January 2003 posts

Few Responses to My Piece: so Here's the Real Point! -- David Frisby, 09:26:38 01/08/03 Wed

In the Biblical tradition (or what is sometimes referred to simply as Jerusalem), "Lucifer" is first, but in the tradition out of Athens (in particular Plato in his _Laws_), "Soul" is first (even before the "ideas").

Again according to Plato, spirit is part of soul, and spirit is unconquerable (from _Republic_), able to rise and stand against all odds -- and "that" was the lesson Buffy taught "the gang that is stronger than the evil caused by the first."

So, will the power of "soul" overpower the power of the (supposed) "first"? I think Spike's soul (the main "consequence" of bringing Buffy back 6.1-3), and "there are always consequences" is the key here. I think we can conclude from last night (7.11) that the ensouled Spike is now strong enough to withstand the first on his own (although he may yet have trouble with his "own" monster).

David Frisby

[> Re: Few Responses to My Piece: so Here's the Real Point! -- MaeveRigan, 13:00:03 01/08/03 Wed

I actually like this better than your original post. Thanks!

[> [> My original post gestated a really considerable time. -- frisby, 08:40:19 01/11/03 Sat

My original post began as a poem about two years ago and concerned the opening of Nietzsche's _Beyond Good and Evil_ but then got a big boost when Buffy told Dawn (5.22) that the hardest thing in this world to live in it. OMWF sealed the theme of fire and 6.22 brought everything to a focus with soul. THE FIRST was recent but brought it to a close. I still wished I'd have kept desire and despair in though. Overall thought, it's now mainly about marriage and children.

[> Despair and the nature of the First -- luna, 18:58:44 01/08/03 Wed

It seems to me, in the ancient caverns of my memory, that I once learned some things about the ultimate evil in Christian theology (which is definitely not my field of expertise nowadays), at least the medieval variety: that the worst sin was despair. Could that be the essence of the First, that it causes despair? And could the community of the SG be the force that counteracts despair? That's what we've seen this season with the forgiveness of Willow, the rescue of Spike, the return of Giles.

Apologies if this is OT for your post. But somehow it made me think of it.

[> [> Re: Despair and the nature of the First -- frisby, 03:29:09 01/09/03 Thu

Not OT at all. Very interesting. I've given a lot of thought to both desire and despair with regard to what moves the soul, and had originally worked them into my 'piece' but the final version did not include them (or the pressures they bring). Both desire and despair seem to me to be 'extreme' states of the soul, the first feeling doomed if something or other is not forthcoming and the second feeling doomed because something or other is not forthcoming. Both are states of what I read Nietzsche as calling the poverty of the soul (as opposed to wealth of overabundance). Both seem to lead to nihilism or the inability to will anything further besides death or destruction or nothing. If "The First" is the cause of despair (or perhaps also desire), and if love is its antidote, then perhaps love will also show a way to defeating The First? I'm on soft ground here, and need to think (perhaps for another year) the relation of desire and despair in the soul. Nice point.

[> Re: Few Responses (Spoilers for S6, vague spoilers for 7) -- Rahael, 03:42:26 01/09/03 Thu

Well, I liked both posts!

One of the things that I liked most about the spell in Primeval was that it stand not only for the Scooby gang joining together, but also the idea that joining spirit, heart, mind and hand altogether - that's a human being becoming complete. And the complete human being, with spiritual, physical and moral/emotional integrity - that's very powerful.

It's interesting that this spell reawakens the First Slayer. The First Slayer is incomplete. Without a Watcher. Trying to isolate Buffy, the hand (the action, the kill) from mind, and heart and spirit. Because the First, though part of something greater, is still stuck in her origins, in her life experience.

And this season, we have had a person (Spike) trying to integrate himself - it took a while to recover sanity (mind), and the soul caused torment, and love was despaired of, and the spirit stumbled, but it seems to be put back together, piece by piece.

This seems to be echoed for Buffy - her 'mind' (Giles) has returned, but we can't be sure we trust him. Spirit (Willow) is uncertain of herself, afraid of her dark power. Heart, (Xander) seems to have lost that very quality last season when he left Anya at the alter. This seems to resonate with Buffy's weaknesses this season. She seems incomplete, only the 'hand'. I was very struck by her dark, unrelentingly black costume in 'Selfless'. The dark eyes, the pale face.

These are just rambling thoughts arising from reading your post. I was wondering whether the plot of Primeval and Restless was being played out over the whole season - the dangers that will arise and try and prevent completeness.

[> [> Just to clarify - S7 vague spoilers for AIRED eps only -- Rahael, 03:43:46 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> Re: Few Responses (Spoilers for S6, vague spoilers through 7.10) -- frisby, 13:48:17 01/09/03 Thu

Thank you Rahael. I too look at 4.21-22 as simply pivotal for the entire series, and would not have minded seeing uber-buffy called again or at least further developed. That integration of mind, spirit, heart, & hand into soul was indeed the underlying structure, but there's also her fire. I like your observations for S7 with regard to their possible links to 4.21-22. Only 11 episodes to go now (assuming the series will find closure) and I hope Spike's soul and Buffy's "true self" (the one she is becoming, the one she did not know anything about, according to Tara in her dream) play their rightful part in this final apocalypse. I worked on that piece for a long time, and miss it now, as I will this best ever television series. But then that buffy conference in Nashville (May 04) will likely prove really something! Hopefully, the paper I write next semester for my history of tv class (on buffy and nietzsche) will be ready and find an ear.

[> [> [> Fire from heaven -- Rahael, 09:02:20 01/10/03 Fri

Just a quick thought, sparked off by your mention of Buffy's fire - she was expelled from heaven, and searched in vain for the spark of feeling, of emotion.

It seems to be the mirror image of the Promethean myth, that Prometheus sought to aid mankind by stealing fire from the gods and bringing it to earth. Prometheus was of course punished by having an eagle eat from his liver, the seat of his soul. (Now I'm thinking of a certain blond individual whose name I won't mention!)

I wonder, whether the First Evil attacks not because the balance has shifted toward evil, but because Evil is being threatened by the presence of Buffy, and her actions. Like inspiring Spike to get a soul. Bringing an ex vengeance demon into the fold. Defeating a God, defeating death.

I'm just rambling so I'll stop

[> [> [> [> Battle of the Fates over Buffy -- frisby, 16:27:14 01/10/03 Fri

I tend to agree that it's not just that there are two slayers (buffy and faith) but that, as you say, the actions of buffy since her first death and most especially since her second (spike's soul) have created the consequences that led to The First grabbing an opportunity of some sort to transcend or end the entire balancing of the scales of good and evil once and for all. But the idea I hear bouncing around of a connection between The First and the 'first' slayer (especially with regard to the source of the slayer's power being in darkness, even though The First is that which even the darkness fears) is also ringing true or at least interesting to consider. My point (from Plato) on soul being older (or more "first") than evil (or even the cause of evil, The First) is an idea Joss and Co could use to good effect to end the series. I read a post moments ago that Joss has already written the basic action and scene for 7.22. Wow, would I like to read that or even edit it. Thanks for your "rambling" ideas.

My turn to complain about...(spoilers: Showtime) -- tim, 09:42:54 01/08/03 Wed

...that rank accent! I grew up in the deep South (Alabama, to be exact), and never in my life have a heard a person talk like that. Holy cow! Surely ME could have found someone to play Eve whose accent wasn't the vocal equivalent of Sherman's March to the Sea.

This gave me empathy for those of you across the Pond. I feel your pain now, friends.

--th

[> Agree completely. Aren't there any 17-year-old actresses from Alabama out there? -- cjl, 09:45:55 01/08/03 Wed

The girl who played Eve sounded like she was more from South Jersey than south of the Mason-Dixon line...

[> [> Even my New England raised ears... -- dream, 10:08:07 01/08/03 Wed

were hurting. I was so relieved to find out she wasn't human - the accent has some sort of excuse.

[> [> Re: Agree completely. Aren't there any 17-year-old actresses from Alabama out there? -- Kitt, 10:11:35 01/08/03 Wed

I remember JM talking about how Spike was initially supposed to have a deep southern accent, and how (in Hollywood at least) that was equated with him being evil. Maybe the accent was just Joss' attempt to signal that Eve was bad... but when it comes to anything other than British, ME has a HORRIBLE track record when it comes to accents.

[> [> [> Re: Agree completely. Aren't there any 17-year-old actresses from Alabama out there? -- KKC, 13:30:18 01/08/03 Wed

About Southern accents? I live in North Florida (which is affectionately known as 'South Georgia' due to the poor race relations and incredible economic inequity) where my high school did a production of Steel Magnolias. Our drama teacher wisely decided not to bully each actor into forcing an exaggerated Southern accent she wasn't comfortable with. The result was that the cast (native Southern girls, all of them) could concentrate on her own performance without worrying about authenticity, and the result was that the play was received very well by all the native Southerners in the audience.

We took the show to the high school drama gathering in Tampa, where the majority of the population is displaced Yankees like myself. The Thespian Society critics complained loudly that our actors were not 'genuinely Southern enough' and praised other productions whose actors had accents which were horribly overdone.

The lesson is that people who aren't part of something don't know any better, and they have to be hit with it in order to be made aware of it. Imagine what real network analysts thought of the movie 'Hackers' or what physicists thought of the cold fusion inventor in 'The Saint.' What is real unfortunately doesn't equate to what works, at least in performance.

-KKC, who played the small role of the radio announcer in the play. The only way for an Asian guy to get into theatre in the South is to make sure he doesn't have to show his face. :)

[> [> [> [> On accents, Faith's -- dream, 14:11:00 01/08/03 Wed

Was just about the only Boston accent I've ever heard on television that didn't make me cringe. Of course, she's a local girl, so it's not surprising. They also didn't specifically mention Boston, from what I remember, so she wasn't required to inflate the accent to make a point.

Eve sounded like me trying to do a Southern accent. Shudder.

[> [> [> [> [> Faith did mention being from Boston once, when reminscing with the Mayor about her childhood -- Helen, 02:05:51 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> [> [> On accents, Angel's -- Scroll, 16:09:01 01/08/03 Wed

Lots of people complain about David Boreanaz's Irish accent, but I've heard from posters in Ireland who say his accent is actually quite good. But perhaps from our North American perspective, it's just not quite right. Same with whenever Glen Quinn had to mix his American and Irish accents so that his lines were understandable.

[> [> [> [> [> Re: On accents, Angel's -- JM, 17:40:20 01/08/03 Wed

Where in Ireland was his ex-wife from? Perhaps her accent was what he was imitating. Not all accents from Ireland are identical, are they? Though Americans are probably familar with just one regional variety.

[> [> [> [> [> [> Didn't even know his ex-wife was Irish -- Scroll, 17:45:06 01/08/03 Wed

But you're probably right that we have pre-conceived notions on what Irish/Italian/Jewish/Chinese accents sound like and when actors deviate from the norm, we all call 'foul'.

[> [> [> [> Re: Agree completely. Aren't there any 17-year-old actresses from Alabama out there? -- luna, taking up a collection to buy a dialect coach for ME, 18:46:22 01/08/03 Wed

Agree. Complete mishmash of Scarlet O'Hara and the Beverly Hillbillies. Can it get worse?

[> [> [> On British accents - not so unhorrible -- KdS, 14:27:01 01/08/03 Wed

Masters is OK, but not perfect by any means. Denisof is excellent, but I gather he spent some of his childhood in the UK. Juliet Landau is truly dreadful - I don't know if she's trying to be Cockney, Irish, or Thomas Hardy yokel.

[> [> [> [> Re: On British accents - not so unhorrible -- slain, 17:52:12 01/08/03 Wed

I let Ms Landau off the hook on the grounds that she's from the 19th century (well, her character that is) - a bit like the dodgy accents in 'Braveheart'; they didn't sound all that Scottish, because the accent has changed over the years. So I just tell myself that in 19th century London everyone talked like a cross between Dick Van Dyke and Wurzel Gummage.

[> [> [> [> [> Note for American readers: -- KdS, 05:27:13 01/09/03 Thu

slain is referring to Dick Van Dyke's attempt at a Cockney accent in the Walt Disney film version of Mary Poppins - a portrayal of London so moronic that it arguably helped to develop anti-American attitudes in whole generations of English children. If GWB is serious in wanting to develop British loyalty to the US, he will prevail upon Disney to recall and destroy all copies. ;-)

[> [> [> [> [> [> Sure, destroy every copy of my favorite movie as a child! -- Rob, 10:46:42 01/09/03 Thu

'ow can you 'ave such an 'orrible idea?!? ;o)

Rob

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> As much as I love "Mary Poppins," Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent was ludicrous... -- cjl, 11:18:42 01/09/03 Thu

So horrible, that it's become a legend of sorts. I remember Neil Gaiman (speaking through the character of Death) mocking it mercilessly in Sandman. ("Oh, it's a jolly 'oliday with you, Mary Poppins!")

