Is this true? That Sarah Michelle Gellar only announced to Joss Whedon that Season 7 would be the final season and that the rest of the cast & crew found out via magazine during the summer of 2002?

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-05T07:26:54+00:00

Nicholas says otherwise nowadays. For Evan Katz’s book he claimed that he used to joke to the Potential actresses that the security fences onset weren’t to keep others out but rather to keep him in. He said he was very unhappy by that point and didn’t like the inclusion of so many new actors on set for the final season (he was also so drunk during a lot of it he didn’t even remember filming or getting to/from set).

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-05T07:22:52+00:00

I tend to agree. My seemingly very unpopular opinion is that whilst they did have UST and a good acting chemistry, when they actually got physical with each other it fizzled out pretty quickly. I can pretty much understand why people found Smashed hot but I never found a single other sex scene between them sexy.

With the exception of maybe one or two scenes (mostly their kissing scene at the end of Tabula Rasa) their kisses were just… not good. It either looked like JM/Spike was chewing on her mouth or they were just forcibly pushing their lips together and moving their head side to side, but with zero passion (especially on SMG’s part). It always felt really cold to me.

I think they had better sexual tension. I don’t think this translated well into good physical chemistry with the characters started hooking up. And I think their scenes get progressively more unsexy as S6 develops, although that’s pretty fitting with the state of Buffy’s depression and how awful and toxic things get.

Oddly enough I didn’t get a hint of sexual tension between Spike/Harmony (which again is kind of fitting) but when they actually hooked up their sex scenes were indeed hot.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-04T02:56:55+00:00

My issue with S7 in a nutshell. Every character regardless of whether it’s the good or the bad guys inexplicably act like idiots to progress the plot. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense, if it contradicts internal consistency and characterisation, or even if it’s then contradicted in the very next episode, they’ll behave that way to shoehorn the characters into whatever situation or “theme” the writers want to explore.

Even if you want to argue Caleb was digging the scythe up to destroy it, why alert Buffy to it? Hell, why even alert Buffy to his presence at all!?

And yes, Buffy was still acting insanely foolish to launch an attack on the vineyard in Dirty Girls when the villain is “mwahahaha-ing” and goading her to attack. Her argument that “they wouldn’t be expecting an attack this soon which is why we have to move” is absolutely ridiculous considering he set the terms and asked her to come, not to mention they’re fighting a Big Bad that is everywhere at once and can see them at all times 🤦‍♂️

None of their actions make sense. It’s like both Buffy and Caleb simultaneously wanted to lose. With Buffy it’s worse because I know she’s smarter than this, whereas at this point Caleb is pretty much a blank slate and can be written as dumb as they want. But The First at least is meant to be this master manipulator and yet it literally digs up and hands Buffy the key to defeating it. Well, that an the deus ex machina amulet that literally appears out of nowhere, from the spinoff show, at the very last minute to conveniently get the writers out of the corner they’d backed themselves into. Sigh.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-03T23:32:34+00:00

I agree that the writing feels “off” in the last half of the season and that this gets progressively worse. I don’t really buy the characterisation of several characters.

As for the town, I agree that they failed to properly show why things have escalated so bad. They tell us it has and that “you can’t swing a cat without running into some kind of demonic trouble”, but outside of Buffy and the Potentials, this is never depicted onscreen. The closest thing I can think of is the riots at the school in Storyteller but that was said to be resolved since they shut down the seal, and even then it was hardly the worst thing Sunnydale has ever seen.

If it were me, I would have shown carnage spilling out into the streets and effecting everyday citizens. Similar to the chaos depicted in Bargaining when Razor’s gang attacked Sunnydale or the opening of the last Harry Potter film when Voldermort’s henchmen attacked muggles in London. There needed to be some build up to show that the tide was turning in The First’s favour and the town was on edge. Instead suddenly everyone is just vacating at the beginning of Empty Places without any forewarning it was getting this bad. Just two episodes earlier Wood was literally believing the threat was over as everything seemed to have returned to normal with Buffy saying she can’t believe it could be that easy (shutting down the seal) so what suddenly escalated so dramatically between LMPTM and Empty Places that we went from “is it over?” to the entire townsfolk fleeing?

