From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #34 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Monday, February 14 2000 Volume 02 : Number 034 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/tvguide, etc. ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/slotkin ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/tvguide, etc. [Todd Huff ] Re: b/tvguide, etc. [Micole Sudberg ] Re: b/slotkin [meredith ] Re: b/tvguide, etc. [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/tvguide, etc. [GHighPine@aol.com] m/musicsurfing ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/tvguide, etc. [Berni Phillips ] Re: m/musicsurfing ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/tvguide, etc. ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 20:14:08 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/tvguide, etc. I really =wasn't= going to buy =TV Guide= today, I swear; I mean, I don't really =need= it until next Saturday, and I'm on a bit of a tight budget this week... ...but Guess Who (SMG, natch) was on the cover with a major interview, and they had the results of the Best Episodes poll. And the spoiler for the 1/22 episode, as Micole pointed out. Yep, the spoiler-sensitive might want to avoid; but myself, I'm not terribly surprised. If we know that a certain something is going to happen, and that suggests a couple possibilities, and we then find out which of =those= is true, then =that= suggests a couple possibilities, none of which, therefore, is surprising. My basic reaction was, "Right! How exciting! That's =really= gonna mess stuff up!" (Oh, and there's one additional spoiler as well I =wouldn't= have been able to predict. But I should stop here.) Anyway...SMG's interview is really interesting. She's really smart, very focused on what's best for both her career and personal life, and she sticks to her guns. Though she gives a good interview, she's not automatically compliant (her first answer is "That's an annoying question"). Very impressive. And here's the list of Best Episodes (seventh position was a tie), with season numbers in brackets behind them: Hush [4] Becoming II [2] Welcome to the Hellmouth [1] Graduation Day II [3] The Wish [3] Angel [1] Passion [2] The Prom [3] Surprise [2] Doppelgangland [3] Something Blue [4] This is most interesting. Fairly even distribution (2-3-4-2 by season), but what's surprising is that 1) two episodes from the still-in-process 4th season made it 2) the 3rd season had more than the probably-best 2nd season. I =shouldn't= be surprised that the two alterna-Willow episodes are on there, except that their across-the-board, already-enduring popularity puzzle me (but that's because they seem to me like digressions from the main arc, as does "The Zeppo"). I'm a little surprised not to see "Lovers Walk" or "Amends" (both stronger in my mind, and more plugged in to the romantic tragedy we all love about the show); I'm resigned to the fact that nobody seems to agree with me that "Helpless"/"Bad Girls"/"Consequences" was the high point of the 3rd season. "The Prom" makes sense ("the breakup episode"), and "Grad Day," but why II instead of I? If you're only going to pick three 2nd-season episodes, those are the ones. No argument there. I'm a little surprised that "Welcome to the Hellmouth" rates so high; I'm always impressed at the economy and tight structure of its introduction of the characters, but as an episode it's, well, average. I've stopped being surprised at the popularity of "Angel." It does seem to me, though, that at least three first-season episodes ("The Pack," "Nightmares," "Prophecy Girl") are better than these two. Biggest surprise is that the rather recent "Hush" took the top spot; not that I don't think it doesn't deserve it! And "Something Blue" is a very strong episode as well. Consensus is a bewildering thing. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 20:28:22 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/slotkin Let's talk about something else for a bit. I recently discovered (because I ran across his new novel in a bookstore) that Richard Slotkin's =Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860= (the only book of "theory" Joss Whedon will admit to having read--note to Meredith: not only was the book published by Wesleyan University Press, but Slotkin still taught there as of the early 90s--note to the rest: Joss Whedon is a Wesleyan alum), published in 1973, is the first of a trilogy of similar books: the other two are =The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890= (1985) and =Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America= (1992). I haven't found =The Fatal Environment= yet (it's on my list), but I've had =Regeneration through Violence= for