Not by leaps and bounds, certainly, but by bits and pieces, BTVS is getting up to speed and back to form.
Downsides: Certain tropes of the series are becoming so cliche that the characters have come to expect them. Willow’s trouble-making observation that Xander is a demon magnet back in season 4 continues to hold true. The problem is that making fun of a cliche doesn’t make it less of a cliche. Meantime we see Giles now touching everything in sight, after poor Tony Head had to spend weeks avoiding everything to the point where it was getting distracting. Now that he’s fondling every prop in the house, though, I wish he hadn’t chewed out the gang for making jokes. It was the first time they sounded like themselves in ages. After all the stuff about them growing up, *now* he addresses them as “children?” What the–?
Upsides: Plenty. So Principal Wood is essentially Blade the Vampire Hunter minus the vamp blood in him: Ultra cool vampire-fighting black guy seeking out the light-haired vampire who killed his mother. And yet for all that, I didn’t see it coming, and I don’t recall noticing anyone else coming up with that theory either. Be interesting if Wood actually dusts Spike, thereby earning Buffy’s enmity. Hope it doesn’t, but you just *know* it’s gonna end in tears. The subplot with the Asian potential slayer was beyond hilarious (“What are you, trying to poison me?!”) I wonder if Willow knows a language-bridging spell. If so, she better crank it out before the girl bolts the country. Anya’s jealousy was charming, Dawn wasn’t annoying, the running gag of both Willow and Wood laughing at the notion of Buffy being competent and then realizing their error was great. And Spike actually seems at peace with himself, which really couldn’t be worse for a character on this series than to find ANY degree of happiness. Because that’s when the boom is usually lowered.
Moving on:
Angel. Kicked ášš even more. Minor quibble over why no one questioned that Lorne totally misread the situation. Definite shock ending: Most folks, including myself, seemed to tag correctly who was going to be killed off, but the circumstances caught me off guard. My only real complaint: THREE WEEKS?!?
Hey, anyone want to see Faith team up with someone named Begorrah?
And hey, food for thought: Physical prowess aside, who could outhink the other: Angelus or Smallville’s Lex Luthor?
PAD
• 
Gotta go with Lex on this one. Though Angelus is showing promise this time around, he’s got a while to go to prove any real Evil Genius credentials, given how completely he managed to blow the possibility for all sorts of potential mayhem last time around. Recall that he wasn’t in Buffy’s presence for five whole minutes before he pretty much spilled the beans to her.
He was plenty smarter this time around, though it seems to me he could have spread much more mayhem and disaster among the gang by playing out the “No, really, I’m good” scenario a little longer.
Humorous observation: Though you were taken by surprise by the revelation that Wood’s mother is Cleopatra Jones the Vampire Slayer, that’s been a running theory in fandom for months now. That’s not the funny part. The funny part is that nobody, and I mean nobody, in the fandom speculation boards I frequent saw the Cordelia twist coming at ALL. Except for one guy commenting here on this very forum. Makes a whole lot of stuff make a whole lot more sense. Leading to the big question: just WHO is Cordy really now? Generic demony thing? Or The First, able to take Cordy’s physical form due to weird metaphysics thanks to her heavenly ascent?
Thoughts on Buffy: I agree that this was one of the best in a while. Danny Strong has been doing a great job in his outings as The First, though a part of me still strongly suspects (hopes?) that we haven’t seen the last of Real Jonathan.
It’s great to see Bad Mofo Giles back in play again, though I still strongly suspect there is Something We Don’t Know yet. Why did he leave Robson there all alone and unconscious if he knew Bringers were still about? Robson never saw Giles again after he fell unconscious; that’s why he called the Scoobs with his concerns last week.
Somebody better fill in that basement with cement in a hurry, because if it’s that easy to spawn more Ubervamps — and every demon and their sister in town knows it — Buffy and crew may have a near-invincible army on their hands.
I’m starting to wonder if maybe there is something to that Xander Demon Magnet after all besides a punchline.
Is it wrong that I found myself terribly attracted to Evil Ashanti? Tastefully chosen jewelry, high-slit black dress and all.
