From the opening moments of tonight’s episode, with Andrew making like Allistair Cook (or, for those of you of more recent vintage, Allistair Cookie), I thought, “Espsenson. Gotta be written by Jane Espenson. This has got her style all over it.” Sure enough. One of BTVS’s most consistent and imaginative writers comes through again. Solid B+ Entry.
Although there’s one unfortunate relapse into Buffy “People are going to die!” speechifying, tonight’s ep was more emotionally driven than plot driven. We get a quick overview of Sunnydale High’s Most Horrifying Hits, including a wonderful riff on the Invisible Girl episode from season 1 that rewards long-time viewers with a reference that only they will fully appreciate. These days where some people expect comic books to cater to fans with the attention spans of fruit flies, it’s nice to see a long-running series that doesn’t hesitate to exploit its own rich history, sometimes in almost throwaway fashion.
Andrew finally grows up a few notches, forced to come to emotional grips with the evil he’s done. Plus his Rashomon-esque turns on his time with the Evil Trio are a hoot. Yes, granted, we’ve seen that kind of thing before (including an entire Jonathan-centric episode, “Superstar”), but it’s always fun when done right. From the deftly edited redo of last season’s climactic blowout with Dark Rosenberg (took me a minute to realize all the Willow material was unchanged) to the deliriously insane “We are as gods!” that almost makes you wonder if that’s how terrorists imagine the eternal award that awaits them (serve ’em right to be stuck with Jonathan, Andrew and Warren. You wanted virgins? You got virgins) proves that it is possible to write eps of BTVS that can capture some of the old charm.
The Spike/Wood subplot is starting to bubble over. I give it one, two eps at most before Spike has *got* to realize the principal’s out to kill him. And considering Spike’s characterization seems to have dead-ended, I’m *really* worried about his longevity. Ðámņ. If he gets dusted, I hope the coat doesn’t go.
I’m really starting to think the main reason Kennedy was introduced was to make Dawn less annoying in comparison. And I thought Buffy was just a little too blase about a student’s head exploding. That *is* what happened, isn’t it? I know she’s seen a lot, been through a lot, but a studen’ts HEAD EXPLODED. And she’s commenting he should’ve had a foot rub? Maybe she really has been doing this for too long.
PAD
• 
I was thinking Braniac. They even put little doo-dads on his head.
As my friend Pete pointed out, a dramatic divergence will come if Clark gets a sibling. “There is no Fred Kent.” – perhaps they could name her Kara, though.
And what was with that misleading commercial for Gilmore Girls?—um…never mind.
Some thoughts on Smallville:
1. Didn’t catch a Fortress theme, but right after Reeve delivers the line about the “second message,” the very opening of the “Superman March” begins. I was especially pleased that it was nice and subtle…not blaring out at us.
2. Loved the nicely subtle use of red, yellow and blue on the disk when it activates, and in the stream of light that hit Clark. Hey, foreshadowing is fun!
3. Really lovely job by Reeves. Nice to know that he’s still got those fine acting chops I remember from “Deathtrap.”
4. Where can I find a good Kryptonian font? 🙂
5. Speaking of that, who keeps the standards on what Kryptonian looks like? Anyone know which artist designed it originally for the comic books?
6. The interplay between Reeve and Welling during the spot for the Christoper Reeve foundation was charming as hëll.
7. Where the hëll is Clark getting a wireless signal from in the barn, in the middle of Kansas? Yeah, I know, picky…and that cord could have been a phone cord, which makes me wonder how long the cord is coming from the house.
8. Chloe and Lana finally start with the jealousy out in the open! Yay! This series has better stuff in ten minutes on teenage relationships thn something like Dawson’s Creek had in years.
9. John Schneider and his father stuff in the episode was the icing on the cake. Who woulda thunk a Duke brother could deliver like that?
All in all, a supremely satisfying episode. Especially with the third message.
During the last act of “Smallville,” I jumped to the edge of the sofa when those familiar strains from “Superman: The Movie”first emerged within the incidental music.
By the time, they gave us the snatch from the main theme, my wife and I both had goosebumps. I’ll have to watch again Sunday to be certain, but didn’t the excerpt from the main theme stop just shy of the part that actually sounds like someone saying “Superman” ? Richard Donner talks with great enthusiasm about that part of the theme on the Superman DVD commentary.
