Finished
Buffy season 7 again. Mmm... I have to admit I'm not big on the last two seasons these days, but honestly I preferred 6 this time. For all that's talked about how depressing 6 is, 7 is even more so, at least once the First arc kicks off. It's all so bleak and miserable, and even the warmth that normally comes from these characters is increasingly conspicuous by its absence. After her depression in season 6, we get happy quippy Buffy back... for about 6 episodes, and soon she's depressed and even icier than ever. Xander and Anya are through, I was never into the Buffy/Spike thing, Tara's dead, and the Willow/Kennedy thing is just... who GAF. Kennedy seems to be there solely to appease the gay community who were pissed off by the end of season 6 by giving Willow another girlfriend, but the character's empty and the relationship contrived, rushed and utterly unappealing. It's singularly depressing that after the lovely relationships she had with Oz and Tara, this is who Willow's with at the end of the show. It's really only in a couple of the platonic friendships that we get any warmth, with Willow and Xander being as reliable for that as ever, and I really like the warm interaction we get between Xander and Dawn this season too. (I particularly like how clingy she is with him after he gets back from the hospital after losing an eye, sitting on the arm of his chair and holding his arm even as Buffy's coming up with her next plan to get them all killed). Dawn gets a lot of stick, but her character matures a hell of a lot in season 7, and I suspect it's only the lack of material she gets in the second half that stops people noticing that.
Caleb is a menacing villain but arguably introduced far too late, with the First being too nebulous and the Bringers too faceless to really make an impact. Principal Wood is an okay character and actor, but seems really superfluous to requirements in a season that's so overloaded with new characters already that many of the regulars are being neglected, so I could have lived without him.
Again, it's not bad exactly... but it's not that good either. The first 5 seasons are by far the best, but I actually even like 6 more than this on this occasion...
