Restless as an endpoint for Buffy

[Joe Washington]

Do you could have settle with Restless as a finale for the show or do you think it wouldn't sit well with you?

I'm asking because I'm watching old episodes of the show and I don't have it in me to watch Season 6 with its bleakness and Season 7 with its overdone speeches and complaining Potential Slayers. So that leaves me wth the choice of ending my watching of the show with Restless (Season 4 finale) or The Gift (Season 5 finale).

 

[Admiral_Young]

Considering that I think most fans didn't really like season four in the first place I'm going to go ahead and say no. Season Six is probably my favorite season after season three because of the bleakness and chaos that is going on around the Scoobies. Season Seven could have been better executed.

 

[stonester1]

No. I really enjoyed the following seasons, and we wouldn't have gotten GREAT eps that came out of them.

Season six is probably my favorite.

 

[Lonemagpie]

The Gift is the perfect ending for BtVS.

 

[C_Miller]

My ratings go: 2, 5, 3, 1, 6, 4, 7. Four was simply a poorly executed season and obviously the show had more stories to tell, which is why it would have been a frustrating ending. The Gift would have been a perfect ending, but they did still have some good stories to tell. However, since it was a fulfilling season, I would have been okay with it. However, I think another decent endpoint would have been Season 3 with graduation. That episode did conclude so many aspects of the series and did complete a few character arcs so that the show could have ended there and I think I would have been okay with that ending.

 

[CorporalClegg]

The Gift is the perfect ending for BtVS.

This.

Though, I admit that, anymore, Restless is my favorite Buffy episode.

The intertextual stuff is effing brilliant (especially the stuff you really have to look for), and I think it's Joss's best work as a director--including The Body, Hush, OMWF or anything from Firefly. He just nailed the subtle stuff going on in the background, and the Xander chase was so perfectly executed.

It's also one of those thing that you can watch over and over and pick-up something new each time.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I like your idea. Season 4 is the last season that I can watch pretty much all the way through and enjoy almost from start to finish. Season 5 has my second favourite episode in "The Replacement", and there are three or four season 6 episodes that I like, but once Glory showed up and became a focal point, the series pretty much died for me.

You must watch "The Replacement" and "The Body" (the last truly classic episodes), but as far as I'm concerned, everything after is expendable. What the Spike, Buffy, and Xander characters go through after that point mostly annoys me, although the last two episodes of season 6 are fun and I like the nerdy trio. For awhile, I'd stop watching after "The Body". Now when I re-watch, I throw in a few season 6 episodes too, but it's mostly downhill after that episode, which I consider the dramatic high point of the series.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I'd stop watching after "The Body". Now when I re-watch, I throw in a few season 6 episodes too, but it's mostly downhill after that episode, which I consider the dramatic high point of the series.

Why?

The final season 5 arch is the best written bit of the entire series?

 

[Too Much Fun]

I'll admit there's some fine writing in there, but you just don't know how much I CANNOT STAND GLORY. I really think she's one of the worst villains I've ever seen. She's attractive, but her dialog and attitude annoy me to no end. I think she's the worst villain on Buffy, yes, even worse than boringass Adam. I agree that in the mid to late season 5, the writers put Buffy through some interesting situations like her catatonic state and the split with Riley, which I thought was really well written and well acted to the point where it moved me a lot (although the actual scene unfortunately had soap opera staging). Still, it's hard for me to watch that season because I get mad every time Glory shows up and she becomes more and more prominent leading up to the finale. If I could just edit out all the scenes with her in them, I'd enjoy it a lot more.

 

[saturn5]

No way! 'No Once More with Feeling'? No Dawn? No Spike's redemption? No Buffy and Faith kissing and making up? No 'The Body'? No Xander saving DarkWillow? No way, Chosen is the perfect end for Buffy.

Buffy peaked in seasons 2/3 but was still better than 99% of everything else on TV (Star Wars peaked at TESB, Star Trek peaked with Wrath of Khan but I'm still glad we had The Voyage Home and ROTJ).

Personally I'd rate it at;
1. 2/3-impossible to decide between them
2. 5-which had some awesome eps
3. 7-a wonderful send off to the best series ever
4. 6-great standalone eps but a bit grim
5. 1-early days and low budget
6. 4-series finding it's feet after high school

 

[Mr Light]

"Restless" is my all time favorite episode. So chock full of amazing stuff. It's like three episodes crammed into one. It would make a good weirdo final episode, but like others have said "The Gift" gave better closure to the series as a whole.

