AOQ Review 3-1: "Anne"
Arbitrar Of Quality
threads.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Season Three, Episode 1: "Anne"
(or "I had to move big rocks; they're just chipping away at the
walls? What a rip off!")
Writer: Joss Whedon
Director: Joss Whedon
Six days counts as "about a week," right? I got impatient.
Here we are again. As we did last year, we begin in Sunnydale and see
how our mere mortal heroes fail to deal with vampires. This time
there's no hero showing up at the last second. Then we cut to Buffy,
apparently enjoying her vacation until it becomes an obvious dream
sequence... the shot of the slums that ends the teaser is certainly an
interesting way to start the year.
Credits. Sounds like they re-did the theme song a little. Mrs.
Quality thinks Willow looks a lot better with the shorter/colored hair;
I'm neutral. Cordelia popping up from behind the couch (is that from
"Surprise?") makes me smile. Okay, Boreanaz is still there, so
it's highly unlikely he'll stay just a memory/hallucination for
long. Hey, Seth Green is a regular now, cool.
So we've got Buffy supporting herself waiting tables as Anne, along
with a full-time teaching position in the department of aggressive
mopeyness. The sight of Buffy drifting through life barely living
pervades the first half of the episode. On the one hand, the change in
locales give things a unique feel. On the other hand, it seems like a
lot of the same, and it's not so interesting given that not much
happens. Plus we've seen Buffy deny her role as the Slayer before,
and we've spent most of the second half of Season Two watching her
act lifeless and depressed, so this really isn't as novel as it could
be.
As always, Buffy finds her hand forced by her compassion for someone.
In this case it's Lily (as she's called now), a relative stranger
who had a bit part in "Lie To Me." Conceptually, it sounds like it
should work. I mean, it's a clever way to bring the past back to
affect the present, and the idea that the character elicits a mix of
pity and self-identification from Buffy that leads to bringing her back
into the game is reasonable. But when one actually watches the show,
well, their scenes together just aren't very interesting. I also
think maybe she shouldn't have been so overwhelmingly pathetic, to
the point where even at the end, one doubts that anything Buffy can
ever do for her will actually help much.
The scenes in Sunnydale offer a break from all this, and I guess are
the comic relief. Since Buffy's friends' paths never intersect
with hers, these scenes serve mainly to periodically break any momentum
that the A-story might be building. I wonder if I'd have been any
happier if the writers had held off on the first day of school until
next episode, or hell, what if we'd gone without finding out what our
friends were up to at all? (I'm not including Giles' scenes in
this dismissal, which are solid, and a natural fit with the mood of the
show.) Maybe stick with just the first patrolling part, since that's
the comedic highlight. Special props to Oz's attempt to throw his
stake at the vamp (and there's even a followup moment with Buffy
later). I also liked his suggesting a line to use ("there's a
reason why it's a classic") and Xander's silent agreement.
But too much fluff starts to feel inappropriate. And everything with
W/X/C/O feels like fluff this time around. Cordelia and Xander in
particular have a bunch of scenes that basically involve their dynamic
taking a step backward, so they can get back to the same place at the
end of the episode. Since it's all recycled crap, I can't be
bothered to come up with a fresh paragraph about it. Here are some
phrases it would probably contain:
- cliché "cute arguing"
- bad romantic comedy
- predictability
- unpleasant echoes of The Scene That Should Not Be
- needless throwback to a less enlightened time
I smiled at the reference to "a hot little Inca Mummy Girl," though.
Oh yeah, before I forget, are we actually going to do anything with
that Xander-falling-for-Willow scene from Bec2, or will it just be
totally ignored like the one in "When She Was Bad?" (And before
you ask, S.M., yes, I'll acknowledge the possibility that having
these little moments and then not doing anything with them is in itself
an embryonic story arc. In which case it's been a pretty lame one
thus far.)
Eventually something supernatural turns out to be going on back on
Buffy's side of the story. There's a pretty good sinister feel as
numerous people profess to be "no one," we see that a blood bank is
involved, and we turn to the obviously-suspicious guy who talks in
unnatural dialogue about hope and preys on the weak. He turns out to
be a silly looking monster who runs Hell underneath his shelter. Or
what looks a lot like a smallish sound-stage mock-up of Hell as set up
like in those old movies where slaves have to build pyramids or
whatever. The guards here are enemies of hope itself. So naturally
the only thing to do is for Buffy to fight everyone with a stupid mask
in the area, one at a time, in a scene that runs way too long (funny
how that ends up being the answer to everything). Some cool visuals
when she's swinging on poles, at least.
You know, far be it from me to be critical of a hero who's risked her
life for the world so many times, but most of us actually have to work
through our emotional problems without entire symbolic worlds popping
up to push us in the right direction.
Some of the action-hero bravado here is welcome, maybe just because, as
Xander says, we'd been taking it for granted and it's a return to
form for Buffy. Highlights include the bit in the blood center
(especially pulling the phone off the wall), introducing herself to the
guards, and the Ghandi thing. Similarly, the way the story is
constructed pretty much requires that Lily be the one to attack Ken,
and the timing of that scene makes it a good moment too. (Also
conventional-but-effective is the final shot of Buffy and Joyce
embracing. On the other hand, I didn't much like Joyce's earlier
part with Giles.)
Geek note: It's unclear how long Buffy and Lily stayed in
Hopelessland, but with a conversion of 1/36500 (one hundred years there
equals one day above ground), just under 0.1 seconds elapsed for each
hour they spent there. So now Buffy is literally old beyond her years.
For the others, each year working is 14 minutes and 24 seconds of
real-time.
To close with an overall opinion: well, "Anne" tried something
different. And I'm entirely in favor of attempts to break the mold.
This episode's heart was in the right place. The problem is quite
simply that "Anne" only sorta works. A few moments hint at what
could have been, but overall this particular path doesn't seem
especially worth taking, if only because we know that BTVS can do
better than this. And if this review seems overly negative, as it
kinda does re-reading it now, it's because the concepts seem obviously
good... on paper. An outline of the episode would look like a recipie
for the kind of goodness that "Anne" somehow just can't manage.
So...
One-sentence summary: It was worth a try.
AOQ rating: Decent
[Season Three so far:
1) "Anne" - Decent]
Arbitrar Of Quality
professional/academic flux. So I have some time on my hands too
watch/write, and see no reason why I shouldn't be able to crank out
these reviews quickly. Maybe every day, or almost every day. But if I
should become busier in the next few weeks, things could slow down
quite a bit. Just so you know.
-AOQ
Daniel Damouth
news:1141570380.3...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com:
> You know, far be it from me to be critical of a hero who's risked
> her life for the world so many times, but most of us actually have
> to work through our emotional problems without entire symbolic
> worlds popping up to push us in the right direction.
Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooshhh
-Dan Damouth
Shuggie
>
> Six days counts as "about a week," right? I got impatient.
Welcome back.
> So we've got Buffy supporting herself waiting tables as Anne, along
> with a full-time teaching position in the department of aggressive
> mopeyness. The sight of Buffy drifting through life barely living
> pervades the first half of the episode. On the one hand, the change in
> locales give things a unique feel. On the other hand, it seems like a
> lot of the same, and it's not so interesting given that not much
> happens. Plus we've seen Buffy deny her role as the Slayer before,
> and we've spent most of the second half of Season Two watching her
> act lifeless and depressed, so this really isn't as novel as it could
> be.
I don't think they did it to be novel. To have Buffy kill her boyfriend
and not show her depressed would have been stupid.
So you think S2 Buffy is 'lifeless and depressed' huh? Hmm.