Query: Just what is WB thinking, ditching Angel for two weeks during the sweeps period and replacing it with an already-cancelled show? (Though they do refer to Birds of Prey as the season rather than series finale, so who knows anymore.) Particularly since they advertised “the first of six all-new episodes” just four episodes ago. Maybe there was something up with Dushku’s schedule to further complicate matters.
Paul F. P. Pogue
Yes, Peter, the ending of tonight’s ‘Angel’ was indeed a Tex Avery-style jaw-dropper!!
HEY!! SPOILER WARNING!! YO!!
I figured Lilah to be the one that’d get ‘x’ed, and that Cordy was the true ‘Answer Among You’, but even so….!!
OKAY!! SPOILER WARNING’S OVER!! BREAK IT UP, FOLKS!!
‘Faith & Begorrah’, eh? Sure’n I’d like to see that! I can’t, of course, top that,but in ’98…no lie…I was working with a girl named Faith, friends with a girl named Hope, and went out on a couple of dates with a girl named Charity!!
Hooper
My wife’s theory is that Lorne and Cordelia saw the same vision – only Angelus could kill the beast.
While the Asian potential subplot is indeed hysterical, it also stretches credibility way to far. They can can’t even communicate what she would like for dessert, she barely seems to have any concept of what a slayer is (flashcard monsters?), but yet somehow Giles convinces her to jump to another continent without any extra clothes or personal belongings, stay in a house full of strangers she also can’t communicate with, and patrol with them while she can’t understand a word anyone is saying? It’s a bit much to take for granted, even for Buffy.
I guessed that Wood’s mother was the subway slayer from 2 years ago while they were in the car (it was the worst possible thing to happen with their new ally).
I’m also really loving Angel this year. So many great mysteries and new wrinkles added every week (now we have to wonder who the Beast is working for).
First, I bow and await applause for guessing that Cordy is Angel’s new Big Bad, and I postulate that she’s the one the Beast is working for. Remember, he did pop up right in front of her… Showed up where she’d been staying… What I =CAN’T= figure out is if it’s really her or a replacement. Either way, it’ll really screw with Angel’s head. If it’s the real Cordy, we can chalk up yet ANOTHER Slayerette to turn murderer… Geez, there aren’t many left who HAVEN’T killed people!
Theory on Giles: He left quickly and took the Bringer’s body to fake a successful mission for the Bringer, thus allowing him to operate without more attacks from the First, albeit temporarily, but long enouhg to get some of the trainees… And if so, we saw how well THAT worked…
And am I the only one to think that the opening scene of Buffy this week just kicked total ášš?
Was I the only one to notice Wood watching Spike in the rearview mirror while driving to the high school? Why then was he so surprised to see Spike “vamp-out”? You’d think the whole not casting a reflection would have tipped him off.
Rich
Giles’ attitude at the end of the episode kinda bothered me, too. I mean, yeah, serious big evil, end of the world, blah, blah, blah. What else is new? They’ve faced something similar every season and we got through it with jokey-talk. Of course, my personal theory is that he might be upset that all of his Council friends got blowed up. Hits a little close to home, I’m sure.
I mean, if all my friends and co-workers had just died, I wouldn’t be too happy right away myself. I think the continuity would have been better served if Giles had brought it up. The fact that the Council hasn’t even been mentioned really, after they went to all the trouble to destroy it, is rather annoying. Wesley, too – I wonder if is father was there at the big bang.
I wish they had done more with that.
Physical prowess aside, who could outhink the other: Angelus or Smallville’s Lex Luthor?
I’d go with Angelus, who a) is fully aware that he’s evil and b) has worked through his issues with his father in a way Lex can only dream of.
Lex or Angelus? Lionel.
Lex vs Angelus: Lex is Machiavellian, no doubt, but he cannot quite get inside other people’s heads. He also still has limits on how far he will go. We know what he’ll be in time, but right now, he thinks he’s not a bad guy and will act accordingly.
Whereas Angelus? He’s smart, perceptive, cunning, and has no limits to what he will do. Plus he knows what Granny Weatherwax in the Pratchett books calls “head-ology.” He did more damage to the team inside a cage in one day than most bad guys do in a month of freedom.
