I just seriously got into Buffy last year. How fortunate for me that the reruns are on FX now so I can catch up at warp speed :D. But I know that syndicated reruns are edited down to make more room for commercials. They try to cut out insignificant things, but sometimes they take out something important. I know this from experience. So, does anyone who’s watched both the originals and the FX reruns know what is being cut?
The thing that spurred me to ask this was, I just caught up to “Doppelgangland”, and I am mystified by the Faith situation. By the end of the last episode, she had:
1 Killed a man, by accident but apparently she
2 felt no remorse for this
3 Would have killed Opal, if Opal existed in the Buffyverse
4 Tried to kill Xander
5 threatened to kill that guy working with Wes to bring her back to Britain, in order to escape
6 Tried to flee the country on a freighter but then
7 Unbeknownst to the others gets hired by the mayor, so now [Darth Vader voice]her journey toward the dark side is complete.
Yet, in the very next ep, it’s like none of this happened. She never went back to be tried by the Watcher’s Council, she’s willingly training with Wes(!), and is walking around at night with a stake in her hand again. The only one who seems even a little bit surprised by this is Angel, but only a little bit. He’s too distracted by Buffy.
So, what the hell??? Did I miss something that was cut? Or does this weirdness get explained in a later ep? If the latter, please no unmarked spoilers. Thank you.
They’re hiding all that stuff from Giles, remember? It does get explained.
As for what’s being cut…I didn’t realize any of it was! I am now distraught! (I started watching Buffy in the fourth season and have been totally addicted to these reruns - it’s great to see these early episodes I never thought I’d catch.)
I think Giles is fully aware of what’s going on at the point Weird Al is talking about. This is after Faith tried to frame Buffy for the aide’s murder, right? Gile knows at that point that Faith is a murderer, and in the next (?) episode he is central to foiling the plot to turn Angel evil. I think he is as well informed of Faith’s plots as any of the Scoobies.
I was confused here as well: at first I thought FX had got the order screwed up, but they kept talking about Faith being on some sort of probation. Remember when Faith was trying to flee on that freighter, but instead saved Buffy by killing Mr. Trick? I think Buffy et. al. took this as a sign that Faith was trying to turn herself around, and they decided to give her another chance. Oops.
SPOILERS (although I don’t understand why you ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer)
There are lines in an upcoming (for you) episode in which Buffy says something to Faith along the lines of “back to active duty?” strongly implying that Faith had some sort of sessions with Wesley or other representatives of the Watchers’ Council.
The only cutting I’m aware of is the inadvertant ones caused by FX’s crappy equipment or crappy tapes. It seems like they can’t get through an episode without the video equivalent of the film getting caught in the projector. Usually at the climax of a fight scene, so we see, for example, Faith and Buffy being threatened by evil 2000 year old vampire, then the screen freezes, goes staticy, fades to black, and the next thing we see is the two Slayers wandering off mutually congratulating themselves on a job well done.
I don’t follow Buffy, but I know Simpson’s episodes get really chopped up sometimes when they run in syndication, and it wouldn’t surprise me if bits were getting removed if they are being re-shown with more commercials.
lolagranola: I am glad to hear this, if it is true. But are you sure they aren’t cutting out little, inconsequential things here and there. A throwaway joke from Xander, Giles murmuring something while wiping his glasses, something like that?
Otto: I’ve already seen that, it’s Angel that says it. Nobody mentions anything about what she had to do to be put back on active duty though.
thinksnow: I am taping them, and about a week behind watching them. Still haven’t seen the graduation thing yet.
Miller: That was the best explanation I was able to come up with myself, but it is weak. Very weak.
One of the great strenghs of Buffy is that they don’t over explain (for example, they never insulted our intelligence by haivng Buffy explain why she had to kill Angel. And they don’t have a laugh track to clue us in that someone just said something funny.) The down side to this is that it sometmes leaves you wanting more.
I really really love the way they handled the Faith situation. My take on it waas that she was basically good when she kiled the aide-guy. But she didn’t want to feel guilty about it–Faith isn’t much given to introspection–and it got to the point where the only way she could not feel bad was to go evil. That is a wonderfully clever piece of charecter development, and the sort of thing that makes Buffy an incredible series.
