Buffy: The Final Slouches

In a review of the horrible, horrible film North, Roger Ebert wrote: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensiblilty that anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it." I've held that review as an example of criticism at its most clearly frustrated, agonized, and spiteful. I've admired its clarity while all along thinking 'nothing could possibly be that bad.' I've held that such invective is normally the result of extenuating circumstances which otherwise must coloured the critical perspective. I no longer think any of those things. Thanks to Rebecca Kern Kirshner, writer of last night's episode ("Touched") of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I find myself not only understanding Ebert's sentiments but echoing in them. Buffy, for its ups and downs, has been a good solid show for six seasons, and even the first portion of season seven was solid. But after a series of increasingly idiotic episodes, wherein serious issues of plot and character have been handled with the deftness of a two-year-old petting a dog, I can declare that the show has reached its nadir. I hated hated hated hated hated-- and dare I usurp Ebert by adding one more?-- HATED this episode. I've now all but given up on a graceful or even decent ending to an otherwise solid series. This was an episode so bad that, despite it's tell-tale odour and brownish colour, I'd be reluctant to compliment by calling it shit-- especially when half of its constitution is premised on yesterday's dinner, the equally self-identifying remnants of half-digested corn. Is this getting gross? Well, that should tell you something. Did I mention I hated this episode? This is cynical, thoughtless, empty writing, and I'm not sure who I'm more pissed at-- Kirshner for authoring this trite, obnoxious, and fly-attracting sample of television, or Joss Whedon for allowing a third-rate writer of the show's worst episodes to write a key episode in the series' final five. I'm not disappointed-- I'm angry. Such potential utterly wasted. I could itemize my reasons for thinking this, but I'm reluctant to waste my energy any more than I already have. This is a bloody fucking shame; this could have been a dynamite close to the series. Even the Mayor was disappointing. G'night Buffy-- you're on the way out, not with a bang but with a whimper. You're slouching toward oblivion, waiting to be unborn.