From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #161 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Saturday, October 20 2001 Volume 03 : Number 161 Today's Subjects: ----------------- b/comments10/16 ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/comments10/16 [allenw ] Re: b/comments10/16 ["Berni Phillips" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 07:17:34 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/comments10/16 [I wrote the following, I think, Wednesday--despite the above date--and I don't honestly remember if I actually =did= send it to the list; I've never figured out how to make my e-mail program automatically copy my messages. If I did send it, it didn't get there. So here goes. Does not reflect later comments.--dgk] I haven't chipped in any comments on the last few =Buffy= episodes (or =Angel= either); in the interest of spoiler space I'll list here episode titles (found online) of for the two shows this season: =Buffy= "Bargaining" (2 hrs.) "Afterlife" "Flooded" "Life Serial" (10/23) "All the Way" (10/30) And now we know the musical is 11/6. =Angel= "Heartthrob" "That Vision Thing" "That Old Gang of Mine" "Carpe Noctem" For starters, let's back up to "Afterlife." Big Wow and Double Wow on Buffy's "heaven" speech. The writing and acting were terrific, and what a punch in the solar plexus! To my mind it indicates that Joss Whedon is keeping his promise that he would make bringing Buffy back really hard. I'll be curious to hear what the Christian perspective is on this turn of events. The wording was very careful: Buffy says she =thinks= she was in heaven: but her description also sounds womblike (limbolike?) or Nirvanalike. Whatever the metaphysical aspect might be, clearly Buffy should =not= have been brought back. (When Buffy said "This is hell" I instantly flashed on the famous Mephistopheles line in Marlowe, "Why this is hell, nor am I out of it." Just to continue the Faustian theme.) And it's fascinating to note, on re-watching the episode and the following one that every time someone mentions what a good thing it is that Buffy is back, she averts her eyes and tries not to flinch. Very subtle. A parallel struck me the other day. Remember in "Superstar" how often characters said "Jonathan would never do that"? Remember how evasively positive he was about the monster? Notice how often people are saying "Willow would never do that" and how evasively positive =she= is about Buffy? ("It's all good.") Remember also the scene in "Superstar" where people are trying out the phrase "Buffy was right" and finding it strange to say? I think it's already in the subtext, and may soon be in the text, that people are going to be saying "Willow was wrong" with the same strange reaction. Of course, Spike and Giles are already saying it with conviction. Big wow too to the scene in "Flooded" between Giles and Willow; quite expected, and very well played out. Notice Willow's power-tripping threat there, too. All is not well in Willowville. (Nor in Buffydale.) Very striking that Buffy is more comfortable around Spike (and confided in him) than around anyone else--even Giles. Two little wordless shots: Buffy sitting very still on her bed reminded me of the similar shot in "Anne," which suggests the state of mind she's in. Also, something I might have thought blatant if I hadn't missed it the first time, the shot of Buffy walking through the dark graveyard and pausing in front of a stone angel so that for a moment it looks like =she= has wings--a foreshadowing of the "heaven" idea. Myself, I thought the Buffy spectre was even spookier than Anya possessed--especially the whole diatribe about Willow killing the fawn (and note Willow's outright lie to Tara). "Flooded" of course turns out to be something of a comic episode--standard plumbing jokes, standard geek-club jokes with the new "supervillain" triumvirate. Nice to see Jonathan back, and Warren is an OK character, but I'm going to take some convincing that this schtick is going to work as a running gag. (But I'm willing to be convinced.) They did succeed in making financial troubles amusing, though, especially Buffy the Loan Applier For. (Next week's Buffy the Construction Worker looks like it'll be quite funny as well.) And Anya's "No...maybe...yes" was another fine Anya moment (amusing yet touching). I wouldn't argue against the idea that they're really dragging out this engagement-announcement thing, though. I continue to find this season well-done. Much possible dramatic potential in the Willow situation, especially. Oh, about the reruns: I continue to watch them, and I continue to be really annoyed at how they're trimming them slightly. Fox' rerun of "The Harvest" omitted 1) Xander kicking the trashcan after they came back from not rescuing Jesse 2) an entire mini-scene near the end where Giles explains to Xander that Jesse is dead and a demon has possessed him 3) most egregiously, Buffy's line--after she's asked Angel if he knows what it's like to have a friend--her gentle addition of "That wasn't meant to be a stumper." That's a terribly crucial line: the first time Buffy expresses any sympathy for Angel, and arguably the first step towards her falling in love with him. Worse, UPN's rerun of "Faith, Hope, and Trick" comes to the scene where they find Faith fighting the vampire in the alley, she's about to introduce herself, and here's how they handle it: FAITH: It's OK, I got it. I'm [FADEOUT] And when they come back, it's at the new scene where Faith is regaling everyone with her adventures. Clearly this makes hash of the whole situation (omitting Oz' line about "a new Slayer in town" and Faith's staking the vampire), and would leave a new viewer very confused about what just happened. At the same time, "The Harvest" preserves every line of the tedious vampire scenes, and "Faith, Hope, and Trick" every syllable of Trick's orotund rodomontade. Who =is= doing the cuts, and under what rubric? My commisserations to anyone who's seeing these episodes for the first time. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 09:40:23 -0500 (CDT) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/comments10/16 On Fri, 19 Oct 2001, Donald G. Keller wrote: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > I'll be curious to hear what the Christian perspective is on > this turn of events. The wording was very careful: Buffy says > she =thinks= she was in heaven: but her description also > sounds womblike (limbolike?) or Nirvanalike. Whatever the > metaphysical aspect might be, clearly Buffy should =not= have > been brought back. > Here's a wacky idea: Joss has mentioned a non-crossover crossover (which was *probably* just the phone calls this week, but...). Buffy was in a womb-like space. Darla is pregnant. Connection? If so, Willow's yanking the Buffy-soul back was very, very bad. And on the subject of Darla: my finacee suggests that Darla's pregnancy has to do with the fact that she and Angel were "owed a life" by under-the-swimming-pool-British-guy, just before Dru re-vamped her. > the state of mind she's in. Also, something I might have > thought blatant if I hadn't missed it the first time, the > shot of Buffy walking through the dark graveyard and pausing > in front of a stone angel so that for a moment it looks like > =she= has wings--a foreshadowing of the "heaven" idea. > Also done, much more blatantly, in the "Smallville" premiere. > "Flooded" of course turns out to be something of a comic > episode--standard plumbing jokes, standard geek-club jokes > with the new "supervillain" triumvirate. Nice to see Jonathan > back, and Warren is an OK character, but I'm going to take > some convincing that this schtick is going to work as a > running gag. (But I'm willing to be convinced.) > So, what shall we call Jonathan and Co.? The Geek Chorus? The Pathetic Trio? While it makes sense, in a season about growing up, for the villains to be massively immature, I doubt they'll last long. Perhaps just long enough to push Willow over the edge... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 17:31:03 -0700 From: "Berni Phillips" Subject: Re: b/comments10/16 - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Donald G. Keller" Don's spoiler space... > > =Buffy= > "Bargaining" (2 hrs.) > "Afterlife" > "Flooded" > "Life Serial" (10/23) > "All the Way" (10/30) > And now we know the musical is 11/6. > > =Angel= > "Heartthrob" > "That Vision Thing" > "That Old Gang of Mine" > "Carpe Noctem" > > I'll be curious to hear what the Christian perspective is on > this turn of events. The wording was very careful: Buffy says > she =thinks= she was in heaven: but her description also > sounds womblike (limbolike?) or Nirvanalike. Whatever the > metaphysical aspect might be, clearly Buffy should =not= have > been brought back. This Christian interpretted Buffy's remark about thinking she had been in heaven as her not having clear memories, just a general impression of her emotional state while dead. Joss has established that the Buffyverse is not ours -- or else the Watchers have their own religion with a different creation story -- all that "the monsters were here first." I'd argue about whether she should have been brought back or not. She tells Spike that she knew that everyone she loved was okay and taken care of. Well, so they were until the demons figured out that the Buffybot was a substitute. Had Willow tried the spell a week later (assuming there was anything left of Sunnydale by then), Buffy may have had a very different impression. Of course, you could argue that Willow's spell attracted the demon trouble in a karmic way. It was horrible from Buffy's perspective to bring her back from a happy death (and necromancy, which is what Willow was doing, is a very grave sin from a Christian perspective, but let's not forget that Willow was not raised Christian), but with her dead and Faith incarcerated, the world is Slayer-less. Willow used the wrong means, that is clear. Was her intent so terrible? I think she truly believed Buffy was in some sort of hell, which the Buffyverse seems to have so many of. (You've got the hell Angel was in, the hell the kids were in in "Anne," etc.) Willow's goal was to relieve suffering, both Buffy's (or so she believed) and the world's. Willow's terrible sin, that worse than necromancy, is pride. Like Lucifer, she's setting herself up for one heck of a fall. It's not a deadly sin for nothin'. She thought she knew better than God (who I'm not sure is a real player in the Buffyverse). > (When Buffy said "This is hell" I instantly flashed on the > famous Mephistopheles line in Marlowe, "Why this is hell, nor > am I out of it." Just to continue the Faustian theme.) I flashed on the Sunnydale we saw in "The Wish," a Sunnydale that Buffy Summers had never come to. > Very striking that Buffy is more comfortable around Spike > (and confided in him) than around anyone else--even Giles. Who else could begin to understand and still treat her normally? Giles and the others would be crushed emotionally if they knew. They'd pity her forever, more than they do now. > Myself, I thought the Buffy spectre was even spookier than > Anya possessed--especially the whole diatribe about Willow > killing the fawn (and note Willow's outright lie to Tara). Yes, that really got to me, too. It was like Buffy saying what she really felt. > They did succeed in making financial troubles amusing, > though, especially Buffy the Loan Applier For. (Next week's > Buffy the Construction Worker looks like it'll be quite funny > as well.) I feel bad that Buffy can't continue in college, but death and resurrection kind of make that seem trivial now. And she probably wasn't doing very well anyway, between the slaying and Riley. Berni ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #161 *****************************