can venture a guess that the First Slayer will continue to stalk the group, and part of me wonders if she’ll succeed in killing someone. The secret that Willow doesn’t want people to find out could be that she’s gay, but everyone she cares about already knows, so I’m not sure about that. There was a lot of desert imagery, maybe the group will be deserted in some way? Buffy referred to Xander as her big brother, and that made me think of Buffy and Faith talking about a little sister in one of Faith’s coma dreams earlier this season. Does it turn out that everyone is all related? (I still have no idea about what the Little Miss Muffet thing was from the Season Three finale, by the way – did I miss something?) Anya mentioned that she’s thinking of getting back into vengeance – might she go back to her demonic ways? Will Joyce move into a wall and try to seduce Xander? And will the guy with the cheese be the main villain in Season Six? I don’t know, but after watching this episode it occurred to me that I might have to re-watch this whole series at some point down the road to fully appreciate all of the show’s glimpses into it’s own future.

Overall, I enjoyed this season when it was delivering it’s real knockout episodes, but on the whole it felt slightly weaker than last season. I think that’s largely due to the fact that all of the stuff with Angel and Faith made for some great dramatic moments, and the Riley and Initiative arcs just didn’t pack the same punch. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still hooked on Buffy and I am happy with the fact that I think this season has delivered some of the funniest lines of the show’s run so far. Sophomore year, here I come…