Confessions of a Buffy Addict - Page 2

You're absolutely right. It's still not a reason to completely dismiss the ending, which is enjoyable even with a minor inconsistency. And it is minor--I doubt a realistic, consistent ending of The Two Towers (which Buffy was clearly aping) wouldn't have left every single non-orc in the keep a puddle of goo.


Yeah, he's retelling a legend. Details get mixed up and edified over time, even stories that are common knowledge. Doubly so when it comes to the secret supernatural history of the world.

You're picking nits.

Silly, silly Busey. Obviously the panel takes place post Chosen.

I'm not the one that referred to it first. Which is why I said to check out the episodes instead.

If it makes your life easier, just imagine that the reason that particular turok-han came out when they did the spell or whatever was because it was the strongest. Tada!

I really don't care that much, and it was more to answer Felix's question than anything.

Joss has said that's one of the major points of Season 8. He started writing Fray before he came up with the Potentials and the series finale - now he's going to use the medium to bring the two worlds together. So it's not really a coincidence that S8 is dealing with a villain who wants to undo the Slayer activatin' and end all magic.

That part I wrote was specifically about why the first Turok-Han is more powerful than the others. I doubt that that weighs very heavily on Joss Whedon's mind.

Ah, it was under the Fray panel post, so I assumed it was a response to that. And yeah, the Turok-Han thing was a cheat. But then, the First Evil could touch things in Season 3, too.

No worries. I'm going to go back and edit it to make it more clear.

Recently re-visited season 1-3 of Buffy on Hulu, and while the first two seasons were a bit shaky, I was surprised at how great season 3 was. The first time I watched Buffy, I started on season 4, and then went back to watch 1-3 after the series finale, so they always felt like somewhat of an afterthought to me. It was nice starting from the beginning with a relatively clean slate.

I'm currently watching season 1 of Angel, and I'm curious if there's an interesting story behind writing Doyle off the show. Did they always mean to have Wesley join the cast, and simply throw the audience a curve ball by killing off a series regular midway through the first season, or was there more to it? I read that Glenn Quinn died of a heroin overdose, so didn't know if the drug use had something to do with his exit.

I agree about Season 3. One detail I liked was they started adding bruises and welts to characters' faces and bodies and left them uncommented on. And Seth Green surprised me. He's been acting since he was a little kid, but I've never considered him someone who could portray, for example, a reasoned response to his girlfriend cheating on him.

I also thought it was genuinely moving when Buffy's classmates gave her an umbrella and a superlative. As well as the brief, not explicitly set up shot of Willow crying on the toilet after she learned Xander lost his virginity, which was like something from Freaks and Geeks. And Angel and Faith mocking a chained-up Buffy, and Cordelia getting impaled and breaking up with Xander. That faked me out, I thought she was dead.

My complaints still hold about the kickboxing and the monster makeup, though. The worst was Balthazar, the Devito-as-Penguin guy who lived in a tub and ate people with his belly button. I wish they'd gone less-is-more with monsters as a rule. I liked Faith, Trick and the Mayor. They were all schtick-based (Faith's was city accent plus wifebeater), but they worked. The Mayor was pretty menacing. I thought Trick was killed off too simply.

But the rest of the villains did need to be stronger to sell the scenes where they're not comic relief. And sometimes the character deaths seem like "okay, for this moment, real-life rules apply," not the results of physical combat. (Kendra from S2 and Larry the Bully Who Came Out, I'm looking at you.)

The execution of the end fight needed work, but I liked the idea behind it, extending Buffy's heroism to the rest of the school. Much less ham-handed than NYers throwing bottles at the Green Goblin.

I always saw the school uniting to fight off the Mayor as an extension of something Buffy says to Jonathan in "Earshot:" "Everybody's so busy dealing with their own pain that they can't see anybody else's." The third season is probably the best of the high school years, I think, because Whedon moves beyond the Scooby Gang to try and show that high school is pretty miserable for everybody, that it was hell for everybody. So of course, everyone would want to help blow up the school.

And yes, the Mayor is great. His affable nature in contrast to the things that are coming out of his mouth are what make him such a memorable character, and Groener knows how to absolutely walk that line between the two. And as evil as the guy is, you get the sense that he genuinely loves Faith and cares for her. It's why he's probably the best "Big Bad" of the series (although I like Glory quite a bit, and the First as well, but that's because I thought the idea behind the First was really cool.*)

*Originally in the seventh season episode "Conversations with Dead People," it was supposed to be Tara talking to Willow, but they thought that would have been too, too dark.

