Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 7

[Guest DawnBTVS]

Damn..I'm not sure if I can watch The Body again Sooo depressing & realistic at the same time

[The Dames 0]

*Sniff*...

 

I think this thread is dying...

 

Dames

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

We may have to put this one out to pasture and just start a thread now and then. Liiiiiiiiiiive, child! Liiiiiiiiiiiive!

[LaParkaYourCar 0]

What? It's been getting a decent amount of posts that last few days. It's not dying.

 

Plus we can discuss our articles here.

[Guest DawnBTVS]

Yeah...this thread'll never die. Maybe slow down, but never die...hopefully

[Guest Youth N Asia]

I think I'm going to watch "Hush" with commentary tonight. I've been watching a lot of season 1 Angel lately...I need a break

[LaParkaYourCar 0]

Man I'm watching The Body right now and I'm getting misty eyed.

[Guest DawnBTVS]

I've shed tears at 2 scenes so far....the Joyce "coming back" one which I always hate Joss for whenver I see it and just now when Anya put the blue shirt in the drawer

[LaParkaYourCar 0]

Bah FX cut out half of the stuff Willow said about her clothes! They cut out the "royal" part.

[Guest Lil Naitch]

DAMNIT, I was lloking forward to seing this ep, and I MISSED IT! D'oh.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I was watching the eps. where Buffy learns of Dawns existance. I am so getting all up in this bitch... Season 5 owns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOU

[Guest Kingpk]

I'm going to get hammered for this, but I just gotta say it:

 

The Body is overrated a bit. I mean, yeah, it's pretty powerful stuff in the beginning, but I have two problems with it.

 

1) Anya's breakdown: I'm sorry, but I smelled a bit of ham in that performance

 

2) It just peters out at the end when Dawn sneaks into the morgue to look at her mother. I always lose interest at that point and change the channel.

 

I dunno, that's just me, I guess. *Prepares flame shield*

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Just watched "Doomed" for the first time, as it was one of the Season 4 eps I always just managed to miss on FX. What a strange, strange episode.

 

There's great--the opening scene with Riley/Buffy, everything Spike does the whole episode (suicide attempt in particular), the emphasis on the growing sense of fragmentation in the Scoobies. There's bad--the wasted use of the Hellmouth/return to high school, and the lamest potential apocalypse of all. There's awful--the stilted Riley/Buffy scenes, the often really, really off-key dialogue for most characters...and then there's the weird. Giles sounds horribly dubbed in through the first half of the episode, and it's a problem that afflicts everyone else throughout it. Such a weird, weird little episode, and now I understand why everyone forgets about it.

 

Well, except for Spike's "let's fight evil!" speech at the end. That was gold.

[LaParkaYourCar 0]

I'm going to get hammered for this, but I just gotta say it:

 

The Body is overrated a bit. I mean, yeah, it's pretty powerful stuff in the beginning, but I have two problems with it.

 

1) Anya's breakdown: I'm sorry, but I smelled a bit of ham in that performance

 

2) It just peters out at the end when Dawn sneaks into the morgue to look at her mother. I always lose interest at that point and change the channel.

 

I dunno, that's just me, I guess. *Prepares flame shield*

I loved Anya's breakdown. It was perfect for her character.

 

But I do agree that it slows down towards the end and there shouldn't have been a vampire in it.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

2) It just peters out at the end when Dawn sneaks into the morgue to look at her mother. I always lose interest at that point and change the channel.

I agree that the episode didn't need a vampire. But Dawn in the morgue is one of my favorite, FAVORITE moments. The last shot, when the sheet comes off Joyce, and we're close in on Dawn reaching towards her with Buffy in the back of the frame, and then we go to the end credit and never mention it ever again--it blows my mind. It's horrifying, beautiful, expressionist filmmaking, and rivals the long shot of Anya, Buffy, and Harmony all walking in a triangle towards no one in particular in "The Harsh Light of Day."

 

To me, the vampire was worth it for that absolutely mind-blowing final moment.

[Guest DawnBTVS]

Just sent you my Season 2 Article BPS...hope ya like it

[Mecha Mummy 0]

After watching yesterday, I have to agree that the vampire was COMPLETELY out of place.

 

Though I did like Anya's breakdown. I thought it really worked.

