Arbitrar Of Quality <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:a1bad5f4-8477-4684-9270-0262824a8fd4@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> 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
She IS an important person in Willow's life, but not the most
important person, not at any time during Season 7.
, 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.
I didn't see there as being any "bait-and-switch". It was just
picking one of several logical ways for the story to go.
>
> 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)
I, on the other hand, liked this episode a lot. I liked the
beginnings of the Willow/Kennedy romance. I think they click well
together and that Kennedy is very much (just as Oz and Tara were
before her) the sort of person Willow needs at this particular time.
I liked the banter between Willow and Buffy (and Buffy and Giles
before that), and the interaction between Buffy and Spike. I liked
the Willow/Warren switch and how it played out. And the plotline
leading up to the decision to remove Spike's chip. And while the
Giles-may-be-the-First joke had long outlived its welcome I did like
the immediate prelude to the punchline (starting with Anya, Xander,
and Dawn feeding off of each's other's panic). In short, I thought
just about everything in this episode worked well. A solid good for
me.
>
>
> 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.
Not really. What's happening to Giles is that (between suddenly
going from a somewhat rebellious Watcher to BEING the Watcher's
Council and also being in a situation outside all of his experience)
is that he's tending to fall back on his training in most matters
EXCEPT for his relationship with Buffy. Most of what Giles is doing
follows naturally from this.
--
Michael Ikeda mmikeda@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
|
