From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V5 #5 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Thursday, January 9 2003 Volume 05 : Number 005 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/showtime [Robert Stacy ] b/Telepathy, Willow Style ["Donald G. Keller" ] Re: b/showtime [meredith ] Re: b/showtime [Todd Huff ] Re: b/showtime [allenw ] Re: b/showtime [Joseph Zitt ] Re: b/Telepathy, Willow Style [Joseph Zitt ] Re: b/showtime [Joseph Zitt ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 17:39:17 -0500 From: Robert Stacy Subject: Re: b/showtime "Donald G. Keller" wrote: > > Here's a novelty: how about some comments about a new episode? Welcome to the list, stranger. :) > I had been meaning to comment (when I wasn't commenting) that, > naive viewer that I am at times, it never occurred to me that > Giles might be a manifestation of the First. Good job all those > who noticed stuff like he never touched anything, etc. I wasn't > convinced, necessarily, but the evidence certainly was suggestive. > We still don't know what the outcome of the axe attack was. Exactly, Don. I reviewed "Bring On the Night" Monday to refresh my memory for last night's episode. Giles keeps his hands jammed in his pockets most of the time, subtly discouraging contact from others. Still, I find it hard to believe neither Buffy nor Willow were moved to throw an exuberant welcome-back hug around him at some point. Giles appeared to lean on his hands on Buffy's kitchen table, but that could easily have been feigned (ditto leaning back against the recycled paper bin in "Showtime"). He's never touched anyone or moved any physical objects, that we've seen. At the same time, the phone call from Alfania, that Willow answered, specifically began with a request for Giles. So the coven in England is unaware of his demise, if such is indeed the case. Or else they (the coven members) are co-conspiritors in fielding a noncoporal version of Giles. Have we ever seen the First manifest in more than one place as different people at the same time? Yeah, "Conversations With Dead People" demonstrated that ability. I was going to say that Eve's presence at Buffy's, including her decidedly unpep talk, was simultaneous with Giles and Anya's conversation with Beljoxa's Eye, but "Conversations" established a multitasking First. So Giles has a distinct air of Not What He Seems, but my present feeling is stubbornly that he is not the First. Hanging on to hope, I guess. On a tangentially related note, I don't think Joyce's appearances to Buffy are manifestations of the First. They only occurred in Buffy's dreams, rather than in the real world, as distinct from Dawn's experience in "Conversations." > Notice that in this episode Giles took his glasses off. (But he > still didn't touch anything else.) I think you're suggesting that if Giles is a noncorporal manifestation, appearing to remove his own glasses doesn't count. I agree. > Liked the teaser a lot, what with the Slayer-in-waiting's arrival, > getting attacked, and Buffy's usual blase attitude about Sunnydale. When the cloaked guys showed up, I was half-expecting Faith to have been one of the unviewed passengers who'd exited the bus, and that she would be the one to bail Rhonna out. > When Eve (the First) was standing up there at the end, the line > that jumped into my mind was "I =hate= that girl!" Which is what > The Annointed One (the kid vampire who survived a few episodes > into the 2nd season) said standing over the Master's smashed bones > at the end of "When She Was Bad" (2nd season premiere). Absolutely, Don. Exact same vibe. > Anybody else get a big thrill from the commercial for the 3rd > season DVDs? I did, and I don't even own a DVD player. And it came right on the tail end of my fading Faith Expectations. > I've been enjoying SMG as The First as Buffy. She really does some > of her best work as Not!Buffy (as a friend of mine designates it). > Real nice touch having Spike dreaming of escaping, and then not. There's a resonance there with Spike's "Every night I save you" monologue in season six's "After Life." > Looks to me like Kennedy (quite apart from her inexorable pursuit > of Willow) is by far the readiest to be a Slayer. Yeah, it could be > that I think so because she's the most like Faith, but she isn't > =too= much like Faith. (And note they made a point of showing that > she was good with the crossbow.) She's also the SIW with the most background characterization thus far: comes from a well-to-do family, has a half-sister, trained with the crossbow when she was eight(!). > I wasn't sure I liked the idea that they killed off Jonathan and > saved Andrew, but they've made him into fairly amusing comic relief > among the Scoobies. Particularly liked his conversation with Dawn > (notice her getting scary again?). Yes, but in a good way. There are moments, the way the character is being written and Tom Lenk plays him, when Andrew's guilt begins to overtake him and he takes what refuge/escape he can in geeky genre trivia . . . and he seems to almost catch a hint of how pathetic he makes himself, but turns his back on the knowledge, diving deeper. > My favorite exchange of the episode: > > "You wore pink." > "That was entrails." Yes! I never tire of Emma Caulfield's quirky, deadpan Anya delivery. > How about the telepathy? They haven't used that, I think, since the > 6th season premiere. (So how does Buffy know about it?) Yeah, really, that was a surprise--and not a completely credible one. Willow has demonstrated the ability to intentionally project her thoughts to others; Buffy doing same is unprecedented. > I guess that's enough for now. Another new one in =two= weeks. Where were we at this point last year, "Gone"? Quite a difference in the overall story arc compared to last season. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:59:34 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/Telepathy, Willow Style [I wrote this in response to two complaints on another list I'm on: 1) if it's Willow who's telepathic, how come it was Buffy that initiated the contact? 2) isn't this season moving a bit slowly? I thought my answers might be of interest here as well. --dgk] This may be more a rationalization than a satisfactory explanation, but this is why the telepathy scene didn't bother me: It was established in "Bargaining" (6th season premiere) that Willow could not only send telepathic instructions, but could read the rest of the group's minds (or at least their subvocalizations). Thus, all Buffy had to do was form the clear thought "Willow. Can you hear me?" and Willow could. The only limitation to the "three-way" conversation was that Buffy and Xander couldn't hear one another; Willow was like a person with a call-waiting line, and could certainly repeat what Xander said to Buffy and what Buffy said to Xander. =And= I think it's quite acceptable storytelling shorthand to omit those repetitions (just as it was acceptable storytelling shorthand to omit what "just the place" Xander had in mind was until it was time to reveal it). Is this season proceeding too slowly? Last night's episode was the season's eleventh. Let's tune in at that point in the previous full seasons: 2.11: "Ted"--Angel still has his soul, no hint there's anything wrong with Slayer/vampire love, the "all I see is you" speech ("Bad Eggs") hasn't even happened yet, Spike and Drusilla seem to be dead... 3.11: "Gingerbread"--Giles is still Buffy's Watcher, Faith is still a Scooby, the Mayor's plans are still to be revealed... 4.11: "Doomed"--Buffy has =just= found out Riley is an Initiative soldier, they are =just= getting together, Maggie is still alive, the number 314 still has no sinister significance... 5.11: "Triangle"--Riley has just left, Joyce is recovering from her surgery, nobody but Buffy and Giles know that Dawn is the Key, and no one has any idea what Glory is. I'll leave Season 6 out because its events don't as easily leap to mind, but I think it can safely be said that Season 7 hasn't moved any =slower= than previous seasons; it may in fact have moved =faster=. We already =seem= to have an idea of what the final conflict will be, something not true of previous seasons. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 21:38:26 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/showtime Hi, >Here's a novelty: how about some comments about a new episode? Is it really Don? Or a manifestation of the First come to confuse us? ;> >In order to begin on some spoiler space, let me say that I was working on >information at least a week old in re the scheduling of episodes; I was wondering about that -- they didn't show a preview at the end of the ep, and TiVo doesn't have it on the schedule for next week. One wonders why they're messing with the schedule like this ... but whatever. We usually have to wait until the end of January for a new episode, don't we? Spoiler space >Liked the teaser a lot, what with the Slayer-in-waiting's arrival, getting >attacked, and Buffy's usual blase attitude about Sunnydale. Yes. I like Rona, too. She's like Kendra without the godawful accent. I hope she sticks around. >Very clever ploy, having one of the potential Slayers killed, thus giving >the First a way to "sneak" into the house. When Eve (the First) I just caught the significance of Eve's name, reading that. >was >standing up there at the end, the line that jumped into my mind was "I >=hate= that girl!" Hah! None of us here liked her, either. At one point, one of our neighbors (with whom we watched) responded to "Eve"'s plaintive "What's the plan?" with, "No Southern Slayers! *That*'s the plan!!" Imagine our relief when we discovered there would indeed be no Southern Slayer. >Which reminds me...the other time I was making jokes at the TV was during >"Conversations with Dead People," when Cassie visits Willow and Willow >asks her why Tara couldn't come herself. "Because negotiations broke >down!" I said with a laugh. Oh, we were saying that too!! >I =thought= I was joking...but if you go to >that German webside with the shooting scripts, you will discover that, in >fact, the scene =was= originally written for Tara! I'd figured that, but it's good to have confirmation. >The interesting thing >is, while most of the scene would have worked better with Tara there (the >script was rewritten for Cassie, of course), the very end of it--the >suggestion of suicide (which was =not= rewritten) works better with the >death-obsessed Cassie saying it. (Wonderful job by Azura Skye, by the >way.) They really lucked out with Azura Skye -- she was able to step in a save that episode. Naturally I would have far preferred to have Amber Benson there, but considering the circumstances the