Also, I haven't been following the comics (I got up to the Cleveland arc and then stopped for some reason. I was enjoying it quite a bit, and I had to give them props for using Cleveland landmarks), but my interpretation of the whole Fray/Buffy thing is that the battle we see at the end of Angel* is the start of the battle that was talked about on the first page, in Fray. I always hoped that a Buffy movie would deal with that "final battle."

*Still my favorite hour-long finale, because Whedon does such a great job at summing up not only what Angel was about, but what his entire run on TV up to that point was about. "Let's go to work" is one of the big themes of his stuff, and I loved that.

I thought it was because the actress wouldn't come back to play her.


Checked on Wiki, seems to claim both reasons are true:

It's because Amber didn't want to come back. She became very protective of the character. Her reluctance to return is also supposedly why Joss never was able to do the fabled "Tara resurrected" episode, which would have ended with Buffy being granted one wish and her using it to bring Tara back to life. Google a bit and you can probably find one of the interviews where Joss talked about it.

So what I said was correct, except I cited the wrong person. Although I do think it's funny that Benson's way protective of that character and the way Tara went out got Joss some of the biggest flack he's ever gotten. There was a big thread started by the other Brendan about it, and I think it was in one of the TV characters threads, but we had a lot of great discussion about the thematic problems of season six and the way Tara/Willow's relationship ended.

As much as I hated that Angel ended at all, I was super impressed by the finale (after a season 5 that I thought meandered a bit at times, compared to season 4 which was one of my favorites because of it's super-arc storytelling). I loved the "Let's go o work" line too, and was a perfect note to end the series on.

"Smile Time" from season 5 will always be treasured by me as one of the coolest episodes of a show ever... puppet awesomeness.

SPOILERS, I GUESS.

I've been following "Season 8" and it's pretty clear that the event which ends magic is still in the future. In fact, they seem to be building a second Buffy-Willow schism because it's pretty clear that Willow isn't into the whole no-magic thing.

I'm sorry sir but that is incorrect, his arc comes a (very close) second to the wonderful transformation over a period of almost 8 seasons of television of one Cordelia Chase

I was always a massive Buffy fan, but I largely gave Angel a miss (due to it having ridiculously inconsistent airtimes). Someone lent me the Angel Boxsets recently and I've been diligently working my way through the first season. To be honest I wasn't particularly impressed at first, but as the Season has gone on it's become a lot stronger (partially I think due to Wesley replacing Doyle). I like how the show is both darker than Buffy and also a lot more flippant, it walks this fine line between having serious gallows humour and being quite cold blooded. Really enjoyed the episode with the exorcism and the reveal that the boy was psychotic and the demon was just desperate to get out of him.

I'm interested to hear what you think about the later seasons, Spike, especially the brilliant ones: 3 and 5.

I'm currently halfway through season 5 of Angel, and I must say I enjoyed the earlier seasons more, especially season 1. Uneven as it was, I really liked the simplicity of it. The Doyle bait and switch worked for me, and I really enjoyed the Detective character as a foil for Angel (although that may just be because I'm a sucker for stories where everyday folks are exposed to the fantastical.) Not saying the latter seasons are bad (well, maybe 4,) it just feels like it lost something as the scope got larger.

It also feels like the female characters on Angel can never catch a break. To review a few (spoilers):

Det. Lockley: Extremely rattled by her father's death, she becomes obsessed with the occult, gets kicked off the force, attempts suicide, and basically leaves the show in shame.

Lilah: Stabbed in the neck by evil Cordy. Beheaded by Wesley. Sure, she was evil and had it coming, but she was interesting.

Cordelia: Randomly ascends to a higher plane when the writers don't seem to know what to do with her any more. She returns, possessed by an evil entity, falls into a coma after birthing said entity, and is unceremoniously written off the show.

Fred: Randomly dies when the writers don't know what to do with her anymore. Returns possessed by an evil entity. Don't know how this ends yet.

If you're just meeting Illyria, you must have already seen Cordelia's coda in "You're Welcome". That didn't work for you?

It was nice, but it felt like too little too late. Sort of a hasty way to tie up that particular loose end.

Yeah, Scottie, I never put together the fates of the female characters on Angel; its kind of the exact opposite of the female-centric BTVS in which we basically had 2 male characters to survive the series with one fading towards the end (Giles) and one becoming more and more useless as the series progressed (Xander).*

*BTW, I loved the Xander episodes but his character could have easily been written off the show in the later seasons.