Anyway, if it did stop shy of that part, then I think it was a very nice little touch. Almost like the music was saying, “you’re on the path to becoming Superman, but you’re not quite there yet.”
We also both enjoyed the revelation about Kal-El’s intended mission on Earth. Its straight from Byrne’s revamp, I believe. Comics fans might have been expecting it, but the general public has certainly been floored by this change to the legend, just as I was floored last week by Martha’s pregnancy. Nice surprises for the long-time fans as well as the newbies; now that’s what I call a great adaptation of a comic book legend.
“Didn’t see ‘Smallville’ last night. I get Time-Warner Digital in Tampa, and my VCR can only tape the channel ‘coming through’ the box.”
I can’t speak for Tampa, but here in Chicagoland, you can still get the basic cable channels direct through your TV or VCR without the cable box even if you have digital cable. I have a splitter on my cable with one line going to the box and another going directly into the VCR so I can record anything off basic cable without having to worry about what channel the cable box is on. You might want to see if the same works for you, could help alleviate your recording woes.:)
Looks like this week’s the one for me to be a dissenter.
After the teaser, we said, “Alistair Andrew. Okay, could be fun.” (And yes, the bookshelves w/ Star Wars posters were terrific.)
After a first act that felt as if ’twas about an hour long all by its lonesome, Lisa turned to me and said, “Okay, either we’d better get major character growth here or he needs to be dead by the end of the hour.” I agreed.
Another act later, she said, “Forget the growth. He needs to die.”
There were lots of little bits that I liked here and there, most especially things like the return of inviso-girlness and Buffy having seen it all before (“just not all at once”).
But Andrew, at least in our house, is now pretty much a textbook case of someone completely and utterly wearing out his welcome.
Andrew worked beautifully well when the whole nerd trio was there — all three of them were different enough in their particular nerdish tendencies that they tended to balance each other out pretty well. Now that it’s just him, it’s absolutely unrelenting — and this episode, at least for me, crossed over from “sometimes annoying, often funny” to “okay, folks, move the hëll on.”
(And anyone who knows me knows that it’s certainly not a deep-seated antipathy towards all things nerdlike. “Ah … Captain Archer” a few weeks ago was bust-a-gut funny. 🙂
What I was reminded of, honestly, was the horrible “Voyager” episode years ago where Neelix decides he’s going to be a “Good Morning Voyager”-type journalist. It was not a pleasant reminder, given that I always found Neelix one of the most annoying Trek regulars ever. Andrew’s not there yet, but of all the Buffy recurring folks past and present he’s now the one who’s come the closest.
I do so wish that we’d killed Andrew and kept Jonathan half a season ago. Jonathan’s someone with enough history and enough depth that devoting an episode to him was no problem. Andrew ain’t there.
It probably didn’t help that we’d finally caught up on “Angel” the night before, and so finally seen the big Cordy/Lilah/Angelus stuff we’d been so careful to avoid spoilers for. After that high, “Storyteller” felt like a precipice.
As I said, some good moments — the little ME guy’s “we are like gods!” was highly cute, for one, and seeing the pig again was good for a chuckle. Overall, though, one of the least entertaining Buffy episodes I’ve ever seen, and definitely not the way I wanted to go into reruns.
TWL
I too noticed the Cheese man in the mexican dream sequence.
I think he’s the first evil.
If you go back to restless and replace the word cheese with evil….
“You don’t wear the evil, the evil wears you…”
“I made a place for the evil…”
See he’s the first!
I need shot.
Let’s not forget Spike’s and Wood’s “sexual tension you can cut with a knife.” Seemed to me like a nod to the fandom’s slash writers.
RE: Xander’s reason for bailing- I always thought it was kinda obvious that Xander backed out because of his parent’s lousy marriage. He felt that if he married Anya, they’d turn into his parents. The demon that impersonated his “future self” played on those fears- showing a crappy homelife and them ending up at each other’s throats.
What I don’t get is why he hadn’t said anything about it though he’d been given several opportunities to lay his cards on the table. Then in the episode where Anya caused the bloodbath in the frat house (or a diff ep, I’m not sure), Xander pretty much said “I didn’t marry you because you were a demon, i was afraid of this.”
