Running in place
Jan. 8th, 2003 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynSpoilers for Buffy episode Showtime, 1/7
Anthony Stewart head came all the way from England for this? What an incredible disappointment after all the wonderfulness that built up through November, and even in December. While I didn't think the last Buffy was that great, it seemed as if I thought more highly of it than many others, but mostly, at least at that point it was new. Watching the last episode recycled into this one was a huge disappointment and left me with a sour taste for both of them. I can't state my issues with this episode any better thanherself_nyc, so her seethings are my seethings. ;-)
Outside of the "how does evil taste?" "Kinda chalky" line, and that final scene with Buffy and Spike, and maybe the eyeball scene with Giles and Anya (which, while I enjoyed the big eyeball ball, definitely seemed to have been taken from Big Trouble in Little China, although this had a... brain stem? body? that was kinda coolly gross), this was just an annoying waste of time that reduced the entire show to a big recycle bin of story and phoned-in performances. Except the very ending -- I am a huge fan, nay, superfan, of characters communicating without talking (and I don't mean as in Willow, Buffy, and Xander suddenly being able to communicate telepathically. What the fuck?), of being able to understand each other without saying anything, or tiny gestures or glances that speak volumes. It's probably one of my biggest fanfic kinks, and certainly the thing that can tip me over into a fandom faster than almost anything else. Out of a deadly dull waste of acting talent, suddenly there was this scene where JM and SMG got to actually do something, to act, and that it was my kink made it almost mitigate the rest of the ep, but not quite.
I can only guess at what is going on here. I thought about it all last night and this morning, and this is what I came up with: in the past, we've been introduced to the big bad early, but the actual threat of the big bad didn't get ramped up until near the end of the season, certainly after the February sweeps, where there's usually a serious crisis. And during that time, we've had standalone episodes with humor, or just simple storylines, etc., where the focus wasn't on the big bad threat but rather on the Scoobies dealing with the usual supernatural slaying stuff. Think I Was Made to Love You and The Body and Intervention in S. 5; Killed by Death and the swim team episode and a few others in S. 2; and so on. The big bad threat would be in the background, but less emphasized.
But this year we've had a much faster development of the big bad storyline, which I sometimes wonder if it might be reflective of the contract situation of SMG. They need to make the storyline bigger, faster, because they don't know what the end result will be for Buffy, so they're leaving it open ended. The problem is that by making the threat more imperative and... well, threatening, when they're holding off for a big dramatic episode with that scary threat, we get something like this instead, where they're simply running in place and rehashing exactly what they've done before. This was clearly a placeholder episode, but I can't help wondering what place it's holding for? I almost wish they had just waited and had a few more repeats in there, than give us something like this. I know I've had issues with David Fury's scripts in the past few years but this seems beyond even him.
So in a way, I want to make some kind of rationale for an episode like this, because I can't understand why they'd waste so much time otherwise. It's as if they've painted themselves into a corner -- they've introduced the threat too fast and too big, and now they don't know what to do, because they can't fit in one of those charming standalone episodes to sort of take the heat away and give us some character stuff. I really hope this isn't indicative of what's to come, because criminy, what a waste of talent. ASH has little to do but look possibly first evilly, SMG just stands around rattling off annoying speeches, and JM just stands around shirtless and beat up. Not that I mind the latter, mind you, but still. Such talented people shouldn't be left with so little to do.
The ubervamp just... well, thank god it's gone, it's lame beyond belief, and I still don't understand why Buffy goes up against it weaponless or fireless. The FE is just... far more entertaining in its LJ than on the show. It's so unthreatening as to seem comical at this point. Why keep hanging around making everyone feel low? How successful as a strategy is that considering most of us work in places where we feel low and our lives pointless every day, yet we still survive? Sheesh. The business world can do a far better job of demoralizing people than the FE does. And please -- why can't they get anyone who can do a decent accent? It's as if they lucked out on two people who could do a passably tolerable English accent, and since then, are stuck with these incompetents. That southrun "accent" that girl did was painful. Gack. And Andrew didn't even elicit one laugh from me last night, he was just annoying and irksome in the extreme.
Here's hoping they move it along, because otherwise they're blowing a lot of superb buildup.
