"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:68087f11-eceb-4976-a170-b09541bfcfab@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>A reminder: These threads are a nightmare. They're a plague.
> They're like a nightmare about a plague.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Six, Episode 4: "Life Serial"
> Writers: David Fury and Jane Espenson
> Director: Nick Marck
>
> Another mostly-light episode with its place in the story, like
> "Flooded." It gives the season a weird shape to have a fair amount of
> comedy clustered into discrete nodes. I find myself with the same
> slightly unpleasant feeling of enjoying myself, but having to make a
> willful effort to ignore some of the leaps in story logic that lead to
> everyone and everything letting Buffy down. Fortunately, with the
> exception of the prole-hating second act, I'm also left with the
> pleasant feeling of smiling a lot. The nerds and their magic bone
> stole the show this time for me, as did Buffy's various reactions to
> the pitiful attempt at a wild drunken night, whereas last time I
> focused more on how quickly the time-****fting at school ramps up and
> on the craftsman****p behind the whole mummy's paw sequence. It's like
> a variety show, where anyone with taste is bound to like something.
> This is not one where I would have guessed how quickly it was slapped
> together. So, are we ever going to find out which writer wrote what
> parts?
> Rating: Good
Definitely Good for me. Granted the plot holes are just too easy to spot
(like if time is running so much slower for Buffy than anyone else in the
first skit, how come no one steals any of her clothes or at least paints a
moustache on her like you'd expect from college students?). The mummy hand
skit is obviously the highlight, and in fact one of the most memorable
incidents of the series. I'm sure you are right that the other skit is
unfair
to construction workers, but then they are comedy construction workers,
and
I'm sure the two customers shown in the mummy hand skit are not truly
representative of occult shop customers. It may be only the effect of
watching it after watching (or not watching as the case may be) AtS start
to
go down the toilet, but for me LS seemed much funnier on this viewing, and
caused me to raise its rating back to around where it was when I first saw
it. It is my 38th favourite BtVS
episode, 3rd best in season 6 (last year was 61st and 5th).
> Season Six, Episode 5: "All The Way"
> Writer: Steven S. DeKnight
> Director: David Solomon
>
The downside is that this episode has been
> criticized for being a hodgepodge of random stuff, which it kinda is,
> but the assorted crap collectively balances action, comedy, and
> weightiness in about the right BTVS-ish pro****tions. Oh, let me
> retrospectively toss some extra credit to Mrs. Quality; if you
> remember, she noticed the show's use of drug metaphors a month before
> it started making them more obvious.
> Rating: Good
Definitely a mixed bad. It's not far from Good for me, but not quite
there.
It's my 83rd favourite BtVS episode, 11th best in season 6 (last year was
84th and 12th).
> Season Six, Episode 6: "Once More, With Feeling"
> Writer: Joss Whedon
> Director: Joss Whedon
>
> Back when I was a _Star Trek_ fan, my opinions changed about the movie
> _Star Trek IV: The One With The Whales_. Specifically, the deeper I
> got fanatically enmeshed in the franchise, the more the movie bothered
> me. The cavalier attitude towards the possibility of time travel, the
> total lack of worry about altering history, the crew making plainly
> 20th-century pop-culture references... all of it seemed more and more
un-
> Trek-like, and as a die-hard, it became harder and harder to ignore
> these misgivings and smile. Then as I discovered other things in the
> world, and the integrity of the ST franchise seemed like less of a big
> deal, I re-discovered my ability to enjoy STIV, a funny and generally
> engaging film. Well, where STIV had Scotty peddling technological
> discoveries on the grounds of "hey, how do we know he doesn't invent
> it?" OMWF has Xander being the one responsible for the spell. Not
> only that, but he continues to hide his involvement after people start
> dropping dead. Remember the part where Xander had seemingly learned
> his lesson long ago about this kind of magic... and even more
> im****tantly, remember the part where our heroes tend to feel a smidgen
> of guilt when they're complicit in the murder of innocent people? On
> one hand, it's a minor aspect of the story being told, something
> thrown in at the end. On the other, if one is to take the Buffyverse
> seriously, that would include this, and it's a major cloud that hangs
> over not only the episode but the rest of the series in which it's
> basically forgotten.