But the movie itself is a visual marvel, a kaleidoscopic, candy-coated interpretation of late-Victorian London, the way On the Town and 42nd Street are hyperreal interpretations of New York (two of my faves, by the way).

Besides--what red-blooded young man didn't grow up with a major crush on Julie Andrews?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, indeed.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> LOL -- Rahael, 14:12:12 01/09/03 Thu

Still laughing re:

Besides--what red-blooded young man didn't grow up with a major crush on Julie Andrews?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, indeed.

Should I be admitting that when I was younger, watching Mary Poppins always left me spring cleaning my room?

Btw, I loved the actual books the film was based on.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Well, yeah. He should have just mimicked Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. -- Sophist, 19:00:49 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> [> [> Re: Totally agree KdS -- yabyumpan, 17:53:36 01/08/03 Wed

JL's accent has the same effect on me as finger nails on a chalk board. It's probably why she's my least favorite Vamp.

As for DB's Irish accent, my friend from Gallway says it's a fine, generic, middle classish accent. Which would probably be about right for the son of a middle class silk and linen merchant. It's always sounded good to me. I think a lot of people just think of an Irish accent as a broad 'oirish' brogue when there are in fact, many variations.

[> Ever see the movie "the Faculty?" -- neaux, 10:13:14 01/08/03 Wed

You would realize that this was a nod to the movie "the Faculty" dir. by Robert Rodriguez.

In the movie there was a New girl blond with a Southern Accent who turned out not to be who she claimed to be.

[> On the other hand...(spoilers: Showtime) -- Darby, 10:45:21 01/08/03 Wed

Memphis draws people from all over, and living there for a few years taught me not to make assumptions about accents - I heard everything from barely a hint to well beyond Eve's. In fact, she reminded me of someone I knew there, although I'll be a while figuring out who...

[> [> Re: On the other hand...(spoilers: Showtime) -- tim, 12:44:58 01/08/03 Wed

Maybe in my attempt to be glib I didn't make my complaint clear enough. It's not that I object to her having a thick Southern accent. God knows I enjoy hearing people talk normal. :) It's that she did it so badly. There was way too much nasal in her voice for it to be anything like authentic. (Also, the combination of nasal and drawl was physically painful.)

Plus, she could have had on-set coaching (and maybe she did, though one shudders to think that was her improved version)--I've heard JM's Southern accent, and (surprise, surprise) he's spot-on.

I've known lots of rednecks in my time. They all had accents. None of them sounded like that. It makes me wonder if the person you know had Northern influences on their speech patterns as well as Southern (one parent from each side of the Mason-Dixon Line?), as Eve sounds to me like a girl from New York trying to imitate a Southern accent when she's only ever heard one in the movies.

--th

[> [> [> I've heard people who spoke like Eve (showtime spoilers) -- Cleanthes, 16:13:16 01/08/03 Wed

They were people like me -- northerner/westerners who lived long enough in the south to think they could fit in and had peculiarly overdone accents. My neighbor's wife, for instance, sounds a lot like Eve. (I live in NE Florida, and have previously lived in Delaware, Virginia & Texas, all with variations on Southern accents.)

Regarding accents, I'm always skeptical about internet grousing. One of my first forays on usenet involved an extensive thread bitching about Roma Downey's "fake" Irish accent. eh.

[> Southern accents, and the wo/men who love 'em (spoilers: Showtime) -- Random, 15:19:33 01/09/03 Thu

While her accent was terrible (born-n-bred Southerner here, from Mississippi to Alabama to Tennessee to North Carolina (plus a couple layovers in France and New York)) but not necessarily lacking in authenticity. The problem is that it was an affectation, and let me tell ya'll, I've heard more than a few affectations in real life. She over-nasalized, much in the tradition of Gone With the Wind and Designing Women, but she sounded a helluva lot like some people I know from Tennessee (Nashville, to be precise) and like at least one of my ex-girlfriends in Alabama -- though horribly exaggerated. The mistakes people make in trying to affect a Southern accent are: 1) not realizing that Southern accents vary not only by region but by socio-economic status. Eve was imitating a rather generic upper-middle class, probably from 'Bama, Mississippi or Country Music Television; and 2) placing too much emphasis on the subtle intonations and inflections that distinguish accents, i.e. the nasality in this case. In the entertainment industry, this propensity is even more pronounced in certain actors/actresses who actually are Southern and raise their natural accent up just enough of a notch to make it borderline parody. I'm a Southerner, with a lil' bit of an accent -- just enough to sound charming :-) -- but I swear, I lack the vocal training to do Eve's accent. If someone told me the actress who played Eve actually was Southern, I would be mortified, but in no way surprised.

[> [> Seemed to me -- verdantheart, 07:06:52 01/10/03 Fri

The worst thing about the accent was that it shifted in and out. I can't believe it was real because it didn't always seem to be *there*. Ecch! It was so bad, it distracted me from the program.

My sister moved to NC and picked up a light Southern accent, but it's a consistent one (tee hee!). But she's a gal for language, anyway, I don't think she could help herself.

Also, we have some relatives in the deep south (Alabama), and sometimes I can't understand them very well. For example, the name Mary sounds like May-ree and Cook sounds like kook. They are dear people, but would hardly be considered the educated upper-crust! (In fact, I'm sure some would call them "crackers.") I hardly consider that this fact makes me an expert on Southern accents, though! There's a huge range of them and I grew up in Illinois and speak with that Midwestern flat accent.

Political implications of "Bring on the Night" and "Showtime" -- lost_bracelet, 18:44:26 01/08/03 Wed

"There's only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil. And that's us."
- Buffy, "Bring on the Night"

I'd like to believe that the "Big Evil" in this season is Joss's metaphor for the current Republication administration (as well as the Taliban and other religious regimes and dictatorships) that's intent on destroying the world -- the real world. (Read "George Bush's war on nature" (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/01/06/nature/), "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Bush's Armageddon Obsession, Revisited" (http://www.counterpunch.com/hill01042003.html), and "Voodoo economics: The sequel" (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/01/08/reaganomics/).)

Buffy's pep talk at the end of "Bring on the Night" and her demonstration of guerrilla power in "Showtime" show the motley crew of slayers-in-training -- and us, the viewers -- that the "war" against this current Big Evil in the Buffyverse --and in the real world -- will be fought by people like us, a motley crew of ordinary citizens: intellectuals, activists, environmentalists, feminists, the poor and those who represent them, the young, the old, and the disenfranchised. Just like Buffy and her girls, we're scared, but we're not going to give up without a big fat fight.

Thoughts?

[> Re: Political implications of "Bring on the Night" and "Showtime" -- Tyreseus, 20:11:06 01/08/03 Wed

I'm not outright disagreeing with your take, but I'm not ready to buy that the metaphor of the season is an anti-Republican political rally. Where's the support from the text? If the true face of the first evil is a bumbling idiot from Texas, then I'll be more likely to jump on ship. If the FE introduces an "economic stimulant" plan for Sunnydale that offers tax cuts to the wealthy, I'll definately see what you're seeing. But until then, I'm not going to assign overtly political motives to the writers.

We've also had wonderful metaphorical discussions likening the season's big bad to: terrorists, liberalism (I'm stretching to include the "maintain the status quo=conservative" view), internal fears and isolation, and about 20 other things.

I think what works so well in the series is that all of us can interpret the evils of the series in a way that metaphorically translates to the evils we see in our life. For me, the first evil is more metaphorically tied to internal impulses that I sometimes give in to and often feel like I don't know how to fight or control.

And I certainly agree with your concerns over the current US Adminsitration (without the propoganda links).

[> I agree there are political implications but... -- Rochefort, 20:22:04 01/08/03 Wed

I think we'll also find that Buffy doesn't have the methods that ME will reccomend down, yet. Making a spectacle of violence, seeking to "destroy" "evil" are going to be shown to do more harm than good. They're going to have to find their inner ghandis.

[> [> Re: I agree there are political implications but... -- JM, 21:13:34 01/08/03 Wed

But we've seen B's impression of Gandhi. And even if she was wielding a sickle and hammer, I'm pretty sure it's one he'd be wildly uncomfortable with. Unless he was really pissed off.

[> [> [> Personally think that was the ickiest line ever :-) -- KdS, 04:49:53 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> Re: I agree there are political implications but... -- Arethusa, 13:53:07 01/09/03 Thu

I think Buffy's smackdown was military strategy. She needed to install confidence in and rally the troops, and she might have succeeded. Evil has a physical, demonic form in the Buffyverse. Non-violence is always better, of course, but BtVS exists to show a small woman who fights to save humanity, whose physical power is as important as any other power. It's an important part of its feminist message.

[> Re: Political implications of "Bring on the Night" and "Showtime" -- Corwin of Amber, 20:47:05 01/08/03 Wed

>I'd like to believe that the "Big Evil" in this season is Joss's metaphor for the current Republication administration (as well as the Taliban and other religious regimes and dictatorships) that's intent on destroying the world -- the real world.

Cite some evidence, paralleling events in the show with current events. Prove to me that George Bush is the First Evil. Otherwise, take your socialist-enviromentalist propaganda elsewhere.

[> [> Re: Political implications of "Bring on the Night" and "Showtime" -- Q, 22:21:51 01/08/03 Wed

Nah, Bush isn't the First... he's the second... The second George Bush to have a go at F@#$ing up the world.

A better comparison I read lately was a film reviewer comparing the villain from the new Star Trek movie to Bush. He said they have the same goal, and quoted the villain:

"Set a course for earth... DESTROY EVERYTHING!!!"

LMAO!!!

[> [> [> Re: Political implications of "Bring on the Night" and "Showtime" -- Corwin of Amber, 23:08:31 01/08/03 Wed

I get the humor. I'm just getting tired of hearing liberals say really, really, vile things about conservatives and never getting challenged on it.

[> [> [> [> Then watch more FOX news. -- Shiraz, 11:24:10 01/10/03 Fri

[> [> [> [> Don't feel so bad -- the vice versa side feels the same way. -- Sophist, 13:07:55 01/10/03 Fri

[> This is just sleepy -- Tchaikovsky, 04:06:36 01/09/03 Thu

The First Evil is not an allegory for any political party. ME have done a good exploration of politics/science/military vs slaying in Season Four anyway. The First Evil is Evil, and is not some kind of propagandaist cariacature for the right. Although I tend to be against most of what George W Bush stands for, and believe that his policies are misguided, it's shallow-minded playground tactics to espouse him to a primal force of Evil.

ME's allegories/metaphors/applicable fantasies are often multi-layered and complex but never ham-fisted or simplistic, (OK, there was 'Wrecked'. Touche.) Many people have commented on Buffy and Angel's political leanings as shows, and I believe KdS actually came to a (well-formed) conclusion that BtVS is rather a conservative, (small c) show, inasmuch as it upholds the tenet that the balance of good and evil should be preserved, (with humans not subjugated by demons), rather than radically altered.

To claim it is a left wing polemic is simply short-sighted, in my opinion.

TCH

[> [> Good for you Tch, totally agree. -- Helen, 04:18:16 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> Don't get so heated about it... -- KdS, 05:04:39 01/09/03 Thu

At least he isn't quoting old Star Trek eps to back up his simplistic political assertions ;-)

(Thanks TCH)

[> Evil's Where You Find It -- Eric, 12:41:49 01/09/03 Thu

I once had a Republican room mate who believed, based on viewing all five movies, the Evil Emperor in Star Wars undermined the Old Republic as a Democratic politician prior to seizing power. As for Bush, it really strains credibility to call him Evil with a capital E. And where does that leave Saddam - a guy who's cheerfully waged two unprovoked wars, gassed his own people, etc, etc. The best I can say about him is he's a tyrant of the old school, coldly and carefully risking the fortunes and people of Iraq along with the region's stability for the sole benefit of Saddam Hussein. Bush needs another two terms just to catch up. Maybe if his brother Jeb gets elected we can compare the Bush triad to the Evil Trioka. Even then I'd have to say Dubya would probably be Jonathon.

[> [> Right now I find it in my refrigerator. <g> *peace* still <g> -- Deb, 22:09:09 01/09/03 Thu

[> Bush may not be the First Evil but the way he's going he may be the last. -- bl, 01:20:53 01/10/03 Fri

More "Showtime" thoughts (spoilers) -- Valheru, 01:02:05 01/09/03 Thu

I didn't hate "Showtime" as much as it might appear after I finish nitpicking. It was a decent episode. Not "Beer Bad" horrible or "Innocence" brilliant, but just okay. I thought it moved the plot forward better than "Sleeper" and it gave more character development than "Bring on the Night." Yet I felt detached from the whole affair; I had a very hard time getting to know even the core Scoobies during the episode. There was very little resonance, excepting the final Buffy/Spike scene. Even "Beer Bad" resonated more than this.

