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Fantabulero posted:Well, aside from Joyce, it was pretty rare we saw anyone's parents on the show. I always wondered what happened to them all in the later years - other than Xander's parents in the wedding episode, it seemed like everyone stopped having contact with their families outright. I may be forgetting something, but to my knowledge, Cordelia never mentioned her family after she moved to L.A., Oz left town without a comment about seeing his parents beforehand, I don't remember Willow mentioning her parents post-high school, and I'm pretty sure nobody said anything about seeing their parents off toward the end of season seven. Well to be fair, I think Cordelia was a little pissed off at her parents for making her go riches to rags. She kind of wanted to cut ties to her former life until she regained her glory (see "Room with a View").
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May 8, 2009 18:30
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Gordon Shumway posted:Well to be fair, I think Cordelia was a little pissed off at her parents for making her go riches to rags. She kind of wanted to cut ties to her former life until she regained her glory (see "Room with a View"). Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense for Cordy's character. It's not a complaint or anything. In a show about demon-fighting and regular apocalypses, checking in with the characters' middle-aged parents is pretty low on the list of important plots. There were just a few spots where it seemed strange to not even get a mention. Like after Xander's, um, optical procedure, his parents didn't even visit him in the hospital? I know they were pretty terrible parents, but drat, that's cold.
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May 8, 2009 18:46
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Willow mentioned that her mom thought Willow was being all empowered when she came out.
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May 9, 2009 00:24
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AnimeJune posted:I thought it was quite consistent - Xander's the only "real world" character, i.e. the one who's not a witch or a demon or a slayer or a vampire or some other super secret magical thingy - therefore, he's the one who succeeds the most living the real world. It's funny, those later seasons have an inadvertent message that subverts the idea of compulsory higher education. Xander doesn't go to college, but he gets a job, makes money, moves up in the ranks and--aside from the hijinks that his friends get him into and living in his mother's basement--leads a pretty decent life. And I'm sure if he weren't mixing it up with vampires, he'd have his own place. Buffy and Willow go to college but don't come out with skills to become real people. They effectively treat it like another term of high school and get nothing from the experience except for debt. Buffy finds herself in a financial crisis, Willow finds herself addicted to what amounts to narcotics, neither of them obtain any benefit from college.
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May 9, 2009 00:32
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Xander does have his own place. A nicer place than anybody on the show save the Vampires or Giles.
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May 9, 2009 00:37
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LividLiquid posted:Xander does have his own place. A nicer place than anybody on the show save the Vampires or Giles. Well, there is the Summers house. But Buffy only really gets that for herself because her mom dies, which I'm sure is not how she wanted to obtain a home.
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May 9, 2009 00:43
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Fantabulero posted:Well, aside from Joyce, it was pretty rare we saw anyone's parents on the show.
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May 9, 2009 00:46
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A home whose mortgage she couldn't afford. Good times.
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May 9, 2009 00:47
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gently caress. I really need to learn my lesson and stop coming in here and accidentally spoiling myself. Dammit. Oh well. I'm still on season 5 of Buffy, a little more than half-way through.
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May 9, 2009 00:49
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cool kids inc. posted:Willow's parents were shown to be rather neglectful and never ever there. Right, which is kind of the ideal situation for their place in the show - they're never around, and therefore you don't have to worry about addressing their presence in the plot, but they're probably the kind of parents who will just throw money at their kid and hope for the best, which saves having to explain how Willow has any money at all. On an Angel-related note, I'm doing a rewatch, and I'm a little over halfway through S4, about to start the Jasmine stuff. But I can't really make myself excited about that particular arc (though everything leading up to it is cool), so I'm thinking about just skipping to the last two episodes of the season. Is there anything that I might have forgotten about in the Jasmine arc that should make me want to watch it again?
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May 9, 2009 00:57
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LividLiquid posted:Xander does have his own place. A nicer place than anybody on the show save the Vampires or Giles. I guess he does, doesn't he? I haven't watched the later seasons in a long time. I guess I was still thinking of Season 4. Well, even better for Xander.
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May 9, 2009 01:01
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ShakeZula posted:Right, which is kind of the ideal situation for their place in the show - they're never around, and therefore you don't have to worry about addressing their presence in the plot, but they're probably the kind of parents who will just throw money at their kid and hope for the best, which saves having to explain how Willow has any money at all. Jasmine open mic night?
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May 9, 2009 01:07
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I finally got around to seeing "Dr. Horrible," and I wish it was longer. I really enjoyed Nathan Fillion's performance. The songs were all pretty fantastic.
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May 9, 2009 06:08
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"The Body" and "Forever" are loving brutal episodes to watch a day and a half before Mothers Day. Brutal, I tell you. loving brutal.