> But too much fluff starts to feel inappropriate. And everything with
> W/X/C/O feels like fluff this time around. Cordelia and Xander in
> particular have a bunch of scenes that basically involve their dynamic
> taking a step backward, so they can get back to the same place at the
> end of the episode. Since it's all recycled crap, I can't be
> bothered to come up with a fresh paragraph about it. Here are some
> phrases it would probably contain:
> - clich? "cute arguing"
> - bad romantic comedy
> - predictability
> - unpleasant echoes of The Scene That Should Not Be
> - needless throwback to a less enlightened time
>
Bah humbug! I suppose 6 days was too little time for you to grow a heart
:P
> Oh yeah, before I forget, are we actually going to do anything with
> that Xander-falling-for-Willow scene from Bec2,
You mean the
Xander-telling-his-best-friend-since-he-was-in-kindergarten-he-loves-her
scene? Why do you see it as him falling for her?
> You know, far be it from me to be critical of a hero who's risked her
> life for the world so many times, but most of us actually have to work
> through our emotional problems without entire symbolic worlds popping
> up to push us in the right direction.
But most of our lives would make boring TV. Also one of the ways some
people work through their emotional problems is by writing about it.
Maybe say, writing a show where the horrors and difficulties of high
school are dramatised as real monsters and demons?
>
> Some of the action-hero bravado here is welcome, maybe just because, as
> Xander says, we'd been taking it for granted and it's a return to
> form for Buffy. Highlights include the bit in the blood center
> (especially pulling the phone off the wall), introducing herself to the
> guards, and the Ghandi thing.
The 'Ghandi thing' remains my least favourite joke ever of BtVS.
OTOH 'Hi. I'm Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. And you are?' is one of those
classic hero moments.
>Similarly, the way the story is
> constructed pretty much requires that Lily be the one to attack Ken,
> and the timing of that scene makes it a good moment too. (Also
> conventional-but-effective is the final shot of Buffy and Joyce
> embracing. On the other hand, I didn't much like Joyce's earlier
> part with Giles.)
I liked it whilst not agreeing with Joyce. But it's reasonable that she
should feel that way.
> To close with an overall opinion: well, "Anne" tried something
> different. And I'm entirely in favor of attempts to break the mold.
> This episode's heart was in the right place. The problem is quite
> simply that "Anne" only sorta works. A few moments hint at what
> could have been, but overall this particular path doesn't seem
> especially worth taking, if only because we know that BTVS can do
> better than this. And if this review seems overly negative, as it
> kinda does re-reading it now, it's because the concepts seem obviously
> good... on paper. An outline of the episode would look like a recipie
> for the kind of goodness that "Anne" somehow just can't manage.
>
I like Anne. I like SMG's acting. I like the obvious hero moments. I
love the Scooby light relief back in Sunnydale. It all works for me.
--
Shuggie
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 Three, Episode 1: "Anne"
> (or "I had to move big rocks; they're just chipping away at the
> walls? What a rip off!")
> Writer: Joss Whedon
> Director: Joss Whedon
This is our year, I'm telling you! Best football season ever.
I'm so in shape; I'm a rock. It's all about egg whites. If
we can focus, keep discipline, and not have quite as many
mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is going to *rule!*
-- So, once again we see that people *are* noticing that something a
little weird is going on.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that Act I of this episode opens
with a little something that Joss is quite fond of: The Oner! (So much
so that he opened "Serenity," the Movie with an even longer one.)
The entire opening sequence from Willow and Giles in the library through
to Xander and Cordy looking wordlessly at one another was done in one
take.
Joss really likes doing these, especially when he can move his camera
all over the set (or between sets) while he's doing it.
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
Arbitrar Of Quality
> This is our year, I'm telling you! Best football season ever.
> I'm so in shape; I'm a rock. It's all about egg whites. If
> we can focus, keep discipline, and not have quite as many
> mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is going to *rule!*
Arrr. I knew I was forgetting something. That was supposed to be the
TIRSBILA (This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway) moment.
-AOQ
~well, mentally insert it~
KenM47
I think that was tongue firmly planted in cheek.
Ken (Brooklyn)
KenM47
>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
>threads.
>
>
>BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
>Season Three, Episode 1: "Anne"
>(or "I had to move big rocks; they're just chipping away at the
>walls? What a rip off!")
>Writer: Joss Whedon
>Director: Joss Whedon
>
<SNIP>
> On the other hand, I didn't much like Joyce's earlier
>part with Giles.)
>
Just a quick comment or two now. All Season 2 you loudly proclaimed
why doesn't Buffy tell Joyce the truth. Here, we get some
aftereffects, IMO very believable, of telling that truth - Joyce
blames Giles for her estrangement from Buffy. Yes, it's uncomfortable,
but it's real, IMO.
Another comment: 6 days for you, 4 months or so for those watching
first run. We had just gone through, those of us with some empathy
genes that is, emotional Hell with Buffy "killing" her true love AFTER
he was re-ensouled. We needed her catharsis as much as she did.
This goes to my theory that no newcomer can ever experience the show
as we first-runners did. Commercials, summer breaks, even rerun hell
periods, all in their way contributed to the show's pacing. The
newbies may bring out other things, and some of us (well, me) may get
new slants on things, but some of the magic spells just do not get
cast.
Ken (Brooklyn)
George W Harris
<tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
: I also
:think maybe she shouldn't have been so overwhelmingly pathetic, to
:the point where even at the end, one doubts that anything Buffy can
:ever do for her will actually help much.
<snip>
:Similarly, the way the story is
:constructed pretty much requires that Lily be the one to attack Ken,
:and the timing of that scene makes it a good moment too.
That should dispel all doubts. Lily changed
from someone needing rescuing to the rescuer.
--
/bud...@nirvana.net/h:k
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'
Eric Hunter
*chuckle* Yup, the central conceit of BtVS, especially
the early years, was that the problems we all experienced
growing up would manifest as real, or at least as literal,
monsters.
Eric.
--
BTR1701
KenM47 <Ken...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Of course they did but people like me *hate* that kind of pacing, which
is why I watch TV on DVD as much as possible now. I just finished Season
4 of "The Shield" and I love being able to watch it as one long movie
instead of in tiny bits spread out over 9 months.
Wes <>
<tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
>threads.
>
>
>BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
>Season Three, Episode 1: "Anne"
>(or "I had to move big rocks; they're just chipping away at the
>walls? What a rip off!")
>Writer: Joss Whedon
>Director: Joss Whedon
>
>Six days counts as "about a week," right? I got impatient.
>
>To close with an overall opinion: well, "Anne" tried something
>different. And I'm entirely in favor of attempts to break the mold.
>This episode's heart was in the right place. The problem is quite
>simply that "Anne" only sorta works. A few moments hint at what
>could have been, but overall this particular path doesn't seem
>especially worth taking, if only because we know that BTVS can do
>better than this. And if this review seems overly negative, as it
>kinda does re-reading it now, it's because the concepts seem obviously
>good... on paper. An outline of the episode would look like a recipie
>for the kind of goodness that "Anne" somehow just can't manage.
>
>
>So...
>
>One-sentence summary: It was worth a try.
>
It took me a couple or three viewings to get the point of the demon
world.
When I finally did, the "I'm Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. And you are?"
line became, IMO, a milestone in the life of Buffy Anne Summers as she
continues to accept her role in life and to understand what it means
to the people around her.
Wes
"I'm no one."
Mel
She has moved from accepting death as part of the Slayer package in
"Prophecy Girl" to accepting life as the Slayer now.
Tenagrq, fhpu gurzrf ner ercrngrq va yngre frnfbaf, ohg gurl ner nyfb
zber shyyl rkcyberq gurer. V guvax guvf jnf whfg gur gvc bs gur vproret.
Urer, fur npprcgf yvsr nf gur Fynlre. Yngre, va frnfba fvk, fur npprcgf
yvsr nf n crefba jub vf nyfb gur Fynlre.
Mel
hopelessly devoted
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Three, Episode 1: "Anne"
> Six days counts as "about a week," right? I got impatient.
AOQ! AOQ! AOQ!
