Well, why not? (I will not actually pay any attention to the multiple good reasons why not.) In no particular order, some impressions.
"Teacher's Pet"
A big Musetta Vander shaped mantis is totally going to eat some virgins, dude! is the pitch.
What kind of chair has legs that just easily snap off into sharpened sticks, is the first thing I wonder. I guess I should excuse dream sequences. Then, Xander should totally start playing the show's theme song in his big guitar moment, but he doesn't.
This teacher seems reasonable and friendly, which puts him in a vanishingly small minority in Sunnydale. Though a high school biology teacher who wears a lab coat while lecturing seems more than a little pretentious. Anyway he is, of course, brutally murdered by an unexpected big green arm.
I think monsters must concentrate on eating only competant and trustworthy authority figures. Though I guess that doesn't explain Principal Flutie.
I wrote down in my notes how I was not convinced by the guitar miming skillz of this guy who is supposed to be rocking out in the Bronze (for real this time), but maybe this is one of the real bands they have from time to time? Then he has time to smirk at Xander? (I should note, though, that at the only rock concert I've been to I was totally terrified of looking like a big nerd in front of my rock idols.)
I think I am just repeating myself by this point, but Xander and Willow seem to go out a lot for alleged nerds.
Angel says Buffy looks cold. She's in a rock club full of teenagers jumping around in Southern California. It is just an excuse for him to show off his biceps.
"Be very afraid of this one vampire with a claw hand!" is Angel's important message of the week.
I like it when characters look pleased with their own jokes.
Dopey synth music cue to introduce the sexy substitute (and, spoiler: secret giant mantis). She proceeds to charm all the boys with sexy talk of insect mating habits.
It seems to me that a dead body found in the kitchen would be serious bad news, from a hygenic point of view.
Buffy's fight with the clawed vampire is interupted by. . . the police? Like, some guy was eviscerated and they think that maybe it is a good idea to step up patrols? Whoa, crazy!
Really, the whole school should probably be shut down for counseling. Or maybe, I don't know, some sort of investigation? Just theorizing here.
Now she is seducing boys with sexy test answers.
Now she is rotating her head all the way around in clear view of everyone in class, though no one notices. She is not really concerned with keeping up her disguise.
Guitar solo!
Insects on a sandwich, but what really puts me off is the combination of mayonaisse and crickets.
"Poor old Carlyle, before he went mad. . ." I bet Giles has to insert the latter half of that phrase into many of his conversations.
What's this? Buffy thinks someone is a big monster? I better totally disregard her advice.
And then there is this Greek food joke that I don't get.
I realize that her whole plan revolves around rape and murder, but serving alcohol to her underage students is just kind of creepy.
Is she a mantis demon, then? I mean, what's the taxonomic lowdown? Like, she's afraid of bat sonar, apparently.
There are a lot of flashbacks to earlier in the episode.
I think her whole plan would run more smoothly if she waited until later in it to switch from lady form to mantis form.
Then, the end.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:Really, the whole school should probably be shut down for counseling. Or maybe, I don't know, some sort of investigation?
Well, things like this aren't uncommon in Sunnydale. IIRC, near the end of the third season, someone pointed out that Buffy's class has the lowest body count of any graduating class ever.
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
quote: Insects on a sandwich, but what really puts me off is the combination of mayonaisse and crickets.
Don't these people know about mustard!!!!!
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I would watch along and comment, but my DVD collection contains Angel season 2 and, er, that's it. (Although I do have Buffy seasons 3 and 4 and Angel season 1 on video. Thanks a lot, Sony and Philips.)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, someday I will get to those seasons. Or in one case back to that season. Or perhaps I will find something constructive to do with my time.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Nah.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, with that ringing endorsement: "Never Kill A Boy On The First Date"
Puns! Or is that technically a pun? More a play on words, I guess. Anyway, uh, Buffy goes out on a date. But it is interrupted by, surprise, vampires. But this time they have a big plan!
"Oh, that's great! I kill them, you fence their stuff!" A fine plan, really, only most vampires don't leave any stuff behind. I'm pretty sure that if you leave a stake in one while it goes up the stake goes too, but on the other hand people touch them sometimes while they're vaporizing, and don't seem to suffer from any ill effects. I don't know why I'm even saying this.
Whatever vampire religion it is the Master represents, it sure has a lot of sects and orders.
Oh wow, Owen Thurman! That weird kid who doesn't go out much and moons over Emily Dickenson. I guess in Sunnydale all you need to seem mysterious is a Livejournal where you post Smith lyrics all the time. Except Owen can't be too weird, because he is also supposed to be dreamy. It is sort of a weird confluence, is what I'm getting at.
