AOQ Review 5-8: "Shadow"
Arbitrar Of Quality
threads.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Season Five, Episode 8: "Shadow"
(or "Your one-stop shop for angst")
Writer: David Fury
Director: Daniel Attias
We'd just finished watching an episode of _House, M.D._ before we
popped this one in, so it was like a double dose of CT scans and
biopsies.
This episode is pretty much divided into chunks for me. Hospital,
Riley, snake. The first and best chunk mostly involves Joyce's
mysterious illness. It gets less mysterious (although the fact that
Dawn triggered her first attack seems unlikely to be a coincidence...
unless it's a coincidence that the writers deliberately manufactured
to look like something more, of course...). The early acts are full of
quiet emotional moments that're almost all played strongly, as the
cast show off their non-verbal and understated-verbal ("just a
shadow") acting chops. Special mention of something especially good
is the doctor's voice completely fading out for a second after Buffy
hears and processes the word "tumor." From what I've heard,
that's pretty much what it's like to receive news like that.
One part that really annoyed me, and I'm fully aware that no one
besides me cares about these things, is the "risk factors" part of
the doctor's speech. No one has shown a link between cell phones and
brain cancer - the jury hasn't come up with a final verdict, but
the reasons to be worried about it in the first place are based on a
misconception made popular by hack writers and the ignorant media. And
by late 2000 when this aired, the junk science behind the idea of power
lines causing cancer had been completely discredited years earlier, so
it's always annoying to see it pop up.
Dawn has a little monologue sitting and watching the carousel. Has she
ever had friends? Of mild note: in the altered-memory world, the
family moved to Sunnydale about the same time as in the real world, but
it sounds like they may have had more money to play with. But maybe
not. One thing I like here is how the circumstances allow her to give
what she thinks is a comforting, reassuring speech. Except that he
episode has adequately set the mood so that Riley can convincingly take
exactly the opposite way as it was intended. It seems obvious that
Buffy and Riley are developing some serious issues, and the show is
trying and often succeeding to make it hard to outright blame either of
them.
Followers of these reviews may have noticed that I'm not particularly
enamored with the character of Glory (named for the first time, as far
as I can recall), to put it mildly. That's still true, and any
exchange between her and Dreg is another tangible unit of pain.
Fingernails-on-a-chalkboard stuff. I'm tired of cringing through
entire scenes. But I actually found something to like in Kramer's
mannerisms. When she first conjures up the snake, she looks so
overjoyed, like a kid opening a present. Now if we could only come up
with a reason to never let her open her mouth again...
Didn't like the Scoobies' trying to hide the truth about Glory's
visit from Buffy. I'm also not wild about them letting her run off
alone without much protest, but that's more understandable given that
"'let' isn't really a factor when she sets her mind to
something." The rest of the scene is better, like the way they try
to let her know they'll try to help but are brutally honest about
their lack of optimism. And the way Buffy's need to "do
something" spurs her to violence. She sure seems to be getting
beaten up a lot lately, huh? Fortunately for her, the episode is kind
enough to feed her a decent action/suspense plot for the last fifteen
minutes or so, complete with an eminently killable monster.
There's a montage of scenes that I enjoyed a lot from a
cinematography standpoint, even if I'm not so sure about the content.
I don't entirely get why exactly Riley "seduces" Sandy and then
kills her. I guess it's meant to be a followup to the "just a
little crazed" scene, wanting something to fight, but it seems like a
weird way to go about it. Panning from Buffy pounding on the snake to
death to Glory looking out the window is also a nice transition, and
the ending shot is good too.
As far as the monster goes, I liked the seeing it weaving through the
streets, but it overall faces the same problem as all of the other
giant reptiles that the series has ever given us (even the one where
there was actually a guy inside): at no point did I believe that it and
the characters were in the same dimension.
This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
- Spike snagging the underwear on his way out
- "Yay! Am I mentioned?"
- "I mean, I for one didn't want to start my day with a slaughter.
Which really just goes to show how much I've grown!"
- Giles, phone, Magic Box slogan
So...
One-sentence summary: A collection of moments, more good ones than bad
ones.
AOQ rating: Good
[Season Five so far:
1) "Buffy Vs. Dracula" - Good
2) "Real Me" - Decent
3) "The Replacement" - Good
4) "Out Of My Mind" - Weak
5) "No Place Like Home" - Decent
6) "Family" - Excellent
7) "Fool For Love" - Excellent
8) "Shadow" - Good]
lili...@gmail.com
>
> Followers of these reviews may have noticed that I'm not particularly
> enamored with the character of Glory (named for the first time, as far
> as I can recall), to put it mildly. That's still true, and any
> exchange between her and Dreg is another tangible unit of pain.
> Fingernails-on-a-chalkboard stuff. I'm tired of cringing through
> entire scenes. But I actually found something to like in Kramer's
> mannerisms. When she first conjures up the snake, she looks so
> overjoyed, like a kid opening a present. Now if we could only come up
> with a reason to never let her open her mouth again...
>
You know it's odd how voices work for people.
I mean, I have no problem listening to Glory, but whenever Willow opens
her mouth it's exactly like that to me, nails on chalkboard. Makes me
turn down the sound whenever she's talking. Big part of the reason of
my dislike of the character.
I oddly enough had the same problem with Doyle on Angel. I know his
accent is real, and that a lot of people love it, but I can't hear him
talking without getting the urge to turn down the sound.
Lore
Elisi
> There's a montage of scenes that I enjoyed a lot from a
> cinematography standpoint, even if I'm not so sure about the content.
> I don't entirely get why exactly Riley "seduces" Sandy and then
> kills her. I guess it's meant to be a followup to the "just a
> little crazed" scene, wanting something to fight, but it seems like a
> weird way to go about it.
SPIKE: Oh yeah, right. (scoffs) Takes one to know, I suppose. Least I
still got the attitude. (looking Riley up and down) What do you got, a
piercing glance? Face it, white bread. Buffy's got a type, and you're
not it. She likes us dangerous, rough, occasionally bumpy in the
forehead region. (patronizingly) Not that she doesn't like you ... but
sorry Charlie, you're just not dark enough.
What exactly is Buffy's deal with vampires? I think Riley is trying to
work it out for himself... although I should think the major thing
would be *ow*!
Panning from Buffy pounding on the snake to
> death to Glory looking out the window is also a nice transition, and
> the ending shot is good too.
That shot of Buffy always breaks my heart. The snake is obviously long
dead, but she just keeps pounding - but it's not possible to stop her
mother being ill by killing monsters, sadly.
Mel
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Five, Episode 8: "Shadow"
> (or "Your one-stop shop for angst")
> Writer: David Fury
> Director: Daniel Attias
>
> There's a montage of scenes that I enjoyed a lot from a
> cinematography standpoint, even if I'm not so sure about the content.
> I don't entirely get why exactly Riley "seduces" Sandy and then
> kills her. I guess it's meant to be a followup to the "just a
> little crazed" scene, wanting something to fight, but it seems like a
> weird way to go about it.
I think it's important to tie this scene back with Xander's
statement/question of "I don't know what kind of action you're looking
for....?"
Buffy's out looking for a monster to pound because she can't fight
what's happening to her mom and needs a release. Riley just blew up a
tomb full of vamps without waiting for backup because...? Why? What's he
looking for that he thinks a vampire is going to give him? Maybe
whatever it is he thinks Buffy got from Angel and Dracula that she's not
getting (in his mind) from him.
Mel
Horace LaBadie
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> I don't entirely get why exactly Riley "seduces" Sandy and then
> kills her. I guess it's meant to be a followup to the "just a
> little crazed" scene, wanting something to fight, but it seems like a
> weird way to go about it.
Metaphorical infidelity, perhaps? Feelings of unworthiness? Trying to
understand the attraction of the dark side?
HWL
KenM47
<SNIP For Now>
I care for a number of reasons, not only because non-Slayer Joyce is
living with whatever she's living with, which I remain in my belief is
what triggered her problems.
I read a lengthy piece years ago (before wide scale implementation of
things like cell phones - which also may have some unpleasant side
effects IIRC) in The New Yorker (2 part article from the days when
they would do that) about statistical clumps, way beyond chance, of
cancers in areas where folks lived near/under power lines. Now I've
heard before how this has been debunked, but I've never seen the
actual debunking. Got a credible link?
Of course the powers that be IRL would want this to be debunked since
the idea of invisible electro-magnetic waves causing cancer or other
health problems is something no one would want to be real. Certainly
not the cell phone or wireless culture that has become commonplace.
