|
I like the opening of 7, the first few episodes basically when they still have demons saying "from beneath you it devours" all spooky like. The episode with all the dead people that people have conversations with, can't remember the name of it, is quite good too. There's just endless missed opportunities in the rest of the season unfortunately. So I wouldn't call it worthless personally but it is probably one of the weaker seasons to me. I'd agree with that otherwise though, Seasons 2 and 3 are tip top, I don't like 5 quite as much apart from the last few episodes where it kicks into extremely high gear (and the Body, which destroyed me of course). My favourite part of Buffy/Angel when I was a kid and watching them for the first time was the cool monster designs/mythology and post Season 4, it felt like cool monsters appeared a lot less, you got your rando vampire to get staked before a conversation and then very occasionally a monster. Gnarl in Season 7 was a cool design and the actor playing him did a good job. I had a book all about the various monsters and the thought that went into their design and makeup and stuff.
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2023 10:38
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 20:28 |
|
|
PriorMarcus posted:I don't remember where I read this, but wasn't the original plan for The First to be the Big Bad of Angel, and Jasmine or someone like her the Big Bad of Buffy, but at some point those got switched? Well somebody wrote it above, I do remember seeing rumors/speculation back in the day that that was the case as well though. As they said, hard to know if that's just internet bullshit or a real thing. I don't see it personally or it'd had to have been the very earliest sketchings of the plots and then they abandoned it and went with what we got very, very early, Jasmine's whole "grey area" ambiguity where she kills dozens/hundreds of people a day to try and "save" the world feels like it fits Angel very well with how murky that show got and its general vibes, whereas the First and its very black and white nature fits Buffy more but then I could see the attraction for the writers in wanting to mix up both of those things. I think the First probably works in Angel better than Jasmine would in Buffy as they are in the current shows, obviously with some rewriting you can make anything work. As a thought experiment the way I could see Jasmine in a Season 7 of Buffy would be something like the below. She doesn't have the very distasteful method of being introduced (I think any of the main cast of Buffy being taken over the way Cordelia was would have gone down like a cup of hot sick, even worse than it did with Cordelia and even if it wasn't pregnancy, if it was just like, mind control, people would have been pissed still) and instead is just a charismatic religious leader or a zealot type that thinks Buffy is well meaning but not making enough meaningful change in the world just by being reactive. She doesn't instantly take over people the second they see her but has some other method instead and has a creepy cult of obsessives doing charitable work that slowly take over Sunnydale and then is trying to go country wide as the season ramps up, have some of the loveable side characters get taken over like Clem, Bob the bar owner, others who exist in this hypothetical Season 7 world and then the main cast in a similar vein to how it went in Angel, I could see that working if they kept the vibe up. Maybe have her final plan to incorporate some of actual Season 7 would be to activate the potential slayers herself while controlling them or something and have a personal army of them. Also give her some cool minions for when the mask comes off as well of course, I think cool monsters didn't show up enough in latter Buffy, Gnarl and Sweet were pretty much the only cool demon designs from the last few seasons that I can remember. Thinking about it, Buffy never had a season long plot that went as hard as Season 4 of Angel though, after episode 4 of that, basically every episode is concerning the season plot. Buffy always had monster of the week or wacky hi jinx episodes even once the big bad had shown up, I think the closest is Season 5 after they find out Glory is a god about halfway through and then it's pretty much all Glory all the time if I recall?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2023 11:28
|
|
|
Kate felt like the perfect example of relationship/family drama for the majority of her time on the show to me. Obviously it's a bit harsh to judge the character for that cause they were clearly ramping up to have her join the group or become more active in the plot right as they then had to write her out cause the actress got a main role on another show so they'd basically done a lot of the legwork and then had to discard it right when that stuff would have started paying off. I do agree that at the time it felt a bit weird they started pushing Cordelia and Angel together, just felt like default "well the main dude and main woman have to want to get together eventually right?" assumption. They did have decent chemistry in S3 around when it started getting pushed but then obviously we barely get any time on screen with them together after that, where Cordelia isn't evil at least.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 6, 2023 14:06
|
|
|
