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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The Best Of Buffy Thread

  
  

Page: 123(4)5

 
 
Billuccho!
13:37 / 09.03.07
I think OMWF is great but the problem is that it doesn't advance any of the storylines in the series at all.

Yes it does. The idea behind Hush was that "when people stop talking, they start communicating." OMWF is similar, but with song. It's because they're compelled to sing that they reveal their inner turmoil and the problems they're afraid to share with their friends. Buffy reveals she was in Heaven, not Hell, Giles and Tara soliloquize that they need to get out of dodge for a while, Dawn continues to be mopey emo Dawn, Xander and Anya reveal their fears about married life which will come back to haunt them throughout the season and especially in Hell's Bells, etc.

I mean, it's character arc, not "Big Bad" overt plotty stuff, but character is very much tied into plot on this show.

I love the experimental episodes that can act as both one-offs and set-up/complete character and emotional arcs. Restless is one of my favorite episode of all time, and I used to hate it. Then you've got Hush, and Once More With Feeling... The Body (experimental in that there is no musical score, because "music makes people feel safe/comfortable," sayeth Joss) is a fantastic episode, but it makes me so uncomfortable (Joss is right) I can't bear to watch it.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:59 / 09.03.07
I'll give you the reveal that Buffy was in heaven, but would you like to refute any of my other examples, at all? We have an episode where Willow misuses magic again which makes Tara dump her, Xander and Anya still persist in trying to get married despite being aware that they both have misgivings, Giles waits for a bit then leaves, I can't remember if Dawn's plotline pays off in any meaningful way and Spike still hangs around annoying people.
 
 
Tim Tempest
16:10 / 09.03.07
Yeah but, come on....Spike's a badass.
 
 
Ticker
16:44 / 09.03.07
I remember being at a lecture by Ian Simmons at an UnCon in London called 'Sex at Room Temperature' about the impact of occult paranormal awareness on the mainstream via the Buffyverse and warning people he was going to be discussing the US episodes already aired. Holy hell did people freak out over Spike being revealed as one of Buffy's swains...

Anyhow I really enjoyed Spike as the sex/love interest as a refreshing change from Riley and Angel and the really uncomfortable places it went. It allowed for just how messed up Buffy was coming back to life and for what years of being in a constant state of crisis would do to you.

This is getting a bit side tracked into Angel-land but I've always felt Angel never really matured as a personality, and in that sense was a great vampire (DB's skills got hellya better though!). I never really bought that he loved Buffy except as a narcisstic reflection of what he couldn't have, a reminder of All That Is Good and should be fought for and so loved what Buffy represented but not her as a person.
Riley was the ultimate rebound in that he was what Buffy thought a good man should be but really his lack of rumbing elbows with the High Weirdness and lack of Otherworldy experience set him up for failure. Interestingly enough it's only when he becomes vamp bait that he then has the potential to evolve into someone capable of understanding Buffy but that was short lived and reactionary.

Was Spike right that Buffy needed some monster in her man? I think it might be phrased better by saying she needed a fellow monster hunter who understood that good and evil goes beyond species and mystical status. Being a monster is a short cut to this understanding but probably not the only way.

Spike then has to come from the other side and be a bit redeemed and I never felt this was really done clearly as he goes to the Demon shaman not so much to get ensouled but to give 'her what she deserves'. Which after the rape attempt (so wonderfully complex because of the blurred lines of their often violent relationship) doesn't read like the merry goal of redemption at all but quite the opposite. To me it read as wanting to return utterly into the darkness of evil and have anything good be extinguished.
Was it then his heart's desire to be ensouled as the Demon shaman seems to indicate?
Anyhow Spike's bout of crazy land adjustment in the HS's basement is far more gut wrenching than any of Angel's 'ooh I was a bad person' even in the flash backs.

I could go on but I seem to have run out of ranting room.
 
 
Feverfew
18:05 / 09.03.07
Bear in mind that the usage of the word "swains" entitles anybody to extra ranting room, I believe.
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
19:11 / 09.03.07
I agree about Spike and the soul – I’m pretty sure he thought he wanted to be turned back into the big bad, so he could go back and kill Buffy and all her friends and not care. However I think getting a soul legitimately worked as a solution to his problem, because whatever Spike thought he wanted what was really tearing him apart was being the way he was – neither one thing nor the other – he couldn’t really be good, not having a soul, but he just couldn’t be the big bad anymore, and the conflict was what was causing his suffering. So giving him a soul certainly worked as a solution to the issues he was suffering at the time, albeit in a monkey’s paw kinda way inflicting a whole lot of far worse issues on him. I occasionally got a little pissed when Spike insisted he went out and got himself a soul deliberately because he was such a decent guy even before he got the soul later on, because to me that blatantly wasn’t the case. I guess he was meant to be lying or at least spinning the facts a bit, and that was very much in his character and as such fine, but I’d like to have seen the fact that this wasn’t necessarily strictly speaking true acknowledged a little more on screen.

