Nik at Nite: January 2011

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Buffy vs. Edward

I posted this once before, back when it first came out, but it's always worth revisiting, especially in light of our Buffy Rewatch. One of the reasons I started the rewatch was because, despite using this blog to talk about Lost for the past five years, I've constantly referenced Buffy and discovered that many of the Lost fans following this blog hadn't watched the show. I wanted to open them up to this amazing world and let them see for themselves why BtVS is still so close to my heart. But I also wanted to return to the brilliance of Joss Whedon's creation in light of the vamp-mania that's happening right now: suddenly all the vampires are broody (like Angel) or dancing around delighting in their kills (like Angelus) and the irony has been (pardon the pun) sucked right out of everything Joss did. The new vampire shows take themselves WAY too seriously, lacking the sarcasm and punch that BtVS had.

Twilight, of course, is the ultimate example of this. And as I've said many times before, I don't mock it without knowing it. I suffered through the first book, thought Edward was an abusive stalker and Bella needed to grow a spine. (And I don't mean any offense to the many of you who enjoyed the books; some of my closest friends are Twilight fans...) ;) I've seen the movies (I just couldn't read any more of that craptastic writing) and I hated those as much as the first book.

This GENIUS mash-up of the Twilight film with various scenes from the complete series of BtVS sets up the dichotomy between the two brilliantly. Edward is a useless drip, pining after Buffy; Pattinson's acting is flat and wooden compared to Gellar's in every scene; his words are mindless and boring and obvious while Buffy is quick with the puns; the dialogue is amazing, the camaraderie between her and the others is great, and the film stock just looks better (and yes, yes, I know the Twilight film was washed out to give it MOOD, but good writing can do that, too...)

If the following is what Twilight had REALLY been, it would have been awesome. Sit back, Buffy fans, and cheer and laugh as Buffy turns down his advances with "ew" face, time and again.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Buffy Rewatch Week 4: Part 1

1.10 Nightmares
1.11 Out of Mind, Out of Sight

This week we have two guest writers, and since one of them focused entirely on “Prophecy Girl,” I thought the best way to handle this (and not overload everyone in one post) would be to separate the finale off into its own post. So this first post will be about the two episodes leading up to the finale, “Nightmares” (where some kid is dreaming and they’re all stuck inside his wacky Broadway nightmare…) and “Out of Mind, Out of Sight,” an episode where you probably instantly recognized guest star Clea Duvall, who was yet to go on to appear in movies like Girl, Interrupted, star in the brilliant Carnivale, or have a prominent role in Heroes (among many, many other roles). At the time of this episode, her career was just beginning.

When this episode first aired, it was actually called “Invisible Girl,” and I often slip up and call it by the wrong name all the time, because that’s what it was when I first saw it (I might have called it that in the first edition of my BtVS book). Perhaps when they were putting the DVDs together they noticed the similarities between the eleventh and twelfth episode titles and decided to change it. It’s now alternately called “Out of Mind, Out of Sight,” or “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” (even the WB official site couldn’t make up its mind at the time). But we’ll go with the first one.

I adore “Nightmares”… I know it’s been said in the rewatch so far that some suggest to Buffy n00bs that they skip the first season, and I, instead, tell people to just get through it and into season 2 and they’ll be rewarded there. Now, on the rewatch, these first season episodes really stand up for me. I’m a much bigger fan of season 1 than a lot of people, I think (always have been), and “Nightmares” is a perfect example of why this show was so great. The dream sequences were much like real dream sequences – not necessarily making sense, with no logical connections from one second to the next. Joss will master the dream sequence by season 4’s “Restless.” “Out of Mind” isn’t the best episode of season 1, but it is the beginning of a common trope throughout the series – the idea of the wallflowers who are mocked by others and whose high school days were not the happiest years of their life. However, in the moment where we actually see Cordy as a human being for once (in the episode where she becomes a Scoob for the first time), she mentions that things aren’t exactly all peachy for the cool kids, either, something that will come to the fore in season 3’s “Earshot.”

First, a few observations I had:

Highlights:
• Willow on spiders (sounding a LOT like Anya in OMWF): “Why do they need all those legs for anyway?”
• Wendell corrects the group that spiders are not insects, they’re arachnids. Xander: “They’re from the Middle East?” LOL!!!
• “What am I, knowledge girl now??”
• “Could I be seeing Billy’s asteroid body?”
• Xander just turning around suddenly and clocking the clown. HA!
• “A vampire in love with a Slayer. It’s rather poetic… in a maudlin sort of way.”
• Angel: “Looking in the mirror and seeing nothing there… it’s an overrated pleasure.”
• Try to listen to Cordy’s speech in the background as the others are talking… she’s hilarious!
• “I think I speak for everyone here when I say, ‘HUH?!’”

Did You Notice:
• Buffy has crocheted pillowcases. I’ve never noticed this before… my stepmom has these on the bed in her house, and they belonged to her grandmother, I think. However, we always take them off before going to bed (there are other pillows underneath) because… who the hell sleeps on crocheted pillowcases?!
• I hope this isn’t revealing too much about myself, but I know so many people who have dreams of flying or their teeth falling out, and I’ve never had either. Instead, I have Buffy’s nightmare… over and over and over and over again. ALL THE TIME. I’m at school again, it’s the final exam, I don’t know where the room is, I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself into this mess, I’m not going to graduate, I know NOTHING about the exam or even what the class was on, I have trouble finding my way there… the first time I saw this episode and it got to Buffy’s dream, it gave me a serious case of the wiggins.
• The kid in the hospital is in room 316… like the Ajira flight!!! (This one’s for the Lost fans who, like me, are still looking for numbers.)
• When the monster guy beats up the girl in the basement of the school, the Smoking Kills poster behind her is hilarious.
• I remember the first time I saw Nightmares, and Buffy’s dad showed up and I said out loud, “Oh my GOD, her dad is Almanzo???”
• UGH I seriously hate the Doogie Howser music of season 1.
• Watch in “Out of Mind” when Buffy falls and appears to be unconscious on the floor: Sarah Michelle Gellar jumps when the doctor bag lands beside her.
• The Bronze has a Closed for Fumigation sign on it, but the fumigation has already happened. If I recall correctly, this episode was originally supposed to happen earlier in the season and then it was moved…

Now, this week’s guest commentator on these two episodes is David Kociemba, another Slayage person (next week, by the way, will feature the first non-Slayage rewatcher!). I met him in 2008 at the third conference, and he did a fascinating paper on teaching Buffy in the classroom, asking the important question: if some of the class has seen all of it, and the rest of the class is entirely new to it, then can you reference future episodes when talking about the early ones? How do you get around the spoiler aspect of the class? It was a very interesting topic (one we seemed to have solved in a blog format for now, but the classroom is an entirely different thing… you can’t exactly white out the words you’re saying!) He links to it in his introduction, so please check it out!

I'm going to run just the first part of David's paper here (I tried whiting out the spoilery stuff, but it's rife with it, and ended up making about as much sense as listening to a censored version of a Jay-Z song). The entire paper, intact, appears below in the spoiler post.

At the most recent Slayage conference, I got to chat with him more than the first time, and met his lovely fiancée, Kristen, who will be a guest contributor on the rewatch near the end of season 3 (they actually got engaged at Slayage… how cool is that?!) They sat at the table with us during the banquet, and we talked about all sorts of TV… my favourite kind of conversation! I’m a big fan of David’s writing, and I’m pleased to have him on the rewatch. So… take it away, David!

***

I first met Nikki at the third Slayage conference and we spent some time sitting on a veranda chatting away with one of the liveliest band of conference-goers you ever did meet. Nikki met my fiancée, Kristen, at the last Slayage in Florida, just before her verbal duel with Matthew Pateman. (And, since he is such a good sport about the ribbing he gets from Nikki (I have NO idea what David's referring to here. —Nik), I want to thank him again for his patience in editing my piece on the opening title sequences of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was a writer lost in the woods, but he let me find myself.) I’m flattered that Nikki likes my writing on the effect of spoilers on readers and I’m eager to delve into her books on Lost before I propose a course on that series for next year.

Buffy Rewatch Week 4: Part 2

1.12 Prophecy Girl

(If you are reading this before the post above it, go there first and then read this one.) And this week we come to the end of season 1, with an amazing episode that gives you a sense of how the show will continue from this point on. If you liked “Prophecy Girl,” which is season 1 at its funniest and most heartbreaking, I think you’re in for a treat in season 2. The highlight of this episode is, for me, the rooftop scene between Buffy and the Master. I remember being absolutely delighted by it the first time I watched, and “You have fruit punch mouth” was my favourite phrase uttered by Buffy up to that point (and still is very near the top). We see Buffy’s playful banter and enough funny to keep us from being utterly depressed.

But we also begin to see the dark side of the show. Buffy’s scene as she stands in the doorway and overhears Giles is a tear-jerker, and despite her bravado and toughness to this point, you realize she’s a girl. A young, teenage girl. She’s supposed to have her whole life ahead of her, but most Slayers are dead before they hit their 18th birthday, and that’s only starting to resonate with her.

And then there’s Xander. He has the guts to ask out Buffy, and when she says no, he’s MEAN. My heart breaks for him, and then you just want to slap him. But that’s Xander… you’ll watch him, time and again, lash out when he’s in pain. He is the heart of the show in the way Hurley was on Lost, but he also has a dark side, and revenge is often sitting in his back pocket to use whenever he’s upset. However, Xander knows who his friends are and what counts, and despite listening to the Music of Pain, he will come through in the end.

Highlights:
• Written and directed by Joss Whedon
• “I’m just gonna go home… lie down… and listen to some country music. The music of pain.”
• “I’m 16 years old. I don’t want to die.”
• “Oh. Good. The feeble banter portion of the fight.”
• Xander telling Angel to stop looking at his neck, and Angel being all annoyed with him.

