Totally disagree with you, Chuck. They aren’t sinister, obviously, but the Buffy Goes Job Hunting episode is one of the funniest of the entire series. And they’re exactly what the show needs now, after the unremitting gloom of last season. I’m eagerly anticipating their next appearance. More geeks, sez I.
I think the Geek Trio do have the capability to be major villians. Not to get too philosophical, but maybe the Geek Trio are an example of “the banality of evil”. Just average guys, or average by Sunnydale standards anyway, but capable of doing tremendous harm to further their own ends. The tests they gave Buffy made for a really funny show, but on the other hand none of them seemed too concerned that a construction worker might have been killed by the demons they sent. And the only objection they seem to have against killing Buffy is that she’s a hot babe. I don’t recall the episode featuring the demon-summoner, but the episodes with the other two sure seemed to indicate their primary concern was their own fortunes. So basically these guys are powerful, selfish, and immoral. Seems like the makings of a good villian. After all, the mayor was a bit of a geek himself, and he remains my favorite villian so far.
And to keep with the original post, at their introduction I didn’t really like Anya, or Drusilla, or Gunn, or Fred, but they’ve all grown on me. Dawn? Hated her then, hate her now. She’s like a little yappy dog you just can’t get to shut up. Couldn’t those priests have implanted the memories of a thoughtful, quiet, self-sufficient girl classically trained in the theater?
Major villains? As soon as Buffy finds out they’re behind things, they’re burnt whole wheat toast. So you have to spend the entire season having her just miss the chance to find out who they are. Feh!
Calling the “test” episode funny is evidently a new definition of the term. Usually funny involved making one smile or laugh, not say “oh, god, when will this crap be over with!”
Well, Chuck, the definition for funny I use is “anything that makes me laugh 'till my sides hurt.” What did I think was funny in that episode?
[ul]
[li]The Death Star on the side of the van. “The exhaust port is above the equator.” And later, the horn.[/li]
[li]The entire Magic Box “endless hour” bit. SMG has some priceless reaction shots, especially the one where the hand first chokes her.[/li]
[li]The candles in the same scene.[/li]
[li]The shot of the faux-demon hoofing it after setting off the smoke bomb.[/li]
[li]The Bond argument. “What about Timothy Dalton?”[/li]
[li]“Runner to Logan 5.”[/li]
[li]Buffy getting plastered.[/li]
[li]The kittens.[/li][/ul]
If you didn’t find that funny, well, I guess we have different sense of humor. Obviously, mine is superior, but there’s no reason you should feel bad about it.
Actually, I think they could really use a musical right about now.
Just a suggestion, mind you.
I’m with the people who thought Life Serial was a really funny show! (from memory) “And the only person I can stand to be around is a neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker!”. Buffy drunk. Buffy’s endless hour. Buffy doing construction work with those ridiculous little flowers in her hair, picking up steel beams like they were nothing.
All The Way wasn’t as great an episode as I’d hoped. It was ok. I’m not full of rage, I don’t hate Dawn. But they have a reputation of some pretty good Halloween episodes, and I thought this one fell a little short. I did see that Dawn is definitely one confused girl. She is the same age that Buffy was when Buffy started slaying, yet she’s hardly allowed to walk four blocks on her own. Her mother died, her sister died and came back, she spends much of her time in a world filled with demons and witches, and can’t speak of it to her friends. And it’s pretty obvious she has some mixed feelings towards vampires. In that aspect, I think the show did a good job showing what sort of things might be going through her head.
Once More, With Feeling looks great from the music video promo on the Buffy site. I’m really looking forward to it, and wish I could watch it on Tuesday along with the Americans.
Definition of “grr” please?
miller all I can say is that you probably laugh at Joe Miller’s jokebook, too, thinking it clever and original. Sorry, it was just plain stupid, not funny. Stupidity is not humor.
The trio are just too stupid to be so smart and too smart to be so stupid. They are about as funny as someone putting a lampshade on his head.
The repeating hour was a tired reworking of the concept on “Groundhog Day,” and was internally inconsistant (she had to give the item to the customer to be free, but she does it several times and nothing happens). The kittens were mildly amusing, but hardly enough to laugh out loud.
I ferverently hope that the “three stooges” villains are only a placeholder as they develop the actual villain of the season – which, if they had any sense – would be Willow. Now that’s a concept with a lot to it.
But the writers already botched Buffy’s comeback (there were much better and more imaginative ways to handle it) and I’m beginning to fear they’ve reached the end of their creative rope.
No, no, no. It’s not that she had to give the mummy hand to the customer. She had to satisfy the customer. She satisfied the customer by letting her know that she could special order a hand for her and ship it anywhere she wanted it.
The repeating hour didn’t have to be internally consistent. The idea wasn’t to have Buffy repeat the hour exactly. It was to catch her in a time loop, knowing that she was in the loop, but not knowing what she had to do to escape it. They were testing her ability to reason her way out of the trap.
Willow often referred to people going bad, like Angel turning evil, or Oz wolfing out, as going all “grr.” And she’d scrunch up her li’l face and make little claws with her hands, and…oh, dear. I’m doing it again. Anyway, that’s what I meant.
Justin
Chuck: Sorry, never heard of Joe Miller or his joke book.
