From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V4 #42 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Friday, March 15 2002 Volume 04 : Number 042 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/again, normal again [Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury ] Re: normal again??? [meredith ] Re: normal again??? [meredith ] Re: normal again??? [Joseph Zitt ] Re: normal again??? ["Marta Grabien" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 12:42:38 -0700 From: Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury Subject: Re: b/again, normal again At 04:03 PM 3/13/02 -0500, Donald G. Keller wrote: >Almost forgot: > >| >v > >| >v > >| >v > >| >v > >| >v > >Enough spoiler space? [snip] >Here's an interesting tidbit I learned from tvtome.com: this episode was >originally supposed to be Episode 8 (right after the musical and before >"Tabula Rasa"), original title "Asylum," but was moved to later in the >season. Wonder how big a difference that would have made had it happened >earlier. If they were going to have it earlier, why all that talk about the wedding and how Anya was doing and how Xander had realized he blew it? Was that added after they decided not to have the episode earlier? I think the main difference with having it earlier is that the question of which world is real would have had to be resolved earlier, too, or else it would permeate the succeeding episodes. They would all have been different, too. One big problem with having it earlier is that Jonathan's distrust of Warren in the episode wouldn't be as well motivated as it is with the episode coming now. The "we've got to lay low" bit fits with their jewel thievery, however, and doesn't need to apply to the murder of Warren's ex-girlfriend. Didn't Willow find where they were hiding after they made Buffy invisible by using a list of rental properties? (So the list existed earlier, too.) Also, David made a good point about them having had to rework it with regard to Buffy and Spike. At 02:22 PM 3/13/02 -0800, David S. Bratman wrote: >It's a good thing you posted first, because if I'd written the first >comment on this episode I'd have used the spoiler subject line of "Tara Ex >Machina". But Tara really didn't save the day, she became as much a victim as the others. Phaedre/Kathleen workshop@burgoyne.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 15:38:28 -0600 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: b/again, normal again On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 12:42:38PM -0700, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury wrote: > Didn't Willow find where they were hiding after they made Buffy invisible > by using a list of rental properties? (So the list existed earlier, too.) D'oh! So that's what it was... I was trying to figure out how she got a list of video rentals, and what that would tell her. - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems | | http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html | | Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 23:40:19 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: normal again??? Hi, David noted: >Somebody may be trying to tell me something. > >In a store today over lunch, I was bombarded by a pop song with the >repeated line "Heaven is a place on Earth." Hee! Belinda Carlisle, 1987. (Wow, high school flashback!!) ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ======================================= (: New England Patriots - Super Bowl XXXVI CHAMPIONS :) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 23:51:59 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: normal again??? Hi, >Well! > >-->spoil > >space<-- > >-->spoil > >space<-- > >-->spoil > >space<-- > >-->spoil > >space<-- > > >Metafiction alert! > >I don't know about anybody else, but I thought that was possibly the best >episode of the season. For me, the musical is still #1 ... but as far as "regular" episodes go, it just might have topped last week. >Given the big revelation tonight--that Buffy had been in an institution, >if only for a few weeks, and never mentioned it--no =wonder= Buffy >snapped, and "killed" Ted. I don't know, the whole "I spent two weeks in an institution" thing just stank of Convenient Plot Point to me. It seemed to come way out of left field, and even after reading the various pointers people have raised here, it still rings rather hollow. >I'm getting the feeling (from some disgruntled people on another list) >that one of the keys to the episode is (as John Clute would say) >decipherment: which "world" is real, Sunnydale? or the mental institution? Well, that was the point, wasn't it? I was kind of sickly hoping that the institution would turn out to be real ... but then we'd have no more show, would we? The cutting back-and-forth between the two worlds was brilliantly done. >And you realize they're leaving us hanging now until late April... Ugh, no, I didn't realize that!! Argh. Well, at least ALIAS and X-FILES are continuing uninterrupted for a while. And we've still got the last two episodes of ANGEL sitting on the TiVo. :) >My inclination (a very Jungian one, mind you) is to take Sunnydale as the >base reality of the show; to accept the idea that the demon poisoned >Buffy and caused her to have hallucinations (=very much= as the demon in >"Hell's Bells" caused Xander to have hallucinations, but about the future, >not the past--Joss Whedon does leave clues in the form of parallels about >how to "read" things); and that--here's the key point--Buffy, being the >Slayer, who has prophetic dreams with "spirit-guides" (as I went on about >in my essay in that damned book that hasn't appeared yet), got a message >from her dream-mother that she needed to believe in herself, and took the >message to heart, and reaffirmed her hero status. I'll buy that. That's mostly how I was reading things as well. Hopefully now we've had the turning point, and things in Buffy's life will start looking up from here on out. >Re the Trio, increased friction between Warren and Jonathan noted... Yes ... I'm thinking Jonathan isn't long for this world. Dawn wondered: >Is there anyone out there who