Noir was my original favorite Anime, it had been temporarily dethroned by Utena for over a year at least, but once I did a more recent revisit of Noir it took the position back and now Utena doesn't even make my 3x3. I still love Utena, it's a fantastic work of art and I don't think anyone should be allowed to claim to be an expert on Feminist Film theory if they haven't watched Utena (and I suppose that includes anyone wanting to discus how well Buffy holds up as a Feminist show). But it's just not for me re-watchable enough to keep calling it a personal favorite.
So could the same happen with Buffy? Now that I'm revisiting my Buffy fandom can she take her former throne back from Pretty Little Liars (hence forth called PLL for short) as my favorite Western TV Show? If it does it would be largely on the strength of how much it ended better. But comparing their first 4 seasons PLL was absolutely much more consistently great then Buffy was. In fact with PLL season 4 was the best season, how often does that happen?
Now PLL was still good all the way to the end, even it's finale episode has material that will probably stick with me into Eternity. But the moment a certain change happened in season 5 it started losing something, and then in the middle of season 6 it makes that massive mistake it never fully recovered from that I've already talked about more then I feel I'm qualified to.
What I'm about to say probably makes me unlike most Buffy fans, but the last 3 seasons rather then the first three are what I'm most nostalgic for. Dawn is my favorite Buffy character, Spike my favorite male character from the show, and the Magic Box was a more natural base of operations then a school library. Now character wise neither Glory, the First or Caleb were the best Big Bads, but the Big Bad was always a plot device first and a character second. Remember as I've already shared I used to be a major Spawn shipper. And I've seen the MOTW Superhero show in a High School setting done as well or better by Magical Girl Anime and Smallville.
Season 6 was probably my favorite season of the show. And season 7 I think was one of the most successful final seasons in TV history, in-spite of how it kinda does some things I think a final season shouldn't do.
The Gift was a good episode on it's own, but in an awkward situation because of the first season being only 12 episodes where it has to be both the 100th episode and a season finale. What I want from 100th episodes and season finales are inherently not the same, a good 100th episode should be almost more about past seasons then the current one which is why it's convenient when they fall exactly in the middle of season 5.
But back to season 7. My first instinct would always be to advise someone NOT to introduce new regular/recurring characters during the last season, winding things down is not a good time to suddenly start whole new character arcs. The one exception could be a final Big Bad, but they should be introduced early in the season and connected to earlier story-lines somehow. Buffy season 7 clearly goes against this a lot between the Potentials, Principal Robin Wood, and waiting till the last 5 episodes to bring in Caleb.
Now Buffy season 7 does still demonstrate why I feel this way, which is why it fails to outdo season 6. The Potentials I'm particularity mad at since I think they ruined what Dawn's role in the finale season should have been. And as for Wood, he is a very interesting character who's background was a neat idea to add to the lore, but being in only one season limited the ability to flesh that out.
But over all season 7 was a pretty solid final act for the show in-spite of all that.
For finale episodes, my advise tends to be focus on being a good season finale first, and if the final season works as a final season it should naturally make a good finale episode. And Chosen mostly does just that which is why it's a great series finale.
On the subject of bringing back characters we hadn't seen in awhile, I believe final seasons should try to do that, but the finale episode should not, it should just focus on ending the story-lines of the characters who stuck around to the end.
Now you might think Angel's involvement in Chosen violates that rule, but he's an acceptable exception because he was only at the very beginning, and being the lead of a spin off meant that in the fan's minds he was never completely gone. You might also think Faith's involvement cuts it close but coming in five episodes from the end proved enough to reintegrate her.
PLL's final season and final episodes both do these things I said you shouldn't do, and doesn't make up for it as cleverly as Buffy does. Again I always enjoyed the show, but it's last 2 seasons were deeply inferior to the first 5 and also certainly don't make as satisfying an ending as how Buffy ended.
Thing is no single episode of PLL ever got as bad as some of Buffy's low points. And I'm not sure if any of my favorite episodes of Buffy can beat my favorites of PLL.
One thing both shows have in common is that some of my favorite episodes are their Halloween episodes, might have something to do with the weird fact that I was born on Halloween. But comparing them, PLL's Halloween specials win out with their epicness, the one that's a back door pilot for the failed spin off is the weakest of them but still pretty good.
It's hard for me to pick a single favorite episode for either. But for PLL Shadow Play is a strong candidate and for Buffy it would probably be Once Moor With Feeling. Comparing a Noir Episode to a Musical probably doesn't seem fair, but I think PLL wins here because for Buffy's my favorite character was kinda sidelined while on PLL Spencer was the focal point of this episode.
PLL never had a Musical which is a shame. And Buffy never had a Noir Episode, the Buffyverse did it's Noir stuff on Angel, where again I'd say no single episode of Angel is as good at being a Noir as Shadow Play is.
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