The Cycle of Long-Running Shows Raising their Stakes (A Follow Up)

Never in the history of this blog have I written a follow-up so fast. Just a few short weeks ago, I asked whether or not the constant raising of stakes serves long-running TV shows. And almost as if the universe was trying to answer, I’ve discovered an example that so strongly fits my premise, I simply must acknowledge it.

In recent years, my husband and I have begun deep diving through old shows that were popular at some point in our youth, but that we missed engaging with for whatever reason. We started with X-files, a show both of us were tangentially familiar with but barely remembered. With streaming services releasing new old content every couple months, it’s easy to find new shows to re-engage with.

Recently we started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Both were shows I recall being massively popular when I was in high school. But neither really engaged my interest at the time. Like the X-files, my husband remembers a handful of episodes and plot points, but not much else. We decided to watch both shows for fun, not out of any real investment in the subject matter. And boy has it been a ride.

As we engage with older content, I always try to hold onto the context in which it was written and released. The late 90’s and early 2000’s represented a far different world than the one we live in today. And it engaged with subjects in a vastly different fashion. But Season 6 hit like such a train wreck, I can’t help thinking it serves as a shining example of exactly what I was talking about.

When a show goes on for long enough, when the stakes get terribly skewed, the original premise gets entirely lost in the shuffle.

The Slope is Steep

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is supposed to be grim. It’s a running gag in the show that Buffy barely pauses in the middle of serious conversations to stake a vamp. I can accept that the aim of the show was to take a look at the darker side of the world. But for the first 5 seasons, the show also engages a sense of humor.

Season 6 is different. Buffy comes back from the dead. And for whatever reason, the show runners decided she wasn’t brought back from a hell dimension. Instead, she was wrested from the heart of heaven by the selfish act of friends who loved her.

It goes downhill from there. Buffy’s friends have been living in her house and raising her sister. But now that she’s back and barely keeping perspective, they dump a heap of money troubles in her lap and go on living. Her sister, who should be happy she’s back, repays her by becoming a kleptomaniac.

And those are just the minor issues. This season, the world decides magic is a bad thing. Forget about all the good it offered during previous seasons, including warding off an army of angry templars. Magic is now heroin and using it is depicted like an addict visiting an opium den.

Willow destroys her relationship with Tara by controlling her mind and not understanding why it’s bad. Xander leaves Anya at the altar and wanders back into town 4 days later confused why the two of them broke up. And Spike, who spent two seasons worth of character development growing into a nuanced person, reveals he’s actually still evil and always will be because a nuanced depiction of grey morality has no place in a world that spent 5 years generating those kinds of discussions.

Everything is Overblown

My husband referred to season 6 of Buffy as “Espresso Depresso.” And depressing is the right word for how watching it made us both feel. In fact, my husband was convinced the people who made Season 6 of Buffy actually hated the show.

I can’t help wondering why they bothered to bring back a show after a somewhat decent ending when all they did was destroy everything that was good about the show. At the end of season 5, most of the characters were happy in some way. Even Buffy. There’s a smile on her face when you see her body in the final shot.

It’s a running issue with this show that everything good about Buffy’s life is savagely ripped away from her. It’s even lamp-shaded during the prom episode. But Season 6 turns it all up to 11. I guess after fighting a god and sacrificing herself to save someone she loved, the writers weren’t sure how to raise the stakes. How do you punch above god level?

The answer was evidently to focus on real world things and tear them into as tiny shreds as possible. If I had been a fan of the show at the time it aired, I imagine I would have been devastated to see a show I loved come back and take a steep nose dive.

As a result of the shift, Season 6 of Buffy is completely different in tone and content to all the seasons that come before it. There’s barely any vampire slaying. And when demons are involved, it’s usually just a side plot or a throw-away gag. And the show seems shockingly self-aware. Buffy is actively mocked for chasing 3 nerds in a basement after defeating a god.

A Look Behind Buffy

I rarely delve into the mechanics of a show’s creation. But Season 6 of Buffy threw me for such a loop, I had to look into it. It turns out, it’s the most hated season of the show. It also contains what are considered to be the most controversial episodes.

Joss Whedon has said that he considered Season 6 of Buffy to be an allegory for growing up. His feeling was that, when we cross the threshold between childhood and adulthood, life loses its luster. In order to depict that in the show, he asked the writers to write about their worst days. So it’s no wonder it feels as if the showrunners hated what they were doing.

For me, this knowledge just makes everything feel worse. Because while growing up is hard, Joss Whedon’s vision of it is universally bleak. While it often does feel like you’ve lost everything that felt good in your life when you venture out to build something on your own, that feeling doesn’t last forever.

As a matter of fact, most of the best things that have happened in my life happened after I graduated high school and moved away from home. That was, after all, when I started to live my life for me, the way I wanted to. And I got to discover who I really was when I wasn’t being told what to do.

Watching a show ignore and erase 5 years worth of character development was, frankly, painful. But not as painful as I imagine it must have been for fans when the season premiered. So I can safely say there’s a case for either allowing a show to find a comfortable resting place, or simply allowing it to end when its premise has run its course.