a little while, and the other day I happened across a used paperback of =Gunfighter Nation= and was unable to resist it. It's a huge book of 850 pages, of which about 100 pages are footnotes(!) and another 60+ is bibliography (including 8 pages of just movies and television shows). A brief look-through makes it clear it's a book I've got to read; it also had me furiously scribbling down a list of other books to pursue (Northrop Frye, Fredric Jameson, a Levi-Strauss I've missed, etc. etc.) His analysis of =Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan= is brief, sharp, and amusingly to the point, and his thorough analysis of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars novels is uncomfortably to the =Buffy= point, where he points out how Burroughs exaggerated racial stereotypes into species differences, thus demonizing the non-White ones ("demonizing" being a process =Buffy= commits even more literally.) And here's a passage from =Regeneration through Violence= which is even more to the point [my comments in brackets]: "In psychological terms, the Indian in our [frontier] mythology functions as the image or symbol of the American libido--the primitive source of sexual, conceptual, and creative energy that lies below the level of psychological consciousness and is (according to Jung) the root of creative, religious, and erotic inspiration. In the myth of the hunter, this libido is variously symbolized as a brother or second (and darker) self (Chingachgook [the "domesticated" Indian in Fenimore Cooper]) [for which read: Angel], a bride (anima:...[Daniel] Boone's deer/woman, Ishmael's Queequeg...) [for which read: again, Angel/animus], a male antagonist (animus:...Ahab's Moby Dick) [lots of possibilities here: Angel, Faith, Spike, etc.], and an ambivalent blending of two or more of these elements...[as I've already indicated re: Angel]. Against these symbols of the power of the libido and of the nonconscious aspect of the psyche [the "collective unconscious" and the "shadow" in Jungian terms] are ranged the powers of the conscious mind: reason [Giles], the power of will [Buffy], the socially formed conscience [Willow] [arrayed in Dumezilian trifunctionality, it seems to me]. Conscience and reason are the attributes of the white woman of the captivity myth [cf. Willow as "damsel in distress" often enough], and it is her function to turn the heroic will from its pursuit of the symbols of the libido and the unconscious to the service of society and society's God. "The attitude toward the libido and the unconscious expressed in the [frontier] myth is ambivalent. On the one hand, it recognizes in the symbols of the libido the source of creative life-energy and of the power in and over the natural wilderness. It dreamingly depicts the integration of the nonconscious with the conscious elements of the psyche in the various unions of anima and animus figures. [Which is also how Jung describes the depictions of Renaissance alchemy; yep, everything is connected.] Yet, at the same time, the myth recognizes that the full resignation of consciousness and will to the powers of the libido and the unconscious would threaten the safety and integrity of the conscious mind, the ego, and the will. If the will and conscience, formed to facilitate the progressive thrust and the moral order of society, are thus turned from their proper social objects and concerns, social disintegration may follow." And that, it seems to me, is =Buffy= in a nutshell. I think if Slotkin were to write about the show, he might point out how the Forces of Evil (vampires, demons, etc.) represent the unconscious in general, and Buffy as agent-of-will for the conscious has as her task subduing those forces, and the ambivalence of her attempted union with Angel (a vampire/demon, after all, however domesticated) only makes sense on those terms; he would also point out that Buffy, and even more the Slayerettes, feel great discomfort with the idea of succumbing to the "dark" side (cf. Buffy's interactions with both Angel and Faith even before they turned evil; and remember that Giles and Willow are autonomous characters despite their "light" allegorical functions, and therefore have their own wholly appropriate struggles with their own "dark" sides). But Slotkin would also point to the fact that in =Buffy= "nonwhite" has become "nonhuman" to the point of being literally (this being horror fiction) "demonic"; and it seems to me that Joss Whedon is at least somewhat aware of this, which explains facing the Native American problem head-on in "Pangs." It also explains our collective discomfort with the "sex and violence" scene in "The 'I' in Team." On reflection I think the scene is very carefully prepared for: as Meredith pointed