A reminder: If these threads were a sign of being evil, where would
they be?
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Season Seven, Episode 12: "Potential"
Writer: Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Director: James A. Contner
I'd remembered Disc 4 as, even more so than the previous one, as a
dark period in BTVS's lifetime. This was the first pleasant surprise,
an episode I'd forgotten how much I liked and how well it holds
together. Well, except for going overboard with Dawn being a bit
stupid - c'mon show, just have her bring a stake to the party and I'll
shut up about it. But there are some bite-sized scenes letting
Potentials (and Clem!) show off their semblance of personalities,
while we follow someone we do care about getting that responsibility
apparently thrown onto her. And even the Dawn haters should have
difficulty with their not caring about her, in the episode's vivid
portrayal of how capable she can be while still being permanently,
intractably out of her league in this world. (This is probably the
example for me in which Dawn best fills the "vulnerable but not
helpless mortal" niche that made S1-2 Willow such a big contributor to
the show.) The extended vampire chase through the school holds up
very well on re-watching - so fast paced. Of course, it's all leading
up to Xander doing that blah blah blah thing he does so well, in a way
that puts the episode in its context while helping summarize the pure-
human characters' part in the larger story. Marvelous scene to
satisfyingly close a bit of an underrated gem.
Rating: Good
Season Seven, Episode 13: "The Killer In Me"
Writer: Drew Z. Greenberg
Director: David Solomon
I don't think of myself (or any of the regulars on a.t.b-v-s, for that
matter) as being hotheaded about it like some in the lunatic fringe of
fandumb, but I don't particularly like the character of Kennedy. At
all. I feel like the annoyance factor is magnified when one has to
view her as suddenly the most important person in Willow's life,
despite the fact that they have little in common and are handed
largely excruciating dialogue. [From Rincewind: "So now it appears
that Willow is ready to date anyone without a penis who will hit on
her."] The fact that Hannigan and Limon have no chemistry at all
helps seal the deal. Mangling Willow's new romance isn't enough,
though - this episode is much more ambitious in its failure. I
continue to like the play of the Willow-as-Warren scene in the living
room with the chaos and the bad touching and such, but even there,
it's dragged down a little by the weakness of the Hannigan/Busch
mixing. As I originally commented, they don't seem like they're even
reading for the same scene, let alone the same character, and this
problem becomes more and more obvious throughout the hour. This is
part of a misconceived faux-clever attempt to trick us into thinking
we're getting into a big cathartic redemption episode, when the twist
at the end is that healing and moving on after Tara are what triggered
and will solve this crisis. Scythe Matters summed it up most
accurately with his assessment of how the show's bait-and-switch
backfires. To paraphrase, introducing Warren means introducing all
the associations that come with him, which the show doesn't actually
address (since that's not what TKIM is about), leaving them hovering
unsatisfyingly and drowning out anything TKIM might have to say about
Willow/Tara/Kennedy.
Meanwhile, the plot is driven largely by characters improbably
happening to wander into the right places at the right time. Oh yeah,
Amy's a pure black-hat villain now, and I enjoy her dialogue and
Allen's relishing of it as much as I bemoan her lack of an arc or any
real coherency to her portrayal. Oh, and this is the one where Spike
gets his chip out, which for some reason requires a bunch of scenes
that don't say much of anything and a "climactic" fight scene that's
drowned in near-total darkness. (David says it's one of his favorite
things he shot in the commentary, making me wonder if everyone's head
was just on wrong that week.) It's kinda sweet that Riley's learned a
few things from his time with Buffy. And we finally tell that Giles
joke, which is okay, although now I can be annoyed since I know that
the original final punchline to the scene was axed. In summary, TKIM
is loaded with ideas that have potential, and there are enough good
lines and good scenes scattered throughout that on the one hand I do
want to properly credit the show for it. But at the same time, it
also deserves special consideration for failing so miserably at
everything it attempts.
