The demon eggs were in As You Were and I stand by my wank that Spike was holding the eggs for someone else to try to make money to help the girls out. Because there is no way he'd use the underworld nickname 'Doc'.

LALALALALALALA! I can't hear anything you say to contradict me.

"Forever" had demon eggs too, and made into reality my sarcastic prediction about cast raises resulting in the monsters being played by Muppets in Season 5.

The demon eggs were in As You Were and I stand by my wank that Spike was holding the eggs for someone else to try to make money to help the girls out. Because there is no way he'd use the underworld nickname 'Doc'.

Feh. That was another "that's totally stupid and makes no sense" episode.

"Forever" had demon eggs too

Oh, yes, for the raising spell. I had forgotten.

Sean, yes, if they had only picked another name. 'Doc' (or was it 'The Doctor'?) is just not something Spike would have used.

Yeah, "As You Were" had me thinking "Couldn't this episode be a psychotic hallucination brought on by demon venom too? Please?"

Something's that's been bothering me in recent interviews is the line "We wish we could've given Xander (Giles) (Dawn) more of a storyline (personality) (life), but there were all these things we had to get done this season, and there just wasn't time." Because just how much characterization (one of the highest points of Buffy) are you willing to let fall by the wayside before reconsidering how important "all those other things you have to get done" are?

My view of the season's high and low points: first seven good-to-excellent (I'll let "Help" and parts of "Him" slide); next eight a completely average muddle, with TKiM and First Date rising above it at points; Storyteller dragging me back to happiness; LMPTM dashing it away again; Dirty Girls, Empty Places, and Touched another, less severe slump; End of Days and Chosen getting Es for effort.

Still, despite the banality of Help, the when-will-it-end-ness of Never Bring a Sleeper to Showtime Potential Night, and the pod people of LMPTM, nothing came anywhere near the level of The Episode Which Shall Never Be Watched Again.

I liked Season 7, but I wish I could have loved it.

(I misused the word "completely" in that last post. But I'm not editing it, because I'm afraid the paragraph in question will explode.)

Because I think it should have been a season long Yoko Factor, with lots of mental anguish.

Yup, pretty much, Elena. And the defeating of it should have involved something more metaphysical than just staking lots of vampires. Because, dude, it's The First Evil. It should either be undefeatable, blah blah moral lesson about balancecakes, or, the Chosen spell should have had an explicit extra dimension of restoring balance, (since in my S7 Done Right, the desire to empower the potentials comes from Buffy's desire for justice, not her bitterness over her stolen childhood).

And Matt, yes, word. So much more powerful that way.

"Forever" had demon eggs too, and made into reality my sarcastic prediction about cast raises resulting in the monsters being played by Muppets in Season 5.

Hey don't go dissing Muppets - Farscape's done an amazing job of creating scary Muppets. Emotional one's too. Certainly Pilot and Rygel were far better "actors" than Kramer, Weber, and (sad to say, 'cause I kinda like the stiff) Blucas.

Y'all are hitting on some of my Season 7 problems. I think 5-7 suffered from poorly plotted arcs, but find 5 much more forgiveable in retrospect. A little tightening here and there, and it would have been perfect enough. Six was when I realized that the writing was falling out, and Seven just drove me bonkers with the mischaracterizations, the poor plotting, and the inability to create any suspense. Especially since Six & Seven had all of the opportunities for greatness present, but the execution was half-baked.