That could explain why Season 7 is leaving me feeling sort of cold. The past five episodes, "CWDP," "Sleeper," "Never Leave Me," "Bring on the Night," and "Showtime" have all been plot-heavy episodes the likes of which we haven't seen since the last four shows of Season 5. But what happened to the characters? "CWDP" gave us some great emotional moments for Buffy, Dawn, and Willow, but the true character explorations have been few and far between since then. The Scoobies are being written like chess pieces--things are happening to them, but they aren't responding except in a general panic/fear/confusion capacity.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about: You could take Willow out of "BotN" and "Showtime," replace her with a Generic Witch character, and things would be no different. Excepting the 3 minutes of Willow/Kennedy scenes, what has Willow done that only Willow, as a personality, could have done? Amy Madison could have tried the locator spell and had the same reaction, she could have been very supportive of Buffy's choices, she could have done the telepathic-communication, and she could have raised the red-herring-shield-wall. Besides the fact that Alyson Hannigan is on-screen, I wouldn't know that the witch person for the past 2 1/2 episodes was Willow. Her speech patterns are generic, her actions and reactions are generic, and her purpose is generic.

I guess that's what I'm driving at: generic. I feel like I'm watching a grand (if ham-fisted) plot unfold via a bunch of robots who look like the Scoobies but have all the personality sophistication of a toaster. I know that this isn't really what happens, but I feel like the ME storybreaking sessions are going like this:

JOSS: So the plan is to get the SITs in some big arena so they can witness a slugfest with the UberVamp that Buffy wins? How do they come up with this plan?
DAVID: Buffy thinks of it.
JOSS: How do they lure the UberVamp into what is obviously a trap?
JANE: Uh...they get him really mad? Yeah, he wants to get them but can't at first. Then, once he can, he's like a savage beast let out of a cage.
JOSS: What kind of cage could hold this guy?
DREW: How about a shield spell like they did with Glory?
MARTI: Good idea! Have Willow do that.
JOSS: Where is this big showdown taking place? A football field?
DOUG: No, it has to be somewhere open, but with things they can throw at each other and crash into.
JOSS: How about a construction site?
DOUG: Yeah! Xander can think of that.
JOSS: By the way, what is Dawn doing this whole episode?
**Shrugs around the room**
MARTI: Aw, just let her yell at Andrew for a scene. That's funny.

It seems like the Scoobies are being plugged into roles to accomplish some task that furthers the plot or fills time, but the writers can't think of anything else to do with them. Their personalities aren't coming through. Even during the battle in "The Gift," when the Scoobies weren't doing much besides following their preplanned tasks, it was still unmistakeably Willow who snarled at Glory as she sucked Tara's brain back, and it was still Xander who wrecking-balled a spare, and it was still Giles who killed Ben like a proper English librarian. It was their individual personalities as people that made those scenes interesting, not the spells they could cast or the skills they knew.

*Phew!* Another thing bothering me is that details are being overlooked just to make the main plot work. New ideas are being introduced before old ones are explained. It has been 5 episodes since Dawn's encounter with Joyce and we still have no idea what happened. It has been 4 episodes since it was confirmed that Spike was killing, but nothing about why the chip stopped working. 4 episodes since Giles' decapi-tease. And these are just the major questions. Now that the UberVamp is dead, we'll probably never get an explanation for the convoluted, seemingly-scattershot plan for opening the Seal of Danthazar; the writers just steamrolled over any explanation, hoping that it doesn't matter once they get to the next plot, but that in no way excuses what is simply bad writing. Throw in the time-craziness and ME has a lot of answers to give us in half a season. 11 episodes to answer some very big questions, bring back you-know-who for 5 eps, settle the whole First Evil thing, and (if this is indeed the final year) wrap up all the characters somehow.

I sort of wish they had condensed "NLM," "BotN," and "Showtime" into one episode. It would have been a pretty tight squeeze, but at least then we'd have more episodes for the characters to breathe. The Scoobies haven't been allowed out of the main plot for five episodes anyway. The past 3 episodes have taken too much time to tell too little of a story. Think of all the things Joss crammed into "Becoming" and "Graduation Day," or even shorter episodes like "Restless," and compare to what little really happened since "NLM." For what could be the last season, they're sure being very leisurely about the progression of the plot.

Okay, now I have three observations to throw out:

1) Giles does a lot of interaction with the physical world this week. In his first scene, he is leaning forward against the back of a chair. Then, when Anya is talking to the trash demon, he is leaning back against a trash can. When he and Anya are talking to the Eye in the wind tunnel, their coats are getting tangled together. But here's the kicker: Giles makes physical contact with ANYA. When they exit the Eye dimension, he stumbles forward into her arm. Then, as she begins to talk to him, Anya slightly nudges him with her hand. Now, okay, these could be nothing, but if they are, they're bad mistakes. Shouldn't the director be telling Tony, "No, don't lean on anything, you're incorporeal! And don't stand so close to everyone!" or saying to Anya, "Don't stumble into Giles!"?

2) Giles told Buffy last week about the unsubstantiality of the First's projections. The First then shows up in the house as an SIT. So why doesn't someone get the bright idea to go around and touch everyone? You'd think at least Andrew would get suspicious of everyone's realness and try it. And if it has really been a week or more since Giles showed up, it is plausibly impossible for him to be the First. It has been a week, he's living in a house with ten people, and no one has been in a position to make contact with him? I can make excuses to explain Eve, but to do so with Giles is too far-fetched.

3) Yes, the "show" of "Showtime" really sucked. The coreography actually looked decent, but a lot of it was cut up in the editing room to make room for SMG "stumble shots" that didn't match up with the rest of it. And while I understood the explanation that she had to fight the UV in front of the SITs, the way in which she did it was troll logic. The SITs knew the UV kicked her ass before, so why make them see it? Why not just sommersault down, have someone toss you an axe, and then dispatch the UV's head? Letting him beat Buffy nearly to a pulp again could have made it look like she won by luck. And really, if those SITs aren't going to be convinced of Buffy's strength by the stories of her stopping several armageddons, the oldest vampire (Master), the most famous vampire (Dracula), the twice-killed-a-Slayer vampire (Spike), another Slayer, a medieval army, and a Hellgod, then killing a tough vampire isn't going to impress them, no matter how much ass he appears to kick. Besides, the real threat is the First anyway, and even though the SITs are pretty newbie, they still understand that the UberVamp is nothing compared to the First.

So yeah, average episode!

[> The fault, my dear, lies not with the arc...oh wait, it does...(spoilers to date) -- Darby, 11:16:17 01/09/03 Thu

The problem has been the design of this season's arc. Every other season has had a bit of hide-and-seek - the Master's trapped, Angel's curse, no one knows about the Mayor, who are the commando guys, Glory can't find the Key, the Nerds in various basements - this allows transitional character-centered or just plain fun episodes where the arc plot is in the deep background or virtually nonexistent. We remember the Go Fishes, but this subgenre also includes Nightmares, The Dark Age, The Wish, Earshot, This Year's Girl, Fool for Love, The Body, Once More With Feeling, and Hell's Bells. This season, we've has Selfless and Him, but the arc in motion has had too much momentum, with the First Evil being everywhere and the GrrrArrgh guy being unstoppable, to give our Scooby buds (and the supporting cast of thousands) time to stretch their psyches any. Even with Uber out of the picture, the First is not really the sort of foe who slinks out of sight for episodes on end...

- Darby, wondering, wouldn't it be ironic if the Uberguy had been a vampire vampire (why else would vampires fear them?), and would have been better captured and released? We've missed another spinoff possibility. Or maybe, with the potential for endless mindless mayhem, a major motion picture franchise...

[> [> You've been watching Blade II :-) -- KdS, 12:46:16 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> [> I have? I haven't... -- Darby, who doesn't get the reference, 12:55:49 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> [> [> I haven't either... -- KdS, 12:59:05 01/09/03 Thu

But from reviews I gather that the plot deals with vamp-eating supervamps. (Really scary thing, for fellow English Eighties kids, is that supervamp is played by Luke Goss. Yes, that Luke Goss.)

[> Son of Revenge of the Overdetermined Plot Arc and other ramblings -- cjl, 13:35:54 01/09/03 Thu

This is something that's been bothering me since S6, and up until now, nobody's been taking me seriously. (Except shadowkat. And she's probably only humoring me because I'm a good listener...) Finally, a little backup!

"It seems like the Scoobies are being plugged into roles to accomplish some task that furthers the plot or fills time, but the writers can't think of anything else to do with them. Their personalities aren't coming through. Even during the battle in "The Gift," when the Scoobies weren't doing much besides following their preplanned tasks, it was still unmistakeably Willow who snarled at Glory as she sucked Tara's brain back, and it was still Xander who wrecking-balled a spare, and it was still Giles who killed Ben like a proper English librarian."

Exactly. I get the feeling that with Joss away from the day-to-day running of the show, there's a ton of pressure on Marti to stick with the plot outline as worked out at the start of the season. Marti's trying to be a good lieutenant and follow the plan, but all that squeezing in of plot points tends to crowd out characterization. In this type of situation, you need someone with a masterful grasp of all the characters to massage the scripts so the Scoobies don't get lost in the details. Unfortunately, the person who did the job in previous seasons was Joss.

You see the problem....

Now that I have your attention, another point:

We seem to be going through another mid-season slump. Not as bad as last year's, but notable. Remember, in S6, the first six or seven episodes were chock full of marvelous character bits for our regulars; after Smashed, the middle section of the season got a bit slack, featuring "Placesetter" Xanya, Dawn's undistinguished career as whiny klepto, and Doug Petrie's inexplicable "As You Were." Once we hit the wedding, things perked up, and rolled right along until the finale.

In previous years, Joss hit us with a mid-season twist that shook us out of our doldrums: in S2, it was Angel's turning; in S3, it was Faith-gone-bad; in S4, it was the rise of Adam and the death of Maggie Walsh; in S5, it was Joyce's sudden death. (I think the best of these was Joyce's death in S5. Didn't substantially alter the major plotline of the year--Dawn/Glory/the Key--but turned Buffy's world upside down and effectively set up her jump off the tower in "The Gift."

In S6 and S7, we're pretty much in a holding pattern, waiting for the roller coaster to take its final ride down. Some of the natives are restless out here in Buffyland. We need another plot twist (or maybe Joss should pass out magazines while we wait for the First Evil to get really serious)...

[> [> Of course, one could argue -- Finn Mac Cool, 14:14:29 01/09/03 Thu

That the heavily character based episodes near the beginning got in the way of the plot. "Beneath You", "Same Time, Same Place", "Help", and "Selfless" heavily developed the characters, but were not very heavy on plot, whether arc or just for the individual episode (one of the many reasons that UPN's promos sucked was that they talked all about the monster of the week, and nothing else, though there are definitely other problems with them). "Lessons", "Conversations with Dead People", and "Never Leave Me" contained a fairly equal mix, in my opinion, of plot and character. "Sleeper" leaned more heavily towards character, though there was more plot thrown in than in earlier episodes, while "Bring on the Night" leaned more towards the plot, and "Showtime" advances the plot while not really doing a great deal for character. But here's the thing: this makes 3 episodes that were about 50/50 in the plot/character balance, 1 episode that was more plot than character, 1 episode that was more character than plot, 4 episodes that were principally character, and only 1 episode that was principally about that plot. Given that the plot advancement episodes are greatly outnumbered, I do not begrudge the decision to make "Showtime" mainly about plot elements. Now, I do realize that, on Buffy, character comes first and plot comes second. But so far, I'd say we've had a total of 6.5 character episodes and 3.5 plot episodes. Out of ten episodes, this comes to nearly two thirds of them being about the character, and a just a little over one third about the plot (you'll notice I didn't include "Him" because that one defies both plot and character for the most part).

Now, don't get the impression that I'm fed up with character developement. Every episode I listed above I loved (with the exceptions of "Help", which was dissapointing, and "Showtime", which I've only read the wildfeed for). I just feel that when plot is begrudged for having a mere one third of the episodes, that I have to give a dissenting opinion. Now, if it came out to 5 character eps to 5 plot eps, I might reconsider, since Buffy is primarily about the characters.

[> [> Patience (some lies, some damned lies, and just a few statistics) -- Tchaikovsky, 14:35:18 01/09/03 Thu

I agree with your agreeing with Valheru, and think the reason behind it, (Joss, Marti etc) is quite plausible. I would agree, (but I haven't actually seen Season Seven yet, so it's an odd kind of agreement), that things have been coasting a little since 'Conversations with Dead People'.

