Half Time Report - Spoiler Space for Buffy 7x1-11
Freedy
Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to season 4
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Hmm. Okay, we're halfway in now and I don't know. I can't agree with
those people who've been saying it's the best season ever. In fact, I
haven't really been enjoying it all that much to be honest.
Why? I'm not so sure. I think it comes down to the fundamental reason
why I liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the first place: the way it
balances serious stuff with wacky, downright silly stuff. For those
who don't believe me, it's right there in the frickin' title. Try
telling someone who's never heard of it the name of your favourite show
and see if they keep a straight face. More specifically, I love the
endless watchability of the series. The way I can just plonk in a
videotape of stuff I've watched lots of times and know I'm still going
to enjoy it.
That effect has lessened for me recently. Of the episodes we've seen so
far, I would say that only two are ones I've really wanted to watch
again: Help and Him. The rest, no matter how effective they are in
individual areas, just don't give me those joyous thrills that Buffy at
its best can do.
At the time I defended Season Six because, despite the deliberate
attempt to 'grow up' and present a more soap opera structure to the
season (by which I mean the myriad parallel threads concerning the
individual characters and their problems), it still had plenty of fun.
Both in terms of the characters and the episodes. But even so, I find
I don't rewatch my Season 6 box sets as much as seasons 2, 3 and 4.
And I like Doublemeat Palace. :)
But anyway, we're talking about season 7 here. The style is set in the
very first episode, Lessons. It's written by Joss Whedon so you know
it's going to be a cut above, but, aside from the more treading water
aspects (how many times do Buffy and Principal Wood happen to bump into
each other and why does the handbag fight go on for such interminable
lengths?) there's still a feeling that this is an episode more
concerned with setting things up rather than being an entertaining
episode in itself. Why is the Principal's Office above the hellmouth
now? Who are the 'resentful dead guys' and who brought them back? Why
has Spike gone bonkers and what's he doing in the basement? Who was the
woman who got Turkey stuffed at the beginning? And what's got Willow
all spooked over in 'sunny' England?
Strangely, 11 episodes in, some of these questions have yet to be
answered. This is either terribly brave or terribly stupid. I veer
towards the latter, which is tangentially for the reason I outline
above: another, more detrimental, aspect of soap operas is that
they're all about cheap thrills. You watch because you want to see
what happens next. You don't want to watch them again. Okay, Buffy
isn't *that* bad, but I'm just not that interested in what lurks
below Principal Wood's office, or who brought back the RDGs to mildly
torment Buffy. I watch Buffy because I know it's going to be a hour's
pure entertainment, not because I want intriguing questions.
Okay, that's not entirely true. I have been looking forward to each
episode and seeing where the story is going next. The last few episodes
have been all about this instant gratification and I've been lapping it
up, with just that twinge of disappointment that the season seems to be
made entirely of those arc-heavy season three episodes (e.g.
Consequences) that bore me on rewatching. Where are the quirky guest
stars? The wacky situations? Where's the fun?
As I say, it's balance. I'd hate Buffy to be entirely wacky, and I'd
miss the serious themes if they weren't there. The classic example of
all this is Earshot, where the very serious issue of kids taking guns to
school is dressed up in a plot that embraces the fantastical and is also
a lot of cynical fun ("it's bordering on trendy right now"). Compare it
to Hell's Bells last season. A huge mistake is made by making Xander's
family so unremittingly unpleasant. Okay, they had to be a nasty bunch
or it would've seriously damaged Xander's character over the years. But
they're so unpleasant to watch that not only are they unwatchable,
they became unbelievable. Why haven't they divorced like most of the
rest of the US population? Ideally, they should have been something like
Ozzy and Sharon, or Jim and Barbara from the Royle Family. There should
have been that spark that Xander's parents still love each other deep
down, even if they have to shout at each other constantly. Believable
character motivation is sacrificed for clunky plot mechanics.
With something like Beneath You, we get similar 'real life' themes -
what happens when you split with someone because they're a total git
and they refuse to go away? There were opportunities for this to be a
very clever parallel; between Nancy and the Worm Guy's experiences and
Buffy and Spike's (as well as Xander and Anya), but the ball is dropped
somewhere along the line. Instead, we get Anya realising that Spike has
his soul back, which distracts from Buffy seeing Spike as the same
monster who nearly raped her. It would have been great if more was made
of the fact that Xander can no longer cope with the fact that *his* ex
is currently causing all manner of mayhem. All right, it would be hard
to inject fun into this theme, but it's almost there in the episode,
as Nancy realises that she thinks *her* break up was hard, look at this
bunch of freaks.
The character of Nancy is a great idea for this episode, but she doesn't
really suit the ongoing way of doing things now. In earlier seasons, the
episode would have been centred entirely around Nancy and we would have
got an outsider's view of the current nutty state of the Scooby Gang
(the scene in the Bronze where Nancy asks who's gone out with who is the
closest we get to this). Now, attentions are so focussed on the Gang
that we're denied this. In Season Six, one thing that surprised me
looking back was that there were no really good one shot guest villains
or outside supporting characters. Sweet from Once More With Feeling and
the Loan Shark from Tabula Rasa are the two strongest that leap to mind
(coincidentally, in the two best episodes). Apart from that we get the
relentlessly cheerful Clem, who's so obviously there as a
one-dimensional counterpoint to the main characters. Okay, there's also
the likes of Wrack, but he's hardly Ethan Rayne. The fact that
characters had to be pulled out of the hat to attend the party in Older
And Far Away is revealing. We should have had a regular Xander
co-worker and Buffy co-worker already. What's happening is that the
writers are centring way too much on the regular cast, and whilst season
7 has tried to redress this balance by having some good guests for a
change, it's still mostly about the regulars.
And things are being left for later episodes (specifically Selfless in
Anya's case), whilst the episodes now suffer. Plus, I really don't
like new soulful Spike. Personal opinion this I know (as all of this is,
so please don't come down on me too hard), but daft, lovelorn, neutered
Spike was my favourite character on the show. At the end of season 6 I
speculated on uk.m.tv.buffy that Spike would return in Season 7 hardly
changed, brushing off his soul-less personality as something that's in
the past and not getting too worked up about the people he's killed -
the antithesis of Angel really. It wouldn't have had quite as big an
impact on Spike as Angel because the chip had been conditioning him for
such a situation for the previous couple of years. With Angel, you get
the feeling it was as much the shock of suddenly looking at the world so
differently as the act itself that tormented him.
I can see why they didn't do this with Spike because there's one big
thing he's atoning for, and which caused him to get the soul in the
first place - the attempted rape of Buffy. In Beneath You, it's the
thing that's really cutting him up (often literally). "Girl needs to be
serviced". Once the rape box was opened, it was something that really
couldn't (and shouldn't) be shut again. However, it annoys me because
it has drastically altered a favourite character. There were better
ways to remind everyone that Spike was evil, and it wouldn't have made
him the babbling, incoherent loon we've had to put with this year. I can
understand why they're doing it, but I can't understand what they
thought a character talking such arrant nonsense would bring to the
show. The viewer has to share Buffy and the Scoobies opinions of Spike:
he's someone best avoided until he starts making more sense. The ending
of Beneath You should be very powerful, as Buffy discovers that the man
she 'used' for sex, and who tried to rape her, is now no longer the
'evil thing' he once was. Instead it gets buried in 'sparks' and
'servicing' and wondering how on Earth Buffy worked out what has
happened amidst the word salad Spike is spewing. Worse, it seems she
worked it out because of the mention of a character who hasn't been on
the show for four years.
There comes a point in all shows when continuity just overwhelms things.
Partly this is due to the unavoidable fact that, because of the sheer
amount of stories that have been written, most new stories can easily
be compared to older stories (e.g. Him/Bewitched, Bothered and
Bewildered, or Selfless/Belonging). There is also the fact that so much
has happened to the characters over the years, that more and more
things need to be addressed. Willow returning to Sunnydale and facing
up to what she'd done is one of these things that needed to be addressed
(making Willow evil in the first place was another one of those slightly
desperate but oh so necessary ways to revitalise a long-term character -
see Spike as well).
Same Time, Same Place is written by my favourite Buffy writer, Jane
Espenson - she of the deft comedic touch. However, much like Marti
Noxon before her (who has also come up with some cracking comedy
episodes) it seems she has been promoted within the organisation and now
she's doing more 'serious' stuff. Ideally, you would think this has got
to be a winner, as Espenson can apply her light touch and bring new
shades to dark material, making it as rich as Earshot or Superstar way
back when. Same Time, Same Place is a clever idea, with some weak
execution. The idea that Willow couldn't face seeing her friends again
and unwittingly making herself invisible to them is great, but this
emotional core to the episode is tossed away at the end in an ugly
'Willow explains what happened' exposition scene. Show don't tell, Jane.
The Gnarl demon is also a great creation, perfectly placed to throw
suspicion on Willow with his skinning predilection. He's also suitably
nasty and eccentric - exactly the sort of decent guest villain so
lacking last year.
There are also lots of other great bits - reassuringly classic Espenson
sequences such as the interaction between Willow and Anya ("it did get
a little bit sexy"), Posable Dawn ("Stp tlkin bout vmit!") and Spike
actually getting a decent line for a change ("I'm insane, what's his
excuse?") - but it's also uncomfortable to watch, as we get manipulated
into feeling sorry for Willow, whilst Buffy and Xander get suspicious
about her without knowing what's really going on. I'm sorry, but this
is just stuff I really don't want to watch. Get to the heart of the
matter, don't pussyfoot around the edge with tiresome scenes of people
trying to get up to speed with what the viewer knows. The heart of the
episode should have been why is Willow invisible, not how the
respective characters work out what the audience knows - that some
demon likes to skin people.
Something that doesn't do this is Help. Probably the best episode of the
season so far (disappointing for me, in a way, as it's probably the
least funny episode ever), it packs a huge emotional wallop from the
first moment that Cassie says she's going to die, and actually keeps it
going for the rest of the episode. Unlike Same Time, Same Place, the
audience is right with the increasingly desperate Scoobies as they try
to work out what's happening and put it right, even if we know deep down
that it's going to be futile. Cassie's death is predictable, but that
makes no difference. Buffy, and the audience, would have done all they
could to prevent it anyway. Despite the lack of fun, this is precisely
the sort of episode that does repay re-watching as it is so well-written
in plot terms. Everything happens for a reason, as Fred Durst would say,
and there is no treading water even when Buffy goes up dead ends in her
search for who or what is going to kill Cassie.
And so it's on to Selfless, Anya's long overdue background-filling
episode. Obviously meant to be this year's Fool For Love, it is often
spectacular, often funny, often shocking... but again, I just haven't
felt a great desire to watch it again. There are weaknesses: the opening
Ingmar Bergman sequence goes on way too long and it's humour often falls
flat (why wasn't the idea of bad dubbing in the Shooting Script taken
up? Thinking of the South American priest in the first series of Father
Ted, it would have worked a treat); the various cycles of Anya's beliefs
- rabbit lover/hater, capitalist/communist etc. - don't fit together,
even accounting for Anya's 'self-less' personality. Again, the theme is
a great one (how Anya is defined by those around her), but nobody knows
quite how to put it in effect. Fool For Love has a good excuse for the
flashbacks, as they illustrate the story Spike is telling in
chronological order; Selfless desperately needs a framing device like
this. As it is, they look like they're there just because someone
thought it would be a hoot; they don't serve the story as well as they
might. Top marks, though, for the single most shocking switch Buffy has
ever pulled off: Anya in her wedding dress singing to the heavens
cutting (pun intended) right into Anya skewered to the wall with a
sword. Ouch.
Selfless is less than the sum of its parts. Admittedly, this may be
deliberate as that could sum up Anya herself. And it's got a great twist
ending as D'Hoffryn applies the same nasty wish logic to Anya as she's
been applying for all these years. In a way, I'm glad that the events of
Selfless haven't changed Anya that much, and that she's fallen easily
back into her post-demon Scoobie-dom. I don't think I could handle yet
another character getting scarred by events and moaning about it all the
time.
Him, as I say, has been my favourite episode so far this year. Why, pray
you ask? Because it's exactly the sort of episode that I loved about
Buffy all those years ago. It takes a 'serious' subject - that first
heart-wrenching crush you have for somebody - and it takes it to its
illogical conclusion. Like all the best episodes, it also takes a
slightly hackneyed idea and injects fresh new blood into it. It's a
bit of a schizophrenic episode in a way, as the first half is markedly
different to the second half (although it's one of the few eps that
wasn't co-written), but it handles them both with great aplomb. Opinions
on Dawn are generally negative, but I defy anyone to not like her after
this. Watching the first half, you find yourself alternately cringing
and laughing out loud at Dawn's attempts to ingratiate herself with RJ.
Michelle Trachtenberg has got a great talent for pratfalls - as also
demonstrated in Same Time, Same Place - and it's great to see her
putting her 'talent' for playing the annoying teenager to good comic
effect. "He owns my heart!" Her cheerleader tryout is a masterpiece of
gawkiness. Brilliant use of music as well, perfectly enscapulating the
deranged Wonder Years feel of things.
But things really get great during the second half, as first Buffy then
Willow and Anya get ensnared by RJ's charms. It's all slightly illogical
- surely RJ would have Xander-like crowds of insane women chasing him if
the effects of the jacket are as strong as they are on the women here -
but I can forgive it just for the four-way discussion (leading to the
70s split screen joke) between the women over how they're gong to win
RJ's heart. A part of me wishes that Buffy, Willow and Anya had been
ensnared earlier in the episode as I could have watched that all day,
but then that would have lessened Dawn's achingly funny contribution to
the episode. Yep, Him was the first episode of the season I wished had
gone on longer.
As for highlights, where to start? Buffy, Spike, the rocket launcher and
an oblivious Principal may well be the funniest Buffy scene *ever*. The
use of the theme to A Summer Place (presumably they couldn't use Barry
White since Friends did it). Willow deciding to change RJ into a girl
(from an idea by Anya) is also close, although why oh why didn't we get
the bit in the Shooting Script where Xander and Spike hear this and
involuntarily cross their legs in shared sympathy for RJ? Anya's "I
know what he would like" being followed by an enthusiastic bank robbery.
Even Dawn's cockamamie scheme to ostentatiously kill herself on a
railway track scores points with this viewer (liked the choice of
dispatch for a character who always seems to get tied to metaphorical
rails by a moustache-twirling villains). Xander getting all misty eyed
remembering being chased almost to the death by hordes of women. Ah,
happy days indeed. Him, as you might have guessed, has easily been the
episode I've rewatched the most. I think I might watch it again now.
'Round about six episodes in, we tend to get the big attention-grabbing
episode. You know the ones: What's My Line, Homecoming, The Initiative,
There's No Place Like Home, Once More With Feeling. This year we get
Conversations With Dead People, supposedly the episode which gives us
the reasons to continue watching for the rest of the season. I think
Conversations may have been the last straw for a lot of casual viewers
as it makes no sense at all and is unforgivably pretentious. The theme
of the first half of the season so far is to give us a lot of mysterious
questions and hope that we're intrigued enough to want to watch more.
There are some intriguing questions, true, but there's just too many of
them. You come out of Conversations... saying 'what the hell is going
on?' I can understand why Buffy is losing viewers because that reaction
can go both ways. For the big fans (of which I'm one) it's great stuff
and leaves you in anticipation for next week. For the casual viewers
(of which I can sympathise) it just leaves you scratching your head and
wondering what else is on. And Buffy used to be such a simple show -
yes, even when it had great big arcs and whatnot.
In Conversations... we get four separate plot strands running in
parallel. Buffy catching up with a old friend who's now a vampire is
easily the best of these, as there's lots of opportunities for some
sparkling dialogue. The relentless psychoanalysing can get a bit
wearying though. The other two Scooby strands are less good. Willow
being tormented by someone who isn't Tara hasn't got nearly enough power
as it should. Worse, by bringing back Cassie in such a role, it lessens
the impact of Help, where we're genuinely sorry to see her die. I don't
care if the Shooting Script says it was supposed to be Tara - the
finished thing ain't her and they should have sorted out Amber Benson's
commitments before starting. The Dawn segment is also supposed to be
powerful, dredging up memories of The Exorcist as well as The Body, but
it grows quickly tiresome and the resolution is complete pants. Dawn
goes through all that just to have someone who may or may not be her
mother give her some cryptic nonsense. We don't get any Xander or Anya
for *that*?
The whole episode is unsatisfactory, and clearly running on empty. We're
supposed to care about the things that happen to our characters: Buffy
is questioned as a Slayer but comes through stronger and with some
worrying news about Spike, Willow has her evil-ness put to the test and
also comes through stronger, but rattled; Dawn gets really put through
the ringer, and winds up with nothing but ashes. Thankfully, there are
Jonathan and Andrew (with Warren), characters who you'd think would be
hard to mess up, yet we do get a good attempt at it. What with all the
angsting going on elsewhere, it probably seemed natural to let them have
a bit of self-analysis. Their pathetic hopes to join the Scooby Gang by
association are effective and Jonathan's death is a real heart-rending
shock. And Warren is the creepyist 'Dead Person' in the whole episode,
even when quoting from Star Wars. But again, like the rest of the
episode, too much is left hanging and too many motivations go
unexplained.
There's delayed gratification and then there's just messing around with
the audience's heads with no consideration. How is Spike killing again?