I bet Buffy would be a lot better remembered if it had ended as originally planned with "The Gift". In that original version Dark Willow happens when Glory kills Tara so you get the ending of S6 in the ending of S5 as well.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Yeah, that would have been cool. I love the Dark Willow stuff. I skip most of season 6 and go right to those episodes. It would have been way better if there had been no Glory at all and season 5 had built to Willow going bad at the end.

Then Xander saves her, end of series, no potential Slayer silliness, huzzah. I would miss "Storyteller", though...that was a nifty little episode. And s5, Buffy and Faith never 'kiss', don't tease people like that.

 

[C_Miller]

No way! 'No Once More with Feeling'? No Dawn? No Spike's redemption? No Buffy and Faith kissing and making up? No 'The Body'? No Xander saving DarkWillow? No way, Chosen is the perfect end for Buffy.

Buffy peaked in seasons 2/3 but was still better than 99% of everything else on TV (Star Wars peaked at TESB, Star Trek peaked with Wrath of Khan but I'm still glad we had The Voyage Home and ROTJ).

Personally I'd rate it at;
1. 2/3-impossible to decide between them
2. 5-which had some awesome eps
3. 7-a wonderful send off to the best series ever
4. 6-great standalone eps but a bit grim
5. 1-early days and low budget
6. 4-series finding it's feet after high school

Don't think I could disagree more. Chosen was a decent end for season 7, but I feel like a series finale should be a summation of the show. To me, the show was always about the ordinary juxtaposed to the extraordinary. For me the show was about Buffy growing up with the help of her friends and Giles. Too bad she alienated her friends in the third to last episode and we never really saw them make up before the finale. The were friendly going into battle, but after spending seven years invested in their relationship, that's not the pay off I was looking for.

 

[saturn5]

No way! 'No Once More with Feeling'? No Dawn? No Spike's redemption? No Buffy and Faith kissing and making up? No 'The Body'? No Xander saving DarkWillow? No way, Chosen is the perfect end for Buffy.

Buffy peaked in seasons 2/3 but was still better than 99% of everything else on TV (Star Wars peaked at TESB, Star Trek peaked with Wrath of Khan but I'm still glad we had The Voyage Home and ROTJ).

Personally I'd rate it at;
1. 2/3-impossible to decide between them
2. 5-which had some awesome eps
3. 7-a wonderful send off to the best series ever
4. 6-great standalone eps but a bit grim
5. 1-early days and low budget
6. 4-series finding it's feet after high school

Don't think I could disagree more. Chosen was a decent end for season 7, but I feel like a series finale should be a summation of the show. To me, the show was always about the ordinary juxtaposed to the extraordinary. For me the show was about Buffy growing up with the help of her friends and Giles. Too bad she alienated her friends in the third to last episode and we never really saw them make up before the finale. The were friendly going into battle, but after spending seven years invested in their relationship, that's not the pay off I was looking for.

Everyone in the Buffyverse screws up and makes amends in the end, it's one of my favourite things about it. Chosen is an excellent ending, I don't want Buffy to die young like all the other slayers, I want her and Faith to live long and happy lives, to break the mold. I don't want poor Dawn to lose the mother and sister she loves within six weeks of one another, I want her to get her sister back and grow up over the last 2 seasons. And I don't want us to miss the great eps of the last 2 years

 

[C_Miller]

No way! 'No Once More with Feeling'? No Dawn? No Spike's redemption? No Buffy and Faith kissing and making up? No 'The Body'? No Xander saving DarkWillow? No way, Chosen is the perfect end for Buffy.

Buffy peaked in seasons 2/3 but was still better than 99% of everything else on TV (Star Wars peaked at TESB, Star Trek peaked with Wrath of Khan but I'm still glad we had The Voyage Home and ROTJ).