Did You Notice?
• It’s not a coincidence that the prom dress looks like a wedding dress; Buffy is married to the Slayerhood, and her loss of a normal life is the ongoing theme of the series.
• Cordy doesn’t have her vanity plates on her car yet.
• I have to say it… the Big Moment where the theme music cues and the group Walks With Force down the street is truly awful. The biggest cheeseball moment of the first season. I will promise all the first-timers, this will NEVER happen again. (Maybe Joss Whedon, who studied with Michael Bay, took a little too much from his colleague on this one. I can just hear the theme song to “Team America: World Police” playing in the background…)

OK! This week’s second guest is Jennifer K. Stuller. I met her at Slayage 4 this past summer, and sadly missed her paper when I had to go practice my own, but from all accounts it was wicked. She is the author of Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors, which I’ve just started reading and I’m really enjoying it (it makes a great Christmas present, too!) She is a writer, blogger, author, feminist, pop culture historian, Charter Associate of the Whedon Studies Association, and Programming Director for GeekGirlCon . Her particular interests focus on what popular culture can tell us about social mores, particularly regarding gender, race, sexuality, ability, religion and class, in a given time or place. She has written for Geek Monthly and Bitch Media, on everything from James Bond to Jim Henson, to Honey West, Peggy Hill, and Quentin Tarantino, and has also contributed to several books, including Gotham City 14 Miles: 14 Essays on Why the 1960s Batman TV Series Matters , What is a Superhero?, and Critical Approaches to Comics and Graphic Novels: Theories and Methods – for which she wrote the feminist analysis chapter using 1970s Lois Lane comic books. Her most recent presentation for the Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses , as well as her other work can be found at her website.

Prophecy Girl: Subverting the Monomyth with a Feminist Kick

“I may be dead, but I’m still pretty.” – Buffy Summers

I’m thrilled to be a part of this project, honored that Nikki invited me, and excited that my first guest post is on “Prophecy Girl.” Though I’ve never been a big fan of season 1, it’s one of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and in fact, probably in my top five of the series. It’s also one of those that has been most important in my work on female super and action heroes in popular culture.

Here’s why: When I went back to college as an adult to study in the wonderful undergraduate program in the Comparative History of Ideas at the University of Washington, I had the opportunity to co-create and co-facilitate a credited focus group with two other women that combined viewings of episodes of BtVS with theoretical and philosophical readings to discuss issues of human nature. I knew I wanted to write my senior thesis on female heroes in popular culture – a project that evolved into Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors – and that Buffy, created by Joss Whedon to be a feminist icon and a new vision of the hero, would play a major role in that project. So I used the course as an opportunity to get some initial research done.

Prior to our viewing of “Prophecy Girl” in the class we read works by Carl Gustav Jung, who proposed the concept of the archetype, and Joseph Campbell – author of The Hero With a Thousand Faces, an influential study of the hero myth (also called the “monomyth”). In brief, Campbell studied hero myths from around the world and found that they all contained a universal, or archetypal, series of stages and events including: The Call to Adventure or Initiation, The Refusal of the Call, A Trial or Quest, Supernatural Aid, Death and/or Descent into the Underworld, and Rebirth or Resurrection.

But this quest is generally considered a metaphor for the discovery of male identity. Women’s involvement in the hero’s journey typically limits them to the roles of the Goddess who aids, the mother, the temptress or the lover/prize. I wondered where the female heroes were, and what their journeys were like. And in discovering and studying Buffy was intrigued, moved, and fascinated by the ways in which she subverted the monomyth (and not just Buffy, but everyone around her.)

“Prophecy Girl” is a perfect example of this because it reflects back to the pilot, and as a possible series finale (BtVS was a mid-season replacement series and renewal was up in the air) allows us to see at least an initial progression of her journey.

I was going to write a more detailed episode synopsis, but don’t want to spoil it for those who have yet to watch, or be too redundant for those who already have. But in brief, in “Prophecy Girl” Giles discovers a prophecy that says that the Master shall rise and the Slayer shall die. Various portents, including an earthquake, reinforce this pending event. As Ms. Calendar says, the apocalypse is pretty seriously nigh. Buffy does indeed face the Master, and the prophecy is fulfilled, but as “prophecies are tricky things,” this all plays out in a way that might not be quite how you thought it would if you read the prophecy as literal. Buffy, as the hero, is resurrected, and comes back stronger and more resolved than ever.

Naturally, this is important to me because I want to see female characters in popular culture in heroic roles. As Joss Whedon has said, this series’ mission statement was about “the joy of female power: having it, sharing it, using it.” He also recognized the power of popular culture to change societal ideas about gender roles. Whedon’s said of Buffy that:

“people cared for her because she fulfilled a need for a female hero, which is distinctly different from a heroine. While a heroine is the protagonist, generally speaking, somebody swoops in and saves her. A hero is a more complex figure and has to deal with all the traditional rites of passage. Everything Luke Skywalker had to go through, Buffy had to go through, and then some.”

Notably, writer and director George Lucas was famously influenced by Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces – and elements of the archetypal hero’s quest can be seen in Luke Skywalker’s journey. But even with both ancient and modern female heroes – from the goddess Athena to the Amazon Princess Wonder Woman, from detective Honey West to Lt. Ellen Ripley, we never really saw those same mythic themes addressed from a female experience of the hero’s journey. That is, until Buffy Summers came along.

Whedon may not have been setting out to necessarily re-write the monomyth from a feminist perspective per se, but he definitely wanted to create a female super or action hero that would be inspirational, even iconic. Additionally, throughout the course of season 1, we do see Buffy experience the archetypal steps of the journey. From the refusal of the call to duty (asking Giles in “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” “Why can’t you people leave me alone?”) to her descent into the underworld to face the Master in “Prophecy Girl.”

But Buffy the Vampire Slayer is more than a feminist rewriting of the hero myth (which is exciting in and of itself) but of the very rules of the journey. As we’ve seen in our re/watch of season one, and without being too-spoilery as we will see throughout the series, Buffy and her allies will, as Giles points out, “thwart prophecy time and time again.” They will thrive as heroes because of their innovation, their drive, their love for one another, and their unconventional approaches to fighting the forces of darkness.

Recognizable character types such as the Hero, the Mother, the Father, the Sidekick, the Trickster, and the Villain will be tweaked. Sidekicks will become heroes themselves. We see the beginnings of these character developments in “Prophecy Girl.” Giles exhibits fatherly affection rather than a Watcher’s distance in his relationship with Buffy – even going so far as to attempt to take her place in her confrontation with the Master. Xander, a sidekick frustrated over not being a chosen one (be it hero or lover) is the heart of the group – and answers his own heroic call more than once. Cordy, seemingly the villain, aids the “Slayerettes” with her verve and quick-thinking. Angel and Willow will each eventually morph into different archetypes, and everyone will at one time or another be elevated to the role of hero. It’s exciting to me because it makes the elements that define a traditional hero flexible, and therefore relevant to a larger audience.

Prophecy, like the Slayer myth, may be written, but as Buffy tells the Master in their final confrontation, she flunked the written. (Even in a recent edition of the Season 8 comic book she says, “I never do what I’m meant for.”) Buffy does not let others decide her journey for her. From the beginning she changes the rules not only of the hero myth, but of her own Slayer myth too – and I love her for it.

Side Notes, Trivia and Random Observations
• The episode was written by Joss Whedon and it’s the first time he directs.
• Notice that Giles has a proper cup of tea, saucer and all. It’s how we remember he’s British.
• The Master is played by Mark Metcalf – a.k.a. “The Maestro” from Seinfeld.
• The Master’s sunken lair is reminiscent of the 1987 vampire classic, The Lost Boys – one of Whedon’s inspirations for BtVS.
• Whedon’s trademark horror/humor combo. The Master’s ecstatic “Yes! Yes! My time has come!” response to the earthquake is followed by his asking the Anointed One, “What do you think? A 5.1?” (My husband questioned whether or not the Master would know about the Richter scale. It was developed in 1935 and the Master was trapped in 1937, so . . . maybe.)
• Buffy’s scene with Giles where she says, “I’m 16 years old. I don’t want to die.” is gut-wrenching. The look on Giles’ face – especially when she says “You’re so useful sitting here with all of your books!” reveals he has already crossed the boundary from Watcher to father figure. (A fact later reinforced by his telling Buffy “I’m older and wiser . . . Just do what you’re told for once!”)
• Xander’s awkwardness with women is palpable. And, “Date me. . . . Date me?!?!?” is reminiscent of “Welcome to the Hellmouth” when he says to Buffy “Can I have you?”
• I forgot how hurtful Xander can be sometimes, “Guess a guy’s gotta be undead to make time with you.” Harsh, indeed.
• Robia LaMorte, who plays Jenny Calendar, was “Pearl” of Prince’s back-up dancers Diamond and Pearl.
• Angel is panting like mad, but can’t perform CPR because he has “no breath.”
• Buffy is smarter than people give her credit for at this point. She’s instinctually good at making connections and deducing things through observation.
• Buffy comments on fighting three vampires in one night. Later this will be a light evening of patrolling.
• Xander telling Buffy, “Willow’s not looking to date you – or if she is she’s playing it pretty close to the chest.” It’s a line that doesn’t have much meaning except in retrospect. But it’s hard not to read into it, or wonder about exactly how far back some character developments go.
• Buffy saying she can’t go to the dance and Joyce asking “Why? Is it written somewhere?” Brilliant. (And very clever too.)
• Buffy in Willow’s bedroom – made me think about how many more times we will see them sitting on each other’s beds having a meaningful conversation.
• Angel’s statue of Kwan Yin – like a true Bodhisattva, Angel will delay his own enlightenment to ease the suffering of others.
• Someone had to put faux Dewey Decimal labels on all those library books!
• Buffy, Xander, and Angel Power Walk to the BtVS theme music. (Is this the series’ first power walk?!?) [Yes... and it's the LAST!" — Nik]

