Buffy the Vampire Slayer

No, they did Firefly first. Actors from Firefly were cast in roles on Buffy and Angel because at that point Firefly had been cancelled and Joss, I guess, was doing them a solid and helping them get more work.

Wow Firefly was that long ago? Man I'm getting old....

Funny town, Sunnydale. Mass civilian exodus, school closed, but the Bronze is still open and offering live music.

Firefly started broadcast the same time Buffy7/Angel4 began broadcast. With Firefly's cancellation, but Buffy and Angel still going, Joss had the opportunity to work in Firefly actors in a couple of places.

Series over. That was fun. None of it made sense. Gotta go now, post more later.

Buffy started around '97. Angel started in '99. Firefly was in 2002.

Just in case you've given up on Angel, I'd really recommend watching season 5. It takes the show in a completely different direction from season 4, and is at times pretty damned cool in a "none of this makes sense" manner.

I'll check out season 5. Does it at least have a real ending? I also got Dollhouse, which I heard mixed things about, but it has Faith and River, so you know, there's that.

Back to Buffy, finale:

Holy CGI. the running on the rooftops chasing after the bus. Also I lol at Principle David Palmer's Brother getting them on a school bus. Just a funny image, after the big vampire fight. Which, btw, included Buffy being run-through the gut, but still managing to do the roof-top chase/jump and then being totally fine at the end.

Destroying all of Sunnydale is certainly rather dramatic. Was the whole town supposed to be evacuated by then?
The smash you over the head girl-power message of all the little girls around the world turning into slayers was pretty funny too.

Killing Anya seemed unnecessarily cruel, and Xander's reaction was pretty matter-of-fact. That, plus that they showed Andrew questioning his own survival, made me wonder if they didn't know if that was actually to be the last episode, and they were setting up some character arc for him.

Willow's last spell made her look like Emmylou Harris.

I take it Dawn is a Watcher-in-training?

Angel's ending .. uh .. it's hard to say a thing about it without giving anything away. Let's just say the show ended on a bang, and the fanbase was massively split. Personally, I loved it.

I also loved the way Angel ended; not everyone who's a fan of Buffy/Angel agree with me and Chilli. You've watched it to this point, don't abandon Angel yet with only one season to go. The last season has some of the most heartbreaking moments the show's ever had.

Yes, all of Sunnydale was evacuated by the time of the destruction of the town; they showed the mass exodus in a prior episode.

The reason Anya died is because the actress who played Anya specifically asked for it.

Andrew questioning his survival was supposed to reflect on the moments earlier in the season, particularly his conversation with Anya in the hospital when they were getting supplies, in which he had begun to assume that because he was as weak of a person that he is that he would die.

And if you do watch Dollhouse, I hope you enjoy it; I certainly did. And if you do watch, please post your thoughts about it as you watch. It's only two seasons, and both are shorter than normal, so it's not too much to watch. Personally, I love Dollhouse and wish it had gotten more time. There is one particular revelation in the second season that's rather jarring, though interesting, that had they had more time they could have made a smoother transition for in terms of the story. The first season starts with a handful of episodes that have a sizable portion of stand-alone-ishness to them, though they all do advance the seasonal plot in some smaller degree. A lot of people had a problem with that stand-alone-ishness. I personally think it's needed to help the viewer grow accustomed to and understand how the universe of the show works.

vacantlook said:

I also loved the way Angel ended; not everyone who's a fan of Buffy/Angel agree with me and Chilli. You've watched it to this point, don't abandon Angel yet with only one season to go. The last season has some of the most heartbreaking moments the show's ever had.

Yes, all of Sunnydale was evacuated by the time of the destruction of the town; they showed the mass exodus in a prior episode.

The reason Anya died is because the actress who played Anya specifically asked for it.

Andrew questioning his survival was supposed to reflect on the moments earlier in the season, particularly his conversation with Anya in the hospital when they were getting supplies, in which he had begun to assume that because he was as weak of a person that he is that he would die.

