Due to the vast decrease in characters in season 6 (compared not only to season
5, but seasons 2 to 5) and a plot that revolved around life sucking for each
and every character, almost all characters improved their total lines on the
previous season. Willow, Spike, Anya and Dawn all had there highest seasons,
whilst Xander had his best season score since
season 2. Perversely however Buffy suffered
her worst season so far, in no doubt caused by poor showings in bargaining part one and two, in which she scored a total of 7. Anya, Spike and Dawn’s scores were so close that I cannot
say with absolute certainty that Anya came out
the winner.
|
Pos |
Character
|
Played |
Gold |
Silver |
Bronze |
Average |
Medals |
Lines |
|
1 |
Buffy A. Summers |
22 |
12 |
5 |
3 |
78.36 |
20 |
1724 |
|
2 |
Willow Rosenburg |
22 |
5 |
4 |
4 |
50.18 |
13 |
1104 |
|
3 |
Xander L. Harris |
22 |
2 |
4 |
1 |
40.18 |
7 |
884 |
|
4 |
Anya C.E. Jenkins |
21 |
1 |
1 |
1.5 |
34.14 |
3.5 |
717 |
|
5 |
Dawn Summers |
22 |
1 |
2 |
1.5 |
32.31 |
4.5 |
711 |
|
5 |
Spike |
22 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
32.31 |
4 |
711 |
|
7 |
Tara Maclay |
16 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
27.37 |
1 |
438 |
|
8 |
Warren Meers |
9 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
41.88 |
4 |
377 |
|
9 |
Rupert Giles |
8 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
42.75 |
4 |
342 |
|
10 |
Jonathon Levinson |
11 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
24.9 |
1 |
274 |
Click
Here for the Complete Season 6 Table
Note Bargaining
part one and two’s transcript is of the two hour
premier with no clear indication of where part one ends, and part two begins.
This point was chosen to be the point at which Buffy is resurrected (which is the end
point of part one in the one hour version), however
this does mean that Bargaining
part one is actually
slightly longer than part 2.
Buffy suffered her
worst season so far (though season 7 was worst), and started the season with
her worst two scores, scoring 0 in Bargaining part one (won by Willow) and 7 in Bargaining part
two (won by Xander). Things
didn’t improve much with Afterlife’s 54 either,
however Buffy returned to form with Flooded’s 100 and Life Serials 142. Before losing
All The Way to Dawn 74 – 60, further to
this she lost As You Were to Riley 99 – 64, Hells Bells to both Xander(72) and Anya(68) Entropy to Anya 99 – 64, and the last
three episodes of the season to Willow. In total Buffy achieved 12
Golds, 5 silvers and 3 bronzes, significantly down on season 5’s 15-4-3.
however she did achieve 6 scores over 100, the fore
mentioned Flooded and Life serial as well as Gone(145), Doublemeat
Palace(121), Dead Things(111) and Older and Far
Away(113) with Gone proving to be Buffy’s strongest
episode of the season (though Life Serial wasn’t far
behind). In contrast Buffy had 14 Gold episodes, four Silver and one
Bronze. Her highest is Help(121) and her
lowest is Touched(33) in season 7. Buffy’s average
ratings over the past 7 seasons was (118.4, 95.5, 95.3, 81.9, 84.0, 78.4, 76.1).
In contrast to Buffy, Willow had her best
ever season, as she picked up 5 Gold episodes, 4
silver and 4 bronze medals. Previous to this no character bar Buffy had more than
2 Golds in one season, so five is somewhat impressive. Willow also picked up
a 100 line-breaking
episode with Bargaining part 1 (106), whilst Afterlife(73) and the last
3 dark magic Willow laden episodes(75, 62 and 77) also provided
Golds for Willow. Wrecked nearly
provided the sixth, but Willow narrowly
missed out to Buffy, 93 lines to 95. Willow’s lowest scoring
episode came from Life Serial(14). In comparison to season 7 Willow had one Gold,
2 Silver and 2 Bronze, a high of 104(Killer In Me) and a low of 6(Lies My Parents
Told Me), and an average of 31.2. Her average
for the last seven seasons has been 47.8, 45.6, 45.0, 48.6, 35.7, 50.2 and 31.2, so season 6
proved to be Willow’s most successful season, whilst in stark
contrast season 7 was her worst.
