Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel - First Time Viewer

[Forbin]

This Year's Girl

After a stretch of episodes that felt borderline boring/melodramatic, Faith does indeed bring some life back to the show. I wasn't surprised Faith returned, but I was actually surprised they brought back the Mayor. I love how Dushku and Groaner have the ability to chew the scenery in a fun kind of demented way. This episode was somewhat set up for part 2, but it was terrific set up. That's twice now as well where Buffy and Faith fight and it's amazing.

I'm watching part 2 and know that the device that was used switched bodies. I don't know what year the movie Face/Off came out, but it looks like this will be Buffy's version of that. Also, I'm kinda afraid I won't know the significance of 5 X 5 until I see Angel, and I'm late in the season now where I'm committed to not seeing the Angel part of this crossover until I am watching the series full time.

Well, to be fair, body switching stories have been around forever. This had more in common with Trek's 1969 ep Turnabout Intruder or the 70s film Freaky Friday than Face/Off (no surgery being involved). Farscape has my favorite body switching ep ever, with all the main cast switching randomly, and Chrichton ending up in Erin's body, checking out his own rack.

 

[tomalak301]

Well, to be fair, body switching stories have been around forever. This had more in common with Trek's 1969 ep Turnabout Intruder or the 70s film Freaky Friday than Face/Off (no surgery being involved). Farscape has my favorite body switching ep ever, with all the main cast switching randomly, and Chrichton ending up in Erin's body, checking out his own rack.

Out of Their Minds was the second episode of Farscape I ever watched. The first was Won’t get Fooled Again. What a way to get introduced to that series, with two of the craziest episodes you’d ever see.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Nice to get some disagreement on Superstar. Maybe it was an episode I didn’t expect. I could see myself growing into it on rewatches. With all the talk about Mary Sues in the last year this episode took that theme and flipped it on its head. I guess my issue wasn’t really with the episode but maybe where it was placed in the season. We have this stretch where the season feels like it’s dragging to the end and then this episode comes along and it’s... different.

With that said ive been speeding up watching these episodes. Maybe because the season is almost done and in a few weeks I go out of town for a few days and want to get the series done by the end of June, at least. I think my goal is to at least be starting Angel before I leave for Vegas for the Trek convention in the first week in August.

Hot tip: You might want to try and finish out the season tonight, then. You're gonna want to give yourself time to sleep on the season finale and let it marinate in your brain overnight.

 

[tomalak301]

Hot tip: You might want to try and finish out the season tonight, then. You're gonna want to give yourself time to sleep on the season finale and let it marinate in your brain overnight.

I was hoping to finish the season tonight. 4 episodes in a night is doable.

 

[JD]

2) Giles singing might be my favorite thing that has happened this season. Holy Crap Anthony Head has a voice.

I believe Anthony Head did release at least one or two albums, and he was also one of the leads of the horror/rock opera movie Repo: The Genetic Opera.

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Chrichton ending up in Erin's body, checking out his own rack.

Aeryn not Erin.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Also, regarding Buffy alumni singing.
Check out James Marster‘s rock music career with Ghost of the Robot

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[tomalak301]

Also, regarding Buffy alumni singing.
Check out James Marster‘s rock music career with Ghost of the Robot

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Not bad. Nice summer song that sounds very 90s.

I was also searching on Youtube for the Anthony Head scene again and evidently he recorded a full version of the song. This cast is multi-talented.

 

[JD]

I was pretty blown away by how well most the cast of the did in the musical. I'm not ashamed to admit I bought the CD almost as soon and it came out, and listened to it constantly for a while.
Nicholas Brendon was probably the weakest singer, but I'm thinking they must have known this because he only has one song where he sings about half of it solo and that's about it.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I was pretty blown away by how well most the cast of the did in the musical. I'm not ashamed to admit I bought the CD almost as soon and it came out, and listened to it constantly for a while.
Nicholas Brendon was probably the weakest singer, but I'm thinking they must have known this because he only has one song where he sings about half of it solo and that's about it.

Spoiler: Musical

no, that was Willow „... I think my line is just filler anyway...“

 

[tomalak301]

I was pretty blown away by how well most the cast of the did in the musical. I'm not ashamed to admit I bought the CD almost as soon and it came out, and listened to it constantly for a while.
Nicholas Brendon was probably the weakest singer, but I'm thinking they must have known this because he only has one song where he sings about half of it solo and that's about it.

I will probably say this again when I get closer to it but when I started this, one of my first thoughts was that I will finally see the musical, the one episode that was referenced when Enterprise was airing and people were saying that Star Trek should have done a musical. Now that I know Marsters and Head can sing, I’m really looking forward to hearing Gellar sing.

