drab, socialist version of Buffy.

Anybody see East Side Story? Documentary about musicals made behind the iron curtain, with actual ballets next to turbines and such. Very entertaining.

Hmm. Yes. The government's official position would be that vampires don't exist, but actually they make up a large chunk of the KGB. Buffy would wear shorter skirts (really) and more makeup, and have fur coats instead of leather ones. Willow could wear her eskimo outfit and fit in. Giles would drink tea... with vodka in it. Instead of the Mayor, season 3 would have involved the Mafia.

I would watch this, smonster.

While I know Girl Power was part of what the Slayer power-up in Chosen was all about, to me it's the smallest of the meanings. And despite my overall dissatisfaction with S7, Chosen is still on my Tivo, and I still watch it from time to time. I thought it was the perfect ending for Buffy--alive, still powerful but free from the burden of being the only one. I'm sure she'll still battle evil, but in my own mental Buffyverse, right now she's backpacking around the world, and making plans to go back to college, funded by money Giles pulled out of the CoW's Swiss bank accounts. She's finally free to make her own choices, no more burdened by destiny than most of us, and to me that's a deeply satisfying, profoundly right ending for her.

And the whole bit about it being not about wishes, but about choices? And that last line from the Slayer awakening montage, "Make your choice--are you ready to be strong?" That tied in with some stuff I'd be mulling over in my own life, about using whatever power you have to change the world instead of lamenting that you don't have power enough, and about not letting your talents go to waste out of fear of failure or fear of taking risks and trying something different. So to some degree I "read" Chosen like a sermon, and said, "Amen, Brother Joss!"

So yeah, I loved the finale.

Err, Connie, I find that really offensive, especially as Willow came out when the show was still fairly guy-heavy.

Just wanted to agree with this, too.

Dude, the Russians have Mafiya...that other spelling is only for LCN. My "other hobby" is showing again, isn't it? And even a Slayer couldn't fuck with the Russians.

sorry erika, don't know the html for cyrillic. that's how the moldovans spell it, and they have the Russian mafia...

OK...maybe my source was not so good for that.

While I regret that several you have been offended, I do not retract my statement. I believe that preachiness in all its flavors weakens storytelling. I understand that everyone is on a different place in the journey but, for me, my empowerment is fine and the only reason I watched those storylines was because I liked the show.

While I regret that several you have been offended, I do not retract my statement. I believe that preachiness in all its flavors weakens storytelling.

Gosh, I'm sorry that a woman coming to terms with her sexuality, coming out to her friends, and yet somehow still remaining a flawed and multi-dimensional character is preachy or an anvil to you.

An anvil would be Willow getting a buzzcut, getting her butch on, and banishing Xander and Giles to the World Without Shrimp so that Sunnydale could be all Wymyn World. And yet, that didn't happen.

By the way, I'm plenty fucking empowered. Any more empowered, and I'd probably vibrate and be sold as a sex toy or in Home Depot.

And I'm empowered enough to call bullshit. Because that's what your line of reasoning about Willow's sexuality is. By that line of reasoning, if you take it just to its logical conclusion, having Xander come out would actually make it so that the 'Verse was fine for men so long as they were non-threatening parent figures (Giles) or gay and therefore not a threat to the Holy Untouchable Cunt.

Bad taste in marketing