SEASON 1
The first season of a show is often the worst, and from an objective viewpoint, this applies to Buffy. In almost every respect, Season 1 of Buffy is by far the worst out of all seven seasons. A lot of the acting is shaky, the special effects are terrible, a large majority of the shots are really grainy; it's a mess. And yet...I find myself really loving the whole thing. It's got that cheesiness factor mixed in with some genuinely compelling episodes that makes the whole thing a rather fun watch.
There are two distinct highlights of the season: The Pack, and Prophecy Girl. The former represents the best standalone episode of the season (and one of the best of the series) and the latter is just a great story arc episode (that also happens to be the finale). The worst episode is certainly I Robot, You Jane. It's story is severely outdated, and while it's still fun in a cheesy way, the quality of that one is pretty low even in comparison to the other corny standalone episodes of the season like Teacher's Pet. All the episodes in between are solid, usually managing to build on the characters and their relationships even if the stories aren't all that interesting.
The characters are defined fairly well, though there is a lack of arcs for most of them. Buffy gets her arc about coming to terms with her responsibility, Xander sort of moves on from his crush with Buffy, and Cordelia makes a slight step towards human, but other than that, there isn't a ton of growth over the season. That's okay though, the first season was more there just to provide a starting point for everybody. You really get the sense of friendship between Buffy, Willow, and Xander, as well as the surrogate father/daughter relationship between Buffy and Giles. Other relationships like Buffy/Angel, Willow and Xander/Giles, Giles/Jenny, and Gang/Cordelia haven't been given too much attention at this point.
There isn't really a lot to the season. Most episodes do have a metaphor to them, but it typically doesn't run all that deep. As Joss Whedon has said before, he wanted the show to really represent high school. He said that high school is hell, and he was just taking that figurative hell and making it literal. This is more explained in Buffy's Junior and Senior years of high school, but it's a good thesis for the first half of the series. It's a good season, provided you have an appreciation for a little cheesiness and a lot of 90s-ness.
***1/2
2 comments:
I agree that this is the worst of the seasons, but I also can't throw hate at any aspect of Buffy. The only thing I think you got wrong in this review was that Xander is NOT over Buffy yet. This will take many, many seasons. I think it happens around season 5 or season 6, but you can definetly see in season 7 that he's over her. However, I can see times when he's not all the way up until season 4 at LEAST.
Oh it definitely lingers on for a while, but it being a main plotline is pretty much over.
You can definitely tell that he still has feelings for her even while he's dating Anya. I remember they have a really nice moment in the episode that he's in a fatsuit and she's sparring with him. Season 5 I think, but I can't remember the episode.
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