Re: Notes froma Buffy Virgin - Season Two
True, it just seems like more of a deal should have been made about it.
Notes from a Buffy Virgin - Season Two
- Thread starter Lapis Exilis
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Re: Notes froma Buffy Virgin - Season Two
I get that - there's a quality about Buffy that's fairly old school in that way. Just as you never get much explanation about Star Fleet command in TOS, because as you say, it's just background and an occasional story device. Likewise, the Watchers seem very inconsistent, especially the no Watcher for Faith, which conveniently lets her go bad without anyone noticing. You would guess that the whole point of the Watchers is to avoid just such a situation, given the power of the Slayer, or at least the power the Slayer is said to have, but that is treated in much the same way - just as background to set up the formula of superpowered, supercute high school heroine having many long drawn out fist fights in and around the school.
Just saw Dopplegangland which was super fun, but then Willow is by far my favorite character.
ETA - propita, it's from Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The full quote is:
"Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
I get that - there's a quality about Buffy that's fairly old school in that way. Just as you never get much explanation about Star Fleet command in TOS, because as you say, it's just background and an occasional story device. Likewise, the Watchers seem very inconsistent, especially the no Watcher for Faith, which conveniently lets her go bad without anyone noticing. You would guess that the whole point of the Watchers is to avoid just such a situation, given the power of the Slayer, or at least the power the Slayer is said to have, but that is treated in much the same way - just as background to set up the formula of superpowered, supercute high school heroine having many long drawn out fist fights in and around the school.
Just saw Dopplegangland which was super fun, but then Willow is by far my favorite character.
ETA - propita, it's from Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The full quote is:
"Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."
Re: Notes froma Buffy Virgin - Season Two
I think what they were trying to do there was imply that Giles' competence was perhaps not a guarantee - Wesley was obviously the favourite son of the Council (although not, you find out later, literally) and given a job he was theoretically prepared for but in reality hopeless at - watching two slayers at once. You're right, it is a bit silly that they didn't assign two watchers, but with Anthony Head still around that would mean three Watcher characters all at once, and make things a bit crowded, from a drama point of view, especially since the Mayor is that sort of character as well.
I think what they were trying to do there was imply that Giles' competence was perhaps not a guarantee - Wesley was obviously the favourite son of the Council (although not, you find out later, literally) and given a job he was theoretically prepared for but in reality hopeless at - watching two slayers at once. You're right, it is a bit silly that they didn't assign two watchers, but with Anthony Head still around that would mean three Watcher characters all at once, and make things a bit crowded, from a drama point of view, especially since the Mayor is that sort of character as well.
That episode is excellent - a few goods ones to come before the end of the season too
I love Season 2. For me it's Buffy's peak. Season 3 is as good in terms of characters and stuff, but Season 2 has the best arc and David Boreanaz was superb as Angelus - the best villain the show's ever had. Don't worry though, there's still lots of great stuff to come, especially Season 5, which had the second best arc in my opinion.
Gotta love the "Nerds of Doom", whom you thought were the big bad...but then...
I was rather partial to:
"It's really nice that you guys missed me... Say, you all didn't happen to do a bunch of drugs, did ya?"
"It's really nice that you guys missed me... Say, you all didn't happen to do a bunch of drugs, did ya?"
I was never particularly satisfied with how the Watchers Council was portrayed. They seemed to have all these resources and yet they did jack shit with them. I think it might have worked better if the Council was eventually revealed as an enthusiastic but ineffectual group of self-important losers with no life, kinda like a lot of those groups of UFO watchers on The X-Files.
Kinda silly and yet, having a big, pointless argument over something that happened 4 1/2 years ago would be totally in keeping with the assholes the characters became by Seasons 6 & 7.
I liked season 2 a lot, but it couldn't hold a candle to season 3 for me. The Mayor and Faith was a fantastic arc, and every character got something worth doing. Plus the Big Bad was actually worthy of his scariness. Angel; goes bad, has one episode actually focusing on that in between (Passion, which I'll grant is outstanding) and then goes good again. Don't get me wrong, I loved both the Surprise and Becoming two parters, but I would have loved for Angelus to actually do some evil stuff in between, he was remarkably ineffectual as a foe for Buffy despite them hyping him up. The Mayor was built up much better, imho. Lots of little stories and little moments before he became the villain proper in Graduation Day.
I tend to agree about Angel. I mean, yeah, he killed Jenny Calendar, which was awful. But otherwise, what did he really do? Buffy fought some of his vampire minions, but there really wasn't a huge build up to just how evil he was (especially with how evil we come to learn he actually used to be).
The missus and I have been rewatching the series on whatever night there isn't new TV on. Last night we got up to Graduation Day and watched both parts straight thru.
It's every bit as awesome and compelling today as it was the first time we saw it ten years ago.
Yikes, ten years?!
It's every bit as awesome and compelling today as it was the first time we saw it ten years ago.
Yikes, ten years?!
Well there was proabably an issue of how evil could Angelus really be on at 8pm show on the WB. Especially if good Angel was going to be coming back next season, he couldn't be too evil I suppose
He was gonna nail a puppy to Buffy's front door though
Plus he was gonna kill Willow in Innocence had Buffy & Xander not intervened, he vamped Buffy's classmate in Phases, ripped out some girls heart as a present to Dru in B,B&B, was gonna kill Xander in the same ep had Drusilla not saved him, almost killed Buffy & Cordelia in the teaser of Killed By Death, went off with Dru in I Only Have Eyes For You to kill a toddler, was gonna vamp that kid in Go Fish if not for the fishy taste, and tried to end in the world in Becoming
And I'm sure he got up to a lot inbetween. So it's not like he didn't do anything
He was gonna nail a puppy to Buffy's front door though
Plus he was gonna kill Willow in Innocence had Buffy & Xander not intervened, he vamped Buffy's classmate in Phases, ripped out some girls heart as a present to Dru in B,B&B, was gonna kill Xander in the same ep had Drusilla not saved him, almost killed Buffy & Cordelia in the teaser of Killed By Death, went off with Dru in I Only Have Eyes For You to kill a toddler, was gonna vamp that kid in Go Fish if not for the fishy taste, and tried to end in the world in Becoming
And I'm sure he got up to a lot inbetween. So it's not like he didn't do anything
I thought Buffy was excellent from start to finish, but I'll have to admit, Seasons 2 and 3 was where its at. The dark Angelus arc, and the Faith and Mayor stuff in season 3, priceless. I wish I'd never seen it, so I could go back and watch the show again for the first time.
Bloody hell, ten years indeed.
Where did the last decade go? Scary.
Buffy remains as great now as it did then. Let's hope it holds up in another 10 years.
Well, I've been noticing the various Twilight parallels, from what I know of that story. Obviously the main difference is the ass-kicking lead versus the "ordinary" bookish outsider. But Buffy constantly acknowledges the ridiculous age difference, whereas Twilight entirely ignores it. In any vampire romance story, I'm always down to wondering why any hundreds of years old being would fall in love with a 35 year mortal, much less a 15 year old. Not that Buffy's story makes just a ton of sense with stalker demon and Angel spying on Buffy pre-Slayer and Angle suddenly being struck by a desire to help her. Still, the off-the-cuff, tongue-in-cheek quality of Buffy, along with the numerous other reality-defying tropes of the show makes their romance much easier to handle than most.
And I'll admit that while I found Gellar not too compelling at first, she really does shine in the Angel material. That girl can cry with gut-wrenching loss and pain, then suck it up and get on with her duties just like a real woman!
I think The Body in season 4 really shows off that she has some acting skill. It's the one piece of TV that makes me cry when I watch.