I have to deal with depression enough in real life; it was really no fun to slog through season 6 showing it as well. (although the musical is and always will be sheer brilliance.)

There was a fair amount of cringing and confusion after Tabula Rasa.

ha! what a wonderful description.

I gotta say, yet again, that S7 will still never be in my top 3, but it's definitely a season that improves on rewatch (and yay, I am here in company with sj, always a good place to be!). Just being able to mainline the entire thing at once instead of wait 3-6 weeks in between practically every damn episode helps hugely.

JZ, okay, that will be my beacon of hope after we start in on Season 6. I believe I have never rewatched that season save for the musical and the 2-part finale so this should be interesting.

I gotta say, yet again, that S7 will still never be in my top 3, but it's definitely a season that improves on rewatch (and yay, I am here in company with sj, always a good place to be!). Just being able to mainline the entire thing at once instead of wait 3-6 weeks in between practically every damn episode helps hugely.

This. The ability to mainline and have some continuity really helps me.

Well, I don't want to harsh anyone's enjoyment of Season 7, so I won't go off on a rant of all the things that just drive me beserk about it. I will say that I laugh every time I see Dawn get paralayzed by Gnarl in "Same Time, Same Place," and "Him" is funny ("Buffy, get off the boy"), "Conversations With Dead People" is good, except for Dawn's screaming (I don't think anyone ever taught Michelle Trachtenberg how to scream and speak at the same time), and there are a few funny moments in "The Killer In Me" when the gang is trying to figure out whether or not Warren is really Willow. "Storyteller" has a couple of amusing moments. And I love the finale. (Also, this list makes it look as though all I appreciate about Buffy are the funny parts, and that's not true.)

So I'm making my way through Season 5 of Buffy and I was going along merrily until "The Body." Holy shit. You know, I don't think I'd seen this ep again since the first time.

I still felt completely unprepared. This ep does not fail to have a strong emotional impact. What great writing and acting. Probably not exactly what I needed today, but still just great stuff.

I have "The Body" in it's very own separate category. When it first aired, I found the commercials so very distracting. It helps to see it on DVD without the inanity.

Season 6 remains my least favorite, in spite of OMWF and Tabula Rasa. I didn't like the way Willow's magic use went from being about power (the point of the whole series) to being a bad addiction metaphor. Also, the depression was text, not subtext.

While there was a lot of preaching, and not all of it from Caleb, in Season 7, I liked where the series ended up. And there were also some outstanding episodes, as well. "Selfless," for me, is a wonderful example of the the series as a whole. Taking an episode and not focusing on the hero, but a supporter. Even the several layers of meaning in the title. By the end of the episode, Anya is without self, or selfless.

Today's tee fury shirt is relevant to the interests of some here:

[link]

Not the best rendering of SMG, but I think I might have to get it for the otherwise awesome content.

Couldn't resist. Bought it.