From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #42 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Saturday, March 10 2001 Volume 03 : Number 042 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/interview with joss on tvguide.com ["David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/interview with joss on tvguide.com tvguide.com (courtesy of Meredith - thanks!) wrote: >* A never-before-seen flashback of Joyce hosting a holiday celebration for >Buffy, Dawn and friends kicked off the episode. Shot from no one's >particular point of view, the joyous scene stood in stark contrast to the >rest of the morbid hour. What was its purpose? Seemed obvious to me, and Joss confirms it. >* Giving new meaning to the phrase silent but deadly, the episode contained >nary a musical chord. Although we have a good idea what that was about, we >figured we'd ask anyway. Ditto. >* Why wasn't Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara's (Amber Benson) overdue >smooch promoted ad nauseum like last season's same-gender buss (or should >we say bust?) on =Dawson's Creek=? > >"They are basically living together so they're probably already kissing. >[Therefore,] to make a big deal of the kiss would have been totally wrong," This seems wise of him, and it worked that way. >* The brutal realism of the episode was interrupted by a jarring vampire >slaying in the final act. Why? > >"I stayed away from unnatural things as much as possible," Whedon admits. >"I didn't have Glory (Clare Kramer) or even Spike (James Marsters) in the >episode because I wanted everything to be very real. But because the show >is =Buffy=, vampires are a part of that world. So I wanted to have the >vampire fight, but put it in the context of this occasion, because life is >still going on... things are intruding. [There's a] feeling that this >tragedy has occurred, and the world is supposed to stop." I agree with the principle, but I still feel the execution (sorry) was flawed. It needn't have intruded in quite that distracting way (distracting for the viewer from the true themes of the episode, I mean, not just distracting for Dawn and Buffy). And the point that life -- ordinary life or Buffy's supernatural life -- goes on could have been made in any number of ways. >* Is Joyce =really= dead? > >The Internet is abuzz with speculation that Buffy's younger sis (Michelle >Trachtenberg) will use her unique powers to resurrect her mother. As it is, >at the end of the episode, Dawn was about to place her magical hands on >Joyce's cold corpse. "Dawn's special energy will =not= bring Joyce back," >Whedon insists. "Some people thought that at the beginning of the next >episode, she was going to touch her and heal her with her Dawn powers. I'm >like, 'People! Missing the point!'" Perhaps they are, but the immediately preceding intrusion of the supernatural, and the way it appears, muddies the mental waters. I don't think it's entirely their fault that they're missing the point. Thank God, though, that Joss thinks they are: I was afraid that _he'd_ miss the point, and if he did, Dawn _could_ heal Joyce. Which would be dramatically wrong - - but not unprecedented. I'm thinking of an unfortunate fantasy movie called "The Dark Crystal", in which the happy ending consists of the deus ex machina reversal of the death of a character previously killed off. > So, Joyce's never-seen boyfriend isn't >part of some big conspiracy? "There is no mystery to the date," says >Whedon, Good. Sometimes an umbrella is just an umbrella. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #42 ****************************