Who's trying to get Willow to kill herself? What was Joyce and what does
her message mean? Why does Andrew kill Jonathan and what's the mystic
hubcap all about? Buffy used to pride itself on undercutting this sort
of portentous horror nonsense. Now it's revelling in it and it's up to
the audience to undercut it for them. Usually by switching off. To sum
up, unanswered questions are okay. In moderation. And what's worse,
there's the feeling already building that there's so many questions,
quite a few are going to be resolved unsatisfactorily (see also the
sadly depressing record of Angel in this regard).
The next four episodes have already starting blurring together for me,
which is never a good sign. No more standalones and daft comedy; it's
straight ahead arc stuff until the half way point (and, God help us,
perhaps beyond). Sleeper at last starts to answer questions
about Spike. And again, it's answering questions we fans kinda already
know the answer to, while the casual viewers are left to scratch their
poor confused heads. Of course Spike has been getting visitations from
the shape-shifting entity. We saw that in Lessons. And it's natural to
assume that it's what's been giving Spike the opportunity to start
killing again. And yet we get a whole episode which tells us this in
such a horribly drawn-out manner. Thankfully, we do get Anya's
hilariously incompetent attempts at both spying and seduction to ease
the flow, but these scenes stick out horribly. Who'd have thought
comedy would seem inappropriate for Buffy? Otherwise, it's dealing with
the fall out from Conversations... (an episode so self-important it
can't be bothered sorting out its own loose ends) as Willow and Dawn
try to work out what the hell it was they saw. Join the club, ladies.
There's nothing much else to recommend Sleeper, so let's just comment
that it's got a hell of a cliffhanger (you thought the death of Jonathan
got the blood pumping?) and move on to Never Leave Me, which again
suffers from arc-iness. Okay, Spike has been implanted with a trigger
- not the horse - and we've got to find out who did it (people always
seem to be sticking things into Spike). Never Leave Me is a lot better
than Sleeper, if only for the presence of Andrew. In the absence of
Spike, another comedy character annoying the Scoobies was desperately
needed. Andrew takes his place so well, the writers are practically
playing with our memories of Spike circa season 4. Not only does he wear
the same coat, he also spends most of the episode tied to a chair and
looking annoyed. He's even neutered, except this is more the fault of
genetics than government scientists. I love season 4 and it's hard not
to like Andrew as well, and the surprise confrontation between him and
Willow is a classic, reminiscent of the Spike/Willow 'impotence' scene
right down to her bright 'okay?' at the end. Jonathan's small (sorry)
appearance is even reminiscent of Superstar and Buffy feeding Spike the
blood is reminiscent... well you get the point.
And Spike actually gets to talk some sense! The conversations between
him and Buffy are great yet annoying, because this should have happened
a lot earlier. Ultimate Drew really injects some new blood (pardon the
pun) into Buffy, not because he's an awesome writer but because he
brings a new energy which cuts right to the heart of the matter. Having
Buffy and Spike look back on their 'relationship' is great stuff. Pity
we had to wait nine episodes to see it.
But despite all this, it's still more arc angst leading to a conclusion
that leaves you gasping, only this time more from wonder at why anyone
would do it. No, not the destruction of the Watcher's Council. It's the
First Evil everyone! Gosh. There were a series of books connected to
Doctor Who centred on one of his former companions, Bernice Summerfield
- archaeologist of the future. There was an arc of stories leading up to
the last book ever, regarding the unleashing of 'Gods' on this universe.
Some terrific books were written on this theme until we got to the last
book in which it was revealed that the Gods were, er, minor characters
from a Doctor Who book released five years earlier. Ho hum. This is what
I thought of when the bad guys from Amends were revealed to be the big
bad here. It didn't surprise me that the First Evil was behind it all. 9
out of 10 people made the same guess. It surprised me that this is what
we're getting here. Okay, the First Evil is a great concept, but Buffy's
recognition of the Bringers is a classic example of how not to do this.
Getting bogged down in continuity is the fate of every long running
show. But I thought Buffy was better than that. I thought that the
makers might recognize that every such show revives an old monster at
some point and it usually does it badly. Some post-modern irony at this
point was sorely needed, as well as the recognition that they might be
alienating all those people who never saw/don't remember Amends.
Bringing back the Bringers and the First Evil is a perfect way to fall
in between two stools. Casual viewers are confused because they feel
they're missing something. Fans realise that there's ret-conning going
on to fit in with current events (i.e. when did the Bringers become
knife-wielding maniacs?). The worst thing about all of this is that this
has all been dragged out so much. Okay, the obvious intention is to
create a great big hell-raising arc this season, but is this such a good
idea? And does the First Evil merit such a huge story? I believe it
doesn't. A shapeshifting bad guy is confusing, even for people who are
glued to the screen and paying full attention. Sorry to go on about
casual viewers again, but I believe that this is where Buffy has been
losing its viewers this year. And the First Evil is a whole bunch of no
fun, really. Remember the Mayor and Glory? Where half the joy of the Big
Bad taking up so much screen time was how funny they were? Even the
Master and Angel had their moments. The First is just the Mike Yarwood
of evils, with a propensity for impersonating people and filling
their mouths with vaguely menacing rubbish. And that's even before we
get to the point that there is the very real possibility that there's
more than one 'impersonator' involved to make things *really* confusing.
Speaking of which, on to Giles and Joyce in Bring On The Night. Titles
named after Sting songs are never going to court popularity with this
viewer, but I'm prepared to ignore that for the moment. By rights, Joyce
is dead and Giles should be dead. So what's Joyce doing haunting Buffy's
dreams and giving out more confusing info, and why's Giles wandering
around, carefully not touching anything? It was nice to get an
explanation for who those murdered girls were in the first two episodes
(at last) but again we're left in a state of confusion as to what Giles
is. Okay, nobody, least of all me, wants Giles to die. But I can see
that having Giles be dead is such a cool and unexpected way to go (sod
the Ripper series which is never going to happen anyway now they've
commissioned Strange). But leaving him in limbo like this - and changing
his character in the process, just as with Spike and Willow this season
- is bloody annoying.
And worse still is the ubervamp. As Xander would say, "Huge build up,
leetle execution." Well he doesn't say that but I can't remember the
exact quote. The ubervamp is given a lot of significance in Never Leave
Me, but is here reduced to the First's muscle. Okay, the First *needs*
muscle, even though those Bringers seem pretty tasty, but it's the
classic Angel failing now turning up on Buffy of all places - finishing
an episode on a huge intriguing cliffhanger which the following
episodes don't know what to do with. Bring On The Night also has other
holes in the cheese: drowning Spike seems like a pointless way to go
about torturing a vampire, what's the point of the First taking
Drusilla's form, do we have to have not one but two 'potentials' with
daft British accents (there's a fortune to be made for any young British
actors who can afford the air fare to Hollywood), what's the point of
the Terminator parody, and why finish on a supposedly rousing speech
which will inevitably not be followed up. When Xander says at the
beginning that he's getting tired of fixing the house, that's a clue
right there. Marti, when you find yourself writing about how tired
something is, listen to it. And act on it.
My mistake, Buffy's speech is followed up. In Showtime (God, how I hate
that cheesy phrase, even coming out of Sweet or Willow's mouth) Buffy
takes the fight to the ubervamp. And beats it. Suspiciously easily, it
has to be said. It's Angel again, and their love of unstoppable threats
scaring the willies out of everyone one week only to see them get
quashed the next. I know this is all daft science fantasy TV, but for
God's sake please let's keep things consistent and stop relying on
shocking cliffhangers to dictate your plots and motivations. All it
needed was Buffy to use her brain and figure out a different way to kill
the ubervamp - not having her fight it to a standstill so that she could
behead it with barbed wire. No wonder the potentials looked impressed.
It almost seemed impossible.
Otherwise, Showtime is more of the same. Buffy's house gets trashed (yet
again, although it's only the front door this time), the potentials all
look worried, Willow is even more worried about using magic, the First
puts on a new guise and Andrew mentions Star Wars. Yep, even Andrew is
getting a little jaded now. Thankfully, we do have some decent Giles and
Anya stuff, with Anthony Head's uncomfortable mannerisms as Anya offers
sex with the demon reminding us of what a great character he is (and
possibly hinting that he ain't the First after all).
So here we are, half way in. So far it's been a lesson in how to do
standalones and how not to do arc stuff. Of the characters, Buffy is
still as great as ever - far better than last year's understandable
depression. Dawn has also perked right up, although her
Slayer-in-training status hasn't been used all that much (she could
definitely use a lesson in punning from big sis). Xander is slipping
more and more into the role of 'what can we do with this guy', his
imprecations in Selfless notwithstanding, as well as his double act with
Anya in Never Leave Me, but he desperately needs a standalone episode to
himself along the lines of the Zeppo. Anya has fallen back into her old
character, which is no bad thing at all to this writer; she always seems
to get the best lines in every scene she's in. Spike is a pale shadow of
his former self; Buffy did not need another tortured soul around the
place and, to be honest, I wanted Buffy to kill him in Never Leave Me
just to give him some dignity. Willow is another tortured soul, although
we still get the odd glimpses of her former self - but mostly she's just
'crazy plot gal' as the writers try to work out how to stifle a living,
walking deux et machina and mostly come up with the solution of 'angst'.
Giles has hardly been around of course, but he still gets a couple of
great lines in Lessons and his 'First' incarnation does at least have
some of his dry befuddlement. And Andrew has provided some much needed
comic relief - he'll be in the credits before you know it.
To sum up the first (ho-ho) half of the season, I would describe it as
an enjoyably confusing mess. Plot lines seem to be disappearing into
some indeterminate place in the future when we should be focussing on
the here and now, and characters are being turned into walking plot
functions when the joy of the same characters to begin with was their
self-involvement and their not taking anything too seriously. The
intention of the season, as stated in Lessons, was to go back to the
beginning. What a shame that this is not being taken as literally as
expected, and that a show that prided itself on mockery and all-round
fun has lost these aspects to be replaced by po-faced angst and
Angel-lite "we're all doomed" cliffhangers. Just get the balance right,
is all I ask.
Blimey, I rabbited on a bit there, didn't I? I'd better get this sent
off before I think of anything more to say.
Terry
Iain Clark
<fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>So, what do we make of it so far?
>
*meep*
That was very, er... thorough. <g>
I may even reply when I work up the energy!
Iain
--
"Citing artistic differences
The band broke up in May
And in June reformed without me"
Bob
> So, what do we make of it so far?
>
>
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Wow! A well argued, in-depth analysis, such as is pretty rare on
Usenet. Couldn't begin to respond at the same length, I'm afraid,
except to say that I understand and take on board the major points you
make - but disagree almost entirely!
It's interesting the episodes you choose as your favourites - Him and
Help, both standalones - as much as this Season HAS standalones - and
both reminiscent of Season 1/2-type stories (Him of Bewitched, Bothered
and Bewildered, Help recycling the Reptile Boy sacrifice story to
different ends).
I guess that some people were very keen to see Joss going "back to the
beginning" in a pretty literal way, i.e. revamping (no pun intended) the
highschool years, during which many of us became hooked on the series.
However, I think this would never have been possible, given how much the
characters have grown and changed (and not JUST in Season 6). I must
admit that the idea of Dawn and a Scrappy gang becoming a prominent
feature of this Season, as many initially predicted, filled me with
horror. It is Buffy and her core group of Scoobies that we have watched
assiduously since 1997: they are the ones we have emotionally invested
in.
So episodes such as Him, which concentrate on Dawn, and are throwbacks
to those early highschool metaphors, leave me somewhat cold. I feel we
have been there. I love to go back and watch these from earlier
seasons, but the series has just moved on. It has reinvented itself.
You argue, perhaps accurately, that Buffy in Season 7 is losing viewers
in the States because unless you are a fan who has watched from the
start, you are shut out of many of the more interesting resonances and
storylines. I think this is possibly true, but I don't see this as a
weakness (unless you are UPN, concerned about ratings). I think that ME
are well aware that this is very possibly the last Season. They
certainly do not seem to be making a concerted effort to attract new
viewers. They are obviously writing this for the long-term fans
(commercial suicide though this may be...)
Frankly, I think that, of the many long-running shows out there, Buffy
has earned the right to be so self-referential in its last (?) season.
The mythology is strong and deep enough to warrant what some might call
"pretentiousness". It will come as no surprise then that MY favourite
episodes of Season 7 thus far are Selfless, Beneath You, Conversations
with Dead People, and the Spike arc that immediately followed it.
I would conceed that Bring on the Night and Showtime had plot-holes big
enough for the proverbial truck, that Andrew is becoming annoying, that
Xander needs something to do other than fix windows, that the Ubervamp
was a disappointment, and that the SIT's would be mostly benefit from
less screen time. I also think that there is a danger that ME will NOT
come up with satisfactorily clever resolutions to the Giles question,
the Principal Wood question and the other questions raised.
If, however, they DO (as they say they do) have a grand plan to wrap up
many of the loose ends and explore some of the issues raised in earlier
seasons (Buffy's dark side, the source of her Slayer power etc.) then I
for one will be more than satisfied.
I must admit, I still find more than enough humour in the series, often
subtle things which come from a long-term knowledge of the characters.
I am less interested in the more overt humour, even the much-vaunted
rocket launcher, which sometimes seems forced.
I enjoyed plenty of Season 6. I've never seen any reason why they
shouldn't explore the pain and suffering of the lead character. That's
what makes her so much more interesting than other "superheroes". (I
think particularly the American audience had difficulties with this,
because the conventional dramatic hero in Hollywood terms doesn't often
become so mired in the grey areas of life - with notable exceptions such
as SEVEN etc. - oh and so many of the great movies they used to make in
the 70's before Lucas and Spielberg came and destroyed intelligent
cinema - another topic, forgive me!).
To me, and to many others, Buffy the series only really became
interesting with the Surprise/Innocence/Passion/Becoming arc in Season 2
- where Whedon showed that he was prepared to subvert audience
expectations and explore some pretty dark material for what was then
seen as a teen show. I think as the show has progressed it has explored
the burgeoning adulthood of its lead characters with some success. I
think it has made some fascinating points about trying to make do, to do
the right thing, when life around you seems to be falling apart. For
me, that has been one of the main reasons for watching over the years.
The fact that it often manages to do it with humour and a post-modern
nod at the audience is what makes it unique.
Season 7 may yet turn out to be a mess, it may yet fail to go the
distance to resolve and illuminate the many things it has raised. But
ME have certainly got my attention, and I will be watching with baited
breath to see if they can pull it off.
--
from the Mac of Bob
Jonathan Dupont
> So, what do we make of it so far?
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> Hmm. Okay, we're halfway in now and I don't know. I can't agree with
> those people who've been saying it's the best season ever. In fact, I
> haven't really been enjoying it all that much to be honest.
It's nowhere near the best season ever. In the S4-7 crowd, I don't
know. "Lessons" and "Selfless" were solid; "Conversations..." and the
last five minutes of "Beneath Me" outstanding. S5's first lot didn't
really impress me (although I just got the DVD and am going to
rewatch, so this might change) and I don't remember S4 being that
brilliant either. I liked the beginning of S6, but the last few
episodes of that are tainted.
I seem to only remember the standout episodes of the first halves -
"Hush", "Fool For Love" and "Once More, With Feeling" and
"Conversations..." really isn't on that level. OTOH, the episodes
surrounding it have been fairly good.
I don't know. It's solid. I'll see where we go from here.
> Why? I'm not so sure. I think it comes down to the fundamental reason
> why I liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the first place: the way it
> balances serious stuff with wacky, downright silly stuff. For those
> who don't believe me, it's right there in the frickin' title. Try
> telling someone who's never heard of it the name of your favourite show
> and see if they keep a straight face. More specifically, I love the
> endless watchability of the series. The way I can just plonk in a
> videotape of stuff I've watched lots of times and know I'm still going
> to enjoy it.
Yeah, but I don't get any of that vibe beyond S3 and the Joss
episodes. The time when the series was just full of great line after
great line is gone and I've got used to that now. "Lessons" is
probably the closet we've come so far.
> That effect has lessened for me recently. Of the episodes we've
seen so
> far, I would say that only two are ones I've really wanted to watch
> again: Help and Him. The rest, no matter how effective they are in
> individual areas, just don't give me those joyous thrills that Buffy at
> its best can do.
I liked "Help". Can't say the same about "Him".
> At the time I defended Season Six because, despite the deliberate
> attempt to 'grow up' and present a more soap opera structure to the
> season (by which I mean the myriad parallel threads concerning the
> individual characters and their problems), it still had plenty of fun.
> Both in terms of the characters and the episodes. But even so, I find
> I don't rewatch my Season 6 box sets as much as seasons 2, 3 and 4.
> And I like Doublemeat Palace. :)
I have to admit to hating it, and the middle of S6. I don't mind "Life
Serial" and some of the earlier comedy like a lot of people but from
"Gone" to "Hell's Bells" the season drags horribly. Another problem of
course, is that's there's no straight Joss to help.
> But anyway, we're talking about season 7 here. The style is set in the
> very first episode, Lessons. It's written by Joss Whedon so you know
> it's going to be a cut above, but, aside from the more treading water
> aspects (how many times do Buffy and Principal Wood happen to bump into
> each other and why does the handbag fight go on for such interminable
> lengths?)
Uh, they meet three times, and he comments on them meeting again so
soon in the second one. Didn't notice the handbad thing, either.
> there's still a feeling that this is an episode more
> concerned with setting things up rather than being an entertaining
> episode in itself. Why is the Principal's Office above the hellmouth
> now? Who are the 'resentful dead guys' and who brought them back? Why
> has Spike gone bonkers and what's he doing in the basement? Who was the
> woman who got Turkey stuffed at the beginning? And what's got Willow
> all spooked over in 'sunny' England?
