Buffy's Eighth Season

Here be spoilers.

I finally got the last comic book in the Buffy Season 8 series and read it last night. Overall, I have to say, I think this season was kind of a mess. It turns out Joss Whedon doesn't do so well with an unlimited budget (and this has me slightly worried about The Avengers). He needs something to reign him in. Otherwise you get Angel and Buffy with the dimension ripping sex giving birth to a new universe. No one needed that.

Parts of this season were just ridiculous. The big bad was named Twilight, which they swear was a coincidence. I don't buy it. Harmony brought the vampires "out of the coffin" ::cough::TrueBlood::cough:: Meanwhile vampires were seen as good guys with the world condemning the slayers for genocide. I don't think that's how it would play out. I'm also not sure how this ties into Angel's 6th season, since he seems pretty far past redemption now. And I didn't remember anything about Spike's arc in either season, though I think he had his own set of comics. Hmmm, I'll have to go back and re-read some things.

That said, there were some things that I liked. Mostly little character moments. I'm getting behind the Xander/Dawn paring. It really does make sense, and they're kind of adorable together. Oz got closure and his happily ever after with a wife and kid. Willow finally dumped Kennedy. Faith seemed to come into her own. It's all those little character things that really make Buffy special.

This does seem to be a lesson Joss Whedon learned. He dialed things back a lot at the end of the season. Buffy has managed to cut off the slayer line once and for all. Most of the slayers are just pissed at her and don't want to be slayers anymore. So she's living in San Francisco, working as a waitress, and going back to basics. One vampire at a time.

Despite this mess, I'm excited for the 9th season. I feel like a similar thing happened on Angel. Joss let things get a bit out of hand with the soap opera aspects of the 4th season and the constant cliff hangars. The show lost the ability to do one-offs. But then they hit the reset button, wiped everyone's memory, and had a really good 5th season. I think something similar could happen with Buffy's ninth season. Hopefully Joss and Co have figured out that just because they *can* tear the universe apart doesn't mean the *should*.

I am excited to go back and re-read the entire eighth season now that I own all of it. I want to see how it stands up as a whole. My guess is that, like Angel's 4th season, it will hold up a bit better on the re-read, now that I know how it ends.