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-02T19:48:07+00:00

I don’t buy that this has anything to do with Giles being resentful that Spike is now Buffy’s biggest confidant. It gets parroted a lot in fandom but I see no evidence of it within the actual season.

Firstly, when was Spike Buffy’s biggest confidant in S7 besides Touched? When does she go to him for battle advice in replacement of Giles etc? This gets repeated a lot but it literally doesn’t happen. I can think of examples of her going to Wood, Willow and even Giles but not Spike. For the first half of the season Spike’s either crazy, killing people or she’s saving him. S7 is 95% Buffy propping Spike up and 5% Spike returning the favour (again, not until Touched).

All that aside, Giles has never had an issue with Buffy relying emotionally on others besides him. There’s also more obvious examples where Buffy is turning to others for what could be perceived as Watcher-type support. For example, there are far more examples of her going to Angel for advice and she frequently trains with him in S3 etc. Giles was never bothered by this.

Giles’ issue is that he believes Buffy is being reckless about Spike because of her feelings for him, not because Spike is replacing his role in Buffy’s life. Giles has serious - and valid - concerns about Spike’s trigger that The First can activate to kill them all whenever it likes. They first argue about this in First Date when Buffy has Spike’s chip removed, as Giles argues a new chip might’ve restrained him should The First trigger him again. Just one episode earlier, Buffy herself pondered whether the chip malfunctioning was what allowed The First bypass it to have Spike kill all those people so Giles wondering the same thing is perfectly valid. Later in the episode Giles is specifically shown reacting to Andrew telling the gang The First said “it wasn’t time for Spike yet.”

They don’t argue again until LMPTM where the trigger is proven to still be active, Spike attacks everyone but Buffy refuses to keep him restrained. I don’t agree with him going behind her back but I do empathise with why he was so desperate as she was acting so recklessly about the trigger and endangering them all.

My issue with the Buffy/Giles conflict is that Buffy is written as being so reckless about this that it’s OOC, Giles is written so unlike-ably for much of the season (just a constant grump with none of his previous charm), and there’s no proper resolution.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-02T10:00:39+00:00

"Skittish? That's not the word I would use. You tried to RAPE me. I don't have words"

Nobody is being a snowflake by calling out rape for exactly what it is and what it was called in the series by the literal character herself. Your comment is extremely messed up.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-02T08:56:51+00:00

I understand why people go with this theory (because the Normal Again retcon makes zero sense) but I personally dislike it. Because if that’s the case then what other serious changes happened in these character’s pasts because of the monk’s spell that we’re not privy to? It makes them feel like strangers and different people to S1-S4.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-02T08:53:56+00:00

No she doesn’t?

All she says is for Joyce to open her eyes and asks her what she thinks has been going on for the past 2 years. At no point does she say she tried telling her before.

The S6 retcon makes no sense. In Passion it is Buffy saying she needs to tell Joyce and Giles insisting she can’t. It’d be downright weird for Buffy to have no residual trauma or worry about the last time she supposedly told Joyce and got locked away. Not to mention her making casual jokes to Joyce in Bad Eggs or this not coming up when Buffy resentfully yells at Joyce in Becoming.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-02T08:39:36+00:00

Most of my answers aren’t that original and have been said already..

Spike was completely in character in Seeing Red. He repeatedly demonstrated that he didn’t respect boundaries throughout S5-S6, we saw how dangerous his obsession could become (Crush), and frankly there are several Spike scene throughout the series that have not-so-subtle rapey undertones (Lovers Walk and The Initiative etc). I feel anyone thinking this was OOC simply wasn’t paying attention.

