Commenter Lookup *Caution* Unless you see an ADMIN tag, the comments below may not all belong to the same person! "Innocence" | View Comments2 | MissKittyFantasticoSep 23, 2010 The Judge can't kill things lacking in humanity--I'm assuming this means really evil things. Dalton is a vampire, but he's kind of a wimpy vampire. I think the idea is that since he's more weak and bookish rather than murderous and out to destroy everyone, he's not bad enough for the Judge not to kill him. Angelus, having no redeeming qualities, is absolutely fine. "Beer Bad" | View Comments3 | MissKittyFantasticoAug 21, 2010 I don't mind this episode either! I agree with Jason about the parts he mentioned, and a chunk of the episode was quite funny. It gets boring towards the end, when the plot consists mostly of cavemen running around acting stupid, but the rest definitely pulls it up for me. "Older and Far Away" | View Comments4 | MissKittyFantasticoJul 22, 2010 @ Alan: From this site's "About" section: "I would also like to mention that I am not a professional writer nor an English Major, so there will undoubtedly be errors in my writing. I'd like to encourage you to let me know about these errors so I can correct them. E-mail or PM via the forums is preferred for this (see below for address)." The email is mikejer(at)gmail(dot)com. "Ten Things Buffy Does Best" | View Comments5 | MissKittyFantasticoJul 20, 2010 You sum up most of the reasons why I love this show so much perfectly, and I will be certainly pointing the not-yet-converted-to-BtVS here! But why the tremendously scary screencap of Willow next to this article on the "Supplemental Articles" list? :) "Season 7 Review" | View Comments6 | MissKittyFantasticoJul 19, 2010 Thank you, Mike-- this made my Monday! I now also feel the need to re(rererere..)watch the series. :) "Empty Places" | View Comments7 | MissKittyFantasticoAug 13, 2009 Great review! I always want to smack Dawn (who became so much more fun in this season!) when she says "It's my house too." Every time I hear that I think, "Oh, so you started a full-time job at the doublemeat palace/counseling on top of your regular duties in order to pay the bills? So you deal with all the insurance and repairs? You make the telephone calls and fill out the tax forms?" Ungrateful cow! >.> I agree that it's completely in character for everyone to be mad at Buffy--but as Mike and other people have pointed out, there are reasonable ways to deal with issues, and the last scene in Empty Places is not one of them. Kicking Buffy out of her own house in the middle of an impending apocalypse? If any of my friends did that to me, I'd have difficulty speaking to them ever again. I prefer to imagine the end of Empty Places didn't happen; instead, everyone had a reasonable intervention with Buffy, and she left for a night to cool off (thus laying the ground for Touched, an episode I enjoy). :) "Empty Places" | View Comments8 | MissKittyFantasticoAug 13, 2009 I also agree with DarthMarion about Xander in this episode. He could be such a jerk earlier on in the series, and he's matured so much over time to become a likable and loyal friend. I would have reacted the same way as he did in Empty Places (again, without the let's-kick-the-slayer-out part). "Dirty Girls" | View Comments9 | MissKittyFantasticoAug 10, 2009 Thanks for the review! I just wanted to point out that Andrew's introduction to Faith also contributes to the theme of how men can see women. Also, although I see your reasoning behind Buffy's decision to go to Caleb, by this point in the series I found it far too annoying that Buffy ALWAYS falls for traps. This was just one time too many for me. Love Xander's little speech though, and definitely don't think Buffy should have been kicked out of her own house in Empty Places... "Lies My Parents Told Me" | View Comments10 | MissKittyFantasticoAug 2, 2009 I’m extremely late to the party, but here goes (sorry if I say too many things that were said earlier—I tried to read through everything so as not to be too repetitive). I enjoy parts of this episode quite a bit, but there are also several things that bug me enough that I don’t see it as deserving of a perfect score. Firstly, as has been addressed by several comments, vamp versions of people ARE related to the people themselves (established in Doppelgangland). I don’t understand why VampSpike has mommy issues that carry over from HumanSpike, but VampMom is supposed to be taken as a completely different person. “There's a perfect get-out clause for the apparent inconsistency: that the demons that inhabit the bodies of the vamped are different from each other. Perhaps the one inhabiting Spike's mother was strong enough to be able to ignore her personality and only use her memories.