My Love/Hate Relationship With Cable's FX - Buffy

Cafe Society
1

Don’t get me wrong – I’m very glad FX shows two Buffy eps per night. It’s a great, and fast, way to move through the seasons and bring Mrs. Bricker up to speed on the show. And although I know most of what’s happened, my knowledge comes from recaps as well as show viewings, so it’s not without value for me to see the shows (again) as well.

But… must they cut? And cut? And cut, and cut, and cut? I feel like Itchy and Scratchy got loose in the FX editing room with sharp implements.

Last night was Once More, With Feeling. A superb episode, perhaps in the Top Five of All Time.

But we lost Dawn’s comment about giving birth to a pterodactyl, and Anya’s hilarious, “Oh my God - did it sing?” I can even live with that… funny, to be sure, but not earth-shattering important.

We lost the ENTIRE OVERTURE.

We start with SMG’s “Going Through The Motions.” We then go to the Magic Box, and “I’ve Got a Theory” which segues nicely into Anya’s hard-rock bunny rant.

We then lost the what-can’t-we-face-if-we’re-together number SMG sings. That was simply vanished, and it was a bad loss; the song really touches on pivotal aspects of the whole series and is an excellent thematic counterpoint for what’s going on in their lives (Tara will leave Willow; Giles will leave Buffy).

We get all of Tara’s “I’m Under Your Spell” (and props to Amber Benson for a nice voice). We get all (I think) of Anya and Xander’s “I’ll Never Tell”.

We get all of Spike’s “Rest in Peace.”

We get Dawn’s two or three lines of song before she’s sprited away. We get Sweet’s intro/exposition song, and Dawn’s response… (“What I mean / I’m fifteen / so this queen thing’s illegal!”)

Thank God - we get all of Giles’ “Standing Still.” A showstopper. Tony Head can sing.

We LOSE Tara’s discovery of the Lethe’s weed and her brief song asking how Willow could do this to her. Thankfully, we get the duet counterpoint of Giles and Tara ending in song.

We get Buffy on the way to Sweet’s with “Walk Through the Fire”.

We get Buffy singing flatly (on purpose?) that the Scoobies pulled her out of heaven.

We get Spike’s entrance, but we LOSE THE LINE THAT TIED THIS BACK TO “THE GIFT” - the hardest thing about life is to live it. You rat bastards, couldn’t you forgo a stupid thirty-second promo about the debut of “Lucky” and leave that line IN?

I did like the way he sung his part in the minor key to Buffy’s.

And while we do learn that Xander was the summoner, we lose the line where it’s contemplated whether or not he has to be the underworld Queen now.

And we did get the final “Walk Through the Fire” and of course the Spike and Buffy smoochies.

So I’m not furious. Just… disappointed.

  • Rick
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You know, **Bricker[B/], I thought there was a lot missing from what I saw of that ep last night. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
Strange.

3

Eh? I watched that same episode. I didn’t see the original, though. But I remember Spike’s line about the hardest thing about life is to live it - it was in the song he was singing to Buffy after he stopped her dancing. And Tara’s discovery of the weed and her song (based on the “Under Your Spell” song?) was in there, too, while she was upstairs in the Magic Box.

4

Not Spike’s line - Dawn’s. In the original, she stands up and sings “The hardest thing about life is to live it,” remembering Buffy’s seemingly final words to her at the end of “The Gift.”

I did NOT see Tara’s looking in a book and seeing the Lethe weed last night. It’s recorded, so I’ll check tonight when I get home. But I was looking for it, and I did not see it.

Strange.

5

Wasn’t part of the problem that the original OMWF episode like an hour and ten minutes? I remember for the UPN repeat they trimmed to an hours and some stuff was lost. Are you saying even more stuff was trimmed for FX?

Hopefully one of our Gurus like Pepperlandgirl will be along shortly to help us out on this.

I watched it again last night. JM can dance pretty good- but his song was a bit off. Amber can really belt them out though.

Favorite number was I’ll Never Tell. Being married it made me laugh. :slight_smile:

6

Most of the cuts you noticed are not FX’s fault, but Mutant Enemy’s. The first version of the musical ran 8 minutes over the usual episode length due to Joss’s insistence on the condition that it run only once and that the network-cut version run after that. So that’s why you lost the Xander-queen bit, the "What Can’t We Face"number, the Dawn ballet, the overture, and so on. They simply aren’t in the shorter version and you will have to wait until the US release of Season 6 on DVD to see the full, uncut version again.

7

Most/all of those edits were made before the ep ever got to FX. Recall that the original ep was 10 minutes longer than usual, so when it was rerun on the network there had to be some trimming. What FX did was dump commercial breaks in at spots where there were no breaks before, something for which they are notorious and something which bugs the piss out of me.

No, we lose a verse of RIP. “You know / you got a willin’ slave…” and we lose a verse of Buffy’s from WTTF. “So one by one they turn from me / I guess my friends can’t face the cold…”

Way back when OMWF was repeated three days after the original broadcast I listed all the edits in the original thread. If you feel like taxing the hamsters, have at it!

