I’m currently watching Buffy for the first time, and coincidentally happen to be on the last disc of Season 5. I actually thought that Season 5 was the best season of Buffy yet, although again, I haven’t finished it yet, so I don’t know how the season-wide story arc resolves (speaking of which, if you post spoilers to the end of the season in your response, please box them for me… thanks :)).
Season 5 Spoilers:
So far, the plotting seems quite good… Glory is the best kind of Buffy villain, both hilarious and terrifying, and the introduction of Dawn was jarring (but, I think, purposefully so). In fact, I think the show’s creators deserve a helluva lot of credit for doing something as gutsy as the Key arc, in which a new main cast member appears with no explanation at all, re-writing much of the show’s history in the process, with the backstory of the Key/ Dawn emerging slowly over the course of the season.
It had fewer of the one-shot episodes common in the first two seasons, and thus lots of exciting continuity. The episodes were far more consistent in terms of quality, and the renewed focus on character was particularly lovely.
Plus, Season 5 has “The Body,” easily the most emotionally wrenching episode of television I’ve ever seen… with a few more viewings, it may just top Firefly’s “Out of Gas” as my favorite Whedon episode ever. If “angst” in the Whedonverse means fantastic direction, clever sound design, insightful writing, and brilliant acting, then I’m all for it!
Disagree. I thought Glory was only occasionally amusing, more often annoying, never actually terrifying. And ‘poorly plotted’ came because, in my opinion… (season five spoilers, but not for the ending)
I don’t think that the beginning of the season actually works with the Ben = Glory, Glory = Ben idea. Ben has somehow managed to finish medical school despite Glory running all over Eastern Europe hunting down the Key?
It’s mostly this sort of thing that annoys me about the whole season: the Riley-Buffy arc was also far too rushed to actually be emotionally involving. Particularly the ending, where Riley gives Buffy an ultimatum, walks out of the room, and somehow manages to get changed and cover several miles to get to the helicopter quickly enough that Buffy can’t get there before he leaves. If you want to do tragedy, it imposes tighter demands on plotting that IMHO Whedon doesn’t live up to in season five.
Spoilers for seasons 1, 2 and 3.
I think it’s a more general problem throughout the series. Whenever Whedon has a chance to throw in a cheap curve to increase the angst, he takes it. Angel’s the primary example - the curse that he’s under makes no sense! Oh, yes. We’ll give him his soul back so he’ll suffer. But if he stops suffering for even a moment… well, then he might as well be evil again, because y’know he’ll clearly never feel sorry again. WTF?
Similarly, there is one tiny bit of chemistry from Xander → Willow in two and a half seasons, then when they’re both happily coupled… OMG U R teh HOT! It felt cheap, and not at all consistent with the characters. Season 5 (IMHO) suffers the most from it because there’s too little humor to leaven the mix.
Spoilers for Season 5 up to ‘The Body’
Y’see, I thought “The Body” fell down on exactly the character-related qualities you were talking about. Those most closely connected were pretty much right on for their reactions, and Giles was pretty good. The others seemed far too upset about what had been on the cards all season - the character in question had had brain cancer. And a vampire got thrown in for no apparent reason other than that Buffy hadn’t killed anything thus far.
Ah yes, Babylon 5, how I love thee. I rediscovered that show when TNT picked it up when I was in the 8th grade. It was the highlight of living in a small redneck town in Oklahoma, being able to watch the continuing exploits of Babylon 5’s crew and the various threats they had to deal with. While the show was on occasion rather cheezy (especially in the first season) the storytelling was top-shelf all the way up until the 5th season (though even that season was better than many other shows could pull off).
Recently got my room mate, who describes himself as “Not a geek” (despite being an officer in the sci-fi club at our uni), to watch B5 on DVD. I rented the first season from Blockbuster Online, then he got impatient and started borrowing DVD sets from people he worked with. That took me back to the old days. I forgot how awesome the space battles in the 4th season got (DS9 got close in the 6th season, but not quite close enough).
