Annoyances in today's Buffy

[avram]

OK, it’s a bridge episode, intended to give us a few more details and set up the Cool Stuff. Not great like some of the recent ones have been, but OK. Still, some gripes...

• What’s with the drowning Spike scene? Will the writers ever make up their minds about whether vampires need to breathe?
• Did it ever occur to Buffy to say, in the presence of the other characters, “Hey, stakes don’t work on this one, but it’s still afraid of sunlight”? I guess we can assume that she’ll be telling them between episodes.
• And why exactly did that little Slayerette run off like that? Could we maybe have spent some time establishing a motivation for the character to do something stupid that’ll get her killed?
• Oh, and nice job killing off the gay one again. Are they farming the scripting out to Fred Phelps?

Comments

[elisem.livejournal.com]

It may have been a bridge episode, but that doesn't account for how very much it did not work, in my opinion. The whole thing smelt of last-minute changes and rewrites on the fly and, er, vamping to fill time. Juan and I noticed that the captions did not match the dialogue in the last scene at the house, and that's happened before in Mutant Enemy shows when there was a last-minute change, but it's never been for more than three or four words before. (example: the comment about Angel kicking Connor out of the house was, if the captions are accurate, originally phrased in terms of Ward kicking the Beav out of the house. The captioned version was much funnier. We wondered why they backed off and changed it.) In this episode, whole interchanges of dialogue were different. This suggests major last-minute changes. That, plus the whole "this is a clipisode" feeling, and the way the new material wasn't tight or well-paced or, frankly, very interesting dramatically, suggests that this episode was something cobbled together under very difficult circumstances and under major constraints.

At least, that's what I'm hoping it suggests, because the alternative suggestion would simply be that the show has begun to suck in new and boring ways.

The last speech was good, though. Pity the rest of the episode never came near it.

[avram]

I thought the last speech was a bit overdone. Nice to see them getting proactive, if they do indeed do that.

And one thing they seem to be forgetting: It may not be possible to fight the First Evil itself, but the minions are (or were, till the neandervamp showed up) probably quite killable. The Bottom Feeder can't do squat without people to do his bidding.

I kept wondering if they were going to phone up Riley and the Initiative and ask to borrow some heavy ordnance. Worked real well on the Judge back in Season 2.

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

I may have been able to notice all of these annoyances (actually, the speech I *did* notice at the end as over the top and a bit silly) however I was far too distracted by the AWFUL "English" accents. I was left with an overall disappointed feeling by the whole ep, really. Shame as the previous ones to date this season were excellent with the exception of that crappy one about the jacket.

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Oh, and nice job killing off the gay one again. Are they farming the scripting out to Fred Phelps?

Annabelle was the one who got killed, I thought. Kennedy was the one who hit on Willow.

-R

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, another new Buffy? I thought we were deep in reruns, so didn't bother to try to watch.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

1. I thought that it's established that vamps don't need to breath, thus it's a safe, infinitely repeatable form of torture?

2. Given that everyone knew they were safe till sundown, I don't see a problem.

3. I think she ran off cuz she was Controlled and therefore primed to freak. Still dopey, though.

4. No, that was the other one.

I thought the last speech was over the top, and silly. Also reminiscent of the speech just before the watcher's council blew up.

So, how did Giles survive? Did he? I kept wondering how much of what we were seeing was dream episode, and for that matter, whether Buffy's Mom is genuine, evil, or both.

[avram]

I thought that it's established that vamps don't need to breath, thus it's a safe, infinitely repeatable form of torture?

But then how is it torture exactly? Unless the water's epecially hot or cold (and I don't know if cold would bother a vamp either), then it's at worst annoying.

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

Is that Giles, though? Notice he doesn't touch anything throughout the episode. And if it's not a living Giles, is it a dead Giles or is it the First Evil?

[avram]

My guess: It's really Giles, he's alive, and Joss is messin' with our heads.

[mneme]

I suspect it is...but it was odd that he didn't touch anything at all.

I've heard they're bringing Faith back...which would make sense from a strategic point, at least -- if you've got a bunch of baby slayers around ,who better to protect them than a warrior who will create new slayers (really close) if she dies...

Giles surviving?

[(Anonymous)]

I was wondering about that, also. Unless Joss really messed up,
or had to change his mind afterwards, something strange is going
on. My thought had been that that Giles who's in Sunnydale is
that First Evil doing an impersonation,