I always get the impression, here in this shuttlebus attack sequence, that the bus is just randomly circling around in the middle of nowhere. Like, it just seems to be out there, and you don't usually see shuttlebuses plying darkened suburban streets. Or I don't think. I mean, are they on their way to the airport?
Here is my ornate pocket watch. I wrote that down, but I can't remember who was giving it to whom, but apparently it was worth commenting on. Who even has a pocket watch? Probably Giles.
Also, here is what I wonder about the Master's plan: Five people die and one becomes the chosen one. But, spoiler: it isn't who it appears to be. So did they turn all five into vampires, and choose the chosen one from that pool, or what?
Poor, poor Xander. Hey, want to come over to Buffy's house and help her pick out a dress to wear on her hot date? The only proper response is no. Yet there he is.
Even Cordelia is all over Owen.
That lampshade really adds to the integrity of the baracade, guys. Good work. (Because they are trying to block a door, see.)
Some unnecessary gymnastics and an (from his perspective) unfortunately slippery gurney finish of this vampire quickly enough.
Cut to Xander and Willow enjoying juice the next day.
And the moral Owen learned from an evening being chased around a mortuary by a reanimated corpse: fighting is totally rad! I wonder if he survived high school.
Inbetween wanting to be a fighter pilot or a grocer, and accepting the inevitability of his career as a Watcher, Giles leaves out the part where he ran away to London and joined a band and worshipped Satan for a few years.
Twist ending! The evil chosen one is actually innoccous small boy Colin. Only I don't think they mention his name in this episode.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I gasp in shock at that.
Actually (and rather sadly), the main thing I remember about that episode is that during the final fight, all I could think of was "wow, everyone must be able to see right up Buffy's dress."
I am lonely.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"The Pack"
Some bullies and Xander get possessed by hyena spirts, and go nuts.
This episode features some of the most well-groomed and attractive high school bullies. These kids really ought to be too busy keeping up with their hip lifestyles to have much time left over for focused bullying. Surely random, Cordelia-style snarking would be more their speed?
Willow and Xander open up the episode by being very excited about zebra sex. Did I mention they were at the zoo? Anyway. I guess this is foreshadowing for the sexual frustrations which are to follow.
For good measure, some chimpanzee footage.
Already I don't trust this zookeeper, with his creepy hyena legends. Is he even qualified for the job?
Xander discovers courage, and then gets possessed. But, hang on, not to get ahead of myself, but I thought it required a "predatory act?"
Let's all go to the rock club and eat some croissants!
All things considered, Xander isn't really acting any more unusual while possessed than he usually acts.
"Kid's fat." I like how he assumes the problem is that Willow and Buffy don't get the joke.
Is the library, and the part of the library right in front of the entrance, really the best place for covert martial arts training?
Xander possessed has very little time for math homework. When is he ever going to have to use geometry out on the savannah?
The hyena kids ruthlessly turn on their own in an aggressive dodgeball match.
Xander's in with the rock/stoner kids?
Poor pig.
This slow-motion walk with accompanying emo guitar song is lengthy.
Willow here reminds me of Fry being disappointed when Bender doesn't try to kill him while possessed in Futurama.
I'd think this attempt at sexual assault would make things awfully awkward later.
And now, the part of the episode that gets me, in the sense of I can't quite buy it, or, I can, but it is too weird. The hyena kids eat the principal and no one hears. I put it to you that beating and biting a human being to death is not a quiet operation. Plus, like, they kill the principal! I mean, they were just mean bullies before, and now they are in serial killer territory.
"The official theory is wild dogs got into his office somehow." Holy crap! At least nobody knows how to deal with vampires, but wild dogs? The town would freak out!
Anyway, there are a lot of extreme closeups in this episode.
Also, the blond hyena girl is pretty cute, and I'm pretty sure she was in the short-lived (and terrible) Cleopatra 2525 with Gina Torres. Or, I don't know, maybe normal standards of good and bad no longer apply to shows designed to appeal to the Xena/Hercules demographic.
You know, attempting to kill Willow, as the (now revealed to be) evil zookeeper attempts here, seems like overkill, when the bullies managed to do the job with simple bullying, unless we're supposed to believe that they really were going to feed that kid to the hyenas in the beginning.
And the end. But Xander remembers the whole thing. So what about the others? They killed a man and ate his flesh! There must be entire psychological journals devoted to Sunnydale High School.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Addendum: Cleopatra 2525 wasn't really, like, terrible, in the pedestrian sense. I mean, it was too weird to make much sense but not weird enough to be Lexx, is basically the deal. Call it mediocre eccentricity, which is in some ways more tiring than plain mediocrity.
I think this is going to be a double post.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I got the impression they were shooting for the whole Zena: Lesbian Fanbase with that show.
