From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #90 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, May 23 2001 Volume 03 : Number 090 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/speculations ["Donald G. Keller" ] o/'brien joke ["Donald G. Keller" ] b/re UPN stuff ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: o/'brien joke [Todd Huff ] Re: b/re UPN stuff ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: o/'brien joke ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/speculations ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/speculations ["Susan Kroupa" ] Re: b/speculations [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/speculations [meredith ] Re: o/'brien joke [meredith ] o/language degeneration (was Re: b/re UPN stuff) [meredith ] Re: b/speculations ["David S. Bratman" ] b/the gift [meredith ] Re: b/the gift ["Susan Kroupa" ] No spoiler space on my last post... ["Susan Kroupa" ] Goofy Buffy prediction for next season [Todd Huff ] Re: b/the gift ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 12:54:18 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/speculations I meant to post the following =days= ago, not the morning of the season finale. But I wanted to make a record of what I thought might happen tonight before it actually airs. Seems to me some of the Divine Twins stuff I was talking about a while ago has come to pass: it turns out that Glory and Ben are in fact respectively divine and human, and though, since they share the same body, it would seem less likely that one would kill the other, it seems to be the case that Glory's vulnerability is Ben: if you kill him, you destroy her as well. There's also the clear statement--which seems like foreshadowing--that to stop Glory, Dawn has to die. A lot of echoes of previous seasons here, with bloodletting as the key (pun intentional): in the 2nd season to opening/closing the gate to Hell (Angel's blood in this case); in the 3rd season, the blood of a Slayer to cure Angel (and when Faith's wasn't possible, it was Buffy's). Notice that, in the long run, Angel and Faith, despite their blood being let, survive (while the Mayor does not). So we are faced with speculating that either 1) Ben dies and Glory is destroyed 2) Dawn dies and Glory is thwarted. This smacks a little too neatly, however, of my thought leading up to "Becoming" in the 2nd season, where it seemed that either 1) Buffy kills Angel or 2) Angel has his soul restored. The answer that season was, of course, both. There seems to be a school of thought, with people I've talked to, that Dawn is going to go "poof!" at the end of the season. (Or, as seems more likely now, that she will die as a sacrifice to save the world.) But Dawn seems too useful a character, both as a person and as a plot device, to be summarily discarded (see: Faith). My intuition (which seldom serves me well in guessing about this show) is that Ben will end up being the sacrifice to stop Glory, and Dawn will survive. I actually feel it more likely that Tara will die than Dawn. But I've been way wrong before. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 12:57:22 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: o/'brien joke From the =TV Guide= "Cheers and Jeers" column, the sidebar "Worth Repeating," consisting of the favored quotes of the week; this one is a joke from a Conan O'Brien monolog: "Aaron Sorkin, the creator and writer of =The West Wing=, was arrested for possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Sorkin said he was sorry and hopes everyone watches tomorrow night's =West Wing=, where President Bartlett turns into a giant lizard." And I'm thinking, Wait, didn't Joss Whedon do that already? In "Graduation Day"? Meredith was of the opinion that maybe Conan O'Brien knew the =Buffy= reference and that's how he came up with the joke; and it's true that that episode was one of the ones that got postponed, and so had a higher profile than the average =Buffy= episode. But I'm not so sure. If that were true, I would have expected him to make the reference more specific (giant snake) and/or tied =Buffy= into it somehow. =Buffy= is mostly, I think, under the general cultural radar, except for the basic concepts: teenage girl, stakes and crosses, vampires. Anything more knowledgeable about the show strikes me as unlikely. In the end, I guess I'm enough of a Jungian to suspect that politicians turning into giant reptiles is a plausible recurring trope. But let me cut my thinking short right there before it runs away with me. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 13:03:06 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/re UPN stuff They "repel" up the wall?? The first time I read that, I thought it meant they =bounced off=. What the writer meant to write was "rappel," right? (I just did what the writer =should= have done and went to the dictionary; my first impulse was to spell it "rapelle," which is also wrong. Furthermore, the verb refers only to =descending= via rope, so one cannot "rappel up.") Are we doomed to this degeneration of language? Just yesterday I read a sports columnist who "nearly wretched" at something he saw on TV. I assume he meant "retched," but I can't be certain. End rant. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 11:21:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: o/'brien joke I think there exists a tradition in media portrayals of drug-induced hallucinations involving lizards. I'm not personally familiar with either, but I believe a high Jim Morrison proclaimed himself the "Lizard King" in THE DOORS and isn't there something about lizards in Castenada? > > "Aaron Sorkin, the creator and writer of =The West > Wing=, was > arrested for possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms. > Sorkin > said he was sorry and hopes everyone watches > tomorrow night's > =West Wing=, where President Bartlett turns into a > giant > lizard." > > And I'm thinking, Wait, didn't Joss Whedon do that > already? > In "Graduation Day"? > > Meredith was of the opinion that maybe Conan O'Brien > knew the > =Buffy= reference and that's how he came up with the > joke; > and it's true that that episode was one of the ones > that got > postponed, and so had a higher profile than the > average > =Buffy= episode. > > But I'm not so sure. If that were true, I would have > expected > him to make the reference more specific (giant > snake) and/or > tied =Buffy= into it somehow. > > =Buffy= is mostly, I think, under the general > cultural radar, > except for the basic concepts: teenage girl, stakes > and > crosses, vampires. Anything more knowledgeable about > the show > strikes me as unlikely. > > In the end, I guess I'm enough of a Jungian to > suspect that > politicians turning into giant reptiles is a > plausible > recurring trope. But let me cut my thinking short > right there > before it runs away with me. Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 11:34:47 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/re UPN stuff At 10:03 AM 5/22/2001 , DGK wrote: >Are we doomed to this degeneration of language? Yes. It's been going on for centuries. "Spitting image" for "spit and image" is just the first one I can think of. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 11:34:44 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: o/'brien joke At 09:57 AM 5/22/2001 , DGK wrote: >=Buffy= is mostly, I think, under the general cultural radar, >except for the basic concepts: teenage girl, stakes and >crosses, vampires. Anything more knowledgeable about the show >strikes me as unlikely. I agree here. TV Guide often makes reference to "the best shows that you aren't watching." Leaving aside the irritating assumption that everyone watches the same shows (no TV show in history, not a Super Bowl, not Roots, not Survivor, has been showing on more than about 50% of the sets in the US that were showing TV programs at the time), BTVS seems to fall close to that category though not entirely in it because of its known cult status. Curious, though, that BTVS's cult status is almost never used to denigrate it. Having just been whapped over the head by yet another snide, crass article on Tolkien, I wonder why not. (The article is at , the author interviewed me and cites me, but considering how little he used of what I said and how badly he misused it, I rather wish he hadn't bothered. On request, I will say more about this article, and will endeavor not to make it far more than you want to know.) You note that there's something generally culturally amusing about associating politicians with reptiles, and that's probably why O'Brien made that particular joke. I would not consider it beneath Joss to have intended a joke aspect to making the Mayor become a snake: in fact, I'd be disappointed if he didn't have that in mind. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 11:34:35 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/speculations At 09:54 AM 5/22/2001 , DGK wrote: >Seems to me some of the Divine Twins stuff I was talking >about a while ago has come to pass: it turns out that Glory >and Ben are in fact respectively divine and human, This part is not news. Up until recently, it was not entirely certain that Ben-qua-Ben had nothing supernatural about him, but he wasn't showing it. >So we are faced with speculating that either 1) Ben dies and >Glory is destroyed 2) Dawn dies and Glory is thwarted. > >This smacks a little too neatly, however, of my thought >leading up to "Becoming" in the 2nd season, where it seemed >that either 1) Buffy kills Angel or 2) Angel has his soul >restored. The answer that season was, of course, both. God, I hope they do something equally clever this time. I am very disappointed with the setup and the expository lump nature of what was said. (For instance, as I noted before, how do we know that anything the General said is true?) >There seems to be a school of thought, with people I've >talked to, that Dawn is going to go "poof!" at the end of the >season. (Or, as seems more likely now, that she will die as a >sacrifice to save the world.) But Dawn seems too useful a >character, both as a person and as a plot device, to be >summarily discarded (see: Faith). I have another reason to think she'll be around: Michelle Trachtenberg was, reportedly, one of the cast members shown at the UPN launch announcement. It could be the ultimate fake-out to have her dropped from the show before it moves, but I don't think so. >My intuition (which seldom serves me well in guessing about >this show) is that Ben will end up being the sacrifice to >stop Glory, and Dawn will survive. I actually feel it more >likely that Tara will die than Dawn. But I've been way wrong >before. Agreed on all counts. Ben is way expendable. And either Tara gets fixed, or she gets dropped. I don't see any future for her as she is. But, as you say, I've been wrong before. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 14:38:47 -0700 From: "Susan Kroupa" Subject: Re: b/speculations Me too. It's so obvious at this point that Buffy could kill Ben to save the world instead of Dawn that I'll be disappointed if that's what actually happens. I was unhappy with the expository lumps in last week's ep, not to mention the soapbox speeches. Sue - ----- Original Message ----- From: David S. Bratman > > God, I hope they do something equally clever this time. I am very > disappointed with the setup and the expository lump nature of what was > said. (For instance, as I noted before, how do we know that anything the > General said is true?) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 18:45:09 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/speculations In a message dated 5/22/2001 1:35:01 PM Pacific Daylight Time, susank@fiber.net writes: << Me too. It's so obvious at this point that Buffy could kill Ben to save the world instead of Dawn that I'll be disappointed if that's what actually happens. >> I know. That's such an obvious way out of the whole situation, and Ben is a pretty expendable character, if he dies it's a shame but wouldn't have that much impact. Something has to twist in an unexpected way. If it weren't so hot I'd start throwing out speculations. Well, let me see. The parallels to the setup for Becoming 2 seem almost deliberate. This and other things (including "gift of death") make me think that Joss is trying to set up some kind of emotional wallop comparable to B2, somebody dying whose death will have an impact. (Even the deaths earlier in the respective seasons, Jenny / Joyce, are a parallel.) I thought Giles was safe because of the spinoff till I heard someone speculate that the spinoff would be a prequel, which seems like a very likely possibility to me. If my brain cools off, I may get some more speculations in before the show starts. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 18:56:17 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/speculations Hi, I'll go ahead and post my response to this ... why not, right? In a couple hours we'll know. >So we are faced with speculating that either 1) Ben dies and >Glory is destroyed 2) Dawn dies and Glory is thwarted. ... or, since we now know that "death is (Buffy's) gift", Buffy has to sacrifice herself to save the lives of both Ben and Dawn and still destroy Glory. It's not like she hasn't died before, after all -- and perhaps Willow's newfound power is really setup for bringing Buffy back, and not helping to destroy Glory as we have been led to believe. That's my theory, anyway. We'll see how wrong I am. :) >There seems to be a school of thought, with people I've >talked to, that Dawn is going to go "poof!" at the end of the >season. (Or, as seems more likely now, that she will die as a >sacrifice to save the world.) But Dawn seems too useful a >character, both as a person and as a plot device, to be >summarily discarded (see: Faith). As David pointed out, Michelle Trachtenberg's presence at the UPN schedule unveiling would indicate that Dawn will survive. I also think that if anyone else (who isn't Buffy) is going to go it'd be Tara ... Amber Benson has been cagey when answering questions about her future involvement with the show, and her death would definitely have an impact on Willow that would extend to the rest of the gang as well. But I still stand behind my theory as stated above. ======================================= 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: Tue, 22 May 2001 19:04:01 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: o/'brien joke Hi, >I'm not personally familiar with either, but I believe >a high Jim Morrison proclaimed himself the "Lizard >King" in THE DOORS and isn't there something about >lizards in Castenada? Yes, Jim Morrison was indeed the Lizard King. It certainly is a common trope: I'm thinking of a couple trippy moments on _The Simpsons_, for example, where reptilian images were involved. :) ======================================= 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: Tue, 22 May 2001 19:02:04 -0400 From: meredith Subject: o/language degeneration (was Re: b/re UPN stuff) Hi, >Are we doomed to this degeneration of language? Oh yeah. But whether it's "degeneration" or "evolution" is a matter of debate (particularly in my house, where Rob is proud of how he mangles the English language, which drives this Virgo batty). Here are just some of my faves: for all intents and purposes => for all intensive purposes should have => should of pored over => poured over (I've been seeing this one a lot lately) a lot => alot (even friends with Master's degrees are guilty of this one) There are mamy more ... I'm sure by the time I finish