YMMV / Buffy the Vampire Slayer S6E7 "Once More, With Feeling"

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Dawn doesn't sing much, but she starts moving her hips during Sweet's scene, and he compels people to unleash their darkest fears. Perhaps she was mildly attracted to him, even as she was scared for her life?
  • Why did Sweet spare Xander from the clause of becoming the demon's queen? He implies he could enforce it, and admits that he is tempted to take Xander to the Underworld. Is it a Pet the Dog moment, or an act of Cruel Mercy that Xander would have to live with what he did to both his friends and the city?
    • Keeping the Season 8 comics in mind, maybe Sweet's just afraid of angering Dracula. Or Xander's just not his type, despite his teasing.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: The cast initially didn't want to do the episode, because very few of them actually had singing ability. It wound up being one of the show's most beloved episodes.
  James Marsters: It's obvious now that they were good songs but the thing was Joss and his wife Kai, they don't sing very well. And they don't play piano very well. The songs sounded really cheesy and horrible... We were saying, "Joss, you're ruining our careers".
  • Willow was given very few lines in songs because Alyson Hannigan's voice wasn't up to it. For some, her voice sounds fine and at least on a level with the others - she's at least able to carry a tune. Alyson herself was surprised by how good her voice sounded and regretted not singing more.
• Award Snub: The episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction, but due to a typo was left off the ballot form. Several writers considered it somewhat indicative of the Academy's attitude towards the show.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Invoked. Buffy and some vampires burst into song during some slayage. She then enters the magic shop hesitant to bring it up, seemingly preferring it to leave it in Alligator territory. It even goes a step further, leaving the audience with the same WTF face, wondering if anyone is going to acknowledge it. But once she talks about it is it revealed that all the others were thinking the same about their own musical numbers that happened off-screen.
  • Anya gives a hilariously out-of-nowhere hard rock ballad during "I've Got a Theory" where she rants that bunnies are responsible for everyone bursting into song. The resulting Stunned Silence causes her to instead claim that it's maybe midgets. This is never brought up again for the rest of the series.
• Bizarro Episode: A rare and surprising case of a Bizarro Episode that is based on an utterly ridiculous premise, is important to the season's major story arcs and remains one of the most loved episodes of the entire series, like a Bizarro Episode and Wham Episode mixed together.
• Crazy Is Cool: You have to admit, Sweet has style, which he even notes with an Instant Costume Change. You'd think his power of compelling people to sing and dance would be silly, but it becomes nightmarish when people burn up as soon as they run out of things to sing and he forces everyone to confess their darkest insecurities and fears through song. He manages to nearly kill Buffy without even lifting a finger, just by making her sing about being forced out of Heaven and letting her nearly dance herself to death, and brings all the group's problems to a head and out in the open so they have to be confronted.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Sweet only appears in this episode. He's also considered one of the best Buffy villains due to the character's memorable and unique makeup work, his mere presence supplying one of the best (if not the best) episodes of the whole series, being a perfect example of a Not-So-Harmless Villain, and of course, Hinton Battle's amazing performance and singing voice.
  • Many were impressed with Anya's singing, as Emma Caulfield was not known as a professional singer like James Marsters, Anthony Head or Amber Benson.
• Epileptic Trees: There's a theory that Dawn did summon Sweet by accident, and Xander lied because he was gambling on the fact that a guy couldn't become a "queen". The evidence is Xander's frustration that he's spilling his guts out in song form, and Anya is doing the same. This doesn't really work though, because Dawn can be seen in the Magic Box stealing the amulet only after the musical has already begun.
• Fanfic Fuel: What were the Trio doing during all this? And what would their villain song have been like?
  • Generally speaking, what would the song of any minor Buffy character have been like for this episode?
  • What would the songs of the cast of Angel have been like? (Especially considering one of the main characters is a musical demon).
• Fanon: Those fans who think Xander, of all people, summoning the demon in an attempt to help his friends is too Out of Character to believe, posit that Dawn actually summoned him and Xander just took the blame.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The two couples experiencing difficulties through song - Willow and Tara, and Xander and Anya. The latter two sing about their difficulties and resolve to work on them. The former two are in a bad way by the end of the episode from not confronting their issues. However, it's Xander and Anya who ultimately don't work out - Xander leaving her at the altar. Willow and Tara overcome their difficulties and get back together...only for Tara to be accidentally killed.
    • During "I'm Under Your Spell," Tara and Willow start having sex. However, Willow's modification of Tara's memory brings into question her ability to consent to such an action, meaning that Willow may have sexually assaulted Tara in that scene.
  • Likewise, Buffy reveals to her friends that they pulled her out of heaven, and Spike admits that his relationship with Buffy is unhealthy since they're both acting entitled about the others' feelings. The rest of the season is about the Scoobies trying to make up for that mistake, while Spike realizes that unless he does something, he's always going to be a monster enabling Buffy's worst tendencies. After he gets his soul back, and Buffy works through her depression, they finally have a healthier relationship, only for him to die via Heroic Sacrifice while thanking Buffy for her lying that she loves him.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When Xander and Anya sing about their fears, one of hers is worrying about whether she will look good when she gets older. 25 years later, Emma Caulfield got a role in WandaVision partly because she played Anya, and yes, she's still damn good looking.
• Ho Yay: Sweet plans to take Dawn (who he incorrectly assumes summoned him) back to the underworld to make her his queen. When Xander is revealed as the one who actually summoned Sweet, he nervously asks if that means that he has to become Sweet's "queen". Sweet eyes him and admits "Hmmm, it's tempting."
• Magnificent Bastard: The devilishly charismatic Sweet is the "lord of the dance," a fun-loving demon who has been around since ancient times, compelling people to uncontrollably reveal their innermost desires through song and dance. When Xander invokes Sweet's name and Sweet mistakes Buffy's younger sister Dawn as the one who invoked him, Sweet takes the girl away so he can make her his queen. The Scooby Gang play right into Sweet's hands when they go after Dawn, and Sweet uses the opportunity to put Buffy and her friends through hell, forcing them to admit their deepest secrets. Sweet nearly gets Buffy to dance herself to literal death when she's forced to admit the heroes pulled her from Heaven instead of Hell after they resurrected her. Even when he's "foiled," Sweet takes off with no less dignity and style than he arrived with, forcing the heroes to face that none of them "can claim this ended well."
• Memetic Mutation: The line "Dawn's in trouble, must be Tuesday" had been used advertising for the show, adapted in other media and around the web, and the comics themselves.
• Moe: Tara right before she sings "Under Your Spell" is so adorably playful.
  "Oh my God, I'm cured! I want the boys!"
• Most Wonderful Sound: The entirety of "Under Your Spell", just for how beautiful Amber Benson's singing is.
• Once Original, Now Common: The merely implied oral sex Willow is shown giving Tara at the end of "Under Your Spell" was considered quite shocking for the early 2000s. Lesbians on television were not shown to be sexual at the time; it was actually a common belief that lesbians weren't interested in sex and more emotional fulfillment.
• One-Scene Wonder: David Fury's cameo as the Mustard Guy. They had to bring him back in a flashback in "Selfless".
• Take That, Scrappy!: For those who don't like Dawn at least; Dawn starts to sing a complain-y song about how no-one notices or cares about her... and is then kidnapped by Sweet's henchmen before she sings more than two lines. However, in fact this choice was largely done because Michelle Trachtenberg didn't want to sing, but it's still pretty satisfying for those who aren't fans of Dawn.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Sweet's suit seamlessly changing color from red to blue during "What You Feel" deserves a mention. And as (almost) always for Buffy, the makeup work on him is just fantastic.

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