Halting Hex

22 years ago today. April 18, 2003. The show finishes shooting this swill episode and much as I despise it (as ranted about above and for years before on TWoP), I can understand that the cast feels both sadness and relief that the show is over, their long story reaching its conclusion. Which means only one thing…PARTY TIME!! The cast and production staff letting loose at the wrap party, joined by old friends such as Juliet and Julie. (And unfortunately missing SMG, but she had filming to do in Vancouver and was gone like a vampire at sunrise. Sarah caught some online hate, but of course her career had to come first.) Fare-thee-well, O glorious Sunnyhell! We shall not see your like again.

Of course Dru is! How did I never see that? We have already established that Drusilla is psychic. Only last episode she had a vision of the three Tarakans coming to town, and she knew when Octaurus had died, even though she was nowhere near the ice rink. So of course when Norman Pfister was actively using "his little buggy parts", Dru can sense that in her dreams! Good scripting, Marti! My apologies that it's take 23.5 years (I didn't see this ep until the 2001 FX reruns) for me to notice it. I guess I've been too fixated on my favorite bit: Which ties in with this from last episode: Just like Buffy, Willow doesn't really think of Angel as a vampire any more. (You can even say that about Giles and his blithe "No, no, [Angel's] good now.). It must make Angel feel better to know that he is finding such acceptance. Of course, Angel actually still is a vampire, which is why Katey was confused about his reaction to Drusilla's torturing him with the Holy Water. "Why is his skin red? Isn't he a vampire??" Well, we know that vampires have blood; Angel has bled on several occasions, including just last episode. Apparently vampires are pale because the blood isn't constantly circulating, but apparently things such as cuts and bruising and Holy Water can "activate" it and cause a physical response. (This does not excuse Spike's alleged [by Angel] inability to satisfy Drusilla. Apparently Spike is perfectly able to…rise to the occasion; he just doesn't know how to tickle Dru's…fancy.)

HBD, Kristine!! Apparently, we weren't the only ones sharing SMG pix on her birthday. Here's some fanart I found on a random Facebook page:

3x18, The Lights of Zetar Never a huge fan of this one (especially as it opens with a voice-over from Kirk about how Scotty's being such a twit and Mira Romaine is still not exactly likable, which IMO is half the script and half Jan Shutan's performance), but it landed in my DVR recently and I wondered if there were scenes I hadn't seen because the syndicated versions used to be so chopped up and I never bought the Season 3 DVDs. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything I didn't recall (but this is MeTV, which cuts more than H&I does, so it might be same old, same old) but I did admire a certain drama to the bridge scenes (even if IMO the score was a little much) and I liked how they did a reaction shot of Spock when Kirk decides he has to shoot at the aliens because nothing else is stopping them. (Spock doesn't grimace or anything, just a look of semi-resigned acceptance to this course of action.) But of course Mira is in pain from the shooting, so they call that off. And Kirk wants to question her, so he calls Sickbay to ask McCoy…this: Er, say what? First of all, Shat, the former Janice Dottenheim was only about 18 months younger than you. (Shutan was 35/36 when the episode was filmed.) Secondly, although Mira may be new to Starfleet, even if she was fresh from the Academy (and had somehow gained that Lieutenant's stripe very quickly), she'd still be about 25 or so. Anything younger than that would make "a man of Scotty's years" pretty creepy, besides his generally being a ding-dong around her. And thirdly, Jimbo, this is a member of your crew. A little respect, please. What's next, are you gonna call her "Lieutenant Hot Tits"? (I was only a teenager when I read The World of Star Trek, but I still recall David Gerrold mocking Mira as "a woman with nothing going for her besides a good bust measurement". I grant you, this is before David came out as gay [and decades before I learned about that], so I didn't realize a particular reason why he might not have been impressed by Mira's…assets, but I still can't say I disagree much with his assessment here.) But even given that, it's such a ridiculous line. You'd think that Kirk, who was panting over a 19-year-old Lenore Karidian two years ago, wouldn't be so quick to call a 30ish woman a "girl", wouldn't you? Maybe he needs another go in the decompression chamber, himself.

So… 5.16 6.19 Foreshadowing? I mean, it was certainly sudden. And it's not as if Joss didn't know what was going to happen. (It was originally supposed to happen in S5, allegedly.) Thoughts? Questions?

Ooh, missed it by just a bit! Ah, well 2012 Golden Globes: And check out that dress! Paris Fashion Week, March 9th Critics' Choice Awards, this February: Keep slaying, Slay Gal!! One Smidge, in all the World…

And, in a linked pair: "That's a wrap, folks!" April 18, 2003. Stick a fork in BtVS…and possibly in the food at the wrap party, which is where this picture comes from. "Hi, we're recently unemployed. Anybody got a line on some upcoming auditions? Thanks in advance." July 19, 2003. Nick and Emma stop by the Television Critics Association summer upfronts, begging for work. (Okay, not "begging" and they were actually there to accept the TCA Heritage Award for the series, but it has to feel different now that the series is over, I'd say.) Gotta admire the new 'stache on Nick. That's nice work for someone who was clean-shaven less than 100 days ago.

