AOQ Review 5-22: "The Gift"
Arbitrar Of Quality
threads.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Season Five, Episode 22: "The Gift"
(or "I'm not going there to die. I'm going there to see if I really
am alive.")
Writer: Joss Whedon
Director: Joss Whedon
Rather confusing teaser this week with Buffy Slaying a random vampire,
busting out a stake with many close-ups, introducing herself... it
plays like a dream, or an introduction to the series for a new viewer,
or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory of where the series
came from, given that "The Gift" is a potential finale (did Joss
know whether there'd be more when writing it?). It mostly just seems
weird and out of place, honestly. I kinda wish the DVD version
included the whole-series "previously" described in the transcript,
but I suppose I'll check it out once I get to S7.
Then the show returns to its plot. Early in the episode, Buffy vows
not to hurt Dawn yet again, and subsequently has a chance to explain
her weakness in this regard. Why is this the most difficult choice
she's ever had to face? "The Gift" tries to make sense of this,
as it has to, bringing up "killing" Angel and showing how she's
changed to make this even harder. I'm not entirely sure if I buy it,
but at least they tried. More interesting is Giles's response,
having tiptoed around the Buffster enough. "We are not talking about
this." "YES, WE BLOODY WELL ARE!" First riveting moment of
many. And then he seems worried that he's gone too far, much more
restrained on his later dialogue. But the followup by the punching bag
makes it clear that Giles is a Watcher in the noblest sense of the job,
and is ready to do what has to be done for the world's sake. Slayer
and Watcher are pitted against each other, but it's not a screaming
match; they have a quiet respect for each other, but are both ready to
accept that they could be on opposite sides on this one. Watching this
scene made me wonder why the show hadn't gotten around to this
earlier, since it's great, and it follows very naturally from
what's come before.
The writing tends to give this one the support it needs all around,
actually. As I said about "Graduation Day I," "The Gift" has
the near-uniform high quality of scripting that one would like to
imagine all written-and-directed-by-JW entries should. Can I take a
second to mention Buffy sensibly pushing Willow to the front lines, so
to speak, as one of the most powerful of the heroes? Or the moment in
which people are being hard on Anya for not giving any useful advice
along with her incredibly uninfectious enthusiasm, and then having her
actually comes up with some good ideas? Or the way that leads to a
search into the recent past for weapons that starts to get the
adrenaline pumping for a big moment? Good. Even the little scenes
that don't serve a specific greater purpose, like Spike offering
Willow a sip of courage, have their dialogue timed just right.
One of the major important and presumably controversial aspects of S5
has been the handling of the Buffy/Spike interactions. They're
together for a brief time in this episode, and Spike takes the rare
chance to frankly thank her for what she's done, and then brushes the
matter aside as something uncomfortable. His sentence is left
unfinished, and Buffy's side of things is left unsaid. What's to
say, really? She doesn't love him (and he literally can't love her
the way she'd need), but she's come to rely on him, and he proves
once again at the end that he can, in this specific type of situation,
be trusted to do what he can to help. That fact leads each one to
deeply appreciate the other, and I feel okay taking that at face value.
Those shots of Dawn's feet and the view down beneath are very good,
Lots of fighting and action stuff goes down, and it's the show's
best action setpiece in forever. After five years of this, it's hard
to keep coming up with fresh battles. The odd choice of setting some
of the Buffy/Glory fight inside a wooden tower with all sorts of beams
and such in the way of mobility and camera actually comes off very
well. As does the whole action finale, as our heroes finally start to
land some decisive blows against the fallen god. Each one is a little
bit of a bigger fist-pump leading up to ultimate victory (and to the
episode's real climax, after the fight is over). Willow saving Tara
and giving Glory her key bit of vulnerability. The reveal of the Orb.
The reveal of the Buffybot. Xander's entrance with his
wrecking-ball. And finally busting out the hammer and smashing
Glory's face in. I've been waiting a long time for someone to do
that.
Glory is dispatched in the background while Doc rises as an unexpected
threat. Buffy's failure to finish off Ben when she has the chance is
truly a failure, I think. It's also totally in line with the way
she's always been portrayed. Of course once Giles enters the scene,
it's clear where things are going, and that runs a little long, but
it's still a strong moment. I'd expected a sudden stab or
something; quietly smothering him makes the scene play much better,
though. Meanwhile, after a year in which Buffy was losing enough
fights to seem like a problem, she's in full badass mode as she makes
her way to the top at the end to take out Doc. "This should be
interesting." [shove] Kickass.
Once the dimensional barriers go down, there are some cool special
effects, even if they seem to mysteriously be able to detect and avoid
main characters who're involved in emotional scenes. Still, the
visuals are quite pretty, in a destructive way. The street getting
ripped up is a highlight; wonder how the authorities will explain that
one? Plus there's a dragon flapping around. Who doesn't love
dragons?
There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
- "Smart chicks are soooo hot." "You couldn't have figured that
out in tenth grade?"
- Anya and the bunny puppet
- The discussion of what Willow might want with the Buffybot
- "This will be our day of glory!" "Well punned." "Well, it
just called out to me."
- "Did everybody else know the Slayer was a robot?"
"Death is your gift." So unexpectedly literal (kinda like the old
"lead her into Hell" prophecy). Also, "the blood is the life."
I kinda already knew that Dawn would survive this one, and I thought
Anya might eat it after the marriage proposal (it says something about
how full of good stuff TG is that that only gets this little offhand
mention), but I certainly didn't expect Buffy to go. The scene is
very well put together, as Dawn is ready to give herself up, then it
becomes sinkingly clear to the viewer what our hero is about to do.
Loved her unheard final words to Dawn (in some ways I'd have
preferred not to ever know what she said. In other ways I like it as
filmed). And then Buffy dies. I guess it's the sixth one that gets
you. Well, and the first one.
My biggest issue is how little there is afterward, though. We're
given maybe a second to see how the others respond. Spike sobbing
uncontrollably adds a lot, and I'll remember that. The inscription
on the gravestone is perfect; as far as written last words go, "she
saved the world... a lot" is up there with "the future is yours"
from GD. I want more, though. Of course, there are two seasons left,
which I assume consist entirely of grieving for a title character
who's never seen again. Still, though, it feels too abrupt, with no
time spared for a bit of reflection.
Back when we were talking about ATS S1, Terry made note of how rarely
Joss's characters die in a way that honors their life; they're more
likely to just be murdered or die in freak accidents. I thought that a
certain "hero" from ATS had an unusually conventional heroic-type
death, but that he'd earned it through the actions leading up to it.
Well, if a character can earn something like that, and if a show can
similarly earn the right to have a moment of high melodrama, then Buffy
and _Buffy_ deserve it. A lot.
For those who'd like to pretend that the series ends here, "The
Gift" is a solid way to go out. For everyone else, ready to dive
into The UPN Years? Reviews may continue to come a bit slower (two
reviews per three days, maybe), but with no _Angel_, it'll actually
mean more BTVS discussion. See y'all in about a week.
So...
One-sentence summary: A strong finish.
AOQ rating: Excellent
[Season Five ratings:
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
9) "Listening To Fear" - Decent
10) "Into The Woods" - Good
11) "Triangle" - Decent
12) "Checkpoint" - Decent
13) "Blood Ties" - Good
14) "Crush" - Excellent
15) "I Was Made To Love You" - Weak
16) "The Body" - Good
17) "Forever" - Decent
18) "Intervention" - Decent
19) "Tough Love" - Decent
20) "Spiral" - Weak
21) "The Weight Of The World" - Good
22) "The Gift" - Excellent]
BY THE NUMBERS
_Buffy The Vampire Slayer_ Season Five
Bad - 0
Weak - 3
Decent - 8
Good - 7
Excellent - 4
Average rating: 3.55 ["Good minus"] (Decent=3)
Quality Percentage [% of episodes ranking Good or higher]: 50%
_Buffy The Vampire Slayer_ so far
Bad - 2
Weak - 9
Decent - 31
Good - 41
Excellent - 17
Ratings by season:
S1: Mean = 3.67, 50% quality
S2: Mean = 3.55, 64% quality
S3: Mean= 3.86, 68% quality
S4: Mean= 3.5, 55% quality
S5: Mean = 3.55, 50% quality
Series so far: Mean = 3.62, 58% quality
EGK
wrote:
>There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
>ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
>episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
>Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
>Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
>from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
>up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
>episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
>Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
>AOQ rating: Excellent
You're much more charitable than a lot of people with that one complaint. I
thought the episode was good but the practically literal deus ex machina of
the "gods" telling Buffy that it would work made me rate it lower.
I always liked to pretend that Dawn sacrificed herself for the good of her
new family. I thought it would have been just as powerful and even made
sense.
I also used to post that the writers could gone a long way to fixing the
whole problem with one line of dialog from the dying Monk earlier in the
season. Had him tell Buffy that they stole a lock of her hair and fashioned
the key from that to human formt. Of course the inference being that Dawn
was cloned from Buffy. Even then Buffy still wasn't the key.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There would be a lot more civility in this world if people
didn't take that as an invitation to walk all over you"
(Calvin and Hobbes)
drifter
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Five, Episode 22: "The Gift"
> (or "I'm not going there to die. I'm going there to see if I really
> am alive.")
> Writer: Joss Whedon
> Director: Joss Whedon
>
> Rather confusing teaser this week with Buffy Slaying a random vampire,
> busting out a stake with many close-ups, introducing herself... it
> plays like a dream, or an introduction to the series for a new viewer,
> or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory of where the series
> came from, given that "The Gift" is a potential finale (did Joss
> know whether there'd be more when writing it?). It mostly just seems
> weird and out of place, honestly. I kinda wish the DVD version
> included the whole-series "previously" described in the transcript,
> but I suppose I'll check it out once I get to S7.
I'm not sure from your description what "previously" you got to see.
When the episode aired, there was a special "previously" that basically
gave the story of the entire series, in faster and faster cuts, until
each scene was only a second of time. Someone here (raise your hand,
please) went through a recording of it frame by frame and gave a list
of where each scene was from. The thing was a nod to the fact that
The Gift is the 100th episode.
> Then the show returns to its plot. Early in the episode, Buffy vows
> not to hurt Dawn yet again, and subsequently has a chance to explain
> her weakness in this regard. Why is this the most difficult choice
> she's ever had to face? "The Gift" tries to make sense of this,
> as it has to, bringing up "killing" Angel and showing how she's
> changed to make this even harder. I'm not entirely sure if I buy it,
> but at least they tried. More interesting is Giles's response,
> having tiptoed around the Buffster enough. "We are not talking about
> this." "YES, WE BLOODY WELL ARE!" First riveting moment of
> many. And then he seems worried that he's gone too far, much more
> restrained on his later dialogue. But the followup by the punching
> bag makes it clear that Giles is a Watcher in the noblest sense of
> the job, and is ready to do what has to be done for the world's sake.
> Slayer and Watcher are pitted against each other, but it's not a
> screaming match; they have a quiet respect for each other, but are
> both ready to accept that they could be on opposite sides on this
> one. Watching this scene made me wonder why the show hadn't gotten
> around to this earlier, since it's great, and it follows very
> naturally from what's come before.
Buffy doesn't seem to grasp that if the world dies, so does Dawn. She
won't kill Dawn to save the entire world, even if Dawn is a goner either
way? Then again, Dawn *didn't* die as it turned out, so I guess Buffy
had a point. There *was* a way around it.
I don't know why, but I really like that Dawn folded her clothes and set
them neatly under her chair, even though she was going to her death, as
far as she knew.
> Lots of fighting and action stuff goes down, and it's the show's
> best action setpiece in forever. After five years of this, it's hard
> to keep coming up with fresh battles. The odd choice of setting some
> of the Buffy/Glory fight inside a wooden tower with all sorts of beams
> and such in the way of mobility and camera actually comes off very
> well. As does the whole action finale, as our heroes finally start to
> land some decisive blows against the fallen god. Each one is a little
> bit of a bigger fist-pump leading up to ultimate victory (and to the
> episode's real climax, after the fight is over). Willow saving Tara
> and giving Glory her key bit of vulnerability.
"She's with me!" Way to go, Willow!
> The reveal of the Orb.
> The reveal of the Buffybot. Xander's entrance with his
> wrecking-ball. And finally busting out the hammer and smashing
> Glory's face in. I've been waiting a long time for someone to do
> that.
>
> Glory is dispatched in the background while Doc rises as an unexpected
> threat. Buffy's failure to finish off Ben when she has the chance is
> truly a failure, I think. It's also totally in line with the way
> she's always been portrayed. Of course once Giles enters the scene,
> it's clear where things are going, and that runs a little long, but
> it's still a strong moment. I'd expected a sudden stab or
> something; quietly smothering him makes the scene play much better,
> though. Meanwhile, after a year in which Buffy was losing enough
> fights to seem like a problem, she's in full badass mode as she makes
> her way to the top at the end to take out Doc. "This should be
> interesting." [shove] Kickass.
I like that Buffy didn't even seem to notice him, except to shove him
out of the way.
> Once the dimensional barriers go down, there are some cool special
> effects, even if they seem to mysteriously be able to detect and avoid
> main characters who're involved in emotional scenes. Still, the
> visuals are quite pretty, in a destructive way. The street getting
> ripped up is a highlight; wonder how the authorities will explain that
> one? Plus there's a dragon flapping around. Who doesn't love
> dragons?
>
> There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which
> the ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt
> the episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same
> thing as Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little
> buildup.
I believe you may be the first viewer to bring that up. You may have
anything off the second shelf. ;-)
> Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn
> was made from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's
> setting up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the
> whole episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
> Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
>
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
> - "Smart chicks are soooo hot." "You couldn't have figured that
> out in tenth grade?"
> - Anya and the bunny puppet
> - The discussion of what Willow might want with the Buffybot
> - "This will be our day of glory!" "Well punned." "Well, it
> just called out to me."
Those who pun shall be feathered with arrows.
> - "Did everybody else know the Slayer was a robot?"
>
> "Death is your gift." So unexpectedly literal (kinda like the old
> "lead her into Hell" prophecy). Also, "the blood is the life."
> I kinda already knew that Dawn would survive this one, and I thought
> Anya might eat it after the marriage proposal (it says something about
> how full of good stuff TG is that that only gets this little offhand
> mention), but I certainly didn't expect Buffy to go. The scene is
> very well put together, as Dawn is ready to give herself up, then it
> becomes sinkingly clear to the viewer what our hero is about to do.
> Loved her unheard final words to Dawn (in some ways I'd have
> preferred not to ever know what she said. In other ways I like it as
> filmed). And then Buffy dies. I guess it's the sixth one that gets
> you. Well, and the first one.
>
> My biggest issue is how little there is afterward, though. We're
> given maybe a second to see how the others respond. Spike sobbing
> uncontrollably adds a lot, and I'll remember that. The inscription
> on the gravestone is perfect; as far as written last words go, "she
> saved the world... a lot" is up there with "the future is yours"
> from GD. I want more, though. Of course, there are two seasons left,
> which I assume consist entirely of grieving for a title character
> who's never seen again.
You've got a little sarcasm on the side of your face, there. No, no,
other side. OK, you got it.
> Still, though, it feels too abrupt, with no
> time spared for a bit of reflection.
>
> Back when we were talking about ATS S1, Terry made note of how rarely
> Joss's characters die in a way that honors their life; they're more
> likely to just be murdered or die in freak accidents. I thought that
> a certain "hero" from ATS had an unusually conventional heroic-type
> death, but that he'd earned it through the actions leading up to it.