There was a time when widespread use of asbestos was thought a good
thing too.
Ken (Brooklyn)
One Bit Shy
news:1150558788....@r2g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
Special mention of something especially good
> is the doctor's voice completely fading out for a second after Buffy
> hears and processes the word "tumor." From what I've heard,
> that's pretty much what it's like to receive news like that.
Yeah, that was nicely done. Not as impressive, but still something I liked,
was Ben's gentle intrusion, providing relief to Buffy when she needed it,
but still offering a proper dose of reality and assurance both.
Also, most everything involving Dawn is very good this episode. MT's
performance is excellent. How do actors that young get so accomplished?
> It seems obvious that
> Buffy and Riley are developing some serious issues, and the show is
> trying and often succeeding to make it hard to outright blame either of
> them.
How frustrating it must be for Riley to be so repeatedly shut out - to the
point of doors being shut in his face no less - yet always for reasons
beyond reproach.
> Followers of these reviews may have noticed that I'm not particularly
> enamored with the character of Glory (named for the first time, as far
> as I can recall), to put it mildly. That's still true, and any
> exchange between her and Dreg is another tangible unit of pain.
> Fingernails-on-a-chalkboard stuff. I'm tired of cringing through
> entire scenes. But I actually found something to like in Kramer's
> mannerisms. When she first conjures up the snake, she looks so
> overjoyed, like a kid opening a present. Now if we could only come up
> with a reason to never let her open her mouth again...
"Fun, fun, fun!"
The scenes with Dreg make me imagine how much fun it must it must have been
for the writers developing the script. The chance to write all of his
effusive compliments to Glorificus.
"Most beauteous and supremely magnificent one, this dark spell I hold in my
worthless and scabby hand is our gift to you, most tingly and wonderful
Glorificus..."
In my mind I imagine story sessions akin to scenes in the old Dick Van Dyke
Show when they were writing jokes for the fictional Alan Brady show.
"Forgive me, shiny special one. I beg of you to rip out my inadequate
tongue."
Having him approach then with tongue stuck out really tickles me.
Dreg: Your creamy coolness has honored me by speaking my name. Your voice is
like a thousand sweet songbirds that-
Glory: Yeah, I never tire of hearing that.
I'm curious. What sort of creature do you suppose Glory is?
"I grovel like a bug, most silky and effervescent Glorificus"
> I don't entirely get why exactly Riley "seduces" Sandy and then
> kills her. I guess it's meant to be a followup to the "just a
> little crazed" scene, wanting something to fight, but it seems like a
> weird way to go about it.
It's interesting seeing the different responses to this. What exactly is
going on with Riley is probably open to some dispute, though obviously it's
not good. My thoughts are first observing that he seems to have largely
given up on trying to impress Buffy and compete with Angel. (You can see
that by how blowing up the vamps was a solitary effort and how he doesn't
finish his sentence to Xander when he starts with, "If she needs me...") So
something else must be at work here. I think he's trying to understand
Buffy by literally experiencing what Buffy has. So he abandons his
Initiative trained caution and just leaps into a vampire lair. As for
Sandy... Well, every day Riley sees the bite scars on Buffy's neck. And
since Dracula opened them up again, he knows it's a repeated experience for
her.
> As far as the monster goes, I liked the seeing it weaving through the
> streets, but it overall faces the same problem as all of the other
> giant reptiles that the series has ever given us (even the one where
> there was actually a guy inside): at no point did I believe that it and
> the characters were in the same dimension.
They do struggle with the snake monsters, don't they? I have much the same
reaction. Still, the weaving through the street was fun. And Buffy's
continued punching of the very dead monster was poignant.
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: A collection of moments, more good ones than bad
> ones.
>
> AOQ rating: Good
This episode generally strikes me as an intermediate story cobbled together
to get a few pieces in place before moving ahead. It's mostly nicely done,
character advancing and entertaining. But even though it moves us from here
to there and we can see that there is different, it's not terribly
meaningful to us at this point. Even the potentially explosive revelation
of Dawn as the key gets defused by the monster's death. A kind of drive by
episode. So I'd only rate it Decent.
OBS
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Five, Episode 8: "Shadow"
> (or "Your one-stop shop for angst")
> Writer: David Fury
> Director: Daniel Attias
>
> We'd just finished watching an episode of _House, M.D._ before we
> popped this one in, so it was like a double dose of CT scans and
> biopsies.
>
> This episode is pretty much divided into chunks for me. Hospital,
> Riley, snake. The first and best chunk mostly involves Joyce's
> mysterious illness. It gets less mysterious (although the fact that
> Dawn triggered her first attack seems unlikely to be a coincidence...
> unless it's a coincidence that the writers deliberately manufactured
> to look like something more, of course...).
There is a minority opinion that the creation of Dawn was the cause of
Joyce's illness, but I don't think so.
And Dawn didn't trigger Joyce's first attack. She just happened to be
there when it happened, and the attack made Joyce see that there was
something not right about her daughter.
> One part that really annoyed me, and I'm fully aware that no one
> besides me cares about these things, is the "risk factors" part of
> the doctor's speech. No one has shown a link between cell phones and
> brain cancer - the jury hasn't come up with a final verdict, but
> the reasons to be worried about it in the first place are based on a
> misconception made popular by hack writers and the ignorant media. And
> by late 2000 when this aired, the junk science behind the idea of power
> lines causing cancer had been completely discredited years earlier, so
> it's always annoying to see it pop up.
I always figured that the doctor wasn't really that interested in what
caused Joyce's tumour, he was just collecting epidemiological data for a
research paper he was writing. Like Ben said: "he doesnt have that bone
in his head that tells him when to back off." He'd probably get along
well with House.
> Dawn has a little monologue sitting and watching the carousel. Has she
> ever had friends?
Another example of Joss sucking at math. Dawn's first birthday in
Sunnydale would have been her 11th. This is more evidence for Dawn
being the invisible girl for the bulk of her invented life. Several
months after moving to Sunnydale, she still doesn't have any friends to
invite to her birthday party.
> Of mild note: in the altered-memory world, the
> family moved to Sunnydale about the same time as in the real world, but
> it sounds like they may have had more money to play with.
Joyce has never really had much of a shortage of money. She had enough
when she moved to Sunnydale to buy a really nice hose, a nice car, and
enough capital to start up her art gallery. She may have some cash flow
troubles from time to time, but she isn't short of money. (And maybe
the monks arranged to double the child support payments she was getting
from Hank.)
(Another odd-ball theory: Dawn appears at about the same time that Anya
suddenly discovers that she has to make money to support herself. Maybe
the Monks took whatever money that Anyanka had magically created to
support her Anya persona, transferred it to support their magically
created Key, and made Anya forget about it, when they were modifying her
memory.)
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
Don Sample
"Elisi" <eli...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That shot of Buffy always breaks my heart. The snake is obviously long
> dead, but she just keeps pounding.
Well, the snake did play possum once. Better to make really sure that
it's good and dead, the second time.
Arbitrar Of Quality
> I read a lengthy piece years ago (before wide scale implementation of
> things like cell phones - which also may have some unpleasant side
> effects IIRC) in The New Yorker (2 part article from the days when
> they would do that) about statistical clumps, way beyond chance, of
> cancers in areas where folks lived near/under power lines. Now I've
> heard before how this has been debunked, but I've never seen the
> actual debunking. Got a credible link?
Most of those original studies focused on childhood acute lymphoblastic
leukemia in particular. Questions arose about study design, and a
massive seven-year study published in _The New England Journal Of
Medicine_ in 1997 found no connection of any kind.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9203424&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_DocSum
My guess is the _New Yorker_ articles you refer to were written by Paul
Brodeur, who's been portrayed in the stuff I've read about him as a
sensationalistt conspiracy theorist without a proper understanding of
the concept of confounding variables. He was a big part in bringing
the issue to public attention, inspiring a 1996 National Acedemy Of
Sciences review of the literature which found no evidence of a link
between electromagnetic fields and cancer incidence. Some
investigations are still ongoing, especially in the cell-phone era.
I'm drawing some from an account of the story in chapter 7 of one of my
favorite books in the world, _Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness
To Fraud_, by Robert Park.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0195147103/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-4286624-5648837?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155
-AOQ
KenM47
Thanks. Really. Interesting. And it turns out (don't know why I didn't
do it before) there are accessible links through Google found pretty
easy that back you up.