Favorite Lines
• “Oh, look. A Bad Guy.” – Buffy, as she trips a vamp
• “I’m going to go home, lie down, and listen to country music. The music of pain.” – Xander, on being rejected. Twice.
• “The part that gets me though, is where Buffy is the Slayer. She’s so little.” – Jenny Calendar
• “Oh good. The feeble banter portion of the fight.” – The Master to Buffy (Especially because Buffy’s banter and puns will become an important, and trademark, part of her arsenal.)
• “Calm may work for Locutus of the Borg, here. But I’m freaked and I intend to stay that way!” Xander (Because we love geeky pop culture references.)
• “I told you to eat before we left.” – Xander to what he thinks is a hungry-looking Angel
• “I may be dead, but I’m still pretty.” – Buffy, on her resurrection
• “You have fruit punch mouth.” – Buffy to the Master
• “You’re that amped about Hell? Go there.” – Buffy to the Master
• “I like your dress.” – Just about everyone, to Buffy
• “We saved the world. I say we party.” – Buffy, on averting an apocalypse

Buffy Rewatch Part 4 Spoiler Forum

Nikki’s Spoilery bits:
• Buffy’s biggest nightmare is that she’d be stuck in a coffin alive and will have to claw her way out… a nightmare that, unfortunately, comes true in “Bargaining.”
• Similarly, Giles’ nightmare will come true in “The Gift.”
• Xander says in “Out of Mind” that his mom is making her special call for Chinese… there’s much insinuation later in the series that Xander’s home life was rather hellish at this time, but that he kept it hidden. His mom calling for takeout didn’t seem like a major deal at the time, but in retrospect, you wonder if that’s because she didn’t care enough to actually prepare dinner… or that she was drinking or something. We know his father’s an abusive alcoholic, but what of the mother?
• In “Prophecy Girl,” Angel tells Xander that he has no breath, but later we’ll see Spike smoking. I’m pretty sure he’s asked about it at one point and says that vampires simply choose to breathe. Which means Angel could have had breath if he wanted it. A suggestion that perhaps Angel didn’t actually want to save Buffy in this scene? I vote no; I think it was simply a plot point that wasn’t fully thought out, and it was important that Xander be the hero who saves her life here. In season 2 and onwards, Xander’s hatred toward Angel is apparent (and leads to the shocking moment in Becoming when his lie causes Buffy to send Angel to hell) and this gives him more fodder to use against him. Not only is he way older than Buffy, and undead, but when it comes down to it, he can’t save Buffy – only Xander can.

OK, now, as promised, the complete David Kociemba essay!

***

I teach a seminar on Buffy the Vampire Slayer at Emerson College, along with other courses on media history, digital cultures, fandom and the representation of disability. I’m also the editor of Watcher Junior, a peer-reviewed online journal for undergraduate scholarship on the Whedonverses. (Take a look at the article on Restless or the one on the many faces of Buffy. They’re amazing.) The sixth issue is coming out this winter and we’re currently accepting submissions on Whedon's work outside the Buffyverse. We welcome completed essays and research papers that exhibit familiarity with previously published scholarship in Whedon Studies.

Right now, we’re doing a fascinating study of today’s fans of Joss Whedon, asking them what values are represented in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can find the initial survey here, the survey results summarized here, and the beginning of the summary of the comments here. We can’t wait to do the same survey on each of Whedon’s works.

Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer…
The first guest blogger, David Lavery, mentioned that when he encourages people to skip the first season when he introduces people to the wonders of this novelistic television series. I have a great deal of sympathy for his approach. The series tends to face a triple whammy of media prejudice: fantasy is a low culture genre, a lot of people look at melodrama as failed realism and it can be hard not to prejudge the series as Dawson’s Creek with fangs. Twelve episodes is a long time for people to expect people to have faith in a new series. (The fact that Buffy’s outfits seem to be designed to show off her bra is a fourth whammy.) That’s why I’ve taken to showing its best episode to introduce the series, “The Body”, from its fifth season. It’s surprisingly accessible to new viewers.

This will definitely be one of the more spoilerriffic of the early rewatches. I’ll start us off with a very brief look at the first season as a thematic foundation for the series. My reading of “Nightmares” and “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” should have so much whited-out that it will read like experimental poetry to any spoiler virgins in the audience. It’s necessary to delve into narrative construction, however, because, as Roz Kaveney put it, the series’ use of intricate foreshadowing “indicated a real commitment to, and respect for, the intelligence of its viewers.”

The Essential Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The first season was Joss Whedon’s one chance to tell the essential story of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Indeed, he anticipated that few people would even watch the midseason replacement series with the cult title on the two-year-old network, let alone expect it would get some of the WB’s top ratings. So what parts are essential to Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Jesse shows us that vampires are sexual predators through his interactions with Cordelia, even more than Darla does. But why taking back the night is foundational, Xander’s interactions with his friend shows that these predators are simultaneously victims, an understanding he comes to long before Buffy will, even if his jealousy and anger prevent him from applying it to other vampires. “The Pack” shows us that cruel humor that inflicts emotional trauma is an essential trait of a great villain, which definitely becomes central characterization techniques in seasons two and three. The bedrock themes of the series reveal themselves in these early episodes: the just use of power; re-imagining families through the biological, vampiric and friendship models; and teaching men new ways of seeing women through Xander. We also see that while the creativity of linguistic playfulness is an essential heroic trait, so is the inability to perform on stage or to pretend to be someone you’re not. And, with Jesse and Principal Flutie, Whedon learned that killing seemingly essential characters increases suspense by undermining the audience’s assumption that everyone will make it out alive and unharmed.

Given these expectations, should we watch the first season with long-term narrative construction in mind? Whedon and his fellow writers knew the overall arc of a season prior to its start. They planned some character deaths as much as two years in advance. But Whedon left room to react to unexpected developments on set. According to Nikki, Robia LaMorte’s chemistry with Anthony Stewart Head upset the initial plan to have Jenny Calendar appear only in “I, Robot… You Jane”. Whedon similarly responded to Julie Benz’ quality performance, upgrading her role during season one. The writers also responded to unexpected developments in their own writing, such as deciding on Calendar’s true identity during the second season. And, of course, fans of the series can’t watch Alyson Hannigan’s performance without looking for clues that Willow is gay. Writer Jane Espenson recalls the first time that plot development was foreshadowed, “In “Doppelgangland”, [Willow] notices that her vampire self is ‘kinda gay.’ When we started plotting the Tara arc in Season Four, Joss said, ‘Were we planning this back then?’ And even he didn’t know for sure…. Some of [the foreshadowing] is conscious and some of it is not conscious, but it is clearly there anyway.”

Such retroactive continuity is an inherent feature of creating complex narratives in a serial format. Rhonda Wilcox observes that these moments are not simply about the momentum a narrative develops as it is created, writing, “… it is possible that the early versions of a pattern are purposeful foreshadowing; it is also possible that they are preliminary explorations or first inklings of an idea which the writers will choose to develop more fully later. Retroactive continuity allows for the effect of foreshadowing…”. For her, these processes are one way that complex narratives develop “…the wonderful quality of much great literature, of seeming both surprising and inevitable.”

“With nudity, it’s a total nightmare!”
“Nightmares” is the first season’s version of two fourth season episodes, “Restless” and “Fear, Itself”. Or, as Giles puts it, “Dreams? That would be a musical comedy version of this.” It’s not quite a dream episode like “Restless”, as the characters manifest their darkest fears as the nightmare of a kid in a coma expands to encompass them. Facing fears is an essential part of all three episodes, however. Each character’s fears are revisited later in the series.

There are a few comic moments from these two episodes that take on some significance during the series’ high school years:

In “Nightmares”, Cordelia fears having bad hair, worse fashion and being dragged off to join the chess club against her will. (Note how Hannigan smiles during Willow’s reaction shot to this event.) Cordelia experiences exactly that kind of downward mobility once she starts dating Xander in the second season.

The gas leak that almost kills Giles, Xander and Willow in “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” becomes the comically flimsy excuse Giles uses to explain the memory loss and strange behavior of dozens of Sunnydale citizens in “Bad Eggs” in season two.

Willow asks if Xander’s parents even have a stove, setting up Xander’s Xmas Eve outdoor vigils waiting out his parents’ holiday fights in “Amends” and whose terrible marriage has the more serious effect of fatally undermining his wavering confidence in his relationship with Anya in season six. (The first Slayer takes on the shape of Xander’s father to rip his heart out in the season four dream episode, “Restless”.)

At the end of “Nightmares”, this thematically ripe exchange occurs, Xander confesses to Willow that he found the vampire version of Buffy attractive, saying, “I’m sick. I need help.” Xander’s experience with desiring a vampire, even temporarily, makes his hostility and revulsion to Buffy’s relationships with Angel and especially Spike more complicated.

Earlier in that same episode, Xander finds himself stripped to his boxers in front of the class. The writers love taking advantage of the fact that Nicholas Brendan (who plays Xander) is “way too hunky” to be a nerd, as Joss Whedon put it. He’s stripped to the waist in “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” and is dripping wet and in a Speedo in “Go Fish” during the second season.

