I agree with what you say here, but I don't think it's incompatible with what I was saying above. You've ably pointed out repeatedly about how much season eight comes back to Buffy's fame. I think that the other side to the fame is that I think Buffy does at some level want to stay in control. She wants to give up her power, but she also revels in it (c.f. Twilight Part 1 especially) and I think she likes being exceptional. Joss has been on "the difficult second album" for many years, in terms of connecting to a mass audience. Chosen was supposed to be the end of Joss' involvement in Buffy's story, and of Buffy's being the One and Only, but years later they're both back. I think the parallel works, regardless of the original way that season eight started. (You can argue Joss is Xander too. I just reread The Long Way Home and like the way he mentions, "When duty calls, you don't get to screen." Allie asked Joss to have permission to continue a comic book, and Joss felt some pull to continue doing it, even though he had been, like Xander, somewhat out of the biz.)
I do think that Joss' destroying the story is maybe overstating the case. But the remixing is not just a matter of turning it up to epic, it also involves exposing the silliness AND the emotional underpinning that's always been there. It's like a Douglas Sirk movie, where it's being played straight and being mercilessly self-mocking at the same time. I've watched All that Heaven Allows and not cracked a smile, and Imitation of Life in a Film 101 class and never laughed harder; it just requires a slight turn of the head. The show had some of this ridiculousness (especially in things like OMWF) but not quite on the same level. So I think there is a deliberate distancing effect in having Angel turning into a Hammer-like caricature (though still recognizably Angel, just with most of his guilt and reluctance removed), having all the steam trains still running in Germany, having all the forest creatures everywhere, etc. Overdosing us on Wonder before we get to the Seed. In-story and out-of-story seem to be merging here. It's not a criticism, and I can turn my head and read the story straight, but I think it is off in deliberate ways. Sorry if I can't articulate it very well.
But anyway I agree on the point that the emotional underpinnings are still there to the story.
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I do think that Joss' destroying the story is maybe overstating the case. But the remixing is not just a matter of turning it up to epic, it also involves exposing the silliness AND the emotional underpinning that's always been there. It's like a Douglas Sirk movie, where it's being played straight and being mercilessly self-mocking at the same time. I've watched All that Heaven Allows and not cracked a smile, and Imitation of Life in a Film 101 class and never laughed harder; it just requires a slight turn of the head. The show had some of this ridiculousness (especially in things like OMWF) but not quite on the same level. So I think there is a deliberate distancing effect in having Angel turning into a Hammer-like caricature (though still recognizably Angel, just with most of his guilt and reluctance removed), having all the steam trains still running in Germany, having all the forest creatures everywhere, etc. Overdosing us on Wonder before we get to the Seed. In-story and out-of-story seem to be merging here. It's not a criticism, and I can turn my head and read the story straight, but I think it is off in deliberate ways. Sorry if I can't articulate it very well.
But anyway I agree on the point that the emotional underpinnings are still there to the story.