Of course, Lex might know better than to unleash a force of evil without having a back-up plan.
I would love it if the first was the big bad on both shows this season. We know Faith is going to show up on both shows, Willow will show up on Angel and there is a rumor that Angel will show up on the series finale of Buffy. With so many crossovers its hard to think that there isnt a strong connection. Plus the first has got to be really pìššëd øff at Angel for not doing what “it” wanted him to do back in Buffy Season 3 and kill the Buffster. SInce it seams that Buffy is going end, I would love a huge gorefest to go out in style. Faith Buffy Angel and Spike all fighting the big evil. At the end, Faith Buffy and Spike are dead. Everyone is devestated and Cordy tells them they just have to get over it. Slayers have an experiation date, and Spike was just creepy and a bad Angel knock off.
Then lets wait a few years for Angels TV show to end and create a new show called WATCHERS. Set in America it could combine come of the actors from both shows. A new Slayer has been activated, but no one knows who she is and where. So the WATCHERS tv show would be a quest to find the slayer, rebuild the council, the correct way and show that normal humans can hold their own against the forces of darkness. I would love to see Xander, Willow, Wesley, Giles and a bunch of new cast members.
Perhaps the clues that Giles was the First were a ruse to take attention away from the fact Cordy is going to be the big bad on Angel. Just a thought. Looking back, Cordy being evil explains a lot of stuff that was going on.
Queen Cordelia has arrived. Season 4 of Angel is now the season of the witch.
Why no new Angel next week? SFTV.org reports that WB figures that with the American Idol finale next week, they’re better off burning the last 2 episodes of Birds of Prey than subjecting new episodes of Dawson’s Creek and Angel to what would surely be a ratings low.
As for who Cordy is, that’s an interesting question. We know that in “Spin the Bottle” she reverted back to her Sunnydale High self. But I suspect that in “Apocalypse Nowish” it was evil/manipulative Cordy who brought Connor to the alley and then slept with him.
I’d rather compare Cordelia to Lex Luther right now, since like Lex, Cordy was apparently five moves ahead of everybody.
Cordelia being the Big Bad puts things in perspective; she’s been using her visions to conduct the orchestra, playing “Iago” to the team’s “Othello.” It’s SHE who drugged Angel’s drink and killed the immortal in that locked room. She is probably the one who took his soul.
I’m expecting a super-villain team-up now, with Cordy and Angelus as the new Spike and Dru.
This weeks show was especially funny. The bloody monster flash cards were brilliant. I really didn’t see the connection between Spike and Principle Wood coming and the revelation leaves me agitated. Spike is probably my favorite character on the show and the thought of a revenge seeking son killing him is unappealing. I suppose if Spike had to die I’d want one of the gang to do it. Keep it in the family. By the way, am I the only one who really doesn’t like Faith? I didn’t like her when she was on the show, was glad she was gone, and the thought of her coming back is also unappealing. I read that the infamous spinoff everyone is wondering about might actually be with Faith. Personally I find this possibility disappointing. I have to admit to never having watched Angel. I actually wasn’t a fan of him when he was on BTVS either. I was never convinced of his and Buffy’s supposed love for one another. Though reading these postings every week with talk about how good Angel is, and now with reading Cordy is evil??? Very interesting. I always liked her on Buffy. Maybe I’ll pick up the first season on DVD.
I forgot to inquire, does anyone think Buffy realizes the connection between Spike and the Principle? I mean, she knows his mother was that slayer, she knows Spike killed that slayer, she knows the Principle is looking for the vamp who killed his mother, suppose she’ll put two and two together? By the way, Chris Leto, I think your ideas on how to end buffy and The Watchers spinoff show is brilliant.
My wife and I also noticed that Wood appeared to be “looking” at Spike in the reearview mirror, but didn’t react. Of course, its entirely possible that his mirror was not tilted to the point that he could see the seat behind him clearly. However, we both thought it would have been a better revelation had he discovered Spike’s vampirism there in the car, rather than the “He’s a vampire!” moment in the school basement. I think it would have added even more tension to an already clearly uncomfortable sitch for all three of them.
