Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search

Halting Hex

Member
  • Posts

    3.0k
  • Joined

Everything posted by Halting Hex

  1. And GREAT news! I did find one of my favorite vids of all time, obsessive24's tale of the Angelus arc, set to The Cranberries' "Promises". "Why can't you stay here? Whyyyyy?" Sniff. Poor Jenny. (And even Angel and Buffy, but of course we know that gets a do-over. Sigh.) The lead singer of the Cranberries, Dolores O'Riordan, died earlier this year, at age 46. Forty-six? Are you shitting us, Dolores? Even Prince made it to 57, FFS. Why can't you stay here? Sigh.
  2. Now that is how you do an exposition recap, people! (First episode after a two-month break, you'll recall.) Marti Noxon, I salute you. And as much as Cynthia Bergstrom gets it for her more…creative costuming choices (including Buffy's gold pants in this very scene, not visible above), she's really bringing it on Job #1 here, which is to let you know that Buffy and Willow will never wear anything even close to the same outfit. (Maybe that's why Wiffy never happened? The old "being a lesbian doubles your wardrobe" trope just wouldn't work for them? Darn.) Seriously, nice job of keeping your characters distinct. Well done. The only problem is that the screencapper blew the quote. The third picture should read "now my boyfriend's gone forever and the demon that wears his face is killing my friends", of course. Sigh. Wish I could edit that. Oh, well.
  3. Well, lookie here. Romance, B/W style, courtesy of one annette hall, to the tune of Richard Marx singing "This I Promise You". Using stills, rather than video, to allow for the inclusion of promo pics and Sarah/Aly shots, it would seem: Awww.
  4. Well, look at them. All growed up. Lindsay Taylor doesn't look like half of a giant demon, but I guess you never know, lol…
  5. Well, he does know that. "I sometimes want things that are not good for me," as he said in Ted.
  6. Wow, I did not know AA had done bottomless so early in her career. Top that, Isla Fisher! Beth's a useful solution for any disliked 'ships. If only Spike hadn't given Tara that "test", Tara could have gone home with her family and focused on "controlling her demon side" and in-between time, trying to seduce Beth. (What do you mean, "they're cousins, it's incest"? Tara's [allegedly] a demon, ffs! What's a little [not-actually-illegal] cousin-cest in those parts of Redneck Flats, anyhow? Lighten up, buttercup. ;) ) It's now been five years since Amy has been nominated for an Academy Award™. (The last time was American Hustle in 2013.) Can't be slacking if you're ever going to win one, Lois Lane. Tsk, tsk.
  7. Easy there, now. Willow wouldn't be Willow if she wasn't so Willow-y, and that's part of why we (well, the "I" part of "we", anyway) love her so. Besides, Xander should probably get some say in whose he "is", too. Agency…it's not just a girl thing, you know.
  8. Well, not on air, but this episode does mention Buffy's grandmom in the script. A bit too cutesy, obviously. As Buffy's existence rather gives away Joyce's deflowering and all that.