>
> I don't take TV as seriously as I once did. I tend to be in the mind-
> frame where ten seconds of TV, no matter how awful, are very rarely
> enough to negate nearly an hour of brilliance. And "Once More, With
> Feeling" may not be unadulterated plasma brilliance, but it is really
> good. It succeeds strictly on musical grounds - those songs are damn
> catchy, and nicely diverse in style. And it succeeds equally well as
> a piece of Buffyverse drama, the moment when all the secrets explode.
> We all pretty much know how impressive an accomplishment it is without
> me (or anyone) needing to put it into words. So, just three
> highlights for this time since I emphasized different things last
> time: first, the Tara/Giles duet is exquisitely written from a musical
> standpoint as these separate stories intersect in one song (and the
> change in meaning of the "Under Your Spell" lyrics is of course spot
> on). Second is another group moment, the climax of "Walk Through The
> Fire:" although Joss thinks the song should have had more kick, the
> final chorus is perfect for its context. Third, I love Sweet's
> gloating departure as he leaves the cast a changed group, shaken and
> emotionally battered: "See you all in heeeeelllll!"
>
> Meanwhile, in a new development, the episode begins with Buffy
> swearing she'd never have anything to do romantically with Spike, and
> ends with them together.
> Rating: Excellent
I think the achievement of OMWF is all the greater when you look at other
TV
series which have been tempted into a musical - something which generally
only happens when schools of sharks are circling, waiting to be jumped. In
contrast what Whedon has achieved here is not only one of the great BtVS
episodes, but one of the great musicals.
He has an advantage in that BtVS at its best is pretty operatic anyway
(sometimes literally so as where Giles walks upstairs to find Jenny's body
to the tune of Puccini's love duet "O Soave Fanciulla" (O Sweet Girl) from
La Boheme). OMWF is more in touch with the spirit of BtVS than many of the
attempts in later seasons to forge a connection with "real life".
My own resolution of the "Xander Conundrum" may be related to those who
say
that these things happen in musicals, but I think it is simpler than that
-
I just don't care.
For me, this episode is demonstrably Superlative. It is BtVS's
contribution
to great television. It is one of only 6 TV episodes to which I give my
highest rating (1.00). The other 5 are the best episodes of 3 Dennis
Potter
mini-series (The Singing Detective, Pennies from Heaven, and Lipstick on
Your Collar) and of Monty Python (the episode no one ever expects) and
Fawlty Towers (the final episode, "Basil the Rat"). I rate all 6 episodes
of
both The Singing Detective and Pennies From Heaven as better than BtVS's
2nd
best episode (Hush, good as it is), so for me it is on the strength of
OMWF
alone that that BtVS rubs shoulders with the very best of television. It
is
my favourite BtVS episode (by a widening margin) and hence obviously best
in
season 6.
> Season Six, Episode 7: "Tabula Rasa"
> Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
> Director: David Grossman
>
> So, good times... despite being marred by another of the big-ass nagging
> things that dampens my enjoyment of the season - Giles's departure, of
> course. I'll talk about it in the general comments rather than here,
> I think, but I hate it, and most of my "blame" gets ap****tioned to
> "Tabula Rasa."
>
> Rating: Good
A lot of fun things happening in TR (although it had been long enough
since
I'd watched it that I forgot my previously acquired wisdom that much of
this
episode - and especially things like the "loan shark" - is more fun if
watched after a few drinks. And im****tant season developments as well,
especially Willow going way too far for Tara. I don't find that
particularly
convincing. Not that I don't think Willow would be tempted to the dark
side - more that she's smart and should be able to see that the
risk/benefit
balance is stacked against her.
But the big downer is of course Giles leaving. The writers were under the
constraint that ASH wanted a break, but even given that they could have
done
better than having him opt to leave to get Buffy to stand on her own two
feet - the old standby of a coma would have been better than that.
It's still Good for me, but has lost a handful of points, which in the
zone
its in, heavily congested with middling Good season 6 episodes, costs it
several places. It is now my 63rd favourite BtVS episode, 7th best in
season 6 (last year was 56th and 4th).
--
Apteryx
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