Wed, 7 December 2005 "My Little Punkin Belly" Do you dislike Dawn? Well, we aren't here to talk you out of it, but maybe you'll show her a bit more love after our discussion of the good, the bad and the downright laughable about Buffy's kid sister. Comments[122] |
When did the Buffy writers know that the WB wasn't going to have a 6th season of Buffy? Did that effect the outcome of season 5? Was the intention all along that Buffy would die or was that put in to wrap things up?
Revello mentioned that we might have viewed Dawn differently if she had died at the end of season 5. Was she originally supposed to?
Revello mentioned that we might have viewed Dawn differently if she had died at the end of season 5. Was she originally supposed to?
Count myself as one who never didn't mind Dawn at all. Granted she didn't have much of a role or development in the later seasons, but the same can be true of other characters also as pointed out in an earlier Buffycast about Xander.
i don't think the writers did a very good job handling the Key aspect though. They mentioned that "Blood was the key" and that's what opened the portal. But during that season they also established that the key could of come back as anything - a person, rock or bicycle tire. As a matter of fact, wouldn't it of been better if the monks had made it a rock? how was glory going to bleed that? Or if they didn't transform it at all, how were they going to bleed energy?
And if Buffy's blood could close the portal, then it stands to reason that it could of opened it. So what made Dawn special? If she had something Buffy didn't then only she could of closed the portal. These questions made "The Gift" similar to "Chosen". There were important things being said (Buffy's sacrifice), but the viewer is distracted by plot inconsistances.
i don't think the writers did a very good job handling the Key aspect though. They mentioned that "Blood was the key" and that's what opened the portal. But during that season they also established that the key could of come back as anything - a person, rock or bicycle tire. As a matter of fact, wouldn't it of been better if the monks had made it a rock? how was glory going to bleed that? Or if they didn't transform it at all, how were they going to bleed energy?
And if Buffy's blood could close the portal, then it stands to reason that it could of opened it. So what made Dawn special? If she had something Buffy didn't then only she could of closed the portal. These questions made "The Gift" similar to "Chosen". There were important things being said (Buffy's sacrifice), but the viewer is distracted by plot inconsistances.
As I recall, the business negotiations over season six were very nasty, and there was serious doubt as to whether the show was going to survive past season five. I think Joss tried to cover his bases by giving Buffy herself an ending that could stand as a series finale if things fell through, but which he could fairly easily work around if the show continued. There also might have been an aspect of The Gift that was engineered to set-up a new project in a Buffy-less world. Some people at the time saw Giles's killing of Ben (which we talked about on our last show) as an attempt to give a little more heft to his character in anticipation that he might get a U.K. spin-off show called Ripper. I think negotiations for that show fell through, although there's still talk of it on the internet from time to time.
As far as Dawn goes, I'm not aware that there was ever any plan to kill her in The Gift, but I think it would have fit her story well.
As far as Dawn goes, I'm not aware that there was ever any plan to kill her in The Gift, but I think it would have fit her story well.
Oh, and those are all good points, jwilearl. The blood thing was a big enough inconsistency to steal away some of the impact of the scenario. And yeah, if Dawn can be molded, take a page from Harry Potter and turn her into an old boot and set her on a hill somewhere.
jywilearl, there ain't nothing wrong with no double negative. Good enough for Jane Austen; good enough for jywilearl.
posted by: Professor on Thu, 12/8 06:04 PM EST
I was never a Dawn hater; she was just another character who faded in seasons six and seven. But in season five, the whole Dawn thing worked beautifully for me. As I was completely unspoiled (which apparently makes me very unusual), that casual final-scene reveal of Buffy's sister(!!!) in the season five opener was one of TV's great WOW moments, and the following few episodes in which I was constantly wondering if I might have missed something important. (Damn, I'm SURE there was never any mention of a sister before. Was she living with their dad or what?)
I do agree, for many reasons, that Dawn needed to die in The Gift. Compare her arc to that of Connor, who blazed in, annoyed the crap out of everyone, and was then very compellingly and disturbingly terminated all in the space of a single season.
We have also mentioned the memory manipulation problem with regard to Willow/Tara, but we have the same issue here (and with the Connor resolution) on a much larger scale. Mighty powerful monks, btw.
Great 'cast, Revello, and very good to have you back.
posted by: Professor on Thu, 12/8 06:15 PM EST
btw, Revellop, when you were criticising the treatment of Dawn's shoplifting, you thought that it might have been lame as a result of breaking the tacit agreement between writer and viewer re normal problems expressing themselves in the supernatural domain (badly paraphrased by me - apologies). As I listened to that, I was thinking that there was something unfair about this criticism, and now it has come to me: this is exactly the situation with Joyce's death. It is a normal human problem manifesting in a completely normal fashion. You say that you could find a teenage klepto in 90210 or Dawson if you really wanted one, but the same could be said of Mummy dying of an aneurysm. In short, I don't believe that it is the breach of the writer-viewer contract that makes Dawn's sub-plot lame, but simply the lame execution and evident lack of commitment from the writers. We see this too in the original Tara-as-demon sub-plot - weeks of teasing with no pay-off.
See ya,
Professor
posted by: Professor on Thu, 12/8 10:32 PM EST
I too was completely unspoiled regarding Dawn when I started watching season 5. They way Dawn was introduced was brilliant. I also loved how even through season 7, people who came back to the buffyverse remembered Dawn (like when Faith came back and greeted Dawn like they had met before). Or for that matter when Dawn mentioned Ted (Joyce's robot boyfriend).
Since I only started watching Buffy after it was all over, I didn't get spoiled at all between one season and the next (which is why I was a little disappointed to see Spike in the Angel Season 5 opening credits before we know he survived burning up).
Since I only started watching Buffy after it was all over, I didn't get spoiled at all between one season and the next (which is why I was a little disappointed to see Spike in the Angel Season 5 opening credits before we know he survived burning up).
Yep, count me in as another unspoiled late bloomer. I remember thinking, "Sister?! Sister?! Did I miss something?!" As Professor said, Dawn's potential, in season five, was AMAZING. The implications and connotations behind being "The Key" lead my imagination down many a riotous path, wondering where the writers were going with it. Could she be, not just a key to the portal Glory was hunting, but a sort of skeleton key, able to unlock (and, more importantly, RElock) the various hellmouths, or demon dimensions? And those were only the most mundate possibilites. I was sure Joss&co would come up with better. Only they didn't. The Glory plot was particularly lame, never seemed to build. But Dawn could have achieved some claim to pathos and tragic heroism had she gone out, as Revello posited, in a Blaze of Glory. Instead she hung around like the annoying kid sister she was, and never seemed to come to sort of resolution after that.
Traveller
Traveller
I totally agree with you Traveller, though I wasn't that thrilled with Dawn or her Key storyline, I just felt sideswiped when she came in, and I wasn't particulary interested in investing time to figuring out/worrying about Dawn's klepto behavior, angst, neglect, etc.
However, I agree that possibilities did abound and her charcter didn't amount to much, though by the end of S6 I liked her much better.
and I'm on the bandwagon that Dawn should have jumped, it would have been a 'whoa' moment for me, even as I wanted it. I figured she was sticking around Joss and co. had bigger plans...they didn't, not really.
One could argue that Dawn did have a purpose in Season 6. Buffy wanted to keep living in order to watch her sister grow up and to show her the world. And we do learn in the last season of Angel that the scoobies were in Europe, so I guess Buffy was making good on that promise.
I had assumed that Dawn was the key to all dimensions - well to bleeding dimensions together (which sounds like something that was said in the show as there is no way my little brain could come up with something that sounds so Josh-esque on its own.)
As for Buffy vs Dawn's blood closing the portal, again, I assumed that to complete the meshing of the dimensions the portal had to stay open, which it could only do while it was being feed hence Doc merely cutting Dawn and letting the blood drip rather than simply stabbing Dawn and throwing her/her blood into the void. If Buffy's blood was the same as Dawn's (even if it didn't have the power to open the portal) then it makes sense for Buffy to kill herself rather than Dawn, feeding the portal her blood in one foul swoop and closing it and saving the world.
However I like Revello's idea that Dawn could have sacrificed herself and saved the world rather than standing there like, lets be honest, a bit of a git but I guess losing mother and sister would have been too much even for Buffy.
I did find Dawn distracting and certainly didn't feel that she added much to the Buffyverse. She seemed to assume some of Willow's old "damsel in distress" role (running and screaming and the always in peril) as well as her position as "junior watcher" helping with research. The Damsel role couldn't really be filled at that point by any other scoobie who were all either too powerful or simply not likely.
In some ways it would have been interesting to have Dawn be a Potential in Season 7 - would Buffy have made the same choice to give everyone her powers if her sister, who she professes to want to protect from all and sundry could get that power?
As for Buffy vs Dawn's blood closing the portal, again, I assumed that to complete the meshing of the dimensions the portal had to stay open, which it could only do while it was being feed hence Doc merely cutting Dawn and letting the blood drip rather than simply stabbing Dawn and throwing her/her blood into the void. If Buffy's blood was the same as Dawn's (even if it didn't have the power to open the portal) then it makes sense for Buffy to kill herself rather than Dawn, feeding the portal her blood in one foul swoop and closing it and saving the world.
However I like Revello's idea that Dawn could have sacrificed herself and saved the world rather than standing there like, lets be honest, a bit of a git but I guess losing mother and sister would have been too much even for Buffy.
I did find Dawn distracting and certainly didn't feel that she added much to the Buffyverse. She seemed to assume some of Willow's old "damsel in distress" role (running and screaming and the always in peril) as well as her position as "junior watcher" helping with research. The Damsel role couldn't really be filled at that point by any other scoobie who were all either too powerful or simply not likely.
In some ways it would have been interesting to have Dawn be a Potential in Season 7 - would Buffy have made the same choice to give everyone her powers if her sister, who she professes to want to protect from all and sundry could get that power?
Dawn was left without mother and sister too, but then again we didn't care as much about Dawny as we did Buffy. It would have been good to see some repercussions to Dawn still living or her gain some problems or something. It would have made her character much more interesting.
I agree with Revello that we'd already seen Buffy go through all the teen stuff, and now Dawn (who is new and thrust on us) has to go through it too, and much more annoying I might add. I was WAY tired of the run-off-cause-trouble-and-have-to-be-rescued storyline. Though I liked her crush on Spike.
And her speaking Sumarian and be so well-versed in research was just dumb.
Who is this "damsel in distress" Willow that I keep hearing about? First Tara was meant to be her replacement, and now Dawn, but I just can't remember any "running and screaming and always in peril" Willow at all. I dare say that she needed rescuing as much as any other character (including Buffy), but surely if there a Scooby in constant peril it was Xander (or Cordelia, if we can call her a Scoob).
Original Willow was The Brain, not The Damsel.
posted by: Professor on Mon, 12/12 05:39 PM EST
OK-- you want a difference between buffy's high school problems and dawn's high school problems?
buffy=slayer dawn=little sis to the slayer, till she found out she was the key, then S6 a regular kid. i just finished S1 again, and buffy really had a hard time dealing with being 16, slayer, new kid in town, raised by single mom, keeping her slayer identity a secrect (especially from joyce) getting her homework done, and falling in love with a vampire with a soul. so, yes to the cheesyness of teenager angst repeated with dawn, BUT. with the built-in monk memories, dawn has known about the dangers of sunnydale for YEARS. yeah, finding out you were made up for the saftey on the universe and that everything you remember was planted there and you never really experienced any of it might mess with you, but not the same kind of i-am-16-and-it's-my-job-to-save-the-world-until-i-die weight that was put on buffy's adolecent shoulders. and she did die. i just finished S1, and i forget just how much dying affected buffy. it was made a much bigger event in S6, so i think we remeber her dying at the hands of the master, but we forget how much damage it did do to her.
buffy=slayer dawn=little sis to the slayer, till she found out she was the key, then S6 a regular kid. i just finished S1 again, and buffy really had a hard time dealing with being 16, slayer, new kid in town, raised by single mom, keeping her slayer identity a secrect (especially from joyce) getting her homework done, and falling in love with a vampire with a soul. so, yes to the cheesyness of teenager angst repeated with dawn, BUT. with the built-in monk memories, dawn has known about the dangers of sunnydale for YEARS. yeah, finding out you were made up for the saftey on the universe and that everything you remember was planted there and you never really experienced any of it might mess with you, but not the same kind of i-am-16-and-it's-my-job-to-save-the-world-until-i-die weight that was put on buffy's adolecent shoulders. and she did die. i just finished S1, and i forget just how much dying affected buffy. it was made a much bigger event in S6, so i think we remeber her dying at the hands of the master, but we forget how much damage it did do to her.
THANK you, Professor! I'd been wondering the same thing myself, but thought I'd been watching to shallowly or something and didn't want to embarrass myself by saying something! (grin)
I agree, Willow didn't need rescuing any more than anyone else--including Giles, I might add, who had to be rescued on numerous occasions.
I agree, Willow didn't need rescuing any more than anyone else--including Giles, I might add, who had to be rescued on numerous occasions.
Thank you Professor for bringing that up. I never thought Willow was ever really in peril except for the series premiere when she went off with that vamp.
Other times she was usually in peril with other people, except when Spike tried to kill her.
Jess, I see what you're saying and it makes a lot of sense. You're right, she and Buffy had really different adolescents, and admittedly I really disliked early Dawn when she would run OUT OF THE HOUSE when she overheard mom and Buffy ragging on her. *yawn*
I always felt that she knew Buffy was the slayer, she knew what kind of danger she was in, in not just being related to the slayer but in the world period.
Thanks to Buffy she knew what was out there and I thought she had the capabilities to be more mature about those kinds of things. I don't think Buffy would have been so protective and laying down the law if Dawn acted more like a scooby and less like clueless little sis.
I think the difficulty with Dawn as a character was that in Season 5 as the McGuffin she was well written and central to the plot without having to be a scooby. But by season 6 she had to take a new role. The problem is the Scoobies already have Xander for comic relief, Willow for magic, Giles for books and either Robo-Buffy or the real Buffy for muscle with the addition of Spike for a mix of muscle and demon information the group doesn’t have a place for a young girl with no super powers. They also have a second string of Tara and Anya for magic and knowledge should Giles or Willow miss a meeting. But the real rub here is that Joss & Co. have set it up so that if you are not a scooby you’re not a main character (unless you’re the season villain). What place is there for Dawn to take? That’s why her character becomes so schizo is because the writers keep trying things on for her and coming up short. The whole klepto angle was so mundane in it’s cry for help it seemed to fit the Dawn character to a T.
“Hi my name is Dawn and i don’t have any superpowers but I NEED LOVE.�
She was just a cognitive disconnect because of her banality in a supernatural world. Her normality took away from the epic nature of the show, I mean how often do you need to know the plural of apocalypse? I mean Xander was constantly in over his head, he became den mom since he was the only one with a real job. He was the official window fixer for crying out loud. Dawn can’t even fix the house. Even if she suddenly tapped into the glowing green energy and became able to read Sumerian or Babylonian or whatever, so what? Dawn didn’t fit after season 5 because the show had no more room for people without specialized skills.
Take for example the potentials in S7. What were they but a terrible burden to the Scoobies? Until they were activated they were like trying to herd cats, all of them wanted to do something else half of them were terrified, one of them didn’t even speak a language anyone else could understand. We only cared about them because they were the McGuffin for the season, if there had been a Season 8 whoever made it out alive would have had to step up and be another Buffy or get off the show. Dawn didn’t have the option of blowing town.