But could a counsel just a little patience on the 'You Didn't See THAT Coming' plot twist. Not because I know anything, but because the list of events you give betrays a pattern:

S2 Angel turns bad in 'Surprise', episode 13.
S3 Faith goes bad in 'Bad Girls' episode 14.
S4 Death of Maggie Walsh at the end of 'The I in Team' episode 13.
S5 Joyce dies at the end of 'I Was Made to Love You' episode 15.
S6 I'd like to suggest Buffy's break-up with Spike at the end of the otherwise pointless and silly 'As You Were'- episode 15, as the big twist of the Season. It leads to the attempted rape, and the final scene of the Season with the new soul.

So you would expect at least a couple of episodes before any vaunted plot twist.

TCH

[> [> Re: Son of Revenge of the Overdetermined Plot Arc and other ramblings -- Valheru, 15:53:35 01/09/03 Thu

Re: Marti/Joss

Joss always made sure that whatever was going on with the plot, it impacted the Scoobies personally. For instance, each Scooby had a different feeling about Angelus, even though they all felt the overarching doom that he was coming to kill them. There wasn't a blanket, across-the-board way that the Scoobies reacted. That was all because of Joss's influence. Look at all those exposition scenes in the library in S1-3; their only purpose was to move the episodes' plots forward, but the writers managed to make them some of the most character-insighful scenes in the series. Joss had a knack for making sure every scene did something more than what was intended.

Marti, on the other hand, is having problems doing that. She did okay in S6. Remember, Marti's specialty is to torture the characters, something S6 had in spades. S6 may have been overly depressing and often inexplicable, but even in the worst episodes, the Scoobies still had some personality to them. Now in S7, the personalities are dwindling. The Scoobies are turning into cardboard characters with only brief moments of true expression. Willow is meek, "sorry about the evil" girl who's afraid to use magic; Xander is sitting quietly in the background, only becoming noticable when something needs repairing or to grumble about Andrew; Dawn is just scowling at people and trying to pick fights; Spike is being tortured-soul guy with even less to do than Angel used to; and Buffy is giving pep-talks, threatening Andrew and the First, killing things, and having psychoanalysis sessions with anyone who'll listen. It's like the writers have an activity sheet for the stories:

Andrew says something. Is he a) told to shut up (Xander), b) threatened with bodily harm (Dawn), or c) glibly insulted (Buffy)?

What Andrew says a) reminds Willow of her Dark Willow phase, b) needles Xander about Anya, c) makes Dawn feel insignificant, d) makes Buffy wonder about Spike, or e) is something nerdy that no one understands?

The thing is, I'd forgive this sort of place-set characterization if it only happened once, but it keeps happening. Everyone keeps having variations of the same scenes, dealing with the same problems. When was the last time Spike had a scene that didn't involve him extolling his faith in Buffy? "Sleeper?" When did Willow last talk about something that didn't include a reference to magic? Not only are the characters being one-dimensionalized, but we keep being hit over the head with it.

Re: Slumping

I actually think this year's slump is just as bad, or even worse, than last year's. At least last year, we got a little humor and some interesting character insights, despite the horrible plots. This year, the plot is strong but everything else is falling apart.

And I don't really consider Joyce's death as the twist point, since "The Body" was the 16th? 17th? episode of the season. Usually by that point, there's a big "shock" moment that propels the character arcs toward the finale: in S2, that was Jenny's death; in S3, it was Buffy and Angel's breakup; in S4, it was Riley leaving the Initiative; in S6, it was either "Hell's Bells" or Spanya. To me, the midseason twist of S5 was Dawn discovering she was the Key or Buffy learning about Spike's love. Or maybe it could be the discovery of Joyce's tumor. But "The Body" was too late to have been the "traditional" twist.

Anyway, yeah, we do need a big plot twist soon. And it needs to be something from out of the blue, not just a neat explanation like what is up with Giles, what the big deal is with Spike, or why the First is after everyone. I want to be shocked out of my everlovin' gourd on this one. We need something like Angelus again. Hrm...maybe Spike has his own heretofore unknown curse? Like "one moment of true snarky-ness and you lose your soul forever!" Then Spike can nail kittens to Buffy's boarded-up windows, murder Olivia and leave her in Giles' sleeping bag, sneak into Buffy's room at night and leave her bad poems, kill Willow's new pet (Kitty Fantastico still around?), go to L.A. and put the moves on Cordy while Angel watches, and finally duel Buffy with television's greatest railroad spike fight. *Ahem* Yes. Twist must be big Big BIG!

[> Sometimes, you've gotta take a beating. -- Arethusa, 07:48:48 01/10/03 Fri

I can't remember where I heard that line, but it was in a movie where one man had to teach another that if you want to defend yourself, you have to be willing to suffer severe physical pain. The SITs obviously were afraid of being hurt (and killed) in a fight, and Buffy needed to show them that yes, they will be hurt, perhaps very badly, but they could still win. That might be why she let the ubervamp beat on her before she defeated it-to show that they, the potential slayers, could handle the pain and defend themselves.

Really agree with your other points. The BtVS clock is counting down to zero, and I crave all the Scooby interaction and charater development that I can get.

[> Re: More "Showtime" thoughts (spoilers) -- shadowkat, 08:14:25 01/10/03 Fri

Hmmm...bear with me I've been thinking about this since I first read these posts last evening. I've deleted five responses...so far. We'll see if I post one. It's so hard to do this without falling into the a) subjective trap of personal opinion or b)obsessive ranting or c) unnecessary and hurtful criticism of other posters obsessions. With my luck? I'll probably do all three..and someone will call me on it. Deservedly so. That said...into the breach I bravely go.

First off I think it goes without saying that we are all overly obsessed with this TV show. (Did you watch any episode this year more than once? Have you taped them? Do you rearrange your schedule around Buffy? Does watching the show elicit an emotional response? Do you spend undue amount of time posting on the internet? yep obsessed...and i haven't even asked if you spent money on the shows.)
I also think that being overly obsessed does detract from our enjoyment after a while - our expectations are raised, partly to justify our obsession to ourselves and others in our lives. That's the problem with obessions - defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as a compulsive preoccuption with an idea or unwanted emotion. Or a better one - to preoccupy oneself with something excessively. Nothing can live up to such microscopic scrutiny. The more you look at it - the more likely you will find something you don't like in it or something that does not support the reason you have become obsessed - hence the reason obsessions with living things can turn dangerous. After a while - you stop seeing the thing you are obsessed with as something separate from you, not within your control and having its own separate path...it gets well tricky.

This is NOT to say that the above criticisms of Btvs aren't valid. They are. I actually agree with the ones on Showtime and Bring on The Night - except for the final scene of Showtime which I personally loved. But the show is after all a 43 minute drama on tv, created by over 100 people on a weekly basis with scripts written in less than five days.
There's bound to be bad dialogue, faulty production and a few phoned in performances. Haven't you ever had a bad day at work or flubbed up on something?
Perfection unfortunately or fortunately is still something beyond human capability.

After saying all this...(don't hurt me)...I admit I have my own problems with Buffy this season. In fact I've found Angel the Series actually more entertaining. I think I know what the writers are up to, but I'm not sure its entertaining. It's ambitious, even possibly brillant, but am I going to enjoy it? As much as say other seasons?

My difficulty is the peripheral characters.They are my pet peeve, what makes me want to throw stuff at the dang screen. Unlike past seasons including Season 6, where the peripheral characters engaged me or made me smile and I wanted to learn more, the ones this season feel dull and like they are taking up space that I would prefer be filled with a regular characters. I find the peripheral characters to be duller than past seasons, uninteresting, and cannon fodder. I'd rather spend time watching Spike than Andrew or Xander than Andrew. I'd rather watch Willow than Wood or Dawn than the protoslayers. But enuff. To avoid upsetting folks who love certain peripheral characters - I won't give in to my urge to vent and rant about them.

Since coming online I've discovered something I think I've always known and is now reiterated in force - whatever opinion you may have on something - you can bet money someone has the opposite. An excellent example of this is the huge amount of money My Big Fat Greek Wedding has made in spite of horrendous reviews. The critics despise it. The audiences love it. Meanwhile the critical darling Far From Heaven is barely making much money at all. Same thing about tv - I despise the Bachelor, but obviously there are people watching and loving it or we wouldn't have at least three versions of it on the air. The frustrating thing about life is for every opinion we have or every obsession - there is some idiot out there who disagrees with us and has the opposite. ugh. Of course this also makes life far more interesting. It would be dull if everyone agreed with us.

While i agree with the assessments of both Bring on The Night and Showtime - I don't on CwDP, Sleeper, or Never LEave Me - which did further the plot and character and thematic arcs of several major characters: Dawn, Buffy, Willow, Spike in CWDP, Buffy, Spike, Xander, Anya and one annoying peripheral character Andrew in NLM. And Spike/Buffy in Sleeper, who are the current leads - like it or not. They may not have been the characters you personally are invested in but they are the ones I'm invested in, so I loved them - yep it's subjective...oh well. I wasn't as pleased with Same Time Same Place, Help or Him - because it didn't focus on characters or issues that interested me. Although Same Time Same Place has grown on me and Him is hilarous in places. I have friends who loved them.

OTOH valid points are made on BoTN and Showtime - these two episodes really don't further character much, except possibly for Buffy. They don't tell me anything I don't already know about the other characters and there is way too much going on. They are a) too ambitious, b) too busy, c) too many superflous characters we have no reason to care about. Also they raise more questions - thus confusing and frustrating the audience. This would be less of a problem if they came right after each other followed immediately by the next episode: ie instead of a two week wait between NLM and BoTN - we have the usual five day wait Tues to next Tues. Instead of the three week wait for Showtime, it comes the next week. Instead of another week wait for episode 12, if comes next week. These waits - tend to make us raise our expectations and get frustrated when things aren't delivered. This happened last year with Gone and Doublemeat Palace and in past seasons - with Go Fish in Season 2. I tended to like the episode better when I wasn't going nuts waiting for it.

I agree on Giles - it is time cut or fish bait. I'm sick of wondering what if any purpose he has. He seems to wander aimlessly quoting exposition and putting undue pressure on our heroine. A character I previously loved is beginning to urk me. Also he doesn't feel like the First, he just feels like a damaged character who has no clue what to do with himself. In many ways watching him reminds me of watching his Restless dream and I think this is deliberate and if I'm right about the direction this season, sort of brillant, but not overly entertaining. If he does end up being a manisfestation of the first? I completely agree with you - they flubbed it in Showtime. Sorry doesn't logically work.

And I agree on the show with the uber-vamp, all three ubervamp fights bored me actually - in BoTN, Showtime. They weren't as entertaining as her fights with Dracula, Spike, Angelus, etc. Why? No dialogue, no quips. Just being pummeled. Just not all that entertaining. I think I've fast-forwarded over them while rewatching. I mean there's really no suspense about her winning here - she's the main character and it's only the 11th episode, they won't kill her yet. Also the uber-vamp just isn't scarey looking to me - he does look like the Grr-ARgh guy. OTOH - I think they did the fights that way to show how truly dangerous Buffy's job is and how real. It's not fun and games. I think this is deliberate. Unfortunately it's not really that entertaining to me. (Again this may be subjective - several people on the board loved it.)

Showtime still hits a B- on my odometer...Beer Bad - actually might be a B, it made me laugh. Great quips.
It was enjoyable - as another friend stated, I've been waiting so long for a new episode it was wonderful to see one. Also I loved the ending. But...I think it was too busy.
Too many characters. I'm hoping they trim a few and focus the show more in upcoming episodes.

Okay...cautiously posting this...hopefully no one will notice it and won't be offended.

Just my ten cents...for what it's worth.
SK

[> [> Re: More "Showtime" thoughts (spoilers) -- Arethusa, 09:23:27 01/10/03 Fri

Not offensive, don't worry. You're right about nothing living up to the intense scrutiny we apply to BtVS. I actually enjoy the shows more the second or third time around, since I'm no longer at a fever pitch of anticipation and expectation. Watching Season 6 on Fox reruns was a totally different and more enjoyable experience than watching it for the first time, stretched out over the entire season and with huge gaps in the airing schedule.

What is your theory regarding "Restless" and this season? If you're already explained it, just point me to the archives, if you please.

[> [> [> Ahh...Restless...and gaps between episodes -- shadowkat, 14:38:12 01/10/03 Fri

First - fully agree - I find the second time I watch something to be more rewarding - watching Him - BoTN made more sense and was more interesting as one whole clip together then it was with five days between each. Also you get to fast-forward over commericials - the commercials in my humble opinion hurt the show.

Dang show is going to torture us this year: here's the line up:

Next week no new episode
The week after - new episode
Week after that? Rerun of Help (ugh!)
Week after that Feb 4 (I think) new episode, new episode,
new episode, new episode...

Now we have six left. Which means maybe one in April or March then zip until the May sweeps. Torture.

Ats on the other hand? We'll have a flock of episodes weekly since they only showed 8 in the fall. Ahhh...loving Ats.

What is your theory regarding "Restless" and this season? If you're already explained it, just point me to the archives, if you please.

