Stargate SG-1: The Nox

 "The young do not always do as they are told..."

A rather interesting and different episode, this. A world on which there lives a mysterious race called the Nox who at first appear to be strange, primitive, helpless yet also with wondrous abilities such as healing and invisibility. Throughout the episode we slowly discover that they are not what they seem, that their pacifism arises from wisdom and confidence, and that the Go'auld are no threat to them. 

Indeed, we end with a reveal to the gang that, invisibly, the Nox in fact possess hidden yet impossibly advanced technology. To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, any suffociently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This episode is a rather successful example of the trope that arises from that, and one of the stronger episodes thus far.

It also develops the lore and season arc rather nicely. The US government are now starting to have doubts about the Stargate project due to the poor results in terms of advanced alien tech. Plus we get to see Go'uald again... and Apophis! It is, admittedly, something of a coincidence that they're all on the planet at the same time. Still, a rather strong episode, with Armin Shimerman in it to boot.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Restless

"Sometimes, I think about two women doing a spell. Then I do a spell by myself…"

Wow. Don't get me wrong, that was brilliant, but it was well weird. For the first time, the Season Finale is not a climax but an epilogue. It's a radical departure from the expected format but, then again, what else would you expect from an episode both written and directed by Joss Whedon.

Obviously, the whole conceit of the first Slayer, and the threat she poses, is all bound up with the idea that Buffy's strength comes from her friends first and foremost: the first Slayer is "not the source of [her] power". This rather brilliantly means that the adversary is easy to defeat, and we can concentrate on the fun to be had in our four protagonists' weird dreams. There are also probably loads of allusions to Apocalypse Now but, er, I haven't actually seen that yet. I will, soonish.

It's a bit convenient that Riley is no longer in trouble with the US government, but it was probably a necessary bit of handwaving. Given the overall coolness of the episode, I'm willing to overlook it. Especially as we get to see not only Joyce and Oz, but also Harmony, Principal Snyder and even a make-up free version of Adam. There are also lots of nods back to earlier in the series- Willow's dream harks back to The Puppet Show way back in the early days, while the sequence of Giles hypnotising Buffy recalls his betrayal of her in Helpless, which is without a doubt the fulcrum of his entire arc. There are some really nice touches, from Willows beautiful calligraphy of a Sappho poem, in Ancient Greek, on Tara's body- fairly obvious subtext there!- to the many other suggestions of sexual guilt and fear of homophobic hostility. And the insecurities of her nerdy past haven't gone away either.

Xander's dream, like Willows, focuses on something that's been shown all season, namely concerns about his direction in life. The scene where everyone starts talking French is a sign that he feels undereducated compared to his peers, and that he's slipping behind. The bit with Giles and Spike on swings, though, is just random coolness. And Giles' dream is a wonderful deconstruction of his exposition-spouting narrative function, managing to combine this with his recent musical exploits by having him sing the exposition. Also, Anya's stand up is gleefully toe-curling. The people waving lighters are a nice touch too, although they don't half date the episode; no one waves lighters at gigs these days, because no bugger smokes.

Buffy's dream, obviously, does all the stuff that I mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs. But there's also an interesting examination of a potential fault line with Riley, with whom I still don't think she's going to stay for long. He's identified with evil government conspiracies, whether they involve thinking coffee makers or not. There's also the hilarious scene with Joyce living in a hole in the wall, a clear signpost towards Buffy's guilt at neglecting her supportive mother.

Finally, there are more interesting hints towards the future and things that will happen, alluding to the bed that appeared in our last dream sequence at the end of last season between Buffy and Faith. Something's going to happen…

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Graduation Day, Part Two

"There's a certain dramatic irony that's attached to all this; a synchronicity that borders on predestination, one might say"

"Fire bad, tree pretty."

Careful, Giles. You could do some serious damage to the fourth wall, saying things like that. Nice coda to the episode, though. Heck, this episode as a whole would have made a nice final episode ever. That's how perfect it is.