As for the re-deux of the growing up... it wasn’t different Jess. Look at the themes of those shows she needs to find her own scooby gang (like Buffy) she has a problem knowing too much about the supernatural world (like Buffy) she is always afraid her Big Sis is going to find out about her cutting class (like Buffy) falling for a vampire both in Spike and the Halloween Vamp (like Buffy) she also has a secret identitiy as a “scooby� (tied to and like Buffy, especially in Season 7) She is also being raised by a single mom (Joyce and later Buffy) she has the same problems except she doesn’t have the ability to defend herself if a vampire should crash parent teacher night. As far as her knowing about the vampires for years, Buffy knew about them in LA for years as is established in Season 1.
As for Dawn’s need to get herself into trouble with the vamps. Dawn was “raised� by the slayer so we have to assume that at least as soon as Joyce knew that Dawn knew what was going on and she had both Joyce and Buffy trying to keep her safe. This constant throwing of oneself in front of the train (sometimes literally) for no good reason while certainly possible psychologically got really tired really fast, I mean she got captured by HARMONY for crying out loud... That’s just one dumb little sister.
But I was never a Dawn fan, I felt like Joss cheated in Season 5 though over time I have come to see how really well written that was in a full season context. But I never fell in love with the character like I did with the others. I even fell in love with Anya and Tera given some time. Dawn just never stuck for me.
“Hi my name is Dawn and i don’t have any superpowers but I NEED LOVE.�
She was just a cognitive disconnect because of her banality in a supernatural world. Her normality took away from the epic nature of the show, I mean how often do you need to know the plural of apocalypse? I mean Xander was constantly in over his head, he became den mom since he was the only one with a real job. He was the official window fixer for crying out loud. Dawn can’t even fix the house. Even if she suddenly tapped into the glowing green energy and became able to read Sumerian or Babylonian or whatever, so what? Dawn didn’t fit after season 5 because the show had no more room for people without specialized skills.
Take for example the potentials in S7. What were they but a terrible burden to the Scoobies? Until they were activated they were like trying to herd cats, all of them wanted to do something else half of them were terrified, one of them didn’t even speak a language anyone else could understand. We only cared about them because they were the McGuffin for the season, if there had been a Season 8 whoever made it out alive would have had to step up and be another Buffy or get off the show. Dawn didn’t have the option of blowing town.
As for the re-deux of the growing up... it wasn’t different Jess. Look at the themes of those shows she needs to find her own scooby gang (like Buffy) she has a problem knowing too much about the supernatural world (like Buffy) she is always afraid her Big Sis is going to find out about her cutting class (like Buffy) falling for a vampire both in Spike and the Halloween Vamp (like Buffy) she also has a secret identitiy as a “scooby� (tied to and like Buffy, especially in Season 7) She is also being raised by a single mom (Joyce and later Buffy) she has the same problems except she doesn’t have the ability to defend herself if a vampire should crash parent teacher night. As far as her knowing about the vampires for years, Buffy knew about them in LA for years as is established in Season 1.
As for Dawn’s need to get herself into trouble with the vamps. Dawn was “raised� by the slayer so we have to assume that at least as soon as Joyce knew that Dawn knew what was going on and she had both Joyce and Buffy trying to keep her safe. This constant throwing of oneself in front of the train (sometimes literally) for no good reason while certainly possible psychologically got really tired really fast, I mean she got captured by HARMONY for crying out loud... That’s just one dumb little sister.
But I was never a Dawn fan, I felt like Joss cheated in Season 5 though over time I have come to see how really well written that was in a full season context. But I never fell in love with the character like I did with the others. I even fell in love with Anya and Tera given some time. Dawn just never stuck for me.
posted by: Miles on Wed, 12/14 12:56 PM EST
After Buffy was supposed to show her the world I started liking her A WHOLE lot better becasue she was supposed to be older. They cut her hair to make her look older and she started acting like it.
For me it was hard to really for her in a well established world of Buffdom. There were some eps I liked her in, like CWDP, and the ep where she tries to raise Joyce and she and Buffy break down crying by the front door.
Because the group already had a chosen title for each character then Dawn needed something of her own, and that's why something else could have come out of her being the key. Although, I wasn't a Dawn fan and probably wouldn't have liked any eps dedicated to her anyway. LOL
But when the writers decided to give Buffy a little sis, bringing in a whole new character and knowing she was going to be a series regular was that all they wrote for her? Was that arc all they had in store? Doesn't it seem odd that they wouldn't have bigger plans for seasons to come? Just askin'.
The Willow-in-peril issue might be grist for another show. Clearly if you listen to the writers' DVD commentaries, especially Joss, they thought of her in seasons 1&2 as the weakest scooby and the one who was supposed to be used for the damsel-in-distress situations. She certainly served that role in the pilot but you are all right, I am hard pressed to think of other episodes where Willow alone was in peril - I Robot, You Jane comes to mind. So this idea about Willow may come from the writers rather than being organically generated from the show. In fact Cordelia probably had to be rescued by Buffy far more often than Willow. So this looks like a case where the character quickly outgrew the writers' original conception for her.
How much of this is the actors' talent? Clearly Willow, Spike and Anya all developed in interesting ways well beyond their original roles. Dawn may be the only example of a major character in the buffyverse who ended up becoming less interesting.
How much of this is the actors' talent? Clearly Willow, Spike and Anya all developed in interesting ways well beyond their original roles. Dawn may be the only example of a major character in the buffyverse who ended up becoming less interesting.
I think we can probably agree that Giles and Xander both became less interesting too...?
posted by: Professor on Fri, 12/16 05:04 PM EST
Well those cases are a little different. Giles became more interesting over seasons 1-4, and then less interesting over the next 3 seasons (when Head had more or less checked out), which is not quite the same thing. Xander also became more interesting over seasons 1-3, and didn't really drop off too badly until season 7. Dawn started off as interesting and then went steadily downhill. Xander's decline supports my theory that decline in characters is driven as much by the actor as by the writers or the storyline. Brendon was great initially in the role of teenage Xander, but he does not have the chops of a Hannigan or a Marsters and his more limited range probably had something to do with the writers losing interest in him.
What!? First off Tony Head was not “Checked out� he was doing other work with the BBC and some of that was with Joss on trying to get Ripper off the ground (which never happened) but much like Kristine Sutherland, Anthony was simply written out in order to let the writers expand the younger characters into more adult roles. It was not like there was some backstage problem where Tony tried to bail on the franchise, in fact according to most of the material I’ve read he was always on call if Joss wanted him to come back for something.
As far as Nick Brendon not having chops... I can’t believe that is a working theory. While I am a fan of all of the principal actors on the series there are very few of them with a track record, and it would be very easy to say none of them have “chops.� Most of them have been doing small roles or TV movies since the end of BtVS and some of those have been really bad. Even those members like Gellar and Hannigan who have done major films haven’t had any performances I would call stand out. Hannigan’s work on the American Pie series while very funny was not extraordinary and need I mention her work in “Rip if off� which was terrible. Gellar’s work in “The Grudge� was simply sub par and in the Scooby Doo movies they had to re-write Daphne to make her function in the role. Emma Caulfield got stuck in “Darkness Falls� which was horrid even for a horror movie. Both Marsters and Carpenter moved to Angel which is more or less an extension of their normal roles.
In fact I think the only people who have been shown to have “chops� are Seth Green and Tony Head. They have both been in a number of very differentiated roles and had at least one performance since BtVS that has been heralded by critics. Amber Benson has been in a great deal of film though I don’t think I’ve seen any of it so I can’t comment on her. Eliza Dushku has been in a few movies I’ve seen, and aside from Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back which was more for fun than anything, I don’t think any of her performances have been exceptional, though I think her variety and popularity might serve as an argument for having marketability if not chops.
As far as Nick Brendon not having chops... I can’t believe that is a working theory. While I am a fan of all of the principal actors on the series there are very few of them with a track record, and it would be very easy to say none of them have “chops.� Most of them have been doing small roles or TV movies since the end of BtVS and some of those have been really bad. Even those members like Gellar and Hannigan who have done major films haven’t had any performances I would call stand out. Hannigan’s work on the American Pie series while very funny was not extraordinary and need I mention her work in “Rip if off� which was terrible. Gellar’s work in “The Grudge� was simply sub par and in the Scooby Doo movies they had to re-write Daphne to make her function in the role. Emma Caulfield got stuck in “Darkness Falls� which was horrid even for a horror movie. Both Marsters and Carpenter moved to Angel which is more or less an extension of their normal roles.
In fact I think the only people who have been shown to have “chops� are Seth Green and Tony Head. They have both been in a number of very differentiated roles and had at least one performance since BtVS that has been heralded by critics. Amber Benson has been in a great deal of film though I don’t think I’ve seen any of it so I can’t comment on her. Eliza Dushku has been in a few movies I’ve seen, and aside from Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back which was more for fun than anything, I don’t think any of her performances have been exceptional, though I think her variety and popularity might serve as an argument for having marketability if not chops.
posted by: Miles on Fri, 12/16 05:46 PM EST
Professor -
I think they tried to make Xander interesting until Season 7, I don’t know that it worked but it was an attempt. Giles didn’t become less interesting as much as he became less visible. I think some of his later choices like leaving Buffy and later helping Wood to trap Spike were a markedly interesting shift in his character in the normal paradigm of the show. I think he simply was written out so often that people lost interest in him.
However I think Dawn actually sucks life out of the show after her main season. I think her presence and her constant switching around and weak off topic story lines were jarring to the show and I don’t think her character arcs or develops much after her main arc. Her continued banality and random character upgrades (like learning a new language) seemed to make her little more than a writing tool. She wasn’t even a plot device she was just a way to pull exposition out of other characters and I think that was a poor choice.
I think they tried to make Xander interesting until Season 7, I don’t know that it worked but it was an attempt. Giles didn’t become less interesting as much as he became less visible. I think some of his later choices like leaving Buffy and later helping Wood to trap Spike were a markedly interesting shift in his character in the normal paradigm of the show. I think he simply was written out so often that people lost interest in him.
However I think Dawn actually sucks life out of the show after her main season. I think her presence and her constant switching around and weak off topic story lines were jarring to the show and I don’t think her character arcs or develops much after her main arc. Her continued banality and random character upgrades (like learning a new language) seemed to make her little more than a writing tool. She wasn’t even a plot device she was just a way to pull exposition out of other characters and I think that was a poor choice.
posted by: Miles on Fri, 12/16 06:18 PM EST
Well, we are really saying that all three characters, Dawn, Xander and Giles, all became less central to the show, and therefore less engaging. But, as has been mentioned, Dawn (because she was Buffy's little sister) couldn't sensibly be written out, once the writers bypassed the opportunity of the Gift. So she was less central, less engaging, but necessarily always there. No wonder she grew tiresome.
As for Eliza, she was great hanging off the nose of that Harrier in True Lies. Now that's what I call "chops"! Seth Green, has he played any role that is conspicuously not Oz post-Buffy? I'm just asking. He was a great little Woody Allen years ago, but Junior Evil was preety much Oz to me.
posted by: Professor on Fri, 12/16 06:44 PM EST
Hmm... Seth has been involved with "Greg the Bunny" and Family Guy" both of which are more crass forms of comedy than Oz. He was in The Italian Job and Knockaround guys that were more physical though both generally sarcastic. He was in Without a Paddle which was a comedy but quite different than Oz. The problem is that Oz was so subtle that it's hard to not see Oz in a lot of different characters. But Seth's body of work has been pretty varried if comediec performace has been a consistent undertone. I can't think of a overly dramatic role he's been in though. The Attic Expeditions was a thriller that he had a noteable part in though I didn't think it wa his best work.
As for Eliza, she's just so hot it hurts and she has been in some successful pieces so I'll vote for awarding her chops if ya want.
As for Eliza, she's just so hot it hurts and she has been in some successful pieces so I'll vote for awarding her chops if ya want.
Thanks, Miles. I really haven;t seen much of Seth outside of Buffy, but I'm not suprised that he's doing well. He's obviously a charismatic performer. Eliza Dushku hot? I'm not going to get into dirty old man territory here, but her transformation from True Lies to Buffy is most dramatic ;-)
posted by: Professor on Fri, 12/16 11:53 PM EST
Traveller--LOL, I bought Cruel Intentions and really liked it. Not necessarily for her performance, but I liked Reese and Ryan.
On the topic of Dawn, Giles and Xander, well, I think any time Giles was on the show was great. Though I agree that he had less screen time and less of a central role so there was really nothing for him to do.
But when he came back and had a semi-popular role in the show in siding with Woods and getting shunned by Buffy, I loved it.
I agree with Prefessor that since we couldn't just have Dawn dissapear like some kids in other shows, they had to something with her, but it was irritating for us.
I think Xander was at his best in his HS role, but after graduation and from 6-7 season his arc was so terrible it was embarrasing, especially S7. He was back to being "The Zeppo" so to speak, looking stupid and being the butt of jokes. Somehow, though it worked better in HS than when they were supposed to be adults. I loved goofy, loyal, academically-trying Xander.
And on the "chops" note, I just feel that all the characters do really well for TV. None of them have really stood out in movie roles, though I did like Seth in Knockaround Guys.
Some actors just don't have Movie Star Quality, I'm not saying they can't get it, but I wouldn't rush out to see any of them star in a movie. It would depend on the movie, it'd have to be horror, action, or other actors I like in it too, but I wouldn't pay, even though I like them.
I felt that Dawn's behavior (with the exception of very early S5) was always pretty justified. Yeah, sometimes she acted younger than her age, but some teens are like that. In S6 absolutely no attention was being given to her. Around 15 years old I know I wanted some attention every now and then. Considering the insanity that was going on around her I don't think she acted too whiney most of the time. I guess I might just be one of the few people that is rarely bothered by Dawn's behavior. I agree that the writers didn't give her much to do in the season, but with everything else that was happening to the primary characters, I can see why she got pushed back. That's not to say it couldn't have been done better, because I'm sure it could have.
posted by: mikejer on Mon, 12/19 07:07 PM EST
I actually liked dawn in season 5, although I was a bit confused in the beginning. And I'm still kinda wondering if I was the only one who didn't figure out that Faith's "Little Miss Muffet is counting down from 320." In graduation part 2 was a reference to dawns coming? And In who are you Buffy and Faith are making "Her sisters" bed. And In Restless Tara says that dawn is coming. I thought that was brililiant! The way they gave you little hints, but you didn't really get them until the end of season 5.
But the blood thing with the key and all, that kinda took the magic away for me a bit. Because if dawns made out of buffy and their bloods the same...isn't Buffy the key then also? Wouldn't it just have been easyer for the monks to put the key Inside Buffy and tell her about Glory?
I think they let buffy jump because the shows about her, the hero, and a hero won't just let her sister die. And if there was question about wether there was going to be a season 6 and dawn was dead then according to what buffy says to giles in "The Gift" about quitting if something happend to Dawn, and if they had brought Dawn back form the dead then the show would revolve around her instead of Buffy... But either way I hoped that they would have delved into that Buffy/Dawn/Key thing a bit more in how they are connected and stuff, it would have made for an even better end I think.
In season 6 when Dawn starts shoplifting, I think it was an outlet for dawn, to show the viewers that dawn still had problems with the fact that she was a key and the fact that Buffy died for her and the fact that she came back diffrent. I had to say that I didn't like her very much that season. I like the season seven dawn the most, where she's more grown up, where she learns that she does what she can, that there are more important things than her and her life.
But the blood thing with the key and all, that kinda took the magic away for me a bit. Because if dawns made out of buffy and their bloods the same...isn't Buffy the key then also? Wouldn't it just have been easyer for the monks to put the key Inside Buffy and tell her about Glory?