Xander also improved
on last year, increasing by 164 lines, in no doubt helped by the presence of
an actual story, albeit an unpopular one (the wedding arc), but also helped by
an increased role in the final three episodes, as he picked up 144 lines
(previous years final 3 provided just 86 lines) and
saved the world. In addition to this improvement Xander also picked up
two Gold episodes, the ensemble bargaining part two(51) and the wedding
episode Hells Bells(72), Hells Bells was also his
highest scoring episode. He picked up 4 Silver episodes and 1 bronze, with Bargaining Part
One(68), Once More With Feeling(57), Gone(61), and Two To Go(61). Once More With
Feeling is somewhat surprising, but it was fairly even between all
cast members, Xander just happened to come out ahead of everyone
bar Buffy. Xander’s lowest scoring
episode came from Dead Things (10). In comparison to season 7 Xander has achieved 2
silver episodes and 4 bronze, with a high of 54 (Selfless) and low of 2(Lies My Parents
Told Me), and averaged 29.2 for episodes he appeared in. Over the past
seven seasons Xander has averaged 55.8, 52.6, 37.0, 33.8, 32.8, 40.2 and 29.2, so season 6
was a stark improvement on actual character dialogue, if not plot, on the
previous 3 seasons, whilst season 7 was Xander’s worst season.
Somewhat
surprisingly Anya finished in fourth (although Spike and Dawn are so close I
wouldn’t want to say that Anya categorically came out top), both the Wedding
arc, and the vengeance demon arc helped this position. The vengeance demon arc
provided her second gold, when Entropy scored a 99 and her highest
scoring episode ever (it still is). Whilst the wedding arc provided her with
another silver, and near missed gold, Hells Bells(68), and one and
a half bronze medals (shared honours with Dawn for Bargaining part
two) leading up to the unhappy day. Anya’s lowest scoring
episode came with Dead Things(7), although she missed Normal Again entirely. In
season 7 she had 1
Gold, and 2 bronze episodes, and an average of 23.3 for episodes she appeared in
(though Anya missed 3 out of 22 episodes
entirely). Her average lines per episodes in seasons 3 to 7 were 26.0, 17.9, 19.6, 34.4 and 23.3, although she
was only reoccurring in seasons 3 and 4. Anya is the only
regular who did not suffer her worst season in season 7, but clearly there was
still a large drop off in the characters lines (especially given the fact that
she has missed 3 episodes in the season.
Even more
surprisingly (for me at least) was Dawn, who remained in fifth (jointly) and vastly
improved on last season, with an increase of 126 lines. I’m not
a huge fan of Dawn’s character in season 6 (but have enjoyed her
in season 5 and 7) but I always felt that Dawn’s screen time dramatically
dropped in season 6, and her story was reduced to Buffy abandoning her
and kleptomania, however the results for the season as a whole do not support
my viewpoint at first glance. Not until you start taking half season averages
and the number of medals into account. Dawn averaged 26.6 lines per
episode in season 5, however her half season averages are vastly distorted,
from Buffy vs. Dracula to Triangle, Dawn averaged just 17.5 lines per
episode as the character was slowly introduced as somewhat of a mystery. In
contrast Checkpoint (in which Dawn scored only 7) through to the Gift, Dawn averaged 35.7, season 6’s
average was 32.3, so whilst Dawn actually did
better in season 6 as a whole she did drop off in comparison to the second half
of season 5 (when the Dawn storyline really became relevant). Secondly
are the 
medals, in
season 5 Dawn had a 1-3.5-2.5 (with all but the Real Me’s silver coming
in the second half of the season), whilst season 6 provided 1 Gold, 2 silvers
and one and a half bronze medals (Shared honours with Anya for Bargaining part
two). Clearly medals are important. Finally of course there is the
difference of having the central story arc focused on a character and not,
quality over quantity, to me at least. The bottom line is however that season 6
provided more Dawn than season 5 did as a whole. Dawn achieved a
gold for All The Way(74), which was also her highest scoring episode,
and Silvers for Afterlife(67) and Older and Far
Away(64) plus one and a half Bronze medals, whilst
her lowest scoring episode came from Life Serial(5), which was
the only episode in which Dawn had less than 10 lines (season 5
had seen seven instances of this. In contrast to season 7, Dawn has had one Gold (Potential(82)), and two Silvers (Lessons(68), Him(85)). With Him being her highest scoring
episode and Storyteller/Lies
My Parents Told Me being
her lowest (3), and averaged 24.1 for the season. Since I made the point of
emphasising the importance of half season averages here is Dawn’s line average
for each half of a season, 17.5, 35.7, 33.6, 31.0, 30.6, 17.55. So whilst the back 11 of season 7 was better
(just) than the first 11 of season 5, overall Season 7 was worse for Dawn
“Hey, I believe we have a first for Sunnydale High. We have a tie” (Devon MacLeish, Homecoming).