Anthony Stewart head came all the way from England for this? What an incredible disappointment after all the wonderfulness that built up through November, and even in December. While I didn't think the last Buffy was that great, it seemed as if I thought more highly of it than many others, but mostly, at least at that point it was new. Watching the last episode recycled into this one was a huge disappointment and left me with a sour taste for both of them. I can't state my issues with this episode any better than
herself_nyc, so her seethings are my seethings. ;-)Outside of the "how does evil taste?" "Kinda chalky" line, and that final scene with Buffy and Spike, and maybe the eyeball scene with Giles and Anya (which, while I enjoyed the big eyeball ball, definitely seemed to have been taken from Big Trouble in Little China, although this had a... brain stem? body? that was kinda coolly gross), this was just an annoying waste of time that reduced the entire show to a big recycle bin of story and phoned-in performances. Except the very ending -- I am a huge fan, nay, superfan, of characters communicating without talking (and I don't mean as in Willow, Buffy, and Xander suddenly being able to communicate telepathically. What the fuck?), of being able to understand each other without saying anything, or tiny gestures or glances that speak volumes. It's probably one of my biggest fanfic kinks, and certainly the thing that can tip me over into a fandom faster than almost anything else. Out of a deadly dull waste of acting talent, suddenly there was this scene where JM and SMG got to actually do something, to act, and that it was my kink made it almost mitigate the rest of the ep, but not quite.
I can only guess at what is going on here. I thought about it all last night and this morning, and this is what I came up with: in the past, we've been introduced to the big bad early, but the actual threat of the big bad didn't get ramped up until near the end of the season, certainly after the February sweeps, where there's usually a serious crisis. And during that time, we've had standalone episodes with humor, or just simple storylines, etc., where the focus wasn't on the big bad threat but rather on the Scoobies dealing with the usual supernatural slaying stuff. Think I Was Made to Love You and The Body and Intervention in S. 5; Killed by Death and the swim team episode and a few others in S. 2; and so on. The big bad threat would be in the background, but less emphasized.
But this year we've had a much faster development of the big bad storyline, which I sometimes wonder if it might be reflective of the contract situation of SMG. They need to make the storyline bigger, faster, because they don't know what the end result will be for Buffy, so they're leaving it open ended. The problem is that by making the threat more imperative and... well, threatening, when they're holding off for a big dramatic episode with that scary threat, we get something like this instead, where they're simply running in place and rehashing exactly what they've done before. This was clearly a placeholder episode, but I can't help wondering what place it's holding for? I almost wish they had just waited and had a few more repeats in there, than give us something like this. I know I've had issues with David Fury's scripts in the past few years but this seems beyond even him.
So in a way, I want to make some kind of rationale for an episode like this, because I can't understand why they'd waste so much time otherwise. It's as if they've painted themselves into a corner -- they've introduced the threat too fast and too big, and now they don't know what to do, because they can't fit in one of those charming standalone episodes to sort of take the heat away and give us some character stuff. I really hope this isn't indicative of what's to come, because criminy, what a waste of talent. ASH has little to do but look possibly first evilly, SMG just stands around rattling off annoying speeches, and JM just stands around shirtless and beat up. Not that I mind the latter, mind you, but still. Such talented people shouldn't be left with so little to do.
The ubervamp just... well, thank god it's gone, it's lame beyond belief, and I still don't understand why Buffy goes up against it weaponless or fireless. The FE is just... far more entertaining in its LJ than on the show. It's so unthreatening as to seem comical at this point. Why keep hanging around making everyone feel low? How successful as a strategy is that considering most of us work in places where we feel low and our lives pointless every day, yet we still survive? Sheesh. The business world can do a far better job of demoralizing people than the FE does. And please -- why can't they get anyone who can do a decent accent? It's as if they lucked out on two people who could do a passably tolerable English accent, and since then, are stuck with these incompetents. That southrun "accent" that girl did was painful. Gack. And Andrew didn't even elicit one laugh from me last night, he was just annoying and irksome in the extreme.
Here's hoping they move it along, because otherwise they're blowing a lot of superb buildup.
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-08 05:20 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-01-08 05:42 pm (UTC)Yeah... it did at first. "From beneath you it devours" was very succinct and chilling, especially since no one ever followed it up with anything else, jsut let it hang in the air like the scary prophecy it was. And yet, where's the follow-up? I've not seen anyone get eaten, any mass bloodshed, anything swallowing anyone else whole from right under their feet.
The FE needs to get that When I'm an Evil Overlord handbook of rules that was floating around the Internet a number of years ago.
I remember that. It's already broken several rules besides an overabundance of bragging... among them being not killing love-interest hostages when you had them, but instead keeping them locked up "for fun."
no subject
Date: 2003-01-08 08:56 pm (UTC)That's IT! That's what we need! We need something being devoured! Nothing like a little swallowing whole to up the ante a bit, I say.
Keeping my fingers crossed for a little mass bloodshed. ;-)