Buffy Thoughts - S6E20 (Villains) & S6E21 (Two to...
The writers loved and hated it. There was a huge conflict going on in the writers’ room in S6, between the ones who were pro-spuffy and the ones who were anti-spuffy. And Joss was off playing with his shiny new Firefly and was like “whatevs.” That’s the short version. The long version is the stuff of fannish nightmares.
Holy shit, are you serious? Because I almost wrote that exact paragraph. Like, I almost wrote “I wouldn’t be surprised if the writer’s room was split down pro-spuffy and anti-spuffy lines and Joss was in the corner like an exhausted catlady trying to herd them until he was like “fuck it, i give up; write whatever you want in whatever episode you get.”” And then I deleted that paragraph because it sounded too assuming and presumptive from a fan’s POV, and just holy shit, are you serious? I was right?
Though honestly, I still find that one of the most fascinating and frustrating things about non-adaptive TV works. Because you’ve got the head writer who’s the “author” and every other writer is pretty much a fanfic writer, trying to do their best to adhere to “canon” characterization. Like, to pull a specific example from Doctor Who (because God, I know way too much about Doctor Who), Steven Moffat doesn’t like the character of Rose Tyler. He’s come out in interviews, saying he thinks she’s needy and clinging, and when you watch his episodes when RTD was the head writer, it shows:
- she gets separated from the Doctor almost instantly
- in one she becomes a damsel in distress, in the other she’s just kind of forgotten
- and in the episode where she’s forgotten, it doesn’t make sense with the overall character arc; it’s like this really weird unharmonious blip in their relationship that season
And it gets to the point where you really do have to ask yourself: Is this really an “accurate” representation of the character? Or is this a product of one particular co-author letting their own fanons slip through?
But yeah, if what you’re saying is true, then I think that explains pretty much my main issues with season six right there (i.e. how disjointed it feels). And I think it explains my issues with Seeing Red. Like I’m not going to deny it happened, and I’m not going to say Spike could never do something like that, but it just didn’t click for me with the setup we were given.