> Well, if a character can earn something like that, and if a show can
> similarly earn the right to have a moment of high melodrama, then
> Buffy and _Buffy_ deserve it. A lot.
>
> For those who'd like to pretend that the series ends here, "The
> Gift" is a solid way to go out.
There are some who feel the show should have ended in Season (pick a
number from 1 to 7). The fifth season is really my favorite, and while
the next two seasons didn't really go anywhere I wanted to follow, I
watched anyway, and was rewarded with some really stellar individual
episodes.
> For everyone else, ready to dive
> into The UPN Years? Reviews may continue to come a bit slower (two
> reviews per three days, maybe), but with no _Angel_, it'll actually
> mean more BTVS discussion. See y'all in about a week.
>
>
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: A strong finish.
>
> AOQ rating: Excellent
I'll tell you what, Arb, I was a little hesitant to click on your review
this time, given your somewhat bumpy track record (oh, c'mon, admit
it!). But an Excellent from you is like a Holy Crap, What A Great
Show! from anyone else.
--
Kel
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own."
Clairel
EGK wrote:
> On 22 Jul 2006 16:03:01 -0700, "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> >There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
> >ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> >episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> >Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
> >Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> >from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
> >up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
> >episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
> >Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
>
> >AOQ rating: Excellent
>
> You're much more charitable than a lot of people with that one complaint. I
> thought the episode was good but the practically literal deus ex machina of
> the "gods" telling Buffy that it would work made me rate it lower.
--It wasn't a problem for me. I thought Joss did a good job building
up to it with the scene from Blood Ties in which Buffy talks about
Summers blood, and the scene from Intervention in which the spirit
guide tells Buffy that "death is her gift." Of course we got
flashbacks of those two scenes at the crucial moment in The Gift, which
were very effective. The whole thing worked fine for me.
The teaser was also fine, I thought. Why shoudn't buffy come across a
random vampire in the alley by the Magic Box as she's outside on some
kind of fresh-air break or something? I don't understand AOQ's problem
with it.
Otherwise AOQ's review seems very perceptive to me, aside from one
comment which I'll get to in a minute. What AOQ said about the major
action scene (the fight between Buffy and Glory on the tower)
interested me because I remember Joss saying in interviews that it was
a bitch to film -- one of the biggest technical challenges of his
career. But the difficult effort paid off. A great action scene.
AOQ, when you say you thought the ending was rushed and there should
have been more time for reflection after Buffy's death, I don't
personally agree with you because I thought the amount of stuff there
was was just fine -- but in a way you may be on to something, because
the fact is that Joss radically changed the timing of events at the
last minute. Originally the previous episode (The Weight of the World)
was supposed to take Our Heroes all the way up to the moment when they
approach Glory's tower and Xander says "Shpadoinkle!". Remember that?
Then The Gift was supposed to pick up from that moment. Which means
that even if the action scenes had been greatly expanded in The Gift,
there still would have been enough time for extended scenes of the
other characters' reactions to Buffy's death -- maybe a funeral scene
or something like that.
And as a corollary, there would have been a lot less room in The Weight
of the World for the stuff that actually filled up that episode.
Because a lot of the stuff that went into the first half of The Gift
would have had to go into The Weight of the World instead. What
happened was that when Joss changed his mind about what would go into
each episode, the writer of TWotW had to come up with a lot of padding
at the last minute. Before I even knew this, I always thought the last
three-quarters of TWotW was incredibly slow, draggy, and tedious. I
loved the opening scene out in the desert, with Spike trying to explain
the Ben/Glory thing to the others, but after they got back to Sunnydale
I thought events were spun out way too slowly. I didn't like all the
long memory scenes inside Buffy's mind. A little of that would have
been fine, but as it is there was way too much of it. Consequently I
was surprised, AOQ, that you rated TWotW as highly as you did. I
didn't want to say anything about it before you had seen The Gift, but
do you see what I mean now about the apportionment of story material
between these two episodes?
For me, though, the problem is mainly a problem with TWotW, which I
don't think has enough of substance in it. I don't really mind the
outcome for The Gift that resulted from this reapportionment; to me The
Gift is chock-full of goodness, and the ending sequence is just as it
should be, no longer nor shorter than it needs to be. But the richness
of The Gift comes at the expense of TWotW. What do you think now that
you know this?
Also, AOQ, since you went off on that facetious riff about the two UPN
years consisting of just people grieving over Buffy, how *would* you
predict the writers will handle the problem of a Buffyless BtVS? I'm
interested in your unspoiled speculations at this point.
Thanks,
Clairel
Clairel
--Elsewhere on this thread I wrote, "Otherwise AOQ's review seems very
perceptive to me, aside from one comment which I'll get to in a
minute." And then (I just realized) I forgot to get to it. But it's
the AOQ comment immediately above.
I have to ask, what does that mean exactly? Spike "literally can't
love her the way she'd need"? What kind of way does she need? More of
a Riley way? I just don't understand this.
I can see that it might be a problem for Buffy that Spike can't love
other people whose last name isn't Summers. Isn't that really the
problem -- Spike's lack of general altruism, philanthropy, the milk of
human kindness -- while loving her (and her family) so exclusively?
Maybe that's what you were trying to get at, AOQ, but the phrasing
threw me off. Or did you mean something else? Please elucidate.
I do like what you said about Buffy and Spike appreciating one another.
That was a marvelous scene there, at Buffy's house in The Gift. What
did you think of the re-invite, AOQ? After the events of Crush,
well.... Just after you saw "Crush," did you anticipate anything like
the developments of "Intervention" through "The Gift"? (I mean the
personal relationship developments, of course, not the specific plot
developments, which of course nobody could anticipate.) Assuming the
problem of Buffy's death can somehow be gotten over, what do you see
right now as the significance that Buffy's somewhat thawed-out attitude
toward Spike will have for season 6? What are you looking forward to
on the S/B front as you approach season 6?
Thanks,
Clairel
Stephen Tempest
>Rather confusing teaser this week with Buffy Slaying a random vampire,
>busting out a stake with many close-ups, introducing herself... it
>plays like a dream, or an introduction to the series for a new viewer,
>or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory of where the series
>came from, given that "The Gift" is a potential finale (did Joss
>know whether there'd be more when writing it?). It mostly just seems
>weird and out of place, honestly. I kinda wish the DVD version
>included the whole-series "previously" described in the transcript,
>but I suppose I'll check it out once I get to S7.
The opening makes a *lot* more sense if you watch the 'Previously'
section first. They were definitely designed to fit together - even
the backing music flows straight from the 'Previously' to the teaser.
(Yes, 'Previously's don't normally have backing music. This one did.)
>Then the show returns to its plot. Early in the episode, Buffy vows
>not to hurt Dawn yet again, and subsequently has a chance to explain
>her weakness in this regard. Why is this the most difficult choice
>she's ever had to face?
I'd hazard a guess it's because of the mental state she's in. She's
just lost her mother; to lose Dawn as well would be just too much.
If this had come up at the end of a different season, maybe she'd have
pushed Dawn off the edge of the tower without a qualm. <g>
>Or the way that leads to a
>search into the recent past for weapons that starts to get the
>adrenaline pumping for a big moment? Good.
I wonder; can we get past this review without having a mass debate on
"when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?" Because
that's possibly the third most controversial scene of this episode...
>Meanwhile, after a year in which Buffy was losing enough
>fights to seem like a problem, she's in full badass mode as she makes
>her way to the top at the end to take out Doc. "This should be
>interesting." [shove] Kickass.
It's worth mentioning how Spike faced the exact same fight a few
moments earlier, and lost.
> I want more, though. Of course, there are two seasons left,
>which I assume consist entirely of grieving for a title character
>who's never seen again.
I knew it! You *have* seen the show before, and you're only pretending
to be a first time viewer!
Although, there are still flashbacks and such-like, so it's not likely
that Sarah will be written out of the show completely.
Stephen
vague disclaimer
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> Watching this
> scene made me wonder why the show hadn't gotten around to this
> earlier, since it's great, and it follows very naturally from
> what's come before.
You're not seeing that this question supplies its own answer?
> The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere,
Only if you completely ignore the theme of the season. It wasn't Slayer
blood, it was family blood. But don't worry - that whooshed past a lot
of people.
> Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> from her seems intrusive
See above. That's what she was trying to get at. But be prepared for the
attack of the terminally literal.
--
Wikipedia: like Usenet, moderated by trolls
vague disclaimer
EGK <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> I always liked to pretend that Dawn sacrificed herself for the good of her
> new family. I thought it would have been just as powerful and even made
> sense.
Well, yeah. But you would have been wrong on just about any conceivable
measure.
vague disclaimer
Stephen Tempest <ste...@stempest.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> "when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?"
Ah. The second most pointless debate in the Buffyverse.
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
no spoiler in pointing out that buffy is dead buried a-mouldering in the dirt
they struggle on as -willow the vampire annoyer- on upn for a few more years
before it finally dies of its own dead weight
while sarah gellar like seth green pursues a movie career
> or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory of where the series
> came from, given that "The Gift" is a potential finale (did Joss
whedon explains that it was to go back to the original idea
the blonde in the alley that gets attack by the scary monster
and kicjs scary monster butt
> Lots of fighting and action stuff goes down, and it's the show's
> best action setpiece in forever. After five years of this, it's hard
unfortunately much of the action is misdirected
the slayerettes seem to be trying to win
when all they need to do is delay
for example when spike is on the tower with doc
it doesnt matter if he goes over the edge
if he had grabbed doc on the way down
do that a couple of times and the suns up and its too late to use the key
> she's always been portrayed. Of course once Giles enters the scene,
> it's clear where things are going, and that runs a little long, but
> it's still a strong moment. I'd expected a sudden stab or
> something; quietly smothering him makes the scene play much better,
its been pointed out that a peacetime army is pompous
and so full of ridiculous regulations that the institution is ludicrous
its then pointed out that peacetime is not the normal environment for an army
soldiers are expected to do terrible things to other humans
in order to protect their society
if you view the watchers as an army
a lot of their pompousity and ridiculous rules and regulations make sense
they are not designed to survive standing around in library or magic shop
chatting or reviewing the slayer or sipping scotch
rather they are designed for a watcher who has to send his slayer
to meet the master when the prophecies leave no doubt she will die
or a watcher who confronting kakaitos knows she is about to be ripped apart
or a watcher who has to explain to scared frightened 15 year old girl
that some mystical whoosit has condemned this girl to short violent life
with only the promise of grisly early death
or a watcher who has to murder a defenseless human being
because thats the only way to protect humanity from an insane hellgod
watchers can still be prats
but they are prats in very dangerous and demanding situations
it also explains the cold bloodedness of people like quentin travers
he has seen scores of slayers go to their deaths during his career
and while head of the council he could easily be party to the deaths
of a dozen young girls like kendra
> one? Plus there's a dragon flapping around. Who doesn't love
> dragons?
hope it got sucked back into its world
i wouldnt want to meet a real dragon
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
> - "Smart chicks are soooo hot." "You couldn't have figured that
> out in tenth grade?"
willow is bi not gay
> - The discussion of what Willow might want with the Buffybot
- pervert - other pervert
arf meow arf - nsa fodder
ny dnrqn greebevfz ahpyrne obzo vena gnyvona ovt oebgure
if you meet buddha on the usenet killfile him
Clairel
--I remember thinking (and posting, on some forums at any rate, though
perhaps not here) a lot about that point back in spring of 2001. I was
dissatisfied because I saw the Heavy Hand of Authorial Contrivance in
Spike's failure to defeat Doc. (For another example of the Heavy Hand
of Authorial Contrivance, see AOQ's remarks on the Willow-Tara quarrel
in Tough Love: it was just something that came out of nowhere, and you
could tell it was there just because the writers wanted a rift between
Willow and Tara at that point of the story, just before Glory's attack
on Tara. The quarrel didn't seem to flow organically from the
characters.) Spike's martial competence has been well established in
the past, and now all of a sudden ol' Doc can outmaneuver him as if
Spike is mired in a vat of invisible molasses? Come on!
In a story that flowed organically from the characters and their
previously-established attributes, Spike would have quickly defeated
Doc and prevented Dawn from being cut. But then we wouldn't have had
the big dramatic climax with Buffy's self-sacrifice, etc.
And I'm not saying I don't want that big dramatic centerpiece; of
course Buffy is the title character, and all of season 5 has been
building up to her leap off the tower. I just wish it could have been
led up to in a more plausible way, without Spike seeming so implausibly
ineffectual. For example, some of Glory's minions could have followed
him up the tower and started shooting arrows at him just at the crucial
moment. Or something like that. There are all sorts of ways it could
have been handled.
What we saw on screen had excellent acting on James Marsters's part.
The look of anguish that he gave Dawn when Doc was holding his arms
pinned, just before Doc sent him off the side of the tower, was
unforgettably poignant. But I can't help thinking that if Spike had
enough time to send Dawn a poignant gaze, he also had enough time to
twist around and shrug off Doc's grip. While the acting was great, the
action (in the sense of martial action) was unconvincing and badly
handled.
Clairel
EGK
<l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
>In article <abc5c250adab93ke2...@4ax.com>,
> EGK <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>> I always liked to pretend that Dawn sacrificed herself for the good of her
>> new family. I thought it would have been just as powerful and even made
>> sense.
>
>Well, yeah. But you would have been wrong on just about any conceivable
>measure.
blah blah blah. You type but you don't say anything. Pretty typical of you
lately to just take shots. Even when you're proved wrong about something
you can't admit it.
BTR1701
"Clairel" <reld...@usa.net> wrote:
> And I'm not saying I don't want that big dramatic centerpiece; of
> course Buffy is the title character, and all of season 5 has been
> building up to her leap off the tower. I just wish it could have been
> led up to in a more plausible way, without Spike seeming so implausibly
> ineffectual. For example, some of Glory's minions could have followed
> him up the tower and started shooting arrows at him just at the crucial
> moment.
Or something as simple as Doc pulling out a cross.
BTR1701
vague disclaimer <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
> In article <9pg5c25jufrki186q...@4ax.com>,
> Stephen Tempest <ste...@stempest.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > "when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?"
>
> Ah. The second most pointless debate in the Buffyverse.
I challenge you to come up with a "Buffyverse" debate that isn't
pointless. After all, it's just a TV show.
Don Sample
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> writes:
> I wonder; can we get past this review without having a mass debate on
> "when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?" Because
> that's possibly the third most controversial scene of this episode...
That was just Anya the salesperson, talking up the hammer to better sell
her idea.
>
> >Meanwhile, after a year in which Buffy was losing enough
> >fights to seem like a problem, she's in full badass mode as she makes
> >her way to the top at the end to take out Doc. "This should be
> >interesting." [shove] Kickass.
>
> It's worth mentioning how Spike faced the exact same fight a few
> moments earlier, and lost.
The Spike vs Doc fight lasted about 10 times longer.
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
One Bit Shy
news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Five, Episode 22: "The Gift"
> Rather confusing teaser this week with Buffy Slaying a random vampire,
> busting out a stake with many close-ups, introducing herself... it
> plays like a dream, or an introduction to the series for a new viewer,
> or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory of where the series
> came from, given that "The Gift" is a potential finale (did Joss
> know whether there'd be more when writing it?). It mostly just seems
> weird and out of place, honestly. I kinda wish the DVD version
> included the whole-series "previously" described in the transcript,
> but I suppose I'll check it out once I get to S7.
At the time it was written I think the status of the show was probably still
up in the air, though I've never been certain who believed what when. I do
know that Joss has spoken of how frustrated (more like angered) with the
uncertain status of the show and Fox's play for a big price increase. And
Joss has stated that he wrote this as a series ender. (Though I wouldn't
assume that it necessarily would have been all that different had he not
intended it that way.)