One particular scene that sticks in my mind from the 4th season of B5:
In a big battle in the early 4th season, there’s a POV shot from a human pilot’s perspective as he maneuvers through the melee, only to see the fighter ahead of him get blown up just before he flies into the wreckage. Immediately after, we switch to a third-person POV as we see the second fighter’s demise, and then the alien fighter that caused it’s demise flying past, only to get swatted down by yet another pair of human fighters, which then spun 180 degrees to shoot at enemies persuing behind them. Ahhh, sweet sweet quasi-newtonian physics. All this in the space of about 3 or 4 seconds.
But yeah, back to Buffy, the musical was actually about the second episode I’d seen. Heard a couple of my friends talking about this and that on the show but never took much interest in it. Caught the episode before the musical ep when it came on UPN, and while I was only kinda amused by the episode, I was strung in by the trailers for the Buffy Musical, billing it as “The greatest TV musical event in all of September!” (I love humor like that) and then I got hooked by the musical, which was just pure genius, no matter how utterly silly the idea sounds.
After that I was watching the 6th season, while catching first season and third season reruns on Fox (they showed Buffy reruns at different odd times of the week where I lived, each showing being from a different point in the show). I also remember being annoyed that i had to wait for the end of various random Stargate SG1 episodes to catch the Buffy reruns on Saturdays (It would be a few years yet before I’d get snagged on SG1 as well.)
Fair enough. I hadn’t actually thought of that, but your objection is a sensible one. It doesn’t really bother me, because I find both Glory and Ben to be interesting enough characters in their own right that I can forgive them a minor plot hole. Watching Star Trek for a decade gave me PLENTY of tolerance for those.
Well, I thought the whole Riley subplot was a mistake from the get-go, so I was more relieved that it was over than anything else. It’s a bad sign when the most interesting part of Riley’s story was his interaction with Dawn (and Spike does the “inadvertant older brother” schtick helluvalot better anyway ;)). I would argue that the elimination of Riley is what allowed the season’s arc to really kick into gear. It’s wrapping up the fourth season’s plotline, not a terribly important part of the fifth season’s.
[quote]
I think it’s a more general problem throughout the series. Whenever Whedon has a chance to throw in a cheap curve to increase the angst, he takes it. Angel’s the primary example - the curse that he’s under makes no sense! Oh, yes. We’ll give him his soul back so he’ll suffer. But if he stops suffering for even a moment… well, then he might as well be evil again, because y’know he’ll clearly never feel sorry again. WTF?
Spoilers for Season 2 of Buffy and Angel’s character arc in general:
[spoiler]It makes sense because Angel knows full well that experiencing happiness = turning evil. The only reason he allowed it to happen in Season 2 was that he didn’t realize that sex with Buffy equated to true happiness for himself. His dalliance with Darla (Angel, Season 2) aside (which came as Angel hit emotional rock-bottom anyway), Angel will never purposefully allow himself to lose his soul. The fact that he is good prevents him from doing something as obviously evil as unleashing Angelus upon the earth.
It’s really an delightfully nasty bit of extra torture, if you think about it: Angel has no choice but to BE tortured, because the moment he believes that he is redeemed (or experiences true love, etc.), the curse kicks in and his worst nightmares are immediately realized. It’s the ultimate Catch-22.[/spoiler]
Similarly, there is one tiny bit of chemistry from Xander → Willow in two and a half seasons, then when they’re both happily coupled… OMG U R teh HOT! It felt cheap, and not at all consistent with the characters. Season 5 (IMHO) suffers the most from it because there’s too little humor to leaven the mix.
That’s hardly a Season 5 problem. I can’t think of any similarly unbelievable changes in character in Season 5… all of the angst seemed to flow quite organically from the situations in which the characters found themselves.
[spoiler]Yes, but the tumor was removed, and everyone believed that the danger had passed. And “far too upset”? This IS Buffy and Dawn’s mother we’re talking about, right? The woman that both girls clearly love and respect, and who acts as a replacement mother figure for the entire Scooby Gang (Xander’s parents are drunken jerks, Willow’s mother is never around, Anya doesn’t have parents, period)? I thought the reactions were perfectly played, given the emotional context.