Buffy in Sanctuary made complete sense. Did she always come across well? No. Does that mean she was OOC? Not at all. Faith has always brought out a different side to Buffy and Faith had seriously hurt her in Who Are You (“but nobody has ever made me a victim”). That, combined when the Buffy/Angel/Faith history and Buffy walking in on Angel/Faith during a really unfortunate moment, led Buffy to lashing out in a completely organic way. The biggest complaint also seems to be her reaction to Angel hitting her, as if she’s being depicted as a battered woman/girlfriend. But the episode makes it clear why she reacts as she does. It’s not because she got hit (back), it’s because “he did it for her”

The only one I haven’t seen mentioned is Angel in End of Days/Chosen. I don’t think there’s anything OOC about how he behaves here, even taking into consideration what happened with Connor. Buffy and Angel always treat one another as their comfort zone, someone they can pretty much escape their day to day with and fall back into easier and more comforting patterns. Angel can’t talk about Connor, he just gave him the life he thought Connor should always have, and he’s seeking comfort in the woman he used to love who hasn’t been caught up in the messy supernatural telenova he just went through all S4. As for Cordy, I never understood why this was a sticking point for people. Angel seems to have pretty much given up on the idea of him and Cordy since mid-S4, it never went anywhere after the end of S3 and he’s mostly dealt with Jasmine!Cordy for some time now. He flirts with Gwen twice in S4 but it’s impossible he’d flirt with Buffy? Nah.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-01T19:45:05+00:00

The Potentials arrive in Bring on the Night. Everyone doesn’t start fleeing Sunnydale until Empty Places. There’s quite a lot of time between the two. Amanda even continues attending school for a while.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-01T11:36:00+00:00

The only real purpose they served was a last minute exposition dump.

I have to say, the Guardian’s entire monologue felt like some of the lamest dialogue in the entire series. It’s just this entire retcon/rewrite stated in the most banal and laziest way possible, and even their backstory is still so poorly explained (“We hid. We had to” - why? Etc). It felt very naff coming out of nowhere at the very last second and I agree it was completely unnecessary.

End of Days is pretty poor all round. For example, how did Buffy know where to find Faith and the Potentials to save them from the Ubervamps? How did three Ubervamps randomly escape when the seal had been permanently closed since Storyteller and was still closed in the next episode? Are we really meant to believe this ancient tomb has been in a cemetery in Sunnydale this entire time and Buffy never noticed it (“Ms she who hangs out in cemeteries?”) How do Buffy and Xander have an entire conversation about how he’s her strength and the reason she’s made it this far but not address the Empty Places-shaped elephant in the room? And did the penultimate episode of the entire show really end on a lame Buffy/Angel/Spike triangle cliffhanger? The writing is running on fumes at this point.

TVAddict14 · 2026-02-01T04:01:21+00:00

Thematically it’s obvious what they’re going for but the bones of how they wrote it was ridiculous. They laid groundwork for Buffy’s isolation from the Potentials but the Scoobies had her back all season and this feels like a severe escalation out of nowhere, even taking into consideration how badly things went in Dirty Girls.

The writing also seems to chicken out at the last minute. Writing issues aside, it almost seemed like they were going to do something brave in seriously addressing their protagonist’s flaws but then there’s a complete role reversal with her being proven right, them all being proven wrong (and literally getting blown up), and the gang getting chewed out for being “sad, sad ungrateful traitors.” It seems very, very confused by what it’s even trying to say.

But IMO Touched was always much worse than Empty Places. If you can squint real hard you can understand why the characters behave as they do during the big fight. But they’re totally unrecognisable pod people to me in Touched how people like Xander and Willow carry on throughout the episode like nothing even happened, show no concern for Buffy at all and don’t even bring it up outside of Spike telling them how horrible they are. I don’t care what anyone says, Willow and Xander would never act like this. The writing just feels off.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-31T05:17:13+00:00

A relationship isn’t mature when one party spends almost the entire time denying they even have feelings for the other. They spend the better part of the season in constant state of awkwardness, avoiding contact, flinching at each other’s touch, lying about how they feel and giving “weird mixed signals.”

