It’s a Hollywood mark of respect of the highest order: when someone has a TV show opening screen credit naming the character he or she is protraying, that usually means he or she has gotten a big pay raise as well as the new on screen credit.
As for the show itself, my only addition to what’s already been discussed concerns my-man-Giles’ comment that we all are who we are. I hope that means we’ll see a return of Ripper.
Okay, well, here’s my WAG, and it’s way out in left field, but when I heard the new principal introduce himself as “Robin Wood,” I thought, at first, he said “Robin Hood.” I immediately realized that that was dumb, and he said “Wood,” but it got me to thinking about his name, and “Robin Wood” sounds, at least to me, a lot like “Robin Goodfellow,” or, uh, the Puck. Having the Puck as a baddie (I’m not convinced that we’ve seen the Big Bad yet, since season one, which was only half a season anyway, was the only one in which the Big Bad was introduced in the first episode) would explain the shape-shifting, I-don’t-care-about-good-or-evil-just-power thing. So yeah, I know that’s way outta nowhere, but it’s my guess. That would also explain the succession of characters, because principal Wood has seemingly done good research on Sunnydale and would know which characters had the biggest influence on Sunnydale.
One thing I didn’t get about the end, though, was why each of the images of the baddies spoke in the style of the real baddies themselves. That is, the doppelganger of Glory was talking about a human word that would be fabulous enough for what she was, Mayor Willikins talked about selling his soul, and the Dru told Spike that they’d be together always, or something. So it was almost like it wasn’t one entity using these different faces, it was all these people coming back to torment Spike.
Come to think of it, that last suggests that perhaps these were figments of Spike’s tormented soul. Granted, he never knew the Mayor, but I’m positive the Scoobies would have spoken about him repeatedly. I mean, otherwise, any time they talked about, say, the last two principals being eaten, he’d’ve been all “huh?” The only one that didn’t really make sense, in the hallucination context, was Warren, because, to Spike, he wasn’t really evil. He was just some dork who helped him with science-y things every once in a while. So I dunno.
As for the idea that this means that Buffy will be this season’s Big Bad, did anyone else notice that the succesion of forms went backwards? Started with Warren, ended with the Master, then came Buffy? So I was just floored when that happened…
I’ve said this before, and I’m sayin’ it again: the only source for the “no new Slayers if Buffy dies again” is Joss Whedon, and I’m tellin’ you, JOSS LIES! There is nothing in any of the episodes to support the idea that there isn’t a third Slayer out there somewhere, and there are at least two big hints that there is. In the finale last season, when Buffy is talking to Giles about being ressurected, she says “It was my time. Someone would have taken my place.” Who? Faith, who is in prison and whom Buffy hates? Nuh-uh. She meant a third Slayer.
amarinth:
What’s high on your list of television peeves?
School principals dating?
Bearded men dating?
Interracial dating?
Something else entirely?
If #3, I’ll see you in the Pit. If #1, #2 or #4, please explain.
I’m thinking it’s because unless “witnesses” come forward and say “we saw her peal a guy then incernerate him with funky witch fire” there is no way of establishing a “murder.” (Unlike when Faith stabbed someone, it was a very HUMAN crime, with actual evidence – a body, a weapon etc.) In this case, I don’t think there is any physical evidence (assuming that funky witch fire incinerated him and his peals to the point where there wouldn’t be enough to even get a good DNA sample.)
Unrelated musing:
Wildest “back to the beginning theory” I can think of – maybe it’s a paradox like in the Terminator movie. The Slayer exists to kill the demons, but the demons exist because of the Slayer (oo! echoes of the episode in which Buffy was in a mental institute and the buffyverse was all in her mind…) So the Slayer IS the Beginning. (In which case, the sum of the slayer’s existence would = big bad morphing combo.) And if there was no Slayer, there would be no Hellmouth.)
BTW – I though Spike/Williams ramblings were pretty appropriate considering the trauma of now having a conscience. Angel’s had his soul for a long time and he’s still all gloomy, so I can understand that little William would be a mess.
Fiver,
Er, not to presume to speak for amarinth or anything, but I read her comment as just that she didn’t like the fact that there always has to be a “love interest.”
If I’m wrong though, I’ll join you in the Pit.
Giving Otto the benefit of the doubt, I’d guess it has to do with the TV portrayal of principals/teachers dating students or “recent grads”. I had a roommate who used to get the heebie-jeebies whenever TV shows did that or implied it (ie/ Dawson’s Creek).