  9. Pointless episode, notable mostly for the Ray Harryheusen-esque special effects. (Giles against the skeleton is excellent.) But the characters learn nothing from the second chance the amnesia gives them, and so you could cut this one out completely and you'd still be exactly where the musical left off: Giles is leaving town, Tara is leaving Willow, Buffy's in denial about Spike and His Sinister Attraction (barf!). Running in place to absolutely no effect. And the characters get shit on, one by one: • Willow is a pathetic junkie who can't go a single minute without breaking her "no magic" promises. • Tara shows no fairness or flexibility, telling Willow that she doesn't get to make decisions for them on her own in the same conversation where she gives Willow an ultimatum, won't commit to giving Willow another chance even if Willow does everything Tara wants, and leaves Willow broken and going "are you saying you're gonna leave me?" • Giles remains an idiot who thinks that Buffy's problem is that she's too dependent on him, when in fact her issue is her inability to connect with people, and isolating her will only exacerbate the problem. I still say what's actually going on is that he can tell Willow's about to blow and has decided to run 6000 miles to the east for his own safety, but really there's nothing textual to support that, either. (And after his emphasis on Willow's need to deal with her power responsibly in Flooded, his dereliction of duty towards her is almost as bad, honestly.) • Buffy is all "wah-wah-wah, you can't understand my pain!". So much for the thought that opening up about Heeeeeeeeeaven would help her heal; she's the same self-involved brat she's been all season. (I keep thinking that the end of Act 1, just before the spell hits, is her trying to reach out to Willow, as it reads in the script. But some minor changes in the transcript turn it into "Buffy snots again, some more, lather, rinse, repeat." I don't know whether to blame the director, or Rebecca Kirshner [if she approved the changes] or SMG's performance, but as I've written about Kirshner's S5 eps, she seems to have an affection for the Buffy/Willow friendship that had largely been drained out of the rest of the series by now, so maybe what I sense in the script was her vestigial affection for B/W, and someone else "corrected" her work before we got the finished version.) (Most annoying incorrect spoiler of the year: "Under the influence of the amnesia spell, Willow will be attracted to Buffy." Sigh. Dammit. And again, sigh.) • Spike remains an obnoxious boor, putting things in the most crude terms possible just so the show can revel in UPN's lack of censors Really, Spike? Really??? It's that important to let Buffy know you were getting an erection, is that it? ("Rising", get it? Ha-ha, so funny!) Honestly, I'm actually offended on Spike's behalf, with his being written so crudely just so that the writers can meet their sex "joke" quota, and slide one in. (See, I can do it, too! "Slide one in"! Ain't I clever!) Grow the fuck up. Honestly. Oh, and Spike's still a single-minded stalker who won't take "no" for an answer, but that goes back to the days when William wouldn't get the hell away from Cecily, so points for consistency, I suppose. And the series continues its annoying pandering to the loudest ass-kissing part of the fanbase. Look, everyone, Spike's wearing the suit from Restless! And he thinks he's Giles's son! It's all connected! Such brilliant foreshadowing! Joss is such a genius, y'all! (And thus HOW DARE YOU dislike Spuffy or Junkie!Willow or Xanya's incredibly boring "hijinx"! Don't you know genius when you see it?) Oh, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Seriously. Annoying as anything, and I stopped rewatching it years ago. But qualifies as "adequate", I suppose. 5/10? And it does have one good line: See, not all sex jokes are pathetic and vulgar. Even when coming from Desperate-for-a-Shag, I mean Spike. (Exception proving the rule, I suppose.)
  10. From a review I just read: Well, when you put it that way, lol…hey, you find your "true happiness" where you can, I guess. Just kidding, of course. I'm sure Buffy made it special for him. Otherwise, Angel will be facepalming every time he walks by the Bronze, going "I can't believe I didn't think of that before!"
  11. Because I have nothing else to do with my life (HA!), I'm now reading a different set of unspoiled reviews, and this one points out that virtually every episode of S1 ends up at the school, bar the cliffhanger at the end of the pilot and the Bronze scene that finished off Angel. It's a very school-centric season.
  12. Overrated. (And character-destructive and ill-paced and exists only to pimp a Spuffy 'ship that is both repulsive and signals the series's reduction to blatant pandering and stealing from itself and Giles is an idiot who gets Buffy's basic problem wrong and Tara can't be bothered to even give Willow a chance to speak for herself and Xander was almost certainly covering for Dawn, but we've discussed all this before and probably will again. So, let's keep it simple for now: overrated.) Marks? What should "ambitious, but essentially a failure" qualify as? Are we grading on the idea…or the result? Well, given that I gave up trying to rewatch this about a decade ago (I wanted to enjoy the spectacle, but I came down with a spectacular case of the hackles in so trying), I think 5/10 has to be too high up the pole. But let's still give it an "E-for-Effort", ie, 4/10. And at least this time Joss's "wah-wah, gimme an Emmy™, dammit!" pleading isn't claiming to be some Grand Statement on Grief, the way The Body was. All this wants to do is entertain. How Whedon thinks fading out on Humanity's Champion spitting on her calling by frenching an unrepentant mass-murderer qualifies as "entertainment" is perhaps left to a discussion between Joss and his psychiatrist, but I digress…
  13. I've watched plenty of the episodes plenty of times. "My show" has received dozens of viewings from me. But the only DVDs I own are S1-S4 (although the entire Chosen Collection fell into my hands online last year). So the likes of only got one go and, in many cases, that was one more than IMO they deserved. I know there are people out there who feel compelled to do the whole series, 1-144, each time through. Not I, bwana. Why waste time in Season Sux when I could be savoring S2, yet again?
