Tag: reviews Page 6 of 7

This was easily my favorite season yet of Buffy. It’s rather amazing to me that it wasn’t the work of just one writer, given how tightly the whole thing hangs together. Each episode tells a satisfying story on its own, but the season as a whole is an incredible story, with dramatic peaks and valleys, great surprises, and tons of character development for almost everybody. It feels fuller than the last two seasons put together, which is quite an achievement. So many connections, so much depth, such a smooth flow from one episode into the next. Awesome.

So, the short review is: I loved it. The longer review follows:

1) When I saw Ted in Season 2, I wished for a story that would fully explore the consequences of Buffy unleashing her slayer-power on a normal human. Beginning with Bad Girls, I got the next best thing this season, with Faith killing somebody and then flipping out. I wasn’t terribly interested in Faith during the first half of the season, but when she moved from flawed hero to conflicted villain, she turned into an excellent character. Watching the other characters try to trust her even as I believed (but didn’t know for sure) that she was not to be trusted made for wonderful drama. I’m glad that Giles made the point that accidents like Faith’s had happened before — it would be wildly implausible for this to be the first one. However, the idea that the Council makes a judgement about how the culprit should be treated is unsatisfying, I imagine purposefully so. Which leads into point #2.

2) I really enjoyed the way this season explored themes of guardianship and parenthood. There was Gingerbread, obviously — Buffy’s mom getting freaked about her daughter’s work was an inevitable plotline, and blending that with the town actually reacting to one of its many murders was a great choice. Having Buffy and Willow nearly burned at the stake by their mothers and the town was a nicely Buffyesque literalization of parental (and societal) anxiety about adolescents. Then there’s Gwendolyn Post in Revelations, a whole different kind of Bad Mommy. Many of the differences between Buffy and Faith seemed to come down to upbringing, comparing Buffy’s stable (albeit broken) home with a bunch of unspecified bad stuff that apparently constituted Faith’s childhood. So having Gwendolyn come in as the stern-but-loving parent that Faith never had, only to betray her and tell her she was an idiot for being so trusting, set Faith up perfectly for her next substitute parent. The Mayor’s evilness was never in doubt, so there was no question of his using her in the way that Gwendolyn had, and in fact he turned out to be someone who genuinely loved her, in his deranged and demonic way. In addition to this argument for the value of parents, there’s Band Candy, which shows what horrible shape Buffy’s world would be in if it wasn’t full of responsible adults.

Now that Buffy’s mom is hip to the secret identity and more or less at ease (Gingerbread aside) with the whole Slayer thing, we needed a new controlling-parent figure to cramp Buffy’s style, so that she could demonstrate her coming of age by leaving that control behind. Enter Wesley Wyndham-Price, who did an excellent job of portraying the Council Of Watchers as inept and out-of-touch as well as overly authoritarian. However, since Wesley was a mostly sympathetic character who didn’t turn out to be some kind of supernatural evil thingy, his annoying qualities wouldn’t be enough in themselves to push Buffy out of the nest, which is why we had Helpless, one of my favorite episodes of the season, in which Giles is forced by his own parent-figures to go against his better instincts and betray Buffy. The fallout from this represents a sort of coming-of-age for Giles as well as moving his relationship to Buffy away from father-daughter and more toward friends, and the whole thing was brilliantly told. Buffy follows Giles out of the Council’s employ in Graduation Day, Part One, resulting in a bit of dialogue I loved:

Wesley: This is mutiny.
Buffy: I like to think of it as graduation.

I ended up with a lot of questions about the Council Of Watchers after this season. Like, if there’s only one Slayer, why do we need a whole Council? What do the rest of them do? In my imagination, they’re a bit like the secret society whose name I forget in those Anne Rice books, which keeps an eye on everything supernatural in the world, so being Slayer-mentors would be only one of many projects for them. Also, is a Slayer supposed to outgrow her Watcher? If not, I kind of can’t believe this is the first time it’s ever happened. Maybe their mortality rate is so high that few of them ever reach that level of maturity?

Then there’s the rest of the gang, who seem to exist in this weird parent-free zone. I’m pleased that at least this is marginally explained for several of the characters. We see the benign neglect of Willow’s academic mom in Gingerbread, and Amends gives us a glimpse into the alcoholism and dysfunction that explains Xander’s isolation from his parents. Based on what we know of Cordelia’s father’s wealth, we can chalk her independence up to the “CEO too busy for his family” stereotype, though his reversal of fortunes seems to have brought him no further into her life. The only one whose family remains a complete mystery is Oz — the only bit about his family I can remember is when he calls his aunt to confirm that his cousin is a werewolf.