My take on Spike’s “just the three of us” comment- Buffy, Spike and The Evil That Dwells In The Basement". I kind of got the impression that Spike had been living in the basement at Sunnydale High for quite a while. I also think that what I’m going to call TETDITB until it is specifically identified somehow lured or drew Spike/William to that place for the specific purpose of seducing him to the Dark Side of the force. Probably it wants someone who is close to The Slayer on its side. (BTW, I kind of subscribe to the First Evil theory, which was never fully dealt with in S3) Spike was/is in a uniquely vulnerable condition, more so than Angel would have been under similar circumstances (recent re-ensoulment and attending guilt.) I think TETDITB has been working on Spike through most of the summer. He was probably more than half insane before he got back to Sunnydale, and TETDITB is preying on that. Also, does anyone else recall his almost offhand remark that “I’ve always been here”? Probably giving voice to TETD, which has already at least partially taken possession of him. Also, just prior to the Previous Seanson’s Big Bad metamorphosis, he was speaking to TETD as though he knew it. I think at the end it took Buffy’s form, because, as the woman he loves, that would be the easiest way to seduce him. Kind of bears out my Fearless Prediction that Spike would be this season’s Little Bad, before his final redemtption.
The cuts on Spike’s chest? Self-inflicted. I actually had expected that a guilt-ridden Spike would be engaging in some kind of self-mutilating activity, although I figured it would take the form of his putting out the ever-present cigarettes on his own flesh.
Ooohhh, yeah, and does anybody besides me think that Buffy left Spike just a little too casually? I mean, yeah, she had to save Dawn, but shouldn’t she have gone back afterwards to check on him? She’ll probably keep this thing a secret, the way she did Angel’s return from Hell in S3, and there will be dire consequences as a result. In the next couple of episodes, I have a feeling Buffy will be learning why it’s not a good idea to leave an obviously insane (and quite possibly starving) vampire to live on his own holed up in the basement of a building that’s situated directly over a Hellmouth.
Oh, and Principal Wood? Definitely in the good-guy camp, will probably suss out before mid-season that there is something supernatural going on in Sunnydale, particulary at Sunnydale High. He is also in grave danger, his office being right on top of the opening to the Hellmouth and all.
So, to reiterate-
1)It’s always real
2)The stake is not the power
3) “To Serve Man” is a cookbook. Love the Outer Limits reference, especially coming from Dawn.
You mean like Giles, who killed the Glory guy in season 5?
I liked how they handled it; with the whole “coven” business they can have Willow doing her penance with lots of neat effects and foreshadowing. And I think the first thing to keep in mind about “Buffy” is that this is one of the most willfully manipulative series on television – people on the internet get so wrapped up in discussions of continuity and such they seem to lose sight of the fact that continuity is lowest on the creators’ list of concerns. Remember, this is the series that regularly creates alternate universes, inserts major characters, dispenses with explanations with a line or two of hand-waving, etc. etc.
By the end of the episode, I thought it was pretty clear that when Spike had said “just the three of us,” he was talking about himself, Buffy, and the multi-villain creature.
What I really liked, though, is how during the “previously on Buffy” segment at the start, they edited to include Buffy’s line: “I know a lot of things have sucked this year,” in reference to season 6.
#5. Something related to #3, but not #3 exactly.
My pet peeve is that on American television, it is considered cool or edgy or something to have the white woman/black man combination of interracial dating and pretty much only that combination of interracial dating.
I watch a lot of TV, way more than I should, and quite frankly, I cannot remember the last time I saw an interracial relationship between a black woman and a person of another race where one of the two characters was one of the major character of the show (and only one where it was an asian and a person of another race where one of the two characters was a major character in the show.)
I have nothing against interracial dating in real life, I have something against the imbalance in the way I see it shown on TV. You may wish to take me to the pit for that.
I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.
I think it’s clear that the folks at Mutant Enemy put a great deal of effort into maintaining continuity. You can tell by the way they so rarely puncture it. Creating alternate universes doesn’t alter continuity unless it has been previously established that you can’t create alternate universes. Inserting major new characters by itself certainly doesn’t alter continuity. I’m guessing you were thinking of Dawn, here, and while I agree that Whedon bent continuity like a pretzel, he didn’t break it. And “dispensing with explanations with a line or two of hand-waving” isn’t breaking continuity. It is, in fact, precisely what maintaining continuity is all about. If you’re going to alter something that had previously been established, you need to come up with a plausible explanation for why things are different. The fact that the writers at Buffy make the effort to come up with those explanation dispensing hand motions alone shows how much they care about maintaining continuity.