Surely there's no better episode for setting up than the first in a
season? I kind of liked England, too, although perhaps not the best
use of money.
> Strangely, 11 episodes in, some of these questions have yet to be
> answered. This is either terribly brave or terribly stupid. I veer
> towards the latter, which is tangentially for the reason I outline
> above: another, more detrimental, aspect of soap operas is that
> they're all about cheap thrills. You watch because you want to see
> what happens next. You don't want to watch them again. Okay, Buffy
> isn't *that* bad, but I'm just not that interested in what lurks
> below Principal Wood's office, or who brought back the RDGs to mildly
> torment Buffy. I watch Buffy because I know it's going to be a hour's
> pure entertainment, not because I want intriguing questions.
This is a very good point, but like above, I don't think this is new.
<snip>
> With something like Beneath You, we get similar 'real life' themes -
> what happens when you split with someone because they're a total git
> and they refuse to go away? There were opportunities for this to be a
> very clever parallel; between Nancy and the Worm Guy's experiences and
> Buffy and Spike's (as well as Xander and Anya), but the ball is dropped
> somewhere along the line. Instead, we get Anya realising that Spike has
> his soul back, which distracts from Buffy seeing Spike as the same
> monster who nearly raped her. It would have been great if more was made
> of the fact that Xander can no longer cope with the fact that *his* ex
> is currently causing all manner of mayhem. All right, it would be hard
> to inject fun into this theme, but it's almost there in the episode,
> as Nancy realises that she thinks *her* break up was hard, look at this
> bunch of freaks.
I found this episode rather dull for the majority of it first time
round and am kinda looking forward to revisiting it on Sky One. I hope
it shows up better, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't. A
missed oportunity.
<snip>
> Okay, there's also
> the likes of Wrack, but he's hardly Ethan Rayne. The fact that
> characters had to be pulled out of the hat to attend the party in Older
> And Far Away is revealing. We should have had a regular Xander
> co-worker and Buffy co-worker already. What's happening is that the
> writers are centring way too much on the regular cast, and whilst season
> 7 has tried to redress this balance by having some good guests for a
> change, it's still mostly about the regulars.
I agree totally. One of the things that really annoys me about S6 is
that we never, ever get out of that terrible house! Surely they must
be sick of it by now - hopefully they'll blow it up soon, library
soon. Their whole world seems so shrunk down when there's only the
Scoobies there.
I think it just about worked for S5 and what they were doing there. It
no longer does.
> And things are being left for later episodes (specifically Selfless in
> Anya's case), whilst the episodes now suffer. Plus, I really don't
> like new soulful Spike. Personal opinion this I know (as all of this is,
> so please don't come down on me too hard), but daft, lovelorn, neutered
> Spike was my favourite character on the show. At the end of season 6 I
> speculated on uk.m.tv.buffy that Spike would return in Season 7 hardly
> changed, brushing off his soul-less personality as something that's in
> the past and not getting too worked up about the people he's killed -
> the antithesis of Angel really. It wouldn't have had quite as big an
> impact on Spike as Angel because the chip had been conditioning him for
> such a situation for the previous couple of years. With Angel, you get
> the feeling it was as much the shock of suddenly looking at the world so
> differently as the act itself that tormented him.
I don't think we've really seen enough of souled Spike to judge. Half
the season so far he seems to have been tortured anyway.
> I can see why they didn't do this with Spike because there's one big
> thing he's atoning for, and which caused him to get the soul in the
> first place - the attempted rape of Buffy. In Beneath You, it's the
> thing that's really cutting him up (often literally). "Girl needs to be
> serviced". Once the rape box was opened, it was something that really
> couldn't (and shouldn't) be shut again. However, it annoys me because
> it has drastically altered a favourite character. There were better
> ways to remind everyone that Spike was evil, and it wouldn't have made
> him the babbling, incoherent loon we've had to put with this year. I can
> understand why they're doing it, but I can't understand what they
> thought a character talking such arrant nonsense would bring to the
> show. The viewer has to share Buffy and the Scoobies opinions of Spike:
> he's someone best avoided until he starts making more sense. The ending
> of Beneath You should be very powerful, as Buffy discovers that the man
> she 'used' for sex, and who tried to rape her, is now no longer the
> 'evil thing' he once was. Instead it gets buried in 'sparks' and
> 'servicing' and wondering how on Earth Buffy worked out what has
> happened amidst the word salad Spike is spewing. Worse, it seems she
> worked it out because of the mention of a character who hasn't been on
> the show for four years.
I really, really liked that scene. Joss at his best.
> There comes a point in all shows when continuity just overwhelms things.
> Partly this is due to the unavoidable fact that, because of the sheer
> amount of stories that have been written, most new stories can easily
> be compared to older stories (e.g. Him/Bewitched, Bothered and
> Bewildered, or Selfless/Belonging). There is also the fact that so much
> has happened to the characters over the years, that more and more
> things need to be addressed. Willow returning to Sunnydale and facing
> up to what she'd done is one of these things that needed to be addressed
> (making Willow evil in the first place was another one of those slightly
> desperate but oh so necessary ways to revitalise a long-term character -
> see Spike as well).
Maybe. I don't think it has to. I certainly don't think we need some
sort of Zero Hour.
> Same Time, Same Place is written by my favourite Buffy writer, Jane
> Espenson - she of the deft comedic touch. However, much like Marti
> Noxon before her (who has also come up with some cracking comedy
> episodes) it seems she has been promoted within the organisation and now
> she's doing more 'serious' stuff. Ideally, you would think this has got
> to be a winner, as Espenson can apply her light touch and bring new
> shades to dark material, making it as rich as Earshot or Superstar way
> back when. Same Time, Same Place is a clever idea, with some weak
> execution. The idea that Willow couldn't face seeing her friends again
> and unwittingly making herself invisible to them is great, but this
> emotional core to the episode is tossed away at the end in an ugly
> 'Willow explains what happened' exposition scene. Show don't tell, Jane.
Agreed. The end was very weak.
<snip>
> Something that doesn't do this is Help. Probably the best episode of the
> season so far (disappointing for me, in a way, as it's probably the
> least funny episode ever), it packs a huge emotional wallop from the
> first moment that Cassie says she's going to die, and actually keeps it
> going for the rest of the episode. Unlike Same Time, Same Place, the
> audience is right with the increasingly desperate Scoobies as they try
> to work out what's happening and put it right, even if we know deep down
> that it's going to be futile. Cassie's death is predictable, but that
> makes no difference. Buffy, and the audience, would have done all they
> could to prevent it anyway. Despite the lack of fun, this is precisely
> the sort of episode that does repay re-watching as it is so well-written
> in plot terms. Everything happens for a reason, as Fred Durst would say,
> and there is no treading water even when Buffy goes up dead ends in her
> search for who or what is going to kill Cassie.
I liked it, but I wouldn't say its the best. Nothing really new or
fresh there, but it was nice.
> And so it's on to Selfless, Anya's long overdue background-filling
> episode. Obviously meant to be this year's Fool For Love, it is often
> spectacular, often funny, often shocking... but again, I just haven't
> felt a great desire to watch it again. There are weaknesses: the opening
> Ingmar Bergman sequence goes on way too long and it's humour often falls
> flat (why wasn't the idea of bad dubbing in the Shooting Script taken
> up? Thinking of the South American priest in the first series of Father
> Ted, it would have worked a treat); the various cycles of Anya's beliefs
> - rabbit lover/hater, capitalist/communist etc. - don't fit together,
> even accounting for Anya's 'self-less' personality. Again, the theme is
> a great one (how Anya is defined by those around her), but nobody knows
> quite how to put it in effect. Fool For Love has a good excuse for the
> flashbacks, as they illustrate the story Spike is telling in
> chronological order; Selfless desperately needs a framing device like
> this. As it is, they look like they're there just because someone
> thought it would be a hoot; they don't serve the story as well as they
> might. Top marks, though, for the single most shocking switch Buffy has
> ever pulled off: Anya in her wedding dress singing to the heavens
> cutting (pun intended) right into Anya skewered to the wall with a
> sword. Ouch.
Indeed. A very good moment, that. I think the rest of the episode sort
of works, too, although not to a FFL level.
> Selfless is less than the sum of its parts. Admittedly, this may be
> deliberate as that could sum up Anya herself.
I really doubt it. That's taking this sort of thing a bit too far.
> Him, as I say, has been my favourite episode so far this year. Why, pray
> you ask? Because it's exactly the sort of episode that I loved about
> Buffy all those years ago. It takes a 'serious' subject - that first
> heart-wrenching crush you have for somebody - and it takes it to its
> illogical conclusion. Like all the best episodes, it also takes a
> slightly hackneyed idea and injects fresh new blood into it. It's a
> bit of a schizophrenic episode in a way, as the first half is markedly
> different to the second half (although it's one of the few eps that
> wasn't co-written), but it handles them both with great aplomb. Opinions
> on Dawn are generally negative, but I defy anyone to not like her after
> this. Watching the first half, you find yourself alternately cringing
> and laughing out loud at Dawn's attempts to ingratiate herself with RJ.
> Michelle Trachtenberg has got a great talent for pratfalls - as also
> demonstrated in Same Time, Same Place - and it's great to see her
> putting her 'talent' for playing the annoying teenager to good comic
> effect. "He owns my heart!" Her cheerleader tryout is a masterpiece of
> gawkiness. Brilliant use of music as well, perfectly enscapulating the
> deranged Wonder Years feel of things.
Ugh. Here our opinions completely differ. I really am getting a sort
of phobia about Old Drew's episodes, as most of the time I end up not
liking them. The first half I thought was slightly embarassing.
> But things really get great during the second half, as first Buffy then
> Willow and Anya get ensnared by RJ's charms. It's all slightly illogical
> - surely RJ would have Xander-like crowds of insane women chasing him if
> the effects of the jacket are as strong as they are on the women here -
> but I can forgive it just for the four-way discussion (leading to the
> 70s split screen joke) between the women over how they're gong to win
> RJ's heart. A part of me wishes that Buffy, Willow and Anya had been
> ensnared earlier in the episode as I could have watched that all day,
> but then that would have lessened Dawn's achingly funny contribution to
> the episode. Yep, Him was the first episode of the season I wished had
> gone on longer.
It was okay, and eventually sort of redeemed itself. That's as far as
I'll go.
> 'Round about six episodes in, we tend to get the big attention-grabbing
> episode. You know the ones: What's My Line, Homecoming, The Initiative,
> There's No Place Like Home, Once More With Feeling. This year we get
> Conversations With Dead People, supposedly the episode which gives us
> the reasons to continue watching for the rest of the season. I think
> Conversations may have been the last straw for a lot of casual viewers
> as it makes no sense at all and is unforgivably pretentious. The theme
> of the first half of the season so far is to give us a lot of mysterious
> questions and hope that we're intrigued enough to want to watch more.
> There are some intriguing questions, true, but there's just too many of
> them. You come out of Conversations... saying 'what the hell is going
> on?' I can understand why Buffy is losing viewers because that reaction
> can go both ways. For the big fans (of which I'm one) it's great stuff
> and leaves you in anticipation for next week. For the casual viewers
> (of which I can sympathise) it just leaves you scratching your head and
> wondering what else is on. And Buffy used to be such a simple show -
> yes, even when it had great big arcs and whatnot.
Personally, I don't really care. This isn't Firefly or even Angel -
ratings aren't important any longer. The casuals are unimportant. Just
do the best show you can.
> In Conversations... we get four separate plot strands running in
> parallel. Buffy catching up with a old friend who's now a vampire is
> easily the best of these, as there's lots of opportunities for some
> sparkling dialogue. The relentless psychoanalysing can get a bit
> wearying though. The other two Scooby strands are less good. Willow
> being tormented by someone who isn't Tara hasn't got nearly enough power
> as it should. Worse, by bringing back Cassie in such a role, it lessens
> the impact of Help, where we're genuinely sorry to see her die. I don't
> care if the Shooting Script says it was supposed to be Tara - the
> finished thing ain't her and they should have sorted out Amber Benson's
> commitments before starting. The Dawn segment is also supposed to be
> powerful, dredging up memories of The Exorcist as well as The Body, but
> it grows quickly tiresome and the resolution is complete pants. Dawn
> goes through all that just to have someone who may or may not be her
> mother give her some cryptic nonsense. We don't get any Xander or Anya
> for *that*?
>
I really, really like it as did a lot of other people I think. It left
things unexplained, but that's okay. So do most episodes. What it did
have was a great mood. The four strands also worked really well - the
pysch analysis is fun, Dawn's was the best horror we've got for a
while, Willow's was chilling and could have been amazing, and the Trio
wasn't as bad as it could have been. The last five minutes where
Jonathan dies, Joyce reappears and Spike's kills are revealed is
especially great.
> There's delayed gratification and then there's just messing around with
> the audience's heads with no consideration. How is Spike killing again?
> Who's trying to get Willow to kill herself? What was Joyce and what does
> her message mean? Why does Andrew kill Jonathan and what's the mystic
> hubcap all about? Buffy used to pride itself on undercutting this sort
> of portentous horror nonsense. Now it's revelling in it and it's up to
> the audience to undercut it for them. Usually by switching off. To sum
> up, unanswered questions are okay. In moderation. And what's worse,
> there's the feeling already building that there's so many questions,
> quite a few are going to be resolved unsatisfactorily (see also the
> sadly depressing record of Angel in this regard).
I know what you mean about Angel, but I'm starting to get the feeling
that we may see some of the answers there. I had begun before to give
up hope that we'd ever learn Connor's origin.
> The next four episodes have already starting blurring together for me,
> which is never a good sign. No more standalones and daft comedy; it's
> straight ahead arc stuff until the half way point (and, God help us,
> perhaps beyond). Sleeper at last starts to answer questions
> about Spike. And again, it's answering questions we fans kinda already
> know the answer to, while the casual viewers are left to scratch their
> poor confused heads. Of course Spike has been getting visitations from
> the shape-shifting entity. We saw that in Lessons. And it's natural to
> assume that it's what's been giving Spike the opportunity to start
> killing again. And yet we get a whole episode which tells us this in
> such a horribly drawn-out manner.
Not really. It establishes Spike as a killer, and works through that
plot line and him as insane, which is important. It could have perhaps
been combined with something else for maximum impact, but I've seen
worse wastes of time.
> And Spike actually gets to talk some sense! The conversations between
> him and Buffy are great yet annoying, because this should have happened
> a lot earlier. Ultimate Drew really injects some new blood (pardon the
> pun) into Buffy, not because he's an awesome writer but because he
> brings a new energy which cuts right to the heart of the matter. Having
> Buffy and Spike look back on their 'relationship' is great stuff. Pity
> we had to wait nine episodes to see it.
He's not an awesome, awesome writer. I think Joss and Tim are probably
better, and SDK is at least as good on Angel at least. He is, however,
far better than the vast majority on Buffy although Marti and Jane
were better a couple of years ago (then again, of course, they did
have Joss rewrites back then).
> But despite all this, it's still more arc angst leading to a conclusion
> that leaves you gasping, only this time more from wonder at why anyone
> would do it. No, not the destruction of the Watcher's Council. It's the
> First Evil everyone! Gosh. There were a series of books connected to
> Doctor Who centred on one of his former companions, Bernice Summerfield
> - archaeologist of the future. There was an arc of stories leading up to
> the last book ever, regarding the unleashing of 'Gods' on this universe.
> Some terrific books were written on this theme until we got to the last
> book in which it was revealed that the Gods were, er, minor characters
> from a Doctor Who book released five years earlier. Ho hum. This is what
> I thought of when the bad guys from Amends were revealed to be the big
> bad here. It didn't surprise me that the First Evil was behind it all. 9
> out of 10 people made the same guess. It surprised me that this is what
> we're getting here. Okay, the First Evil is a great concept, but Buffy's
> recognition of the Bringers is a classic example of how not to do this.
> Getting bogged down in continuity is the fate of every long running
> show. But I thought Buffy was better than that. I thought that the
> makers might recognize that every such show revives an old monster at
> some point and it usually does it badly. Some post-modern irony at this
> point was sorely needed, as well as the recognition that they might be
> alienating all those people who never saw/don't remember Amends.
Again, I don't care, but I'm not sure why this is alienating anyway.
Just makes the show's mythology seem deeper to me.
I really liked that it was the First Evil, someone we've actually seen
before and had build up to. Establishing something else which is
similar on the same sort of power level doesn't make sense.
> Bringing back the Bringers and the First Evil is a perfect way to fall
> in between two stools. Casual viewers are confused because they feel
> they're missing something. Fans realise that there's ret-conning going
> on to fit in with current events (i.e. when did the Bringers become
> knife-wielding maniacs?). The worst thing about all of this is that this
> has all been dragged out so much. Okay, the obvious intention is to
> create a great big hell-raising arc this season, but is this such a good
> idea? And does the First Evil merit such a huge story?
Yes. It's the enemy she can't beat. The logical next step after she
beat a god. No way (hopefully) out here. It also allows a "Reprise"
there'll-always-be-evil sort of thing to be done/
I believe it
> doesn't. A shapeshifting bad guy is confusing, even for people who are
> glued to the screen and paying full attention.
Not really. Not at all, in fact. Clue: It's the evil one, normally
torturing Spike.
> Sorry to go on about
> casual viewers again, but I believe that this is where Buffy has been
> losing its viewers this year. And the First Evil is a whole bunch of no
> fun, really. Remember the Mayor and Glory? Where half the joy of the Big
> Bad taking up so much screen time was how funny they were?
I remember Glory never being funny, yes...