This in no way changes my view of Dawn as being a cause of Joyce's
condition. :-)
Ken (Brooklyn)
Mike Zeares
> > kills her. I guess it's meant to be a followup to the "just a
> > little crazed" scene, wanting something to fight, but it seems like a
> > weird way to go about it.
>
> It's interesting seeing the different responses to this. What exactly is
> going on with Riley is probably open to some dispute, though obviously it's
> not good.
It's simple. The boy's lost his ever-loving mind. "Love makes you do
the wacky."
> > One-sentence summary: A collection of moments, more good ones than bad
> > ones.
> >
> > AOQ rating: Good
>
> This episode generally strikes me as an intermediate story cobbled together
> to get a few pieces in place before moving ahead. It's mostly nicely done,
> character advancing and entertaining. But even though it moves us from here
> to there and we can see that there is different, it's not terribly
> meaningful to us at this point. Even the potentially explosive revelation
> of Dawn as the key gets defused by the monster's death. A kind of drive by
> episode. So I'd only rate it Decent.
I concur, although it's a pretty good Decent. This is one of the
episodes that reflects the increasing serial-like nature of the show.
It doesn't really stand well on its own merits, but it fits very nicely
into the S5 arc, and there isn't anything particularly wrong with it.
Except for Fake the Snake, of course.
Dreg was the best minion ever. "Your Creamy Coolness" was my favorite.
-- Mike Zeares
William George Ferguson
>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
>threads.
>
>BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
>Season Five, Episode 8: "Shadow"
>(or "Your one-stop shop for angst")
>Writer: David Fury
>Director: Daniel Attias
>
>One part that really annoyed me, and I'm fully aware that no one
>besides me cares about these things, is the "risk factors" part of
>the doctor's speech. No one has shown a link between cell phones and
>brain cancer - the jury hasn't come up with a final verdict, but
>the reasons to be worried about it in the first place are based on a
>misconception made popular by hack writers and the ignorant media. And
>by late 2000 when this aired, the junk science behind the idea of power
>lines causing cancer had been completely discredited years earlier, so
>it's always annoying to see it pop up.
You would be wrong about the 'no one besides me cares about these things'.
Lots of people pointed out the silliness back when this originally aired.
Sample, for one, was all over it.
>Dawn has a little monologue sitting and watching the carousel. Has she
>ever had friends?
Question for the long timers with the scripts databased (hi Don) Jura jnf
Wnavpr svefg zragvbarq?
>Of mild note: in the altered-memory world, the
>family moved to Sunnydale about the same time as in the real world, but
>it sounds like they may have had more money to play with. But maybe
>not. One thing I like here is how the circumstances allow her to give
>what she thinks is a comforting, reassuring speech. Except that he
>episode has adequately set the mood so that Riley can convincingly take
>exactly the opposite way as it was intended. It seems obvious that
>Buffy and Riley are developing some serious issues, and the show is
>trying and often succeeding to make it hard to outright blame either of
>them.
Various people have mentioned the problem of Riley and Buffy having
expectations at cross-purposes. The scene at the end is a classic
example, maybe the classic example.
Buffy has had horrible news, she is hurt deep inside, and helpless to
really fix it. Riley holds her, lets her gather herself together, until
she can put on a happy face and go into the hospital room and be strong
for her sister and mother. At that moment Riley has given her exactly
what she needed, he has been the best friend, and boyfriend, you could ask
for. And the last shot shows that he feels he has failed completely.
The bottom line is that Riley thinks that Buffy loving him should lead her
to depend on him to protect her. Buffy doesn't need that, probably didn't
really need it even before becoming the Slayer. What Buffy needs is
emotional support, which Riley can give very well, but that isn't enough
for him, he thinks she should need physical support.
Though he fights like Hun or Vandal
In the end he cannot handle
Boyfriend of the mission
>Followers of these reviews may have noticed that I'm not particularly
>enamored with the character of Glory (named for the first time, as far
>as I can recall), to put it mildly. That's still true, and any
>exchange between her and Dreg is another tangible unit of pain.
>Fingernails-on-a-chalkboard stuff. I'm tired of cringing through
>entire scenes. But I actually found something to like in Kramer's
>mannerisms. When she first conjures up the snake, she looks so
>overjoyed, like a kid opening a present. Now if we could only come up
>with a reason to never let her open her mouth again...
I think what won most of us over were the perverted hobbits, especially
Dreg, and their brilliant suck-up speeches.
>Didn't like the Scoobies' trying to hide the truth about Glory's
>visit from Buffy. I'm also not wild about them letting her run off
>alone without much protest, but that's more understandable given that
>"'let' isn't really a factor when she sets her mind to
>something." The rest of the scene is better, like the way they try
>to let her know they'll try to help but are brutally honest about
>their lack of optimism. And the way Buffy's need to "do
>something" spurs her to violence. She sure seems to be getting
>beaten up a lot lately, huh? Fortunately for her, the episode is kind
>enough to feed her a decent action/suspense plot for the last fifteen
>minutes or so, complete with an eminently killable monster.
Well, by this time you have been exposed to the phrases 'find me something
to pummel' and 'Slayer comfort food'.
--
HERBERT
1996 - 1997
Beloved Mascot
Delightful Meal
He fed the Pack
A little
BTR1701
William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> I think what won most of us over were the perverted hobbits, especially
> Dreg, and their brilliant suck-up speeches.
Just a little trivia note: Dreg was played by Kevin Weisman who went on
to find greater notoriety playing the computer geek Marshall on ALIAS.
Michael Ikeda
news:hot892l7bet14uflk...@4ax.com:
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
>
>>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these
>>review threads.
>>
>>BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
>>Season Five, Episode 8: "Shadow"
>>(or "Your one-stop shop for angst")
>>Writer: David Fury
>>Director: Daniel Attias
>>
>>Of mild note: in the altered-memory world, the
I'd tend to see the problem somewhat differently. Riley doesn't
realize that he IS giving Buffy important emotional support. He
feels that Buffy is rejecting his attempts to provide emotional
support and doesn't see that he's really providing the sort of
support that Buffy really needs. Plus Buffy tends to react in a
certain way to emotional crises. And that reaction feels like a
personal rejection to Riley even though it very much isn't.
--
Michael Ikeda mmi...@erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
burt...@hotmail.com
> Various people have mentioned the problem of Riley and Buffy having
> expectations at cross-purposes. The scene at the end is a classic
> example, maybe the classic example.
>
> Buffy has had horrible news, she is hurt deep inside, and helpless to
> really fix it. Riley holds her, lets her gather herself together, until
> she can put on a happy face and go into the hospital room and be strong
> for her sister and mother. At that moment Riley has given her exactly
> what she needed, he has been the best friend, and boyfriend, you could ask
> for. And the last shot shows that he feels he has failed completely.
>
> The bottom line is that Riley thinks that Buffy loving him should lead her
> to depend on him to protect her. Buffy doesn't need that, probably didn't
> really need it even before becoming the Slayer. What Buffy needs is
> emotional support, which Riley can give very well, but that isn't enough
> for him, he thinks she should need physical support.
Which, if true, is the exact opposite of the way Riley felt after he
first found out Buffy was the Slayer. when he clearly thought that
having a girlfriend who was stronger than him was the coolest thing
ever. But what's one more discontinuity at this point?
Don Sample
William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
>
> >A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> >threads.
> >
> >BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> >Season Five, Episode 8: "Shadow"
> >(or "Your one-stop shop for angst")
> >Writer: David Fury
> >Director: Daniel Attias
> >
> >One part that really annoyed me, and I'm fully aware that no one
> >besides me cares about these things, is the "risk factors" part of
> >the doctor's speech. No one has shown a link between cell phones and
> >brain cancer - the jury hasn't come up with a final verdict, but
> >the reasons to be worried about it in the first place are based on a
> >misconception made popular by hack writers and the ignorant media. And
> >by late 2000 when this aired, the junk science behind the idea of power
> >lines causing cancer had been completely discredited years earlier, so
> >it's always annoying to see it pop up.
>
> You would be wrong about the 'no one besides me cares about these things'.
> Lots of people pointed out the silliness back when this originally aired.
> Sample, for one, was all over it.
I was? I don't remember that. And looking back through the Google
Groups archive, I can't find any posts where I was "all over it." I
mentioned a couple of times that I thought that he might be collecting
data for a paper he was writing.
> >Dawn has a little monologue sitting and watching the carousel. Has she
> >ever had friends?
