Xander and Dawn work together to move what remains of the Trio away from her. Giles fights her with powerful good magic. It isnвЂ™t until everyone comes together to stop Dark Willow that they seem to remember that they are a team. Working together, as the Scoobies do in the first episode of the season and as theyвЂ™ve done all along, just seems to vanish. Pretty much all social gatherings involve at least one character who is depressed and needing comfort or terribly angry at someone else. Xander and AnyaвЂ™s wedding devolves into a riot before the groom walks off (alone). Very little, really, is joyful in this season. The only moments of calm during the season come in those rare moments when two or more people are allowed just to sit and talk (though BuffyвЂ™s birthday party, as usual, turns into a near-disaster). The first images we have in the season are of the Scooby Gang banding together to fight the vampires none of them could fight alone. From the start, it goes wrong: demons scatter the friends as they work the spell and Buffy is left to claw her way from her own coffin, an image weвЂ™ve seen so many times in the series: the dead rising. Thus she casts a spell that pulls Buffy back from the grave. But Willow, now a powerful witch, canвЂ™t get past the pain of believing her friend must be residing in some unknown hell dimension, suffering because of the sacrifice she made for them. Season 6 begins, appropriately enough, three months later, and BuffyвЂ™s friends have taken over the slaying with the help of a robot who looks like Buffy, an effort to fool the demons and vampires into believing that she is still around. It is the second death with which the Slayer gifts the world, the first occurring near the end of Season 1 at the hands of The Master. (For the record, Whedon disagrees with Gellar about the effectiveness of Season 6 as well as his own involvement.)ДЄt the end of Season 5, Buffy, who had learned cryptically that her вЂњgift is death,вЂќ finally understands that, in order to save the little sister who doesnвЂ™t even exist when the season began but, due to memory manipulation, seems to her to have been present all of her life, she needs to sacrifice herself. Other fans point to the overall depressing tone of the season, noting that creator Joss Whedon was busy with two other programs (вЂќAngelвЂќ and the new вЂњFireflyвЂќ) and was not involved in direct oversight of вЂњBuffyвЂќ that year and thus was not around to insert his trademark wit. And some donвЂ™t feel the threat is great enough until the very end, since she is hunting the Trio, who sort of deserve it. Her power is as great as the Hell-god GloryвЂ™s the previous season-perhaps greater-but many fans simply canвЂ™t get past adorable Allyson Hannigan as the bringer of doom. Even Buffy, in one episode, describes their efforts as вЂњlame.вЂќ Interestingly, many fans have even more trouble with the one supernatural Big Bad of the season, Dark Willow. While other seasons gave us The Master, Angelus, Adam, the Mayor, and Glory, all worthy supernatural opponents, Season 6 has Buffy face off against a вЂњTrioвЂќ of nerds who failed at everything they tried to do in high school and now have joined together in all of their elaborate nerdness (nerdity?) to try to get some revenge. Her decision-making in Season 6 is, in a word, miserable.ДЇans find a lot miserable about Season 6, starting with its Big Bad. She finds herself in a torrid sexual affair with Spike, an erstwhile nemesis who is still, according to both of them, вЂњevil.вЂќ And she simply canвЂ™t shake her feelings: even after he attempts to rape her, she still trusts him to care for Dawn. She canвЂ™t seem to find a way to вЂњadultвЂќ in any variation of the term. She canвЂ™t sense the deep needs her friends Xander and Willow have until it is far too late. She isnвЂ™t present emotionally for her little sister Dawn. It was, after all, BuffyвЂ™s own: she spends much of Season 6 loathing her own behavior. I felt it betrayed who she was.вЂќ For a long time, I shared that opinion. Heck, in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, star Sarah Michelle Gellar herself discussed her distaste for that season: вЂњIвЂ™ve always said that season 6 was not my favorite. But there is one thing on which вЂњBuffyвЂќ fans have, for fourteen years, agreed on as if with a single voice: Season 6 of the show was a low point for the series.

Once more with feeling origin