"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:3e828a99-18ad-40d8-bcb4-76d9640e5216@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Jan 25, 4:40 pm, "One Bit Shy" <O...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
>>
messagenews:26ffbcd7-aeb3-488b-9c47-dfda2be1862c@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> >
>> > Season Six, Episode 13: "Older And Far Away"
>> > Writer: Drew Z. Greenberg
>> > Director: Michael E. Gershman
>>
>> > This is easily my favorite of Drew's contributions, a distinction
akin
>> > to the proverbial "world's tallest midget" honor. I'm just impressed
>> > at how a theoretically Dawn-centric episode can fail so completely
>> > with its Dawn storyline and generally be good in spite of it. I tend
>> > to lose patience with characters who are loud and irritating even
when
>> > it's understandable, and reacting to life-threatening containment
>> > spells with "hihi" ain't understandable.
>
> Snipped out the response, but that hurts to read. This is the problem
> with not editing if one writes in pieces, leaving blocks of "hihihi"
> place-holders for some nonexistent time when you'll look up the
> appropriate quote.
>
>> Tara cracks me up this episode. I also appreciate the simple way she
>> explains her understanding of Buffy's situation by referring to Buffy's
>> reluctance to tell people about Spike as not coming out. An economy of
>> words that I've never been able to achieve.
>> >
>> > The Willow/Tara, W/T/everyone else yelling at them, and
>> > Xander/Anya moments speak for themselves, really, but jump out at me
>> > for believability of dialogue while incorporating the personalities
of
>> > these characters we know so well. These are good people to spend a
>> > little time with, even if you're dying to get out by the end.
>>
Jumping in here now that Anya has been mentioned -- I always felt
that Anya suddenly
deciding to rummage through Dawn's room was just a contrivance to have her
find the Magic Box
trinkets she nicked. There didn't seem to be any real reason for it.
>> Most of the episode is positively cheerful. And even the scary parts
offer
>> happy endings. I note that Buffy mostly acts very normal and - well -
Buffy
>> like. Sometimes even chipper. ("Ooh. Shiny.") The natural Buffy
>> personality is snuck into various places this year a lot more often
than the
>> dirge like reputation of the season might suggest.
>
> I like the party! Buffy gets to be surrounded by friends in a house
> that's so safe that no one wants to leave.
>
>> Sometimes I like to think of Riley and (mainly) Sam as demony products
of
>> the Sunnydale effect. (Inner demons come to life, blah-blah.) That's
very
>> consistent with BtVS's traditional use of metaphor - just a little
sneaky in
>> using a past character as its embodiment. One of the nice things about
the
>> Sunnydale effect is that you can blame so many problems on it. (Oh,
it's
>> just the hellmouth at work.) So what if Riley didn't properly tell
Buffy
>> what's going on? He's a hellmouth demon out to mess with Buffy, not
deal
>> with her straight.
>
> I prefer to think of former series regulars as characters that we
> should (theoretically, anyway) care about for their own sake, no
> matter how plot-devicey they may also be.
>
>> > You know what I
>> > think my problem is? As far as I'm concerned, this part of the story
>> > was over after "Dead Things."
>>
>> I've thought about this some more since our prior exchange. I think
the
>> simplest distinction - the reason that this part of the story wasn't
over
>> after Dead Things - is that the stripping away of illusion in DT acted
to
>> accentuate Buffy's self loathing. She thought she was more worthless
than
>> ever. Here is where she found her self worth again.
>
> The story of Buffy's self-worth extends beyond the relationship with
> Spike. That's as much symptom as cause. So the mere fact that this
> episode is about the former doesn't necessitate another get-back-
> together and break-up. I could almost see things getting worse for
> her sans-"haven"/pre-Riley, for example. That's simply the way AYW
> chooses to portray this bit of the arc, so any further "what-iffing"
> is impossible without turning it into a totally different episode; my
> only point is that that's not the only way to play it.
>
> As I've mentioned before, I'm also reacting somewhat to the ever-
> popular "depiction." Nothing on the B/S front in AYW resonates all
> that strongly with me, whatever its thematic purpose may be. The
> other thing for me is just that repetition kills momentum. "As You
> Were" starts with Spike getting back into Buffy's pants after she
> seemingly closed the door on it in "Dead Things," which she had to do
> after getting back together with him in "Gone" after trying to wash
> her hands of him in "Wrecked," which is in turn the third episode in a
> row to begin with Buffy rejecting Spike the morning after a hot and
> heavy moment with him. How is the viewer to know that this time we
> really mean that they're done sleeping together? (That itself is part
> of the story - Spike doesn't think that this rejection will be more
> permanent than the others - but it also weakens some of what the end
> of AYW is trying to accomplish.) You have issues with all the times
> Buffy and Angel try to break up in S3, and I have them here - sure,
> some of the details are different on this occasion, so there's some
> possibility that they might really mean it, but that was true last
> time too.
>
> -AOQ
|
