I’m pretty sure Angel’s curse, completely by accident, sabotaged any cell phone he tried to use. He was reasonably competent in using other contemporary tech, but cells so stymied him that he once insisted they’d been invented by a bored and sadistic warlock.
Hmm… really? The fight scene at the end of ‘Graduation part 1’ in and outside Faith’s fancy apartment, right??
I always loved that scene, and never noticed the stunt work particularly - which is my usual criteria for thinking that the stunts were well done. Tempted to ask for further details about the ‘laugh out loud badness’, but on the overall I feel like I’d rather hang onto my warm fuzzies about that moment as long as I can. 
One moment in particular just kills me - after Buffy has pulled out the butterfly knife and Faith claims rights over it, SMG’s voice cracks as she replies “You’re about to get it – back.”
Sort of seems as if Buffy is still struggling, on one level, with what she feels she has to do - killing Faith and bringing her back to Angel.
And then Faith wrenches out a pipe to use as an impromptu staff and fend the knife off, and they start goin’ at it again! 
One assumes they had to have a crapload of money because they spend every. single. damned. night. out. We see them collecting a cover sometimes at the Bronze, so obviously it ain’t free. And we see them whine about money all the time but they never go babysit or work at the Cluck in a Bucket or anything - guess it would interfere with their Bronze schedule.
Actually, there are a few memorable scenes with the young’uns staying in for the night instead of going out. (Slaying/patrolling not really counting either as going out or staying in.)
I remember the one with the three of them watching an indian movie and trying to figure out what was going on.
They stayed in all the time. After all, about the only time we saw them going out was on a Tuesday night.
I was young, stupid and had no taste. I like to think I’ve learned a few things in the intervening decades.
It’s free on Friday nights, according to Cordelia in the pilot. I suppose they could have changed their policies in the course of the show, however. Friday is a bad night to go no cover.
The only ones I recall “whining” about money are Anya (who mostly whines about it when Xander isn’t giving her enough), Xander (when he’s scrabbling for work while living in his parents’ basement) and Buffy. And Buffy I think is justified in a little “whining” since as of the middle of season 5 she was for all intents and purposes a single parent to a teenage girl. And Buffy goes and gets a job at the Double Meat Palace as a result of her financial needs. It’s not Cluck in a Bucket but it is the sort of job that she as a high school graduate with no marketable skills outside of Slaying and the need for flexibility in scheduling would be able to get. I don’t recall any of the other characters really discussing finances to any degree, except for when Cordelia told Xander about her father’s IRS problems. I really don’t think that whining about money is the motif you’re making it out to be.
Well, all that is after where we are. I mean, it’s not a huge thing, it’s just one more little thing that interferes with our suspension of disbelief and ticks us off about the show.
Of course, here we are watching it again.
Reading this thread made me dig the DVDs out. I’ve only watched once so I’ve forgotten everything. I didn’t remember Darla being in the first episode. Didn’t remember Buffy as a redhead. Didn’t remember that the first ep ended on a cliffhanger. And Angel doesn’t have his special coat yet.
But I think James Spader was still hot in 1997. That was only a few years after White Palace, Bad Influence, and Sex, Lies and Videotape. It’s still kinda puzzling that Spader was on Cordy’s hot-list and not George Clooney or Brad Pitt. Maybe he and Joss are friends.
To be fair, Spader is very popular today, after winning a few Emmys for Boston Legal and playing very similar kinky sex symbol characters on that show and the movie Secretary. I don’t think he’s really gone anywhere.
I totally agree. I’ve lusted for him since Jack’s Back.
Chrisk, concerning the really obvious stunt doubles, it’s mainly when they are fighting in Faith’s sweet apartment, you hardly ever see their faces, just wigs wipping around, and then suddenly they are much larger than usual. Also, I think I see the outline of a penis in those red leather pants of Buffy’s, but I could very well have just wanted to see that and made it up!
