I agree, Gar. And, while I realise that things get pretty rushed during the shooting year, it does seem that small changes could have made the individual episode more entertaining and cohesive while still advancing the arc.

Hell, I think we managed to do it with Spiral. And most of what we did there was to shore up plot holes and keep characters more true.

I think what pissed me off most about S7, in retrospect, is what Joss all attempted to excuse in that filmforce interview: all the shit they dropped for one final battle he had pictured.

Well, you know, fuck that.

It's bad storytelling, it really is. If you know where you're going, you can still write towards your goal while not shortchanging the story. Hell, AtS did it (in my pointy head, YStorytellingMV).

WooHoo. Loads of potentials. Woot. Massive battle. Woot.

But Jeebus on a pogo stick, don't give me a long, drawn-out, meandering mess of crap because you think you've got a killer punchline.

I agree with you, PMM.

Because there were plenty of ways to get from point a to point d without completely shredding characters at point b and boring us to flinders at point c.

Nothing on that, except that I pretty much agree with PMM and Elena.

Dawn - Another tough call. Maybe duirng "Seeing Red" when she found that Tara and Willow were back together.

What about that period before Joyce was really sick and while she was still kind of crushing on Xander but had Spike hanging with her and telling her bedtime stories.

Buffy - S4 after Hush when she finally had some outside validation, was able to lord it over the Initiative guys (in a nice way), and before Walsh's agenda had become clear.

Joyce - when Buffy's SATs came back and were good and she thought that Faith could take over the slaying and her daughter could go to college and live a normal life.

But Jeebus on a pogo stick, don't give me a long, drawn-out, meandering mess of crap because you think you've got a killer punchline.

Yes. This. Better put than what I said and much much shorter.

What was supposed to take place and was changed by Joss in lieu of a huge battle?

I don't think season five onword ever matched the first four

Since I rank season 6 with season's 2 and 3, and like Season 1 least, this doesn't speak for me. Season 7 could have made better use of Giles, but otherwise worked fine for me (but unlike PM I think the Spike arcs of 6-7-and JM-were brilliant).

I should also add now that I have seasons 1-6 on dvd that there are plenty of weak episodes in seasons 2 and 3. In fact, Season 1 aside, I think every season (for me) has about the same number of weak episodes (4 to 6). Which is another thing that makes it increasingly hard for me to rank the seasons-which I prefer to watch now depends more on my mood than any sense of differing quality (1, which will always be the weakest for me, again excepted).

Parade Magazine has a brief interview with Alyson Hannigan in today's issue. I'd post a link, but the on-line version isn't complete, or, rather, it's barely summarized. There's a great picture of her in it.

There's a great picture of her in it

Is there another kind of AH?