This post contains mild spoilers for Buffy: the Vampire Slayer Season Seven, I suppose, but much larger implied spoilers for Buffy Season Six. And not those good Spoilers who run around in a purple cowl writing crimefighting ‘Dear Diary’ entries and being slaughtered by unfeeling comic book companies.

Wonko and I, avid Buffyvores though we are, are having significant trouble making it through Season Seven. We stalled for months at Episode 14 until trustworthy friends told us we had stopped just where it got better. Episode 15 did not seem noticably better to us. The characters still seemed less rich; the dialogue less funny, intelligent and layered; the plot rather slapdash and less rife with meaning and implication than it was once wont to be. Even the fabulous acting seemed to be taking a breather. I think I really viscerally know what “phoned in” means now.

All this I had remembered and expected. When Dawn is the most engaging and intense character on the screen, that’s a sad state of affairs. But what I had managed to suppress, just a little; to forget JUST a little; was HOW MUCH I HATE KENNEDY.

Kennedy is, for those of you who have been successful in forgetting and will now curse my name for reminding you, one of these Potential Slayers swanning about Chez Summers in Season Seven. She has thrown herself at Willow and managed to hit at last. I wish she’d missed and hit the Hellmouth instead.

Among the key attributes of the Kennedemon:

• She’s a poorly socialized bitch and we’re supposed to think it’s cute, or perhaps that that is what a strong woman looks like. Constantly mouthing off ineloquently on topics you have no real idea about and abusing your apparent Senior Potential status to play drill-sergeant and lap up the sweet, sweet power is not feisty, and it’s not funny.
• The relationship with Willow seems forced to me. Not only is it poorly supported by the writing and the thinly-drawn character of Kennedy, but it totally lacks on-screen chemistry. I wince with disbelief whenever they are together, and wonder whether the actress playing Kennedy wants constantly to reassure us, the viewing audience, that she is not a lesbian, no sirree. Not a lesbian. See the lack of any feeling or natural warmth in this scene? Totally straight.
• On the basis of this stiff young relationship, she is weirdly possessive of Willow. Sorry to break it to you, sister, but you’ve been dating for three weeks. All these people have shed blood and averted apocalypses together. Maybe they are closer to Willow than you are.
• Maybe I’m forgetting something after my months-long break, but why is she in the Slayerette gang now? Kennedy drills the other Potentials and bosses them around. Buffy says “Potentials upstairs” and Kennedy stays. Does snogging a main character make you a Scooby? Cuz I’m sure one of those other girls is legal enough she could throw herself at Xander if she knew it would get her more lines and a better chance at longevity.
• By the nine muses, her acting! She reminds me of the more mediocre turns I saw in school plays growing up. “Now I say my line, now I’m s’posed to turn and put my hand on the doorknob, then I look ‘thoughtful’, then I leave. I remember to do it all in the right order, so I am a thespian!” She manages to imbue a two-dimensional character with one-dimensionality.

In short, ladies and gents, Buffy Season 7 is, so far, better than many things on TV. It’s rather like drinking the ice-diluted dregs of a Coke; it still has a savor of delicious sodie-pop, but ultimately just makes you wish you had some real, full-strength Coke. That alone would be sad, but quite within the natural order of television. However, someone seems to have hocked a glistening loogie into that dilute ur-Coke, and that loogie’s name is Kennedy the Power-Hungry Cardboard Girl.