Fat Elvis 007

I actually never had a problem with the Scoobies never getting back their Dawnless memories. It never seemed like Dawn's insertion really changed that much about what we saw for the first four seasons. And it seemed right that the Scoobies wouldn't want to lose their memories of Dawn. To them, this person has always been around, so it makes sense to me that they wouldn't want to give that up.

Part of the problem is how early Glory was introduced. She shows up in episode 5, and she has all of her powers. We know exactly what her goal is. She fights Buffy right away. The mayor was also introduced in the fifth episode of his season, but there were a lot of differences. Buffy didn't become aware of him until halfway through the season. He didn't gain his full strength until the episode after, and also gained a new ally which revealed new dimensions to the character. And his goals were fairly nebulous until towards the end end, plus there were explanations for why he couldn't reach his goal until that point. He never really seemed to consider Buffy much of an obstacle to reaching his goals either, so him not killing her earlier made some sort of sense. Glory, by contrast, never had these plot beats. There are a few big reveals like the fact she was a god, that she was also Ben, and finding out Dawn was the key, but she is too powerful throughout the season and so many of her scenes seem like the same thing, with her whining about the key and the writers reminding us that she can brain suck people. Having her revealed later in the season, like Angelus or Adam, would have helped her seem less repetitive. The writers also could have deepened her connection with Ben, but given their respective acting limitations, it's probably best that they didn't try. The inevitable comparisons to Faith/the Mayor wouldn't have helped. That said, "The Gift" remains one of my favorite episodes (plot holes aside) and the final fight with Glory is fantastic.

For a while I was starting to warm up to Jake, but then he killed James. I can't eve forgive that, and I find Olivia's willingness to do so to be a complete character assassination. When she left with him on that plane at the end of Season 3 I was so disappointed and haven't watched much of Season 4 as a result. Not that Fitz is much better, but at least Olivia (and the show) seem to realize that love affair is destructive (while at the same time glorifying it), while Jake is somehow presented as the more healthy option, Olivia's chance to "stand in the sun." He is a straight up murderer! He killed a dude who was just seeking the truth to "protect the Republic," which basically makes him a terrorist in my book. What does it say about this show's worldview that Olivia can't help but keep falling for the most abusive, privileged, self-important white dudes in existence? That these are her only choices?

I agree that Anya's "I don't know anything about you beings called hyoo-muns" schtick got old, but I don't remember the exchange with Tara about computers being one of those times. Old people have trouble with computers all the time, and it was actually Tara who ends up coming across as less computer-savvy in that exchange. Plus, it contains one of my favorite Anya lines, in which she actually seems to have lived through human history instead of being teleported directly from the past: "Oh, at first it was confusing. Just the idea of computers was like... Whoa! I'm eleven hundred years old here. I had trouble adjusting to the idea of Lutherans."

This post contains spoilers through the end of the series--newbies, hide your eyes: I think a better more interesting way they could have taken the Lauren thing would have been to reveal that Vaughn married her because he suspected she had something to do with Sydney's disappearance, only to later find out that she was innocent, perhaps set up by her evil spy parents or something. So we have Vaughn playing the Derevko role, instead of Lauren, which just felt rote and predictable. She finds out, leaves Vaughn, and Vaughn comes out much darker due to his own obsessiveness and mistakes, rather than justifiable rage at being betrayed. As it stands the Lauren twist was unworthy of this show. Another twist that I am surprised doesn't get as much hate is the whole "My name's not Michael Vaughn" thing. It was cool in the moment but the follow-up was done so casually and made no sense. I remember during the summer fans were speculating he had just found out his real name while investigating his father's death in S4, because there was no way he could have been lying to the CIA and Sydney for all those years. But...apparently that's exactly what happened? It should have ruined the character but somehow it seemed to have no effect on the show whatsoever.

I think this one is going to be very unpopular : I didn't mind the fluke. Of course I don't like that Oz and Cordelia got hurt, but Xander and Willow were teenagers who were both brand new to dating, so I found their behavior realistic and believable. I didn't like the aftermath of it, as the two never seemed as close afterward, but the Fluke storyline itself I actually find pretty well done.

