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Post by Pixi on Jul 11, 2005 19:38:02 GMT -5
Huh. Good question. Let's see. It was Pangs, Something Blue then Hush. Buffy went to see Angel after he heard he was in Sunnydale ( Pangs). IWRY was the episode right before Hero. Um. What was the question? ;D Oh, yeah - It appears that Hero came before Hush. I think. Man, Joss was cranking out the great Buffy/Angel stuff that year. Per Jan's suggestion, I'm moving my short comment from the main board to here. Yay! 2 of my picks made the top 10! And " Hush". Wow - what is it about this episode that is so scary? The creepy, smiley, floaty gentlemen? Or their silent straight-jacket wearing, limpy co-horts? Or jsut the whole not being able to scream in fear? Yep, you got the order right. ;D But they are very close together. I sometimes wonder if he was working different ways the same themes could be explored. I mean, we get the Scourge in Hero and the Initiative in BtVS. One is demons organizing to take out humanity, the other is humanity organizing to take out demon-kind. Neither able to see the grey area of demon and human blending or able to be evil and good. While the straight-jacket guys are scary the floating Gentlemen are . . . well, just downright terrifying to me. Their serene and "gentlemanly" and calm manner of slowly finding and cutting out the hearts of folks unable to fight or call out for help. Just. Ewwwwww!*shiver* I so agree with you here. So, so scary. It was the gentlemenly nature of them and the floating and the grin -ewwwww, that scary, scary grin. I think Hush is a masterpiece.
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Post by SpringSummers on Jul 11, 2005 19:46:43 GMT -5
Well, so - this is one of those episodes where they just hit you over the head with the theme for the entire show. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Prof. Walsh says it in the teaser/dream sequence: "We're talking about communication...language...not the same thing." The entire episode is about talking vs. communicating, and how talking itself can prevent actual communication. The word "talk" itself appears in pretty much every conversation that happens before the Gentlemen take away the voices of Sunnydale: - Anya (to Xander, about his not caring about her): "I think we should talk about it now." Talking about it isn't actually helping, though. - Willow (to Buffy, about the Wicca group): "Talk, all talk." - Buffy (to Willow about herself and Riley): "See above, re: talk, all talk." and later: "I get nervous and I start babbling...and every time we talk, I have to lie." She can't seem to get to the kissing of the boy she likes because of the babbling, and also she hates having to lie to him. - Riley (to Forrest): "You're naturally inclined to talk too much." - Olivia (to Giles): "That's enough small talk, don't you think?" Most of these scenes show how talking is either not helping to solve a problem, or actually making it worse. And let's not forget Tara and Willow - who might never have communicated, at all, if Tara had to talk to make it happen. So, Act 1 is all about talking. Acts 2 and 3 are about communication. With their voices gone, Buffy and Riley manage the kissing thing just fine. 'Cause, apparently, there's no way to babble and interrupt it with questions about paper grading. But more significantly, the entire affair draws out the truth about both Riley and Buffy, and lets them stop lying to one another, and start communicating honestly. Similarly, Xander manages to communicate the strength of his feelings for and to Anya by virtue of his attacking Spike - actions speak louder than words. When he thinks Anya has been harmed, he goes postal on the person who he believes hurt her - and though he tried to tell her how he felt, showing her works much better. Finally, Tara and Willow manage to connect, in the literal sense, after the voice loss leads Tara to seek out the only other potential witch she knows. And the connection between Tara and Willow makes the two of them, together, greater than either of them separately - it surely didn't appear that the effect on the soda machine was additive; rather it seemed that Tara was amplifying Willow's powers severalfold. After it's all over, and Buffy and Riley have saved the world (or, at least, Sunnydale), everyone goes back to "talking" again: Tara + Willow: "They didn't seem to know...what they were talking about." (Interesting that here, again, they're a single unit - two people, one sentence.) Olivia: "All those times you used to talk to me about witchcraft and darkness and the like - I thought you were just being pretentious." And the talking here is ominous - it ends with the implication that Giles may lose Olivia over her having experienced his real life. They've finally actually communicated...and it's freaking her out. Riley: "I guess we have to talk." Again, sort of ominous, but no actual reason for the feeling is given. Really nice insights, Rachael. I would add that the ep gives us a "two-sided" look - that is, we look at how words can obscure, but we also look at how important they are to us. The whole ep is about communication of course - the various modes, the way we express the internal, outwardly . . . the way we absorb the external, inwardly.