In any case, yeah, I assume the teaser was meant as a little mini-mission
statement for the series. A brief reminder. It does feel a little
jarring - particularly after the previous run of espisodes. But I still
think it's pretty cool. And it was nice to get in one last vampire slay. I
also think it served a secondary function by quickly demonstrating that
Buffy has moved past her bout with catatonia and is back on her game.
> Then the show returns to its plot. Early in the episode, Buffy vows
> not to hurt Dawn yet again, and subsequently has a chance to explain
> her weakness in this regard. Why is this the most difficult choice
> she's ever had to face? "The Gift" tries to make sense of this,
> as it has to, bringing up "killing" Angel and showing how she's
> changed to make this even harder. I'm not entirely sure if I buy it,
> but at least they tried.
It's not that it's a difficult choice, exactly, since Buffy has never veered
from her decision. But it is, for her, the impossible conflict in
responsibility. She was willing to sacrifice Angel for the greater good.
But she isn't willing to sacrifice Dawn. Dawn is the ultimate
representation of what she's trying to protect by being a slayer. If Dawn
has to be sacrificed, then she can't believe in being The Slayer - and
won't. (Or you can look at it as Buffy have a sacred obligation to be
Dawn's personal champion, which risks running against her other obligation
as the people's champion. Either way leads you to the same impasse.)
That's part of the test for Buffy in this episode - and season. How does
she reconcile her commitment to being The Slayer with her commitment to
protecting Dawn when the two are at odds? You saw her answer.
> More interesting is Giles's response,
> having tiptoed around the Buffster enough. "We are not talking about
> this." "YES, WE BLOODY WELL ARE!" First riveting moment of
> many. And then he seems worried that he's gone too far, much more
> restrained on his later dialogue. But the followup by the punching bag
> makes it clear that Giles is a Watcher in the noblest sense of the job,
> and is ready to do what has to be done for the world's sake. Slayer
> and Watcher are pitted against each other, but it's not a screaming
> match; they have a quiet respect for each other, but are both ready to
> accept that they could be on opposite sides on this one. Watching this
> scene made me wonder why the show hadn't gotten around to this
> earlier, since it's great, and it follows very naturally from
> what's come before.
Probably because it's not an easy conflict to move past. They may have both
known about this deep down for some time, but could never truly face off on
it until truly great circumstances demand it. I feel bad for Giles though,
that he must go on knowing that they entered the final battle not wholely
trusting each other. On the other hand, Buffy finding the way at the end
must truly awe him too. He didn't believe in it. Buffy showed him wrong.
> The writing tends to give this one the support it needs all around,
> actually. As I said about "Graduation Day I," "The Gift" has
> the near-uniform high quality of scripting that one would like to
> imagine all written-and-directed-by-JW entries should. Can I take a
> second to mention Buffy sensibly pushing Willow to the front lines, so
> to speak, as one of the most powerful of the heroes? Or the moment in
> which people are being hard on Anya for not giving any useful advice
> along with her incredibly uninfectious enthusiasm, and then having her
> actually comes up with some good ideas?
Anya's quest for humanity had more or less won people over through this
year, but she still wasn't getting a lot of respect. What I personally find
doubly nice about this bit is that it really shouldn't be news. Anya has,
in fact, been providing useful information and input all along, and has
demonstrated ability, imagination and adaptability in all that she does.
Don't you think she has a lot to do with the success of the Magic Box? So,
yeah, it was great seeing people get whacked upside the head with Anya's
clear thinking that brought crucial aid to the final battle with Glory.
> Or the way that leads to a
> search into the recent past for weapons that starts to get the
> adrenaline pumping for a big moment? Good. Even the little scenes
> that don't serve a specific greater purpose, like Spike offering
> Willow a sip of courage, have their dialogue timed just right.
Heh. A lot better timing than Spike's offer of it to Buffy on their "date".
> One of the major important and presumably controversial aspects of S5
> has been the handling of the Buffy/Spike interactions. They're
> together for a brief time in this episode, and Spike takes the rare
> chance to frankly thank her for what she's done, and then brushes the
> matter aside as something uncomfortable. His sentence is left
> unfinished, and Buffy's side of things is left unsaid. What's to
> say, really? She doesn't love him (and he literally can't love her
> the way she'd need), but she's come to rely on him, and he proves
> once again at the end that he can, in this specific type of situation,
> be trusted to do what he can to help. That fact leads each one to
> deeply appreciate the other, and I feel okay taking that at face value.
They resolve their situation with respect. (Though I think it did take a
lot of heart from Buffy to allow for the possibility.) It seems so simple
and right. But we know it was anything but easy for both of them to get to
this point. Oh my no. Still, it's good they got there. I'm very fond of
that scene.
> Those shots of Dawn's feet and the view down beneath are very good,
I like the brief moment when we see Dawn become aware that there's fighting
going on below - that Buffy has come. It's not that much is actually
shown - hard to do that. But situationally it packs a punch. Dawn had kept
her faith in Buffy remarkebly well, but it sure helps build hope to have the
good guys show up loaded for bear.
> Lots of fighting and action stuff goes down, and it's the show's
> best action setpiece in forever. After five years of this, it's hard
> to keep coming up with fresh battles. The odd choice of setting some
> of the Buffy/Glory fight inside a wooden tower with all sorts of beams
> and such in the way of mobility and camera actually comes off very
> well. As does the whole action finale, as our heroes finally start to
> land some decisive blows against the fallen god. Each one is a little
> bit of a bigger fist-pump leading up to ultimate victory (and to the
> episode's real climax, after the fight is over). Willow saving Tara
> and giving Glory her key bit of vulnerability. The reveal of the Orb.
> The reveal of the Buffybot. Xander's entrance with his
> wrecking-ball. And finally busting out the hammer and smashing
> Glory's face in. I've been waiting a long time for someone to do
> that.
I still roll my eyes at the wrecking ball, but at the same time find it
irresistable as the blow that informs Glory that she's really going to lose.
Anyway, wrecking ball aside, it's a fabulous fight. Wonderful hammer - and
I sure can imagine you rooting for Glory to get it good. <g> I tend to
think of this as Buffy at her fighting best. Something we may have lost
touch with in the last few episodes of misery and her repeated losses to
Glory, is that all season Buffy has been buildng herself into a fighting
form well beyond anything she was capable of before. That little tidbit is
also part of the setup for this challenge - which is designed to be
impossible for Buffy. Even at her fighting very best - doing the previously
believed to be impossible task of beating a god in battle - she still
couldn't get there in time to stop the ritual.
> Glory is dispatched in the background while Doc rises as an unexpected
> threat. Buffy's failure to finish off Ben when she has the chance is
> truly a failure, I think. It's also totally in line with the way
> she's always been portrayed. Of course once Giles enters the scene,
> it's clear where things are going, and that runs a little long, but
> it's still a strong moment. I'd expected a sudden stab or
> something; quietly smothering him makes the scene play much better,
> though.
"...and still she couldn't take a human life."
> Meanwhile, after a year in which Buffy was losing enough
> fights to seem like a problem, she's in full badass mode as she makes
> her way to the top at the end to take out Doc. "This should be
> interesting." [shove] Kickass.
Every way you look at it. My favorite moment, though, is still the kickoff
to the fight when Willow steps in get Tara's mind back. Aside from the
satisfaction in that alone, it really set the tone for how this time it
would be different. Go Willow!
> Once the dimensional barriers go down, there are some cool special
> effects, even if they seem to mysteriously be able to detect and avoid
> main characters who're involved in emotional scenes. Still, the
> visuals are quite pretty, in a destructive way. The street getting
> ripped up is a highlight; wonder how the authorities will explain that
> one? Plus there's a dragon flapping around. Who doesn't love
> dragons?
So is there a lonely dragon flapping around the California desert now?
> There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
> ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
> Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
> up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
> episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
> Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
Not a big deal? Ha-ha-ha. It's rather a controversey. As is whether Buffy
is seeking suicide. (As opposed to pure sacrifice.)
In any case, there is a fair amount of background intended to support this -
some of it shown in Buffy's flashback. But it's not the clearest support -
certainly not the type to get you to go, yeah, that makes perfect sense!
Personally I suspect the writers all year have been stuck in an awkward spot
where they wanted to provide necessary backup and foreshadowing without
letting the cat out of the bag until the very last moment. The end result
was a lot of vague stuff requiring you to fill a lot of holes. But
ultimately, the power of the moment is in the idea of what Buffy does, not
in the mechanics of it, so I too tend to let it go.
> "Death is your gift." So unexpectedly literal (kinda like the old
> "lead her into Hell" prophecy). Also, "the blood is the life."
> I kinda already knew that Dawn would survive this one, and I thought
> Anya might eat it after the marriage proposal (it says something about
> how full of good stuff TG is that that only gets this little offhand
> mention), but I certainly didn't expect Buffy to go. The scene is
> very well put together, as Dawn is ready to give herself up, then it
> becomes sinkingly clear to the viewer what our hero is about to do.
> Loved her unheard final words to Dawn (in some ways I'd have
> preferred not to ever know what she said. In other ways I like it as
> filmed). And then Buffy dies. I guess it's the sixth one that gets
> you. Well, and the first one.
I may come back to this - I don't know. I don't have a lot of time right
now. But I just wnated to point out one thing about the gift. Buffy
doesn't just save Dawn by her choice. She establishes that Dawn is human.
This is what you especially get out of all the muckety-muck about their
blood being the same. By Buffy being able to close the gates with her
blood, it establishes that Dawn's blood is just the same - human. That
matters. Even as late as this episode you have Giles saying that Dawn isn't
Buffy's sister. So when you open Buffy's gift of death, it bestows life.
Not merely save it. Not merely sacrifice for it. Buffy grants human status
to Dawn. There are other things about the death I'm not going to go into,
but that piece of it I think is especially beautiful.
> My biggest issue is how little there is afterward, though. We're
> given maybe a second to see how the others respond. Spike sobbing
> uncontrollably adds a lot, and I'll remember that. The inscription
> on the gravestone is perfect; as far as written last words go, "she
> saved the world... a lot" is up there with "the future is yours"
> from GD. I want more, though. Of course, there are two seasons left,
> which I assume consist entirely of grieving for a title character
> who's never seen again. Still, though, it feels too abrupt, with no
> time spared for a bit of reflection.
I've thought about that before too. Sometimes I think it's just the usual
issue of how much are you going to squeeze in under 45 minutes? (And Joss
tends - at least at his best - not to belabor things. He's very efficient
in getting ideas across.) But I don't think I really want it to go on
longer. The power of the show is in the event, not the mourning. (Except
for the immediate reaction which tells us, yes, it's true, and the grave
telling us, yes, really, really, it's true.) The mourning is left to us as
the final image fades away. My mourning is infused with the images of her
jumping and her body on the ground and the grave especially. That's kinda
what I want. It makes me cry plenty enough - and this episode is probably
the one most guaranteed to get my tears coming.
> Back when we were talking about ATS S1, Terry made note of how rarely
> Joss's characters die in a way that honors their life; they're more
> likely to just be murdered or die in freak accidents. I thought that a
> certain "hero" from ATS had an unusually conventional heroic-type
> death, but that he'd earned it through the actions leading up to it.
> Well, if a character can earn something like that, and if a show can
> similarly earn the right to have a moment of high melodrama, then Buffy
> and _Buffy_ deserve it. A lot.
She's a hero you see.
And she always was. But to me, somehow, that takes on a more mythic quality
here.
> For those who'd like to pretend that the series ends here, "The
> Gift" is a solid way to go out. For everyone else, ready to dive
> into The UPN Years? Reviews may continue to come a bit slower (two
> reviews per three days, maybe), but with no _Angel_, it'll actually
> mean more BTVS discussion. See y'all in about a week.
You know I am. S6 will challenge you. But I've been waiting all year for
you to get to here. For me, what's coming up is the most rewarding part of
the series.
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: A strong finish.
>
> AOQ rating: Excellent
Sure is.
I'll compare ratings later. We had some whopping differences, but I don't
think near as bad as S4.
OBS
Don Sample
> --I remember thinking (and posting, on some forums at any rate, though
> perhaps not here) a lot about that point back in spring of 2001. I was
> dissatisfied because I saw the Heavy Hand of Authorial Contrivance in
> Spike's failure to defeat Doc. (For another example of the Heavy Hand
> of Authorial Contrivance, see AOQ's remarks on the Willow-Tara quarrel
> in Tough Love: it was just something that came out of nowhere, and you
> could tell it was there just because the writers wanted a rift between
> Willow and Tara at that point of the story, just before Glory's attack
> on Tara. The quarrel didn't seem to flow organically from the
> characters.) Spike's martial competence has been well established in
> the past, and now all of a sudden ol' Doc can outmaneuver him as if
> Spike is mired in a vat of invisible molasses? Come on!
You mean the way Spike's martial competence allowed him to kick Doc's
ass last week...wait a moment, Doc was winning that fight too, until
Xander stepped in.
Doc being a real threat to Spike had already been established.
> In a story that flowed organically from the characters and their
> previously-established attributes, Spike would have quickly defeated
> Doc and prevented Dawn from being cut. But then we wouldn't have had
> the big dramatic climax with Buffy's self-sacrifice, etc.
>
> And I'm not saying I don't want that big dramatic centerpiece; of
> course Buffy is the title character, and all of season 5 has been
> building up to her leap off the tower. I just wish it could have been
> led up to in a more plausible way, without Spike seeming so implausibly
> ineffectual. For example, some of Glory's minions could have followed
> him up the tower and started shooting arrows at him just at the crucial
> moment. Or something like that. There are all sorts of ways it could
> have been handled.
>
> What we saw on screen had excellent acting on James Marsters's part.
> The look of anguish that he gave Dawn when Doc was holding his arms
> pinned, just before Doc sent him off the side of the tower, was
> unforgettably poignant. But I can't help thinking that if Spike had
> enough time to send Dawn a poignant gaze, he also had enough time to
> twist around and shrug off Doc's grip. While the acting was great, the
> action (in the sense of martial action) was unconvincing and badly
> handled.
The way Doc was holding Spike, the best Spike could hope for would be to
take Doc with him, when he went off the tower. The only way Spike
wasn't going off the tower, after Doc had him like that, would be for
Doc to pull him back. If Spike broke free from Doc's hold on him, Spike
was going down.
Clairel
Don Sample wrote:
> In article <1153616758.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> "Clairel" <reld...@usa.net> wrote:
>
> > --I remember thinking (and posting, on some forums at any rate, though
> > perhaps not here) a lot about that point back in spring of 2001. I was
> > dissatisfied because I saw the Heavy Hand of Authorial Contrivance in
> > Spike's failure to defeat Doc. (For another example of the Heavy Hand
> > of Authorial Contrivance, see AOQ's remarks on the Willow-Tara quarrel
> > in Tough Love: it was just something that came out of nowhere, and you
> > could tell it was there just because the writers wanted a rift between
> > Willow and Tara at that point of the story, just before Glory's attack
> > on Tara. The quarrel didn't seem to flow organically from the
> > characters.) Spike's martial competence has been well established in
> > the past, and now all of a sudden ol' Doc can outmaneuver him as if
> > Spike is mired in a vat of invisible molasses? Come on!
>
> You mean the way Spike's martial competence allowed him to kick Doc's
> ass last week...wait a moment, Doc was winning that fight too, until
> Xander stepped in.
