From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #35 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, February 28 2001 Volume 03 : Number 035 Today's Subjects: ----------------- RE: ANGEL suicide ["Karin Rabe" ] b/oh. my. [meredith ] b/pizza&beer& ["Donald G. Keller" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 12:11:52 -0500 From: "Karin Rabe" Subject: RE: ANGEL suicide Todd, re: > Frankly, more of my thoughts are about just what > Cordelia is walking into at the end of the show. Did > anybody recognize the type of demon that killed the > client? You know, that complications had totally slipped my mind until you reminded me. What's going on with Angel -- and Kate -- was auite disturbing enough all by itself, and I'm not used to episodes ending with not one but =two= apparently totally distinct cliffhangers! - ---Karin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 21:23:46 -0500 From: meredith Subject: b/oh. my. Hi, Oh. My. Joss Whedon has done it again. Move over, "Hush": I didn't think it'd ever be possible, but you've just been replaced as the best hour of television I've ever experienced. I have a rock sitting at the pit of my stomach and I don't think it's going to go away for a while. I physically *ache*: for Buffy, for Dawn, and for Giles, Willow, Xander, and Anya. Poor Anya, who is more human in her not understanding what's going on and what to do than she ever has been. The cynical side of me was thinking, "Okay, how much says that while Joss was writing this he was thinking 'If *this* doesn't get SMG her Emmy nomination, nothing will'?" But the episode on the whole was much too honest for that thought to last very long. By rights, though, on the strength of this episode alone Joss should get a writing Emmy, SMG should get best actress, and Alyson Hannigan should get best supporting actress (and Emma Caulfield and Michelle Trachtenberg should at least get nominations). But of course there is no justice in this universe, so none of that is going to happen. Random kibbles and bits from first viewing: - -- No teaser whatsoever. No "previously on _Buffy..._". Just the final scene from last week, to make sure we're all clear on what this week is going to be about. - -- No music, either. Outside of the main theme, the episode was as music-free as real life. - -- The direction was different from anything we've ever seen on this show before. It felt very Independent Film(tm), which isn't a bad thing, particularly since it was used to such good effect here. I especially liked the hand-held camera work during the first scene (or act - same thing, in this case). I'd bet Joss was the one wielding the camera, too. - -- to Willow and Tara's first on-screen kiss being so low-key, so completely and utterly sensible, that not one peep was uttered about it prior to the episode's airing. And even bigger applause to the WB, for letting it go through uncut. (Rob Tapert, we know you watch _Buffy_ down there in New Zealand ... are you paying attention??) - -- *Very* haunting final shot. So now the obvious questions remain. The biggest (and broadest) is, of course, What are Buffy and Dawn going to do now? Also, will Dad show up? There was nary a mention of him... I can imagine that could introduce an interesting plot element. Was he part of the spell? Will he recognize Dawn at all? Too much to absorb. Must watch _Angel_ and try to pull myself together. Joss Whedon, you're a genius. +==========================================================================+ | 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: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 23:48:20 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/pizza&beer& "Where was Spike??" Thus Deirdre, halfway through =Angel= tonight. (Something about leather pants.) We got back up from Baltimore in plenty of time, settled down with our baby pizzas and beer (for Deirdre, anyway) in time to watch =Buffy= & =Angel=. Ho boy. "No music," Deirdre prompts me as I pause. Which alone made it an eerie episode. I kept wondering, all through the first third, if maybe it was a dream (and was nearly certain the Christmas dinner scene was). But I think now it was just a fiendishly clever way to evoke Buffy's "meltdown" state of mind. I bet if we didn't =know= that Joss Whedon wrote and directed the episode, we still would have guessed. His episodes (when he's on, which isn't 100% of the time, c.f. "Family") just have that extra edge, that sense that he'll mess with =anything= to mess with our minds. (The excruciating use of real-time was especially effective.) Tremendous acting all around. Everybody acting in character, falling apart the way each particular one of them would fall apart. Even Anya. (Poor Anya! At least the rest of them had =some= idea of how to act in this situation.) Notice, too, that it was Tara who was holding the whole thing together--partly, we find out later, because she had been through this exact situation before (though "it's different for everybody"). Typical Joss dirty trick to cut to a crying Dawn and let us think she had heard the news already, and then take her through a trying couple of scenes =before= Buffy arrives with the news. Good to see Dawn in her away-from-home, non-Scooby environment. And the whole scene was particularly well directed. So I guess we'll have to wait a few weeks to find out what's next. Maybe the best episode of the season so far. Anybody else still really confused about =Angel=? I sure am. Deirdre's comment was that she feels she needs to sit down and watch the last three or four episodes in one go to try and sort out what in the world is going on. Good stuff with Kate. Deirdre and I figured out the catch--that Angel didn't get invited in--when the original scene happened. Glad she will have the opportunity to continue to appear. More later, including stuff on the previous few days' discussion. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #35 ****************************