I think they let buffy jump because the shows about her, the hero, and a hero won't just let her sister die. And if there was question about wether there was going to be a season 6 and dawn was dead then according to what buffy says to giles in "The Gift" about quitting if something happend to Dawn, and if they had brought Dawn back form the dead then the show would revolve around her instead of Buffy... But either way I hoped that they would have delved into that Buffy/Dawn/Key thing a bit more in how they are connected and stuff, it would have made for an even better end I think.
In season 6 when Dawn starts shoplifting, I think it was an outlet for dawn, to show the viewers that dawn still had problems with the fact that she was a key and the fact that Buffy died for her and the fact that she came back diffrent. I had to say that I didn't like her very much that season. I like the season seven dawn the most, where she's more grown up, where she learns that she does what she can, that there are more important things than her and her life.
posted by: kimzie3330 on Fri, 12/30 07:54 AM EST
Revello made the comment that maybe Buffy should have just put a bandaid on Dawn and that would cause the portal to close. I think what was meant by "Blood starts it and until the blood stops flowing it will never stop" isn't refering to blood in the literal sense, but I think blood is used to represent life. In this sense, life starts it and until the life stops the dimensions will remain open. This is why Buffy knew that she had to jump.
As far as Buffy's blood being able to close the portal, I believe that stems from the thought that since the monks made Buffy and Dawn sisters then they share enough "Summers Blood" to have the same life force running through them.
Finally, I think that by keeping Dawn on the show and showing her ordinary problems, it let the audience know that even though all these monsters are trying to destroy the world, there is life beyond all that. There are problems that normal people still face. While I am indecisive about the writers decision to add this information, I can see how it could prove interesting.
As far as Buffy's blood being able to close the portal, I believe that stems from the thought that since the monks made Buffy and Dawn sisters then they share enough "Summers Blood" to have the same life force running through them.
Finally, I think that by keeping Dawn on the show and showing her ordinary problems, it let the audience know that even though all these monsters are trying to destroy the world, there is life beyond all that. There are problems that normal people still face. While I am indecisive about the writers decision to add this information, I can see how it could prove interesting.
I've liked Dawn from the start and liked her until the end. On the one hand, I found her struggle to find a role for herself part of her story which by Potential, she herself finally understood. But I can't help but wonder why the entire "Key" aspect was dropped. Since we already had an everyday person in Xander, Dawn's key idea could've been the metaphor of yound people not really knowing what they are capable of. Since the key is living energy and in my mind a raw power, I found myself contemplating if the writers continued with the idea that she's still the key with uncontrollable powers, she could've been used much better in the story telling and as a different perspective of Teenagers growing up.
For example, she could've been used to greater effect with Willow's path to the dark arts in season 6. Willow's discovery of channeling Dawn's energy into her magic would've been more interesting than the "drug" metaphor.
But you idea of having Dawn jump off the tower in The Gift, proved a very interesting prospect. I agree with you in that aspect. it's like the Season 2 finale (Becoming PtII) when the audience knew that it's too late and Buffy must "kill" Angel no matter how much she loved him. It was the same situation with Dawn. I think in stripping Buffy of Joyce and then Dawn at the end of the season, they still could've told the season 6 story of Buffy feeling disconnected with life.
For example, she could've been used to greater effect with Willow's path to the dark arts in season 6. Willow's discovery of channeling Dawn's energy into her magic would've been more interesting than the "drug" metaphor.
But you idea of having Dawn jump off the tower in The Gift, proved a very interesting prospect. I agree with you in that aspect. it's like the Season 2 finale (Becoming PtII) when the audience knew that it's too late and Buffy must "kill" Angel no matter how much she loved him. It was the same situation with Dawn. I think in stripping Buffy of Joyce and then Dawn at the end of the season, they still could've told the season 6 story of Buffy feeling disconnected with life.
posted by: Noella on Sun, 1/1 06:57 PM EST
I agree with you Noella, but like Bleedingheart said, they would have never killed Dawn, and she would have never jumped herself. Though it would have been nice if she'd tried, or better yet did succeed. It was up to Dawn's sacrifice afterall.
And maybe she should have known she might have to sacrifice herself, she didn't even know she was the key. If I knew I could save the world I'd like to know how.
With her stealing, it would have worked if she were just a regular teen, it would have been something that she had to deal with in being a mortal/normal in a group of world saving hero's. I think I would have bought it then.
S6 could have played just like it did, w/o Dawn. They wouldn't have had to change a thing. And I don't understand what you mean by Dawn being used with Willow's path.
I agree with Revello that Dawn’s ordinary character made her out of place in the Buffyverse. Wouldn’t it have been much more interesting if she could blast Key Energy out of her hands at the bad guys, X-man Jubilee style?
That being said, I think that Dawn, as an ordinary girl with ordinary problems, served a key role in the later seasons that was overlooked in the podcast – she anchored the Scoobies in the real word.
One of the greatest things about the Buffy series has always been watching extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances deal with everyday problems. Buffy and pals first struggled with the problems every high-schooler faces, then dealth with the familiar adult difficulties of growing up, getting a place to live, and finding jobs. Most viewers can relate. By the later seasons, however, the Schoobies are settling in to their adult roles with real jobs and (somewhat) stable relationships. It would be easy, at this point, for all of their struggles to center around epic life-and-death, saving-the-world storylines.
Dawn forced the gang to stay rooted in the real world. Buffy had to get a job at the very un-superhero Double Meat Palace and deal with regular teenage issues of dating, cutting school, and delinquency. These provide conflicts that many viewers can relate to, even if we’ve never stopped an Armageddon.
That being said, I think that Dawn, as an ordinary girl with ordinary problems, served a key role in the later seasons that was overlooked in the podcast – she anchored the Scoobies in the real word.
One of the greatest things about the Buffy series has always been watching extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances deal with everyday problems. Buffy and pals first struggled with the problems every high-schooler faces, then dealth with the familiar adult difficulties of growing up, getting a place to live, and finding jobs. Most viewers can relate. By the later seasons, however, the Schoobies are settling in to their adult roles with real jobs and (somewhat) stable relationships. It would be easy, at this point, for all of their struggles to center around epic life-and-death, saving-the-world storylines.
Dawn forced the gang to stay rooted in the real world. Buffy had to get a job at the very un-superhero Double Meat Palace and deal with regular teenage issues of dating, cutting school, and delinquency. These provide conflicts that many viewers can relate to, even if we’ve never stopped an Armageddon.
I'm starting to see how much the writers missed by just letting the "key" aspect of Dawn go. she could have had all the same important storylines early in season 6 (protected by Spike, the Halloween dating episode, even the role she played in the musical, then, as Noella suggested, Willow could have discovered how she could increase her own powers by drawing on Dawn's key energy. This would have heightened the conflict with Buffy and Tara, because not only would Willow be being reckless with magic herself, but she would also have been taking advantage of Dawn. And maintaining the key power storyline could have been developed in season 7--what if it was she, and not one of Anya's ex-boyfriends, who, under Giles' and Anya's tutelage, opened the portal for Anya and Giles to visit the Eye of Beljoxa. She would begin to understand the power that the residual key energy gave her. Then with that established, they could have added to the drama of the final seasons of season 7--what if the spell to make all the potentials into slayers depended on drawing power from several demon dimensions and could only be accomplished by draining Dawn of her key energy. Then not only would the potentials have to make a choice, but so would Dawn: She would have to give up the one thing that made her special, something that had a potential power she had only begun to understand and tap into. To activate all the potentials, she would have to become a normal girl.
Summarily dropping the whole "key" aspect of Dawn robbed them of potential storylines and doomed her to being the whining damsel that we all came to loathe as time wore on.
Summarily dropping the whole "key" aspect of Dawn robbed them of potential storylines and doomed her to being the whining damsel that we all came to loathe as time wore on.
The analogy to comics is very much a valid one, since they're clearly an influence on JW's writing, and I'd argue that in addition to his current comic book projects, BtVS in turn has had a strong influence on a lot of current writers, and also the audience that's reading comics today.
Based on JW's writing on Buffy, and his work on Astonishing X-Men, it's pretty evident that one of the bigger influences on his writing has been the 1980s-period X-Men, which focused a lot on the inner lives of the heroes-- a lot of hanging around in the kitchen talking about personal problems, which happens in both francises.
While both BtVS and AtS were on the air, I had noticed that, if you had to compare both "teams" to a superhero team, Buffy would be more like the X-Men and Angel would be more like the Avengers. On Angel, if there was any opening for a character to develop some kind of super power, or evolve in a more powerful direction, the writer's took it. On Buffy, they frequently opened the door in that direction, but then closed it.
If Dawn had moved to L.A., I'm sure they would have taken full advantage of the key backstory, and turned it into some kind of superpower. If Angel could turn Wesley into a gun-toting, magic wielding badass and Cordelia into a part-demon champion, then I'm sure Dawn would have been firing off her key energy left and right.
But on Buffy, JW and the other writers pass up these opportunities so frequently, that it has to be deliberate. Although we thought Xander would gain some kind of added utility as as a result of the Halloween spell that gave him military training, that was later written off. Willow's increasing powers are reigned in by the danger of addiction (something absent in Angel's L.A., even when Willow herself shows up). They even tone down Riley's powers. And Dawn actually misses two opportunities-- they decline to give her any kind of "key" power, but it's also clear that soomeone had to make a decision in season 7 whether or not to make Dawn a Potential. There's an entire episode ("Potential") devoted to the fact that this opportunity presents itself, but it's one they decided not to take.
I love the show Angel, and the scale of its stories and characters, but it was certainly more traditional in that you have external conflicts, and the characters developed in relation to those conflicts. On the other hand, on Buffy, the stories were more used as setups that paralleled the characters' personal conflicts and insecurities. Just the fact that "Potential" was ever written seems to demonstrate that Buffy was more the characters than the stories.
In comics, it appears to be a juggling act. You want to have Captain America as an icon in the middle of things, but it forces writers to be creative-- what can he do that Iron Man-- stronger, faster, smarter, and with better weapons-- can't do much better? The stories have to be big to require both their attention. Likewise on Buffy, sure, they could have had a magic wielding Willow and Ripper, a super key-powered Dawn, and a commando Xander, but you'd have to write big enough stories on the scale of Angel's show, but that seems to not be what they were about on Buffy.
That said, the Buffy writing staff put the burden on themselves to actually write these more human, character-driven stories, and this was a burden that got more and more difficult to carry, as the cast of characters grew and time went on, as we have observed in Xander and Dawn's characters.
Was that the right direction for Buffy? A lot of people prefer Buffy's show over Angel's, yet a lot of problems that people have with it might have been solved if they focused on the big conflict rather than the inner conflict. Just throwing that out there.
Based on JW's writing on Buffy, and his work on Astonishing X-Men, it's pretty evident that one of the bigger influences on his writing has been the 1980s-period X-Men, which focused a lot on the inner lives of the heroes-- a lot of hanging around in the kitchen talking about personal problems, which happens in both francises.
While both BtVS and AtS were on the air, I had noticed that, if you had to compare both "teams" to a superhero team, Buffy would be more like the X-Men and Angel would be more like the Avengers. On Angel, if there was any opening for a character to develop some kind of super power, or evolve in a more powerful direction, the writer's took it. On Buffy, they frequently opened the door in that direction, but then closed it.
If Dawn had moved to L.A., I'm sure they would have taken full advantage of the key backstory, and turned it into some kind of superpower. If Angel could turn Wesley into a gun-toting, magic wielding badass and Cordelia into a part-demon champion, then I'm sure Dawn would have been firing off her key energy left and right.
But on Buffy, JW and the other writers pass up these opportunities so frequently, that it has to be deliberate. Although we thought Xander would gain some kind of added utility as as a result of the Halloween spell that gave him military training, that was later written off. Willow's increasing powers are reigned in by the danger of addiction (something absent in Angel's L.A., even when Willow herself shows up). They even tone down Riley's powers. And Dawn actually misses two opportunities-- they decline to give her any kind of "key" power, but it's also clear that soomeone had to make a decision in season 7 whether or not to make Dawn a Potential. There's an entire episode ("Potential") devoted to the fact that this opportunity presents itself, but it's one they decided not to take.
I love the show Angel, and the scale of its stories and characters, but it was certainly more traditional in that you have external conflicts, and the characters developed in relation to those conflicts. On the other hand, on Buffy, the stories were more used as setups that paralleled the characters' personal conflicts and insecurities. Just the fact that "Potential" was ever written seems to demonstrate that Buffy was more the characters than the stories.
In comics, it appears to be a juggling act. You want to have Captain America as an icon in the middle of things, but it forces writers to be creative-- what can he do that Iron Man-- stronger, faster, smarter, and with better weapons-- can't do much better? The stories have to be big to require both their attention. Likewise on Buffy, sure, they could have had a magic wielding Willow and Ripper, a super key-powered Dawn, and a commando Xander, but you'd have to write big enough stories on the scale of Angel's show, but that seems to not be what they were about on Buffy.
That said, the Buffy writing staff put the burden on themselves to actually write these more human, character-driven stories, and this was a burden that got more and more difficult to carry, as the cast of characters grew and time went on, as we have observed in Xander and Dawn's characters.
Was that the right direction for Buffy? A lot of people prefer Buffy's show over Angel's, yet a lot of problems that people have with it might have been solved if they focused on the big conflict rather than the inner conflict. Just throwing that out there.
I didn't come to loathe Dawn at all Steve. I found her quite refreshing in S5 and S7 especially. I concede that she didn't have much to do but express isolation in S6, but overall I liked Dawn. So not all of us 'loathed' Dawn as time wore on. :)
posted by: mikejer on Tue, 1/17 01:19 AM EST
Nice thoughts, Daigoro. I always saw a X-Men connection with Buffy before Joss started writing the comics themselves. Many folks have already made the "Dark Willow"="Dark Phoenix" connection, and episodes like "The Wish" reek of alternate futures like the X-Men's "Days of Future Past" and "The Age of Apocalypse".
Keep in mind I believe that every artist "rips off" something from someone else, just like if I were to make my own television show now it would be heavily influenced by Buffy, Angel, and Firefly.
Now as to your X-Men/Avengers parallel, I think that's an apt point, and it explains why I've always loved Buffy more than Angel. I preferred seasons 1-3, where Willow's magic was kept to a minimum, and it was Buffy alone who had the mystical powers. For some reason I can buy into Buffy having special abilities, but once Willow became a Jean Gray surrogate the show lost a little of its magic. Buffy had similarities to X-Men, but it was never meant to be a superpowered team. When Buffy tells the slayerettes in season seven that Willow is the most powerful person in the room, I moaned. Willow lost some of her heroic qualities when Joss made her "equal" to Buffy, simply because Willow, like Xander, Oz, and Cordelia, risked her life fighting evil in spite of her lack of powers. Aside from Willow’s spells becoming a clever devise to aid the Scoobies in their troubles, I never liked what it did to the group dynamic.
Well I'm not much for comics so I can;t do an effective job arguing anything about them I'll take your words for it as it sounds like you have that pinned down.
One thing I will say is that any show has to either find new ways to challenge a hero or it has to escalate the challenge. I know this from over a decade of running D&D games that even with 4 or 5 very powerful heros you don't always have to have a single big bad that could wipe them all up. I would use the example of season 3 witht he Mayor (I know... again?) but he found weakness within the group and exploited it. Adam did much the same thing using Spike in "The Yoko Factor."