episode came off very well. > A writing staff that makes omelettes of broken eggs. Indeed. I'm reminded of the brilliant maneuvers the makers of _Xena_ were able to pull off when Lucy Lawless got injured and was unable to work for several weeks. They had a more than capable actress in Hudson Leick, and by pure coincidence an episode which had the two women's characters switching bodies -- so they changed the ending to keep Xena trapped in Callisto's body, and voila! Hudson Leick did an incredible job playing Xena. >Anybody else get a big thrill from the commercial for the 3rd season DVDs? Oh, yes!! We were fast-forwarding through the commercials (thank the gods for TiVo :) and stopped and went back to watch it. I've been lame and haven't ordered it yet -- gotta do that today. I have an amazon.com gift certificate with "Buffy" and "Angel" written all over it... :) >I've been enjoying SMG as The First as Buffy. She really does some of her >best work as Not!Buffy (as a friend of mine designates it). I noticed in this episode she was particularly reminiscent of Drusilla. (But mostly, she reminded me of the Z'ha'dum version of Anna Sheridan on _Babylon 5_. Similar situation, too.) >Looks to me like Kennedy (quite apart from her inexorable pursuit of >Willow) is by far the readiest to be a Slayer. Yeah, it could be that >I think so because she's the most like Faith, but she isn't =too= much >like Faith. (And note they made a point of showing that she was good with >the crossbow.) Indeed. Poor Willow can't quite handle her at this point, either. Still, it'd be nice to see Willow eventually become capable of moving beyond Tara. (One wonders what the age difference is between the two of them, though ... ?) >I wasn't sure I liked the idea that they killed off Jonathan and saved >Andrew, ... a recent interview with Danny Strong would indicate he wasn't too pleased either! >but they've made him into fairly amusing comic relief among the >Scoobies. Particularly liked his conversation with Dawn (notice her >getting scary again?). I do wish they'd finally do something with Dawn, though. Like, perhaps, have her be the "key" to defeating the First? As for the telepathy -- that did seem to come out of left field, but it's not inconceivable that it'd be a residual bit of Willow's magic that'd be safe to use. Incidentally, I figured something was going on telepathically when the scene originally occurred, but I then proceeded to forget about it. Which I guess was sort of the point. Robert responded: >Still, I find it hard to believe neither >Buffy nor Willow were moved to throw an exuberant welcome-back >hug around him at some point. That is rather odd, but there were extenuating circumstances I guess. > At the same time, the phone call from Alfania, that Willow >answered, specifically began with a request for Giles. So the coven >in England is unaware of his demise, if such is indeed the case. >Or else they (the coven members) are co-conspiritors in fielding a >noncoporal version of Giles. ... or else the First also offed the entire coven? >"Conversations" established a multitasking First. Ah, thanks for the reminder of this. We were wondering if the First had ever "multitasked" -- we all obviously forgot about "Conversations". ============================================== 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://muzak.smoe.org NEXT UP: Holly Figueroa, 1/26/03 ============================================== ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:56:27 -0800 (PST) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: b/showtime > Indeed. I'm reminded of the brilliant maneuvers the > makers of _Xena_ were > able to pull off when Lucy Lawless got injured and > was unable to work for > several weeks. They had a more than capable actress > in Hudson Leick, and > by pure coincidence an episode which had the two > women's characters > switching bodies -- so they changed the ending to > keep Xena trapped in > Callisto's body, and voila! Hudson Leick did an > incredible job playing Xena. > > Those were some of my favorites. Of course, I'd always preferred Hudson to Lucy. > >Anybody else get a big thrill from the commercial > for the 3rd season DVDs? There are reports of disc 2 showing up scratched in a lot of sets. Check yours while you still have the receipt. > > Indeed. Poor Willow can't quite handle her at this > point, either. Still, > it'd be nice to see Willow eventually become capable > of moving beyond > Tara. (One wonders what the age difference is > between the two of them, > though ... ?) Kennedy was worried about maybe being too old now to be called, so I'm thinking she's probably 17. What's Willow now, maybe 22 tops? > > ... or else the First also offed the entire coven? And then tipped off Willow about where Eve's corpse could be found? That's too many wheels within wheels for me. Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 23:03:08 -0600 (CST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/showtime On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, meredith wrote: > > At the same time, the phone call from Alfania, that Willow > >answered, specifically began with a request for Giles. So the coven > >in England is unaware of his demise, if such is indeed the case. > >Or else they (the coven members) are co-conspiritors in fielding a > >noncoporal version of Giles. > Well, the coven was apparently unaware of Eve's demise... