From: tv.zap2it.com/shows/featu...html?25999
[quote:bc67407d6a][b:bc67407d6a][i:bc67407d6a]Quote:[/i:bc67407d6a][/b:bc67407d6a]
EMAIL THIS STORY
Buffy's Annus Horribilis
Mon, May 20, 2002 12:52 PM PDT
by Kate O'Hare
We all have bad years, and being a Slayer certainly hasn't insulated Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) from woe. She lost her mom, her dad's both absent and a deadbeat, and she had to die to save the world.
That was just the beginning.
On Tuesday, May 21, at 8 p.m. ET, UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" ends it sixth season -- and its first on its new network -- with a two-hour finale, closing out a year that has seen deep divisions among both Buffy's Scooby Gang and the show's fans.
Resurrected from the dead in the season premiere, Buffy spent most of the year struggling with the mundane details of life -- paying bills, social workers, etc. -- and an overwhelming sense of ennui (she was not yanked out of hell, as her pals assumed, but heaven).
At the end of last November's musical episode, "Once More With Feeling" -- the standout hour of the season -- she decided to jump-start her stalled emotions by throwing herself into a violently passionate affair with former foe and reluctant ally Spike (James Marsters), a vampire prevented from killing by a behavior-modifying microchip in his brain.
The results of this decision have been painful emotionally and physically, driving Buffy apart from her friends and family -- not that things were going any better for them either.
Wiccan lovers Willow and Tara (Alyson Hannigan, Amber Benson) broke up over Willow's addiction to the power of magic, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) left ex-demon fiancee Anya (Emma Caulfield) at the altar, and neglected little-sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) turned to kleptomania and screaming fits to get noticed.
There were funny moments -- often provided by this year's villains, the Troika, three science-fiction-obsessed nerds (Adam Busch, Tom Lenk, Danny Strong) who proved more deadly than they looked -- but there was a distinct lack of happy.
With series creator Joss Whedon not as involved in day-to-day production as in previous seasons -- having "Buffy" spinoffs and a FOX pilot, "Firefly," to keep him busy -- his fellow executive producer, Marti Noxon, has borne the brunt of criticism.
"I don't take that ridiculously personally," Noxon says, "mostly because I didn't design the shape of the season alone. People are always unhappy. I have not had a season in the last four where you didn't have half the people complaining, so it doesn't feel unique to me."
"This year, I think the Spike and Buffy thing has raised more divided opinion."
This relationship -- played out with fairly graphic sex scenes and very dark undertones -- apparently has raised the ire of those who think Buffy should hold out for a reunion with her great love, vampire-with-a-soul Angel (David Boreanaz), who's off on his own spinoff series on The WB Network (don't hold your breath for this one).
It has also created a sizable cadre of fans who think a few years of microchip-induced harmlessness have reformed platinum-haired bad boy Spike, whose capacity for such human emotions as love and compassion is still counterbalanced by his lack of a soul and resultant amoral ruthlessness.
"I understand why people feel the way they do about Spike," Noxon says. "I understand why they feel that a couple of years of changed behavior is enough to warrant complete trust, but I don't share that opinion. It's OK that there's a difference of opinion."
"I don't feel like it's a failure to communicate. We've made our case. Certain people get it and understand it, and other people are going to be Spike-shippers (a term for those in favor of the Spike-Buffy relationship) no matter what. That's in no small part due to the charisma of the actor."
"It's hard to hate him, but I think I feel like we've made a pretty good case for the fact that they probably shouldn't ride off into the sunset together, at least not the way things are now."
"In general, there's controversy, and people have their feelings. I definitely don't take it personally. If people out there are like, 'Oh, the Marti Noxon season sucks,' I laugh, because Joss is just as involved in story-breaking as he's ever been."
Despite what does or does not happen to Spike at season's end, Marsters is contracted to return next year "in one form or another," Noxon says. "It's going to be a good surprise, I think. It's going to be something great."
Noxon does admit that the tone of the season has been dark, with brief breaks such as "Tabula Rasa," a semicomic tale in which the characters temporarily lost their memories.
"Certainly the story line with Buffy has been pretty overwrought," Noxon says. "She came back from the dead, etc. Given that, I think we've found as many opportunities for fun as we could, like being able to do stuff like the memory-loss episode, where you can still make your point, but do it in a lighter way."
"But again, I will say, we hear this every year, 'This year seems very dark. There's not as much fun.' And oh, boy, things are going to get even funnier!"
Another major change this season was the lack of a major villain, or, in "Buffy" parlance, a "Big Bad." This fell instead to the very human Troika, who could neither be dismissed as supernaturally evil nor dispatched with stake or crossbow.
"I do think people find it difficult," Noxon says, "because there's not as clearly a Big Bad. The bad is a little more banal, which sometimes leads to really big bad. Sometimes evil is banal. I hope that people will see that they are the Big Bad in their own way."
"Sometimes it doesn't come from being all arch and villainy; sometimes it comes from not knowing what you're doing. It's the teen-age boys who decided to be badasses for fun, and it got out of control."
As for those slagging the show, Noxon says, "I wish everybody in the whole world loved 'Buffy' all the time, but I hope that the people who hate it keep watching."
[/quote:bc67407d6a]
Editted to add: I wonder if her defensive tone isn't due to Joss' latest interviews where he damns the season with faint praise: "I think we made some great eps." or "But yeah, everything I saw that I could have made better or had a different vision for, I go, 'Aaaarrgh!' ". Interestingly he never mentions Marti for good or bad.