And if you do watch Dollhouse, I hope you enjoy it; I certainly did. And if you do watch, please post your thoughts about it as you watch. It's only two seasons, and both are shorter than normal, so it's not too much to watch. Personally, I love Dollhouse and wish it had gotten more time. There is one particular revelation in the second season that's rather jarring, though interesting, that had they had more time they could have made a smoother transition for in terms of the story. The first season starts with a handful of episodes that have a sizable portion of stand-alone-ishness to them, though they all do advance the seasonal plot in some smaller degree. A lot of people had a problem with that stand-alone-ishness. I personally think it's needed to help the viewer grow accustomed to and understand how the universe of the show works.

Click to expand...

Agreed on all counts.

Plus, I'll add, that it's a shame the Arc progression required the viewer to become so intimate with all the ways you could knock down/abuse/demean, etc. women from the very beginning. That turned alot of people off, that enjoyed Buffy, because it started from the other end of the Spectrum, where you didn't have "Girl Power"in control...in fact... Girl Power is subjigated (SP?) in the beginning.of Dollhouse.

[Stephen R. Donaldson goes through this with the Thomas Covenant Chronicles and The Gap Series]

Nice thread. Just have one observation that I don't think was mentioned. Doesn't Oz as a wolf look a lot like Zathras? In a band Zathras is.

I liked the finale of Buffy. In a way it ended with the title of the show being defunct. She's not Buffy The Vampire Slayer, she's Buffy A Vampire Slayer. I like this.

(Yes technically with Faith around she wasn't *the* slayer for a while, but don't spoil my moment!)

I like season 5 of Angel. But then I actually liked season 3 and 4 and most of season 2, whereas GKE doesn't seem to be enjoying it that much. Still, I'd say that you might as well watch season 5. Have you got anything better to do?

At the speed you're going you will finish Angel before I do (well I've seen it once already but am rewatching it with my wife as she missed it and Buffy first time round). My wife and I started 3 years ago, with Buffy and are now on episode 5 of season 5 of Angel. It took a backseat to a lot of other shows though (like Lost etc.)

I don't mean to say I hate Angel, it's just that it seems a lot more slapped together and less thought-out than Buffy, and more importantly it lacks the humor and diversity of characters. I was devastated when Tara, a minor character on Buffy, died, but I couldn't care less if Gunn or Fred or Lorne die or turn evil or disappear. I forgot Cordelia is in a coma until they said it.
Btw- she had amnesia, and now she's in a coma. Soap opera much?

I was both happy and disappointed to see Spike added to the Angel cast. Happy because he's a funny dude, disappointed because it takes away what would have been an amazing end to the characters' story, and killed the most climactic moment of Buffy's series finale.

(I also thought it was curious that when they flashed back to it on Angel they cut out the part where Buffy says "I love you" and Spike says "no you don't, but thanks for saying it.")

Lots of eye-rolling at the Matrix chair that made Gunn a lawyer.

Joss Whedon, a fan of Law & Order, wrote Gunn's court scene using made-up legal jargon. However, when the scene was sent to a legal consultant they only made a few tweaks. "We didn't often know what to do with J.'s character," Whedon confessed. "He had a real sense of feeling out of place, so I wanted to show something from J. that people hadn't seen. Plus he looks really good in a suit."

Click to expand...

Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Not that Buffy ever had the planning of B5, but at least things felt more organic much of the time.

The werewolf episode sure felt pointless, going over ground already covered on Buffy. Where there really people that watched Angel that didn't watch Buffy?
I liked the one with ghosts, the guy cutting off his own fingers. I like ghosts in general, and making Spike the victim of haunting, of sorts, was pretty sweet.

Criticizing Dollhouse because of "stand-alone" makes no sense- all arc-driven shows have to start that way to establish the universe and characters. Buffy did this as well.

Hey look, Wesley's father is the same guy that signed a treaty with the Centauri.

So what can I do to get the 90 mins of my life spent watching Gunn piss the office and Mexican wrestlers?

