Further Buffycation: Season 3
Jan. 25th, 2010 05:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotSo, thanks to a marathon weekend, we made it to 4x01 of Buffy tonight! Must say, season 3 was a romp indeed.
So many great episodes! I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. I like the show best when it's doing humor with most of the drama played for laughs, and a couple eps were perfection in that. Most particularly "The Zeppo" (aka The Ep Where I Actually Liked Xander) (hey did they ever explain in the ep who Zeppo even was? I was raised on the Marx Bros, but I thought most modern kids would be tragically deprived...) - is anyone else dying to see the ep's B-plot in full, even if it could never be one-tenth as awesome as it was as background action ("The bravest thing I've ever seen!") ZOMG the scene where Xander comes in to Buffy and Angel having their dramatic teary-eyed argument about who gets to die and awkwardly excuses himself - SHRIEKING WITH HYSTERICAL GIGGLES. (That's why I like Buffy/Angel, for the comedy potential!)
Even better was the ep where the alt-Vampire-Willow shows up - that might be one of my favorite episodes of the show. (...And not just because Willow gets tackle-glomped by everyone including Giles. Though that is part of it. ...This show is severely lacking in hugs, I take what I can get!)
The arc was great fun - agree with the bro, the Mayor was a fantastic Big Bad, not your usual mild-mannered villain. AHAHAH his final "Darn it" (or whichever). The final Graduation showdown = EPIC, ahh, I cheered when all the students threw off their robes and had the full artillery underneath. Also cheered when Buffy got the umbrella at the prom - they actually noticed! Not everyone's oblivious! AWWW! Yay Buffy! (LOLOL to the lowest student death-rate in Sunnydale history. I've been asking for three seasons why the heck would anyone still be living in Sunnydale* with the way they lose kids, but no, this was a GOOD YEAR!)
*For the incredibly low property values, so maintains the bro.
Oh, and of course Spike's return! Love/hate relationship with that episode, as the Spike stuff was fantastic (him passing out, waking to being fried by sunlight and dousing the flames in HOLY WATER = WHAHAHAH COMEDY GOLD.)(Also him pouring out his heart to Willow and then Buffy's mom. And then pretending to bite Buffy's mom while Angel watched outside helplessly. BWAH.)
The other stuff, not so much...one of my issues with the show is the amount of emotional drama which hinges on romance - there's other relationship dynamics, but the heaviest hitting emotional beats still tend to be romantic love. It was better this season, but still there. --This isn't really a criticism of the show; it's a perfectly valid storytelling style, it's just not one that appeals to me personally for the most part. (Slash fic and shoujo manga being the obvious exceptions, the possible reasons for which would take an essay all on their own.) Teen romance especially more bore than entertain me. While SV I could just make fun of and/or fastforward, I like Buffy enough to watch it, but it's less than successful for me. So the end of "Lovers Walk", with everyone broken up and moping alone, all "my life is over" - yeah, whatever, crie moar.
Except the show won points back because the next ep after that is "The Wish", in which we get to see how all their lives actually being over would go, which put things in perspective very nicely and, I think, entirely intentionally. Very clever, that. Also post-apocalypse scenarios are always fun. Also also as already mentioned the return of Vampire!Willow is one of the highlights of the show for me.
Not to mention "The Wish" introduced Anya, who I very much like so far; she's hysterically funny and so very frustrated with her newfound humanity, which she is REALLY BAD AT.
(Almost as bad as Spike is at being a vampire. Spike's got the amoral evil thing down, but he sucks at actually being a vampire, being a heartless monster, staying out of the sun, etc. Which is awesomely amusing.)
...Somewhere around here I must confess that, to my embarrassment, I've sort of fallen hard for Angel. ...I know, it's so uncool. And I still think David Boreanaz is kind of funny-looking (in a good way) and not much of an actor (he reminds of of Jared Padalecki; he's pretty good at body-language but has trouble selling lines. ...Except whimpering in pain; he does that very nicely. Eheh.*) But, well...Angel! He's such a dork, with all his mopey looming and skulking and stalking and trying to do the right thing. I like that he was once a weak man, a useless mostly-soulless loser to begin with and that's probably why he became so dangerous a vampire, because he had so little to lose. And he's really not that strong now but he's trying, and learning how to try, and awww. ...Yeah, I'm a sucker for an immortal sob story.