In fact, just off the top of my head, I can only come up with one continuity break in the show’s last six years: in the season five opener, there’s a throw-away joke about Joyce not knowing that Tara and Willow are gay. In the next episode, there’s a throw-away joke that depends on Joyce knowing about it for some time. And now that I type that out, I realize that between the two episodes, the monks cast their reality-altering spell that made Dawn, and that “continuity gaff” could be explained as a side effect. Either way, it’s a very minor error, and the only one that I’ve found since I’ve started watching. This sort of consistency doesn’t happen by accident. Clearly, continuity is a major concern for the folks who write Buffy.
Giles and Olivia.
Ok, you heard it here first:
A group of “monks” is going around killing all the “potential” slayers. (I understand that Spike and Dru did this in one of the novels)
Dawn has been identified as a “potential” slayer–which dosen’t seem unrealistic, given that she is realated to a slayer in a very strange and profound way.
Robin Wood is a watcher sent to protect, train, watch Dawn, but with directions to keep an eye on Buffy as well, since she makes the Council nervous. Thus, we have another watcher sitting on the Hellmouth in Sunnydale High.
Mark my words, by mid season Principal Wood will be in a situation of stress and/or arousal and slip into an English accent. And the tension between he and Buffy will come from his tendincy to push Dawn into danger.
I like that idea!
Since Spike now has a soul,does that negate the chip?
Wasn’t the chip supposed render Spike incapable of harming any being with a soul? If so it must not be working any more, since he’s been harming himself.
Does anybody have any idea whether or not Buffy realizes what’s happened to Spike? It seems to me that she may just think hes gone crazy, but I couldn’t tell for sure…
Don’t think so, effac3d. I’m wondering where the chip is going to fit into the grand scheme of things now that Spike has his soul.
Hey, did anyone else notice that when TETDIB tood Drusilla’s form, it told Spike “You belong with me, in the dark”, or words to that effect?
Spike said the same thing to Buffy at least twice in Season Six, once (can’t recall episode title), just before he took her on the catwalk at the Bronze- “You see, you try to be with your friends, but you always wind up in the dark, with me.” and again in “Normal Again”- “If they knew about us…they would drive you out, and then you would find peace with me, in the dark”.
I think TETDIB is playing on Spike’s newly-installed conscience, reflecting his own words back to him, trying to convince him that he is irredeemably evil, so that it can separate him from Buffy and the Scoobies and keep him under its power.
I wonder what it intends to use him for.
Manda JO: Your views intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. I thought that Istanbul girl shimmied up that ladder a little too well.
I swiped this from www.buffyguide.com. Their forum is as full of spuculation as we are about TETDIB. This is just a c/p, but maybe having the entire monologue (with multiple characters?) in print can shed some light.
Warren)“Of course she won’t understand, Sparky. I’m beyond her understanding. She’s a girl… she’s sugar and spice and everything… useless unless you’re baking… I’m more than that. I’m more than flesh…”
(Glory): “more than blood. I’m… you know, I don’t think there’s a human word fabulous enough for me! Soon my name will be on everyone’s lips, assuming they’re lips haven’t been torn off. But not just yet… but that’s alright, though…”
(Adam): “… I can be patient. everything is well within parameters. She’s exactly where I want her, and so are you number 17.” Adam looks down at a confused, listening Spike. “You’re right where you belong…”
(Mayor Wilkins): “So what dija think, you’d get your soul back and everything would be jim Dandy? A soul is slipperier than a greased weasil, why do you think I sold mine? Well, you probably thought you’d be your own man, and I respect that…”
(Drusilla) “But you never will… you’ll always be mine…” “you’ll always be in the dark with me, singing our little songs, you liked our little songs, don’t you? you always liked them, right from the beginning…”
“And that’s where we’re going”
(the Master): “Back back to the beginning. Not the Bang, not the Word, the true beginning. and the next few months are going to be quite a riot, and I think we’re all going to learn something about ourselves in the process. You’ll learn you’re a pathetic smuck, if it hasn’t sunk in already… Look at you, trying to do what’s right, just like her. You still don’t get it… it’s not about right… it’s not about wrong…”
(Buffy):… it’s about Power…"
I like the “killing potential Slayers” idea…it might be even more interesting if you figure that someone is trying to make a “new, improved” Slayer. Think about it, there’s one slayer and thousands if not millions of demons…might be time to upgrade? Also, I’ve just always liked Istanbul. Somehow it just says “bad-ass, old-world monsters” to me…
I thought the episode was good, didn’t care for the Junior Scoobies…The statement that something"older that the Old Ones" was rising was interesting…I think the reason the shifter sounded like all the others was a way of showing it’s power. It can duplicate someone exactly. (Insert Ennio Morricone music here.)
The zombies I felt were kind of “offscreen” deaths, people who had died while Buffy was around but that she’s never heard of except as “Such-and-such a thing killed people.” Like redshirts, if you’ll allow me to mix tv shows.