NikkolasKing posted:I think a better comparison is someone like Willow who does straight up become a villain for a protracted period of time and is welcomed back far more easily than Faith was. Faith does kill way more people than Willow did though, like Willow ultimately kills Warren and the magic guy and then fails to kill Jonathon and Andrew, tried to destroy the world and then gets talked down by Xander. Obviously trying to destroy the world is worse as an outcome than anything almost any villain could have achieved so pretty bad but she didn't do it. Faith worked for the mayor for a lot longer than Willow was evil, time is always hard to discern in the Buffy universe but it was most of the second half of Season 3 and he had her going out and stabbing people on the reg. Like the relatively benign demon dude and the volcano expert guy, she threatened to torture the poo poo out of Willow when they had her captive, was actively gleeful at the prospect of torturing Buffy slowly over months when she thought she had Angel turned into Angelus and even being on board with that plan is pretty heinous right? That's just season 3 too, then when she gets out of her coma she swaps bodies with Buffy and would have been fine with her dying in prison with the watchers or whatever, she does all that stuff in the two parter, then goes over to Angel and tortures the poo poo out of Wesley and then gets talked down by Angel, goes to prison (it's been awhile since I've seen these episodes so I am a bit fuzzy on the details) and then gets broken out in S4. When Faith does actually come back to Buffy, they do also welcome her back pretty easily ultimately if I recall. As for the Giles thing, I assume nobody ever comments on it because nobody ever found out in universe? Like he did it right when everything was going to poo poo anyway, then Buffy died, the rest of the scoobies aren't going to be like "hey what happened to Ben?" in the aftermath of it and probably if ever it had come up they'd just have assumed he slipped away like Buffy told him to. thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Jul 15, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2023 12:19
|
|
|
Well she goes to Willys bar for info and doesn't just murder everyone there many times in the first few seasons and then there is Clem who you mentioned, she leaves Dawn with him and invites him to her birthday part and stuff. The mummy girl chose to be evil when she was happy to kill others to extend her own lifespan right? That's kinda where Buffy the character seems to choose to draw the line. If you're human broadly speaking you get human justice or Buffy beats you up and tells you to gently caress off, if you're supernatural in some way but still kinda human then it's kinda of an in situation decision she has to make and if you're out and out a demon/vampire, attacking first and don't make a very compelling case for not being killed between the stake coming out and going into your chest then you're probably dead. The werewolves we see in the show are a pretty good example imo, Oz voluntarily locking himself up and sometimes having guards and stuff means he gets leeway and everyone is fine with him, they try and tranq him the times he gets out. Veruca actively embraces being a wolf and doesn't care if she kills people when she's out, refuses to lock herself away and tries to kill Willow, obviously Oz ended up killing her but I imagine Buffy wouldn't have felt massively guilty if she'd gotten there before him and had to do the deed herself. I think generally the small town vibes and it being set on the hellmouth just meant the majority of the demons we see were set on doing some nasty business and the examples of them being benign were few and far between, both because when they set out they didn't necessarily have the best grasp of what they wanted to do, no idea it was going to become this big universe that they'd be expanding on and also because it's a supernatural show where fighting is a big part of it, sometimes you just need a monster for Buffy to punch. Then by the time Angel started, that was setting out to actively explore that other side of demons trying to live integrated lives from the off and then expanded on it over the show with stuff like Lorne and his neutral bar getting more focus than the similar location did in Buffy. You also saw more debate in Buffy at that point with Riley being all "grrr, no good demons" and Buffy having to explain that it's not always that black and white, because of her past.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2023 16:25
|
|
|
The thing is, Glory and various other character do say "oh it could be anything, that's why finding it's such a pain in the rear end" (despite what I say below, I do remember a lot of specific bits) but then the ritual they end up having to do, which seems to specifically be written for the exact thing they're doing, to open the gates to Glory's home dimension, seems to specifically be about sacrificing something that has blood so it'd have to be something living. Season 5 is the season I've rewatched the least, most of it I haven't rewatched at all so maybe I'm forgetting something but the finale is the main bit of it I have rewatched and I just remember Dawn saying ""blood starts it and until the blood stops flowing it'll never stop" and then it flashes to Spike earlier saying "it's always got to be blood" and such, they make her wear a specific dress as well. So like, the ritual and situation they're expecting is definitely for it to be a person right? Or maybe Glories minions are just big fans of the classics, wrote the ritual instructions assuming it'd be a young girl being sacrificed and were ready to improvise if they turned out to be wrong. The Gift is loving great as a finale. Everyone gets to do something, bunch of little arcs get wrapped up. I think if they hadn't gotten recommissioned and moved to another network, it'd have been seen as a perfectly good finale for the whole show. Even Spike gets a good couple moments "I know I'm a monster, but you treat me a man" and then breaking down and weeping when he sees Buffy dead. Much prefer that to the much grodier feeling one in Season 6 (though he was sniffing her clothes and commissioning sex bots earlier in Season 5 so not perfect there either). Then again we wouldn't have gotten the singing episode if that had happened so swings and roundabouts. thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Aug 1, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2023 16:35