Well I guess someone has to be the first. I wasn't happy with Anne
when it first aired and still today have mixed feelings about it.
Overall a very well rounded plot but, at least for me, it lacked
something from the season 2 finale. More later.
> Here we are again. As we did last year, we begin in Sunnydale and see
> how our mere mortal heroes fail to deal with vampires. This time
> there's no hero showing up at the last second. Then we cut to Buffy,
> apparently enjoying her vacation until it becomes an obvious dream
> sequence... the shot of the slums that ends the teaser is certainly an
> interesting way to start the year.
>
> Credits. Sounds like they re-did the theme song a little. Mrs.
> Quality thinks Willow looks a lot better with the shorter/colored hair;
> I'm neutral. Cordelia popping up from behind the couch (is that from
> "Surprise?") makes me smile. Okay, Boreanaz is still there, so
> it's highly unlikely he'll stay just a memory/hallucination for
> long. Hey, Seth Green is a regular now, cool.
AOQ listening to the music? Good timing. What I loved about S3 was
being able to go back to S1 and S2 which, if memory serves, were
reairing at the same time. Willow was probably the most noticable
change over the course.
Loved the use of sound in this ep. The opening scene, along with the
Oner camera shot, was also a very effective "sound effect" busy busy
noisy noisy - silence - music
very nice use of simple sound impressions.
> So we've got Buffy supporting herself waiting tables as Anne, along
> with a full-time teaching position in the department of aggressive
> mopeyness. The sight of Buffy drifting through life barely living
> pervades the first half of the episode. On the one hand, the change in
> locales give things a unique feel. On the other hand, it seems like a
> lot of the same, and it's not so interesting given that not much
> happens. Plus we've seen Buffy deny her role as the Slayer before,
> and we've spent most of the second half of Season Two watching her
> act lifeless and depressed, so this really isn't as novel as it could
> be.
Here is where I also began to have difficulty with the show. At the
end of S2, with the hiatus of no new Buffy, the mind had time to
wonder. Seeing Buffy in the first ep of S3 did not fit in with my idea
of "how it would begin". I thought they would show at least the first
ep without Buffy and concentrate on the "loss" in Sunnydale on the
whole.
> As always, Buffy finds her hand forced by her compassion for someone.
> In this case it's Lily (as she's called now), a relative stranger
> who had a bit part in "Lie To Me." Conceptually, it sounds like it
> should work. I mean, it's a clever way to bring the past back to
> affect the present, and the idea that the character elicits a mix of
> pity and self-identification from Buffy that leads to bringing her back
> into the game is reasonable. But when one actually watches the show,
> well, their scenes together just aren't very interesting. I also
> think maybe she shouldn't have been so overwhelmingly pathetic, to
> the point where even at the end, one doubts that anything Buffy can
> ever do for her will actually help much.
After the reappearance of Darla and Jenny, seeing Lily (Chantarelle,
Sister Sunshine) was not a complete surprise. In retrospect, I wish
they had gone into a little more detail about the "loser preacher"
following Sister Sunshine, Chantarelle, Lily. Although it doesn't take
much to understand her personality.
> The scenes in Sunnydale offer a break from all this, and I guess are
> the comic relief. Since Buffy's friends' paths never intersect
> with hers, these scenes serve mainly to periodically break any momentum
> that the A-story might be building. I wonder if I'd have been any
> happier if the writers had held off on the first day of school until
> next episode, or hell, what if we'd gone without finding out what our
> friends were up to at all? (I'm not including Giles' scenes in
> this dismissal, which are solid, and a natural fit with the mood of the
> show.) Maybe stick with just the first patrolling part, since that's
> the comedic highlight. Special props to Oz's attempt to throw his
> stake at the vamp (and there's even a followup moment with Buffy
> later). I also liked his suggesting a line to use ("there's a
> reason why it's a classic") and Xander's silent agreement.
Don Sample pointed out the Oner and I would also like to point to the
scene in the Bronze where the camera starts off on the singer, then up
and around to Willow and Xander. Nice new tricks in Anne. Starting to
get a little experimental with the show.
In regards to Cordy/Bait - What happened to the stake. Like the car
not moving at the end of B2, it was just a little distracting.
> But too much fluff starts to feel inappropriate. And everything with
> W/X/C/O feels like fluff this time around. Cordelia and Xander in
> particular have a bunch of scenes that basically involve their dynamic
> taking a step backward, so they can get back to the same place at the
> end of the episode. Since it's all recycled crap, I can't be
> bothered to come up with a fresh paragraph about it. Here are some
> phrases it would probably contain:
> - cliché "cute arguing"
> - bad romantic comedy
> - predictability
> - unpleasant echoes of The Scene That Should Not Be
> - needless throwback to a less enlightened time
I also agree, again keeping the hiatus in mind, that the show felt
fluffy. But then again, it could be me.
Very nice change in Cordelia from S1 to S3
Cordelia S1- "Nice to see you've seen the softer side of Sears"
Cordelia S2 -
Willow: You haven't been talking about our little adventure all
summer,
have you?
Cordelia: Are you nuts? Do you think I would tell people that I spent
the whole evening with you?
Cordelia S3
Willow: Hi!
Cordelia: Hey, Willow.
Willow: How was your summer?
Cordelia: Oh, I can't believe you brought that up. Las Palmas was the
nightmare resort.
Nice to see the difference in her character, subtle but obvious.
> I smiled at the reference to "a hot little Inca Mummy Girl," though.
>
> Oh yeah, before I forget, are we actually going to do anything with
> that Xander-falling-for-Willow scene from Bec2, or will it just be
> totally ignored like the one in "When She Was Bad?" (And before
> you ask, S.M., yes, I'll acknowledge the possibility that having
> these little moments and then not doing anything with them is in itself
> an embryonic story arc. In which case it's been a pretty lame one
> thus far.)
>
> Eventually something supernatural turns out to be going on back on
> Buffy's side of the story. There's a pretty good sinister feel as
> numerous people profess to be "no one," we see that a blood bank is
> involved, and we turn to the obviously-suspicious guy who talks in
> unnatural dialogue about hope and preys on the weak. He turns out to
> be a silly looking monster who runs Hell underneath his shelter. Or
> what looks a lot like a smallish sound-stage mock-up of Hell as set up
> like in those old movies where slaves have to build pyramids or
> whatever. The guards here are enemies of hope itself. So naturally
> the only thing to do is for Buffy to fight everyone with a stupid mask
> in the area, one at a time, in a scene that runs way too long (funny
> how that ends up being the answer to everything). Some cool visuals
> when she's swinging on poles, at least.
I had a little difficulty with the "slave dimension" simply because
they never went into detail as to what, or why the work accomplished.
Did they feed on dispair or was there a deamon railroad in the works.
However I did like demon Ken's impersonation of John Malkovitch. Every
time I watch....
> You know, far be it from me to be critical of a hero who's risked her
> life for the world so many times, but most of us actually have to work
> through our emotional problems without entire symbolic worlds popping
> up to push us in the right direction.
No comment at this time.
> Some of the action-hero bravado here is welcome, maybe just because, as
> Xander says, we'd been taking it for granted and it's a return to
> form for Buffy. Highlights include the bit in the blood center
> (especially pulling the phone off the wall), introducing herself to the
> guards, and the Ghandi thing. Similarly, the way the story is
> constructed pretty much requires that Lily be the one to attack Ken,
> and the timing of that scene makes it a good moment too. (Also
> conventional-but-effective is the final shot of Buffy and Joyce
> embracing. On the other hand, I didn't much like Joyce's earlier
> part with Giles.)
>
> Geek note: It's unclear how long Buffy and Lily stayed in
> Hopelessland, but with a conversion of 1/36500 (one hundred years there
> equals one day above ground), just under 0.1 seconds elapsed for each
> hour they spent there. So now Buffy is literally old beyond her years.
