Yeah, this is the right place to discuss season 6, since it's aired on Sky.

As for the episode.. Don't like it. Alyson Hannigans performance is undeniably good, but the whole magic addiction thing comes out of nowhere - not once before in the entire show has it been implied that magic is, per se, addictive - and is handled in the least subtle way imagineable. It's also unnecessary. It's been established over a long period of time that Willow has issues - with power, and abuse of power. Even her restoration of Angels soul in 'Becoming' can be seen as part of that, then we get 'Doppelgangland', 'Wild at Heart, 'Something Blue', 'Tough Love', and of course her resurrection of Buffy is ultimately a selfish act - the moaning about Buffy not being grateful in 'After Life', and then the revelation that she doesn't want to be back just emphasises that. They had plenty to work with without introducing crack/magic houses, bringing back Amy only to completely ruin the character, etc..

Right, rant over.

I agree that the whole 'addicted to magic' thing was handled very badly. I know its kind of a pre-requisite with teen dramas these days that they have to contain certain messages - be nice to the up-popular kids, they are people too, bad people get their come uppance, drugs are bad etc but I thought Joss would be able to get the message across with a little more subtlety that didn't do quite such a diservice to the views intellectual capabilities. I felt the paralelles with coke addiction - nose bleeds and headaches, the cold turkey etc - were almost grotesque. Other than that I did enjoy the series but jeez, give us some credit over here - we're not that stupid!

Okay, so first up let me just say that I _hated_ this episode when I first saw it, because of the magicrack. I absolutely agree that it was a bizarre change of direction out of left-field, and I hated it.

Secondly, since this is the Sky forum, I'm going to talk about the episode in the context of everything up to the end of Season 6. Since this was obviously posted at first by someone who hasn't seen all that, here's spoiler space.

<Minor SPOILERS TO END OF SEASON 6>






















Looking back, I'm still not loving Wrecked, but I can see that the point is actually not that magic is a drug. Willow is hooked on the power for certain, but magic itself isn't the problem, and Rack's funky magicrack house of twistedness is actually a mislead to place the blame where it <i>doesn't</i> belong. Wrecked then is oe huge mislead; more for the characters than for the audience.

Magic leads Willow to the crack house, and she begs for help, so they blame magic try to keep it away form her. This magic is a drug metaphor persists through all efforts to get Willow 'cured' of magic by trying to isolate her from <i>something that is inside her</i>. It also blithely ignores the fact that magic is not Willow's problem, until the whole thing blows up in everyone's faces.

I retrospect then, I can see what they were doing with Wrecked, or maybe - just maybe - what they subsequently decided was a much better way of dealing with the issue.





































<END SPOILERS>

I hated this too when I first saw it, and I just watched it again the other day after i read this thread. It was alright, it was a stand out episode that just wasn't very good, which is strange for Buffy, as when they try a stand out ep, it's usually great!
Buffy was such a bitch in this ep especially to Amy and Willow. I really hated her. That's about all I have to say