Lame show.
The women were very purdy though.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"Angel"
Angel is a vampire, and there is teenage romance.
Hey Colin, want to throw some rocks into my blood pond?
The three. Defining characteristic: there are three of them. Ominous!
Vampires should have thought up this attack-the Slayer-in-groups-larger-than-one strategy months ago. Even though Angel ruins it.
"Run!" Two of the three are doubled over in pain right then, though. You could probably stake them.
Describing (and justifying) Angel to Buffy's mother: "He's a student. First year community college." Now there's a community college in town too?
I sure hope no one ever needs to get into this locker in the library where all the deadly weapons are kept. On the other hand, I never bothered to poke around in all the cupboards and closets in my high school library.
Did Angel just hide in Buffy's closet all day? This relationship is getting off to an odd start. I mean, even ignoring the vampire thing.
Cordelia just sort of randomly collides with this episode and then just as quickly bounces away. "What?" Oh no, she's overheard! But, no, it is just some business about designer clothing.
I wonder how Darla found herself back in the Master's fold. And what about Angel's soul, which so freaked her out the first time she encountered him? Though I guess maybe she just isn't clear on the mechanics of a vampire ensoulment curse. (That is, once we decide to overlook the fact that none of that other stuff had been thought up yet.)
This tragic case of mistaken identity will not be the last. And how to explain the broken window?
If Angel really wanted Buffy to kill him, he shouldn't have changed back to his human face. But I guess he wouldn't be a conflicted vampire with a soul if he wasn't, you know, conflicted.
All vampires should carry guns.
It's kind of surprising how fleetingly Darla was around at the beginning, considering her later importance.
The Master is sad that Darla is dead. And while Spike dispatching Colin and, by extention, the Master's whole vampiric church group is neat, I kind of wish we would see more of what vampires are thinking about and doing when they aren't eating people.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I always wondered about the gun thing. I think that if you've just become this basass undead dude (which recent vampires sometimes view themselves as; remember that bloke Darla bumped into in Angel season 2 who was proud to have been a dark sevent of evil since 1994), then carring a gun might amount to saying that you're a bit of a woose.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I thought I did this one before, but I can't find it if I did, so: "I Robot. . .You Jane"
There's this demon, right, and he gets stuck in a book (a magic book!) until he is scanned into a computer, years before Google Print, and takes over the internet. That done, he romances Willow and has himself built a robot body. I was pretty sure I didn't like this episode at all, because it is heavy on the "what will the internet do to society??" angle, making it like watching a debate about the crazy potential of the saddle. But it also turns out to be fun.
We start with the first of many historical flashbacks. A demon! Let's bind it using the Circle of Kayless! Which sounds just like the Klingon, you see. Well, anyway, that's what they do. Moloch, the demon, seems pretty easy to deal with, though, all things consider. Some monks just stand around in a circle and read from a book. They aren't even near Moloch. They might not be in the same building. And I wonder why they can't just destroy the book once he is inside? More on that later.
Ms. Calendar! She was a dancer for Prince, you know, and these days is very keen on Jesus. Also she is very pretty.
"If you're not jacked in, you're not alive." Who is this guy? It turns out he is Fritz, which should have been their first warning. He continues to talk like an extremely creepy Shadowrun fan for the rest of the episode.
I like how Willow is all "Hey Xander, let's hang out" and he doesn't and then: "Hey Buffy, wait up!" Because: foreshadowing!
"Oh Buffy, I didn't see you." That's because she was behind you.
Willow has a picture of herself and Giles in her locker? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Nobody on the west coast says "on line" to mean in line.
Freeze frame facts: Buffy's birthdate here is October 24, 1980, though don't they change it later? Sunnydale High has a dodgeball team. And there's the folder where this week's script is kept, apparently.
"I'm jacked in. I'm jacked in. I'm jacked in." Again with this kid. And now he's a cutter too.
Buffy is wearing a huge ring.
Who says everything they type outloud as they type it? And then "I have to sign off now," but she just turns the monitor off. The chat session is still running. Her internet boyfriend probably missed his bus because of her.
The internet is new and strange!
I'm certain I've made this exact comment before: "A powerful demon with horns is walking around Sunnydale and nobody noticed?" Of course not.
And oh man, this sequence. The attempted murder by electrocution in the shower sequence. I present, without any further comment, two lines: "Hey Buffy, Willow was looking for you. She said she'd be in the girl's locker room." "Will? Are you taking a shower?"
Anyway, from the thickness of Buffy's shoes, I don't think she's in much danger.
Now Dave is dead. I haven't mentioned Dave. He is the other kid who knows computers and is therefore susceptible to internet demons, but Dave is not nearly as annoying as Fritz, so the demon has to kill him. (Also he saves Buffy from the trap earlier.) And shouldn't someone call some emergency service about his body hanging in the computer lab?