out, there is Faith's who-cares willingness to admit to the arousing qualites of fighting (something Buffy never plausibly denies, and remember both her first kiss with Angel in "Angel" and their sexual encounter in "Surprise" follow big fights), which gets demonstrated with Xander in "The Zeppo"; then there was that scene in "Something Blue" (which I quoted in my bit on Freud) where Buffy admits something different but related, that her ideas about passion are all mixed up with violence. Add to this that it clearly was only a matter of time before Buffy and Riley consummated their relationship, and the recent scene makes all kinds of sense...and I think the intercutting was a clever way to remind us that, logical as it might seem on one level, it still should make us squirm. (By the way, Meredith: the subtext I was talking about was Riley saying to Buffy, "We don't have to do this now," and Buffy replying, "I'm ready, I want to" and it turned out they were talking about taking her to visit the Initiative.) Oh, before I leave Slotkin, here's a paragraph he quotes in a long footnote, from Levi-Strauss' =The View from Afar=: "Stimulated by a conceptual relationship, mythic thinking engenders other relationships which are parallel or antagonistic to the first one...as though the permutation of multiple axes of terms belonging to the same network were an autonomous activity of the mind, so that any state of a combination would suffice to get the mind moving and...produce a cascade of all the other states....The same concepts, rearranged, exchange, contradict, or invert their values and their functions, until the resources of this new combanitorics are dissipated or simply exhausted." Which seems to me a good description not only of how I think about =Buffy= with the aid of my schema, but how the show itself generates new "story." Note to self: don't let Slotkin get buried in the pile again. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 17:39:32 -0800 (PST) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: b/tvguide, etc. HUSH is a great episode, and still fresh in everybody's mind. The title is easy to connect to the episode as well, which is a big factor for the average voter/viewer. This is going to be a great couple of weeks to come. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 20:48:38 -0500 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: b/tvguide, etc. At 08:14 PM 2/13/00 -0500, you wrote: >I really =wasn't= going to buy =TV Guide= today, I swear; I mean, I >don't really =need= it until next Saturday, and I'm on a bit of a >tight budget this week... > >...but Guess Who (SMG, natch) was on the cover with a major interview, and >they had the results of the Best Episodes poll. > >And the spoiler for the 1/22 episode, as Micole pointed out. Yep, Haven't actually seen these. I was looking at www.tvgrid.com, which loads faster. :) The descriptions are probably the same. >And here's the list of Best Episodes (seventh position was a tie), >with season numbers in brackets behind them: > >Hush [4] >Becoming II [2] >Welcome to the Hellmouth [1] >Graduation Day II [3] >The Wish [3] >Angel [1] >Passion [2] >The Prom [3] >Surprise [2] >Doppelgangland [3] >Something Blue [4] > >This is most interesting. Fairly even distribution (2-3-4-2 by season), >but what's surprising is that 1) two episodes from the still-in-process >4th season made it 2) the 3rd season had more than the probably-best 2nd >season. Flamebait, Donald, really. They've both got about the same number of incredibly rich episodes by my count -- the third season may even have more. They break out as equal for me just because the second season has fewer extraordinary episodes, but a stronger overall arc. >I =shouldn't= be surprised that the two alterna-Willow episodes are on >there, except that their across-the-board, already-enduring popularity >puzzle me (but that's because they seem to me like digressions from the >main arc, as does "The Zeppo"). I think you have a more limited notion of the main arc than I do. I don't think it's just the "tragic romance" you mention a little later -- I think it's at least partly about community and family, about Buffy growing up and growing into a family that's not the one she was born into. One of the strongest, most amusing, and most heartbreaking aspects of "The Wish" for me is the Buffy-without-friends that we see there. I think it's utterly essential to the main story. That's one reason why I'm always skeptical about the idea that Joss's original movie script was the show-in-embryo (not that I wouldn't love to see that script!) -- while I think the tone might be like the show's tone, I haven't heard anyone suggest that the characters were essentially different, and that the