>
> Question for the long timers with the scripts databased (hi Don) Jura jnf
> Wnavpr svefg zragvbarq?
"All the Way" in season six.
Dawn has mentioned friends. There was the short girl whose house she
wanted to go to in "Family" And the one whose older brother knows a
girl who died because she choked on her boyfriend's tongue who was
mentioned in "The Replacement."
Don Sample
"Mike Zeares" <mze...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Which fake? I was actually more bothered by the fake snake in the zoo
scene, than the big (but not Mayor big) fake snake. It wouldn't have
been that difficult to do it with a real snake.
Don Sample
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> William George Ferguson wrote:
> > The bottom line is that Riley thinks that Buffy loving him should lead her
> > to depend on him to protect her. Buffy doesn't need that, probably didn't
> > really need it even before becoming the Slayer. What Buffy needs is
> > emotional support, which Riley can give very well, but that isn't enough
> > for him, he thinks she should need physical support.
>
> Which, if true, is the exact opposite of the way Riley felt after he
> first found out Buffy was the Slayer. when he clearly thought that
> having a girlfriend who was stronger than him was the coolest thing
> ever. But what's one more discontinuity at this point?
Even then, he was trying to compete with her physically, and expecting
to be able to surpass her, given enough practice. From "A New Man":
"You'd find some other way," says Riley. He also has a new
appreciation of Buffy's strength, having seen her fighting the
Giles demon. "You're really strong. Like, Spiderman strong."
"Yeah. I don't stick to stuff, but, yeah." Buffy is wondering
where Riley is going with this.
"And you're in charge," says Riley. "You're, like, make the
plan, execute the plan. No one giving you orders."
"I'm the Slayer."
"I like it."
"Yeah?" Buffy likes where he's going.
"But give me another, oh, week to get ready, and I'll take
you down."
jil...@hotmail.com
> SPIKE: Oh yeah, right. (scoffs) Takes one to know, I suppose. Least I
> still got the attitude. (looking Riley up and down) What do you got, a
> piercing glance? Face it, white bread. Buffy's got a type, and you're
> not it. She likes us dangerous, rough, occasionally bumpy in the
> forehead region. (patronizingly) Not that she doesn't like you ... but
> sorry Charlie, you're just not dark enough.
>
> What exactly is Buffy's deal with vampires? I think Riley is trying to
> work it out for himself... although I should think the major thing
> would be *ow*!
Buffy's deal with vampires is both Riley's and Spike's imaginations.
Ooooh, so she was impressed to meet Dracula. That impression lasted
for all of one day. The only vampire she was sexually attracted to was
Angel. She isn't the least interested in Spike, he only thinks she is
because Faith came onto him while in Buffy's body.
jil...@hotmail.com
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Five, Episode 8: "Shadow"
> (or "Your one-stop shop for angst")
> Writer: David Fury
> Director: Daniel Attias
> Riley, snake. The first and best chunk mostly involves Joyce's
> mysterious illness. It gets less mysterious (although the fact that
> Dawn triggered her first attack seems unlikely to be a coincidence...
> unless it's a coincidence that the writers deliberately manufactured
> to look like something more, of course...).
Look, it's been established in a previous episode that there is nothing
magical, nothing non-natural, causing Joyce's cancer. That was what
the whole spell Buffy did was about. So, obviously it's a coincidence
the writers deliberately manufactured.
And, by the way... you might want to save "Your one-stop shop for
angst" for later. Muahahah
burt...@hotmail.com
He was pretty obviously being flippant there.
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> wanted to go to in "Family" And the one whose older brother knows a
> girl who died because she choked on her boyfriend's tongue who was
> mentioned in "The Replacement."
also this season is so far focusing on dawn the key
rather than dawn the girl
if she remains in human shape then she might get more human characteristics
like friends
arf meow arf - nsa fodder
ny dnrqn greebevfz ahpyrne obzo vena gnyvona ovt oebgure
if you meet buddha on the usenet killfile him
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
snakes hoses riley abandonment issues
granted i took psychology from an insane-o professor
but i know what a freudian slip is
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> things like cell phones - which also may have some unpleasant side
> effects IIRC) in The New Yorker (2 part article from the days when
the concern is the phone radiation can possibly heat some parts of the body
like eye interior or gall bladder
faster than they can be cooled by the blood
in the eyes case if this can cook the lens
Apteryx
>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> Riley, snake. The first and best chunk mostly involves Joyce's
> mysterious illness. It gets less mysterious (although the fact that
> Dawn triggered her first attack seems unlikely to be a coincidence...
> unless it's a coincidence that the writers deliberately manufactured
> to look like something more, of course...). The early acts are full of
> quiet emotional moments that're almost all played strongly, as the
> cast show off their non-verbal and understated-verbal ("just a
> shadow") acting chops. Special mention of something especially good
> is the doctor's voice completely fading out for a second after Buffy
> hears and processes the word "tumor." From what I've heard,
> that's pretty much what it's like to receive news like that.
I don't know that I like the idea of real life trauma making such a big
impact on BtVS without an intervening metaphor, but its done well,
especcially the sound level there.
> One part that really annoyed me, and I'm fully aware that no one
> besides me cares about these things, is the "risk factors" part of
> the doctor's speech. No one has shown a link between cell phones and
> brain cancer - the jury hasn't come up with a final verdict, but
> the reasons to be worried about it in the first place are based on a
> misconception made popular by hack writers and the ignorant media. And
> by late 2000 when this aired, the junk science behind the idea of power
> lines causing cancer had been completely discredited years earlier, so
> it's always annoying to see it pop up.
I did think it was at least pretty implausible for a senior surgeon to be
conduicting that survey. But what lept out at me was Ben's statement to
Buffy, long enough after the biopsy to have been taken for the results to be
available, saying that Joyce would be unconscious for another 6 or 7 hours.
I happened to undergo general anaesthesia in the past week (for an otherwise
minor procedure - not a brain tissue biopsy) and recieved the usual warnings
on the risks from the anaesthetist beforehand. I particularly remember the
importance of not using deeper or longer anaesthesia than striclty required
for the operation. Are there any medical experts here who could comment on
whether there are medical reasons why Joyce should be kept under for that
long afterwards, or was it just a dramatic device to allow the meeting
between Buffy and Joyce to take place much later in the episode?
>
> Followers of these reviews may have noticed that I'm not particularly
> enamored with the character of Glory (named for the first time, as far
> as I can recall), to put it mildly. That's still true, and any
> exchange between her and Dreg is another tangible unit of pain.
C'mon, what's not to like about Dreg thinking Glory has taken him up on his
offer to tear out his tongue - and still thinking its safer to obey :)
>
> There's a montage of scenes that I enjoyed a lot from a
> cinematography standpoint, even if I'm not so sure about the content.
> I don't entirely get why exactly Riley "seduces" Sandy and then
> kills her.
I guess this may be an indication of why they had to drop metaphors and go
with real life drama - they had run out of decent metaphors. This is
presumably a metaphor for going out to find someone to sleep with after
Riley feels shut out by Buffy. In which case you could extend that metaphor
to say that he stakes her to show he thinks she is worthless and the sex
meaningless (here we all thought Riley was white bread, but he might have
been a serial killer of casual sex partners and prostitutes if he thought he
could get away with it). Or maybe he just stakes her because otherwise she
would have killed him.
>
> As far as the monster goes, I liked the seeing it weaving through the
> streets, but it overall faces the same problem as all of the other
> giant reptiles that the series has ever given us (even the one where
> there was actually a guy inside): at no point did I believe that it and
> the characters were in the same dimension.
I thought it was better than any previous one. This is a TV budget - some
allowance required.
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
> - Spike snagging the underwear on his way out
> - "Yay! Am I mentioned?"
> - "I mean, I for one didn't want to start my day with a slaughter.
> Which really just goes to show how much I've grown!"
Loved that one. But did anyone else think Giles was unfairly treated over
selling Glory that stuff. I mean, if you operate a magic shop in Sunnydale,
you must be assumed to be taking the risk that Evil Things will use the
stuff you sell to make evil magic. And if a Khul's amulet and a Sobekian
bloodstone are a particularly bad combination then you are running that risk
if you stock both of them (since the Evil Thing may send minions to buy them
seperately) or even one of them (since the Evil Thing may already have the
other one).
>
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: A collection of moments, more good ones than bad
> ones.