I may have, can't remember. My theory is we are currently in Giles and Buffy's dreams. In Gile's dream - he is expounding or putting pressure on Buffy, but basically useless and scalped at the end - realizing the first slayer never had nor needed a watcher. He arrives too late to help Willow and Xander and Buffy is still a kid in his head.
Also Spike is just a posure in front of cameras - no more important than a cardboard vampire. "I always thought she should have killed you -" Giles states as Spike does his final cruxifixion pose.

Giles' dream was to me at any rate the most disturbing of the dreams. In the show - we have the separation of the characters we see in Gile's dream - Xander heartless wandering about with seemingly no true purpose, Willow spiritless - unsure of herself and afraid of her spirit sitting doing research, Buffy a little girl that he keeps telling to do things, and Spike outside the color and in the black and white world - a mere attraction - something being used by others. It may be the way the reluctant adult sees being forced to continue helping grownup children. He wants to move on with his own life, but can't. This is in a way a metanarration on ASH who wants to move on past Buffy but his daughters and the show won't let him.

Then we have Buffy - whose dream is basically about going up to the next level - growing up, not staying in that comfort zone which is high school, with Mom walled up and safe at your beck and call, or your friends always comfortably backing you up (well in Buffyverse...never experienced this in realverse, but whatever), the boyfriend being both demon and man...agression being a natural thing. And most of all accepting the dark side of herself.

Now I could be wrong about this - but my theory is that the slayer - is in some ways associated with adolescence...that a slayer is not supposed to live past a certain age. The slayer slays the adolescent fears and temptations. And it's important for the balance for the slayer to be a young girl not a woman? It's just a hunch. Sort of a play off of the whole vampire metaphor.

At any rate I keep seeing allusions to Buffy and Giles dreams. A lot of Buffy's - her sense of being disconnected at times. The fact that everything in the high school seems smaller. She's walking through what appears to be the old high school in her dream. The use of Riley and Adam as two sides of her male ideal: the man and the demon. Her struggle with the duality in herself. We're not demons she insists to ADam, is that a fact, he responds. The crux being the First Slayer and the Guide Tara insisting she must take up the hands, be the slayer, the killer and Buffy's insistence that she is more than that and she will move on and will grow up. The whole meaning of the line - "I'll be a fireman when the floods roll back" - means I will grow up. I will have a job. I won't just be an adolescent girl who slays demons. I'm not just the slayer.
I have friends. I breath. I sneeze. I do not sleep on a bed of bones. You do not dictate my path.

I found Buffy's dream unlike the other three to be very existentialist. (Assuming I understand existentialism). She basically was telling the powers that be - that she sets her own course, makes her own decisions, not them. She doesn't believe in fate. She will be more because she chooses to. It makes her a wild card - sets her outside the boundaries. When we grow up - we take charge of our own lives, we stop letting others tell us how to live them. Age may factor into this to some extent - but I've always believed that the true sign of maturity is when you start taking responsibility for your own actions and the consequences of those actions and stop blaming others for them and stop waiting for someone else to tell you what you should or should not do. The slayers need watchers to advise them. Except Buffy - who stopped asking their advice way back in Helpless...Buffy broke the pattern. So in a sense did Faith - but Faith showed the difference between calmly making your own decisions and taking responsibility for them and rebelling against authority and doing the opposite of what people say and blaming every one else. ie. "I had no choice". Also Faith followed the dictates of the Mayor. It wasn't until she turned herself into the cops in Sanctuary that Faith began to "grow up". Same thing with Spike and vampires - it wasn't until Spike took responsibility for what he did to Buffy, got the soul, and began to understand her and their relationship...that Spike
broke out of adolescence and began to grow up.

I think Restless - charts this process for each character and their struggles with it. And I think Seasons 5, 6, and 7 really follow the arc/process set up in Restless. I don't know how much of this was pre-planned, but I do believe the writers probably built episodes from the Restless template or used it as a guide. Not sure if that makes sense.

My gut tells me...that this whole year is in a way a reflection on the early seasons - the high school and adolescent years - forcing the characters to deal with the old melodramas and fears with adult eyes and possibly gain some wisdom from them, not to mention figure out who they really are - once all the layers get stripped away.

[> [> [> [> Re: Ahh...Restless (and Showtime) (spoilers for the latter) -- Random, 16:10:14 01/10/03 Fri

Interesting...and gosh, I never realized I was obsessed. Go out on Fridays and Saturdays (except this one...gotta be up in the morning), work 9 hour days, do extracurricular activities... and still manage to find time to fit into most of your categorical criteria for obsession. (Okay, I had the tiniest inkling I might be a smidgen obsessed when I stared getting irrational cravings for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cereal even though no such product exists. And I even craved the one w/marshmallows. You know, the black-eyed Willows, platinum blonde Spikes, yellow-bellied Andrews, green-eyed Rileys, [Earl] Grey Giles, green glowy Dawns, dark Master...bators, et cetera) Anyway, I kinda jumped on one of your points. It's fascinating: Buffy has, by all accounts, lived way too long for a Slayer. Showtime made a point of noting the age issue for called Slayers, possibly not idlely. When Giles notes that the disorder it is because she "lives".... Well, what if it had nothing to do with her resurrection -- other than the fact that it allowed to to continue living -- and everything to do with the fact that she's survived well past the expiration date on the package? She should be dead now (not that I want her to die again, of course!) How would that muck up the procession of events and continuity that have characterized the entire line of Slayers since the First Slayer? It's in a holding pattern (even if the line goes through Faith, it's already screwed up by having two Slayers anyway.)
At least, that's what I got from your "hunch." If I'm reading too much into it, sorry. If not, well, I find the idea fascinating.

[> [> [> [> [> Re: Ahh...Restless (and Showtime) (spoilers for the latter) -- shadowkat, 20:55:36 01/10/03 Fri

Nope - not reading too much into it. You are completely correct and apparently have more life than I currently do at the moment, which well...let's move on shall we.

Seriously, that's my hunch - Buffy has lived past her expiration date. I think Steve in the metanarration thread on Showtime above also hit upon it. And I think the important revival was NOT Bargaining but Prophecy Girl - that's when the disruption occurred and suddenly it was no longer "One girl in each generation..." - it became two girls. Also notice we no longer had the exposition that we had in season 1? The show changed dramatically. That's what disrupted everything and that's when Buffy fell off the Powers radar screen - remember Angel (Mr. I always follow the prophecies boy up until well Angel season 2) had to be convinced in Prophecy girl to help Buffy by Xander.
It's Xander who saved her. Xander disrupted things. Not once but twice - in Harvest where he helped her get out of the catacombs. Hmm maybe should take this above to the steve post...rejoin me there.

[> [> [> [> Re: Ahh...Restless...and gaps between episodes -- Rufus, 01:13:06 01/11/03 Sat

Now I could be wrong about this - but my theory is that the slayer - is in some ways associated with adolescence...that a slayer is not supposed to live past a certain age. The slayer slays the adolescent fears and temptations. And it's important for the balance for the slayer to be a young girl not a woman? It's just a hunch. Sort of a play off of the whole vampire metaphor.

Makes one rethink why Buffy and Spike have been duking it out for the past few seasons.....vampire and slayer....and the results thereof. Notice at the end of Showtime that Buffy comes to get Spike, like she was out to do in Intervention (with more deadly motives). The progression of the characters is noticeable, in Intervention Buffy was going to shut Spike up in a permanent way to protect Dawn, upon finding the beaten Spike she kisses him, tells him that she appreciates what he did and leaves. In Showtime, Buffy goes to get Spike, not to shut him up, she doesn't even know for sure why. The scene in the end is a doubling of the last scene in Intervention.....Buffy could either be a bot or First Evil, or the real thing, Spike assumes it's the First. The reaction of both is something to watch....Spike thought he was going to die but wasn't going to give in, be conquered, but it's Buffy this time....the Buffy he knew was coming for him, hoped was coming for him, had almost given up hope was coming for him. This time instead of words Buffy just looks at him....and the biggest difference, she doesn't leave him in the crypt/cave, she sets him free and allows him to lean on her as she helps leave the torture behind.

[> [> HERESY IN SK's POST! WE MUST SHUN HER!!!! -- Darby, 11:18:26 01/10/03 Fri

There, now nobody will look at it...

So we're all just pathetic shells of human beings, clawing feebly at our tv screens or pounding on them crying for the "people" to come back, eh-?

Whatdya mean, that's not what you said?

Mmmmm (read read read read)...huh.

Never mind.

PS Enjoyed your post.

[> [> Re: More "Showtime" thoughts (spoilers) -- Rufus, 01:01:39 01/11/03 Sat

First off I think it goes without saying that we are all overly obsessed with this TV show. (Did you watch any episode this year more than once? Have you taped them? Do you rearrange your schedule around Buffy? Does watching the show elicit an emotional response? Do you spend undue amount of time posting on the internet? yep obsessed...and i haven't even asked if you spent money on the shows.)

We have to have an emotional response scale as I have an emotional response when my dishwasher gets the job done (for a change).

Too many characters. I'm hoping they trim a few and focus the show more in upcoming episodes.

Careful, you know what happened when people wanted Dawn to quit whining....the Gremilins effect...;)

Really nefarious idea for how the series could end (spoilers up to 7.11) -- HonorH, 12:25:12 01/09/03 Thu

It's coming down to the last episode. People have been killed right and left (including Scoobies), it looks like the First is winning, and Buffy sits cradling Dawn's body. Willow sits nearby, weeping.

"Willow," says Buffy emotionlessly, "I need one last, huge piece of magic from you."

"I can't bring her back," Willow sobs.

"No, not that," says Buffy. "I'm going to battle the First. You, though--you need to find some way to go back two years and stop my resurrection. Can you do that?"

Willow gasps back her tears and thinks. "There may be a way. There may."

"Find a way," says Buffy. She lays Dawn's body tenderly on the ground and walks away.

There's a montage of Buffy battling the First's minions. By her side are Faith, Xander (eyes red and wide with grief over Anya's death), Kennedy, and Spike, the only survivors. Interspersed with this are scenes of Willow lighting candles, burning herbs, and chanting. Xander falls first, then Kennedy. Willow begins to glow from the inside out. Faith dies. Buffy scarcely notices as she continues to battle. Spike bursts into dust. As Buffy faces an impossible sea of foes alone, Willow's body dissolves into a pool of light.

Flash back to "Bargaining." Willow, Xander, Anya, and Tara all kneel around Buffy's grave. Willow has just marked her face with blood when suddenly, she convulses, bright light engulfing her. The others gasp, not knowing if this is part of the ritual. When the light clears, Willow stares in confusion at the scene in front of her. Her eyes finally focus on the Urn of Osiris, and comprehending, she seizes it and throws it against a nearby tree, smashing it.

"Willow, what are you doing?" asks Xander.

"Hey, that was expensive!" protests Anya.

Tara, meanwhile, rushes to Willow's side. Willow touches her face tenderly, torn between grief and joy.

"This is wrong," Willow whispers. "I've seen it. Buffy's safe. This is wrong. I'm sorry, baby, I'm so sorry."

Tara draws Willow, crying helplessly, into her arms as the others cluster around.

Later, we catch up with the friends at Casa Summers. They're all a bit beaten up from the fight with the demon bikers. Willow has the BuffyBot lying on the couch as she works on the 'bot and explains things to her friends. Dawn's crying a little, and Spike's standing off to one side, looking angry.

"She only stuck around for you, Dawnie," Willow says. "She learned to live again for you, and when you died, it was the end. We both knew this was the way it had to be, and it's the best for her, for the world . . . and for me."

We end with a montage of scenes at the Summers house, with the BuffyBot perkily making sandwiches, Dawn getting ready for school and giving Tara a hug as Xander picks her up, and Willow and Tara picking up their books to head off to college. The camera finally focuses on a small memorial to Buffy set up in one corner of the living room, and we fade out.

[> Cribbing from your alter ego's journals? -- pr10n, 12:32:27 01/09/03 Thu

'Cause that's some good evil, right there.

You evil fanfic mynx, you.

[> I was touched. -- frisby, 13:33:38 01/09/03 Thu

Even though I loved S6 and love S7 so far, this possible ending for the series I found touching. I could live with it. Very good!

[> Re: OH HOW SAD :-( Fantasy Spoiler -- Angelina, 13:35:04 01/09/03 Thu

But it beats having to watch her die again! I really will miss Buffy very much. I honestly hope ME can find someway to get SMG to play cameo parts on whatever show they decide to resume next fall. Does anyone really think ME would just CANCEL BtVA

Nah..............

Prehaps the new series will be called
"Slayers"
Has a nice ring to it.