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May 9, 2009 06:13
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I could not find an answer to this after some searching, then I realized if anyone would know, it would the people in this thread. Is there any word on how long the 'Angel' syndication will run on TNT? It's really stupid but I have been watching since it first aired 4 or 5 years ago on TNT and it has become a morning routine for me in the past year or so, so I am curious as to when the last episode really will be the end.
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May 9, 2009 13:24
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Considering it just restarted this morning (6am was Why We Fight, followed immediately by City of..) I'd say it has at least one more go-around. I mean for God's sake, Charmed has been on a hellish loop cycle like fifteen rotations running now. Why there are so many episodes of that abomination, I'll never know.
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May 9, 2009 13:52
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Anomalous posted:Why there are so many episodes of that abomination, I'll never know. I remember trying to watch that show once, and thought that their house was like grand central station. It was loving ridiculous how many people were coming and going without much point. It was like this: Dude teleports in.  Hey.  (one of the three gals) Hey. So-and-so is looking for you. Ok. Dude teleports out. That's literally what half the episode seemed like to me. It was a bad daytime soap opera with a special effects budget and a lower rate of play on episodes. I mean, yeah it had some hot women in it, but the acting that came out of them was just BAD.
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May 9, 2009 16:20
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Minimaul posted:"The Body" and "Forever" are loving brutal episodes to watch a day and a half before Mothers Day. Indeed. Great timing. Feels like a punch in the gut, doesn't it? One of the best things I like about The Body - and Joss's work in general - is the intentional cruelty. You know he was going out of his way to make the episode as painful as possible. In an arty way, to be sure, but its incredibly effective. For example, the Joyce fakeout at the beginning of the episode. The only reason it's there is to inflict pain in the viewer.
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May 9, 2009 16:21
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Psimitry posted:It was a bad daytime soap opera with a special effects budget and a lower rate of play on episodes. I hate Charmed, but you have to understand that many people who aren't fans of Buffy use this exact reasoning as well
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May 9, 2009 16:43
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redshirt posted:One of the best things I like about The Body - and Joss's work in general - is the intentional cruelty. You know he was going out of his way to make the episode as painful as possible. Passion is the same way, although I guess people might not have been as invested in Jenny as they were in Joyce. Still, the way Giles finds her? What the hell, man.
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May 9, 2009 16:58
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Carrot Wheel posted:Passion is the same way, although I guess people might not have been as invested in Jenny as they were in Joyce. Still, the way Giles finds her? What the hell, man. Yeah, exactly. Every little thing is setup to bring the hurt. I loved the rose petals on the stairs - nice touch, Angelus. Makes me think Angelus = Joss.
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May 9, 2009 17:09
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Carrot Wheel posted:Passion is the same way, although I guess people might not have been as invested in Jenny as they were in Joyce. Still, the way Giles finds her? What the hell, man. I liked Jenny. I watched the episodes out of order and knew she was gone in the later seasons but I was hoping she left the series without hideously dying. Possibly like Oz but without the werewolf sex.
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May 9, 2009 17:19
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redshirt posted:Yeah, exactly. Every little thing is setup to bring the hurt. I loved the rose petals on the stairs - nice touch, Angelus. Plus it seemed like they were finally going to get back together (in the earlier scene where Giles invites her over), but nooo. Joss why can't you let cute women be happy? 
Carrot Wheel fucked around with this message at 17:41 on May 9, 2009 |
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May 9, 2009 17:33
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redshirt posted:Indeed. Great timing. Feels like a punch in the gut, doesn't it? yeah, it was great - in a brutal way. no music, slow, how Buffy got all sick looking it was very 'real'. it wasn't overdone with "oh no someone died so we're going to make everyone cry a bunch on screen to show sad it is. it was way more effective the way it was done. good job Joss, thanks for kicking my rear end. even in the episode after that the way each character did a mini-flip out was great too, Willow almost had me in tears a few times. I'm going to have to watch Passion again , but I do remember that Jenny's death was pretty brutal on the ole heart strings as well.
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May 9, 2009 20:19
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redshirt posted:For example, the Joyce fakeout at the beginning of the episode. The only reason it's there is to inflict pain in the viewer. It was the most real part of the episode if you ask me.