>
> AOQ rating: Good
Definitely agree with the summary. For me the good and bad moments only
average out to a good Decent. For me, its the 102nd best BtVS episode, 14th
best in season 5
--
Apteryx
Arbitrar Of Quality
> And, by the way... you might want to save "Your one-stop shop for
> angst" for later. Muahahah
But then would it be a take on the slogan of a newly-opened place of
business? Hmm?
-AOQ
Arbitrar Of Quality
Michael Ikeda wrote:
> William George Ferguson <wmgf...@newsguy.com> wrote in
> news:hot892l7bet14uflk...@4ax.com:
> > Various people have mentioned the problem of Riley and Buffy
> > having expectations at cross-purposes. The scene at the end is
> > a classic example, maybe the classic example.
> >
> > Buffy has had horrible news, she is hurt deep inside, and
> > helpless to really fix it. Riley holds her, lets her gather
> > herself together, until she can put on a happy face and go into
> > the hospital room and be strong for her sister and mother. At
> > that moment Riley has given her exactly what she needed, he has
> > been the best friend, and boyfriend, you could ask for. And the
> > last shot shows that he feels he has failed completely.
> >
> > The bottom line is that Riley thinks that Buffy loving him
> > should lead her to depend on him to protect her. Buffy doesn't
> > need that, probably didn't really need it even before becoming
> > the Slayer. What Buffy needs is emotional support, which Riley
> > can give very well, but that isn't enough for him, he thinks she
> > should need physical support.
> >
>
> I'd tend to see the problem somewhat differently. Riley doesn't
> realize that he IS giving Buffy important emotional support. He
> feels that Buffy is rejecting his attempts to provide emotional
> support and doesn't see that he's really providing the sort of
> support that Buffy really needs. Plus Buffy tends to react in a
> certain way to emotional crises. And that reaction feels like a
> personal rejection to Riley even though it very much isn't.
All of which make sense; I'm more inclined towards Michael's
perspective. It still doesn't explain his behavior with Sandy. People
have these probelms without letting vampires drink them and then stake
said vampires. I don't get it , and don't know if I'm supposed to yet.
-AOQ
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> perspective. It still doesn't explain his behavior with Sandy. People
> have these probelms without letting vampires drink them and then stake
> said vampires. I don't get it , and don't know if I'm supposed to yet.
maybe hes so disgusted with himself
he takes it out on a poor not-so-innocent vampire
i dont have a problem with sandy going to that great ashtray in the sky
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
Riley isn't behaving rationally. There is no explanation for his
behaviour that "makes sense." It is senseless. He's trying to
understand Buffy. She has been bitten by vampires, and she has had
feelings for the vampires that bit her. So Riley goes out and lets
vampires bite him, to try to better understand Buffy. It's a stupid
thing to do, but he does it anyway.
Elisi
> Buffy's deal with vampires is both Riley's and Spike's imaginations.
> Ooooh, so she was impressed to meet Dracula. That impression lasted
> for all of one day. The only vampire she was sexually attracted to was
> Angel. She isn't the least interested in Spike, he only thinks she is
> because Faith came onto him while in Buffy's body.
Well that's true, but I still think that there might be an inherent
attraction. But then most of the world is attracted to Brad Pitt -
doesn't mean that there are women leaving perfectly happy relationships
to try to be with him. Buffy might be (sub-consiously) attracted, but
(as we saw in FFL) it's not something she's interested in exploring. As
you said - she tried it with Angel and look what happened.
Patrician
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150574571.8...@f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
I remember when the link between CFC's and aeorsoles, and the ozone layer
were also scoffed at by scientists and science writers such as Larry Nivan
and Jerry Pournell. Now we know that the link is real. I wouldn't be too
ready to scoff at something which is less than twenty years old, we really
do not know what, if any, harm mobile 'phones do to our health; They
haven't been around long enough for any studies tobe conclusive yet.
Trev
Daniel Damouth
news:dsample-32BB8B...@news.giganews.com:
Riley was clearly joking with that line. OTOH, he was very sincere
when he said "I like it." He doesn't resent Buffy being so much
stronger than he is. If anything, Buffy is the one who has trouble
with it (perhaps because of her first true love).
Riley doesn't like the way Buffy shuts him out emotionally, not
telling him things, not including him. To her, he's good for
affection, loyalty, sex, and the fantasy that she could be with a
normal guy. But not love.
-Dan Damouth
lili...@gmail.com
very much reacts like a male emotionally aka, closed off, not likely to
talk about her feelings.
Buffy has gotten very closed down, that doesn't mean she didn't care
for Riley, or didn't
trust him, she just is no longer the child that had a puppy dog crush
on Angel.
She was after all a child when she fell for the fantasy of the dark
mysterious stranger with Angel. It's just a pity that she never got to
know the 'real' Angel. If she had, she might have actually realized how
little Angel really is like the figure she built him up to in her mind.
Lore
Daniel Damouth schreef:
alphakitten
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> Season Five, Episode 8: "Shadow"
<snip>
IMO, by far the worst of the season.
~Angel
(Harmony) Watcher
news:dsample-57CCE1...@news.giganews.com...
>
Shhh. What happened to whispering??
--
==Harmony Watcher==
3D Master
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
> - Spike snagging the underwear on his way out
Why? This only gave me the willies.
3D Master
--
~~~~~
"I've got something to say; it's better to burn out than to fade away!"
- The Kurgan, Highlander
"Give me some sugar, baby!"
- Ashley J. 'Ash' Williams, Army of Darkness
~~~~~
Author of several stories, which can be found here:
http://members.chello.nl/~jg.temolder1/
Arbitrar Of Quality
> I remember when the link between CFC's and aeorsoles, and the ozone layer
> were also scoffed at by scientists and science writers such as Larry Nivan
> and Jerry Pournell. Now we know that the link is real. I wouldn't be too
> ready to scoff at something which is less than twenty years old, we really
> do not know what, if any, harm mobile 'phones do to our health; They
> haven't been around long enough for any studies tobe conclusive yet.
Yeah, the jury is still out on cell phones. I just think a lot of the
fear of them being linked to cancer comes from old paranoia about other
electromagnetic fields that haven't shown any carcinogenic properties
after decades of study (before power lines, it was microwaves). So
it's not the first thing I'd ask someone about with regards to
environmental "hazards." Don's idea that the guy is writing a paper is
a good fanwank for that.
-AOQ
drifter
> "Don Sample" <dsa...@synapse.net> wrote in message
/snip/
>> "All the Way" in season six.
>>
>> <spoiler snipped>
>>
>
> Shhh. What happened to whispering??
Both episodes that Don mentioned and you snipped as "spoilers"
have already been reviewed by AOQ. I believe the rules state
that he may now shout them from the rooftops.
--
Kel
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own."
KenM47
>
>>
>> Followers of these reviews may have noticed that I'm not particularly
>> enamored with the character of Glory (named for the first time, as far
>> as I can recall), to put it mildly. That's still true, and any
>> exchange between her and Dreg is another tangible unit of pain.
>> Fingernails-on-a-chalkboard stuff. I'm tired of cringing through
>> entire scenes. But I actually found something to like in Kramer's
>> mannerisms. When she first conjures up the snake, she looks so
>> overjoyed, like a kid opening a present. Now if we could only come up
>> with a reason to never let her open her mouth again...
>>
>
>
>You know it's odd how voices work for people.
>I mean, I have no problem listening to Glory, but whenever Willow opens
>her mouth it's exactly like that to me, nails on chalkboard. Makes me
>turn down the sound whenever she's talking. Big part of the reason of
>my dislike of the character.
>
>I oddly enough had the same problem with Doyle on Angel. I know his
>accent is real, and that a lot of people love it, but I can't hear him
>talking without getting the urge to turn down the sound.
>
>Lore
I enjoyed Clare Kramer's work from the getgo. I can't get the negative
reaction, but I can accept that some have it.
I also enjoyed the character she played.
Ken (Brooklyn)
KenM47
I don't think the last nail was ever really put in that particular
coffin. I blame Dawn, and I do not find NPLH so contradictory.
Ken (Brooklyn)
Mel
Buffy (in trance mode) looks at Joyce and says "There's nothing." As in,
she sees nothing magical around her mother that would be making her ill.
Mel
KenM47
She sees the magic - - Dawn fading in and out in front of her, the
room switching from Dawn's to storage, the pictures. Who says she has
to see something in or around Joyce right then and there. The Dawn
proximity has already caused the physical damage, IMO.
If Dawn had cut off one of Joyce's fingers, I wouldn't expect to see
traces of the spell around the missing digit.
