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BtVS in the Media

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DkNNy79
DkNNy79

Any proper HR department would be horrified if one of their managers acted the way Joss Whedon did towards Charisma.  

shantown
shantown

I really do not understand this argument that keeps being made. "He was so busy, it was stressful to have so many jobs, boo hoo" - Like what on earth? If he was so busy that he couldn't handle it he s

secnarf
secnarf

NO. There has never been ANY indication that he is on the autistic spectrum, nor would this behaviour be acceptable (or expected) from someone on the spectrum. The "joke" was never "fine". H

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lembergwatcher

lembergwatcher

On 4/5/2020 at 10:48 PM, Halting Hex said:

You might have mentioned that the article was over four years old.  I rushed over to vote for my Scoobies, only to find that such an impulse was even less timely than [/any number of 2016-based jokes that might violate the "no politics" rule; use your imagination].  I trust the gang slayed all the competition, right to the end?  Who could beat them?

Dawson and Joey is the most boring TV couple ever. I never knew whether to yawn or... yawn harder while watching their interactions. If you think about it, they make Buffy & Spike or even Xander & Anya look decent by comparison... 

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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

True, how could they ever hope to compete with Saint Pacey the Unappreciated??  He rented a wall for her! He ran off a bully! He always brings her an extra napkin with the popcorn to catch the butter!  Does Dawson do that?  No, that…lout!  Grrr.

Totally makes up for Pacey manipulating her into surrendering her virginity and then wanting her to tell her sister so he can have bragging rights.  (Or, if she's too shy to 'fess up to the woman who's essentially raising her just to fluff his ego, how about HIS sister, instead?)  He's not a self-involved douchebag at ALL!

I used to wonder if Pacey was more Oz or Spike, as one-dimensional "squeee!" fixations went.  I think he's technically Spike in the Oz role, if that makes sense.

And, to be fair, not an unrepentant serial killer.  At least, not that we know.

(A Fred/Gunn 'shipper calling another couple "boring"??  My head spins and explodes…) [/JMO]

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lembergwatcher

lembergwatcher

4 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

True, how could they ever hope to compete with Saint Pacey the Unappreciated??

Did I mention Pacey? I never said I liked the other guy. Although there's some cosmic justice or whatever in the fact that Princess Joey Potter chose him instead of Dawson. As for douchebag-ism Dawson beats Pacey 2:1 most of the time.

5 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

A Fred/Gunn 'shipper calling another couple "boring"??  My head spins and explodes…

If Fred/Gunn had as much screen-time as D/J endless introspection had, your comparison could've been somewhat credible. 

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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

39 minutes ago, lembergwatcher said:

If Fred/Gunn had as much screen-time as D/J endless introspection had, your comparison could've been somewhat credible. 

To quote my boy HJ Nest, "sometimes a little is enough".  Frunn hardly needed lead-couple amounts of screen time to send me to Snoozeville.  I could catch z's with them on-screen as quickly as Xander on Oz-watch.

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lembergwatcher

lembergwatcher

You know, you're probably right. It is true that Frunn lacks all the passion, intensity and Weltschmerz that accompany Buffy/Angel, Wesley/Fred or Buffy/Spike melodrama. And how can someone like Charles Gunn even think about competing with shiny intellectuals with two last names?

But I can live with that. I can turn a blind eye on many things since Fred/Gunn is the only canon relationship that involves two people I like. Snoozeville or not, but I do like that 'ship (as flawed and imperfect as it is) much-much more than watching my favorite characters (Willow, Xander) dating one-dimensional "perfect" (i.e. boring) characters (Oz, Tara) or totally annoying ones (Anya).

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lembergwatcher

lembergwatcher

19 hours ago, Halting Hex said:

I used to wonder if Pacey was more Oz or Spike, as one-dimensional "squeee!" fixations went.  I think he's technically Spike in the Oz role, if that makes sense.

Spike & Pacey? That's an interesting comparison, I must say. I wonder what would've happened if those two actually met? I even have a name for a (possible) 'ship: Spacey.

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Joe Hellandback

Joe Hellandback

17 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Spike & Pacey? That's an interesting comparison, I must say. I wonder what would've happened if those two actually met? I even have a name for a (possible) 'ship: Spacey.

I'm sure there's a fanfic! 