*Okay, fine, he makes a good puppy in the baddest of ways. And the X-mas ep with the One True Evil torturing him and the sacrificing and the staggering about, I enjoyed that way more than I should've.
...Even if Hollywood has no idea what actual snow looks like.
Really want to see Angel:tS now, as I've found I like Angel best when he's interacting with people-who-are-not-Buffy, because he's so incredibly bad at it. Also because I'm hoping he makes a friend or two - I feel sorry for him now; Buffy loves him, but all the others only tolerate him because Buffy loves him and they love Buffy. Which is entirely understandable, I can't blame any of them for holding a grudge (except maybe Xander, who I tend to want to smack when it comes to Angel. Especially when he goes on about the dangers of Angel as if he's the same thing as Angelus, when they're sitting there with Oz who also becomes homicidal, oh, a few times a month...)
(Nothing against Oz, mind. Oz is taciturn & thoughtful love and he and Willow are adorable. ...Yeah, okay, I like teen romance when it's sticky-sweet cute. :P)
And I just realized I've gone all this way without mentioning GILES! Just in case you were wondering, Giles still is <333333 4-ever. Especially in s3! I kind of like Wesley solely because he makes Giles so very snarky, and snarky!Giles I've found is my very favorite Giles of all. (I wish I could remember some clever quotes here. There have been many I've loved, but it's difficult to remember all of them...!) Giles is also one of the only characters who's never once made me cross at him. (Except that one ep where he was bowing to Watcher tradition (if grudgingly) and drugging Buffy and OMG I was flailing so hard in helpless frustrating, GILES NOOOOO~~! But he redeemed himself and made up with Buffy so it was okay in the end.)
Oh man, Giles and Buffy are SO MUCH LOVE...they hit my older guy/adopted child button hard (this button was installed a long time ago - I blame DuckTales and John Bellairs - and can get overlooked in favor of newer ones, but it's still there.) The surrogate-father thing is much awwwww, and them teaming up against Wesley was funny every single time. And Buffy being freaked out by the thought of Giles having sex is lolarious even if I personally am always like RIGHT ON to whichever woman is smart enough to get a piece of that hot British action. (...except Buffy's mom. That freaked me out almost as much as it did Buffy. Even if it was also hysterical. And I love Ripper's accent.)
I also love Giles and Angel having to work together to help Buffy, because, yeah, it's not like there's any conceivable way Angel can realistically apologize, ("Sorry. Coming from you that phrase strikes me as rather funny. 'Sorry to bother me.' ") but they both love Buffy enough to get over it anyway, and awwww. Or Giles helping Angel entirely for Buffy's sake, which is also aww.
(Or Willow and Oz - "He thought I was Buffy." "You too, huh?")
Speaking of Buffy - really loved Buffy this season. She's developing in cool ways. I like her perky and badass more than angsty and losing, but I've almost never been actually annoyed with her - even when she's doing what is clearly the wrong thing (HOMG DO NOT SAVE ANGEL WITH YOUR OWN LIFE, END OF THE WORLD HERE, I LOVE HIM TOO BUT THIS IS A VERY BAD CALL!), I always understand why she's doing it. She gets too caught up in her own stuff sometimes, but she always realizes it in time. And hey, professional world-saver is a difficult job, cut the girl some slack!
My biggest complaint with the season would be Faith. It's not that I dislike her character, so much as I dislike what was done with her character. Her fall to the dark side seemed clumsy, cheap emotional shortcuts instead of convincing development/regression; the move from rebellious teenager to amoral killer went awfully fast, and while there were a few nods to it being a psychological reaction, they mostly were glossed over. Didn't help that "Bad Girls" had a weirdly passive OOC Buffy who made it seem all the more like both girls were suffering from a bad case of Plot Device, and I kept wanting it cured. But maybe it was in the end? Will see how that goes...
Oh, and Cordelia was still a bit confusing til the end, but more coherent and thus more sympathetic this season than before. Also she had some killer comedy - "Oh God Is the world ending? I have to research a paper on Bosnia for tomorrow, but if the world's ending, I'm not gonna bother." Am curious to see her in Angel. (Not sure about Wesley yet, but we'll see? his and Cordelia's 0 Chemistry Catastrophe was XDDD...)
