Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Actor spotting: in the ghost episode, the janitor (who first prevented the first haunted guy from killing someone, then was possessed and shot someone) = Sol Star from Deadwood. God I miss that show, and thinking about that dialogue makes even the best of Buffy look lame. Have you guys not watched Deadwood yet? Come on.

GKarsEye said:

vacantlook said:

Yeah, I'm not all that fond of "Killed By Death,"

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I'm just going to assume you mean the episode, not the Motorhead song, 'cause otherwise your awesomeness quotient would decrease.

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Yeah, I mean the episode, but I'm gonna have to take a hit to my awesomeness: I don't think I've ever heard the Motorhead song. (Preemptive: I can't go check it out on YouTube or anything because I'm super slowass dialup internet; videos are pretty much a giant impossible for me.)

I liked "I've Only Got Eyes For You" because of how psychologically heavy it is in terms of examining how much Buffy feels that Angel going evil is all her fault. I like that everyone was thinking Buffy would end up playing the role of the woman in the ghost's reinactment, but it ended up being Angel. I thought the episode, particularly the ones of Buffy and Angel possessed at the end had some really good acting, and I liked the revelation at the end that Spike's all healed but has been hiding it, waiting.

"Go Fish" is one I usually skip if I'm doing a rewatch runthrough, so I'm with you on that one being yawn worthy.

Enjoy the "Becoming" two-part finale.

: I don't think I've ever heard the Motorhead song.

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Oh don't worry- if you've ever heard a Motorhead song, you've heard the Motorhead. They're one of those bands* where all their music sounds the same (except for the album Orgasmatron, and the less said about that one the better).

LEMMY!!!

Wikipedia says the ghost episode was what convinced Whedon that Angel could have his own show. Honestly... I wasn't feeling it until the very end, right up to the kiss. I'm sorry I'm just not diggin' the actor at all. To me all he has going for him is his looks- not just that he's so obviously gorgeous even to this straight boy, but that he makes the trench coat and 50s hair style work, and rocks the 'tude when he needs to (again, the smoke exhaling thing).

I think if I were to watch that episode on a different time I would feel it more, it was rather well done. The visuals at least were pretty sweet, with the wasps and the music room and all that.

The Spike twist was very good but not shocking. Mainly it serves to create anticipation for the finale- I mean we got the 3 baddest vamps we've yet seen, an emotionally tormented slayer, probably a second even hotter slayer (I'm expecting Kendra to return), possibly a werewolf... honestly the only things that would make this better, in terms of just coolness, are spaceships or zombies.


*awesome bands

Just clicked 'play' on the file, and it's an old-timey setting and irish-y sounding music. Quick guess... Angel backstory?
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Yes! With bad accent and everything!

Yes, the really bad Irish accent that David Boreanaz does as Angel is a thing of significant mockery. You get to see who the fancy woman drawing in the book is now, and interestingly, you already know her from season one.

vacantlook said:

Yes, the really bad Irish accent that David Boreanaz does as Angel is a thing of significant mockery. You get to see who the fancy woman drawing in the book is now, and interestingly, you already know her from season one.

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Ok well if Julie Benz is supposed to be the woman in the book that doesn't make sense, or am I remembering it wrong. 'Cause didn't he say she "wasn't his type," when in fact he was in total love or lust with her and that's why he let her turn him? Or was he just lying to Buffy when he told her he didn't like fancy women to make her feel better?

Anyway, part 1 down and it was cool 'cause it was all Godfather 2 style, with the past and present shown at the same time.

Kendra! hot... though wearing practical clothes, as is Buffy, so looks like they heeded my advice. 'cept now she died, so, I guess my advice is bad.

Yet another demon that can bring forth Armageddon? There sure are a lot of them...

Did we really need the Whistler announcing "this will be a big moment in her life!"

The Whistler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Q2L1Tt1Hk

Why is Joss Whedon going through my record collection to name characters and episodes?

GKarsEye said:

Ok well if Julie Benz is supposed to be the woman in the book that doesn't make sense, or am I remembering it wrong. 'Cause didn't he say she "wasn't his type," when in fact he was in total love or lust with her and that's why he let her turn him? Or was he just lying to Buffy when he told her he didn't like fancy women to make her feel better?

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Angel's meet Darla several hundred years prior, and as we saw in season one, the two of them aren't exactly on the best of terms now. So, I'd say it's a good bit of his "type" changing over time and from experience.

Yet another demon that can bring forth Armageddon? There sure are a lot of them...

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And many, many more to come. Heh heh.

So anyone reading this thread has seen the whole show, right? Ok, then let's play a game.

Let's pretend that after season 2, the series was canceled. The rest of the show and the spinoff didn't happen. So Buffy has everything taken away from her: mommy, school, social life, she kills her true love to save the world, and pulls a Bruce Banner type exit into the world, modeling herself after her peer- live alone because fate demands it. We know there are still villains out there, but we know that she's there to stop them.

Wouldn't that, dramatically, be one hell of an ending? Wouldn't that make everything we've seen so far pay off to the maximum? It would be the conclusion of the saga, the ultimate hero story.

Instead, I know that pretty soon she'll somehow find herself back in high school, Angel will come back, she'll have her friends, maybe even her mommy. I'm sure there will be consequences, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the rest of the show, but just the fact that there is more lessens the value of what these last two episodes did.

But more importantly, how can vampires smoke if they don't have breath?