--That seemed pretty implausible to me, too. In any case, when Doc
opened his eyes again it became clear that he had *let* Xander defeat
him because he wanted to appear to be dead, so that Xander and Spike
would just go and leave him alone. I'm sure Doc could have fought
Xander off much more effectually if he had wanted to.
> Doc being a real threat to Spike had already been established.
>
>
> > In a story that flowed organically from the characters and their
> > previously-established attributes, Spike would have quickly defeated
> > Doc and prevented Dawn from being cut. But then we wouldn't have had
> > the big dramatic climax with Buffy's self-sacrifice, etc.
> >
> > And I'm not saying I don't want that big dramatic centerpiece; of
> > course Buffy is the title character, and all of season 5 has been
> > building up to her leap off the tower. I just wish it could have been
> > led up to in a more plausible way, without Spike seeming so implausibly
> > ineffectual. For example, some of Glory's minions could have followed
> > him up the tower and started shooting arrows at him just at the crucial
> > moment. Or something like that. There are all sorts of ways it could
> > have been handled.
> >
> > What we saw on screen had excellent acting on James Marsters's part.
> > The look of anguish that he gave Dawn when Doc was holding his arms
> > pinned, just before Doc sent him off the side of the tower, was
> > unforgettably poignant. But I can't help thinking that if Spike had
> > enough time to send Dawn a poignant gaze, he also had enough time to
> > twist around and shrug off Doc's grip. While the acting was great, the
> > action (in the sense of martial action) was unconvincing and badly
> > handled.
>
> The way Doc was holding Spike, the best Spike could hope for would be to
> take Doc with him, when he went off the tower.
--Well, taking Doc off the tower with him would have fulfilled the
objective just fine. That is in fact what Spike should have tried to
do, instead of just standing there looking poignant.
Clairel
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 22: "The Gift"
> (or "I'm not going there to die. I'm going there to see if I really
> am alive.")
> Writer: Joss Whedon
> Director: Joss Whedon
>
> Rather confusing teaser this week with Buffy Slaying a random vampire,
> busting out a stake with many close-ups, introducing herself... it
> plays like a dream, or an introduction to the series for a new viewer,
> or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory of where the series
> came from, given that "The Gift" is a potential finale (did Joss
> know whether there'd be more when writing it?).
Yes, they knew that they were going to be getting a sixth season when
Joss was writing this episode.
> There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
> ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
> Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
> up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
> episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
> Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
I have always felt that the bit about the blood was more metaphorical
than literal. Why did it work? We may never know for sure, but Buffy
knew that it would work.
Something that I haven't seen anyone mention yet is the big debate over
the "Slayer Death Wish" and whether or not what Buffy did counts as
committing suicide.
Clairel
--I was wondering myself if AOQ, when writing about "The Gift," would
think back to "Fool For Love" and the death-wish convversation between
Spike and Buffy. AOQ remembered it in his review of "The Weight of the
World."
Clairel
DysgraphicProgrammer
vague disclaimer wrote:
> In article <9pg5c25jufrki186q...@4ax.com>,
> Stephen Tempest <ste...@stempest.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > "when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?"
>
> Ah. The second most pointless debate in the Buffyverse.
> --
(Harmony) Watcher
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Five, Episode 22: "The Gift"
> (or "I'm not going there to die. I'm going there to see if I really
> am alive.")
> Writer: Joss Whedon
> Director: Joss Whedon
>
>
> The writing tends to give this one the support it needs all around,
> actually. As I said about "Graduation Day I," "The Gift" has
> the near-uniform high quality of scripting that one would like to
> imagine all written-and-directed-by-JW entries should. Can I take a
> second to mention Buffy sensibly pushing Willow to the front lines, so
> to speak, as one of the most powerful of the heroes? Or the moment in
> which people are being hard on Anya for not giving any useful advice
> along with her incredibly uninfectious enthusiasm, and then having her
> actually comes up with some good ideas? Or the way that leads to a
> search into the recent past for weapons that starts to get the
> adrenaline pumping for a big moment? Good.
>
nor was it Willow. Whatever happend to {
Sha me-en-dan
Gesh-toog me-en-dan
Zee me-en-den
Oo-khush-ta me-ool-lee-a ba-ab-tum-mu-do-en
}?
Glory fell from the sky from mile high and survived with no visible damage.
How did Glory suddenly become so easily destructible from hammer blows?
Contrast the potential energy released by a human-sized object dropped from
a few hundred feet above the ground and the energy delivered by a hammer
blow backed by Slayer muscles. What happened to Glory's "force fields" or
whatever you want to call it that she used to deflect Willow's flying
daggers?
I needed a small spoonful of suspension of disbelief to get over this one.
> <snip>
>
> Once the dimensional barriers go down, there are some cool special
> effects, even if they seem to mysteriously be able to detect and avoid
> main characters who're involved in emotional scenes. Still, the
> visuals are quite pretty, in a destructive way. The street getting
> ripped up is a highlight; wonder how the authorities will explain that
> one? Plus there's a dragon flapping around. Who doesn't love
> dragons?
>
>
Where did that dragon go in the end? It seemed to me that it entered the
dimension of Buffy's homeworld? Hope it escaped to the Amazon jungle (if
there were any trees left) before some zoo guy caught up with it.
> There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
> ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
> Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
> up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
> episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
> Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
>
>
IMO, the best wanked theory so far is that Drac was monks' mystical
container for drawing Buffy's blood. Dawn was made flesh and blood from
Buffy. YMMV
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
> - "Smart chicks are soooo hot." "You couldn't have figured that
> out in tenth grade?"
> - Anya and the bunny puppet
> - The discussion of what Willow might want with the Buffybot
> - "This will be our day of glory!" "Well punned." "Well, it
> just called out to me."
> - "Did everybody else know the Slayer was a robot?"
>
> "Death is your gift." So unexpectedly literal (kinda like the old
> "lead her into Hell" prophecy). Also, "the blood is the life."
> I kinda already knew that Dawn would survive this one, and I thought
> Anya might eat it after the marriage proposal (it says something about
> how full of good stuff TG is that that only gets this little offhand
> mention), but I certainly didn't expect Buffy to go. The scene is
> very well put together, as Dawn is ready to give herself up, then it
> becomes sinkingly clear to the viewer what our hero is about to do.
> Loved her unheard final words to Dawn (in some ways I'd have
> preferred not to ever know what she said. In other ways I like it as
> filmed). And then Buffy dies. I guess it's the sixth one that gets
> you. Well, and the first one.
>
>
In a way, her final words to Dawn sealed her death with a suicide signature
despite her saving the world with her swan-dive. Those final words offered
the most compelling (meta-)reason why Season 5 should not and could not be
the end of our hero's journey.
> My biggest issue is how little there is afterward, though. We're
> given maybe a second to see how the others respond. Spike sobbing
> uncontrollably adds a lot, and I'll remember that.
>
Spike was crying like a river! I wonder what the demon soul inside William's
husk was feeling at that point; utter confusion and revulsion, perhaps,
while William's persona completely taking over the Spike creature.
I'm glad you rated the episode "excellent" which it deserves. I came to
appreciate "The Gift" even more after finishing Season 6.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
(Harmony) Watcher
"EGK" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:abc5c250adab93ke2...@4ax.com...
> On 22 Jul 2006 16:03:01 -0700, "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> >There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
> >ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> >episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> >Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
> >Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> >from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
> >up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
> >episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
> >Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
>
> >AOQ rating: Excellent
>
> You're much more charitable than a lot of people with that one complaint.
I
> thought the episode was good but the practically literal deus ex machina
of
> the "gods" telling Buffy that it would work made me rate it lower.
>
> I always liked to pretend that Dawn sacrificed herself for the good of her
> new family. I thought it would have been just as powerful and even made
> sense.
>
sealed her swan dive with a suicide signature is exactly the right incentive
why the series went on after her swan dive. Her swan dive spawned the need
for Season 6.
> I also used to post that the writers could gone a long way to fixing the
> whole problem with one line of dialog from the dying Monk earlier in the
> season. Had him tell Buffy that they stole a lock of her hair and
fashioned
> the key from that to human formt.
>
Or tell Buffy that Drac was their mystical blood container.
> Of course the inference being that Dawn
> was cloned from Buffy. Even then Buffy still wasn't the key.
>
Everything is about blood. Blood is the key. If Dawn's blood can open and
close the portal, Buffy's blood can certainly close it, assuming that Dawn
was made out of Buffy.
==Harmony Watcher==
EGK
Reasons? Sheesh! I didn't know they needed reasons other than the show
being renewed. You don't think the writers could have come up with anything
else interesting for seasons 6 and 7 but the depression-fest they did? You
don't give them much credit. But then I didn't give them much credit at the
time either. :)
>> I also used to post that the writers could gone a long way to fixing the
>> whole problem with one line of dialog from the dying Monk earlier in the
>> season. Had him tell Buffy that they stole a lock of her hair and
>fashioned
>> the key from that to human formt.
>>
>Or tell Buffy that Drac was their mystical blood container.
>
>
>> Of course the inference being that Dawn
>> was cloned from Buffy. Even then Buffy still wasn't the key.
>>
>Everything is about blood. Blood is the key. If Dawn's blood can open and
>close the portal, Buffy's blood can certainly close it, assuming that Dawn
>was made out of Buffy.
Except nothing in the show told us that other than Buffy pulling it out of
her ass in an attempt to make Dawn feel better.
Qnja jnf cerggl zhpu hfryrff va frnfbaf 6 naq 7 naljnl va zl bcvavba.
V xrcg rkcrpgvat gurz gb vairfgvtngr jung gur Xrl ernyyl jnf fhccbfrq gb or
naq qb. V sryg gung jbhyq unir orra zber vagrerfgvat guna zbfg bs jung gurl
qvq. Gurl arire nqqerffrq vg ntnva rkprcg sbe Jvyybj tbvat oremrex naq
guerngravat gb ghea ure onpx va gb n onyy bs terra yvtug.
burt...@hotmail.com
> On 22 Jul 2006 16:03:01 -0700, "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> >There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
> >ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> >episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> >Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
> >Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> >from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
> >up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
> >episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
> >Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
>
> >AOQ rating: Excellent
>
> You're much more charitable than a lot of people with that one complaint. I
> thought the episode was good but the practically literal deus ex machina of
> the "gods" telling Buffy that it would work made me rate it lower.
Indeed, for me, the reappearance of the line "It's Summers blood. It's
just like mine," was the moment the show jumped the shark. Although I
wouldn't realize it until later.
It was such a moment of hack writing that it really did drag down an
otherwise very good episode.
burt...@hotmail.com
> Everything is about blood. Blood is the key. If Dawn's blood can open and
> close the portal, Buffy's blood can certainly close it, assuming that Dawn
> was made out of Buffy.
If everything is about blood, then why did the monks make Dawn into a
human?
This is what we call an idiot plot - a plot that only works because the
characters driving it are idiots. There's a specific time and place
that Glory's ritual has to be performed, apparentely blood is the key
to it, and yet the monks still send the Key to the exact same place the
portal is located, in a form that can bleed, and then proceed to lead
Glory right to it. They couldn't have screwed that up any more if
they'd tried.
Mel
EGK wrote:
> Except nothing in the show told us that other than Buffy pulling it out of
> her ass in an attempt to make Dawn feel better.
Except it was more than words. She mixed their blood. So even if she did
"pull it out of her ass to make Dawn feel better" (which I don't think
she did) from that point on she carried Dawn's blood, the Key's energy,
within her.
>
> Qnja jnf cerggl zhpu hfryrff va frnfbaf 6 naq 7 naljnl va zl bcvavba.
> V xrcg rkcrpgvat gurz gb vairfgvtngr jung gur Xrl ernyyl jnf fhccbfrq gb or
> naq qb. V sryg gung jbhyq unir orra zber vagrerfgvat guna zbfg bs jung gurl
> qvq. Gurl arire nqqerffrq vg ntnva rkprcg sbe Jvyybj tbvat oremrex naq
> guerngravat gb ghea ure onpx va gb n onyy bs terra yvtug.
Jul jbhyq gurl arrq gb vairfgvtngr gur Xrl shegure? Gurl xarj jung vg
qvq, naq unq nyernql qbar. Vg'f checbfr unq nyernql orra shysvyyrq, naq
Tybel jnf qrnq fb unq ab shegure arrq sbe vg. Jung zber qvq gurl arrq gb
xabj nobhg vg?
Watching again this time, I kept wondering, "Why is the Key the only way
to get Glory back to her dimension?"
We've seen plenty of other ways to open portals/travel dimensions on
both _Buffy_ and _Angel_. Granted, the Acathla portal required blood,
but from the one who wished it to open, not from an innocent. Neither
the portal to Ken's world, the Pylea portals, nor the portals used in
She required blood to open. The spells to send VampWillow back where she
came from and Olaf to the (maybe) troll dimension worked ok without
blood too.
Glory was simply too self-centered to seek another way. She wanted *her*
Key (did Glory make the Key herself, and thus consider it hers?) and
nothing else.
I'm sure Buffy would have been glad to help her get home otherwise.
Mel
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> How did Glory suddenly become so easily destructible from hammer blows?
she wasnt easily destructible
she was vunerable to exhaustation and extreme pain
and she was forced back into ben
but she would reemerge in full strength and fury at some point
> Contrast the potential energy released by a human-sized object dropped from
> a few hundred feet above the ground and the energy delivered by a hammer
magic hammer
not subject to normal rules
> I needed a small spoonful of suspension of disbelief to get over this one.
but you can believe a god is imprisoned in a human male?
> Where did that dragon go in the end? It seemed to me that it entered the
> dimension of Buffy's homeworld? Hope it escaped to the Amazon jungle (if
> there were any trees left) before some zoo guy caught up with it.
in season six a gang of college wiccans get imbued with the spirit of the dragon
to the disappointment of the zookeeper
who didnt realize a predatory act was necessary
(which turned out to be willow downloading mp3s from a russian site)
Don Sample
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
Last time they tried it, the First Slayer tried to kill them in their
dreams.
> Glory fell from the sky from mile high and survived with no visible damage.
Actually, we have no idea how long it took her to recover from that. We
went an entire episode without seeing her at all afterwards, and she
didn't really do anything for the next four episodes. She just sent out
her scabby minions to run errands for her.
> How did Glory suddenly become so easily destructible from hammer blows?
> Contrast the potential energy released by a human-sized object dropped from
> a few hundred feet above the ground and the energy delivered by a hammer
> blow backed by Slayer muscles. What happened to Glory's "force fields" or
> whatever you want to call it that she used to deflect Willow's flying
> daggers?
She didn't have any "force fields." She swatted them with her hands,
and the ones she missed just bounced off her.
And Glory's power wasn't inexhaustible. First they hit her with the
mind drain, and then the Dagon Sphere, and then the Buffybot, and then
the wrecking ball, all to wear her down to the point that the hammer
would be effective.
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> the "Slayer Death Wish" and whether or not what Buffy did counts as
> committing suicide.
i suppose it depends on whether on posthumous receiver of the medal of honor
is considered to be a suicide
arf meow arf - nsa fodder
ny dnrqn greebevfz ahpyrne obzo vena gnyvona ovt oebgure
if you meet buddha on the usenet killfile him
(Harmony) Watcher
"Clairel" <reld...@usa.net> wrote in message
news:1153616758.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> <snip>
>
> What we saw on screen had excellent acting on James Marsters's part.
> The look of anguish that he gave Dawn when Doc was holding his arms
> pinned, just before Doc sent him off the side of the tower, was
> unforgettably poignant. But I can't help thinking that if Spike had
> enough time to send Dawn a poignant gaze, he also had enough time to
> twist around and shrug off Doc's grip. While the acting was great, the
> action (in the sense of martial action) was unconvincing and badly
> handled.