Given the amount of fans who still seem livid over the show's cancellation and desperate for some kind of reunion, I think it's a UO to say that I don't want any more Firefly. It was a near-perfect show while it lasted (other than the complete lack of Asian people in a culture that clearly borrowed heavily from Asian influences), but Serenity was a great conclusion and it really wrapped up most of the characters' arcs in a satisfying way. I agree with the poster up thread who said that a real Mal/Inara relationship would have been awkward to pull off, and I'm also not sure how the show would have found realistic ways to put the crew in danger given River's extreme power level-up at the end of Serenity. So I like where it ended. I'm not even that upset it got cancelled, since Serenity is one of my favorite movies ever, and it never would have happened were it not for the show getting axed.

I don't think I have ever seen a more insightful critique of the failures of the Initiative storyline, Dev F. I initially really liked the "science v. magic," "masculinity v. femininity" themes of this season, but the older I get the more these elements feel simplistic and reductive. I didn't quite notice the shift you describe before, but now that I do it seems that if they had gone with their original direction (and maybe if the awesome Lindsay Crouse had stuck around?) the season would have felt both more coherent and more complex.

"I can't decide whether I hate it so much because it was so bad, or because I'm so soured on the whole thing under Moffat now. Everyone ever dead on the earth is now a cyberman, including Amy and Rory, but the only two who love someone so much that they can resist the programming are Danny and The Brigadier. Or who didn't have their programming switched on properly in the first place. Or something. " This is why the Cybermen are boring villains. They're completely unemotional and inhuman, until the writers decide they're not. That's not real emotional conflict. A more interesting conflict would have been if Missy was able to turn someone like Danny, or hell, one of the Blues from "Into the Dalek," into a genuine threat to the Doctor through emotional manipulation, not actual mind control. I thought that's where the whole "Heaven" storyline was leading. What's the point of keeping everyone's consciousness alive if they're just going to be subsumed into the collective hive mind of the Cybermen? The entire storyline seems self-defeating to me. I feel like this show needs more complex villains--I know the companion role is supposedly sacred, but I think a companion-gone-bad storyline could be interesting if done well, and Clara could have fit that role. But Moffat couldn't even bear for River to be bad for more than one episode, and he doesn't believe in consequences, so I have absolutely no faith he could handle a storyline like that.

Hm. I may have misread what was happening. Still, I liked the ambiguity over which brother was supposed to be believed. And Coulson is much better in "shady, behind the scenes dealmaking" mode than "action hero" mode.

I really enjoyed the moral ambiguity of this episode. Putting Grant in the custody of his (allegedly) abusive brother in exchange for gov't approval for SHIELD is a seriously morally questionable thing to do, but for once, I felt like that was intentional. In Season 1 moral quandaries like this were introduced but never really addressed; the tone always made it seem like Coulson's team was justified no matter what they did, and any time a character like Skye objected they ended up kissing SHIELD's ass by the end (although the ass-kissing, in Skye's case, was mutual.) Here everything about the way the scene of Grant being led away was shot and acted made it seem like we as an audience are supposed to be uncomfortable with what was happening. These are the types of morally ambiguous situations this show should have been exploring since the beginning; SHIELD is already a dodgy organization, and given that the show is run by two of the best writers from "Dollhouse," you'd think we would have gotten more of this type of tone. But the writing throughout Season 1 was so "rah-rah spies are awesome!" that this level of writing was never achieved. Now it seems like the show is finally willing to start exploring more ambiguity and complexity, and it is doing the show a world of good. I thought this was one of the best episodes to date, and if this show wants to start living up to Marvel's and Joss Whedon's record instead of standing uncomfortably in its shadow, these are the types of episodes it needs to be producing more of.

Right, but as I said the first time: I don't buy that Buffy would have ever let things get to that point. She was in a state of denial, and she was putting off the inevitable. I don't believe for a moment she would have killed Xander or Willow or Giles to keep them from killing Dawn if she really knew it was the only way to save the world. She killed Angel to save the world in Season 2; she's willing to do what it takes when it comes down to it. But she's not going to cave easily. I actually think her stubborn refusal to openly consider killing Dawn reflects an admirable trait of Buffy's: yes, her refusal to accept harsh realities sometimes seems like a major fault at first, but ultimately her choice to delay the inevitable usually reveals that it's actually, er, evitable. She finds another way when it seems like one doesn't exist. And yes, sometimes this "other way" is a total ass-pull. On a plot level, Dawn being "made out of Buffy" fits that description (as do many of the other plot points in the episode: troll god? Dagonsphere, which Buffy's had since before she even met Glory?). But it works on a thematic level, so I can let it pass, and there's enough foreshadowing to make it somewhat plausible. The amulet of assitude is different, because it doesn't work on any level; it's a literal deux ex machina where no one has to do anything other than stand around wearing gaudy jewelry. Buffy making a conscious choice to sacrifice her life in place of her sister's is so much better writing than having her not-boyfriend passively save the world by putting on a necklace given to her by another not-boyfriend earlier that episode, which he was in turn given by an evil law firm that had never once been mentioned on this show before, that I find it hard to even compare the two.