movie-Buffy had significant relationships beyond Pike and Giles. "Doppelgangland" continues that idea, not to mention setting up Willow/Tara for this year. And anyway, it's funny. :) >I'm a little surprised not to see "Lovers >Walk" or "Amends" (both stronger in my mind, and more plugged in to the >romantic tragedy we all love about the show); I'm resigned to the fact I would still really love to hear what appeals to you about "Amends". (Er - -- that's an honest request; I don't mean it to sound rhetorical or confrontational.) I like "Lovers Walk" mostly for Spike's perfect set-piece of a speech. The rest of the episode, while perfectly fine, doesn't strike me as outstanding. >that nobody seems to agree with me that "Helpless"/"Bad >Girls"/"Consequences" was the high point of the 3rd season. "The >Prom" makes sense ("the breakup episode"), and "Grad Day," but why II >instead of I? *The* high point? I find it very hard to pick just one. But I do agree they're three of the best episodes of the season or the show -- they were my picks too, remember. :) >If you're only going to pick three 2nd-season episodes, those are the >ones. No argument there. I remain startled that no one else was as blown away by "Lie to Me" as I was. Ah well. >Biggest surprise is that the rather recent "Hush" took the top spot; not >that I don't think it doesn't deserve it! And "Something Blue" is a very >strong episode as well. I don't think it's at all surprising. People remember recent episodes best - -- "best of" lists which don't have cut-offs before the present are almost always front-loaded with recent entries. Not that I don't think "Hush" should be up there. - --m. - -- "It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting 'Cathy' and banging your head against a tree."--Helen Fielding, =Bridget Jones's Diary= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 21:01:28 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/slotkin Hi! Don reported: >I recently discovered (because I ran across his new novel in a >bookstore) that Richard Slotkin's =Regeneration through Violence: >The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860= (the only book of >"theory" Joss Whedon will admit to having read--note to Meredith: >not only was the book published by Wesleyan University Press, but >Slotkin still taught there as of the early 90s--note to the rest: >Joss Whedon is a Wesleyan alum) Ah yes, Professor Slotkin. A lot of my friends had him. I'd be willing to bet that Whedon took one or more classes with him. I didn't know he'd published so much! I'm still having fun picking out the Wesleyan references this year. The last one I caught was from just before Buffy's surprise birthday party, when Willow told her that she'd be studying in the Science Library all night. That's *precisely* where Willow would be if she were at Wes. She'd have been tagged with the label "squid" (our term for the Sci-Li-denizens) within her first week on campus. :) +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 21:22:14 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/tvguide, etc. In a message dated 2/13/00 5:19:51 PM Pacific Standard Time, dgk@panix.com writes: << Hush [4] Becoming II [2] Welcome to the Hellmouth [1] Graduation Day II [3] The Wish [3] Angel [1] Passion [2] The Prom [3] Surprise [2] Doppelgangland [3] Something Blue [4] This is most interesting. Fairly even distribution (2-3-4-2 by season), but what's surprising is that 1) two episodes from the still-in-process 4th season made it 2) the 3rd season had more than the probably-best 2nd season. I =shouldn't= be surprised that the two alterna-Willow episodes are on there, except that their across-the-board, already-enduring popularity puzzle me (but that's because they seem to me like digressions from the main arc, as does "The Zeppo"). I'm a little surprised not to see "Lovers Walk" or "Amends" (both stronger in my mind, and more plugged in to the romantic tragedy we all love about the show); I'm resigned to the fact that nobody seems to agree with me that "Helpless"/"Bad Girls"/"Consequences" was the high point of the 3rd season. >> I agree with that -- just that none of those episodes =singly= might be considered one of the very best ones, << If you're only going to pick three 2nd-season episodes, those are the ones. No argument there. >> Wha???? The biggest surprise for me on this list is "Surprise." "Surprise" over "Innocence"? Personally, I found "Surprise" rather dull, while "Innocence" was one of the most compelling hours of television I have ever seen in my life. When I get time, hope to comment on recent eps... well, while I'd anticipated that Walsh might die, I never thought she'd die in (what seems like) such a wasteful and cliched way. (Was she another