Should I buy Angel Season 1? (1 Viewer)

[Jaime_Weinman]

Myself, I prefer the story arc-driven seasons to the monster-of-the-week ones. And IMO, Season 5 is arguably the best full season of Buffy after the 3rd one. The reason you don't see Buffy at school or in Sunnydale that much was because the theme of that season was "family".

, but also partly because it pushed the show into family-drama storylines and away from social satire and horror), and b) I think the attempt to give the whole season a "theme" creates a sameness to the episodes. I want variety in the stories that they tell, and instead I got Buffy/Dawn, over and over and over and over.

There were some great eps in season 5, like "I Was Meant To Love You" (a great combination of fantasy, comedy and metaphor). But overall I think it told a very uninteresting story. And as for the humor, my problem was (again) that it was all in "comic relief" scenes, whereas the show used to be serious and funny at the same time. (Like the hyena kids eating the principal: That was scary and funny and satirical.)

I won't argue arc vs. storyline anymore, except to say that I think there were many things in seasons 5-7 that were spread over a bunch of episodes but would have been better handled in a single episode or even a small group of episodes. I should also add that I don't mind an overall storyline or a kickass season finale (I like "Becoming" and "Graduation Day" as much as anybody, though I think "The Gift" sucks), as long as the individual episodes within the arc make sense on their own as self-contained adventures. I think the first goal of a TV show should be to make interesting episodes with good stories every week; then you worry about the arc. What bothers me about Buffy in the last few years is that too many episodes just sort of bleed into the next one, with no satisfying sense of being entities in themselves. You can enjoy "Becoming" without knowing too much about what's come before it.

 

[David Williams]

Jaime, I would take exception with your S5 flaw because Yes, Dawn is not a 'real' person in the sense that she was created from Buffy, but the memories of Dawn's existence have been inserted into the lifetime of Buffy's memory... it would be no different than if Buffy had had a real sister.

 

[Jaime_Weinman]

Re Dawn:

Yes, Buffy remembers her. But those memories are fake, and quite early in the season Buffy learned they were fake. She shouldn't be doing anything for the sake of memories that she knows to be false. When Tara found out that Willow had erased her memory, the show didn't expect her to say that it didn't matter; so it should have mattered that Buffy's memories of Dawn were the result of a colossal mind-rape. And in fact "The Gift" tried to acknowledge this by having Buffy say that she wasn't protecting Dawn for the fake memories, but because "She's me, the monks made her out of me," etc. Essentially establishing Dawn as her de facto daughter and Buffy as the single-mom she's been ever since.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

IMO the self-contained eps in season 5 can't compare to the best from seasons 1-4. ("The Replacement," as a Xander episode, doesn't compare to "The Pack" or "The Zeppo.")

 

[Robert Ringwald]

I think you have to consider that this isn't your life. You'd react differently in the situation with Dawn, but I wouldn't.

If I found out tomorrow, that my best friend wasn't as real as I thought, and that all the memories that were created were fake, I wouldn't be able to kill her. Think of it from Dawn's perspective. It's not like she's a hologram, she's real now. Buffy said it best.

"It doesn't matter how you got here..."

Dawn may not have been born for real, but she's Buffy's blood sister now, and all of the feelings of love Buffy's felt for the last year were at least real.

Dawn's past history was fake. Not Dawn herself. Dawn from the season 5 - present timeline is real. and Buffy felt that.