television at its best." Criticism Season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the most controversial amongst its ardent fandom because it was dramatically darker in tone than previous seasons; it has been called the show's "most hated season". Syfy Wire stated that the show's sixth season "has always been a thorn in its fandom's side. It was a little darker, a little meaner, and a little too different from what came before for the entrenched base to accept." Joanna Robinson of Vanity Fair wrote on the 20th anniversary of the show's premiere that season 6, "a dark, unpopular chapter in the show's seven-year run...once its most hated - has become its most important." Robinson praised the introduction of the Evil Trio, the much-maligned "Big Bad" villains for season 6, as presaging the later trend of "entitled, misogynistic rhetoric that rose to the surface during the Gamergate culture wars of 2014, and has seemingly infiltrated everything since—the 2016 presidential election included." She concluded, positively, that "It may lack some of the trademark zip of the show in its prime, and critics of the Dark Willow storyline, in particular, are not wrong in their concerns. But with the luxury of historical context, Season 6 of Buffy carries more powerful resonance than any other moment in the show's history." About the season's criticism, Joss Whedon says: "I love season 6. It’s really important. But it was a very stark thing to do. It wasn’t just putting Buffy in a very bad, abusive, weird relationship, it was some sort of an end to magic. For me because childhood is so rich with metaphor, a lot of it had to do with leaving that behind. Instead of a bigger than life villain, we had the nerd troika. Instead of drinking blood and doing spells as a sexual metaphor, we had sex. Things became very literal and they lost some of their loveliness. I still think that a lot of the best episodes we ever did were in season 6. I don’t agree with the detractors, but I understand it." Acting as showrunner for season 6, Marti Noxon received the brunt of fan criticism, eventually stating in 2018 that she felt parts of season 6 "went too far." She elaborated that "We pushed into some categories that almost felt sadistic and that Buffy was volunteering for things that were beyond just “bad choices” and were