One of the reasons I to this day won't watch Angel is that I think the writers went the other direction. I don't think they treated thier characters with respect. I should explain that more fully before everyone hits me. They killed of Doyle right away, I loved him and I hate that they did that but I understand from a writer's perspective why Joss did. Then they took Cordelia on the 5 season "Arc of Phenomenal cosmic power" they brought in Wesley and began playing around with arcing him, then there was Gunn, and Fred and Lorne all of whom were having these wild character arcs all intersecting adn croosing over and this whole time they were making not smarter evils but bigger evils until the heroic climax where "I'll take the dragon" gets said in a real TV show... my firends still quote that... no respect.
On Buffy there were plenty of characters all of them with a modicum of power and each of them with smaller story arcs, enough to develop them slowly but not to seem as outlandish as say Lorne. The closest was Anya and even her demonic background was humanized far more than the lounge singer who looked like the Fab 6th being foisted into Conan the barbarian.
As for willow becoming too powerful... I think I agree but for different reasons. I minded Willow overcoming Giles more than I minded her surpassing Buffy. I think of Buffy as someone born with her powers and never developing them really. Whereas Giles and Willow spend a lot of time researchign and learning and developing thier powers. But I always thought that if Willow really was this überwitch able to say a word and have lightning shoot out of her hand she shouldn't have to do some of the rituals she was doing that got goofed in shows like "Tabula Rasa". I felt like they were a little inconsistent with her power and used it more as a plot device than a character asset.
One thing I will say is that any show has to either find new ways to challenge a hero or it has to escalate the challenge. I know this from over a decade of running D&D games that even with 4 or 5 very powerful heros you don't always have to have a single big bad that could wipe them all up. I would use the example of season 3 witht he Mayor (I know... again?) but he found weakness within the group and exploited it. Adam did much the same thing using Spike in "The Yoko Factor."
One of the reasons I to this day won't watch Angel is that I think the writers went the other direction. I don't think they treated thier characters with respect. I should explain that more fully before everyone hits me. They killed of Doyle right away, I loved him and I hate that they did that but I understand from a writer's perspective why Joss did. Then they took Cordelia on the 5 season "Arc of Phenomenal cosmic power" they brought in Wesley and began playing around with arcing him, then there was Gunn, and Fred and Lorne all of whom were having these wild character arcs all intersecting adn croosing over and this whole time they were making not smarter evils but bigger evils until the heroic climax where "I'll take the dragon" gets said in a real TV show... my firends still quote that... no respect.
On Buffy there were plenty of characters all of them with a modicum of power and each of them with smaller story arcs, enough to develop them slowly but not to seem as outlandish as say Lorne. The closest was Anya and even her demonic background was humanized far more than the lounge singer who looked like the Fab 6th being foisted into Conan the barbarian.
As for willow becoming too powerful... I think I agree but for different reasons. I minded Willow overcoming Giles more than I minded her surpassing Buffy. I think of Buffy as someone born with her powers and never developing them really. Whereas Giles and Willow spend a lot of time researchign and learning and developing thier powers. But I always thought that if Willow really was this überwitch able to say a word and have lightning shoot out of her hand she shouldn't have to do some of the rituals she was doing that got goofed in shows like "Tabula Rasa". I felt like they were a little inconsistent with her power and used it more as a plot device than a character asset.
posted by: Miles on Sat, 1/21 02:25 PM EST
Miles, your Willow comments are on the mark. Her powers were just a plot device, and when she defeated Giles in season six, I was saddened (although his entrance was by far one of the coolest parts of the whole show.)
I agree with your feelings on how Angel treated its characters (especially Doyle and Cordelia. I liked Doyle more then any other character on Angel, and had it not been for the apparent dislike of Quinn by Joss, I think the show would have been stronger by keeping him.) As for the finale, as much as I love Buffy more than Angel, Angel's finale, and it's final moments, were perfect for me. Season Five of Angel was a better season then Buffy's final season (although season four of Angel was worse than any season of Buffy/Angel overall). Angel's final line is funny and yet conveys the idea that they're probably going to die in this final, Alamo-type fight. A fan of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, that kind of romanticized death strikes a cord with me. But, if you prefer to imagine them surviving and fighting demons long after, you can, making the final a metaphor, as Joss put it, for ongoing redemption.
Comparing anything to BtVS season 7 is hard cause it sucked a LOT in my eyes. We had all the new slayers, new vampires, the great unclean one, caleb, Spike the heroic, Willow the recoving hooch hound, it was just hard to watch. It literally sapped the life force out of me having empathy for this tired ragged band of heroes and there was just no safe haven. Having not seen more than Season 1 of Angel and then random shows of seasons 2-3 I can't cannot speak to the tennor of the show, it seemed too epic for me considering the characters were BtVS castoffs in many cases (Cordy, Angel, Spike, Wesley, Dru & Darla) and the original characters were either near forgotten (Gunn) or just oddball from the word go (Lorne) or they were Fred.
Willow in season 6 I thought was well done to a point. I am a big fan of Evil being a quick trip to LOTS of power that will destroy you because it didn't like you to begin with (being Evil and all). Had they played Willow from Season 2 as going down that path I could have LOVED season 6. But the sudden realization from Tara that she's overusing magic seemed very artificial even in mutiple re-watchings. I also wished it had not been Giles who came back but RIPPER who had come for the showdown, Giles had this wierd "Borrowed" magic from the happy shiny pagans which just made me sad. They could have used some Celtic God's and given him a much more masculine form of magic that could have been authentic and SWEET! The Ulster cycle has tons of heroic men that we could have used to fuel Giles and the power could have come from Druids rather than Wiccan but I'm sidetracked here.
Here's my thinking on what happened... The year is 2002-3 Buffy enteres season 7 and a lot of contract problems. Angel is on season 4 and may be losing steam. ALSO Firefly begins shooting season 1 (of 1) which means Joss had to get the whole show off the ground that year. I think Season 7 of BtVS and Seson 4 of Angel going south at the same time is just Joss and company being stretched waaaaay too thin. Also Buffy tended to take some time after a bad stint to get back on it's feet, heck I think it was sliding downhill from Season 4 on. It could be Joss only has 4 solid seasons of story per idea (Very few shows have a solid 6 or 7 afterall). Maybe Joss needs to keep the number of irons in the fire to 1 or 2. But with three shows in production only one of them seemed to have a solid year and that one was canceled halfway in. So by season 5 of Angel he was back to one show and it seemed to pick up again right?
Willow in season 6 I thought was well done to a point. I am a big fan of Evil being a quick trip to LOTS of power that will destroy you because it didn't like you to begin with (being Evil and all). Had they played Willow from Season 2 as going down that path I could have LOVED season 6. But the sudden realization from Tara that she's overusing magic seemed very artificial even in mutiple re-watchings. I also wished it had not been Giles who came back but RIPPER who had come for the showdown, Giles had this wierd "Borrowed" magic from the happy shiny pagans which just made me sad. They could have used some Celtic God's and given him a much more masculine form of magic that could have been authentic and SWEET! The Ulster cycle has tons of heroic men that we could have used to fuel Giles and the power could have come from Druids rather than Wiccan but I'm sidetracked here.
Here's my thinking on what happened... The year is 2002-3 Buffy enteres season 7 and a lot of contract problems. Angel is on season 4 and may be losing steam. ALSO Firefly begins shooting season 1 (of 1) which means Joss had to get the whole show off the ground that year. I think Season 7 of BtVS and Seson 4 of Angel going south at the same time is just Joss and company being stretched waaaaay too thin. Also Buffy tended to take some time after a bad stint to get back on it's feet, heck I think it was sliding downhill from Season 4 on. It could be Joss only has 4 solid seasons of story per idea (Very few shows have a solid 6 or 7 afterall). Maybe Joss needs to keep the number of irons in the fire to 1 or 2. But with three shows in production only one of them seemed to have a solid year and that one was canceled halfway in. So by season 5 of Angel he was back to one show and it seemed to pick up again right?
posted by: Miles on Sun, 1/22 12:52 AM EST
I've heard a lot of people say S7 sucked yet I never see any solid evidence that has convinced me of that fact. S7 isn't my favorite, but I feel it's certainly better than S1 and S4. If any non-S1 season was a mess it would have to be S4. The Initiative arc failed miserably. S7 is highly entertaining and glittered with funny, dramatic, and action-packed moments. Isn't that what BtVS has always done well? There ARE problems in S7, but you know what, there were quite a few problems with all the seasons, including the much praised S3. I agree Joss stretched himself too thin with 3 shows, but he pretty much knew Buffy was ending in a year when he began Firefly. I also see much bigger flaws with Angel S4 than with Buffy S7. Of course I never cared for Angel as much as Buffy in the first place, but that's another discussion.
posted by: mikejer on Sun, 1/22 02:04 AM EST
Nice point, Miles, when it comes to season 7 of Buffy and season 4 of Angel both being off the mark (with firefly being the sole strong series of the bunch.)
I do urge you to watch all of "Angel". If you're a fan of Buffy it will be a lesser series, but it's still amazing fun. I did buy S4 of Angel simply to complete my collection, but despite it's problems it's still not horrid. Compared to most things on TV at the time, the worst episodes of Buffy or Angel are stil really great.
As for Mikejer's comments on Buffy seasons, I think season one is about defining the characters, and despite the hatred for season four, I thought it was actually a nice continuation of season three, using the supernatural as metaphors for college life. Season five was actually a disappointment for me, because the metaphors were almost lost, Dawn as the key wasn't terribly interesting, and Glory was often boring and repetitive. Then again, I'm a huge fan of season six, and the dark places Joss took the series, so by comparison, season five seemed like a placeholder. Season 7 on the otherhand was an example of Joss playing it safe. S6 was a controversial season for Buffy, so with S7 Joss and CO. tried to keep it grounded and unexperimental. So S7 came out to be a perfectly acceptable and amazingly boring season. The FIRST was non-threatening, the slayerettes uninteresting, and the relationships between the main characters were almost non-existent. If S7 had been reduced to 12 episodes it would have been a nice finale for Buffy. Instead Joss didn't know how to quit, and although the series never jumped the shark in my mind, it did end with little of the magic, imagination, and fun that was so prevelant in its earlier days.
I just wanted to clarify that I don't *hate* S4. I simply feel the primary arc of the season is a bit of a mess. There's quite a lot to admire in S4.
posted by: mikejer on Mon, 1/23 02:05 AM EST
I can;t give you anything for season 1, it was an intro season and as such I think played very well at finding where it wanted to go, it was mostly stand alone episodes which makes it kind of crumbly as a "season" but I thought it was solid. Season 4 was a loss for me in many ways, it came out of Season 3 and had a really hard time deciding what to do with itself (much like a college freshman). I think there is just a real problem taking a show about the supernatural and then trying to late in the game insert a very modern, scientific, political body into that world. It lacked the comentary and depth that Joss gave to Evil as a force. If we had spent more time dealing with the character of the inititive I would have liked the season more. But it was still better than Season 7, let me explain why.
Season 4 tried very hard to keep the image of Sunnydale, it tried very hard to evolve the characters and to build and expand on thier rleationships. While I think it was badly flawwed it was working twoards what I considered to be the goal of Seasons 1-3. Season 7 was a nearly entire disrgard to seasons 1-5 instead trying to maintain the darkness of season 6 without actually doing ANY character development. Giles falls by the wayside suddenly turning on Buffy. Spike gets his insanity arc which doesn't do much to develop his character instead it seems to disassemble it for us. Buffy seems to now be able to balance work, money and her duties as both mom and slayer. Dawn has a small arc in coping with her banality. Xander is construction guy, and Anya is well... Anya. Willow is now a recovering addict who is unable to deal with having any real arc. Now I know someone is going to say "What about dealing with Tara's death" and I should slap you right now. That show was terrible, it forced us to deal with Kennedy, it brought Amy back for a random act of hate crime and it was I think a stunningly bad piece of femminist critique... Who am I missing? Ah the Slayerettes are mainly non vocal 2nd rate characters that act as a minor mcguffin but not a very good one. The first is a shalow depiction of a previous character handled with much less grace than Adam, the Mayor or The Master and is in many ways like Glory if she wasn't quite so stupid.
The storyline for season 7 was under developed, the new breed of vampires was under explained and there was very little real tension shy of 2 episodes in whcih Buffy was getting beaten up until her "lesson" for the girls where she then mysterioiusly beats the holy hell out of the thing that had ruined her day for the last couple shows. the 7th season was phoned in from about every possible angle with the exception of Dushku who seemed to be interested in her character and Woodside who made the 2D principal work pretty well given the small ammount of screentime and mediocre writing.
Season 4 tried very hard to keep the image of Sunnydale, it tried very hard to evolve the characters and to build and expand on thier rleationships. While I think it was badly flawwed it was working twoards what I considered to be the goal of Seasons 1-3. Season 7 was a nearly entire disrgard to seasons 1-5 instead trying to maintain the darkness of season 6 without actually doing ANY character development. Giles falls by the wayside suddenly turning on Buffy. Spike gets his insanity arc which doesn't do much to develop his character instead it seems to disassemble it for us. Buffy seems to now be able to balance work, money and her duties as both mom and slayer. Dawn has a small arc in coping with her banality. Xander is construction guy, and Anya is well... Anya. Willow is now a recovering addict who is unable to deal with having any real arc. Now I know someone is going to say "What about dealing with Tara's death" and I should slap you right now. That show was terrible, it forced us to deal with Kennedy, it brought Amy back for a random act of hate crime and it was I think a stunningly bad piece of femminist critique... Who am I missing? Ah the Slayerettes are mainly non vocal 2nd rate characters that act as a minor mcguffin but not a very good one. The first is a shalow depiction of a previous character handled with much less grace than Adam, the Mayor or The Master and is in many ways like Glory if she wasn't quite so stupid.
The storyline for season 7 was under developed, the new breed of vampires was under explained and there was very little real tension shy of 2 episodes in whcih Buffy was getting beaten up until her "lesson" for the girls where she then mysterioiusly beats the holy hell out of the thing that had ruined her day for the last couple shows. the 7th season was phoned in from about every possible angle with the exception of Dushku who seemed to be interested in her character and Woodside who made the 2D principal work pretty well given the small ammount of screentime and mediocre writing.
posted by: Miles on Mon, 1/23 04:26 PM EST
I always wondered in seasons 1-3, why the U.S. government wasn't getting involved in the war with the supernatural, so I thought The Inititive was a natural step for the show to take. I mean with vamps and demons roaming across the US, it only seems natural the gov would get involved.
I agree with everything you say Miles about season 7, with the exception of a few things. The episode where Willow turns to Warren wasn't anything close to the emotional highpoints of the rest of the series, but it still connected with me. I also never really hated Kennedy or Dawn, to be honest.
I loved season 6, so season 7 was, for me, a season void of the dark themes of season 6, and yet also void of the witty, sharp dialogue of the earlier seasons. If you're not going to be dramatic, dark, or interesting, the least you can do is be funny. The closest we got was with that episode with the guy with the varsity jacket. Imagine if you took the best episodes of S7 and kept the season as 12 episodes? Doesn't that sound better?
I the writing in S7 is still quite often hilarious. Man people bash on S7. I really enjoyed it. There are only 3 handedly weak episodes in the whole season for me: Same Time, Same Place, Potention, and The Killer in Me. I loved the rest of the season. I thought it was dramatic, occasionally creepy, often hilarious, and still solidly written (with a few problems).
I think S6 is much more powerful than S7 myself, but S7 was about leadership and sharing power. Yeah the Scoobies didn't get as much attention, but I kind of like where the focus was. When I watch S7 I just don't see the HUGE quality drop other people see. Some things were left unnoticed, sure, but they got most things right. *shrug* Maybe I'm just weird.
