From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #82 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Thursday, May 10 2001 Volume 03 : Number 082 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/ 5/8 ep comments [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/one word: "truck!" ["Berni Phillips" ] Re: b/ 5/8 ep comments [Todd Huff ] Re: b/one word: "truck!" ["Marta Grabien" ] Re: b/ 5/8 ep comments [meredith ] Re: b/ 5/8 ep comments [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/ 5/8 ep comments ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 11:06:21 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: b/ 5/8 ep comments spoiler space Well, now the dilemma is neatly laid out: Glory and her doomsday plans can be stopped very easily -- if either one of two innocent people is sacrificed. I have a feeling that some brave and clever action on Dawn's part will play a decisive role in what happens. In Buffy's place, knowing that the knights were Glory's enemies, the =first= thing I would have done when the general was captured would be to have asked him for information on the whole situation, not waited till some info eventually dribbled out. Dawn truly must not have remembered when Ben morphed into Glory. Let's hope that kind of amnesia doesn't affect everyone who has witnessed it. Tara acts exactly like my sister's autistic teenaged daughter, save that Tara is a bit more verbal. I'm sure my sister, watching the ep, was struck by the similarity. Really good ep overall, well-written, well-acted, and well-staged in the unusual action scenes, and tightening up all the plot threads very well. If not for what Joss said in the interview about a possible Giles spin-off, I would have been really worried about Giles there. I'm not worried about Dawn because I'm sure she'll be around next season. I'll bet that next season there will be parallels between Buffy's responsibility for taking care of Dawn and Willow's responsibility for taking care of Tara. I think that both Glory's brain-suck powers and the rather weak episode establishing that Tara cannot depend on her family were actually part of the setup of the situation of Willow having the long-term responsibility to take care of the incapacitated Tara next season. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 17:10:40 -0700 From: "Berni Phillips" Subject: Re: b/one word: "truck!" From: "meredith" > P.S. Why wasn't the RV pulled over for having all its windows covered over > with tinfoil? Methinks that's illegal. It most certainly is. I wondered the same thing. Can you imagine a cop pulling over Spike during daylight and making him get out of the car? Berni ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 19:12:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: b/ 5/8 ep comments > Tara acts exactly like my sister's autistic > teenaged daughter, save that > Tara is a bit more verbal. I'm sure my sister, > watching the ep, was struck > by the similarity. > I was thinking about a few things we've seen earlier in the season. The crazy guy who accosted Dawn (Curds and whey!) was pretending to be a cat, and one of the things Tara said after being drained was "They like to eat mice". Coincidence or meaningful? Also, whatever happened to that glowing orb that Buffy found when the security guard when crazy? Spoiler space for Buffy/Angel casting next season. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . According to IMDB, Spike will be moving to Los Angeles next season and joining the cast of Angel. Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 19:24:07 -0700 From: "Marta Grabien" Subject: Re: b/one word: "truck!" I have never seen a cop on a long stretch of desert. > From: "meredith" > > > P.S. Why wasn't the RV pulled over for having all its windows covered > over > > with tinfoil? Methinks that's illegal. > > It most certainly is. I wondered the same thing. Can you imagine a cop > pulling over Spike during daylight and making him get out of the car? > > Berni ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 00:00:57 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/ 5/8 ep comments Hi, Gayle commented: > In Buffy's place, knowing that the knights were Glory's enemies, the >=first= thing I would have done when the general was captured would be to >have asked him for information on the whole situation, not waited till some >info eventually dribbled out. Maybe. But Buffy hasn't exactly been herself lately ... reference last week, when it took Spike to remind her that just telling Willow not to rush into Glory's lair to exact revenge wasn't going to be enough to keep her from actually doing it. > I'm not worried about Dawn because I'm sure she'll be around next season. >I'll bet that next season there will be parallels between Buffy's >responsibility for taking care of Dawn and Willow's responsibility for taking >care of Tara. I think that both Glory's brain-suck powers and the rather >weak episode establishing that Tara cannot depend on her family were actually >part of the setup of the situation of Willow having the long-term >responsibility to take care of the incapacitated Tara next season. So you think Tara is going to remain brain-sucked? I don't know ... maybe it's wishful thinking, but I'm thinking either Glory's death will restore the brain-sucked to their former selves, or Willow will come up with some spell to achieve the same result. (Heck -- maybe Willow's spell will also have the side-effect of bringing Amy back from rathood ... I wouldn't put it past Joss to pull something like that in the 100th episode.) Berni responded: >It most certainly is. I wondered the same thing. Can you imagine a cop >pulling over Spike during daylight and making him get out of the car? LOL! Now that's a scene that would be so funny, I almost wish they'd written it. A few more comments about the episode, in general: - -- Rob mentioned to me today that he found it interesting that Willow's reaction when Tara was brain-sucked was to freak out and want to take action, but when Dawn was taken Buffy completely shut down. I guess he was thinking that's the opposite of what one might expect. I'm not sure if I agree with this, but it's an interesting observation. - -- Was it just me, or were there points during the fight on top of the Winnebago where it was obvious that the vehicle wasn't moving? Take another lok, and pay close attention to the full-body shots of Buffy and whichever knight she was pummeling at the time. It's kind of amusing. - -- I felt sorry for Xander in this episode. Lest we forget that at the start