Xander faces off against the clown of his sixth birthday party. Punching Bozo out, he slams the clown’s act, saying, “You are a lousy clown! Your balloon animals are pathetic! Everyone can make a giraffe!” Xander loses the coveted Sunnydale High Class Clown award to a prop comic wearing a balloon hat. (His fear of being ignored in “Fear, Itself”, even by his friends, perhaps also references that crushing defeat.) More seriously, Xander spends much of the fourth and fifth seasons worrying that he’s a buffoon, not a grown man. Xander’s the first one to face down his nightmarish tormenter in “Nightmares”. One could argue that he’s the first to face the fears revealed in “Restless” as well. Giles never does develop a fulfilling personal life. Willow’s performance anxiety haunts her “Restless” dream and suggests the underlying psychological issues that produce her murderous, suicidal grief at the end of season six. Buffy… well, she has so many justified fears. Xander recognizes his fear of failure while lying in bed with Anya two episodes prior to the dream episode and he’s found a steady construction gig that pays enough for him to afford a new apartment just three episodes into the fifth season. (Note: “Nightmares” does not feature a fear of commitment!)

Giles fears getting lost in the stacks and being unable to read. Willow causes him to go blind in the fourth season episode, “Something Blue”. His dream in “Restless” features his concern that his work as a Watcher means he’s lost out on a fuller life, symbolized through Olivia and her baby carriage. Lastly, Giles fears that he will fail in his duty to protect Buffy as he kneels by her grave. His speech reveals a father’s love and pride only to be accused of being unfeeling in the next episode. Buffy would die in “Prophecy Girl” (and “The Gift”).

Buffy’s nightmare features many elements that get incorporated into the series. Her fear of failing to perform in combat comes true, as the Master hypnotizes her in their first encounter. She takes a history test utterly unprepared, during which time speeds up. (In season six, the Trio make Buffy experience time as going faster and looping in “Life Serial”, co-written by Jane Espenson, a writer who loves to make these kinds of inter-connections.) In a devastating scene, Buffy’s father blames her for his divorce from Joyce, wants to drop his visitation rights and wishes she’d turned out differently. We never see Hank Summers again outside of flashbacks, as he misses Buffy’s 18th birthday and ends up in Spain with his secretary “living the cliché” by the fifth season. Buffy’s transformed into a vampire in “Nightmares”, which foreshadows both Angel and Dracula drinking from her. In “Nightmares”, she fears that the Master will be released, which he is during “Prophecy Girl”, temporarily. The Master serves as her spirit guide in this nightmare, confirming the mystical and psychological sources of the nightmares. Her dream in “Restless” features only characters that were once antagonists or threatened a key relationship: Anya, Joyce, Tara, Riley and Adam. Yet each provides guidance. (Her fear in “Fear, Itself” is that she will be abandoned by her friends.) Finally, the Master buries her alive in “Nightmares”, which foreshadows Buffy clawing her way out of her grave after Willow’s resurrection spell is interrupted in the sixth season’s premiere. (Indeed, Kristen observed on Watcher Junior’s Twitter feed that the second season premiere, “When She Was Bad” neatly encapsulates seasons six and seven, with Buffy’s imperious leadership style and shell shock.)

“Nightmares” reveals two of Willow’s fears: being judged and being noticed. Willow gets dragged backstage, costumed in a kimono, told by the director that there’s an ugly crowd with lots of reviewers, then thrust onstage next to her irked male lead. She doesn’t know the words and squeaks a single note. There are a few things of interest here. Aldo’s first sung line, loosely translated, is the following: “Child, from whose eyes the witchery is shining, now you are all my own.” Willow would begin her study of witchcraft next season. Second, Willow fled the stage during Buffy, Xander and her reading of a dramatic scene from Oedipus Rex in the prior episode, “Puppet Show”. Third, her dream in “Restless” features an extended expansion on this actor’s nightmare: she’s cast in her drama class’ surreal adaptation of Death of a Salesman having never attended a single class. While she never steps on stage, the backstage chaos here bears startling resemblances to the various acts warming up during “Puppet Show”. Buffy’s casting as a 1920s vamp in Willow’s dream play in “Restless” is a call-back to her being a vampire in “Nightmares”, as is Willow’s question about whether the play is Madame Butterfly, “as I have a whole problem with opera.” Buffy takes the role of the director in “Nightmares” here, cheerfully telling her, “The place is packed. Everybody’s here! Your whole family’s in the front row, and they look really angry.” Finally, just before Willow’s opera debut, Xander finds himself semi-nude in front of the classroom. In the library afterward, Willow remarks, “Everyone staring? I’d hate to have everyone paying attention to me like that.” This fear of being seen by hostile viewers seems grounded in her decade of bullying by Harmony and Cordelia, who critiqued her dress and found her boring in the pilot episodes of the series. The final moments of her dream in “Restless” find her back in that very homespun dress and white tights combo giving a book report before a bored and hostile class.

Despite all of this, Willow seems to have some ambivalence about being noticed. In the third season episode “Gingerbread”, her mother hasn’t noticed Willow’s new haircut and boyfriend over the past few months. Willow complains that Sheila Rosenberg listens to her colleagues more than her daughter, claiming that their last in-depth conversation was about the patriarchal bias on the Mr. Rogers Show. Willow shouts, “I’m not your sidekick!” at Buffy during “Fear, Itself”. In “Two to Go” near the end of season six, Willow would reference this moment, saying that after “six years as a side man… now I get to be the Slayer,” meaning the most powerful one, and perhaps suggesting the one that gets the attention. For both Willow and Xander, attention must be paid, to quote Death of a Salesman. And it was, by the viewers.

“My So-Called Life meets The X-Files”
The revelation of Cordelia’s humanity in “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” proves crucial to her character’s evolution in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and in Angel. First, her inclusion in the opening title sequences suggests that the creators planned a more complex role for her, as the first ten episodes have her simply a high school society villain. (After all, neither Mark Metcalf, who played the Master, nor its chief love interest, David Boreanaz’ Angel, were listed by name in the opening title sequence.) When she is the “Queen of Mean,” she provides the pleasure of biting sarcasm whose wit indicates her intelligence and social awareness. She’s the first outsider to put it together than Buffy is not what she seems. Whedon makes clear just what a source of power that position can be first, then reveals the costs of holding that power:

Cordelia: Hey! You think I’m never lonely because I’m so cute and popular? I can be surrounded by people and be completely alone. It’s not like any of them really know me. I don’t even know if they like me half the time. People just want to be in a popular zone. Sometimes when I talk, everyone’s so busy agreeing with me, they don’t hear a word I say.
Buffy: Well, if you feel so alone, then why do you work so hard at being popular?
Cordelia: Well, it beats being alone all by yourself.

In this moment, the meaning of Cordelia’s character changes, as Whedon makes her into a person to be understood. He does something more than the fake progressivism of inverting who is positioned as the social Other to be exiled and mocked. Whedon forces viewers to recognize Cordelia’s humanity. The only requirement to join this club of outsiders is a sincere desire to change. Of course, this is not a Very Special Episode, so Cordelia returns to her old habits once she’s observed hanging with losers by her boyfriend and Harmony. (She would do the same thing in “Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered” once she realized that dating Xander had bumped her off the top of the social pyramid.) Yet, when people are in danger in “Prophecy Girl”, this epically self-involved girl joins the good fight in spectacular fashion. In the second season, she would slowly start to pitch in during non-apocalyptic situations. Unlike Buffy, Angel or Spike, Cordelia opts for a life well lived without the formal second chance offered by special power or responsibility. That may be what makes her redemption even more remarkable than theirs. In the first season, it is Cordelia who shows what Whedon regarded as essential to his story’s theory of redemption, not Angel. Change is hard, it takes work and there’s always the temptation to fall back into old habits. But anyone can do it if Cordelia can. In a way, she’s the first Spike.

“Out of Mind, Out of Sight” features a precursor to the Initiative, our government’s secret attempt to weaponize and control demons in the fourth season. Once Buffy foils Marcie’s plan to maim Cordelia, FBI agents bust in and place Marcie in their custody. Remembering their earlier presence lurking on campus, Buffy intuits that “This isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s happened at other schools.” They take Marcie to a schoolroom with others like her, where she’s taught assassination and infiltration techniques. It has glass-enclosed rooms like the Initiative cells. The first season even features its own version of Adam, with Moloch the demon cyborg of “I, Robot… You, Jane”. The idea that the government would be interested in the monstrous is a foundational one, which makes sense given its creator’s history. Joss Whedon script-doctored X-Men, later did the Astonishing X-Men comic and once referred to Buffy the Vampire Slayer as “My So-Called Life meets The X-Files.”

“Out of Mind, Out of Sight” is part of a broader project to keep the mix of the fantastic and the contemporary viable. The series adjusts its narrative logic to compensate as it evolves. In “The Harvest,” Giles explains the pandemic of denial in Sunnydale in this way: “People have a tendency to rationalize what they can and forget what they can’t.” During the first season, Principal Snyder crackdown on missing persons and spontaneous cheerleader combustion signals that others in the world know and respond to these things. At the end of “School Hard” in the second season, a cop and Principal Snyder feed reporters the usual story for mayhem: gang-related and involving PCP. As Snyder says, “What’d you have in mind? The truth?” (The sinister way they shoot him with light behind his ears gives him a goofy demonic vibe, foreshadowing his villainy.) By the third season, Mayor Wilkins has been behind it all for decades, down to the demon-friendly extensive sewer system. By the fifth season, government black-ops teams fight a covert war against monsters across the globe. In the sixth season, everybody in Sunnydale knows enough that a rampaging Troll God is unusual and disturbing, but it’s hardly worth a town meeting. As Scott Westerfield puts it, “The fantastic leaves its mark on the world.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer presents not simply a trespassed world which snaps back to middle class normality, nor an altered world, with its brand names and increasingly familiar bands performing at the Bronze, “but it is a world that, like ours, can be and is changed, for better or worse, by the actions of the people who live in it,” Westerfield observes. From the earliest moments in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon strives to maintain the balance between the monstrous and the ordinary with a variety of explanations ranging from the psychological to the political to the conspiratorial. The Initiative is part of Whedon’s Essential Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

I'm SO in Love!!!

