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"What really bites is that she died for the sake of what feels like a one-sentence concept:"

Au contraire, she died because what the Scoobies do is *insanely dangerous*. BtVS has averaged about one major character death every other season, and this, IMO is the bare minimum for the show to have any credibility. When your protagonists are tangling with people who are trying to kill them and everthing they care about it is *essential* that they suffer casualties otherwise the entire struggle ceases to mean anything. In order to be able to take the "oh my god we're all going to die" atmosphere that you frequently get in Buffy (and indeed many TV shows) seriously you need to be able to believe that there is a possibility that they actually will die.

The archetype for the way *not* to portray a group of people in a Ludicrously Dangerous Situation is Voyager, where the lone vessel lost in hostile territory with no backup loses precisely no major characters throughout the entire series. Worse they condensed an entire years worth of hardship, chaos and death into two episodes and **then** retroactively undid them (Year of Hell parts I and II for them as care but don't know)

As to the theme of season 6 being a one sentence concept, I would point out that at the end of season 5 Buffy had killed a God in single combat and was dead. Season 6, as a result had **serious** "what do you do to top that" syndrome from the start. They had two options, either they bring Buffy back by a fudge ("Hi, I'm her long lost couisn Muffy") and top the God in the previous season with *two* gods in order to keep upping the ante. Alternatively they could do what they did, which was actually face the *consequences* of Buffy's death and subsequent resurrection, and pit them against internal rather than external conflicts.

Of course things got darker in Season 6, Buffy was dead at the start, and bringing people back from the dead should not be a trivial thing.

"Ahh, but it's been stated that Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles are the main characters, and no matter waht they do they end up fine in the long run."

Just because you can't do everything doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything. Sure BtVS isn't anywhere close to my ideal for the level of simulationism in a series, but it's closer than most. I would love to see a TV show in which central characters did periodically die off or lose absolutely everything, who knows perhaps one day I'll write one myself but when you get right down to it everybody is constrained by the needs of television.

"Buffy's gloom and doom in season 6 was solved by a nice cry in the pit her and Dawn fell into. "Boo hoo... all better!""

Actually it was solved by spending an entire year coming to terms with it.

"Xander, well lets see he summoned Sweet, and no one said boo."

True, that did strike me as kind of incongruous, but ultimately the premise of OMWF was fairly tenuous to begin with (loved the episode, but it was clearly a case of "let's do a musical!. Hmm, we should probably have a reason for it..."

"Left Anya at the altar and then told HER to get over it."

Which from what I've seen (up to the end of S6) still tore him apapart and drove some real wedges between the entire gang

"Willow, magick is addictive until it's not? Now THAT is a reset button."

I've not seen S7, but I will say that one of my all time number one rules for the portrayal of magic in things is that magic is not portrayed as any one thing. It's eminently possible that some magic is less addictive than other magic, just as it's okay for an alcoholic to drink coffee.

"If there are to be consequences applied then it should not be done to characters who seem brought on for just that purpose."

Oh I agree totally, but from what I've seen they haven't been. Season 6 was all *about* consequences and they fell on pretty much everybody pretty much equally, sure Tara got killed, but ultimately death (from a **purely** artistic standpoint, I don't want to get into any arguments about the nature of mortality) is more of an issue for those left behind than for the deceased. A dead character will surface no more, but a living one will have to deal with the death of the other for a good long while.

Tara's death wasn't a consequence she had to face, it was one for the reast of the team to deal with. If you're going to fight evil, you're going to lose people you care about, that's the breaks.

"Yes we as the viewing audience can be really fickle and pan a show that's been a hit in the past. But it all boils down to ratings, pure and simple. There was no need to slaughter Tara for a ratings story arc. "

And they didn't, she died because that was the right thing to have happen in that situation. Was it the **only** thing that could have happened, well no it wasn't, but it was the best option all round

"The Willow story line could have and should have been approached from a different angle. The only reason the story worked was because the actors are good. They know their characters inside and out. "

The same is true of every story ever told (or at least ever told on screen). Good actors will do well with mediocre stories, bad actors will trash good stories.