|
|
|
That episode late in season 4 is the only skippable one, where Buffy and Riley are stuck boning in the ghost house. Even then it's been so long that maybe I'd watch it just to see if there's something good I've forgotten about it. Edit: gently caress that list is loving wild, yeah don't even look at that shite. loving hell it gets worse, they recommend skipping New Man and Fear Itself. thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Aug 6, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 6, 2023 22:28
|
|
|
Yeah Tara is great, the way she connects with Dawn and always looks out for her and then is Buffys confidant in Season 6 when she feels she can't turn to anyone else. She's not got some incredibly notable gimmick beyond "is just a nice, emotionally developed person" but it turns out that is kind of a gimmick in the Scooby Gang.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2023 19:06
|
|
|
The part where he blows up Caritas and (probably accidentally) gives Lorne a tiny heads up by whistling was pretty great. I tell you one character who feels really weird in the fullness of time now having rewatched parts of the show a couple of times over the years, Whistler. They have him show up in the Season 2 finale of Buffy, they lay the seeds of the Powers that Be stuff they're going to use in Angel a lot and I guess later in Buffy season 3 with the Christmas episode. They make him apparently instrumental in picking Angel out of the gutter in the flashbacks and imply a whole hell of a lot about him and what he knows... then he has one or two conversations with Buffy and then never appears or is mentioned again. I googled him while writing the above and they apparently used him a lot in the dumb sounding post Season 7 comics. I suppose that's the sorta place unused character ideas would get dusted off. thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Aug 8, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2023 11:28
|
|
|
The main potential I remember is Amanda cause she had an entire episode around her being a potential instead of Dawn and it had that nice scene at the end between Dawn and Xander (though now weird cause of what they did in the comics which I try and ignore mostly but that is one of the things I have heard about). Then she plays D&D with the gang in the finale before getting her neck snapped unceremoniously cause they felt they still needed to show the stakes at that point for no real reason when they'd shown the plan working already basically.
thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Aug 15, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2023 22:19
|
|
|
LividLiquid posted:I've heard "bloody" on loads of British television, so I had no idea it was even considered a curse word there except on the level of "drat" or whatever, where it's the lesser version of something that's actually banned. Yeah it's not really cursing. Like you probably wouldn't say it on a Saturday morning kids thing (if those are even a thing still) but pretty much any show on in the evening or soaps, that kinda thing, could have it without issue. I think one of my friends once got detention for saying "bloody hell" because a particularly religious older teacher heard him when we around 12/13, most any other wouldn't have given a gently caress
|
|
#
¿
Aug 27, 2023 22:11
|
|
|
I read that and went "oof, very good chance this might be bad but I'm happy some of these actors are getting some money at least even if I never end up listening to it" and then saw the plot synopsis and yeah, it's probably going to be bad. Apparently Amber Benson wrote it, not watched anything she's written to be fair, it's just the concept feels very well worn these days. It's main universe colliding with parallel universe stuff, I kinda like the idea of Cordelia the Vampire Slayer at least, that's a fun nod to Charisma Carpenter originally going for the lead role.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2023 15:01
|
|
|
I think the episodes generally regarded as the worst are usually ones that don't advance the main plot AND have a very lame monster, usually early in the season. It's fine if the episode doesn't have anything to do with the main plot if they have a really cool core concept, monster, particularly fun scenes with the main cast, etc. Season 3 I can't think of one that's truly bad myself, I'd probably consider it the most solid season with no stinkers. They do imply the vampire they picked for the test for Buffy just happened to be a vampire who was also insane and smart, usually it is just a normal goon vampire which, if you know the weaknesses, is not a completely impossible test for someone with normal human levels of power, just very difficult especially if the person is used to being super strong and doesn't know why they aren't anymore. It is a pretty dumb test in general but yeah the council are massive shits, so that's just text.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2023 14:54
|
|
|