Yeah, I get the point about there being a lack of humourous material
here, but it doesn't need to be that way. After all, FE's got the
Mayor and Glory inside it, just ready to pop out whenever affordable.
> Even the
> Master and Angel had their moments. The First is just the Mike Yarwood
> of evils, with a propensity for impersonating people and filling
> their mouths with vaguely menacing rubbish. And that's even before we
> get to the point that there is the very real possibility that there's
> more than one 'impersonator' involved to make things *really* confusing.
Intriguing.
> Speaking of which, on to Giles and Joyce in Bring On The Night. Titles
> named after Sting songs are never going to court popularity with this
> viewer, but I'm prepared to ignore that for the moment. By rights, Joyce
> is dead and Giles should be dead. So what's Joyce doing haunting Buffy's
> dreams and giving out more confusing info, and why's Giles wandering
> around, carefully not touching anything? It was nice to get an
> explanation for who those murdered girls were in the first two episodes
> (at last) but again we're left in a state of confusion as to what Giles
> is. Okay, nobody, least of all me, wants Giles to die. But I can see
> that having Giles be dead is such a cool and unexpected way to go (sod
> the Ripper series which is never going to happen anyway now they've
> commissioned Strange). But leaving him in limbo like this - and changing
> his character in the process, just as with Spike and Willow this season
> - is bloody annoying.
It's called suspense. Suspense is good. A lot of people really aren't
letting ME win on this one. (Be unpredictable! Tell us what's going
on! Giles better not be dead! This whole plot twist better have not
been for nothing ... ) Not you, personally, btw, just the fandom in
general.
> And worse still is the ubervamp. As Xander would say, "Huge build up,
> leetle execution." Well he doesn't say that but I can't remember the
> exact quote. The ubervamp is given a lot of significance in Never Leave
> Me, but is here reduced to the First's muscle.
Uh, yeah. I'm glad it's dead.
> When Xander says at the
> beginning that he's getting tired of fixing the house, that's a clue
> right there. Marti, when you find yourself writing about how tired
> something is, listen to it. And act on it.
Yes. Blow the house up. Now.
> My mistake, Buffy's speech is followed up. In Showtime (God, how I hate
> that cheesy phrase, even coming out of Sweet or Willow's mouth) Buffy
> takes the fight to the ubervamp. And beats it. Suspiciously easily, it
> has to be said. It's Angel again, and their love of unstoppable threats
> scaring the willies out of everyone one week only to see them get
> quashed the next. I know this is all daft science fantasy TV, but for
> God's sake please let's keep things consistent and stop relying on
> shocking cliffhangers to dictate your plots and motivations. All it
> needed was Buffy to use her brain and figure out a different way to kill
> the ubervamp - not having her fight it to a standstill so that she could
> behead it with barbed wire. No wonder the potentials looked impressed.
> It almost seemed impossible.
True. Something more inventive would've been nice, although the sheer
use of determination was probably more about the point they wanted to
make. For someone who supposedly hates Bush so much, Joss does seem to
be making the show into a rather huge 9/11 thing.
> So here we are, half way in. So far it's been a lesson in how to do
> standalones and how not to do arc stuff.
I'd probably say almost the opposite.
> Of the characters, Buffy is
> still as great as ever - far better than last year's understandable
> depression. Dawn has also perked right up, although her
> Slayer-in-training status hasn't been used all that much (she could
> definitely use a lesson in punning from big sis).
Buffy is better, and probably as good as she's going to get now. Dawn
has taken a gigantic leap up - it's amazing how much anti-Dawn
sentiment has now disappeared.
> Xander is slipping
> more and more into the role of 'what can we do with this guy', his
> imprecations in Selfless notwithstanding, as well as his double act with
> Anya in Never Leave Me, but he desperately needs a standalone episode to
> himself along the lines of the Zeppo.
Agreed. Preferably he could have a new love interest too.
Unfortunately, since he sort of got a whole season to himself (well,
where he gets to be the hero, anyway) I don't think he's top priority
right now.
> Anya has fallen back into her old
> character, which is no bad thing at all to this writer; she always seems
> to get the best lines in every scene she's in.
Maybe. That's mostly because all the rest are bad, though.
> Spike is a pale shadow of
> his former self; Buffy did not need another tortured soul around the
> place and, to be honest, I wanted Buffy to kill him in Never Leave Me
> just to give him some dignity. Willow is another tortured soul, although
> we still get the odd glimpses of her former self - but mostly she's just
> 'crazy plot gal' as the writers try to work out how to stifle a living,
> walking deux et machina and mostly come up with the solution of 'angst'.
> Giles has hardly been around of course, but he still gets a couple of
> great lines in Lessons and his 'First' incarnation does at least have
> some of his dry befuddlement. And Andrew has provided some much needed
> comic relief - he'll be in the credits before you know it.
Some happiness would be nice.
> To sum up the first (ho-ho) half of the season, I would describe it as
> an enjoyably confusing mess. Plot lines seem to be disappearing into
> some indeterminate place in the future when we should be focussing on
> the here and now, and characters are being turned into walking plot
> functions when the joy of the same characters to begin with was their
> self-involvement and their not taking anything too seriously. The
> intention of the season, as stated in Lessons, was to go back to the
> beginning. What a shame that this is not being taken as literally as
> expected, and that a show that prided itself on mockery and all-round
> fun has lost these aspects to be replaced by po-faced angst and
> Angel-lite "we're all doomed" cliffhangers. Just get the balance right,
> is all I ask.
> Terry
If it helps, it's all sort of got to be rounded up in exactly the same
amount of time, 'cause after that no more Buffy. I reckon the second
half will be better anyway, from the one spoiler I know, although part
of me dreads that ME won't be up to it.
Mockery can only go so far, really. Ever since S2, arguably Prophecy
Girl, the show's started taking apocalypses seriously. It's their
codeword for Scoobies acutally getting worried, whereas any other
demon they just laugh at. A return to the old light Buffy would be
nice, but I don't see the time, or the skill, or the place for it in
the story.
My speculation for the future, while I'm at it : there's going to be
some delay in the FE's plans to give us a gap before the final arc
run. Seeing as Joss talked about how this season's theme would be the
"joy of female power and spreading it" or something like that, I
reckon we're heading for a (potential) Slayer army. Which also rounds
out the series nicely, with the idea that even when you think you're
totally alone you're not. Or something. Oh, and I wouldn't totally bet
against a last second Buffy / Angel crossover.
Ratings wise, I did provisional out of 5 scores for all the ME shows
this year. Bearing in mind that I think of them as good shows, and 4
being a good mark, therefore 4 is my average mark for an episode (I
didn't originally do this on purpose) I gave Angel an average rating
of 3.96, Firefly 4.15 and Buffy 4.05. (Converting that down to an
average of 2.5 gives 2.47, 2.60 and 2.53). Which means that I seem to
be liking it, but it could be better. Firefly, for me, has been the
standalone lesson giver.
Anyway,
Jon
Freedy
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> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
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> Wow! A well argued, in-depth analysis, such as is pretty rare on
> Usenet. Couldn't begin to respond at the same length, I'm afraid,
> except to say that I understand and take on board the major points you
> make - but disagree almost entirely!
Ah well. Fairy nuff.
> However, I think this would never have been possible, given how much the
> characters have grown and changed (and not JUST in Season 6). I must
> admit that the idea of Dawn and a Scrappy gang becoming a prominent
> feature of this Season, as many initially predicted, filled me with
> horror. It is Buffy and her core group of Scoobies that we have watched
> assiduously since 1997: they are the ones we have emotionally invested
> in.
It's true. I think a major problem with Dawn and her friends is that
they're not Buffy and her friends. By rights, Dawn should have Buffy's
wisecracking and general disinterest and self involvement that Buffy had
at the beginning. But they can't do that because Buffy's around, albeit older.
> So episodes such as Him, which concentrate on Dawn, and are throwbacks
> to those early highschool metaphors, leave me somewhat cold. I feel we
> have been there. I love to go back and watch these from earlier
> seasons, but the series has just moved on. It has reinvented itself.
Good point. But I don't think it's impossible to have the general
humorous feel of those early episodes and betray the current direction.
Although a large part of Him is all about school and very reminiscent of
earlier episodes, the best bits of Him concern mocking the gang as they
are now; Willow being gay and 'recently evil', Anya also being recently
evil, and Buffy exploiting her relative age to get into RJ's pants.
Plus, of course, Xander saving the day again.
> You argue, perhaps accurately, that Buffy in Season 7 is losing viewers
> in the States because unless you are a fan who has watched from the
> start, you are shut out of many of the more interesting resonances and
> storylines. I think this is possibly true, but I don't see this as a
> weakness (unless you are UPN, concerned about ratings). I think that ME
> are well aware that this is very possibly the last Season. They
> certainly do not seem to be making a concerted effort to attract new
> viewers. They are obviously writing this for the long-term fans
> (commercial suicide though this may be...)
That's an interesting way of thinking about it, but it's not really that
hard to make things as though the characters (and therefore the
audience) are seeing things for the first time. When Buffy identifies
the Bringers in Never Leave Me, it's not hard to just have her say, "I
know these guys, they're [explanation]." Instead we get Buffy saying
it's the First with a big dramatic chord, to which the audience who
don't know about Amends immediately go "whoooo?" in a Lard stylee.
Writing for the long term fans in this way is always a bad mistake to
make, because not only does it alienate the casual viewers, but it also
get long-term fans concerned about those casual viewers, like I am. It's
made worse by the knowledge that it isn't hard to reintroduce the First
as if they're seen for the first time. What's more odd is that Joss
Whedon has said that each season is basically a reinvention of the
format that doesn't pay lip service to the past. We seem to have
forgotten that
> Frankly, I think that, of the many long-running shows out there, Buffy
> has earned the right to be so self-referential in its last (?) season.
> The mythology is strong and deep enough to warrant what some might call
> "pretentiousness". It will come as no surprise then that MY favourite
> episodes of Season 7 thus far are Selfless, Beneath You, Conversations
> with Dead People, and the Spike arc that immediately followed it.
Ah, but are you going to rewatch them again later? :)
> I would conceed that Bring on the Night and Showtime had plot-holes big
> enough for the proverbial truck, that Andrew is becoming annoying, that
> Xander needs something to do other than fix windows, that the Ubervamp
> was a disappointment, and that the SIT's would be mostly benefit from
> less screen time. I also think that there is a danger that ME will NOT
> come up with satisfactorily clever resolutions to the Giles question,
> the Principal Wood question and the other questions raised.
>
> If, however, they DO (as they say they do) have a grand plan to wrap up
> many of the loose ends and explore some of the issues raised in earlier
> seasons (Buffy's dark side, the source of her Slayer power etc.) then I
> for one will be more than satisfied.
Oh, don't get me wrong. If they do come up with some good explanations,
then I'll be happy. Although I will be annoyed that it took so long.
Most of the fun is in the speculation: I think Giles *is* dead, but he
isn't the First Evil. Either he's a representation of some rival power
to the First (the First Good perhaps?), or he's a projection of the
Devon coven who realise that Buffy needs Giles' help but can't admit to
her that he's dead in case it weakens her resolve against the First.
As for Principal Wood, I don't think he's got anything to do with the
First, but he definitely knows something about demons and vampires. I
don't think he's working for anyone but he does know what Buffy is
(perhaps, although it might make more sense if he didn't know what she
is, which would explain his smugness in seemingly knowing about 'evil'
in Bring On The Night). I can see him being close to someone like Gunn
on Angel, and I hope you don't think that's just because of his colour.
> I must admit, I still find more than enough humour in the series, often
> subtle things which come from a long-term knowledge of the characters.
> I am less interested in the more overt humour, even the much-vaunted
> rocket launcher, which sometimes seems forced.
Forced? That was done with great subtlety. There's a terrific
Buffy/Spike fight going on there, which we can't see. I'd compare that
scene to The Zeppo, such was its use of subtlety.
And the three-way conversation between Buffy, Willow and Anya about how
they're going to win RJ's love is wonderfully infused with the long term
knowledge of the characters.
"His physical presence has a penis!"
"I can work around it!"
and
"I'd kill for him."
"You'd kill for a chocolate bar!"
and
"I wouldn't put it past her. She's recently evil you know."
"Well so am I. Why should I miss out."
This is exactly the sort of knowing dialogue that you used to get as a
rule in earlier seasons. It's a shame that we have to have a spell to
get that now.
> I enjoyed plenty of Season 6. I've never seen any reason why they
> shouldn't explore the pain and suffering of the lead character. That's
> what makes her so much more interesting than other "superheroes".
I liked that aspect of the season as well, except on the odd occasions
were it went too far, e.g. Xander's parents and the attempted rape. I
think there was a feeling that the makers were aware of too, which is
why there was quite a lot of high-concept comedy episodes - Tabula Rasa,
Once More With Feeling, Life Serial, Gone, Older And Far Away, Double
Meat Palace. They were still striving for a balance, even though the
characters had almost entirely lost their sense of fun. The last four
episodes of season 7 haven't been doing that for me, although Never
Leave Me has its moments.
> (I
> think particularly the American audience had difficulties with this,
> because the conventional dramatic hero in Hollywood terms doesn't often
> become so mired in the grey areas of life - with notable exceptions such
> as SEVEN etc. - oh and so many of the great movies they used to make in
> the 70's before Lucas and Spielberg came and destroyed intelligent
> cinema - another topic, forgive me!).
No, do go on. :)
> To me, and to many others, Buffy the series only really became
> interesting with the Surprise/Innocence/Passion/Becoming arc in Season 2
> - where Whedon showed that he was prepared to subvert audience
> expectations and explore some pretty dark material for what was then
> seen as a teen show.
I watched season 2 again recently, and what's notable is that the first
half (standalones included) is almost uniformly pretty dire whilst the
second half (standalones included) is bloody marvellous. We all know how
great Passion and Becoming are, but it should be noted that the likes of
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, Phases, I Only Have Eyes for You,
Killed By Death and Go Fish are all great in their own ways. It wasn't
just this embracing of 'dark material' that makes it so good, it's the
fact that they got the feel of standalones correct as well.
> I think as the show has progressed it has explored
> the burgeoning adulthood of its lead characters with some success. I
> think it has made some fascinating points about trying to make do, to do
> the right thing, when life around you seems to be falling apart. For
> me, that has been one of the main reasons for watching over the years.
> The fact that it often manages to do it with humour and a post-modern
> nod at the audience is what makes it unique.
Indeed. it's a shame that the only character capable of doing that these
days is Andrew. we desperately need to pull back from the current arc
and give the characters some individual episode to help develop them a bit.
> Season 7 may yet turn out to be a mess, it may yet fail to go the
> distance to resolve and illuminate the many things it has raised. But
> ME have certainly got my attention, and I will be watching with baited
> breath to see if they can pull it off.
Oh, it's not like I'm going to stop watching anytime soon. Although I
will be grateful if I don't see anymore Bring On The Nights or Showtimes.
Terry
Freedy
>
> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:<3E27857E...@btopenworld.com>...
> > So, what do we make of it so far?
> >
>
> Yikes. You wrote a lot. Random and probably not very satisfying
> comments coming up.
And lots of snipping, too.
> > Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to season 4
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> > The way I can just plonk in a
> > videotape of stuff I've watched lots of times and know I'm still going
> > to enjoy it.
>
> Yeah, but I don't get any of that vibe beyond S3 and the Joss
> episodes. The time when the series was just full of great line after
> great line is gone and I've got used to that now. "Lessons" is
> probably the closet we've come so far.
But that's nonsense! Why shouldn't the series have great line after
great line? It's the same writers, and one of the funniest writers -
Marti Noxon - is practically running the show these days. The one thing
that has changed is the characters. The writers seem to think that
Willow, Spike, Xander at al can no longer be as sarcastically funny as
they used to be, because 'things' have happened to them. On the
contrary, someone like Drew Goddard has proved (in Never Leave Me) that
they can still be as funny as ever: e.g. Willow asking whether they
should kill Anya and dealing with Andrew ("okay?"), Xander and Anya's
wonderful good cop, bad cop act, which actually touches on their
break-up as Xander explains what Anya is capable of, and Spike getting
some very dramatic and insightful dialogue, which also contains some
wit. "I've come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in
love with you."
Otherwise, the likes of Jane Espenson, Marti Noxon and David Fury are
wary of giving them good lines because it apparently doesn't suit their
angst-filled characters, giving all the funny lines to Anya and Andrew.
> > But even so, I find
> > I don't rewatch my Season 6 box sets as much as seasons 2, 3 and 4.
> > And I like Doublemeat Palace. :)
>
> I have to admit to hating it, and the middle of S6. I don't mind "Life
> Serial" and some of the earlier comedy like a lot of people but from
> "Gone" to "Hell's Bells" the season drags horribly. Another problem of
> course, is that's there's no straight Joss to help.
We don't know exactly how much input he had, so its hard to say. The
only thing we can be sure of, I suppose, is that it was less than
previously. For all we know, it may have been his idea to lessen the
comedy. Either way, it's definitely a mistake as far as I'm concerned.
> > (how many times do Buffy and Principal Wood happen to bump into
> > each other and why does the handbag fight go on for such interminable
> > lengths?)
>
> Uh, they meet three times, and he comments on them meeting again so
> soon in the second one. Didn't notice the handbad thing, either.
The whole Buffy/Principal Wood meetings are very forced. Bumping into
someone once is bad enough as a dramatic device. Three times is just
ugly writing. And the handbag fight is just nonsense. The ghosts are
seemingly indestructible and can teleport around, so there's not much
point in hitting them really. We're waiting for Xander to get the
talisman, not for Buffy to beat the crap out of the ghosts.