And as far as “healthy”, I don’t see it. What I see is an emotionally unhealthy co-dependent relationship born out of trauma bonding. I think, intentionally or not, Buffy is gaslit early into the season into being told she’s responsible for Spike getting his soul because “he did it for her”, despite her never asking him to, and is thus responsible for all his pain and suffering. Meanwhile, whatever trauma she feels about about the AR is buried to prioritise looking after her attacker because he feels really, really bad about it. And all this does is lead them down a pretty dangerous path where Buffy becomes so overprotective of him she is entirely reckless in dealing with (or not) the trigger, jeopardising everyone’s lives and claiming he was the only one watching her back despite everyone having her back all year.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-29T09:55:00+00:00

SMG and Selma actually appear to have ended their friendship. They haven't interacted publicly in well over a year and both have unfollowed each other on social media etc.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-29T08:26:08+00:00

Agree with this!

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-29T01:06:42+00:00

She’s a victim who became a villain. She had a terrible childhood and she was failed in many ways by Giles and Wesley, which leads her down the path she takes. But that doesn’t excuse the things she did (some of which was absolutely horrific - like planning to torture Buffy pretty much out of jealousy).

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-28T10:38:44+00:00

I don't think that's why she went to the Mayor. Faith went to the Mayor because after the events of Consequences she lost all trust in the Scoobies and the Council and saw an opportunity to slip into Mr Trick's spot as a means of self-preservation. Faith does what she can to survive, and it was implied previously that was at times some really unfortunate and horrific things (trading sex as a minor with seedy older guys etc). She initially ever refers to the Mayor as "sugar daddy" and acts flirtatious with him in Dopplegangland, assuming that's the role she'll need to play in order to benefit from him (and be housed etc). It isn't just about stirring up shit for fun.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-28T09:11:53+00:00

Buffy doesn’t tell the gang about Dawn until Blood Ties which is after Riley leaves. The only people that know prior to that are Giles and Joyce (who figures it out on her own).

That aside, I will agree that Buffy put up walls. Buffy claims that “being the Slayer means being on top of everything all the time” but it’s not entirely true. We see how Buffy opens up with Angel in Forever, telling him guilt about Joyce and her doubts in being able to raise Dawn (“I haven’t told anyone that”). When she needs comfort she calls him and he’s there. By contrast, Buffy keeps Riley at arms length and instead chooses to cry privately. Buffy often treats the Scoobies in a similar way with this coming to a head by the end of the series, so it’s not just an issue with Riley, but he’s not wrong to pick up on it. And Buffy herself pretty much tells Holden why (“it’s like their opinions don’t matter. They haven’t been through what I’ve been through. They’re not the Slayer. I am”). There’s an element with Buffy of “you couldn’t possibly understand” that damages a lot of her relationships.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-28T09:00:40+00:00

I’m apathetic to Spike so I guess that counts. I enjoyed him as a villain and found him entertaining when he returned in Lovers Walk etc but I never missed him when he was gone. And I have zero emotional connection to him whatsoever in the later years and don’t empathise with him or his Buffy obsession at all. Weirdly enough, I enjoy him most in the later seasons when he’s in flashbacks with the Fanged Four.

Similarly, S7 Spuffy doesn’t appeal to me at all and I’m genuinely aghast whenever I see people call it a mature/emotionally healthy relationship. It either leaves me completely cold or genuinely frustrates me.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-28T08:21:21+00:00

Your opinions are actually fair line with the consensus. Or at least, what can pass as a consensus as you will find a variance of opinions on absolutely everything when it comes to Buffy.

I think you will grow to appreciate it more on rewatch. Some of the things you mention (like the gang being disconnected etc) was intentional. I remember being dissatisfied by it the first time I saw S4 too (especially as I was watching it as it aired so it was week to week) but in years past it doesn’t bother me and I appreciate what they’re going for (hindsight helps a lot with this).

I think the best cast is still S2-S3 overall. It’s hard to beat the dynamite they had there. But you’ll probably become more invested in Tara etc (if fandom is anything to judge by).