I'm amazed that Joss Whedon managed to fit all this into forty-two minutes, really. He essentially has to tell two separate stories in two separate acts (as the Mayor actually points out!)- Buffy saving Angel with a bit of Faith stuff thrown in, and the final battle- while also throwing in lots of character stuff, lots of thematic stuff, and even a surreal dream sequence which hints at his evil future plans. Whatever entity he had to sell his soul to for these evil scriptwriting powers, it's worked. And not turned him into a nasty, slimy, ugly CGI snake with pointy teeth and no limbs, unlike the Mayor. Yes, no limbs. Did he really want that- an eternity of paraplegic demonhood? Well, I say eternity. Obviously, that part's dependent on proximity to loads of explosives.

Buffy curing Angel by letting her bite him is dramatic, and the perfect end to their relationship. Also, it's more than a little erotic, and very, very kinky in a Dracula sort of way. But the question of Faith hangs over this entire subplot- and, in fact, over the main plot with the Mayor. It seems I was dead wrong about the Mayor using Faith as bait; he really does care. So much, in fact, that it's his downfall. That's a surprise, but it convinces, not least because of how Harry Groener plays it.

The season ends with Faith, who more than anything is its catalyst and its thematic anchor, in a coma, we're told permanently, although we don't believe this. We know how TV works, and she'll be back. But at least Eliza Dushku gets a chance to actually act, with the bizarre dream sequence, full of clues to the dastardly plans inside the evil brain of the esteemed Mr Whedon. "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 7…3…0…", eh? We'll see what that's all about, eventually.

There's one interesting little story telling point, I thought, in the hospital. Angel has to use a payphone to call the Scoobies, whereas of course if the episode were to be made today he'd use a mobile. But this is 1999, as we keep getting told: people have mobiles. It's just that the conventions of TV drama haven't quite caught up.

Buffy leaves the hospital ready for a war, and with a plan. Xander is key; nice echoes back to The Zeppo there. I was wondering if Whedon had forgotten about his military superpowers, but he hasn't. Nice touch. It's also nice that Wesley accepts Buffy's resignation, and simply wants to help before he has to leave. Cordelia, of course, rather wishes he wouldn't ("You got fired, and you still hang around like a big loser. Why can't he?"), until, finally, they kiss. And he's a terrible kisser. End of. It's a brilliant scene, which would never have been written if Whedon hadn't known that Charisma Carpenter had the comic acting talent to pull it off.

Willow and Oz continue to be the sweetest couple ever, too. Whedon is kindly waiting until next season to cruelly destroy their lives, obviously.

Still, the Graduation arrives, and with it the promise of speeches and doom. It's so very weird to hear Land of Hope and Glory in this context; are all American high school graduations suffused with random eruptions of British nationalism? It's very bizarre. Also, there's tension. This is it. The final, epic battle, with the demons and vampires pitched against the Class of '99. It's great to watch. There must be casualties, of course; we see Larry being killed, and Harmony appears to get bitten. Snyder, in the most fitting thing in the history of fittingness, gets eaten. And, in the immortal words of Mr. Vincent Furnier, school's blown to pieces.

So, that was high school. What next? This has been a show about high school; it looks as though some fundamental retooling is needed so the show can deal with the themes of young adulthood. Season Four of Buffy and Season One of Angel are both coming very, very soon to a blog near you…

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Choices

"Why couldn't you be dealing drugs, like normal people?"

As often happens in Buffy, the title refers to more than is immediately apparent. Yes, there's Buffy's choice, or lack of, about whether to go to uni somewhere other than Sunnydale. But this episode is also about other choices. Willow makes a positive choice to stay in Sunnydale for the right reasons, because fighting the baddies is what she wants with her life. And Faith has to deal with the consequences of the choice she's made. She and the Mayor may get on fine at the moment, but he's very much the controlling type. This relationship is going to get more and more abusive, and Faith is trapped.

The plot is rather straightforward and blah, really. Its purpose is to get the inevitable and showdown between Buffy and the Mayor out of the way, as it has to happen at some point before the finale, and also to enable the Scoobies to learn more about the Mayor's plans. But the interesting stuff, as ever, is all about the characters.