  14. Who says I'm watching? I'm only remembering. But, in the words of So the memories are always there. But many of these episodes I've only ever seen the once. (I think this is an exception, though, as it was being rerun on January 1st, 2002, which was the first day that DirecTV included local UPN stations in its packaging. So I looked to see if a clear picture had improved things on the original high-interference "rabbit-ears" airing. I could see the fight better, but so what? And that was it for "no more full copper re-pipe!" for me)
  15. "Lines You'll Never Hear on Buffy the Vampire Slayer", one of my favorite topics from TWoP. Quoting one of my favorite posters there ;) Stuff such as that. He ruins Xander's moment of happiness by raising his anxieties about the complexities of marriage, he pays Anya (his business partner, no less) non-compliments such as "very nice former vengeance demon", and once he's got Xander in a state of agitation, he offers nothing in the way of comfort or practical advice. Spike couldn't have done a "better" job of ruining Xander's night. (The difference being that Xander, the former abused child, isn't looking to Spike as a quasi-parental figure.) But, you know, Giles acting like an ass to Xander is supposed to be "funny". Or so the Dawnverse teaches us.
  16. Wow, it really says something about my comprehension skills that I read the further exchanges between you and Jack (they both appeared between my visits to this thread) and yet failed to scan up all the way and see this crucial sentence. Thank you very much for your work. And apparently my typing skills are right up (down?) there with my comprehension. I meant "pithy", of course. Yeesh.
  17. Somebody posted the "Buffy comes out of the slaying closet" scene on YT, and thus a little micro-commentary: For the first time I notice that on "Dru bagged a slayer?", James has Spike look towards KS, as if he was expecting Joyce to share his good mood at the news. Hehe. However, I do also notice that Spike gets increasingly irritated at Joyce any time she interrupts thereafter, until he buggers off. So much for all that "friendship" talk, I guess. And the tighter focus really emphasizes the metaphor: "Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you have any idea how lonely it is?" Oh, come on, Buffy, take it easy…being a lesbian isn't that bad. ;)
  18. I should point out that this episode gives us our only Buffy/Willow scene in the first eight episodes, with Will bragging fibbing about her hookups with Riley and Angel. Would be worth a point or two, except that SMG plays Buffy in the same dead way she's playing her all season long, normal human emotions not allowed. So, skip it. And also, my "memories" of these episodes are inalienably linked to all the Willow-hatred that was soaking the internet at the time. (She might as well have killed the Baby Jesus as that fawn in Bargaining.) From the Spike-worshippers who saw the Scoobies as an obstacle to the Spuffy bliss they craved (as Spike himself put it in Spiral, he and Buffy should just have taken Dawn on their own and left the others to go rot), to those who had been spoiled for the big plot of the season and thus and beyond that, the Whedon-fanatic assholes who therefore were claiming that The fact that Mutant Enemy had done everything short of hire a skywriter to announce that sure didn't help, either. Yes, they tried to claim it was a secret and mystery, but FFS, This led to Willow getting the blowback , which again, worked against her. So basically, every week was "take a shit on Willow week" with pseudo-intellectuals writing treatises on Spike's "redemption" and claiming "oh, no, I'm a lesbian, this TOTALLY isn't about how sexy James is, I swear!" and how Joss was "challenging the narrative" (by stealing from earlier, better seasons in the cheapest, most pandering ways) and how this was all some grand plan (except the shitty execution, which was all Marti Noxon's fault, of course). It was a fucking toxic time to be a fan of the show, and I'm sure I hold it against these episodes in a way that somebody who just burned through them on DVD in 2011 or whenever might not. But even so. They still suck. And no, Joss, I will never believe that the Trio was you "making fun of the writing staff" rather than deliberately spitting in the face of the fans of your fucking shows and calling us all pathetic losers living in our parents' basements. (I had a very nice one-bedroom apartment, thank you very much. Just so you know.) Fucking obnoxious elitist pricks. I hope he and Espenson both suffered major injuries fighting for the right to try crawling up Marsters's asshole. God, I seriously hate this shit. And it's only been seventeen years…