The vampire fight further underscores the intensely physical feel of the episode. It’s not a traditional Buffy vamp dusting; there are no acrobatics, displays of martial arts superiority, or sarcastic quips. It’s a wrestling match, and is ended not by a relatively benign staking, but by the most brutal, intimate method available: a beheading (complete with sickening crunch of vertebrae).[/spoiler]
Again, this is all just how I felt about the season. YM-obviously-V.
I only discovered Buffy last year, Angel sometime earlier this year, and am going to see my first episode of Firefly either tomorrow or Wednesday when I get my latest delivery from Netflix so I’m still a relative newcomer to the Whedonverse.
And, yeah, it’s Moore and Behr (and don’t forget Wolfe) that are the true visionaries of DS9 since Roddenberry was already dead and Berman and Braga were focused on TNG, its movies, and VGR (thank god) but it was just easier to ascribe it all to Roddenberry since it’s his universe. Didn’t want to confuse the uninitiated.
I’ve only seen ten minutes of B5 and, uh, the CGI was so horrible that I turned it off. I realize the show is all about plot but I just could not get past the absolute horridness of the special effects. I plan on giving it a second shot further down the road, though. It’s not like BtVS always has the best makeup design or FX either and watching old episodes of TNG is absolutely painful sometimes.
Oh, and I’m really digging S5, which I’m currently watching for the second time on FX but only really paying attention to for the first time. S6 (I love the Troika no matter how unclean that makes me) and S7 (I like Kennedy and Caleb and Robin too so n’yah) were what got me into BtVS but after finally paying closer attention to the series from the beginning, I can understand why so many people are disappointed in the UPN years.
I still like them but they *are * somewhat subpar and I especially hate the Buffy/Spike relationship now that I saw how it was treated in the most recent episode I saw (I don’t know many titles) : the one where the Buffybot is first shown and Tara reveals Dawn as the Key to Glory.
Jesus Christ, the show’s been off the air for a while now, can we dispense with the fucking spoiler tags?
I was always of the impression that Glory had only recently emerged with any longevity. I thought it was fairly clearly established that Glory had only been after the monks for about six months prior to her first appearance.
The curse pre-supposes that Angel would value his soul and not want to lose it, and would therefore act to avoid situations in which he would find happiness of any sort. That supposition is what I found to be the mistake, since there was no real indication that Liam valued his humanity to any great extent.
What I disliked about the soul/no soul curse thing was that ME turned it into nothing more than mystical MPD. As soon as it was decreed that Angel and Angelus were two different people the curse became completely pointless. Punishing Angel for Angelus’ crimes makes as much sense as punishing me for Ted Bundy’s crimes. Spike came to terms with that in a matter of weeks whereas Angel didn’t come to grips with it after what, two centuries?
Not to mention that IMHO the curse was lifted upon the shaman’s extracting it and Willow slammed it back in using the same curse instead of finding an alternate method, which she knew was out there since Spike had no such curse. But I suppose she was pressed for time.
Whedon talks in the DVD commentary about the inclusion of the vampire that he included it partly because it’s such an “intrusion” into Buffy and Dawn’s grieving and the physicality of confronting Dawn not only with a vampire but a naked man was “offensive,” and partly to show, as was shown with stuff like Xander getting a parking ticket, that life goes on. How much you buy that is up to you I guess…
Hey, some of us are just discovering the show, and watching it from the beginning. Sorry that our finger isn’t always on the pulse of popular culture like yours!
Ah. My mistake. I saw them both this morning and I conflated them into one episode.
And as you’ve probably noticed by reading these threads, the show still attracts new viewers all the time so we’re trying to be respectful of that by not willfully spoiling it for any new fans. Is it really so difficult to click and drag your mouse?
Otto, the majority of the people participating in this thread (myself included) have not yet seen the whole series. We, as much as anyone watching the show during its run, would appreciate it if we could discuss what we’ve seen thus far without having future plot threads spoiled.