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May 9, 2009 22:41
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Going back a page here, but I go against the fan consensus on these shows in several places. I loving loved season 6 and considered it far and away the peak of the show. Seasons 2 and 3 were a fantastic metaphor for high school and adolescence, but there wasn't anywhere else to go with that setting and structure and I think they hit the perfect note in succeeding seasons. The show expanded from a show about growing up in this specific frame (being a vampire slayer in high school) and became a show about LIFE in all its joy and tragedy and complication. And season 6 was a near-flawless expression of that idea. Of all the seasons it's the most complete, with a clear beginning and end and scarcely any filler in between. All the themes are set up in that premiere and are brought to a satisfying resolution in the finale. Even the throwaway filler episodes like Doublemeat Palace or the one where everyone's stuck at the party fit into the overall structure. And Once More With Feeling is right there in the center; it's not just a quirky fun-to-watch experiment, it's a mission statement for the entire season, and by extension for the entire series. And it's just great television. The season isn't perfect; like others said the magic metaphor got way too blunt in that one episode, Dawn's kleptomania goes absolutely nowhere, and we definitely got too many montages of characters crying while a sappy pop song plays on the soundtrack. But it took a lot of really bold chances and digressions from the show's established structure and it payed off in a huge, huge way for me. It probably helped that I was making my way through the DVDs at a time that real life was hitting me hard and I was just starting to learn how to be an adult and find my place and make sense of it all. So it took on a lot of resonance and transcended the "depressing angstiness" label it gets from its critics. I also loved Buffy and Spike together. Angel and Buffy never made any sense to me, really; A man who's over 200 years old, who spent a large chunk of that trying to atone for all the horrible things he did and going through unimaginable emotional pain falls in love with a 15 year old girl who hasn't experienced anything more harrowing than a few vampire fights? Because she's cute and quippy and powerful? I just never bought it. It worked at that point in the show, because it was high school drama and the Buffy/Angel romance was this idealized, hyper-romantic version of love that transcended barriers and was destined to be no matter what happened and ended with a kiss and a sacrifice that saved the world...it's effective high drama but it's not something I can relate to. By season 6 Buffy was a broken shell of a person who'd almost-literally been to hell and back, and taking solace in the kind of intense, dangerous sexuality that Spike represented just made sense. Their relationship was one I've actually seen and been in, and watching that relationship get revisited and redefined in season 7 was one of the season's few bright spots. I liked Angel and Cordelia for the same reason. At that point in the series, Cordy was someone who really could approach being an equal with Angel. She wasn't the confused, puppy-eyed girl that Buffy was when Angel fell for her; she was a strong woman capable of holding her own who would call Angel out on his poo poo when he was clueless or insensitive. Season 4 of Angel wasn't the poo poo-fest that some feel it was, but the fact that the budding relationship between the two got thrown to the wolves so we could be subjected to Cordy and Connor's gallery of horror kinda overshadowed all the cool stuff. Also loved Andrew and and loved a lot of what they did with Dawn in the later seasons. Moments like her finally taking up a sword and kicking rear end in the season 6 finale and knocking Xander out in season 7 really worked. I just wish they'd focused more on her growing up and taking control of her own life as opposed to the endlessly rehashed "Buffy thinks Dawn is weak and needs protecting and Dawn disagrees. Oops! Buffy's right" plots. And on an unrelated note, am I the only one who was left pretty cold by Firefly? It's not that it was bad, but what we got was half a season of a Joss Whedon show. And every Whedon show SUCKS in the first season, as things are being set up and everyone is trying to figure out what works. The second season of Firefly would have been awesome, hell the second half of the first season would have been awesome. But we didn't get that. What we did get was something with a great setting and cast of characters, and a ton of potential that couldn't go anywhere. Sucks it was canceled but I can't see myself wanting to revisit it any time soon. And Serenity was several seasons' worth of ideas crammed into a two-hour movie so hectic and disjointed it didn't satisfy on any level. It's nice we got some answers and character backstory but it would have been so much better if those things could have been revealed slowly and organically in a format where Whedon really thrives (hint: it's not feature filmmaking)
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May 10, 2009 06:34
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Horseface posted:Wise words about Buffy! I utterly and completely agree with you, I LOVED season 6, and season 7 and the B/S and the A/C, I think I'm in a very small minority but I am fine with that. Dawns kleptomania by the way, ended up being found out and then she had to return all of the items. So while they did kinda end the theme, you're right nothing really did happen, nothing effected her character unless I missed something other than the walk of shame of stores Dawn wasn't allowed to go into anymore.
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May 10, 2009 16:06
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Angel falling for Buffy was explained a few times, but ultimately it tied into Darla. I hate that it does because the idealized star crossed lovers thing really appeals to me. Buffy was who Angel was shown just as she was called, given to him as a beacon of hope, a reason to try again. She was very physically similar to the love of his life, but she was a hero instead of the villain. Keep in mind that Angel became a vampire when he wasn't a ton older than Buffy was so his maturity pretty much stopped. He was forced back into a body by the Gypsys realizing that he was a monster consumed with guilt and all that brooding-ness that we loved so much about him. Remember he was afraid of the Master, he had just spent 20 years eating rats because he had completely given up on himself and only came back to try again because of Buffy (and Whistler kicking him in the rear end, but still) I hated Cordy and Angel together because I'm petty like that, but what it did was show that Angel had grown and matured. All those years in Hell helped I'm sure, and him leaving to go to LA was a sign of growth. Though the fantasy Angel had of losing his soul, he was with Cordy and said 'Buffy' which made my inner fangirl just squeel. But yah, Buffy was Darla done right in Angel's mind, which explains almost everything, at least to me.