Robert Smith + 1980s keyboards + Platinum Blonde + Crystal Castles = INSTANT ADORATION ♥♥♥

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Happy Birthday, Buffy!

As many of you have probably noted, Buffy would be 30 today (despite the bogus school records you see briefly in I Robot, You Jane, we will find out later she was born on January 19, 1981). Wow, Buff... the big 3-0. I went searching for that great Buffy cake I posted here before, and I found a ton of amazing Buffy cakes! This is probably still my fave:

Oh, how I love that cake. I can just taste the marzipan. But then I found this one:

And this one:

And oh my god this one:

Amazing!!! Just for reference, my birthday is at the beginning of April, and this is a note to all of my friends: I want a cake like this!! ;) Seriously, happy birthday Buffy, and I hope this one is happier than... just about every birthday you ever have on the show.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Buffy Rewatch Week 3

1.7 Angel
1.8 I Robot, You Jane
1.9 The Puppet Show

(As always, if you're here to talk spoilers read this post first, then go to the next one for more spoilery goodness and a forum where you can post openly.)

This week I have a personal anecdote to share with you that actually blends into next week’s episode, “Nightmares.” See, when I was a kid I had this recurring nightmare (and daymare, in a way... I thought about it in the daytime, too) of this tiny African warrior chasing me through the halls. He was holding a knife in his hand and looked hideous. At night, if I woke up and had to go to the bathroom I'd call out for my parents to come and take me, rather than go to the bathroom, because I was convinced this thing lived under my bed and he was going to cut my ankles with his little knife. I had no idea where I’d gotten the idea from, and it haunted me for years. (I even had this image of a woman in a nightgown holding a knife and banging the floor with it. She had big teeth.)

Years later I was reading an interview with Joss Whedon and he was asked what had terrified him the most as a kid. He answered, “The African Zuni doll from Trilogy of Terror.” I will never forget the ice-cold feeling that washed over me as I read that line. African Zuni doll? Oh my god... was this thing I imagined all the time actually REAL?? He began talking about this doll chasing a woman played by Karen Black through an apartment. I tentatively googled what he’d just said. “African Zuni Doll Trilogy of Terror.” And then closed one eye as I hit ‘Enter.’ The image that suddenly popped up on my screen actually made my heart leap, and I covered my eyes with one hand as I desperately tried to close the browser. I was in my 20s, and the sight of the thing that had been the star of my nightmares for so many years was absolutely horrifying. I called my mom on the phone and asked if she ever remembered seeing a movie like this. I mean, how the hell would I have known about this? She said it sounded vaguely familiar. I checked on IMDb. It was a TV movie that aired in 1975, and now I’m thinking I was two years old at the time and my mom probably thought there was no way this toddler was taking in anything on the television, and she watched it with me in the room. And it became the stuff of my creepiest nightmares. (As a result, my kids are not allowed to watch anything not meant for kids... I don’t want African Zuni dolls living under THEIR beds at night!)

So no WONDER, I thought to myself, that the scene where Sid the ventriloquist dummy is quickly running around Buffy’s room gave me such a serious case of the wiggins the first time I saw it... Joss Whedon was probably going for the same effect as that doll! Later, he said in the DVD commentary for “Hush” that he wanted the Gentlemen in that episode to have the same effect on a generation as that Zuni doll. Thanks, Joss. Thanks a lot. ;)

(In preparing for this blog, by the way, I decided to steel myself and check it on YouTube... with the sound turned off. I watched it with one eye open and it was rather ridiculous, but ended with the female victim being taken over by the spirit of the doll, and she was sitting on the floor in a white nightgown banging the floor with a knife and had big teeth. :::shudder::: Even though I've made this giant leap to actually watch it, I couldn't bring myself to cut and paste it here... just google it and you'll see what I mean.)

OK! This week’s episodes are “Angel,” which is what *I* consider to be the first great episode of the series (I mentioned last week that many people point to “The Pack” as that ep, but I always loved the ones that go back and touch on the vampire history, and this one is brilliant); “I Robot, You Jane” (not so great), and “The Puppet Show.” I know a lot of people thought “The Puppet Show” was goofy, but I’ve always adored this episode, and thought Sid was awesome. “I Robot, You Jane,” on the other hand, is actually the very first episode I watched. My sister-in-law, who also got me into Xena, told me I had to watch BtVS. So I watched this ep, thought the show was crap, and stopped watching again. Then, when the show was in the middle of season 2, I went back and watched the first episode and was instantly hooked. Mental note: do NOT show new Buffy fans “I Robot, You Jane” as the entry episode.

As with last week’s blog post, my comments will follow those of this week’s guest post, and please stick around and read both before jumping down to the spoiler post below, which will simply contain my spoilery observations. For those rewatchers who don't care about spoilers, just highlight the parts of the guest's write-up to see the spoilery bits.

Our guest this week is none other than Matthew Pateman. I jokingly said in my original post about the contributors that I had no idea who he was, which was an inside joke for those who follow my blog and know about the joke rivalry between us. In fact, Prof P happens to be a very dear friend of mine. I first met him at the Arkansas Slayage conference in 2008, where we were both keynotes. He gave the opening keynote of the conference, in which he referred to my Buffy book, Bite Me, as seminal. And therefore I immediately knew he was the smartest person in the room. But then he gave this absolutely brilliant talk, and I suddenly didn’t like him anymore, because I had to follow him mere hours later. Thanks for raising the bar, my friend. He got a microphone for his talk... I had to deliver mine to a large banquet hall with no mike, over some cream pie. But I think we both did OK. We were put up in the same place and got to know each other, and continued chatting after leaving Arkansas, enough so that we managed to put together a half-hour banquet keynote for the 2010 conference. (My favourite part of that talk is here. Watch it and you'll see the source of our insults directed at each other.)

Despite all my ribbing (which I do here on the blog, whereas he does his in private and he is MUCH MEANER THAN I AM), I think he’s one of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever met, and I encourage all of you to pick up his book, The Aesthetics of Culture in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, especially if you’re a fan of the episode “Restless,” which he dissects over about 150 pages. (And yes, he’ll be handling our “Restless” rewatch week!) When he’s not writing up rewatch posts for my blog, Matthew is Professor of Contemporary Popular Aesthetics at Kingston University, London, UK. His publications and conference papers cover a range of topics including pop music, pornography and postmodernism; Julian Barnes, David Bowie and Buffy. A contemporary literature scholar, cultural theorist and TV and pop culture academic, he is currently writing articles about Firefly, Angel, and Jean Francois Lyotard, and is working on his book, Joss Whedon, due out with Manchester University Press before too much longer. He can be unbearably pompous. (I totally did not write that last line... he beat me to the punch! — Nik)

"This Crazy Whirligig of Fun":

"Angel," "I Robot, You Jane," and "The Puppet Show"

by Matthew Pateman

Perhaps the most noticeable thing about these early episodes is the quality of film stock. I had forgotten what the 16 mm film looked like but its grainy darkness oddly helps to set an aesthetic standard which is quite glorious. This, of course, is largely due to Michael Gershman’s astounding role as Director of Photography, and the way he produces depth in the frame from his use of coloured lighting. This, along with the directional light that is so prevalent means that Buffy is instantly recognisable and has a ‘look’ that is definitely a contributing aspect of its appeal. It is easy to forget this (and indeed, we ought to in some senses and just let the story do its thing), but part of season 1’s story-telling appeal is clearly a result of this need to find visual depth from an unforgiving medium. Added to this, the exceptional use of costume to denote mood / attitude / belonging is very neatly done.

Other visually noticeable elements are the thinness of the boys (Angel is one gaunt-looking young handsome chap), and the relative curvyness of Buffy: the reversal of these body images as the seasons unfold is a question for sociology and politics — but worth noting.

Anyway, enough general ramble. The episodes.

‘Angel’ remains a great hour of TV. Obviously, the purpose of this episode in narrative terms is to reveal that the mysterious handsome older guy on whom Buffy is crushing, is in fact a vampire whose soul has been reinstated as punishment by a Gipsy curse. The consequences of this are many and varied, but perhaps the most important in the immediacy of season one is that it translates a potentially unsettling ‘real’ relationship between a young teen and a clearly older man into a mythically dense and distancing one. We are less in the land of Humbert and Delores, and more with Dido and Aeneas — and this is vital in order for us to maintain any sympathy with Angel. An age difference of 10 years is yucky and disquieting; an age gap of a hundred is powerful myth and supernaturally romantic.

The episode draws gorgeous and brave attention to the age-gap aspect of the relationship via Darla and her Catholic schoolgirl outfit and overt self-sexualisation as a young girl. This is brilliant — and it is the first time the show has really engaged strongly with the darker worlds of sexuality that will come so to the fore in later seasons. The fetishy Darla is mirrored by the pain-play Darla, who encourages Angel to hurt with a wicked smile and glee in her eyes.

This level of kink is made even more problematic (in the most positive sense of that term) by the other great theme of this episode, which is family. This is not the emergent family of the Scooby gang, however, but the family of vampires where the Master is Father and his acolytes are his children. He mentions on three occasions how his ‘family’ is important. And this not only makes Angel and Darla worryingly incestuous as well as fetishistic and sadomasochistic, it expands the emotional universe of vampires beyond mere killing machines. This aspect is always slightly scruffy at the edges, but in general terms Buffy’s major vampires have personality and emotion. The importance of this is that it cuts to the heart of my earlier claim about Angel and Buffy. While the mythical element of their relationship slightly dampens our concern at its age-oriented implications, it does not allow for the attendant moral simplification that often myth presents.