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Post by beccaelizabeth on Jul 11, 2005 20:06:25 GMT -5
For one thing - children just didn't watch Buffy. I mean mine did - sometimes but they weren't overwhelmingly into it no matter how hard I tried to get them to be. In the UK Buffy is on at teatime, initially on BBC2, now on channel 5. There are only 5 channels for most people. So a lot more younger people watched it. But the teatime version were, well, kinda mutilated to fit the timeslot. The same thing was tried with Angel, but it had to be hacked up even worse so it didn't work out at all. (iirc, I don't really watch TV so don't recall much of this trivia) The late night showings of both were unhacked, but got less people watching them, because like 1130pm The DVDs are at least 15 rated, and season one of Angel is 18 rated. so, watching on DVD, it still feels really strange to see Buffy fans under the age of 15. But many kids watched, because it was on after 6pm, not right late. nifty page full of ratings litefoot1969.bravepages.com/buffy/tv/buffy_ratings_bbc.htm
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jul 11, 2005 20:36:41 GMT -5
So, thoughts about Hush...
*I think I must be alone in that I don't find The Gentlemen to be scary. Visually stunning yes, though the mental patient minions kind of take away from that a little bit. But not scary really. I tend to find situations more scary, like The First manipulating Spike in season 7, or Angel's internal struggle, than the MOTW.
*The music is fantastic in this episode. And it's on the OMWF soundtrack. Buy it today! [/advertisement]
*I love to review the first act with what JW said, about every line relating to the theme, in mind. There really is so much there.
*I love JW for pointing out of the Commentary the funky Flintstone's outfit Buffy's wearing in the beginning, cause... yeah. Though Willow's pajama's later make up for it.
*In Buffy's dream, Walsh says "Be a good boy" to Riley, a line ZombieWalsh repeats in Primeval. And it's really creepy with the quasi-incestuous interest Walsh has in Riley. And it's interesting because it's *Buffy's* dream, though it is a prophetic dream, so I guess it's not that surprising. Does Buffy pick up on that vibe at all, I wonder...
*Willow pretty much dismisses the wicca group. Granted, they probably didn't know about what they're talking about, Tara doesn't think much of them, and from the commentary, JW seems to indicate that his intention was that they were pretty much useless. However, I find it to be another sign of Willow's descent that she so completely dismisses the spirituality, life force and Gaia in favor of just learning whatever spells are neat and useful. The portrayal of the wicca group in The Killer In Me makes me wonder if Willow really didn't give them a fair chance.
*Xander shakes his ass at Spike when he's crawling into bed. Hee.
*I love Xander trying to call Buffy when he discovers his voice is gone, because I totally would have done that too.
*A missed opportunity: I think it would have been interesting to show a couple deaf people signing and carrying on as if nothing were wrong amidst all the hearing people panicking. *Query: So Spike was staying at Xander’s. In the morning, did Xander just leave him tied there when he went of to work or wherever? Did he (need to) offer his family any explanation about why a strange guy was tied to a chair in their basement? Did he just shove Spike bound and gagged in a closet or what?
*I'll leave you with one final comment: Look at Willow's face when Tara tells her she's special. She just lights up. Really says something about what Tara means to Willow, Willow's image of herself.
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Post by Lola m on Jul 11, 2005 20:49:51 GMT -5
So, thoughts about Hush... *I think I must be alone in that I don't find The Gentlemen to be scary. Visually stunning yes, though the mental patient minions kind of take away from that a little bit. But not scary really. I tend to find situations more scary, like The First manipulating Spike in season 7, or Angel's internal struggle, than the MOTW. *The music is fantastic in this episode. And it's on the OMWF soundtrack. Buy it today! [/advertisement] *I love to review the first act with what JW said, about every line relating to the theme, in mind. There really is so much there. I loved that part of the commentary! Loved that . . . that it's like he didn't quite understand the theme himself at first. And then when he realized, it was like - wow! Everything relates to this! Ubercreepy. But then I find so much of Professor Walsh creepy. I loved how in "The Killer in Me" we see the same group and where they are now and it's like . . . hmmmmm. Maybe you would have been much better off than you realized if you'd hung around them a bit more. Perhaps they knew something you didn't and you dismissed them too quickly. Like you said, Willow could have used a bit of balance and respect. Of course, that is part of Willow's issues - a rush to the powerful or flashyness of spells. A way to show how non-dorky she is now. Plus, by the time if TKIM, Willow had spent time with the coven in Devon and so perhaps was more open. And the group itself had obviously grown. They're all so young still in "Hush". **big grin** Oh yeah baby, the scene that launched a thousand Spander 'ships. Including mine. ;D Great idea! **nods nods nods** Which is very sweet and wonderful . . . and yet, again, looking back over season 6, kind of . . . bittersweet?
