Jude wrote: One of the great appeals of the show was the goofy likeability of the main character, and in Season 7 there were times when she was insufferable and self-righteous.
That was actually the best moment of Season 7 for me - cuz for a good part of that season I was really, really annoyed with Buffy. Like, you're being totally stupid and unreasonable and arrogant and inconsiderate and you're really pissing me off.....and then, they call her out on it. Everyone calls her out on it. That moment, when they ask her to leave, was very shocking and poignant and sad. That was a great moment and a great payoff to where Buffy had been leading.
I guess by biggest complaint about #7 was that the "The First" plot proved to be kinda dumb and aimless and not very interesting. Did it even have a plan aside from being spooky and taunty? I guess it wanted to open the hell-mouth gate, which frankly didn't seem that scary (oh no, more dumb ugly monsters for us to stab ; and hadn't it opened once before? and why was he trying to open it now?), but you never really understood why they didn't just go, you know, open it. It was just sitting there totally unguarded for half the season and all they needed was blood. The bringers and Caleb coulda brought it tons of blood but never did for no particular reason. And their solution is to open it for him/it and throw a magical-nuke Angel happened to find last minute? That's a very boring, random solution to a boring problem. And one that they didn't really need to do the slayer magic (which yet another random bit of last minute magic) to accomplish which took the wind out of a poignant moment. And Anya's death was rather unceremonious.
Plus I was annoyed that it felt like newcomers Wood and Andrew got more screen time than our dearly beloved Willow and Xander. I think by the end Xander was my favorite character and they leave him with next to nothing to do the whole season. I wanted more Xander!
Meh. It wasn't terrible, but it might've been the weakest season since the 1st, IMO.