Yeah, B5’s sfx is really rough in the first season. Something to keep in mind though was that this was back in 1994 when the show started, and it was one of the first shows to use CGI to anywhere near the extent they were using it on B5. Plus, if it makes you feel better, the CGI improves a lot in later years. Just don’t expect any Star Wars: Episode III quality CGI here
Well, Star Trek was equally at its best when it wasn’t taking itself seriously. For me, the appealing part of Buffy is the contrast between the teenage silliness and the dark world-saving stuff. The teenage silliness kind of gives a get-out clause for failures to have perfect plotting in the dark stuff - but since there’s little of it in Season 5, I just get annoyed by the poorly-done (again, IMHO) tragedy.
Fair enough. I liked Riley in Season 4, so was annoyed by him turning into a wimp in season 5, but I do appear to be almost alone in this.
More spoilers for seasons 1+2:
I don’t think that’s at all clear. I could be misremembering, but I can’t think of anything Angel says or does before then that indicates that he does know about the happiness = EVIL! aspect of things. Jenny Calendar does, but she doesn’t appear to have told him, otherwise - as you say - everything we’ve seen of Angel suggests that he would have avoided Buffy.
No, that particular example is not a Season 5 problem - it was intended as another example of things that I consider to be poorly-plotted and thrown in just for the angst. As I said above, this annoys me wherever it appears, but when there’s enough humor around I can forgive it. Season 5 - for me - suffers from an almost total lack of humor after “Buffy vs Dracula.”
Apologies - I’d originally intended not to spoiler that paragraph, so re-wrote it to be obscure. I then decided that it was spoilerific anyway, and so spoilered it, but didn’t re-write to make it more obvious again.
Season 5 spoilers:
I fully agree that Buffy and Dawn’s reactions were realistic. I’m not buying Xander and Willow’s reactions, though, because although we are shown their parents being abusive/absent, we’re not shown Joyce filling in the gap. It’s a potentially logical surmise that she did, but it’s not shown in the canon to that point.
I thought the vampire fight felt tacked on, but yeah, that’s me. I’m two discs into Season 6 now, and enjoying it much more, mostly because the Troika bring the humor back.
I agree. We got to see it without all someone throwing future information our way, like the time Giles becomes an 80 foot giant turtle and tears down the Golden Gate bridge,
no, wait, that was Jimmy Olsen in a 1967 DC Comics 80 page giant…
Let the new ones have their fun! This thread started with a title guaranteed to draw new Buffy Fans. So Let’s endure the spoiler tags. For the kids sake, darn it.
By the way, if I subscribe to this thread by email, the spoiler tags disappear. If you are not in a hurry to read each and every post, that might be an easier way to deal with this Lou.
I got into Buffy really early. Was amazed at her whole sex change thing - JUST KIDDING.
Really, could not believe how intelligently written it was, how funny and fun and it just seemed to get better and better and better.
While I would love a sequel, I just do not think it is going to happen except possibly on the big screen. All the stars and most of the supporting cast have just gotten to be to big stars in their own right to get into a series right now.
Whatever you think of AH’s film choices. American Pie certainly made AH extremely well known and a very marketable actress. MT, SMG, and most of the rest are in the same boat. So the best bet is the big screen.
And part of it is that I think that SMG is probably tired of all the stage combat. She may not do all of it, but face it, I’d be tired of it, wouldn’t you?
And while it did make our Buff one of the Buffest actresses on TV, it also hurt like hell as Jennifer Garner has learned quickly.
Did they know Spike at a soul at that point? Buffy did; but had she told the Scoobies? Also it was The First, or at least a demon that returned his soul, not a magic spell
There’s no indication that TFE was involved, in fact the method of restoration couter-indicates it. As for whether everyone involved knew, I’m pretty sure they did because Spike had moved out of his old place and in with his new roommate by that time.
There is no evidence that Angel knew what would happen. That’s why Jenny’s grandpa showed up, remember, to warn her that the spell was losing its effect. Plus, after season 2, Angel was always extremely careful not to, uh, have too much fun, something that didn’t come up previously. Of course, previously he was so mopey it probably wasn’t much of an issue.