>
the money and time to hire better people). To me, though, this one is only a
minor martials arts glitchy moment easily fixable if the director had the
right eyes for spotting such things.
I think it was easily fixable because I tend to view it as Doc twisted
around abruptly and unexpectedly to gain the upper hand on Spike. I think it
would have been good if they had used a little CGI effect such as a short
slow-motion sequence to explain how Doc twisted around in a split second
before stabbing Spike. I tend to see it as Spike underestimating Doc.
This begs the question why Doc couldn't use the same technique he used in
evading Spike to evade Buffy. It was too easy for Buffy to push Doc off the
platform. Well, the only suspension of disbelief I can think of is that
Buffy was faster than Doc in twisting.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
drifter
> Glory fell from the sky from mile high and survived with no visible
> damage. How did Glory suddenly become so easily destructible from
> hammer blows?
Magic hammer, yo.
--
Kel
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own."
EGK
>
>
>EGK wrote:
>
>
>
>> Except nothing in the show told us that other than Buffy pulling it out of
>> her ass in an attempt to make Dawn feel better.
>
>Except it was more than words. She mixed their blood. So even if she did
>"pull it out of her ass to make Dawn feel better" (which I don't think
>she did) from that point on she carried Dawn's blood, the Key's energy,
>within her.
When did Buffy become the Key again? This will lead to to the whole debate
that happened at the time this first aired. Why would the Monks make the
key in human form or in any form that could bleed if blood and a blood
ceremony was all important? Why not make the key a bicycle pump as one
person suggested and stick it in the Summers garage? Buffy could have still
been magically made to love and protect that bicycle pump to death but what
happens to the blood ceremony then?
I agree with those who say the whole plot of season 5 was an idiots plot. It
was very typical of serialized shows that make things up as they go and when
you give it half a glance it only makes sense if you really want it to. The
writers end up like the Wizard of Oz. They count on people not looking
behind the curtain too closely.
>> Qnja jnf cerggl zhpu hfryrff va frnfbaf 6 naq 7 naljnl va zl bcvavba.
>> V xrcg rkcrpgvat gurz gb vairfgvtngr jung gur Xrl ernyyl jnf fhccbfrq gb or
>> naq qb. V sryg gung jbhyq unir orra zber vagrerfgvat guna zbfg bs jung gurl
>> qvq. Gurl arire nqqerffrq vg ntnva rkprcg sbe Jvyybj tbvat oremrex naq
>> guerngravat gb ghea ure onpx va gb n onyy bs terra yvtug.
>
>
>Jul jbhyq gurl arrq gb vairfgvtngr gur Xrl shegure? Gurl xarj jung vg
>qvq, naq unq nyernql qbar. Vg'f checbfr unq nyernql orra shysvyyrq, naq
>Tybel jnf qrnq fb unq ab shegure arrq sbe vg. Jung zber qvq gurl arrq gb
>xabj nobhg vg?
Gur cbvag V naq bguref znqr ng gur gvzr jnf vg zvtug unir orra avpr vs gur
Xrl qvq unir cbjref bgure juna jung jr fnj. Gur zbaxf nccneragyl vg qvq be
jul obgure xrrcvat gura uvqvat vg? Jul abg whfg qrfgebl vg va gur svefg
cynpr? V zrna gung jnf zhpu nqb nobhg abguvat vs gung jnf nyy gurer jnf gb
vg. V jnf rira fgvyy ubcvat sbe fbzrguvat yvxr gung va frnfba 7. Urpx,
gurl pbhyq unir jbexrq gur Xrl va gb gur svanyr vafgrnq bs oevatvat va lrg
nabgure qrhk rk znpuvan va gur sbez bs gur zntvpny nzhyrg. Fbzr bs hf
jnagrq gb frr Gur Xrl qb fbzrguvat, nalguvat orlbaq gung juvpu Ohssl
nccrnerq gb or noyr gb qb whfg nf jryy.
Opus the Penguin
> Rather confusing teaser this week with Buffy Slaying a random
> vampire, busting out a stake with many close-ups, introducing
> herself... it plays like a dream, or an introduction to the series
> for a new viewer, or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory
> of where the series came from, given that "The Gift" is a
> potential finale (did Joss know whether there'd be more when
> writing it?).
That was basically it according to the commentary. They wanted to do a
standard vampire-slaying scene as a sort of inclusio to indicate the
arc from beginning to end.
Before I started watching Buffy on DVD, The Gift was one of the few
episodes I saw. Sadly, this cold opening backfired for me. I saw it and
thought, ok, the show's still doing the same thing 5 years after it
started. It hasn't grown.
It wasn't until I'd seen _Firefly_ that I figured Buffy was worth
another look.
--
Opus the Penguin
The best darn penguin in all of Usenet
Opus the Penguin
> Rather confusing teaser this week with Buffy Slaying a random
> vampire, busting out a stake with many close-ups, introducing
> herself... it plays like a dream, or an introduction to the series
> for a new viewer, or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory
> of where the series came from, given that "The Gift" is a
> potential finale (did Joss know whether there'd be more when
> writing it?). It mostly just seems weird and out of place,
> honestly. I kinda wish the DVD version included the whole-series
> "previously" described in the transcript, but I suppose I'll check
> it out once I get to S7.
You do have a chance to bail out now. In retrospect, you may very
well wish you had. Many of your complaints about the weak points of
S5 had me thinking that you really would be disappointed in S6, let
alone S7. Many people, including me, think Seasons 1 through 5
provide a perfect arc and tell a wonderfully coherent story with a
beginning, middle, and end.
Others, I'm sure you know, disagree vociferously--some even feeling
that the best is yet to come.
Opus the Penguin
> Buffy doesn't seem to grasp that if the world dies, so does Dawn.
> She won't kill Dawn to save the entire world, even if Dawn is a
> goner either way? Then again, Dawn *didn't* die as it turned out,
> so I guess Buffy had a point. There *was* a way around it.
The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. It is not logical.
(Harmony) Watcher
pnfr, gur angher bs Qnja vf abg n pybfrq obbx. Zber svpgvba pna or perngrq
pragrevat ba gung vs nalbar pnerf gb jevgr shegure frnfbaf. Abg yvzvgf gb
svpgvba, bssvpvny be sna-jnaxrq.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
Apteryx
news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> busting out a stake with many close-ups, introducing herself... it
> plays like a dream, or an introduction to the series for a new viewer,
> or something. Maybe it's intended as a memory of where the series
> came from, given that "The Gift" is a potential finale (did Joss
> know whether there'd be more when writing it?). It mostly just seems
> weird and out of place, honestly. I kinda wish the DVD version
> included the whole-series "previously" described in the transcript,
> but I suppose I'll check it out once I get to S7.
The teaser definitely works better when it follows that special "previously"
(or at worst, if you have at least seen it and mentally insert it there). I
have seasons 2-5 on R1 DVD, and the rest on R4, so I have to do that latter
(fortunately the special "previously" is still an easter egg on the R4 S7
disks, even though someone who had S5 in R4 wouldn't need it).
> Then the show returns to its plot. Early in the episode, Buffy vows
> not to hurt Dawn yet again, and subsequently has a chance to explain
> her weakness in this regard. Why is this the most difficult choice
> she's ever had to face? "The Gift" tries to make sense of this,
> as it has to, bringing up "killing" Angel and showing how she's
> changed to make this even harder. I'm not entirely sure if I buy it,
> but at least they tried. More interesting is Giles's response,
> having tiptoed around the Buffster enough. "We are not talking about
> this." "YES, WE BLOODY WELL ARE!" First riveting moment of
> many. And then he seems worried that he's gone too far, much more
> restrained on his later dialogue. But the followup by the punching bag
> makes it clear that Giles is a Watcher in the noblest sense of the job,
> and is ready to do what has to be done for the world's sake. Slayer
> and Watcher are pitted against each other, but it's not a screaming
> match; they have a quiet respect for each other, but are both ready to
> accept that they could be on opposite sides on this one. Watching this
> scene made me wonder why the show hadn't gotten around to this
> earlier, since it's great, and it follows very naturally from
> what's come before.
It's a strong moment, although to me it promises somewhat more than that
episode delivrers.
> The writing tends to give this one the support it needs all around,
> actually. As I said about "Graduation Day I," "The Gift" has
> the near-uniform high quality of scripting that one would like to
> imagine all written-and-directed-by-JW entries should. Can I take a
> second to mention Buffy sensibly pushing Willow to the front lines, so
> to speak, as one of the most powerful of the heroes?
And can I take a second to mention Willow sensibly pointing out that she's
not good under pressure :)
> Or the moment in
> which people are being hard on Anya for not giving any useful advice
> along with her incredibly uninfectious enthusiasm, and then having her
> actually comes up with some good ideas? Or the way that leads to a
> search into the recent past for weapons that starts to get the
> adrenaline pumping for a big moment?
It certainly seemed to have that effect on Anya and Xander :)
>
> Lots of fighting and action stuff goes down, and it's the show's
> best action setpiece in forever.
See, I'm not watching this for the action sequences, but even so, after 30
minutes of great set-up work (apart from most of the scenes with Dawn), this
is where the episode started to go wrong for me. For all the time they have
had to fight this battle, the way they fight makes them look like idiots.
Surely anyone could see that fighting Glory and going up the tower to rescue
Dawn where jobs for two people (or teams). Yet Buffy wants to do it all, a
plan which predictably comes unstuck when she finds Glory isn't finished
when she tries to head up the tower. Clearly only Buffy (perhaps with
Willow's assistance) should have been fighting Glory while the rest of them
climbed the tower right from the start. Neither Buffy nor Dawn needed to
die.
> of the Buffy/Glory fight inside a wooden tower with all sorts of beams
Mm, that tower. I guess the Sunnydale building inspectors are deeply blind.
>
> Glory is dispatched in the background while Doc rises as an unexpected
> threat. Buffy's failure to finish off Ben when she has the chance is
> truly a failure, I think. It's also totally in line with the way
> she's always been portrayed.
Agree with both. Since she doesn't know Giles is going to take care of Ben,
as far as she is concerned when she takes her high dive, she is leaving the
world with a pissed-off hellgod still trapped in it, with a grudge against
Dawn and her friends.
> her way to the top at the end to take out Doc. "This should be
> interesting." [shove] Kickass.
That's a good moment.
>
> There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
> ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
> Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
> up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
> episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
> Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
I'm afraid I'm not so forgiving. This is the decision by which the whole
season is resolved, and it's total bullshit. Everything we have been told up
till then is that starting and stopping blow flow from the Key herself is
what opens and closes the gates. Even if stopping "Summers blood" will have
the same effect, "Summers blood" is in fact still flowing from Dawn up on
the tower. And maybe they should be hunting Hank down too.
> My biggest issue is how little there is afterward, though. We're
> given maybe a second to see how the others respond. Spike sobbing
> uncontrollably adds a lot, and I'll remember that.
Maybe the "Summers blood" thing broke my suspension of disbelief, but that
shot seemed pretty hammy to me.
> from GD. I want more, though. Of course, there are two seasons left,
> which I assume consist entirely of grieving for a title character
> who's never seen again.
Well, we've seen beofre on BtVS and AtS what great use can be made of a long
deceased character seen only in flashbacks :)
>
> One-sentence summary: A strong finish.
>
> AOQ rating: Excellent
Only Decent for me. Not the Decent where everything is sort of OK but
nothing special, but the Decent you get from averaging out parts that are
very good with others that are very bad. It's my 108th favourite BtVS
episode, 15th best in season 5
--
Apteryx
EGK
<nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
>
>"EGK" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
>> Qnja jnf cerggl zhpu hfryrff va frnfbaf 6 naq 7 naljnl va zl bcvavba.
>> V xrcg rkcrpgvat gurz gb vairfgvtngr jung gur Xrl ernyyl jnf fhccbfrq gb
>or
>> naq qb. V sryg gung jbhyq unir orra zber vagrerfgvat guna zbfg bs jung
>gurl
>> qvq. Gurl arire nqqerffrq vg ntnva rkprcg sbe Jvyybj tbvat oremrex naq
>> guerngravat gb ghea ure onpx va gb n onyy bs terra yvtug.
>>
>>
>Orpnhfr OgIF jnf abg nobhg fghqlvat fpvrapr. Vg'f nobhg uhznavgl. Va nal
>pnfr, gur angher bs Qnja vf abg n pybfrq obbx. Zber svpgvba pna or perngrq
>pragrevat ba gung vs nalbar pnerf gb jevgr shegure frnfbaf. Abg yvzvgf gb
>svpgvba, bssvpvny be sna-jnaxrq.
V'z fbeel ohg gung'f whfg n evqvphybhf ernqvat bs jung V jebgr. Lbh'er
fnlvat qbvat fbzrguvat jvgu gur zntvpny pbafgehpg bs Qnja naq ure Xrlarff n
fghql bs fpvrapr? Gung'f ynhtunoyr. Qnja qvfpbirevat ure uhznavgl gura
fnpevsvpvat urefrys va gur Tvsg jbhyq unir orra n terng pbzzrag ba uhznavgl
naq rira znqr frafr va gur onetnva.
Gurl pbhyq unir tbar naljurer sebz gurer va gur frnfbaf gung sbyybjrq. Urpx,
gurl pbhyq unir rira qbar cerggl zhpu gur fnzr guvat jvgu Ohssl orvat va n
fgngr bs qrcerffvba bire vg. Rira gubhtu gurl unq nyernql pbirerq zhpu bs
gur fnzr tebhaq naq qbar vg orggre va rcvfbqrf yvxr Jura fur jnf Onq naq
Naar.
(Harmony) Watcher
<burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1153625083.2...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
portal from Buffy's homeworld to Glory's homeworld can be created anywhere
in Buffy's world they chose to. Apparently it needed a (silly) high platform
for the ritual to work.
Before the Key was made into human form by the monks, she was energy with no
form. But the monk did not say that it was not a "lifeform" and he did not
say that it was non-sentient either. Some people here are simply *assuming*
that the so-called Key was an inanimate glob of non-sentient energy before
its materialization as Dawn. I reject the "non-sentient" part of that
assumption.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
Don Sample
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
The Key is explicitly called "living energy." It might be that it could
not be converted into an inanimate object, like a log or a bicycle pump.
It had to be living.
We also don't know that where Glory performed the spell was the *only*
place it could be done. That might just have been the place that was
closest to Sunnydale. There could have been hundreds of other places
around the world that the ritual could be performed at.
(Harmony) Watcher
"mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges"
<mair_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:mair_fheal-EFDCF...@sn-ip.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net...
> > Glory fell from the sky from mile high and survived with no visible
damage.
> > How did Glory suddenly become so easily destructible from hammer blows?
>
> she wasnt easily destructible
> she was vunerable to exhaustation and extreme pain
> and she was forced back into ben
> but she would reemerge in full strength and fury at some point
>
> > Contrast the potential energy released by a human-sized object dropped
from
> > a few hundred feet above the ground and the energy delivered by a hammer
>
> magic hammer
> not subject to normal rules
>
> > I needed a small spoonful of suspension of disbelief to get over this
one.
>
> but you can believe a god is imprisoned in a human male?
>
forced back into Ben? Are you saying there is some kind of connection
between Glory and Ben?