Ken (Brooklyn)
George W Harris
:If Dawn had cut off one of Joyce's fingers, I wouldn't expect to see
:traces of the spell around the missing digit.
Why not? The trance revealed the world
without Dawn superimposed over the world with
Dawn. If the ww/oD Joyce had ten fingers, the
trance should show that.
:Ken (Brooklyn)
--
"It is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a
democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every
country."
-Hermann Goering
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'.
KenM47
>On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:26:41 GMT, KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>:If Dawn had cut off one of Joyce's fingers, I wouldn't expect to see
>:traces of the spell around the missing digit.
>
> Why not? The trance revealed the world
>without Dawn superimposed over the world with
>Dawn. If the ww/oD Joyce had ten fingers, the
>trance should show that.
>
>:Ken (Brooklyn)
I guess we have different views about it then. I wouldn't expect to
see it. Physical damage is physical damage, whether done by a human or
a "key."
Ken (Brooklyn)
jil...@hotmail.com
Buffy might actually note consciously that Spike is handsome. That
will pretty much always be followed by "But he's an evil soulless
vampire who only can't do any real harm because of that damned chip."
That doesn't make her hot for his body. Hahah. Some people try to
claim it's a predator/prey thing. Please, document me a case of a bear
having sex with a deer. Or better, a lion having sex with a hyena.
Now, vampires are a little more like half-domesticated rabid dogs.
Those'll have sex with a wall.
jil...@hotmail.com
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> Yeah, the jury is still out on cell phones. I just think a lot of the
> fear of them being linked to cancer comes from old paranoia about other
> electromagnetic fields that haven't shown any carcinogenic properties
> after decades of study (before power lines, it was microwaves). So
> it's not the first thing I'd ask someone about with regards to
> environmental "hazards." Don's idea that the guy is writing a paper is
> a good fanwank for that.
I don't know, AOQ. I keep a small colony of gerbils, and the ones
whose cages were closest to the TV/DVD recorders and computer (it's
what I call the electronics corner of my house) had a high frequency of
mysterious deaths, coupled with more obvious deaths from cancerous
tumors.
Espen Schjønberg
I think this is so interesting!
Because this is so much about one of my big "issues".
What will happen whenever a spell is reversed?
I want the changes the spell did reversed, but not changes people have
done "physically" under the spells influence reversed.
I also want "physical" thing done by a magic object- like Dawn cutting
of her mothers finger - not reversed.
Even magic done by the magic object I would want to stay, but I would be
more open to discussion here.
You will here me talk about this far to often whenever I think a spell
is to heavily reversed...
--
Espen
jil...@hotmail.com
*doing best imitation of Igor and failing pathetically* "Yes, Master
AOQ!"
KenM47
PS:
It's the difference between what happened with the casting of the
spell (Dawn comes into existence, Dawn's room is created, the pix now
show Dawn), as opposed to things that happened because the spell had
been cast and the repercussions from it.
IMO, Joyce's condition is a repercussion.
Ken (Brooklyn)
MBangel10 (Melissa)
I've never even thought about Dawn's sudden appearance coinciding w/
Joyce's illness (and I still don't). I think it's just a matter of two
different story lines happening at the same time with nothing but the
time frame linking the two together. It's a good fanwank but it doesn't
hold any weight. It does coincide nicely with the other fanwank
regarding Dawn's existence rewriting the entire S5 and beyond but that's
still all it is. If it were meant to be anything close to canon we would
have received hints about it on the show and obviously we didn't. It's
all just another theory in a sea of several.
Espen Schjønberg
[snip all.]
MBangel10 (Melissa)
> On 18.06.2006 22:06, MBangel10 (Melissa) wrote:
>
> [snip all.]
How?
Espen Schjønberg
Orpnhfr lbh gryy gung Ohss tbg guvf guvat jvgu gur Zbaxf evtug? Jura lbh
pbasvez gung gurer ner ab pbaarpgvba orgjrra Qnja naq Wblprf vyyarff.
Guvf jnl, gurer vf ab anttvat qbhog guvf vf abg gur ragver fgbel.
Nyfb gur vzcbegnapr bs Wblprf vyyarff znl or tvira njnl ol bhe vagrerfg
va qvfphffvat gur fhowrpg.
Don Sample
KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
The only evidence that Joyce's illness is connected to Dawn's creation
is a coincidence of timing. Dawn was created, and a few weeks later
Joyce gets sick. You might as well blame it on Dracula putting the
whammy on her to get the invite into her house, or any one of a dozen
other things, totally unrelated to Dawn, that happened to her around
that time.
MBangel10 (Melissa)
V gubhtug n ybg bs guvf jnf qvfphffrq bcrayl ohg lbh'er evtug...
guvaxvat onpx n znwbevgl jnf cebonoyl ebg-13'q. Zl onq. Fbeel.
Michael Ikeda
No, no, it's obvious. It's Buffy's fault. Remember the suggestion
from the dream-Adam that the Slayer power was demonic in origin?
Obviously one of the side effects is an incompatibility with the
Slayer's parents.
After all, we've seen three Slayers on the show.
Kendra: taken from parents as a small child.
Faith: Mother dead. Don't recall any mention of her father, so he
probably wasn't around.
Buffy: Father lives in another town. Mother now ill.
That also explains the need for the Watcher's Council. Have to
have somebody looking after the Slayers once their parents are
gone.
:)
--
Michael Ikeda mmi...@erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
vague disclaimer
Don Sample <dsa...@synapse.net> wrote:
Or, indeed, her cell phone use....
(yes, yes, I know - I've read it).
--
Wikipedia: like Usenet, moderated by trolls
Michael Ikeda
news:1150638855.6...@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Although his data collection plan is deeply stupid. Asking someone
in a state of shock a barrage of those sorts of questions is pretty
much guaranteed to collect data that's mostly useless.
(For that matter, many of the questions wouldn't have been
particularly good at getting useful data even if Buffy wasn't in a
state of shock.)
BTR1701
Espen Schjønberg <ess...@excite.com> wrote:
> On 18.06.2006 22:06, MBangel10 (Melissa) wrote:
>
> [snip all.]
Nothing Melissa said spoiled anything about the show. Merely saying the
words "entire S5" is not a spoiler. A spoiler actually has to, you know,
spoil something.
MBangel10 (Melissa)
Thanks. But it was enough that I do consider what I said jumping the gun
a bit, even though it really is inconsequential to the show as a whole.
Opus the Penguin
That's interesting. And if it's more than coincidence, the results
should be reproducible. I wonder if this sort of controlled study has
been done.
Also, when you say "mysterious deaths," I assume you just mean you
found them dead in their cage one day and didn't know why they'd
died. But naturally I pictured a gerbil on its back with a tiny
dagger of oriental design protruding from its chest and the cage
locked tightly ... from the inside.
--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet
KenM47
I'll wait for that true expose from Joss. Until then, I'll maintain my
opinions. Not looking to convince anyone of anything.
Done on this for now for sure.
Ken (Brooklyn)
(Harmony) Watcher
"drifter" <ne...@home.net> wrote in message
news:zjdlg.123$M5....@fe07.lga...
> (Harmony) Watcher wrote:
> > "Don Sample" <dsa...@synapse.net> wrote in message
>
> /snip/
>
> >> "All the Way" in season six.
> >>
> >> <spoiler snipped>
> >>
> >
> > Shhh. What happened to whispering??
>
> Both episodes that Don mentioned and you snipped as "spoilers"
> have already been reviewed by AOQ. I believe the rules state
> that he may now shout them from the rooftops.
>
>
ROT-13ed question. But I guess that might not really be a spoiler unless AoQ
happens to be an expert in playing "Jeopardy", :p
--
==Harmony Watcher==
drifter
Well, OK, then, so . . . wait, what?
Are you saying the part you're calling a spoiler was the one sentence
you DIDN"T snip? Um, that's a little weird. Not that there's anything
wrong with that . . .
--
Kel
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own."
(Harmony) Watcher
"KenM47" <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:mh6b92hkt7hc925p9...@4ax.com...
due to Dawn. Unless one or more Scoobies or even just Buffy got the same
kind of sickness as Joyce later in life, we do not have grounds at this
point for suspecting that Joyce's illness was caused by the proximity of
Dawn.