Okay, need sleep - but enjoying myself, looking forward to more! And thank you, everyone, for avoiding the spoilers before - please keep that up! ^_^
So many great episodes! I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite. I like the show best when it's doing humor with most of the drama played for laughs, and a couple eps were perfection in that. Most particularly "The Zeppo" (aka The Ep Where I Actually Liked Xander) (hey did they ever explain in the ep who Zeppo even was? I was raised on the Marx Bros, but I thought most modern kids would be tragically deprived...) - is anyone else dying to see the ep's B-plot in full, even if it could never be one-tenth as awesome as it was as background action ("The bravest thing I've ever seen!") ZOMG the scene where Xander comes in to Buffy and Angel having their dramatic teary-eyed argument about who gets to die and awkwardly excuses himself - SHRIEKING WITH HYSTERICAL GIGGLES. (That's why I like Buffy/Angel, for the comedy potential!)
Even better was the ep where the alt-Vampire-Willow shows up - that might be one of my favorite episodes of the show. (...And not just because Willow gets tackle-glomped by everyone including Giles. Though that is part of it. ...This show is severely lacking in hugs, I take what I can get!)
The arc was great fun - agree with the bro, the Mayor was a fantastic Big Bad, not your usual mild-mannered villain. AHAHAH his final "Darn it" (or whichever). The final Graduation showdown = EPIC, ahh, I cheered when all the students threw off their robes and had the full artillery underneath. Also cheered when Buffy got the umbrella at the prom - they actually noticed! Not everyone's oblivious! AWWW! Yay Buffy! (LOLOL to the lowest student death-rate in Sunnydale history. I've been asking for three seasons why the heck would anyone still be living in Sunnydale* with the way they lose kids, but no, this was a GOOD YEAR!)
*For the incredibly low property values, so maintains the bro.
Oh, and of course Spike's return! Love/hate relationship with that episode, as the Spike stuff was fantastic (him passing out, waking to being fried by sunlight and dousing the flames in HOLY WATER = WHAHAHAH COMEDY GOLD.)(Also him pouring out his heart to Willow and then Buffy's mom. And then pretending to bite Buffy's mom while Angel watched outside helplessly. BWAH.)
The other stuff, not so much...one of my issues with the show is the amount of emotional drama which hinges on romance - there's other relationship dynamics, but the heaviest hitting emotional beats still tend to be romantic love. It was better this season, but still there. --This isn't really a criticism of the show; it's a perfectly valid storytelling style, it's just not one that appeals to me personally for the most part. (Slash fic and shoujo manga being the obvious exceptions, the possible reasons for which would take an essay all on their own.) Teen romance especially more bore than entertain me. While SV I could just make fun of and/or fastforward, I like Buffy enough to watch it, but it's less than successful for me. So the end of "Lovers Walk", with everyone broken up and moping alone, all "my life is over" - yeah, whatever, crie moar.
Except the show won points back because the next ep after that is "The Wish", in which we get to see how all their lives actually being over would go, which put things in perspective very nicely and, I think, entirely intentionally. Very clever, that. Also post-apocalypse scenarios are always fun. Also also as already mentioned the return of Vampire!Willow is one of the highlights of the show for me.
Not to mention "The Wish" introduced Anya, who I very much like so far; she's hysterically funny and so very frustrated with her newfound humanity, which she is REALLY BAD AT.
(Almost as bad as Spike is at being a vampire. Spike's got the amoral evil thing down, but he sucks at actually being a vampire, being a heartless monster, staying out of the sun, etc. Which is awesomely amusing.)
...Somewhere around here I must confess that, to my embarrassment, I've sort of fallen hard for Angel. ...I know, it's so uncool. And I still think David Boreanaz is kind of funny-looking (in a good way) and not much of an actor (he reminds of of Jared Padalecki; he's pretty good at body-language but has trouble selling lines. ...Except whimpering in pain; he does that very nicely. Eheh.*) But, well...Angel! He's such a dork, with all his mopey looming and skulking and stalking and trying to do the right thing. I like that he was once a weak man, a useless mostly-soulless loser to begin with and that's probably why he became so dangerous a vampire, because he had so little to lose. And he's really not that strong now but he's trying, and learning how to try, and awww. ...Yeah, I'm a sucker for an immortal sob story.