> For the others, each year working is 14 minutes and 24 seconds of
> real-time.
blink
blink
blink
> To close with an overall opinion: well, "Anne" tried something
> different. And I'm entirely in favor of attempts to break the mold.
> This episode's heart was in the right place. The problem is quite
> simply that "Anne" only sorta works. A few moments hint at what
> could have been, but overall this particular path doesn't seem
> especially worth taking, if only because we know that BTVS can do
> better than this. And if this review seems overly negative, as it
> kinda does re-reading it now, it's because the concepts seem obviously
> good... on paper. An outline of the episode would look like a recipie
> for the kind of goodness that "Anne" somehow just can't manage.
>
The Joyce and Giles confrontation worked and didn't work for me for
reasons that may include delivery only.
Most disappointing moment for me was Buffy's return at the end. I felt
that they could have waited one more ep before the reunion.
Some of what I felt Anne lacked was the true sense of loss from each
scooby as well as from Joyce herself. I only got it from Giles and
felt they could have done more overall to ease us into the season with
a bit more of the "she's really gone" end of it.
What I imagined over the hiatus was not there and I think may have led
to my ideas of why Anne didn't work for me. There was something very
specific that I wanted to see; Something that IMO would have made the
ep work for me, but it wasn't there. Combined with a lack........it
just seemed as if there were in a rush to get her back to the fold, and
that rush didn't work for me.
Mike Zeares
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
>
> Six days counts as "about a week," right? I got impatient.
Yay! Welcome back.
> Credits. Sounds like they re-did the theme song a little.
They did. Oddly, on my version of the S3 DVDs, the first two eps have
the original theme, for reasons that will probably forever be a
mystery. Anyway, I never liked the remade theme as much.
> To close with an overall opinion: well, "Anne" tried something
> different. And I'm entirely in favor of attempts to break the mold.
> This episode's heart was in the right place. The problem is quite
> simply that "Anne" only sorta works. A few moments hint at what
> could have been, but overall this particular path doesn't seem
> especially worth taking, if only because we know that BTVS can do
> better than this. And if this review seems overly negative, as it
> kinda does re-reading it now, it's because the concepts seem obviously
> good... on paper. An outline of the episode would look like a recipie
> for the kind of goodness that "Anne" somehow just can't manage.
I've been Googling my reactions to "Anne" from back in S3, and found
they were even more negative than yours. The ep has grown on me over
time, mostly due to general S3 love. But I think the original
criticisms that some of us had are still valid. The episode plays like
two separate episodes that were shoehorned together, not entirely
successfully. I suggested back then that the parts with the Scooby
gang should have been the first ep, with the final shot being Buffy in
L.A. Then "Anne" would be the second one. I'm unable to come up with
a way to flesh out either story to a full episode, but then that's why
I'm not a writer. Anyway, to have the Buffy premiere be almost
totally without Buffy would have been much more daring, although the
network probably would have freaked a bit.
As for Those Scenes, you might find this amusing, from one of my old
posts:
**** block quote ****
[snip Cordy and Xander]
It was at this point that I wanted to just shake Joss.
**** block quote ****
Heh. I still don't like the way their scenes interrupt the mood of the
"Anne" parts.
Technical comments. They switched from Super 16mm to 35mm film this
season, and it really shows. It helps that the DVD transfer is
excellent, possibly the best of all the seasons. Buffy's fight against
the demons was exciting (one of my favorite fight scenes), and Chris
Beck's score matched his Emmy-winning effort from Becoming 1, IMHO.
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: It was worth a try.
It's a bit wobbly, but it actually holds up pretty well after all these
years. It was going to be a tricky premiere no matter what Joss did --
the end of S2 guaranteed that.
By the way, if you're interested, I vote for at least every other day
with these. So the threads don't pile up so quickly. Just my opinion.
-- Mike Zeares
Michael Ikeda
news:1141606442.8...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> In regards to Cordy/Bait - What happened to the stake. Like the
> car not moving at the end of B2, it was just a little
> distracting.
>
Did they leave the stake in the vampire?
I seem to recall that stakes tend to get dusted along with the
vampire when that happens. Which is why Buffy often pulls the stake
out quickly when she dusts a vampire.
--
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
Don Sample
Michael Ikeda <mmi...@erols.com> wrote:
> "hopelessly devoted" <cry...@cinstall.com> wrote in
> news:1141606442.8...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
> > In regards to Cordy/Bait - What happened to the stake. Like the
> > car not moving at the end of B2, it was just a little
> > distracting.
> >
>
> Did they leave the stake in the vampire?
>
> I seem to recall that stakes tend to get dusted along with the
> vampire when that happens. Which is why Buffy often pulls the stake
> out quickly when she dusts a vampire.
It depends. If the stake is pulled out first, it doesn't dust. Stakes
that are still inside the vampire when it dusts sometimes vanish, and
sometimes don't. It seems to be related to the size of the stake. Big
stakes are less likely to disappear than little stakes. It may be that
if enough of the stake's mass stays outside of the vampire's body, the
stake doesn't turn to dust.
hopelessly devoted
and
Michael Ikeda wrote:
Thank you. That makes sense.
:->
One Bit Shy
Whoa! Whoa! Stop! Right at the start - the very first scene - something
you've never seen before on Buffy! It's the cemetary. It's night. And you
can see... That's it! You can see!! Look. Faces clearly illuminated.
Recognizable expressions. Why it's positively disorienting.
Ok. You may continue now.
> So we've got Buffy supporting herself waiting tables as Anne, along
> with a full-time teaching position in the department of aggressive
> mopeyness. The sight of Buffy drifting through life barely living
> pervades the first half of the episode. On the one hand, the change in
> locales give things a unique feel. On the other hand, it seems like a
> lot of the same, and it's not so interesting given that not much
> happens. Plus we've seen Buffy deny her role as the Slayer before,
> and we've spent most of the second half of Season Two watching her
> act lifeless and depressed, so this really isn't as novel as it could
> be.
<puzzlement> Novel?
> I also
> think maybe she shouldn't have been so overwhelmingly pathetic, to
> the point where even at the end, one doubts that anything Buffy can
> ever do for her will actually help much.
Helpless to the extreme. Utterly incapable of meeting her desperate needs
on her own. Is that over played? Or the whole point?
Honestly, I feel both ways sometimes. I don't much care for the character,
but then it's not really about her. And she does ask to be Anne at the end.
A nice touch I think.
> I wonder if I'd have been any
> happier if the writers had held off on the first day of school until
> next episode, or hell, what if we'd gone without finding out what our
> friends were up to at all?
I've seen that criticism before - and the suggestion of splitting this into
two shows. I don't agree myself. I don't think there's enough story for
two episodes, and Joss's efficiency in story telling (as in cramming a lot
into a small package) keeps up the pacing. But mainly, I think the jarring
quality of the juxtaposition - where the two don't fit - is pretty much the
point. The two aren't intended as a seemless narrative, but rather as
something broken that needs to be united to get fixed.
> - unpleasant echoes of The Scene That Should Not Be
Oh, come on. Didn't you laugh even a wee bit at the return of the swelling
music?
I didn't care for a lot of the Codelia part myself. It felt kind of like a
step back to me too. Oh, well. None the less, I did enjoy the simple joke
of them both aching to see each other to the point of being giddy, and then
feeling nothing when they finally did meet. I also liked the whole bait
scene.
> Oh yeah, before I forget, are we actually going to do anything with
> that Xander-falling-for-Willow scene from Bec2, or will it just be
> totally ignored like the one in "When She Was Bad?"
You're asking for a spoiler?
Umm - why did you take the scene from Becoming as Xander-falling-for-Willow?
It wasn't very -erm- romantic. I always took that as Xander's love for life
long friend Willow myself. But perhaps you picked up on something I didn't.