Blame it on a 13-year old (or 14-year old?) kid. Ohssl jvyy xvpx lbhe <svyy
va shaavrfg dhbgnoyr qrebtngbel nqwrpgvirf sebz OgIF> oruvaq, :p
--
==Harmony Watcher==
(Harmony) Watcher
"Michael Ikeda" <mmi...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:FuCdneO5XdUhVQjZ...@rcn.net...
to lay to rest all those fanwank theories about the Dawnster being the cause
of Joyce's illness. :p
--
==Harmony Watcher==
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> from the dream-Adam that the Slayer power was demonic in origin?
> Obviously one of the side effects is an incompatibility with the
> Slayer's parents.
certainly are a lot of demonic children in this country
arf meow arf - nsa fodder
ny dnrqn greebevfz ahpyrne obzo vena gnyvona ovt oebgure
if you meet buddha on the usenet killfile him
KenM47
No. I'm not in the Dawn thrall.
She's no kid. She's a key. She's a magical disruption in the proper
order of things, in the proper perception of the Buffy-verse. Buffy
never had a sister. Dawn is a gazillion times worse than what Tara did
in family, akin to the mess that was the Jonathan-verse.
Ken (Brooklyn)
Don Sample
KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
But none of it it Dawn's fault. She's the biggest victim of the whole
thing.
jil...@hotmail.com
KenM47 wrote:
> It's the difference between what happened with the casting of the
> spell (Dawn comes into existence, Dawn's room is created, the pix now
> show Dawn), as opposed to things that happened because the spell had
> been cast and the repercussions from it.
>
> IMO, Joyce's condition is a repercussion.
Yes. But the problem is that you have nothing in the show to base that
opinion on.
Elisi
>
> I don't think the last nail was ever really put in that particular
> coffin. I blame Dawn, and I do not find NPLH so contradictory.
I'd never heard that argument before finding this NG, and I have to say
it doesn't work for me at all. There is nothing to support it other
than co-incidence. (And incidentally if Dawn *had* cut off Joyce's
finger, it would have flashed in and out of existence like the rest of
the stuff that had been affected.)
Also looking at everything in strictly physical terms, you miss out all
the other aspects of the show. Which is a shame.
kenm47
Don Sample wrote:
> In article <984c92pkqtqsos1d3...@4ax.com>,
> KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > "\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
> >
> > >Blame it on a 13-year old (or 14-year old?) kid. Ohssl jvyy xvpx lbhe <svyy
> > >va shaavrfg dhbgnoyr qrebtngbel nqwrpgvirf sebz OgIF> oruvaq, :p
> >
> >
> > No. I'm not in the Dawn thrall.
> >
> > She's no kid. She's a key. She's a magical disruption in the proper
> > order of things, in the proper perception of the Buffy-verse. Buffy
> > never had a sister. Dawn is a gazillion times worse than what Tara did
> > in family, akin to the mess that was the Jonathan-verse.
>
> But none of it it Dawn's fault. She's the biggest victim of the whole
> thing.
>
> --
She's a thing, a simulacrum of a human. She's an innocent victim in the
same way an orb of Thesulah or a pencil is innocent. She's a tool.
Ken (Brooklyn)
kenm47
As far as I'm concerned, I have nothing in the show that directly
contradicts it either. And a strong set of coincidences that favors it.
Gbtrgure jvgu Wblpr nyfb orvat, nf sne nf jr xabj, gur bayl
aba-Tybel-svrq uhzna gung fnj guebhtu gur fcryy, ng yrnfg cnegvnyyl.
Ng guvf cbvag jura svefg eha vg jnf ab ceboyrz ng nyy, abg xabjvat
jurer gurl jrer tbvat. Vg nyfb jbhyq abg unir orra n ceboyrz vs gur xrl
vgfrys pybfrq gur cbegny naq gur Ohssl-irefr unq erghearq gb vgf
aba-Qnja fgngr (ng juvpu cbvag jr jbhyq cerfhznoyl nyfb unir xabja vs
Wblpr fgnlrq qrnq).
So this is not a "problem" for me.
Ken (Brooklyn)
peachy ashie passion
>
> Thanks. Really. Interesting. And it turns out (don't know why I didn't
> do it before) there are accessible links through Google found pretty
> easy that back you up.
>
> This in no way changes my view of Dawn as being a cause of Joyce's
> condition. :-)
>
> Ken (Brooklyn)
Okay, BUT.
then how do you explain that when Buffy sees the world of how things
are supposed to be, that Dawn isn't supposed to be there, but Joyce is
still sick?
Steve Schaffner
> Please, document me a case of a bear having sex with a deer.
Please, please don't.
--
Steve Schaffner s...@broad.mit.edu
Immediate assurance is an excellent sign of probable lack of
insight into the topic. Josiah Royce
Rowan Hawthorn
> "jil...@hotmail.com" <jil...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> Please, document me a case of a bear having sex with a deer.
>
> Please, please don't.
>
Oh, come on. Haven't you seen the T-shirts with the picture of an
antlered black bear? ("...Beer?")
--
Rowan Hawthorn
"Occasionally, I'm callous and strange." - Willow Rosenberg, "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer"
peachy ashie passion
> Steve Schaffner wrote:
>
>> "jil...@hotmail.com" <jil...@hotmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Please, document me a case of a bear having sex with a deer.
>>
>>
>> Please, please don't.
>>
>
> Oh, come on. Haven't you seen the T-shirts with the picture of an
> antlered black bear? ("...Beer?")
>
no.
Rowan Hawthorn
I was gonna post a link, but dammit, I can't find one now, either. Figures.
(Harmony) Watcher
"kenm47" <ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:1150719695.9...@f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
an unwarranted *assumption* that
Dawn closing the portal herself would fold
*reality* back to its initial state prior to
the monks' spell.
It is also an unwarranted *assumption* that there is one single immutable
default "reality".
In fact, for me, all spells will be irreversible (because of my second law
of mystico-thermodynamics), including those of vengeance demons: Buffy's
world post "The Wish" was not what it would have been if Cordy had never
made that wish; everyone just thinks that it was back to "normal", but
no-oo. I know it because it is my fan-fiction.
The second law of mystico-thermodynamics ensures that it is statistically
improbable to derive the same "reality", starting from the same fixed set of
initial conditions containing a gadzillion inter-related variables.
Never say "never", but statistically speaking, highly unlikely even with
non-fictional laws of physics. "Altering reality" and "time travel" are not
synonymous phrases.
--
=Haromony Watcher=
Arbitrar Of Quality
kenm47 wrote:
> Don Sample wrote:
> > In article <984c92pkqtqsos1d3...@4ax.com>,
> > KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > > No. I'm not in the Dawn thrall.
> > >
> > > She's no kid. She's a key. She's a magical disruption in the proper
> > > order of things, in the proper perception of the Buffy-verse. Buffy
> > > never had a sister. Dawn is a gazillion times worse than what Tara did
> > > in family, akin to the mess that was the Jonathan-verse.
> >
> > But none of it it Dawn's fault. She's the biggest victim of the whole
> > thing.
> >
>
> She's a thing, a simulacrum of a human. She's an innocent victim in the
> same way an orb of Thesulah or a pencil is innocent. She's a tool.
Based on what I've seen so far, I'd have to pretty much disagree
entirely. An orb of Thesulah doesn't feelm or love, or, dare I say it,
have a soul. Dawn's a tool, but, at least based on what we know at
this point in the series, it seems like she's also a person.
What tends to matter in the Buffyverse is who someone is, not where
they came from.
-AOQ
vague disclaimer
Quite. And it has been clearly stated that she is human and exactly
nothing has happened to cast doubt on that. I suspect genetic testing
would show her to be spawn of Hank and Joyce.
Indeed: new sister, still absent dad, sick mother, and episodes entitled
"No Place Like Home" and "Family".
Are spotting a theme yet?
Ken's lazy comment (I'm pretty sure he has it on a macro) denies this by
default.
MBangel10 (Melissa)
KenM47
I don't. Still doesn't really jibe with the rest of the anti-mind rape
messages.
Ken (Brooklyn)
KenM47
Go. Enjoy your mind rape.
"Lazy" my ass.
Ken (Brooklyn)
KenM47
>
>"kenm47" <ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>news:1150719695.9...@f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> jil...@hotmail.com wrote:
>> > KenM47 wrote:
>> > > It's the difference between what happened with the casting of the
>> > > spell (Dawn comes into existence, Dawn's room is created, the pix now
>> > > show Dawn), as opposed to things that happened because the spell had
>> > > been cast and the repercussions from it.
>> > >
>> > > IMO, Joyce's condition is a repercussion.
