Season 5: Death is Your Gift

[Clare]

Review and discuss season five here - also include your scores for each of the episodes.

Which episode was your favourite and which was your least favourite? And why?

[partcynic]

S5 Episode Ratings

8 5x01 Buffy Vs Dracula
5 5x02 Real Me
6 5x03 The Replacement
4 5x04 Out of My Mind
3 5x05 No Place Like Home
5 5x06 Family
9 5x07 Fool For Love
5 5x08 Shadow
4 5x09 Listening To Fear
3 5x10 Into the Woods
4 5x11 Triangle
5 5x12 Checkpoint
2 5x13 Blood Ties
7 5x14 Crush
7 5x15 I Was Made To Love You
8 5x16 The Body
3 5x17 Forever
7 5x18 Intervention
4 5x19 Tough Love
2 5x20 Spiral
2 5x21 The Weight of the World
6 5x22 The Gift

Average = 4.95 (good).

("Crush" up two points and "The Body" up one point from my previous ratings!)

Overview

If S4 was the transitional year for the "Buffy" characters, S5 was the transition for the show itself. In an effort to draw fresh eyes to what was now an 'old' series (with Buffy herself approaching the positively geriatric age of 20), the writers made three significant changes to its structure - and accidentally signed its death warrant. Though it was better than almost anything else airing on TV at the time, S5 inaugurated all of the problems that would kill the show in its final two years - it's just that there was still enough love, attention to detail and input from Joss here to keep things under control.

So, what were the changes? The first - and worst - was Dawn, and everything she represented. Whereas the character and story arcs of prior seasons of "Buffy" built logically upon their predecessors, Dawn was the first time the writers forced something wholly alien and unnecessary onto the series, regardless of sense or consequence - and it wouldn't be the last. A flat stereotype of a teenage girl, Dawn added nothing to the show in terms of humour, emotion or utility, yet "Buffy"'s entire universe was literally rewritten in order to accommodate and emphasise her. She was given three centrepiece episodes ("Real Me"; "Blood Ties"; "Forever") while also dominating the arc and being Buffy's primary motivation throughout the season... yet all she did was whine, sulk, scream, or cause problems through her own selfishness, petulance and stupidity.

Dawn thus became the first character in the show whose scenes became good when they weren't actively bad, and the show never held her to the same level of accountability as the other characters, so she barely grew or developed - no matter how terribly she behaved, "she's just a kid!" excused anything. And all the while, two excellent, underused main characters (Xander, Giles) and two newer ones with plenty of untapped potential (Anya, Tara) were lucky to get even an episode's worth of material.

The second change was the desire to be more 'real'. In S5, the writers began to jettison metaphor in favour of playing things straight, such as with Joyce's illness and death. Though I understand that the inescapable, cold reality of mortality was the plot's entire point, the tear-jerking hospital scenes in "Shadow" and "Listening to Fear" were nonetheless the first time "Buffy" felt like regular TV. By abandoning metaphor, the show disposed of the thing that made it creative, fresh and original - and whereas the likes of the Angelus arc, "Earshot" or "Hush" could only be done on "Buffy", the Joyce arc (yes, even "The Body") could have been been aired by any good drama. Metaphor mattered, and losing it commenced the series' transformation from being something groundbreaking (that featured soap opera elements) to a teen soap with a supernatural gimmick.

The third and final change was the degradation of episodic storytelling. S5 began to dispense with the idea of individual episodes being unique, self-contained entities, instead turning them into connectors, with arc-based stories that were more vulnerable to repetition, tedium and outright failure. S5 devoted a lot of time to its epic Key/Glory plot, but strove so hard for grandiosity that it was often implausible (the monk's spell to rewrite the world; Buffy dying in Dawn's place), nonsensical (the Knights of Byzantium) or plain stupid (superpowered hellgod Glory learning that Buffy and the Key are connected in episode 5, but not seriously going after her or her friends until episode 18!)

Taken together, these problems are serious flaws... and yet, the season is still good! The show's writing is inescapably decaying, but if you ignore Dawn and the Key arc, there's plenty of greatness to savour. Buffy's 'meaning of being a Slayer' story is stellar ("Buffy vs Dracula"; "Fool for Love"; "Intervention"; "The Gift"), and Spike's increasing complexity as a result of his newfound love for her is fascinating. And whatever qualms I might have with the Joyce arc, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kristine Sutherland's performances were wonderful, and "The Body" deserves its accolades as one of the best-ever portrayals of loss and grief.

Elsewhere, "The Replacement" and "I Was Made to Love You" show us that the writers could still do great metaphor work, and there are plenty of high quality moments and story decisions dotted about. Harmony gets some of her funniest ever material in "Real Me" and "Out of My Mind", Buffy's "Checkpoint" speech to the Watchers is magnificent, and Alyson Hannigan makes Willow's one good sequence of the year count during her thrilling attempt at revenge ("Tough Love"). The Magic Box works as a new meeting place and grants new life to Giles and Anya, Xander's love speech in "Into the Woods" is one of his finest ever moments, and if you can look past Clare Kramer's acting, Glory is almost as funny as the Mayor.

So yes, things are starting to fail, but S5 is still a strong year for the show - and if it had ended here, it would have been a near-flawless run. A shame it didn't, but that's a post for another time...

S5 Awards

Best Episode - "Fool for Love". The ultimate Spike showcase, and filled with humour, depth and violence.

Worst Episode - "Blood Ties". Half an hour of teen-brat whining and screaming, resolved with a platitude. And prior to S6, "get out, Get Out, GET OUT" is the worst bit of writing in the entire show.

Best Writer - Jane Espenson. She never lost her sense of humour (or of metaphor), making her a beacon of hope during the final three seasons.

Most Valuable Player - Sarah Michelle Gellar was as wonderful as ever, though James Marsters and Kristine Sutherland also deserve a lot of credit.

Best Scene - Buffy discovering Joyce's body. Once seen, you can never forget it. "Mom? ...Mom? ...Mommy?"