Depending on when you saw it, it kinda didn’t. That is, if you watched the premier, you saw both Welcome To The Hellmouth and The Harvest. (If I recall correctly, there was just a commercial break between the two; I don’t think they ran credits a second time.) It wasn’t until the first season came out on DVD that I realized they were separate episodes.
I dunno. He may have been, but I remember watching the episode and and wondering why they threw in the name of a, what seemed to be at the time, washed-up '80s teen flick star.
In reference to your spoiler, Angel was invited into Willow’s house in “Lie to Me,” when Willow and Angel suspect something may be fishy with Buffy’s old friend Ford. She invites him in, and is a little freaked out because she’s “not allowed to have boys in her room!” I’m pretty sure he was in Giles’ house at least once before “Passion” too, but I’m trying to think of when.
He wasn’t. At least, he was never shown on-screen as being invited into Gile’s place, and it wasn’t mentioned in the scripts, either. Either it was a mistake on the writers’ part (probably), or we were supposed to fill in the blanks and assume he had been invited when we weren’t looking.
Either way I’m okay with it, though, because the episode was great. If they were going to make a mistake, at least it contributed to a powerful scene.
Oh, definitely. Never let canon get in the way of a good story.
The worst “obvious stunt double” is in the episode “Earshot”, where the villian is this evil lunchlady who’s planning to poison the students. Buffy fights her, and there’s a moment where the lunchlady is thrown across the room. It happens pretty fast, so it might not have been so noticible in the original airing, but if you see it on DVD, it’s obvious that the double is a man in a wig and a dress.
Probably true for those who saw the premiere on WB, in the states.
I know that YTV ran the two hours on different nights, because I caught ‘the harvest’ and didn’t see WTTH until much later
I’d say that there’s a fairly obvious blank that just asks to be filled in - especially in retrospect, and maybe one that could be guessed by a very smart fan beforehand.
Angel and Giles were shown consulting very closely in ‘Invisible Girl’ and ‘Prophecy Girl’, regarding obscure texts and auguries about the slayer line. In those episodes, they were always shown in the library, because it was an established set and Giles’ place hadn’t been shown.
But I think it makes sense that Giles might have invited him in for a consult about the Pergammon codex or something like that, offscreen.
I didn’t watch Buffy the first time. Family issues & work kept me on a schedule where following a TV series wasn’t possible. But I heard good things about it–even though I wasn’t in the “demographic.” (Does anyone really check out upcoming TV shows & think–“Hey, the characters are in my age & income range–so it must be good!”)
Re-runs were confusing. “He can’t be Buffy’s boyfriend–he’s a blood sucking fiend.” Or “He can’t be a blood sucking fiend, he’s Buffy’s boyfriend.” Not to forget “But I thought she was an only child!” Some vacation time when FX was showing 4 consecutive episodes a day clued me in. Then The Chosen Collection went on sale. (Now I’ve got Angel & Firefly, too.)
The sound track wasn’t exactly Big Hits of The Day. Real bands played The Bronze. The dialog did not represent actual Teen Speak–Whedon & the other writers set the style. If I want special effects, I’ll pop in my LOTR DVD’s.
Since I graduated High School in 1966, I don’t get upset that Buffy & her pals weren’t living my life. My life was much duller, anyway–although going to school over a Hellmouth did resonate.
I still watch Buffy because of the writers’ ways with words. And the characters. And silliness–some day, I’ll actually count Bunny references. Long before Anya. Including a Bunny Themed t-shirt.
Not exactly. It was never shown on-screen, but they did cover their asses in Passion by bringing it up. After they deinvite Angel from Willow’s house and the Summers’ residence (not to mention Cordelia’s car), Giles comes over. Since I don’t have my DVDs with me, I double checked a transcript online:
Then he goes home and finds Jenny. Anyway, since Giles is planning on doing the ritual at his place, it establishes that Angel was over at some point, though we get no specifics.
I’ll be damned. I read through Passion yesterday and completely missed that. I’d like to blame it on the script site I was using, too, but I just checked and, er… the passage is there.
So, I must be blind. Thanks for the correction, Amok.