  19. Just a reminder, the Willow-bashing is now so toxic that Tara, who actually offered to teach Dawn how to make Teddy Bears dance (omg the horror! Kids and magic, cats and dogs, what was Tara thinking?), goes completely sprocket at the idea of Will saving some time by teleporting the decorations over from Party City. And Willow, to show off her fresh supply of stupid pills, suggests the insane "shift everyone who isn't a 15-year-old girl into an alternate dimension" spell at the Bronze, despite the fact that this would still leave them with multiple (confused, hostile) freshman girls to deal with and despite the fact that the show has already established three better ways for Willow to find Dawnie, this season alone: 1) Telepathy (Bargaining, Part 1) 2) Tinkerbell lights (Bargaining, Part 2) 3) Locator Spell (Flooded) Also, you could just look. Dawn's rather tall and has a nice rack. She's not that hard to spot, actually. And we have Buffy, pretty much out of the blue, being all spluttery and thinking Spike's talking dirty when he really isn't. Because we have to show Buffy being all "I can't resist your sinister attraction" sooner or later, previous canon be damned! Xander announces his intention to spend his life chained to his Hellbitch. Giles acts like an asshole about it. (Of course he does…) Spike makes an asinine speech about how vampires are supposed to follow the "rules" and take Halloween off. That Spike, always such a stickler for tradition and rules! Which vampire led the attack in Halloween (and practically had a boner from the chaos) again? Ah, who needs consistent characterization, right? Useless episode that avoids being utter crap by virtue of three minor virtues: 2) Amber Tamblyn appears, thus setting up one of my favorite LYNHOBtVS entries, among my own submissions: 3) Witchie-poo is Just.That.Cute. So, three things worth citing. Thus, 3/10. But still worthy of the stench that is Season Sux. I think this is more like "boring and repetitive". Very boring and very repetitive. For about a season now. Possibly two. No wonder Buffy thought (subconsciously hoped?) that Xander was announcing his intentions to marry Dawn, instead.
  20. I hope you warmed up before you did all that reaching. Wouldn't want you to strain a muscle ;)
  21. In Band Candy, Willow is too involved with her secret romance to help Buffy investigate the candy as quickly as she otherwise could. In Gingerbread, Willow is too involved with her secret coven to help Buffy discover the demon in a more timely manner. She ends up being first a red herring and then a hostage because of this. In Pangs, Willow becomes almost a parody of a political activist. Buffy even claims Willow is parroting her mother, and Giles claims Willow isn't being level-headed. (And legions of Xander-fen claim Willow doesn't care about his dying of "the funny syphillis".) In After Life, Willow (and Tara) are explicitly called out by the "hitch-hiker" demon for doing bad, bad magic and bringing Buffy back when she shouldn't have. And Willow is seen to be in the driver's seat, both in her conversations with Tara, and when she takes over to defeat the demon. Meanwhile, Buffy seems repelled because she was pulled out of HEEEEEAVEN "by my friends", and she can't stand to be around them. And I see that I skipped over Triangle, where Willow is portrayed as a brat and a shoplifter and threat to Xanya's relationship, where Willow screws up a spell and unleashes Olaf on the town, to devastating effect, and yet tries to avoid taking responsibility for her actions. What a baby! Now, mind you, I still have sympathy for Willow in all these episodes and will defend her actions. And even if I didn't, I would argue that Willow's actions were not indicative of her larger character. But It's clear that Jane Espenson intends the negative characterization that she consistently gives to Willow in her episodes, and sees it as part of Willow's larger "flawed" character. And so I have very little interest in Jane, her skill at fan relations aside. But again, JMO.
  22. Given that Buffy ends up in the same place as Botty, only later, and Botty had no difficulty getting there, what benefit was there to "sneak[ing] in the back way", exactly? Just wondering.
  23. Espenson seems to have a condescending view of high-schoolers (from Band Candy to ) and a, er,…rather unique conception of Willow as being a "bad friend" who's "too into her own stuff" to be there for Buffy. (Band Candy, Gingerbread, Pangs, this episode, etc) Given as I venerate Willow and adore the "high school as Hell" metaphor, this almost guarantees that her episodes will be less than "magical" for me. But JMO.