3) Speaking of Oz, I love Oz. Seth Green rules. I was so, so happy to see him listed in the opening credits this season. His understated quality makes his emotional moments very gripping. Also, he’s got so many funny lines, and delivers them so beautifully. Just a random example:

Cordelia: I personally don’t think it’s possible to come up with a crazier plan.
Oz: We attack the Mayor with hummus.
Cordelia: I stand corrected.

Willow is still my favorite character, but Oz is just a hair behind now.

4) Willow remains super-cute, and she had some great moments this season. Her confrontation with Faith in Choices was one of my favorite scenes of hers from this season, and her pencil-staking of the vampire in that same episode was another. However, best of all was her guilty romance with Xander. Something I love about continuity-heavy storytelling is the way that having seen characters through some history can lend a huge amount of emotional wallop to events. Knowing about Willow’s longstanding unrequited desire for Xander beginning in season one lent so much plausibility to her cheating on Oz with him. That whole story, and the way it turned out for all four of the people involved, was emotionally wrenching in the best way.

5) Which brings me to Cordelia, who finally gets her due in this season. She retains enough of the Queen of Mean qualities from earlier seasons that she felt like recognizably the same character, but she finally had enough holes poked in her (um, no pun intended) to give her the humanity and vulnerability that allows me to care about her. Her sweet adoration of Xander early in the season is endearing, and watching him cheat on her put me on her side in their relationship. Then, when her discovery of betrayal is followed up by a sudden and serious injury, I was hooked at last, worried about her and hoping she’d be okay. By the end of the season, she felt like a full-fledged, three-dimensional character to me, just as much as any of the others.

6) David Boreanaz is really starting to bug me, and I’m not terribly sorry to see him go. He spends wayyyyy too much of this season with this kind of hurt-puppy look on his face, angsting so endlessly that it becomes tiresome. Also, he seems like the weakest actor in the bunch. He seems to only have two faces: Worried, and Vampire. And the second one is due more to makeup than acting. He’s reminding me a bit of Patrick Swayze in Ghost, with his overly self-conscious “I’m-in-pain” expression and his faux desirability. This is not a good association. I hope that without Buffy around to moan about, he’s able to become a more interesting character in his own show.

7) The Mayor is such a fantastic villain. His weird Mayberry demeanor was a great hook, and Harry Groener was hilariously good at mixing menace with dorkiness. However, I HATED the mayor-demon saying “Well, gosh!” before the school exploded. That just did not work. Once he Ascended, he should have been pure demon — the dorkiness just seemed silly rather than creepy coming out of an actual monster’s mouth.

8) Another thing that I thought was a weak spot is the way the idea of The First was introduced, then immediately dropped. I was happy to have an explanation for Angel’s (inevitable) return, but the notion of the Biggest Evil In The Freaking World doing this as sort of a halfhearted gesture toward hurting Buffy, then vanishing away without a trace, was lame. I hope they follow up on that.

Favorite episodes: The truth is, I loved the whole thing so much that I don’t think I really could pick out specific favorites. They all felt like favorites. So aside from what I mention above, I’ll just make a few episode-specific notes:

• Homecoming: I realized partway into this one that I’d actually seen the second half of it already. I caught it on TV and was sucked in, I think because I saw Ian Abercrombie and said, “Isn’t that Mr. Pitt from Seinfeld? What’s he doing?”
• Lover’s Walk: I told those kids it would all end in tears, but did they listen? No. So typical of the way people on television never listen to me.
• Enemies: This episode made me so happy, because it totally suckered me. I groaned with disappointment when Angel seemed to lose his soul again, because it seemed like such a boring, retread plot. As soon as he said, “Second-best”, I just got this HUGE grin on my face. What a fun, fun thrill.

Favorite moments:

• Dead Man’s Party: Giles — “Unbelievable. ‘Do you like my mask? Isn’t it pretty? It raises the dead!’ Americans.”
• Band Candy: Cordelia — “I do well on standardized tests. What, I can’t have layers?”
• Lover’s Walk: Cordelia — “I fell.” My reaction to this was similar to when Jenny Calendar died in season two.
• Enemies: Angel — “Second-best.” As I said above.
• Amends: Giles’ reaction to Angel appearing at his door.
• Choices: Oz suddenly smashing the urn. That gave me goosebumps.
• The Prom: Buffy’s “little toy surprise” from the graduating class. I’m realizing that I love to see when the world at large acknowledges all the weirdness in the Buffyverse, and this was such a touching recognition for Buffy.
• The Prom: In the category of “Best Music Cue”, we have The Sundays’ version of “Wild Horses.” Never has the line “Let’s do some living after we die” been so apropos in so many ways.
• Graduation Day, Part One: Buffy — “I like to think of it as graduation.” See point #2 above.
• Graduation Day, Part Two: The Cordelia-Wesley anticlimax. What a hilarious way to resolve the tension that had building between them for half the season. I also loved Charisma Carpenter’s delivery of the line “That’d be neat.”
• Graduation Day, Part Two: Buffy kissing Faith’s forehead. I think this is one of the more beautiful moments I’ve ever seen on television.