--
==Harmony Watcher==
Apteryx
news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
>
> Bad - 2
> Weak - 9
> Decent - 31
> Good - 41
> Excellent - 17
Despite lots of variation in our ratings of individual epsiodes, we are
surprisingly close on the series overall - I get
Bad -1
Weak - 5
Decent - 32
Good - 47
Excellent (or better) - 15
> Ratings by season:
> S1: Mean = 3.67, 50% quality
> S2: Mean = 3.55, 64% quality
> S3: Mean= 3.86, 68% quality
> S4: Mean= 3.5, 55% quality
> S5: Mean = 3.55, 50% quality
> Series so far: Mean = 3.62, 58% quality
You seem to have enjoyed season 5 more for me. Allowing for the fact that in
my ratings, low scores are good, my season averages are currently:
S1 = 3.98
S2 = 4.04
S3 = 4.08
S4 = 4.28
S5 = 4.75
My series average so far is 4.26.
4 is the midpoint of the range I call Good, 5 the midpoint of the range I
call Decent (4.50/4.51 is the boundary between Good and Decent)
--
Apteryx
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> Still, the
> visuals are quite pretty, in a destructive way. The street getting
> ripped up is a highlight; wonder how the authorities will explain that
> one?
Gas leak under the street, detonated by a lightning strike.
Of course, they lost City Hall too, with it converted into some sort of
demon condo, so maybe the authorities will have other things on their
minds.
Did you notice that the master shot, with the car swerving to avoid the
hole, was the exact same shot they used back in "Shadow," only that time
the car was swerving to miss a giant snake?
EGK
Do you also reject the notion that this ball of energy didn't have blood?
People can fanwank that all they want but there is no way season 5 makes
sense without doing it. You have to make things up and fill in huge,
gaping holes the writers weren't inclined to fill in themselves. Some
people don't mind doing that. Others, like me, feel it's a cheat when the
writers do something like telling us all season how unique the Key was. Then
have Buffy substitute for it at the last minute.
I don't know. Maybe in general TV audiences don't care so the writers get
lazy about the details. The thing is, these same writers knew BTVS was
followed religiously by a lot of fans online. They should have paid more
attention to those details so the plot made sense.
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
ben is the glory whole
think about it
(Harmony) Watcher
"Don Sample" <dsa...@synapse.net> wrote in message
news:dsample-6008CA...@news.giganews.com...
because they did a group hug in the elevator shaft.
>
> > Glory fell from the sky from mile high and survived with no visible
damage.
>
> Actually, we have no idea how long it took her to recover from that. We
> went an entire episode without seeing her at all afterwards, and she
> didn't really do anything for the next four episodes. She just sent out
> her scabby minions to run errands for her.
>
>
> > How did Glory suddenly become so easily destructible from hammer blows?
> > Contrast the potential energy released by a human-sized object dropped
from
> > a few hundred feet above the ground and the energy delivered by a hammer
> > blow backed by Slayer muscles. What happened to Glory's "force fields"
or
> > whatever you want to call it that she used to deflect Willow's flying
> > daggers?
>
> She didn't have any "force fields." She swatted them with her hands,
> and the ones she missed just bounced off her.
>
> And Glory's power wasn't inexhaustible. First they hit her with the
> mind drain, and then the Dagon Sphere, and then the Buffybot, and then
> the wrecking ball, all to wear her down to the point that the hammer
> would be effective.
>
Still all too easy when compared to falling off from the sky without dying
(if she was supposed to be so bound to a human coil). The fact that she was
not a puddle of goo and not even limping after that fall pretty much said
that Miss hellgod had more tricks and energy under her lovely and lopsided
form.
For me, it was yet another example of inconsistent details arising from
insufficient attention being paid to the martial arts skills and the "power"
index of mystical characters of the series (i.e., I don't think the writers
have assigned each mystical character some kind of "power" index so that
they can privately keep track of who's more powerful than whom when they
chose to have those characters duke it out).
Pounding Glory with a hammer is just silly and laughable. Why? Because in a
totally different circumstance, I can imagine that the writers would have
Glory laughing her behind off, and use one little finger to split Olaf's
hammer in half. "Sha me-en-dan"-ing Glory to deplete Glory's energy first
before pounding her would have been better.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
burt...@hotmail.com
> <burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1153625083.2...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > (Harmony) Watcher wrote:
> > > Everything is about blood. Blood is the key. If Dawn's blood can open
> and
> > > close the portal, Buffy's blood can certainly close it, assuming that
> Dawn
> > > was made out of Buffy.
> >
> > If everything is about blood, then why did the monks make Dawn into a
> > human?
> >
> > This is what we call an idiot plot - a plot that only works because the
> > characters driving it are idiots. There's a specific time and place
> > that Glory's ritual has to be performed, apparentely blood is the key
> > to it, and yet the monks still send the Key to the exact same place the
> > portal is located, in a form that can bleed, and then proceed to lead
> > Glory right to it. They couldn't have screwed that up any more if
> > they'd tried.
> >
> With the right incantations and the right rituals, *a* (as opposed to *the*)
> portal from Buffy's homeworld to Glory's homeworld can be created anywhere
> in Buffy's world they chose to. Apparently it needed a (silly) high platform
> for the ritual to work.
I can't remember what the show said about that particular subject, and
I'm not inclined to watch all of season 5 again to find out, so I'll
just take your word for this. It still doesn't explain why the monks
led Glory straight to the place they'd sent the Key, though.
> Before the Key was made into human form by the monks, she was energy with no
> form. But the monk did not say that it was not a "lifeform" and he did not
> say that it was non-sentient either.
He didn't say it wasn't some pocket lint from God's best Sunday suit,
either. There's all manner of things he didn't say about it. That
doesn't mean anything.
> Some people here are simply *assuming*
> that the so-called Key was an inanimate glob of non-sentient energy before
> its materialization as Dawn.
Just as you are *assuming* it wasn't. All the monk said was that the
Key was energy. Glory said it could have been made into *anything.*
There was nothing on the show to indicate that it had to be made into
something sentient.
(Harmony) Watcher
"Opus the Penguin" <opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9808E83916F49op...@127.0.0.1...
--
==Harmony Watcher==
burt...@hotmail.com
So turn it into a plant. Plants don't bleed. Or a protozoan. Good luck
trying to track down a single-celled organism....
burt...@hotmail.com
> (Harmony) Watcher wrote:
>
> > Glory fell from the sky from mile high and survived with no visible
> > damage. How did Glory suddenly become so easily destructible from
> > hammer blows?
>
> Magic hammer, yo.
The hammer couldn't have been that special. Xander survived a direct
hit to the head with it.
Don Sample
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
No he didn't. Olaf never hit Xander on the head with it. He held the
hammer still once and let Xander run his face into it. The blow that
most people refer to as smashing Xander's head really just hit his
shoulder, and Olaf clearly wasn't even trying to do more than bruise him.
The hammer was magic. Spike, who was nearly as strong as Buffy, could
barely make it budge when he tried to lift it. Buffy could swing it
around one handed, like it was made from styrofoam.
Mark Jones
> There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
> ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> episode too much.
Clearly, your mileage varies.
> The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as Key
> blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup. Buffy's
> abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made from her
> seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting up, and like a
> retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole episode. And how could
> she have been so certain that it'd work?
Because she knew the Pudgy Hand of God (tm) would MAKE it work. I'll admit
that I have hated Dawn since the first moment I heard she was going to
appear. But even if I'd thought she was the greatest thing ever, this
ham-handed, blatant deus ex machina ending was appalling. I think it's the
single worst thing they _ever_ did in the series. It doesn't just seem like
a retcon--it _is_ a retcon.
> "Death is your gift." So unexpectedly literal (kinda like the old "lead
> her into Hell" prophecy).
I don't think it's nearly so literal, though Buffy seems to take it that
way. I think "Death is your gift" was meant the same way "Painting is your
gift" or "Dancing is your gift" would be meant. Painters paint. Dancers
dance. Slayers...slay. It's not a pretty gift or a peaceful gift, but it's
what she has and she's able to protect people by using it.
Mark Jones
> In article <1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Watching this
> > scene made me wonder why the show hadn't gotten around to this earlier,
> > since it's great, and it follows very naturally from what's come before.
>
> You're not seeing that this question supplies its own answer?
>
> > The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as Key blood comes
> > pretty much out of nowhere,
>
> Only if you completely ignore the theme of the season. It wasn't Slayer
> blood, it was family blood. But don't worry - that whooshed past a lot of
> people.
No, it was bullshit of the highest order. But a lot of people were willing
to drink the kool-aid anyhow.
Mark Jones
> drifter (ne...@home.net) wrote:
>
> > Buffy doesn't seem to grasp that if the world dies, so does Dawn. She
> > won't kill Dawn to save the entire world, even if Dawn is a goner either
> > way? Then again, Dawn *didn't* die as it turned out, so I guess Buffy
> > had a point. There *was* a way around it.
>
> The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. It is not logical.
It helps if you've been mindfucked by magical monks to love the mockingbird
chick they've left in your nest.
burt...@hotmail.com
> In article <1153632772.4...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>,
> burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > drifter wrote:
> > > (Harmony) Watcher wrote:
> > >
> > > > Glory fell from the sky from mile high and survived with no visible
> > > > damage. How did Glory suddenly become so easily destructible from
> > > > hammer blows?
> > >
> > > Magic hammer, yo.
> >
> > The hammer couldn't have been that special. Xander survived a direct
> > hit to the head with it.
>
> No he didn't. Olaf never hit Xander on the head with it. He held the
> hammer still once and let Xander run his face into it. The blow that
> most people refer to as smashing Xander's head really just hit his
> shoulder, and Olaf clearly wasn't even trying to do more than bruise him.
It sure looked to me like he got hit in the head. But even if it was
just the shoulder, the hammer didn't even break it.
> The hammer was magic. Spike, who was nearly as strong as Buffy, could
> barely make it budge when he tried to lift it. Buffy could swing it
> around one handed, like it was made from styrofoam.
The whole business with the hammer was another bit of sloppy writing.
If lifting it is a matter of strength, the ease with which Buffy does
it compared to Spike contradicts everything we've seen on the show
before about Slayer vs. vampire strength. If there's something else at
play, it's never explained.
(Harmony) Watcher
blood or not. Who's to say that it didn't have green blood? And such details
are mostly irrelevant. We know enough that the Key was a living energy being
with no form, and, for me at least, likely a sentient energy being.
"Cybg-ubyrf" ner abg ubyrf vs gurl ner erfbyirq orsber gur raq bs gur
frevrf. Crefbanyyl V qvfyvxr jngpuvat fubjf juvpu qb abg npgviryl ratntr zl
oenva. Ohg V qvfyvxr vg rira zber jura gur jevgref srry pbzcryyrq gb rkcynva
guvatf evtug njnl nf vs rirelguvat gung unccraf zhfg or rkcynvarq gb gur
ivrjre jvguva gur fcna bs na rcvfbqr be gjb.
Bevtvanyyl V ybir jngpuvat gur K-Svyrf, nf gurl guerj zber naq zber fzbxr gb
gur fperra va gur svefg gjb frnfbaf be fb orpnhfr "ubyrf" jrer pbagvahbhfyl
orvat cyhttrq hc nf arj barf cbccrq hc. Ohg nf gvzr jrag ba, jura vg orpnzr
nccnerag gung Puevf Pnegre unq ernyyl ab pyhr ubj gb er-jrnir rirelguvat
onpx vagb n pbafvfgrag jubyr naq ubj gb gvr hc gur uhaqerqf bs ybfr raqf, V
dhvg jngpuvat gur ynfg gjb frnfbaf bs vg eryvtvbhfyl hagvy gurve erehaf.
Naq V'z ebg13vat guvf orpnhfr V qba'g jnag NbD gb trg gur (pbeerpg)
vzcerffvba gung gur "zlfgrel gung vf Qnja" jnf arire dhvgr shyyl rkcynvarq.
Bguref unir fhttrfgrq gung Qnja jnf fvzcyl n ZpThssva naq fubhyq or gerngrq
nf fhpu, ohg V graq abg gb yvxr gung gung hagvy V unir ab pubvpr.
>
> I don't know. Maybe in general TV audiences don't care so the writers get
> lazy about the details. The thing is, these same writers knew BTVS was
> followed religiously by a lot of fans online. They should have paid more
> attention to those details so the plot made sense.
>
>
Abj, gur ZR jevgref ner n zhpu zber gnyragrq ybg guna gur jevgref bs gur
K-Svyrf. Lbh jryy xabj gung abg nyy cybg cbvagf va OgIF ner rkcynvarq evtug
njnl hagvy zhpu yngre (r.t., Gnen fnobgntvat n fcryy, naq znal bs Ohssl'f
qernzf). Gb zr, nal fb-pnyyrq "cybg ubyrf" va OgIF juvpu fgvyy rkvfg gbqnl
jbhyq or rincbenoyr tvira rabhtu vzntvangvba, naq vg qbrf abg erdhver zhpu.
Gur dhrfgvba vf jurgure bar unf gur gvzr naq zbarl gb znxr shgher rcvfbqrf
gb pynevsl byqre chmmyrf. Abg fb sbe gur cyngr bs fcnturggv xabja nf gur
K-Svyrf.
V jnf unccl jvgu OgIF hc gvyy gur zbzrag gurl raqrq gur frevrf jvgubhg glvat
hc fbzr bs gur fgvyy harkcynvarq ybbfr raqf. Ohg gura V'z fgvyy ubyqvat zl
oerngu sbe zber rkcynangvbaf va shgher Ohsslirefr fgbevrf, or vg ba GI,
zbivrf, be nf pbzvp fgevcf.
Naq gur bayl ernfba V'z ebg13vat guvf vf gung, ntnva, V qba'g jnag NbD gb
xabj gung Qnja jnf whfg n ZpThssva naq ab zber sbe znal crbcyr.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
Carin
news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> Ratings by season:
> S1: Mean = 3.67, 50% quality
> S2: Mean = 3.55, 64% quality
> S3: Mean= 3.86, 68% quality
> S4: Mean= 3.5, 55% quality
> S5: Mean = 3.55, 50% quality
> Series so far: Mean = 3.62, 58% quality
>
Yikes. I have to wonder why you are even watching something that is at best
only 68% "quality" - Personally, if that was all I thought of it I wouldn't
be watching it at all. But then I don't watch a lot of television... this
is one of the few things I do choose to watch because I think it is head and
shoulders above most of what is on. And I only started watching this long
after it was "over" and could only be had on DVD.
Don Sample
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> Don Sample wrote:
> > The hammer was magic. Spike, who was nearly as strong as Buffy, could
> > barely make it budge when he tried to lift it. Buffy could swing it
> > around one handed, like it was made from styrofoam.
>
> The whole business with the hammer was another bit of sloppy writing.
> If lifting it is a matter of strength, the ease with which Buffy does
> it compared to Spike contradicts everything we've seen on the show
> before about Slayer vs. vampire strength. If there's something else at
> play, it's never explained.
You see, Joss doesn't explain everything. He expects people to be able
to figure things out on their own. He made a point of showing that
Buffy could swing that hammer around like it weighed next to nothing,
and he showed that Spike couldn't lift it. He even reminded us that
Spike couldn't lift it in "The Gift." The obvious conclusion is that
there is some magic in the hammer that allows Buffy to wield it, but not
Spike. Maybe it's because Buffy defeated the previous owner of the
hammer in combat.
Anya gets another idea. "Oh!" She moves to a shelf and
gestures toward it like a game show hostess presenting a prize.
"And Olaf the trollgod's enchanted hammer. You want to fight a
god, use the weapon of a god."
"Nyah," says Spike. "That thing's too heavy to--"
Buffy picks the hammer up off the shelf and swings it around
effortlessly with one hand. "Yeah, good." She thanks Anya for
the idea.
