watcher1006

"Xander sends Angel to hell?" I've said it before but I'll just repeat myself. I think Xander had the most sensible, clear-minded approach to the whole Angel problem, whether or not it was colored by his own jealousy towards Angel and Buffy. And I've always thought that Giles should have backed him up.

Seems to me that hearing B-I-T-C-H as "bitca" isn't all that improbable in an environment with plentiful background noise. Seeing how the letter "H" can be phoneticized as "aitch" all it takes is for someone to miss hearing the final consonant. Speaking as one who generally doesn't talk loudly enough and who often gets asked to repeat myself.

I probably said it before but I think that the flawed way they brought in a younger sister for Buffy made it impossible to feel a deep bond between them, which is what you had to feel to make the main story of Season 5 work. At least that's how it was for me. I think the author makes some good points in the Romarin Demetri link but as for the reason Dawn was brought in to the series I think it was mostly the same reason many long running shows bring in new characters - to open up new avenues for storylines. In this case I thought it was done clumsily. It was not as bad as uprooting the established world of the entire series before the introduction by some massive rewriting but it had much of the same feel.

I've been away for a few months. Anyway, going back to this thread, I agree that the story of attraction between Willow and Xander should have been brought to a proper resolution, rather than being summarily dismissed after this episode. After all, Willow pined for her childhood friend to look at her romantically through Season 1 and much of Season 2, the romance wasn't just a quirk of a few episodes.

Over on the thread for S3 "Dead Man's Party" I discussed the mechanism by which problems in relationships are brushed aside by supernatural violence. I'm not entirely happy about how it was used there but in this episode, when Spike is set right emotionally by the big fight and walks off jauntily after telling Buffy where her friends are, I think that is 100% believable. And the catharsis/change in perspective didn't even have to come from a supernatural altercation.

Indeed, I didn't mean to say that Willow and Xander resolved their problems by talking. I brought up the Season 2 episode to bring up the contrast with "Dead Man's Party" in that the supernatural fight of the moment wasn't used to summarily sweep the problems in the characters' relationships away. Although I will say that the scene of playful name-calling at the end between Buffy and Willow at the Espresso Pump(?) was amusing enough.

I can buy that but still, I think it was an easy way out. One of the things that distinguished this show was how it could have a supernatural/fantasy premise while it keenly explored human personalities and their relationships at the same time. It's part of what raised this show beyond its genre. I think of the Season 2 episode "Innocence" where Willow sees Xander with Cordelia in the shelves and then after her burst of anger they talk it out. Willow tells Xander that things aren't okay between them but yes, they have to fight the Judge.

This episode seems to me like the show's take on the cult horror flick "Night of the Living Dead" (the original, 1968 version.) This episode has always seemed to me to be a prime example of the mystical, supernatural side of the show getting in the way of the real human story going on, namely Buffy's return to Sunnydale. When the raucous party in Buffy's house and all the false gaiety comes to an abrupt end I really was caught up in the tense discussion Buffy has with Xander, and wanted to hear them have it out . Then the zombies or whatever they were crashed in and that was that. And really, was the battle with the zombies supposed to be the thing that smoothed over all the tenseness and bitterness between the characters up to that point?

I don't think the showrunners of the two shows cared all that much about their plotlines sync'ing with each other. On Angel:

I don't worry too much about stuff like this. In a Buffy-less Sunnydale there would presumably been plenty of easy pickin's among clueless high school students. I do wonder a bit about the boy - Colin (?) - and what part he played in the Wish-verse. This is one of my favorite episodes of the series. I remember reading on the old tv.com site that it was Charisma Carpenter's favorite episode of BtVS. In addition to the breakup aftermath of Cordelia and Xander, they also had the great scene between Oz and Willow, where Willow camps out by Oz's locker and when they finally come face to face. Oz delivers his totally believable speech to Willow along the lines of: "You can leave me alone. I need to sort things out. The only reason for us to talk is to make you feel better. That's not my problem" (I don't have the exact lines but this is close.) I feel that the Master, having risen successfully, is also more menacing here than in the whole arc of Season 1. Finally, I remember being totally unsettled by the battle scene where the core characters kill each other, capped off by the Master breaking Buffy's neck. It shows the degree to which Buffy depends on her team of supporting players in the "normal" reality.

I used to like OMWF more than I do now. Among other things it was a grand ego trip for Joss Whedon, and from what I understand it crippled the budget for the rest of Season 6. Season 7 had just too many new people being thrown into the mix, too much going on. As Cassie-as-the First said herself in "Conversations With Dead People": "...going for the big finish". This show did a good job of portraying the Xander and Willow "friendship from early childhood" side of their relationship, but as far as their contemporary relationship was concerned I agree there were too many inconsistencies and dropped storylines.