[> Sad, but cool. -- yez, 14:35:15 01/09/03 Thu

[> Actually, y'know, I don't even like my own theory. -- HonorH, 15:19:51 01/09/03 Thu

It would totally retcon the events of S6 and 7. They'd be rendered pretty much nonexistent. Of course, to some people, it'd be no great loss, but I rather like them. Anyway, all of this is to say I don't think this'll be happening.

[> [> Yeah, don't freak me out like that! -- Harry Parachute, 17:24:58 01/09/03 Thu

Now I'm gonna be left feeling icky all day...just like when I saw...uh...that great, low-budget, low-profile movie which came out a couple years back that I can't even name now without potentially ruining the ending.

Anyway, better to slaughter the entire cast of characters than obliterate the past two years of history. For all the pain and agony, at least it occured.

And hey, no Buffy resurrection and the Hellions have a party in Sunnydale. Anatomic incapatibility for everyone!

[> [> [> Plus no Buffy resurrection and all Spike's progress goes down the toilet... -- KdS, 02:54:55 01/10/03 Fri

[> [> Actually, it might be kinda appropriate... -- Nascent, 18:50:58 01/09/03 Thu

A Hellmouthy take on Capra..."It's a Wonderful Death".
"See, Buffy? You'll stay dead and everybody will be happy...er..."
And, ok, so the more evil among us would sniffle a bit as we watched Black Eyed Baddie Willow be deleted from the records and Warren Mears sadly reunited with his epidermis, but you can't have everything...

[> Re: Really nefarious idea for how the series could end (spoilers up to 7.11) -- Malandanza, 22:22:25 01/09/03 Thu

My vote would be to have the First Evil succeed in killing all the SiT's, then kill Faith, then...leave Buffy alive. Because -- why kill her? All her replacements are gone and she's a dead end -- better to leave her alive with the knowledge of her failure.

[> [> Hey! No fair being evil-er than me! -- HonorH, 22:56:34 01/09/03 Thu

Buffy's Neighborhood (Showtime Spoilers) -- Hauptman, 14:12:41 01/09/03 Thu

You kind of have to wonder what the neighbors of the Summer's household think. I mean, there is nothing but trouble at that house. If parties aren't being crashed by zombies, eyeless minions and Uber-Vamps or dozens of screaming women chasing an enchanted Zander, you think they would be little upset at people constantly crawling in and out of the windows over the years.

I know I shouldn't look to Sunydale for reality, but I thougt the Minion surrounding the house and the Uber-vamp just wlking up to the door and knocking (albeit in his own way) was a little surreal. It kind of reminded me of the Simpsons when Bart asked Homer, "Do you even have a job anymore?"

I just wanted him to pop out and ask, "Does anyone think Buffy is normal anymore?" Why don't all the students at Sunnydale know about her? And, if they do, why don't they come to her for help? Why aren't the neighbors coming to her for help. If I lived across the street from the Slayer and an I heard a bump in the night I would be on her porch in a shot. Has anyone ever come to Buffy for help?

Watching the uber-vamp march up to the door like a girlscout with particularly vicious cookies to sell just seemed so odd to me.

And, have we seen any other vamps aside from Spike and Ube (I love that name "Ube") this season. Are they on vacation? Is this the off season in Sunnydale? Surly she isn't patroling while the houseguests are sitting about.

I mean he chased her down the street. No cars, no pedestrians. Just Buff and Ube doing the stand off thing. The show is becoming very Avengers-like in that there doesn't ever seem to be anyone around anymore.

Just a thought.

[> Doublethink -- Finn Mac Cool, 14:37:50 01/09/03 Thu

This was a concept introudced in George Orwell's novel of a future dystopia called "1984". In it, there is a government run institution that's job is to change history. They alter history books, change the lessons children learn, and generally brainwash the people into believing whatever the government (known as The Party) wants them to believe. If The Party forges an alliance with another country, everyone is brainwashed into believing The Party always had an alliance with that country. No one really knows how The Party came to be since all records of the past are altered and people old enough to remember it are either too brainwashed to remember what really happened anymore, or they are killed, and The Party hides all evidence and memories that they ever existed in the first place.

What does this have to do with Buffy? Well, the main slogan of The Party was "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength". This emphasizes The Party's support of doublethink: the ability to hold two contradicting beliefs in your head at the same time. For, in real world coverups, there are always agents or CIA officials or somebody else who knows the truth, because otherwise there's no one to do the coverup. This has lead to the beans being spilled on many otherwise well kept secrets. But The Party has moved beyond that. Not only do its agents hide the truth from the public, they convince themselves at the same time that it never happened as well. They need to know they are altering history in order to do their jobs, but, through the principle of doublethink, they can hold the ordinarilly paradoxil idea that what they are telling the public is true. They both believe and disbelieve what The Party says at the same time. I think that the immense denial and suppression of Sunnydale's citizens, especially those who come in close contact with Buffy, has progressed to the level of doublethink. They know to hide when monsters come, and that there is something strange about that girl next door, but silmotaneously hold the idea that nothing is odd, everything is normal. Just like The Party's agents, they can hide and avoid the supernatural surrounding them while, at the same time, denying they are doing so.

Or maybe, by this point, all of Buffy's neighbors have died. After all, there are abandoned factories, warehouses, and other buildings all around Sunnydale, maybe Buffy's house happens to be surrounded by abandoned ones.

[> [> Re: Doublethink -- Hauptman, 16:39:30 01/09/03 Thu

Or maybe, by this point, all of Buffy's neighbors have died. After all, there are abandoned factories, warehouses, and other buildings all around Sunnydale, maybe Buffy's house happens to be surrounded by abandoned ones.

Although your first suggestion makes more sense, I will take this one. Thanks for the suspension of reality. I needed it.

[> [> Sunnydale Real Estate: "Great houses for however long you live!" -- Valheru, 01:06:07 01/10/03 Fri

Or maybe, by this point, all of Buffy's neighbors have died. After all, there are abandoned factories, warehouses, and other buildings all around Sunnydale, maybe Buffy's house happens to be surrounded by abandoned ones.

That's my theory, too. We know that the person living next door to Buffy was killed by door-to-door-worm-guy in What's My Line? Pat from Dead Man's Party was probably a neighbor (she didn't seem to have driven to the Summers house, at least). Over the years of Hellmouthiness, a lot of Buffy's neighbors have probably been killed by one beastie or another. And from what the loan officer told Buffy in Flooded, we know that houses aren't very good for collateral since people don't want to move to Sunnydale because of the death rate. Besides the Summers', the only people we've known to move into town have been college students, Initiative soldiers, clueless foreign exchange students, demons, Slayers and SITs and Watchers, and Billy Fordham, none of whom are potential homebuyers. With so many people dying and so few people moving in, I'd bet Sunnydale looks pretty bare.

This also could explain why property, rent, and mortgages seem so cheap on the show. If the death rate is driving prices down so much, it makes more sense that Buffy could pay the mortgage with minimum wage, that Xander could afford such a snazzy place on construction pay (before he got promoted), and that Giles could throw money around off of whatever the cheapskate Watchers' Council was paying him.

One thing is buggin' me, though. With all the abandoned places around, why did Spike and Xander spend so much time living miserably? Given that Angelus and Dracula either paid for their places or killed the owners, that's two nice-sized mansions with owners that will never return. I know that their living conditions were set up as plot points, but you'd think something like this would have come up at least during Xander's househunting in The Replacement. Maybe once Dawn moves out, she can take Glory's old place. I hear the old Hellgod had some wicked parties.

[> Would you go out in the dark if you lived in Sunnydale? -- Lilac, 16:48:48 01/09/03 Thu

[> Vamps in Season 7 -- Dochawk, 20:22:38 01/09/03 Thu

Well CwDP had Holden Webster, but your right, very few vamps (very few demons too).

[> Re: Buffy's Neighborhood (Showtime Spoilers/some speculation) -- Jay, 21:03:11 01/09/03 Thu

You raise a point that's been bothering me. In the episode Sleeper, we see bustling crowds and extras aplenty. Since then, they have seemed to disappear. Granted, it's only been three episodes, but still, where is everyone?

Other than a very brief visit from a social worker last year, authority has been non-existent lately. And inside casa del Summers right now are residing someone who escaped from jail last season, and someone who mounted a frontal assault on the police station. I could let the latter be explained away if Giles had used some influence with the Watcher's Council to change Willow's circumstances bureaucratically, but I'd have to see or hear something about it.

My theory is we aren't seeing much of the Sunnydale townspeople right now, because when the pendulum swings the other way, it'll be a statement of what kind of standing the Slayer and her friends have in the community. At least, I hope we'll have a scene like that. Sort of like when it became painfully obvious to Buffy's classmates that she was a hero, and deserved recognition. I'd like to see something like that from the denizens of Sunnydale.

Now I'd like to take issue with you about the scarcity of vampires. Mostly because Spike himself began siring vampires himself at a pace that would make VampHef blush. I realize the Spikees didn't last more than a couple episodes, but Buffy didn't let them last any longer.

Willow hearing Buffy?! (Showtime Spoilers) -- yez, 14:29:13 01/09/03 Thu

Was anyone else surprised by Willow being able to hear Buffy's mental callout to her? Hasn't Willow had to initiate the "mind call" every other time that we've seen her using telepathic communication? (Maybe I just never noticed it before.)

I'm just curious about how this is supposed to be working, and somehow I found this harder to believe -- and quite ominous. Is she aware of what others are thinking all the time? (I'd say there's a lot of evidence against this. And this kind of thing led to much freakout among the Scoobs in "Earshot.") Or does it require a deliberate attempt to contact her (which is what it seemed like in this case) to get her attention?

And how did Xander and Buffy communicate? ("Now available at ToysRUs -- Telepathic Willow(tm) with conference call capabilities!!")

yez

[> My theory: -- HonorH, 14:33:19 01/09/03 Thu

Buffy's joining with Willow to help her heal in STSP is what helped Buffy to figure out just how to do it. Also, remember that Willow stepped into her brain in WotW. Methinks there's been some telepathy going on between shows, and this was Buffy deciding to initiate contact for the first time. And yes, I think Willow was the conduit by which Xander and Buffy could communicate.

[> [> Re: My (different) theory -- Just George, 15:31:40 01/09/03 Thu

Possibly Buffy asked Willow to listen in. Remember that this "conversation" happened after they discovered that The First was masquerading as Eve and had been in the house right under their noses. Buffy couldn't know if the FE had any other way to eavesdrop (ouch!) on the Scoobies.

So Buffy probably asked Willow to link with her and Xander in case they need to talk privately. And then they did. The explination may be covered in a "shout out" in a future episode.

I don't expect Willow links to them all the time. Xander for one would probably be wigged by it (See Bargaining Pt. 1).

But unless ME puts limits on the ability, it may become standard Scooby procedure for the core group to "link up" when they have the time to prepare for a mission.

-Just George

[> [> [> Re: My (different) theory -- anne, 16:22:13 01/09/03 Thu

Just a question, but I noticed the voiceover of buffy when she was mind-talking to willow and xander didn't sound like her, in fact in sounded like dawn. could someone who watched the tv-airing of the ep tell me whether that was the voice used in the episode or whether its just the rip i have?

[> [> [> [> Sounded like Buffy to me. -- HonorH, 17:19:01 01/09/03 Thu

SMG and MT have similar voices, but MT's intonations are different. The voice sounded like SMG's to me. Can't think of any reason it shouldn't have been hers anyway.

[> [> [> [> funny voices -- Jem, 21:34:15 01/09/03 Thu

I agree, Anne - I didn't think it sounded like SMG's voice. I thought maybe she couldn't come in for looping or something and they had to get someone else to fill in - but that's rather unusual, I would imagine. Perhaps there's some meaning to it? Or maybe we're both hearing things...but I did watch it on the television and thought the same thing.

[> [> [> [> [> Re: funny voices (spoilers) -- KKC, 13:02:23 01/10/03 Fri

About the possibility of SMG not doing her own voiceover in the telepathic conversation with Willow and Xander? It's entirely possible that there was a 'stand-in' of sorts who was used to figure out the timing of the scene. It's not uncommon for this sort of thing to occur so that the actors can properly time their movements and reactions, and then come back in and dub in their own voices later. Of course, it's also possible that Gellar was not available for the voice work, or that the post-production crew carelessly forgot to edit the soundtrack properly.

Another possibility? Some psychologists say that the way we perceive voice is not just with sound, but with visual cues as well. There are all sorts of physiological and dramatic studies which show that if a person cannot see someone's mouth moving, it's more difficult to hear them speak or determine who is speaking. So maybe we're all reacting to a contradictory visualization, when Buffy's voice is coming out of the TV but her mouth isn't moving.

Or maybe I'm just full of it. :)

-KKC, cursed with seeing both sides of the argument.

[> [> [> [> Re: My (different) theory -- Doriander, 00:02:52 01/10/03 Fri

Someone over at the Buffistas uploaded the wilfeed version of Buffy's voiceover, and yup, it's definitely different from the Tuesday broadcast, which sounded very much like SMG to me. The Canadian broadcast had the non-SMG sounding VO as well (as attested by at least one Canadian poster).

