Me too. "A Watcher laughs at gravity."

Seasons 6 and 7 completely sucked my joy of the series. I've rewatched a lot of things, things I held really dear, and knowing how it all turned out has soured everything prior.

If I could, I would have stopped watching after the finale of season 5, and never looked back.

So, my views on Restless, and everything from The Gift backward, is brushed with foul smelling shit from a dead dog's ass. Because it's all meaningless, knowing that the journey these dear kids were on lead to the bus on the edge of Sunnydale the oceanside desert.

Deleted until I can figure out why I can only seem to list things with either no spaces or too many spaces. Freakin' annoying.

Click the quick-edit formatting link above the posting box Jen. It's a treasure of formatting knowledge. And I say that as someone who coudn't even post in italics for a good two months or so.

JenP use [br] for line breaks, except use the angled brackets of HTMLdom.

Thank you, David and Tina! You know -- I was at the point where, I didn't even care so much about posting the ranking as figuring out the line break thing!! Which, for some reason, I read right past twice in the helper boxes above. Frustration=careless reading, I guess. Anyway ...

Seasons:

2,3,4,6,5,1,7

Finales:

Becoming
Graduation Day
The Gift
Prophecy Girl
Restless
Chosen
Grave

Openers:

WTTH
When She Was Bad
Lessons
Bargaining
Buffy v. Dracula
Anne
The Freshman

Becoming is probably the only ep ranking that is set forever for me. Best finale of anything I've ever seen, Becoming II was. And I didn't start watching until mid-way through Season 5, so it was a retro thing for me. Now, having watched the whole season in order, I agree even more with myself.

The other rankings I could see shifting as I get to watch seasons in order on DVD. I got obsessed very quickly and have seen all the eps, most multiple times (except, I don't think I've ever seen Out of Mind, Out of Sight or Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, so my Season 1 view is skewed), but watching in order did help me get a better feel for Season 2.

The only thing that keeps Becoming from ranking higher for me is that they cheated and brought Angel back. Dead ought to count for something narratively. I thought Farscape really cheapened that in their stories. I don't mind it so much with the villains - love Holland and Lilah returning. But having a loved character come back is having and eating the cake.

Dead ought to count for something narratively.

But she didn't kill him, so dead doesn't matter.

But having a loved character come back is having and eating the cake.

Mmmmm, yeah -- good point. I hadn't thought of it quite that way. But to her, at the time, dead was dead and she killed him, (er, well, not including undead. whatever.), so I think that's why it works for me. Plus, so much other great stuff in that ep.

But your saying that makes me think Buffy has warped my perception of character death -- I was just reading something recently where a character died, and, although it had an impact, my immediate thought was, "I wonder if [character] is really dead?" (it was a science fictiony kind of thing, so it's not totally outside the realm of reason). Which, I'm not sure would've been my first thought three or so years ago ...

[And I still wonder if the character is really dead!]

Edited to clarify to what I was responding. And to add ....

[Also? I like cake!!!]

He wasn't dead. I think it worked because the trauma was in the act, and the act was never nullified. He was consigned to a long time in hell, compared to which killing might be kind.