At Brett’s tongue-in-cheek-suggestion, I’ll be occasionally blogging some thoughts when I rewatch episodes.

What? You thought the obsession would just stop when I got through everything?

I forgot how long it took me to have any real sentimental attachment to Buffy herself. For whatever reason - probably because I’m not a slayer, actually - I always identified with the Scoobies. It wasn’t even until sending Angel to hell that I felt any real sympathy for Buffy. Most of the time when her baggage is annoying the heck out of them, it’s annoying the heck out of me too.

The Slayer-Watcher issues that really come to the forefront in Season Seven are planted much earlier than I realized. It always seemed to me that the Slayer origin story and the less-than noble nature of the Watchers developed throughout the course of the show, but it’s right there in Buffy’s first death. I think this might inspire mixed feelings but I never completely bought Giles as father figure to Buffy. Authority figure, yes. Mentor, of course. I can’t pinpoint why, but I’ll try to explore that more. It might be because I never saw Buffy as enough of a child or Giles as enough of an adult for there to be a generational-disparity. Yes, I think that’s it. Strangely enough, I felt Giles paternal quality the most when he comes back to “deal” with Willow in Season Six.

It’s amazing that Xander becomes the symbol of absolute loyalty at the end of the show. In these early seasons - again something that I forgot - he’s so often the voice of dissent. He’s the first to get fed up with Buffy, he threatens to kill her if Willow is harmed, and at the end of Season Two he has that whole going rogue and not delivering information, thereby leading to Angel’s death thing going. It wasn’t until Xander got off her Buffy crush - with the development of his relationship with Anya - that he’s really becomes the upstanding person he is when the show ends.

There really is such a split between High School and After. I forgot about the soft lighting and strange neutral colors that characterize the first two seasons. It’s a little jarring.