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Post by Pixi on Jul 12, 2005 6:15:34 GMT -5
For one thing - children just didn't watch Buffy. I mean mine did - sometimes but they weren't overwhelmingly into it no matter how hard I tried to get them to be. In the UK Buffy is on at teatime, initially on BBC2, now on channel 5. There are only 5 channels for most people. So a lot more younger people watched it. But the teatime version were, well, kinda mutilated to fit the timeslot. The same thing was tried with Angel, but it had to be hacked up even worse so it didn't work out at all. (iirc, I don't really watch TV so don't recall much of this trivia) The late night showings of both were unhacked, but got less people watching them, because like 1130pm The DVDs are at least 15 rated, and season one of Angel is 18 rated. so, watching on DVD, it still feels really strange to see Buffy fans under the age of 15. But many kids watched, because it was on after 6pm, not right late. nifty page full of ratings litefoot1969.bravepages.com/buffy/tv/buffy_ratings_bbc.htmI did hear that they really chopped the shows up in England. I base that statement on the fact that I teach children. I taught alot of them during Buffy's run and none of the teens and tweens in my classes watched Buffy. None of them. I would talk about it alot but they just laughed at me. So in Southwest Florida at least - they weren't watching.
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Post by Lola m on Jul 12, 2005 7:42:17 GMT -5
Another couple of comments I loved from Joss' commentary on this episode: He talked about how poor Tony always ends up with the "exposition" scenes - even when it's non-talking exposition. And then said that ASH did so much more with the overhead projection scene. (I love that whole scene!!) **snicker** At one point, during the fight scene with the straightjacket guys in the bottom of the clock tower, there is a shot of Buffy's stunt double where her . . . differences . . . from SMG are a bit more obvious, and Joss made a quip about "Buffy strappin' on her fightin' boobs". **snorfle** According to Joss, the network's reaction to Anya's . . . gesture-based suggestion to Xander that they go somewhere more private and . . . do things, (after he mistakenly beat up Spike), was very similar to Giles'. ;D And then he said that they let him keep it in because it was just too damn funny.
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Post by Lola m on Jul 12, 2005 7:44:39 GMT -5
So, even though as far as canon goes, I am a Spuffy through and through, I think the two Buffy/Riley kisses in here to be very very nice and sexy!
Especially the dream kiss at the start - even with the whole freaksome "doin' it in front of the class" vibe.
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Post by Onjel on Jul 12, 2005 7:47:05 GMT -5
Another couple of comments I loved from Joss' commentary on this episode: He talked about how poor Tony always ends up with the "exposition" scenes - even when it's non-talking exposition. And then said that ASH did so much more with the overhead projection scene. (I love that whole scene!!) **snicker** At one point, during the fight scene with the straightjacket guys in the bottom of the clock tower, there is a shot of Buffy's stunt double where her . . . differences . . . from SMG are a bit more obvious, and Joss made a quip about "Buffy strappin' on her fightin' boobs". **snorfle** According to Joss, the network's reaction to Anya's . . . gesture-based suggestion to Xander that they go somewhere more private and . . . do things, (after he mistakenly beat up Spike), was very similar to Giles'. ;D And then he said that they let him keep it in because it was just too damn funny. I loved that overhead projector scene! Where Buffy mimes a staking with no stake and everyone looks at her funny! Hee! The scene with Spike and Xander mistakenly believing Spike noshed on Anya! Great. My favorite thing though is the way Buffy gets to be all power girl in front of Riley. The look on his face, was priceless! And the way he smashes all the jars when she is trying to get him to open the box with the voices. He looked so pleased with himself and she has to let him know he didn't quite get it right. The entire episode was fabulously well-done!