"Techno-Pagan." Uh, sure.
Robot!
Pratfall!
What kind of security system comes with knock-out gas, I wonder?
Ah, the old tricked into punching a box full of dangerous wires and getting electrocuted trick. Now Moloch is dead, since the Circle of Kayless thing trapped him in his robot body this time. But then they smash up the robot, and apparently that's that. So why not just burn the book five hundred years ago, monks?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"The Puppet Show"
Are you ready for this? Some murders are committed, possibly by an evil ventriloquist dummy. Then there's a twist. It was the magician all along!
I don't have too many notes, though. This is an odd episode. To start things off: singing! Principal Snyder! Ventriloquism!
I'd like to know the story behind how Morgan the sad ventriloquist and Sid the dummy met up originally, and how Morgan decided he ought to listen to his talking dummy and go fight a demon.
"I will be flesh," says the monster right before the credits. But it doesn't sound like either Sid or the eventual real culprit.
"That's the kind of woolly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten." Though it isn't really.
There's no blood on the knife allegedly used to slice open the dancing girl who was just sliced open backstage at school, but then a few minutes pass and everyone is fine about it. Sunnydale is tough.
Willow: "It could be anyone. It could be me! It's not, though."
And Buffy just goes around breaking into lockers at her whim?
Snyder confronts her during the locker-breaking, and tells her he's keeping an eye on her, and is sure she's up to something. In light of later revelations about local government in Sunnydale, I wonder just what Snyder knows, at this point.
Buffy's mother: "Is there something bothering you?" A horrible murder on campus perhaps? And then she says you shouldn't go to sleep with the window open? Why not? Though I guess it makes perfect sense in Sunnydale.
Sid is not very subtle, what with all his talking, and his sneaking into Buffy's room and then just scampering around.
Once Sid is, uh, captured (before they know he can walk around and stuff), and listens in to Buffy and Giles and everyone talking about the murder, shouldn't he realize something is up, and that she isn't what he thinks?
The dummy gets loose and everyone panics.
There's an awful lot of Buffy wandering around backstage in this episode.
At least the characters all look suitably unconvinced by Sid's tale of how he used to hunt demons before getting stuck in a dummy. Also, Sid knows about slayers but didn't speculate that the girl with superpowers might possibly not be a demon?
I guess Snyder is supposed to be a suspect.
Now another dead kid, only hours(?) before the talent show, but it goes ahead anyway. Morgan's brain has been stolen, but it is OK because he was dying of brain cancer. And no one knew but the school nurse. That is pretty sad. Is it the same, evil school nurse from the swim team episode, I wonder?
I like when the curtain goes up, and there is a decapitated monster beneath a guillotine, and Buffy is cradling a dummy, and Willow and Xander and Giles stand around awkwardly.
And they are terribly afraid of being embarrassed at the talent show, but decide to perform a scene from Oedipus Rex? I highly approve of end credit hijinks, anyway.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"Nightmares"
A young boy in a coma unintentionally makes bad dreams come true, and this is essentially an excuse for a series of weird things to happen. There is also an unsettling current of child abuse.
There are always so many lit candles in the Master's hideout. Who is in charge of them, and where do they get them? I picture late night visits to the local craft store, blood-stained dollars in hand.
Willow: "My parents don't even bicker." That's because they don't exist.
There sure is a lot of Wendell in this episode.
Then everyone screams and hugs the walls, as if spiders are the scariest thing ever to happen at Sunnydale High.
Then we get a little digression into the mechanics of cross-related vampire fear, and Colin, the Annointed One, talks with a weird altered voice that I can't remember him using before or after.
Joyce: "Are you worried that your father won't show?" What an absurd fear!
Wendell: "I had the best collection in the tri-county area." How would you ever know such a thing? At any rate, tri-county spider collection tracking sounds like a pastime for kids in the 1950s in Illinois.
Cordelia seems helpful here, letting Buffy know about the upcoming test and all, and not even going out of her way to make snide remarks.
Sneaking off to smoke alone in the poorly lit boiler room of Sunnydale High School is bound to be unhealthy.
See?
But the big ugly guy with a wooden club for an arm isn't her nightmare.
And after the commercial break, we're diverted into a scene from The Outsiders.
Why is the kid's astral body hanging out at the high school? I mean, why not his own school?
Later seasons would make more sense if this nightmarishly jerky version of Buffy's father was actually her father.
Maybe the kid's little league team plays at the high school.
Poor Cordelia just sort of gets dragged through these early episodes occasionally. In this instance, literally.
That's right Willow, maybe Buffy is the source of the disembodied voice calling you down to the creepy basement.