Get the 90 minutes back, I'm assuming?

The Mexican wrestlers one is actually a bit important thematically.

The Harmony-centric episode was more amusing than I feared.

Lindsay with the tattoos is a sweet hook.

Now watching one with a crazy slayer and Andrew. I suppose this would be a cross-over with Buffy "season 8," which has Giles and Andrew rounding up the new slayers.

Not quite a crossover, actually. Buffy S8 begins after Angel S5 ends, chronologically. But yeah, it's the same setup.

Here's an old article I dug up from salon.com. It's typically bitchy about the last couple seasons of Buffy, but I agree with its central point about the "cool" people vs the outcasts, and Spike.

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2003/05/13/spike_buffy

Dang. That commentary cut pretty deep, and may well have gotten to the heart of the problem with Season 7. I've definitely noticed that the season really stalled between "Conversations With Dead People" (which I love) and Faith's return -- and with Faith's return, Spike would have to be sharing the spotlight.

The shirtless confession scene they lambasted as being Shatner-like, however, is fairly close to my heart for fairly painful reasons, however, so I have to disagree there -- emotionally, if not rationally.

The First Evil is all talk, but we see how dangerous that can be. And I love the notion of a villain that Buffy can't fight, period, who is also played by Gellar.

So: some of that's right, and some of that's right but not fun, and some of that is just snark for snark's sake.

KoshFan said:

Dang. That commentary cut pretty deep, and may well have gotten to the heart of the problem with Season 7. I've definitely noticed that the season really stalled between "Conversations With Dead People" (which I love) and Faith's return -- and with Faith's return, Spike would have to be sharing the spotlight.

The shirtless confession scene they lambasted as being Shatner-like, however, is fairly close to my heart for fairly painful reasons, however, so I have to disagree there -- emotionally, if not rationally.

The First Evil is all talk, but we see how dangerous that can be. And I love the notion of a villain that Buffy can't fight, period, who is also played by Gellar.

So: some of that's right, and some of that's right but not fun, and some of that is just snark for snark's sake.

Click to expand...

I'd say that's all pretty fair, what you said.

It's worth noting that salon was an early and ardent defender of the show. I remember they would have an "award" called "The Buffy," given to a show that's underrated or misunderstood by the public, and that Battlestar won it once.

So now Cordelia comes out of a coma- but she didn't- but everyone saw her- or whatever- and she's done. Now that her character's story is complete (presumably, she essentially spent the whole episode saying goodbye), it's gotta be the worst character arc in both shows. It just feels like they slapped together a bunch of stuff and in retrospect doesn't have the resonance of others, especially for a fictional world that is constantly praised for "character development."

Though the most important character at this point is of course Angel, and his personal story is pretty good. At this point it feels like this big trade-off- any potential any other character had at being interesting has been sacrificed at the Angel altar.

- Spike ended the Buffy series with sacrifice, love, redemption and exactly the kind of blaze of glory exit he would always have wanted, pre or post soul. This is ruined with his return, but that return makes Angel question his destiny, and worry about the one thing keeping him going, and how it relates to his ego and past, which is a pretty interesting story.

- Cordelia's story was about a selfish person learning to care about other people and find greater purpose than herself. That story pretty much ended in season 2, after she had a mess of visions and she said, and I may be paraphrasing, "OMG so many people need help, which I already knew because I've been working for Angel Investigations for a year, but now I know it even more, so my character arc is finished." So they didn't know what to do with her and made her fall in love with Angel and have a demon baby and be evil, slip into a coma (I'm just assuming the actress was unavailable for a while or something), then pop back in to say goodbye, and all that matters is how Angel feels about it.

- So far in season 5, it's like they're not even trying with Wesley, Fred and Gunn anymore. They're all having the "should we have taken this job?" conversation over and over again, with no change in position.

This isn't even a complaint, just an observation. The name of the show is Angel, and he should be the focus. It's just a bit rough to see after Buffy did a pretty decent job with most of its non-titular characters.