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Post by SpringSummers on Jul 12, 2005 8:07:56 GMT -5
SOL made a point about "Olivia can draw; Giles can't." That's very "Angel & Spike." Angel can draw; Spike - judging from his sketch of Angel in Chosen - has abilities much like Giles.
I've always thought this was about the character's orientation when it came to control/adaptability issues. It's no coincidence the Angel-the-artist is always trying to paint the world to his liking, and Spike, who can't draw worth beans, is always dealing with the world as it is, and trying to adapt himself to it.
So I think perhaps the same type of suggestion is being made here about Olivia & Giles. It fits with what we see in Restless - Olivia, crying by the baby carriage (in Spike's crypt, no less) while Giles is "wasting time," not taking control of his life and the like.
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Post by Queen E on Jul 12, 2005 11:11:33 GMT -5
Today's trivia question: What is the name of the composition that Giles plays during his slide show for the Scoobies?
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jul 12, 2005 11:30:37 GMT -5
SOL made a point about "Olivia can draw; Giles can't." That's very "Angel & Spike." Angel can draw; Spike - judging from his sketch of Angel in Chosen - has abilities much like Giles. I've always thought this was about the character's orientation when it came to control/adaptability issues. It's no coincidence the Angel-the-artist is always trying to paint the world to his liking, and Spike, who can't draw worth beans, is always dealing with the world as it is, and trying to adapt himself to it. So I think perhaps the same type of suggestion is being made here about Olivia & Giles. It fits with what we see in Restless - Olivia, crying by the baby carriage (in Spike's crypt, no less) while Giles is "wasting time," not taking control of his life and the like. Actually, that was Rachael. Thanks for trying to give me credit though. Interesting idea for sure. The mind turns.
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Post by Lola m on Jul 12, 2005 12:02:32 GMT -5
Another couple of comments I loved from Joss' commentary on this episode: He talked about how poor Tony always ends up with the "exposition" scenes - even when it's non-talking exposition. And then said that ASH did so much more with the overhead projection scene. (I love that whole scene!!) **snicker** At one point, during the fight scene with the straightjacket guys in the bottom of the clock tower, there is a shot of Buffy's stunt double where her . . . differences . . . from SMG are a bit more obvious, and Joss made a quip about "Buffy strappin' on her fightin' boobs". **snorfle** According to Joss, the network's reaction to Anya's . . . gesture-based suggestion to Xander that they go somewhere more private and . . . do things, (after he mistakenly beat up Spike), was very similar to Giles'. ;D And then he said that they let him keep it in because it was just too damn funny. I loved that overhead projector scene! Where Buffy mimes a staking with no stake and everyone looks at her funny! Hee! The scene with Spike and Xander mistakenly believing Spike noshed on Anya! Great. My favorite thing though is the way Buffy gets to be all power girl in front of Riley. The look on his face, was priceless! And the way he smashes all the jars when she is trying to get him to open the box with the voices. He looked so pleased with himself and she has to let him know he didn't quite get it right. The entire episode was fabulously well-done! Oh, yes! I loved the expressions we see on Riley's face! When he sees he kick the demon guy across the room and through the beam! And, yes, I loved the little by-play between them when he smashes the wrong thing and is so "look what I did" and she's like "eye roll-dude I meant the box". ;D So much has to be conveyed entirely through expression and gesture, so it just makes them all stand out so much more.
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Post by Moscow Watcher on Jul 13, 2005 4:32:55 GMT -5
SOL made a point about "Olivia can draw; Giles can't." That's very "Angel & Spike." Angel can draw; Spike - judging from his sketch of Angel in Chosen - has abilities much like Giles. I always thought that Angel drawing in Chosen (made by Joss himself, by the way) was a deliberate caricature, because Spike can draw pretty well
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Post by Onjel on Jul 13, 2005 7:04:28 GMT -5
SOL made a point about "Olivia can draw; Giles can't." That's very "Angel & Spike." Angel can draw; Spike - judging from his sketch of Angel in Chosen - has abilities much like Giles. I always thought that Angel drawing in Chosen (made by Joss himself, by the way) was a deliberate caricature, because Spike can draw pretty well I agree with you. Thanks for the screen capture!
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