7 Things that Still Bug Me about Buffy the Vampire Slayer

And The One Most Awesome Scene Ever.
by Michael Isenberg.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my favorite show of all time. A perfect storm of good storylines, quality violence, a great cast, and amazing dialogue (to hear what the writers have to say about the last item—they’re incredibly proud of it, and rightly so—see this segment “Buffy Speak” from the Season 3 DVDs). The show was known for innovative episodes like "Hush" which had no dialog for twenty-seven minutes and "The Body" which captured the numbness of those first hours after a loved one dies with remarkable realism. Buffy was also breakthrough television in the portrayal of lesbian characters. And as editor of Nerds who Read, I got to love any show where the heroes, when they have a problem, go to the library to research it.

Perhaps it was because Buffy was such great television that the handful of things about it that bugged me continue to bug me twenty years later. Here, then, are…

7 Things that Still Bug Me About Buffy the Vampire Slayer

7. Robots. The Buffy TV show was born amidst the “irrational exuberance” of the dot com era, so it no doubt seemed natural at the time to work some high tech into it. But in a show that was mainly about the supernatural, and where the main villains were vampires and demons, robots never really seem to belong. They just came across as silly.

Bonus challenge: Name all the robots that appeared in the series. Leave answers in the comments.

6. The Zeppo. The title of this Season 3 episode refers to Xander, practically the only member of the Scooby Gang who never had any supernatural powers. The comparison is to Zeppo Marx, the colorless Marx Brother. Unlike the mustachioed, wisecracking Groucho, the silent, manic Harpo, and the faux-Italian Chico, Zeppo was just a guy in a suit. The straight man. In this episode, Buffy and her friends decide that the threat of the week was just too dangerous for Xander, so they cut him out. He goes off on his own adventure while the rest of the gang stops the Apocalypse in the background. As if that's not bad enough, much of Xander’s adventure involves being unable to get away from some tiresome people he really doesn’t want to be with. As an introvert, I identify. And while things do work out for Xander in the end—he even loses his virginity—it still bugs me that his friends were mean to him.

5. Season 5. In this season, Buffy faces off against Glory, a slinky, glamorous hell god whose only wish is to go back to hell. Unfortunately, opening a portal to that alternate dimension will require killing Buffy’s sister, Dawn. Clare Kramer puts in a wonderful performance as Glory—she really captures the combination of ancient evil and modern humor that’s the hallmark of a Buffy villain. But I really don’t see the conflict here. Glory wants out of this dimension. Buffy wants Glory out of this dimension. Why are they fighting instead of working together?! I mean, seriously, THEY WANT THE SAME THING!!! With the resources of the Scooby Gang, surely they could have found some non-lethal way to send Glory home. It’s not as if they had never sent anyone to alternate dimensions before.

4. Season 6. A low point for the series, and for Buffy personally, who is working fast food to pay the bills, having sex with a vampire who makes her feel ashamed of herself, and struggling to be a single mother to little sis Dawn. To add insult to injury, just as she approaches bottom, her ex, Riley, comes to visit and he’s doing great. It’s painful to watch, but not as painful as two scenes of horrific violence against women that appear in this season.

From a dramatic point of view, the season is flawed in that “The Big Bad”—the three nerds Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew (Tucker’s brother)—just aren’t that bad. Even some of the Scooby Gang think the Trio’s schemes “seem really lame.” (I can just hear the Cinema Sins guy saying, “Comment in the writer’s room somehow made it into the script.”) The Trio aren’t worthy of Buffy talents. In fact, they were such weak villains that they’re not even the main antagonists in the season finale. That honor goes to Willow, who has temporarily turned evil. And then Buffy doesn’t even play much of a role in defeating her. She spends most of the last episode trapped in a hole.

Even the comic relief doesn’t work in Season 6. Kitten poker? In Buffy’s words, that’s “stupid currency.”

Just an awful season.

