From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #26 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, February 18 2001 Volume 03 : Number 026 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: b/crush! ["Hilary L. Hertzoff" ] Re: b/crush! [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/crush! [meredith ] b/Grosse Pointe [meredith ] RE: b/crush! ["Karin Rabe" ] b/crush2 ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/Grosse Pointe ["Hilary L. Hertzoff" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 09:21:14 -0500 (EST) From: "Hilary L. Hertzoff" Subject: RE: b/crush! On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, meredith wrote: > Hi! > > Karin responded: > > >Glad to see another big BABYLON 5 fan here, Hilary! :) Best science > >fiction series ever made, bar none. (IMHO :) > > > > Me too! I'm watching it on SciFi as I type. Season 5 is even more boring > the second time around... > Well for me this is the first time around, so I'm still finding it mildly interesting. However, Byron must die. Am I the only person in the world who likes both B5 and ST:DS9? Hilary Hilary L. Hertzoff From here to there, Mamaroneck Public Library a bunny goes where a bunny must. Mamaroneck, NY hhertzof@wls.lib.ny.us Little Bunny on the Move hhertzof@panix.com by Peter McCarty ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 12:20:38 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/crush! In a message dated 2/17/2001 6:22:39 AM Pacific Standard Time, hhertzof@wls.lib.ny.us writes: << Am I the only person in the world who likes both B5 and ST:DS9? >> Heavens, no. They were both excellent shows. I think a lot of hard-core fans of each felt they had to take sides and would be traitors for liking the "enemy," but without the politics and "loyalty" questions involved I think that few fans of one would have disliked the other. For my money, DS9 was the best-written of all the ST series. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 13:34:41 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/crush! Hi! Hilary inquired: >Am I the only person in the world who likes both B5 and ST:DS9? No!! DS9 was by far my favorite Trek series, and ranks as one of my all-time favorite TV shows of any genre. The darker tone and relative lack of Roddenberry proseletyzing (sp?) kept me coming back every week, despite the fact that I always hoped against hope that someone would shove Sisko out an airlock. I loved how they did multi-part story arcs and kept the story always aware of where it had been. There were some truly great characters (all hail Garak!), and they used Worf to great advantage. They certainly went out with a bang, too -- IMO the last season was the best. I really miss it. Especially since Voyager sent me screaming from the room halfway through its first season. Ugh. +==========================================================================+ | 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: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 13:41:46 -0500 From: meredith Subject: b/Grosse Pointe Hi! Did anyone catch SMG's guest appearance on _Grosse Pointe_ last night? It's a half-hour WB show by Darren Star that sends up the entire television industry. It's like _Sports Night_, only for _90210_ (one of the characters even looks so much like Tori Spelling that I didn't know it's not her until just yesterday). SMG played herself, and I thought it was hilarious. The story went like this: The WB informed the show's producer that they needed to bring in a big name to boost ratings for the May sweeps. None of the names on the list they provided (ranging from Heather Locklear to Pamela Anderson) were even remote possibilities ... then the Tori Spelling character, Marcy revealed that Sarah Michelle Gellar was in her yoga class. SMG agreed, but on one condition: the storyline had to include an on-screen kiss with Marcy. This got everyone thinking SMG must be gay. In the end it turned out that she was only looking for an Emmy nomination: "I'll never get one for 'Buffy', so I gotta do *something*!" She ends up pulling out, and the producer has to settle for Tiffani-Amber Thiessen ("but it's just Tiffani now. She's grown up and doesn't need the middle name.") All in all _Grosse Pointe_ isn't a show I'll go out of my way to watch, but it was funny to watch the one episode. P.S. The only nomination _Buffy_ got for the TV Guide Awards was Alyson Hannigan's for Favorite Supporting Actress In A Drama. Interesting, that. +==========================================================================+ | 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: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 14:39:16 -0500 From: "Karin Rabe" Subject: RE: b/crush! Actually, Hilary, I'm with Gayle, where the ST series are concerned! And I actually came to Babylon 5 quite late, after hearing so many of my fellow Star Trek fans put it down, that I had a negative prejudice against it! So when I now say that B5 is IMHO the best science fiction series ever created, you have to understand that I say it as a long-standing Star Trek fan! The only Star Trek series I have mostly bad things to say about is VOYAGER, much as I like the Holodoc and Seven of Nine. Waving back at you, Meredith! And while I agree Season 5 was a tad anti-climactic, thanks to all the uncertainty during the making of Season 4 about whether there would =be= a season 5, I never found it actually boring. - ---Karin > > For my money, DS9 was the best-written of all the ST series. > > Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 