Oh, and it’s “Lethe’s bramble.” I guess you just forgot.

8

In our neck of the woods, they broke for commercial and then came back to Tara seeing the Lethe weed in the book. So it was there, but they effectively inserted a commercial break in the middle of the song! (Without the overture, we don’t see Tara discovering the weed under her pillow, smiling, and pinning it to her blouse.)

And they did clip the “What can’t we do if we’re together?” segment, including the line “It’s do or die, Hey, I’ve died twice!”. Right bastards they are.

Even with all the clipping, “Once More With Feeling” is still one of the best hours of television I’ve ever seen. Whoever choreographed it deserves an award.

9

FX butchers all of the Buffy eps, and as already mentioned this one was over-long to start with so it got extra pruning treatment. It sucks, but I guess I’d rather have them shown cut up than not at all…

Huh, that was played here. Maybe there are regional differences too?

Can I just say that the scene with Spike smoking in the alley
“The torch I bear is scorching me
Buffy’s laughing I’ve no doubt.
I hope she fries, I’m free if that bitch dies,
I’d better help her out”
is one of my favorite scenes ever. Everything that I love about Spuffy is right there. So romantical…:sigh:
:slight_smile:

10

You are a cruel, cruel man.

But that makes sense.

So we expect Season 6 when, about 2008?

11

Hee hee. I have an .mpg with the full 50 minutes, commericals cut out. It’s only 503 megs.

12

These syndication reruns are my first exposure to most of these episodes. I’d seen “Bargaining” before, but I seem to remember it ending a little differently (a knocking sound from the gravesite and Buffy’s muffled shouts of “Help! Let me out!”).

I could be mistaken. Seeing her corpse re-compose was a new one on me.

13

I am not 100% sure, but they seem to be releasing them with 6 month breaks in between. Which means this spring we get season 4, and next spring we’ll finally get season 6.

14

I will say that I don’t miss Dawn’s dance with Sweet’s minions; cutting that sequence from the original airing would have been fine by me.

belladonna, it’s that hopeless look on Spike’s face as he sings “I’d better help her out” that cracks me up every time.

15

Exactly!
The man just can’t help himself. He tries so hard to convince himself that he can’t stand this girl, and yet he’s so in love with her that he’s completely willing to overlook that fact. It’s just so delicously torturous, I love it.

16

I’ve watched all of seasons 3-6 on FX, only. OMWF is the first of those episodes for which I’ve also seen the original airing, and I was surprsised by all the cuts – I’m glad to learn that I’m not missing so much from every other episode but that this one originally ran long.

There’s one other cut that I don’t think anyone’s mentioned, but it was only one syllable. Tara’s “Under Your Spell,” the latter half of which is sung over what is an incredibly sexy and unabashed love scene between her and Willow, ended “You make me complete/You make me–” before an abrupt cut to Buffy and Xander at the Magic Box. Originally there was an extra half beat there before the (still abrupt) scene change.

I’m trying very hard not to derail this thread into the inevitable list of quotes, but I’m failing, so, courtesty of Spike and Willow:
“First I’ll save her then I’ll kill 'er!”
“I think this line’s mostly filler.”

–Cliffy

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Wow, tha hamsters are feeling spry today!

Here are the ME edits I noted from the original edited airing:

I was wrong about the edit of “Under Your Spell;” repeated viewing show it to be untouched.

18

I’d have to re-watch the original but I don’t believe that the cut was after the first syllable of “complete.” I’m like 99% sure the cut was after “me.” People I think tend to remember it the other way because of the obvious sex joke but I don’t think it happened. On the soundtrack CD, the song is (pardon the pun) complete and there is no pause or beat before Tara’s final “complete.”

[nitpick]Also, Spike first sings “first I’ll kill 'er then I’ll save 'er” (in response to Anya’s line “she came from the grave much graver”) and his follow up is “no, I’ll save 'er then I’ll kill 'er.”[/nitpick]

19

I had no idea there was a soundtrack CD until I read your post, Otto.

And you know… something else I realize.

I am amazingly and insanely jealous of Joss Whedon. The man is not only a talented storyteller - he’s now a musical composer. And a damned good one.

I am jealous, dang it! How come I can’t write catchy musical numbers and tell stories that tug at heartstrings? It ain’t fair, I tells ya. Not fair at all.

20

Okay, no TV, so I didn’t see this yesterday. But back in the Olden Days, when I had a TV, I too noticed that lines were snipped here and there on FX. The only one I can think of is from The Yoko Factor:

Angel: Can I come in?
Buffy: I guess.

<Next two lines are snipped.>

Angel: Uhh…I need a little bit more than than.
Buffy: Oh, yeah. Come in.

Why? I mean, it doesn’t make or break the scene, but I have no clue why they’d do it. Unlike OMWF, The Yoko Factor is of regular length. I don’t get it.