In the way she responds to being captured, Willow shows herself to be brave and resourceful, yes. But there's more to it than that; this is the episode where it suddenly becomes manifest that she's no longer one of the civilian-type Scoobies; the way she uses that levitating pencil (nice shout out to earlier in the season, that) to stake that vampire shows us that she's beginning to be useful in the field. She's the fully-fledged magic user to the D&D party that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Er, sorry. Also, she gets the important pages from the Books of Ascension for Giles. That's big. Whatever the increasingly marginalised Wesley might say, the Scoobies are not back to square one at the end.

Of course, the best character moment ever is Oz's angry and eloquent reaction to Wesley's suggestion of not bartering to get his Willow back!

A lot of this episode is about how teenagers' lives are punctuated by huge responsibilities and big decisions which can seem almost crushing in a stage of life where you don't have the experience, and the accumulated confidence that comes with hears, to deal with it easily. I have far more responsibility in my life today than I did when I was the Scoobies' age, but it doesn't cause me stress in the way that pretty much everything did when I was eighteen, on the school-uni-career conveyor belt, where it seems that the slightest mistake will ruin your life forever. Kids that age are experiencing these pressures without any of the benefit of experience which allows us adults to deal with pressure so much less stressfully, and sometimes we forget that. This is an episode about big choices about one's future, and that's scary.

On a more functional note, of course, it's also an episode which begins to hint at how the series can continue after everyone finishes school. They're not all going to disperse to universities all over America, but choose to stay for reasons similar to Willow. Except Xander, of course, who clearly isn't going to college. And what's up with Cordelia? Why is she working in a shop?

The Mayor's little monologue about the doomed nature of Buffy's relationship with Angel is, of course, ominous. He is, as Willow says, evil, but he's also, as no one wants to admit, right. This is clearly foreshadowing. Their relationship is not long for this world.

Oh, and that rather disgusting McGuffin full of spiders… what's all that about?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Doppelgangland

"She was truly the finest of us."

"Way better than me."

"Much, much better"

I love this show. This isn't the first time I've banged on about the alternation of the funny episodes with the darker ones in a predictable but good way, but the extraordinary run of serious episodes we've experienced lately is followed by this, the most laugh-out-loud funny thing I've seen in, well, months. It's no surprise to realise this is both written and directed by Joss Whedon. Truly, the man is God.

At times like this it's always tempting just to quote the huge number of hilarious lines throughout the whole review, but I won't. That sort of thing might be fine for five minutes of uninspired pub chat but it won't do for blogging. I mean, of course I'm going to shoehorn some of that stuff in when I'm ostensibly taking about the character development, or how brilliant Alyson Hannigan is, but you can rely on me to be subtle.

So… Alyson Hannigan. I didn't think such a thing was possible, but my opinion of her acting has just got even higher. She's great at comedy, but we knew that. We didn't need that bored look from evil Willow at being lectured by Cordelia to tell us that, hilarious though that scene is. But seeing her playing two completely different characters (except, of course that "our" Willow is Totally Not Gay and this is in no way foreshadowing, right?) really hammers home how great she is. That scene with her playing "our" Willow pretending to be evil Willow is a tour de force.

Oh, and Evil Willow… mmm! Is it just me who thinks Alyson Hannigan should have her own show where she stars as a Goth dominatrix? Thought not.

It's great to have a sequel to The Wish for general reasons, of course, not least because it means more Evil Willow (although she's seemingly dead, sadly), but it's nice to have some sort of link between the two worlds. And it's also great to have Anya back; a 1,200 year old vengeance demon stuck in Sunnydale High is too good a character not to become a regular.

It's also good to have Oz back after a rather jarring absence, and Snyder, of course. It's been a while since this foreigner has made any comments about the otherness of American schooling, but to me the whole idea of artificially inflating someone's grades just because they're good at a sport is horrifyingly corrupt! Does this stuff really go on much?