16:10:14 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/crush2 David: I've stopped trying to predict whether you'll love or hate a specific episode (it seldom seems to fall in between!), but I'm glad to see you liked this one so much. (Especially since another friend of mine, to my consternation, was disappointed by it: "all that buildup for nothing" in re Buffy and Spike.) You've also come more quickly than I have to an appreciation of the excellence of the script, by which I mean I recognize your assessment as accurate in advance of my own assessment. That was indeed a terrific opening scene in the Bronze: not only the dialog between Spike and Buffy (the first sounding-note of a major motif of the episode, Buffy's absolute intransigence towards Spike), but also between Spike and Xander (and note that Xander originally used the epithet "Dead Boy" for Angel, towards whom =he= was completely intransigent; Buffy and Xander are of one mind concerning Spike--against everyone else, who seem to have at least a "crumb" of symphathy for him--while Buffy's and Xander's attitudes towards Angel were always diametrically opposed). (I'll return to the Spike/Angel parallels). We also have in this scene the sounding of a =new= note, a =social= relationship (i.e. outside the hospital) between Buffy and Ben, presented (as the preview makes clear it will continue to be) in counterpoint to Spike's feelings towards Buffy. (What I meant when I said this was an interesting plot development was that there is, to put it mildly, an unusual relationship between Ben and Glory, perhaps--in some now-indeterminant way--really close. If Buffy and Ben get involved--in some way--this closeness to Glory could make things very sticky and complicated for Buffy and her long-term necessity to thwart Glory.) (Take special note, too, in our discussion of what Dawn may or may not remember, that Ben looked very confused--like there was stuff =he= didn't remember--when Buffy thanked him for taking care of Dawn.) The scene between Buffy and Dawn was another high point, continuing the theme of sibling squabbling and also the theme (begun last episode) of Dawn asserting some autonomy (in the form of "bad" behavior). The exchange you cite ("same diff") was one of the funniest in the episode; also one of the most thought-provoking--given that the comparison between Spike and Angel is brought up here by Dawn (who has the =most= sympathy for Spike) and later by Spike himself. What the scripts tell us once we can choose to discount; what they tell us twice, we might do well to ponder. To Dawn and Spike, there's a similar "civilizing" (let's call it) effect between Angel's soul and Spike's chip; Spike seems genuinely convinced that he can change, that love can convince him to "turn [his] back on evil," as he says. Buffy, however, makes a downright diametric distinction between the two, and her simile to Spike--he's "like a serial killer in jail"--is quite trenchant; note that given the opportunity (Drusilla passing him a dead human) he had no qualm about drinking blood from someone he couldn't hurt (and thus wouldn't activate the chip). And note that he wasn't too "good" to resist contemplating killing not only Drusilla, but Buffy as well, when thwarted. (It also occurs to me now that Buffy's simile is distinctly less figurative--it's downright literal, in fact--when applied to Faith, who most definitely has a soul--as Wesley pointed out, before she tortured him. Where this leads is to the idea that Spike, not having a soul, is even =less= likely than Faith to "do good.") A sidebar, before I get back to Buffy and Spike: yes, David, that Tara/Willow/Buffy scene was of particular interest as well. It is, in fact, common for academic scenes like that for Buffy to take the background, and in fact when there is only two of them (as in the scene with Tara a couple episodes ago and several with Willow) Buffy plays intellectual "sidekick." And note that Tara's analysis of =Notre Dame de Paris= (to give it its correct French title) was =directly= applicable to the rest of the episode, as in Spike = Quasimodo. (This is a very tight script as well: I liked the way that the just-mentioned scene transitioned so nicely from the academic discussion to Buffy grabbing the newspaper and taking an interest in the train murders; also the scene at Buffy's house, where the discussion between Joyce and Buffy and Giles about safety leads into Giles suggesting Buffy act normally around Dawn, which leads to Buffy's unjust accusation, sharp cut to Spike with the sweater, which Harmony later wears when she pretends to be the Slayer. The interweaving of themes, always a salient quality of the show, is especially good in this script.) The major discussion point about the episode is what seems to me to be the romantic (or Romantic) notion that Buffy really =does= harbor some "crumb" of feeling for Spike, and that she's in denial about it. (My daughter was really peeved at Buffy's attitude, acknowledging that if she, Deirdre, were still 14 she'd probably feel about Spike the same way Dawn does.) My sense is that Buffy is absolutely on the level. She's hated Spike since he showed up in "School Hard" 2nd season, and she's never wavered from that position. Even on the many occasions since when they've been cooperating for whatever plausible reason, it's been with extreme reluctance on her part. And =even= when she was under a spell and engaged to Spike in "Something Blue," she said to Riley (in the street in front of the bridal display) that "=I= don't