One poll or another

[beer_good_foamy]

Here's a rewatch-inspired poll, presented with no preamble.

[Poll #1854770]

Comments

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

As the years have gone by, I have wished more and more frequently that BtVS ended at The Gift. Parts of that finale were tacked on, but there were a lot of good moments. It ended with a tragedy, but it had the most important element of all-- hope. Real hope that life would continue. Dawn would mature and live the life she wanted, perhaps even parts of that life would have been what Buffy wanted for herself and never got to enjoy. Spike would mourn, but he would continue forward. Willow and Tara's relationship would be all the stronger for what they'd been through. Xander and Anya would have gotten married and been weird together into happy, awkward old age. Giles would have gone back to England and would have found new purpose somewhere. Instead, Season Six happened, and everyone started to make me hate them. Hope is what Season Six and Seven lacked, and without hope, there's no reason to fight. Hope is probably why Angel's finale worked better than "Chosen" for me as well. ... Sorry, I've rambled. I got caught up in too many feelings.

[effulgentgirl.livejournal.com]

. Hope is what Season Six and Seven lacked, and without hope, there's no reason to fight. Hope is probably why Angel's finale worked better than "Chosen" for me as well. ...

Really? That's interesting. I would have said that Chosen is much more "hopeful" than Not Fade Away.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Not Fade Away was more hopeful to me because it had the message of "Even if we die in this battle, somebody out there is going to carry on. We're going to give it everything we have. Let's go to work." However (and this may be because I am extremely cynical), Chosen's ending left me extremely disheartened. It's like, "Oh, hey, a bunch of people just died unnecessarily, and we've painted roving targets for supernatural evil on hundreds of girls and women worldwide that will have no idea what's happening! At least Buffy has a chance to be 'normal' and gets to smile. Let's talk about the mall!" It was really the execution of Chosen that failed for me on multiple levels. On one level, I know that the scene is supposed to be hopeful (and that the mall talk is not supposed to be as glib as it came across), but due to the way lines were said, the direction taken with the final scene, and other elements of the episode (including the faux-powerment of all the Potentials), I was left feeling rather cold by the whole affair. These are my interpretations and reactions, of course.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I get that; while I do think "Chosen" is a far more hopeful ending - both for the survivors and for the story at large - s7 is the second weakest season of the show for me, and there are a lot of ways it could have been done better. And yes, I see that in "Not Fade Away" too. I guess my big problem with Buffy ending after s5 would be that... as I said somewhere else, I can picture Quentin Travers hearing of Buffy's death and muttering "Well, it certainly took her long enough. Next, please!" In the end, the events in Buffy wouldn't change the story at large, she'd be just another soldier drafted and sacrificed in a war she had no control over.

But yeah, as much as I love s6, there are times when I want to just hug the characters and tell them "You know, you could have just left her in the ground and moved on."

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

I remember when the spoilers were leaked for The Gift even before UPN started advertising that BtVS was moving to their channel and spoiled a lot of people, some fans were like, "How can the show continue without Buffy? Can there be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Buffy herself?" My thought was yes! That thought, of course, did not come from someone who worked in television, but I thought it could be done. And now that you mention it, there's the plotline for a S6 without Buffy-- Giles realizes that things don't have to be the same, the cycle can be broken. Maybe he talks to the Scoobies, and they try to get to the next Slayer before the Watchers Council. Maybe they start out the season with the same selfishness of replacing/replicating Buffy but then as they get to know the new Slayer, they realize just how wrong they were for doing that. By the end of the season, it sinks in-- Buffy is never coming back, and they have to move on. This is when the reality of grief would hit, and it would be heartbreaking but it would be a glorious payoff. Now, I'm thinking about how awesome that would have been and how Season Six pissed on everything I loved (and the musical episode will never make it worth it).

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait, I just realized that the Slayer line didn't pass through Buffy anymore in S6. Buffy > Kendra > Faith > Next Slayer. Still, the Scoobies could have been proactive about the next Slayer if anything happened to Faith.