Next up: Angel season one and Buffy season four, under the guidance of my friend and Buffyverse Guru Jenny Nelson.

So I’ve finished watching the Season Two DVDs of Buffy. Overall, I loved them. I thought the shows in this season were a huge leap over season one. There was more emotional depth, wonderfully engaging story arcs with real impact on the characters, great snappy dialogue, and some excellent acting, especially from Sarah Michelle Gellar. Further scattered thoughts below:

1) First off, something I loved in season one but forgot to mention: significant events. TV series can sometimes feel like exercises in departing from and then returning to the status quo. Now, I really don’t have much solid ground to say that from, as I don’t watch a whole lot of TV, but it’s my (possibly flawed) perception that lots of shows don’t really tend to shake things up very much, or if they do, it’s usually in a season finale or something. So I was delighted to see an episode in the middle of the first season where the school principal is killed and eaten. Not that I was happy specifically to see him eaten, mind you, but killing off somebody who was up to that point a fairly significant supporting player felt like a key moment to me. I was put on notice: take nothing for granted. For the same reason, I love that Xander confesses his crush on Buffy during the final episode of season one. A different show might have strung along his unrequitedness for season after season, but not here. In the Buffyverse, things change and develop, and I love that. The trends certainly continue in season two: Willow hooks up with Oz, Xander hooks up with Cordelia, Buffy sleeps with Angel (who then loses his soul), Jenny Calendar dies. None of these events are even in a finale or anything. (And the finale throws twice as many change-ups just to stay big!) This feeling that (almost) anything can happen really helps ratchet up the narrative tension.

2) In the “not so much helping the narrative tension” department: knowing that Angel gets his own show in two seasons. There are plenty of advantages to watching shows on DVD rather than as they are aired — no commercials, no waiting, extras (about which more later.) But knowing that Angel gets his own show deflated a lot of the intensity around his turn to evil halfway into the season. I couldn’t really get invested in worrying about whether Buffy was going to kill him or not, and despite the fact that she finally does, I have a pretty strong feeling he’s probably going to be okay.

3) Speaking of spoilers, I am also officially off DVD extras until I have watched ALL episodes of Buffy and Angel. Stupid spoilery commentaries. That goes for you too, Television Without Pity recaps.

4) Cordelia certainly gets a lot more play this season, and she’s got some nice character moments, but she still seems cartoonier than the other characters. Pretty much everybody else (in the main cast, anyway) feels like a real person, but much of the time she’s still a walking cliche, sometimes gratingly so. For instance: saying that the hospitalized Willow shouldn’t undertake the gypsy ritual because her hair looks really flat? That was just too silly. I just can’t believe that a real person would say that, even a shallow high school girl. It’s as if the writers really relate to Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, and the rest, but can’t get a consistent handle on how to write Cordelia as a human being.

5) I’m still loving the riffs on horror tropes — the mummy, werewolf, Frankenstein monster, aliens, creature from the black lagoon, etc. It’s like a little parlor game to think about how each of these mythos might play out in the Buffyverse. I begin to wonder how much is left in this vein, though.

6) Man, what a great cast, both principals and more minor people. Seth Green is hilarious! I think the only things I ever saw him in were a couple of Austin Powers movies — he was fine there, but kind of a one-noter. His portrayal of Oz is making me a fan, though. Also, Alyson Hannigan is still super-cute, and Willow has pretty much emerged as my favorite character. I just read that Nicholas Brendon is my age, and thus probably graduated high school about 10 years prior to playing a high schooler. Apparently I’m willing to suspend a lot of disbelief about who can portray a high school student.

7) Okay, I’m confused about the second vampire slayer thing. I can accept that in the Buffyverse, once a slayer dies, the next one is called. What does “called” mean, though? Kendra says that her parents sent her away as a very young child to go train with her Watcher, but Buffy only died a few months ago in story time. What gives? I think I’m missing some key piece of lore. Are slayers-to-be somehow notified at an early age of their status? Did Buffy’s notice get lost in the mail or something? Also, what if a slayer lives to a ripe old age? Or middle age, even? Are there potential slayers who train and sacrifice but are never called?

