What is Wrong With Buffy Season 7?

The final season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is something of a controversial one. A lot of fans also dislike Season 6 even though it’s my favourite overall. But with Season 7, I feel there really is something wrong with it.

That doesn’t mean it does nothing right. In fact, it does so much right. From the set-pieces to the litany of callbacks to much, much earlier episodes, there’s plenty of fanservice to go around.

In the first half of the season alone, these are among the callbacks:

• The ultimate callback likely comes in Episode 2, where The First Evil shapeshifts into every Big Bad for each season of Buffy in reverse, before finally wearing Buffy’s skin. It’s a chilling teaser for the final season and the final Big Bad.
• There’s a reference to S1E3: The Witch when Dawn steals (and later shreds) Buffy’s cheerleader outfit.
• Harold Webster tells Buffy that Scott Hope, a short-term love interest from early in Season 3, thought she was gay (apparently he says that about all the girls who break up with him), and it later turns out that he was gay.
• Spike references Angel when he talks about how “he didn’t warn me” about what it would be like to have his soul back.
• One of the best callbacks is when Buffy and Xander are heatedly discussing what to do about Anya and Buffy brings up how she killed Angel to save the world, and how she had to make that decision alone, while everyone else just told her to “kick Angel’s ass”. Finally, Xander’s Lie from 5 seasons ago reaches Buffy’s ears when Willow says, “I never said that.”
• Some subconscious part of Anya must be permanently stuck back in Season 6, Episode 7: Once More With Feeling, as she ends up back here when she is stabbed through the chest.
• Buffy references both Principal Snyder (Seasons 2-3) and Principal Flutey (first half of Season 1) when talking to or about Principal Wood.
• In a rather unique example, Xander references Oz in his “extraordinary” speech to Dawn and Dawn smiles nostalgically, clearly reminiscing about some interaction with Oz that never happened.

These are characters with history. There is so much weight to them and this world. It’s what makes Season 7 feel so lived in, mature, and nostalgic. It’s also what makes it feel so final. The atmosphere is perfect.

So, what went wrong? Well…it’s rather hard to define. There are only a few things that are outright bad, but what stings the most is wasted potential. It’s good, but it’s not a great season of Buffy.

The Lie

Xander’s choice to not pass on Willow’s message to Buffy in Becoming Part 2 and instead lie about what she said causes several knock-on effects into early season 3, and it is never addressed again. Until now.

Willow finally gets to say, “I never said that,” to both Xander and Buffy with a rightfully angry expression on her face. And then it is never addressed again.

This could have been a great source of conflict later on in Season 7. Xander says he “is the one who sees” because no one is ever looking at him, but that doesn’t mean he uses all of his power for good. He lumps Dawn in with him in the same category, but Dawn makes less selfish and self-interested decisions with that “power”, I think.

Xander does make the right decision sometimes, but in the earlier seasons, he so often holds mistakes or decisions over other people’s heads. He isn’t the paragon he describes himself as.

Had Buffy taken umbrage at being told 5 years later that Xander was the reason why Willow and Buffy drifted away from each other in early season 3, she might actually have started looking at him. But perhaps not in the way he was hoping.

Dawn is kept on the sidelines

This is a symptom rather than a cause of what’s wrong with Season 7, but Dawn is kept mostly on the sidelines except in Episode 12: Chosen, which is a great Dawn episode…but there’s only one of them.

Episode 6: Him is hardly a Dawn episode and does her no favors. She is under a spell for the vast majority of it, and her worst aspects are intentionally dialed up for no good reason. It makes her look unreasonable and immature, almost undoing all of the progress that had been made in Season 6 and early Season 7. Chosen sets Dawn back on the right path when she hands “her power” to Amanda without hesitation.

But…that’s pretty much all we get despite the teaser that Buffy wanted to “show the world” to Dawn at the end of Season 6 and her brief training in Episode 1 of Season 7. I don’t care about most of the Potentials; it’s Dawn I care about. And the show just doesn’t seem to feel the same way.

Andrew instead of Jonathan?

This is the gravesite of the season’s greatest wasted potential. Is Jonathan worth more to the series dead or alive? I’d argue he’s worth far more alive. He has been with us since nearly the beginning, making constant appearances in Season 2 and 3. He has always felt lonely but was never able to join the Scooby gang. It’s why he finds himself in the Supervillain gang in Season 6. At the tail end of that season, he finally regrets his choices and starts trying to make better ones.

