Thank you for this. Am also one of the few people online who loved these seasons. I'm odd, I know this, I prefer the later seasons to the early ones at the moment, when most people I know are the opposite. To me BTVS and ATS were better when they aged a bit. Hee.
I think what I loved most about them may be what others hated. The experiments with narrative style, the lack of structure, the fact that the monsters in some cases were deliberately shown to be less romanticized or horrendous, yet were in another sense more disturbing. For me the last three seasons were like an adult looking at the first three without the child's romantic/melodramatic vision. The peel away.
Season 7 is a fascinating season. It won't leave my mind. I keep flipping it over and keep seeing new angles. New views. I think I like that it wasn't too tightly written, that the writers left things unanswered in places, while were didactic in others...
There's a great post by manwitch on ATPO board regarding season 7, why it worked for him and didn't. And why the series had to have seven seasons and could not have stopped at five. And was always meant to have seven. He says there's a pararelle to the 7 chakras, and that it has more to do with Eastern than Western philosophy. Buffy is moving past binary oppositions. That the First Evil and Caleb and Giles and Wood and Watcher's Council represent binary oppositions. The patriarchial structure we currently live within. This is good on one side and this is evil on the other. And Buffy tries to go by that - following Wood and Giles, until she breaks with them finally in Empty Places and is comforted by Spike, who is neither evil nor good but both. She gets strength from him and meets the Guardian who gives her the Scythe and tells her to share. In the end, Spike and Buffy close the hellmouth together - he dissovles, becoming neither good nor evil and Buffy moves upward, surrounded by past friends and past enemies (Faith, Wood, Andrew), neither good nor evil. Interesting concept. And tracks through Whedon's work. I see a few flaws in the idea, and can see how someone can interpret it the opposite way, but then that's why I love those latter seasons, you can interpret them more than one way.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-02-05 03:41 am (UTC)I think what I loved most about them may be what others hated. The experiments with narrative style, the lack of structure, the fact that the monsters in some cases were deliberately shown to be less romanticized or horrendous, yet were in another sense more disturbing.
For me the last three seasons were like an adult looking at the first three without the child's romantic/melodramatic vision. The peel away.
Season 7 is a fascinating season. It won't leave my mind. I keep flipping it over and keep seeing new angles. New views. I think I like that it wasn't too tightly written, that the writers left things unanswered in places, while were didactic in others...
There's a great post by manwitch on ATPO board regarding season 7, why it worked for him and didn't. And why the series had to have seven seasons and could not have stopped at five. And was always meant to have seven. He says there's a pararelle to the 7 chakras, and that it has more to do with Eastern than Western philosophy. Buffy is moving past binary oppositions. That the First Evil and Caleb and Giles and Wood and Watcher's Council represent binary oppositions. The patriarchial structure we currently live within.
This is good on one side and this is evil on the other. And Buffy tries to go by that - following Wood and Giles, until she breaks with them finally in Empty Places and is comforted by Spike, who is neither evil nor good but both. She gets strength from him and meets the Guardian who gives her the Scythe and tells her to share. In the end, Spike and Buffy close the hellmouth together - he dissovles, becoming neither good nor evil and Buffy moves upward, surrounded by past friends and past enemies (Faith, Wood, Andrew), neither good nor evil. Interesting concept. And tracks through Whedon's work. I see a few flaws in the idea, and can see how someone can interpret it the opposite way, but then that's why I love those latter seasons, you can interpret them more than one way.