My guess is- the writers are disagreeing as to what should be the reason, so they are “leaving out” the seemingly apparent reasons presented in the actual wedding episode itself.
I just wonder if, when it comes down to the Spike/Wood confrontation, the principal says, with a Castillian accent:
“Hello. My name is Robin Wood. You killed my mother. Prepare to die.”
PAD
Okay, so I’m not the only one who’s heard Wood utter that (paraphrased) immortal phrase.
I’m going to state again: the only potential Kennedy has is to annoy the crap out of almost every viewer (I’m willing to entertain the idea that certain male viewers will turn all Xander at the very sight of her) and, hopefully, die in an entertaining fashion. Any death of Kennedy will be entertaining in that I won’t have to watch Miss I-Have-One-Effin’-Expression ever, ever again. Why her? Why does she get to be a Scooby? The token-black-girl slayerette is far more interesting. But she’s never on screen, to the point where I’ve no freaking idea what her name is. But I know Kennedy. Dammit.
Andrew’s fantasy sequences had me laughing so hard I teared up. This is the first time in ages I’ve laughed like that while watching the show.
>>Why her? Why does she get to be a Scooby? The token-black-girl slayerette is far more interesting. But she’s never on screen, to the point where I’ve no freaking idea what her name is.<<
I dunno.
Lately, though, I’m starting to like long, tall Amanda!!
Hooper
Ok. The writing-out-of-character thing. I don’t know if it’s still the case – it was for a long time – that the last stage in the writing process of Buffy and Angel was a final dialogue sweep by Joss Whedon. Sometimes this was just a little tweaking here and there, sometimes a full-on page one rewrite.
This has been stated in many interviews with the writers over the years, due to precisely this kind of situation. They’ve basically said that no-one writes (Character X) better or worse than anyone else, ’cause it all goes past Joss… and if it’s not right, you can bet he’ll be changing it.
Maybe it’s the actors’ fault…
I’m not sure if this has been mentioned, but I remember Angel said a long time ago that cameras (even older ones with mirrors) can photograph vampires because “it’s metaphysics, not physics.”
And of course Chordelia saw a picture of Angel from 1952 and commented “it’s not that vampires don’t photograph, they just don’t photograph well.”
As for the Andrew bits, I loved them. It’s a great follow-up to Superstar. Especially how he re-wrote last year’s season finale. And you gotta love the line “Gentlemen, in my plane we have no belts.”
Maybe I’m misremembering, but doesn’t the line read, “…in my plan…we are beltless!”
“Ok. The writing-out-of-character thing. I don’t know if it’s still the case – it was for a long time – that the last stage in the writing process of Buffy and Angel was a final dialogue sweep by Joss Whedon. Sometimes this was just a little tweaking here and there, sometimes a full-on page one rewrite.”
I believe Whedon hasn’t been able to do that this season and last because he had too much other stuff on his plate, which may be why things have seemed inconsistent.
>>Why her? Why does she get to be a Scooby? The token-black-girl slayerette is far more interesting. But she’s never on screen, to the point where I’ve no freaking idea what her name is. But I know Kennedy. Dammit.<<
Her name is Rona, Cat!!
:^)
Hooper
If you actually pay attention in the kitchen scene, Spike is hugging the back wall and there’s no sunlight anywhere near him. Do we really need our hands held by showing him obviously and self-consciously falling back from a sunbeam every episode?
Hopper sez:
Lately, though, I’m starting to like long, tall Amanda!!
Second to that. If they do a spinoff next season or the season after, I hope they can both keep her and Dawn around. Of all the potentials, she’s my favorite.
Hasn’t it been long established on Buffy (and, by extension, Angel) that only DIRECT sunlight hurts vamps – i.e reflected light, and light refracted though glass don’t burn them.
And S4 showed that vamps could overcome their fear of crosses, so that they didn’t shrink in terror at the sight of one (although they still burned from them I think) – why not the same for inderect sunlight?
I’ve decided this is the BUFFY spinoff I’d like to see:
Nick Brendan and Emma Caufield in MR. AND MRS. HARRIS– sort of a cross between THE THIN MAN and KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER.
And yes, I’m serious.