of this season he declared loudly that he was no longer going to be anyone's butt-monkey ... yet here he was stuck being carsick in the Winnebago, and serving no useful purpose whatsoever anywhere else. I hope he gets a chance to do something useful soon. - -- The review at ign.com noted that _Buffy_ can cross genres better than any show on TV, and this episode proved it. I agree -- anywhere else, the Mystic Knights of Byzantium (or whatever they're called) would have come off as rejects from a bad _Highlander_ episode. But here, it all made sense. And while I'm here, a couple things about _Angel_, which I just watched and enjoyed much more than I probably had a right to. - -- The Host's demon dimension is a Xena set!! (Nice Xena reference, too -- "What do you mean, they don't like Xena? I mean, I think she's kinda fly!") - -- Cordy's clicking her heels together to try to get back home utterly cracked me up. - -- I'm still going, "Huh?!?" after that last shot. How on earth did Cordy end up *there*?!? Finally, to follow up on the casting spoiler Todd posted earlier: I think if James Marsters really is moving to ANGEL, that will be a good thing. They've pretty much done everything they can with Spike on BUFFY, short of staking him, and we all know they can't do *that*. But if he goes to LA, where Darla and Dru are still hanging out (aren't they? Kind of odd that it looks like they're closing out the season with nary another mention of them, after all that went on before), there are tons of possibilities to make some great stories. I hope IMDB is right. ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 00:44:01 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/ 5/8 ep comments In a message dated 5/9/2001 9:17:01 PM Pacific Daylight Time, meth@smoe.org writes: << So you think Tara is going to remain brain-sucked? >> Yes I do, betcha betcha. Maybe not forever, but through at least most of next season. As I said, I think that the whole reason Glory was given brain-suck powers was to set this up. I think that Joss couldn't let Willow and Tara's relationship be smooth sailing forever, but wanted to make it problematic in some way that in no way could be interpreted as critical of lesbian relationships, since there are so few on TV that anything W&T do could be seen as representing all lesbians -- unless it is something bizarre like being brain-sucked, which statistically happens to a not-large segment of the lesbian population. Plus there would be the obvious parallel with Buffy's responsibility for Dawn. However, I expect Joss to get our hopes up near season's end that Tara will be cured. Just so our hearts will be further broken along with Willow's. Anybody else care to vote???? Will Tara be back to normal by season finale? I will also be very surprised if at some point Dawn doesn't either try to kill herself or ask someone else (Buffy) to kill her, to get rid of the threat she represents. But maybe that is so obvious that Joss won't do it. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 23:02:20 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/ 5/8 ep comments This week's episode was certainly full of exciting events, and also full of anguish and cause for concern for those of us who love these characters. But as a story, I found it not very good. The problem is, the writing had too many signs of hack fantasy. The knights as Highlander rejects didn't bother me per se, though I have a lot of questions about them. Where did all those knights come from? Had they flown into the states disguised as a drunken rugby team? Where did they _suddenly_ come from at that moment? Had they been hiding behind tiny bushes in the open desert, a la Monty Python's training film "How Not To Be Seen"? And how did they catch up to the motor home? A race horse at full gallop can manage about 40 mph. And that's without a fully armored knight on its back. Even a Winnebago can go faster than that. (If it's moving at all. Maybe the non-moving Winnebago comes from the same shop that provides rubber demons for Spike to fight.) Maybe there are answers to all these questions. (Maybe they're magic horses.) But any answers would be in the form of hole-plugging. BTVS is usually much better at not letting questions like these come up in the first place. No, the real problem was the not one, but two, lengthy expository lumps. The first one, between Ben and the minion, teeters on the edge of being one of those "As you know, Bob," talks. It's not as bad as it could be -- but that's no compliment. What's worst about it is that here the actor playing Ben, otherwise reasonably good, is required to reach way beyond his limits of competence as an actor. The second lump is delivered by the General while tied to the post. This is one of those extraordinarily common, and extraordinarily tiresome, speeches in which a character is summoned up for no other purpose other than to explain the Nature and Purpose of the Universe to the heroes. That there are some good BTVS touches doesn't disguise its essential banality: not within the fictional universe, but as a form of storytelling. The fact that it reads like the climax of _Lord Foul's Bane_ only makes it worse. It also doesn't disguise problems within the fictional universe itself. How does the General know all this stuff? (That Buffy asks this question herself doesn't make it OK.) How do we know to believe him? He may be feeding them a bunch of hooey, or he may believe it himself but be mistaken. If BTVS raises these points later on, good for them; but again, any attempt to address these points flirts with the danger of sounding like special pleading. The one saving grace is that, having written a character whose only purpose is to spout various speeches of hack guff (first to his soldiers, then to Buffy), they at least hired an actor who could reasonably pull it off. As for "Angel," it also fell victim to one of the laws of hack fantasy: imaginary worlds are always faux-medieval. The high-tech slave collar only underlines how routinely medieval everything else is. Putting in a Xena reference doesn't solve that problem either. The Host's unhelpfulness, and his inability to give a straight or relevant answer to a question like "So what's so hellish about your dimension?", is beginning to make me very suspicious of him. I also fear that this actor, too, is beginning to be pushed beyond his level of competence at his craft, or at least beyond my interest in watching him. A pity, because he was great in small doses. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #82 ****************************