even like him. But I love him!" The latter feeling disappearing instantaneously when the spell was broken. Consider the fact that at several points in this episode, especially when Spike told her that he loved her (while he had her in chains!) Buffy really looked like she was going to throw up. Pretty visceral reaction. And this is why it didn't surprise me at all, even when he threatened her life (with Drusilla) if she didn't admit to it, that she stood her ground and =really= let him have it ("only...when I was unconscious"). Factor into this moment, too, that threatening her life kicked in another typical personality characteristic, her Slayer pride and arrogance. I'm sure she figured that even if Spike =wasn't= bluffing, that she could fight off Drusilla even with her arms chained up. (And she did, for a while; but she was overconfident, and Drusilla probably would have killed her if Spike hadn't intervened.) (Also compare this scene to the scene in "Enemies" where it's Faith who has Buffy tied up, and Buffy, quite similarly, refuses to knuckle under; true, it was all a ruse, but Faith could have done her serious damage, or killed her, before Angel would have been able to prevent it.) Meredith: I didn't mean to imply that Drusilla showing up was predictable; however, it seemed likely, in general, with her back onstage in =Angel=, that she might well show up on =Buffy= looking for Spike; given that, this worst-possible-moment was the dramatically perfect time =for= her to show up. Hilary: I like your idea of Spike's relationship to Buffy being abusive; even more so than Buffy herself (as she admitted to Willow once) he's got love and violence well confused in his head. This shows up in his relationships with Drusilla and Harmony as well. Note also that Buffy understands this, saying that her beating him up was, for Spike, "like third base." I.e. the degree of violence Buffy shows towards him wouldn't bother him (even if it should!) if she would admit to desire as well. (Notice that his dreams include violence as well as sex.) Cinching my opinion about the whole matter is a very clear, and I think very deliberate, parallel between the very end of the episode (which incidentally crept up on me unawares: I wasn't watching the time) and the scene in "Passion" where Willow first casts the anti-invitation spell, and Buffy shuts the door in evil Angel's face (with the line "Sorry, Angel--we changed the locks"). (Casting the spell, by the way, was obviously what Buffy asked Willow to do for her when she went off after Spike.) The action of the two scenes--the vampire recoiling from the invisible barrier, Buffy shutting the door, =even the expression on Buffy's face=, is the same. (I watched them back to back.) Now, it's true that Buffy had been in love with Angel; but by that moment, she had put those feelings aside, and was intent on killing him if she could (which was even truer when they found out, shortly thereafter, that Angel had murdered Jenny Calendar). So my reading of the parallel between the two scenes is that in both cases Buffy is essentially saying "you're history--my sympathy is at an end." (So =even if=, maybe maybe, Buffy had some "feelings" for Spike--though I still doubt it--they're gone now.) Why hasn't Buffy staked Spike? I'm with Karen on this point, I think: Buffy has ethics about whom she kills and whom she doesn't, and I really do think it's Spike's "chips ahoy" helplessness that is preventing her; her extreme annoyance, even disgust, with him is not in her eyes grounds for the death penalty. She wants him to =go away= (as she said); that way she wouldn't have to deal with him any more. I have to say, by the way, that I'm really amazed that the show has gotten =so much= mileage out of this riff of Spike's crush on Buffy: I thought at first it would be a cute subplot for an episode or three, but now it's been the dominant plot of at least two full episodes ("Crush" and "Fool for Love), and a significant subplot in nearly =every= episode since it cropped up. And it doesn't look like they're going to let go of it any time soon. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 16:50:15 -0500 (EST) From: "Hilary L. Hertzoff" Subject: Re: b/Grosse Pointe On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, meredith wrote: > Hi! > > Did anyone catch SMG's guest appearance on _Grosse Pointe_ last night? > It's a half-hour WB show by Darren Star that sends up the entire television > industry. It's like _Sports Night_, only for _90210_ (one of the > characters even looks so much like Tori Spelling that I didn't know it's > not her until just yesterday). I did. I'd tried to sit through one of the first episodes and failed, but this one was pretty good. > SMG agreed, but on one condition: the storyline had to include an on-screen > kiss with Marcy. This got everyone thinking SMG must be gay. In the end > it turned out that she was only looking for an Emmy nomination: "I'll never > get one for 'Buffy', so I gotta do *something*!" She ends up > pulling out, and the producer has to settle for Tiffani-Amber Thiessen > ("but it's just Tiffani now. She's grown up and doesn't need the middle > name.") I have to wonder if this whole show wasn't a nod to the no WillowTaraSmoochies on Buffy issue. Hilary Hilary L. Hertzoff From here to there, Mamaroneck Public Library a bunny goes where a bunny must. Mamaroneck, NY hhertzof@wls.lib.ny.us Little Bunny on the Move hhertzof@panix.com by Peter McCarty ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #26 ****************************