Well, I’m fifteen minutes into the Buffy season four finale and all I can say is “University isn’t like that!” Universities specifically give first year lectures to professors who know how to treat students. They wouldn’t pick out the one person talking during the lecture and scream at them and kick them out because they’ve yet to register for the class. But aside from that, why would Buffy crumple under that pressure? I’m a huge fucking mess and I wouldn’t have accepted that kind of verbal punishment without some sort of defense.

And when Buffy started off in high school at the beginning of the series she made all sorts of friends quite fast. Hell, by the end of the series she was commanding a damned army of students! Do the writers really expect us to believe she’s the demure, insecure wallflower she’s presented as in this episode? And are we really supposed to believe that she could get her ass kicked by a poser on-campus vampire? She has, to date, kicked the Master’s ass, defeated Angel and Spike — two notoriously vicious brutal vampire of the past — and yet this wannabe vampstress can kick her ass? I don’t care how bad she’s feeling about not fitting in on campus, vamp slaying is mechanical at this point and she needs a real threat for it to be realistic.

I’m not great at making friends, in fact I’m terrible at making friends, but even I managed to scrounge up a couple people to talk to in between classes, so to have the show act like someone who is as pretty, as funny and as interesting as Buffy would have trouble making new friends, in any situation, is beyond absurd.

A lot of people hate season 4 a lot because it introduced Riley, and while I never had any strong distaste for Riley myself, I get the feeling I’m going to be considerably more annoyed with this season than any of the previous ones. There are some really great episodes this season, including the Emmy-nominated Hush, but that doesn’t mean the season as a whole isn’t poor. More as my marathon progresses.