Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Buffy the Vampire Slayer

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33qmjDiCQHY

So...what can you say about one of the most important bits of pop culture in America? A lot, apparently.

For my own part, I'm no academic. I'm just lucky to have been part of history, having watched Buffy from its inception.
My Buffy Viewing Timeline(as best as I can recall it):
1. An 8-year-old me somehow tuned in for the first episode and was promptly terrified by Darla vamping out and killing some rando. Even then I knew horror cliches enough to have expected a monster to pop out and get the boy and girl who were all alone. But then she was the monster and little me did not expect that. I watched Buffy up to Season 3 when a lot more sexy stuff started happening and it got bumped up to TV-14 all the time so my grandma said no more.
3. Skip to around 2001 or 2002 when FX aired reruns. I watched Season 3-6 this way.
4. Years later, probably around 2009, I got Season 7 on DVD to complete my viewing experience.
5. I did rewatch of Season 2-5 about ten years ago but haven't properly watched any Buffy since. I haven't seen Season 1 since 1997 or Season 6 since the early 2000s. I was holding out for a bluray set then forgot and now I come back to find the BRs finally exist but are the loving worst.

Despite all this, I would say I'm pretty serious Buffy fan. It was an essential part of my childhood and teenage years. I think it's something almost every nerd from that era was exposed to whether they liked it or not. And its subsequent impact on pop and nerd culture can't be overstated. I'm a huge RPG fan and you can really see the influence when comparing old BioWare games vs. newer ones. (by "newer" I mean from a decade or so ago...)

Season 1 does not have a very high reputation in the Buffy fandom from my experience. Oh it has its defenders but many folks will recommend skipping it, sorta like skipping season 1 of X-Files. Buffy Season 1 is super campy and short and, as I was recently informed, it was thrown in sort of last minute to fill a time slot. To think, something this important almost didn't happen. But I guess that's often how it goes.

Season 2, 3, and 5 were my favorites. Thought they had the best drama and villains.

2001/2 Me absolutely hated Season 6. Buffy, unlike Angel, goes out in a pretty sad way with two stinker seasons in my view but I at least remember liking parts of 7. 6 was nothing but the most contrived and unpleasant drama due to characters being written poorly to create that drama. Granted, my favorite relationship on the show was Willow and Tara and Season 6 was all about "how can we utterly ruin this relationship?" Willow & Tara are of course incredibly important to LGBTQ fans gay representation. But they were also just really good, well-written, well-acted characters with incredibly believable chemistry. Destroying that for no reason does not sit well with me.

But these are all the opinions of a much younger me. It's 2022, a lot has changed. We have all changed. I'm really interested in seeing just what I make of this important bit of my childhood now I'm in my 30s.

Before starting this thread I figured I could at least rewatch the first two episodes. "Welcome to the Hellmouth" & "The Harvest"
Thoughts:

1. �I know this guy Luke from somewhere� That voice is very recognizable� Wait, is he Shao Kahn from the godawful MK sequel?� The answer is yes. I did not remember that at all.

2 The acting is...passable but the action is dreadful. I can't wait for more of a budget or training or time or al of the above in the upcoming seasons. Or maybe it gets better even as time goes on in this season. It all feels very cheap and low effort right now.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez1twvphJVc

There's a petty great callback to this at the end of the series. Perhaps that's why i find it so charming.

But that'll do it for me and my less than stellar OP. Dunno if anybody else is gonna be doing a rewatch or if there are even that many Buffy fans there are on this site. I'd love to hear from any of you. But for my part, with this thread going I'll be able to focus better and continue on to the end through all seven seasons. I might even do an Angel rewatch, I only ever watched AtS once about....gently caress, 15 years ago.

P.S.
Long, long after I became a Buffy fan, only about 2 or 3 years ago in fact, I got into the World of Darkness. I think it, Anne Rice, and Buffy itself are three of the most influential �newer� vampire media. Mrs. Rice (RIP) predates and influenced them both but I wonder if WoD had any influence on Buffy? If there is any, maybe I'll spot it now I actually know more about WoD. Nothing comes to mind, though.

P.S.S.
The opening narration with the basic premise of who the Slayer is and what this is all about reminds me of Highlander's opening, even moreso when Giles does it, a Watcher just like Joe the Watcher for Duncan. The 90s had so many awesome Fantasy TV shows.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Mar 11, 2022

# ¿ Mar 11, 2022 11:50

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 18:54

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

FilthyImp posted:

Awkward teen poo poo to follow:

I think that it should be noted that Buffy splashed onto the stage about a year after The Craft had been in theatres and helped push the whole alt/goth/wiccan/Nu Age Mysticism thing into adolescent life.

I was in High School when Buffy started and I definitely remember it being a Hip Cool thing the Hip Cool kids were into.

Being the terrible person I was, I resolved not to touch it because it was probably shite. Same as with Dawson's Creek -- i.e. "oh when I saY something like that I'm a nerd but when Dawson's Creek does it..."

Then Buffy fell out of fashion in my age group for some reason and I felt it was safe to look into it. I happened to tune into an episode where Buffy takes a rocket launcher to the prophesied heavy and thought well, that's interesting enough.

I remained a regular viewer, though largely skipped the terrible Goes to College season. I laughed at how transparently Twilight copied the Buffy/Angel plot (probably itself a heteronormative echo of Anne Rice's work as Interview with a Vampire was fresh).

Anyway, as a series the tone was much better than the film... and I wonder how much of that was like Marti Noxon and the Writers vs Joss

I felt that overall the series should have ended with the Glory season. Everything after that was just kind of hollow.

Season 5 ("the Glory season") was supposed to be the end and shows. "The Gift" (S5's season finale) was the best season finale the show ever had. I love everything about the season, really. People who look at only the dated parts overlook stuff like "The Body," the episode dealing with Buffy's mom dying. That episode is perennially relevant and painful. On a less dramatic note, I just love Glory as a villain.

If you want my wild speculation about why Buffy maybe fell out of favor with some groups, it is my experience that a lot of folks "moved on" to Angel. Buffy and Angel are super different shows with different aims and themes. Buffy is a coming of age show with demons and poo poo. Angel the Series is about a group of adults dealing with adult problems...framed against demons and poo poo. This is not a value statement, adult here does not mean mature. It's just that the tone of the two shows is radically different and my favorite character in Angel, Lindsey, would not work at all in Buffy because he doesn't fit at all with the kinds of themes Buffy was interested in pursuing.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2022 21:01

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

roomtone posted:

I've rewatched Buffy more than any other show. About 5 years ago I decided to do a rewatch for the first time since I was a teenager and it and Angel have been pretty constantly on my mind since. Not because I love them, really, but because they are both good and ways in which they are bad is really interesting to me. As the shows go on, some areas get better, and some get worse. It's got very centrist social attitudes in the rare times when it does brush up against real life and that probably dampens my enjoyment of the shows more than anything else, but it's also just a kind of artifact of how certain people think.

As far a basic top level quality discussion on the two shows go I think

buffy: s1 is not actually bad, it's just simpler and campier. s2 has episodes of the exact same style and quality, sometimes worse - it just also has the big angelus story and spike/drusilla. s3-5 are consistently good even with the botched initiative storyline, s6 is rocky but so weird and interesting to me, and s7 straight up stinks.

angel: s1 is uneven but my favourite premise for the show, s2 is the best one even though they abandon the season arc for a 4 episode joke, s3 is fine, s4 is loving awful, and s5 is like...it's not really that good, despite what people say. it has some good episodes but the premise shift and memory reset is too much, the humour kind of becomes a bit annoying (probably because whedon was TRYING HARD in this season), and it doesn't develop it's main arc well at all, cramming things into a few scattered episodes mostly towards the end. the actual last moments of the show are the absolute best they could've done with the season they had though, and is a good note to leave the world on.

overall i like buffy better now, although it was absolutely the opposite when i was 12-16 when i was watching these shows on DVD and as the last couple seasons aired. i thought angel was much cooler and i still think it is 'cooler', but the advantages of the toybox town setting of sunnydale and a more consistent focus on the strengths of the show make buffy just a more complete and enjoyable escapist comedic melodrama.

angel as a series kept hitting on these cool things for the show and kept moving on from them to things which didn't actually work as well. i feel like they never had full confidence in the show. even in the main character himself. there is a specific episode (epiphany, 2x16) where angel's personality permanently changes to become just david boreanez, laughing and being petty way too much, and it makes angel a lot less compelling and cool as a character. he becomes a normal guy who has superpowers and enjoys hanging out with his buddies.

