More transitional Buffy that leads up to the almighty and powerful Season Six!!!
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Warning: before the review for season five begins, I’m feeling the need to tell you a little story on how my summer fling with Buffy came about. If you think such personal touches are bullshit, then feel free to skip ahead a few paragraphs. But know that by doing so you’re a bunch of heartless bitches!
So I got into Buffy almost by accident. A friend of mine was having a “Buffy Party” and I went mainly for the people, the booze, and the food (not necessarily in that order). I figured if I had to see some of that dumb show that I had purposely avoided all these years, the beer could always numb the pain. Well, we started off by playing the Buffy board game (which I kinda thought was lame) and as I am no stranger to geeky obsessions and even geekier people, I went along with it even though I had no idea who in the hell Xander was or what on earth a Hellmouth could be.
After a few adult beverages and the two-part series opener flashing before my eyes, I began to see that there was perhaps something to this little teenage comedy/drama with demons and vampires and things. I borrowed the first season DVD set from the host and started watching. After three episodes I was hooked. Soon after this I could be found sheepishly admitting to my friends that the reason they hadn’t seen me a week was because I’d been holed up in my room watching Buffy and the gang dust vamps and go through many apocalypses together (what exactly is the plural of “apocalypse” anyway?). Not too long after that I could be found proclaiming to anyone who would listen that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the best goddamn show that had ever been on TV. Period.
My friends still think I’m nuts.
Anyway, after watching the first season I devoured the next five in a matter of about a month, mainly borrowing the DVDs from obsessed friends and even actually purchasing the fifth season when no copy was available to borrow. So here I stand, a Buffy convert, nearly a year after the fact. I still haven’t seen the seventh season and the only one I own is still that fifth. Too bad it’s a fairly week season, even though it contains a few outstanding episodes and some events that are very important in leading up to what I believe is the best (season six).
And that’s what brings me to this review. I was chosen for season five because that’s the only one I have easy access to. Well, it’s time to dust it off (literally) and give my interpretation of what happened in the weird and wacky world of Buffy during that time:
HEARTLESS BITCHES START READING HERE!
Season Five continues in the transitional vein of the fourth, with a growing sense of doom and morbidity that leads up to the extremely gut-wrenching sixth season. As we watch the relationships of Willow & Tara and Xander & Anya grow, Buffy and Riley’s relationship begins to unravel (which is fine by me because I think that Riley really sucks). The still-chipped Spike goes from trying to kill Buffy to falling in love with her. Giles and the gang take over the magic shop and Willow becomes more skilled at being a witch. Warren makes his first appearance in a rather bad episode about a robot girl who has travelled a long distance to find him. Joyce dies and leaves Buffy shattered. All of these things are the beginnings of important plot points that rear their ugly heads in season six.
Of course the first thing that comes to mind about season five is the arrival of Dawn. I don’t think I’ve experienced a more “What the fuck?” moment on TV than when Buffy suddenly has a little sister at the end of the rather dumb “Buffy Vs. Dracula” episode that opened up the season. What actually pissed me off a bit was how during the next few episodes the characters acted like Dawn had always been around but we just somehow didn’t know she was around. My intelligence felt truly insulted as I watched these episodes in disbelief, thinking that they had actually committed one of the dumbest crimes in television history. Well, when it was finally revealed that everyone’s memories of Dawn were planted by those wacky monks from centuries before and that Dawn had only existed from the moment that us viewers met her, I realized that Joss and company had pulled off one of the more clever events in TV history.
The main story arc of season five concerns Dawn being the “key” and Glory trying to use her to bring about the end of the world. So the character of Dawn actually ends up serving a purpose rather than just being a young cute face to keep the kiddies watching the show. After finding out the Dawn was “planted” to bring about the apocalypse, Buffy’s love for her actually grows to the point where she is even willing to give up her own life in order to save Dawn’s. Buffy won’t accept the idea that Dawn must die in order to stave off the end of the world and turns inward for an answer. Buffy has spent the entire season seeking the true meaning of being a slayer and finds it by dying in order to save the world from destruction.
Buffy’s death is undoubtedly a big moment in the series. Not only does it bring forth the most noble and important qualities of the slayer, it paves the way for the complete horror and emptiness that Buffy feels when she is ripped from heaven and forced to live again in misery on Earth in season six. Also, Buffy’s death has a rather large impact on Angel in the first few episodes of that show’s third season. It’s a rather neat world that Whedon has created and the interplay of characters and shows is sometimes staggering.
Even though there are rather stupid episodes like the Dracula one and the episode with the Buffybot, every episode has at least one important event in it that warrants a viewing. The weaknesses are more than made up for in the episode “The Body” (a rather horrifying and beautiful episode in which Buffy finds her mom dead in their living room and struggles to cope with the situation), one of the best episodes of the season and of the entire series. While it is not the best year of the show by any stretch of the imagination, season five is still an important part of the Buffy story and is essential viewing for any fan.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
20th Century Fox Television / Mutant Enemy Inc.
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendon, James Marsters, Michelle Trachtenberg, Amber Benson, and Anthony Stewart Head
Disc One:
Buffy Vs. Dracula (not so good)
Real Me (with annoying Dawn voiceover)
The Replacement (kinda funny)
Out Of My Mind (too bad Riley’s heart doesn’t explode in this one)
Disc Two:
No Place Like Home (hello Glory)
Family (obligatory Tara episode)
Fool For Love (obligatory Spike episode)
Shadow (snakes and brain cancer — whew!)
Disc Three:
Listening to Fear (I hate spiders)
Into the Woods (goodbye Riley? Thank you sweet Jeezus!)
Triangle (the funny troll episode)
Disc Four:
Checkpoint (stuffy twee old Brits)
Blood Ties (the cat’s out of the bag)
Crush (Love is a burnin’ thing…)
I Was Made to Love You (Awwwww Warren)
Disc Five:
The Body (great episode)
Forever (complete with zombie Joyce)
Intervention (that goddamn Buffybot…)
Tough Love (the Tara retardo episode)
Disc Six:
Spiral (the cat’s out of the bag… again)
The Weight Of the World (Willow’s witchery continues)
The Gift (heavy man, heavy)