With the exception of seasons four and six, Joss specifically ended each season specifically so that it could serve as a series finale if the network decided to not renew the show. So yeah, the finale of season two could very much serve as the end of the show and it would be great. But I'm glad the show continued onward though because there's some more really good stuff that happens in future episodes.

Yeah, how can vamps smoke if they can't breathe? And how can they fuck if their hearts don't pump blood, and thus couldn't possibly let them get hard?

vacantlook said:

With the exception of seasons four and six, Joss specifically ended each season specifically so that it could serve as a series finale if the network decided to not renew the show.

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Don't all shows do that? Some are given multi-year contracts, so they can have cross-season cliffhangers, but usually it's season-by-season.

Yeah, how can vamps smoke if they can't breathe? And how can they fuck if their hearts don't pump blood, and thus couldn't possibly let them get hard?

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But vampires do bleed, so it must be circulating somehow.

What episode are you up to now?

Pobman said:

What episode are you up to now?

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Haven't watched any since last posting. After all, it was the weekend, and the TV watching I did do last night to wind down was the season finales of Breaking Bad and Treme.

Don't know if I'll be able to get to any tonight either, but we'll see. Stupid "life" getting in the way of my entertainment...

Season 3 Buffy marathon, go:

So did they get like a billion dollars in between the seaons? 'Cause that fight sequence in that hell-factory thing was serious Jackie Chan shit right there. Buffy the Ninja Vampire Slayer. Bravo.

What was deal with that place anyway? Who were those people, what did they have their slaves working so hard on for hundreds of years?

Nice callback to the wanna-be vampire weirdo chick. God what an annoying type of person. And yes I noticed that they reference past episodes before.

So for how many of you watching this at the time did putting David Boreanaz in the opening credits ruin his eventual return from death?

Season 3 is up on Hulu now for anyone wishing to play along.

By the way, when I was looking for episodes back when I was dealing with a bad download, I saw a clip Hulu called "Buffy dies." I didn't watch it of course but, yeah, I know that happens.

I also know that Eliza Dushku becomes a major character and is a slayer (remember- hot chicks and monsters, that's why I'm here) so I'm assuming she is "called" after Kendra dies.

LOLing at how they portray the nightmare that is The Big City. I'm assuming it's supposed to be L.A., since that's where Buffy is from originally? Anyway, I wonder where this destitute all-white urban neighborhood is.

Her mom is still ranting and raving about not knowing what the deal is with Buffy. So we're going to have to deal with this nonsense from her? And at this point everyone is openly talking about monsters and vampires and lots of untimely deaths- so three teenagers are the only ones attempting to stop vampires?

Such silliness this television is.

"You can't just bury things like that, it comes back to get you"
Cut to: zombie attack

Subtlety? Any wussy that needs that crap can go sleep through their hoity-toity frenchy films or whatever.

I don't know about an influx of money, but I do know that they upgraded their filming technology for season three: they had been using one type of film and started using a better quality film from 3 onward.

Yes, Eliza Dushku's character -- Faith -- is the slayer that's called after Kendra's death.

It's not just the "look" that's improved but the scale of the action sequences.
The zombie episode was full-fledged Night of the Living Dead tribute, with a whole army of zombies attacking a house party. I mean compare it to earlier in the series where it felt as if there were only like 12 people in all of Sunnydale. Plus the ninja choreography, why more involved than before.

Given that the season 2 finale was so huge and live viewership got so relatively high in season 2, it must have been the case that this is where the production company or the network or whatever saw this is a flagship franchise and invested accordingly.

A vampire so old he has cloven hands? Ok, that's new.
I'm guessing his pimped out buddy in the limo is the new main boss in this level?

Faith- quite the looker. I'm sure she made quite an impression as the bad-ass when she first came on the scene, though the impact is lessened for me since she has reprised that type of character in other roles (of course I'm thinking of Bring It On, which, when coupled with Showgirls, makes for the best drunk movie night you can have).

GKarsEye said:

I'm guessing his pimped out buddy in the limo is the new main boss in this level?

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Nope, Mr. Trick is not the third season's Big Bad.

vacantlook said:

GKarsEye said:

I'm guessing his pimped out buddy in the limo is the new main boss in this level?

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Nope, Mr. Trick is not the third season's Big Bad.

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Ok, guess #2: it's Faith.

What do people think of Evil Buffy? Both this and last season open with her being pissy and mean but super ass-kicking. I dig it- that first episode of the season was actually pretty freakin' terrible except for how awesome Buffy/Gellar and her stunt double were to watch.

The Big Bad of season 3 has been mentioned briefly a few times in the show before season 3 ever started, actually.

That's not to say that there won't be other reoccuring villains aside from the Big Bad in the season.

I enjoy Buffy going bad-ass; I enjoy any good character going bad-ass, really. Like in season two after Angel kills Jenny Callendar, and Giles goes off; I love it. From the kind of steel absolutism he gathers up his weapons and walks out of his appartment, to his unflinching movement between setting the table on fire, igniting the end of his baseball bat, and his first swing against Angel: I love it. But I think that such moments of characters going bad-ass like that are only so entertaining because the characters are generally good people, so to speak. The show definitely has plenty more bad-assiness to come, for you.

I just reviewed the list of episodes for season 3 to refresh myself with what all is there. The first half of the season has a lot of more stand alone-ish episodes. I'd say the first A+ episode is the 12th episode of the season: "Helpless." Looking at the list, I'd definitely say the second half of the season is far suprerior to the first half.