� [Rick] Even if this is the case, how does Spike know VampMom isn’t just voicing RealMom’s opinions? Yeah, maybe the demon was strong enough to reject his mom’s personality, or maybe it wasn’t. But then there’s no way of knowing which is the case. I’d also argue that every vamp we’ve spent a lot of time with on the show retained more than just the memories of the original person, and I don’t see why VampMom should be the exception. There’s an argument that the mythos isn’t actually inconsistent in this episode: vampires want to get rid of their humanity by rejecting any love they used to have (I mean, that’s what Angelus does in Season Two) and turning on people. This could account for VampMom having a completely different personality—she’s twisting her old self, and in a why therefore still related to the person she was. But in my mind that would mean VampSpike would also reject his love for his mother in an extreme way, rather than wanting to be with her forever. I can see why VampSpike would have sappy feelings, but then I don’t see why VampMom would be repulsed by him. I can see why VampMom would not be attached to VampSpike, but then I don’t see why VampSpike would be attached to VampMom. In response to some of Rick’s comments about a concrete mythos not really being the point in this episode, jarrpu replied: “…the mythology of the show isn't always that well thought out and consistent…. However in this case they are mixing the characters and the vampire mythology so it's a bit of a mess compared to what was before.� [jarrpu] I agree with jarrpu’s response here. Yes, I’ve never needed a guidebook of concrete mythos for BtVS to work. But SOME consistency would be really nice. Here, the mythos is being changed to fit different characters interacting in the same scenes—isn’t that going a bit too far? I would have found it more interesting and consistent if Spike’s real mother had made a casual comment that was exaggerated in some way by VampMom, which then caused Spike to have issues. (And were the hints of incest really necessary for this episode? A bit overly Freudian, IMO.) Buffy says that if, to save the world, she had to kill Dawn, she would. I think this is believable, and brilliantly done, and I don’t think this compromises Buffy’s relationship with Dawn at all. In fact, it’s one of my favorite statements in the show about what a slayer sometimes has to do. But there is nothing saying that if Spike lives, he’ll end the world—to compare Spike’s trigger potential with Dawn undoubtedly being the Key to unleashing all hell dimensions on earth (or with anyone who would without a doubt wreak havoc or cause the end of the world) just doesn’t seem completely reasonable. Seven years into his experiences with Buffy, Giles knows and acknowledges things aren’t as simple as they seem sometimes. So why does he accept Wood’s plan when he knows that Wood is being irrational and cruel? Isn’t that a sign that something’s wrong with the plan? SoulSpike may be dangerous, but Giles is joining with someone who actively wants to murder Spike, when Giles knows SoulSpike isn’t even the same vamp that killed Nikki. I definitely buy Wood trying to kill Spike, but Giles actively helping him? I just don’t think that Giles spent sufficient time thinking about the implications his decisions with regard to Spike could have. I can understand why someone would, objectively speaking, want to kill Spike. But I also think Giles would have searched for other options that didn’t involve leading Spike blind into a torture and murder session and going behind Buffy’s back. Lastly, I really don’t see Buffy as dependent on Giles at all by this point in the show. I have difficulty believing that Giles even gets her to the graveyard with him, let alone that he is able to keep her talking for so long. He skipped town at a time when Buffy was severely depressed and it was wrong to leave her—I think that in itself changed their relationship completely if other things hadn’t before. When I first saw Buffy and Giles sever ties this dramatically in LMPTM, I was surprised that Giles (who really hadn’t been Buffy’s mentor in a while) was trying to be a mentor again. He had basically been written out of the show by this point, and then he was suddenly brought back in to be a source of conflict. It just made me wonder what the writers had done with the real Giles. I like the idea of an episode towards the end of the seventh season that has Buffy and Giles talking about sacrifice and the implications of various actions (including the Ben confession that Mike said was originally in the script), and I think the Wood-Spike dynamic works well, but LMPTM has in other elements that don’t work for me. As always, thanks for these reviews! I eagerly await the next installment… :):):) "Bring on the Night" | View Comments11 | MissKittyFantasticoApr 14, 2009 Thanks, Mike! Like wilpy, I actually DO have a huge problem with the