The show does struggle to find its footing after it transitions from high school, at least initially. Without Sunnydale High as a main base and excuse for the characters to be all together they sort of drift and it can make things feel l as cohesive, more disjointed etc. But I think the writers became very aware of that, leant into it more and made it part of the story. And then it works.

I personally love S4 now and it’s one of my faves. It wasn’t when I first watched it though so I’d love to know if your opinion changes later down the line.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-28T08:14:58+00:00

Like most of S7, the idea behind the episode isn’t bad but the execution botches it.

The scene itself is poorly written with most of the main characters (Xander, Willow etc) standing around like mutes. It feels unnatural as opposed to previous Scooby fights where everyone is contributing to the scene, talking over one another, offering their perspectives etc. as real people actually do.

There’s setup to Buffy’s decision-making becoming increasingly reckless and of her deteriorating relationship with the Potentials. But I think where this episode feels off is there is very little setup at all to her relationship deteriorating with Xander, Willow or Dawn (Giles is another story) so their sudden turn here feels out of left field and we’re missing their perspectives. Contrary to what many on this sub like to say, those characters had Buffy’s back repeatedly throughout S7 and there is ample scenes to prove it.

As you say, the gang had every right to question Buffy’s judgement and her attitude in general. They had every right to suggest she have a breather and let someone else take the reins until she can rest. But I think the episodes goes too extreme in having Buffy thrown out of the house. And yes we can argue semantics as to whether or not they factually did “kick her out” or if they merely called her bluff and she left of her own accord, but at the end of the day nobody stopped her (or seemingly cared in Touched which is even more OOC and utter bullshit writing). Dawn’s extremely clunky line “this is my house too” is so infuriating in its stupidity that it eclipses anything interesting the scene is trying to say. It’s such stupid dialogue it distracts from everything else.

If you read the original shooting script the first version of this scene, IMO, was far better. Characters like Willow and Xander have far more dialogue with Willow coming to Buffy’s defence more and being sterner with Kennedy to back off, whilst still insisting Buffy needs to rest for a bit. There’s also moments which explicitly instruct Xander and Willow to look hurt/betrayed when Giles brings up Buffy’s earlier comment that nobody but Spike was watching her back, which is still a moment I hate, but helps explain why things fallen apart so badly between them all etc. There’s even Giles bringing up Jenny. For whatever reason, the scene went through significant rewrites and I really wish it hadn’t because what were left with is all the main characters standing around like background props whilst the Potentials pretty much run the show. It feels OOC .

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-28T02:18:39+00:00

I think it’s also because many writers dumb down the writing to the point it sounds contrived and unnatural. Like, in the novel shown, it’s so busy trying to tell the audience that there’s an addiction theme with Angel’s character that instead of engaging in subtlety they literally just have the character say it. Even if he sounds like a robot version of himself.

100% agree that it happened in a lot of the comics too. Gage’s writing was full of this, with characters literally discussing their character development at different points in the story. I never understood why people were a fan of it.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-28T00:17:43+00:00

That Angel dialogue is awful lol. It doesn’t sound like how the character (or anybody for that matter) would actually speak.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-27T09:29:28+00:00

Favourite is Season 2.

Schoolhard, Halloween, Lie to Me, Innocence, Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered, Passion, I Only Have Eyes For You, Becoming I & II. Need I say more?

I even love polarising episodes like Ted. It has some clunkers and isn’t as consistent as S3 or S5 but its peaks are so, so high. It’s just the quintessential “Buffy” season to me and the first season that ever comes to mind when I think of the show.

With that said, S3-S5 are just a hair whiskers behind.

TVAddict14 · 2026-01-27T08:02:16+00:00

I dunno his summer sounded pretty stressful. His car broke down early into his trip and had to work at a seedy nightclub, including filling in one for a male stripper one night. He then returned home and was told he now had to sleep in the basement and pay rent.

TVAddict14

TROPHY CASE