I think S6 is much more powerful than S7 myself, but S7 was about leadership and sharing power. Yeah the Scoobies didn't get as much attention, but I kind of like where the focus was. When I watch S7 I just don't see the HUGE quality drop other people see. Some things were left unnoticed, sure, but they got most things right. *shrug* Maybe I'm just weird.
posted by: mikejer on Mon, 1/23 10:26 PM EST
Definitely wierd... LOL j/k
I always felt to seemingly force Willow into a new lesbian relationship seemed very much against how willow had found herself in relationship with Tara and really rubbed me the wrong way. Kennedy was hot, but her character wasn't developed enough and the relationship had no time to the whole thing just seemed sooo forced to me.
Season 4 coul have been a natural extension had they built it up better and taken more time explaining that it had really been going on the whole time. They did some build with the camoflage men before they showed us the initive but once the cat was out of the bang within a few episodes Buffy was signing up to be all she could be. It just didn't ever really strike me as a real "black ops" sort of thing, they were too loose with thier secrets, a little too gadgety, and not as mysterious as I like my secret government agencies. I needed them to be a little more X-Filesy. But they weren;t the worst idea, that was Glory.
Season 6 was good, I am rewatching it now actually. It was dark and hard and full of a lot of conceptual ideas. It carried the emotional impact of Season 5's finale and ran with it. But it was hard to watch, anytime I see the scoobies suffering it is hard for me, I suffer with them. So I could have used some more breathing room but the season was still very powerful.
And sorry season 7 still sucked eggs man. The first was often creepy but Angel was far creepier. Seasons 1-6 were about the scoobies, to deny them this in Season 7 was criminal in my view. Buffy as the leader was Season 5 and it ended with them holed up in an abandoned gas station surrounded by knights. The empowerment ideas were good, I feel that they never achieved those ideas between the constant berating of the group and the petty infighting over the leadership and then, given my thoughts on the transferance of power discussed in an earlier episode, the burdening of these girls with slayer powers that come from demon energy. I just don't see it. But if you like Season 7 then it must have worked for people, maybe just not me and Noblecreed.
I always felt to seemingly force Willow into a new lesbian relationship seemed very much against how willow had found herself in relationship with Tara and really rubbed me the wrong way. Kennedy was hot, but her character wasn't developed enough and the relationship had no time to the whole thing just seemed sooo forced to me.
Season 4 coul have been a natural extension had they built it up better and taken more time explaining that it had really been going on the whole time. They did some build with the camoflage men before they showed us the initive but once the cat was out of the bang within a few episodes Buffy was signing up to be all she could be. It just didn't ever really strike me as a real "black ops" sort of thing, they were too loose with thier secrets, a little too gadgety, and not as mysterious as I like my secret government agencies. I needed them to be a little more X-Filesy. But they weren;t the worst idea, that was Glory.
Season 6 was good, I am rewatching it now actually. It was dark and hard and full of a lot of conceptual ideas. It carried the emotional impact of Season 5's finale and ran with it. But it was hard to watch, anytime I see the scoobies suffering it is hard for me, I suffer with them. So I could have used some more breathing room but the season was still very powerful.
And sorry season 7 still sucked eggs man. The first was often creepy but Angel was far creepier. Seasons 1-6 were about the scoobies, to deny them this in Season 7 was criminal in my view. Buffy as the leader was Season 5 and it ended with them holed up in an abandoned gas station surrounded by knights. The empowerment ideas were good, I feel that they never achieved those ideas between the constant berating of the group and the petty infighting over the leadership and then, given my thoughts on the transferance of power discussed in an earlier episode, the burdening of these girls with slayer powers that come from demon energy. I just don't see it. But if you like Season 7 then it must have worked for people, maybe just not me and Noblecreed.
posted by: Miles on Tue, 1/24 12:16 PM EST
I agree Miles about what you said about the initiative. I think had it been darker, I could have bought it. They were too gadgetry and covert enough. A little more Splinter Cell would have worked wonders.
Despite what people say about S7, I agree, it still sucked. And I agree up thread about the season being phoned in on all angles.
it just seemed like they were trying to pile in two seasons into one. I think a S8 was actually needed with all the stuff they brought up. Things were too convienient, that they cower all season, then it's like if they 'believe' and get the power all the vamps can be killed with little effort.
The only episode worth anything to me was Coversations With Dead People.
Well, it's obvious S7 isn't very popular around here. It's got problems not doubt, but to say that it *sucked* still surprises me.
Are you guys telling me you weren't at all affected by the final scene of "Beneath You," or the richly-laden "Selfless," or the hilarity of the final 15 minutes of "Him," or Xander's warming speech to Dawn in "Potential," or the intensity of the Spike and Wood fight in "Lies My Parents Told Me," or the initial fight with Caleb in "Dirty Girls," or the tender Spike and Buffy scene in "Touched," or the humor in the first half of "Chosen?" I could go on for a while with stuff that blew me away in S7. I just don't see any suckiness there.
Every person I've shown the series to on DVD has come away with S6 and S7 being favorites (although *I* prefer seasons 2, 3, 5, and 6 to S7). Obviously, in my apparently VERY humble opinion, the only time BtVS EVER outright *sucked* was during the episodes "Teacher's Pet" and "I Robot, You Jane." That's absolutely it. It's a shame you guys can't see *any* of the positives that exist in S7. Oh well, big difference of opinion I suppose. :/
Note: I really wish I could edit these replies. It's kind of hard to proofread them in this tiny typing window. :p
Are you guys telling me you weren't at all affected by the final scene of "Beneath You," or the richly-laden "Selfless," or the hilarity of the final 15 minutes of "Him," or Xander's warming speech to Dawn in "Potential," or the intensity of the Spike and Wood fight in "Lies My Parents Told Me," or the initial fight with Caleb in "Dirty Girls," or the tender Spike and Buffy scene in "Touched," or the humor in the first half of "Chosen?" I could go on for a while with stuff that blew me away in S7. I just don't see any suckiness there.
Every person I've shown the series to on DVD has come away with S6 and S7 being favorites (although *I* prefer seasons 2, 3, 5, and 6 to S7). Obviously, in my apparently VERY humble opinion, the only time BtVS EVER outright *sucked* was during the episodes "Teacher's Pet" and "I Robot, You Jane." That's absolutely it. It's a shame you guys can't see *any* of the positives that exist in S7. Oh well, big difference of opinion I suppose. :/
Note: I really wish I could edit these replies. It's kind of hard to proofread them in this tiny typing window. :p
posted by: mikejer on Fri, 1/27 02:45 AM EST
Mikejer, since you have so passionately defended season 7 i will re-watch the episodes you mention and see if watching them with your comments in mind changes my thinking on S7.
posted by: Miles on Mon, 1/30 05:44 PM EST
Cool Miles. I rank S7 as my 5th favorite season, so I hope everyone is aware that I don't think THAT highly of it. I'm just defending it against statements like "it sucked," because I still got emotional and entertained by it. :)
I'm currently reviewing the entire series (I just wrapped up S3) and can't wait to get to the later seasons because they're the most contested. I'm curious if I'll, when looking a lot closer at the episodes, start seeing more faults in the seasons. So far reviewing the series has only increased my awe and appreciation for it, but of course pretty much everyone loves S2 and S3 (though some people overlook faults in those seasons too easily). My site is linked to from my name if you're interested btw.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing your 'revised' thoughts. ;)
I'm currently reviewing the entire series (I just wrapped up S3) and can't wait to get to the later seasons because they're the most contested. I'm curious if I'll, when looking a lot closer at the episodes, start seeing more faults in the seasons. So far reviewing the series has only increased my awe and appreciation for it, but of course pretty much everyone loves S2 and S3 (though some people overlook faults in those seasons too easily). My site is linked to from my name if you're interested btw.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing your 'revised' thoughts. ;)
posted by: mikejer on Mon, 1/30 08:28 PM EST
Having watched every Buffy season twice (three times for S2 and S3) I feel that upon second viewing some seasons are actually better (S2, S3, S4, S6) while others (S5, S7) just seem tired from a storytelling standpoint.
For me episodes like “Beneath You� (The gang deals with a giant underground worm) are where season seven is both dull and repetitive from seasons past. Does the final scene save the episode? Not in my mind.
I’ll say this, mikejer, season seven had a great episode run starting with the amazing “Selfless,� “Him,� and “Conversations with Dead People.� When I saw those three episodes, coming back to back, I thought everyone’s hatred of S7 was hogwash (I’ve watched every episode of Buffy on DVD and never had the pleasure of watching them live. I bought the first DVD set when it came out and became hooked.)
Yet soon after the episodes started revolving around boring group speeches and how “The First� was like, really, really, bad. No really. Xander’s speech to Dawn is an example of something that never would have happened on S2 or S3, a quasi-corny speech that doesn’t fit in with his or Dawn’s character arc. I loved Spike’s flashbacks to his mother, and thought they were amazing and rich, and yet I later found out they have striking similarities to Lestat in Anne Rice’s novels (apparently one scene is eerily similar.) Was Whedon and Co. making an homage or just ripping other vamp lore off? Honestly, if it is an homage, what a cheap way to reveal such an important character’s backstory. If it weren’t for the much needed humor provided by Andrew and Anya, this season would have hurt even more. I’m re-watching S3 right now for a third time, but I know I’ll never watch S7 again in its entirety. When ever I feel the need to relive Buffy’s final season, I’ll pick my favorite episodes and move on.
The thing about "Beneath You" is that the episode is mostly about the characters. Sure the giant worm is dumb, but it's really not all that important. It was just Anya who caused it anyway. There's a lot of character interaction that is both humorous and powerful. How about when they're at the Bronze and Nancy asks the group "Is there anyone here that hasn't slept together?" Xander and Spike then exchange a glance with each other. Then there's also the scene right after that where Anya realises that Spike has a soul so he punches her and tells Buffy "I haven't changed. Not a lick. And watching your face trying to figure me out was absolutely delicious" as an attempt to hide his change. Then there's, of course, the final amazing Church scene. All of this in combination with some phenomenal acting, especially by James Marsters, makes for quite a solid episode. Not great (because of the lame worm), but quite good.
And as for Xander's speech in "Potential," I think it's perfectly in his character. In S7 Dawn is learning to assert herself and to help out (i.e. "Watcher Junior"). Xander's speech not only sums up what he's had to go through being the one without powers for 7 years but it also gives Dawn comfort as well. A bit scripted? Sure, but I think it was earned.
As for "Lies..." I can't respond, because I haven't read any Anne Rice. But I can say that I feel it's a wonderful episode that has me on the edge of my seat for large portions of time.
Like I said before, I certainly don't think S7 is without problems, but I feel people unfairly throw the entire season in the trash can (a lot of them do the same to S6 as well, which is interesting). There's a lot of standout moments worth watching the season for though.
And as for Xander's speech in "Potential," I think it's perfectly in his character. In S7 Dawn is learning to assert herself and to help out (i.e. "Watcher Junior"). Xander's speech not only sums up what he's had to go through being the one without powers for 7 years but it also gives Dawn comfort as well. A bit scripted? Sure, but I think it was earned.
As for "Lies..." I can't respond, because I haven't read any Anne Rice. But I can say that I feel it's a wonderful episode that has me on the edge of my seat for large portions of time.
Like I said before, I certainly don't think S7 is without problems, but I feel people unfairly throw the entire season in the trash can (a lot of them do the same to S6 as well, which is interesting). There's a lot of standout moments worth watching the season for though.
posted by: mikejer on Tue, 1/31 04:30 AM EST
"And as for Xander's speech in "Potential," I think it's perfectly in his character. In S7 Dawn is learning to assert herself and to help out (i.e. "Watcher Junior"). Xander's speech not only sums up what he's had to go through being the one without powers for 7 years but it also gives Dawn comfort as well."
I think you should go listen to Buffycast 1-3 again ;)
I think you should go listen to Buffycast 1-3 again ;)
I don't agree with Rovello at the end of that Buffycast. Xander *is* someone who sees things. A couple examples of this is when he helps Buffy get back on her feet in a great speech during "The Freshman" along with his speech to her about Riley in "Into the Woods." Xander throughout the series is often observant to his friends' emotional states. Sure he doesn't see literally what's going on with them, but when he has enough emotional evidence around him he seems to be able to put the pieces together. I agree with some of the points Rovello made there but not all.
posted by: mikejer on Tue, 1/31 12:57 PM EST
Just jumping back in while waiting patiently for the next podcast...
At some point maybe I'll really defend Angel Season 4 - for all its problems of logic and coherence it was very entertaining. Having gone back and rewatched Angel Season 1 I can say with confidence that S1 was by far the worst season of Angel - many of the early episodes seem like rejected X-Files scripts hastily rewritten. As much as I loved Doyle the character, the show actually improves tremendously after he leaves. In many ways Doyle was just too similar to Angel - half demon, tortured love life, carrying around dark secrets, etc. The introduction of Wesley breathed some life back into a series that was going nowhere. To me "Angel" at its best was always over the top, almost operatic, with everything larger than life. It truly was a comic book brought to television, and you either enjoy that or you don't. Season 4 was the pinnacle of that direction. Season 5 is very different, it is Angel lite. In many ways S5 could really be considered Season 8 of Buffy rather than a continuation of Angel.
At some point maybe I'll really defend Angel Season 4 - for all its problems of logic and coherence it was very entertaining. Having gone back and rewatched Angel Season 1 I can say with confidence that S1 was by far the worst season of Angel - many of the early episodes seem like rejected X-Files scripts hastily rewritten. As much as I loved Doyle the character, the show actually improves tremendously after he leaves. In many ways Doyle was just too similar to Angel - half demon, tortured love life, carrying around dark secrets, etc. The introduction of Wesley breathed some life back into a series that was going nowhere. To me "Angel" at its best was always over the top, almost operatic, with everything larger than life. It truly was a comic book brought to television, and you either enjoy that or you don't. Season 4 was the pinnacle of that direction. Season 5 is very different, it is Angel lite. In many ways S5 could really be considered Season 8 of Buffy rather than a continuation of Angel.
While we're on the subject of rewatching seasons...
I recently rewatched the beginning of Season 1 for the first time and experienced something unexpected. Angel falling in love with Buffy didn't work for me the second time through. The slightly icky factor I felt as I watched them fall in loved surprised me, because I had originally loved their star-crossed romance. On the rewatch, all I could think about was how very old Angel was. Couple this with suddenly experiencing season 1 Buffy as VERY young and immature compared to season 7 Buffy, and I couldn't understand why Angel would for Buffy. I must say, there were definite vibes of creepy old man with adolescent girl.
I am prepared to be crucified for this blasphemy.
I recently rewatched the beginning of Season 1 for the first time and experienced something unexpected. Angel falling in love with Buffy didn't work for me the second time through. The slightly icky factor I felt as I watched them fall in loved surprised me, because I had originally loved their star-crossed romance. On the rewatch, all I could think about was how very old Angel was. Couple this with suddenly experiencing season 1 Buffy as VERY young and immature compared to season 7 Buffy, and I couldn't understand why Angel would for Buffy. I must say, there were definite vibes of creepy old man with adolescent girl.
I am prepared to be crucified for this blasphemy.
To go back to mikejer's comment *and those previous* about the connection to Lestat and Anne Rice it's above eerily similar, the only major difference is Lestat allows his mother to live and her first reaction to being turned is her shock that her hair grew back overnight *as she and Lestat had cut it shortly after she had turned so she could pass as a man on the streets*
I was quite intrigued by those scenes, but i have to say it is probably one of my favourite episodes especially in the 7th season..
