Oh... like Buffy's Mum dying being followed by Buffy's death and her being brought back from the dead wrong so that she and Spike become S&M lovers, while Dawn, feeling traumatized and left out, takes up shoplifting. Willow gets addicted to black magic and Anya and Zander break up when he stands her up at the wedding while he vacillates. For much of the season the only ones having a good time seemed to be Willow and Tara who even had scenes smooching in bed (amazing in the new 50s-style America!)... until Tara too was killed in a way that kinda kicked viewers in the stomach.
I think it was Joss trying to keep his viewers on their toes by breaking all the comfort rules. (Well we can relax, he'll never do this... oops... he killed that major character off... and just ruined that one's life.) You know the old problems with TV series -- that they get locked in an insulated existence free from character-development, and nothing really bad can happen to them because they are the core of the show. Everything tends to get resolved each episode so that writers can start from the same place. I think Joss wanted to throw out the ground rules.
Maybe he was worried that the comedy was lightening it up too much, and that bad things happened to all those around them but inexplicably hardly touched the scoobies. On a hellmouth that seemed a little far-fetched. But there was some great comedy last season. "Gone", the episode where Buffy is accidentally made invisible is hilarious.
(If you ever want to view some of the old eps let me know.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2003-02-11 12:48 pm (UTC)Oh... like Buffy's Mum dying being followed by Buffy's death and her being brought back from the dead wrong so that she and Spike become S&M lovers, while Dawn, feeling traumatized and left out, takes up shoplifting. Willow gets addicted to black magic and Anya and Zander break up when he stands her up at the wedding while he vacillates. For much of the season the only ones having a good time seemed to be Willow and Tara who even had scenes smooching in bed (amazing in the new 50s-style America!)... until Tara too was killed in a way that kinda kicked viewers in the stomach.
I think it was Joss trying to keep his viewers on their toes by breaking all the comfort rules. (Well we can relax, he'll never do this... oops... he killed that major character off... and just ruined that one's life.) You know the old problems with TV series -- that they get locked in an insulated existence free from character-development, and nothing really bad can happen to them because they are the core of the show. Everything tends to get resolved each episode so that writers can start from the same place. I think Joss wanted to throw out the ground rules.
Maybe he was worried that the comedy was lightening it up too much, and that bad things happened to all those around them but inexplicably hardly touched the scoobies. On a hellmouth that seemed a little far-fetched. But there was some great comedy last season. "Gone", the episode where Buffy is accidentally made invisible is hilarious.
(If you ever want to view some of the old eps let me know.)