Mr. Trick?) She turned out to be so uncharacteristically, disappointingly stupid and incompetent, both in the frankly stupid way that she assumed without question that her readings meant that Buffy was dead, and the way that she herself died? And a Frankenstein monster? Named Adam? Joss must be really faking me out, because he =seems= to be entering cliche territory -- you wouldn't do that, would you, Joss? A few other points -- we learned that there is an explicit connection between the Initiative and the US military. That means that the Initiative was not created at Walsh's initiative, and it means that the US govt, or elements thereof, are aware of demons, etc. It would make sense that they would be behind (funding) the creation of Adam, but then why would Walsh consider Buffy such a threat to it? And I think that Walsh's decision to eliminate Buffy was made at the moment that Riley peeked in the window. So much emphasis on the fact that Riley didn't ask questions -- then Buffy's questioning becomes contagious. I think that this no-asking-questions will be central to the themes developing, because Riley (as Second Slayer) represents a particular relationship to authority and control. ("Vitamins" -- with an alarm? - -- obviously a setup.) Would say more, but gotta go. Very good points in the slotkin post, BTW, Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 22:00:49 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/tvguide, etc. In a message dated 2/13/00 5:56:52 PM Pacific Standard Time, quiet@rainfrog.com writes: << I remain startled that no one else was as blown away by "Lie to Me" as I was. Ah well. >> I've seen "Lie To Me" only once, but was impressed by it. Hope I get to see it again some time. Did I ever mention what started me watching BUFFY? I saw / met three of the BUFFY actors at a con and that got me curious enough to take a peek at the show. "Ted" was the first complete episode I saw and it hooked me. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 22:36:10 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: m/musicsurfing While searching the net for information on alchemy (found quite a lot, but more on that later), I discovered, to my surprise, the phrase "Konx Om Pax" on a list of occult books; I knew this to be the title of a piece by contemporary drone-master Giacinto Scelsi, but what =else= was it? So I did a net search on the phrase. Turns out it's the name of a book by notorious magician Aleister Crowley. (The title means "peace" in three languages, Latin, Sanskrit, and I think Hittite, in reverse order.) But this led me off on some music searches, which turned up a very interesting, though very incomplete, 20th-century music page (damn; didn't write down the url), and from there to various composers' pages. Including the contents of a two-disc "portrait concert" devoted to Gyorgy Kurtag; it's two years old and I've avoided buying it because 1) it's expensive 2) the list of works wasn't on the outside, and what if I bought it and it has a bunch of pieces I already have? I don't know why I never thought of looking on the net before now. Turns out there is only one piece duplicated by a CD I already have, so I may end up getting it after all. And on a very thorough Morton Feldman page I found the following piece of information. Hat Hut (a German label who already have released about a dozen Feldman discs) is releasing a recording (by the Ives Ensemble, a name I only faintly know) of String Quartet II (the six-hour behemoth). I don't know whether to stand up and shout or tear my hair out; sure, I'm delighted to have a chance to own a recording, but Hat Hut records retail about $20/disc, and since they can't =possibly= fit the whole thing on less than five discs (5 x 72 = 360 min.), unless they give us poor listeners a break it's going to cost as much as $100.00. Start saving my pennies, I guess... Oh, just to bring the whole experience full-circle: it turns out there's a disc of Scelsi piano music which also contains five of the 50 fugues from Michael Maier's 1618 alchemical work =Atalanta fugiens= (about which, more anon). Pynchon was right, as usual. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 19:48:24 -0800 From: Berni Phillips Subject: Re: b/tvguide, etc. Micole Sudberg wrote: > I think you have a more limited notion of the main arc than I do. I don't > think it's just the "tragic romance" you mention a little later -- I think > it's at least partly about community and family, about Buffy growing up and > growing into a family that's not the one she was born into. One of the > strongest, most amusing, and most heartbreaking aspects of "The Wish" for > me is the Buffy-without-friends that we see there. I think it's utterly > essential to the main story. I agree with that. The Buffy in "The Wish" is scarred, solemn, and friendless. Doesn't she also die in that episode? Even if she didn't, her life appears to be much grimmer than the Buffy of Sunnydale. Berni ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 00:13:01 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: m/musicsurfing Aside from occasional record-hunting (there's a very good classical remainder source called Berkshire Record Outlet), I've found very little classical music info on the web that's useful for my needs. A lot of potted composer bios and descriptions that mostly make me think, "I could have done a better job than that." The sheer scale of Feldman's SQ II makes putting it on a set of CDs almost as ludicrous as putting a Mahler symphony on 78s (something which I believe was done once or twice). I'm sure that Hat Hut's prices are mostly related to import costs, so you're unlikely to get a break, I fear. I must tell you about the concert I went to this week: MTT conducting the San Francisco Symphony in a very odd program of two heavy-duty works they're taking on tour later this month (they won't be playing them together on tour, but probably wanted to get in the practice at home): Beethoven's 5th and Shostakovich's 11th. The Beethoven was powerful enough, but the Shostakovich knocked one out of one's seat. All the more so since my seat was in the terrace behind the orchestra, right behind the brass and not far from the percussion battery. "Staggering" is too mild a word to describe the impact of the performance, which MTT conducted in pretty much full-Lenny mode. I've always been fond of the 11th, which is one of the longest and probably all-around the gloomiest of Shostakovich's symphonies, and whose depiction of the 1905 Winter Palace massacre is the most hair-raising sequence in all music known to me. Ever since the Volkov era began and people have decided it's really about the 1956 invasion of Hungary, the work has started to become popular, and I consider it a vindication that one of the most acclaimed masterpieces of the serialist- and Darmstadt-ridden decade of the 1950s should be this tonal, folksong-based work which was derided and ignored as Soviet hackwork at the time. I've heard it twice in concert before, and it never ceases to thrill me, and this was one of the most impressive concerts I've ever attended. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 00:27:21 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/tvguide, etc. On the subject of lists of favorite episodes: in addition to the bias towards recent episodes (on the "my favorite is the one I saw last" theory), there is probably also a bias towards episodes which stand alone, regardless of whether or not they contribute to the arc. "The Wish" (one of my favorites, and yes, whoever mentioned it remembers correctly: Buffy gets killed) doesn't contribute to the arc as I'd define "arc", but what it does contribute to is one's understanding of Buffy and the general situation. I agree with the comments posted about what appears, at least at first sight, to be the very disappointing nature of the death of Walsh, and of her behavior in general in the last episode, which appeared very hasty and out of character. It reminded me, in general, of what I dislike about comic-book style writing; at times, _Buffy_ reads more like a comic book plot than like tv drama as I grew up understanding it; but drama has definitely evolved since those days. The question of whether it's right or proper to demonize (if that's the word) the demons and vampires is a difficult one which I found a little hard to swallow w hen I started watching the show; but I now tend to feel that the show is not so much about Buffy vs. monsters as it is about the effect of this on Buffy. For that, the monsters have to be a given. I am glad, though, that there hasn't been, at least during the time I've watched the show, any episodes focused on a conflict between the Slayerettes and people who sincerely think demons to be good or redeemable (and who would probably get eaten in the process). Such a story, which would (speaking of comic books) be basically a rewrite of _Dark Knight_ by Frank Miller, would be too depressing an allegory of the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" theory of criminal justice. But yet, we've seen good and redeemable demons, mostly on _Angel_, and even when they aren't they're not consistently dangerous, and they're also sapient, and yet good jokes have been made of Buffy's offhanded killings. So many critters are offed each week that the killing of the mayor's aide didn't stand out the way it should have. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #34 ****************************