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Post by William the Bloody on Aug 18, 2003 3:03:38 GMT -5
Story by Joss Whedon
Teleplay by David Greenwalt
Directed by Bruce Seth Green
Air date: 5/12/97
The nightmare world of a comatose child sends Buffy and her friends into a realm where their worst nightmares become reality.
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Post by beccaelizabeth on Jul 9, 2004 4:40:19 GMT -5
From the Watcher's Guide-
"So you're the Slayer. You're prettier than the last one."
The Master's first comment upon finally meeting his nemesis.
From the original teleplay:
cut due to length:
Xander: "Okay, despite the rat-like chill that just crawled up my spine, I'm going to say this very calmly: Helllppp...."
and
Giles: Are you all right? You look a bit peaked.
Buffy: Hospital lighting. It does nothing for my fabulous complexion.
Giles: Are you... sleeping all rihgt?
Buffy: I'll sleep better when we find this guy. Nothing like kicking the crap out of a bad guy to perk up my day.
This is the episode where Xander officially grows up and turns from nerd into hero. Not by saving anyone's life, exactly, but by facing his own childhood fears and punching out a clown he's had nightmares about for a decade.
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Post by Queen E on Aug 24, 2004 11:40:51 GMT -5
Nightmares: We’re Not in Sunnydale Anymore
Nightmares has never been a huge fan favorite, but there are some intriguing issues and true emotional moments going on in this episode, as the residents of Sunnydale are whisked away to Oz’s dark twin.
Buffy
As expected, Buffy’s nightmares, from light to dark, get the most play in this episode, and within her dreams, we can see both the trajectory of her future and the issues stemming from her past. As Giles once said, Buffy lives very much in the now, but mixed with the typical adolescent ignoring of history is her unique set of issues. The first nightmare, before the dreams become manifest in reality, is a silent film of Buffy being drawn to and killed by The Master. Not surprising; she’s had similar dreams throughout the season. The second, her first “awake” nightmare, is not knowing anything on her history exam. Seemingly unrelated, but Buffy’s lack of knowledge of both the Master’s and her own powers is a dangerous combination. She will need to learn her own history before she become strong enough to defeat the worst of the forces of evil.
The history test nightmare is followed by another rooted in her past. From the beginning of the episode, Buffy’s in high anxiety about her weekend with her father: will he show up, does he really want to spend time with her, and, most importantly, is she the reason he left in the first place. Hank confirms all of her worst fears in this nightmare: “You're sullen and... rude and... you're not nearly as bright as I thought you were going to be... Hey, Buffy, let's be honest. Could you stand to live in the same house with a daughter like that?” and says he doesn't “really get anything out of these weekends with you. So, what do you say we just don't do them anymore?” Although this is resolved by the end of the episode with Buffy merrily driving off for a weekend with Dad, the bell has been rung, and Hank’s words are foreshadowing the future of his relationship with his daughter.
Finally we have the continuous nightmare: The Master freed, Buffy buried alive, and emerging from the grave a vampire. Like the Hank Summers nightmare, all of these foreshadow the future: The Master is freed because Buffy fears it (Prophecy Girl), Buffy is buried alive (Bargaining Part 2), and Buffy emerges from the grave a vampire (not strictly true, but serves as an adequate metaphor for the darkness Buffy experiences post-resurrection, and what is a vampire but the Slayer’s dark kin?).
Willow/Cordelia
“Everyone staring? I would hate to have everyone paying attention to me like that.” The essence of early Willow; she avers that she just wants to blend. In some ways, this is absolutely true: she doesn’t dress in a showy way, her voice is pitched low and quiet, and her hair is long and plain. But is that truly Willow? Or did she withdraw into herself only because of negative attention? Her nightmare involves being on a stage and being booed and having meats and various foodstuffs pelted at her. Why? To me this indicates a knowledge that she is special and has something to share with the world, but is afraid of the negative response she might receive. What’s special about Willow is foreshadowed in Aldo’s words: “Child, from whose eyes the witchery is shining, now you are all my own.”
Cordelia has no problem with being seen; she embraces it. A wealthy princess with gorgeous hair and the right clothes. So her nightmare? Dowdy clothes, impossible hair, and being dragged bodily into chess club with the rest of the nerds. Like the guy in the leather and sunglasses, her nightmare seems to revolve around not controlling how she is perceived.
Xander
If you’re going to be naked in front of class, those are good arms to have. Nakedness is a common dream for all ages, and often indicates anxiety about being vulnerable and exposed. More intriguing is the plastic sheeted clown nightmare. Harkening back to his early comment that spiders don’t scare him, but would be scared if “a bunch of Nazis crawled all over my face,” the walls of the school are covered with swastika graffiti. And cutting through the plastic is the clown from his sixth birthday. So what does this say about Xander’s fears? To me, Xander fears irrational hatred and his own past. Although he punches out the clown and feels “liberated” from those fears, they will manifest again and again throughout the course of the series.
