Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Well, it niggled at me all night, so forgive the double post:

Buffy and the Scoobies were never uncool. They were unpopular, but we know (and they eventually realized) that they are indeed cool. In fact it's one of the lessons of the show that coolness is not in the eye of the beholder. And when cool but unpopular people grow up and find their place in the world, the unpopularity falls away. They come into their own... and then realize that they have to get jobs, be parents, pay the mortgage, etc. This was the great turn of the show, away from high school and out into the world of young adulthood, and not everyone was on board with it. But the theme of the show is growing up, not being a social outcast--or at least not just being an outcast.

So yeah, they're right that Spike took over too much (until Faith got back), but I can't agree with their subsidiary points.


Edit: Except it's not a double post! Thanks, GKE!

"Cool" is one of those terms that is so vague and able to be used in any context that it's useless. Popularity is indeed more at the heart of the article's point. And when it comes to Spike, he was introduced to the show as the guy in high school that pushed you around and got all the girls and is a jerk, and in the end that same guy is a hero and you want to be like him.

In seasons 1-3, the nerds that are good with technology and magic are the heroes. In season 6, the nerds that are good with technology and magic are the villains. Tara is attracted to Willow in large part because they're two outcasts that share things others can't understand. Kennedy, on the other hand, was attracted to Willow because she was impressed, superficially.

These are all superficial things, perhaps, but it changes the tone of a show. And when the nerds are the heroes and then the villains, I could see how there's a sense of betrayal on a loyal fan base. This is separate from the characters arcs of the original nerds in particular- Willow and Xander turned out to make sense and their stories are pretty great overall.

The nerds going from being heroes to villains is indeed something of a betrayal -- but I think it's one of the essential messages of the show. The Trio in Season Six represent how nerds can run off the rails too, in the absence of a strong family: after all, the most evil nerd of that season is Willow, and it's her family (the gang, but mostly Xander) who bring her back. Andrew becomes a part of the team in Season 7, albeit an annoying one, and actually shows some personal growth as a result, and it's pretty clear that Jonathan would have done the same, maybe even flourished, if he'd survived his effort at atonement.

So yeah, the fan base may have felt betrayed, 'cause here's their favorite show saying to them, "Look guys, you don't get a free ride just because you like us and because you're like us. We need to be careful, and you do too." Which is part and parcel with Joss's conviction that he has to tell us stories that we need, not just ones that we want. Plus the Trio, like Dr. Horrible, are in many ways an expression of the darkness in fanboy/Ubergeek Joss himself.

And by the end, is Spike really the guy who pushes our heroes around? He's loyal. He's compassionate. He's even loving. He's violent, yeah, but so's Buffy; he's caustic and annoyingly truthful, but so's Anya, and we see time and again that sometimes we need people like that in our lives.

Moreover, let's think about some of the guys who pushed our heroes around. I'm thinking of Larry, mostly, who's one of the worst initially, but by season three he's mellowed, and twice we see that his heart is truly in the right place, as he's willing to put his life on the line for the good fight. Let's also think of Buffy's speech in "Earshot," where she tells Jonathan (who tragically may not have listened closely enough) that everyone who's ever bullied him and harassed him and cold-shouldered him is doing it because they themselves are in pain.

So one of the lessons of the show is that even the guys who pushed you around can be redeemed, and are worth redeeming.

It changes the tone of the show, but the tone of life changes. And if we can't deal with the changes, then yes, the show is not for us, but we shouldn't denigrate the show for not being what we want.


I accept and embrace the idea that Spike got too much screen time in the last season, though. That's the biggest problem S7 had in a nutshell, right enough.

The wife and I really enjoyed Buffy and we would watch both versions of it religiously. It was for us mainly a fun show with some action thrown in. Favourite seasons would have to be four and five, loved the Initative and Glory was the ultimate split personality. Favourite character was the predictable one I'm afraid and went by the name Spike. He was just fun to watch and always got a laugh.
I found it rather strange at the end of the series when the super vampires which took so much killing earlier were being killed easily by everyone but it was a damn good finale so I wont let that bother me too much.
Angel we didn't watch as much and seemed a lot harder to get into. There were some good episodes though and of course as soon as Spike reappeared the series got a lot more fun for us. Nobody can bug Angel like Spike!
It has been fun reading this thread, time consuming too, and reliving the Buffy experience thank you very much.