"Here to help," says Anya. "Want to live."
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
"Carin" <wave...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > Ratings by season:
> > S1: Mean = 3.67, 50% quality
> > S2: Mean = 3.55, 64% quality
> > S3: Mean= 3.86, 68% quality
> > S4: Mean= 3.5, 55% quality
> > S5: Mean = 3.55, 50% quality
> > Series so far: Mean = 3.62, 58% quality
is this geometric or arithmetic means?
geometric means are generally better when dealing with percentages
> Yikes. I have to wonder why you are even watching something that is at best
> only 68% "quality" - Personally, if that was all I thought of it I wouldn't
these kinds of calculations i would expect from three or four nerds
hanging out in their moms basement instead of facing the real world
arf meow arf - nsa fodder
ny dnrqn greebevfz ahpyrne obzo vena gnyvona ovt oebgure
if you meet buddha on the usenet killfile him
Don Sample
"Carin" <wave...@earthlink.net> wrote:
90% of everything is crap. That means that most TV shows would average
about 10% quality.
(Harmony) Watcher
<burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1153632427.7...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
Gregor. The stupid Knights of Byzantium did.
> > Before the Key was made into human form by the monks, she was energy
with no
> > form. But the monk did not say that it was not a "lifeform" and he did
not
> > say that it was non-sentient either.
>
> He didn't say it wasn't some pocket lint from God's best Sunday suit,
> either. There's all manner of things he didn't say about it. That
> doesn't mean anything.
>
> > Some people here are simply *assuming*
> > that the so-called Key was an inanimate glob of non-sentient energy
before
> > its materialization as Dawn.
>
> Just as you are *assuming* it wasn't. All the monk said was that the
> Key was energy. Glory said it could have been made into *anything.*
>
Because it took Glory the turturous one a while before she would realize
that the monks could never have made a living thing into an inanimate
object.
<rot13>
> Gurer jnf abguvat ba gur fubj gb vaqvpngr gung vg unq gb or znqr vagb
> fbzrguvat fragvrag.
>
N ovg fcbvyrel sbe NbD gb nyreg uvz gung gurer jvyy or ab zber rkcynangvba
ol gur jevgref ba gur angher bs Qnja. Fb V'z ebg13vat guvf.
Bs pbhefr raretl pna or znqr vagb nalguvat. Rirelguvat va bhe havirefr naq
cebonoyl Ohsslirefr vf yvxryl whfg genafsbezngvba bs raretl. Abguvat va gur
fubj fnvq gung gur Fpbbovrf jnfurq gurve pnef rvgure. Whfg orpnhfr fbzrguvat
jnf abg zragvbarq qbrf abg cerpyhqr vg sebz unccravat. Gur bsgra npprcgrq
ehyr gung rkgenbeqvanel pynvzf erdhver rkgenbeqvanel rivqrapr bayl nccyvrf
jura gurer vf ab zber fubj. Gurer ner fgvyy gjb zber frnfbaf nsgre guvf sbe
gur fubj gb rkcynva vg--sebz NbD'f fgnaqcbvag.
Ohg sbe gur erfg bs hf, jub unir frra gur ragver fubj frireny gvzrf bire, V
nterr jvgu lbh gung V jbhyq unir yvxrq Qnja gb or zber guna whfg n ZpThssva.
Fb, V jnf fb eryvirq gb frr gung Zvff Fjna unq nqbcgrq Qnja nf n whavbe
Fynlre bs n qvssrerag urevgntr:
</rot13>
[spoiler-free for AoQ]
MadTV parodies
Miss Swan The Vampire Slayer
http://youtube.com/watch?v=d_2WOw3UyaM
MT does Miss Swan
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8agMchqGEjM
--
==Harmony Watcher==
Don Sample
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
> Ohg sbe gur erfg bs hf, jub unir frra gur ragver fubj frireny gvzrf bire, V
> nterr jvgu lbh gung V jbhyq unir yvxrq Qnja gb or zber guna whfg n ZpThssva.
> Fb, V jnf fb eryvirq gb frr gung Zvff Fjna unq nqbcgrq Qnja nf n whavbe
> Fynlre bs n qvssrerag urevgntr:
Juvyr gurl arire qb nal zber jvgu gur Xrl, Qnja qbrf orpbzr na vzcbegnag
zrzore bs Ohssl'f grnz, pbagevohgvat whfg nf zhpu nf znal bs gur bguref.
Fur orpbzrf n fxvyyrq erfrnepure naq genafyngbe bs napvrag ynathntrf,
naq n hfrshy crefba gb unir nebhaq va n svtug.
(Harmony) Watcher
let his thoughts dwell on crude matters. I prefer not to think of such dark,
ugly business at all. I prefer placing my energies into creating visual
images of beauty, such as how many interesting moments would occur when Ben
and Glory switched back and forth while Ben was sleeping with a female
nurse. :p
...
But I suspect Ben was renting from Glory.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
George W Harris
<Matthew...@gmail.com> wrote:
:
:vague disclaimer wrote:
:> In article <9pg5c25jufrki186q...@4ax.com>,
:> Stephen Tempest <ste...@stempest.demon.co.uk> wrote:
:>
:> > "when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?"
:>
:> Ah. The second most pointless debate in the Buffyverse.
:> --
:What's the first?
"What's the first?"
--
Doesn't the fact that there are *exactly* 50 states seem a little suspicious?
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'
(Harmony) Watcher
<burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1153632694....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
food chain? Indeed, one can use this as a basis for supporting the
contention that the Key must have been a sentient being. Otherwise the Monks
could have simply turned it into something non-sentient [assuming plants are
not sentient by virtue of my own personal subjective bias].
--
==Harmony Watcher==
(Harmony) Watcher
> In article <QxFwg.219222$iF6.83294@pd7tw2no>,
> "\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
>
> > Ohg sbe gur erfg bs hf, jub unir frra gur ragver fubj frireny gvzrf
bire, V
> > nterr jvgu lbh gung V jbhyq unir yvxrq Qnja gb or zber guna whfg n
ZpThssva.
> > Fb, V jnf fb eryvirq gb frr gung Zvff Fjna unq nqbcgrq Qnja nf n whavbe
> > Fynlre bs n qvssrerag urevgntr:
>
> Juvyr gurl arire qb nal zber jvgu gur Xrl, Qnja qbrf orpbzr na vzcbegnag
> zrzore bs Ohssl'f grnz, pbagevohgvat whfg nf zhpu nf znal bs gur bguref.
> Fur orpbzrf n fxvyyrq erfrnepure naq genafyngbe bs napvrag ynathntrf,
> naq n hfrshy crefba gb unir nebhaq va n svtug.
>
--
==Harmony Watcher==
Mark Jones
> Now, the ME writers are a much more talented lot than the writers of the
> X-Files. You well know that not all plot points in BtVS are explained
> right away until much later (e.g., [spoilers deleted]). To me, any
> so-called "plot holes" in BtVS which still
> exist today would be evaporable given enough imagination, and it does not
> require much. The question is whether one has the time and money to make
> future episodes to clarify older puzzles. Not so for the plate of
> spaghetti known as the X-Files.
I have to take issue with this. I agree that X-Files has no coherent
overall mythos. In fact, it sounds like I jumped ship earlier than you did
over exactly that issue. And I lay that issue at Chris Carter's feet.
But I don't agree that the ME writers are more talented than the X-Files
writers. Some of the X-Files episodes were brilliantly written. In fact,
if you gave up on the "myth" episodes and stuck to watching the stand-alone
"monster of the week" eps--which is what I did for a while before giving up
entirely toward the end--there were plenty of gems still to be found.
George W Harris
:
:Watching again this time, I kept wondering, "Why is the Key the only way
:to get Glory back to her dimension?"
Not all dimensions are equally easy to get to.
Erzrzore jurer Ubygm naq Pbaabe jrag?
--
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV!
George W Harris
wrote:
:> of the Buffy/Glory fight inside a wooden tower with all sorts of beams
:
:Mm, that tower. I guess the Sunnydale building inspectors are deeply blind.
Whenever a building inspector came around,
Glory'd eat his mind.
--
Real men don't need macho posturing to bolster their egos.
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'.
George W Harris
wrote:
:
:But I don't agree that the ME writers are more talented than the X-Files
:writers. Some of the X-Files episodes were brilliantly written. In fact,
:if you gave up on the "myth" episodes and stuck to watching the stand-alone
:"monster of the week" eps--which is what I did for a while before giving up
:entirely toward the end--there were plenty of gems still to be found.
Indeed, I think "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"
may be better than anything Joss Whedon's ever done.
--
"Intelligence is too complex to capture in a single number." -Alfred Binet
Patrician
"(Harmony) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote in message
news:ubDwg.224338$IK3.203948@pd7tw1no...
> ==Harmony Watcher==
>
>
You may reject it so that you can twist what is a very silly plotline into
something that makes some kind of sence to *you*. You seem to be such a fan
of BtVS that you cannot, in any way, accept that the S5 plotline stunk more
than a dustbin full of rotten fish in a heatwave.
Trev
Patrician
<burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1153624463.2...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> EGK wrote:
>> On 22 Jul 2006 16:03:01 -0700, "Arbitrar Of Quality"
>> <tsm...@wildmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which the
>> >ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
>> >Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
>> >Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
>> >from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
>> >up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
>> >episode. And how could she have been so certain that it'd work?
>>
>> >AOQ rating: Excellent
>>
>> You're much more charitable than a lot of people with that one complaint.
>> I
>> thought the episode was good but the practically literal deus ex machina
>> of
>> the "gods" telling Buffy that it would work made me rate it lower.
>
> Indeed, for me, the reappearance of the line "It's Summers blood. It's
> just like mine," was the moment the show jumped the shark. Although I
> wouldn't realize it until later.
>
> It was such a moment of hack writing that it really did drag down an
> otherwise very good episode.
>
That's the biggest problem for me with S5 too. We were told that explisetly
that Dawn was not "of Summers Blood", that she wasn't human at all and that
there was no connection, in reality, between Buffy, her family and Dawn.
Indeed, the Buffyvearse that Dawn exists in isn't even real, it was created
by the monks when they inserted Dawn into it. All that bunkem about altered
memories is pish. Just doing that would never have worked as there are
records of people from birth to death and Dawns would always have been
"lost".
A far better and more consistant ending would have been with Dawn
sacrificing herself and then reality re-establishing it's self as Dawn
free/never existed univearse.
Trev
(Harmony) Watcher
"Mark Jones" <sin...@pacifier.com> wrote in message
news:gemini.j2ukcr005...@pacifier.com...
Yes, I do need to clarify a bit on my position on the X-Files. I never like
the idea of watching MOTW episodes week after week with few and far between
advances in major arcs. So, for example, even though I admired that episode
with the boy with the "lion face" and Cher, and some other HQ stand-alones
very much, I don't treat those as "essential" episodes with regard to the
"real" story about alien aduction and government coverup.
In fact, back in the days, if an episode of the X-Files did not have
anything to do with the overall arcs of "government conspiracy", "CSM and
his cohorts", or "alien aduction", I would erase that episode from tape.
That left me only those episodes which would somehow weave into several
contorted continuous arc of sorts. Then it all fell apart because Carter
spinned the entire thing totally out of control with no hopes of ever making
any sense at all--that's only my view, of course.
I also hated the fact that X-Files episodes are not explicitly titled on
screen. But I digressed.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
(Harmony) Watcher
"Opus the Penguin" <opusthepen...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9808EA6281819op...@127.0.0.1...
> drifter (ne...@home.net) wrote:
>
> > Buffy doesn't seem to grasp that if the world dies, so does Dawn.
> > She won't kill Dawn to save the entire world, even if Dawn is a
> > goner either way? Then again, Dawn *didn't* die as it turned out,
> > so I guess Buffy had a point. There *was* a way around it.
>
> The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. It is not logical.
>
(1) Buffy firmly believed that
the needs of the many (i.e., the world)
outweigh the needs of
the one (i.e., Dawn), or
anyone for that matter. Therefore, the one must
sacrifice herself for the sake of the many.
AND
(2) She loved Dawn so much so that there was no way
she would have let her sister jump.
AND
(3) She would never let an innocent little girl
jump even if that girl were not her little
sister because she had overflowing humanity.
She took the only logical way out by replacing "Dawn" with "Buffy" in (1).
--
==Harmony Watcher==
(Harmony) Watcher
muscles or with Buffy being a Slayer and all, or with the hammer itself, or
a combination of these. But I'm not prepared to accept any Slayer sensor on
the part of the hammer for it to be Slayer-activated to become a
super-weapon. [Therefore, the fact that Spike was not being able to pick up
the hammer could be used to justify the claim that Spike was not nearly as
strong as Buffy after all. But I digressed.]
--
==Harmony Watcher==
(Harmony) Watcher
> In article <mbFwg.8599$vO....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
> "Carin" <wave...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> > >
> > > Ratings by season:
> > > S1: Mean = 3.67, 50% quality
> > > S2: Mean = 3.55, 64% quality
> > > S3: Mean= 3.86, 68% quality
> > > S4: Mean= 3.5, 55% quality
> > > S5: Mean = 3.55, 50% quality
> > > Series so far: Mean = 3.62, 58% quality
>
> is this geometric or arithmetic means?
> geometric means are generally better when dealing with percentages
>
> > Yikes. I have to wonder why you are even watching something that is at
best
> > only 68% "quality" - Personally, if that was all I thought of it I
wouldn't
>
> these kinds of calculations i would expect from three or four nerds
>
> hanging out in their moms basement instead of facing the real world
>
--
==Harmony Watcher==
(Harmony) Watcher
"Patrician" <ghj...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:44c3376c$0$1017$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
living non-sentient energy being into anything, why wouldn't they just make
it into a plant (ignoring the position that the monks only knew how to make
human beings)? It only stands to reason that since they made the Key into a
living sentient being, the original green blob of energy must have been
sentient to begin with.
--
==Harmony Watcher==
vague disclaimer
Mark Jones <sin...@pacifier.com> wrote:
Thank you for that searing insight.
--
Wikipedia: like Usenet, moderated by trolls
vague disclaimer
"DysgraphicProgrammer" <Matthew...@gmail.com> wrote:
> vague disclaimer wrote:
> > In article <9pg5c25jufrki186q...@4ax.com>,
> > Stephen Tempest <ste...@stempest.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > "when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?"
> >
> > Ah. The second most pointless debate in the Buffyverse.
> > --
> What's the first? Do you have a top ten list?
Nkr be fplgur?
vague disclaimer
EGK <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 01:51:24 +0100, vague disclaimer
> <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
>
> >In article <abc5c250adab93ke2...@4ax.com>,
> > EGK <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> >
> >> I always liked to pretend that Dawn sacrificed herself for the good of her
> >> new family. I thought it would have been just as powerful and even made
> >> sense.
> >
> >Well, yeah. But you would have been wrong on just about any conceivable
> >measure.
>
> blah blah blah. You type but you don't say anything. Pretty typical of you
> lately to just take shots. Even when you're proved wrong about something
> you can't admit it.
Blah blah blah.
The story told:
Hero makes supreme sacrifice for the innocent.
Your version:
Innocent makes supreme sacrifice for hero.
Fortunately the show was in the hands of someone who understands
storytelling.
Michael Ikeda
news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these
> review threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Five, Episode 22: "The Gift"
> (or "I'm not going there to die. I'm going there to see if I
> really am alive.")
> Writer: Joss Whedon
> Director: Joss Whedon
Just a few minor comments.