Xander's nightmare is weird, yet, with the Nazi-element, socially-conscious in a way that, say, giant ants are not.
Why opera singing specifically, Willow?
The Master who taunts Buffy sounds like the real Master, released by the power of bad dreams, but is he? How does all this dream business work? Also, I wonder who Buffy's immediate predecessor was.
Who's afraid of the plastic tarps that are all over the place now? It doesn't really signify nightmare to me, so much as it does remodeling.
Buffy's tombstone says she was born in 1981.
And, finally, where are Billy, that is, the coma kid's parents?
I guess not quite finally: Between punching the clown from earlier and now grabbing the child-beating coach, this was a pretty big episode for Xander.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:A young boy in a coma unintentionally makes bad dreams come true, and this is essentially an excuse for a series of weird things to happen.
*sings* I've got a theory, some kid is dreamin', and we're all stuck inside his whacky Broadway nightmare! */sings*
That soundtrack will. Not. Go. Away.
quote:Why is the kid's astral body hanging out at the high school? I mean, why not his own school?
Hellmouth?
quote:Also, I wonder who Buffy's immediate predecessor was.
I wondered about that myself. You'd think she'd've asked at some point.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Oh, and a couple reviews I missed!
quote:There's this demon, right, and he gets stuck in a book (a magic book!)
He should've know Atrus wouldn't send an actual linking book back to D'ni...
quote:I'd like to know the story behind how Morgan the sad ventriloquist and Sid the dummy met up originally, and how Morgan decided he ought to listen to his talking dummy and go fight a demon.
I kinda wonder if it's related to "Smile Time" somehow. Because ANY relation to "Smile Time" is worth uberpoints.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega:
quote:Why is the kid's astral body hanging out at the high school? I mean, why not his own school?
Hellmouth?
It's the answer that keeps on giving.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
As it was intended to be. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I'm having some trouble getting my copy of "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" to play. I'm afraid the DVD may have a scratch on it.
So, I decided to make comments on the song "Outta Mind (Outta Sight)" by Wilco, only to discover just now that, once I found the CD case, the necessary CD was not in it. If you are hypothesizing that my inability to properly store digital media may have something to do with my inability to play digital media, well. . .
Luckily, it's a double album, and disc one has another take on the same song, though a few of the details have been changed. So, anyway:
"Outtasite (Outta Mind)"
quote:I know we don't talk much / but you're such a good talker / oh oh
I have a lot of trouble keeping up with my friends too, scattered as they are these days. Plus, I'm a bad correspondant.
quote:Well I know we should take a walk / but you're such a fast walker / oh oh
That's an odd complaint. Are you afraid she's just going to walk away from you, Jeff?
quote:well all right / I know where I'll be tonight / all right / out of mind, out of sight
Oh.
quote:well OK I know you don't love me / but you've still been thinking of me / oh oh / well all right / I know you probably hate me / that's OK with me
This is a pretty upbeat song, actually, all things considered. Smarmy, a little, but in a good way.
quote:all right / I know where I'll be tonight / all right / out of mind, out of sight / out of mind, out of sight / you don't see me now / you don't want to anyhow / look out here I come again / and I'm bringing my friends / look out / here I come again / I'm bringing my friends / OK all right OK all right / I know where I'll be tonight / all right / out of mind, out of sight / out of mind, out of sight / out of mind, out of sight
The other song, the one with the name that would make this post cutely amusing, instead of just, I fear, annoying, is more heavy on the piano and a little slower.
This is probably why that career as a trendsetting rock journalist has so far eluded me.
Hey, you can hear a few songs off this album, including this one, at Wilco's website. Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Have you ever tried to get a job writing for a music/nerd magazine?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
No, but it was a largely idle comment. Also I can't finish an essay or short story to save my life, which isn't a good sign of writerly productivity.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"Have you ever tried to get a job writing for a music/nerd magazine?"
Would you be happy if your reviews were read by only three people? Eh? I thought not.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I didn't mean writing fiction, but rather doing reviews and stuff like that. You've been doing it here without getting paid for a while, and your standard of writing is at least as good (and usually much higher) than that in magazines like the JMS favourite SFX.
And PC Format's circulation is an awesome 41,694. Which probably explains why they don't pay so well.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, that was just an example of my habit of not finishing things.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
It sounds like you're making excuses to me, Mr Sizer.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, if any high powered media executives are reading this and want to hire me, I guess they can send me an e-mail.
Talent or no, I skipped past the bad spots on the DVD. Therefore:
"Out of Mind, Out of Sight"
Somebody is attacking people friendly to Cordelia, and it turns out to be a girl so unpopular she turned invisible. And mean. Unpopular in the no-one-notices-her sense, not in the everyone-dislikes-her sense, by the way.