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 23:56:51 -0800 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: b/showtime Spoilage space... bottom ... ... ... your ... ... ... with ... ... ... starting ... ... ... you ... ... ... eats ... ... ... it On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 21:38:26 -0500 meredith wrote: > >I've been enjoying SMG as The First as Buffy. She really does some of > >her best work as Not!Buffy (as a friend of mine designates it). > > I noticed in this episode she was particularly reminiscent of > Drusilla. (But mostly, she reminded me of the Z'ha'dum version of > Anna Sheridan on _Babylon 5_. Similar situation, too.) Yup, the Drusilla vibe was really strong. But you hit it on the nose with the Anna Sheridan thing, which I'd missed. > >Looks to me like Kennedy (quite apart from her inexorable pursuit of > >Willow) is by far the readiest to be a Slayer. Yeah, it could be that > >I think so because she's the most like Faith, but she isn't =too= > >much like Faith. (And note they made a point of showing that she was > >good with the crossbow.) > > Indeed. Poor Willow can't quite handle her at this point, either. > Still, it'd be nice to see Willow eventually become capable of moving > beyond Tara. (One wonders what the age difference is between the two > of them, though ... ?) I wonder if there's any relationship between the fan firestorm over Tara's death and the depiction of the strongest Slayer candidate as the apparently gay one. Which also means that if she doesn't survive the season the fans may go ballistic. > >but they've made him into fairly amusing comic relief among the > >Scoobies. Particularly liked his conversation with Dawn (notice her > >getting scary again?). > > I do wish they'd finally do something with Dawn, though. Like, > perhaps, have her be the "key" to defeating the First? I hope so. The "key" thing is a huge issue that has yet to be dealt with. - -- | jzitt@josephzitt.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | GPG: A4224EFA http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code / VoiceWAVE Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 23:59:06 -0800 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: b/Telepathy, Willow Style On Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:59:34 -0500 (EST) "Donald G. Keller" wrote: > The only limitation to the "three-way" conversation was that Buffy and > Xander couldn't hear one another; Willow was like a person with a > call-waiting line, and could certainly repeat what Xander said to > Buffy and what Buffy said to Xander. =And= I think it's quite > acceptable storytelling shorthand to omit those repetitions (just as > it was acceptable storytelling shorthand to omit what "just the place" > Xander had in mind was until it was time to reveal it). I saw it less as a call-waiting line than as a multiplexer, with Willow automatically routing all input from either to the other. Which probably means that I spent way too much time at Fry's today :-) - -- | jzitt@josephzitt.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | GPG: A4224EFA http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code / VoiceWAVE Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 00:09:08 -0800 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: b/showtime On Tue, 7 Jan 2003 21:58:37 -0500 (EST) "Donald G. Keller" wrote: > I had been meaning to comment (when I wasn't commenting) that, naive > viewer that I am at times, it never occurred to me that Giles might be > a manifestation of the First. Good job all those who noticed stuff > like he never touched anything, etc. I wasn't convinced, necessarily, > but the evidence certainly was suggestive. We still don't know what > the outcome of the axe attack was. As I see it, there's close to no way that the axe could have missed Giles. Even if the axe-wielder were to turn to dust just at that moment (yeah, I know that those guys don't do that), the axe's momentum would have carried it into Giles's head. Even, say, another Slayer diving in from offscreen and pushing him away couldn't move fast enough. The only way that I could see him not being hit would be for a spell in that last instant to either put up a barrier or turn the axe to oatmeal or something. And this would require a really fast-acting witch to do it. However, as I may have mentioned before, if Giles *is* the First, then everything he said may be lies -- including the bit about the first only being able to appear as dead people. My hunch: Giles has become something like Gandalf the White. > Spoiler-free enough? > > Notice that in this episode Giles took his glasses off. (But he still > didn't touch anything else.) Well, his glasses could be considered part of his clothes. (This brings in the whole messy issue of invisibility spells, etc, where traditionally people's clothes are depicted as acting as part of the person.) I just realized, though, that if the First had been with them for several days as Eve, someone would have noticed her not eating. - -- | jzitt@josephzitt.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | GPG: A4224EFA http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code / VoiceWAVE Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V5 #5 ***************************