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

[JirinPanthosa]

Haha, love the fanfiction parody episode.

 

[Iamnotspock]

With the breath thing, I've always taken it more as that breathing is a voluntary act rather than a survival need, that they don't need oxygen but can still work their lungs. After all, if they can operate their other muscles to walk around, they should be able to operate their diaphragms as well. Although I'm not sure the shows presented that consistently -- I do seem to recall references to vampires having "no breath" even though they were clearly talking.

Could we maybe rationalise Angel's statement about having no breath to mean that he breathes out something as a voluntary act, as you say, but that his lungs don't convert oxygen into carbon dioxide? So, he knew that his breath wouldn't be of any use. Time was of the essence; he and Xander needed to revive Buffy quickly, so he wouldn't have gone into detail.

Another one that always bugged me: How come screen vampires are always so nicely coiffed and groomed when they can't see themselves in mirrors?

I love that gag in Angel where, in the alternate dimension of Pylea, Angel can see his reflection and is shocked and dismayed to see that his hair sticks up the way it does. "Is it always like this?! Why didn't anybody tell me?!"

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Not converting oxygen would have been a good thing though.

 

[JD]

It seems like they're gradually making Spike into a protagonist but I don't know how he will ever really be one unless he gets gypsy cursed and this transitionary stage is kind of annoying.

Don't get me wrong, I like Wesley, but having only one out of three castmembers being at all combat capable is unbalanced.

When I read posts like this it is so hard for me not to make spoilery comments.
As for Buffy Season 4, I thought The Intiative was a cool idea, but the execution wasn't always that great. I still do enjoy the season overall, though and I thought we did get some good stuff from the Initative.

 

[Christopher]

Could we maybe rationalise Angel's statement about having no breath to mean that he breathes out something as a voluntary act, as you say, but that his lungs don't convert oxygen into carbon dioxide? So, he knew that his breath wouldn't be of any use. Time was of the essence; he and Xander needed to revive Buffy quickly, so he wouldn't have gone into detail.

You're getting it backward. Oxygen is what Buffy needed. The reason artificial respiration works is that our lungs only convert part of the oxygen into carbon dioxide; what we breathe out still has a lot of oxygen in it. And if Angel's breath were just ordinary, unaffected air, that would give Buffy even more oxygen than a living person's breath would.

 

[gblews]

As for the Initiative - it was a nice try, but it sort cast a bright light on the writing staff's total lack of knowledge of "the military", and they obviously didn't bother to get a consultant.

I don't think lack of knowledge of military tactics was the thing that makes season 4 most fans' least favorite; it's Adam. He was the worst big bad of the entire series, worse than the The Master, worse than The Trio, by far. The character was boring and the actor playing him didn't help. The character was one dimensional, lacking personality, humor, all of this delivered in a monotone.

As others have pointed out, there were some great season 4 episodes (why couldn't "The Gentlemen" have been the big bad?), but I always fast forward through all of Adam's painful to listen to, speeches during season 4 re-watches.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

The other thing that made Adam a lackluster villain is that he showed up about halfway through the season. It's like the writers were scrambling to come up with a Big Bad and thought "What the hey! We'll use the Frankenstein-like guy."

 

[DonIago]

I think it might have made for a more interesting storyline if The Initiative itself had remained the evident Big Bad rather than having it be "subverted" by Adam.

Exactly -how- The Initiative could turn out to be TBB is something I'm not entirely sure of, since their goals seemed reasonable enough on the face of it, but...

While The Gentlemen made for a unique and interesting adversary, I can't see them sustaining a season. If nothing else the novelty would have been lost.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

I agree. It's too bad that Maggie Walsh was killed. She could have been a good villain. She already had the creepy factor and hidden agenda thing going for her.

 

[DonIago]

I don't really know how this could have panned out since it just occurred to me, but given what The Initiative seemed to be going for, I wonder whether there would have been a worthwhile story in Maggie capturing Buffy with the goal of unlocking her powers to create an "army" of Slayers (yes yes, this was somewhat played with in later seasons, but...) and the rest of the Scooby Gang having to launch a rescue mission.

I can't see that carrying the entire season (how far in were we before Maggie started to show her true colors anyhow?), but Buffy being out of the picture for a few episodes at least I think could have led to some interesting character growth and possibly led to something more interesting at season's end. I do like how Adam was dealt with, and if Maggie did tap the Slayer's power than the final episode potentially could have still occurred largely unchanged.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

It was "The I In Team" (episode 13) when Buffy joins the Intiative and Maggie sees her as a threat and tries to have her killed. Then at the end we meet her project (Adam) but then he kills her.

So just as we were finding out her ulterior motives, she dies. I like your idea about her trying to create an army of Slayers and tapping into Buffy's power. It could have made season 4 a lot better.

 

[DonIago]

Well, now I'm actually looking at the episode list for the season, and it's troubling to think that we would have lost the return of Faith, or it would have to be retooled. "Superstar" perhaps could have been shuffled around to keep it workable, and I think the return of Oz could have worked in any case. And as we've already discussed, things still could have played out in a way that would have led to "Restless", with some changes.

I could see Buffy being taken prisoner for three episodes or so, needing an episode to recover from her experiences, and then taking on The Initiative leading into the final episodes of the season.

If they wanted to be particularly daring they'd do an episode dealing with the Scooby Gang coping with/adapting to the loss of Buffy in which SMG didn't even appear (or perhaps only appeared in the teaser or at the very end).

So, my theory right now is that this could have worked, but I'll reserve judgment on whether it would have been better than the Adam storyline.

I think one misstep was that while Maggie's death is a decent enough surprise, it robs us of the chance to see her and Adam ever interact in any meaningful fashion.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

Yes their interaction would have been interesting. There are so many should've/could've/would've's with the season. It was just terribly weak. I think it was because 1. Joss left to do Angel and 2. It was their first season out of the familiar high school setting.

 

[Taylirious]

My problem with S4 was like any series that spends the majority of time in HS and then tries to do the college thing, it doesn't work for me and was just awkward. I kinda wish they did a time jump and just come back to Sunnydale like 5 years later. I felt the same way about SMALLVILLE. The HS stuff is great but then there is the awkward trying to do college and keep the cast together thing but really they just want to show these characters as adults anyway so just do that.

 

[DonIago]

Good point there. Glee had the same problem.

Actually, I wonder whether any series didn't have that problem.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Joss didn't "leave" Buffy until after season five. Noxon didn't fully take over the day-to-day until they switched to UPN.

As far as Adam goes, he was always intended to be there. Frankenstein's monster is foreshadowed several times early in the season--but it was supposed to be closer to the traditional story. But Crouse got cold feet and bowed out early. So they "killed" Maggie and gave Adam a stronger personality.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

Ah, okay thanks. I didn't know that.

It's a shame she left early.

 

[JD]

Yeah, if she stuck around they could've then had her as the main threat, but with Adam as her muscle. I think that by itself could have helped things.

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

Definitely. Oh well, at least things improved with 5, 6, and 7.

 

[Ethros]

And another thing about Adam was that he had a floppy disc drive. Even when then episode aired in 2000 it felt out of date!