Alex

Plus the Trio, like Dr. Horrible, are in many ways an expression of the darkness in fanboy/Ubergeek Joss himself.

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I can sympathize with that- I struggle with my geekiness, embracing it, mocking it, deriding and/or praising it in others, etc.

But I'm sure all you loser nerds know what I'm talking about.
*goes back to computer programming...*

During WW2:

Angel: "I'm not getting trapped at the bottom of the sea"
Spike: "And I'm not getting experimented on by his government"

hah

puppets wtf lol

My copy of Angel season 5 is not the DVD, it's recorded from TV or something like that, 'cause some of these episodes have previews for the next episode. In the case of the puppet episode (wtf lol), it resulted in the ultimate encapsulation of how Buffy/Angel handles relationships:

Episode ends with Fred and Wesley hooking up.
"On the next episode of Angel...."
and then they show Fred dying and Wed crying.

Potential plot hole? in the puppet (wtf lol) episode:

Lorne and someone else (forgot who) visit the guy that invented the puppets. He sings a little something, yet Lorne cannot tell that anything is amiss (while he was being controlled by a puppet (wtf lol)).

The Puppet (wtf lol) episode* had me rolling. Hard to believe it's in the 5th season, I coulda sworn it was no later than S3?





*TM GKarsEye; Circa 2010*

Ooh "the wolf, ram and hart" were once weak, "lower than the vampires," according to Illyria (who btw looks like something out of an X-Men comic). Do I get a WR&H origin story?

Do I get a WR&H origin story?

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I don't remember one, at least nothing explicit.

I personally love the switch from Fred to Illyria. Fred's death scene feels particularly painful to me, especially with the bit of bookending of the scenes of her leaving home to go to college.

Finishing Angel tonight...

It was amazing how many different ways they found of telling me that Fred is really really gone.
So, um... she's gone?

If putting the necklace around the monster to make him kill himself every day was loophole to get Gunn back, it's messed up that they had to wait for Ilyria to think of that.

Penultimate episode of Angel just finished, and it was f'n awesome, the way it tied everything together. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed.

Yeah I could see how that ending would have startled people.

However, it took about a second of thought to remember that it played out exactly as they said it would- they knew they were gonna die, they knew they were not taking down WF&H, just the Black Circle part of it. This happened.

In order for that all to make sense dramatically, though, we have to assume they all just died. So the only survivor of the major Angel show characters is Lorne.

I know there are other comics and books and whatever but I really hope none of the "canon" stuff that takes place after that moment has Angel, Gunn, or Spike in it.
However, I would like to see the adventure of Euro-Buffy that were hinted at...

I'm going to talk openly about things that happen in the comics. If you don't want to be spoiled cause you just really want to read the comics, just ignore me. But I still can't help but to think the comics are not worth it. There's just too much weird and stupid.

So

like I said

read at your own decision.

:angel:

Sorry man, the comics have them surviving. I've read synopsi of the Angel comics, and from what I can remember of it all, the Senior Partners sent LA to Hell, where Angel & team fought for months or some such. Gunn ended up being turned into a vampire, I think by Angel. Spike and Lorne ended up becoming "Lords" of various areas of the city, or some such. Connor and Gwen ended up roaming the city fighting demons and vampires. Wesley ended up as some funky ghost attached to Wolfram & Hart something like Lilah was. And Fred ended up not actually being consumed, just incorporated into Illyria. Oh and Angel turns the dragon into a pet that he names Coredelia. They do their thing and eventually save LA from Hell.

As for the adventures of EuroBuffy, there are none. According to the Buffy comic, the person Angel and Spike see in Italy is a slayer, but not Buffy. She was specifically chosen by Andrew as a ruse because she looked so much like Buffy. Andrew's idea was that if "Buffy" were so visual, if she was out there partying for all the demons and vampires of the world to see and think they knew what she was doing, the real Buffy would be able to slog around the world with teams of slayers taking out demons and vampires without the demons and vampires knowing she was coming.