Giles
Giles’ early nightmares, on the surface, don’t seem that scary. He gets lost in the stacks and is unable to understand the written word. Yet Giles, as Watcher/mentor for Buffy, seems to fear getting lost in his own research, to the detriment of his own relationships (note Jenny’s comments in “I Robot, You Jane” indicating Giles’ never left the middle ages). Worse, being unable to assimilate and communicate what he understands to those around him. If he can’t provide the “knowledge” to Buffy, what will be the consequence for her?
In his own nightmare, Buffy’s death would be that consequence. Certainly that would be the fear of every Watcher, but note Giles’ comments in light of his earlier nightmares: “I should have been more c...cautious. Taken more time to train you. But you were so gifted. And the evil was so great.” We really get an insight here on how hard it must have been for Giles’ to abandon “the slayer handbook” and play it by ear. Because when you do that, you have nothing to back you up but your own instincts to back you up.
Billy
If Billy is Dorothy, roaming astrally through the toxic Oz that Sunnydale has become, than his kiddie league coach/Ugly Man would represent the Great and Terrible Oz. What does Billy want? The answer lies in Ms Tischler’s lesson about active listening: “one of our most fundamental needs after food and shelter is to be heard.” It is in the coach’s best interest that Billy not be heard, and his daily visits to check on Billy in the hospital are most likely what prolonged Billy’s coma. So he projects his astral body to only one who can help him: Buffy. There is no indication anyone else sees or hears him. It is her ability to understand and make the connections in this episode that stops both Billy’s nightmares and everyone else’s. Much like Wizard of Oz, the huge Ugly Man with a bat for a hand, once you pull aside the curtain, is revealed to be a mid-sized middle aged guy who looks like a teddy bear and can thusly be defeated..
Random note:
*Giles foreshadows Once More With Feeling: “Dreams? That would be a musical comedy version of this.” Willow, in Once More With Feeling, makes reference to this episode in “I’ve Got a Theory”: “I've got a theory/Some kid is dreamin'/And we're all stuck inside his wacky Broadway nightmare.”
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Post by Lola m on Aug 24, 2004 20:11:52 GMT -5
Nightmares: We’re Not in Sunnydale Anymore Thanks for this review, Erin! I was trying to be all organized and note all the "fears" and what they say about that person and so on, and you've done a much better job of catching them all. So I'm just gonna piggyback on your words to add my own thoughts. ;D Yep. She'll also need to learn the lesson she teaches Billy or that Xander demonstrates with the clown. That in order to defeat the Master she must face and move through her fears of dying at his hand. Of course she does that by having it actually happen, but hey, whatever works. Actually, it's very similar, ironically, to the lesson that the Master was teaching the Annointed One. Fear, like pain, can be controlled. (And is it just me, or did they make a point of having Billy and the Annoying Annointed One look a heck of a lot alike?) Yeah, you watch this scene and even though it gets “erased” at the end, the issues it raises are just gonna keep circling back, over and over for Buffy. I really noticed the placement of various scenes in this re-watch. After this scene, we’re back to the gang figuring it out, ending with Giles line: “Or else everyone in Sunnydale is gonna be facing their own worst nightmares.” Cut to the funny bit, Cordy freaking over her hair. But the next thing we see is Buffy, crying and upset just after the talk with her dad. So, is Buffy’s “worst” nightmare the later one, where she is buried alive and vamped? Or what happened with her dad? Eetah, eetah! It’s interesting that Xander ends up in what is virtually a construction zone. At the high school. On the hellmouth. Also - I’m not normally scared of clowns, but if one was coming at me with a knife, eeek! I gotta admit, it makes me even more impressed that he goes back and punches it out. I kinda wondered if we are also being given another subtle hint of the more real things Xander might fear. Like at the end in the hospital, when Buffy is asking Billy to come over to the Ugly Man, Xander is the one who says “I get it”. This could be just a reflection on how he faced down his clown fear, but I can’t help but wonder. If for example, we add in his later response to Buffy when she’s amazed the coach hit the kid – “Well, you obviously haven't played kiddie league. I'm surprised it wasn't one of the parents.” So, perhaps this scenario was a little familiar to Xander. Really, really good points here, Erin. Giles' great fear – that of losing his slayer. Which of course is pretty much to be expected and then does happen. And we see here how he is gonna react. He’s going to blame himself. If he had just trained her better, etc. etc. Ooooooh! Liked your mention of the “active listening” scene in here. Nice metaphor! I also was thinking that Buffy dropping the pencil and then the scary spider thing happening was nicely paralleled later by Dawn's adventure at school with the pencil and the talisman ghost guy in season 7. And the Master's speech to the little Annointed kid, with the themes of control and grabbing the cross and what not? Reminded me of Angel and Spike and the fight for the Cup of Perpetual Mountain Dew. Huh. Lola |
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Post by Queen E on Aug 25, 2004 11:21:51 GMT -5