> I don't think we've really seen enough of souled Spike to judge. Half
> the season so far he seems to have been tortured anyway.
He's great in Never Leave Me, as I say. One out of 11 episodes seems a
bit of a poor hit rate, even with his total bonkersness/constant torture.
> > (making Willow evil in the first place was another one of those slightly
> > desperate but oh so necessary ways to revitalise a long-term character -
> > see Spike as well).
>
> Maybe. I don't think it has to. I certainly don't think we need some
> sort of Zero Hour.
Huh?
> > Selfless is less than the sum of its parts. Admittedly, this may be
> > deliberate as that could sum up Anya herself.
>
> I really doubt it. That's taking this sort of thing a bit too far.
Well, as the title says, she doesn't really have a character, being
defined by those around her. This sense of dislocation *could* (only
could mind you, but I'm willing to give Ultimate Drew the benefit of the
doubt on this one) be what they were aiming for in the general
randomness of the flashbacks.
> Ugh. Here our opinions completely differ. I really am getting a sort
> of phobia about Old Drew's episodes, as most of the time I end up not
> liking them. The first half I thought was slightly embarassing.
It was supposed to be! :) Cruelty to Dawn seems to be a theme of this
season, and her trying to ingratiate herself with RJ was the cruellest
thing of all. And the funniest. :)
[Conversations With Dead People]
> I really, really like it as did a lot of other people I think. It left
> things unexplained, but that's okay. So do most episodes. What it did
> have was a great mood. The four strands also worked really well - the
> pysch analysis is fun, Dawn's was the best horror we've got for a
> while, Willow's was chilling and could have been amazing, and the Trio
> wasn't as bad as it could have been. The last five minutes where
> Jonathan dies, Joyce reappears and Spike's kills are revealed is
> especially great.
Agreed. I think it just rubbed me up the wrong way. It promised so much...
> > And it's natural to
> > assume that it's what's been giving Spike the opportunity to start
> > killing again. And yet we get a whole episode which tells us this in
> > such a horribly drawn-out manner.
>
> Not really. It establishes Spike as a killer, and works through that
> plot line and him as insane, which is important. It could have perhaps
> been combined with something else for maximum impact, but I've seen
> worse wastes of time.
But Spike isn't a killer. We know there's something making him do it
(and over-riding his chip) so it's no surprise that he's being
programmed by the First.
> I really liked that it was the First Evil, someone we've actually seen
> before and had build up to. Establishing something else which is
> similar on the same sort of power level doesn't make sense.
I don't mind so much that it's the First Evil either. It's a very
effective villain and desperately needed a follow-up after Amends. I'm
just worried that it's a) alienating to viewers what with its penchant
for impersonation and b) not good enough to last an entire season as Big
Bad, especially a season as focussed on the villain as this is. Even
Glory and the Mayor took a while before they became important (and had
good sidekicks to carry things, e.g. Mr. Trick and Faith, and the Jawa
rejects, Ben and Doc). The First's got the Bringers and the Ubervamp,
who are not that interesting really, although the use of Spike and
Andrew was good.
The First's been around since the very first episode, and has dominated
a lot of episodes since, and I don't think it deserves to.
> > Okay, the obvious intention is to
> > create a great big hell-raising arc this season, but is this such a good
> > idea? And does the First Evil merit such a huge story?
>
> Yes. It's the enemy she can't beat. The logical next step after she
> beat a god. No way (hopefully) out here. It also allows a "Reprise"
> there'll-always-be-evil sort of thing to be done/
Not a big fan of Reprise really. Hey, hell is on earth. Well gosh darn.
Why did you just spend the entire episode building up to the fact that
it wasn't? Classic Tim Minear sleight of hand.
And rest assured Buffy will beat the First somehow.
> > I believe it
> > doesn't. A shapeshifting bad guy is confusing, even for people who are
> > glued to the screen and paying full attention.
>
> Not really. Not at all, in fact. Clue: It's the evil one, normally
> torturing Spike.
We weren't sure for a long time to begin with. Who was that other Buffy
in the basement with Spike? Who is Giles? Who is Joyce?
> > Remember the Mayor and Glory? Where half the joy of the Big
> > Bad taking up so much screen time was how funny they were?
>
> I remember Glory never being funny, yes...
Oh come on, she was a scream. "I could crap a better existence than
this." Her self-obsession was brilliant.
> Yeah, I get the point about there being a lack of humourous material
> here, but it doesn't need to be that way. After all, FE's got the
> Mayor and Glory inside it, just ready to pop out whenever affordable.
Well, I wish they'd pop out a bit more. It's a shame Xander's not dead
because I reckon that'd be hilarious. Who else?
> > Even the
> > Master and Angel had their moments. The First is just the Mike Yarwood
> > of evils, with a propensity for impersonating people and filling
> > their mouths with vaguely menacing rubbish. And that's even before we
> > get to the point that there is the very real possibility that there's
> > more than one 'impersonator' involved to make things *really* confusing.
>
> Intriguing.
Basically, who's Giles and who's Joyce? I doubt very much that both are
the First, but who else could they be?
> > But leaving him in limbo like this - and changing
> > his character in the process, just as with Spike and Willow this season
> > - is bloody annoying.
>
> It's called suspense. Suspense is good. A lot of people really aren't
> letting ME win on this one. (Be unpredictable! Tell us what's going
> on! Giles better not be dead! This whole plot twist better have not
> been for nothing ... ) Not you, personally, btw, just the fandom in
> general.
It's a view I do share though. I'm not very fond of this constant
suspense thing, because it's what's been buggering up Angel for the last
couple of years. I do want things to be unpredictable, but Buffy managed
that pretty well for a long time before relying on these tactics.
There's also better ways of being suspenseful than having the inevitable
'shock in the last minute which doesn't quite make sense'.
> > When Xander says at the
> > beginning that he's getting tired of fixing the house, that's a clue
> > right there. Marti, when you find yourself writing about how tired
> > something is, listen to it. And act on it.
>
> Yes. Blow the house up. Now.
No, just stop having it trashed all the time. You're running out of
ideas if every episode has to finish the same way, no matter who's doing
the trashing.
> > All it
> > needed was Buffy to use her brain and figure out a different way to kill
> > the ubervamp - not having her fight it to a standstill so that she could
> > behead it with barbed wire. No wonder the potentials looked impressed.
> > It almost seemed impossible.
>
> True. Something more inventive would've been nice, although the sheer
> use of determination was probably more about the point they wanted to
> make. For someone who supposedly hates Bush so much, Joss does seem to
> be making the show into a rather huge 9/11 thing.
Hmm, never thought of that. Should we tell Joss that all the
determination and fancy speeches in the world ain't caught Osama Bin
Laden yet? And the destruction of the British side of things in the form
of the Watcher's council doesn't bode very well either.
> > Of the characters, Buffy is
> > still as great as ever - far better than last year's understandable
> > depression. Dawn has also perked right up, although her
> > Slayer-in-training status hasn't been used all that much (she could
> > definitely use a lesson in punning from big sis).
>
> Buffy is better, and probably as good as she's going to get now. Dawn
> has taken a gigantic leap up - it's amazing how much anti-Dawn
> sentiment has now disappeared.
What, even despite Him? :)
> > Xander is slipping
> > more and more into the role of 'what can we do with this guy', his
> > imprecations in Selfless notwithstanding, as well as his double act with
> > Anya in Never Leave Me, but he desperately needs a standalone episode to
> > himself along the lines of the Zeppo.
>
> Agreed. Preferably he could have a new love interest too.
> Unfortunately, since he sort of got a whole season to himself (well,
> where he gets to be the hero, anyway) I don't think he's top priority
> right now.
They should have kept Nancy on. They could have shared notes on bad relationships.
(There's an odd parallel between here and Angel too, with the character
of Gwen being brought in seemingly as a semi-regular and then never
being heard of again.)
> Mockery can only go so far, really. Ever since S2, arguably Prophecy
> Girl, the show's started taking apocalypses seriously. It's their
> codeword for Scoobies acutally getting worried, whereas any other
> demon they just laugh at. A return to the old light Buffy would be
> nice, but I don't see the time, or the skill, or the place for it in
> the story.
Don't forget Doomed.
"It's the end of the world."
"Again?!"
Never mind The Zeppo.
The worry is that there seems to be two types of apocalypses (what is
the plural of apocalypse anyway?) - the ones that are taken seriously
and the ones that aren't. Not for any logical reasons but for shoehorned
dramatic ones. The apocalypse of The Gift had a lot more resonance
because of the presence of Dawn. The apocalypse of Grave didn't work at
all and desperately needed someone to say, "Willow's taking her Queen of
Pain act a bit too far isn't she?"
> My speculation for the future, while I'm at it : there's going to be
> some delay in the FE's plans to give us a gap before the final arc
> run. Seeing as Joss talked about how this season's theme would be the
> "joy of female power and spreading it" or something like that, I
> reckon we're heading for a (potential) Slayer army. Which also rounds
> out the series nicely, with the idea that even when you think you're
> totally alone you're not. Or something. Oh, and I wouldn't totally bet
> against a last second Buffy / Angel crossover.
That all sounds about right. Your talking about the War on Terror got
me thinking some more. The Slayer 'army' taking on the forces of terror
is an obvious comparison to make. The one British Potential left could
be a metaphor for the US's allies (the rest are all American aren't
they, or is there a Mexican one as well?). Don't know what the Brit who
died means, though. I suppose it's hard for any American writers to
avoid addressing 9/11 and subsequent events at the moment, but its odd
how many of them get it all so wrong. 9/11 wasn't a movie, and it's hard
to draw metaphors from it. Comparing the First to Osama is daft, though.
Particularly when we know that Osama isn't hiding underground somewhere
dictating his followers' action. His followers tend to do what they like
without his involvement (we're not even sure exactly how much he had to
do with 9/11, if anything).
I'm worried about Buffy this year, not just because the world has
changed (it hasn't really, but Americans like to pretend it has). We've
already had quite a few dramatic highpoints and it's hard to know how
they're going to top them. Are they going to go the Angel route and just
pile on more shock twists until everything goes up its own fundament, or
are we going to step back, answer some of these questions, have some
fun, then lead up to a killer ending that manages to surprise without
being flashy and predictable?
But then I've always thought the endings to seasons were always the
weakest parts anyway.
> Ratings wise, I did provisional out of 5 scores for all the ME shows
> this year. Bearing in mind that I think of them as good shows, and 4
> being a good mark, therefore 4 is my average mark for an episode (I
> didn't originally do this on purpose) I gave Angel an average rating
> of 3.96, Firefly 4.15 and Buffy 4.05. (Converting that down to an
> average of 2.5 gives 2.47, 2.60 and 2.53). Which means that I seem to
> be liking it, but it could be better. Firefly, for me, has been the
> standalone lesson giver.
I've never rated an episode like this and don't intend to start anytime
soon. Just can't reduce an experience like that down to a couple of numbers.
Terry
Iain Clark
<fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>Jonathan Dupont wrote:
>>
>> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:<3E27857E...@btopenworld.com>...
>> > So, what do we make of it so far?
>> >
>>
>> Yikes. You wrote a lot. Random and probably not very satisfying
>> comments coming up.
>
>And lots of snipping, too.
>
>> > Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to season 4
>> > >
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>
>> Yeah, but I don't get any of that vibe beyond S3 and the Joss
>> episodes. The time when the series was just full of great line after
>> great line is gone and I've got used to that now. "Lessons" is
>> probably the closet we've come so far.
>
>But that's nonsense! Why shouldn't the series have great line after
>great line? It's the same writers, and one of the funniest writers -
>Marti Noxon - is practically running the show these days. The one thing
>that has changed is the characters. The writers seem to think that
>Willow, Spike, Xander at al can no longer be as sarcastically funny as
>they used to be, because 'things' have happened to them.
>Otherwise, the likes of Jane Espenson, Marti Noxon and David Fury are
>wary of giving them good lines because it apparently doesn't suit their
>angst-filled characters, giving all the funny lines to Anya and Andrew.
>
I don't see this. Yes, there are fewer quips-per-minute than there
used to be. But even the first season wasn't a constant stream of
jokes, and during Season 2 the tone would change markedly from episode
to episode.
But the characters *do* still quip frequently. Okay, not all of the
quips are hilarious, and maybe the lines are sometimes thrown away,
but then the show is more a drama-with-humour than a sit-com.
>We don't know exactly how much input he had, so its hard to say. The
>only thing we can be sure of, I suppose, is that it was less than
>previously. For all we know, it may have been his idea to lessen the
>comedy. Either way, it's definitely a mistake as far as I'm concerned.
>
You can go too far in either direction. Season 4's biggest problem,
for me, was that the drama was too often submerged in comedy. The
writing was too light, on average.
You obviously pine for the tone of the earlier seasons, but the show
has changed. It doesn't have to rehash the things it did before.
There is still a lot of humour in it, but the style has matured with
the characters.
Personally I prefer Buffy as more of a drama. One featuring likeable,
funny characters, but at heart a drama.
>The whole Buffy/Principal Wood meetings are very forced. Bumping into
>someone once is bad enough as a dramatic device. Three times is just
>ugly writing.
Or, just possibly, comedy? It also implies, to me, that the Principal
is keeping tabs on Buffy (in fact, he more or less admits this when he
says he knew more about her than he was letting on).
>And the handbag fight is just nonsense.
It's an imaginative set-piece fight of a kind that we used to see in
the early seasons, IMO.
>> I don't think we've really seen enough of souled Spike to judge. Half
>> the season so far he seems to have been tortured anyway.
>
>He's great in Never Leave Me, as I say. One out of 11 episodes seems a
>bit of a poor hit rate, even with his total bonkersness/constant torture.
>
Personally I love what they've done with Spike throughout the season.
I think the only low spot was Bring on the Night, because his scenes
lacked any genuine tension or insight.
This year he's gone from insane, to pitiable, to murderous, to
self-loathing. As much as I liked Spike in the past, I thought that
they'd pretty much used up the character by the end of Season 6. This
year they've given him a new breath of life.
>> > Selfless is less than the sum of its parts. Admittedly, this may be
>> > deliberate as that could sum up Anya herself.
>>
>> I really doubt it. That's taking this sort of thing a bit too far.
>
>Well, as the title says, she doesn't really have a character, being
>defined by those around her. This sense of dislocation *could* (only
>could mind you, but I'm willing to give Ultimate Drew the benefit of the
>doubt on this one) be what they were aiming for in the general
>randomness of the flashbacks.
>
I don't think the flashbacks are random. Each one is selected to
illustrate how Anya was defined by other people's expectations. The
fact that most of them are light-hearted works as a counterpoint to
the seriousness of the present.
The present day scenes are also a marvellous companion-piece to
Becoming Part 2, giving us a compare-and-contrast view of the
attitudes Xander takes to Angel and Anya.
[Him]
>> Ugh. Here our opinions completely differ. I really am getting a sort
>> of phobia about Old Drew's episodes, as most of the time I end up not
>> liking them. The first half I thought was slightly embarassing.
>
>It was supposed to be! :) Cruelty to Dawn seems to be a theme of this
>season, and her trying to ingratiate herself with RJ was the cruellest
>thing of all. And the funniest. :)
>
Him was funny, but forgettable. It's one of a strand of episodes that
hark back to the style of the earlier seasons whilst not forgetting
everything that's happened since.
>[Conversations With Dead People]
>
>> I really, really like it as did a lot of other people I think. It left
>> things unexplained, but that's okay. So do most episodes. What it did
>> have was a great mood. The four strands also worked really well - the
>> pysch analysis is fun, Dawn's was the best horror we've got for a
>> while, Willow's was chilling and could have been amazing, and the Trio
>> wasn't as bad as it could have been. The last five minutes where
>> Jonathan dies, Joyce reappears and Spike's kills are revealed is
>> especially great.
>
I completely agree with this. It's a superb episode.
>Agreed. I think it just rubbed me up the wrong way. It promised so much...
>
And delivered so much... :-)
>> > And it's natural to
>> > assume that it's what's been giving Spike the opportunity to start
>> > killing again. And yet we get a whole episode which tells us this in
>> > such a horribly drawn-out manner.
>>
>> Not really. It establishes Spike as a killer, and works through that
>> plot line and him as insane, which is important. It could have perhaps
>> been combined with something else for maximum impact, but I've seen
>> worse wastes of time.
>
I wasn't sure what was going on with Spike at the end of CWDP. He
could have been controlled, or he could have been faking his
redemption.
Sleeper doesn't *just* explain what's happening. It also examines
Spike's horror and dismay as he begins to suspect that he is a killer.
It's a good character study. It also puts the danger back into Spike,
which is refreshing.
>But Spike isn't a killer. We know there's something making him do it
>(and over-riding his chip) so it's no surprise that he's being
>programmed by the First.
>
Or it could be to do with his insanity and/or soul.
>> I really liked that it was the First Evil, someone we've actually seen
>> before and had build up to. Establishing something else which is
>> similar on the same sort of power level doesn't make sense.
>
>I don't mind so much that it's the First Evil either. It's a very
>effective villain and desperately needed a follow-up after Amends. I'm
>just worried that it's a) alienating to viewers what with its penchant
>for impersonation and b) not good enough to last an entire season as Big
>Bad, especially a season as focussed on the villain as this is. Even
>Glory and the Mayor took a while before they became important (and had
>good sidekicks to carry things, e.g. Mr. Trick and Faith, and the Jawa
>rejects, Ben and Doc). The First's got the Bringers and the Ubervamp,
>who are not that interesting really, although the use of Spike and
>Andrew was good.
