25 Years Later, Buffy's Most Controversial Season Is Still One Of Its Best

For seven glorious seasons, the iconic Buffy the Vampire Slayer series delighted audiences with its signature blend of supernatural and real-world problems. Airing between 1997 and 2003, the show's 144 total episodes ran the gamut, from Buffy episodes that aged poorly to absolute classics.

Like its individual episodes, some Buffy seasons remain more beloved than others. Season 4, for example, had its good moments, like the almost dialogue-free "Hush," but the show's transition from high school to college came with growing pains. Season 5 started with reinvention, ended with sacrifice, and included two devastating deaths. Honestly, the show probably could have ended with this season, and in spite of its tragic moments, it became a fan favorite.

Despite having a season that worked as a finale, the series continued after a switch in networks from the WB to UPN, where it finished with its last two seasons. This led to the most controversial Buffy the Vampire Slayer season of all — season 6.

In addition to being divisive among fans, it also holds the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of all the seasons. Even Sarah Michelle Gellar doesn't love season 6. After all, Buffy's sixth installment was much less light-hearted and, well, fun than previous seasons, as well as much messier. However, this controversial season was still one of the show's best.

Why Buffy Season 6 Was So Divisive

Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5 ended with Buffy sacrificing herself to save the world. Having another season of the show without the titular character wouldn't really have worked, so the writers had to bring her back from the dead. At this point, she had been, according to Spike, dead for 147 days, so to resurrect her, the Scooby gang used a powerful spell. However, it was interrupted, leaving the group to believe it had failed.

As a result, Buffy woke up in her coffin and was forced to claw her way out. As if that wasn't bad enough, she wasn't brought back from Hell as the gang believed, but was ripped from Heaven. Unsurprisingly, the Slayer was going through it. For much of the season, Buffy dealt with depression, anger over being alive, and uncertainty over her current place in the world.

The season got even darker as the episodes went on. One of the biggest plotlines from the season was Willow's increasingly dark magic use. It was a clumsy and rather heavy-handed metaphor for addiction, with Willow getting so out of control that Tara leaves her. Willow's downfall didn't stop there, though.

The Big Bad of Buffy season 6 was the Trio, a group made up of the nerdy Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan. While their initial attempts at gaining power in Sunnydale began as little more than a nuisance and occasional comic relief, they gradually upped the ante. Eventually, the Trio ended with the group broken up, which led Warren to attempt to shoot and kill Buffy.

He injured her, but he also hit Tara, who died in Willow's arms, causing Willow to go on a rampage for revenge that ultimately resulted in her flaying Warren alive. It was brutal. It was dark. And it was difficult to watch.

The season didn't stop there with the bleakness, either. Dawn felt alienated and started shoplifting. Giles returned to England. Anya went back to the vengeance demon lifestyle after Xander left her at the altar. Buffy struggled to support herself and Dawn financially, while also dealing with her own depression and alienation. She ended up turning to Spike for comfort, which resulted in an unhealthy sexual relationship. That, in turn, led to one of the most disturbing scenes in the entire series, where Spike attempted to sexually assault Buffy.

Season 6's Darker Turn Allowed The Characters To Grow

While season 6's darkness may not have been popular, it allowed the major characters to grow, which helped them face everything that came in season 7. The final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was arguably rough in its own way, but had everyone not spent the previous season growing apart and growing together again, learning from tragic mistakes, and realizing what they needed as individuals, Buffy's ending might have been very different. The Scooby gang came out of season 6 as a much stronger unit.

Previous seasons had growth, too, of course, but up until this point — outside of supernatural problems — Buffy and her friends had faced the stuff all teenagers face. The Slayer may have had to grow up at an early age on one front, but she still had chances to go to school dances, have crushes, fight with a parent and argue with friends, get drunk for the first time, and other rites of passage. Season 6 saw Buffy and friends facing truly adult problems where there often wasn't a simple solution. Life became more complicated, as it does in adulthood, and messier.

The introduction of more adult themes also helped the show keep moving. Teen shows can be prone to stagnation once the characters leave high school because they tend to move into increasingly outlandish, even soap-operatic territory. (Buffy's years at college suffered a few of these moments.)

Season 6 might have had some offbeat moments, but between facing real-world challenges and the show's first-ever human Big Bad, this season demonstrated how scary adult life can be even without vampires and demons roaming around. The Scooby Gang needed to face that head-on to prepare for what came next.

Buffy Season 6 Still Had Some Of The Show's Best Episodes

Even as season 6 grew messier, it still managed to pull off some of the series' best episodes. Episode 7, "Once More, With Feeling," became not only the pinnacle of one-off musical episodes on television, but one of the show's greatest ones and a Buffy fan favorite. Between the amazing songs (and Anya's riff on bunnies), the secrets that everyone had been holding back coming to light, and the surprisingly quiet ending, "Once More, With Feeling" was a masterpiece of television.

And who can forget the comedy gold of "Tabula Rasa" when Willow inadvertently erases everyone's memories? Spike believes Giles is his father. Willow and Xander assume they're dating, while Anya thinks she's marrying Giles. And Buffy, as "Joan," thinks the idea of a vampire with a soul is super lame. Of course, the episode as a whole isn't quite as funny, as this magical mishap was the last straw for Tara and led to her and Willow's breakup. The middle part, though, is hilarious. Plus, the episode furthers the storyline of Willow's magic addiction.

Finally, one of the best episodes of the season (and possibly the show) came in the form of "Normal Again." In this one, the Trio summoned a demon to attack Buffy. It dosed her with something that caused her to hallucinate that she was in a mental hospital. The whole episode goes back and forth between that scenario and the real world. By the end, the possibility that the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was no more than a delusion seemed real. It was an excellent episode that showed what might have been and left fans pondering reality in the Buffy-verse.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6 had its share of problems, and it's understandable that many weren't huge fans of it, but overall, it was still a great season.