Not on-screen, but IMDb says he was a newscaster on I Robot… You, Jane
We’ll have to disagree on this. I loved a lot of season 5, but was very disappointed with the whole Glory/Key plot arc. So much so, I opened a thread about it here: (warning! Mild to moderate Season 6&7 spoilers creep into that thread, starting with Jenny Haniver’s first post. Stop reading when you see her name!)
Buffy S5: Some questions - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
LOL. yeah, kinda takes the suspense out, eh? But at the time it aired, it was the “series finale” on WB, and I’m not sure if it had yet been picked up at UPN, so it could have truly been the end.
Completely agreed. Willow/Tara is one of my fave parts of S5.
GLORY: (amused) What’s this? Bag of tricks?
WILLOW: Bag of knives. …
Yeah, I could see that. The case could be made that after the crossovers in Forever and Disharmony, it might be better to watch Buffy straight through to the end of season and then Angel straight through until the end of season.
But I really loved the Pylea arc, and I kind of view it as the culmination of the 2-season long “origin story” of the Angel gang.
It took me a while to accept the menagerie of demons on Angel. Perhaps due to the name of the show, over on Buffy it seems that vampires are the major problem in the world. But on Angel, they’re a small piece of the larger problem. But Lorne helped me get over that hump. Any world with him in it is worth watching. 
Enjoy season 6 and 3!
By the way, all this talk about The Body inspired me to go back and watch it with Joss’s commentary for the first time. Lots of interesting bits there. Especially subtle camera tricks that you feel more than you notice. My fave: filming manic, flustered willow with a handheld camera and stable, in control Tara with a fixed camera, in the dorm room. (and the same trick with Dawn and Buffy at the morgue/hospital)
Also, I have a new appreciation for the vampire scene, and how visceral and “real” and disturbing the fight was, compared to the usual buffy/vamp fight scene.
Other cool stuff:
- Joyce blinked only once on camera and they digitally removed it.
- The shot looking down from the dorm window to the car was filmed from a rooftop with a fake window
- the opening long shot of buffy finding joyce was done 7 or 8 times in a row. Ouch.
- the shot over the paramedic’s shoulder as he tells buffy Joyce is gone. His shoulder literally crowd her out of the frame, the world closing in on her, she has no room to breathe…
- Joss’s intent was not to give any sort of catharsis (which is why we never see Dawn actually touch Joyce at the end, among other things) but to capture the pain and uncertainty and physicality of the first few hours of learning you’ve lost someone.
I have seen The Body half a dozen times. I’ve shed tears each time.
gonzoron, that’s okay, I already discovered one logic flaw in the series.
(Having watched the first two eps of Season 6), if the Scooby Gang wanted so badly to keep Buffy’s death under wraps, why did they erect an enormous tombstone in the middle of vampire stomping grounds indicating that she died?
I’m not one of those people who needs everything in a show to make sense, but I thought this was funny.
That drove me mad here in the UK, but for a different reason. I was watching the series ‘live’ on its first run here, on SKY, and I was absolutely diligent in avoiding as many spoilers as possible. Well I’m not sure we’d got any of the information about a network change at that point, so there wasn’t any concern that the series would end - quite the opposite, in fact. The programme info effectively said ‘someone dies’. Since we had no idea there was an inkling the show might end, the one thing I knew for certain was that it wouldn’t be Buffy. The suspense (before the episode aired) for me was wondering who it might be that bit the big one.
So what did SKY include as the first scene in their pre-episode trailer, aired in the week leading up to the episode? The freaking tombstone shot. :rolleyes: Cheers Murdoch, you chump. Since it was the first scene of the trailer, I didn’t even have chance to switch channels or run screaming from the room to avoid it.
A very good question. Fanwank… who reads tombstones that don’t belong to someone they know? Hiding in plain sight, sort of…
Or alternatively, just like the writers, they didn’t decide to keep her death secret until after they put up the stone, and then forgot about it, just like the writers. 
I can see how not knowing if the series would go on would really heighten the drama of Buffy’s death.
I think it would have made a pretty solid series finale. If there were only 5 Seasons of Buffy I would conclude that the entire run was very favorable, with the final season being the pinnacle of the series.
My husband thought it would have been nice if they had dragged out Buffy’s absence for a few episodes rather than just resurrecting her in the beginning. I am inclined to agree.
I’ve only watched the first 2-parter episode in Season 6, but my overall impression so far is that it seems more adult. There were even some racy comments that I wouldn’t have seen happening in past seasons.
Yup. I don’t think we ever see him (or any lawyers at Wolfram and Hart) lie outright. They certainly do a number of horrible things, and are quite willing to manipulate and deceive folks - but if a lawyer at Wolfram and Hart tells you something flat-out, then it’s true. It may not be in your interest to know it, and it may not be the whole truth - but it’s true.
Which makes me feel good about how my profession is portrayed on the show. Honesty is one of our professional obligations, after all.
Never happened. The announcement that Buffy would be moving to UPN for season 6 was announced before the final episode of season 5 aired. There was never any doubt Buffy would be back.
Disclaimer: I wasn’t watching when it first aired, so all I know is secondhand, and may not be true. But I thought I read somewhere that at the time they wrote and filmed it they were still in negotiations and it wasn’t certain to be picked up. Also, I read somewhere that WB billed The Gift as the series finale in their previews, rather than acknowledge the network move. (they’d be somewhat foolish to give UPN free advertising, I suppose.) If someone was a casual/moderate fan of the show and not hooked into the fandom rumor mill, it’s possible they didn’t know when they saw it that there would be more.
Also, even though the show was coming back, there was the possibility that Buffy herself wouldn’t. (see also: Valerie/Valerie’s Family/The Hogan Family). If I were around then, I wouldn’t be too shocked if they’d switched over to Faith: The Vampire Slayer (or even Dawn: The Vampire Slayer, or simply: The Slayers)
I had a friend who insisted that Buffy would not be resurrected and that the show as going to go on without her.
I kept saying, “But it’s called Buffy the Vampire Slayer!”
Also, there were billboards everywhere that said something like, “Buffy’s Back!” on them to advertise season 6. Anyone else remember those?
I remember them and I didn’t even watch BtVS at the time. (I was living in LA at the time and there was a heavy marketing push from UPN).
Close.
They actually said “Buffy Lives.” There’s no way she wasn’t coming back.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=1676570&postcount=43
I know. That’s why I said on screen.
Ah, that’s what it was.
I didn’t watch it then, but knew she had died and would be back.
Thanks ellis and lissener! Time to use this handy tool!
It’s been so long, but vampires can’t sire already dead people, right? And could they sire a slayer? (Remember, I’m not up to this episode yet, but I’ve been spoiled watching Angel a while back).
I just had the odd idea of wondering if people might have thought she’d come back in that way.
In order to turn someone into a vampire you have to drain their blood until there is very little left and then have them drink some of your own blood.
Dead people can’t be turned.
I think if it were possible to Turn a Slayer, we’d have some examples of it… (IIRC, one of the novels included a Watcher turned, then sent after her Slayer, but if I do RC, that’s as close as we’ve gotten.)
I am assuming it can’t happen, since no one has done it. However, most vampires are greedy and would not want a super strong vampire out there, which is what a slayer-vamp would be.