Personally I'd rate it at;
1. 2/3-impossible to decide between them
2. 5-which had some awesome eps
3. 7-a wonderful send off to the best series ever
4. 6-great standalone eps but a bit grim
5. 1-early days and low budget
6. 4-series finding it's feet after high school

Don't think I could disagree more. Chosen was a decent end for season 7, but I feel like a series finale should be a summation of the show. To me, the show was always about the ordinary juxtaposed to the extraordinary. For me the show was about Buffy growing up with the help of her friends and Giles. Too bad she alienated her friends in the third to last episode and we never really saw them make up before the finale. The were friendly going into battle, but after spending seven years invested in their relationship, that's not the pay off I was looking for.

Everyone in the Buffyverse screws up and makes amends in the end, it's one of my favourite things about it. Chosen is an excellent ending, I don't want Buffy to die young like all the other slayers, I want her and Faith to live long and happy lives, to break the mold. I don't want poor Dawn to lose the mother and sister she loves within six weeks of one another, I want her to get her sister back and grow up over the last 2 seasons. And I don't want us to miss the great eps of the last 2 years

Yeah, but I didn't see the amends made. Yeah, they walked down the hall together, but that was so flimsy. The whole show was based on that friendship and when it was nearly destroyed, they resolve it by them walking down the hall together friendly. I'm sorry, that doesn't work for me.

 

[saturn5]

She had just saved all the Potentials lives including Faiths. I think that the love between them is so deep and unspoken it doesn't need such a scene, like Wes coming back to AI in season 4

 

[Skellington]

The Gift is the perfect ending for BtVS.

This.

Though, I admit that, anymore, Restless is my favorite Buffy episode.

I concur on both points. Restless is one of my favourite episodes of televised fiction (with Xander's dream being a stone-cold classic as far as I'm concerned), but it wouldn't work as a conclusion to the show, especially not with its foreshadowing of season 5. Also, season 5 just has far too many wondeful episodes to pass up. Real Me, Fool For Love, The Body, Crush and The Gift are all awesome, and the developing Spike/Buffy relationship rarely ceases to be entertaining.

 

[DevilEyes]

Do you could have settle with Restless as a finale for the show or do you think it wouldn't sit well with you?

I'm asking because I'm watching old episodes of the show and I don't have it in me to watch Season 6 with its bleakness and Season 7 with its overdone speeches and complaining Potential Slayers. So that leaves me wth the choice of ending my watching of the show with Restless (Season 4 finale) or The Gift (Season 5 finale).

Since I love seasons 5-7, my answer is HELL NO. Not to mention that "Restless" is great as foreshadowing for future events, certainly not as a finale.

I wouldn't want "The Gift" as a series finale, either. That would mean that the show would end on Buffy basically taking an easy way out and escaping the pressures of adult life by choosing a death as a martyr. I find it much more interesting to see her having to deal with growing up and dealing with the real world having to face her dark side... which she subsequently did. I loved seeing the really dark side of Willow, too. I used to hate Xander for a long time, but he matured so much and I finally really loved the character in season 7. And then of course there's Spike, and I would have hated to have him end as nothing but a vampire with a "muzzle" (chip). I loved his story and I loved the Buffy/Spike storyline, a really interesting story that got into some very dark places that you rarely see on TV.

So, if I am to choose one season finale as the series finale? "Chosen".

Which doesn't mean that I can't see ways how a show could have continued or that I wouldn't have wanted to see that.

 

[label]

I'm like others, The Gift was the perfect ending to Buffy. While I loved parts of Season 6 (especially OMWF) and parts of Season 7, I see those two seasons as unnecessary and in some ways, a determinant to the series overall.

So, as to the original posters thoughts: No, I would have hated Restless as a finale.

My season rankings (From Best to worst):
3
2
5
6
4
7
1

 

[label]

I wouldn't want "The Gift" as a series finale, either. That would mean that the show would end on Buffy basically taking an easy way out and escaping the pressures of adult life by choosing a death as a martyr.

Huh?

Sacrificing her life when she wanted to keep living was the "easy way out"???? Seriously?

Sorry, but that doesn't even make sense. It's not as if Buffy was afraid to grow up or was just done living or didn't want to be there for Dawn.....she just didn't see another way that didn't involve losing her sister. She gave her life for another......"there is no greater love that a person can have than to sacrifice one's self for another".

While I enjoyed Seasons 6 and to a lesser degree 7, I seriously don't see how the series can end on a better note than how they went out in Season 5.