So yeah. Then there have been other stupid things in the comics. Like Dawn being a giant, literally, and then a robot, I think, and then a centaur. I don't remember why, or really care. Buffy turned lesbian for a short while to have sex/relationship/whatever with another slayer. Xander and Dawn became a couple. Willow and Kennedy are still together. Willow ended up having not actually killed Warren (which I don't know how that's supposed to work considering that we saw the First take on Warren's appearance, and it can only appear as people who've died); instead Amy used magic to keep him from dying while making it look like Willow had killed him. Harmony ended up using some stupid reality tv show to make the world come to view vampires as a persecuted minority. Buffy gained superhero comic style superpowers like flight and total invulnerability. And Buffy and Angel nearly destroyed the entire planet while having sex as the two of them were literally becoming gods.

So yeah, I think the stories of the comics are stupid

and worthy being mocked.

:devil:

Anyway, I'm done with the comic spoilers.

I've never even read a Star Trek book, so even though I enjoyed Buffy and Angel well enough I'm not going to hunt down and pay for comics.

So I went ahead and read your description, not surprised they ruined the Angel ending with it, and laughed at the comic-book shark-jumping cliche of making the hero able to fly (anyone else remember "cosmic" Spiderman?).

The idea of a fake Buffy partying it up is actually reasonable, though. Of course that would mean that Andrew was lying to Angel and Spike that Buffy was dating that Immortal dude, and why would he do that? At least, to Spike, who he was totally crushing on.
I was also wondering if Andrew's dates were in fact slayers and they were heading out to a mission. It was strongly implied he was gay anyway.

But yeah the rest sounds pretty silly (giant Dawn?!), but if you start typing out the plots of some Buffy/Angel stories it would look equally dumb (Franken-terminator-demon; god/hospital intern; singing demon; puppets wtf lol; etc).

Of course the real thing about comics is that they don't have the actors that were on the TV. Sounds silly but that kinda gets at the heart of what made Buffy work at its best.
Now that I'm done watching everything I may do a summary post on all of it, my total impressions, take-aways, etc, as I get my thought together.

Or I might check-out Dollhouse tonight.

One thing about the suburb hell dimension I noticed I forgot to say: anyone else think that some of it was a David Lynch reference? The whole "American as apple pie" look on the surface with a dark horrible underbelly. There was a moment where the camera pans from Lindsey-then-Gunn's house to the van full of mercenaries and the music shifts from a major-key durge to a minor-key durge, like in Twin Peaks.

I checked out the first half-dozen eps of Dollhouse and I liked it, because Dushku is half-naked most of the time, and there are also many other attractive, scantily clad young women on display.

Finished Dollhouse.

I love this show! Really well made, great cast for the most part (Sierra was the only character/actress that stuck out like a sore thumb, and of course f'd up beautiful mouth guy from Battlestar always annoys me, but everyone else rocked it), cool stories, good action sequences, and mind-bending plot twists.

And, um, Dushku.... wow. So, so almost-naked, constantly.

What did everyone think of the most major big plot twist at the end about

SPOILER ALERT SINCE THIS THREAD IS CALLED BUFFY AND THIS POST IS ABOUT DOLLHOUSE


the handler being the founder. I don't know if it makes any sense. I didn't quite get why he felt he had to put himself in danger like that, personally handling Echo, just to end up extracting her spinal fluid.

GKarsEye said:

Finished Dollhouse.

I love this show! Really well made, great cast for the most part (Sierra was the only character/actress that stuck out like a sore thumb, and of course f'd up beautiful mouth guy from Battlestar always annoys me, but everyone else rocked it), cool stories, good action sequences, and mind-bending plot twists.

And, um, Dushku.... wow. So, so almost-naked, constantly.

What did everyone think of the most major big plot twist at the end about

SPOILER ALERT SINCE THIS THREAD IS CALLED BUFFY AND THIS POST IS ABOUT DOLLHOUSE


the handler being the founder. I don't know if it makes any sense. I didn't quite get why he felt he had to put himself in danger like that, personally handling Echo, just to end up extracting her spinal fluid.

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I was totally blown away by the twist.

It's a shame they didn't get another half season at least.

The second season was awesome, but, could've been stretched at least another 10-13 episodes and not felt stretched out, and actually could've become richer for it.

I think it's biggest drawback is that Whedon is known for his support of Girl Power, and he had to go so heavy on the Misogyny early on, to make the end payoff, that he lost too many female viewers.