Xander wants the morally simplified universe of myth to be true: Buffy kills vampires; Angel is a vampire; Buffy should kill him. But this simply hides his jealousy, erotic desires and inability to woo Buffy behind the carapace of ethical absolutes that myth may be thought to provide — but this show does not. Vampires (even un-ensouled ones) have feelings, exist as families, exhibit grief and loss. (Seasons later, Principal Wood hides behind the same mythic simplification; and Buffy herself nearly succumbs to it — ‘I am the Law’)

Vampires, too, also kill in cold blood and stage emotionally devastating scenes of death. Darla comes into Joyce’s house, bites her, places Joyce’s limp body in Angel’s grasp just as Buffy comes in. It is brilliant — slightly over-staged, but brilliant. And, in that great Buffy manner, almost the exact set-up is used 60 episodes later but to wonderful comic effect as a staggeringly unlikely set of incidents lead Xander to believe that Spike has attacked Anya in ‘Hush’. Two scenes, separated by three seasons, which act as emotional, generic and structural inversions of each other. Glorious. Also, of course, Darla’s set-up is itself a demonstration of her own rage, upset and sense of betrayal at Angel’s desertion. We may not sympathise with Darla, but it is hard to deny her her feelings. Nor is it easy to deny Buffy hers as she plaintively says ‘mum, mum’ down the phone in a chilling foreshadow of her heart-break in season five.

‘Angel’ is a great episode. As the kiss becomes the catalyst for Angel morphing into vamp face, and Buffy screams and screams, a whole history of thwarted love is being opened to us. But when Buffy tells her mother it was nothing, ‘I saw a shadow’, we also have the metaphysics of being, and questions of identity that will continue to be posed for the next seven seasons. It allows for the most one of the most important character and plot revelations in season 1, and does so in a fashion that deepens and strengthens the ethical and emotional sophistication of a show which has already (as Nikki and David Lavery have so excellently described) shown itself to be an fantastic home for great dialogue and acting.

No less good in terms of dialogue and thematic subtlety, but rather less well preserved in terms of age is ‘I Robot’. Far too heavy-handed in its predatory internet stalker metaphor; far too heavy-handed in its ‘boyfriends ruin friendship’ story; far too craven in its characterisation of the ‘jacked in’ borderline psycho Fritz; and just plain dated in terms of its explanations of ‘going binary on us’ and things happening ‘by modem’ there is still much to recommend this episode.

Most of what is good here comes from Jenny and Giles, and the writers’ willingness to provide us with a grown up sexual (or incipiently sexual) relationship that is . . . grown up. More than this though, is the way in which this relationship with its excellently delineated characters (acted to perfection by Head and LaMorte), create the platform from which genuinely important and continuingly prescient debates about knowledge, technology and modernity can be articulated.

The general theme about the ownership, control and dissemination of information is covered largely through the attempt to get the demon Moloch out of the internet, but it also occurs elsewhere most notably when Xander is able to identify the likely location of Moloch’s operations. He opines, ‘What, I can’t have information sometimes?’ to which Giles replies, ‘It’s somewhat unprecedented’. This tiny exchange acts as a warning to the viewer to remember that traditional sites of information may not always be the only source of gaining knowledge and this theme is amplified by Jenny’s and Giles’s debates.

Importantly, the debates are borne of character and personality. When Giles dismisses technology at one point, Jenny does not offer a reasoned counter-argument, she speaks as the person she is to the person he is, ‘Wrong and wrong, Snobby!’ She mocks his myopic view of modernity, ‘Bad old science made the magic go away?’, and she utterly flummoxes him when she announces she is a techno-pagan. His rigidly defined hierarchies of experience, knowledge, understanding and control are challenged deeply; yet his own arguments are powerful. Among the most powerful of all is his assertion that computers don’t smell and knowledge should be ‘smelly’ – the bodily, somatic aspect of knowledge; its textures, smells and feelings are important to Giles.

Moloch himself becomes interesting in this regard. A creature of the ‘ancient’ world beloved by Giles, let loose in the technology of the present. His desire is to ‘feel’ the knowledge in the fashion described by Giles. It is not that Jenny or Giles is right; what is wonderful, again, is that the argument is shown to be complex, on-going, open to dispute and likely to change.

The deeply un-subtle story does allow for great debates to take place, and gives us the beginnings of a great romance with a mismatched couple whose ultimate expression of difference must be Jenny’s retort to the uncomprehending Giles that her ear is not where she dangles her jewellery from.

One of the difficulties with season 1 is obviously trying to fit all the stories and characters together in a fashion that allows for development and progression, but also lets new viewers in without needing too much pre-knowledge. Perhaps it’s for this reason that Angel is absent from ‘I Robot’ and ‘The Puppet Show’, and Jenny disappears again for a while. But it’s a shame — really interesting relationships are left to flounder.

Luckily, different aspects can still keep us thrilled and happy, and ‘The Puppet Show’ does give us an opportunity to see a slightly different version of our heroes. And this change in perspective is brilliantly introduced in the opening shot, and the camera’s peculiar position. Located at roughly knee height, and moved as though hand-held, this is a unique shot in season 1 of Buffy (indeed any season, I think) and it serves to disorient and confuse. It is, it would seem, a point of view shot, but we do not know whose point of view, and the uncertainty persists for much of the episode. It is what allows the strong element of suspicion to fall on Sid the dummy, whose diminutive frame, smutty asides, and suspicious actions (to say nothing of being an animate dummy!) mark him out as a probable wrong ’un.

The narrative unfolding disabuses us of this initial set of assumptions and in so doing makes the literalisation of the puppet metaphor a thing of beauty. A puppet is, by definition, controlled by someone else. This idea is wonderfully presented in Angel’s season 5 episode ‘Smile Time’, but even here the sense of people being only puppets of fate (especially Buffy – subject to a prophecy she cannot control; embroiled in a relationship beyond her history) is excellently engaged with. Sid’s seeming autonomy is, in fact, simply the expression of a desire to fulfil a destiny and achieve the peace that death will bring (‘death is his gift,’ anyone?). The puppet seems to act as a barrier against fatalistic predetermination only to reintroduce it at the end of the episode. The ongoing struggle between self determination and fate is one of Buffy’s great dialogues (like that between modernity and myth; science and the supernatural; absolute and relative moralities) — and this is an excellent early example of how these ideas are so deftly engaged with.

The little cameo at the end, where Buffy, Xander and Willow present a small scene from Oedipus also — obviously — acts as coda to this theme of fate, as well as suggesting the cultural stretch of the show’s ambitions, and giving our crew a chance to show off their multi-valenced acting skills.

In addition, the episode offers us the new principal in all his hostile, pent-up, repressed glory and it gives us one of the first examples of the series self-reflexive delight. From episode one, Giles has necessarily, been exposition guy — telling us and the gang what’s going on and how to stop it. Here, the exposition scene falls to Sid in the first of many moments of expositional brilliance that find their high points (I would argue) in Giles’s singing in ‘Restless’ and the OHP gore-fest of ‘Hush’ — but even here the writers are aware of playing with the show’s own developing conventions.

These three episodes have little in common in terms of story, main character focus or even theme but they all, in different ways, deepen the Buffy format — film stock, lighting decisions, characterisation, debates about complicated, culturally significant issues that emanate from character interaction.

If ever I’d forgotten why I became so fanatical about this show so early on, this rewatch has amply reminded me. Thank you, Nikki!
***

And thank YOU, Matthew! And now, just to make this post even longer... my own thoughts.

Highlights:
• The Xander dance!! Oh how I love it.
• Xander to Cordy: “I don’t know what everyone’s talking about... that outfit doesn’t make you look like a hooker!” LOL!
• That Giles and Buffy fight scene always makes me laugh out loud: “I’m not fighting Friar Tuck.” Between Buffy being enamoured of the crossbow and Giles’s ridiculous pads, that scene is just brilliant.
• “Reconstruction began after construction... which was... shoddy, so they had to had to reconstruct.”
• Jenny vs. Giles is some of the best banter of season 1. Giles: “I’ll be back in the Middle Ages.” Jenny: “Did you ever leave?”
• Xander saying he could pose as an elderly Dutch woman and hang out in elderly Dutch chatrooms.
• “Right now a man in Beijing is transferring money into a Swiss bank account to take out a hit on the life of his mother. Good for him!”
• Pretty much every Snyder line in Puppet Show: “My predecessor, Mr. Flutie, may have gone in for all that touchy-feely stuff, but he was eaten.” “There are things that I will not tolerate: students loitering on campus, horrible murders with hearts being removed. And also smoking.” “I don’t get it... is it avant-garde?”
• Giles asking Cordy if there’s something wrong with her hair.
• Sid: “Look at you, you’re strong, athletic... limber... nuuuubile......... I’m back!”

Did You Notice?
• Buffy will always sense when Angel’s behind her...
• I love the dichotomy between Buffy’s complete lack of history knowledge and the fact that Angel lived through so much of it.
• It’s so strange to watch Willow with that ancient little hand-scanner. Also, I remember those, and they did NOT scan things as neatly as the show suggests they do. Talk about wonky pictures.
• The outdated references to the internet and computers in this episode always makes me laugh.
• I never understood what was with all the Nazi references in this episode – the kid’s name is Fritz, there’s another kid who loses his paper on the Third Reich, Moloch is this evil dictator... it was a strange underlying theme in the episode. And speaking of the kid losing his paper... holy ancient laptop, Batman!!
• Did you notice that no one gives a rat’s about Dave? Buffy finds him hanging there, goes back to the library and says, “So, this student we’ve all grown up with is dead. Anyway, anyone find anything in the research??” Does no one call the cops around here?
• Ugh, that background music is so cheeseball. Thank god for Christophe Beck, coming soon to save a soundtrack near you.
• Years ago, during the Earshot fiasco (more on that later), someone who worked on Buffy sent me a videotape of the dailies for this episode, and you can see how they would film the scenes over and over and over again from different angles. One of the scenes on the tape was the one of the three kids by the fountain talking at the end. Every time they’d cut, Alyson Hannigan would make these googly eyes or snort while the others would stay super-serious. (Have I mentioned how much I love her?)