Buffy should definitely not carry a mace around in her backpack, at school, while everyone is between classes.
Then, there is some continuity reference, only I only wrote down "continuity!" so I'm not sure what it was.
Some Shakespeare is thrown in to class things up a bit.
This is a TV school convention I suppose, but I've never had an instructor who tried to introduce new information to the class just a minute or two before the end of the period. By ten minutes to go, everyone usually had their stuff packed already.
When Cordelia goes to talk to her teacher I think it's the first scene she's been in that wasn't for comic relief and/or body-discovering.
Willow is really, really amused by this anecdote. And again with the novelty juices. I forget what this one was called, but I remember the commercials. Squeeze-its or something.
And Buffy was a May Queen, only they didn't call it that, but since when do freshmen get elected in these sorts of popularity contests?
Snyder: "Dead? Of course not. Dead; what are you, ghouls? There are no dead students here. This week." Then Buffy tells him some fake story about retrieving the beaten kid's comb, but Snyder was standing right there when she told Xander and Willow she was going to go investigate.
There are probably fingerprints on that bat. And the lockers. Shouldn't the police be handling this?
This is where my copy began to flip out. Have you noticed how these posts of mine are basically just a list of incongruous things followed by rhetorical questions?
Flashback! The grainy effect, and the lighting, is a lot like what gets used much later in a Firefly flashback.
Am I the only one who feels some sympathy for Snyder? I mean, he's got a high school literally filled with monsters, and students and teachers dying every other week.
There's an invisible girl who lives in the ceiling over the band rom. Which is odd. It would be great if she played the Lady in the Radiator song later.
"This girl's sort of petty for a god."
Wait, Cordelia and her friends are messing around with Cordelia's fancy dress at school? After hours?
Angel comes in, not particularly caring about the details of this episode. Luckily the Watcher's book that went missing five hundred years ago made it to Southern California. And, re invisible girls: "It's not really my area of expertise." Get used to that sort of thing.
I like how Cordelia keeps up her speech throughout this entire exposition scene. It's her episode and she isn't giving ground up to anyone.
What about this invisible girl's family?
She's not willing to stab Buffy, but she is willing to suffocate Cordelia's teacher. But then Cordelia comes in and surprisingly doesn't just stand there and freak out. It's like a whole new world for her this episode.
I like that Cordelia has realized on her own that Buffy is some sort of secret detective. Sort of. "I was kind of hoping you were in a gang."
I bet they named the invisible girl Marcie Ross just so that she'd be right next to Willow (Rosenberg) in the yearbook.
The dance that the May Queen thing is attached to is being held at The Bronze, and I was going to say that I thought it was odd that a school would hold an official function in a rock club, but on further reflection, not growing up near any rock clubs, I guess I'm not sure of how this might work. Our senior prom was held at a grange building, way out in the middle of nowhere. (I didn't go, but it's the same building that representatives from some commercial or governmental agency take in grape samples and report back to you the sugar levels, and I have been to that.)
No one in Sunnydale ever seems particularly surprised when confronted by the truth about vampires or invisible girls.
Marcie Ross can lift Cordelia through a hole in the ceiling like that? And she can drag two unconscious girls clear across town to The Bronze in a reasonable amount of time without anyone noticing? Well, maybe she borrowed Cordelia's car. It's being played like she's really strong, at least, because even with the advantage of surprise I'm not sure she should be able to knock Buffy around like that.
And then: slow motion ninja concentration powers!
The FBI showing up to take Marcie into custody is one odd plot twist. I guess we can pretend that they're actually with the Initiative. But a whole class full of invisible kids? Maybe the others are all from Cleveland.
Step one in becoming an invisible assassin apparently involves listening to the white album.
[ August 24, 2005, 02:02 AM: Message edited by: Sol System ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I might as well do this while I'm at it.
"Prophecy Girl"
The Master is finally ready to break out of his prison, and Buffy is destined to die trying to stop him. There is also some heartbreak.
Poor Willow.
An artsy slow-motion fight sequence. But is that Mitch, Cordelia's boyfriend of the last episode, making out with her in the car, oblivious to the action outside?
For Xander: Tragic shutdown! This is the episode where the characters finally figure out that nothing good will happen to them ever.
But Willow stands up for herself, unwilling to be Xander's fallback option. Good for her.
The earthquake must have ruptured the school's blood pipe.
Angel: "Then you're reading it wrong." It's reading right, man!
This episode is approaching emotional boilover. (Also, Buffy's scene here sure is sad.) Incidentally, at 16, I guess she's born in 1981 after all.
OK, so Cordelia's boyfriend, who is now dead, was named Kevin. So much for Mitch, but he's probably glad he isn't dead. The bloody handprint on the TV is nice and creepy.