That is, until he runs away with Andrew. But at the start of Season 7, he’s trying to make better choices again. Jonathan has a fantastic introspective moment in the best episode of Season 7 where he thinks about what everyone from high school is up to. Andrew tries to shut him down for the benefit of making what comes next easier, saying that not one of those people cares about him.

And Jonathan knows this. He knows it better than anyone, if you’ve seen Season 3, Episode 18: Earshot. And still, he says: “Well, I still care about them. That’s why I’m here.”

It’s been a long journey. A really, really long journey. Season 4, Episode 16: Superstar was Jonathan’s first incredibly misguided attempt at becoming a better person, and Buffy tells him exactly why it’s wrong. And Jonathan shows that he understands, and at heart he really does want to do the right thing. But in Season 6, he swings from Superstar to Supervillain. Jonathan has stopped trying to do the right thing because it’s too hard, so he gives up and tries to do the wrong thing so long as it satisfies his goals. That doesn’t work either, and he starts his journey of redemption.

Jonathan tries to do the right thing, even if it’s scary and dangerous. Even if no one cares about him. Because he cares about them, and that’s why he’s here.

And Andrew ends his life, and with it, any chance of Jonathan redeeming himself. Instead of Jonathan, a character who has so much history with all of the Scoobies, finally joining up with them, we get Andrew. Andrew is a character we don’t care much about until near the end of Season 7.

90% of the time, he is the purest incarnation of The Comic Relief. He exists for easy jokes and levity. Season 7, Episode 16: Storyteller is the other 10% of the time, but this is not worth what we’ve lost with Jonathan. Andrew intentionally tries to see things as black-and-white, as Good and Evil. He puts himself in the Evil category so he doesn’t need to feel guilt about what he’s done wrong. Andrew sees the world through a veil of childlike obliviousness that doesn’t rate as innocence.

Jonathan is a far more complicated and interesting character than Andrew. He could also have served as The Comic Relief, but not in the same exaggerated way as Andrew does. I think the season would have been better for it. There’s clearly far more chemistry in his interactions with the Scoobies as seen in Season 6, Episode 21: Two to Go.

I really wish Jonathan had finally become the man he always wanted to but could never figure out how to. It would have been so much more fitting for just Jonathan, or Jonathan and Andrew to be with the Scoobies, rather than just Andrew. He had so much history and so much potential.

Some of the speeches aren’t good

Season 7 really dials up the speeches, so it’s no surprise that not all of them land. Some of them are good, like Xander’s “extraordinary” speech to Dawn, even if it comes from a very complicated character. But some of them aren’t.

Season 7, Episode 10: Bring on the night

Buffy’s speech is for the benefit of characters we haven’t had the requisite time and experience to get to know and love yet.

“Stop joking around, this is serious!”

Giles at one point tells Xander to stop quipping because this is a serious situation and everybody is royally screwed because The First is the Biggest Bad they’ve ever faced.

This is the greatest misfire of the entire season.

Even Season 6, which has an infamous reputation for being dreary, depressing, and hopelessly bleak, has quips-a-plenty and brings the funny along in every episode. It culminates in the greatest scene of Season 6, where Buffy explains to Giles everything that has gone wrong since he’s left. And Giles bursts out laughing, which causes Buffy to burst out laughing, and it’s a big laugh-fest for a good minute.

It’s so human. Gallows humour is so core to Buffy, the show I love.

So when this Giles tells Xander to stop joking around and be serious…it’s completely ridiculous and feels like a big betrayal of what makes Buffy such a fantastic show in the first place.

Yeah, plenty of bad stuff happens in Buffy. Awful, horrible, heart-wrenching stuff. Stuff that reaches deep inside of you and tears into your soul. It’s rare that things go really right. When Buffy says she “lives in hell”, it’s hard to argue with that.

But do you know what makes what would otherwise be such a bleak show so much brighter? It’s her friends. When it gets really bad and we don’t know what to do, it’s gallows humour. And the one character who embodies this more than anyone else is Xander.

So when Giles says that to Xander, what he’s really doing is reaching out and tearing the heart out of Buffy, the show.