No, that's not at all the same. Buffy being willing to do anything to protect Dawn, and being against the notion of murdering her, is only similar to your examples in that the level of dedication is caused by a spell in all three cases. And even then, the Dawn spell is more indirect than your two examples--the monks didn't use a love spell, they changed Buffy's memories so that Buffy believes Dawn is her sister. Buffy's feelings are exactly what Buffy would feel if those memories were true. Those feelings include love and protectiveness, but they also include a lot of bratty sisterly annoyance as well. And while Dawn's past may be unreal, she is real now, a flesh and blood innocent. And Buffy has spent several months with her, creating new memories, growing to love her in a very real way. By the time Buffy chooses to jump for Dawn, I buy it as a real choice that Buffy is consciously making with her own agency. (And isn't that really what the show is about? Using what was done to you, and overcoming it and making the power your own?) There's also the fact that wanting to protect Dawn is a noble sentiment, and wanting to worship Xander and/or Jonathan is not. Except that she wasn't. She was right that killing Dawn wasn't necessary to save the world.

Meh, I've never been convinced that Buffy would have actually let the world be destroyed trying to spare Dawn for a few seconds. Before she has her epiphany (which, to be fair, was not well set up) she looks like she is about to accept that Dawn has to jump. Buffy was not in the best mental state at that point, her mother had just died and she was exhausted. I don't blame her for being reluctant to kill her own sister. The fact that Dawn is not her real sister is irrelevant, since Buffy still remembers and feels that she is her sister. And ultimately, Buffy was right; she didn't have to kill Dawn, and found another way.

I find it hard to judge characters in situations where the writers are clearly putting a joke above character integrity. I believe it is the very next episode where Xander stops trying to find a school shooter he thinks is about to strike because he is distracted by jello, and I find the Angel thing only a fraction as silly. And in the episode prior, we saw Cordelia ask Wesley on a date mere moments after finding out that Willow had died and was now a vampire. Yes, Xander's deux ex gelatin ends up saving the school, and Willow isn't really dead, but the characters don't know that, so their actions are inexcusable. Or at least they would be, if I believed any of these characters would ever actually behave this way. Xander was never in any real danger of getting killed while he was unconscious in the only street in downtown Sunnydale, because plot; Cordelia never would have been made to say such a callous line if Dopplegangland were a tragic episode about Willow's death instead of a comedy about doppelgänger hijinks; and Xander would never have been distracted by jello if the writers didn't need him to be in the cafeteria to catch the lunch lady. I love all of these episodes, and this season, but this was definitely the point when the writers started showing an increasing willingness to sacrifice characters at the altar of plot and jokes, and this is a tendency that only got worse as the show went on.

I like that explanation, and would have loved to see Anya's psychology actually explored. "Pangs" was a perfect opportunity to do this. She flat-out tells Xander that she used to inflict the kind of pain he's going through on other men, and starts to worry if he's going to die. Wouldn't this have been a good time for Anya to start realizing that this is how she made thousands of other people feel, and start empathizing with her victims? But we never saw that happen.

