From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #180 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Tuesday, November 20 2001 Volume 03 : Number 180 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: 11/13 ["David S. Bratman" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 18:58:11 -0800 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: 11/13 Hillary wrote: >> And here we had yet another episode with grim underliers that plays >> funny! Will this one be remembered in future BTVS trivia contests as the >> one in which Xander is called "Alex"? > >No, it will be the Randy and Joan episode. That's what it will be known as (unless it's known as the shark-head episode). But I think "Alex" will be a better trivia contest question, which is what I was referring to. "Randy and Joan" makes me think of Darby and Joan. Um ... >Unless...and this is speculation...it turns into a retread of the Angelus >storyline, where Buffy gets involved with Spike, and then Spike gets the chip >out and turns on her. But I trust Joss won't do anything as mundane as that. I doubt so either. Although we couldn't trust Spike not to revert without the chip, it's been clear - even through his attempts to get the chip out last season - that it's not only the chip that's keeping Spike tame. There's part of him, even if it's not the whole part, that really wants to be good: the remnant of William the Bloody Awful, perhaps. I was recently watching, on re-run, the 1st season episode with Buffy & Angel's first kiss and her discovery that he's a vampire. I was struck by an apparent change in Angel. More recently it's appeared that gaining a soul made Angel genuinely repent of his evilness, but in this 1st season episode it looked like Angel was acting more like Spike when the chip was new: he _wants_ to be bad, but his soul won't let him. If this early behavior of Angel's isn't anomalous, then we have a similar evolution of both Angel and Spike: from a bad guy forcibly prevented from bad actions, to a guy who wants to be good but sometimes reverts. Meredith wrote: >Hats off to Alyson Hannigan for yet another killer performance. The look >on her face as she sat despondent in the bathroom as Tara packed was >physically painful. Yes. One wouldn't want one's annoyance at Willow to be at all confused with one's admiration for the actress who plays her. Robert wrote: > It was only today that it occurred to me that Spike--I mean >"Randy"--was wearing a suit similar to his swing-set garb in Xander's >"Restless" dream. It was also during that same sequence that Giles >said something like "Spike's like a son to me." > I also remember Xander saying something along the lines of >"Always got to keep on moving," to which Buffy, seated in the sandbox, >responded, "Like a shark." > "Only with legs!" Spike added proudly. > > Seems to me the scriptwriters are still playing with situations >and imagery inspired by "Restless." Your memory is pretty good, and I think your guess is dead on. (The musical episode drew on "Restless" also, for the trick of singing the plot - - see Giles's dream.) Checking the transcript site I usually use, I find that what you were thinking of goes like this: >(Cut to a playground, daylight. Giles and Spike are swinging on swings, >both dressed in Giles-type tweeds. Buffy playing in the sandbox.) >(Xander walks up.) >XANDER: Hey, there you are. >BUFFY: (putting sand in pail with plastic shovel) Are you sure it's us you >were looking for? >(Giles smiles at her.) >SPIKE: Giles here is gonna teach me to be a Watcher. Says I got the stuff. >GILES: Spike's like a son to me. (They both smile and continue swinging) >XANDER: That's good. I was into that for a while, but... (nods toward the >street) I got other stuff goin' on. > >(Long shot of the ice-cream truck surrounded by kids.) >(Closer shot of Xander in the truck, wearing his striped shirt and hat, >serving ice cream to kids.) > >XANDER: (in playground) You gotta have something. (Looks at Buffy) Gotta be >with movin' forward. >BUFFY: (like a proud little kid) Like a shark. >XANDER: Like a shark with feet and ... much less fins. >SPIKE: (like a proud little kid) And on land! >GILES: Very good! >(They keep swinging.) A couple more musical comments about recent episodes: 1) "Tabula Rasa" is the first episode in a very long time - since before Oz left? - to have a song in the Bronze. Those were a staple of the show for a long time - remember the album of them? - but they quietly vanished. 2) I see on IMDB that Hinton Battle, who played the song-and-dance demon, played Bojangles Robinson in a recent tv movie about Shirley Temple. Seems like a good part for him. And one question: Near the start of the musical, Xander is in the magic shop with a box of donuts, and says "Respect the cruller. And tame the donut!" Is this a reference to something? ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #180 *****************************