Welcomes and Invitations (showtime spoils) -- neaux, 17:49:18 01/09/03 Thu

AFter chatting tonite, I pose this question.

What is the difference in Welcomes and Invitations? are they related?

And how does this relate to vampires in Sunnydale and in particular the ubervamp's ability to enter the Summer's House.

Did Buffy invite the ubervamp in? is Buffy's house a home to the Sit's or is it a safe house. And what does a safe house mean interms of who is welcome or not..

[> Some answers: -- HonorH, 17:57:02 01/09/03 Thu

A welcome is just a polite way of saying "Hello". It stems from "Well met" or "Well come" in the archaic. And invitation, on the other hand, is a request. "Come in, please." It takes an invitation, not a welcome, to allow a vampire in.

The uber-vamp didn't follow the rules set for later vamps. He wasn't stakable, and he didn't require an invite (possibly because he had no language) to enter a home. Buffy's house belongs to her, Dawn, and Willow, and therefore requires an invitation by one of them for most vampires to enter, no matter who else may be staying there.

[> Verbal Invites -- Scroll, 18:27:29 01/09/03 Thu

I think invitations need to be verbalised. Buffy in "Yoko Factor" and Willow in "Lie To Me" both had to issue verbal invitations to Angel; gestures weren't enough. Even though he was welcome (in that B/W had no objections to his entering), Angel still couldn't get in until he got the specific invitation via words. Therefore, I'd say invitations are almost incantations, either spoken or written, that say to somebody, "Yes, I take you in." The incantation requires a counter incantation (disinvite spell in "Passion") to revoke a vamp's invite.

1) Vamps can enter other vamps' lairs. No invite needed.
2) Vamps can't enter human homes without an invitation, even when welcome.
3) Vamps can enter human homes even when the invitation is spoken by irresponsible 14-year-olds (Dawn & Harmony, "Real Me"). Dawn probably didn't welcome or want Harmony in her home, but she issued an invitation--she spoke the words.

Stickier points include:
1) Can vamps enter a half-demon's home without an invitation? Angel entered Doyle's apartment but Doyle had already asked Angel to help him out, and presumably issued an invite. Angel entered the Lister clan's house--but clearly the Lister clan was squatting in a condemned building. Since the building isn't really their home, Angel might not have needed an invitation.
2) Angel entered Kate's apartment without her invitation. Not only did he not have an invite, he wasn't even welcome. I go on the assumption that it was a PTB sponsored miracle to save Kate's life.
3) Angel entered Billy Blim's house without hearing Billy say, "Come in." But Billy said, "As far as I'm concerned, you have a standing invitation." So did Billy say the words off-screen and that was enough for Angel? Did he only think the invitation? Also, Billy was half-demon; it's not clear if other humans live in the Blim estate. So maybe Angel could enter simply because Billy wasn't fully human.

(neaux, I'll write more later...)

[> [> "You are Welcome here" is an invitation -- neaux making things harder, 19:07:17 01/09/03 Thu

this is from dictionary.com

wel·come adj.

1. Received with pleasure and hospitality into one's company or home: a welcome guest.
2. Giving pleasure or satisfaction; agreeable or gratifying: a welcome respite from hard work.
3. Cordially or willingly permitted or invited: You are welcome to join us.

so where does the Welcome to Sunnydale sign come into play?

Does "Welcome to Sunnydale" imply "You" are welcome. and You means everyone and anyone?

[> [> [> even more problematic.. Welcome is used repeatedly -- neaux, 19:10:46 01/09/03 Thu

If I am remembering correctly, Welcome is used 3 times in the episode.

"Welcome to Sunnydale" are the first words of the episode.

Buffy says "Welcome to the Hellmouth" (I think)

and later Buffy says "Welcome to Thunderdome"

[> [> [> [> Hon, you're overanalyzing. -- HonorH, 19:22:09 01/09/03 Thu

I think you're confusing yourself. "Welcome" wasn't used as an invitation in any of the above uses. Don't blow your brain out trying to analyze the word. Invitations are different. For a vampire, there has to be at least some sort of "come in" or "enter", from what I've seen. Probably the most obscure welcome was issued to Angel by Rebecca Lowell in "Eternity": "You should come over to my house" or something of the such. Nonetheless, the intent there was clearly an invitation. I'd imagine that if she'd said, "You're welcome to come over, if you'd like," the results would've been the same. Just a "Welcome to Sunnydale," though, doesn't qualify as any sort of invitation. Besides, vamps need no invitations to enter public places.

[> [> [> [> [> The big issue is about "Welcome" mats, do they act as invites? -- Finn Mac Cool, 20:37:39 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> [> [> [> [> No. -- HonorH, 21:45:28 01/09/03 Thu

[> [> [> [> [> Even more obscure one -- KdS, 03:11:01 01/10/03 Fri

In Rm w/a Vu Angel can enter Cordelia's flat because she said something about inviting him over to her hypothetical home before she even viewed. As I recall there was even a line in the ep about how silly this was.

[> [> [> [> [> beating a dead horse -- neaux, 04:17:25 01/10/03 Fri

um.. while you might think its overanalysis..

It is possible that Public places are "Public" because of the said signs. If we do accept that "Welcome to Sunnydale" is an invitation and that "Welcome" signs to cities and towns are all over the country, it does explain why vampires have free range in the U. S. That would mean that the word "welcome" directs itself to an understood "you".

as for the references in Showtime, I only mentioned them because I found it odd that it was used so frequently in the episode. I thought it was important because Buffy is acting as Host at her house to SITS.

The welcoming would then play a part in her role as host. She is welcoming in strangers really and while it seems wrong, this episode proves that it can be deadly wrong to invite or welcome strangers into your home. Doh there I've done it again (^_^)

Lorne vs. Sweet: A 15-Round Extravaganza (I of II) -- cjl (sleazy music promoter), 21:00:52 01/09/03 Thu

Written by HonorH (Concept, rounds 3, 7, 9, 13); cjl (Ringmaster, rounds 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, intermission and post-R11); ponygirl (Rounds 2, 5, 14); KdS (Round 11)

Setting: an amphitheater about 20 km from Lorne's home village. 100,000 humans/demons/hybrids from about 50 different dimensions in attendance. (Event, marketing and ticket sales arranged by Wolfram and Hart.) The scoobs, A.I., and various free agents from both casts are in the first three rows, center stage.

***************************
Round 1: The Natives are Restless

Lorne starts off with "I Will Survive," backed by a 50-piece orchestra and a full complement of Lornettes. Two-thirds of the way through the song, Lorne's mother (along with most of his family) summons a portal and bails out to Quar-toth--which begins to look really good after the second chorus...

Sweet, backed by a Fosse-sized battalion of dancing minions, counters with "All that Jazz." During the finale, the former royal palace explodes.

***************************
Round 2: A Little Fright Music

In a desperate attempt to counter Sweet's devastating jazz hands, Lorne decides to Send In The Clowns by bringing out the Sondheim. The newly liberated cows of Pylea poignantly join in on the final note as they realize the damn clowns are already here.

Unfortunately Lorne's Broadway-bound move backfires when Sweet decides to Bring in da Noise, along with his associate da Funk. The duo, Noise and Funk, make short work of the cows and the Lornettes, tapping them into the pavement of Pylea Stadium. Lorne stands alone as the bell rings down on Round 2!

**************************
Round 3: The Stakes Get Higher

Lorne, having taken a hit, tips his hat (hot pink with a white feather) to Sweet and decides to go for the power-ballad. He sings Badfinger/Harry Nilsson/Mariah's "Without You" with full orchestral backing, sending a wave of romantic longing over the audience. Fred begins working on equations in her head, trying to figure out if there's any way she can have *both* Gunn and Wesley. Angel gets a little dizzy looking at Buffy, sighing, looking at Cordy, sighing, looking back at Buffy, sighing, ad infinitum, while Buffy keeps stealing glances at Spike and Faith in between returning Angel's sighs. (Lindsey McDonald, meanwhile, is burning a hole in Angel's back with his eyes.) Even Sweet is affected and unable to take his eyes off his formerly betrothed, Dawn.

However, he recovers just in time to take it back to Broadway. He sings "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess" so sexually that the romantic longing turns into some very convoluted make-out sessions. Trust me, you don't want the details. As he finishes, just to solidify his lead, he segues into "It Ain't Necessarily So," and the audience is putty...

********************************
[Intermission. Scene: Backstage at Pylea Stadium. Lorne is checking a million details for his next few numbers: costumes and choreography, talking with musicians about last-minute changes in the charts, yelling at his roadie about the set-up of the megalithic speakers...it's all too much. He lands hard in a chair near the left entrance to the stage, and takes a squirt from his water bottle (which doesn't contain water). The Scoobies and the Fang Gang pick that moment to visit.]

FRED: Lorne? Is this a bad time?
LORNE: Hm? Oh. Oh no, peach pie, it's just--I'm the backstage producer AND the onstage talent around here...so it's a little hectic.
WESLEY: We wanted you to meet a few of our friends.

(Lorne perks up.)

LORNE: Well, now! Is this the famous Sunnydale crew I've heard so much about?
ANYA: Don't believe half the stories you hear about us.
FRED: That's Buffy, Xander, Willow, Anya, Spike...
LORNE (all but climbs on the chair in terror): Spike?! As in "William the Bloody"?! Are you people out of your ever-lovin' m--oh, wait. (Looks carefully at Spike, then Angel, then back to Spike.) Holy moley. ANOTHER one.
ANGEL (glares at Spike): Yeah, we're all doing cartwheels.
FRED: Wait a minute. Where's Giles?
XANDER: Couldn't find him. I think he went to see if there was something edible in this place.
LORNE: Plenty of food at the concession stands.
XANDER: Edible for our species.
LORNE: Well, he might have a problem, then. (Sees Dawn standing quietly in the back.) And who is this tempting slice of apple cobbler?
BUFFY: Uh, this is my sister, Dawn.
DAWN (waves): Hey, how you doin'.
LORNE: I'm fine, sweetie, but-- (Stares, open-mouthed.) Is it me, or does anybody else see this blinding nimbus of green energy around her pretty little head?
BUFFY: Do you want the long version or the short version?
LORNE: Never mind. Maybe later. (Slumps his shoulders.)
FRED: Lorne?
LORNE: Sorry. I guess this is taking a little more out of me than I thought. Maybe this whole exhibition thing wasn't a good idea. I mean, it's fantastic entertainment, and it's a thrill to have this kind of an
audience...
ANGEL: But...
LORNE: But even though we have all kinds of rules about this gig--no two-legged weenie roastings--Sweet usually makes up his own rules. He can get kind of scary, and you shouldn't bring him out to play unless you really have to, if you know what I mean.

(Pause.)

XANDER: What's everybody looking at me for?
LORNE: It's more than an exhibition for him. It's the whole "hearts and minds" thing. There are a lot of demons here who know about what I do, preaching a peaceful co-existence with humans, and they're wondering if I can hold up against somebody who's...
WESLEY: Your opposite in virtually every way.
LORNE: That about sums it up, Binky. There's a whole lot more at stake here than a slice of the box office.
WESLEY: In that case, I think we should let you prepare for your next number.

(The Scoobs and the Fang Gang walk off into the distance.)

LORNE: All clear!

(Giles emerges from the wings.)

LORNE: You know, I don't see why you're keeping this a big secret from the kids. So we go back a ways. Does it ruin that crustier-than-crust image of yours?
GILES: It's rather complicated.
LORNE: If there's one thing I've learned about you Watchers, it's that you MAKE things complicated.
GILES: Be that as it may, I'd appreciate it if you kept things quiet for now.
LORNE: OK, Rupes. Your neurosis.
GILES (more serious): Lorne--I trust you realize that this "mere" exhibition could turn into a cataclysmic disaster.
LORNE: The thought did occur to me.
GILES: I-if you need me...I've kept in practice. (Lorne smiles.) If you need me to help out on one of the old numbers, I can--
LORNE: No, no, pumpkin, go back with the kids. But if you see me in trouble...
GILES: Understood.

(Exits. Lorne springs out of his chair, and claps twice to get the attention of his crew.)

LORNE: OK, everybody--SHOWTIME!

[End intermission.]

*************************************
Round 4: Uh Oh, It's Getting Personal

Tired of playing move and countermove with the affections of the audience, Sweet switches tactics and fires at Lorne himself. With the aid of a lone minion on acoustic guitar, Sweet brings out a Kinks klassic, "Dedicated Follower of Fashion," and dedicates it to "one of the beautiful people."

(Words and music by Ray Davies)

They seek him here
They seek him there
His clothes are loud
But never square
It will make or break him
So he's got to buy the best
'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion.