I’m not sure how to break this to you, but Groundhog’s Day wasn’t that original, either. Kurt Vonnegut’ done this idea. So has the Twilight Zone, and (if memory serves) Bewitched. But let’s not get into a Pop Culture arcana pissing match; lets stick to the show, instead. As Otto pointed out, it was logically consistent: Buffy had to deliver the hand to the customer without destroying it or getting the customer killed. I thought the whole process was hilarious. I could list more individual jokes here, but I’m not going to convince you it was a funny episode, and I’m not particularly interested in defending my sense of humor. Especially not to the guy who named Men in Black as a modern American classic.
I will, however, defend the Geek Trio. I don’t think they’re stupid, I think they’re immature. Which is what strikes a chord for me: they remind me of a lot of people I know. Heck, they remind me of myself, if you ignore the “super-genius” part. The whole geek subplot reminds me of the Saturday Night Live sketch with Bill Shatner, where he berates a bunch of Trekkies at a convention. Whedon is doing the same thing here: he’s poking fun at his own fan base, and he’s got us nailed down pretty accuratly. Someone on one of the other Buffy threads mentioned that he’d been having that exact same Moonraker argument right before he saw the show.
Miller:
Yes, that, uh, [sub]that was me.[/sub] We don’t need to keep reminding everyone about that, okay?
The Geek Trio is a serious hoot. I can imagine someone not finding them funny, perhaps if the caricature strikes too close to home, but they do make me laugh heartily.
It doesn’t quite ring true that Jonathan would be among them, in light of the things Buffy has done for him in the past, but it’s better to have that than to introduce a whole new character in his case. Buffy has a sense of its own history, and I appreciate that.
So how many shows with Giles do we have left? I’m kind of hoping he’ll be around for whatever happens with Willow. I was thinking today that in some ways Willow and Giles have a closer relationship that Buffy and Giles do. B&G’s relationship is founded on duty and fate. She had no choice but to have a relationship with him. Whereas W&G’s relationship is based on mutual respect, love of knowledge, etc… Giles was Willow’s entre’ (pretend that’s an accent mark) into the world of magic and witchcraft. Jenny also served in this role to an extent but with her death Giles became even more prominent in that capacity. I think Giles, although he doesn’t show it often, takes a real pride in Willow’s ability and is fairly devastated that she’s tapped into these forces, which he masks in anger at her. I’d really like to see Giles’ reaction to however Willow’s big-badness concludes.
Joss and the gang have scared me before with potential sharp jumping, but never with three plot devices in one season before. They’re treading dangerously close, I fear.
Plot 1: The Three Geeks. These yutzes would have been fine for one comic relief filler episode (even though it was terrible), but their continued presence has me really shaken. They have to go away more quickly than a female subplot character in a Jackie Chan movie.
Plot 2: Evil Willow. This has great potential, but I’m afraid it’ll get botched. As someone mentioned, she’s going grr way too fast, and the suspension of disbelief as to one or all of the Scoobies not noticing and performing an intervention is getting harder and harder.
Plot 3: Dawn. Please God (Joss). Kill her. Kill her now. Kill her hard. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. You should have had her die with Buffy at the end of last season. She’s a terrible drain on the show. Her interaction with the other characters, her uselessness, her vapid everything and just her general presence are too horrible to be allowed to continue. If you want to have her death be something noble, etc., fine; pull a Ginny on her and make her a mid-season casualty. Just kill her now. Pretty please.
And, of course, that should be “Shark jumping.”
Mea culpa
The Trio = Blech. I can’t stand them, not because they hit close to home but because they are unfunny. Their actions don’t make much sense based on their past appearances on the show, I don’t find their characters internally consistant. They are cartoon stick figures, hopefully just (poor) comic relief. I like good villians, they make or break the show. I’m very intrigued by the new “villian” they introduced on Angel.
Willow could be real villain, what the show sorely needs since Glory was such a disappointment. But she’s going grr so quickly that I think there might be something else going on.
Since they are losing Giles, they lost Joyce, they lost Oz, they need to have a few characters around. Dawn’s OK for now, I wish they’d deal more with her dealing with being the Key now that the Lock is gone.
Of course, it’s worth noting that at least two characters (Giles and Tara) have noticed, and Willow has already donea spell to wipe Tara’s mind of the incident. That’s a pretty big weapon, when used from the inside, where no one would think to defend against it. Tough to counter, as Willow slides down a slippery slope of grr.
Justin
Don’t forget that Xander has noticed as well.
The signs that Willow has been going bad have been around for years. Look at all the times she’s used magic for selfish reasons and/or tried something she wasn’t ready for.
- She was about to try a “delusting spell” on herself and Xander in “Lover’s Walk” just because her self-control was weak.
- She started to lay a curse on Oz after seeing him with Veruca (sp?)
- She cast the “wish” spell because she couldn’t go through the grief of losing Oz without magic. In the process, she placed all her friends in great danger, and D’Hoffn recognized the potential “vengeance demon” in her.
- She went up against Glory without a plan - Buffy had to save her.
And that’s leaving out all the Vamp Willow stuff.
Andy L.
“You mocking me - Oh that is rich!”
Agree with all of the above except this. First, I disagree that her battle with Glory was a sign of impending darknbess. Second, she did have a plan, she just seriously underestimated Glory’s strength (or seriously overestimated her own, or both). She went in with a well-thought-out series of spells and fired them off. Glory was even impressed by her attack. Yes, Buffy did have to save her, but not before Willow inflicted some heavy damage and still had enough to stop Glory from pursuing them.