UO: Selfless is not that great an episode, and in fact has too many overwhelming flaws to even be called "good" unless you're grading on the curve of Season 7. Don't get me wrong: it's an entertaining episode, the Anya flashbacks are good, "I'll Be Missus" is devastating, and it's nice to have a character-centric episode that feels self-contained and is at least consistent with itself. Unfortunately, it's not consistent with anything that came before it. The conflict doesn't feel real at all because I remember that vengeance demon spells can be reversed by destroying the demon's amulet, and no one on the show does. Therefore, Buffy's decision to kill Anya makes absolutely no sense. And don't tell me she doesn't know about the amulet, because she could have looked it up. (Remember when the characters researched demons?) The fact that Buffy even asks Willow to "find another way" so she doesn't have to kill Anya, but never makes any effort to learn more about vengeance demons, is ridiculous. Willow knows about the amulet, because she knows Anya tried to use her to summon it back the first time they met. The idea that it never came up with Xander defies belief. And Anya herself never even suggests it, even at the end when she pleas for D'Hoffryn to reverse the spell. So it's just something the writers forgot. The whole argument between Buffy, Willow and Xander is often hailed as a highlight of Season 7--and hey, it's kinda nice that they actually share a scene together with just the three of them for once--but it is completely nonsensical. The low point is when Buffy says she loved Angel more than she will ever love anything on this earth. Really, more than Dawn? Not to mention that the only reason the episode even exists is because the writers went three years without ever realizing that Anya might need to show a shred of remorse for murdering thousands of people. It's nice to see her finally show horror at her actions, but it's too little, too late. TBH, the most depressing thing in Season 6 to me is Anya becoming a vengeance demon again--I hate it more than Spuffy sex AND Magic!Crack, that's how bad it is--but it makes sense, because Anya was so often portrayed as completely lacking in guilt for what she had done in the past. Does Anya even have a soul while she is a demon? How is it possible that this never comes up? Especially this season, when the writers actually go out of their way to compare Anya with both Angel and Spike? Earlier in the season they even have Anya ask Spike "How did you get it?" and she is visibly shaken...but this moment is never clarified. Is she jealous because she doesn't have one? Is she feeling a connection to him because she still has one herself? There seems to be no real difference between Demon Anya and Human Anya other than "superpowers." And that just goes back to a problem with the character from the beginning. I understand the writers wanted to use her mostly for comic relief, and didn't want her to brood like Angel, but the writers could have still done that while acknowledging she was newly ensouled. Instead their whole relationship makes Xander's constant anti-Bangel stance look even more unsympathetic and hypocritical. I see a lot of fans saying that the writers only messed up Anya's arc after "Selfless," but really, the only reason the episode even exists is because the character is already irreparably messed up . (In case it isn't clear, I love Anya and find her hilarious and sympathetic most of the time--that's why I wish the fundamental problems with her character had been addressed in a well-written way.)

Exactly. In previous season finales, Buffy's crazy plans were acknowledged as crazy (see "Graduation Day Part 2" as a comparison). Here, Giles calls her plan "brilliant"--despite the fact that their dozen or so Slayers can't possibly stand up to thousands of Ubervamps. And even after depowering the Ubervamps with no real explanation, the plan still doesn't work; Spike has to save their asses via an amulet given to Buffy via Angel via an evil law firm that had never even been mentioned on this show before. Guh. Another problem: the spell just happens, with no research, no preparation, and no explanation of how Willow is suddenly able to do it. Remember when the gang actually had to solve problems with their brains? Remember when Willow was Little Miss Likes to Study? Now all problems are solved whenever the characters (and writers) declare that it can be. So Willow and Buffy know they can use the scythe to empower the Slayers because...they say they can, that's why. The same reason Dawn speaks Sumerian now, the Ubervamps aren't as strong, and the amulet destroys the Hellmouth. The same reason the finale ends with Willow telling us "The First is scrunched" as if that means anything, instead of, you know, actually showing the audience that the Big Bad of the season--the source of all evil in the universe, allegedly--has been defeated, the writers have Willow tell us. Again, I like the concept of the Slayer spell, but the execution of it--along with everything else in this finale--was horrendous.

But the new slayers are just as free to give up their callings as Buffy now is. That's the point; with 2000 slayers out there, the burden is now a shared one, and the Slayers might even be able to act as more of a volunteer army. There's less of a chance that girls will be forced into the fight like Buffy was now that there is a wider selection of recruits. The alternative is continuing the system as it was before, with one girl forced to bear the burden alone, as Buffy was. I don't see how that's preferable. Who's to say Dana or a girl like her wouldn't be the next Slayer called if and when Faith and Buffy die? Then who would stop her? The spell might have created a few rogue Slayers, but it also created plenty of good ones capable of stopping and helping them. I don't like the way the Slayer spell was handled, and I wish the characters had at least acknowledged the downsides once in the episode. But the basic concept behind it works; in fact, in my opinion it's one of the few things in the episode that does.