Angel Season 1 definitely got better as it went on and the Wesley/Angel dynamic is way more interesting than the Doyle/Angel/Cordelia dynamic. However his appearance really did kind of take a lot of the focus off of Cordelia in the mid episodes. Can't stand the female cop, kind of hoping that she's not coming back, but Julie Benz as Darla was brilliant. Did they recast that role after Buffy, because I don't remember Benz in the first Season of Buffy.

Benz always played Darla. She just stopped wearing the schoolgirl outfit.

Everyone seems to down Angel S4, but for me it was one of my favorite seasons... Heck, I'd say overall I liked more episodes from it than season 5.

Mainly because I'm a fan of really strong arcs, and pretty much every episode from that season followed the last and it's like one really awesome movie. You had the awesome badassery of the Beast (Apocalypse Nowish aka Rain of Fire, and his rampage through Wolfram and Hart), the blotting out of the Sun, creepy world peace, Angelus for a little bit, and a bunch of other stuff I'm sure I forgot. Sure, the way they handled Cordelia was fucked up, but while I was watching it while airing I was having a blast and could hardly wait for the next episode.

I disliked the S4 Angelus arc because it trashed an important aspect of Angel's character. Previously, 'Angelus' wasn't depicted as a submerged, schizoid personality that had to be 'accessed' somehow. The whole point of Angel being cursed with a soul was that he remembered all the horrible things he'd done. And there's a great bit (Season One, I think) where he mentions that he still dreams of bloodlust.

Why would he have to dream of bloodlust? It's pretty evident from both "Buffy" and "Angel" that he always craves human blood. It's only will power (which occasionally breaks down) that allows him to abstain.

I will say this for Angel, it managed to crystalise EVERYTHING I hate about Buffy Summers as a character in her fleeting appearances.

If it makes you feel better, Buffy never shows up again for the remainder of the series after Season 1.

sorta.

I was speaking in the more general sense. I'd have to go back and check, but there's an early ep where something is making him dream of murder and he admits he likes it.

My wife and I are considering watching Buffy as our next Netflix series. I haven't seen the film in a long time and the missus not at all; is it helpful or necessary to watch the movie before embarking on the series?

It's been a looong time since I've even considered watching the film and from what I remember it's of much lower quality than the show. I'm pretty sure you don't need it to get into the series.

No, just start with the pilot.

Unless you are a huge Luke Perry fan, skip the movie. Personally, I love Luke Perry.

It's kind of fascinating to watch AFTER you've watched the series as it's a prime example of a great idea diluted and filtered to the point of near-blandness (save maybe for Paul Reubens). It's the Bizarro-World version of the series.

I like to think that the movie exists within the TV show's universe as a terrible film based upon the real Buffy's adventures.

I'm kinda surprised Whedon never did that. Buffy is outed to the world, gets her story optioned, and takes Willow and Xander to the theater to scrutinize Swanson and make all of Joss's great saved-up jokes about Sutherland. Then she defeats a demon, who had been orchestrating this whole scenario, and wakes up.

So I finished up Season 2 and it was the definition of a curate's egg. Tim Minear is probably my favourite writer on the show. The episode in which we see Angel hanging around a 50s hotel and losing his faith in humanity is a masterful piece of writing. His work as show runner also made some interesting arcs. The 'darker' Angel is interesting, although I think Boreanez is actually a better natural comedian than he is a brooder, and the Darla plotline was a really great way of using and reviving existing elements. As such there are about 8 or 9 episodes which are remarkably solid BUT the flow of this storyline is interupted by a horrendous trio of episodes in the middle and something of an odd anti-climax. I'm not sure why the last four episodes are such a diversion, but it feels like a detour more than a conclusion.

That said Dead Ends has perhaps my favourite moment in the entire show when Lindsey starts ranting about his 'evil hand'. I'm also digging how they're fleshing out and expanding the cast as the show goes on. Lorne had a really nice arc this season, Cordellia continued her transformation into a great character and Wesley stopped being the comedy hijinks guy and actually became kind of interesting even if his character traits seem to be pathos and patheticness. Gunn is the only one who sticks out for me and it's because his style doesn't suit Whedon's langauge at times and when he's been given Whedon jokes it comes across as being kind of odd.

Still looking forward to Season 3 which I've heard is 'consistent'.

Season Three is where Wesley really becomes the most compelling character on the show.