> The guards here are enemies of hope itself. So naturally
> the only thing to do is for Buffy to fight everyone with a stupid mask
> in the area, one at a time, in a scene that runs way too long (funny
> how that ends up being the answer to everything). Some cool visuals
> when she's swinging on poles, at least.
Too long? Not to get too personal or anything, but did you like need to go
to the bathroom or something during this scene? I really thought it was one
of the better fight scenes we've seen on Buffy to date. (I liked the
"masks" too.) Oh, well. Different tastes.
> You know, far be it from me to be critical of a hero who's risked her
> life for the world so many times, but most of us actually have to work
> through our emotional problems without entire symbolic worlds popping
> up to push us in the right direction.
Is that a jest, or are you serious?
> On the other hand, I didn't much like Joyce's earlier
> part with Giles.)
The timing was awkward IMO, and hurt the scene. But I think the sentiment
was meaningful. Understandable.
Also, it serves to remind that the people around Buffy aren't always
reasonable. Aren't always sympathetic. Joyce is in good part correct in
her accusation. But she's also still refusing to understand. Giles, on the
other hand, is substantially wrong in his absolution of Joyce - she bears a
good part of the responsibility - yet understands correctly that there is
so much more involved than either of their parts.
> Geek note: It's unclear how long Buffy and Lily stayed in
> Hopelessland, but with a conversion of 1/36500 (one hundred years there
> equals one day above ground), just under 0.1 seconds elapsed for each
> hour they spent there. So now Buffy is literally old beyond her years.
Ha, ha. Well, actually, I think you'd have to term it as old beyond her
minutes - or maybe hours. She wasn't there long enough to move to another
year.
> So...
> One-sentence summary: It was worth a try.
> AOQ rating: Decent
By your system, it would be a Good for me - though the weakest season opener
to date.
(Harmony) Watcher
news:dsample-0366BC...@news.giganews.com...
> In article <ncOdnXhTv8CfDJbZ...@rcn.net>,
> Michael Ikeda <mmi...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> > "hopelessly devoted" <cry...@cinstall.com> wrote in
> > news:1141606442.8...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> >
> > > In regards to Cordy/Bait - What happened to the stake. Like the
> > > car not moving at the end of B2, it was just a little
> > > distracting.
> > >
> >
> > Did they leave the stake in the vampire?
> >
> > I seem to recall that stakes tend to get dusted along with the
> > vampire when that happens. Which is why Buffy often pulls the stake
> > out quickly when she dusts a vampire.
>
> It depends. If the stake is pulled out first, it doesn't dust. Stakes
> that are still inside the vampire when it dusts sometimes vanish, and
> sometimes don't. It seems to be related to the size of the stake. Big
> stakes are less likely to disappear than little stakes.
>
:-p
<rest snipped>
==Harmony Watcher==
Don Sample
"One Bit Shy" <O...@nomail.sorry> wrote:
> > Here we are again.
>
> Whoa! Whoa! Stop! Right at the start - the very first scene - something
> you've never seen before on Buffy! It's the cemetary. It's night. And you
> can see... That's it! You can see!! Look. Faces clearly illuminated.
> Recognizable expressions. Why it's positively disorienting.
>
> Ok. You may continue now.
>
>
> > So we've got Buffy supporting herself waiting tables as Anne, along
> > with a full-time teaching position in the department of aggressive
> > mopeyness. The sight of Buffy drifting through life barely living
> > pervades the first half of the episode. On the one hand, the change in
> > locales give things a unique feel. On the other hand, it seems like a
> > lot of the same, and it's not so interesting given that not much
> > happens. Plus we've seen Buffy deny her role as the Slayer before,
> > and we've spent most of the second half of Season Two watching her
> > act lifeless and depressed, so this really isn't as novel as it could
> > be.
>
> <puzzlement> Novel?
>
>
> > I also
> > think maybe she shouldn't have been so overwhelmingly pathetic, to
> > the point where even at the end, one doubts that anything Buffy can
> > ever do for her will actually help much.
>
> Helpless to the extreme. Utterly incapable of meeting her desperate needs
> on her own. Is that over played? Or the whole point?
And she was doing a better job of meeting her basic needs than 90% of
the kids who run away from home. She had a job, she had an apartment,
she wasn't living on the street.
>
> > I wonder if I'd have been any
> > happier if the writers had held off on the first day of school until
> > next episode, or hell, what if we'd gone without finding out what our
> > friends were up to at all?
>
> I've seen that criticism before - and the suggestion of splitting this into
> two shows. I don't agree myself. I don't think there's enough story for
> two episodes, and Joss's efficiency in story telling (as in cramming a lot
> into a small package) keeps up the pacing. But mainly, I think the jarring
> quality of the juxtaposition - where the two don't fit - is pretty much the
> point. The two aren't intended as a seemless narrative, but rather as
> something broken that needs to be united to get fixed.
And the show is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It isn't "Willow, Xander,
Oz, Cordy and Giles, the Vampire Slayer's Friends."
>
>
> > On the other hand, I didn't much like Joyce's earlier
> > part with Giles.)
>
> The timing was awkward IMO, and hurt the scene. But I think the sentiment
> was meaningful. Understandable.
>
> Also, it serves to remind that the people around Buffy aren't always
> reasonable. Aren't always sympathetic. Joyce is in good part correct in
> her accusation. But she's also still refusing to understand. Giles, on the
> other hand, is substantially wrong in his absolution of Joyce - she bears a
> good part of the responsibility - yet understands correctly that there is
> so much more involved than either of their parts.
>
> > Geek note: It's unclear how long Buffy and Lily stayed in
> > Hopelessland, but with a conversion of 1/36500 (one hundred years there
> > equals one day above ground), just under 0.1 seconds elapsed for each
> > hour they spent there. So now Buffy is literally old beyond her years.
>
> Ha, ha. Well, actually, I think you'd have to term it as old beyond her
> minutes - or maybe hours. She wasn't there long enough to move to another
> year.
At least, unlike a lot of people, he didn't get the time dilation
backwards. Back when this first aired, people were complaining that
years should have passed on Earth while Buffy was away.
Arbitrar Of Quality
> > You know, far be it from me to be critical of a hero who's risked her
> > life for the world so many times, but most of us actually have to work
> > through our emotional problems without entire symbolic worlds popping
> > up to push us in the right direction.
>
> But most of our lives would make boring TV. Also one of the ways some
> people work through their emotional problems is by writing about it.
> Maybe say, writing a show where the horrors and difficulties of high
> school are dramatised as real monsters and demons?
The horrors of high school, sure. You know how much I like seeing
Buffy fight parents who want to posess their children's lives, juvenile
delinquency gone wild, and so on. But what Buffy went through in
"Beocming" isn't an easily anthropomorphized thing we all face, it's
much more personal for her. When the show gets into pain this deep, it
sometimes doesn't mesh with its formula where part of the solution to
every problem is having Buffy kill a demon.
> The 'Ghandi thing' remains my least favourite joke ever of BtVS.
If there's a particular story here beyond just not liking it, please
share.
-AOQ
Arbitrar Of Quality
> Just a quick comment or two now. All Season 2 you loudly proclaimed
> why doesn't Buffy tell Joyce the truth. Here, we get some
> aftereffects, IMO very believable, of telling that truth - Joyce
> blames Giles for her estrangement from Buffy. Yes, it's uncomfortable,
> but it's real, IMO.
I guess I just don't take that kind of total irrationality well in the
people I'm supposed to like. I don't see any way to reach the
conclusion that Giles is at fault for Buffy taking off. And this isn't
an overwhelmed-by-too-much-info-too-fast moment like in Bec2 either:
she's had four months to think this over.
> Another comment: 6 days for you, 4 months or so for those watching
> first run. We had just gone through, those of us with some empathy
> genes that is, emotional Hell with Buffy "killing" her true love AFTER
> he was re-ensouled. We needed her catharsis as much as she did.
