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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:10:30 GMT -5
Joshua made me laugh, Joshua made me...oh you know the rest of it!
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:10:59 GMT -5
Sue said: I also think we cut back because after Buffy our expectations are so high that other shows just can't live up.
That is definitely so for me. I used to watch a lot of shows - though not many regular broadcast shows since I got cable - but now, as I said, Buffy and Angel are it for series. The others just seem silly, shallow, poorly written and poorly acted. So I read a lot more. Of course, I read mysteries and other light fare. I'm currently reading about my 20th Dick Francis novel. Anyone else here love Dick Francis? He's awesome. Plus - horses!
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:11:40 GMT -5
Patti-
from your lips to JW's and ME's ears-
You put your finger on everything "off' about this season. It has been redeemed by moments of the old spirit that animated the series. mostly those moments with Willow/Andrew,Spike/anybody,Faith/anybody,Buffy/Willow,Xander/Andrew etc.
Giles IS possessed- he has no warmth-no vigor-no surprises of the aha sort (remember when he confronted Ethan the first time?) and if they offer no explanation I shall be crushed.
Yours is the most cogent dissection of what is going wrong AND how to fix it.
Bomb the Hellmouth and rebuild the love and relationships. Yay.
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:12:22 GMT -5
ellie says: "I too have relatively few fuzzy feelings for Buffy . . "
Well, this isn't hard to understand, but I must speak up here, since I probably like Buffy as well as Rob likes Xander - not that I wouldn't be likely to agree with any list of Buffy's faults and sins.
But she's been through so much and she's been so resilient and she's tried so hard, made so many sacrifices, etc - I don't find it hard to forgive her sins, especially when you put them in context. Of course she's going to be somewhat childish when she's a teenager. Of course she's going to be an emotional wreck when she's in the situation she is in, in Season 6, etc.
The important thing is she actually has made very real progress on her journey from child to adult, and everything that means. I think that she will prove herself a very worthy hero by the end of the series.
Having said that . . . if it was up to me, I would have the series end with Buffy's death - once and for all, real, non-mystical, no chance of resuscitation death. Of course, it would be in a blaze of glory -after she tells Spike she loves him and they have one last fantastic roll in the hay (on screen, of course, as explicit as UPN can get away with). No matter how many different ways I think about it, I can't come up with any other fitting ending.
Buffy as a retired Slayer, trying to live a "normal life," occasionally popping in on Spike or Angel to work up some angst and leave again, would be kinda sad.
Edited By Spring Summers at 4/18/2003 11:56:00 PM.
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:13:14 GMT -5
Buffy has only the one chance...
And what a terrible dilemma...shall I pick the guy who's stuck by me through everything, who can literally bring the house down around my ears, who looks DAMN good, who went through hell to earn a soul for me, who defied his very nature for me..
Or shall I pick the guy who turns into a monster if he has a moment of happiness, (and never figured out that maybe he could give ME a moment or two of happiness anyway...) who killed Giles sweetie, who has fathered a son and fallen in love with CORDELIA, who has gotten a bit chunky and what HAS he been drinking to do that, who left me the night of my graduation, who hasn't written or called in a couple of years...
Hmmmm....such a tough choice.
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:13:42 GMT -5
Ellie, I too could accept Buffy choosing NEITHER of the vampires and Spike and Angel bonding (in a guy way) over it. That would be a cool way for them to have Spike on the Angel show. If she chooses Angel over Spike, I will hate her with a mighty passion.
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:14:10 GMT -5
Let's anoint the GUYS with slayeriety and then the girls can chat and be the Watchers. I like that game better.
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:14:49 GMT -5
I agree with your list Patti. I am trying to have faith that the ending will make it all worth it.
My theory is that this Season has been hurt by ME trying to posture things for a spin-off - that's surely why they decided on this "SIT" storyline - but it hasn't worked out all that well, and they are stuck with those SITs. To me, that houseful of SITs just makes any "coziness" impossible.
Yes, ellie, I too confess (don't tell vlad) that I was hoping to spy Kennedy's lifeless body amongst the casualities.
But,as I said, I am trying to keep the faith that in the end, it will all make sense to me and come together in some satisfying way.
Spring Summers
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:15:23 GMT -5
If Buffy chooses any guy, or goes off with a guy, or make noises about how she plans to go off and find a guy, I will eat my Weetabix. Not gonna happen.
Spring Summers
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:15:57 GMT -5
Spring, couldn't agree with you more on the way the show SHOULD end (if I can't have the smart bombs and the 3 eps of chatting).
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:16:36 GMT -5
Patti-
Now that you put Angel in that light...
Seriously- that was hysterical- jsut channel Lee's song b/c I am hopeless at carrying a tune.
Spring-
I cannot imagine another actress playing Buffy and I adore the character- I just do not feel like she is a particularly "easy" character to be around.
I think one of the reasons I love Spike so mch is that he has adored Buffy thorugh all of her worst moments- and don't we all want that? Someone who sees us at our worst and still loves our very breath?
He makes us see the possiblity shimmering in buffy and makes me feel that being loved often has little to do with loveability. So- yes I adore Buffy but I reserve the right to be appalled at some of her tendencies.
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:17:06 GMT -5
Is she going to go off with Willow?
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:17:51 GMT -5
//David, I have just realised that as a B/A shipper you would be able to explain to me why some people are B/A shippers. I have never understood it. I suspect the problem is that I am too pragmatic to understand "First True Love" etc. Angel also came across as some kind of pervert to me; Buffy was so young compared to him. //
Buffy is quite young compared to either Angel or Spike. Although Spike is, what about a century younger than Angel, he's still a century and a half Buffy's senior.