Despite some of these cool plot revelations, I am finding myself bothered by some of the sloppy writing that has been committed in the name of the apparent red herring that Giles is The First. Why wouldn’t Giles tell them all the details about his fight with The Bringer as soon as he arrived in Sunnydale? As Peter has mentioned before, why did he not make physical contact with any of the gang, except to make us think that he might be The First? Don’t get me wrong, I still love the show, but it does seem the writing staff was playing with us for the sake of playing with us. And yes, I do wonder if they did this deliberately to take our minds off the idea that Cordy might not be Cordy. In fact, I bet if both shows were airing on the same network, the Buffy episode in which we see that Giles was corporeal and last night’s Angel episode would have aired on the same evening.
And yes, Aaron, I bow to you humbly for the precognitive abilities regarding Cordy.
One last question: Didn’t Buffy say that Giles had gone to pick up the Potential from China a few episodes back? I think this was the episode in which they had the big fight with the Ubervamp. If so, then Giles apparently came back without her because there was no mention of her in last week’s episode when he took the Potentials on their Vision Quest. Am I remembering this correctly?
Okay… My thoughts on getting Angel’s soul back… “You put tiny little ads, in hundreds of newspapers….” eh… nevermind.
Probably wouldn’t work.
Onto the thoughts:
Buffy – “Ahh… Captain Archer…”
Cracked me up. Doesn’t Spike know Mandarin? I mean his first kill was Chinese, right? Okay, that might be stereotypical. She was asian. Just can’t remember which one. And yes, I know, kill does not mean “speak the language.”
Angel –
YES! Finally. This is Angelus. Not sit in a cell and talk your head off. This is evil. Where Angelus is concerned, less is more when he talks.
Oh, and if last week was Silence of the Lambs, the last five minutes of this week was The Shining.
Notice the weapon “Cordy” was wielding, anyone?
And one other thing… Charisma better be preggers, cause she definitely looks like it… or she went on a major chocolate binge….
Travis
My wife and I think that the “spell” Cordy used to bring back Angel’s soul is in fact some sort of masking spell, tricking Lorne when he “read” Angel/us
Sidenote:
A buddy of mine who got me hooked on Buffy, but never dug Angel, bought the First Season DVDs… now I can’t get him to stop talking about it. Must have that set….
Travis
Buffy:
I’ve sort of stopped watching the show out of sheer boredom.
I must ask, though, why are the Bringers constantly attacking the Summers home? Why not just blow up the place? Why bother using the Slayer’s friend for the Ubervamp ritual? Why not some anonymous stranger?
And I assume Jonathan is quite dead — otherwise, the First could not impersonate him — unless, he pulled a Buffy.
Angel:
Comparing Angelus to Lionel Luthor or even kinda-gray Lex Luthor is an insult to the Luthors. Angelus is only good at mind-games because he was Angel. That’s the only reason he wasn’t dusted in five seconds by Buffy in Season Two (otherwise, he would have been a one-episode wonder like Dracula). That’s the only reason he was able to screw around with AI. He had info that Angel had, that Angel was only able to get because Angel was a goodhearted, kind person who AI trusted.
As for Darth Cordelia, I have to wonder how she tricked Lorne. Angelus seemed to have gone along with singing “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” (“because I’m free and nothin’ worryin’ me,” being key lines). I assume he was just going to give it a shot and when Lorne busted him, shrug it off and mock their attempt.
Is it possible that Cordy is still an angel? An angel of death, to be sure, but still working for The Pwers That Be. After all, she has managed to utterly destroy Wolfram and Hart and now has every demon in LA out in the open, ripe for a big Sodam and Gomorrah (sp?)cleanup.
Sure, many innocents die but, you know, omlets and eggs…
I doubt that Buffy knows the Wood-Spike connection yet. I figured it out during the episode because I remembered that the Slayer Spike killed in the ’70s was African-American, which let me put two and two together; but Spike probably didn’t mention that detail when describing the fight to Buffy.