I agree that the "evil Observers" thing didn't really work. I feel like it would have worked a lot better if they had seen themselves as benevolent overlords, a la Jasmine from "Angel." At this point in the series, all three of our leads had almost destroyed two universes--it would have made perfect sense for the Observers to believe that humans could not be trusted to run the planet themselves, and needed a strong guiding hand to stop them from destroying themselves. This would have made them much more interesting villains, because they would have had a point. Instead, they were so cartoonishly evil that they literally had machines that had no other purpose but to pump CO2 into the air. Subtle. They could have even tied this into the deleting of Peter. Think about it: without Peter, Walter is a complete mess, Olivia doesn't have any control of her powers due to the limited amount of Cortexiphan and no exposure to Peter, Henrietta will never exist, and no one even knows about the Observers. By changing time so that September didn't save Peter, the Observers basically created the perfect environment for invasion, since their opposition is so much weaker. This makes much more sense as an explanation for erasing Peter than "We had to stop Henry from being born because reasons, and the only point at which we could do this was 25 years ago" which is what we were given in the otherwise excellent "The End of All Things." And it would link Season 4 and 5 in a more organic way; as they stand, they both feel very separate and gimmicky. And while we're on the subject, I'm still a bit bitter over Peter's reaction to finding out Henry was deleted. (You: "What reaction?" Me: "Exactly!") Just as I fanwank the real reason for the Observers invasion/deleting Peter, I also fanwank that Henry and Henrietta are somehow the same person (perhaps due to September transferring Henry's consciousness to the Fetus!Henrietta through soul magnets? And then telling Peter about it? This explains why he is a-OK with his son being erased from existence, on a show that is entirely about parents not being able to let go of their children.) Come to think about it, we never even saw Peter tell Olivia about the son he had with Faux! Aaarg. So while I have fond memories of this show, and still enjoy many parts of Season 4 and 5, there were some major dropped elements that could have easily been picked up in an organic way, and the story would have benefitted from it.

YES to the Anya analysis. The "I'm Anya and I don't know how to talk to people" act is so abrupt and retconny if you watch S3 and 4 in such quick succession. It doesn't even make sense when you consider the type of demon she was--her entire job was manipulating women, which she showed she could still do after turning human by manipulating Willow in "Dopplegangland." You have to be socially adept and good with language to do that. I can buy that she'd be awkward and not know what to say around men, especially since she has all these new feelings, but she shouldn't sound like an alien who has been isolated from humans for thousands of years. The bigger problem is her lack of remorse, especially paired with Xander's anti-Angel fervor. At least that dork felt bad about the people he murdered. I understand the writers wanted Anya to be comic relief, but that excuse assumes there's no comedic value in exploring a person adjusting to feeling guilt for the first time, and that's a false assumption.

I haven't seen this yet, but I'm not surprised Olivia Williams is the best part of it. She was the best part of "Dollhouse," too.

Agreed, and I think she proved that with Riley. I will never believe that Buffy was even a little at fault for that relationship ending. Did her reticence to be Little Miss Share-It-All cause problems? Sure. But they were surmountable problems. Riley intentionally getting himself bit on the regular was not. Really, I think Riley leaving (in a really shitty, blamey way) was worse for her than Angel leaving, because with Riley she internalized the blame that everyone threw at her and convinced herself that she somehow wasn't worthy of a "good, normal guy" (even though Riley proved that he was not a one of those). Angel left out of circumstance, but with Riley she started to see a pattern (even though two boyfriends is not a whole lot!) and it seriously damaged her self-esteem, thus clearing the way for Spike porkage.

Buffy: "She's more than my sister. They made her out of my coats. My coats are me. THEY MADE HER OUT OF ME!" Giles: "Quickly, Buffy! Throw your coat in the portal! It's the only way!" Buffy: *shoves Dawn into portal*

I think my problem with Glory is that it doesn't feel like anyone ever sat down to think of an explanation for why she would behave like a ditzy Valley Girl. Yes, she was insane, but why that particular manifestation? They could have connected it logically to Ben's psychology somehow--maybe he had a relative that Glory based her personality on, or maybe this is just how he sees women, so Glory acts in kind. But Ben was such a blank slate that asking for more insight into his character is almost laughable, and there are so many "whys" attached to Glory it's not even funny. Her character often seemed like a mismatch of totally disparate elements, as well as repetitive of other Buffyverse characters who had already been written better like Cordelia, Harmony, Drusilla and even Faith. Even Jasmine and Illyria, who came later, seem like better done versions of Glory in many ways. Add that to the fact that she was introduced waaay too early in the season, especially given her power set, and the result is a lot of long, drawn-out, repetitive scenes in which we're given information we already know. Glory wants the Key, and also she sucks brains, and she really wants the Key, and she's super strong, and she treats her minions badly, hey now she's Ben, and she still wants her damn Key, let's watch her suck some more brains just to remind the audience she can do that, and has she mentioned lately that she like super totally wants the Key? She had some really good scenes, and there were times I legitimately found her scary. Plus, her last fight scene in "The Gift" is wonderful. But mostly, she was a missed opportunity.