Not that I'm meaning to sound like, "Well your guy is just as big of a pervert". Just that Spike and Angel are the two most popular choices that people would like to see Buffy end up with. You just don't see that many Buffy-Riley or Buffy-Parker shippers these days. Maybe a few Buffy-Xander shippers are still in the fight, but between Spike and Angel, I'm laying odds that 99.9 percent of the shipping is covered.
So the age element is pretty much a moot point. Possibly since vampires never age, and since a centuries-old vampire would have difficulty finding a mate close to their age other than another vampire, I'm guessing we can consider vampires to sort of "freeze" at whatever age they were when they were turned. I don't recall if either Angel or Spike's specific age has ever been given on either show, but I'm willing to assume they were both in their early 20s at the time they were turned (David Boreanaz was a real babyface when they first hired him to play Angel; the years have not been a friend to him). I'll even go so far as to say they were probably close to the same age when they were turned.
So since the question isn't really about age, then it comes down to why Angel. For me, the answer is because he's the only man that we've seen Buffy involved with who not only loves her, but who she also loves in return (IMHO).
Now that's not to say that I question Spike's love for Buffy. I've written it on here before that I do believe Spike loves Buffy; the fact that he was mortified when he first realized it and tried so hard to fight it is proof for me that his love is genuine. Lets face it, he hated Buffy, so the last thing he wanted was to cross the line over into loving her. Heck, that made him hate himself, and her all the more. He was also willing to kill the only other woman he's ever really loved, Drusilla, in order to impress Buffy. Spike's love was real.
But I've never believed Buffy returned it. Last season, Buffy was reeling from the void she felt, the love she had experienced while in heaven. She needed to feel loved, and Spike was available and ready to offer it, since it meant he could have what he wanted, which was her. This year, after his attack on her that mortified them both and his trip to Africa, Buffy's had to come to terms with how badly she's treated Spike for her own gain, and so I think she feels a lot of remorse. It's upsetting when you think you're such a good person -- the savior of the whole world -- and then realize you do have a dark side, and you are faced with the damage you caused. Right now, Spike is at a level in Buffy's eyes not unlike Xander was at the end of season 1, where she loved him and respected him for the support she's gotten and for the fact that he was always there for her, but not in love with him, i.e., refused to go to the Spring Fling with him. (I went in to much greater detail several posts back in responding to that blasted article Lee wanted us to all read, if you're interested in the more detailed version).
Contrasting that to Angel, Buffy was in love. I do think it was the only time Buffy has yet to be in love. Parker and Riley were just flings to fill the void left behind by Angel, but Riley was right, Buffy never loved him, much as she wanted to. I've been there -- after my divorce I went through a lot of ugly relationships, searching for something to fill the void, but I was trying to shove square pegs into round holes (currently I'm learning to just deal with my round holes). And that was the case with Buffy.
For whatever reason, there's just something poetic about the tragic romance. Look at Romeo and Juliet, considered by many to be one of the greatest loves of all time, and yet it was a love that could never be and ended in both their deaths. But a lot of that I think is because agony can often be easier to portray than ecastacy at the same degree, so storytellers pull their lovers apart more often then letting them be together. That's one of the reasons why when we look at Angel and Buffy, we can believe the purity and the depth of their love for each other, because we can see how much it kills them both inside that they can't be together.
Now do be aware that when I say I'm a B/A shipper, it's because Angel is the only relationship I've seen Buffy in where the sentiments travel both directions. But that's not to say that I somehow think he's the only one for her and there is no chance for anything else. God I hope not, simply because if there's only one right person out there for each of us, well I divorced her already so I'm bloody well screwed! There could be another Mr. Right for Buffy somewhere down the road. Haven't seen him yet, though.
Also, that Mr. Right -- no reason it couldn't be Spike, provided Buffy's feelings change. Spike has very much come a long way in the past few years, most significantly since he gained his soul. As much as he tries to deny it, there's a lot of Angel in some of his actions and mannerisms now; when he calms down and gets somber and serious, he's very Angel-like. Nothing saying that Buffy won't start to pick up on some of that and fall in love with Spike. And when that does happen, sign me up for Spuffy! But it ain't happened yet, and until it does, I'm sorta hoping Angel will finally shanshu and those two birds can enjoy the rest of their lives together.
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:21:59 GMT -5
//I'm just glad I'm certain that whoever is the problem on Buffy, it wasn't James Marsters. Not a bad word has ever been hinted or spoken about his behavior, and he seems to be very fond of everyone on the show, and to have that affection returned. I think he is just genuine, and also extremely appreciative of what being on the show has done for him. //
I have to give JM credit, of all the castmembers I've seen interviewed, especially since the rumors started about SMG wanting to quit, JM was easily the most professional. While I can't quote his exact words, he did basically say he's getting paid to do the easiest job in the world (stating that it's really the writers who should get the credit for Spike and not him, he just reads the words they give him). He'd be an idiot to want to stop the gravy train anytime soon. Nick Brendon echoed very similiar sentiments. All that was ever said about Alyson Hannigan was that she was still under contract, so apparently she wasn't whining one way or the other.
David Crenshaw
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Post by Dalton on Sept 8, 2003 21:22:54 GMT -5
Is she going to go off with Willow?
Well, if she did, I wouldn't have to eat my Weetabix, now would I? So I'm all for it.
But, actually, I better define "go off" with a guy. By this I mean "run off with", as in "marry or committ herself to" a guy. Because Buffy IS going to go off - like fireworks, the kind that bursts over and over and over before it's finally done - with Spike. So that kind of "going off" will not count toward forcing Weetabix consumption.
Edited By Spring Summers at 4/19/2003 12:04:00 AM.
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