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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

Out of My Mind does make the implicit comparison, where Spike (watching Dawson's on TV) calls Pacey a "blind idiot" for being unable to see that Joey doesn't love him.  And, as this is the episode where Spike himself has the dream that sends him tumbling into his "exciting new obsession" with Buffy, apparently Kirshner intends us to think that his pursuit of Buffy is equally doomed.

And then the remaining three seasons of both series happened.  Le Sigh.

(I'll give Spike some credit.  At least he never attempted to become a stockbroker.)

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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

(edited)

I don't really know if "other forums" qualify as "the media", but I couldn't think of a better alternative, so here this is.

I read a variety of forums on a variety of topics, and one of them is not TV-focused at all, but they do allow off-topic threads, and recently somebody created one looking for suggestions of series that "never jumped the shark".  Somebody nominated BtVS as such (while allowing that opinions vary on the UPN years) and, as I don't have posting privileges on that board, all I could do is roll my eyes so furiously that you probably heard it.  (Sorry about that.)

Fortunately, shortly afterwards, some other anonymous person said what IMO needed saying:

Quote

"Buffy" for me is the classic example of a show that completely jumped the shark.

Great first few seasons, and then we had the introduction of Dawn, who was completely artificially and unconvincingly grafted onto the show; the "Dark Willow" storyline where Willoiw went insane hideously killed someone (and not a word was said afterwards when she got all better and apologized for being evil); and then the last few seasons when Joss Whedon--furious at Fox for telling him what to do--added in every episode a blindingly boring speech from Buffy about how she knew best because she was in charge and everyone who didn't like that could just leave.

Intriguing idea that Buffy's "General" speeches are meant as Joss railing against studio interference.  Thoughts?

Edited by Halting Hex
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Perfect Xero

Perfect Xero

I don't know about the studio, I was always under the impression that Network interference (which is obviously different from the studio) and S&P went down quite a bit when they switched to UPN.

I always thought it was Joss "give the audience what they need, not what they want" Whedon railing against the fanbase who had become increasingly critical and, in some cases hostile toward him and the creative direction of the show for various reasons and possibly some of the actors and writers who had issues with the direction the show had gone.

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Joe Hellandback

Joe Hellandback

On 6/12/2020 at 6:16 PM, Halting Hex said:

I don't really know if "other forums" qualify as "the media", but I couldn't think of a better alternative, so here this is.

I read a variety of forums on a variety of topics, and one of them is not TV-focused at all, but they do allow off-topic threads, and recently somebody created one looking for suggestions of series that "never jumped the shark".  Somebody nominated BtVS as such (while allowing that opinions vary on the UPN years) and, as I don't have posting privileges on that board, all I could do is roll my eyes so furiously that you probably heard it.  (Sorry about that.)

Fortunately, shortly afterwards, some other anonymous person said what IMO needed saying:

Intriguing idea that Buffy's "General" speeches are meant as Joss railing against studio interference.  Thoughts?

I never saw it as that although I always thought Adam Baldwin's character in Angel did represent the corporate suits (I wonder if they ever caught onto this and that's why they were cancelled?)

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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

(edited)

Hey, it's been almost 22 years since Pruitt decided that Whedon was trying to kill the woman he loved (Joss didn't like how Sophia did the "Buffy gets hit by a truck" shot in Anne and wanted a re-take; Jeff objected, strenuously), so I'm hardly surprised that he's still banging his drum any chance he gets.  But I don't find him any more credible than before.

I'm sure Joss has been a dick, time and again.  And if he tried to blackball Jeff, that sucks.  But, given what Jeff was writing about Joss during Season Four, perhaps understandable.

And let's not forget, it's not as if Jeff lacks for ego, either.  During Season Two, he was basically claiming half-credit for the show.  Sorry, "helped out with the blocking of the fight scenes" isn't quite the same as "finding ways to break our hearts with the long-term plots, overseeing all the writing, and directing the crucial episodes yourself", as Whedon was doing.  I mean, it's nice that Jeff and Sophia were a notable improvement over the "punch-pause, kick-pause" completely static fight work that the justly-fired Jeff Smolek turned in during Season 1 (did you know that Smolek got bumped back down to "stuntman" after that?  No more coordinator jobs for him, it seems), but they were not irreplaceable;  John Medlen and the new stunt girls eventually got their chops together.  I don't think anybody complained about the fight work in Fool for Schmoop or Very Pretty Crap, my mocking of the episodes as a whole aside.  And I still adore the overhead flip-kick that Buffy nails Glory with during Tough Love.

