It made Riley the emotional focus so, while I can enjoy season 4 for one-off episodes and a happier Buffy, I couldn't really connect with the big arc episodes making the emotional focus Riley
Excellent point. Joss complained later about Riley being a boring character, but that's his job as a writer, to find what is interesting in each character or else what the hell are they there for?
It was Buffy's story that I cared about, and she wasn't particularly emotionally gutted by Adam or the Initiative the way that she had been in previous seasons by the Master, Angelus,and Faith, so there wasn't all that much heart there for me to care about
It's telling that one of my favorite episodes of the season - and one of my favorites of the entire series - is Who Are You, which deals with the fallout of Faith and Buffy's relationship in S4. It's my headcanon that the switch affected Buffy as much as it does Faith. If Faith is altered by being inside Buffy's body and eventually sets herself on the path to redemption, I think the reverse is also true. I don't know if that's canon, but thematically, the episode foreshadows Buffy's increasing darkness, self-doubt, her relationship with Spike in S6 (DT hangs a lantern on this, in fact).
My fondness for S4 stems more perhaps by how the events reverberate through the remaining seasons rather than the season itself. Or, I actually like it quite a bit except for Riley/Adam, so, hmm.
no subject
Excellent point. Joss complained later about Riley being a boring character, but that's his job as a writer, to find what is interesting in each character or else what the hell are they there for?
It was Buffy's story that I cared about, and she wasn't particularly emotionally gutted by Adam or the Initiative the way that she had been in previous seasons by the Master, Angelus,and Faith, so there wasn't all that much heart there for me to care about
It's telling that one of my favorite episodes of the season - and one of my favorites of the entire series - is Who Are You, which deals with the fallout of Faith and Buffy's relationship in S4. It's my headcanon that the switch affected Buffy as much as it does Faith. If Faith is altered by being inside Buffy's body and eventually sets herself on the path to redemption, I think the reverse is also true. I don't know if that's canon, but thematically, the episode foreshadows Buffy's increasing darkness, self-doubt, her relationship with Spike in S6 (DT hangs a lantern on this, in fact).
My fondness for S4 stems more perhaps by how the events reverberate through the remaining seasons rather than the season itself. Or, I actually like it quite a bit except for Riley/Adam, so, hmm.