  24. A brilliant girl, not only for her pithy dismissal of this shit, but her being able to call it in advance, in her review of The Weight of The World. IIRC, it went something like this: Yeah, that X-Ray vision of his saved the group a bunch of other times, too! That's why they called him , you know! Oh, wait…that's not at all what happened. Never mind. One of the best "Lines You'll Never Hear on Buffy the Vampire Slayer" ever. (No, not my work. I self-cite sometimes, but not here.) It's the near-realism that sells it, you see. Let's not forget the "brilliance" of Buffybot's battle against Glory. First she affects Glory by using the Dagon Sphere (one of the "random plot points pulled out of Anya's ass" in that laughable "strategy" scene early on) against her, then she throws Glory the Glory-fighting weapon, so Glory can crush it! Wow, that's dumb on a level beyond dumb, isn't it? Meanwhile, what is Buffy doing while this is going on? Sneak-attacking Glory to take advantage of her confusion? Double-teaming her to keep the pressure on? I don't know, how about RESCUING DAWN?? Nah, none of that; Buffy is apparently busy making popcorn or doing her nails or checking her email or whatever. The key thing (heh) is that Joss is busy setting up his "did everybody know the Slayer was a robot?" joke, yet another cheap-cheap-cheap-ass "trick the audience" moment, so he didn't bother to have Buffy act in any way, shape or form like a hero whose baby sister was in mortal danger. Hell, at this point, fucking Anya was doing more in terms of heroics than Buffy was. High points: Spike offering Willow "courage" in the flask. And the W/T moments would be okay . Just as "I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man" might get points if the whole idea of the 'ship didn't make me want to projectile vomit. But it does, so no points awarded, after all. Marks: 2/10. Because it is, indeed, very pretty crap. But you can only polish a turd so well, after all. PS-I'm also repulsed by the very concept of the Ben-smothering, that because Buffy is "a hero", she's incapable of Making the Hard Choices. I know what Angel would say about that: "Ouch!" Instead, Joss explicitly writes Buffy to be less mature, less capable, and less heroic at age 20 than she was at 17, just so Giles can get an unearned moment of "cool" in her place. Fuck you, Joss. God, I really hate this episode.
  25. I much prefer character and relationship vids. Unfortunately, some of the classics are no longer on YT (can't find Pipsqueak's "Ordinary" anywhere) and while I still have them, size limits prohibit my uploading them here. So, I'm sifting through a limited amount of what's available. And given that Buffy-centric vids tend to focus less on her kicking ass and more on Those Fucking Vampires, I'll confine myself to W/X, for now: "My Salvation" by Tally Summers (to "Salvation", by Gabrielle Aplin): "There's a Fine, Fine Line" by Love525600, from the musical Avenue Q. Willow wonders if she's just wasting time feeling how she does. (No, the upgraded version never did get made.) btvsxanderlover (lol, not the subtlest of handles) has "just a Kiss", set to this truncated version of the Lady Antebellum song: And, of course, there are multiple vids set to "You Belong With Me", by Taylor Swift. (Hey, there's a reason Fearless sold 9,000,000 copies, after all. Even if I consider the next two albums Taylor's best work.) But I'll confine myself to just a couple. Here's Laurtew's version: And here's starryeyesxx1 taking a shot (which still isn't the best version I've seen, but as noted, hunting on YT is hard): And here's one set to Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You" (ugh, not sure how I feel about Greg Kurstin's Bombast!Pop…even Taylor was overwhelmed by Max Martin on the latest album), by Nisca RW. The vidder appears to be non-English speaking, so it's hard to get a handle on the storyline, but I think it's supposed to be Xander's thoughts at Willow's bedside in Becoming, Part 2: And let's close with a true classic, "There, There Baby" by Bookworm35, set to "Speeding Cars" by Imogen Heap. Caution for eye-gouge warning: look away when Caleb appears on the screen. (But isn't that good advice for S7, in general?) Xander tries to keep from losing Willow, through the years. Enjoy.
×
×
  • Create New...