He's also one of my favourites on Angel and they shouldn't have written him out for anywhere near as long as they did. There's really an alternate verison of Angel where instead of adding Fred and some of the others to main cast, they elevate Lindsey, Lilah and Kate (who left to do a full time job on another show), which I would have much preferred. More adults with complex personalities, less Whedony archetypes.

Interesting you have so little to say about AtS S3. My memory is that it was, along with Season 2, the best part of the show. Keith Szarabajka (Harbinger from Mass Effect 2, Graham from Fallout New Vegas Honest Hearts, and - nobody will know or care about this but me - Yuriev from Xenosaga) was perfect and the character of Holtz is another example of something only Angel could really pull off of these two shows. Dark and twisted and ambigious, somebody you both sympathize with and despise, like Lindsey. Evil people who still nevertheless have consciences and earn our sympathy.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2022 21:46

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

So I read this BBC article and I wanna comment on a part of it and connect it with Episode 3 of Season 1.

quote:

Those dark forces manifested in a way that also served as a metaphor for the things teens were dealing with, like when Buffy's vampire lover Angel (David Boreanaz) becomes a monster after Buffy loses her virginity to him: a demonic reflection of the first-time experience of some young women when confronted with the coldness of young men once they�ve had sex.

My first question is, can the facts of a story undercut a metaphor? Because, to my mind, this interpretation doesn't work because Angel wasn't a bad person. The point of a metaphor like this would be to warn girls about being taken advantage of by a duplicitous scumbag. They were a bad person and used you for sex and then the sex revealed who they truly were. This is emphatically not the case with the character of Angel. This whole angle with Buffy and Angel is a Tragedy, something unjust happened to good people.

Now to S01E03 "Witch." We all know the expression "live vicariously through another." We know the idea of a parent exploiting their child to relive their youth. Well, this episode takes it literally with Amy's mom hijacking her daughter's body through magic. At this point, is it even still a metaphor or is it something else? In any event, this would be a case of where the story aligns with its message. They just took a figurative real world problem and made it literal.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2022 02:18

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

boquiabierta posted:

ok thanks to this thread I'm downloading Buffy to rewatch. Never got into Angel and this thread seems split on whether it's worth it?

I think most Buffy fans are also Angel fans and vice versa. Thoughts on which is better varies but I've never met a serious fan of one who hated the other. They are very different shows but of comparable quality in acting, writing, etc.. The only thing I thought Angel was weak on compared to Buffy was romantic relationships. It has them but they're by and large pretty meh by my reckoning.

As I said earlier, it's an adult show about adult problems. Consider the protagonist - a vampire with a dark past who fights other vampires. It's all about straddling lines, most importantly that line between good and evil. Buffy occasionally dipped into that but it remained from the start to the end about Good fighting Evil, even the metaphysical embodiment of Evil. There's a very powerful scene in Angel Season 2 which contrasts Angel strongly with Buffy on this front.

Also it's just straight up more action-y. The fights are bigger and better if I'm honest. If you ever wondered why nobody used a gun in Buffy, Angel has you covered.

There are familiar faces from Buffy who pop up in Angel...besides Angel himself I mean. One character in particular grows so much on Angel that it's startling. A total 180 doesn't even begin to describe how much they change and improve in terms of being a compelling character.

EDIT:
I'm an Angel Season 2, 3, and 5 stan myself.

roomtone posted:

I don't think undercutting a metaphor is necessarily a flaw. Angel's situation is a good example because it *feels* like a boyfriend turning bad, but actually it isn't - it's a boyfriend being replaced by an entirely different person in the same body. That doesn't happen. If 'boyfriend dumped me after he got sex' wasn't a cultural meme, the actual storytelling of Angel turning into Angelus would have still been effective, because it's all well written and acted.

Academics and audiences can recognise broad strokes of metaphor and allegory in stories they're analysing, and then start labelling things in the story which don't fit their framing of it as flaws. They reduce the writing down to the thing they want it to be.

I'm sure the boyfriend turned bad was the starting point for the story idea in the writers room, because the writers are pretty clear that the way they operated was to take real life experiences as the emotional starting point to tell supernatural stories. They do this so that there is some built in emotional resonance, not because they want to depict the initial experience realistically.

If you followed the logical course of what a vampire slayer's life would actually be like, it would immediately veer off into territory the audience would have no personal experience with and reduce the audience appeal down to people who are in to heavy genre fiction.

So they don't do that, they use these tropes which you'll see played straight in teen and young adult soap operas as a starting point and go from there. The end result isn't a 1:1 symbolic message delivery system, it's entertainment.

Fair enough. I was thinking of, like, if you know X-Men, you know they are a metaphor for being gay. But in these discussions somebody inevitably comes in with "but gay people can't blow up the world so mutants are a bad metaphor." They woul argue the facts of the story ruin the symbolism. It's just kindof tricky at times to balance what the story is about vs. what the story is saying, I guess.

So Season 1 so far has involved a lot of Buffy trying to balance her personal life vs. her Slayer duties. Dunno if anybody here is an anime fan but My Hero Academia is a current hit and it's largely about what makes a good hero. The protagonist there is the total opposite of Buffy which is what occurred to me after watching Episode 5. Deku would have totally blown off the date even before it began. Buffy is not a bad person for wanting a personal life, and indeed, MHA seems to largely be saying people like Deku who give up everything about themselves to help others are actually doing it wrong. It's hard for Buffy to balance these two lives but that is still the "correct" choice I think both shows agree on. You can't sacrifice your own happiness for everyone else's. That's a bad way of being a hero in both Buffy and MHA.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Mar 12, 2022

# ¿ Mar 12, 2022 10:52

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I've never done research on it but from what I've heard on Buffy forums and stuff over the years is Angel S4 had to go undergo serious rewrites.
You'll remember the big thing they were developing was Cordelia's ascension. She was gonna be like a big deal, a Power That Be maybe. More importantly, she was gonna become a villain and all this build up was for that. Then her actress got pregnant and that all went out the window and we got Jasmine instead.

This is just what I've heard.

Learning S4 had to be redone is not surprising at all to me. That's how it felt. Also the Angel/Cordelia romance is a prime example of why I don't like romances on Angel. The only reason this became a thing was "he's the main male lead, she's the main female lead, how about they hook up." It did not work at all.

roomtone posted:

Even Angelus's long awaited return is a disappointment, from an acting and writing perspective.

This was also a big problem for me. Considering how intimidating and cerebral he was on Buffy, they made him way too kooky and over-the-top.

Also we might want to spoiler tag Angel stuff at least from now on, I dunno.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Mar 13, 2022

# ¿ Mar 13, 2022 04:44

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Ah, "I Robot, You Jane", a pretty infamous episode to my understanding. All about Willow finding love online...and it's a demon robot because of course it is. Maybe I'm being unfair and this isn't scaremongering but a legitimate call for caution. It's just, between this and X-Files' "2shy", the only episodes about online dating are all about deception and murder. Especially in the 90s when computers and the internet were such new things, it's very easy to freak people out about this kind of thing.

Gotta watch Hackers to cleanse my system.

On the bright side, it introduced Jenny Calendar who is a fun character in my memory. But, on the other hand, she's a character who exists now and....well, this ending "joke' sums up her fate, and the fate of our three main heroes

Also a personal note: I can't see very well so I miss things. Not terribly important things but still notable. Looking up other peoples' comment s on this episode for example, I learned Willow has a picture of herself and Giles in her locker. I never would have even thought to look for something like that. Relatedly, on the Buffy subreddit somebody said Faith gave Joyce a vibrator or dildo for a Christmas present and your main clue is to look at the shape of the package. I never would have noticed something like that Just kind of frustrating at times.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Mar 13, 2022

# ¿ Mar 13, 2022 11:33

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Buffy & Angel Once Had Super-Powered Sex In Space

I've never had much interest in the comics because of this. Not just that it's stupid and silly but the comics lose all sense of scale. The limitations of a TV budget kept things a bit "grounded" and that's important. Buffy is not Superman, nor should she be.