Also he cellar business was definitely more pleasing to me than any of Angel’s rather theatrical guilt – but I guess the counterpoint makes sense, I got the impression that shy awkward pre-embrace human William/Spike was someone far more likely to be given to guilt and recrimination than the carefree feckless human Liam/Angel, so I guess it makes sense that his guilt would be more crushing and overwhelming and just that little bit more real. Or I might be talking bollocks – but really any reason why Spike’s better than the bloody boy scout on pretty much any imaginable level works for me.
 
 
Ticker
19:53 / 09.03.07
I found Spike's orgin story with his mother blew the pants off of anything Angel had in his angsty closet. Plus it got right up on the Anne Rice Lestat/Gabriel story and kicked it squarely in the bits. It was a great episode mirroring William/Spike and his Mum with Woods and his Slayer Mum.

I agree about why never looking at the ensouled Spike's 'went and got it' versus oh, wait really 'I wanted the damn chip out' was an annoyance. It seems to be the major and possibly only self deception in a character who often is the only one who says the harsh truth.

I'm looking forward to watching Angel S5 just for Spike, mostly.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
20:36 / 09.03.07
Joss had said in interviews around the time of the last season of Angel that Spike wanted and went looking to get his soul back, that's why he didn't go to this demon back in s.4 when he first got free and discovered he had the chip.
 
 
Crestmere
03:47 / 10.03.07
Finished season 5 of Buffy a few days ago.

Have about 7 more episodes of Angel S2 to go.

In between then, Ill probably watch Weeds and/or Big Love.
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
19:04 / 10.03.07
Well it seems my interpretation varies from what Joss Whedon says is the correct one, but even so I just can't quite look at it that way. Even so to play out the Spike wanted the chip out and to be properly evil interpretation a little further, because I'm interested in it, even if it's not correct, I never really saw Spike's claims of going looking for a soul to necessarily be self deception - more as boast that he didn't necessarily believe himself, because it's something he had over Angel, and maybe a bit of benefit of hindsight thrown in.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
19:45 / 10.03.07
Well, because of the ridiculous 'a serial killer with a soul is better than the bestest friendliest monster without a soul' philosophy BtVS was saddled with I can see that Spike felt he needed a soul in order to have the same relationship with Buffy that Angel had.
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
20:03 / 10.03.07
Yeah - that made sense to start with, when all the things without souls were genuinely evil, but by series 6, where not having a soul just meant Spike had self destructive emotional tendancies, and we had characters like Clem running around it was a bit of a nonsense. Angel handled it better in general I think, at least most of the time.
 
 
Ticker
22:31 / 10.03.07
WEE! The spouse bought Angel Season 5 tonight!

I like Whedon's uncomfortable love stories when they go somewhere and I felt it didn't really matter if Spike had a soul or not in order to produce it. In fact it made it much more interesting when he didn't have one!
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
18:31 / 11.03.07
Have fun with Angel series 5. I'm in the process of slowly rewatching it at the moment. It has it's problems but all in all it's a pretty amazing bit of television. Not to give away any plot points, but the final episodes are some of the most emotionaly intense television I've ever seen. Almost had me writing fanfic once i'd finished watching it, and it's the first thing to do that since I was in the middle years of secondary school.
 
 
Triplets
19:08 / 11.03.07
What's the Buffy ep were Spike finally gets out of the wheelchair?
 
 
Internaut
19:17 / 11.03.07
buffy:- i think its either part 1 or part 2 of the season two finale.

spike reveals that he's already healed, leaps out of his wheelie chair, and attacks angel. because he can.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
19:23 / 11.03.07
I believe it's actually at the end of 'I Only Have Eyes For You'.
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
19:24 / 11.03.07
I thought he got out of the chair a few episodes prior to that, purely for the benefit of us viewers. Right at the end of an episode with no viewers, so only us and Spike knew. I should note thought it been ages since I watched series 2
 
 
Internaut
19:43 / 12.03.07
mm, it does depend on whether or not you mean when he does it, or when he reveals it.
 
 
the permuted man
19:56 / 12.03.07
I've been rewatching Buffy for the whichever-ith time, and caught the Glorificus line:

"I am great / and I am beautiful / and when I walk into a room all eyes turn to me / because my name is a HOLY name / and you / will LISTEN!"