This is good: Peter David, the guy who’s callously butchered supporting characters in his books with the most sardonic and off-the-cuff prose, is surprised that Buffy was so blas
It’s always sad when things die.
“It’s hard to believe it’s over,” said creator Joss Whedon in a written statement released through UPN Thursday. “Well, it’s hard to think at all, or stand, or form vowel sounds, so maybe it’s time to take a break. I’m just glad I can say we did our best on every single episode. We didn’t always succeed, but we never slacked, and I’m immensely proud of my writers, actors and crew for that.
“And I’m proud of what this show means…I truly believe that in years to come, people will look back and say ‘that was a show that was on TV.’ Yessir. I truly do,” said Whedon
The “cheese man”; wasn’t that Principal Snyder (played by Armin Shimerman (sp?), perhaps best known for playing Quark on ST:DS9)? And then “Restless” would be the S4 closer?
Ah, the joys of imdb.com; yes, that’s right above.
I’ve been wondering for years what the significance of his showing up in each of the four dreams was, and have hoped that we would eventually find out.
Still hoping….
The cheese man is not Principal Snyder. I also think he was thrown into “Restless” as just something totally random.
“These will not protect you!”
Eric
Snyder (Armin Shimerman) was in Restless, but only in Xander’s dream. He was doing an Apocalypse Now riff. The Cheese Man was in all 4 dreams, and played by a completely different actor.
It’s always sad when things die.
“It’s hard to believe it’s over,” said creator Joss Whedon in a written statement released through UPN Thursday. “Well, it’s hard to think at all, or stand, or form vowel sounds, so maybe it’s time to take a break. I’m just glad I can say we did our best on every single episode. We didn’t always succeed, but we never slacked, and I’m immensely proud of my writers, actors and crew for that.
“And I’m proud of what this show means…I truly believe that in years to come, people will look back and say ‘that was a show that was on TV.’ Yessir. I truly do,” said Whedon
Where did you read the statement? I haven’t been able to find it online.
–Daniel
Daniel,
It’s an article on E! Online News about the cancelation of BTVS. I don’t think the link will hyperlink itself because it’s too long. Just copy and paste it into your web browser.
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,11338,00.html
Random comments:
The “no one, no one” graffiti is a ref to Episode 3.1, “Anne”, when Buffy was in LA and kept running into these elderly homeless people who kept saying “I’m no one,” only to find that they were actualy young people who had been held in a demon dimension work camp where time moved faster (and they had their identities beaten out of them).
Also note that, in the kitchen scene, Andrew wins over Xander by referring to him as the “heart” of the operation — referring back to his role in the joining spell that defeated Adam in season 4 and his statement to the Watchers in season 5’s “Checkpoint.”
And yes, I do believe the Cheese Man in “Restless” was a manifestation of The First, now confirmed by his reappearance in Andrew & Jonathan’s Mexico dreams.
My question was, what happened to the five students who had changed into Bringers? Is the act of mutilating their eyes physical or magical (that is, was it cured when the Seal was closed)?
Randall wrote:
> And what was with that misleading commercial for Gilmore Girls?—um…never mind.
That annoyed me too! I was very confused and wondered if I’d misinterpreted it somehow. But then I re-watched the preview. Where did they come up with Rory’s “It was just time” or whatever comment, I don’t even think that was in the episode!
So, PAD, ever watch the Gilmore Girls? What do you think? 🙂
Yolande
Randall wrote:
> And what was with that misleading commercial for Gilmore Girls?—um…never mind.
That annoyed me too! I was very confused and wondered if I’d misinterpreted it somehow. But then I re-watched the preview. Where did they come up with Rory’s “It was just time” or whatever comment, I don’t even think that was in the episode!
So, PAD, ever watch the Gilmore Girls? What do you think? 🙂
Yolande
i really liked the episode “hallowee”, I liked Willows costume and Buffys was really pretty.who else here liked it?
have u seen the episode,”Ted”, i though it was wierd when she killed… um… it but then i found out he was a robot thing.i like the episode because she kicks his butt.(when he hits her)Did any1 else like it as much as i did?
wait the seasons ending that sucks like a vampire.(which is so wrong)! I think Buffys the coolest and willow is even cooler i never got to see the last episode what happened? please give me details,did caleb die the wierd insane freak?