I can’t imagine why a Slayer couldn’t be turned, and it’s not like we knew much about any of the Slayers beyond Buffy and Faith, so it’s not like them not being mentioned means anything.
Who else do we even know about besides Kendra, Nikki, the Chinese Slayer Spike killed, and the Potentials? I don’t think we even know who the Slayer immediately preceding Buffy was, do we?
Now that I think about it, I wonder if it would be anything special, anyways. A Slayer’s powers leave them upon death, right? But still you’d think some vamps would do it just for the symbolic factor–unless there’s some story where it obviously went horribly wrong…
You know, just being afraid that the Slayer might be vamped but not turned might be a strong enough deterrent for anyone smart enough to take down a slayer.
I don’t think so. If that were the case, Buffy would have come back powerless when Xander resuscitated her after she drowned. It would appear a new Slayer is activated upon death of the previous Slayer, but it’s not like it leaves one’s body for another.
Yes we do. It’s revealed in Season Seven. Nikki is a Slayer in NYC that is slain by Spike. That’s where he gets his duster.
Huh?
Nikki was killed in the late 1970s. Buffy didn’t become a slayer until the 1990s. Nikki would be a few iterations before Buffy. A new slayer isn’t born when the old slayer dies. The new slayer gets her powers when the old one dies. (Events of season 7 notwithstanding.) Unless I am missing something, which is more than likely, I don’t think we ever heard about the Slayer who proceeded Buffy.
This goes right back to my theory about vampires purposefully choosing weak and stupid humans to turn. Slayers tend to be the cream of the crop of humanity - smart, dedicated, fearless, and so forth. Even if the super powers don’t carry over, and there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t, no vampire in his right mind would turn a Slayer. The resultant vampire would be so powerful that the sire could never hope to dominate it. Probably not even an ancient one like the Master or Kakistos.
You’re not missing anything. The movie and voiceover in S1 said “once in a generation a girl is born” or something like that, but they dropped that idea the second they introduced Faith, because if it really were once in a generation, another slayer wouldn’t be triggered until 16 years from the end of Prophesy Girl. They never mentioned the “once in a generation” thing again IIRC.
Actually, they dropped it when they introduced Kendra.
The closest we’ve seen in the show is Giles’s nightmare of vamp-Buffy in “Nightmares”. This would seem to indicate that either it’s possible to turn a slayer, or if it’s impossible, the Watchers don’t know that it’s impossible.
Sorry for the above digression on the spoiler/non-spoiler nature of Buffy’s resurrection. Like I said, I wasn’t watching then, and had no clue of the goings on. Never saw or noticed those billboards.
Dracula certainly thought it was possible.
Well, I’ve watched the first four episodes of Season 6 of Buffy (or three eps depending on how you see it.)
The Bargaining pts. 1 & 2
After Life
Flooded
So far, I gotta tell you, I love it. I love that Willow fucked up, and Giles and Spike are pissed, and Buffy’s changed, and everything’s a mess but the Gang would like to stay in denial about that. I love how her experience was being torn from heaven rather than hell. It raises a lot of interesting questions about… well, for lack of a better word, destiny. It’s like Buffy’s out of sync with the way the world was supposed to be without her in it.
I want to say what the Scooby Gang did was purely selfish, but I try to remember they thought she was in some hell dimension rather than just dead. I know Willow thought of it like a ‘‘rescue.’’ Major foreshadowing with Willow in Flooded, that was some nasty attitude there when she told Giles it might not be wise to piss her off.
Also, I’m honestly surprised how far they’ve gone with Spike at this point. He’s not at all like he was in the beginning of the series. At first I thought it was just being played up for a gimmick, but now he appears to be a serious character motivated by honest-to-goodness love. I would be more irritated by that if the progression hadn’t been so gradual, but still, it’s a little weird. I like his new character and all, but it’s weird. It really does seem like they’re setting it up for him to become a major supportive influence on Buffy as she goes through all this.
We’re only 4 episodes in and already huge and complex questions have been raised. So if Season 6 wants to go to dark and weird places, I think I’m game. I’ve really enjoyed it so far, I just hope it stays this good.
As for Angel Season 3, I’ve watched
**
Heartthrob
That Vision Thing
That Old Gang of Mine
Carpe Noctem**
I dunno why, but the show feels immediately better to me in Season 3. Nothing particularly arc-y has happened yet, but each episode seems to have raised some important question or character growth for the gang. The humor and drama both seem heightened and the writing is better and it’s just really working for me right now.
I think That Old Gang of Mine is one of my favorite episodes of the series so far. I missed what Gunn was saying to Angel, though. Something about how he wasn’t really his friend but they were united by the mission? I can’t figure out what he’s saying there.
David Boreanaz is getting so good playing Angel it’s kind of ridiculous. He even did a great job acting like an old man in Carpe Noctem. Seeing that guy on screen is really a joy (and not just in the obvious way.)
I guess that’s it so far, I just got started but so far Season 3 of Angel and Season 6 of Buffy feel neck-and-neck in terms of quality. It’s been a fun time.
Also, I don’t recall if they mentioned this at all, but Sunnydale really needed a Slayer at this point. Faith is in jail, and no new slayer will be called unless she dies. Meanwhile the hellmouth is under the protection of a robot, two witches, an ex-demon, a chipped vampire, and construction worker. And we see how well that was working. So it’s not entirely selfish… just mostly selfish. 
