From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #150 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, October 3 2001 Volume 03 : Number 150 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Buffy tonight [GHighPine@aol.com] b/If you dare ... ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: Buffy tonight ["Susan Kroupa" ] Re: Buffy tonight ["Susan Kroupa" ] b/alyson hannigan on late night tv [meredith ] b/premiere [Todd Huff ] b/bargaining ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/bargaining [Todd Huff ] Re: b/bargaining ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 13:18:15 EDT From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Buffy tonight Well, I won't be here tonight to see the Buffy season premiere live. Just tell me if I should be prepared for some amazing, ingeniously plotted, moving drama or whether I should not expect too much. (If the former, I'll avoid spoilers, if the latter, not.) Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 13:54:19 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: b/If you dare ... ... there's a review of tonight's here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/02/DD213443.DTL I'm not sayin' nothin' about it, nope. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 18:32:36 -0700 From: "Susan Kroupa" Subject: Re: Buffy tonight ARRRGH. I just discovered that we can't find UPN, which I swear we had on our cable a few months ago. Would anyone be able to tape the premier for me tonight? I'd pay for the tape and postage, etc. I'll have to call the cable company first thing in the morning. Sue - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 10:18 AM Subject: Buffy tonight > Well, I won't be here tonight to see the Buffy season premiere live. Just > tell me if I should be prepared for some amazing, ingeniously plotted, moving > drama or whether I should not expect too much. (If the former, I'll avoid > spoilers, if the latter, not.) > > Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 19:15:10 -0700 From: "Susan Kroupa" Subject: Re: Buffy tonight I called the cable company--we _did_ get UPN up to a month or so ago but they switched channels and now it will be "hopefully by the end of the year" when our cable company will have it again. I'm sooo frustrated... Sue - ----- Original Message ----- From: Susan Kroupa To: Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 6:32 PM Subject: Re: Buffy tonight > ARRRGH. I just discovered that we can't find UPN, which I swear we had on > our cable a few months ago. Would anyone be able to tape the premier for me > tonight? I'd pay for the tape and postage, etc. I'll have to call the > cable company first thing in the morning. > > Sue > ----- Original Message ----- > From: > To: > Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 10:18 AM > Subject: Buffy tonight > > > > Well, I won't be here tonight to see the Buffy season premiere live. > Just > > tell me if I should be prepared for some amazing, ingeniously plotted, > moving > > drama or whether I should not expect too much. (If the former, I'll avoid > > spoilers, if the latter, not.) > > > > Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:26:30 -0400 From: meredith Subject: b/alyson hannigan on late night tv Hi, Alyson Hannigan was a guest on CBS' The Late Late Show last night. Craig Kilborn is an ass, but it was an enjoyable interview anyway. Hannigan is a very, very funny individual. She reminded me of some of my college friends - -- same sardonic sense of humor. There were no big revelations, just babble about why _Buffy_ moved to UPN ("money!") and also some ruminating about whether or not there will be an _American Pie 3_ (she thinks not -- "at this point the only place left for them to go would be the boys on Viagra 60 years down the line"). I noticed that she's got the "very special star" designation in the opening credits this year, replacing Anthony Stewart Head (but Amber Benson is *still* not a regular, dammit -- what is UP with that?!?). It's nice to see that -- Willow has really become as integral a part of the heart and soul of the show as Gabrielle was on _Xena_. (Yeah, so I'm a bigger fan of Alyson Hannigan than SMG ... sue me. I know I'm not alone. :) ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth "an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind" -- mahatma gandhi ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 20:58:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: b/premiere I doubt this episode will prove a favorite with me, but it wasn't bad. More thoughts later. I've been wondering about the economics of magic in this world. The Urn of Osiris, that special box that Cordelia had to get to imprison that one demon (sorry I can't recall all these names), one would think that these unique magic items would carry a very hefty (i.e. new BMW or more) price tag but other than casual remarks about the expense, we get no further explanation. Minor kvetching, I know, but it bugs me. Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 00:25:40 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/bargaining I'll make some spoiler space by starting with saying that I had a short, late work shift today; I set up a tape before I left, just in case, got out on time at 7:30, and rushed home on the subway just in time to turn the auto-taping off so I could watch and tape by hand. Didn't make dinner or anything, just sat down and watched the whole two hours. Then I started dinner, rewound the tape, and watched it all (not quite two hours, minus commercials) again. Well, that's not quite enough spoiler space yet. "Yes, I =am= interesting!" --Buffybot I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a happy boy tonight. For my money that's the best season opener since the 2nd season ("When She Was Bad,), better than "Anne" or "The Freshman," and =much= better than "Buffy vs. Dracula." I have to start with the spookiest part, however. I suspect Joss Whedon knew sometime =last season= that he was going to bring down the Glory-built tower in a heap; certainly the episode was in the can before Sept. 11th, and certainly he had no way of knowing how it was going to resonate =now=. I started getting the creeps when the tower started shaking while Dawn and Buffy were up there (throw in my serious acrophobia), and the whole very protracted scene was very hard to watch (and yes, I watched it twice), in a way that even the somewhat similar scene in the bell tower in "Earshot" with =its= real-world echoes was not. The whole two hours were very tense; interpersonal tensions, plot tensions, etc. The whole buried-alive part was excruciating, as well; I'm sure some will remember the very similar happenings in "Nightmares" in the 1st season, and people like me who read a lot of ancillary stuff will remember how SMG talked about being freaked by the idea of being buried alive, and how hard that scene was to film...and here they made her do it again. Incidentally, this time I =do= buy the explanation: Buffy's death was not natural but mystical, and that made her revival more acceptable. Also, with the last Urn of Osiris destroyed, they can't do it this way again. The revived Buffy's demeanor was very strange (kind of a cross between CaveSlayer in "Beer Bad" and the noblewoman in "Halloween")...but it's more understandable, and more resonant, the second time through when you realize that she thinks she's in Hell. Thank heavens for the Buffybot, hilarious as ever. People who know me really well will be sure the moment I really lost it: when the robot was doing knock-knock jokes. But it was all a riot. It would be a shame if the robot really is no more. And Anya was very funny too, especially about pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Lastly, for now, it's a bit early to start this sort of thing, but I had seen a mild spoiler about Willow evoking Osiris, and I thought then that that was exactly right, because Osiris was one of the main gods who were dismembered and then brought back to life...and notice that not only did Willow suffer "dismemberment" (slash wounds all down her arms), but Buffy's double the Buffybot was =literally= dismembered just after Buffy herself was brought back to life. It's late. Time to let someone else get a word in edgewise. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 21:32:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: b/bargaining SPOILER SPACE > > Thank heavens for the Buffybot, hilarious as ever. > People who know me > really well will be sure the moment I really lost > it: when the robot was > doing knock-knock jokes. But it was all a riot. It > would be a shame if the > robot really is no more. Agreed. > > And Anya was very funny too, especially about > pulling a rabbit out of a > hat. Before I forget, Tara (or was it Anya?) putting the little monster on her finger and saying "Grr, Arrr" was one of the funniest in-jokes I've ever seen on a show. Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 23:59:38 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/bargaining OK, I guess I'd better put in the spoiler space too. I can put my reaction very simply: I feel bludgeoned. Despite the funny lines (there were a lot of them, and they were good), this has to be the most _uniformly_ dire and stressful continuous two hours of TV that I've ever watched. It was all one figurative color, and that was a dirty bloody grey. And they could have fit all of this into one hour: it felt stretched as well. Which isn't to say that it wasn't well-executed: as nearly always, it was, and the scenes of the returned Buffy were the most effective (though her bewilderment and post-grave nausea don't seem to have affected her ability to kick demon butt). But the well-executed scene of Buffy's death didn't mean the plot situation made any sense; and pretty much the same goes here. I was expecting Joss to SURPRISE us, and to come up with something good. Well, he spoiled the surprise himself by announcing on the day after the end of last season that Buffy would return. And he further leeched it of suspense by not allowing even one full episode with the Buffybot as stand-in while we wondered _when_ Buffy would return. As for how the return was handled, what a disappointment. What a pedestrian notion. Oh, just another Willow spell. (I am somewhat jittery about the whole notion of spells that consist of attempts to propitiate arbitrary gods, which veers dangerously towards the Lin Carter school of fantasy-writing. And when Osiris tortured Willow's body, all I could think of was Cordelia last night.) The little expository scene in which Willow explains why this is going to work - Buffy isn't "really" dead, she just went to another dimension - is like the embodiment of bad fantasy. It isn't as illogical as Buffy's death, it's just a boring pedestrian copout. Where is the brilliant man who brought us Dawn? I didn't like it as well as "Anne" or the Roommate from Hell openers, the latter of which was BTVS at its best. But no, this wasn't as bad as "Buffy vs. Dracula", I'll give you that. And when is the price to pay going to start to rear its head for Willow's feats of mighty magic? ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #150 *****************************