>
You focus a lot on what *may* confuse new viewers. Why not just watch
it for yourself and let the new viewers worry about understanding it.
Personally one of the things that pulls me into a series is a sense of
a depth of mythology (even if it takes me a while to fully
understand.)
>The First's been around since the very first episode, and has dominated
>a lot of episodes since, and I don't think it deserves to.
>
>> > Okay, the obvious intention is to
>> > create a great big hell-raising arc this season, but is this such a good
>> > idea? And does the First Evil merit such a huge story?
>>
Why is the force that created all Evil less of a Bad than the Master
(a single, ancient vampire) or Adam (a watachamacallit) or the Mayor
(a bloke who wants to live forever.)
>> Yes. It's the enemy she can't beat. The logical next step after she
>> beat a god. No way (hopefully) out here. It also allows a "Reprise"
>> there'll-always-be-evil sort of thing to be done/
>
My thoughts, also.
>Not a big fan of Reprise really. Hey, hell is on earth. Well gosh darn.
>Why did you just spend the entire episode building up to the fact that
>it wasn't? Classic Tim Minear sleight of hand.
>
Because that's the dramatic twist. We share Angel's expectations, and
then share his sense of the world shifting beneath his feet. We
understand his feelings of hopelessness and despair.
>> > I believe it
>> > doesn't. A shapeshifting bad guy is confusing, even for people who are
>> > glued to the screen and paying full attention.
>>
>> Not really. Not at all, in fact. Clue: It's the evil one, normally
>> torturing Spike.
>
>We weren't sure for a long time to begin with. Who was that other Buffy
>in the basement with Spike? Who is Giles? Who is Joyce?
>
Giles is something yet to be dealt with - only observant viewers even
know there's something possibly wrong.
Joyce is a specific mystery (and most viewers would assume she's the
Big Bad, even if it may turn out to have another explanation.)
All the other apparitions are clearly the same thing. I was certainly
never in any doubt, except where an episode briefly blurred the lines
for dramatic effect.
>> > Remember the Mayor and Glory? Where half the joy of the Big
>> > Bad taking up so much screen time was how funny they were?
Then again, I found Glory annoying as much as funny. There's room for
different styles of villain. You seem to want the show to repeat the
same formula it's followed in the past.
[Giles]
>> > But leaving him in limbo like this - and changing
>> > his character in the process, just as with Spike and Willow this season
>> > - is bloody annoying.
>>
How have they changed his character? He's grimmer, maybe, and more
reserved. Most of his colleagues and most Slayers in Training have
been murdered, so he's all business.
This *may* be to do with the First, but we don't know for sure.
>> It's called suspense. Suspense is good. A lot of people really aren't
>> letting ME win on this one. (Be unpredictable! Tell us what's going
>> on! Giles better not be dead! This whole plot twist better have not
>> been for nothing ... ) Not you, personally, btw, just the fandom in
>> general.
>
Yes, I don't feel that arc and unanswered questions are a bad thing.
As long as it's done right, it can be a very good thing.
>It's a view I do share though. I'm not very fond of this constant
>suspense thing, because it's what's been buggering up Angel for the last
>couple of years. I do want things to be unpredictable, but Buffy managed
>that pretty well for a long time before relying on these tactics.
>There's also better ways of being suspenseful than having the inevitable
>'shock in the last minute which doesn't quite make sense'.
>
I agree that it's important to have a sense of progression, but we've
got that. For example learning who the enemy is, finding out the
truth about Spike, defeating the Ubervamp. But not everything has to
be revealed at once.
>> > When Xander says at the
>> > beginning that he's getting tired of fixing the house, that's a clue
>> > right there. Marti, when you find yourself writing about how tired
>> > something is, listen to it. And act on it.
>>
Or make a self-aware joke out of it, which is what she did?
>> Yes. Blow the house up. Now.
>
Good plan. Is there a petition I can sign?
>No, just stop having it trashed all the time. You're running out of
>ideas if every episode has to finish the same way, no matter who's doing
>the trashing.
>
What they really need to do is relocate to another location and trash
that instead. Hey, they did that in Showtime! :-)
>> > All it
>> > needed was Buffy to use her brain and figure out a different way to kill
>> > the ubervamp - not having her fight it to a standstill so that she could
>> > behead it with barbed wire. No wonder the potentials looked impressed.
>> > It almost seemed impossible.
>>
>> True. Something more inventive would've been nice,
I agree with this. For the fight to have the necessary impact it
needed a much cleverer twist than decapitation.
>> although the sheer
>> use of determination was probably more about the point they wanted to
>> make.
Yes, and the point is also that you shouldn't be cowed by fear,
because the reality is often not as menacing as it appears.
>For someone who supposedly hates Bush so much, Joss does seem to
>> be making the show into a rather huge 9/11 thing.
>
>Hmm, never thought of that. Should we tell Joss that all the
>determination and fancy speeches in the world ain't caught Osama Bin
>Laden yet? And the destruction of the British side of things in the form
>of the Watcher's council doesn't bode very well either.
>
I don't think there's any deliberate 9/11 stuff in this season. It's
just that any speech about good and evil seems reminiscent of Bush,
because he's stolen that rhetoric for his own purposes.
>> Mockery can only go so far, really. Ever since S2, arguably Prophecy
>> Girl, the show's started taking apocalypses seriously. It's their
>> codeword for Scoobies acutally getting worried, whereas any other
>> demon they just laugh at. A return to the old light Buffy would be
>> nice, but I don't see the time, or the skill, or the place for it in
>> the story.
>
>Don't forget Doomed.
>
>"It's the end of the world."
>"Again?!"
>
>Never mind The Zeppo.
>
>The worry is that there seems to be two types of apocalypses (what is
>the plural of apocalypse anyway?) - the ones that are taken seriously
>and the ones that aren't. Not for any logical reasons but for shoehorned
>dramatic ones. The apocalypse of The Gift had a lot more resonance
>because of the presence of Dawn.
>
I have to say that Buffy has always toned down the quips at moments of
total apocalypse. In fact, this is what the Zeppo pokes fun at with
the po-faced conversations of the Scoobies. Doomed is also a feeble
attempt at self-aware comedy. The reason those episodes treat
apocalypses differently is that they're commenting on the show itself.
>The apocalypse of Grave didn't work at
>all and desperately needed someone to say, "Willow's taking her Queen of
>Pain act a bit too far isn't she?"
With their best friend gone mad and trying to destroy the world, it's
not unreasonable to think that the time for quips is past. In S7
Xander does later get to comment "I saved the world. With my mouth."
>That all sounds about right. Your talking about the War on Terror got
>me thinking some more. The Slayer 'army' taking on the forces of terror
>is an obvious comparison to make. The one British Potential left could
>be a metaphor for the US's allies (the rest are all American aren't
>they, or is there a Mexican one as well?). Don't know what the Brit who
>died means, though. I suppose it's hard for any American writers to
>avoid addressing 9/11 and subsequent events at the moment, but its odd
>how many of them get it all so wrong. 9/11 wasn't a movie, and it's hard
>to draw metaphors from it. Comparing the First to Osama is daft, though.
>Particularly when we know that Osama isn't hiding underground somewhere
>dictating his followers' action. His followers tend to do what they like
>without his involvement (we're not even sure exactly how much he had to
>do with 9/11, if anything).
>
I'll say it again, I think the 9/11 stuff is all in the eye of the
viewers, not the writers.
>I'm worried about Buffy this year, not just because the world has
>changed (it hasn't really, but Americans like to pretend it has). We've
>already had quite a few dramatic highpoints and it's hard to know how
>they're going to top them. Are they going to go the Angel route and just
>pile on more shock twists until everything goes up its own fundament, or
>are we going to step back, answer some of these questions, have some
>fun, then lead up to a killer ending that manages to surprise without
>being flashy and predictable?
>
Ah, we can dream...
Iain
--
"you spend a year in a kitchen sink, grittily realistic drama
and then, without warning, your life turns into a sitcom..."
- Neil Gaiman
Freedy
>
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 03:34:05 +0000 (UTC), Freedy
> <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
> >Jonathan Dupont wrote:
> >>
> >> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:<3E27857E...@btopenworld.com>...
> >> > So, what do we make of it so far?
> >> >
> >>
> >> Yikes. You wrote a lot. Random and probably not very satisfying
> >> comments coming up.
> >
> >And lots of snipping, too.
> >
> >> > Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to season 4
> >> > >
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>
> >Willow, Spike, Xander at al can no longer be as sarcastically funny as
> >they used to be, because 'things' have happened to them.
>
> >Otherwise, the likes of Jane Espenson, Marti Noxon and David Fury are
> >wary of giving them good lines because it apparently doesn't suit their
> >angst-filled characters, giving all the funny lines to Anya and Andrew.
>
> I don't see this. Yes, there are fewer quips-per-minute than there
> used to be. But even the first season wasn't a constant stream of
> jokes, and during Season 2 the tone would change markedly from episode
> to episode.
>
> But the characters *do* still quip frequently. Okay, not all of the
> quips are hilarious, and maybe the lines are sometimes thrown away,
> but then the show is more a drama-with-humour than a sit-com.
I would say it's more humour than drama. Do I have to remind you of the
title again. :)
As The Zeppo showed in huge Day-Glo letters, apocalypses and character
angst are what other shows do. We'd rather show you Xander having a
'very weird night'.
End of season angst fests like Becoming and Graduation Day are probably
necessary, to pay off everything that's been built up, but I'd rather
have the total weird out of Restless to finish things off. Did I mention
that season 4 is my favourite?
> >We don't know exactly how much input he had, so its hard to say. The
> >only thing we can be sure of, I suppose, is that it was less than
> >previously. For all we know, it may have been his idea to lessen the
> >comedy. Either way, it's definitely a mistake as far as I'm concerned.
> >
> You can go too far in either direction. Season 4's biggest problem,
> for me, was that the drama was too often submerged in comedy. The
> writing was too light, on average.
On the contrary, I think they got the balance just right. Episodes like
Something Blue, The Initiative and Superstar are all obvious comedy
episodes, but they also do a splendid job of moving on the characters
and plot. An episode like Pangs could be seen to go too far with the
fallout of Buffy and Angel's relationship being dealt with too lightly.
but I don't care. It's really, really funny. :)
> You obviously pine for the tone of the earlier seasons, but the show
> has changed. It doesn't have to rehash the things it did before.
> There is still a lot of humour in it, but the style has matured with
> the characters.
I don't see how maturing the characters means they've lost their sense
of humour. Okay, Spike, Buffy and Willow have been through the ringer
lately, and so it's understandable that they would be a bit more
world-weary. It just annoys me that the show is less enjoyable as a
result. And what's worse, scenes like Willow's confrontation with Andrew
in Never Leave Me, which should have been a huge serious moment,
proves that you don't have to lose the humour all together.
> Personally I prefer Buffy as more of a drama. One featuring likeable,
> funny characters, but at heart a drama.
Okay, we've got a former cheerleader who ain't the brightest bulb in
the shop and who's more concerned with her appearance than doing her
job; you've got an over-achieving nerdy lesbian witch who, until
recently, seemed incapable of losing her temper properly; you've got a
nerdy thick-as-a-brick under-achieving guy who's a sidekick and knows
it; you've got a neutered vampire in love with his mortal enemy; and
you've got a 1,000 year old former vengeance demon with a fear of
bunnies and no tact whatsoever. Not exactly EastEnders is it?
The tropes of the fantasy/horror genre are, at heart, laughable. They're
ridiculous, which is why Buffy made such a huge thing of being more
about the characters and the travails of growing up rather than true
vampire mythology. There was an inherent humour about a cheerleader
being the chosen one to deal with literary horror of vampires. Buffy is
drama, but its not at its core. Humour is.
> Personally I love what they've done with Spike throughout the season.
> I think the only low spot was Bring on the Night, because his scenes
> lacked any genuine tension or insight.
>
> This year he's gone from insane, to pitiable, to murderous, to
> self-loathing. As much as I liked Spike in the past, I thought that
> they'd pretty much used up the character by the end of Season 6. This
> year they've given him a new breath of life.
Oh you're right. Spike needed a reinvention. And the promise of getting
his soul back promised just that. But you can't just have something like
that and hope that'll do. You've got to think it through.
The major problem with Spike getting his soul back is that it's been
done already with Angel. In fact, if there's one aspect of the series
that has been done absolutely to death it's the idea of a souled
vampire. You can tell, because they tend to take the piss. "A vampire
with a soul? How lame is that?"
Something different needed to be done with Souled Spike, and I'm
disappointed that all we got at first was Insane Spike (AKA Talking
Bollocks Spike). A reinvention can only be as good as the idea you use
to replace the old one. And this is no good at all. There's so much they
could have done with Souled Spike and to reduce him to someone who
just talks nonsense is lazy, unimaginative, painful to watch and
thoroughly unentertaining. As for Pitiable Spike, we only really got
that when we discovered he's tried to removed his heart and when he
embraced the cross in Beneath You.
Murderous Spike was intriguing, but you knew it was nothing to do with
him. Self-Loathing Spike has been the best, especially in the hands of
Ultimate Drew. It has to be said, that someone talking sense is so much
better than someone not talking sense. This is why we tend to focus on
sane characters in our dramas.
To sum up, reinvention = good. But you can't do it just for the sake of
doing it. It's got to be as good as what went before.
[Selfless]
> I don't think the flashbacks are random. Each one is selected to
> illustrate how Anya was defined by other people's expectations. The
> fact that most of them are light-hearted works as a counterpoint to
> the seriousness of the present.
They're not entirely random of course, because they all happen in
chronological order. And I agree about the counterpoint thing, which
works to stunning effect in one particular instance. It's just that
they're not actually telling a story, in the same way that Fool For Love
was. Okay, they're close to the Angel flashbacks of Becoming Part 1, but
they worked more as a sort of prelude to the real meat of Becoming Part 2.
> The present day scenes are also a marvellous companion-piece to
> Becoming Part 2, giving us a compare-and-contrast view of the
> attitudes Xander takes to Angel and Anya.
Indeed. It's almost a disappointment that the events of Becoming are
actually brought up, because the underlying theme was there already. I'm
glad they did though.
> I wasn't sure what was going on with Spike at the end of CWDP. He
> could have been controlled, or he could have been faking his
> redemption.
I never for a moment thought that he was faking his redemption. There
are better ways of doing that than spending the previous six episodes
acting like a total loon.
> Sleeper doesn't *just* explain what's happening. It also examines
> Spike's horror and dismay as he begins to suspect that he is a killer.
> It's a good character study. It also puts the danger back into Spike,
> which is refreshing.
Never Leave Me does it so much better just with the line "you know what
I used to do to girls Dawn's age?" No details. There's no danger to the
portrayal of Spike in Sleeper because you know it isn't the 'real' Spike.
> >But Spike isn't a killer. We know there's something making him do it
> >(and over-riding his chip) so it's no surprise that he's being
> >programmed by the First.
>
> Or it could be to do with his insanity and/or soul.
How, exactly? He's so insane that he can act normal in order to seduce
young girls and kill them? In daft Hollywood movies maybe, but the
trouble with insane people is that they can't hide their insanity.
I did think, actually, that it may be something to do with
rediscovering his soul, and that he realises that just because he now
has one doesn't mean he can't stop killing. That would have been
intriguing actually.
<Troy McLure>
But for that to work we would have had to ignore the whole chip thing.
And that would be downright nutty.
</Troy McLure>
Of course it doesn't help that they confusingly say that Spike's chip is
no longer working in Never Leave Me. It sure gave him a headache when he
punched Xander the episode before. Ho hum.
> You focus a lot on what *may* confuse new viewers. Why not just watch
> it for yourself and let the new viewers worry about understanding it.
>
> Personally one of the things that pulls me into a series is a sense of
> a depth of mythology (even if it takes me a while to fully
> understand.)
I know what you mean, and it's something I shouldn't worry about really.
I just can't help it.
> >> > Okay, the obvious intention is to
> >> > create a great big hell-raising arc this season, but is this such a good
> >> > idea? And does the First Evil merit such a huge story?
>
> Why is the force that created all Evil less of a Bad than the Master
> (a single, ancient vampire) or Adam (a watachamacallit) or the Mayor
> (a bloke who wants to live forever.)
I'm not talking about scale, here. I'm taking about the entertainment
value of them taking up screen time. And I'm not just referring to their
comedy value either; Big Bads can have an impact in what they do. The
Mayor's sudden dropping of his nice guy act in Graduation Day ("I'm
going to eat her") is just as effective as anything else he does. The
First's had a few good moments so far: the succession of Big Bads in
Lessons obviously, but also Cassie's final speech to Willow in
Conversations... the Warren/Jonathan personifications in Never Leave Me
and Eve being revealed in Showtime. But there's also been a lot of
portentous nonsense and general pointlessness to its appearances
(notably in the guise of Drusilla in Bring On The Night).
> >Not a big fan of Reprise really. Hey, hell is on earth. Well gosh darn.
> >Why did you just spend the entire episode building up to the fact that
> >it wasn't? Classic Tim Minear sleight of hand.
>
> Because that's the dramatic twist. We share Angel's expectations, and
> then share his sense of the world shifting beneath his feet. We
> understand his feelings of hopelessness and despair.
What was Angel's mission here? To destroy Wolfram and Hart. Then we find
out that hell is all around us. So what does it mean, that Wolfram and
Hart are all around us? Well no, they're in a big building down town.
It's a shame that the title Redefinition had already been used, because
it would have fitted this episode perfectly.
