Let’s examine the evidence. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 started promisingly enough with Buffy leading her own slayer army based out of a Scottish castle, a gathering mysterious evil led by a mysterious Big Bad, returning guests and dialogue that seemed pretty pitch perfect. That was then, this is now. Case in point in Buffy Season issue 25 Living Doll, we learn somewhat belatedly that Dawn has vanished and there’s an army of vampires headed for the castle. The battle with the vampires happens off the page.

Instead it turns out that Dawn has been turned into a wooden doll or something, and is being watched over by an evil or not so evil toymaker. Now throughout Buffy Season 8, Dawn had been turning into all sorts of wacky creatures. We had Dawn as a giant and then Dawn as a centaur. Now it’s Dawn as a living doll. As it turns out the underwhelming explanation is that the whole thing was a spell put on her by her boyfriend, a Thricewise, whose roommate she slept with. Aside from the stupidity of the whole thing and the way the story reminds you of the worst of Season 5, the whole thing just has no point whatsoever.

But Buffy Season 8 hasn’t had any point to anything in a long time. Tokyo giant robot dawn, cyber corporate vampires, Buffy’s lesbian fling, Giles and Faith visiting an evil Swiss town of renegade vampires feeding Slayers to a regret demon. What started out promisingly enough is now a mess, and it seems like Joss Whedon bringing in the same writers who killed Buffy, I mean the series not the character, managed to kill Buffy Season 8 too. Sure the sales are probably good, till someone notices that the whole thing is going nowhere, makes no sense and is hanging by a thread. Hey remember the time Jonathan and Buffy went alone to hunt some rogue slayers with a robot and then there was a standoff and nothing happened. Yeah that’s the whole season now.