Belated bests to Nicky (and Kelly)! With Mitch Pileggi and an airman. OM,wF premiere night screening. (JM may have had a point about the [just past 16] Michelle being "dangerous". RowRIP.) Enjoying hanging with the cosplayers at Long Beach ComiCon, 2015. Chicago ComiCon, 2012. Television Academy "Behind the Scenes of BtVS" event, June 2002. 2005.

So the reactor I call Katey got here, and I was putting some of my usual points in the comments, and then I realized they were even more pointy… …but actually there's a more-recent example. Little General Buffy took charge of the research literally only last episode. Yes, she delegated (Willow got the books, Xander and Cordy went through Giles's papers) but still. Buffy was the one to make sure that she knew what Eyghon was before she went rescue/interrogate Giles. I'm pretty certain that Marti saw last episode, folks! Sloppy. This is even more on point when you look at the shooting script and see that Buffy's lethal skate-slash was not only supposed to kill Octaurus, but as he falls to the ice clasping his throat, a pool of blood is supposed to (logically) start spreading across the ice from under the corpse. Which means that this "romantic" moment… …was likely intended to take place with Buffy and her "cradle-robbing Creature-of-the-Night boyfriend" casually standing in the pool of blood that the network clearly nixed. ("Sorry, Marti…we've got kids watching! TV-PG, remember?") Which is certainly "darkly romantic" (or just plain creepy) but might also explain a flaw in the above quote. I mean, if Angel doesn't want Buffy to see his "game face", why doesn't he just put his demon back in its cage? He generally doesn't have any difficulty assuming his human guise… …but if Angel was meant to be standing in the middle of all that lovely blood, that could be more difficult. Remember, last episode, Buffy shot him a questioning eye when he volunteered to finish the blood delivery that the vampires interrupted. It's like a (blood-) red flag to a bull for his demon. Katey, meanwhile, was pretty shocked that Buffy claimed not to have noticed Angel's demon face. "How could you not?" she asked. Which begs the question, is "I didn't even notice" actually just a fib that you feed to make your boyfriend feel good? "Are you sure you're putting on weight? I can't see it. Maybe your pants just shrunk in the wash?" and that sort of thing? **************** Katey had more-charitable thoughts towards Angel earlier in the episode, though: Heh, that's almost cute. Angel really doesn't have much going on, does he? Does he really? Does Angel go through the electrical tunnels to reach the school (as in Out of Mind, Out of Sight) and hang out, listening to the kids discuss the Career Fair? That's pretty sad, actually. Get a hobby, bro.

Joey Katz, still the only BtVS guest to win the Oscar! John Hawkes lost and Lindsay Crouse lost and Amy Adams lost and lost and lost and… Hope Todd Duffey got some cool presents. Or at least better than an crossbow. bolt in the chest.

Not heard in Reptile Boy : Couldn't put this in the episode thread, since we don't learn that Giles had an "old mate" until the next ep.

So I'm watching my favorite NHL team, the Los Angeles Kings, take on the Colorado Avalanche and their scowling coach, Jared Bednar: Except that in the game I watched, Bednar was looking even grimmer and was wearing a dark turtleneck and a black jacket, and I wondered why he seemed familiar. And then I recalled whom the funereal wardrobe, lethal glare and flowing hair reminded me of: Appropriate, as the Avalanche have been slaying their competition recently. Their victory over the Kings made them 12-1-1 in recent games. I wish the Avs had learned what the Angel had to discover fairly often: Death is not necessarily as inevitable as it's claimed to be. Has anybody ever done a comprehensive count of how often the various Sisters (and those close to them) return from The (Temporary) End? It's fairly impressive, I'd guess.

See, kids? Don't do magicks, just do drugs! (Er, wait…)

You know, I grant you that Mrs. Whomever was clearly traumatized by the little kids turning into demons and rightly retreated back into her home…but you'd think that at some point in the rest of the evening, she'd have a look outside (if only to make sure that things were clear) and discover that she has Willow's corpse cluttering up her front porch. I guess Willow is lucky that the lady didn't call an ambulance and she had to "wake up" (upon being returned to her body when the spell ends) in the morgue.

Now that is my flavor of crazy! (No offense to Melanie.) Juliet's mother Barbara Bain still looks as perfectly striking as she did in her Mission: Impossible days, I see in that later photo. Here's another of them together: (Bain and Martin Landau divorced before Juliet became prominent, so I've yet to see a pic of the adult Juliet with both of them.) I was pleasantly surprised to see that Bain is still with us, having celebrated her 93rd birthday last September. (And apparently still has her faculties, since she gave an interview.) Here is Juliet with a costar from a play she did at a local theater in LA: And a few more…