> >We weren't sure for a long time to begin with. Who was that other Buffy
> >in the basement with Spike? Who is Giles? Who is Joyce?
>
> Giles is something yet to be dealt with - only observant viewers even
> know there's something possibly wrong.
>
> Joyce is a specific mystery (and most viewers would assume she's the
> Big Bad, even if it may turn out to have another explanation.)
>
> All the other apparitions are clearly the same thing. I was certainly
> never in any doubt, except where an episode briefly blurred the lines
> for dramatic effect.
The problem was, which Buffy was the real one? If we're not even sure if
the lead character is the real one or not, it tends to pull the rug from
under viewers' understanding. For a long time, because Spike having his
soul back wasn't mentioned again for a while, I assumed the Buffy in the
church at the end of the Beneath You wasn't the real Buffy. It's a
balancing act, and we've occasionally gone too far in the name of obfuscation.
> >> > Remember the Mayor and Glory? Where half the joy of the Big
> >> > Bad taking up so much screen time was how funny they were?
>
> Then again, I found Glory annoying as much as funny. There's room for
> different styles of villain. You seem to want the show to repeat the
> same formula it's followed in the past.
Not at all. I don't want a 'new Mayor' or a 'new Glory'. I want villains
as good as those. One thing that annoys me is the general whining of 'oh
we can't have another Big Bad again, because Glory was a God and nothing
can top that.' Absolute nonsense. It's not the *size* of the Big Bad
that counts, it's what they do and how they fill their screentime.
That's why the Trio last year were just as effective as Glory. They were
just as indestructible as Glory because Buffy couldn't kill them - they
were human. Like Glory, Buffy needed someone else to do the dirty work
on Warren. And they were just as funny. :)
It's why Faith has been the best villain the show has ever had, even
though she's not perceived as a Big Bad. Not only can Buffy not kill
her, she knows that Faith is far too much like herself in a lot of ways.
Which is also why Willow was pretty effective last year.
> [Giles]
>
> >> > But leaving him in limbo like this - and changing
> >> > his character in the process, just as with Spike and Willow this season
> >> > - is bloody annoying.
> >>
>
> How have they changed his character? He's grimmer, maybe, and more
> reserved. Most of his colleagues and most Slayers in Training have
> been murdered, so he's all business.
'More reserved?!' He was definitely off in Bring On The Night, probably
for good reason. But he was back to his old self in Showtime (his
reactions to Anya's offers of sex are priceless). That's all I wanted,
just a little of Anthony Head's general impatience with his charges.
(I think my very favourite bit of Buffy is the end of The Replacement,
where Giles is on the floor chalking a pentagram and reacting to Anya's
talk of having sex with both Xanders. Anthony Head hardly does anything
but it's fall over funny).
> >> > When Xander says at the
> >> > beginning that he's getting tired of fixing the house, that's a clue
> >> > right there. Marti, when you find yourself writing about how tired
> >> > something is, listen to it. And act on it.
>
> Or make a self-aware joke out of it, which is what she did?
Okay, I'll give you that one.
> >No, just stop having it trashed all the time. You're running out of
> >ideas if every episode has to finish the same way, no matter who's doing
> >the trashing.
>
> What they really need to do is relocate to another location and trash
> that instead. Hey, they did that in Showtime! :-)
I was actually going to say that! Don't know why I didn't, actually.
> >Hmm, never thought of that. Should we tell Joss that all the
> >determination and fancy speeches in the world ain't caught Osama Bin
> >Laden yet? And the destruction of the British side of things in the form
> >of the Watcher's council doesn't bode very well either.
> >
>
> I don't think there's any deliberate 9/11 stuff in this season.
Ah, sometimes I can't help myself. As evidenced by my opening post, I do
like to overthink things. :)
> >The worry is that there seems to be two types of apocalypses (what is
> >the plural of apocalypse anyway?) - the ones that are taken seriously
> >and the ones that aren't. Not for any logical reasons but for shoehorned
> >dramatic ones. The apocalypse of The Gift had a lot more resonance
> >because of the presence of Dawn.
> >
>
> I have to say that Buffy has always toned down the quips at moments of
> total apocalypse. In fact, this is what the Zeppo pokes fun at with
> the po-faced conversations of the Scoobies. Doomed is also a feeble
> attempt at self-aware comedy. The reason those episodes treat
> apocalypses differently is that they're commenting on the show itself.
"Total apocalypse"? As opposed to the non-total ones? Once you start
making jokes about apocalypses, it's hard to put that particular cat in
back in the bag. That's why the ending of Grave didn't really work. It's
not that Willow couldn't destroy the world (although it's ridiculous the
way she goes about it), it's just that why should we take it anymore
seriously than the Scoobies tend to do?
> >The apocalypse of Grave didn't work at
> >all and desperately needed someone to say, "Willow's taking her Queen of
> >Pain act a bit too far isn't she?"
>
> With their best friend gone mad and trying to destroy the world, it's
> not unreasonable to think that the time for quips is past. In S7
> Xander does later get to comment "I saved the world. With my mouth."
I'm not saying that it shouldn't be taken seriously, just that we could
have had a bit more balance on a show that tends to take frivolous
things seriously and serious things frivolously. A jokey comment here
shouldn't stop the whole show dead.
> >I'm worried about Buffy this year, not just because the world has
> >changed (it hasn't really, but Americans like to pretend it has). We've
> >already had quite a few dramatic highpoints and it's hard to know how
> >they're going to top them. Are they going to go the Angel route and just
> >pile on more shock twists until everything goes up its own fundament, or
> >are we going to step back, answer some of these questions, have some
> >fun, then lead up to a killer ending that manages to surprise without
> >being flashy and predictable?
> >
>
> Ah, we can dream...
Indeed. And I am looking forward to the rest of the season by the way.
Terry
Iain Clark
<fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>Iain Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 03:34:05 +0000 (UTC), Freedy
>> <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Jonathan Dupont wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:<3E27857E...@btopenworld.com>...
>> >> > So, what do we make of it so far?
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> Yikes. You wrote a lot. Random and probably not very satisfying
>> >> comments coming up.
>> >
>> >And lots of snipping, too.
>> >
>> >> > Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to season 4
>> >> > >
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>>
>> But the characters *do* still quip frequently. Okay, not all of the
>> quips are hilarious, and maybe the lines are sometimes thrown away,
>> but then the show is more a drama-with-humour than a sit-com.
>
>I would say it's more humour than drama. Do I have to remind you of the
>title again. :)
>
I think this is where we fundamentally differ. Yes, the show wouldn't
be the same without its humour, but it's not and never has been a
comedy. It produces comedy episodes, but that's different. Comedy is
just one string to its bow.
>As The Zeppo showed in huge Day-Glo letters, apocalypses and character
>angst are what other shows do. We'd rather show you Xander having a
>'very weird night'.
>
I think it's a mischaracterisation to say that Buffy would rather show
Xander's weird night than an apocalypse. It would rather show us
both, at different times, for different reasons.
>End of season angst fests like Becoming and Graduation Day are probably
>necessary, to pay off everything that's been built up, but I'd rather
>have the total weird out of Restless to finish things off. Did I mention
>that season 4 is my favourite?
>
Oh, I love Restless as well.
Every season of Buffy has had an apocalypse or some big threat that
was equivalent to them. The threat has always been treated deadly
seriously, even when the characters are making jokes or commenting on
the situation. Buffy has never undercut the "reality" of its crises,
except in rare moments of self-irony like The Zeppo.
>> You obviously pine for the tone of the earlier seasons, but the show
>> has changed. It doesn't have to rehash the things it did before.
>> There is still a lot of humour in it, but the style has matured with
>> the characters.
>
>I don't see how maturing the characters means they've lost their sense
>of humour. Okay, Spike, Buffy and Willow have been through the ringer
>lately, and so it's understandable that they would be a bit more
>world-weary. It just annoys me that the show is less enjoyable as a
>result. And what's worse, scenes like Willow's confrontation with Andrew
>in Never Leave Me, which should have been a huge serious moment,
>proves that you don't have to lose the humour all together.
>
I don't believe that they *have* lost their sense of humour. The
jokes may be less frequent, but they're very much present.
>> Personally I prefer Buffy as more of a drama. One featuring likeable,
>> funny characters, but at heart a drama.
>
>Okay, we've got a former cheerleader who ain't the brightest bulb in
>the shop and who's more concerned with her appearance than doing her
>job; you've got an over-achieving nerdy lesbian witch who, until
>recently, seemed incapable of losing her temper properly; you've got a
>nerdy thick-as-a-brick under-achieving guy who's a sidekick and knows
>it; you've got a neutered vampire in love with his mortal enemy; and
>you've got a 1,000 year old former vengeance demon with a fear of
>bunnies and no tact whatsoever. Not exactly EastEnders is it?
>
>The tropes of the fantasy/horror genre are, at heart, laughable. They're
>ridiculous, which is why Buffy made such a huge thing of being more
>about the characters and the travails of growing up rather than true
>vampire mythology. There was an inherent humour about a cheerleader
>being the chosen one to deal with literary horror of vampires. Buffy is
>drama, but its not at its core. Humour is.
>
Again, I strongly disagree. Buffy is a funny show, but it's also a
drama, and a tragedy, and a rites of passage story, and an action
flick. It combines many genres.
And yes, elements of it are absurd, and yes, the show occasionally
makes knowing remarks in that direction. But overall Buffy treats its
storylines and its characters with absolute seriousness. The moment
that the writers say "hey, this is basically laughable" is the moment
the show loses its integrity and falls apart.
What we get is not a show that knows it's laughable, but a show that
knows it's worthwhile, but whose characters exhibit some of the same
bemused wit that we might feel in the same circumstances.
>The major problem with Spike getting his soul back is that it's been
>done already with Angel. In fact, if there's one aspect of the series
>that has been done absolutely to death it's the idea of a souled
>vampire. You can tell, because they tend to take the piss. "A vampire
>with a soul? How lame is that?"
>
>Something different needed to be done with Souled Spike,
Which, I would argue, is what's happened.
> and I'm
>disappointed that all we got at first was Insane Spike (AKA Talking
>Bollocks Spike). A reinvention can only be as good as the idea you use
>to replace the old one. And this is no good at all. There's so much they
>could have done with Souled Spike and to reduce him to someone who
>just talks nonsense is lazy, unimaginative, painful to watch and
>thoroughly unentertaining.
He didn't act insane for that long; even by 'Beneath You' and 'Same
Time, Same Place' he was a lot more lucid. I liked the insane stuff,
though. I didn't think it was nonsense, but simply glimpses of things
we didn't understand that made sense to Spike. Very effective.
> As for Pitiable Spike, we only really got
>that when we discovered he's tried to removed his heart and when he
>embraced the cross in Beneath You.
>
>Murderous Spike was intriguing, but you knew it was nothing to do with
>him.
I disagree. It's the things Spike is capable of, the things he
thought he'd left behind when he got his soul. That creates a lovely
conflict.
>
>Of course it doesn't help that they confusingly say that Spike's chip is
>no longer working in Never Leave Me. It sure gave him a headache when he
>punched Xander the episode before. Ho hum.
>
The audience know that Spike's chip *is* still working. The comment
in the show is just a hypothesis by one of the characters.
>> >> > Okay, the obvious intention is to
>> >> > create a great big hell-raising arc this season, but is this such a good
>> >> > idea? And does the First Evil merit such a huge story?
>>
>> Why is the force that created all Evil less of a Bad than the Master
>> (a single, ancient vampire) or Adam (a watachamacallit) or the Mayor
>> (a bloke who wants to live forever.)
>
>I'm not talking about scale, here. I'm taking about the entertainment
>value of them taking up screen time. And I'm not just referring to their
>comedy value either; Big Bads can have an impact in what they do. The
>Mayor's sudden dropping of his nice guy act in Graduation Day ("I'm
>going to eat her") is just as effective as anything else he does. The
>First's had a few good moments so far: the succession of Big Bads in
>Lessons obviously, but also Cassie's final speech to Willow in
>Conversations... the Warren/Jonathan personifications in Never Leave Me
>and Eve being revealed in Showtime. But there's also been a lot of
>portentous nonsense and general pointlessness to its appearances
>(notably in the guise of Drusilla in Bring On The Night).
>
There was plenty of empty nonsense spouted by the other Big Bads, too.
You just have to focus on the good stuff.
This one can appear in many guises, which makes it inherently quixotic
and interesting. It's a nice idea.
>The problem was, which Buffy was the real one? If we're not even sure if
>the lead character is the real one or not, it tends to pull the rug from
>under viewers' understanding. For a long time, because Spike having his
>soul back wasn't mentioned again for a while, I assumed the Buffy in the
>church at the end of the Beneath You wasn't the real Buffy. It's a
>balancing act, and we've occasionally gone too far in the name of obfuscation.
>
Ah. I've never been confused (except where the show momentarily
wanted me to be) over which was the real Buffy.
>Indeed. And I am looking forward to the rest of the season by the way.
>
Glad to hear it!
Iain
--
XANDER: Am I right, Giles?
GILES: I'm almost certain you're not, but to be fair, I wasn't listening.
Gunnar Harboe
<fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>Iain Clark wrote:
>> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 03:34:05 +0000 (UTC), Freedy
>> <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>> >Jonathan Dupont wrote:
>> >> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:<3E27857E...@btopenworld.com>...
>> >> > So, what do we make of it so far?
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> Yikes. You wrote a lot. Random and probably not very satisfying
>> >> comments coming up.
>> >
>> >And lots of snipping, too.
>> >
>> >> > Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to season 4
>> >> > >
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Wow. This thread could be retitled "The wrongness that is Freedy". :-)
I've held off responding, but I can't take it any more.
My main objection is that what you're saying isn't that this season
isn't as good as previous seasons. You're saying it's not what you want
it to be. Unfortunately, what *you* want it to be is just about the
opposite of what most people want it to be. People like arcs. People
don't want it to be as silly as you do.
So when you say it's very different from S4, and you list all the things
you don't like, others see that as a *good* thing.
>> But the characters *do* still quip frequently. Okay, not all of the
>> quips are hilarious, and maybe the lines are sometimes thrown away,
>> but then the show is more a drama-with-humour than a sit-com.
That's definitely the way it's been going.
>I would say it's more humour than drama. Do I have to remind you of the
>title again. :)
>
>As The Zeppo showed in huge Day-Glo letters, apocalypses and character
>angst are what other shows do. We'd rather show you Xander having a
>'very weird night'.
No. The Zeppo isn't a joke on other shows. It's a joke on 'Buffy'. It's
about how apocalypses and angst is what the show does.
>> You obviously pine for the tone of the earlier seasons, but the show
>> has changed. It doesn't have to rehash the things it did before.
>> There is still a lot of humour in it, but the style has matured with
>> the characters.
>
>I don't see how maturing the characters means they've lost their sense
>of humour. Okay, Spike, Buffy and Willow have been through the ringer
>lately, and so it's understandable that they would be a bit more
>world-weary. It just annoys me that the show is less enjoyable as a
>result. And what's worse, scenes like Willow's confrontation with Andrew
>in Never Leave Me, which should have been a huge serious moment,
>proves that you don't have to lose the humour all together.
I think all shows get less funny after this many seasons. If you're
making the same style of jokes for years, you're going to run out of
good ones. Also, it's partly because much of the appeal of a new comedy
show is the original, distinctive humour. Once you get used to that,
it's not as funny any more. I see sometimes quotes posted on the ng's
that I never laughed at when I watched the episode, but reading them I
realise they're as good as the classic lines from S1-S3.
Anyway, since one particular style of humour becomes "used up", I think
the only way to stay funny is to change it slightly. It still might not
be as hilarious as it once was, but at least it will seem fresher than
trying to recycle the same old jokes.
>> Personally I prefer Buffy as more of a drama. One featuring likeable,
>> funny characters, but at heart a drama.
>
>Okay, we've got a former cheerleader who ain't the brightest bulb in
>the shop and who's more concerned with her appearance than doing her
>job; you've got an over-achieving nerdy lesbian witch who, until
>recently, seemed incapable of losing her temper properly; you've got a
>nerdy thick-as-a-brick under-achieving guy who's a sidekick and knows
>it; you've got a neutered vampire in love with his mortal enemy; and
>you've got a 1,000 year old former vengeance demon with a fear of
>bunnies and no tact whatsoever. Not exactly EastEnders is it?
>
>The tropes of the fantasy/horror genre are, at heart, laughable. They're
>ridiculous, which is why Buffy made such a huge thing of being more
>about the characters and the travails of growing up rather than true
>vampire mythology. There was an inherent humour about a cheerleader
>being the chosen one to deal with literary horror of vampires. Buffy is
>drama, but its not at its core. Humour is.
I think Joss and the writers have always (if not consistently) taken the
characters seriously, and tried to deal with them as real people.
>Something different needed to be done with Souled Spike, and I'm
>disappointed that all we got at first was Insane Spike (AKA Talking
>Bollocks Spike). A reinvention can only be as good as the idea you use
>to replace the old one. And this is no good at all. There's so much they
>could have done with Souled Spike and to reduce him to someone who
>just talks nonsense is lazy, unimaginative, painful to watch and
>thoroughly unentertaining.
Spike did not "just talk nonsense". There was always some sort of
meaning hidden in his ramblings. Indeed, one of the best things about
Insane Spike was that it gave us a peek inside a character's mind
without any of the protective mechanisms sane people use to hide behind.
>> All the other apparitions are clearly the same thing. I was certainly
>> never in any doubt, except where an episode briefly blurred the lines
>> for dramatic effect.