For whatever reason it really struck me as powerful this time through.

Not really going anywhere with this. Just one of many great lines.
 
 
Ticker
01:56 / 13.03.07
Watched OMWF due to this thread's necromancy and the special features 'making of'. Holy crap those people busted their collective asses!
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
05:10 / 13.03.07
"I am great / and I am beautiful / and when I walk into a room all eyes turn to me / because my name is a HOLY name / and you / will LISTEN!"

Honestly, I think the actress and the scripting for the character of Glorificus were the best part of Season 5 (barring the various standalone episodes like The Body), even with all the plotting problems and the Annoying Issue of Dawn. The descriptions she gives of being caught in an ugly little meaty body were perfect and vicious.
 
 
Lugue
08:45 / 13.03.07
Really? I thought the writing was interesting when her arrogant behaviour cracked, her megalomaniac need for self-satisfaction and sense of disorientation showing through. It worked well as a balance between humour and drama in scenes, just by exposing her fragile balance between the two. But Clare Kramer? She should be an astronaut. She should be a dog-walker. An athlete. Really, a lot of options available. An actress, she should not. Oh no. Something about her voice, mostly.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
09:44 / 13.03.07
Part of the problem with both Adam and Glory was that there was little to distinguish them from the type of monster that was dispatched by the end of the episode. To me it became wearying to see them week after week.
 
 
Ticker
15:14 / 13.03.07
I hafta agree. All the Big Bads after the Mayor just seemed lame. Even the First was blah until Caleb showed up.

Glory was only slightly less annoying to me than Dawn. The dudes in armor just made me wince a lot.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:53 / 13.03.07
Even the First was blah until Caleb showed up.

...At which point it became actively shit. What's that you say, Joss? You have some subversive things to say about organised religion, much in the manner of Tori Amos?
 
 
Ticker
16:01 / 13.03.07
I think I'd emotionally given up on 7 at that point and was just happy to see Nathan Fillion. So I'd argue the turning to shit happened before that in the season. I'll go look at review of episodes and see when I decided its shit to sack ratio was off.
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
16:32 / 13.03.07
I hafta agree. All the Big Bads after the Mayor just seemed lame. Even the First was blah until Caleb showed up.

As far as traditional big bads go I agree, but on the other hand I thought Season 6 handled this pretty well. If you count Warren not Willow as the big bad then in some ways he was actually my favourite big bad. Not a god, or a wizard or a vampire - just a really, really shitty pathetic human being. And in being such almost certainly the most realistic portrayal of evil the show ever managed to pull off.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:11 / 28.08.07
Thought you might find this interesting (and it should inspire many to cheer, loudly). Film Ick reports:

>> This weekend, Anthony Stuart head has been attending the Collectormania Glasgow event. Several film ick eyes and ears were present... What was the best bit of news we found out?

That according to Anthony Stuart Head, the Ripper series is finally going into production. He's expecting the shoot to take place next summer, if everything goes to plan. And, yes, Joss Whedon is behind the wheel.

Ripper was originally proposed some years ago as a BBC co-production while Buffy was still at The WB. It's to be set in the UK and Anthony Stuart Head is to lead a line-up of new characters, much the way Angel did when he went to LA.

Good to hear that the Buffyverse is coming back to TV, even if legal issues might keep even little cameos from some favourite characters well out of the frame.
-----------------------------------------------------
 
 
Triplets
13:17 / 28.08.07
Great news. I cannae get enough Head. Do you know if this will still be produced by the BBC?
 
 
Shiny: Well Over Thirty
13:22 / 28.08.07
Yay! Nice one. It's good to hear there is apparently some life in the televised Buffyverse yet.
 
 
Ava Banana
13:50 / 28.08.07
Wooo! So excited about this. And Satanic, I did hear a whisper today that it is being filmed for the BBC but I've no evidence for this as yet.
 
 
Ticker
14:02 / 28.08.07
good and long Whedon interview

there's a brief blurb in the middle about Ripper. No visits from our friends? then how the hell did they get the rights to Giles at all?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
16:48 / 28.08.07
YES.

That is all.
 
 
Lama glama
19:22 / 28.08.07
My favourite bit of the interview:

AVC: With that in mind, what can you say about Goners, the horror-fantasy film you're developing?

JW: Well, there may be some female empowerment in it at some point. [Laughs.] I don't know who put that there.

News of Ripper is heartening, but I'd recommend a hefty pinch of salt. Is there any actual confirmation of it, beyond talk of negotiations?
 
  

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