Next week: We finish off season 1 with "Nightmares," "Out of Mind, Out of Sight," and "Prophecy Girl" with special guest commentators Jennifer K. Stuller and David Kociemba! Also, starting next week I'm going to have an archive post that I'll link to off the side of the page where I will archive all of these posts, so you'll have a one-click stop to find all of them.

Buffy Rewatch Week 3 Spoiler Forum

1.7 Angel
1.8 I Robot, You Jane
1.9 The Puppet Show

Welcome to this week's spoiler forum! Rather than post the guest commentator column twice, I think it's easiest just to post it in the main section with the minor spoilers whited out (something I'll have to do less and less as the rewatch continues) and I'll just put some extra spoiler points below. That way people will be sure to read both posts, and then you can choose which forum you want to chat in.

Aside from everything mentioned above, I wanted to also mention the following points:

Spoilery bits:
• By season 6, “The Three” will take on a completely different – and totally wacky – meaning
• For anyone loving the Xander dance, wait for the brilliant Snoopy dance coming up, and the Angel dance in the first season of Angel
• Angel says his family was killed by vampires, and in season 3 of Angel, we’ll actually see just how evil he was (rivalled only by the goon he was when he was Liam, before he was turned)
• When I first saw this episode, Darla was just another recurring character who was dusted. But after she comes back in Angel and we see what she goes through there, her death is far more poignant and sad to me now. The writers couldn’t have known what Darla would have meant to Angel, so it’s a bit of a shame that he stares at her dust like it means nothing, when we know it would have been painful for him.
• Pateman mentioned this a bit in his essay, but this episode (and especially the next one, Nightmares) reminded me of Restless. There’s the show happening on stage, Giles is involved in the show and doing the circle the way he does in Restless, Willow has to get on stage despite her stage fright. Also, they do Oedipus and in “Restless” Xander will be drawn to Buffy’s mom.

Oh, and for anyone who's going to remind me that tomorrow is Buffy's birthday... don't worry, I have my own birthday post to put up for her! ;)

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Buffy Rewatch P.S.

Hello everyone! I hope you're enjoying the Buffy Rewatch so far; I know I am. The spoiler boards are offering great insights and I'm really enjoying the many perspectives on these early episodes (unlike Lost, I never got to blog or really chat with large groups of people on Buffy, except for the occasional mailing list). I'm especially enjoying the non-spoiler comments, where people are asking questions about characters and I'm giggling with glee thinking, "Oh, just you wait!"

I realized just now that I forgot to let you know what next week's episodes are. We'll be watching and discussing:
1.7 Angel
1.8 I Robot, You Jane
1.9 The Puppet Show

Our guest commentator will be my Slayage partner-in-insult, Professor Matthew Pateman.

I'm going to be reorganizing that space on the left so the rewatch schedule and contributor links will be up top (and part of my "letting go" of Lost will be pushing that stuff down... sniffle...) and I'll add a book or blog link for the person or persons who will be our guest(s) that week.

I also want to say that I've already got the rewatch write-ups from the next three commentators, and they are all FABULOUS. You guys have some great discussion coming up! Thanks to everyone who has been participating so far on the boards and your own blogs, and keep bringing new people to it! I'm delighted that the Buffy love is still so strong out there.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Buffy Rewatch: Week 2

1.4 Teacher's Pet
1.5 Never Kill a Boy on the First Date
1.6 The Pack

Week 1 of the Buffy Rewatch was off to a great start; there were lots of comments, and I think we got the whole spoiler vs non-spoiler thing squared away for now (if you’re watching BtVS for the first time, stick with this post and put your comments under it; if you’re rewatching Buffy, you can read this post, then jump down to the next one below it where you’ll find the spoilery stuff, and you can post in that forum instead). I’m just so thrilled to be watching BtVS again!

This week we begin some character-building... mostly with Xander. Poor, poor Xander. (Don’t worry, first-time watchers... for anyone who’s thinking Xander’s having it a little hard, we’ll eventually get to see things from his perspective in one of the best episodes of the series.) Joss Whedon often said that Xander was the character he identified with the most, which is probably why he’s the most well-rounded character right from the beginning. And Nicholas Brendon puts in a brilliant performance week after week.

This week we watched “Teacher’s Pet” (Xander is about to be used to harvest eggs for a giant praying mantis), “Never Kill a Boy on a First Date” (Buffy and Owen sittin’ in a tree... er... S-L-A-Y-I-N-G), and “The Pack” (Xander is possessed by a hyena). “The Pack” is considered by many fans to be the first truly great episode of the series. I remember the first time I watched it I was immensely uncomfortable... the way Xander looks at Buffy, the way he humiliates Willow (if you listen closely, you can actually hear her heart break), the way he attempts to dominate Buffy to show his manhood. It’s frightening. And brilliant. “Teacher’s Pet” is a little monster-of-the-weeky and not a strong S1 episode. “Never Kill a Boy” has some of the sharpest dialogue in season 1, and features that excellent library scene, where Giles is suddenly reminded that other students are supposed to take out books, too. And now I’m about to ruin Dickinson for you (or, depending on your perspective, make it far more entertaining, which was my reaction when I heard this): When I was taking American Lit in university, my prof told us that you can sing almost any Emily Dickinson to the tune of the theme song from Gilligan’s Island. Try it:

A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
That sat it down to rest,
Nor noticed that the ebbing day
Flowed silver to the west,
Nor noticed night did soft descend
Nor constellation burn,
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.

Heehee!!!!! And failing that, he said you should try setting them to “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.”

This week's guest post is by David Lavery (my observations will follow after). I first met David when I was working on a chapter called “Buffy Goes to College” for my Angel companion guide, because David, along with Rhonda Wilcox, had put together one of the first great books of academic essays on BtVS, Fighting the Forces. He is the co-organizer of the biennial Slayage conference that I attended in 2008 and 2010, and he is also the co-organizer of the upcoming Lost conference I’ve yammered on about a lot on here (now scheduled for October 6-8, 2011, in New Orleans... more on that to come). I worked with him on his Heroes book, “Saving the World,” and he asked me to contribute a chapter on Heroes to his book, “The Essential Cult Television Reader” and then asked me to write the chapter on Lost in his upcoming book on TV Finales. Dr. Lavery has been a Professor of English at MTSU since 1993. The author of over 120 published essays, chapters, and reviews, he is author / co-author / editor / co-editor of 23 books on Lost, Buffy, The Sopranos, Seinfeld, Deadwood, and many more. He is the founding co-editor of the journals Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies and Critical Studies in Television, and has lectured around the world on the subject of television (Australia, Turkey, the UK, Portugal, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany). He blogs here.

Now that we have two forums in which to discuss Buffy in a spoilery way and a non-spoilery one, I’ll put David’s spoilery comments in white here if you’re a first-time watcher (there aren't very many here at all; simply highlight them to read them if you’d like... if you noticed a weird white space, that's probably where I've removed a phrase). If you’re a rewatcher, move to the next post and you can read it in its entirety. And now, take it away, David!

“Can I just say one thing? HEEEELLLLP! HEEEELLLLP!”
— Xander to Mrs. French (the she-mantis) in “Teacher’s Pet”

When the episodes I’ve just rewatched originally aired, I was paying no attention. (You can read a brief account of my “coming-to-Buffy” in Season 4 experience here.) Nor have I ever been a big fan of BtVS S1. I have even been known to discourage potential future adherents to skip the entire season and begin their Buffy immersion with S2 (in the hope such a navigation of the verse would more likely lead to love/addiction).

My critical opinion of two of my three rewatchables was, nevertheless, high: I’ve long considered “Never” and “Pack” among the strongest from Buffy’s rookie season. “Teacher’s Pet,” on the other hand, I had filed away in my memory as a BBF (Buffy Bottom Feeder), an episode every bit as lame as, say, “Inca Mummy Girl” or “Beer Bad.” (I know, I know: judging television episodes is an exercise in critical relativity, and the worst Buffy may still be pretty good television.) I am happy to report that while “Never” and “Pack” remain worthy, “Pet” has improved with age.

That Joss Whedon half-expected Buffy to be canceled after only one season is well known. The series’ signature “flexi-narrative” formula (the term is Robin Nelson’s) — one season = the struggle with and defeat of a singular Big Bad, punctuated with “Monster of the Week” episodes — was a fortunate side-effect. Like most initial seasons of long-running series, Season 1 BtVS shows Whedon and company uncertain about a number of other matters as well, still calibrating, if you will, its most basic assumptions. In my three episodes the calibration is almost audible.

For example, Buffy’s Summers’ IQ is still in doubt. Though her verbal kicks are as quick and accurate as her physical ones, the young woman who will later earn an SAT score good enough to gain admission to Northwestern does not always seem the sharpest tool in the shed. Consider the entrance of Owen Thurman into the library in “Never”:

Owen: I lost my Emily. Dickinson. It's dumb, but I like her around. Kind of a security blanket.
Buffy: (awkwardly) I have something like that. Well, it's an actual blanket. Uh, and I don't really carry it around anymore . . . So! Emily Dickens, huh? She's great!
Owen: Dickinson.
Buffy: She's good also.