Somebody on Reddit said "limitations breed creativity." They gave the example of Jaws, I'm thinking of Final Fantasy X. It was originally going to have an entirely different battle system but they couldn't make it work with their fledgling understanding of PS2 hardware. You know who's complaining? No one. FFX's gameplay is beloved and praised as one of its best features.

Anyway, only one more episode to go in Season 1. After this, things will probably speed up a bit.... More interest on my part.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Mar 14, 2022

# ¿ Mar 14, 2022 09:19

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I have finished Season 1.

"Prophecy Girl" was a nice 6/10 season finale. Most of that is SMG's acting, although props to Anthony Head (Giles) for also being great. I mentioned earlier Buffy was kind of a last minute time slot filler from what I know and the finale feels like "welp, we did our best to build up this universe and these characters, let's try to resolve everything all in one shot since this might be it." Coredelai continues her last two or three episode of redemption, the Buffy/Willow/Xander "nobody is aware the other is totally in love with them" problem is finally dealt with, and of course Buffy fights the Master. (He was a fun character too, almost entirely due to his own great actor. Mark Metcalf) But for me it all just felt like too much was happening too fast. It was like the Angel episode where he finally makes a move on Buffy, is revealed as a vampire, is revealed as a cursed vampire, etc.. It didn't feel "organic" or whatever you wanna call it, more just like we had plot points we had to move on with and that's how Prophecy Girl also feels. Sort of checking off items on a list.

But Season 1 works despite clumsy and rushed efforts like this because of the cast and premise. There was something special here that, given time and more polish, could be so much better. And it was.

I'm very eager to start Season 2. Notably the next two or three season finales are two parters, "Becoming Part 2" was the second favorite finale on r/buffy. True, "The Gift" - which came in #1 - is not a two-parter technically but it's basically a follow-up to what's been happening all season. Certainly nothing feels as rushed as it did here because of more episodes, more money, and simply more experience.

EDIT:
@ Xander discussion

I definitely felt uncomfortable with him at times, mostly because I see too much of myself in him. I was also a horny, lonely idiot. That leads to jealousy. This is not an excuse for him, more just that I'm gonna guess a lot of viewers do in fact see themselves in Xander. In fact, I had the strongest impression while rewatching this season that "Xander is totally Ron Weasley." You got the Chosen One, their extremely intelligent friend, and the "normal guy." Not very big on school. the jokester, terribly insecure, insecurities which are amplified by their best friend being so special. I think Ron avoids the more uncomfortable aspects of Xander by HP being a very sexless and chaste series. Ron is not very nice to Hermione at times but the radically different tone, as well as the simple fact HP is told almost entirely from Harry's perspective, makes him look better. But in both cases I feel the intent was the same, he's just supposed to be a normal boy we can relate to.

Also isn't Xander's family poor? It's not really focused upon like with the Weasleys but Willow did ask him if his family even owed a stove or something.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Mar 15, 2022

# ¿ Mar 15, 2022 00:17

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Pan Dulce posted:

especially when the comics and Season 5 make it so Dawn's entry rewrote the past so SHE gave Buffy CPR in the final episode of Season 1.

I never would have even thought of that. I can't say how I will feel about Xander by the end of this but I think once Dawn comes into existence, this works so much better.

Also it just makes me think of all the interesting interactions we missed. In post-S5, Dawn was around for Angel and Faith and stuff. If she replaces Xander, she would have been with Angel when they found Buffy.

We get tiny hints and interactions, I think Angel calls Dawn at some point in AtS, but mostly it's left a mystery of what they all felt about her and her about them, at least in my memory. It always made me really curious. Then again, I seem to be alone in I've always really liked Dawn as a character

# ¿ Mar 15, 2022 00:49

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Pan Dulce posted:

Man, I remember going to Comic Con San Diego and watching Once More With Feeling and almost the whole audience just booed and hissed and heckled whenever Dawn came out. It got so bad they had to pause it and tell people to loving cool it with the hate.

It's just the casting that's odd. The writing for Dawn in her first season is kind of like a 10 year old, which is what the writers' envisioned casting, but the actress is older and playing 13-15 I think. She's written realistically as a bratty younger sister, but drat does she expect a lot of Buffy especially when she's depressed from being ripped out of Heaven. No slack cut, just straight to WHY WON'T ANYONE PAY ATTENTION TO ME! /shoplifts. I kind of never forgave Dawn for kicking Buffy out of her own house during that last season. Christ Dawn, you're not even a real Summers unless Buffy acknowledges you as a sister and you go and betray her like that. It wasn't her place.

Oh poo poo Buffy being kicked out of her own house... My memories of S6 and how much I hated it are stronger but maybe that's just because I've plain forgotten a lot of what pissed me off about 7. Stuff like that. I think literally everyone on the planet thinks this whole thing was stupid.

I'm looking at old posts of mine on a Buffy forum about this and they are admittedly super cringe and hyperbolic. But I sand by what I said back then - the Potentials are the most ungrateful and unlikable characters in the show.

As for Dawn, I guess I'm just kinda contrarian sometimes. I always liked Connor too and he's basically the Dawn of AtS. Oddly, folks really hate the kid character in these shows where at least one of them is about kids. Maybe Dawn's immaturity will be more obvious to me now than it was way back when.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Mar 15, 2022

# ¿ Mar 15, 2022 08:30

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Pan Dulce posted:

The Potentials... the frumpier they were, the nicer they were to tolerate. The one played by Felicia Day, Violet, was pretty cool. So was Amanda. Lamentably, I don't know if the writers just had no minorities or they hated them, but Rona and Kennedy were the most ungrateful, mean-spirited girls and it broke my heart, since they were the black and Mexican girls. Also, Chao-Ahn had some real hosed up jokes set up for her just due to language barrier, which also seems a little racist to me.

Funny you bring them up, they are the two I quote in my 2010 tirade.

Rona: Ding dong the witch is dead.

Kennedy (to Willow): Why are you always standing up for [Buffy]?

This is after her life or deaths struggle with the Turok-Han to earn their trust and respect. And Kennedy demanding this from Willow is even more insulting in a way.

Didn't remember any of this till now but it's all coming back to me. I don't think I knew who Felicia Day was at the time I saw S7 so that's cool.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2022 08:53

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Spike has entered the series.

Honestly, I'm of two minds on the character. For one, I think of Spike more as an antihero than a villain. It's actually kind of a long nerd debate about who the "Big Bad" of S2 is, him or Angelus. At the same time, I adore him ad Dru. Juliet Landau was an amazing addition to the cast that kinda gets overshadowed in the fandom and the show itself by Marsters/Spike. Not that the character of Spike or his actor were bad, Spike and Dru works great because of both of them. I just feel like Dru gets neglected after a point. Her character has no real resolution in this or Angel and she's demoted to Spike's old fling in some later reason to drive home the Spike/Buffy romance. But here, she's way more of an intimidating villain than Spike - Spike is trying way too hard. And in this season she is treated as s serious threat in her own right but that is all forgotten later.

Season 2 of Buffy really is like the "repilot" of X-Files. Sure you should watch Season 1 to see how Mulder and Scully met, or how the Scoobies met, but the acting and chemistry is so much better in the second season. Giles has basically done nothing but he's been a standout just by patting Cordelia condescendingly on the back or distractedly saying "Corpses...evil...very good." And it only gets better from here.

sad question posted:

Dawn's introduction led to interesting things but it always felt frustrating to me that it meant that characters remembered all events up to that point differently than the viewers

But as long as we are naming best things about the show I will mention that Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder owns. Very funny character and performance.

Very much this.

Snyder takes his first step from "jerk principal" to actual villain in the Spike intro ep when he gets that guy killed and then lies about it. I think everyone cheered when he got eaten which I guess is a mark of a job well done.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2022 12:26

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Soulless Spike's morality is a debate that will probably never end and I commented on it just the other day on Reddit where somebody was trying to say he was always a psychopath.