 

[JD]

Spoiler: Musical

no, that was Willow „... I think my line is just filler anyway...“

Spoiler: Musical

I was thinking she did Under Your Spell with Amber Benson, which I was one of my favorite songs, but I the Buffy Wiki says it was just Benson, so I honestly don't remember Alyson Hannigan's singing. I did get a big kick out of I'll Never Tell, but I was thinking Nicholas Brandon's parts of that were more talking singing, than full on singing. I haven't watched it in ages though, so my memory might be playing tricks on me.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

Spoiler: Musical

I was thinking she did Under Your Spell with Amber Benson, which I was one of my favorite songs, but I the Buffy Wiki says it was just Benson, so I honestly don't remember Alyson Hannigan's singing. I did get a big kick out of I'll Never Tell, but I was thinking Nicholas Brandon's parts of that were more talking singing, than full on singing. I haven't watched it in ages though, so my memory might be playing tricks on me.

Spoiler

You don't remember it because it was borderline non-existant. Everyone was very clear on the fact that she couldn't sing, so they deliberately staged it all in such a way that she wouldn't have to, except for a line or two singing backup.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

I think my favourite song from Ghost Of The Robot is Goodnight Sweet Girl. Dangerous is also a fun little ditty.

 

[Jayson1]

I was pretty blown away by how well most the cast of the did in the musical. I'm not ashamed to admit I bought the CD almost as soon and it came out, and listened to it constantly for a while.
Nicholas Brendon was probably the weakest singer, but I'm thinking they must have known this because he only has one song where he sings about half of it solo and that's about it.

No that has got to be Hannigan. I don't even think she sings at all in the episode. She does get that funny "I think this line is filler" line though which always makes me laugh.

Jason

 

[Guy Gardener]

Spoiler: Musical

I was thinking she did Under Your Spell with Amber Benson, which I was one of my favorite songs, but I the Buffy Wiki says it was just Benson, so I honestly don't remember Alyson Hannigan's singing.

This is intentional.

The end of the song...

"You make me complete, you make me complete, you make me cum"

The song ended abruptly half way through the word complete.

Sneaky rat bastards dancing around censorship.

 

[JD]

Spoiler

You don't remember it because it was borderline non-existant. Everyone was very clear on the fact that she couldn't sing, so they deliberately staged it all in such a way that she wouldn't have to, except for a line or two singing backup.

OK, I guess I was mistaken then.

 

[CorporalClegg]

As good as ASH and Marsters are, for me, the stand out performance was by the person who had a song in the musical that wasn't actually in the musical. As lame-ass as that sounds.

 

[JD]

I know what scene you're talking about, but I cannot remember who the person is.

 

[PsychoPere]

Honestly, thinking on it some more, I think you'll be fine not seeing Five by Five & Sanctuary until your Angel binge.

[...]

This is my really long-winded way of saying that a not small portion of the fandom never saw any of the Faith stuff from Angel and understood Buffy: Season 7 just fine.

While this is strictly true, I'll add that I found the four episodes taken together as a consecutive whole to be even more powerful than split up as two separate two-parters the first time around that I was able to do a full Buffy / Angel back-and-forth watch.

 

[tomalak301]

New Moon Rising

Finally, a show actually has true representation for the LGBT and Teen community. What do I mean by that. One of the issues I have when people scream representation is I feel like that has to be a lot more "special" than it should be and it can't be "normal". I go back to shows which have a relationship but one of the characters gets killed off, or, hell what happened in Season 1 of Star Trek Discovery with Stamets and Culber. The writers said that they would portray true LGBT representation for those characters and to be honest I think they made a major mistake killing Culber off and it impacted those characters significantly in Season 2.

How this relates to New Moon Rising is finally, a show that speaks to people on a personal level. No Tricks, no gimmicks, just people. Oz returns and puts Willow in a very complicated position. What we see is a college student try to navigate this position in a realistic and very personal way. She isn't the same person as she was when Oz left. She's changed, and Tera has made her better I think. It was absolutely a pleasure watching a story be told like this. This story absolutely put the characters front a center, and it's a story about love and the turbulence to life it might cause. I really do wish more shows just took that attitude. You don't need gimmicks, or kill people off to make a relationship mean something. Just make it a relationship, foibles and all.

This episode also really made me think I can come around on the Buffy/Reily relationship. As I've said, the issue I've had with it was it was dragging the season down and I've been starting to miss "our" Buffy. Well, that Buffy made a comeback and the whole thing about loyalty, this episode dealt with it in a good and positive way. Also, the beginning of the episode had Buffy calling him a bigot for not understanding the Oz/Willow thing. I think the thing I loved the most about this story arc was it came back around to it and it was Buffy who admitted she was in the wrong. Instead of tossing these words around, we had these two characters coming to an understanding about why they were both wrong and meeting in the middle. In society today it's so easy to toss around words like Bigot and Racist that it feels like those words have lost meaning. To have a show like this (And this is a progressive show) have two people on either extreme coming together in the center, I really wish that would happen more in todays world. I know it's a pipe dream, but it's still a dream.

This episode might be a top 5 episode for me, Maybe even top 3. It took the qualities of the best of this series and it actually made LGBT representation matter, the right, personal, and realistic way. Well done, show. Well done.

I’m fully on board withTera now. She understood what Willow was feeling and was patient with her. What a great friend and character.