The number is crisp, jaunty, invites an audience singalong with the "oh yes he is!" chorus, and takes direct aim at Lorne's...idiosyncratic fashion sense. There's a big laugh when Sweet gets to the title character's "frilly nylon panties"--and an even bigger one when poor Lorne, shifting his feet uncomfortably in the wings, instinctively reaches behind to unclog a wedgie. Ouch.

Lorne, fuming, comes out after the break with a horde of veteran L.A. session musicians, including the Tower of Power horn section, and snaps off a killer rendition of Don Henley's "All She Wants to Do Is Dance"--a slap at his quick-footed opponent, but also a reminder to his audience not to get too blinded by the razzle dazzle. The Tower of Power horns close out with a blast loud enough to shake the walls of Jericho, but Lorne, shaken and despondent, has already left the stage. He got a good chunk of respectability back, but he realizes Sweet definitely drew blood.

Round to the hoofer.

*******************************************
Round 5: New Wave Hits of Pylea (80s Power Ballads)

Sweet, still smarting from the Don Henley crack, retaliates by starting out with the Flashdance classic "What a Feeling." From the wings of the stage Lorne smiles confidently; sure the faux breakdancing moves are impressive, but no one ever won anything with Irene Cara. But wait--the music shifts, segues-- Sweet was just toying with him! It's a medley, some of the most soulful, powerful guitar chords of the 80s ring out across the stadium and the crowd goes wild. By the time Sweet is leading the crowd through a recreation of Pat Benatar's classic video of redemption, "Love Is A Battlefield," Lorne is sweating big green gobs.

What can Lorne do? He calls for a towel, and steps onto the stage. He waves away the attentions of the remaining Lornettes, and shushes the band, if he's going down he'll go alone. He takes a deep breath and
summoning all of his vocal powers launches into Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You." (Sure it's from a 1992 movie, but it had the spirit of the 80s.)

As Lorne sings, all memories of Kevin Costner are swept away. The crowd forgets Whitney's recent albums, they forget the drug problem, the Diane Sawyer interview, and as Lorne holds that "I-I-I-I" lyric, seemingly forever, the audience even forgets Bobby Brown. Sweet folds his arms over the torn sweatshirt he had donned for his number and scowls. Lorne bows to thunderous applause, but when he gets backstage he grabs the nearest Lornette and croaks out, "Hot water, quick, and a lozenge!"

Has Lorne pushed himself too far?

***************************************
Round 6: Ringo and the Unexpected Songbird

Finding limited success in the era of Big Hair and Skinny Ties, Sweet sets the Musical Wayback Machine to 1970, hoping to capitalize on Beatles nostalgia and win the audience over with his personal charm and
unbeatable dancing skill. He takes the stage isolated in a single spotlight, and with only piano and the soft whisper of brushes on drumskin as accompaniment, he sings John Lennon's post-breakup gift to his buddy Ringo, "I'm the Greatest":

When I was a little boy
Back home in Liverpool
My mama told me...I was great

Then when I was a teenager
I knew I had something going
All my friends told me...I was great

And now I'm a man
A woman took me by the hand
And you know what she told me...I was great

[Sweet slightly alters the next stanza...]

I am the greatest show on earth
For what it's worth
And what I want to do for you (tap, tap)
Is boogaloo

From there, he launches into a spectacular display of solo tap dancing--Savion Glover plus Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, multiplied by Fred Astaire--starting with a slow shuffle, accelerating to speeds unknown to human dancers, then bringing it back down to finish the song: "I'm the greatest, and you'd better believe it, baby." The audience goes wild.

Lorne is screwed. He doesn't want to pull out his ultimate showstopper this early, and his voice hasn't recovered enough from the last round to pull it off, anyway. He needs something to bring the audience together as a community, distract it from Sweet's charming egotism, and it's got to be mid-tempo and not too much of a strain. As a last resort, he falls back on Bill Withers' "Lean on Me"--but even as he's heading into the second verse, he knows he's made a mistake. He sees the crowd file out to the concession stands, and after the last piano chord hits, and the polite applause filters down, he wonders if he reached anybody at all...

Then, miraculously, he hears a tiny voice from the front row spontaneously break out in song, as if his own singing activated a long-dormant gene:

"What can't we face if we're together..."

It's Willow.

Lorne seizes this chance for a reprieve, and brings the mike down to the front row, so she can keep going. Unfortunately, the sight of the microphone sends Willow into a blind panic, and she squirms frantically
in her seat. On either side, Buffy and Xander take her hand. They give her a look that says: "You can do anything."

B/X/W: What can't we face if we're together
What's in this place that we can't weather
Apocalypse--we've all been there
The same old trips--why should we care

Giles, Anya, Dawn and Spike join in. Angel and his crew pick up enough of the melody to sing along, too. The crowd isn't paying much attention, but Lorne is almost in tears, seeing how his friends respond
to his singing...

SCOOBIES & A.I.: What can't we do if we get in it
We'll work it through within a minute
We have to try
We'll pay the price
It's do or die

BUFFY: Hey, I've died twice. (Confused murmuring from the crowd. Buffy turns around in her seat.) Well, I have. Hey, it's not like I'm bragging or anything...

GILES (rolling his eyes): ...2, 3, 4....

SCOOBIES & A.I.: What can't we face if we're together--
GILES: --what can't we face...
SCOOBIES & A.I.: What's in this place that we can't weather--
GILES: --if we're together...
SCOOBIES & A.I.: There's nothing we can't face...
ANYA: Except for bunnies... (More puzzled murmurs from the crowd.) Did I say that out loud? Again?

Dawn gives Anya an affectionate pat on the knee. Lorne places the mike back on its stand and walks happily back to his dressing room--he lost the round, but he doesn't care in the slightest.

*****************************************
Round 7: Torch Song...uh, Duology

Sweet would be more enthusiastic about Lorne losing that last round if he hadn't come down with a sudden case of dancer's knee. His trademark sashay is a little clumsy as he returns to the stage, prompting a murmur to run through the audience, knock a member of the Ghrithnar clan into a Terl demon, and set off a small riot. Buffy and Security quell it, the survivors are taken to the Interdimensional Red Key (in deference to the demons, who don't always react well to a cross) center set up for just such emergencies, and it's Sweet's turn to sing.

By this time, his knee is really hurting. Thus, he decides to shift into low gear and whip out a torch song. "'Round Midnight" fits the bill perfectly. "Trouble always starts 'round midnight," he sings, and it looks like he's going to win this round, too. Unfortunately, in the heat of the song, Sweet just can't stop himself from steppin' out. His knee gives way mid-prance and he falls flat on his reddish behind, totally ruining the mood. But hey, he's a professional, and the Show Must Go On. He finishes, the audience claps appreciatively, if not as enthusiastically as he'd hoped, and Sweet signals to his minions for an ice bag.

Lorne sees his opening and runs for it. His voice is recovered, and the first few notes of "Georgia on My Mind" wind the audience tightly around his green little finger. By the time the last note floats over the audience, scattering a few Harpies, they're begging for more.

And Sweet, watching from the wings, thinks: "Showtime!"

[> Lorne vs. Sweet: A 15-Round Musical Extravaganza (II of II) -- cjl (who rock and rolls all night and parties every day), 21:07:56 01/09/03 Thu

Round 8: The Kid Gloves Come Off

After feeling out his opponent for the first seven rounds, Sweet decides to assert his mastery and stages a spectacular, unprecedented "medley of evil," combining "Those Were the Good Old (Bad Old) Days" from "Damn Yankees," "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones, and "Springtime for Hitler" from "The Producers." He's backed by dozens of swastika-adorned back-up chorines, a goose-stepping line of Rockettes and an actual German tank rolling across the stage during the final chorus. (It's an audacious conceptual coup: he's duplicated the kitsch, but left out the irony. ) The applause is tumultuous. The line for D'Hoffryn's Vengeance Demon Recruitment booth triples right after the curtain drops...

Lorne, desperate, backed into a corner, decides to go for broke. He banishes the orchestra, back-up singers, and his remaining Lornettes from the stage and does "You'll Never Walk Alone" from "Carousel"--a cappella. It pays off. The M'Fashnik demons working security blubber helplessly; in the audience, Willow and Andrew, Xander and Spike, Angel and Connor, and Buffy and Faith exchange warm, tearful hugs; Lorne hits his Patented High Note, and six of Sweet's dancing minions melt into a pool of brown ooze. After Lorne dramatically clips off that final note, the audience sits in stunned silence. There is only the sound of one set of hands clapping--Sweet's. He smiles at Lorne, nodding his head, acknowledging a fellow Master. The battle is truly joined.

******************************
Round 9: Battle Royale (To the Pain!)

Sweet responds to Lorne's audience-coup by getting up and singing his own signature song--"How You Feel"--with lyrics geared directly to the audience. It's a show-stopper. Literally. By the time he's done, the audience is at each other's throats yet again. Sweet gives a smug grin to Lorne, who decides to pick up the gauntlet.

Lorne responds with his own signature song, "Lady Marmalade." Only he's recruited new Lornettes while Sweet was singing: Dawn and a bunch of her teenage girlfriends. The sight of all those underage honeys gyrating and singing, "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?" causes Sweet to slip in a puddle of his own drool and fall face-down on stage.

Can he recover in time for the next round?

**********************************
Round 10: Krevlornswath in Command

Thrown by Lorne's cheap, shameless (and highly successful) display of underage pulchritude, Sweet tries his own audience pandering. Eschewing the show-stopping mentality and shooting for dark seduction, he dims the lights, and with his own 30-piece orchestra behind him, goes into "Music of the Night" from "Phantom of the Opera." He's doing great, has most of the female audience members under his spell--until he reaches out his hand to bring one of them up on stage to be his "Christine":

He chooses Buffy.

At first glance, it's a smart move. Everybody in the crowd knows about the Slayer, and if Sweet can get her hypnotized by dark romance, he racks up big points. But Buffy is not as enthralled as he thinks (in fact, she looks a little bored), and Sweet is scared he's losing the crowd. While the orchestra vamps, Sweet improvises(!) a seductive rap, and again, he's got most of the audience right with him--but Buffy kind of sniffs and says: "The whole 'seduced by darkness' thing? REALLY getting old." And goes back to her seat. Sweet finishes the number flawlessly (hey, he is a pro), but he's been badly damaged.

Lorne, wasting no time in capitalizing on an opportunity, promptly pulls out his Mission Statement number: out-Broadway-ing Sweet with a razzle-dazzle rendition of "Brotherhood of Man" (from "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying"), then bringing it down and segue-ing into the Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" with back-up singers from over 100 demonic species joining him on the chorus.

It's a crusher. But Sweet's not done yet.

********************************
Round 11: A Close Escape

The shameless appeal to interspecies brotherhood and the strain of the battle drives Sweet over the edge. To a minion's tinkling on the grand piano, he dispels all the good feeling in the arena with a high-speed run-through of Tom Lehrer's "National Brotherhood Week." Even the Scooby Gang find themselves succumbing to the lure of chill misanthropy sweetened by intellectual self-satisfaction. Lorne's move countered, he moves on to his master stroke. The awesome romantic grimness of a solo piano rendition of Radiohead's "Exit Music" has Dawn leading the entire audience onto the pitch for an attempt on the Multiverse record for synchronized spontaneous combustion.

As the first wisps of smoke begin to rise, a curtain rises at the back of the stage to reveal a massed orchestra of Mahler-esque dimensions, backing Lorne in a heartbreakingly imperfect version of the Flaming Lips' "Race for the Prize." By the time the final chords ring out, all present have cheerfully accepted that while the world may be a place of tribulation, true humanity lies in confronting rather than escaping that.

Sweet quells the orchestra with a shockingly unhinged snarl and opens his mouth for a final push. But before Sweet can sing the first note, Skip materializes to stop the music...

SKIP: Nuh-uh, Sparky. Already done enough this round.
SWEET: This is none of your business, Errand Boy.
SKIP: Actually, it's exactly my business. In my job description. I show up when demonic types step outside the boundaries of their agreements. It's what I do.
SWEET (turning on the charm): "Outside the--"? Oh, please. You're exaggerating. I may have been a little...well, over-enthusiastic, but--
SKIP: Save it. Two hundred thousand burnt earlobes have a very distinct aroma. I thought we had a deal that you'd hold the spontaneous combustion outbreaks to...uh, zero?
SWEET: You have to understand. I have a particular way of operating--a certain flair, you might say--and it's not my fault if spectators find my style...combustible.
SKIP: Sure, I understand. The rules of this little contest are cramping your style, am I right?
SWEET: If you want to put it that way...
SKIP: You need room to move, spread your wings, stretch out on the dance floor...
SWEET: Now you're getting it.
SKIP: And if the audience gets toasted, that's just the natural flow of the dance.
SWEET: Exactly.

(Pause.)

SKIP: OK. No problem. Forget