Spike tied fifth place
with Dawn, to provide the
first tie between regulars tie in the line league (though Xander and Riley were separated by
just one line in s4). Despite the drop in the rankings, season 6 proved to be Spike’s strongest season,
as he improved by 27 lines to score 711, and picked up 2
silvers and 2 bronze medals with Smashed(78) and Dead Things (68) providing the
silvers, and Smashed the highest scoring episode of the season. Spuffy (The Spike-Buffy relationship)
provided a fair old bit of Spikes time (treating
Spuffy as Tabula Rasa through to As You Were), as Spike picked up 359 lines, or a line
average of 44.9, whilst in the rest of the season Spike averaged only 25.1, and only scored a
total of 30 lines in the last 3 episodes, and Grave(5) proved to be his
lowest scoring episode of the season, which is the only instance of a regular
having their worst outing in the season finale. In comparison to season 7 Spike had 1 Gold
episode, 3 silver episodes and 2 and a half bronzes. His highest scoring
episode in season 7 was Beneath You(75) and his lowest Conversations
with Dead People(0), and averaged 27.7 lines per episode.
Spikes averages for
episodes he appeared in seasons 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7 (only one ep in 3 so not fair)
were 23.8, 26.4, 32.6, 32.3 and 27.7 (note Spike did not appear in the Body). So Season 6 was Spike’s best in terms of
number of lines (though 5 was best for average) and Season 7 was his worst
since season 4. Spike will be a regular in season 5 of Angel
Tara finished in
seventh and had her best season score, but picked up just one bronze medal with
a 53
in Bargaining part one, but only
narrowly missed out on a bronze in Afterlife, where she
also scored a 53 (whilst Buffy piped her with
a 54). Tara was killed off
in the episode Seeing Red, but over the course of her time picked up 953 lines and
finished 12th out of all Buffy characters.
Warren proved,
somewhat unsurprisingly to be the strongest of the Troika as he picked
up two Silver medals for Life Serial(47) and Seeing Red(57) and two
bronze medals for Dead Things(62) and Villains(57). Dead Things was also his
highest scoring episode. Warren was flayed
alive by Willow, but has subsequently appeared by means of
flashback fantasy in Storyteller, and his image
has been used by the First on several occasions. The remaining Troika Jonathan(274) and Andrew(256) finished in
tenth and eleventh respectively, with Jonathan picking up a
bronze for Life Serial(41), though his highest scoring episode came
from Dead
things(48). Andrew’s highest
scoring episode also came from Dead Things(45), though he
picked up no medals. In contrast season 7 has seen him pick up a Gold, Silver
and Bronze medal, and surpassed his season 6 score of 256, by 148 lines.
Giles dropped from
Regular to re-occurring in season 6, appearing in a total of only 8 episodes,
and finishing in ninth position. He did however do well with his time, not only
picking up two silvers for Flooded(61) and Tabula Rasa(62) and two
Bronze medals for Once More With Feeling(53) and Grave(58), but also
averaging 42.8 lines per episode, for the episodes he was in
(including Two to Go in which he had just 1 line). In
contrast in season 7 Giles had two silver episode Bring On the
Night(38) and Lies My Parents
Told Me(59) and one bronze medal, but averaged just 22.5 lines per
episode although he appeared 13 episodes in total, he had a lower number of
lines. Over the past seven seasons Giles has averaged 53.5, 40.7, 33.7, 32.1, 25.3, 42.8 and 22.5. Which means Giles suffered his
worst season in season 7, but for the episodes he appeared in of season 6 he
was well utilised to the point where its his second best season in terms of
lines per episode.
Riley, another
former regular, also returned for one episode, and won it, taking a gold and a 99 from As You Were, his second,
and last. What’s interesting is that despite being a regular for 22 episodes Riley’s two gold’s
both come in episodes in which he was re-occurring (the other was the Initiative). Riley’s wife Sam Finn also made significant
impact in As You Were, scoring 43 and winning a bronze,
this was her only episode. Two other one off guest stars also won medals in season
6, Dawn’s vampire love interest
Justine
took bronze for All The Way(53) and Buffy’s boss Manny won bronze for Doublemeat Palace(44).
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