Favorite episodes:

• When She Was Bad: Still my favorite episode of the season, and for that matter my favorite Buffy episode of those I’ve seen so far.
• Ted: This was easily my favorite “little bad” episode of the season. Seeing John Ritter play menacing is a lot of fun, for one thing. Also, when it looks as if Buffy has killed a normal human (albeit a nasty one) with her slayer strength, the episode gets extremely compelling. I know it’s not practical, but I almost wish they had been able to play out the murder thing a little further. Everything seemed like it was going in a completely unexpected and rich direction, and while the “bad guy is a robot” ending made everything much simpler, it also made me a little sad.
• Surprise/Innocence: These episodes worked for me in most of the ways they were supposed to work, but I was a little confused by Buffy and Angel’s choice to get it on when they’ve just barely evaded a bunch of vampires and the Judge. Didn’t anybody follow them? Don’t the vamps know where Angel lives?
• Passion: Jenny’s death made me gasp out loud.
• Becoming: After reading Daredevil and other Marvel comics of the past decade or so, I’ve discovered that I’m very interested in realistic treatments of secret identity issues and how they interact with the people you care about and the world at large. So I loved Buffy’s coming out to her mom, though “Have you tried not being a vampire slayer?” rang a little false.

Favorite moments:

• School Hard: I got a huge kick out of seeing Buffy take charge and kick ass, and I appreciated that this behavior won her mom’s respect rather than earning the stereotypical parent disapproval.
• Lie To Me: Buffy and Giles’ exchange at the end.
• Phases: I loved Giles’ glee at getting to research werewolves. “It’s one of the classics!”
• Bewitched, Bothered: Xander — “Do you know what’s a good day to break up with somebody? ANY DAY BESIDES VALENTINE’S DAY!”
• I Only Have Eyes For You: Seeing Buffy and Angel play out the lovers’ conversation we’d heard so many times throughout the episode, with the genders reversed, was a wonderful bit of drama. Also, it pointed out that Sarah Michelle Gellar has five times the intensity of any of the other actors who spoke those lines.

I’m one of those people who never watched an episode of Buffy while it was on. I knew it was supposed to be good, and I had many friends who were fervent fans, but I just didn’t have more time to set aside for TV. Then I saw Serenity, loved it, bought the Firefly DVDs, loved them, read Astonishing X-Men, liked it a lot, and long after all his shows have been cancelled, I am now a disciple in the cult of Whedon. Let’s hear it for the advent of full-season DVD collections, which allow me to systematically catch up on what I’ve missed. I finished watching season one of Buffy, and here are a few offhand observations:

1. The plotting etc. got much better as the season went on. However, there are some things I still wish they’d explain. Like, how can a school have all these murders and stuff and not attract the attention of the media? If even one of those deaths happened at a real school it would be big news. I can easily accept the vampires and witches and so forth, but I’d like at least a handwavy explanation for some of the surrounding logic problems. Also, if you have this were-mantis that only kills virgins, but she kills a fortyish science teacher in the beginning of the episode, does that mean the teacher was a virgin? He didn’t seem that nerdy.
2. That Alyson Hannigan is super-duper-cute, and it sure makes me feel anxious when she is placed in jeopardy.
3. It’s weird to me that Charisma Carpenter shows up in the opening credits. Cordelia seems like such a minor character, really hardly showing up at all except in the pilot and “Out of Mind Out Of Sight.” Yeah, according to Joss in the commentary she gets a bigger role later, but she hardly seemed like a regular this season. Which reminds me…
4. I wish the commentaries and biographies would be a bit more spoiler-conscious. Joss tends to say stuff like “…when we blew up the school in Season 3,” which is kind of a letdown for those of us who weren’t along for the initial ride. I started watching the extras on disc 1 and in like the first 10 seconds of the first extra somebody says “Angel is a vampire”, which isn’t revealed until a disc 2 episode. Okay, granted, I pretty much knew this already from the summaries given to me by Buffyphile friends, but still. One of those Buffyphiles, my friend Jenny, refuses to watch any extras on a TV DVD until she’s watched all the season’s episodes, and I totally adopted her method, but this doesn’t help when people are spoiling later seasons. Stop it, people!
5. I always read that X-Files (another show I never got around to watching) had its “mythos/continuity” episodes and its “monster-of-the-week” episodes, and it seems like Buffy is structured similarly. According to Jenny, these are known in the Buffyverse as the “Big Bads” and the “Little Bads”, which is a taxonomy I can get behind. I really liked some of the Little Bads that drew the metaphors between adolescent stuff and horror movie stuff, like “The Witch”, “The Pack”, and “Out of Mind Out of Sight”.

On the whole, I enjoyed it a lot. On to season 2!