> This goes to my theory that no newcomer can ever experience the show
> as we first-runners did. Commercials, summer breaks, even rerun hell
> periods, all in their way contributed to the show's pacing.
Yeah, point taken. But as with the underworld in this episode, there's
time dilation going on. There's six days and there's six days. When a
show is on summer hiatus, there's nothing the viewer can do about it.
Not like spending almost a week with a DVD set containing the answer to
all "what's going to happen next???" questions sitting right there,
next to the TV, constantly calling to you...
I needed Buffy's catharsis too. Let's just say that I liked the things
I believe "Anne" was trying to do better than I liked the actual
product.
-AOQ
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> Shuggie wrote:
>
> > The 'Ghandi thing' remains my least favourite joke ever of BtVS.
>
> If there's a particular story here beyond just not liking it, please
> share.
And someone should point out that, like the impression or not (I
laughed) his name is spelled "Gandhi."
Buffy: Hey Ken. Want to see my impression of Gandhi?
<smash!>
Lily: Gandhi?
Buffy: Well, you know, if he was *really* pissed off.
BTW: Carlos Jacott, who played Ken, was the first of Joss's "hat trick"
actors, to appear in all three of his TV series.
hopelessly devoted
Rkpryyrag cbvag. Ohssl vf gur Fhcrefgne bs gur frevrf juvyr nyy gur
erfg ner zreryl whfg fhccbegvat fgnef. Gurer jbhyq npghnyyl unir gb
or n terng punatr va gur havirefr ng ynetr gb fhqqrayl znxr gur pragre
bs gur frevrf eribyir nebhaq nalbar ryfr. nyy va bar snvy fjbbc.
Arbitrar Of Quality
> Whoa! Whoa! Stop! Right at the start - the very first scene - something
> you've never seen before on Buffy! It's the cemetary. It's night. And you
> can see... That's it! You can see!! Look. Faces clearly illuminated.
> Recognizable expressions. Why it's positively disorienting.
Heh. Well said. It's one of those things that's conspicuous by its
absence in shows like 'When She Was Bad," but then the moment you start
seeing it regularly, you take it competely for granted.
> I've seen that criticism before - and the suggestion of splitting this into
> two shows. I don't agree myself. I don't think there's enough story for
> two episodes, and Joss's efficiency in story telling (as in cramming a lot
> into a small package) keeps up the pacing. But mainly, I think the jarring
> quality of the juxtaposition - where the two don't fit - is pretty much the
> point. The two aren't intended as a seemless narrative, but rather as
> something broken that needs to be united to get fixed.
That's the most creative explanation I've seen yet for
As far as splitting things into two shows... well, I also might have
made Buffy take longer to get home. But the Sunnydale stuff is the
problem for me. The A-story has the potential (if done better and
such) to be its own episode. The B-story most certainly does not. The
characters aren't totally static or anything, but as written, they're
basically spinning in their wheels waiting for Buffy to come back.
She's the Slayer and they're not; like Don says below, it's her show.
> > - unpleasant echoes of The Scene That Should Not Be
>
> Oh, come on. Didn't you laugh even a wee bit at the return of the swelling
> music?
You know what they call people who expect the same stimulus to start
producing different results? ;-)
> I didn't care for a lot of the Codelia part myself. It felt kind of like a
> step back to me too. Oh, well.
Yeah. It's like a bunch of pre-"Innocence" X/C scenes with the purpose
of finally getting us back to post-"Innocence" at the very end. As
much as I fail to like this relationship, it was progressing throughout
the later half of S2 into something involving more genuine affection
and less intense AOQ-contempt. This seems like a werid hiccup; at
least they had an excuse (months apart) and it didn't last long.
> Umm - why did you take the scene from Becoming as Xander-falling-for-Willow?
> It wasn't very -erm- romantic. I always took that as Xander's love for life
> long friend Willow myself. But perhaps you picked up on something I didn't.
We've seen Xander casually talk about his friendly love for Willow
before. This was the vintage moment of melodrama in which a character,
deeply fearing for his friend whom he may lose forever, realizes the
rue love for her that he'd never expressed before. So, yes, I see that
as a very clearly implied romantic "I love you," especially given his
disappointment to hear her calling for Oz afterward. We'll see what
happens, although the show has a history of letting Xander seem to fall
for Willow and then not act on it...
> Too long? Not to get too personal or anything, but did you like need to go
> to the bathroom or something during this scene?
I'd say that question was unworthy of even acknowledging, but of course
this is an acknoweldgment.
-AOQ
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> KenM47 wrote:
>
> > Just a quick comment or two now. All Season 2 you loudly proclaimed
> > why doesn't Buffy tell Joyce the truth. Here, we get some
> > aftereffects, IMO very believable, of telling that truth - Joyce
> > blames Giles for her estrangement from Buffy. Yes, it's uncomfortable,
> > but it's real, IMO.
>
> I guess I just don't take that kind of total irrationality well in the
> people I'm supposed to like. I don't see any way to reach the
> conclusion that Giles is at fault for Buffy taking off. And this isn't
> an overwhelmed-by-too-much-info-too-fast moment like in Bec2 either:
> she's had four months to think this over.
If Giles hadn't been colluding with Buffy and the others to keep the
Slayer a secret, they could have told Joyce at a time that wasn't a
crisis, and had a reasonable discussion about it without any words
spoken in haste, and Joyce wouldn't have kicked Buffy out of the house.
It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but Joyce really isn't at
her most sensible right now. Her daughter has been missing for months.
She's busy imagining all sorts of horrible things happening to her.
Apteryx
news:1141570380.3...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
threads.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Season Three, Episode 1: "Anne"
(or "I had to move big rocks; they're just chipping away at the
walls? What a rip off!")
Writer: Joss Whedon
Director: Joss Whedon
As always, Buffy finds her hand forced by her compassion for someone.
In this case it's Lily (as she's called now), a relative stranger
who had a bit part in "Lie To Me." Conceptually, it sounds like it
should work. I mean, it's a clever way to bring the past back to
affect the present, and the idea that the character elicits a mix of
pity and self-identification from Buffy that leads to bringing her back
into the game is reasonable. But when one actually watches the show,
well, their scenes together just aren't very interesting. I also
think maybe she shouldn't have been so overwhelmingly pathetic, to
the point where even at the end, one doubts that anything Buffy can
ever do for her will actually help much.
Much of what you say here reflects my reaction to this episode... except not
about this part of it. I have no problem with Buffy in the slough of
despond, with Buffy and Lily together or Lily's patheticness. I can see what
you mean about the latter, but for me my willing suspension of disbelief
extends beyond vampires to accepting minor characters who display their
weaknesses more than real people might do. Lily's plaintive plea that "Ricky
takes care of me" when Buffy tells her he is dead might be too self-pitying
a reaction to that news for real life, but within the context of a 40 minute
TV drama, I will accept characters vocalising reactions that real people
might choose to conceal (with the result that you take more than 40 minutes
to find it out about them).
What I think is conceptually interesting but poor in the execution is the
monsters who steal peoples youth and spit them out when they are too old to
work. The episode just seems to lose me once Buffy and Lily head
underground. Though I do like the "Ghandi thing" and also the delivery of
the line "I'm Buffy. The Vampire Slayer. And you are..."
All in all, I'd say "Decent" is about how I would rate it, although its not
far from "Good". It's my 80th favourite BtVS episode, 18th best in Season 3
--
Apteryx
Shuggie
>
>> > You know, far be it from me to be critical of a hero who's risked her
>> > life for the world so many times, but most of us actually have to work
>> > through our emotional problems without entire symbolic worlds popping
>> > up to push us in the right direction.
>>
>> But most of our lives would make boring TV. Also one of the ways some
>> people work through their emotional problems is by writing about it.
>> Maybe say, writing a show where the horrors and difficulties of high
>> school are dramatised as real monsters and demons?