English accents, as I've mentioned before, because they're abysmal. BtVS was a popular, well-known show by this point and Whedon/the casting director/whoever could have taken a little extra time and found someone who actually had the right accent without spending too much money. The periodic arrival of crappy accents is one of my only serious irritations about the show overall. But whatever. I'll let it slide (and I won't go into a Kennedy rant now either). I always found the Giles-as-the-First thing rather silly. I just never believed that the writers would actually kill Giles off, and every scene dealing with that just felt like a waste of time (though a couple funny lines come out of it). I was one of those people who knew half of BtVS's spoilers before I watched the entire show, though, so maybe I just wasn't looking for any surprises I hadn't been told about already. =) "Showtime" | View Comments12 | MissKittyFantasticoApr 14, 2009 I completely agree with your take on this review. Although I like Buffy's final speech to everyone, and the scene with her rescuing Spike is genuinely touching, there's not much else redeeming about it. The telepathy scene has always driven me insane. I do love this quote though: Baljoxa's Eye: The eye sees not the future, only the truth of the now and before. Anya: Yes, we've all got that - it's called MEMORY! Anya almost never fails to make me laugh. "Dead Man's Party" | View Comments13 | MissKittyFantasticoMar 25, 2009 Emily-- I honestly don't think getting a message to "stall" in her fight with Angel would have been all that helpful to Buffy. Buffy didn't know Angel might get a soul, but this didn't change her needing to keep Angel away from Acathla - Whistler had already warned her about Angel being the key anyway. Buffy and Angel were in the middle of an incredibly intense fight when he finally managed to grab Acathla's sword -- it's not as if she let him get it while they were fighting because she didn't stall enough. Also, if Buffy had been more worried about distracting Angel than fighting her best, she could have ended up dead. I also disagree that "the blame has to go somewhere". Buffy is a complex show. One thing did not cause Acathla to open; one person did not ruin all their lives. It was a combination of factors, and I don't think it's fair or correct to make it all Xander's fault. ... Maybe this is just something about which we have to agree to disagree. =) "Conversations with Dead People" | View Comments14 | MissKittyFantasticoMar 24, 2009 Thanks for yet another great review, Mike! Robert, you really do make an excellent point (though I enjoy the rest of the seventh season). I'd thought about the issue you brought up very vaguely before now, but I couldn't explain or pinpoint it properly. One other thing I think automatically undermines the First Evil's presence a bit (but this doesn't relate to CWDP) is the fact that it was a fairly lame adversary in a single season three episode. Honestly, the first time it was mentioned in season seven I didn't immediately pick up on the fact that the First Evil was what had been messing with Angel in Amends, and I wondered why everyone else remembered it so clearly. I got the feeling the writers had run out of bad guys and pulled this one out because it had more potential than a random MOOW. "Dead Man's Party" | View Comments15 | MissKittyFantasticoMar 16, 2009 "...in the end, it's really him who ruined their lives because he lied to Buffy in Becoming." I really have to disagree with you here, Emily. Soulless Angel would still have opened hell up even if Buffy had known that Willow was trying to restore his soul. In fact, although Xander's reasons for telling Buffy Willow said "kick [Angel's] ass" (if this is the line to which you're referring) were less than chivalrous, I could even make the argument that this is what Buffy NEEDED to hear. If she had known that Angel might get his soul back, she might not have fought as hard as she did - not on purpose, but because she was thinking about that possibly and trying to figure out how to save him if he became good again. This way, she focused on the fight and did what she needed to do to save the world, even when the tables turned at the last second. "Dead Man's Party" | View Comments16 | MissKittyFantasticoMar 16, 2009 *possibly should be possibility, sorry! "Grave" | View Comments17 | MissKittyFantasticoDec 19, 2008 "Giles telling Anya he's dying serves what purpose? A cheesy attempt at audience sympathy? If Willow succeeds, everyone's dead. If she doesn't succeed, Giles lives. So... huh?" I agree it was clear Giles wouldn't be killed off here (and consequently his "dying" doesn't do much for the episode) but I would have to disagree with the statement "If she doesn't succeed, Giles lives". What about the rules of magic or Willow's behavior specifically