On the other hand i have a completely random question.... why is it when in season 1 when Buffy drowns, another slayer is called, yet, when she like REALLY dies at the end of season 5 we do not see another slayer called or even MENTIONED? is there something that i have missed?? again.. random question...
I was quite intrigued by those scenes, but i have to say it is probably one of my favourite episodes especially in the 7th season..
On the other hand i have a completely random question.... why is it when in season 1 when Buffy drowns, another slayer is called, yet, when she like REALLY dies at the end of season 5 we do not see another slayer called or even MENTIONED? is there something that i have missed?? again.. random question...
MOW - I've never understood why so many people have an issue with that. It seems perfectly clear to me - Buffy died in S1, Kendra was called. The line now goes through Kendra, not Buffy. Kendra dies - Faith is called. Faith is still alive in Seasons 5,6,7 so of course no new slayer was called forth. Technically speaking Buffy is no longer THE vampire slayer after Season One. So what's the problem? It seems clear enough that the Slayer is only meant to die once, not numerous times. One of the interesting things about Buffy is the way the show is supposedly built around a slayer mythology which it immediately proceeds to undermine from the very first season, in fact from Buffy's very first meeting with Giles - "stop the spread of their evil blah, blah, blah". You know instantly that you're not in Highlander territory here.
To mikejer - nice thoughts. What is "sincere" and "corny" is subjective anyway, and I can see how Xander's speech worked for you. His S4 speech to Buffy worked for me as well.
To Vanya – Season one of Angel is actually one of my favorites. I loved having stand-alone villains and the smaller cast gave a better “us-against-the-world� vibe then the later seasons. I like Wesley fine. He’s a perfect character to bounce off Angel, but I still believe that Doyle was a far more interesting character. Yes he was half-demon and had secrets like Angel, but his character was someone struggling to discover his path and fight what he was. Angel’s accepted his vampire ways, while Doyle was very much human w/ a side of demon. Honestly, Wesley only became an interesting character in S4, when they gave him a tortured love life and dark secrets, so in a way they just turned him into Doyle.
As for S4, I’m not a fan of Angel basically becoming “24� or “Lost� where every episode bled into the next without much being resolved (that’s for “Lost� not “24�.) I’m fine with everything being operatic, but S4 was dull when compared to S1, S2, and S3. As for S5, it started off slow, awkward, and again, kinda dull, but when it eventually found its stride, it seemed more like the Angel I used to enjoy. And the finale was mind blowing.
-Noblecreed
I pretty much agree with Noblecreed on all count, although I do think Wesley was interesting long before S4. And although S5 started out a little awkwardly, my enjoyment of it was magnified since I was expecting absolutely nothing after the debacle of S4 ;)
Did you all watch Angel S4 when it aired or on DVD? Maybe it works better on DVD, most arc shows (24, Alias, Lost) are more coherent on DVD than when spaced out from week to week with random repeats thrown in. I certainly didn't find S4 dull - a little ridiculous maybe but not dull.
Noblecreed - I liked Doyle a lot too, I just don't think the writers ever took full advantage of what he had to offer, for whatever reason. To me the quality of the writing definitely improves in S1 after Doyle dies - I don't think this has anything to do with Doyle as a character or Quinn as an actor, I blame the writers for never really knowing what they wanted to do with Doyle. Even his death episode struck me as fairly shoddy - Nazi Demons trying to destroy half breeds? That made no sense, and according to Anya almost all demons in our dimension are impure anyway. You make a good point that by S4 Wesley had become more like Doyle but by then the writing team may have had a clearer vision of where to take a tortured character.
Noblecreed - I liked Doyle a lot too, I just don't think the writers ever took full advantage of what he had to offer, for whatever reason. To me the quality of the writing definitely improves in S1 after Doyle dies - I don't think this has anything to do with Doyle as a character or Quinn as an actor, I blame the writers for never really knowing what they wanted to do with Doyle. Even his death episode struck me as fairly shoddy - Nazi Demons trying to destroy half breeds? That made no sense, and according to Anya almost all demons in our dimension are impure anyway. You make a good point that by S4 Wesley had become more like Doyle but by then the writing team may have had a clearer vision of where to take a tortured character.
I watched S4 when it aired and in the week-to-week format it was nothing short of infuriating. Add to the fact that, in the end, the arc doesn't really make a lot of sense and you can understand why I dislike it so much.
As for Doyle not being taken full advantage of as a character, I think that's going to be true for any Jossverse character that gets killed off so quickly. I still think he shows remarkable depth (even if they are "hidden depths" ;) ) in the short time he's afforded. But yeah, the Nazi demons were a bit stupid.
As for Doyle not being taken full advantage of as a character, I think that's going to be true for any Jossverse character that gets killed off so quickly. I still think he shows remarkable depth (even if they are "hidden depths" ;) ) in the short time he's afforded. But yeah, the Nazi demons were a bit stupid.
Vanya:
You say that "The line now goes through Kendra, not Buffy", but in Season 7, during Buffy's inspirational speeches, she said that if she dies, one of the other potentials will become the slayer, and so on until all the potentials are gone.
I am more than willing to attribute it to sloppy writing, but it does seem that Buffy was still in the Slayer line.
You say that "The line now goes through Kendra, not Buffy", but in Season 7, during Buffy's inspirational speeches, she said that if she dies, one of the other potentials will become the slayer, and so on until all the potentials are gone.
I am more than willing to attribute it to sloppy writing, but it does seem that Buffy was still in the Slayer line.
Allright, having done a re-watch of season 7…
I have a hard time ranking the seasons to be frank, I believe seasons 1-3 are the best seasons. I believe seasons 4-5 were both bad. I believe seasons 6-7 were a whole new direction and were so different that it makes them hard to compare to 1-5.
Season 7 was hard for me to watch with a tabula rasa. Beneath You is actually an excellent episode for me to talk about because it examples for me the worst aspects of S7. The incredible amount of conversation between the characters made the plot of the episode not only secondary but worthless.
I think that “beneath you� counts as a standalone episode with elements of the season arc. Standalone episodes have to have a complete plot in 47 minutes. This means there are established good guys, we have a villain, there is a build of the coming problem and a resolution to this problem. Beneath you spends maybe 15 minutes dealing with that. That means about 2/3 of the show are spent dealing with the emotional baggage of Xander/Anya and Buffy/Spike. But let’s be serious, the episode is about Buffy & Spike.
A lot of people feel that the scene in the church was amazing acting… I feel differently. Having re-watched the episodes dealing with Spike’s madness I found the entire storyline to be a problem for me. Spike had to make it back to Sunnydale from Africa and I assume this took not only time but sanity. So tortured but psychologically stable man between the time of his arrival and the time of his being found in the basement became a brainwashed, conditioned, lunatic. I just don’t like that, it may be a matter of personal taste but it rubs me wrong.
You will remember the tactics used by the First on Angel and his instinct to seek help and try to understand the situation, this eventually made him want to commit suicide. You may reasonably argue that this level of psychological damage might have made Spike insane I simply disagree.
This is one of several problems I had with S7. I did not enjoy Willow or Kenedy in S7, I did not enjoy the continued lack of Dawn in S7 and I was not a fan of the fluctuation in Buffy’s morale. What I mean is there are a lot of times where she is depressed, beaten and near crippled with doubt. Then there are times where she is cocky, strong and willing to push it to the limit. The keel of the show became so uneven it made it hard for me to identify with everything.
Xander I felt got a great deal of attention in S7 and thought that was very well done. While I tend to think he is not very insightful his speech with Dawn was very in his character and hers. I just feel they were stroking one another’s ego and were not correct in their conclusions, but I did feel it was very appropriate.
Now the Spike/Wood storyline… I felt Wood suffered from Dawn syndrome. He was thrown in to the mix with a very odd back story. He seemed to be far more important than his screen time would allow for. The actor did a wonderful job, his work with James Marsters was excellent and Wood was portrayed as a very 2D character with no real arc.
I still think S7 sucked, but it didn’t suck any worse than parts of Seasons 4 & 5 it just did so in a manner commensurate with the darkened feel of Season 6. I feel that by the time we got to Season 7 that the problems with character inbreeding were getting so bad that the show was being taken up more with characters sorting out issue than fixing external problems, or at least the writers felt so much more comfortable writing inter-character dialog than writing plotlines that involved external forces. I would have much rather had the first do something more like the mayor of Season 3 and orchestrate attacks from various groups of evil characters. Imagine all these new problems rising and all of them being built by a single evil that was making them happen in a specific order to test and take out elements of the defenses of the good guys. They did something like that with the Trio as well and it worked to make them a believable set of villains.
I have a hard time ranking the seasons to be frank, I believe seasons 1-3 are the best seasons. I believe seasons 4-5 were both bad. I believe seasons 6-7 were a whole new direction and were so different that it makes them hard to compare to 1-5.
Season 7 was hard for me to watch with a tabula rasa. Beneath You is actually an excellent episode for me to talk about because it examples for me the worst aspects of S7. The incredible amount of conversation between the characters made the plot of the episode not only secondary but worthless.
I think that “beneath you� counts as a standalone episode with elements of the season arc. Standalone episodes have to have a complete plot in 47 minutes. This means there are established good guys, we have a villain, there is a build of the coming problem and a resolution to this problem. Beneath you spends maybe 15 minutes dealing with that. That means about 2/3 of the show are spent dealing with the emotional baggage of Xander/Anya and Buffy/Spike. But let’s be serious, the episode is about Buffy & Spike.
A lot of people feel that the scene in the church was amazing acting… I feel differently. Having re-watched the episodes dealing with Spike’s madness I found the entire storyline to be a problem for me. Spike had to make it back to Sunnydale from Africa and I assume this took not only time but sanity. So tortured but psychologically stable man between the time of his arrival and the time of his being found in the basement became a brainwashed, conditioned, lunatic. I just don’t like that, it may be a matter of personal taste but it rubs me wrong.
You will remember the tactics used by the First on Angel and his instinct to seek help and try to understand the situation, this eventually made him want to commit suicide. You may reasonably argue that this level of psychological damage might have made Spike insane I simply disagree.
This is one of several problems I had with S7. I did not enjoy Willow or Kenedy in S7, I did not enjoy the continued lack of Dawn in S7 and I was not a fan of the fluctuation in Buffy’s morale. What I mean is there are a lot of times where she is depressed, beaten and near crippled with doubt. Then there are times where she is cocky, strong and willing to push it to the limit. The keel of the show became so uneven it made it hard for me to identify with everything.
Xander I felt got a great deal of attention in S7 and thought that was very well done. While I tend to think he is not very insightful his speech with Dawn was very in his character and hers. I just feel they were stroking one another’s ego and were not correct in their conclusions, but I did feel it was very appropriate.
Now the Spike/Wood storyline… I felt Wood suffered from Dawn syndrome. He was thrown in to the mix with a very odd back story. He seemed to be far more important than his screen time would allow for. The actor did a wonderful job, his work with James Marsters was excellent and Wood was portrayed as a very 2D character with no real arc.
I still think S7 sucked, but it didn’t suck any worse than parts of Seasons 4 & 5 it just did so in a manner commensurate with the darkened feel of Season 6. I feel that by the time we got to Season 7 that the problems with character inbreeding were getting so bad that the show was being taken up more with characters sorting out issue than fixing external problems, or at least the writers felt so much more comfortable writing inter-character dialog than writing plotlines that involved external forces. I would have much rather had the first do something more like the mayor of Season 3 and orchestrate attacks from various groups of evil characters. Imagine all these new problems rising and all of them being built by a single evil that was making them happen in a specific order to test and take out elements of the defenses of the good guys. They did something like that with the Trio as well and it worked to make them a believable set of villains.
posted by: Miles on Wed, 2/1 05:41 PM EST
Vanya -
The line of the slayer is NOT with Faith alone, be very clear on this issue. Buffy dies in season 1 and retains her abilities, has the prophetic dreams, and performs the duties of the slayer. If your argument is that there are two slayers then there will after that point always be two and they both carry the line of the slayer.
The show should have called a new slayer after Season 5 there isn’t a way around this, the show never talks to us about the reason one was never called and since it is so clear that both Buffy and Faith have the full abilities and access to the slayer powers the writers have to be responsible if they intend to change things. The conclusion that Buffy’s death in S5 should have called a new slayer is syllogistically correct and if the assumptions we are to work under are changed that MUST be done by the writers.
The line of the slayer is NOT with Faith alone, be very clear on this issue. Buffy dies in season 1 and retains her abilities, has the prophetic dreams, and performs the duties of the slayer. If your argument is that there are two slayers then there will after that point always be two and they both carry the line of the slayer.
The show should have called a new slayer after Season 5 there isn’t a way around this, the show never talks to us about the reason one was never called and since it is so clear that both Buffy and Faith have the full abilities and access to the slayer powers the writers have to be responsible if they intend to change things. The conclusion that Buffy’s death in S5 should have called a new slayer is syllogistically correct and if the assumptions we are to work under are changed that MUST be done by the writers.
posted by: Miles on Wed, 2/1 06:27 PM EST
Miles,
The evidence of the show is what it is. Buffy dying called Kendra, Kendra called Faith. Buffy dying again called no-one, so it looks like you get one heir and one heir only. To me that makes sense and I would have been rather puzzled if another slayer had shown up. You are correct that the writers were fairly sloppy on this point - in S7 for example they do appear to have forgotten this but nothing that happens in the show actually contradicts the B-K-F line, so we can only assume Buffy was wrong when she was speaking to the potentials. And I don't think it is true that two slayer lines are establishd, that possibility is never mentioned. In every way Buffy is not a traditional Slayer, this is established as far back as the movie. She breaks every rule and tradition and by the end of Season 7 has completely destroyed the whole concept of "one girl in all the world." For most of her time as a Slayer she basically acts as a free agent, ignoring the Council, doing what she wants and relying on non-traditional allies, so it makes sense to me that she no longer carries the official Slayer line.
The larger problem with our argument is that is probably unresolveable. The writers on Buffy never took the mythology that seriously so it is very easy to find continuity problems. Buffy is not like Tolkien, where the fictional universe is supposed to make internal sense. Joss has always shown a willingness to break continuity if he wants to make some larger point about the real world.
The evidence of the show is what it is. Buffy dying called Kendra, Kendra called Faith. Buffy dying again called no-one, so it looks like you get one heir and one heir only. To me that makes sense and I would have been rather puzzled if another slayer had shown up. You are correct that the writers were fairly sloppy on this point - in S7 for example they do appear to have forgotten this but nothing that happens in the show actually contradicts the B-K-F line, so we can only assume Buffy was wrong when she was speaking to the potentials. And I don't think it is true that two slayer lines are establishd, that possibility is never mentioned. In every way Buffy is not a traditional Slayer, this is established as far back as the movie. She breaks every rule and tradition and by the end of Season 7 has completely destroyed the whole concept of "one girl in all the world." For most of her time as a Slayer she basically acts as a free agent, ignoring the Council, doing what she wants and relying on non-traditional allies, so it makes sense to me that she no longer carries the official Slayer line.
The larger problem with our argument is that is probably unresolveable. The writers on Buffy never took the mythology that seriously so it is very easy to find continuity problems. Buffy is not like Tolkien, where the fictional universe is supposed to make internal sense. Joss has always shown a willingness to break continuity if he wants to make some larger point about the real world.
First off, if I had to rank the seasons it'd have to be something like this: 6, 2, 5, 3, 7, 4, 1.