going through my e-mail I'll have uncovered several others. ======================================= 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: Tue, 22 May 2001 17:11:41 -0700 From: "Berni Phillips" Subject: Re: b/UPN stuff From: "meredith" > In case anyone out there cares about this stuff but knows where to draw the > Line Of Utter Geekdom and therefore doesn't scour the Web searching for it > (unlike myself :), That would be me. >here is an eyewitness account of the unveiling of the > UPN fall schedule in New York last week (on the deck of the USS Intrepid, > of all places), at least as it pertains to BUFFY. Thank you! Berni ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 17:15:32 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/speculations Meredith wrote: >... or, since we now know that "death is (Buffy's) gift", Buffy has to >sacrifice herself to save the lives of both Ben and Dawn and still destroy >Glory. It's not like she hasn't died before, after all -- and perhaps >Willow's newfound power is really setup for bringing Buffy back, and not >helping to destroy Glory as we have been led to believe. > >That's my theory, anyway. We'll see how wrong I am. :) To my tastes, BTVS has already used up its lifetime allotment of "Marvel dead". Willow having already tried her darndest, if her power is sufficient to destroy Glory (without an asterisk), that'd be a surprise. We'll see. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 20:55:39 -0400 From: meredith Subject: b/the gift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dammit, I hate when I'm right! :P ======================================= 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: Tue, 22 May 2001 20:07:37 -0700 From: "Susan Kroupa" Subject: Re: b/the gift I hate it when you're right, too. I'm still reeling. Leave it to Joss to do the (almost) unthinkable. Sue - ----- Original Message ----- From: meredith To: Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 5:55 PM Subject: b/the gift > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > . > > Dammit, I hate when I'm right! :P > > > ======================================= > 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: Tue, 22 May 2001 20:19:45 -0700 From: "Susan Kroupa" Subject: No spoiler space on my last post... I'm sorry. Please don't read it unless you've seen tonight's ep. Sue ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 20:16:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: Goofy Buffy prediction for next season This is based on tonight's episode, so... Spoiler Warning You've Been Warned With the death (again!) of Buffy, another Slayer will be created and, since they share DNA, it's gonna be Dawn. So when the gang gets Buffy back (and that should be interesting in a Star Trek-mythobabble type of way) there will be three, count 'em, three Slayers. Look for lots of episodes of Giles training Dawn ("your sister was never this difficult") and scenes of Dawn pestering Buffy to tag along on patrols. And won't that be tedious to watch? :) Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 23:26:00 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/the gift Well, well, well. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I see I was right about a few things. Tara came back. Ben went to B-actors' eternal reward. Willow didn't do for Glory by herself: in fact, this was one of those great team efforts the group is so famous for. However, when we were talking about characters who might die off, we missed one possibility. If she comes back, they'd better be mighty careful about how they do it. If the Powers That Be get involved, I will just spit. If Todd is right, or even close to right, tedious is exactly the word. But she needn't come back at all, actually. Does anyone else remember a classic early 80s BBC sf show called "Blakes 7"? That went on for two years after the title character mysteriously disappeared, and no discredit to the actor involved but frankly it was a better show afterwards. And then there was the vampire-fighting posse, sans Slayer, in Doppelgangerland. We could be looking at something like that for the future. As an episode, this was a good one. The timing of the ritual functioned as a background against which the plot unfolded, not as a plot gimmick as before. This was all to the good. As soon as Xander found the Buffybot, I was expecting it to be used to fool Glory, but the way and the extent to which it was used still tricked me. The relative (relative!, mind you) ease with which Glory was dispatched, and the gobbledegook by which Buffy could substitute for Dawn, don't hold up to close examination, but the construction was good enough that in the moment it didn't matter. This is unlike last week, which was all talk. Despite some tedious-looking previews (Angel, on screen: "I'm not an animal" David, on couch: "No, you're a plant" Berni, also on couch: "I vote for mineral"), A. was pretty good too, again despite breaking a rule: Loren wasn't entirely dead, but it was done with such humor it didn't much matter. Lots of good mixing of the humor with the seriousness in this one. ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #90 ****************************