shows that this would be the case? @ Marshal: The Satanic temple is INCREDIBLY fake, yeah. Did you notice that when Xander finds Willow there and she knocks him against the orange plastic witch thing, it actually wobbles? My boyfriend pointed it out to me tonight - I'd never noticed this before. =) Whedon did write the "yellow crayon" speech, which is one of my favorite scenes in the entire series. Part of the reason the episode works so well is also because I think the last few episodes are great as a whole (the first time I watched the end of Season 6 I think I stayed up until 5 am finishing the last two disks) and redeem the more mediocre middle of the season. However, I'm actually a huge fan of "Grave" overall, although Joss Whedon didn't write it. I thought the episode was extremely powerful and thought-provoking. But on a side note, does anyone know why Whedon didn't write this one finale? "Restless" | View Comments18 | MissKittyFantasticoAug 3, 2008 Tony and Steph-- Robia LaMorte, the actress who played Jenny Calendar, became a born-again evangelical Christian sometime after season two of Buffy. She returned as The First (in Calendar form) for "Amends." Apparently, she was quite upset to find that she'd been asked to play what she considered the equivalent of Satan for her guest appearance. This is certainly why she never appears as The First again, and probably why she never came back onto the show in any way. I definitely agree that it would have been amazing to see Miss Calendar in Giles' dream, and it would fit better consider she was his one true love, but I think using Olivia here may have been Whedon's only option. A pity, since she was just a throwaway character introduced to let us know that yes, a fussy British librarian can have a sex life. LibMax-- Your comments about Giles' minor "crush" on Buffy were something to think about. I'd actually just rewatched Restless last night before I proceeded to spend hours reading reviews of different Buffy episodes, and I distinctly thought that the first scene of Giles' dream had a sexual undertone to it (and remembered I had thought this the first two times I'd seen it), and then wondered if I'd gone insane. Since Whedon was playing around with the idea of Xander being attracted to Joyce as well, I could see him exploring a reversed Oedipal theme (the father wanting to sleep with the daughter, rather than the son wanting to sleep with the mother). However, I really don't think this is a prevalent dynamic in the Giles-Buffy relationship, and I don't in any way want to destroy anyone's image of the Giles-as-mentor image. I love Giles, and I'm so glad Buffy got a real "father" when her mother was being a bitca for a couple seasons and her biological father wasn't doing his job at all. "The Long Way Home Pt. 3" | View Comments19 | misskittyfantasticoNov 3, 2007 I personally loved tara but i think that she should not be brought back, but some nod to he might be nice in the series. Maybe a standalone flashback issue talking about tara before she came to sunnydale would be nice. I always thought that her past wasn't as fleshed out as it could be and that might make the tata fans happy for a while. |
Latest News  Delays... MikeJer - Feb 24, 2013 Hey all!I just wanted to let you all know that I'm looking forward to getting going on my Season 2 review updates. I recently started a new job, so life has been extra bu... View Full Post Latest Comments Nic Nac [Season 7 Review] Wow... you are certainly an inspiration to want to do my own review. Sadly, the only show th... View CommentMay 24, 2013 Ryan ONeil [Gingerbread] *in reply to Vishal (#60) The popular theory on the forums is that:Before Buffy showed up, ... View CommentMay 21, 2013 Ryan ONeil [Consequences] *in reply to James (#30) Probably public property View CommentMay 19, 2013 Latest Forum Posts Guido [Buffy DVDs found in a thrift sto] Today I found the thin box-set of Season-1 DVDs in my local Goodwill (a thrift store / secon... View PostMay 24, 2013 Guido [I Quit] The Wikipedia article, Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs, lists the special features included on... View PostMay 24, 2013 Iguana-on-a-stick [Game of Thrones] Interestingly, in the book that whole thing with Doreah didn't happen at all. She died of st... View PostMay 24, 2013 |
I think this episode is one of Season 1's better offerings, and even if I'm disappointed with the score, I loved reading your review and all your thoughts! Thanks, Mike!
I also wanted to point out my love for the part where Billy wakes up, and there's a Wizard of Oz "You were there-- and you were there!" moment, quickly followed by "Who are you people?" The rest of the scene is pretty cringe-worthy, but that part is great.
(And oh my goodness, the music in the final scene of almost all these Season 1 episodes is *so* *cheesy*.)