And there are times when Pruitt is just plain wrong, such as his saying that SMG was rude to fans during the location shoot for I Only Have Eyes for You and those fans came out on a cold night and omg what a bitca Sarah is!  Unfortunately for Jeff, we have the dailies for that one (I think they're still on YouTube) and while they're mostly ASH tackling Future Academy Award™ Nominee John Hawkes, again and again (and I agree this is largely useless unless you're trying to envision a Uther Pendragon/Sol Starr pornfic, for whatever ghastly reason), they also do show Sarah freezing her tiny ass off and utterly spent emotionally and unable to properly cry and needing Boreanaz to comfort her.  So the idea that Sarah was just being an egocentric diva is as off-base as Xander's suggestion of nuking the school…and nowhere near as much fun.

So I take Pruitt's critiques with a very jaundiced eye.  Which, to be fair, is almost as longstanding as Jeff's own grudge, so you may take me with appropriate grains of salt as well, I suppose.

Edited by Halting Hex
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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

Only two?  I can think of four regulars of the top of my head, all staggeringly one-dimensional.  And I'd argue that UPN years make a pretty strong case for putting Miss Buffy herself on that list.

But of course, who does go there?  The Xan-man himself.  Was he cited for being a "Nice Guy" (omg the horrors!) or for his "toxic masculinity"?  I chose not to read below the headline.

(Interesting that none of the Big Bads were cited.  IMO at least four of them have rather vocal detractors.  Huh.)

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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

Interesting to note that I wouldn't put any of the six S1-S2 regulars on that list (my frustrations at later Buffy aside), but of the six "newer" regulars added from S3 onwards, four are those whose omission I'm amazed by, and the other two are already on the list.  (One I'd disagree with, but I can see the case.)

I'd say this shows my reluctance to accept change, but I did become a regular viewer during S3, after all.  Hmmm.

 

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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

(edited)
On 9/27/2020 at 10:52 AM, lembergwatcher said:

2014 article

14 Future Stars Who Appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/58019/14-future-stars-who-appeared-buffy-vampire-slayer

Really?  We're putting "Sarah Silverman's sister [in a non-speaking part, under makeup]" in the same class as Wentworth Miller, Amy Adams and Rachel Bilson?   And "the choreographer from Glee"?  Come now.

Omissions:  

• Persia White (Aura, Welcome to the Hellmouth) went on to star in Girlfriends, and other parts of that whole family of "empowered black female" sitcoms, IIRC.

• Tamara Braun (Tara [vampire], When She Was Bad) built a big career on the soaps, afterwards.  Not sure if she got any Daytime Emmy™s, but she got work, for sure.  (Tamara also appears as a random girl in BB&B).

• Coby Bell (frat pledge, Reptile Boy) became a regular on no less than four multiple-season series (Third Watch, The Game, Burn Notice, The Gifted) and probably will get work for as long as he is young(-ish) and buff.

• Jason Behr (Ford, Lie to Me), turned that WB Meat Farm contract into a supporting role in Dawson's Creek S2, and then the lead in the original Roswell.  Which still means he's been a has-been for almost 20 years, but better that than a never-was.

• Jeremy Ratchford (Lyle Gorch, pleased to meet you, Bad Eggs) picked up a notable number of paychecks supporting Kathryn Morris in Cold Case, afterwards.

• John Hawkes (George the janitor, IOHEFY) had a memorable supporting role on Deadwood and was nominated for an Academy Award for Winter's Bone.

And so many others that we've discussed here.  Sarah Silverman's sister, ffs.

 

Edited by Halting Hex
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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

On a different note, this past Wednesday (7 October) saw Giles get some more love from Jeopardy! The category was about librarians in the media, and this was the answer:

Quote

Rupert Giles was Watcher and trainer to this TV series title character;  being Sunnydale High Librarian was only a side job.

I not only appreciated our apparent fan on staff, but I was going to give them props for specifying "title character".  Because otherwise you could also use Faith in your question, right?

But…could you?  Is Giles ever officially Faith's Watcher?

We know that Gwendolyn Post, Mrs, falsely claims to be in  Revelations, and Wesley twice asserts authority in Consequences ("I'm your commander, now"  and "I am here to…watch…girls.  Buffy and Faith, specifically."), but does Faith's "you get the Watcher" during her "this was supposed to be my town!" rant in Enemies indicate that she was never in Giles's charge, just hanging around until somebody new arrived to put her under their auspices?  I'm not sure, myself.