It is funny when Glory questions the demon about who/what Buffy is (a slayer) and then her response is like "What? Is that all? What an embarrassment!".😊 I understand how Tara's father feels about his daughter being away doing her own thing but is that the same thing that lies behind her cousin Beth's anger toward her? I thought that the relationship of the two women could have been further explored but there's only so much time in one episode. Regarding what happens later in the series:

Anya's struggles with her human existence are a continuing theme in the series which

The mythology of disease and the vampire world wasn't really developed much in BtVS or its spinoff Angel. But recall how William's (late Spike's) mother was dying of tuberculosis when her problem was "solved" by her being turned into a vampire. And then on Angel

Good point about Snyder. I always thought that through the end of Season 2 and the first part of Season 3 they were developing some evil connection between Snyder and the Mayor and then they just sort of set it aside. As things evolved through later Season 3, it was as though any connection between them was that of Snyder being used by the Mayor, Snyder not having any idea of what his ultimate purpose was. I suppose that was reasonably plausible, maybe they were only united in the goal of getting rid of Buffy. But I thought that they could have done more with the two, and more with Snyder in general. Armin Shimerman is a good actor.

Ah, Mayor Wilkins. A little hard to figure out why he wanted to ascend. There had to be something in it for him. Because he seemed to be doing fine as a superhuman. He became much destructible once he became the giant demon snake (which looked ridiculous, BTW). As for the First, I will not ever figure out why

I thought I'd put in my two cents on this topic that's been gathering dust for a year and a half. I like Michelle Trachtenberg, I think she was a good child actor in the show and elsewhere (like in Harriet the Spy) and I wouldn't mind seeing her again somewhere, even though she's nearing her mid-thirties by now. But the way they introduced her into the Buffyverse was the main flaw of Season 5, IMO. The whole season revolves around the sisterly tie between Buffy and Dawn (think S5 Blood Ties), and to have Dawn be a device of some vaguely defined "monks" undermines that connection. Surely the creators could have introduced Dawn in another way to make everyone really viscerally FEEL the bond between Buffy and Dawn? Through Season 5 I couldn't stop feeling that Dawn was somehow a fake. And as for the mythology, do these monks really have the ability to enfold the Key inside a human form complete with a SOUL? Seems like a GOD-like power. I didn't like the idea that all of the characters of the show would thereafter have a different "memory" of all of their own lives from Seasons 1-4 than we would as viewers. New characters are typically introduced into a long running series to help revive them and to create new channels for stories, but Dawn's introduction felt clumsy and contrived to me.

I have some thoughts about this episode but for the moment I just want to say that

Indeed. It's not just that people get introduced out of the blue with no explanation. It's also that when they appear you can never know at what point in time those people are existing. Past, present, future...jump jump jump! This show has always depended on the mechanism of time jumping but after four seasons it's getting a bit tiresome for me. It starts to feel too gimmicky. Enough with the ahas!

Yeah, it may reflect badly on Randall but really it seems like the writers forgot all about Miguel in this episode. Was it at all mentioned at any time why husband Miguel wasn't on the trip? There could be plenty of reasons why he wasn't there but it seems like an explanation or a scene involving a discussion with Miguel was in order. Randall may be a councilman now and Beth is doing her thing with the studio but would a 9 month stint in a clinical trial really depend on Kevin's show biz money? Randall was making a pile of money before before he quit the business world. If that has all been squandered and if the whole thing did depend on Kevin and Randall was presuming his brother would pay for it then double shame on Randall.

Xander wasn't best bros with any of the major male characters on the show but I found his relationship with Spike much more entertaining to watch than that with Angel. Chemistry between actors doesn't always mean portraying a friendship, it's more varied than that. As for Jesse counting or not, it depends on the meaning of "count". Yes he was brought in and dispensed with quickly at the beginning of the show. I only brought him up because those first two episodes showed that Xander could have had real male friends, had the writers chosen to go in that direction with him. They did not, no more than they did with Xander the skateboarder. The first season was naturally focused on his relationships with Buffy and Willow. Now in Season 7:

Do they have any time to explore the lives of Beth and Randall's children further this season? The season is rapidly drawing to a close. I don't know about Randall's therapist. Seems to me it isn't an ideal relationship with a patient to hold back on what she knows about him for a good part of the first session. But maybe she can help him come to grips with his control issues. I do love CS&N "Our House".

Of course there was Jesse at the very beginning.

Hard to say who should and shouldn't have been invited. Think of Danny Strong, who was with the franchise from the unaired pilot, dropping in occasionally through to the last season of the show. Of course Jonathan was never what you'd call a fan favorite. Indeed, if it's true that David Boreanaz wanted Nicholas Brendon out of the shoot, it's puzzling that he would have so much authority.

I don't automatically reject a relationship between Xander and Willow, my main problem with it in Season 3 is with how it was written following the big betrayal in "Lover's Walk". The writers just turned off the romance between them. Yes, Xander and Willow were horrified at what they had done and wanted to undo it ASAP, but it's not as though such feelings just vanish. Oz delivers two brilliant pieces of dialogue to Willow, the one in "The Wish" about "Leave me alone-you betrayed me-I need to think things out" and then the second in "Amends" about "Here's the thing-I still have feelings for you". Some of the most believable lines in Buffy that people in the real world can relate to. At the least, Xander and Willow should have talked out where they were at with their feelings toward one another and how they would go forward, rather than having their romantic feelings dropped from their relationship. I'm just a little surprised at the negative comments about S6 "Once More With Feeling" given how popular it was at the time. I was initially wowed and amazed at the whole thing and have grown less enthusiastic about it over time. I suppose that it was an enormous ego trip for Joss Whedon. He spent a prodigious amount of energy on the episode in a season where he'd stepped aside as a primary showrunner. It was a very expensive episode from what I hear and Marti Noxon was left with some budget constraints for doing the rest of the season.