Ain’t it great? Note that it’s not that much of a stretch. When we met Spike, he was head over heels in love with Dru. In fact, I had some debate with friends and GonzoGal if that was realistic or not. Could someone utterly evil truly be in love? (my take, yes.) In fact we see that he’s always been a fool for love in the aptly named episode “fool for love”. So his love for Buffy really rang true for me, making him one of the most interesting characters on the whole show.
one order of dark and weird coming up! 
Admit it, it’s Fred, isn’t it?
Was it this?
The question of course, is was Gunn telling the whole truth, or just saying what he needed Rondell to hear?
It’s easy to say, “oh he’s a good vampire” and accept Angel, but it’s tough to overcome the fact he is still a vampire, especially for someone like Gunn who has lost so much to vampires, and fought them for so long. Prejudice is tough to get over, even among the good guys.
Spike has some of my favorite moments from the entire Buffyverse, and one is in After Life. It just kills me when he’s cleaning up her hands and tells her how many days she was gone. For me that ranks up there with the look on his face at the end of Fool For Love when he realizes she’s disinvited him from her home.
Yep, it grows and grows all series long. It’s hard for me to separate the progressively better writing from the introduction of Lorne and Fred, who both rock. Whichever is responsible is fine with me.
I just finished Buffy season 1 and the first episode of season 2 on Logo. I always skipped these early episodes in syndication, so it’s been the better part of a decade since I’ve seen them. It cracks me up to no end to see early Buffyverse Angel. He actually says he won’t accompany Buffy to face the Master because he’s scared. Plus all the little touches, where there’ll be four vampires in a room and Angel and Buffy will stop to formulate a plan as to how to deal with it. WTF? Angel is supposed to be all Billowy Coat King of Pain, what the heck is with this early series Angel? Xander has more fight than him.
Dracula’s a really odd variant on vampires within the Buffyverse - he has all of his standard powers, most of which don’t exist for Buffyverse vamps, survives being dusted, doesn’t have the same fang-face…
Whether he’s right or not (not necessarily so), whether HE could turn the Slayer is not a real good indication if it’s generally possible.
Nothing but cheap gypsy tricks…
"These powers you speak of – They’re part of the Ancient Magics. I risked my very soul to obtain them. I am their worldly guardian. The very idea that some two-bit, run-of-the-mill vampires could come along and…take them from the…
…Lord of Darkness…
Oh, balls."
Remember–he sampled Buffy’s blood & she was enthralled. Then he let her have a taste of his. She had a vision/feeling, reminding her she was The Slayer. And said “the thrall is gone.”
Maybe a Slayer could be held down & turned. But even Dracula couldn’t seduce Buffy!
Ha!Dracula is the only vampire who couldn’t seduce Buffy, so again he’s unique. hehheh.
Once More, With Feeling
This was truly beautiful. I actually kind of wish I hadn’t known it was a musical ahead of time, because if there’s one thing I appreciate about Buffy, it’s the WTF moments. They pretty much had this one in the bag from the beginning, because I love musicals.
What most impresses me about this episode is that they managed to include quite a bit of significant plot development in addition to all the novelty of writing and scoring musical pieces. This is not an episode that works at all as a stand-alone because so many important things happen.
Buffy making out with Spike might be weird, but it’s not like they haven’t given us plenty of time to acclimate to the idea of Spike as a good guy. And it makes sense to me, even if it’s not something that could ever last, that she would want to feel something for someone at this point. Not to mention, he really is the only one who can relate to what she’s feeling right now. I liked his existential chat with her at the end.
I can’t help but feel that if Willow had known right off the bat that her resurrection spell was so disastrous for Buffy, she wouldn’t have gotten into such an arrogant and petty place. As it stands, with her finding out this way, and being on the verge of losing Tara, I predict she is not heading down a good path. I admit my prediction may be motivated in part by this series of posts.
There must be something terribly wrong with my soul, because I’m pretty delighted that everything seems to be falling apart. I’m like, yeah, that’s much more like real life. Season 6 so far is a big win for me.
As for Angel, we’ve reached The Quickening. I don’t know how I feel about this whole vampire baby thing. I’ll get back to you on that one.
I wanted to comment about an earlier episode, Billy. It was a great episode, but the idea of the ‘‘latent primordial misogyny’’ in all males coming to the surface in the form of brutal murder was a bit :rolleyes: for me. In a way it almost felt unintentionally misogynistic, almost patronizing to both women and men. I’ve got no beef with Whedon, in general I feel he is very respectful of his female characters. This episode just rubbed me the wrong way.
I get how that scene between Wesley and Fred needed to happen though, and I also enjoyed the bitch-off between Cordy and Lila. So overall I thought they made it serve the characters. I’m not happy with Angel’s explanation that he is beyond hate and anger – that’s obviously not true if you watch the series. A better explanation is that he feels hate and anger every day but has learned to resist his impulses. So what Billy brought out in him was nothing new.
Anyway, all of this is good stuff. We definitely feel like we’re in a good place.
My wife and I started watching Buffy on DVD right after the series ended (I was prejudiced against watching it because of the title and because I remembered the movie as being kind of lame). We ended up getting totally hooked on it pretty quickly, and for a time Netflix was delivering nothing but Buffy episodes to our house. I studiously ignored reading absolutely anything about the series while we were watching it, so I was completely spoiler free.
One Saturday morning we were deep into a marathon Buffy watching spree, tackling the beginning of season 6. We’d watched maybe four or five episodes that morning, and were thinking of taking a break.
“Just one more?” I remembered asking.
“Oh, all right. Just one more, but I mean it this time,” my wife said. It was “Once More with Feeling.” I didn’t even know they had made a musical episode, so it was totally a surprise.
When it ended I remember saying “They can do anything with this show.”