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Joe Hellandback

Joe Hellandback

On 10/15/2020 at 10:22 PM, Halting Hex said:

On a different note, this past Wednesday (7 October) saw Giles get some more love from Jeopardy! The category was about librarians in the media, and this was the answer:

I not only appreciated our apparent fan on staff, but I was going to give them props for specifying "title character".  Because otherwise you could also use Faith in your question, right?

But…could you?  Is Giles ever officially Faith's Watcher?

We know that Gwendolyn Post, Mrs, falsely claims to be in  Revelations, and Wesley twice asserts authority in Consequences ("I'm your commander, now"  and "I am here to…watch…girls.  Buffy and Faith, specifically."), but does Faith's "you get the Watcher" during her "this was supposed to be my town!" rant in Enemies indicate that she was never in Giles's charge, just hanging around until somebody new arrived to put her under their auspices?  I'm not sure, myself.

No, I'm pretty sure at the end of FH&T he says that he will remain her watcher until a replacement arrives. 

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Halting Hex

Halting Hex

On 11/2/2020 at 9:33 AM, lembergwatcher said:

TV Guide, 1997

 

TV Guide, 1997.jpg

Dang, that's some sort of "Spring Update" issue, I take it?  I remember checking out my copy of the '96 Fall Preview and finding it disappointingly Hellmouth-free.  

Love that whole photoshoot, which the credits tell us was shot by Greg Lavy.  Love to love you, Lavy.

On 11/6/2020 at 1:23 PM, illdoc said:

Not 1. Not 2. Not 3. But 4 Buffyverse vamps (the usual suspects) made the list: https://tvline.com/gallery/best-tv-characters-vampires-ranked-all-time-photos/buffy-angel-2/

Let me guess…the Anointed, Boone, Cyrus, and Zach, right?

(Sorry, Dru…I refuse to even click on your friends.)

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Joe Hellandback

Joe Hellandback

23 hours ago, lembergwatcher said:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: 10 Ways Buffy Got Worse And Worse

https://screenrant.com/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-10-ways-buffy-got-worse-and-worse/

Unfair, this is growth, everything she did was understandable. 

https://screenrant.com/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-behind-scenes-photos-change-show/

These are great, the ones with Joss and ED are very interesting, we never did find out who his mistresses in the cast were?  

 

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lembergwatcher

lembergwatcher

(edited)

Very funny piece actually. Half of those "reasons" do not make X/W necessary "bad" or "fake" friends in any way, shape or form ("Willow Did Not Support His Relationship With Anya" - does it really make her a bad friend??), half of them are outright foolish ("Willow Couldn't Tell Xander Had A Doppelganger", "They Always Need A Third Person In Their Group") and others are blatant lies ("Xander Was Oblivious To Willow's Feelings", "They Bring Out The Worst In Each Other", "Xander Used Willow").

According to the author's "logic", Buffy & Willow weren't real friends either since they too didn't have too much in common, lost touch after high school, brought out the worst in each other sometimes and Willow failed to notice Buffy was a robot. And I still don't see too many similarities between, say, Willow and Oz. Apart from height and probably the color of the eyes.

Does the person who wrote this piece really believe all friends/lovers are obliged to belong to the same social group or whatever and share EVERYTHING - from lifestyles & clothing to the choice of partners and political views? Like, for example, wicca has to be friends and more with another wicca (Willow & Tara), Angel's fan with another Angel's fan (Buffy & Willow) or people who like insulting each other and broom closets are doomed to date solely one of their kind (Cordy & Xander)? Then we have supernatural demon fighters (Buffy & Angel, Willow & Kennedy), supernatural sex junkies (Buffy & Spike), non-superpowered losers (Xander & Anya, Xander & Dawn), champions (Angel & Cordy), teachers (Giles & Jenny), geeks (Andrew & Jonathan, Andrew & Xander), shining intellectuals (Wesley & Fred, Willow & Giles, Willow & Fred, Willow & Wesley), cool kids (Oz & Willow)? Opposites can never be friends, not to mention attract each other, right? 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 10 Reasons Why Willow & Xander Aren't Real Friends

https://screenrant.com/buffy-vampire-slayer-willow-xander-fake-friends/

Edited by lembergwatcher
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