“I go online sometimes, but everyone’s spelling is so
depressing.”
I know it’s been a while, but we’ve just moved in to a new
house and I’ve just had a massive exam for work, all in the last two weeks. The
blog will return to normal as life returns to normal and the cardboard boxes
slowly get emptied. In the meantime, here’s an episode of Buffy for your
delight and edification.
Yes, I realise that the concept of Warren making a science
fiction sex robot has some serious things to say about the objectification of
women, but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a very silly idea,
Yes, it is a comedy episode, and the witty lines are of a standard one would
expect from Jane Espenson, but it’s
hard to shake the suspicion that she deliberately set herself the challenging
task of writing a quality episode from what she knew was a silly idea. This is
not an easy task, and, brilliant writer though she is and excellently written
though this script may be, the episode does not succeed in overcoming the
intrinsic silliness.
The idea almost redeems itself, however, with a wonderfully
metatextual joke as the scoobies just accept the existence of the robot with a
knowing wink to the conventions of the genre within which they exist: Buffy usually deals with the tropes of
horror, not sci-fi. The only character who does not react in this post-modern
fashion is Warren himself, both because of his character and because he seems,
at this point, to belong in sci-fi rather than horror.
Aside from all this we have character stuff. Early on there
is a surprisingly mature conversation between Buffy and Xander which further
deepens the trend in recent episodes to emphasise Xander’s sudden maturity,
what with his job and that. His comments to Buffy seem surprisingly worldly-wise,
but the recent development of the character
means this does not seem out of place. I also like the fact that
uber-capitalist Anya has been making heaps of money with online trading. Oh,
and there’s a rather interesting scene in which Giles, rather menacingly,
threatens Spike with bad things if he does not leave Buffy alone. My girlfriend
rather enjoyed Giles and Spike’s male on male encounter…
The episode begins with Joyce beginning to throw herself
into life again after her recent brain issues. She’s beginning to throw herself
back into dating and beginning to look more like her old self. Or so we thought.
The ending of the episode is one of the most upsettingly shocking things I have
ever seen on television, but I’ll let you make that decision for yourself.
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