>> >
>> > Yes. But the problem is that you have nothing in the show to base that
>> > opinion on.
>>
>> As far as I'm concerned, I have nothing in the show that directly
>> contradicts it either. And a strong set of coincidences that favors it.
>>
>>
>> Gbtrgure jvgu Wblpr nyfb orvat, nf sne nf jr xabj, gur bayl
>> aba-Tybel-svrq uhzna gung fnj guebhtu gur fcryy, ng yrnfg cnegvnyyl.
>>
>> Ng guvf cbvag jura svefg eha vg jnf ab ceboyrz ng nyy, abg xabjvat
>> jurer gurl jrer tbvat. Vg nyfb jbhyq abg unir orra n ceboyrz vs gur xrl
>> vgfrys pybfrq gur cbegny naq gur Ohssl-irefr unq erghearq gb vgf
>> aba-Qnja fgngr (ng juvpu cbvag jr jbhyq cerfhznoyl nyfb unir xabja vs
>> Wblpr fgnlrq qrnq).
>>
>> So this is not a "problem" for me.
>>
>Your reasoning proceeds from unsubstantiated and implicit assumptions. It is
>an unwarranted *assumption* that
>
SPOILER ROT13'd
> Qnja pybfvat gur cbegny urefrys jbhyq sbyq
> *ernyvgl* onpx gb vgf vavgvny fgngr cevbe gb
> gur zbaxf' fcryy.
Agreed. It's an assumption, based on some precedent. (Wbanguna.)
>
>It is also an unwarranted *assumption* that there is one single immutable
>default "reality".
Huh?
>
>In fact, for me, all spells will be irreversible (because of my second law
>of mystico-thermodynamics), including those of vengeance demons: Buffy's
>world post "The Wish" was not what it would have been if Cordy had never
>made that wish; everyone just thinks that it was back to "normal", but
>no-oo. I know it because it is my fan-fiction.
Not sure what to do with that. I'll just leave it alone.
>
>The second law of mystico-thermodynamics ensures that it is statistically
>improbable to derive the same "reality", starting from the same fixed set of
>initial conditions containing a gadzillion inter-related variables.
Huh? Again
>
>Never say "never", but statistically speaking, highly unlikely even with
>non-fictional laws of physics. "Altering reality" and "time travel" are not
>synonymous phrases.
And a third Huh?
And for those who think the key can just be turned human like all
other humans, then why must the key be hidden from and protected from
Glorificus? Surely, Dawn is no "human" despite appearances.
Ken (Brooklyn)
MBangel10 (Melissa)
She's a human girl with a "key" hidden inside her essence. This does not
make her any less human it just makes her special.
KenM47
The monk never said anything like that. He said she IS the key, not
that the key is hidden in her.
Ken (Brooklyn)
MBangel10 (Melissa)
Okay then, the key IS the helpless, innocent human that is Dawn. She's
still human according to the Monks that made her. Whether she is
"manufactured" human or was born, what's the difference? She is still a
living, breathing person with emotions and feelings. The only weight
your argument holds is in the theory a few of you "created" to explain
things that you felt needed an alternative explanation. Outside of that,
and in the actual Buffyverse, it holds no weight at all.
MONK
No. For centuries it had no form at all. My brethren, its only
keepers. Then the abomination found us. We had to hide the Key, gave
it form, molded it flesh... made it human and sent it to you.
KenM47
I repeat then. If she is a garden variety human like any other human,
and not a thing, why is there ANY need to hide her specifically from
and protect her specifically from Glorificus?
If she is not a thing disguised to seem human, then the old Monks
could have turned her into anything, a bicycle lock for example and
the key would not be the key any longer - would seem to require a lot
less magic than rewriting history?
You people fall under a thrall, you really fall.
"Monk: You have to. . . the Key. You must protect the
Key.
Buffy: Fine. We can protect the Key together, okay,
just far, far from here.
Monk: Many more die if you don’t keep it safe.
Buffy: How? What is it?
Monk: The Key is energy. It’s a portal. It opens the
door. . .
Buffy: The Dagon Sphere?
Monk: No. For centuries it had no form at all. My
brethren, its only keepers. Then the abomination
found us. We had to hide the Key, gave it form,
molded it flesh. . . made it human and sent it to you."
It's a phony person, people. Wake up and smell the mind-rape!
Ken (Brooklyn)
George W Harris
:>She's a human girl with a "key" hidden inside her essence. This does not
:>make her any less human it just makes her special.
:
:
:The monk never said anything like that. He said she IS the key, not
:that the key is hidden in her.
He also said she's human, not that she's a
simulacrum of a human.
:
:Ken (Brooklyn)
--
"If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste more like
prunes than rhubarb does" -Groucho Marx
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'
peachy ashie passion
> peachy ashie passion wrote:
>
>> Rowan Hawthorn wrote:
>>
>>> Steve Schaffner wrote:
>>>
>>>> "jil...@hotmail.com" <jil...@hotmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> Please, document me a case of a bear having sex with a deer.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Please, please don't.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Oh, come on. Haven't you seen the T-shirts with the picture of an
>>> antlered black bear? ("...Beer?")
>>>
>>
>> no.
>
>
> I was gonna post a link, but dammit, I can't find one now, either.
> Figures.
>
That's because you imagined the entire thing. ;)
peachy ashie passion
>
> And for those who think the key can just be turned human like all
> other humans, then why must the key be hidden from and protected from
> Glorificus? Surely, Dawn is no "human" despite appearances.
>
> Ken (Brooklyn)
Do you define Buffy as "human"? How about Willow?
George W Harris
:
:I repeat then. If she is a garden variety human like any other human,
:and not a thing, why is there ANY need to hide her specifically from
:and protect her specifically from Glorificus?
She is a human. But, unlike other humans, she is
also the Key.
Buffy is a human. But, unlike other humans, she is
also the Slayer.
Willow is a human. But, unlike most other humans,
she is a witch.
Anya is a human. But, unlike most other humans,
she is an ex-demon.
--
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV!
George W Harris
:
:It's a phony person, people. Wake up and smell the mind-rape!
:
:Ken (Brooklyn)
*You're* a phony person.
--
Real men don't need macho posturing to bolster their egos.
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'.
KenM47
>On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 02:53:54 GMT, KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>:
>:It's a phony person, people. Wake up and smell the mind-rape!
>:
>:Ken (Brooklyn)
>
> *You're* a phony person.
You're a (fill in the blank).
Ken (Brooklyn)
KenM47
>On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 02:53:54 GMT, KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>:
>:I repeat then. If she is a garden variety human like any other human,
>:and not a thing, why is there ANY need to hide her specifically from
>:and protect her specifically from Glorificus?
>
> She is a human. But, unlike other humans, she is
>also the Key.
>
> Buffy is a human. But, unlike other humans, she is
>also the Slayer.
>
> Willow is a human. But, unlike most other humans,
>she is a witch.
>
> Anya is a human. But, unlike most other humans,
>she is an ex-demon.
>
Dawn IS the key, a clump of energy fashioned by a spell to appear
human.
That is not a human.
Ken (Brooklyn)
KenM47
Neither of them needs be hidden from Glory.
And as far as we know both Buffy and Willow were fictionally created
in the Buffyverse the old fashioned way with a sperm and an ovum
forming a zygote, gestating over 9 months and being born and growing.
Neither was pulled from a Monk's butt at the "age" of 14, with a full
set of phony memories and accoutrements, nor causing a reality shift
for every other living thing in the Buffyverse reality.
Ken (Brooklyn)
KenM47
>On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 02:28:58 GMT, KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>:>She's a human girl with a "key" hidden inside her essence. This does not
>:>make her any less human it just makes her special.
>:
>:
>:The monk never said anything like that. He said she IS the key, not
>:that the key is hidden in her.
>
> He also said she's human, not that she's a
>simulacrum of a human.
>:
>:Ken (Brooklyn)
Except we who have been watching the Buffyverse for four years know
Buffy does not have a sister and know Dawn is a construct, akin to
but even less "real" than super-Jonathan who at least existed before
he mind raped everyone. To deny it is just idiotic.
Ken (Brooklyn)
KenM47
PS: It also appears that the Dawn spell has caused havoc in the
vampire rules as well, such that Spike can have sunlight falling on
him directly while in Buffy's room (before he snatched her panties),
and Spike merely starts to smoke a tad while Riley holds his head in
the direct rays of the sun outside Buffy's house's front door.
Ken (Brooklyn)