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May 10, 2009 20:53
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I'm a few episodes deep into season 6 now. Musical episode 'eh? I had fun with it. And maybe I am crazy, but I the most moving part of the whole thing for me was when Buffy was singing the words "Heaven" - it was so... sour. The music during that part, the tone of the singing, with the words, everything. It was so sour it, I loved it. Same with Spike singing the words "living" - wow. It was really well done, lots of emotions going through with just those words. Not sure how I feel about this Buffy/Spike thing.
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May 11, 2009 17:49
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Bunnita posted:But yah, Buffy was Darla done right in Angel's mind, which explains almost everything, at least to me. There was an awesome moment in "Guise Will Be Guise" (apart from all the other awesome moments with Wesley pretending to be Angel), where the Swami tells Angel that in order to get over Darla he should sleep with a little blond girl just like her, and they cut to Angel's face and his reaction is just priceless.
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May 11, 2009 18:12
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Gordon Shumway posted:There was an awesome moment in "Guise Will Be Guise" (apart from all the other awesome moments with Wesley pretending to be Angel), where the Swami tells Angel that in order to get over Darla he should sleep with a little blond girl just like her, and they cut to Angel's face and his reaction is just priceless. I don't remember that, season 4?
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May 12, 2009 00:54
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Bunnita posted:I don't remember that, season 4? Season Two. Each season I have a favorite comedy episode, and "Guise Will Be Guise" is mine for that one. The scene where they barge in to rescue the girl is hilarious. It starts the whole Angel as a eunuch gag.
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May 12, 2009 01:39
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I've been lent the Buffy and Angel boxsets and I've been working my way through the Buffy boxset for the last 2 months. I haven't watched either show in years and never bothered with Buffy after season 4 which finished when I was about 14 years old but I'm genuinely surprised by how awesome it is. I've reached season 6 now and I think the only episodes I haven't liked in the entire series are "Doublemeat Palace" and "As You Were". The first one because it was boring and the second one because Riley is boring. Other than that, this show is fantastic and Mayor Wilkins should never have died.
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May 12, 2009 20:27
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I just finished Angel Season 5. Good stuff, and after having heard about the ending for so long, I loved it. Does anyone know if the whole cyborg ninja/Wesley's fake dad episode was ever supposed to lead anywhere? I don't remember any explanation given in the episode, and I was expecting some callback to it later, but no luck. I'm wondering if they intended to come back to it before the show was canceled, or if it was just some random enemy.
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May 16, 2009 09:29
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Lord Hydronium posted:I just finished Angel Season 5. Good stuff, and after having heard about the ending for so long, I loved it. I think it was supposed to lead somewhere, laying the groundwork for a season 6. But then the show got canceled, so the cyborg ninja subplot got dropped in order to wrap up the show.
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May 16, 2009 10:06
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After binging on Buffy and Angel for several months I've finally gotten around to watching the last season of Angel to cap it all off. And I just watched A Hole in the World. Funny thing is, I don't remember any of it. I just remember the Fred/Wesley plot wrapping up in Smile Time where they went on to live happily ever after. That's what happened, right? Right? Oh Joss, it would be so much easier to hate you for killing characters I love if their deaths weren't written and directed so perfectly 
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May 25, 2009 00:08
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Horseface posted:After binging on Buffy and Angel for several months I've finally gotten around to watching the last season of Angel to cap it all off. And I just watched A Hole in the World. That's totally what happened and then they went on to make little nerdlings because they're the only happy couple in Jossverse. Just kidding
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May 25, 2009 03:16
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cool kids inc. posted:happy couple in Jossverse. No such thing and you know it. Fake edit well maybe Wash and Zoe, but we saw how that ended.
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May 25, 2009 03:39
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Joss Whedon does not allow couples to be happy unless they are or have become secondary characters (like Riley and Mrs. Riley). Simon and Kaylee are the exception that proves the rule.
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May 26, 2009 04:00
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I'm supposed to say something, right? Because if I don't say something, if I just post an article without contributing an opinion or something, I can get probated, right? What if I genuinely cannot react to what I'm reading because I'm too overcome by stupid? The Hollywood Reporter posted:A new incarnation of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" could be coming to the big screen. The one thing I'm taking comfort in is that they're just TALKING, and that doesn't mean the same thing as action. However, this is a loving unbelievably retarded thing to be talking about.
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May 26, 2009 06:00
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