>
>The problem was, which Buffy was the real one? If we're not even sure if
>the lead character is the real one or not, it tends to pull the rug from
>under viewers' understanding. For a long time, because Spike having his
>soul back wasn't mentioned again for a while, I assumed the Buffy in the
>church at the end of the Beneath You wasn't the real Buffy. It's a
>balancing act, and we've occasionally gone too far in the name of obfuscation.
It's not the show's fault if you're terrible at picking up on the clues.
Next you'll say "Mission Impossible" is confusing. :-)
I found that it was ambiguous whether it was the real Buffy only when it
was meant to be.
>> I don't think there's any deliberate 9/11 stuff in this season.
>
>Ah, sometimes I can't help myself. As evidenced by my opening post, I do
>like to overthink things. :)
Actually, I think S6 told a story which was quite remarkable in the
post-9/11 climate. The bad guys don't come close to cause the end of the
world, it's the good girl who does. The real threat is seen to be
addiction to power and the excesses of fury and indiscriminate revenge.
If you take:
The Trio - Al Qaeda/Taliban
Warren - Osama Bin-Laden
Willow - USA
Tara and Buffy - the WTC towers
Buffy, Xander etc. - the world community
then it's actually an extremely subversive story. Now, I don't think
it's intended as an allegory at all, but the message still isn't exactly
sucking up to the Bush administration, is it?
>> >The worry is that there seems to be two types of apocalypses (what is
>> >the plural of apocalypse anyway?) - the ones that are taken seriously
>> >and the ones that aren't. Not for any logical reasons but for shoehorned
>> >dramatic ones. The apocalypse of The Gift had a lot more resonance
>> >because of the presence of Dawn.
Nonono. The characters always take the apocalypses seriously. Even if
they'll crack jokes in the face of death. The *show* doesn't always take
the apocalypses seriously, but that's a different matter. It's
completely appropriate to do that for dramatic reasons.
>> I have to say that Buffy has always toned down the quips at moments of
>> total apocalypse. In fact, this is what the Zeppo pokes fun at with
>> the po-faced conversations of the Scoobies. Doomed is also a feeble
>> attempt at self-aware comedy. The reason those episodes treat
>> apocalypses differently is that they're commenting on the show itself.
>
>"Total apocalypse"? As opposed to the non-total ones? Once you start
>making jokes about apocalypses, it's hard to put that particular cat in
>back in the bag. That's why the ending of Grave didn't really work. It's
>not that Willow couldn't destroy the world (although it's ridiculous the
>way she goes about it), it's just that why should we take it anymore
>seriously than the Scoobies tend to do?
I seem to remember that in 'Grave', the Scoobies take it extremely
seriously. As they did in 'The Gift'. And just about every other
apocalypse that comes to mind. In fact, the only possible exception is
'Doomed', but I find that it's usually best to just repress that
episode.
Dan Milburn
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 03:34:05 +0000 (UTC), Freedy
> <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
>>Jonathan Dupont wrote:
>>>
>>> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
>>> news:<3E27857E...@btopenworld.com>...
>>> > So, what do we make of it so far?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> Yikes. You wrote a lot. Random and probably not very satisfying
>>> comments coming up.
>>
>>And lots of snipping, too.
>>
>>> > Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to season
>>> > 4
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> Giles is something yet to be dealt with - only observant viewers even
> know there's something possibly wrong.
I don't think you need to be especially observant to see that there might
be something wrong. That axe swinging towards his head that keeps
appearing in the 'Previously..' section is something of a clue, even if
you don't pick up on him not touching anything.
Dan
Freedy
>
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 19:03:26 +0000 (UTC), Freedy
> <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
> >Iain Clark wrote:
> >>
> >> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 03:34:05 +0000 (UTC), Freedy
> >> <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Jonathan Dupont wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message news:<3E27857E...@btopenworld.com>...
> >> >> > So, what do we make of it so far?
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> Yikes. You wrote a lot. Random and probably not very satisfying
> >> >> comments coming up.
> >> >
> >> >And lots of snipping, too.
Gah, I wrote a long response to this and then my power went off and I
lost the lot. I think this will be a bit shorter as a result.
> >> >> > Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to season 4
> >> >> > >
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>
> >I would say it's more humour than drama. Do I have to remind you of the
> >title again. :)
>
> I think this is where we fundamentally differ. Yes, the show wouldn't
> be the same without its humour, but it's not and never has been a
> comedy. It produces comedy episodes, but that's different. Comedy is
> just one string to its bow.
I think we're violently agreeing, in classic Usenet style. I just think
comedy is quite an important part of the show, and it's disappointing to
see so little of it recently.
> >As The Zeppo showed in huge Day-Glo letters, apocalypses and character
> >angst are what other shows do. We'd rather show you Xander having a
> >'very weird night'.
>
> I think it's a mischaracterisation to say that Buffy would rather show
> Xander's weird night than an apocalypse. It would rather show us
> both, at different times, for different reasons.
What The Zeppo shows is that they'd rather show us the 'important'
things, and Xander's weird rite of passage (which includes his losing
his virginity) is more important than another bog standard apocalypse.
About which, see below.
> >End of season angst fests like Becoming and Graduation Day are probably
> >necessary, to pay off everything that's been built up, but I'd rather
> >have the total weird out of Restless to finish things off. Did I mention
> >that season 4 is my favourite?
>
> Oh, I love Restless as well.
>
> Every season of Buffy has had an apocalypse or some big threat that
> was equivalent to them. The threat has always been treated deadly
> seriously, even when the characters are making jokes or commenting on
> the situation. Buffy has never undercut the "reality" of its crises,
> except in rare moments of self-irony like The Zeppo.
The thing is, Buffy doesn't do apocalypses all that well. In Belonging,
we have Angel suddenly deciding he wants to end the world, despite being
happy the previous few episodes with mildly annoying Buffy. Even Spike
thinks that's a bit bonkers and he was trying to destroy the world
himself not long before. In Graduation Day, the Mayor's plan is
revealed; he wants to be a big snake. Good for you big boy, but there's
no other big snakes around to share comfort and support.
And in Grave, Willow wants to destroy the world because she's annoyed
that there's so much suffering in the world. Erm, yes. Couldn't she have
made a spell to make everyone happy instead? I guess she really was one
pissed off wicca.
You say they take these apocalypses deadly seriously. Well, not entirely
("Just ascend already"). What they do take seriously is how the
apocalypses affect them personally: Buffy's feelings for Angel; Buffy
and the Mayor's feelings for Faith; the discussion at the beginning of
The Gift is not about apocalypse = bad but about Buffy's intransigence
with regard to Dawn - even the end of the world is less important than
Buffy's 'unreal' sister; and Willow taking on apocalypse duties paled
when the gang realised it was, y'know, Willow.
Otherwise, there tends to be jokes about the apocalypse after the fact.
Angel's slide to the bad is mercilessly mocked in Pangs ("Why does
everyone think I've gone evil?"), The Mayor's daft plan is mocked by
Xander ("Is anyone else missing the Mayor? 'I just want to be a big
snake.'"). Adam's plan is mocked in Restless ("The Bay of Mutated
Pigs"). Dawn mocks *herself* in Bargaining, and there's been a few
references this season to Willow being "recently evil".
The self-irony of The Zeppo is not rare, it's practically the rule. But
when it gets down to personal matters, Buffy can get very serious indeed.
> I don't believe that they *have* lost their sense of humour. The
> jokes may be less frequent, but they're very much present.
Yes. As I said, it's all about balance, and I don't think they've been
getting the balance right. Buffy is teetering on the cusp of
self-important science fantasy, which is why I can't stand Star Trek
(barring a few episodes of Deep Space Nine here and there).
> Again, I strongly disagree. Buffy is a funny show, but it's also a
> drama, and a tragedy, and a rites of passage story, and an action
> flick. It combines many genres.
And, again, it can't help mocking them, both as a rite of passage ("Is
it too late to just join a tribe where they pierce something or cut
something off?") and an action flick ("Or those fancy martial arts they
inevitably seem to have").
Never mind that the characters tend to react to situations exactly like
a bunch of of self-aware people who find themselves in some corny
comic-book situations.
> And yes, elements of it are absurd, and yes, the show occasionally
> makes knowing remarks in that direction. But overall Buffy treats its
> storylines and its characters with absolute seriousness. The moment
> that the writers say "hey, this is basically laughable" is the moment
> the show loses its integrity and falls apart.
The show is *always* laughing at the more self-important aspects. Every
mystical and fantastical aspect gets skewered. It doesn't matter that
Buffy has been rendered invisible, what does her hair look like
("Adorable" apparently)? As I say, it's only when the show addresses
real life issues that it gets serious. Buffy gets far more serious about
her being grounded than saving the world, which is humorous in itself.
> What we get is not a show that knows it's laughable, but a show that
> knows it's worthwhile, but whose characters exhibit some of the same
> bemused wit that we might feel in the same circumstances.
I would agree, but the show's whole raison d'être is based on a humorous
premise. The characters do know that this is laughable and comment on it
frequently. Whilst I've been laying into season 7, it does have to be
said that Andrew has constantly been comparing everything to comic books
and films. Hell, Willow compared Showtime to Mad Max. (Not the best joke
ever that, which is why I'm moaning).
> > and I'm
> >disappointed that all we got at first was Insane Spike (AKA Talking
> >Bollocks Spike). A reinvention can only be as good as the idea you use
> >to replace the old one. And this is no good at all. There's so much they
> >could have done with Souled Spike and to reduce him to someone who
> >just talks nonsense is lazy, unimaginative, painful to watch and
> >thoroughly unentertaining.
>
> He didn't act insane for that long; even by 'Beneath You' and 'Same
> Time, Same Place' he was a lot more lucid. I liked the insane stuff,
> though. I didn't think it was nonsense, but simply glimpses of things
> we didn't understand that made sense to Spike. Very effective.
And that's different to 'talking bollocks' how? Okay, all his dialogue
is open to interpretation regarding his current state, but God, it's
tiring to watch.
> > As for Pitiable Spike, we only really got
> >that when we discovered he's tried to removed his heart and when he
> >embraced the cross in Beneath You.
> >
> >Murderous Spike was intriguing, but you knew it was nothing to do with
> >him.
>
> I disagree. It's the things Spike is capable of, the things he
> thought he'd left behind when he got his soul. That creates a lovely
> conflict.
Agreed. And Never Leave Me does that really well.
> >Of course it doesn't help that they confusingly say that Spike's chip is
> >no longer working in Never Leave Me. It sure gave him a headache when he
> >punched Xander the episode before. Ho hum.
>
> The audience know that Spike's chip *is* still working. The comment
> in the show is just a hypothesis by one of the characters.
It doesn't stop him attacking Andrew a moment later. Obviously, the
First is over-riding the chip somehow. I think. Maybe. I wish these sort
of things were dwelt on a little more and it wasn't such a mad race to
the next shocking ending.
> >The problem was, which Buffy was the real one? If we're not even sure if
> >the lead character is the real one or not, it tends to pull the rug from
> >under viewers' understanding. For a long time, because Spike having his
> >soul back wasn't mentioned again for a while, I assumed the Buffy in the
> >church at the end of the Beneath You wasn't the real Buffy. It's a
> >balancing act, and we've occasionally gone too far in the name of obfuscation.
> >
>
> Ah. I've never been confused (except where the show momentarily
> wanted me to be) over which was the real Buffy.
Well, why wasn't the fact that Spike had a soul mentioned again for a
couple of episodes. We missed Xander and Dawn's reacting to that news,
which would have been interesting. The climax to Beneath You is just
ignored. I thought it was deliberate, because they're not exactly
treating him sympathetically in Same Time Same Place or Help.
Terry
Dan Milburn
> Iain Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 19:03:26 +0000 (UTC), Freedy
>> <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Iain Clark wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 03:34:05 +0000 (UTC), Freedy
>> >> <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >Jonathan Dupont wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Freedy <fre...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
>> >> >> news:<3E27857E...@btopenworld.com>...
>> >> >> > So, what do we make of it so far?
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> Yikes. You wrote a lot. Random and probably not very satisfying
>> >> >> comments coming up.
>> >> >
>> >> >And lots of snipping, too.
>
> Gah, I wrote a long response to this and then my power went off and I
> lost the lot. I think this will be a bit shorter as a result.
>
>> >> >> > Spoiler space for Buffy 7x1-11, plus mentions of Angel up to
>> >> >> > season 4
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>> >As The Zeppo showed in huge Day-Glo letters, apocalypses and character
>> >angst are what other shows do. We'd rather show you Xander having a
>> >'very weird night'.
>>
>> I think it's a mischaracterisation to say that Buffy would rather show
>> Xander's weird night than an apocalypse. It would rather show us both,
>> at different times, for different reasons.
>
> What The Zeppo shows is that they'd rather show us the 'important'
> things, and Xander's weird rite of passage (which includes his losing
> his virginity) is more important than another bog standard apocalypse.
> About which, see below.
All The Zeppo shows me is that episodes which focus on Xander are a really
bad idea, but there you go.
<snip>
>> I don't believe that they *have* lost their sense of humour. The jokes
>> may be less frequent, but they're very much present.
>
> Yes. As I said, it's all about balance, and I don't think they've been
> getting the balance right. Buffy is teetering on the cusp of
> self-important science fantasy, which is why I can't stand Star Trek
> (barring a few episodes of Deep Space Nine here and there).
'Science'? And anyway, how is the show (as opposed to the characters,
Buffy's always been self-important) any different in this respect than
previously? I just don't see it.
>> And yes, elements of it are absurd, and yes, the show occasionally
>> makes knowing remarks in that direction. But overall Buffy treats its
>> storylines and its characters with absolute seriousness. The moment
>> that the writers say "hey, this is basically laughable" is the moment
>> the show loses its integrity and falls apart.
>
> As I say, it's only when the show addresses real life issues that it
> gets serious.
That's complete nonsense. The most serious the show's ever been, I would
say, is the end of Season 5, when a hell-god was planning to use the blood
of Buffys sister to open a portal into another dimension. A situation
I've certainly not come across all that much in real life. Now, you might
say that the serious part was in the personal aspect - Buffy coping (or,
more accurately, failing to cope) with the prospect of having to kill her
sister. But that's entwined with the whole thing. As it is with most of
the key moments on the show. To take Buffys losing her virginity and
boyfriend turning bad seriously, you also have to take the notion that her
boyfriend is a vampire with a soul who's just lost it seriously. You
can't make the kind of clean distinction you seem to want to.
>> What we get is not a show that knows it's laughable, but a show that
>> knows it's worthwhile, but whose characters exhibit some of the same
>> bemused wit that we might feel in the same circumstances.
>
> I would agree, but the show's whole raison d'être is based on a humorous
> premise. The characters do know that this is laughable and comment on it
> frequently. Whilst I've been laying into season 7, it does have to be
> said that Andrew has constantly been comparing everything to comic books
> and films. Hell, Willow compared Showtime to Mad Max. (Not the best joke
> ever that, which is why I'm moaning).
Oh, I thought you were moaning because you thought they weren't *trying*
to be funny any more. If you no longer find the jokes funny, that's an
entirely different matter.
>> > and I'm
>> >disappointed that all we got at first was Insane Spike (AKA Talking
>> >Bollocks Spike). A reinvention can only be as good as the idea you use
>> >to replace the old one. And this is no good at all. There's so much
>> >they could have done with Souled Spike and to reduce him to someone
>> >who just talks nonsense is lazy, unimaginative, painful to watch and
>> >thoroughly unentertaining.
>>
>> He didn't act insane for that long; even by 'Beneath You' and 'Same
>> Time, Same Place' he was a lot more lucid. I liked the insane stuff,
>> though. I didn't think it was nonsense, but simply glimpses of things
>> we didn't understand that made sense to Spike. Very effective.
>
> And that's different to 'talking bollocks' how? Okay, all his dialogue
> is open to interpretation regarding his current state, but God, it's
> tiring to watch.
I find it works quite well, myself. Mostly down to JMs superb
performance.
>> >Of course it doesn't help that they confusingly say that Spike's chip
>> >is no longer working in Never Leave Me. It sure gave him a headache
>> >when he punched Xander the episode before. Ho hum.
>>
>> The audience know that Spike's chip *is* still working. The comment in
>> the show is just a hypothesis by one of the characters.
>
> It doesn't stop him attacking Andrew a moment later. Obviously, the
> First is over-riding the chip somehow. I think. Maybe.
It's completely bloody obvious what's going on. The song that 'other'
Spike sings acts as a trigger that sends Spike into a state where he does
what it wants. He retains no memory of what he did when he's in this
state, and, clearly, the chip doesn't operate either.
> I wish these sort
> of things were dwelt on a little more and it wasn't such a mad race to
> the next shocking ending.
>
>> >The problem was, which Buffy was the real one? If we're not even sure
>> >if the lead character is the real one or not, it tends to pull the rug
>> >from under viewers' understanding. For a long time, because Spike
>> >having his soul back wasn't mentioned again for a while, I assumed the
>> >Buffy in the church at the end of the Beneath You wasn't the real
>> >Buffy. It's a balancing act, and we've occasionally gone too far in
>> >the name of obfuscation.
>> >
>> >
>> Ah. I've never been confused (except where the show momentarily wanted
>> me to be) over which was the real Buffy.
>
> Well, why wasn't the fact that Spike had a soul mentioned again for a
> couple of episodes.
Because Buffy is well renowned for her tendency to share everything with
her friends and family, and would under no circumstances bottle things up
and not tell anyone?
Dan
Iain Clark
And actually this is the one element where delaying the pay off is
driving me up the wall!
Iain
--
"You were always good at putting words together
And wearing them so loud."