I thought it was a marvelous touch of minor continuity that the “flashcard monsters” were done in the same style as Giles’ overhead transparencies in “Hush,” BTW.
What if “Cordelia” is her body, animated by the demon aspect she got in Birthday, while her soul was never kicked out of the “higher plane”?
Just a thought…
It seems that all the watchers of Buffy need are a few cute moments and some cheery dialogue to make them think a bad episode is a good one. My first words to my brother were “well that stunk”. Mutant Enemy has such disreguard for ploting an episode, it’s driving me nuts. What was Ashanti? What type of demon? ME assumes we’ll just think ” oh, another demon on the hëll mouth” or some crap like that. It wasn’t a story (or part of a story) it was random events that occured to characters who know one another. It’s bad ploting. If you can’t fit all your plot points in an episode, hold off on some of them.
I want 22 seperate episodes of well thought out TV that form 1 big picture (like seasons 1-3) not some half thought out yuck fest just so we can have a funny episode. This is why Austin Powers 2 & 3 sucked. A movie needs to be the oposite of TV AP1 was a movie that was funny. AP2&3 were TV episoide like skits with AP in them strung together like it were a season of AP the TV show.
I’m just frustrated with ME. I see so much potentail (no pun) within each episode but they tend to screw 1/ of them up by adding so much in just to make a joke that the plot suffers for it. (the episode plot, not the arc plot)
>>I doubt that Buffy knows the Wood-Spike connection yet.<<
Really?? I kind’a got the feeling, based on her expression during Wood’s story over dinner and later in the dirt-floor basement, that she knew exactly what the score was! And, yeah, I wondered about that whole ‘Wouldn’t Wood notice: no reflection’ in the car. But it also looked to me like Spike was semi-scrunched down, in a self-conscious way, and at an angle in the backseat just out of the rear-view mirror’s direct ‘sight-line’.
Frankly, I’m just thankful that principal Woods’s big secret isn’t that he’s Puck or (eyes roll) Robin Hood, as some fans on various message boards have speculated!!
By the way, this past fall, while re-watching Seasons One and Two of ‘Buffy…’ on fx, I would always wonder….sometimes aloud… whenever the luminous Charisma Carpenter was on-screen: “Why the hëll aren’t I watching ‘Angel’, again??!”!!
I rectified that particular blunder once ‘Angel’ made the move to Wednesdays a month or so back, and I’m sure glad I did!!
Hooper
I must admit, ME is really starting to tick me off of late.
Wood obviously seeing Spike in the rearview.
Spike roaming around the house in broad daylight. He’s not even making the effort to be scared of it.
Heck it use to be that he would begin smoking even when covered by a blanket and any remote ray would have him scurrying faster than my mother from a wasp..
I just think that if you had to constantly watch for stray rays of death you would be a bit more careful.
Doesn’t Spike know Mandarin? I mean his first kill was Chinese, right? Okay, that might be stereotypical. She was asian. Just can’t remember which one. And yes, I know, kill does not mean “speak the language.”
If I remember correctly, just before Spike killed her she said something in Chinese and Spike responded, “Sorry love, I don’t speak Chinese.” (I also think that line of his was cut from the syndicated version of the episode.)
“I want 22 seperate episodes of well thought out TV that form 1 big picture (like seasons 1-3) not some half thought out yuck fest just so we can have a funny episode”
To be fair, we never had that with seasons 1-3, either. The main plot of season 2 didn’t kick in until after the halfway point, and S2 had its fair share of lame one-off episodes, like “Bad Egg” and “Go Fish.” And while Mayor Wilkins was present and causing hassles throughout the third season, that was far from a clockwork structure as well.
Though I love S2 and S3 as much as anybody, I think their reputations have grown over the years because people remember “Becoming” but not “Inca Mummy Girl” or “Reptile Boy.” The only serious attempts at season-long novel-for-television arcs so far have been S5 and the current run (and even those have their share of placeholder episodes.)