Huh, never really thought the Master was presented as a particularly great threat myself, he reads as your classic manipulator type who folds the instant he actually has to fight to me. The threat he presented in the finale of S1 was mainly summoning the old ones back from the hellmouth. He has the prophecy that Buffy will come to him and die, he knows that that happening will allow him to walk free so he thinks that's all good, it's classic "relying on prophecies will gently caress you over" stuff that they go on to play with many more times over the course of Buffy and Angel. In any case, in their actual confrontation he just does the hypnosis thing and bites Buffy, leaves her for dead, when she shows up alive later, on the roof, he's clearly thrown cause that's absolutely not what he's expecting. Then she wins because she leans into her style rather than what the prophecy says or the "proper" way of confronting him, she takes the piss out of him, kicks the poo poo out of him whiles he's confused and getting to grips with actually physically having to do stuff again and then throws him through the skylight. That seemed to be the subtext to me at least. There's also the fact that they were limited to what they could do in the early days of the show of course, if it'd happened later it'd probably have been more like the fight she has with some of the monsters in latter seasons, more acrobatic and such. It's pretty consistently presented as well imo, like in an episode of Angel (putting this in spoilers cause someone is watching stuff, can't really not reveal that it happens in Angel outside of a spoiler though) they do a flashback and show Darla bringing Angel back to him in a very "meet my father" kinda thing and Angel just relentlessly poo poo talks him to his face and then he and Darla step out and the Master is just like "oooh fine let them go, it won't last" rather than just killing him or whatever, which is what you'd expect from a vampire in his own lair.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2023 15:44
|
|
|
Interesting perspective on the First in the last few posts. I always thought one of the reasons I found the last season so relatively unsatisfying aside from a couple episodes is that they big up the First massively from their appearance in Season 3 and the early part of Season 7 and then proceed to have it be pretty much entirely ineffectual for most of the season. Like sure it provokes some suicides and they get into some arguments but it never feels quite as dire as they seem to want to get across with all the buildup "from beneath you it devours" stuff until the last couple episodes when people are just evacuating Sunnydale en masse and such. It feels like it skips a couple steps in between those to me.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2023 16:05
|
|
|
That might be a case of the fanbase as well, a lot of people hated Connor back in the day, unfairly imo. If he was excited about being in the show and then paid attention to internet forums, fan magazines (the buffy/angel one was relatively popular in the UK at the time if I recall correctly, no idea if the US had one) or attended cons or whatever, wouldn't surprise me if the reception marred that part of his career, sorta like Jake Lloyd or Wil Wheaton. I guess he might have said that was the case though and Whedon being a shithead to another person wouldn't be a surprise.
thebardyspoon fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Dec 20, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2023 21:00
|
|
|
I think it is a similar situation to Dawn in some ways (although I always thought both of them were fine at their "worst" points even during my first watch of their respective seasons). In her case they play up the annoying kid sister bit in those initial couple episodes for obvious reasons and that poisons the well a little bit for some folks for a longer time than it should. Whereas he's kinda written to be annoying to the audience because from the perspective of a viewer who knows he's been manipulated or hosed with, you're like "oh god, just see it you fool!" but obviously he's basically got incredible PTSD/brainwashing/gaslighting all going on and so his incredible distrust and hostility is honestly pretty understandable through that lens. He also derails the Angel/Cordelia thing of course, if someone was super invested in that then they're gonna dislike him a bit more, that was what fueled my speculation in the last post on it potentially being the fanbase that could have ruined the role for him, fanbases get loving WEIRD about shipping stuff.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2023 14:30
|
|
|
LividLiquid posted:This doesn't matter even at all, but Season 4 will always confuse me because basically every episode ends where the next begins, so it must take place over the course of just a few weeks at most, but nine months pass. Yeah it is pretty wild, (spoilers for Angel S4 here)they do at points say that a few weeks have passed between a few episodes and I think the blotting out the sun parts supposed to have lasted a few weeks when it ends (which is crazy cause that'd surely have lead to way more deaths than it seems to have but whatever, vampires suck at organising stuff I guess). If by nine months you specifically mean because Cordelia gives birth, they do say it's a magical pregnancy and it goes by way quicker just in general, then they do the spell to bring it about right away by sacrificing the virgin when she gets found out as well. I suppose you have to assume that Angel being in a box for a few months brings the start of actual Season 4 stuff further into Buffy's season 7 enough that when S4 ends, he can cleanly hop over to give her the amulet right when it's convenient having dealt with the Connor stuff.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2023 01:13
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 20:28 |
|
|
I can't say the core premise really interested me in that format, I imagine ultimately the amount of people still interested in Buffy stuff to the extent they're willing to pay for it is relatively low and a lot probably never even heard this thing existed. Then companies in general are just always looking to cut stuff but especially now.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 21, 2024 20:59
|
|