In philosophy, there's a theory called psychological egoism. Basically anything a person does or thinks is ultimately selfish or at least self-interested. This leads to all sorts of silly poo poo because you're starting with a conclusion and bending over backwards to explain how everything fits into it. That's how I see people who want to insist Spike was pure evil end of story. This is not even a case of later retcons because even in S2 we have the narrative spelling it out to us via the Judge who hates the love he sees in Spike and Dru but there is not a shred of that in Angelus.

In S5, we have two perfect examples where you really have to mangle the facts back into the conclusion of "Spike is a purely evil, selfish being." First, there's how he tries to leave flowers in Joyce's memory completely anonymously. And two, there was how he refused to give up Dawn to Glory even though he was very much a dead man. In neither case can he get any actual benefit from these noble acts.

I'm not saying Spike was a great and swell guy. But if we have something like a Good and Evil Meter with 10 is Pure Goodand -10 is Pure Evil, S5 Spike is probably around a 0, maybe even 1 or 2. Angelus or Caleb would be like -10 and his old self probably would be at least a -6 or -7 or something. Sorry for the nerdy numbers, I'm just trying to get across my point as clearly as possible.

Spike as a vampire is just a bundle of questions and weirdness. Speaking o Angelus, we see him in life as Liam. We see Spike in life as William. Spike is fundamentally the same person as he was in life but Liam and Angelus have nothing in common with the one being an impulsive lout and the other a methodical and calculating monster.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Mar 16, 2022

# ¿ Mar 16, 2022 16:13

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Something I'm trying to pinpoint is when exactly vampires become a joke on Buffy. I'm on Episode 6 of Season 2 and Buffy herself is still struggling with rando vamps. But I recall later on people like Xander will be staking them. If I had to hazard a guess, probably Season 3 or 4 as by then vamps are old news as main villains.

I had forgotten how much of Buffy and Angel is the most blatant teen romance drama (like some other person is flirting with one of them or Buffy stumbles upon Angel and what looks like another girl) except, ya know, with vampires and stuff. It's a bit eye rolly because I know all the cliches now but it's also endearing. I always liked the couple so it has that nostalgic feeling. And of course it helps they are both great actors with great chemistry.

I don't know if anybody here plays RPGs but here at the start of Season 2 it suddenly hit me that Merrill in Dragon Age 2 is totally Willow. I've heard the devs themselves admitted Alistair in DA Origins had some Xander in him so it seems very possible there was a direct influence between early season endearing, awkward, rambly Willow and the endearing, awkward, rambly Merrill. I just haven't rewatched Buffy since well before I got into Dragon Age so it took me a while to make the connection, even if the Buffy dialogue type was clearly in effect in the more recent BioWare games.

Angel threatening and assaulting some weasel who knows what's up in the underworld, what show did this just turn into? But seriously, a reviewer I read once of Harry Potter attributed its phenomenal success to its ability to capture so many genres. Perhaps you could say the same for Buffy - it's horror, comedy, romance, and now apparently a sort of noir detective show.

This is some real nerd power level bullshit I know but Spike is temporarily crippled by some stuff falling on him I remember it being a running gag on Angel that he can be thrown out a window of WR&H's building and fall several stories onto cement and walk it off. Just something that reminded me of old debates I used to have where Angel really seemed to go "bigger" on the power stuff than Buffy.

If I have any fairly unpopular Buffy opinions, one of them is my total indifference to Oz. I like Seth Green just fine but Oz as a character never made any impressions on me at all and his relationship with Willow leaves me going "meh."

Other than that, S2 has been so much stronger than 1. I just finished the Kendra-two parter and it has been strong from the start to now. Acting, writing, action, all way better.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Mar 17, 2022

# ¿ Mar 17, 2022 03:22

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I guess I'm not alone in finding Oz rather uninteresting. It just feels like they wanted some super chill pseudo-stoner character to go with the perpetually awkward and hyper Willow but I don't feel it clicks at all. Season 4 might not be that great but I'm counting the episodes to Tara's introduction.

On a happier note, i wanna repost this thing from Reddit. There's a Buffy book that just came out and a lot of reviews of it I'm seeing are negative. It lacks substance, cohesion, horribly biased, etc.. But interviews are interviews and interesting to me.

Another appreciation post for SMG!

quote:

Emma Caulfield: �She�s just so ridiculous�I�m saying it with love. She is so professional, right? Like, humblingly professional�She�s got this intense work ethic, really, like unmatched by anyone I�ve worked with before� And she makes me laugh. She�s such a powerhouse. There�s a literally nothing that girl can�t do. She�s fiercely loyal��

Doug Petrie: �If I had to make a list of the top three most professional actors I�ve ever worked with, I think she�d have two of those three slots� But she made it look effortless.�

Anthony Stewart Head: �We always got on; we had a good connection. You hear about actresses-and actors too- who sort of do their take, their close up, and then leave, and their scene partner has to do the scene with someone standing in. Sarah Michelle never, ever did that. She always, always gave me a full-on performance even when the camera wasn�t on her. I have to take my hat off to her, because we went overtime quite a lot and she had to work so much.�

Clare Kramer: �I really learned a lot from her� Sarah never once, in any of my scenes with her, missed a line, missed cue, missed anything�. She was extremely professional in all the right ways, in all the best ways. She was kind to me.�

Seth Green: �It�s interesting to compare it then to now, because at the time she took so much poo poo for taking charge�.It was in a time where women were easily labeled a �bitch� or a �dive,� but Sarah�s stuff was never like, �I need three sugars in my coffee!� It was like, �Hey we�re thirteen hours in, all of this stunt team that�s been in full makeup for fifteen hours haven�t had a break. The sun is coming up and we need to get this shot turned the gently caress around.� Like, it was that stuff�

Julie Benz: � She was nineteen when she started the show-and the level of commitment to her work�.And she got a lot of backlash in the press. I would hear these rumors about Sarah. And having known Sarah and having worked with her I would always say, �That girl knows her poo poo more than anybody else on-set.� It�s just that she was a woman, a young woman, and there was lack of respect towards her with her knowledge and experience because she was female and because she was young.�

Cynthia Bergstrom: �Sarah is a beautiful human being and she�s also a perfectionist-and I mean that in the positive sense of the term �.She�s a brilliant actress and she really expects of lot of others. If she saw something that needed to be corrected, it was because she was making it better.�

There�s also an anecdote about a BtVS set director who was dying from HIV/AIDS. SMG quietly visited him in hospital and also when he was on his deathbed. His friend and caregiver reports: � And Sarah Michelle came three more times in those last nine days. And I got the chance to have a few really nice conversations with her. When she came out of the room she would be visibly shaken. I�m wondering if this was the first person that she knew, that she saw dying day after day. And she would take me outside and say, �John, what can we do? I�ll do anything. I can write a check. What do you need?� And I said, �Sarah Michelle, you can�t write a check. He�s going to die within the next few days�What you�re doing is so much just by being here now� You have no idea what it means to him that you stopped by. You�re a start of a massive TV show and you�re stopping by. He�s a set director, you know what I mean?He�s a prop guy. And you�re showing up.�

Whatever Joss Whedon is, Buffy's cast mostly seem like great people.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2022 06:48

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

I have to say I did not remember that "Ted" is a mid-Season 2 episode. Yes, the episode where a random android is dating Buffy's mom is right after Dru is all powerful again and right before Angelus returns. I forgot they gave an explanation of where he came from at the end but still, weird as hell. Also very uncomfortable as an adult, way moreso than when I saw it as a kid or even a young adult back in 2010 or something. Stuff like this or the invisible girl episode from Season 1 (one of the best eps in Season 1) are very "real" and unsettling, seeing kids being victimized in a "mundane" way.

On that note, "Surprise" & "Innocence" remain fantastic. The differences are with me. Once upon a time the Scoobies were cool teenagers, everything a little kid wanted to be. I'm an old man now though and all I see are children suffering and hurting. Every sweet, romantic scene between Buffy and Angel had a voice in my head reminding me what was to come And it did come. And it was really well done. And my heart aches worse than it ever did before.

I hope that all makes sense.

Let's all go away happy , though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkykWGkv0Mg

One of those absolutely unforgettable Buffy moments. Also I wonder if that thing she is holding is even based on a real gun? I know nothing of firearms.