>
> Then the show returns to its plot. Early in the episode, Buffy
> vows not to hurt Dawn yet again, and subsequently has a chance
> to explain her weakness in this regard. Why is this the most
> difficult choice she's ever had to face? "The Gift" tries to
> make sense of this, as it has to, bringing up "killing" Angel
> and showing how she's changed to make this even harder.
I think it's mostly the losses she's already suffered. Plus the
promise to Joyce to protect Dawn.
And she's simply too weary and depressed to seriously face the
possibility of killing Dawn.
One other point is that Buffy so forcefully rejecting the
possibility of killing Dawn actually has a positive effect. It's
only AFTER she does that that the Scoobies start to seriously think
of alternatives.
>
> There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by
> which the ending comes about, although it's not a big enough
> deal to hurt the episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood
> can do the same thing as Key blood comes pretty much out of
> nowhere, with little buildup. Buffy's abrupt announcement at the
> beginning of TG that Dawn was made from her seems intrusive when
> one doesn't know what it's setting up, and like a retcon
> (addition type) after having seen the whole episode.
There was some foreshadowing, of course, but (deliberately, I
think) not much. Don't think it qualifies as a retcon because I
strongly suspect it was planned from fairly early on.
Speaking of foreshadowing, there's Spike's remark in "Fool for
Love" about how Buffy is eventually give in to the "death wish" and
that he'll be there when it happens.
Of course, at the time he said it, he figured he'd be happy about
it when it happened...
>And how
> could she have been so certain that it'd work?
It wasn't that she could be certain that it would work. It's just
that it was the only alternative to letting Dawn jump. Note that
the conditions for closing the portal appear to be slightly less
restrictive than the conditions for opening it.
>
> One-sentence summary: A strong finish.
>
> AOQ rating: Excellent
>
Can't argue with that.
--
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
(Harmony) Watcher
>
> <snip>
>
> Indeed, the Buffyvearse that Dawn exists in isn't even real,
>
>
reference links from modern physics), this is just an assumption of yours.
My assumption is that every "reality" is as "real" as any other "reality"
(as suggested by modern physics; see below).
> it was created
> by the monks when they inserted Dawn into it. All that bunkem about
altered
> memories is pish. Just doing that would never have worked as there are
> records of people from birth to death and Dawns would always have been
> "lost".
>
> A far better and more consistant ending would have been with Dawn
> sacrificing herself and then reality re-establishing it's self as Dawn
> free/never existed univearse.
>
And if Buffy stood idly by and let Dawn jump, it would have diminshed her
humanity as far as I'm concerned. The resulting "reality" would still not be
back to "normal" because now we're stuck with an inferior Buffy--one with
less humanity than what she had always been.
From the writer's POV, this is not about the technicality of what Dawn was
or was not. At the end of the writer's day, Dawn was just a McGuffin in the
overall moral puzzle. The message is about how Buffy tackled the moral
conundrum with her humanity. I have no doubt that she would sacrifice
herself even if it were some kid off the street unrelated to her.
Your reasoning proceeds from unsubstantiated and implicit assumptions (other
versions of Buffyverse not being the "real" Buffyverse, for example). To me,
it is
an unwarranted *assumption* that
Dawn closing the portal herself would fold
"reality" back to its initial state prior to
the monks' spell.
It is statistically improbable to derive the same "reality", starting from
the same fixed set of initial conditions containing a gadzillion
inter-related variables.
It is also an unwarranted *assumption* that there is one single immutable
default "reality". It does not have to so in Buffyverse, and it is most
likely not so in our real world as modern physics (theory of multiverses)
has suggested. In the grand scheme of things, it is likely that every
reality has as much physical validity as any other reality, some of them
more likable to us than others, of course. The Buffyverse before Dawn's
appearance could be just one of the 10^500 possible alternate universes
(c.f. Droppings Along the Bunny Trail:
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2006/01/lost-this-is-something-of-new.html).
In the so-called altered reality resulting from the Monks corrupting the
memory of everyone necessary, Dawn was a *sentient* being regardless of
whether she was living, breathing or otherwise. Even Data in ST:TNG and the
Holo-Doc in ST:Voyager, who were clearly non-carbon-based beings, were
treated with enlightened latitudes that they might be truly sentient. The
exact manner how Dawn was created by the Monks is unimportant. And the
argument that she was non-human before she was created is plain silly
because it is unlikely any human in BtVS or in real life was human before
they were conceived either.
What counts, perhaps, is that Buffy made her *humanity* transcend her and
others' linear biases toward some preferred version of reality (the one
before Dawn appeared) by taking into account the moral dimensions arising
from the intervening circumstances.
And even though it is a problem about how Buffy solved the morality puzzle,
modern physics seems to agree with her.
--
==Haromony Watcher==
Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only
animal that has the True Religion -- several of them. He is the only animal
that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology
isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest
best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven. -- Mark Twain
vague disclaimer
<mair_fheal-51405...@sn-ip.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> In article <mbFwg.8599$vO....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
> "Carin" <wave...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> > >
> > > Ratings by season:
> > > S1: Mean = 3.67, 50% quality
> > > S2: Mean = 3.55, 64% quality
> > > S3: Mean= 3.86, 68% quality
> > > S4: Mean= 3.5, 55% quality
> > > S5: Mean = 3.55, 50% quality
> > > Series so far: Mean = 3.62, 58% quality
>
> is this geometric or arithmetic means?
> geometric means are generally better when dealing with percentages
Also (and as a general rule), given that each sub-sample has fewer than
100 observations, percentages should be avoided.
> these kinds of calculations i would expect from three or four nerds
> hanging out in their moms basement instead of facing the real world
My God! AoQ's channelling Xander.
vague disclaimer
<mair_fheal-EFDCF...@sn-ip.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
> (which turned out to be willow downloading mp3s from a russian site)
Oh! So THAT'S what the demon Aluvempeethri represented!
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
vague disclaimer <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
my god
its full of nerds
arf meow arf - nsa fodder
ny dnrqn greebevfz ahpyrne obzo vena gnyvona ovt oebgure
if you meet buddha on the usenet killfile him
jil...@hotmail.com
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:> There is one complaint to be leveled
against the mechanism by which the
> ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt the
> episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little buildup.
> Buffy's abrupt announcement at the beginning of TG that Dawn was made
> from her seems intrusive when one doesn't know what it's setting
> up, and like a retcon (addition type) after having seen the whole
> Guess mystical creatures learn to trust these "feelings."
Actually, I was able to fanwank that away without a twinge of
difficulty. It has been emphasized repeatedly that the Monks wanted to
save the Key. Now, forget SLAYER Blood. Siblings frequently have
enough donor match to give each other body parts. Joyce could have
probably done the jump if she hadn't already died.
jil...@hotmail.com
drifter wrote:
> Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> > There is one complaint to be leveled against the mechanism by which
> > the ending comes about, although it's not a big enough deal to hurt
> > the episode too much. The idea that Slayer blood can do the same
> > thing as Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere, with little
> > buildup.
>
> anything off the second shelf. ;-)
Actually, one of the authors who gets paid to write (jealous scowl),
and wrote the Buffy-universe novel "These Our Actors", I think that was
the title... used that idea specifically.
vague disclaimer
BTR1701 <btr...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> In article <l64o-1rj5-81AB3...@mercury.nildram.net>,
> vague disclaimer <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
>
> > In article <9pg5c25jufrki186q...@4ax.com>,
> > Stephen Tempest <ste...@stempest.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > "when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?"
> >
> > Ah. The second most pointless debate in the Buffyverse.
>
> I challenge you to come up with a "Buffyverse" debate that isn't
> pointless. After all, it's just a TV show.
Any discussion about metaphor, allegory and symbolism, or about the
portrayal of heroism, sacrifice and redemption, or (in the specific
context of this season) the nature of kinship, loyalty and duty. Indeed
any discussion that could be applied to any art form.
As there are crap novels, so there are great novels.
As there are crap plays, so there are great plays.
As there are crap movies, so there are great movies.
As there is crap TV, so there is great TV.
And this is great TV.
Since you ask.
vague disclaimer
wrote:
> Buffy doesn't seem to grasp that if the world dies, so does Dawn. She
> won't kill Dawn to save the entire world, even if Dawn is a goner either
> way? Then again, Dawn *didn't* die as it turned out, so I guess Buffy
> had a point. There *was* a way around it.
I think she grasped it perfectly well, but was refusing to accept
(perhaps more to the point, refusing to let others accept) the
impossibility of the situation.
Horace LaBadie
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
> - "Smart chicks are soooo hot." "You couldn't have figured that
> out in tenth grade?"
> - Anya and the bunny puppet
> - The discussion of what Willow might want with the Buffybot
> - "This will be our day of glory!" "Well punned." "Well, it
> just called out to me."
> - "Did everybody else know the Slayer was a robot?"
"We few, we happy few..."
HWL
BTR1701
vague disclaimer <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
> In article <btr1702-3BEAAD...@news.giganews.com>,
> BTR1701 <btr...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <l64o-1rj5-81AB3...@mercury.nildram.net>,
> > vague disclaimer <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
> >
> > > In article <9pg5c25jufrki186q...@4ax.com>,
> > > Stephen Tempest <ste...@stempest.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > > "when did Olaf the Troll suddenly become a Troll _God_?"
> > >
> > > Ah. The second most pointless debate in the Buffyverse.
> >
> > I challenge you to come up with a "Buffyverse" debate that isn't
> > pointless. After all, it's just a TV show.
>
> Any discussion about metaphor, allegory and symbolism, or about the
> portrayal of heroism, sacrifice and redemption, or (in the specific
> context of this season) the nature of kinship, loyalty and duty. Indeed
> any discussion that could be applied to any art form.
But what's the point of debating all that? What does it ever resolve?
BTR1701
vague disclaimer <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
> In article <v1j5c2doiqdop8nm0...@4ax.com>,
> EGK <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 01:51:24 +0100, vague disclaimer
> > <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
> >
> > >In article <abc5c250adab93ke2...@4ax.com>,
> > > EGK <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >> I always liked to pretend that Dawn sacrificed herself
> > >> for the good of her new family. I thought it would have
> > >> been just as powerful and even made sense.
> > >
> > >Well, yeah. But you would have been wrong on just
> > >about any conceivable measure.
> >
> > blah blah blah. You type but you don't say anything.
> > Pretty typical of you lately to just take shots. Even when
> > you're proved wrong about something you can't admit it.
>
> Blah blah blah.
>
> The story told:
>
> Hero makes supreme sacrifice for the innocent.
>
> Your version:
>
> Innocent makes supreme sacrifice for hero.
>
> Fortunately the show was in the hands of someone who understands
> storytelling.
Wow, someone really pissed in your Cheerios today, huh?
BTR1701
vague disclaimer <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
> In article <gemini.j2ue6i00d...@pacifier.com>,
> Mark Jones <sin...@pacifier.com> wrote:
>
> > vague disclaimer <l64o...@dea.spamcon.org> wrote:
> >
> > > In article <1153609381.0...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> > > "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Watching this scene made me wonder why the show
> > > > hadn't gotten around to this earlier, since it's
> > > > great, and it follows very naturally from what's
> > > > come before.
> > >
> > > You're not seeing that this question supplies
> > > its own answer?
> > >
> > > > The idea that Slayer blood can do the same thing as
> > > > Key blood comes pretty much out of nowhere,
> > >
> > > Only if you completely ignore the theme of the season.
> > > It wasn't Slayer blood, it was family blood. But don't
> > > worry - that whooshed past a lot of people.
> >
> > No, it was bullshit of the highest order. But a lot of
> > people were willing to drink the kool-aid anyhow.
>
> Thank you for that searing insight.
At least he provides *some* insight. All you contribute are drive-by
insults. On the totem-pole of ideas, you're right there at the bottom,
chief.
BTR1701
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
Yet she let herself (an innocent girl) jump, thereby invalidating your
logical theorem.
BTR1701
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
> "Patrician" <ghj...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:44c33a52$0$1016$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > Indeed, the Buffyvearse that Dawn exists in isn't even real,
> >
> >
> Without an adequate clear definition of "real" or "reality" (see below for
> reference links from modern physics), this is just an assumption of yours.
> My assumption is that every "reality" is as "real" as any other "reality"
> (as suggested by modern physics; see below).
> > A far better and more consistant ending would have been with Dawn
> > sacrificing herself and then reality re-establishing it's self as Dawn
> > free/never existed univearse.
> >
>
> And if Buffy stood idly by and let Dawn jump, it would
> have diminshed her humanity as far as I'm concerned.
Why would she have to stand idly by? The story could easily be written
where Buffy is still fighting Glory down on the ground when Dawn sees
the rift open and realizes there's only one choice, one way to stop
everything. Then Buffy looks up, sees what she's about to do, screams
"No!" and races up the stairs... but it's too late. Dawn jumps.
That doesn't involve Buffy standing idly by or losing her humanity or
anything else. But it does have the added benefit of making sense with
what has come before.
BTR1701
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> (Harmony) Watcher wrote:
> > Everything is about blood. Blood is the key. If Dawn's blood can open and
> > close the portal, Buffy's blood can certainly close it, assuming that Dawn
> > was made out of Buffy.
>
> If everything is about blood, then why did the monks make Dawn into a
> human?
>
> This is what we call an idiot plot - a plot that only works because the
> characters driving it are idiots. There's a specific time and place
> that Glory's ritual has to be performed, apparentely blood is the key
> to it, and yet the monks still send the Key to the exact same place the
> portal is located, in a form that can bleed, and then proceed to lead
> Glory right to it. They couldn't have screwed that up any more if
> they'd tried.
Well said. If Glory's portal is in Sunnydale, why didn't they send the
Key to Cairo? And before anyone answers "Because the Slayer is in
Sunnydale and they wanted her to protect the Key", don't forget, these
monks have the ability to alter memories, records, reality itself. They
could have easily have arranged for Buffy to be in Cairo as well
(perhaps studying on a UC Sunnydale exchange program or something like
that).
BTR1701
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
> With the right incantations and the right rituals, *a*
> (as opposed to *the*) portal from Buffy's homeworld to
> Glory's homeworld can be created anywhere in Buffy's
> world they chose to. Apparently it needed a (silly)
> high platform for the ritual to work.
That makes absolutely no sense. A portal can be created anywhere but a
20-story tower is nevertheless required? Either the portal can be
created anywhere or it can't. The existence of the tower is direct
evidence that it can't. The portal nexus was 200 feet off the ground,
therefore the tower was necessary to reach it.
BTR1701
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
> "EGK" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
> > Do you also reject the notion that this ball of energy
> > didn't have blood? People can fanwank that all they want
> > but there is no way season 5 makes sense without doing it.
> > You have to make things up and fill in huge, gaping
> > holes the writers weren't inclined to fill in themselves.
> > Some people don't mind doing that. Others, like me, feel
> > it's a cheat when the writers do something like telling
> > us all season how unique the Key was. Then have Buffy
> > substitute for it at the last minute.
> There is no data to confirm or reject whether this green
> ball of energy had blood or not.
Um... yes, there is. It was a being of pure energy. That, by definition,
is not blood.
> Who's to say that it didn't have green blood?
Common sense... Words... The English language...
Take your pick.
BTR1701
"\(Harmony\) Watcher" <nob...@nonesuch.com> wrote:
> Yes, I do need to clarify a bit on my position on the X-Files. I never like
> the idea of watching MOTW episodes week after week with few and far between
> advances in major arcs. So, for example, even though I admired that episode
> with the boy with the "lion face" and Cher,
Wasn't that a movie called "Mask"? I don't think it was an episode of
"X-Files".