But I’m on the second episode and I guess the Christian god just canonically exists in this show? Crosses and holy water and shit work on vampires. Seems like a bold choice for a show to say “uh yeh that deity canonically exists in our show but I guess it’s just indifferent or whatever?”
Maybe this gets lampshaded at some point but in the second episode it’s weird as fuck lol
Agree with you on most buuuuut:
Hot take from someone who used to feel this way: actually season six is far and away the best season and was just way ahead of its time. So many of its themes and its stories just felt oddly depressing and mean spirited for the show when it first aired but my god does it border on prophetic. Just look at the big bad of that season.
Back then, even the show in one episode kinda shrugged at the audience reactions of them as being Joke villains. Today...they might honestly be the most terrifying villains of the show because they're absolutely 100% what would happen if you gave redpilled incel nerds magic and scifi tech. What other show was even talking about misogyny and shit like this in nerd culture at the time? Likewise the way it talked about depression and the millennial struggle of feeling sort of trapped between childhood and adulthood is so much more on point now than it was at the time. Magic as a drug analog I do think is still something of a stretch...but the way it approached the subject of addiction was still pretty wild for a network show about witches and vampires.
Edit: also always worth noting that Season 6 is when Whedon went off to do Firefly and as a result this season has the least amount of his influence by far. At the time that was a huge mark against it...but again....in hindsight.....
The themes of young adult depression were fine, I personally don't like season six because season five had that finality to it and that was very abruptly reversed because it was revived by another network; and also because I agree with the more general opinion on why it was bad, that being that changing magic use into a metaphor for drug addiction was bad and retroactively hurt its previous thematic role in the series.
I do agree that magic as drug addiction is still the biggest misstep in the season...but even that one I've softened on a bit even if I do consider it a botched execution. You say its previous thematic role in the series is hurt by it, but I would argue that the overlap between magic/occultism and drugs was thematically kinda a thing going back to at least season 2 if not earlier. See: Giles past as ripper and the summoning of Eyghon, or the candy that turned everyone into teenagers. Magic as a factor in abusive relationships is also a pretty consistent theme also since season one such as with Amy's mom.
I would argue the biggest problem with the metaphor in season 6 is that they went too far and made it too literal to the point it feels incompatible with the mechanics of the world up to and after that point. I think there actually was an interesting story to tell in the way Willow became dependent on magic to handle all of her problems and the way she used it against the consent of Tara to solve relationship issues. The magical crack-house though....I don't know who came up with that but that was a bit too on the nose and head scratching. I guess since it was the early 00s they were worried people wouldn't understand the issue without that or something.