Here's an unpopular opinion: Angel Season 5 is good, Illyria is not. I was reminded of her because of the most silly and nerdy Buffy debate - "who would win, full power Glory, Illyria or Jasmine?" We see none of these characters at these levels but it's been going on in the fandom forever. But forgetting all that and just looking at the characters, Glory is the only likable one. People really go crazy for Illyria and I just don't understand it. She's a sexed up Fred and...that's about it. Didn't find her interesting or funny. Then again, I didn't even really like Fred terribly much.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Mar 17, 2022

# ¿ Mar 17, 2022 12:58

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

FilthyImp posted:

That's a great one.

Glory is a Hell Dimension God, Illyria is an Old One, and Jasmine is a Powers That Be primordial being.

I'm assuming primordial beings are more powerful than Gods.

So I used to debate this a ton back in the day but my memory of the facts are all pretty sketchy. Especially since, as I noted, we never see any of them in their full power so it's all speculation based on dialogue.

Like, a Power is a rival to the Senior Partners of WR&H and they are crazy powerful my vague memory is telling me. Now Illyria is dismissive of them but, contrary to what some people interpreted this as, I'm pretty sure her line is immediately followed up with something like "well that was then, this is now." Her dismissal of them is not saying Old Ones are way stronger than the current Senior Partners, she's just severely out of the loop on how strong they are now.

So we can kinda guess at Jasmine's power based on how strong the SP are.

Hell God Glory is trickier. Took two other gods to just banish her. And uh...that might be all we know.

Illyria's hype rests on Old Ones hype. But all I remember - which is admittedly not much - is "they're a cut above regular demons." Okay, so are gods. I don't recall getting a whole lot more in the way of details on her feats as an Old One than we get for Hell God Glory.

Here's a much more interesting (and concrete) fight for me: Glory vs. The Beast. Undoubtedly the two physically strongest and toughest enemies on either show. It be a slobberknocker.

But yeah, I'll come back to try and argue this more when I get done rewatching both shows. Some things you just never grow out of and I admit power level debates is one of those things for me.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Mar 17, 2022

# ¿ Mar 17, 2022 15:55

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NjXEDyzFsk

Buffy is not a show I generally think of when thinking on great TV show music but Season 2 at the very least has a couple unforgettable tracks, this being one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM2o4AnpLTk

"Passion" was the first episode ever directed by Michael Gershman. You can do a lot worse than making your debut with probably one of the most unforgettable episodes in an iconic TV program. Everything about the episode is flawless, really. Except maybe the dialogue between Jenny adn Angelus about how he got into the school because that never comes up before or after and it's a public building which vamps have no problem entering. But who cares! Peak acting from all involved, we got a rare Badass + Dad Giles all in one go, and I gotta mention the music again because a great musical score makes everything better. Given her brief time on the show, Jenny Calendar was a pretty memorable character, helped some by the fact Giles never really has a love interest again throughout all the seasons. I recall some vague weirdness with Joyce but that was all gag stuff.

I'm not giving out episode by episode scores like I've done for rewatches of shorter shows, like 20 minute cartoons or whatever, but Passion is probably the first contender for 10/10. Everything is great from start to finish. And it doesn't leave us with absolute despair, we still have hope in the form of one floppy disk.

My only vague criticism is Xander needs to drop the silly way of phrasing stuff when poo poo is dramatic like this. By all means encourage Giles to go after Angelus or whatever, but saying "faster pussycat" is just...inappropriate for the circumstances.

I just finished Season 2. There's so much I did not remember about "Becoming" I've been waiting for when Joyce would finally learn of Buffy's identity. I did not remember that and Buffy getting kicked out all happened in this episode. Part 2 is just one crushing blow after another. Speaking of which, another big thing I did not remember was Xander's lying to Buffy about what Willow said, what she was doing. That is....I can't recall if this is ever exposed but if it is, I can't blame Buffy for never forgiving him. Xander crossed a line here with his vindictiveness and pettiness. What he did to Buffy - hell, what he did to Angel - is too much.

So Season 2 was a lot longer, a lot more to try and remember and process. Thinking on the main points:
-Xander and Cordelia is funny and can become genuinely sweet
-Giles and Angel probably tie for Most Improved Character Award due to their backstories and being able to do more things
-The Fish Boy episode, if it deserves to exist at all (a big if) should not be sandwiched there before the big climax. I remember just skipping it entirely when I bought the S2 DVD way back.
-Another unforgettable S2 track.. I can't recall any super memorable music after this season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Q80e487SU

-Spike as a villain is 110% overshadowed by Angelus and even Dru. He doesn't succeed at much of anything and is nowhere near as intimidating as them.

-You don't have to tell me but with how heartbreaking Becoming Pt 2 was, I couldn't help but think "....are there any happy season finales?" The Gift is obviously tragic. Prophecy Girl was pretty happy. My dim memories of S3's and 4's finales ae mostly positive...? S6 and 7 are the finales of Buffy Season 6 and 7, so happiness is not allowed. So I guess it 's about half-and-half in my memory at present.

Overall, I felt S2 held up remarkably well. Everything was substantially better across the board. And if my memory of S3 is accurate, it only continues to get better.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2022 18:54

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

roomtone posted:

i think most of the actual endings of finales are positive. 1, 3, 6 and 7 all end on happy or hopeful notes with all problems pretty much resolved or on their way. 4 is a weird dream episode. 2 and 5 are the only actual tragic endings, i think.

3's is probably the most unambiguously resolved, they could have ended the show there and it would've been complete. glad they didn't but they could have.

Season 7 ends with Anya dying all alone and undiscovered, Spike having to be sacrificed, and Sunnydale collapsing into oblivion, right?

Yes I remember the Slayers all kicking rear end and stuff against the Uber Vamps turned into total jobbers (fun note: DVD commentary has Whedon himself saying "I know this is totally inconsistent but I don't care") but at most it was powerfully bittersweet.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2022 19:27

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

sad question posted:

As I recall someone tells Xander she died fighting so undiscovered bit is not strictly true. And Sunnydale I think was evacuated.

Yes that was Andrew I'm pretty sure because he is the liar and he lied to Xander. Xander was looking for her and we see her corpse just out of sight of him and Andrew tells him a big story about her epic demise when in reality she died all alone and as I was saying undiscovered.

Maybe I'll just stop with Season 5 and move onto Angel. Sure it's just as depressing but I don't care as much about most of those characters. (I probably won't do this but goddamn it's gonna be pretty rough going after a point)

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Mar 18, 2022

# ¿ Mar 18, 2022 20:36

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Everyone posted:

It's been a really long time but I didn't really see what Xander did as petty/vindictive. I think he knew that if he told Buffy what Willow was trying, she'd hold back because she'd be hoping for that magic cure. And given what Angelus was, holding back would kill her and everybody else.

That's a fair interpretation but Xander is so relentlessly hostile and murder happy that I don't think my interpretation is unwarranted. I forget if it's discussed and clarified later - and if it is we'll cross taht bridge when I get there - but as Xander freely admits, he always hated Angel. Relevantly, he was the one person (aside from Cordy who just agreed with him) who was against trying the curse at all and just wanted Buffy to kill Angelus. Even if it was entirely righteous anger for what Angelus has done, that would still be a vindictive motive to lie to Buffy.

Everyone posted:

As for Spike, he was supposed to be a different kind of vampire than the religious nutjobs of the Master. In some ways he's not quite as evil as the rest of them (though still plenty evil). He likes the world as it is. He cares about Drusilla. And as hosed-up awful as what he tries to do at the end of Season Six is, he responds to that by seeking out his own "soul cure." In some ways he's stronger than Angel. Angel had his soul inflicted on him. Spike sought his soul out on his own to try to become a truly better person.

Spike is an anomaly among vampires. His personality changed barely at all upon his change and the chip in his head can be considered a kind of behaviorism to help cool his murderous impulses in a way not possible with other vampires.

Like I said earlier, I think Spike does have a conscience of some kind in there, certainly more than Angelus. But their transformations and circumstances are worlds apart. Why they are so different, I have no idea. It's been argued in the fandom forever.

sad question posted:

Her death was unpleasantly unceremonious but Andrew was right there making GBS threads his pants and she died fighting a group of ubervamps after taking a few of them down, so that summary is not very fair.