Season 1 is an acceptable intro to the characters but it is incredibly cheesy most of the time and had some truly terrible episodes in it. The fact that you think S1 is better than S4, S5, and S7 (the latter two especially) really surprises me. S1 isn't terrible but it's not even close to great. By the end of S3 I was *bored* of the high school setting and was ready for a change. I thought the direction of the series was wonderful.
One of the things I love most about the series is that it changes. It doesn't say in the same boring mold of "library as command central." Many of the things you pointed out as problems are things I feel are strengths. Some of your points I just don't agree with. When that happens I suppose there's nothing either of us can do but respect each others' views and let the topic rest.
If you're interested in hearing what I think about the series a lot more extensively, please feel free to check out my review site and agree/disagree with me either through e-mail or in my forums. Otherwise, I think it's time to put this subject to rest. S7 isn't my favorite of the seasons but I still find it extremely entertaining. :/
Season 1 is an acceptable intro to the characters but it is incredibly cheesy most of the time and had some truly terrible episodes in it. The fact that you think S1 is better than S4, S5, and S7 (the latter two especially) really surprises me. S1 isn't terrible but it's not even close to great. By the end of S3 I was *bored* of the high school setting and was ready for a change. I thought the direction of the series was wonderful.
One of the things I love most about the series is that it changes. It doesn't say in the same boring mold of "library as command central." Many of the things you pointed out as problems are things I feel are strengths. Some of your points I just don't agree with. When that happens I suppose there's nothing either of us can do but respect each others' views and let the topic rest.
If you're interested in hearing what I think about the series a lot more extensively, please feel free to check out my review site and agree/disagree with me either through e-mail or in my forums. Otherwise, I think it's time to put this subject to rest. S7 isn't my favorite of the seasons but I still find it extremely entertaining. :/
posted by: mikejer on Wed, 2/1 07:22 PM EST
-Vanya – I’m going to be upfront with you. I watched S4 live, and it was, at the time, my first season of Angel. At that point I was watching S2 of Buffy, and when I compared the two (also having no idea what was going on on Angel anyway) I found the show lacking. What I’ve done since is watched Angel S1-S3, and watched S4 and S5 again. Of course S4 was better (now knowing who the heck Fred/Gunn/Lorne was) but I still felt, even on DVD, that it was slow and ponderous.
Season two and three of Angel walked that perfect line of stand-alones and big arc, something that Buffy did pretty much until season seven. That for me is the beauty of the “Whedon TV formula�; stand-alones in the beginning, a mix of stand-alones and arc episodes in the middle, and toward the end only arc episodes to build dramatic momentum. Buffy seasons 1-6 follow this formula. Is it any coincidence that the two most disputed seasons of Buffy and Angel (S7 and S4) don’t? But I agree, 24, Alias, and Lost are much better to watch on DVD. Especially Lost.
Also, when is another podcast coming? I’m starting to think Revello is trapped underneath a pile of DVDs somewhere and needs our help. Wouldn’t a Buffy podcast that’s a discussion, like what we have here, be really interesting? That’s what I’d like to see…maybe I’ll have to make one.
-Noblecreed
Oh, and the Nazi demon thing? So stupid it actually hurt me a little.
Vanya -
You're right that the writers don't do anything about a continuity hole you could drive a truck through and I must admit Joss is far more in favor of doing the "right" thing than doing things that maintain the continuity of the universe. But I also don;t give the writers the benefit of the doubt with the one heir thing, if they don't explain it then they goofed, I'm not in the habit of explaining their storylines for them.
Mikejer -
What's the URL of your site?
Noblecreed -
I have a sort of sister podcast to Buffycast over at www.radiofreesunnydale.com if you are starved for entertainment. I will be posting the first substantive episode on Friday. I would love for the Buffycast community to come over and have a look. Since the show os still in it's infancy we could work toward making a more discussion oriented format if that's what people would dig hearing. I think you can record audio through skype... I think. Otherwise we could work to make a segmented show and just have a lot of people offer thoughts on the show topic.
You're right that the writers don't do anything about a continuity hole you could drive a truck through and I must admit Joss is far more in favor of doing the "right" thing than doing things that maintain the continuity of the universe. But I also don;t give the writers the benefit of the doubt with the one heir thing, if they don't explain it then they goofed, I'm not in the habit of explaining their storylines for them.
Mikejer -
What's the URL of your site?
Noblecreed -
I have a sort of sister podcast to Buffycast over at www.radiofreesunnydale.com if you are starved for entertainment. I will be posting the first substantive episode on Friday. I would love for the Buffycast community to come over and have a look. Since the show os still in it's infancy we could work toward making a more discussion oriented format if that's what people would dig hearing. I think you can record audio through skype... I think. Otherwise we could work to make a segmented show and just have a lot of people offer thoughts on the show topic.
posted by: Miles on Thu, 2/2 02:42 PM EST
The URL is: http://www.superjer.com/buffy
Also, my name links to my site.
I look forward to hearing your podcast Miles. It should prove to be interesting. :)
Also, my name links to my site.
I look forward to hearing your podcast Miles. It should prove to be interesting. :)
posted by: mikejer on Thu, 2/2 03:14 PM EST
Hi I My name is Andrew im 12 and a big fan of Buffy I agree with many of your points and critizizams of Dawns charictor but i also dissagree with alot of them. Dawn is a charictor that is very easy to relate to in the beging then you find out that she was a key and is not actually real. Even affter the end of the 5th season dawn contributes more to the show then I think you give her credit for. For example in Grave Dawn really shows what willow has turned into when she sees willow in the house. Dawn also provides a great segway to many thngs such as guidence councler buffy. The last thing that was said that was incorect in my opionion was that buffy didnt show dawn the world. I think that joss did a good of changing the relationship between buffy and Dawn.
Thank you hope you respond
Andrew Newhouse
Thank you hope you respond
Andrew Newhouse
I have to agree with Revello about Dawn . I didn't like her during the first run of the show but as I re-watched seasons 5-7 several times I understood her character more and grew to accept her. What I liked was how they progressed her character from a 14 year old brat to a maturing 16 young woman. Dawn's character had regular problems unlike our scoobies who always had supernatural ones. It gave a realistic view to her , the Dawn of season 7 was vastly different from that of season 5 . She had grown. The Buffy/Dawn dynamic has always bugged me. Even though I know Buffy loved Dawn she always seemed like a burden to her, One more thing for the slayer to deal with. I noticed that after Joyce passed Buffy closed herself off to Dawn emotionally and her sole purpose was as her protector. The mother role transitioned to Tara. In Season six we get to see how much Dawn depends and loves Tara. I know Tara's loss affected Willow the most but Dawn's grief barely registered. As for watcher junior, that was the only role within the scoobies that was availible to her. She was kind of being phased out like Xander was during seasons 4 & 5. Buffy was the Slayer, willow the Witch, Giles the Watcher, and even Anya was an 1100 year old former demon with oodles of demon knowledge. Xander didn't really have a part to play much the same as Dawn didn't after she was no longer in danger. I do admire Joss and the other writers for not taking the easy way out and making Dawn into a potential. If they had it would've given her a purpose a.k.a. a storyline instead she was just there,much like Xander. All dressed up with nowhere to go. What I will never forgive Dawn or Willow & Xander for is kicking Buffy out of her house. No amount of arguing will change that, EVER. Just plain wrong, so with the exception of that I like Dawn more each time I re-watch the episodes.
What I'd like to hear a discussion about is why Buffy was thrust into the Breadwinning role when she came back from Heaven/Hell. Did she live in the house alone? I seem to recall both Willow & Tara living there. To me it seemed like Oh, well your back now go get a job and support us because we need a roof over our heads and food while we go to school . What is everyone elses reactions and thoughts?
What I'd like to hear a discussion about is why Buffy was thrust into the Breadwinning role when she came back from Heaven/Hell. Did she live in the house alone? I seem to recall both Willow & Tara living there. To me it seemed like Oh, well your back now go get a job and support us because we need a roof over our heads and food while we go to school . What is everyone elses reactions and thoughts?
First, i have to say that miles is my master now... (-;
you managed to put your finger on the reasons why i had a hard time with Angel (especially S4) and S7 of Buffy (and you did it very funny and
clever).
Since i agree with mikejer that we should let go of the subject of worst season, i will let go. I'll only say that there weren't any seasons i "didn't like" , just ones i connected less with. I'll also say that S4 was really very good as a whole season as well as a bunch of good episodes - not like S7, that had some good episodes, but as a season was scattered all over the place.
That's it, letting go now (-:
About doyle:
Grounded wrote - "As for Doyle not being taken full advantage of as a character, I think that's going to be true for any Jossverse character
that gets killed off so quickly. I still think he shows remarkable depth
(even if they are "hidden depths" ;) )"
I don't agree, and like others claimed, i think it's the other way around - he was killed because the character didn't fit the series at that time (and maybe it was because joss didn't like the actor, who knows).
Just take "firefly" for example.
(SERENITY SPOILER NEXT).
if you count 14 episodes, one graphic novel and one movie, you can say wash and book was killed in the 16 episode. I don't remember in which episode doyle was killed, but both of them (especially wash) was really developed and 3D characters very early in the series. So it doesn't have to take long.
Speaking of firefly - although there's nothing like buffy, this is an amazing show (in a whole different way) that reached very high in a very short time. If you haven't seen it yet - i strongly recommend!
And one last thing - Ravello, don't be a stranger, feel free to write a word or two or a new podcast even (or we'll just keep talking in here about things not related to dawn, or buffy...)
But really - i hope everything is ok with you, and we'll hear from you soon.|
you managed to put your finger on the reasons why i had a hard time with Angel (especially S4) and S7 of Buffy (and you did it very funny and
clever).
Since i agree with mikejer that we should let go of the subject of worst season, i will let go. I'll only say that there weren't any seasons i "didn't like" , just ones i connected less with. I'll also say that S4 was really very good as a whole season as well as a bunch of good episodes - not like S7, that had some good episodes, but as a season was scattered all over the place.
That's it, letting go now (-:
About doyle:
Grounded wrote - "As for Doyle not being taken full advantage of as a character, I think that's going to be true for any Jossverse character
that gets killed off so quickly. I still think he shows remarkable depth
(even if they are "hidden depths" ;) )"
I don't agree, and like others claimed, i think it's the other way around - he was killed because the character didn't fit the series at that time (and maybe it was because joss didn't like the actor, who knows).
Just take "firefly" for example.
(SERENITY SPOILER NEXT).
if you count 14 episodes, one graphic novel and one movie, you can say wash and book was killed in the 16 episode. I don't remember in which episode doyle was killed, but both of them (especially wash) was really developed and 3D characters very early in the series. So it doesn't have to take long.
Speaking of firefly - although there's nothing like buffy, this is an amazing show (in a whole different way) that reached very high in a very short time. If you haven't seen it yet - i strongly recommend!
And one last thing - Ravello, don't be a stranger, feel free to write a word or two or a new podcast even (or we'll just keep talking in here about things not related to dawn, or buffy...)
But really - i hope everything is ok with you, and we'll hear from you soon.|
adi wrote: "I don't agree, and like others claimed, i think it's the other way around - he was killed because the character didn't fit the series at that time (and maybe it was because joss didn't like the actor, who knows)."
Joss has mentioned many times that he intended to kill Doyle before the series even began. In fact he's said that he originally wanted to do this with Buffy by putting Jesse in the main credits of the pilot, but ended up not being able to.
As for Wash and Book being really well developed, that's just plain not true. They are definitely strong characters, but we know almost nothing about them from a personal point of view, and they even had a few more hours of screen time than Doyle. Look at Wash, for example. He gets very little development until late in the series when we finally get to focus a little on him in War Stories. Aside from that episode, the closest he comes to development is a short chat with Zoe about having a baby or not.
Joss has mentioned many times that he intended to kill Doyle before the series even began. In fact he's said that he originally wanted to do this with Buffy by putting Jesse in the main credits of the pilot, but ended up not being able to.
As for Wash and Book being really well developed, that's just plain not true. They are definitely strong characters, but we know almost nothing about them from a personal point of view, and they even had a few more hours of screen time than Doyle. Look at Wash, for example. He gets very little development until late in the series when we finally get to focus a little on him in War Stories. Aside from that episode, the closest he comes to development is a short chat with Zoe about having a baby or not.
Adi & Grounded -
You're both right. Doyle had less screen time but more history. Wash and book had more screen time and less history. Doyle was in many ways similar to Wash in that he was vital to the plot but he had no interest in trying to drive the story. Book was a great character but if he had never boarded the ship the show would have functioned (just been different). The differnce we should point out is that Angel was a 3 person cast at that time with 2 characters that had 3 years of development on Buffy. Firefly was brand new. Doyle would have had to been well written, and directed to the forfront for us to think of him as a powerful character, the only person in the Wheadonverse I know of who was able to walk in with established characters and own the place was Eliza Dushku as Faith. Faith showed up in her first episode and owned Sunnydale witht he force of her personality.
Doyle was a great character, I don't much care if Joss wanted to kill him off in the begining cause he wanted to off Spike and Dru after a season as well and we all know how how well he did that. He was not powerful or forceful however, he was a guy trying to figure out what his place was in the world and I always felt that his character got a rough go of it from a writing perspective. I would have to go back and rewatch AS1 (I haven't seen it since it aired) but I always wanted more Doyle and never seemed to get it from what I remember.
But before we do anymore Firefly stuff we need a forum ~Pokes Revello~ You hear that! FORUM. It wouldn't hurt to make a podcast now and again too. i hate to pirate people but everyone is welcome to stop by radio free sunnydale. Heck I can even open up a section on the Forums for other Whedon shows if ya'll need/want a place to hash it out.
You're both right. Doyle had less screen time but more history. Wash and book had more screen time and less history. Doyle was in many ways similar to Wash in that he was vital to the plot but he had no interest in trying to drive the story. Book was a great character but if he had never boarded the ship the show would have functioned (just been different). The differnce we should point out is that Angel was a 3 person cast at that time with 2 characters that had 3 years of development on Buffy. Firefly was brand new. Doyle would have had to been well written, and directed to the forfront for us to think of him as a powerful character, the only person in the Wheadonverse I know of who was able to walk in with established characters and own the place was Eliza Dushku as Faith. Faith showed up in her first episode and owned Sunnydale witht he force of her personality.
Doyle was a great character, I don't much care if Joss wanted to kill him off in the begining cause he wanted to off Spike and Dru after a season as well and we all know how how well he did that. He was not powerful or forceful however, he was a guy trying to figure out what his place was in the world and I always felt that his character got a rough go of it from a writing perspective. I would have to go back and rewatch AS1 (I haven't seen it since it aired) but I always wanted more Doyle and never seemed to get it from what I remember.
But before we do anymore Firefly stuff we need a forum ~Pokes Revello~ You hear that! FORUM. It wouldn't hurt to make a podcast now and again too. i hate to pirate people but everyone is welcome to stop by radio free sunnydale. Heck I can even open up a section on the Forums for other Whedon shows if ya'll need/want a place to hash it out.
posted by: Miles on Tue, 2/7 01:01 PM EST
Done deal. Also if any Buffycasters head over to the site please let me know if you have any trouble getting the shows. Menachem has been kind enough to point out that I have made the raw MP3 files a little difficult to find. Please keep me posted that you are well... there, but also if you have problems.
posted by: Miles on Tue, 2/7 10:56 PM EST
Hey, is anyone else finding the length of this discussion growing quite unwieldy? Not to abandon Revello, but until he's up and running again, shall we continue on Miles' website, which will also give him a supportive boost? www.radiofreesunnydale.com
Traveller
Traveller
I'm really missing the BuffyCast. And I know most of you guys have moved to the other forum. But I wanted to put in my two cents.
