On Mar 22, 10:58 am, chr...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> In alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer Arbitrar Of Quality <tsm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> Maybe ME got a taste for casinos in Double Or Nothing?
Back when I first reviewed THAW, people who'd been watching first-run
commented that this was the climax of years of jokes, both on and off
screen, about sending the group to Vegas for a vacation. After the
episode aired, some people expressed relief that now that was out of
their system and we wouldn't have to see anything like that again.
> I'll put it on the high border of Weak. On days
> when I'm feeling generous, I might even go to a low Decent, but that's
not
> today. (Though I've already been writing this in bits and pieces for a
> couple of days; who knows how I'll feel by the time I post it.) [Nope,
> still Weak.]
Heh.
> There's been some discussion about Angel and sidekicks lying to
Cordelia,
> whether or not they could have handled the situation any differently. I
> would agree that there was no way they could reveal everything at once,
> and it's understandable that they would want to start with the less
scary
> parts. But their fatal error was in not immediately telling Cordy
> something substantial, *anything* substantial. Instead Angel's chosen
> approach (after launching a coverup) is to show Cordy her old stuff,
> hoping it will jog her memory. He openly tells Fred the reason: he
wants
> Cordy to remember Angel the man, before they have to explain Angel the
> vampire, as well as vampires in general. And why does he do this?
> Because he's hoping that she'll remember she was in love with him, of
> course. So in a way, it all boils down to Angel putting his romantic
> hopes ahead of Cordelia's best interests.
Good catch; it's right there in the episode too, but we'd been talking
past it.
> I'm doubly happy whenever later seasons of AtS, after the big crossover
> eps of S1 and S2, still reference evetns from BtVS. They could just as
> easily have forgotten the earlier series altogether in their effort to
> establish AtS as its own show.
ATS can't exist without BTVS, despite how different their styles are,
because so many journeys started there. I'm generally a sucker for a
good crossover, for the same reasons so many other viewers are. Even
little stuff (like the Demons, Demons, Demons database showing up
during research scenes on BTVS) make the universe feel a little more
cohesive, and are fun things for us to spot. ATS walked the spinoff
line of remaining heavily influenced by its parent show while
establi****ng its own identity, and I think it did it pretty well.
Of course, alternatively, they could have ignored Buffy coming to back
to life and diverged into a parallel universe, _Knots Landing_
style...
> > I'm curious how much
> > people's feelings about this episode mirror their feelings about the
> > year as a whole. For me, "Slouching" (similar to S4) feels unwieldy
> > in places, but damned if it doesn't end up working pretty nicely.
>
> Unwieldy it is, but I actually like S4 a lot -- more than most people
> here, if I'm not mistaken. However, Slouching isn't that significant to
> me. I remember it mainly for Lilah and Wesley's bet. It's not a bad
> episode by any means, but it's mostly im****tant to me as necessary
> groundwork for the Beast/Jasmine arc.
Well, that's one dissenter from my hypothesis. Ah, well. S4 tends to
inspire more extreme reactions elsewhere online (as opposed to our
notorious happy articulate world of Usenet, where most of the people
who discuss in depth at all have thoughtful things to say). It's the
best or the worst of the series. My brother, who was quite slow to
get into ATS (and is rare in being very bored throughout S2), thought
S4 was definitely the best the show ever got.
-AOQ
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