Fair enough. You definitely remember this more completely than I do.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2022 21:12

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Oasx posted:

I always liked Go Fish, it's just a nice self contained episode.

It's not a technically bad episode or anything. It just felt....superfluous.

Open Source Idiom posted:

Yeah, it's interesting to watch Buffy essentially invent a model of serialisation that a lot of other shows copied. I think the show struck a really good balance between episodes that enforced a status quo and ones that were serialised, and basically "solved" how to handle a 22 episode season on a structural level.

I reckon a lot of other shows, like Farscape, SHIELD, Person Of Interest, Gotham, etc. took a lot from it in terms of pacing and breaking stories too. It's the kind of thing I find pretty interesting tbh.

I remember reading when I re-watched The X-Files that it was the show which really changed how TV shows were plotted?

Randomly, there's the Online Creators thread on here which gives me a bit of a taste for video essays. Not 6 hours on ICarly taste but ya know, character and theme analyses nd stuff. I never saw anything on Buffy though but Reddit tells me of this Passion of the Nerd channel. I just finished the first couple eps of S3 and I'm slightly appalled I did not remember "Anne" at all. What a fantastic episode and I totally forgot AnneLily shows up in Angel a few times. She was a great character in this one ep alone and I see a fair bit of myself in her.

Certainly this POTN fellow ha an appreciation for the filming part of a TV program, something I don't really care about unless the action scenes look awful. Obviously cinematography matters but...I dunno, I just think of story and characters and music. Filming stuff just passes right over my head.

Also going to his episode on "Lie to Me," since he explicitly called back to it, he quotes Whedon's beliefs on the purposelessness of life and influence by Jean-Paul Sartre. I was actually reading Sartre right before I decided gently caress philosophy I wanna watch a good TV show. But something that has stuck with me since I myself watched Lie to Me is that Buffy is somewhat simple. I don't mean this in a bad way, not every great piece of work has to enforce moral ambiguity at every turn In fact, a lot of people nowadays get mad if a work has moral greayness to it. But just talking about Buffy, there is an afterlife. There's The First Evil. There is Whistler, a character I did not remember at all. So the world being "indifferent" and inherently meaningless as per Sartrean Existentailism doesn't really apply here. Ford's choices were not simply his own and neither are our heroes'.

Faith's intro episode was...well, underwhelming might be the wrong word. It's more that it really isn't about Faith at all. It's about Buffy and the trauma of what happened with Angel. I wonder if Faith was just supposed to be a new Kendra, show up for a tiny bit and hen die? Only Eliza Dushku's charisma and (let's be honest here) sex appeal cannot be denied and she ended up being a favorite of many, including me.

Dammit I can't read what any of the Strengths are.

Also I have not yet mentioned at all that Jonathan is a character who exists. He just shows up every few episodes for a short scene and a few lines and I'm left wondering why. I'm not sure why he exists or what he does besides the most heartwarming moment near the end of S3 and becoming a bad guy in S6.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2022 18:09

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

roomtone posted:

I've never actually watched the widescreen version but apparently the entire series is littered with stuff like this. They blocked the scenes for 4:3, so I've heard there are mics, crew visible, actors in the equivalent of t-poses and stuff like that.

When I do rewatch it I'll probably go for that version because it'll probably be good for a few laughs.

Angel does some actual existential stuff in mid season 2 with Angel coming to believe that there's no grand plan for the world, no reward, so his actions have to justify themselves. It's something that comes up sporadically in Angel and is how they end the show, but even there I don't think it really pans out with the mythology because there is good and evil and there are so many different kinds of afterlife and otherworlds that the idea of existentialism as we understand it just doesn't apply. There are unseen forces behind everything. The characters know more than 99.9% of the world and even they don't even know what the rules actually are.

Buffy is a lot simpler yeah, but it's a show that sort of knows its limits, which Angel never really did (to good and bad effect). I know a lot gets written about Buffy and people have thought about the philosophy and politics of it more than most shows, but it's a show that can't even really keep its own lore straight before we get to a consistent philosophical statement.

So, I take the things that episodes and story arcs are saying as individual chunks and if they contradict or don't follow with something that happens elsewhere on the show, that's okay as long as it works within its own context. Like Witchcraft - first it's just witchcraft, but then it becomes a metaphor for being a lesbian, and then becomes a metaphor for being a drug addict. The mythology is subservient to the character stories.

I don't know if Buffy actually has a coherent perspective other than 'be a good person', and the show's idea of that is pretty mainstream for the time period. It doesn't seem to be pushing existentialism much at all.

Well, maybe in The Body.

I think I know the exact part you mean about AtS Season 2. My memories of Angel are pretty scattered but I remember some of the key parts of that 'arc" and it was powerful stuff.
I mentioned earlier Buffy and Angel are very different shows and one of those differences is Angel is a lot more concerned with moral ambiguity. In Buffy, Evil is a metaphysical principle. You can talk with it, argue with it, if not punch it. In Angel S2, when Angel is with Holland Manners and Holland takes him to the root of evil, it's revealed to be the plain old regular streets of LA, the regular world we all inhabit basically, it's as crushing for the viewer as it is for Angel; the fact there is no root to this evil, the evil is the normal world we all inhabit.

Also Holland Manners was an amazing villain. Between him and the Mayor, somebody on Buffy and Angel knows how to write super polite and charming but super evil people very well. But once more Buffy and Angel are different. Aa friend of mine once pointed out the Mayor is pretty cartoonish in how over-the-top nice he is while Holland was a very believable "middle management evil."

# ¿ Mar 19, 2022 20:09

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Everyone posted:

In terms of the one Strengths section that isn't covered they're: Popular Cheerleader, Athletic, Yearbook Editor, Friendly, Good Cook and Nice

Hey, thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.

sad question posted:

I am reminded of this great bit from Angel when he decides to go to the Wolfram & Hart "home world" and gets a talk about evil from Holland:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTiYR9PsmXc&t=158s

That's the scene I was remembering. It really is so well done.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2022 20:29

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Everyone posted:

No prob. At 53 with bifocals I get crappy eye-sight.

Also, drat. Love that scene. It reminded me of a quote from a Dresden Files book where Nicodemos said something like "Apocaplypse is a state of mind." I wouldn't surprise me to learn that Jim Butcher adopted that bit from this scene.

Speaking of Dresden Files, I had no idea Spike himself - James Marsters - read the audiobooks. I listened to the first Dresden book forever ago and it never occurred to me. I wasn't a huge fan of the book, to be honest. Maybe they get better. But in terms of the big modern fantasy hits, I like ASOIAF and especially Brandon Sanderson a lot more. I'm not sure if they have any influence from Buffy or not. Seems very doubtful in Martin's case at least.

But maybe I should try some more Dresden Files in future if he's a Buffy fan.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2022 21:39

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Everyone posted:

I've read the Dresden Files up Book 17. I generally like the books.... but. But Butcher, especially up to Book 15 has a tendency to objectify women in the books. And I don't really want to get into the White Court Vampires. Like I said, I generally like the books, but I'm a 53 year old straight white male, so there's a lot of stuff that I'm maybe a little more predisposed to either excuse or not notice in the first place. Butcher's world-building is pretty top notch and honestly the whole series reads a lot like a pictureless superhero comic in a good way. I just kind of wanted to give you something like "fair warning" before you really got into them.

Well I'm a 33-year-old white man and I think it all depends on how it's done. If there's not a single strong and well-written women, if the only thing that defines all of them is sex appeal, that's more of a problem for me than objectification itself. Women can be sexy and have sex, that's perfectly fine. They can even be Sex Vampires as the White Council Vamps are from what little I know. There just has to be more going on.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2022 04:54

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

A topic on r/buffy is making me curious about if I'm remembering something right.

Angel had...four Love Interests in Angel, right?
1. Kate, who I remember liking and I think died? I was mad. Alive or dead, she and Angel had falling out.
2. Darla which ended very badly and maybe wasn't really love anyway. Certainly not with Vmp Darla in S2.
3. Cordelia in S4. I hated this , it felt like obligatory "man and girl are main characters, let's pair them up."
4. Nina in S5.

Buffy, by contrast, only really had two guys after Angel. Riley and Spike both got two seasons.