Buffy was one of my favourite shows. I watched it religiously. I own all 7 seasons on DVD and I've probably watched them too many times to count.
Buffy succeeds when it works on Metophors. Buffy works best when situations and conflicts are small. This is why for me Season 2 was the best season as a whole. However, other seasons had better writing especially stand alone episodes. Season 2 of Buffy was personal. It had a perfect season arc plan. The first half built up the Angel/Buffy relationship and the second half was the opposite of that. Sure, the world was about to be sucked into hell, but the heart of the matter was Buffy vs. Angel at the end.
Yes, the writing is inconsistent...but all TV shows are. It really boggles my mind when Writers don't take the obvious choices instead opting for "twists" or "illogical" choices just so that the storylines seem original. But better flow and story and character arcs that make sense is preferable in my opinion.
The writers and Joss often have good ideas but fail to follow through. This is more evident in Season 6 and 7. Taking Willow to the dark side and be the main villian was a great idea...just poor execution. This was a wrong choice of Metaphor: Magic=Drugs. And it was also too forced. Season 7 also had a very exciting start, only to be bogged down by unneccessary developments and underdevelopments.
Season 4 also failed because it got away from Mythology and into Technology. This is Buffy. It's about magic. The initiative has no place in the Buffy world.
Season 5 had an intriguing idea with Glory and Ben. But again, they failed to properly explain and develop the "God" aspect or have sufficient material to maintain a full season.
But with all its inconsistencies, the writing improved immensely. Though they failed in season arcs, individual episodes continue to improve. The writing got more sophisticated. I found more mediocre episodes in Season 2 than in Season 7. Selfless, Storyteller, Conversations with Dead People are among some of my favourites of all time.
Season 3 came very close to incorporating all the elements. But funnily enough, it is not my favourite season. Where this season failed for my was the finale. They tried to make a "big" ending instead of keeping it personal like season 2. The highlight of the season should've been the Slayer vs. Slayer fight instead of Buffy vs. the Mayor. Yes, the Mayor was the big bad of the season...but the main conflict of the season was about the 2 Slayers. The end result was an anticlimatic end to a well constructed season.
I'm just really scratching the service about the series. Anyone else wanna talk Buffy, just leave me a message on my blog or send me an e-mail: http://www.noellachoi.com
Buffy was one of my favourite shows. I watched it religiously. I own all 7 seasons on DVD and I've probably watched them too many times to count.
Buffy succeeds when it works on Metophors. Buffy works best when situations and conflicts are small. This is why for me Season 2 was the best season as a whole. However, other seasons had better writing especially stand alone episodes. Season 2 of Buffy was personal. It had a perfect season arc plan. The first half built up the Angel/Buffy relationship and the second half was the opposite of that. Sure, the world was about to be sucked into hell, but the heart of the matter was Buffy vs. Angel at the end.
Yes, the writing is inconsistent...but all TV shows are. It really boggles my mind when Writers don't take the obvious choices instead opting for "twists" or "illogical" choices just so that the storylines seem original. But better flow and story and character arcs that make sense is preferable in my opinion.
The writers and Joss often have good ideas but fail to follow through. This is more evident in Season 6 and 7. Taking Willow to the dark side and be the main villian was a great idea...just poor execution. This was a wrong choice of Metaphor: Magic=Drugs. And it was also too forced. Season 7 also had a very exciting start, only to be bogged down by unneccessary developments and underdevelopments.
Season 4 also failed because it got away from Mythology and into Technology. This is Buffy. It's about magic. The initiative has no place in the Buffy world.
Season 5 had an intriguing idea with Glory and Ben. But again, they failed to properly explain and develop the "God" aspect or have sufficient material to maintain a full season.
But with all its inconsistencies, the writing improved immensely. Though they failed in season arcs, individual episodes continue to improve. The writing got more sophisticated. I found more mediocre episodes in Season 2 than in Season 7. Selfless, Storyteller, Conversations with Dead People are among some of my favourites of all time.
Season 3 came very close to incorporating all the elements. But funnily enough, it is not my favourite season. Where this season failed for my was the finale. They tried to make a "big" ending instead of keeping it personal like season 2. The highlight of the season should've been the Slayer vs. Slayer fight instead of Buffy vs. the Mayor. Yes, the Mayor was the big bad of the season...but the main conflict of the season was about the 2 Slayers. The end result was an anticlimatic end to a well constructed season.
I'm just really scratching the service about the series. Anyone else wanna talk Buffy, just leave me a message on my blog or send me an e-mail: http://www.noellachoi.com
posted by: Noella on Sat, 2/25 01:11 AM EST
I miss the podcast too. Revello has the best podcast out there. I really miss it.
posted by: femme feral on Tue, 2/28 01:09 AM EST
I just wanted to pop in here and agree with the Palaemon. I don't listen to podcasts, in general, at all. This one was really well thought out and interesting. It gave me new things to think about. A post on the front page would be nice to indicate whether the cast is, indeed, dead or not.
posted by: mikejer on Sat, 3/11 03:08 PM EST
Now let me just be mischievous and suggest the most inane waste of bandwidth ever to grace the 'net... BuffCast (without a "y"). My Joss, what a show! Makes me pine for Revello all the more.
On a more serious note... Miles, I only know of one consistent view of the slayer line of succession, and that is that the line has passed from Buffy to Kendra to Faith. Buffy is simply an abberation, an *extra* slayer, because she was brought back from death by Xander's mouth-to-mouth. My only explanation for Buffy's claim in Season 7 is that Buffy did not understand how things worked; you could argue that the *writers* were the ones who got it wrong, but that would just make me sad ;-)
On a more serious note... Miles, I only know of one consistent view of the slayer line of succession, and that is that the line has passed from Buffy to Kendra to Faith. Buffy is simply an abberation, an *extra* slayer, because she was brought back from death by Xander's mouth-to-mouth. My only explanation for Buffy's claim in Season 7 is that Buffy did not understand how things worked; you could argue that the *writers* were the ones who got it wrong, but that would just make me sad ;-)
One of the things I love about this show is that we, the audience, can actually come to a better understanding of the underlying metaphysics than do the characters themselves - we have a much wider view than any individual character can possibly acquire.
posted by: Professor on Mon, 3/13 12:58 AM EST
Well, Grounded, let me just ask... Who is the bigger fool, the one who broadcasts drivel, or the one who continues to download and listen to it? That's me, the second fool. I don't really mean to slag these guys off - they're just a couple of kids, a couple of fans, no more, no less. Good on them for having a go. Give them a listen if you are really in need of a Buffy hit.
posted by: Professor on Mon, 3/13 05:30 PM EST
I don't feel that those guys broadcast 'drivel' at all. While I completely agree they hardly go into any depth about the material, I've got to ask you the question of "who cares?" They and many of their listeners obviously enjoy just hearing their general opinions on the episodes. Some people don't want to dig deeper, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I commend the BuffCast guys for getting our there and talking about the show. The more exposure for the 'verse the better imo, and it's not like their shows are incomepetent or anything, which you seem to be insinuating. :/
I commend the BuffCast guys for getting our there and talking about the show. The more exposure for the 'verse the better imo, and it's not like their shows are incomepetent or anything, which you seem to be insinuating. :/
posted by: mikejer on Mon, 3/13 06:23 PM EST
I was indeed insinuating that their shows are imcompetent, which is ungracious of me, especially since I do in fact listen to them (and rather enjoy them). I apologise for being unkind and ungrateful; this BuffyCast community is normally free from such unpleasantness, and I should keep my stupidity to myself. Thanks, Mike.
posted by: Professor on Mon, 3/13 07:01 PM EST
Well, professor, your comments may have been unkind and ungrateful, but that doesn't make them untrue. Their podcast, which I've also listened to, tends to fall into the "better than nothing," category, though at times it doesn't even attain that. It's tedious at best, as they slog their inane way, episode through episode.
However, kudos of a sort to them for doing their bit to keep Buffy alive.
Should we have a wake for Buffycast? It seems well and truly deceased. Or at least in some alternative hell dimension...
I need to start frequenting Miles' forums more often.
However, kudos of a sort to them for doing their bit to keep Buffy alive.
Should we have a wake for Buffycast? It seems well and truly deceased. Or at least in some alternative hell dimension...
I need to start frequenting Miles' forums more often.
I also find myself, in the absence of Revello, listening to the Buffcast boys against my better judgement. If I pretend It's actually Jonathan and Andrew broadcasting, I can find it amusing and fascinating instead of infuriating. They've even got the unexamined homoerotic undertones going for them.
Revello, please come back....
Revello, please come back....
At risk of continuing in my sin, let me say that The Trio actually had dialogue hand-crafted by Joss and co, whereas BuffCast appears to be completely unscripted. So The Trio tended to be pithier, and BuffCast more... more spontaneous, shall we say?
I'll have to keep my ears out for the homoeroticism; it's difficult for my Australian ears to pick up the nuances in American speech ;-)
posted by: Professor on Wed, 3/15 11:41 PM EST
I AM SOOO HAPPY! GOD TOOK REVELLO LONG ENOUGH TO GET BUFFY CAST UP AGAIN.
But finaly it will be here. so i gess we all have that to sing about!!!
he has now given *sings* "us something to sing about....oh la la la la....i need something to sing about"....ok i'll stop now but yay thaks revello u r realy doing us a kindness.u make us all feel shiny
: )
But finaly it will be here. so i gess we all have that to sing about!!!
he has now given *sings* "us something to sing about....oh la la la la....i need something to sing about"....ok i'll stop now but yay thaks revello u r realy doing us a kindness.u make us all feel shiny
: )
FAITH: Damn! I never knew you were that cool.
Wow Rovello, no one's ever told me I make them feel all shiny. haha. I, too, am very excited to hear the 'cast continue though. :)
Wow Rovello, no one's ever told me I make them feel all shiny. haha. I, too, am very excited to hear the 'cast continue though. :)
posted by: mikejer on Thu, 3/16 01:25 PM EST
Don't be silly, Mike. I get told that all the time.
Psychologists among us will note the similarity between BuffyCast and the female orgasm. Very clever, Revello. Great to hear that you are alive and kicking.
posted by: Professor on Thu, 3/16 05:19 PM EST
There's still hope for Buffcast - they seem to be taking the Angel season 1 podcast a little more seriously. At least they seem to have their notes together. You want silly - there's also a buffy themed podcast called "Cold refreshing zima" which turns out to be just high school girls talking about Buffy. It is to Buffcast as Buffcast is to Buffycast.
Don't normally post here but lurk regularly to check for news about next Buffycast. Thrilled to see on March 15, my birthday, news of another podcast coming up. Revello, this was the best birthday present I got this year and I also got a digital camera (just don't tell my mum)!
Many many thanks to Vanya, for pointing me towards "Cool, refreshing Zima"! I only managed to hear/understand about one word in four, due to the Robert Altman overlapping speech thing, the accents, the audio quality, the squealing, etc, but it is indeed VERY entertaining. Three energetic, enthusiastic, highly imaginative girls, having a great time talking about their obsessions. And who could fail to be moved by their question "What is it with tentacle porn?"
I then went back to the boys at BuffCast, and yes, it did suddenly seem almost comprehensible in comparison, but also rather funereal. Incoherent and glacial like good Swedish cinema ;-)
Anyways, thanks Vanya, and everyone else... go check out "Cool, refreshing Zima".
posted by: Professor on Sun, 3/19 05:44 PM EST
I've actually listened to both of their podcasts so far, and was very entertained. Yes, it is very difficult to hear much of anything besides squealing, glee, and an amazing love of Andrew and Spike. But it's nevertheless very fun to just hear these girls be so enthusiastic about the show. I wish I knew some girls around where I live that loved BtVS that much. :D
posted by: mikejer on Sun, 3/19 07:57 PM EST
I don't really agree about Dawn becoming pointless after season five. I do agree that she's really, really annoying but she's definitely not useless.
She really became a mirror in order to reflect other characters changes in. Every character's developing character arcs directly affected her in some way.
Such as, I don't agree that her becoming a kelpto was in vain, and a pointless sub-plot. I think that it showed how Buffy's point of view was becoming skewed and she was neglecting a lot of her social ties. Without something obvious other than the usual "ho-hum, where is buffy?" banter, things really wouldn't click just how different things were after Joyce died. It showed just how much differently Buffy had to manage her like and responsibilies, because she was no longer just living for herself to look after and her own duties to do. She has another person to look after on a day-to-day basis.
Every character on the show had a purpose. Even if it's not to observe their own story line, they directly show perspective on others.
She really became a mirror in order to reflect other characters changes in. Every character's developing character arcs directly affected her in some way.
Such as, I don't agree that her becoming a kelpto was in vain, and a pointless sub-plot. I think that it showed how Buffy's point of view was becoming skewed and she was neglecting a lot of her social ties. Without something obvious other than the usual "ho-hum, where is buffy?" banter, things really wouldn't click just how different things were after Joyce died. It showed just how much differently Buffy had to manage her like and responsibilies, because she was no longer just living for herself to look after and her own duties to do. She has another person to look after on a day-to-day basis.
Every character on the show had a purpose. Even if it's not to observe their own story line, they directly show perspective on others.
posted by: geekyaimee on Fri, 3/24 02:13 AM EST
"Every character on the show had a purpose. Even if it's not to observe their own story line, they directly show perspective on others."
Since pretty much any character on any show can be said to 'show perspective on others', I don't think you can count that as a purpose.
Since pretty much any character on any show can be said to 'show perspective on others', I don't think you can count that as a purpose.
Hello everybody! Although I've been an avid listener of Revello's excellent podcast (and so have my colleagues, through the wonders of iTrip, whether they like it or not), I've never dropped in here before.
I thought Dawn's introduction was a stroke of genius, although it seemed to me that she was written a little young. With regards to Dawn and her key powers, I find myself agreeing with some of the comments above. Making Dawn completely mundane after the Gift seemed like a very odd choice. I didn't watch Buffy to watch normal people deal with normal issues (or if I did, then Xander was the token muggle) but to see these issues reflected in a supernatural mirror. The Key seemed to open up such enormous potential for storytelling and character growth, and I was really expecting more to come of it in Season Six. Instead, Dawn was left with very little to do.
P.S. Within moments of reading this board I appear to have become subscribed to cool, refreshing zima.
I thought Dawn's introduction was a stroke of genius, although it seemed to me that she was written a little young. With regards to Dawn and her key powers, I find myself agreeing with some of the comments above. Making Dawn completely mundane after the Gift seemed like a very odd choice. I didn't watch Buffy to watch normal people deal with normal issues (or if I did, then Xander was the token muggle) but to see these issues reflected in a supernatural mirror. The Key seemed to open up such enormous potential for storytelling and character growth, and I was really expecting more to come of it in Season Six. Instead, Dawn was left with very little to do.
P.S. Within moments of reading this board I appear to have become subscribed to cool, refreshing zima.
Looking back at seasons 6 and 7, with Dawn slowly fading to the background, it's really surprising they didn't write Dawn out of the show. They did that so well with Oz and Angel, among others. Maybe a story line involving someone else who wanted to use the Key; or the expiration of the monks' magic. Considering how important Dawn was in season 5, I think she deserved a decent story arc.
I really enjoyed the podcast on Dawn, (as i have all of Revello's podcasts (wish there were more)) and it made me reassess Dawn as a character. She was bearable in season 5 and her scenes with Spike were particularly good, she never did seem to whine as much with him as she did with the others - maybe something about hime not treating her like a freak. I think the shame that in season 7 that they didn't take the opportunity to re-establish their relationship post ensoulment.
Bring Back the Podcast!!!!
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