The Potentials

Introduced too late and killed off too early. They don’t get enough time to breathe. Kennedy is the only exception, and even she isn’t explored deeply enough. They're a focal point of the season and yet I can't think of much to say about them. They're more interesting thematically than they are as characters.

The…Not-Potentials?

When Dawn gets in trouble at Sunnydale High school early in the season, she helps out two students who are obvious expies to Xander and Willow, even if they’re obviously different in character. And then…we never see them again. Like the season had totally abandoned a Dawn-centric storyline for…what, the Potentials?

It’s possible the Xander/Willow expies would have been just as poorly developed as the Potentials. But two characters is far fewer for the series to focus on than all the Potentials, so I think it would have been better.

And we would have gotten a lot more Dawn-centric episodes that way, I think. It’s like the show really wanted to deliver on the promises of the season 6 finale…but found out they were getting cancelled and scrapped the whole thing. Real disappointing.

Season 7 is Too Engrossed in the Mythology

Buffy is a show filled to the brim with an endless parade of monsters of the week, Big Bads, magic, and prophecies. There are Slayers, Watchers, Demons, Witches, and Vampires. There’s a lot of mythology in Buffy. The mythology is both flavour and impetus. Impetus for characters to change and make choices.

Season 7 is so engrossed in the mythology of Buffy, but the show has never truly been about that. It’s been about the characters we love. It’s not about the Mayor’s Evil Plan to become a giant snake and take over Sunnydale; it’s about the Mayor’s graduation speech—“today is about change. Nothing will ever be the same. Nothing.” It’s not about Angelus’ insane plan to destroy the world; it’s about how you’re never ready for the big moments even if you see them coming, not really.

Buffy isn’t about demons; it’s about family.

But it’s Over Now.

Season 7 has some really high points. Spike’s reintroduction is particularly strong. The dark foreshadowing with Xander being “the one who sees” is good writing. The First’s reintroduction is chilling. Faith’s reappearance is just what the series needed.

And then there’s the most heartfelt conversation in Season 7, in the penultimate episode:

Buffy: “And the reason I’m holding it? It’s because of you. Because of the strength that you gave me last night. I don’t know how you felt about last night, but—”

Spike: “Terrified.”

Buffy: “…of what?”

Spike: “Last night was… … God, I’m such a jerk. I can’t do this. … It was the best night of my life. It may not mean that much to you, but—”

Buffy: “I just told you it did.”

Spike: “…yeah. I hear you say it, but… I’ve lived for sodding ever, Buffy. I’ve done everything. Done things with you I can’t spell. But, I’ve never…been close. To anyone. Least of all you. Until last night. All I did was hold you, watch you sleep. And it was the best night of my life. So yeah, I’m…terrified.”

Buffy: “You don’t have to be.”

Spike: “…were you there with me?”

Buffy: “I was.”

Spike: “What does that mean?”

Buffy: “I don’t know. Does it have to mean something?”

Spike: “No. Not right now. Let’s just leave it. We’ll go be heroes.”

Beautiful. Maybe my favourite conversation in the entire series.

Season 7 is so strong because it was built on so many things that came before. The First was introduced as early as season 2, being the one to torment Angel. The new Sunnydale High school is a clear attempt to subvert what came before, and it’s made most obvious with Principal Wood. Principal Wood is a reasonable, rational person who is quite friendly to students and Buffy. He also turns out to be out for revenge for his Slayer mother, who we unknowingly saw in Season 5 Episode 7.

He’s probably the most well-developed new character in Season 7.

Can you feel the history here? It’s clear that with Dawn going to high school, the showrunners felt like it was the perfect opportunity to revisit the high school setting with fresh eyes and all this lore they’ve built up over 120 episodes.

Nonetheless, it kind of misses the mark, anyway. Me complaining about them not leaning on the history of the show sounds almost comical in this light…but it’s true! It’s so weird to describe parts of the season that gel together so well, and then be confronted with lines like “stop joking around” from Giles. The season should have worked. But it just doesn’t.

Still, it’s a good season. There are stretches of episodes that are amazing, and fantastic moments all throughout. It still could have been so much more.

Either way, the show’s over, and it’s been over for 22 years. Even if it felt like cookie dough…y’know, still baking?

Watching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer with my parents is one of my earliest memories. Revisiting it as an adult has only made me more fond of it. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let this show go.