hasn't had dreams where they're reunited >with someone they love, suspecting even in the dream that this can't be >real, and wishing there was some way to keep from waking up? I doubt it. I certainly have those types of dreams quite often. Gayle noted: >But a coupla things: I did not get the impresison that the Nemesises knew >what was happening to Buffy exactly; only that the poison was having some >effect. Right. They knew the demon was going to do *something*, they just weren't sure what. Nor did they care -- they just needed her out of their hair for a while. >Regardless, to me it still seemed >obvious that the line about Buffy briefly coming back (when she died in the >Sunnydale world) was the most important line in the episode. That one didn't stand out too much for me at all, except as further backstory provided for Doctor-world. To me, the most important line in the episode was the one where a delirious Buffy said to Dawn (paraphrasing here, I can't recall the exact words) "We have to get you straightened out. Your grades, your stealing ..." That's a sign that going forward, Buffy is going to start to Grow Up, Already and take responsibility for her life, and most importantly for Dawn. David commented: >If he'd really _really_ wanted to mess with our brains, he could have gone >even further by having the doctor prove to Buffy that she's getting all >these hallucinations of vampires and so on from watching this tv show on WB >and UPN ... You know, I was waiting for something like that. "She keeps talking about vampires and the Slayer, like she thinks she's that girl from TV or something." Back to Don ... >I'm not certain why Tara so conveniently showed up when she did: was it >because she had seen Willow walking away and decided it was time for them >to talk? Whatever the reason, I'd been waiting for her to appear. She is, after all, Buffy's spirit guide (cf. "Restless"). It stands to reason that she would be the one (instead of Spike) to come in and defuse the situation. Berni posted: >She was damn lucky no one broke her/his neck when thrown down those stairs! No kidding. Based on some rumors I have seen floating around about this season, I was honestly afraid that something awful was going to happen to Tara, at the very least (since reason dictated that Joss wouldn't dispose of an opening-credits character). >To think that she could, even for an instant, watch that demon attack and >kill her friends chills me to the bone. Even given that she was under the >influence of a poison, how can they trust her again? They can forgive her, >but won't there always be that little shudder, wondering when will be the >next time that Slayer strength is turned against them? This is a very interesting point to ponder. Will they just chalk it up to the poison and leave it at that, or will they be watching their backs now? My guess is, Willow, Tara and Xander will do the former, while Dawn will do the latter. She's convinced Buffy doesn't want her around anyway - -- I'm sure she won't be able to look at the reason for why Buffy did what she did rationally for a while, if at all. >And when she deliberately didn't drink the antidote, I thought, "how >selfish!" Maybe she wanted Doctor World to be real and have both her >parents again. Have the hope of being normal. Be able to relax and have no >responsibilities. Exactly. Buffy has been wanting to escape from her Slayer destiny since before the pilot episode. It was an *extremely* hard decision for her to leave Doctor World behind, and come back to the much tougher real world. >But if she chose it in error, or if she chose just to >escape, what would happen to Dawn? Well, based on what was going down before she made her final decision, Dawn would have been quite dead. But we've seen Buffy do the exact same sort of selfish thing already this season, most notably when she was about to turn herself in when the Nemesises framed her for the murder. I posted about that at the time: Buffy was ready to walk into jail, to a life where she wouldn't have to provide for anyone and would get a guaranteed three squares a day, with no thought whatsoever to where that would leave Dawn. It's a similar situation here. >And, hey, how did she manage to keep her job at the DoubleMeat Palace after >leaving abruptly with Riley? The recession probably hasn't hit Sunnydale yet. Unemployment's still low, they're more willing to cut workers some slack in the interest of keeping the schedule filled. :) ======================================= Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth ======================================= Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ======================================= (: New England Patriots - Super Bowl XXXVI CHAMPIONS :) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 23:55:04 -0600 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: normal again??? On Thu, Mar 14, 2002 at 11:51:59PM -0500, meredith wrote: > >And, hey, how did she manage to keep her job at the DoubleMeat Palace after > >leaving abruptly with Riley? > > The recession probably hasn't hit Sunnydale yet. Unemployment's still low, > they're more willing to cut workers some slack in the interest of keeping > the schedule filled. :) Sunnydale also has a pretty high mortality rate, especially among the young and not too bright, which I suspect seriously cuts into the DoubleMeat Palace talent pool. - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems | | http://www.metatronpress.com/nj/smwb.html | | Latest CDs: Collaborations/ All Souls http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 23:20:23 -0800 From: "Marta Grabien" Subject: Re: normal again??? I have been watching all the reruns It is stunning how many bits and bobs refer to the current season. Little phrases planted here and there. Like when someone (Tara?) say to Buffy, 'be home before Dawn". It was completely illogical for her to say that just then, unless..... And this was at least a season before Dawn joined the group. I will be off line for a couple of weeks. I look forward to all the mail when I return! ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V4 #42 ****************************