Paul F. P. Pogue
Oh, I may as well chime in that I, too, thought Giles’s ‘flash cards’…and the Scoobies reactions to them, especially Dawn’s ‘God!’…were screamingly funny!! In hindsight, it would’ve been priceless to catch even a glimpse of a ‘card’ with a stick-figure ME and a crude word balloon pointing to it containing the words: “Grr. Argh.”!! (A la Tara’s pencil-topper going-away present to Giles in Season Six)
Hooper
Just as an aside, When exactly do you think Cordy turned bad? Did the real Cordelia come back from wherever she was at the end of last season or did she get possessed at some point during this last (or an earlier) episode when she claimed to recieve information from the “Powers That Be”.
Y’know, not to be a rude, but towards the end of Season 2 of Buffy, Angel went bad because he slept with Buffy (wasn’t it Buffy’s 17th Birthday?). Now Cordelia turns bad after sleeping with Conner (who’s around 16? Could it have been his 17th Birthday and no one knew?). Coincidence? I hope so.
I think Bob Ingersoll (who writes “The Law Is A Úš” column for CBG) might be inspired to write a column about how the law in the real world handles sex with minors compared to the Buffy/Angel world.
I forgot to inquire, does anyone think Buffy realizes the connection between Spike and the Principle? I mean, she knows his mother was that slayer, she knows Spike killed that slayer, she knows the Principle is looking for the vamp who killed his mother, suppose she’ll put two and two together?
It depends who’s writing the episode when the issue comes up. Some weeks, Buffy’s smart enough to identify the First based on stray bits of information. Some weeks, she thinks it’s a good idea to remove Spike’s chip.
Doesn’t Spike know Mandarin? I mean his first kill was Chinese, right? Okay, that might be stereotypical. She was asian. Just can’t remember which one. And yes, I know, kill does not mean “speak the language.”
The Chinese slayer he killed gave a long dying speech (something about “failed in my duty” and “tell my family I’m sorry,” if I remember correctly), and Spike’s reply was, “Sorry, love, I don’t speak Chinese.”
Angelus seemed to have gone along with singing “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” (“because I’m free and nothin’ worryin’ me,” being key lines).
During the previous episode, when Angelus kept singing, “If you go out in the woods today…,” I started thinking how much less scary the episode would have been if he sang the chorus. “It’s picnic time for teddy bears…”
Oh, and Angelus might be able to take on Smallville Lex, but adult Lex would beat him utterly.
Haven’t seen this week’s BUFFY yet thanks to a local basketball preemption (jerks!). But on the notion of Angelus vs. Lex:
Right now, Angelus would outthink Lex, and maybe even Lionel. But give Lex a couple of years…
Paul F.P. sez..
To be fair, we never had that with seasons 1-3, either. The main plot of season 2 didn’t kick in until after the halfway point, and S2 had its fair share of lame one-off episodes, like “Bad Egg” and “Go Fish.” And while Mayor Wilkins was present and causing hassles throughout the third season, that was far from a clockwork structure as well.
1st Bad Eggs had a beginning middle and end and wrapped up all the plotlines (and Gortch got away), this weeks didn’t. Plus I love that episode. It was funny and Buffy didn’t think she had a Big Bad left. Drusilla was the big bad of season 2 not Angelus. Both Spike and Angel (debatably) did it all for her attention.
When an episode was bad durring S1-3 it was because the story Idea was bad (see Ted), where this weeks ideas were good, they were just produced and written sloppily (much like all my internet posts :)) We need the Mysto-babble to have some closure.
Metro Detroit Area, Julio?
Yeah, the only thing I watch on UPN is Buffy (I finally gave up on Enterprise, great cast, interesting characters, but teh stories and all just don’t grab me the way TOS, TNG, and DS9 did [didn’t care much for VOY either]), yet UPN carries the Pistons, Red Wings, and the Tigers.
Maybe it is better if this is Buffy’s last season, I hate these pre-emptions…
I have a stupid Question somebody will hopefully answer and no one has yet to bring up. Didn’t Principal Wood summon one those ubervamps? Nothing is not right with him.
