On season 4 of Buffy...should I be watching Angel?

At the time, I am the youngest sibling so there is that and I had a crush on Michelle Trachtenberg...still do! I think Dawn brought a different dynamic to the show.

 

All of this will be explained.

 

I also really like Dawn.

 

I didn't like her at all at first, and not just due to her sudden appearance, but IIRC she grew on me over time.

 

Dawn is Buffy's annoying, bratty teenage sister, and she acts just like you would expect an annoying, bratty teenage girl to act.

And since nobody likes annoying, bratty teenage girls, I am fine with Dawn as a character. She acts like she's supposed to.

 

That is kind of the point of her character though. Without giving away too much plot, we tend to see Dawn the same way Buffy sees her--as an annoying little sister who is too much of a burden at times. Without that introduction to the character the show would have lost a lot of its emotional impact.

 

So the good guys now possess a device that splits somebody into their positive qualities and negative qualities.

...This is going to be used on Spike, isn't it?

 

And let me just add that I LOVE the way they introduced Dawn. I love when TV shows throw gigantic WTF moments at the audience with no warning. They kind of put us in similar position as the other characters, but without the

Spoiler

. When I first saw the end of Buffy v Dracula, I immediately went back to the prior episode, thinking I had missed something. I hadn't.

But there IS that scene in the season 4 episode, the dream sequence where Buffy and Faith are making up the bed and talking. Faith says something like "with little sister coming".

I asked my Buffy afficianado daughter about this and she chalked it up to Slayer dream premonitions. Anyone else with a thought on this?

Did you want to be spoiled, or are your questions rhetorical?

 

"Premonitions" is one way to put it. I just chalk it up to "Buffy magic." It's just there, but don't think too much about the details--sort of like Star Trek magic.

However, the some hardcore folks think the scene from "This Year's Girl" was supposed to echo the similar scene from "Graduation Day," in which the cat is supposed to be an early foreshowing of Dawn. There's even a thing with clocks that I never fully understood.

 

The season 3 finale, that was, and Faith even says the number of days until Dawn arrives.

 

I'm just keeping an eye out for how the introduction of mechanisms for Spike to truly become a protagonist.

 

I have to ask. If Darla has access to Angel while he's asleep and helpless, why not just stake him?

Villains seem to always reject coup de grace opportunities in this franchise. When they have the hero in a death grip their first instinct is to toss them across the room.

 

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say that you should consider why they wouldn't kill someone they had an opportunity to kill.

 

They're trying to trigger his happy center, right? These business oriented villains seem to not fundamentally understand risk-reward calculation.

 

Me, too. (Or three, to be maximum cliché)

 

Wasn't there another dream sequence where Tara actually said "Dawn is coming"? Only it was in such a way that we interpreted it to mean morning.

 

http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Dawn_Summers

 

If you wanna feel old, Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Dawn, turned 30 on Sunday

 

THAT was the equation!

 

That makes me feel young actually! At least in comparison, though I'm not too far behind her.

I guess that's one reason I liked Dawn as well, since we were close in age. Also may have had a bit of a crush on her.