*Okay, fine, he makes a good puppy in the baddest of ways. And the X-mas ep with the One True Evil torturing him and the sacrificing and the staggering about, I enjoyed that way more than I should've.
...Even if Hollywood has no idea what actual snow looks like.
Really want to see Angel:tS now, as I've found I like Angel best when he's interacting with people-who-are-not-Buffy, because he's so incredibly bad at it. Also because I'm hoping he makes a friend or two - I feel sorry for him now; Buffy loves him, but all the others only tolerate him because Buffy loves him and they love Buffy. Which is entirely understandable, I can't blame any of them for holding a grudge (except maybe Xander, who I tend to want to smack when it comes to Angel. Especially when he goes on about the dangers of Angel as if he's the same thing as Angelus, when they're sitting there with Oz who also becomes homicidal, oh, a few times a month...)
(Nothing against Oz, mind. Oz is taciturn & thoughtful love and he and Willow are adorable. ...Yeah, okay, I like teen romance when it's sticky-sweet cute. :P)
And I just realized I've gone all this way without mentioning GILES! Just in case you were wondering, Giles still is <333333 4-ever. Especially in s3! I kind of like Wesley solely because he makes Giles so very snarky, and snarky!Giles I've found is my very favorite Giles of all. (I wish I could remember some clever quotes here. There have been many I've loved, but it's difficult to remember all of them...!) Giles is also one of the only characters who's never once made me cross at him. (Except that one ep where he was bowing to Watcher tradition (if grudgingly) and drugging Buffy and OMG I was flailing so hard in helpless frustrating, GILES NOOOOO~~! But he redeemed himself and made up with Buffy so it was okay in the end.)
Oh man, Giles and Buffy are SO MUCH LOVE...they hit my older guy/adopted child button hard (this button was installed a long time ago - I blame DuckTales and John Bellairs - and can get overlooked in favor of newer ones, but it's still there.) The surrogate-father thing is much awwwww, and them teaming up against Wesley was funny every single time. And Buffy being freaked out by the thought of Giles having sex is lolarious even if I personally am always like RIGHT ON to whichever woman is smart enough to get a piece of that hot British action. (...except Buffy's mom. That freaked me out almost as much as it did Buffy. Even if it was also hysterical. And I love Ripper's accent.)
I also love Giles and Angel having to work together to help Buffy, because, yeah, it's not like there's any conceivable way Angel can realistically apologize, ("Sorry. Coming from you that phrase strikes me as rather funny. 'Sorry to bother me.' ") but they both love Buffy enough to get over it anyway, and awwww. Or Giles helping Angel entirely for Buffy's sake, which is also aww.
(Or Willow and Oz - "He thought I was Buffy." "You too, huh?")
Speaking of Buffy - really loved Buffy this season. She's developing in cool ways. I like her perky and badass more than angsty and losing, but I've almost never been actually annoyed with her - even when she's doing what is clearly the wrong thing (HOMG DO NOT SAVE ANGEL WITH YOUR OWN LIFE, END OF THE WORLD HERE, I LOVE HIM TOO BUT THIS IS A VERY BAD CALL!), I always understand why she's doing it. She gets too caught up in her own stuff sometimes, but she always realizes it in time. And hey, professional world-saver is a difficult job, cut the girl some slack!
My biggest complaint with the season would be Faith. It's not that I dislike her character, so much as I dislike what was done with her character. Her fall to the dark side seemed clumsy, cheap emotional shortcuts instead of convincing development/regression; the move from rebellious teenager to amoral killer went awfully fast, and while there were a few nods to it being a psychological reaction, they mostly were glossed over. Didn't help that "Bad Girls" had a weirdly passive OOC Buffy who made it seem all the more like both girls were suffering from a bad case of Plot Device, and I kept wanting it cured. But maybe it was in the end? Will see how that goes...
Oh, and Cordelia was still a bit confusing til the end, but more coherent and thus more sympathetic this season than before. Also she had some killer comedy - "Oh God Is the world ending? I have to research a paper on Bosnia for tomorrow, but if the world's ending, I'm not gonna bother." Am curious to see her in Angel. (Not sure about Wesley yet, but we'll see? his and Cordelia's 0 Chemistry Catastrophe was XDDD...)
Okay, need sleep - but enjoying myself, looking forward to more! And thank you, everyone, for avoiding the spoilers before - please keep that up! ^_^
