From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #191 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, September 24 2000 Volume 02 : Number 191 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Hi from a newcomer in your midst.... ["Karin Rabe" ] Re: Hi from a newcomer in your midst.... ["Berni Phillips" ] What's with the sarcasm? was Re: This won't take long... [Dawn Friedman <] Next Rock [klh@technologist.com] Re: Next Rock [meredith ] Spoilers for first two eps of BUFFY & ANGEL [Micole Sudberg ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 12:42:15 -0400 From: "Karin Rabe" Subject: Hi from a newcomer in your midst.... > And it occurs to me that there may be a connection between > "Dawn" and the > First Slayer from the "dawn of time." > What an interesting thought, Gayle! It'll be fascinating to see how and whether your hunch is confirmed. With the season premiere only days away, I thought it was time I stuck my head up and introduced myself to Don and everyone else here! I've been lurking on this list since last spring, ever since I learned of its existence from Gayle via E-mail. She and I go =way= back, as fellow participants in the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST topic on the late and still lamented GEnie. Yup, you heard right, I was active for several years on GEnie during its prime, though I left well before it actually folded -- when, for me, it had reached the point of diminishing returns. But I've remained in touch with all the GEniepipers (BATB fans on GEnie :), and was thrilled to find a BUFFY list with all the characteristics that made GEnie such a uniquely rewarding online forum! I even recognize a couple of the participants here, beyond Gayle. :) So, having let the blizzard of messages coming out of here last spring stack up largely unread until this summer, I'm now sufficiently caught up to hope that I'll be actively joining in the lively discussion we all know is about to erupt! For now, I'll just say that my assessment of last season is very similar to Gayle's. I found the whole Adam story line quite disappointing, didn't care at all for the way they eliminated his creator, and wish they had done even more with the recovered Faith arc. Also, while Spike was a great source of fun all season, I'm getting really tired of Giles being nothing but a source of comic relief. He really needs a new and more serious function this season, IMHO! And I'm eager to see how well Buffy and Riley's relationship holds up, and for that matter how well his new identity as an "anarchist" holds up! I'm also looking forward to the new season of ANGEL, especially since Faith will continue to be a presence there -- and to ROSWELL, btw, though it's not a show I'd put in the same class with BUFFY. Anyone else here find ROSWELL intriguing, despite not being a member of its target audience? - ----Karin ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 11:10:43 -0700 From: "Berni Phillips" Subject: Re: Hi from a newcomer in your midst.... From: "Karin Rabe" > Anyone else here find ROSWELL > intriguing, despite not being a member of its target audience? Welcome, Karin! If you're an old GEnie person, you know my husband, David Bratman. I have been enjoying ROSWELL, especially since they decided to cool the emphasis on teen hormones and crank up the science fictional intrigue. And, of course, the actor who played Max also guest starred on a Buffy episode! (He was her old boyfriend who was dying on the club of vampire wannabes episode.) Berni ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 14:55:34 -0400 (EDT) From: klh@technologist.com Subject: This won't take long... At Don's request, herwith a list of the highlights of the fourth season: 1. There were a couple of really good "closing credit" moments, the most prescient of all was Xander's "oops" after he mentioned A***l. (Prescience credited mainly because it led to the beginning of the decline of that show, which either (1) never recovered from losing Doyle to the actor's drug addiction, (2) tried to support BtVS so much that it lost its own direction or (3) they really didn't plan for more than 13 episodes. All of the above lead me to grudgingly agree with DGK's assessment that the BtVS had a better season than A***l--though the first eight A***l's were the best sustained series shows of either. 2. Elisha Dushku showed, not for the first time, what happens when you turn an actress who has some energy loose. But all this did is serve as a reminder that this was the season the writers decided they are tired of SMG (which is the optimistic perspective). More later... - --------------------------------------------------- Get free personalized email at http://iaf.iname.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 16:40:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: b/Dawn Hi Karen! > > And it occurs to me that there may be a > connection between > > "Dawn" and the > > First Slayer from the "dawn of time." > > I'm more intrigued by the "be back before dawn [Dawn?]" line. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 21:58:37 -0400 From: Dawn Friedman Subject: What's with the sarcasm? was Re: This won't take long... At 02:55 PM 9/23/00 -0400, klh wrote: [] Wow. I found something to disagree with in all three. At least I'm consistent. In particular, I think =Angel= improved mightily towards the end of the season, where it seemed unfocused and cliche-prone in the earlier eps. Surprise! But I agree with everything Karin said -- it's pretty much the household consensus here. Dawn ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 22:19:11 -0400 (EDT) From: klh@technologist.com Subject: Next Rock 3. The direction of "Hush." The script was, er, nothing to shout about--broad brushes, highlighted by Emma Caulfield's "let's boff" gesture--but the shots were one of the few reminders all season of how well directed the show can be. (The loss of David Greenwalt appears to have hurt the scripting--off the top of my head, the three best were all Wheedonscriven this year--but there seem to have been other problems.) 4. The first couple episodes with The Initiative. Yes, it became drivel, but it started well--actually, it died after "Hush." A real human-run organization Trying To Do Good was the logical next step (after seasons of The Master Demon, The Evil Vampires, and the Human Trying to become Bad). That it became a derivative, cliched, military-stupid-Buffy-pretty at the end didn't mean it had to. Which brings me to: 5. Adam. Yes. again the Very Good Idea. Again, the logical extension (the non-human, the former human, the human-trying-to-be-demon to the not-certain-whether-to-be-human-or-demon), later reduced to absurdum. But the best single moment of the year--had the year lived up to even the third season--would have been Adam's "mother" on stabbing the former Mrs. Mamet. (As it is, the key scene of the year was "Superstar," where Johnathan Explains It All.) So what do we have? A season that had no sense of place (Willow's "It's hard making the transition to college" speech sounds like writers making excuses--and if it were easy, they wouldn't be getting paid the big bucks.) A season with several promising changes--Amber Benson, Emma Caulfield as a regular, not to mention Someone to Watch Over Buffy--that failed to pay off. And "Restless," which offers promise of a new day, or at least Heavy Allegory, for next year. Which would be "cool" if there were any indication the other writers (JW isn't going to write and direct 22 scripts this year) know how to play with it. But--as mentioned in the last note--who decided they didn't have to do anything with Buffy this year besides get her laid on a regular basis? Xander and Giles were, maybe, excusable--the former got a girl friend and the latter got to sing (reminding us that his brother is twice a "one-hit wonder"). But Buffy did nothing this season except get angry and whine. Right now, it's at best the second-best show on the WB (behind Roswell, which is still playing the Freudian/Jungian card, while BtVS dropped realism entirely last year), and bidding fair to have a fifth season that resembles that cliched final season of Quantum Leap. If I didn't know better (come to think of it, I don't), I'd suggest that the fix is in and Fox is deliberately trying to weaken the property enough to move it to their network next year, with Michelle Trachtenberg as the Slayer. On the optimistic side, maybe the writers will actually give SMG something to do this year, and she'll do it. Probably not the way to bet, but certainly the way to hope. In other news, Edgar now has the record, but the Mariners and As are tied. - --------------------------------------------------- Get free personalized email at http://iaf.iname.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 23:04:26 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: Next Rock Hi, There's a phenomenon in media fandom that will never cease to amaze me. I've seen it all over the Xenaverse (especially over the most recent season), and now here. People who clearly dislike a particular show will still waste an hour of their lives each week watching it, then spend even more time online bitching about it. Would that I had so much time on my hands. +==========================================================================+ | 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, 24 Sep 2000 00:47:27 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Spoilers for first two eps of BUFFY & ANGEL From TVGrid's canned episode descriptions. Probably no more spoilage than you'd seen in the teasers for the episodes -- except the one for the Buffy premiere, which does contain something startling -- so please skip this message if you'd rather be entirely surprised. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z BtVS "Buffy vs. Dracula" Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) becomes enthralled by the most illustrious vampire of all time --Dracula (guest star Rudolf Martin); Xander (Nicholas Brendon) acts as Dracula's agent, leading his friends into danger. "Real Me" A new gang of vampires sets its sights on the slayer, but Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is sidetracked by a rivalry with her teen-age sister, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg). ANGEL "Judgment" When Angel (David Boreanaz) mistakenly kills a demon, he must turn to karaoke to put things right; Angel's sire Darla (guest star Julie Benz) recuperates after being resurrected from hell. "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" Cordelia and Wesley (Charisma Carpenter, Alexis Denisof) explore an abandoned Hollywood hotel and discover a piece of Angel's (David Boreanaz) history as a recluse in 1952. - -- "There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones."--Joss Whedon, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 01:09:15 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: This won't take long... Wow. I disagree with nearly all of this. Let's fight. :) In a civilized, thought-provoking fashion, of course. At 02:55 PM 9/23/00 -0400, klh@technologist.com wrote: >At Don's request, herwith a list of the highlights of the fourth season: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >1. There were a couple of really good "closing credit" moments, the most prescient of all was Xander's "oops" after he mentioned A***l. (Prescience credited mainly because it led to the beginning of the decline of that show, which either (1) never recovered from losing Doyle to the actor's drug addiction, (2) tried to support BtVS so much that it lost its own direction or (3) they really didn't plan for more than 13 episodes. > >All of the above lead me to grudgingly agree with DGK's assessment that the BtVS had a better season than A***l--though the first eight A***l's were the best sustained series shows of either. I thought ANGEL had a decent first episode, an excellent second one, and then nearly nothing of interest except when kick-started momentarily by energy from BtVS in "I Will Remember You" and "Parting Gifts", until the return of Faith, which seemed to set off a very good season-ender arc. I seem to be alone in not being tremendously fond of the character of Doyle. I found him predictable and uninteresting, and certainly not worth messing up the previously fairly consistent BUFFY demonology for. I think it was also very awkward that he seemed intended to start off as a mentor for Angel -- this didn't work at all for me since the actor was clearly younger than Boreanz and ultimately they wrote in the character as being centuries younger than Angel as well. ANGEL originals I did like: Kate, who ended off going in a direction I didn't expect, but still an interesting one (maybe *thus* an interesting one); Lindsey, the lawyer in the heart of darkness. And okay, Cthulhu's Lawyers isn't the world's most original concept, but it amused me anyway. And "Wolfram & Hart" has this nice, plausible but vaguely threatening ring to it ... Gunn has pretty much bored me so far, but maybe next year he'll get to do something besides sound vaguely street-smart and act vaguely heroic. The worst thing about the season was that the Angel writers couldn't seem to figure out what to do with the show, munging around with an anthology format of uninspiring one-offs and a very small supporting cast who seemed mostly to hang around wearing signs that said: "Hi, I'm Angel's sidekick. No, I don't actually have a life." When the writers did try to give them lives, it got almost worse -- poor Cordelia, rather than having anything resembling real characterization, got to act wimpy in "Rm w/a Vu" and excitable and unwise in "Expecting" and cowardly and self-indulgent in "Sanctuary" and in general whatever the writers needed her to do ... really a waste of the opportunity to show a character during her first year of living on her own, which is a fairly important one for most people. And a waste of Charisma Carpenter, who proved on BtVS that she had *excellent* comic timing, and on a few occasions that she could do drama when it was called for. But "Five by Five" seemed to bring some energy to the show, and it closed with a series of very strong episodes ... the only weak one among the last five in the season was "War Zone". (As an aside, Tim Minear seems to have a mild obsession with strong, blind, female characters -- he's got another one in "Mind's Eye", which is a pretty well-plotted monster-of-the-week episode from the fifth season of THE X-FILES. Interesting quirk.) And I'm hoping the return of Darla means that the writers will focus on what seems to me the really interesting potential of the show: the question of whether past actions *can* be redeemed, and Angel's fairly complex workings-out of what seems to have been a really messed-up initial family dynamic. I quite liked "Somnambulist" -- even though the historical sequences were uninspired, I liked the contrast between Angel's birth family and the family he created with Penn, and the retrospective light cast on his other vampiric families, notably his relationship with Drusilla and Spike. >2. Elisha Dushku showed, not for the first time, what happens when you turn an actress who has some energy loose. But all this did is serve as a reminder that this was the season the writers decided they are tired of SMG (which is the optimistic perspective). > >More later... My take on BUFFY tomorrow. Um. Later today. Past midnight. Right. - --m. - -- "There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones."--Joss Whedon, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #191 *****************************