Even allowing for her smittenness with Owen’s Owenocity in this scene, this level of dumb seems incompatible with the intelligence Buffy exhibits in her smack down of a vamp in the episode’s teaser:

We haven't been properly introduced. (pulls out a stake) I'm Buffy, and you're history!

or later in the same episode in the following exchange with her Watcher:

Giles: If your identity as the Slayer is revealed it could put you and all those around you in grave danger.
Buffy: Well, in that case I won't wear my button that says, “I'm a Slayer. Ask me how!”

Nor have Whedon and Company, or David Boreanaz for that matter (who shows little evidence of acting ability until Season 2), yet figured out Angel. Though it is abundantly clear (as Xander notes in “Pet”) that he is “a very attractive man,” radiating “salty goodness” (Cordelia in “Never”), it is by no means certain yet that he is a hero. Angel in my rewatchables reminded me — nota bene: odd comparison ahead — of Kramer in the first two partial seasons of Seinfeld — before Seinfeld, David, and Richards realized the character’s potential as a “hipster doofus.”

Nor is the continuity precisely calibrated yet. When Giles tells his charge (in “Never”) that he always wanted to be a fighter pilot, the confession seems a bit odd coming from the Ripper of “The Dark Age,” and his insistence that he has no instruction manual is of course contradicted by Kendra’s knowledge of one (“What’s My Line,” Parts I and II). And what’s with the vampire look? All vampires at this point seem to be Master lookalikes. Later, John Vulich and company will go lighter on the latex.

On the other hand, Xander and Cordelia are already fully and completely themselves. It is revealing, is it not, that two of my three rewatchables (“Pet,” “Pack”) — from the middle of Season 1 — are Xandercentric. I suspect so much Xander so early in BtVS reflects a great deal of comfort in the writers room with both Mr. Harris and Nicholas Brendon’s portrayal of him.

I had entirely forgotten till this rewatch that “Pet” begins with a “Superstary” dream sequence in which, like Jonathan Levinson in Season 4, our beloved Zeppo takes over the narrative and becomes the Slayer’s savior, kicking a vampire’s butt, and then, in a “Restlessy” moment mounting the stage in the Bronze to perform. (When Buffy awakes him from his biology class nap with the words “You're drooling,” the omniscient among us can’t help but flash forward to Buffy’s own “minimal drool” in “Hush.”)

If Brendon excels as dream-Xander, he shines as well as the virgin about to be the recipient of Mrs. French’s eggs in the final scene of “Pet” and, even more significantly, as the Hyena-possessed bad boy of “The Pack.” (Like Boreanaz, the dark side serves for Brendon as a performance enhancer.) I find “The Pack” difficult to watch, genuinely scary.

And what are we to say about Charisma Carpenter’s role as the poster child for meanness? Consider her Principal Flutie ordered (“Heal!” “Heel!”) meeting with a grief counselor (after finding Dr. Gregory’s corpse):

I don't know what to say, it was really, I mean, one minute you're in your normal life, and then who's in the fridge? It really gets to you, a thing like that. It was . . . let's just say I haven't been able to eat a thing since yesterday. I think I lost, like, seven and a half ounces? Way swifter than that so-called diet that quack put me on. Oh, I'm not saying that we should kill a teacher every day just so I can lose weight, I'm just saying bright side. You know?

I am sure I am not alone in identifying this kind of black humor one of the things I love most about Buffy and no one brings it better than Queen C.

Giles, too, with the exception of his possibly inconsistent backstory, is recognizably Giles. Consider, for example, this wonderful exchange with Buffy in “Never”:

Giles: Alright, I-I'll just jump in my time machine, go back to the twelfth century and ask the vampires to postpone their ancient prophecy for a few days while you take in dinner and a show.
Buffy: Okay, at this point you're abusing sarcasm.

Gilesish to the max.

Thanks to this rewatch I don’t think I will be recommending “go directly to Season 2” in the future. “Teacher’s Pet,” “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date,” and “The Pack” may not be my favortist Buffys, but they remain inescapable — like puberty.

Miscellaneous Notes, Queries, and Observations
• Buffy will give us several mean teachers over its run, but “Pet” give us perhaps its nicest, Dr. Gregory (“one of the few teachers who don’t think Buffy’s a felon”—as Willow observes) and then, in classic Whedon fashion, immediately kills him. It will come as no surprise in “The Prom” (3.20).
• Will we ever again see Xander as one of the girls (as he is in “Never”)? Take note, in a further act of emasculation, Xander (in the epilogue of “Never”) sips on a juice box in a very Andrew-like manner.
• In her attempted extrication from Owen’s interest in the life of danger at the end of “Never,” Buffy insists “It’s not you, it’s me.” Has Buffy been watching Seinfeld and fallen under the influence of George Costanza?
• In “Never,” we get the following exact duplication of lines (both, of course, describing Buffy):

Giles: She is the strangest girl!
Owen: (to Angel) She's the strangest girl!

• In case you did not know: Musetta Vander, the South African actress who plays Natalie French in “Pet,” would later play one of the Sirens in Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother Where Art Thou? (Nikki note: She also played an Amazon on Xena among many other small roles in genre TV.)
• I had forgotten that key School of Whedonite David Greenwalt (an essential Angel contributor as well) wrote “Pet.”
• When the vampire (with a giant claw) runs in terror from Natalie French, did anyone else hear?
• Xander: Generally speaking, when scary things get scared: not good. (“Dead Man’s Party,” 3.2)
• In “Restless” (4.22), Xander tells Apocalypse-Now-Principal-Snyder “how glad I was you were eaten by a snake.” On the other hand, I was really, really sorry to see Flutie eaten by The Pack. Wonderful character, played by Ken Lerner, the brother of Michael Lerner, the actor (yes, another Coen Bros. reference) who gave us mogul Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink.
• Some very nice indie music at the Bronze in all three episodes — a Buffy trademark.
• Perhaps it’s just me, but I would lose the “to be continued” ending of “Pet.”
• Television directors tend to be invisible. (Whedon would not himself direct an episode until the Season 1 finale, “Prophecy Girl.”) Two of my three episodes were directed by Bruce Seth Green, a twenty year industry veteran, who came to Buffy with an impressive resume that included assignments on the following TV series: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, American Gothic, Xena: Warrior Princess, Babylon 5, Law & Order, I'll Fly Away, Swamp Thing, Doogie Howser, M.D., Baywatch, MacGyver, T.J. Hooker, V, Knight Rider, Magnum, P.I. After Season Two (in which Green helmed “Some Assembly Required,” “Nightmares,” “Halloween,” “The Dark Age,” “Ted,” and “Phases”), he would never work for the series again.
• On the DVDs, activation of each episode is accompanied by a Buffy witticism. When you play “Pet,” Buffy announces “We’re talking full-on Exorcist twist.” With “Never” we hear “If the apocalypse comes, beep me.” Nice.

Thank you, David! He'll be watching the comments, so if you wanted to ask him anything specific, I'm sure he'll be happy to answer. Right, David? David?

And now a few more observations from me:

Highlights:
• “Teacher’s Pet”: Xander’s guitar solo. That makes me laugh every time (especially the moment where it cuts into it midway through the episode) and makes me think of a certain guitarist who will appear in S2.
• Principal Flutie telling Buffy to “HEAL!” and making it sound like he’s ordering a dog to sit. (And then, in a sad ironic twist, is eaten by dogs, in a sense.) That’s probably my favourite Flutie line.
• “Never Kill a Boy”: Giles: “She’s quite a good poet for...” Buffy: “A girl?” Giles: “An American.”
• Giles: “While you checking out a book should be grounds for a national holiday...”
• One of my all-time FAVOURITE Xander quotes: “So, Buffy... how did the slaying go last night? I... mean... how did the LAYING go? No I didn’t mean that either.”
• “I’m a slayer, ask me how!” (I have that button, by the way... thanks, Cynthea!)
• Xander’s Tweety watch!!!
• The debut of the Gilesmobile. Oh how I ♥ that car.
• "If the Apocalypse comes, beep me." Yep, Buffy has a beeper. I half expected Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock to pop up and ask her if she was waiting for 1983 to call. It also made me wonder, what would the line be now? "If the Apocalypse comes, tweet it?"
• Buffy: "Bite me." Me: "YEEEESSSSSS!!!!"
• The Pack: Willow on zebras mating: “It’s like the Heimlich... with stripes!”
• Giles reacting to Buffy’s news that Xander has become mean: “It’s terrible... he’s turned into a 16-year-old boy. Of course you’ll have to kill him.”

Did You Notice?
• David Boreanaz is listed as a guest star, which is such a shock to see!
• When Flutie was killed in this episode, fans were shocked and we realized Joss could take out anyone if he wanted to. I realize Flutie certainly isn’t a Scoob or anything, but he was major enough that his death was a surprise. It doesn’t seem so shocking now, but at the time, characters who were killed off TV shows were still mostly redshirts who had been introduced to one episode solely for the purpose of killing them off.
• I was recently watching a S1 episode of Supernatural where Sam was in a cage next to another guy, and it made me think of “Teacher’s Pet.”
• Willow saying that Owen can brood for 40 minutes is foreshadowing what Angel will become best known for.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Buffy vs. Edward

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Buffy Rewatch Week 4: Part 1

Buffy Rewatch Week 4: Part 2

Buffy Rewatch Part 4 Spoiler Forum

Thursday, January 20, 2011

I'm SO in Love!!!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Happy Birthday, Buffy!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Buffy Rewatch Week 3

Buffy Rewatch Week 3 Spoiler Forum

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Buffy Rewatch P.S.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Buffy Rewatch: Week 2

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