Yep. She'll also need to learn the lesson she teaches Billy or that Xander demonstrates with the clown. That in order to defeat the Master she must face and move through her fears of dying at his hand. Of course she does that by having it actually happen, but hey, whatever works. Actually, it's very similar, ironically, to the lesson that the Master was teaching the Annointed One. Fear, like pain, can be controlled. (And is it just me, or did they make a point of having Billy and the Annoying Annointed One look a heck of a lot alike?) Great observation about Colin/Billy! I wanted to talk more about that opening scene with the master, but there was already too much...It's funny too, that Buffy really has to be dragged kicking and screaming to face her own darkness. Both, I'd think. Because Buffy is essentially split (unintegrated) between slayer and human, with or without Toth. So her worst "human" nightmare is the abandonment by her father that she feels is her fault; her worst "slayer" fear is succumbing to the darkness. Oooh, excellent! I was trying to figure out the plastic sheeting thing...I thought maybe construction, but never made the Xander/carpenter/high school connection! And the "I get it" wonderfully observed as a subtle reminder of Xander's home life. What I've figured out about Buffy is that any episodes that feature a classroom and a "lesson" are the places where the theme is introduced. Always. For instance, in "Crush," Willow, Tara, and Buffy discuss the Hunchback of Notre Dame. In "Earshot," Iago. There's more, but my brain's all tired... Really excellent points, Lola! |
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Post by Rachael on Aug 25, 2004 22:38:05 GMT -5
Nightmares: We’re Not in Sunnydale AnymoreBuffyAs expected, Buffy’s nightmares, from light to dark, get the most play in this episode, and within her dreams, we can see both the trajectory of her future and the issues stemming from her past. <snip> Oh, very nice - Buffy's dreams (and those of others, to an extent) continue to be prophetic, even when they're "real". Oh, much with the eetah. And also. . .damn.  And. . .what were we talking about? Oh, right. Xander. Carry on. On a slight tangent - did y'all notice that this was the second episode in a row with a Nazi reference? Oy, Erin, I don't need these issues. This was the hardest scene for me to watch, because it's the very first time we see Giles as father - coincidentally in the first episode where we see hints of Buffy's biological father deserting her. I actually thought it was interesting how few of the nightmares portrayed were all that scary, in terms of "real life". I mean, public nakedness, having to sing in front of an audience, forgetting to study for an exam or even show up to class all semester, forgetting how to read, almost all of the nightmares are the sort of thing we'd laugh about with our friends over lunch. Buffy is the only one, at first, to have really scary nightmares. (And Giles is the first to realize that this will be the case.) She's got reason. And the scariest moment in the entire episode, for me, was listening to Buffy plead with the Master not to be buried alive. In no other episode do I remember her pleading for anything for herself. The hysterical terror was almost impossible to look at. |
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Post by Queen E on Aug 26, 2004 10:25:38 GMT -5
On a slight tangent - did y'all notice that this was the second episode in a row with a Nazi reference? Eek! I didn't notice that; creepy! Wonder what Joss' issue was? ;D *shudder* The Master says "What's the fun of burying someone if they're already dead?" really underscores, too, the whole vampire theme. Because they're not really dead. One wonders what that does to the vamp psychology to do that; does it indicate the last link to humanity that they leave behind them in the coffin? And there's the whole "birth" metaphor we'll see again and again. Buffy "reborn" in "Bargaining" and "Grave," Faith crawling from the open grave in her dream as she comes out of her coma in "This Year's Girl," Darla presiding, midwife-like, over the "birth" of Angelus in the cemetary in Galway. So, I wonder, what does this "rebirth" of Buffy as vampire mean? That she is making her first tentative steps into exploring the "dark side" of Slayerhood? Because two episodes later, she dies. And wouldn't it have been fascinating to see Angel's nightmares? |
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Post by Rachael on Aug 26, 2004 21:53:19 GMT -5
Eek! I didn't notice that; creepy! Wonder what Joss' issue was? And add to that Why We Fight, and it looks like Joss has a big ol' Nazi thing. And he's too young to take it, well, personally. It's interesting. Ooh, I like. Whaddaya wanna bet they're very much like Giles', except that in his nightmares, Angel is the one who kills Buffy? |
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Post by Queen E on Sept 1, 2004 23:43:40 GMT -5
And add to that Why We Fight, and it looks like Joss has a big ol' Nazi thing. And he's too young to take it, well, personally. It's interesting. And Spike's reference to Nazi's in "The Initiative. Maybe there a convenient stand-in for all-purpose evil... Too bad we didn't get more of Angel's backstory in Season 1; although we do get it in Seasons 2 and 3, and, of course, on his own show. Maybe Darla alive would have been in those dreams too? |
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Feb 15, 2006 17:07:23 GMT -5
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Post by jeff on Apr 14, 2007 23:03:27 GMT -5
you all said so much about this episode, it is hard for me to add anything meaningful. I liked the way Joss played on the fears of our hero's and showed that even the strong heroic type have fears and are not machines who just go around slaying and fighting demons. In this episode he really shows just how human they are, and the fact that they are fighting their inner-demons as well as the outer demons.
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