So I'm Finally Watching Buffy... [Progressive unboxed spoilers]

Cafe Society
521

It’s canonical that the vampire is a perversion of the human, to an extent.

So let’s look at the various vamps…

Liam was a hedonist given to extremes in his pursuits of the pleasures of the flesh. Angelus is the same way - the only real difference being that for Angelus, rending flesh is also a pleasure.

William was (spoilered, because I’m not 100% sure when this reveal came relative to when you’ve watched to) a sop and a romantic, easily lead by his heart. Spike was ‘harder’, but still, lead by his heart (and honestly, I don’t think his accent’s the only thing that’s a put-on about Spike) - he follows Dru to the ends of the Earth out of love, and his first act as a vampire is to turn his beloved mother. So, eventually, he falls for Buffy, and develops a fond attachment to her family - and wants to change, for her, and for them.

Harm, as a human, was a self-centred bully, and not really all that bright. So, as a vampire, she’s selfish and cruel (like she was in life, just to a higher degree), and not smart enough for even the relatively minimal personal growth Slayer-Shagging Spike went through.

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[spoiler]

Like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but her pre-Rack jonesing seemed to me more of a psychological addiction. A desire to try more and more powerful spells and prove her mastery of them. Exactly what Tara was warning against. That happened to lead her into the “hard drugs” that Rack was peddling, and their direct physical high.

I disagree that Willow wasn’t the drug-using type. I’m not sure there is a “type,” in fact. She had the addictive personality common to many geeks, which can often be accompanied by casual drug use (I’m talking pot and alcohol here, mainly, nothing major). You can believe in the “Gateway Drug” concept or not, but it makes sense to me that if there’s good magic and bad magic, the line between the two would not be very clear. And if the high was as good as they portrayed, I could see her trying it for a novelty/thrill and getting sucked in rather than scared off.[/spoiler]

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I put a spoiler box at the end of Tengu’s post. I’m not sure when in the series that development happened but it might be ahead of where olivesmarch4th is.

524

Thanks, Marley - I’d actually forgotten where that first happened, putting it several episodes before where, checking, it did, and that would have been a nasty spoiler for her.

:smack: And I was so careful about not doing that with the other one.

Sorry, Olive.

525

That’s okay, I didn’t read the spoiler. Well, I read the first one, since William the Bloody’s origin was already explored. Nothing new there.

And yeah, it makes more sense if you think of the vampires as a perverted extension of who they were as humans. William was always kind of a softy.

(No more progress yet. Wednesdays and Thursdays are always booked for SYTYCD. Hopefully more tonight.)

526

So, olives, go back and read your OP. is ‘‘Holy shit, this is genius, this is amazing, this is rocking my face off, earth-shattering television?’’ yet? Or still just great popcorn? :slight_smile:

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It’s kind of both, to be honest. It’s really unlike any other show I’ve ever watched so it’s hard to compare it to anything else I’ve seen. It’s not Firefly, it’s not Battlestar Galactica, it’s its own thing. This is a show that is not afraid to kick the camp into overdrive and then turn on a dime into serious drama mode, a world where you’re supposed to take the concept of vampire slaying seriously… but not too seriously. Its actors are every bit as good at delivering comedy as they are at delivering horror, which is no small feat. And it produced one of the single best episodes in a television series I believe I have ever seen (’‘The Body,’’ like I have to say it.)

So yeah, definitely impressed. Can I say gourmet popcorn? I mean it in the best possible way.

528

Indeed, that is a good way to describe it.

The thing is, it’s so much better than anyone expected it to be. The movie was only OK and a show about high school kids fighting evil is not a show that sounds like it’s going to be funny, witty, and dramatic.

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And written by people who are literate!

530

Yeah. I like that the characters aren’t necessarily all that smart but the show itself is smart.

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Finished with Season 5 of Buffy and Season 2 of Angel. Unboxed SPOILERS to follow.

Season 5 of Buffy was unadulterated AWESOME. I am beside myself with happiness over how great that season was. There was not a single bad episode in the bunch – after we finished we went through the episode summaries again just to make sure. Nope, all golden. Perfect arc, from start to finish. Great emotional meaningful stuff, even excluding the gut-punching devastation of The Body. All the threads fit together perfectly to create a complete and complex and rich story. I loved the attention to detail, the continuity (there has yet been no explanation for this, but Dawn totally stole some earrings from Tara and they subtly appeared again in the final episode.)