Rating: Bad (down from Weak)
Season Seven, Episode 14: "First Date"
Writer: Jane Espenson
Director: David Grossman
The series has decided to give Giles what I find to be a thoroughly
unsatisfying story this season (see OBS's response to the S7D3 post
for more). In this particular episode, it's not pleasant viewing for
someone who's always liked the character (who's never been a saint or
anything to begin with) to see him as alternately a bumbling idiot and
a bumbling guy lashing out in frustration. (Part of the dubious point
of "First Date" is to move him into place for LMPTM.) What the
episode lacks in Rupertosity it makes up for in character work for
Robin Wood and Andrew. The former finally gets to do something other
than act mysterious, emerging as an interesting guy who's managed to
mostly replace bloodlust with matter-of-fact training and cover the
rest up with charm, but still has that streak in him. The episode's
few aspirations towards drama tend to target him, especially in that
killer closing moment. Meanwhile the show lets us know that it, and
Andrew, do actually intend to pursue his redemption story. Here's the
mix of comedy and actual embryonic admirable qualities that
characterizes the better Andrew performances, and here are I believe
the first signs of self-awareness about Jonathan's death. Cameoing
celebrity Ashanti really can't act, but at least she looks real good
in that dress. FD remains a pleasant episode when Giles isn't on
screen, I'm entertained by it, and on re-watching I was tempted to
bump it up a rating. I can't quite go all the way there, and I
actually just now watched it once again to be sure that I couldn't.
FD has some good examples of both subtly getting things right and
wrong. For right, see Buffy's flattered look in response to Wood's
"you're the Slayer," or even better, the hilarious mini-pout Gellar
does whenever anyone suggests that Buffy might not be a great
counselor. For wrong, see the completely gratuitous line "it's not in
the headphones. It's out here."
Rating: Decent
Season Seven, Episode 15: "Get It Done"
Writer: Douglas Petrie
Director: Douglas Petrie
The idea of this episode doesn't work for me in a few places. The
entire Shadow Men sequence gets more unpleasant every time I see it,
on several levels. I don't think the show benefits from going so
overt with the evil-patriarchy thing, and besides, I just don't
generally like rape/violation/whatever analogies unless they're really
necessary. I go back on forth on whether I see the basis for Buffy
going all leader-from-hell on her friends, and how much we're meant to
admire the results, although the fact that I think about it at all may
be a good sign in itself. But when I tried seeing if I could come up
with ten really good things about the episode, I quickly lost count.
Just a few parts that'd be on that list would include the Spike/Wood
non-confrontation, the lengthy scene that takes us seamlessly from
humor to shock value to high drama to name-checking Tigger, Dawn
having a good episode and keeping her head, the shadow puppets, and
the one and only minute in the series during which I'm feeling the
Willow/Kennedy relationship. The whole episode is studded with well-
done scenes. The music is great when the stories climax too. Despite
my misgivings about what GID, uh, gets done, it generally does those
things stylishly enough to make for a solid bit of TV. I kinda feel
like something in this mini-run ought to get upgraded to Good, and it
might as well be this one.
Rating: Good (up from Decent)
Additional comments on S7D4: The show _Dexter_ is screwing with my
perception a little bit, since Drew Greenberg (this is the last time
I'll single him out to pick on. Probably) is a producer-type, and
both the show in general and the first episode for which he's the
credited writer are quite good. In a simpler world, one could just
dismiss a man who would create both "Him" and "The Killer In Me"
within the same season as someone who would never make a positive
contribution to entertainment, but this world is complicated.
I already hit the topic of Andrew's sexual orientation - or lack
thereof, since I concluded that he's basically asexual - in a previous
response. I do remember that I speculated a few times during the
first run-through about whether the show was trying to set something
up between him and Dawn. Their scenes are brief, but talk about
clicking; as the characters start to warm to each other, the actors
have what could turn out to be amazing chemistry. Speaking as a
viewer, there's something there. What it is I'm not quite sure, since
so little time was devoted to it. Not necessarily romantic or
anything like that; I simply was and is disproportionately attentive
to the developing friendship between these two young'uns. Sadly, the
series seems to have lost whatever interest it ever had in that
dynamic, and later episodes will instead use Anya as the Scoobie who
develops a sort of understanding with Andrew, which also works pretty
okay. I'm telling you, though, there was a missed opportunity
somewhere.
Rincewind was posting "things you'll never here on Buffy" rewrites of
key scenes; I forget where he was getting them from - possibly the
TwoP forums or something. "Potential" sparked my favorite of the set:
BUFFY: Because if you make that one mistake, then it's over. You're
not the
Slayer... you're not a Potential... you're dead. So what do you
know? Right
now, the only thing you know for sure? You got me.
(She drops the stake, backs out of the crypt with Spike and slams the
door,
locking the terrified potentials inside with the vampire.)
SPIKE: Buffy, please... People are going to die.
BUFFY: And yet, somehow, I just can't seem to care.
Thoughts?
-AOQ
|