Somebody on Reddit is just upset Buffy and Angel don't end up together and I was trying to figure out who else they were even with. I almost don't even wanna count Buffy/Spike because it's the worst thing ever.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2022 07:50

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Randallteal posted:

I don't think Kate should count. They switched gears with her character before that really went anywhere. If you're going to count her you've gotta include Principal Wood on Buffy's side IMO.

Randallteal posted:

I don't think Kate should count. They switched gears with her character before that really went anywhere. If you're going to count her you've gotta include Principal Wood on Buffy's side IMO.

Wasn't Wood with Faith?

But fair enough, my memory is obviously very sketchy here.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2022 08:30

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

"Lovers Walk." - I was willing to to make exceptions for tired romantic cliches when it came to Buffy and Angel. I do not at all like Xander and Willow randomly making out and then this leading to the utterly predictable Oz and Cordelia walking in on it happening.

Also I'm keeping an eye on everything to do with Faith. As inspiring as it is that Buffy got it together and aced her SATs, I can only focus on how Giles and Joyce are all "go on Buffy, have a successful life! After all, we have Faith to stay here and be the Slayer." I don't think they mean anything bad by it at all but she's one of those kids everyone just kind of gave up on without even realizing they gave up on them.

I didn't remember "The Wish" at all. Oddly, most of my knowledge or memories of it come from discussions online, ggenerally about how beloved Vamp Willow is. It's a pretty depressing episode considering what's talkd about most in my experience is the sexy lady. Speaking of which, Anya is a character I know of obviously but I don't remember much about her at all, especially pre-S5. This was her intro and it was...compelling enough , as these dark AUs tend to be. Of course it's always gonna strike a chord to see another world where our heroes are dead. But apart from Giles leading a resistance and Angel's destiny being to suffer horribly everywhere and in every timeline, it was kinda eh for me.

Also on the Buffy subreddit I've seen multiple things now about how people prefer either the "high school seasons" or "college seasons." I've never once thought of it this way and it's so strange to me. What matters is the drama, the acting, the action, the villains.... The background setting is kinda irrelevant for me apart from some nostalgia at scenes of them in the library. Did Buffy even keep going to college in S5? I love that season but I couldn't tell you if she did. It's so irrelevant, especially compared to S4.

I'm not sure if it's impressive or depressing that the shipping wars are still alive and well in the Buffy fandom. I grew up with several series that had intense fandom fighting but we're all old now and nobody cares about Inuyasha/Kagome vs Inuyasha/Kikyo anymore. Not so with Buffy, not at all. "Bangel" vs "Spuffy" ahippers are still in the trenches to this day. And sign me up for the former because "Amends" was a beautiful episode. I feel no shame in admitting I'm all in or the tortured vampire thing. Interview with the Vampire is a classic. Seriously though, it's an innately powerful and interesting story to have somebody whose existence is so different from humans, who might even be "evil by nature," but who nevertheless strives to do good and never give up. Buffy in Anne and Angel in Amends both resist overpowering despair. Good acting and good writing helps a lot but everything about this episode, as sappy as it was, really hit home with me.

I got a Buffy audiobook with my monthly Audible credit. It has essays on the series and its themes and stuff. Hopefully it's good, I'll post anything I find insightful.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2022 15:44

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Everyone posted:

I think they're pretty well-written - at least as much as Butcher writes any non-viewpoint character well. Note that in some short stories he had some women as viewpoint characters.

I guess I'm kind of an rear end in a top hat. The bit with Buffy, Xander, Willow and Cordelia looking broken and sad and then Spike speeding off singing to the Sex Pistol version of "My Way" will just never not be hilarious to me.

Nah, Spike is great for comedy. I never could buy him as a serious villain but he is always funny, I still vividly remember when he returns in S4 and is like "I'm back and I'm badass and Slayer better watch out and-" And he proceeds to be taken out by the fuckin' Initiative, the most incompetent organization outside the Watchers' Council.

Thinking on this and LW, I feel like his returns are all meant to parody his original badass intro in S2. As if to say that Spike is gone, please enjoy this much more entertaining one.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2022 16:35

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Pan Dulce posted:

Well, count me as one of the only Spuffy shippers on this thread then. But then again, it's a trend for me. I always prefer the devil-may-care, humor-filled option (In True Blood, Erik Northman, and in Vampire Diaries, Damon Salvatore) to the broody, misery-guts option. And, it was mentioned earlier, but Angel falls for buffy when she was 14/15 in LA with Merrick. That's loving creepy. At least Spike/Buffy happened during college-age Buffy.

It's the opposite of the Buffy subreddit, then. That place is very hardcore pro-Spike and it's honestly a bit tiring. I've seen the opinion "Angel was only good in his own show" for years but I didn't expect that on a Buffy forum. If a person personally dislikes the character whatever but it's always framed in objective "nobody liked him and he wasn't even a real character." He got his own spinoff because nobody liked him...?

To say nothing of the popular sentiment that poor, generic Riley is the worst character ever, right down there with Kennedy or something.

Any rival to Spike is pure garbage.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2022 03:31

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Pan Dulce posted:

Although in hindsight, that's also a good argument for Darla/Angel, since Angelus loves her.

This is an interesting topic to me. I wrote my own little assessment of Angelus and somebody responded with "he still loved Buffy."

I've seen this idea before and you have your belief he loved Darla. But I take the Judge's verdict as definitive. Dalton loved reading, Spike loved Dru, Angelus loved nothing. He is the more purely hateful being on the show.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2022 04:35

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Some eps I blanked on but others are pretty unforgettable and I know them instantly just by the name. "Helpless" is such an episode. Giles can't very well accuse Buffy of "having no respect for me" after this. Of course I sympathize with his position but he made the right decision in the end and I think that makes all the difference to both us and Buffy.

Kralik was an impressive villain given his single appearance. I know he's just "Hollywood crazy" but his condition makes me think of Ford and how he wanted to be a vampire to deal with tumors destroying his brain. Migraines can have multiple causes so far as a layman like me knows but Kralik's general insanity + the migraines makes me think there is something fundamentally wrong with his brain and being changed did nothing to it. That's interesting to me. Prior medical conditions persist into vampirism. What a raw deal.

Back to an episode I did not remember "The Zeppo." Did anyone here ever watch Justice League Unlimited? Specifically the episode with Booster Gold where nobody took him seriously and there was this big, epic battle with all the main Justice Leaguers like Superman happening off-screen while BG did his own thing and saved the day in his own way? I have no idea if The Zeppo inspired that or they both are emulating something started elsewhere but it always works. It's charming and funny, especially with Buffy and Angel trying to have one of their typical dramatic moments only for Xander to walk in and they just stare at him until he goes away and they instantly snap back to drama mode. In a very real sense, I think this one episode encapsulates why Buffy was and is still beloved. It's a tone that changed popular media forever.

Thinking on it, there is precedent for a superhero cartoon openly emulating Buffy so maybe that JLU episode was based on The Zeppo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1MTgRRqOyU

This dance taken from "Bad Girls" the episode I'm on right now

I honestly thought Faith and Buffy had more time together in my memory. Upon a rewatch, I feel like, prior to BG, their only kinda close moments were her intro and maybe when Faith came over for Christmas. The three most popular romantic partner options for Buffy are Spike, Angel, and....not Riley but Faith. I've always liked it. But right now it feels like a lot of this intimacy, implied or imagined or whatever, is actually post-Bad Girls. Even discounting any romantic subtext, it would have been nice to have at least one episode centered on Buffy and Faith's friendship prior to this. Oh well, I just obviously know where her character is going so I've been trying to watch it, look for signs and stuff, and there is definitely stuff there, just not much of it has to do with Buffy and her.

Also holy poo poo Wesley. I still can't believe this character turned into possibly the best character on Angel. I wonder if they always planned this for him. I can't believe it.

EDIT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ_ml8ygD9c

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Mar 21, 2022

# ¿ Mar 21, 2022 10:39

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Open Source Idiom posted:

Man, last time I watched The Zeppo I remember most of the supporting cast coming across as huge dickheads.

It's something I noticed a lot with Season 3. Yeah, they're seeding stuff like Willow's narcissism in Dead Man's Party, or just generally weakening the group's bonds to support the season 4 plot, but I remember it having the side effect of a lot of that season being kinda unenjoyable.