>
> The horrors of high school, sure. You know how much I like seeing
> Buffy fight parents who want to posess their children's lives, juvenile
> delinquency gone wild, and so on. But what Buffy went through in
> "Beocming" isn't an easily anthropomorphized thing we all face, it's
> much more personal for her. When the show gets into pain this deep, it
> sometimes doesn't mesh with its formula where part of the solution to
> every problem is having Buffy kill a demon.
>
True. The best thing the show ever did, after having the 'high school as
hell' formula, is to not stick slavishly to the formula.
But as I understand it you don't like the fact that the show dramatizes
Buffy's problems with monsters (1st para above) and you also don't like
it when they don't use such metaphors. Make your mind up.
>> The 'Ghandi thing' remains my least favourite joke ever of BtVS.
>
> If there's a particular story here beyond just not liking it, please
> share.
>
No story. Just didn't find it funny.
Shuggie
>
>> Just a quick comment or two now. All Season 2 you loudly proclaimed
>> why doesn't Buffy tell Joyce the truth. Here, we get some
>> aftereffects, IMO very believable, of telling that truth - Joyce
>> blames Giles for her estrangement from Buffy. Yes, it's uncomfortable,
>> but it's real, IMO.
>
> I guess I just don't take that kind of total irrationality well in the
> people I'm supposed to like.
BtVS doesn't really do 'supposed to'. It tells stories and you get to
decide all by yourself who you like, who's being 'bad' or 'good' and
what the moral is. That's part of what makes it such a great show (and a
telltale sign of a bad ep is when they try to tell you what to think).
I'd let go of 'supposed to' if I were you. That's for lesser shows. BtVS
is going to confuse the heck out of you if you think there's a 'supposed
to'.
Espen Schjønberg
>
> Buffy: Hey Ken. Want to see my impression of Gandhi?
> <smash!>
> Lily: Gandhi?
> Buffy: Well, you know, if he was *really* pissed off.
I think this shows how human Buff is.
I _really_ like the line. The fact Gandhi is so "wrong" as a violent
character, makes it perfect. And Lily so shocked. Wonderful :-)
--
Espen
Espen Schjønberg
> Don Sample wrote:
>
>
>> This is our year, I'm telling you! Best football season ever.
>> I'm so in shape; I'm a rock. It's all about egg whites. If
>> we can focus, keep discipline, and not have quite as many
>> mysterious deaths, Sunnydale is going to *rule!*
>
>
> Arrr. I knew I was forgetting something. That was supposed to be the
> TIRSBILA (This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway) moment.
What about a TISIIWNSL (This Is So Insane I Will Never Stop Laughing)Moment?
--
Espen
Eric Hunter
> KenM47 wrote:
>
>> All Season 2 you loudly proclaimed why doesn't
>> Buffy tell Joyce the truth. Here, we get some
>> aftereffects, IMO very believable, of telling that
>> truth - Joyce blames Giles for her estrangement
>> from Buffy. Yes, it's uncomfortable, but it's real
>
> well in the people I'm supposed to like. I don't see
> any way to reach the conclusion that Giles is at fault
> for Buffy taking off.
Buffy had an entire life that she kept secret from
Joyce at Giles insistence for a year and a half. In
that time, Giles was very much a father-figure to
Buffy, usurping Joyce's rightful place as parental
authority figure. Think back to Kendra in "What's
My Line", her Watcher took her from her parents
at a very young age. Giles did the same thing with
Buffy, in an emotional context. Joyce is absolutely
correct to blame Giles; if Joyce, Giles, and Buffy
had sat down and talked after "School Hard", Buffy
would have been in a much stronger place in
"Becoming".
Eric.
--
kenm47
I don't know about the stronger place. Buffy's secret life preceded
Giles.
ROT 13 (sorry)
Vs lbh npprcg gur Abezny Ntnva ergpbz nf npghnyyl univat unccrarq, be
nf jung zvtug unir orra jvgu Qnja'f vasyhrapr ba n lbhatre Ohssl va gur
Ohssl-irefr, Ohssl gryyvat gur sbyxf nobhg inzcverf qvq abg tb bire nyy
gung jryy.
V qba'g npprcg gur ergpba, ohg V qb npprcg gur cbffvoyr erfhyg bs fhpu
n urneg-gb-urneg ol n lbhatre Ohssl jvgu Unax naq Wblpr VS fur unq
gevrq gb gnyx gb rvgure be obgu nobhg vg.
Joyce has also never been shown to be the Golden mom, often makes
mistakes in disciplining Buffy, but her love always comes across as
real. Joyce was confused, angry (at herself for the ultimatum) and
feeling used. I still think hrer blaming Giles is not irrational in the
circumstances and very real and understandable within the Buffyverse.
MORE ROT 13
V'z phevbhf nf gb ubj QZC tbrf bire jvgu NBD. V pbafvqre vg gur ybj
cbvag bs gur svefg 3 frnfbaf - nyzbfg n frevrf xvyyre sbe zr. Vs SU&G
unq abg pbzr onpx fgebat, V zvtug unir dhvg gura. Unccvyl vg jnf whfg
na rneyl Abkba noreengvba.
Ken (Brooklyn)
Arbitrar Of Quality
> But as I understand it you don't like the fact that the show dramatizes
> Buffy's problems with monsters (1st para above) and you also don't like
> it when they don't use such metaphors. Make your mind up.
I'm fine with less metaphor, and have no complaints about metaphor-free
episodes. But it's been part of the show from the beginning, so one
doesn't expect it to go away. I just think it works better when the
demons are based off a real-life phenomenon that's scary anyway rather
than when they're based off emotions and personal problems.
-AOQ
Shuggie
I don't get the distinction. In what way are emotions and personal
problems not real-life phenomenon? Are you a Vulcan perchance?
William George Ferguson
wrote:
>In article <1141626555.0...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com>,
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Shuggie wrote:
>>
>> > The 'Ghandi thing' remains my least favourite joke ever of BtVS.
>>
>> If there's a particular story here beyond just not liking it, please
>> share.
>
>And someone should point out that, like the impression or not (I
>laughed) his name is spelled "Gandhi."
>
>Buffy: Hey Ken. Want to see my impression of Gandhi?
> <smash!>
>Lily: Gandhi?
>Buffy: Well, you know, if he was *really* pissed off.
>
>
>BTW: Carlos Jacott, who played Ken, was the first of Joss's "hat trick"
>actors, to appear in all three of his TV series.
And since AOQ comes by way of Firefly fandom, in case you didn't
recognize him, he was Dobson, the Alliance agent trying to apprehend
River and Simon, in Serenity, the Episode.
--
HERBERT
1996 - 1997
Beloved Mascot
Delightful Meal
He fed the Pack
A little
William George Ferguson
>> > I also
>> > think maybe she shouldn't have been so overwhelmingly pathetic, to
>> > the point where even at the end, one doubts that anything Buffy can
>> > ever do for her will actually help much.
> "One Bit Shy" <O...@nomail.sorry> wrote:
>> Helpless to the extreme. Utterly incapable of meeting her desperate needs
>> on her own. Is that over played? Or the whole point?
Don Sample <dsa...@synapse.net> wrote:
>And she was doing a better job of meeting her basic needs than 90% of
>the kids who run away from home. She had a job, she had an apartment,
>she wasn't living on the street.
You crossed a wire there. They're talking about Sister
Sunshine/Chanterelle/Lily/Anne, not Buffy.
One Bit Shy
>> > I also
>> > think maybe she shouldn't have been so overwhelmingly pathetic, to
>> > the point where even at the end, one doubts that anything Buffy can
>> > ever do for her will actually help much.
>>
>> Helpless to the extreme. Utterly incapable of meeting her desperate
>> needs
>> on her own. Is that over played? Or the whole point?
>
> And she was doing a better job of meeting her basic needs than 90% of
> the kids who run away from home. She had a job, she had an apartment,
> she wasn't living on the street.
