Buffy the Vampire Slayer loves to play with audience expectations, from the premise of the show itself - a blonde teen is actually the saviour of the world? - to sudden character deaths - well, do I have to remind you? One of the show's most deliberated pieces of misdirection came in the identity of Season Six's Big Bad. Throughout the series, it is set up that the Trio, a collection of Sunnydale's geekiest inhabitants, namely Warren, Andrew and Jonathan, have teamed up to be the town's latest supervillains. However, when Willow the witch's girlfriend Tara is accidentally killed by Warren (ah, sorry for reminding you about that), she turns to dark magic to exact her revenge on those that wronged her. The result is Dark Willow, the true Big Bad of the season. Willow is one of the best characters on the show and a strong point of her turn to the dark side is that her addiction to her powers is built up for several seasons before hand, in an impressive bit of pre-planning from the showmakers. If she has a problem its that because Willow is so easy to love as a hero, Dark Willow makes for a slightly unconvincing villain. Although she does attempt to cause the end of the world - something ten-a-penny in Buffy - it's doesn't feel like that much of a threat. Perhaps because it's loveable Willow behind the wheel and we knows she's too much of a Big Good to be a proper Big Bad.