The thing that bugged me about the magic addiciton storyline was the gratuitous Bucket Magic of it all (magic is a substance you can carry around and move about, and indeed get addicted to, as opposed to an activity you can become obsessed with)

"With the death of Jenny there was a connecting point with Angelius. Her people had put a curse on him. Restored his soul, he'd lose it when he had one moments pleasure. She was going to restore his soul. She was also a decendant of the folks that had originally restored it."

Yup, but that isn't always the way these things work out.

"So the far fetched errant shot through a second story window."

The ballistics were kinda spurious, but the sheer randomness of it served to highlight the fact that you can go at any time, particularly if you spend your life messing with people who want you dead and are willing to do something about it.

"That's jumping the shark. For the sake of ratings?"

No, that's taking the show in a direction which some people won't like. There are, I am sure, a lot of people who considered having a lesbian relationship in the show to be shameless ratings-whoring.

"Yeah it's done all the time. But, isn't this supposed to be the show that doesn't worry about winning emmy's or golden globes. But yet still wants to do quality television? "

Yup, and they do produce quality television. It just happens that sometimes quality television doesn't fit people's particular tastes.

"This was an ill conceived story arc that would have fallen flat on it's face. If it weren't for the talent of the cast. "

No, this was a *well* concieved story arc, with some dubious aspects to its exection that would have fallen flat on its face were it not for the talent of the cast.

Relying on the strength of your cast isn't bad writing, it's ambition.

"There has been no sense of honoring Tara."

I haven't seen S7, so I can't comment, but see the discussion of TV time dilation on the "Tara's Past" thread. On the other hand where I stand (which is, I admit, not a terribly well populated place) somebody launching into an insane crusade for vengeance and sailing perilously close to their own damnation all in your name is a reasonably good tribute. Then again I like revenge tragedy and while I don't *actually* believe in the Sanctity of Vengeance, I think it makes for one hell of a good theme.

"This is someone who fought along side them. Who did spells with Willow to help them out of jams? Who listened to Buffy pour her heart out when she thought she'd come back from the dead wrong. Sorry but the Oh Well It's The Way It Is garbage. It's just excuses bad writing. A half-hearted approach to a storyline that could have been focused instead melodramatic."

Compare with Jesse, who was Xanders best friend alongside Willow for **years** before the series began, or Jenny Calendar, who was just as important (for her brief while) as Tara was and whose death was significantly more traumatic for the parties immediatly concerned.

If Tara never gets mentionned in S7 that will be a mistake, but it will be a mistake no bigger than never mentioning Jesse, or Jenny or any of the others who've been lost along the way.

And "That's The Way It Is" isn't garbage, it's a pretty much indesputible fact of life, it's just one we've got used to ignoring on TV because we're used to sympathetic characters having plot immunity. Play with fire, somebody gets burned. Someties it won't be you.

"Considering Buffy tried to kill everyone like two episodes before the end rather then face things. I don't think we can say she spent a whole year trying to deal with it."

You're forgetting that failing is an important part of trying.

"As far as Willow's magick, I will say that she has shown the black eyes. Now unless they have rewritten their own cannon that should mean Willow's had a full-blown relapse. Don't you think?"

Are we talking S6 or S7. S7 I cannot comment on, because I haven't seen it. The thing to remember is that while they did use the slightly spurious drug analogies (complete with the black magic "dealer" which was nicely sinister but waaay too Buckety) it should be remembered that magic is not heroin. One single insane black eyes episode, under extreme duress won't nessecarily kick her back into full on junkie mode, it should have consequences, but they don't have to be obvious immediately.

"So it's not a matter of being fair, but being consistent. This is not artisitc lisence, it's full blown UPN grade incoherence. "

People are often too quick to cry inconsistency. Imagine that instead of magic we were talking about violence. Having become more and more arrogant in their own physical prowess, a warrior swears off the sword because they've gone too far and hurt somebody they care about. For a good long while they follow a path of complete pacifism. Then something completely earth shattering happens to them, and they go on an insane blood crazed vengeance kick. They finally get talked down and then...

There's two options, maybe they find they've taken a masive retrograde step, or maybe they cast down their blade and never take it up again, within this framework both results are possible. Unfortunately because there's this "magic as invisible fluid" image that's entered the memesphere, people assume that it's like a drug in a literal rather than metaphorical sense, and that one spell gets you hooked again.

It's the bloody buckets that do it.