Joyce: "There's something on the news. Willow." This just sounds odd.
Willow discovers it's all fun and games until you stumble into a room filled with corpses.
And how will the Annointed One lead Buffy to the Master? Stand outside the school and wait for her. That was easy enough.
Sure, throw in a Locutus reference, but it's "of Borg," not "of the Borg." That's some kind of nerd foul.
Xander knows where Angel lives?
Really, why didn't everyone go with Buffy? Maybe not Willow, I guess, but everyone else. They could have brought weapons.
Having delivered the slayer, Colin goes to wait in the green room until next season.
Now it's prom that's going on tonight? It was Spring Fling earlier.
If a little slayer blood is good, you'd think all of the slayer's blood would be great. But I guess the Master doesn't want to be greedy. Just enough to break open the magical wall will be fine. I wonder if any vampire can get supercharged after eating a slayer? Spike sort of does. . . well, libidinously at least.
Angel's breathing heavily right here, you know. We can here him. Maybe vampires just don't know CPR; it's not like they'd need it.
How does the huge hole in the library get explained, or Cordelia's car parked in the hallway? I guess they could drive it out, but that leaves a car-shaped hole in the door. And I'm not entirely sure there's a hallway with an exit there prior to this episode. Oh well, here's a tenticle monster. Not, I'm afraid, a very good one.
Theme song! Huh.
So was showing Buffy in the Annointed One's whole purpose? Because he isn't around after that, but vampires who share the Master's religious beliefs follow him later. Maybe the Master just needed some alone time.
The Love Theme for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
And, finally, an unexplained (and unrepeated) vampire skeleton.
Well, not quite finally. Buffy must have made quite an entrance at the dance, wet and beaten up and bloody and weirdly thrilled.
That wraps it up for season one. I don't think I've done the first few episodes of season two.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"I didn't go, but it's the same building that representatives from some commercial or governmental agency take in grape samples and report back to you the sugar levels, and I have been to that."
It sure is a relief that some of us still know how to have a totally nerdy good time.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Well, if any high powered media executives are reading this and want to hire me, I guess they can send me an e-mail.
Or you could apply yourself and stop sitting on your arse. Although I wouldn't let them see that you used "here" when you meant "hear". That's, like, minus a million points.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Boo to that.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Season two. Apparently I started five episodes in, so I'll do the first four I missed, and then? Well, then I will probably just watch the rest, until I get to some point where I haven't clogged things up with comments. (Season four.)
"When She Was Bad"
Buffy comes back from summer vacation with a chip on her shoulder, and is mean to everyone until she works out her unresolved issues related to dying. They say "issues" a lot.
I think this is the only episode on DVD that comes with a "previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer" opening. (Not counting bonus easter egg ones.)
I guess Willow and Xander walking alongside a cemetery in the dead of night with no concern is supposed to impress on us how the vampires all gave up after the Master was killed, but it still doesn't seem very wise, especially since no one ever gets to go out at night and not run into vampires. But first, some near-kissing. And then a vampire. Now they have to wait another year.
Buffy's father bought her so many clothes because this is his last appearance, I bet.
Cordelia complains about Tuscany, and Miss Calendar went to Burning Man. To the extreme! I guess. She should be carrying around a copy of Wired magazine. (Because they write a lot about Burning Man, see. And were hipper than hip at the time, sort of. 1998ish. I don't know.)
Angel will just let himself out the window, then.
Hey, let's say "Cibo Matto" a whole bunch!
I like how interested Cordelia is in demons now. Did you guys fight any demons over the summer? What's the demon situation like? It makes sense. But don't mention it in a crowded hallway. . .
So is that Sean Lennon onstage with Cibo Matto, then?
This whole consecrated ground thing doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent. The vampires digging with their hands are really just getting in the way of the ones with shovels. They should have brought more shovels.
It is Sean Lennon. I was never clear if Cibo Matto proper was just the two ladies, or what. Their first album is pretty good.
Buffy is mean. This whole scenerio is mean. Everyone knows something is crazy off-kilter when Buffy is willing to dance with Xander? I mean, what is she even trying to accomplish here?
Cordelia gets to be the perceptive one, though I think she has a cold.
. . . now mentioning vampires at a table in a crowded student lounge area, that's A-OK, apparently.
I think the moral here is Angel shouldn't get involved with high school girls.
You know what would have been shocking? If this vampire they think is Cordelia but then realize is a vampire turned out to actually be Cordelia, turned into a vampire. I guess that would mess up the big ceremony later. And Angel's TV show.