You mean Love and Monsters? That episode loving rules.

But the idea of this kind of ep predates Buffy; Never Again from The X-Files, for instance.

I was trying to think "did X-Files do something like this?" and I came up with nothing. Now you mention it I do kind of remember that episode but it didn't really stick out t o me. I'll take your word for it, though.

As for the supporting cast being kinda dicks this season....I dunno. Willow rushed to being jealous of Faith, a fact commented upon by the writer of Bad Girls, but I never really thought of it as narcissism. I take it you think her characterization in S6 isn't so out of left field, then? That was always my biggest beef with the season, it ruined my favorite relationship (Willow/Tara) for no reason. But maybe I missed clues. Even now I'm not the most perceptive watcher and I certainly wasn't back in 2001 or whatever.

But The Zeppo is a clearly weird episode so I personally wouldn't take its representations too seriously.

Argue posted:

Yeah, Bruce Timm mentions watching Buffy and Angel on a JLU commentary track so that's entirely possible. There was also an awful episode of Doctor Who (I know the crack you're about to make, please don't) which the showrunner explicitly said was heavily influenced by The Zeppo. Every now and again, I still see internet posts reference the ep when a TV show does a similarly-structured episode--it seems to be a pretty low-key influential episode.

This makes sense and thanks for the info. I always take it for granted Buffy is influential but concrete examples of acknowledged influence helps a lot.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2022 12:11

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Pan Dulce posted:

Holy poo poo! I got into X-Men because of this cartoon series and always loved this dance scene. It wasn't until way later in my life that I got into BtVS. I never made the connection that this scene was basically Buffy and Faith. Mind. BLOWN.

As for what you said previously if that was the case, why would Angelus care that the Immortal slept with Darla? Personally, I think the Judge said he doesn't have humanity because there was nothing left to tie him to humanity, considering Angel had killed off Darla.

X-Men Evolution is my favorite comic book cartoon series ever. I won't say it's the best animated series but it is exceptionally good and criminally underrated. I grew up with X-Men TAS and was a fanboy for it like a lot of kids back then but you grow up and you realize the plain fact Evolution was a way better show in every conceivable way. More intelligently and maturely written, better voiced, and definitively better animated.

Although I also didn't realize the Buffy influence until way later.

As for Darla, that's a good point I hadn't considered. And Angelus did stick with her if I'm rememebering ATS right, she betrayed and abandoned him.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2022 14:06

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Oasx posted:

The HD remaster of the show is an abomination from everything I have heard.

Same. I was waiting for BRs forever and then I thought of rewatching Buffy a few months back and was like "yay, blurays at last!" But then everybody told me no they are total garbage avoid at all cost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWNGq70Oyo

I just had a thought and I'm not saying I'm treading new ground but since I totally forgot about 'Anne" this is new for me. I asked some people what the episode meant to them and while there's a lot going on in it, the theme of Despair is probably at its heart. Despair is the worst sin in Christianity because it is the absolute rejection of forgiveness, salvation, and hope. Buffy, after everything she did and lost, feels she is undeserving of any of those things. But she overcomes and this is the start of Season 3. She forgives herself.

This is something Faith cannot do. After killing an innocent man, she throws herself into despair because she is so guilt-ridden she can't imagine anybody would forgive her. This is no doubt due to her previous life experiences, her jaded outlook on how everyone is just using everyone else. Buffy forgave herself but she didn't do it alone. Everybody needs love and support, you need a community to be an individual, and Faith has none of that. Except when she finds the Mayor. Even with him at first he was just a "sugar daddy" for her. She might very well have betrayed him and run off again if he hadn't provided her with the love and structure she so desperately craved.

Also I forgot this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r1CZbeevlo

And look at those Likes. Yeah, Riley doesn't have a chance. Although, just my opinion, this is pretty onesided on Faith's part and after S3 any sparkage between them is definitively extinguished on Buffy's side.
Here's a cringey video I made compiling the evidence for them a long time ago. I mainly post it for the DVD commentary I included at the start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaT0ykgJomo

# ¿ Mar 22, 2022 05:45

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

roomtone posted:

I think the underlying problem with Riley is that he's a hegemonic figure on a show that was trying to be counter-cultural. Buffy is generally going up against the forces that Riley represents. Usually indirectly, but in S4 it's extremely direct and they never do anything to separate Riley from those except the fact that he is in love with Buffy. That's the only reason he rebels at all, his outlook stays the same. Any time Buffy moves towards Riley, she's moving away from the core of the show. It feels wrong and therefore forced when they try to portray it as a positive thing.

Riley is a church going soldier who has a persistent issue with wishing Buffy was weaker than him. He's also prone to jealousy and lashes out about it. Not a monstrous guy or anything, and he knows these things about him aren't working in this context, but everything good you can say about Riley is mitigating. 'yeah he sucks but he tries not to i suppose.' He's just coming from a totally different place than the rest of the show.

Buffy's other relationships are with people outside of normal society who have some kind of major problem keeping them becoming part of it. Buffy's always straddling that line too, and it creates an interesting dynamic around how far she'll move towards them. Angel in S1-3, Faith in S3 (who, thinking about your post, is actually more of her main relationship this season that Angel, even if it is all subtext), and then after Riley, Spike. They all orbit normality from a much farther distance than Buffy does.

I don't actually mind him in S5 that much because they wrote him off in a way that made sense, but he's a total mismatch from the start. I wonder why they decided on a character like him.

I think the reason Riley doesn't work for you and a lot of the audience is precisely why they picked him in the first place. He is super normal, at least compared to most of Buffy's romantic relationships. Angel and Buffy didn't work on a practical level because of the exotic circumstances around his very existence. So what do? Date a nice Iowan farmboy.
[timg]https://i.imgur.com/FtjWZ8F.jpg[/url][/timg]

(Also can I just say seeing him and Buffy together is always funny because he is not merely taller than her like all her other boyfriends, he's way broader. She looks like a twig next to a tree trunk.)

So yeah, he's a guy with normal guy problems. His issues with Buffy are stuff like "I'm insecure because my girlfriend is the one who will be saving me isntead of the other way around" and not "I have a soul which I might lose if I have sex" or "I have no soul and a chip in my head." Buffy is a show built on metaphors of real issues but largely it makes those real issues supernatural or mystical. Riley is a bit too mundane in his issues. That's my theory anyway. He was a sadly unsuccessful experiment at giving Buffy a more normal relationship. Nobody wanted that.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Mar 22, 2022

# ¿ Mar 22, 2022 07:45

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Open Source Idiom posted:

TBH I suspect a lot of Riley's arc was derailed by the loss of Lindsay Crouse.

Was she supposed to be around longer? Did Buffy S4 undergo serious retcons, too?

# ¿ Mar 22, 2022 07:58

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 18:54

NikkolasKing: Apr 3, 2010

Everyone posted:

And they also did stuff like locking Riley and Buffy in the "ghost gently caress dimension." OTOH that was a little cool to see the rest of the Scooby Gang trying to find a way to save them.

Do you mean the episode n Season 4 where they're loving a lot and it's causing all hell to break loose? I think Xander seemingly "barges in" at the end and Buffy is like "god why don't you KNOCK?!"

That is one of the more....infamous episodes of the series. I listened to a Buffy podcast a long time ago which said that and another infamous S4 episode were both directed or maybe written by the same person and, well, that was the end of them.

Open Source Idiom posted:

She was meant to be the season's main villain, but Crouse exited her contract mid-season forcing significant rewrites.

I read somewhere -- and this may be apocryphal -- that Ben's eventual death at Giles' hands was adapted from their original plans for Walsh. Certainly Walsh and Giles were meant to come into more significant conflict as the season drew on, drawing everyone else into the drama.

Neither show had any luck with their fourth season it seems.

Although I was talking to somebody elsewhere and they said that evil Cordelia was always a retcon, it's just Jasmine which was a later change. They wrote her character into a hole in S3 with the whole "you must ascend to a Power thing" with no plan where to go from there. So S4 was always a directionless mess.

I'm trying to spoilertag Angel things because somebody at the start of the thread hadn't seen AtS.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Mar 22, 2022

# ¿ Mar 22, 2022 19:52

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