[Guest Ripper]

I say the Vampire was completely in place. It broke away from it all. It reinterated that point that "It never stops coming...it never stops." that Buffy had told her mother in season 2 and would tell Dawn and Angel in the next ep, and Giles in the Gift. The entire show was devoid of music, witty phrases, and fights...it gave it that sureall, and realistic feeling. Then Joss hit you with the paradigm shift. Buffy had to go from one end of the spectrum of this real life trama back to her job. It showed that no matter what happend, she would always be the slayer and this is always what she would have to do. It made that smile at the end of Chosen brighten my day even more.

 

My favorite part of that ep was the commercial break that came back to Dawn crying in the bathroom. At first it seems that she is talking about her mother but she is really crying over being embarassed. It just goes to show you how thing that seemed like a very big deal 5 minutes before is absolutlely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Her break down in the hall was great acting and maybe the biggest tear jerker of the ep after Buffys "We're no supposed to move the body!" and Anyas speech.

[Mecha Mummy 0]

This is true, and I didn't see it from that perspective. In that light, I can see why it was added in.

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

I now have seasons 2 and 3 ready to post...

 

Ripper...I'm looking at you...

 

And...There needed to be a vampire in the Body. Vampires are what Buffy does (sometimes quite literally) and the vamp fight at the end is the metaphorical "life goes on" conclusion to the episode. Just like Ripper said.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

So I want to talk about season 4 a little bit.

 

::gets on soapbox::

 

Lord, how this season frustrates me. It may have more individual high points than any other season, but the blandness of the ultimate arc just kills it. I suppose it's wasted potential. I can't help but wonder how great it could've been had Lindsay Crouse (that being the actress who played Maggie Walsh) not wanted out so early. For anyone who might not know, as far as I understand, the initial plan for season 4 was to simply have her be the main villain, with the majority of the Initiative and its demons as her underlings. The notion of an entirely human Big Bad who Buffy can't just murder would have made for an amazing last leg of the season.

 

Instead, we got Adam--who, admittedly, I think gets slagged on a bit undeservedly. He was a neat character design, and his master plan was a refreshing departure from "I'm going to destroy the world immediately." Yet the bottom line is that he's not that different from The Master. He's a villain that just couldn't match up to Angelus or the Mayor, simply because it'd basically been done before. It wasn't much of a new direction--the closest they got was his active attempt to splinter the good guys and take away Buffy's sources of strength before he fought her.

 

So disappointing, though. It's one of the few instances where circumstances prevented Mutant Enemy from really bucking the trends. A good effort, but unfortunate.

[Guest Lil Naitch]

I never knew that Maggie was supposed to be the Big Bad. Where did you read that?

[Guest Cavi]

It's interesting how Season Four is the second most least liked season (I would say Season Six takes the top honors now for the massive amount of hate it got), yet it contains the most over episode in the history of the show, "Hush".

 

I don't have that many problems with the season. Yeah, some things could have been done better, but it has a distinct vibe, and that is worth something in my book.

 

I hate Walsh though. Zombie Walsh is even worse.

[Guest Youth N Asia]

I didn't like Walsh, but I really liked season 4.

[Guest Lil Naitch]

I never liked season 5, for two reasons:

1. Glory was horribly underdevealoped as the Big Bad- she wasn't even really mean untill she sucked out Tara's brains- aside from being slightly menacing, that was the first really bad thing she did. Cause after that, she was all about making Buffy suffer and getting Dawn no matter what. And I don't count sucking other's brains out, not the same as a Scooby, in my book.

The Season opened w/ Dracula, a story that could have been more than one ep and done really well, but instead got a crap episode. I swear, I read a fan fic with a story that was 10x better, used th source material, and made Drac to be a manipulative bad ass.

Season 4 ranks in at # 2

[Guest Youth N Asia]

I liked Glory, but I don't think season 5 worked that well for me cause I just didn't like Dawn.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

I never knew that Maggie was supposed to be the Big Bad. Where did you read that?

It was on the rumor mill for a long time. The best source I have are a few friends who followed the show back then, independent of each other, and heard all about this. Could be wrong, but the gist of it is that she got out of whatever contractual obligations she had to make a movie, or something along those lines. Hence the rather quick dispatching of her character and the really quick intro to Adam.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I am so going to destroy you all with my season 5 review.

[Guest Kingpk]

Did they ever fully explain that "Glory is Ben" thing? How did she infect his body in the first place?

[LaParkaYourCar 0]

Did they ever fully explain that "Glory is Ben" thing?  How did she infect his body in the first place?

I don't know, but the interactions between Xander and Spike in the episode where they all started realizing Ben was Glory were hilarious.

 

That episode was on today on FX and that reminds me of how much I wish Doc was used more.