Lily certainly was trying to take a step forward at the end. And wanted to
think of Buffy as a kind of role model. This theme of you can do it too
wasn't usually the most obvious theme in the series, but I think it was
implicit from the start and pokes its head above ground now and then as it
does here.
OBS
Stephen Tempest
> I just think it works better when the
>demons are based off a real-life phenomenon that's scary anyway rather
>than when they're based off emotions and personal problems.
The problem there is that sooner rather than later, they'll run out of
real-life situations that they can turn into metaphors. At which
point they can do one of three things: cancel the show; repeat
themselves; or develop more organic storylines from the characters and
events they establish in previous episodes - since at some point
they'll have built up enough of a critical mass for this to work.
Stephen
One Bit Shy
news:1141628364....@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
That's really better at what I was aiming for. The A-story is pretty self
sufficient - though as presented, lacking a strong connection to what Buffy
left behind. On the simplest terms, the B-story serves that function. The
B-story on its own doesn't really have a narrative. It's just a snapshot of
a state of existance. That's the part that's really broken and needs Buffy
to get fixed. But right now it's disconnected from Buffy, so it jars when
juxtaposed with Buffy's story. It's supposed too. They need her, but she's
lost. Lily forces Buffy to once again accept who she is. ("I'm Buffy, the
Vampire Slayer. And you are?) But she still has to go home to mend, where,
in a sense, everybody is Lily.
Reading that over again, I'm still not sure I'm being coherent. But look at
how Lily rams her way into Buffy's life. It's a jarring intrusion into her
affairs that throws her off her stride (however slow and despondent that
stride was). The Sunnydale scenes intrude into the episode much the same
way. Buffy had to deal with Lily. And she had to go home and deal with
Sunnydale. There's a structural continuity there that isn't found in the
narrative. I think that's interesting writing and why I wouldn't want the
episode elements to be broken apart.
>> > - unpleasant echoes of The Scene That Should Not Be
>>
>> Oh, come on. Didn't you laugh even a wee bit at the return of the
>> swelling
>> music?
>
> You know what they call people who expect the same stimulus to start
> producing different results? ;-)
>
>> I didn't care for a lot of the Codelia part myself. It felt kind of like
>> a
>> step back to me too. Oh, well.
>
> Yeah. It's like a bunch of pre-"Innocence" X/C scenes with the purpose
> of finally getting us back to post-"Innocence" at the very end. As
> much as I fail to like this relationship, it was progressing throughout
> the later half of S2 into something involving more genuine affection
> and less intense AOQ-contempt. This seems like a werid hiccup; at
> least they had an excuse (months apart) and it didn't last long.
Reset button?
>> Umm - why did you take the scene from Becoming as
>> Xander-falling-for-Willow?
>> It wasn't very -erm- romantic. I always took that as Xander's love for
>> life
>> long friend Willow myself. But perhaps you picked up on something I
>> didn't.
>
> We've seen Xander casually talk about his friendly love for Willow
> before. This was the vintage moment of melodrama in which a character,
> deeply fearing for his friend whom he may lose forever, realizes the
> rue love for her that he'd never expressed before. So, yes, I see that
> as a very clearly implied romantic "I love you," especially given his
> disappointment to hear her calling for Oz afterward. We'll see what
> happens, although the show has a history of letting Xander seem to fall
> for Willow and then not act on it...
You may be right. Calling for Oz was meant to hurt. (By circumstance I
mean, not by Willow's intent.) I still took that as a friend's jealousy -
as in how friends often are hurt when their friend's attention becomes
consumed by love interest for another. Perhaps the moment is simply more
ambiguous than either of us gave it credit for. Xander certainly is one for
confused emotions.
>> Too long? Not to get too personal or anything, but did you like need to
>> go
>> to the bathroom or something during this scene?
>
> I'd say that question was unworthy of even acknowledging, but of course
> this is an acknoweldgment.
Ok, ok. The wrong suggestion. But I really did wonder if you were somehow
distracted at the time.
Cheers,
OBS
Carlos Moreno
> Another thing I'd like to point out is that Act I of this episode opens
> with a little something that Joss is quite fond of: The Oner! (So much
> so that he opened "Serenity," the Movie with an even longer one.)
>
> The entire opening sequence from Willow and Giles in the library through
> to Xander and Cordy looking wordlessly at one another was done in one
> take.
I guess Joss' favourite TV show ever must be Mad About You, then?
One of those outstanding moments in the history of TV has to be
that one entire Mad About You episode done in a single take!!!
The camera did not move, but there were several scenes, including
one requiring a trained dog to do something quite tricky, that
simply blew my mind! The episode had highly emotional moments
and some extremely hilarious ones (the kind of moments that go
to the "behind the scenes" cuts because the actors could not
resist and burst into laugh)
The other extremely brilliant thing about that episode is that
at the end, during the tag, they are sitting in front of the TV
(in case you're not familiar with the series, Paul -- one of the
two main characters -- is a filmmaker), watching some movie and
then Jamie (Paul's wife) goes "awwww, that's incredible". The
conversation then goes more or less like:
J: Awwww, that's incredible
P: I Know!!! (with an expression of awe in his face)
J: Can you believe it, it had been twenty years that he
hadn't seen his mother!
Paul looks at Jamie like "what the hell are you talking
about?" and goes:
P: What do you mean?
J: (continues raving about what was happening in the movie)
P: Honey, who cares about that! Do you realize that the
last 20 minutes have been done in a single shot?
J: Huh?!
P: You know, a single take; there has been no editing.
J: So?
P: What do you mean so? Do you realize how difficult
that is? The actors have to remember every single
line, and can not laugh or anything.
J: Well, they're actors, aren't they?
P: Yeah, but it's, like, there's no room for a single
mistake!!
J: Why would they make mistakes? They're professionals!
P: Well, I don't mean they'd do it on purpose, but....
Jamie abruptly interrupts and ends with:
J: Honey! Honey, you're runing the movie....
Unbelievably brilliant!!!
(BTW, all of the above is pseudo-quoted -- off the top of
my head)
I know, off-topic... But marginally on-topic if that is
one of Joss' favourite tricks :-)
Carlos
--
Scythe Matters
I was iffy to negative on "Anne" upon first viewing. I like it a lot
more in retrospect ("a lot more" being a "good" rating on your scale,
but at the lower end of that rating) some of which I'm going to be
unable to explain to you at this stage, because I think that Joss did a
lot of interestingly experimental work on this story *and* with the
direction, and I don't think most of that registered with me on first
viewing. It's not without problems, and even though the mood is
intentional, it's still quite a downer of an episode...not in the way
"Becoming 2" was, but in a morose, endless-despair sort of sense. The
overall mood of the episode also bears very heavily on something else I
can't talk about yet, but we'll revisit that subject when it becomes
non-spoilery.
In the end, your initial rating was about the same as mine, though your
reactions to the story elements were different.
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> Credits. Sounds like they re-did the theme song a little.
The complete lack of synchronicity in the theme's frenzied finale
compelled Joss to ask them to re-record. Careful listeners note that,
while things are improved, the band still isn't exactly "together."
I'm a fan of the newer version, mostly for its aural clarity, but it's
slicker and definitely a matter of debate and taste.
> Okay, Boreanaz is still there, so
> it's highly unlikely he'll stay just a memory/hallucination for
> long.
Well, Boreanaz is in the episode a lot, so his presence in the credits
makes sense.
This might be as good a time as any to tell you something about the
credits and BTVS: don't assume too much from them.
> Hey, Seth Green is a regular now, cool.
Yes.
> On the other hand, it seems like a lot of the same [...] we've seen
> Buffy deny her role as the Slayer before
I guess I fail to see how you can say this. Yes, she's done everything
from complain to "quit" (for a few hours), and yes she's looked
depressed, but this is a whole new level of self-loathing. This is, for
her, rock-bottom...or rather, some period of t