I enjoyed both episodes. Thought Giles was the one person with a lick of sense in him when he started talking about priorities. Was a tad annoyed when (as so often happens in such situations), Lilah became just as strong as she needed to be for dramatic purposes — for a “normal” human being, after an indeterminate time on the run, with a gut wound, she acquitted herself remarkably well against vampiree super-genius Angelus.
Did anyone notice that the soul-sucking demon had apparently been buried by the same Indian tribe that came back from the dead in the first Buffy/Angel crossover? The “Shumash,” I think….
Sudden thought: Everyone’s memories of the Beast, not to mention every book in this dimension that mentions him, seem to have been erased retroactively. Wonder how that happened …
… hey, haven’t we seen a time-travelling demon who vanished after the last time he screwed with Angel Investigations? Who was prone to rewriting mystical tomes? Hmm …
Just chiming in here, I too have to deal with UPN Detroit… nothing grates my cheese worse then getting all psyched up over a buffy episode, just to come home tuesday night and see it pre-empted.
thanks… had to vent, kinda feel better knowing im not the only person around here thats getting tired of it.
Someone on sff.net has pointed out that the prophecies call for “the vampire with a soul” to play a key role in the coming Apocalypse — and right now, that’s not Angel.
It’s Spike.
My take on Giles’ yelling is that he’s really, really scared. He’s usually fine with the group joking, even during the several apocolypses they’ve had. This one must be really bad. I also like Rachel’s theory that he’s shaken from losing pretty much all of his collegues in the explosion.
<<<<>>>>
I noticed it only because I’ve been listening to the “Once More with Feeling” CD over and over lately, and Anya mentions something about Xander getting infected on his pëņìš by the Shumash tribe. Then, this morning on the FX rerun, we get to see that episode. I laughed out loud when Willow read the possible disease (including syphilus (sp?)) that Xander might have had.
Rob R.
Buffy. I wasn’t that thrilled with the episode, especially the Chinese Potential. As others have mentioned, the suspension of disbelief required outweighed the humor. I liked the whole Andrew and the First scene, but even that seemed to have inconsistencies. Why is it that Andrew would tell Willow and Co. that the First was talking to him right away, but not mention what it asked him to do? Wouldn’t someone have thought to ask before they sent him in with a wire?
Smallville. This show has gone a long way this season. First, a long digression on the monster-of-the-week thing. I think that reached its peak when they had the Home Improvement kid that could split into two. Pete: how could he do that? Clark: It doesn’t matter how he does it. We have to stop him. It was like the various powers that be were getting so lazy they couldn’t even tack on the ususal “blame it on the meteor rocks” explanation. Then there comes an episode like this week, and I’m totally blown away.
One final thought. I think it’s time they get rid of this Clark guy and start a new series. The Luthers. It’d be great.
Sudden thought: Everyone’s memories of the Beast, not to mention every book in this dimension that mentions him, seem to have been erased retroactively. Wonder how that happened …
… hey, haven’t we seen a time-travelling demon who vanished after the last time he screwed with Angel Investigations? Who was prone to rewriting mystical tomes? Hmm …
Last time we saw him, he was stuck in a little jar. But Connor is, supposedly, destined to kill him, so he may pop out eventually.
–Daniel
Far as Wood looking at Spike in the rear view mirror – Why wouldn’t he? Here’s this guy who showed up in the middle of his date with the Slayer, knew all her secrets, and obviously had some kind of personal connection to her, aside from all that. If my date’s ex showed up in the middle of dinner, and I had to give him a ride somewhere, I’d probably be giving him a pretty nasty glare, too.
And one theory on Lorne not reading Angelus right – well, the spell they cast on him sure looked like it did SOMETHING, even it didn’t bring back Angel. It was Cordy’s spell – I’d assume it was all part of her plan to trick everybody.
^But that’s not the point, Adam… the point is that Spike is a vamp, there shouldn’t have been a reflection in the mirror for Wood to see… of course he’d look back there, but should have been surprised to see empty space…..
^But that’s not the point, Adam… the point is that Spike is a vamp, there shouldn’t have been a reflection in the mirror for Wood to see… of course he’d look back there, but should have been surprised to see empty space…..
Ack, sorry for the double, my browser is possessed. Bad me. 🙁