And now Buffy’s dead. (SHE SAVED THE WORLD. A LOT.) Can’t say I was too choked up because, you know, there’s a Season 6, with her right there on the cover. But it’s definitely good drama, and I did not predict the ending of ‘‘The Gift.’’ It’s crazy how she had to do the whole ‘‘blood-portal loved one’’ thing all over again, but this time she had the ability to make a different choice. And even though I know she’s not gone from the series forever, I think the characters’ grief will feel authentic.

I like Willow the Dark and Powerful Witch. I’ve enjoyed seeing the evolution of her character a lot. I’m also pleased they are making the relationship between Willow and Tara as explicit as possible.

And I’ve said it before, but this bears repeating. I <3 Anya.

Angel Season 2 is a whole different ball of wax. My husband loved it, I think I was so deep into Buffy Season 5 that it looked comparatively less organized. I really did not want to pull myself away from Buffy to keep alternating with Angel. There was some great TV there, and they did an excellent job showing Angel’s descent and epiphany and renewed sense of purpose, and his character is becoming a lot of fun, but at the moment I feel that Angel is almost entirely character driven whereas plot is a little more sketchy. I’m not feeling much suspense from one episode to the next. I get that there’s an arc happening, a longer arc, but it’s not quite there yet for me. I’m not quite feeling that sense of coherence and things fitting together.

I adore all the characters though, including Lorne, the gay mind-reading karaoke demon. Angel is starting to have a totally goofball personality, which has felt like an authentic progression as he gains a renewed sense of social competence. It’s nice to have some goofball to balance out the brooding and angst.

I thought ‘‘Wolf Ram & Hart’’ in the finale arc was a nice touch. Because we had been expecting the finale to build toward some giant showdown with Wolfram and Hart, and instead we got something completely different (and a lot of fun.) But they give you a little piece of that puzzle. So I can feel the show starting to come together.

I am really looking forward to Season 3.

Rankings so far

Buffy – 5, 2 + 3, 4, 1
Angel – 2, 1

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Yeah, season 5 is a winner on all counts.

Angel gets better each season, IMO.

533

Yeah, Buffy season 5 is great, though I love 3 more, actually.

Angel? Season 2’s four part finale where they go to Lorne’s world is some of my favorite stuff in the whole show.

“Does my hair always look like this or is it this mirrror?”

:smiley:

Nothing can touch Angel season 4 and 5 for me though. Those seasons are actually my favorite “Buffyverse” seasons.

534

Hmmm…hmmmmmmm… okay, we just won’t mention the horses carrying men in chainmail keeping pace with an RV for an extended period of time ;). When I saw horses keeping pace with a fucking hovercraft on Firefly, I decided this was a Whedon meme and realized I had to hate him, just a little :D.

Or, OR the Cobra-man that inexplicably had solenoglyphous fangs, when everyone knows cobras, like all elapids, have PROTEROGLYPHOUS fangs!!! It’s almost as bad as when in the first season they claimed that a clip of Cape Hunting Dogs were somehow completely unrelated hyenas. My stars!

Okay, yeah, I’m a geek. I did like the season in general :).

535

Heh, no need to describe who Lorne is to us. One interesting tidbit, though, is how long they went before revealing his name. I remember this being remarked on in a TV Guide article, as they had to refer to him simply as “The Host.”

536

I love the fact that Lorne isn’t even his name. They just call him that because he’s green…

537

I remember him telling Angel his name was Lorne but he didn’t like to tell people because, you know, he’s green. And doesn’t his family in Pylea call him Lorne?

EDIT: Actually, I think that conversation was in the first Pylea episode, when Angel impressed Lorne’s cousin by killing that beast, then the cousin let slip Lorne’s name. This was all in LA before the gang headed over to Pylea.

538

His name is Krevlornswath. Lorne is a diminutive.

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Olives, did you catch that Joss Whedon was Lorne’s relative who did the dance of joy and the dance of shame?

It’s his, I think, only appearance on screen in Buffyverse. He’s in a Veronica Mars episode, though.

540

Yes - and Angel was the only one there who GOT why it was a problem for him.

Quote culled from IMDB:

(That he’s almost 200 years older than Lorne Greene apparently had no bearing on the ‘feeling old’ situation.)