This part, Xander saying to Buffy "If they hurt Willow I'll kill you"? I don't buy it at all. First of all, he's having some trouble standing up on his own, without trying to kill the girl with superstrength. It's just too much.
Burning out the inside of this vampire's mouth might make it hard for her to answer Buffy's questions. Still, neat.
Then there is a big fight scene, and a reconciliation, and so on, but my last note is about a possible continuity error regarding miniature golf courses in Sunnydale. This is why the creepy fan community can't have nice things.
Posted by Home Decor and Gardening (Member # 239) on :
Only if one bad appleherder spoils the whole bunch.
In this case: maybe maybe.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"Some Assembly Required"
There should be a show where all the episodes take their cues from packaging instructions.
This week, a moral fable on the dangers of reanimating your dead brother and then attempting to build him a girlfriend out of assorted body parts. Curiously, this is apparently achieved through Mad Science, rather than the dark arts.
First off, if I was sure that a recently buried man was a vampire, I think I'd go ahead and dig him up myself, thus avoiding a dull wait. On the plus side, I like the recently risen vampires because they wear suits and ties.
Pratfall!
Giles does have an office where he could practice asking out girls, if he didn't want people barging in.
Chris, whose brother is three years dead, if I recall correctly, has huge eyebrows.
And then Cordelia is badmouthing the yearbook staff, which I suppose makes sense, but I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be some sort of truce at work when they're taking yearbook pictures, because those are like cash money.
"Cross-town" something dead student race. Does that mean that this other high school was in Sunnydale?
"For most traditional purposes a voodoo priest would require more than one [zombie]." For instance, zombie carwash.
Angel is creepy. I wasn't sure if you were who I thought you were, so I thought I'd silently stalk you through the parking lot.
"Angel saved me from an arm." A hand, was all.
So they're just going to break into lockers based on a list of people Willow thinks are smart? And yet, later, when the school cracks down on goths it's bad. Even though, this close to the Hellmouth, Cure albums can probably kill, and the poor kids into, I don't know, Opeth or something just disappear into the Earth on the back of a luridly drawn demon.
Now, it's been three years since Daryl died? I think I may have heard that wrong, because that's a long time. Anyway, if his mother is essentially catatonic three years later, I'm going to guess that their homelife was not the smoothest to begin with.
Buffy's proof that the weird kid is assisting in the body snatching: collage.
Anyway, so far this is more a job for the police. At this point they could just call them, say they heard Chris or the other kid talking about the grave robberies, and let it go. Maybe. There's no apparent supernatural weirdness involved as far as they know, is what I'm saying, and what is Buffy going to do about it? Her usual strategy of killing is probably not a good fit for the situation.
And then the junior Frankensteins are bemoaning the lack of recently dead girls, which is one of the few times anyone complains about a lack of dead people on this show.
Seeing as how he's been reanimated and apparently living in a basement for three years, Daryl seems OK. I mean, he isn't bashed his brother's head in to feast on his brain or anything.
Buffy ought to have kicked the weird kid harder.
"When you wake up you'll have the body of a seventeen year-old." Isn't Cordelia already seventeen?
So what happens to Chris and his friend? I guess Chris repents, and Daryl is burnt up in the fire, but that's two corpses, including the headless gestalt girl. And there are cops there now. Hmm.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"School Hard"
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize that the title was a reference.
Some vampires attack the school during parent-teacher conferences and Buffy has to save the day. One of the vampires is Spike, who we can be sure is cool because he is British.
Buffy is always in the principal's office for fighting, but when has she ever fought something whose existence the school is willing to admit? I mean, this other girl here stabbed a teacher.
Buffy and Willow are very sensitive to TV show cliches here.
Colin looks so annoyed by Spike.
Spike: "You're that annointed guy. I read about you." In Vanity Fair. For vampires.
No one at the Bronze seems to notice or care about Spike's announcement about somebody being attacked outside. Life is short and brutal in Sunnydale.
Willow: "We can't run, that would be wrong. Could we hide?"
I like how the camera doesn't linger on the girl tied up in Drusilla's room. She's just there, in the background.
I want to know more about Snyder. He doesn't seem to have much in the way of vampire survival skills here, yet he clearly knows more about what's going on than he is willing to admit. But how did he get this job?
Also, Spike's later plan, the one that involves magically stealing Angel's life to recharge Drusilla? Does he have that plan from the beginning?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: One of the vampires is Spike, who we can be sure is cool because he is British.
Or evil. Both, in this case. I think a "yay, Spike!" is required at this point.
His accent is so very much worse in these episodes, too.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Ah, but that's why Drusilla is around.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
She deflects attention so well. I know that James Marsters went to Tony Head for help with his accent, but did Juliet Landau just sit back and say "I don't need help with my accent. Cor, luv a duck guvnor"?
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