And yet, there are a few bright spots, in particular the musical episode “Once More with Feeling.” Frankly, most musical episodes of TV shows aren’t very good, but this one is an exception. It’s fun, the songs are great, and it blends seamlessly with the arc of the season. There’s just one thing about it that bugs me…

3. No consequences for Xander. The premise of “Once More with Feeling” is that citizens of Buffy’s town of Sunnydale just start singing and dancing, like in a musical, and Buffy must find out why. It’s rather lighthearted at first, but then there is new urgency as some of these people dance themselves to death. We eventually find out that a demon caused it all. A demon that was summoned by Xander. “I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he says in his defense. “I just thought there was going to be dances and songs.” He totally should have known what was going to happen. It’s fricking season six, you’re not new at this. Or did you forget what happened when you messed around with the Dark Arts in “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered?” Not only did he summon the demon in “Once More with Feeling,” but then he just sat there and watched his friends struggle to figure out what was going on. He even misdirected them at one point. Not to mention that people died.

And yet, there were no consequences for him at all. This was unusual in a series that, to its credit, takes personal responsibility seriously. When characters screw up, there are consequences. There was even an episode called “Consequences.” If it’s a serious screw up, there might be a long journey of redemption, spanning multiple seasons. But in this case, nothing. No day of reckoning for Xander at all. DID I MENTION THAT PEOPLE DIED???!!!

2. The Willow Hostage Exchange. As the title of the Season 3 episode “Choices” implies, Buffy and her friends faced some difficult decisions that week. They knew that the mayor of the town planned to transform himself into a giant snake demon and kill a whole bunch of people. But in order to accomplish this, he needed a mystical box full of killer spiders known as the “Box of Gavrok.” The Scooby Gang steals the box from him, but during the operation, one of them, Willow, gets captured.

The choice they face is whether to keep the box, and thereby stop the mayor’s “Ascension.” It could save thousands of lives, but Willow would be killed. Or they could offer the mayor an exchange—the box for Willow—and keep their fingers crossed that they can find some other way to stop the Ascension.

Of course they went for the exchange—Willow’s a main character—but I often wonder how the rest of the series would have played out if they had sacrificed her instead. Yes, Willow would have been dead, but a heck of a lot of other people would have been alive—starting with the ones that died in the Ascension that didn’t get stopped. Subsequent to that, Willow repeatedly put other people in danger by her misuse of magic—at first because she was still learning, and later because she was addicted to it. None of it would have happened had she died in “Choices.”

Buffy herself died in the Season 5 finale, and Willow mojoed her back to life. Had Willow not been there to do that, a Buffy-less and Willow-less Season 6 would have played out very differently and we certainly wouldn’t have seen Willow turn to the Dark Side and nearly destroy the world in the season finale. And since the Big Bad in Season 7 was unleashed by the unintended consequences of bringing Buffy back to life, that whole season wouldn’t have happened at all. The numerous potential Slayers who died would never have been in danger.

Also, had Willow died in Season 3, she never would have met Tara. And although that would have meant that she wouldn’t have been there to bring the shy Tara out of her shell, it also would have meant that Tara wouldn’t have been in the path of a stray bullet meant for Buffy. Which brings me to the number one thing that still bugs me about Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

The Death of Tara

Tara was one of my favorite characters. She had such a good heart, and such a unique way of looking at things—making up her own names for the constellations because the real ones didn’t make sense, or avoiding the Internet because everyone’s spelling was so bad. Unlike Willow, she was able to use magic without being consumed by it. I even loved the way she decorated her room (I wish I could get a copy of that poster!). I was very sad to see her go, especially since series creator Joss Whedon played with our heads a bit. He put Tara in the opening credits for the first time in the episode in which she died. I went into the episode thinking how nice it was that her place on the show was finally secure.

Thanks for bearing with my rant. I would like to end on a positive note, though. So here then, as promised, is...

The One Most Awesome Scene Ever:

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Riley Punches Parker Abrams in the Face:

How can anyone not love Riley after that?

Got any pet peeves about BTVS that I missed? Please feel free to comment. Michael Isenberg drinks bourbon and writes novels. His latest book, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092, and tells the story of the conflict between science and shari’ah in medieval Islam. It is available on Amazon.com Please follow Mike on Facebook and Twitter. Photo credit(s): Hello Giggles, The Uncanny Fans, buffy.fandom.com, fanpop.com, Lost Again, YouTube, Persephone Magazine, DigitalSpy.com, Entertainment Weekly