Your usual Season Seven bashing
May. 21st, 2003 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrew_jorgensenJust thought I'd repost this from ATPo, where ponygirl elicited some bile.
I too enjoyed "Chosen," but felt there was something missing: catharsis, or perhaps sublimity. So I'm largely in agreement with ponygirl. And I'm in agreement with Darby, who asks down the page somewhere, "Did this strike anyone else as a script from a very talented writer who barely had watched the shows this year?" I see the problems ponygirl points out as significant, but I don't see them as inherent to "Chosen" so much as arising out of what went before; it is as though "Chosen" is the cathartic, sublime finale that follows logically and satisfactorily on a season that was shown to some lucky alternate universe.
To take one example, Giles in "Chosen" was a joy -- "mystical strength of a doily"!; but he was definitely old skool Giles, not the enigmatic red herring that had been foisted on us all year. (I'll admit that the whole "Is Giles the First Evil?" question left me feeling manipulated. Was I really supposed to believe that a well-mannered Englishman with a touch of gallantry could live for weeks in a houseful of young women and never once open a door for someone?) I could accept Giles as he was in "Chosen" more readily had the writers not still been instilling doubts about his moral status up through "Touched," where he mysteriously slashes the Bringer's throat, and even unto "End of Days," where his attempts to convince Willow that she shouldn't fear her power can be seen as an attempt at corruption. Giles was so misused this season that to see him portrayed correctly seems like a continuity error.
Similarly, there must exist a season (either in an alternate universe or just in cjl's heart) in which Anya's decision to stand and fight is prepared for with suitable groundwork. "Bunnies. Floppy . . . hoppy . . . bunnies" is my choice for the most satisfying line of the episode; it would be more satisfying if she had been given similar lines in previous episodes.
Even the amulet would have come off better had we not just spent the last two episodes focused on the brand-spanking-new Glaive (errr . . . older-than-time-itself Scythe), which really didn't contribute all that much at all to the victory.
I realize that this might come across as criticism of season 7 -- that this might even seem to be bashing. But somewhere there is an alternate universe d'Herblay who is very happy with the season he got, and who has been as vocal in his enthusiasms as I have been reticent in my discontents.
I bet he's insufferable.
I too enjoyed "Chosen," but felt there was something missing: catharsis, or perhaps sublimity. So I'm largely in agreement with ponygirl. And I'm in agreement with Darby, who asks down the page somewhere, "Did this strike anyone else as a script from a very talented writer who barely had watched the shows this year?" I see the problems ponygirl points out as significant, but I don't see them as inherent to "Chosen" so much as arising out of what went before; it is as though "Chosen" is the cathartic, sublime finale that follows logically and satisfactorily on a season that was shown to some lucky alternate universe.
To take one example, Giles in "Chosen" was a joy -- "mystical strength of a doily"!; but he was definitely old skool Giles, not the enigmatic red herring that had been foisted on us all year. (I'll admit that the whole "Is Giles the First Evil?" question left me feeling manipulated. Was I really supposed to believe that a well-mannered Englishman with a touch of gallantry could live for weeks in a houseful of young women and never once open a door for someone?) I could accept Giles as he was in "Chosen" more readily had the writers not still been instilling doubts about his moral status up through "Touched," where he mysteriously slashes the Bringer's throat, and even unto "End of Days," where his attempts to convince Willow that she shouldn't fear her power can be seen as an attempt at corruption. Giles was so misused this season that to see him portrayed correctly seems like a continuity error.
Similarly, there must exist a season (either in an alternate universe or just in cjl's heart) in which Anya's decision to stand and fight is prepared for with suitable groundwork. "Bunnies. Floppy . . . hoppy . . . bunnies" is my choice for the most satisfying line of the episode; it would be more satisfying if she had been given similar lines in previous episodes.
Even the amulet would have come off better had we not just spent the last two episodes focused on the brand-spanking-new Glaive (errr . . . older-than-time-itself Scythe), which really didn't contribute all that much at all to the victory.
I realize that this might come across as criticism of season 7 -- that this might even seem to be bashing. But somewhere there is an alternate universe d'Herblay who is very happy with the season he got, and who has been as vocal in his enthusiasms as I have been reticent in my discontents.
I bet he's insufferable.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-21 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-21 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-21 04:15 pm (UTC)I only post to question your assertion that the Scythe (since I know nothing about weaponry the name does not trouble me, ha ha ha! [/troll voice]) didn't make a difference. It was the item by which all the potentials became slayers! That's not important? That made the episode (which overall I felt paled in comparison to "The Gift," to say nothing of "Becoming, Part 2") in my opinion! Go empowerment and stuff! :)
no subject
Date: 2003-05-22 02:43 pm (UTC)