I agree with Miller that at hte point oyu are at, the Council has decided ot give her another chance, but everyone is watching her carefully. Furthremore, most of this is done at Buffy’s insistence, since Buffy feels a great deal of kinship for faith–There but for the grace of god go I kind of thing.
Again, I can only speak for the Space channel reruns, not the F/X network, but I can assure you that (pathetically) I know every single LINE of the episodes in my box sets, and have even watched the same episode on tape just before or just after the same rerun airs on tv, and not a single line was missing. Not a look, not a glance. Also, I’ve timed the episodes (without commercials) and they run the correct length.
The reason I timed everything so carefully was because someone was trying to sell me Buffy tapes, and they swore up and down the reruns were going to be cut up poorly and things would be missing. I carefully went over Buffy scripts, episode length, and a visual comparison before deciding that I was being lied to and didn’t buy the tapes.
Uh, anyone else here think it’s time for me to buy a life? On the bright side, Buffy and Angel are the only shows I usually watch, so it’s not like I’m obsessed with TV in general.
When shows end up on FX, one of the things they emphasize is that the shows are entirely uncut. So - I doubt they’re losing even the inconsequential things.
However, one of my local stations is also showing Buffy on weekends - and those are being cut the way that syndicated shows usually are.
Laugh tracks are indeed evil. Not having one has become a prerequisite for me giving a new show a look. Buffy went this one better in an ep last season that went completely without background music. It was an utter delight. One of the things that got me watching this show regularly.
Indeed. And this sets a bit of new (to me) light on the current storyline, involving another character…
At the point I am at now, they’ve not only discovered Faith’s treachery, but played a trick on her to find out what she knew. And I am still utterly mystified. How and when did they find out???
I am very glad to hear this, thanks for the info.
Hmmm…you are obviously way into Buffy. From your username I assume your were a fan of…a certain comic strip. I think I’m in love with you :D. How do you feel about Star Trek? The Simpsons?
The mage whom the mayor contacted to cast the spell to remove Angel’s soul owed Giles a favor (Giles had introduced him to his wife). He tipped off Giles what the mayor was up to and then mis-cast the spell so that all Angel experienced was a light show. It’s unclear whether the gang knew Faith was mixed up with the mayor (we don’t know whether the mage told Giles that Faith was at the meeting), but once Faith splashed the whatever-it-was on Angel as part of the spell, Angel knew and would definitely have told the others.
Didn’t know that. Was it shown? Mentioned by a character? Implied?
…
One more thing that mystified me, not directly Faith-related but it happened during these episodes, so I am gonna mention it here. When Willow finds out that Xander slept with Faith (lordy I sound like I am talking about a soap opera here) she locks herself in the bathroom and cries. Wtf? I thought she had totally dedicated herself to Oz. She would have had sex with him if he hadn’t turned her down.
Besides which, the thing with Faith was a one night stand. Did she assume Xander was never going to have sex? I just dont get it. Of course I generally just don’t get women, so maybe I am just being all stupid and male here.
Because people are much more complicated than TV usually lets on. Just because 95% of Willow prefers Oz dosen’t mean that a little part of her isn’t possessive, dosen’t think of Xander as “hers”. I love my husband so much it scares me, but that dosen’t mean that I don’t rememeber past interests with tenderness, and when you’re 18, tenderness is enough to send you to the bathroom to cry. Relationships amd emotions aren’t cut and dried, and we do our best to muddle through. Remember that Willow had a thing for Xander for like a decade. A decade’s worth of fantasies are not easily dismissed.
On other matters:
I think that they were suspicious of Faith and that a number of things led them to believe that she was not to be trusted–one that comes to mind is when Buffy and Faith discovered the corpse of hte deamon Faith murdered. Buffy got a very strange look on her face, and I think she recognized Faith’s haniwork there.
For the record, I started watching Buffy with the reruns amd am not watching the current shows until I catch up–so references to other charecters going evil are going over my head.
At the end of the ep (just before we find out that Giles introduced the mage to his wife) the mage and Giles have a chat in the library in which Giles thanks the mage for his help. So, do we actually see the mage tell Giles about the evil plot and then watch the gang formulate its plan? No, because then the suspense of the apparent removal of Angel’s soul would not be very suspenseful. Sometimes you have to fill in the blanks.
IIRC, Oz turned her down (for a make-out session rather than sex) way before Faith showed up (Kendra was still alive) because Oz knew she was just looking to make Xander jealous while he was dating Cordelia.