Also in season arc news  it's deeply worrying to see Faith still pretending to be one of the Scoobies while secretly working for her new sugar daddy, the Mayor, who's bought her a swanky new luxury flat, complete with PlayStation, which in 1999 was really something. It's very quickly established that there's going to be no hanky panky, which makes the Mayor a sort of father figure and so, I suppose, an evil parallel to Giles. That's interesting, as Buffy gets a lot of dialogue early on about how easily she could have turned out like Faith if things had been different. Of course, this also works as some pretty neat foreshadowing of the two Willows.

Cordelia still blatantly fancies Wesley, and this is getting increasingly foregrounded. I suspect this subplot is probably there to give us some light relief when the heavy stuff starts up again sometime soon. Also, it gives Wesley something to do, and the character would by now be redundant otherwise, it seems.

I somehow suspect next episode will be rather more heart-crushing than this one, just because this one was fun. Joss Whedon does that.

Incidentally, I've now finished The Bridge, which means it's all uninterrupted Buffy from now on, films aside, until the end of Season Four. Well, apart from Angel Season One, which is not far off. Unfortunately, The Bridge was being shown two episodes a week on BBC4, and I was forced to keep up, which led me to rather neglect Buffy. I don't think I'll watch anything being broadcast like that in the future, unless it's a new series of something I've already been blogging. Certainly, it's all Buffy and Angel (and films) for a good while now.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Gingerbread

"Oh man! It's Nazi Germany and I've got Playboys in my locker!"

In a way this, Jane Espenson's second script is a harking back to what already seems an earlier era of the show: the fairly clear cut metaphor at the heart of the story. After all the arc episodes of late it would almost be a relief to have a more dependable type of one-off episode, except that the subject matter is intrinsically rather harrowing. It's a good thing that it's leavened with so much humour.

Moral panics are terrible, terrible things, always. Even when they aren't virtual witch hunts, people always get hurt. The obvious example which occurs to me is the moral panic against paedophiles here in the UK around a decade ago, whipped up by The News of the World, on whose grave there can never be too much dancing. There can hardly be a more genuinely loathsome section of society, but even in these cases innocent people get hurt, as the paediatricians who had been mistaken for paedophiles by a particularly stupid mob would no doubt agree. So much worse, then, when the target is much less deserving. Even without the literal presence of witchcraft the allusions to Salem would be obvious.

The demon (ironically, or rather deliberately, a rather Satan-like one) is closer to being literal than most of the metaphor monsters we've seen so far on Buffy. Even the mental fog which stops people asking basic facts about who the dead children is not much of a stretch; hysteria and groupthink do bad things to rational thought.

One thing which particularly impresses me is the way the theme is only gradually developed, though. The scene of the coven of witches doing seemingly dark deeds is shot especially to look as incriminating as possible, so the fact that we suddenly find Willow amongst them is a shock. The sudden reveal of the same occult symbol from the children's corpses is a truly shocking moment.

The true horror of the whole situation is played out via mother / daughter relationships, though. We've never seen Willow's neglectful mother before; the first time she takes an interest in her daughter, she burns her at the stake. The scenes between the two of them are simultaneously horrifying and very, very, funny. Alyson Hannigan is such a great comic actress.

It's the irrational actions of Joyce that are more shocking, though. Partly this is because of the convincingly gradual build-up, but also because it shows that moral panics can affect even people who are normally quite rational. Her speech ("This isn't our town any more. It belongs to the monsters and the witches and the slayers. I say it's time for the grown-ups to take Sunnydale back.") is another of several moments that hits you (and the Scoobies) like a punch.

It also, of course, hints at Sunnydale's "selective memory thing" that Willow mentions at the end. That means we get to see the glorious confrontation between Giles and Snyder in the library without any big consequences, but this isn't a fully-fledged reset button, not quite. For the first time we're explicitly told that the people of Sunnydale mat repress, but they don't forget, not completely.

The regulars, then? This is Cordelia's best episode since she split with Xander, back to her comedy gold best. Amy (nice to see her again) is stuck as a rat, potentially for a very long time. Also funny is Xander's exaggerated oversensitivity towards the very suggestion that he might know where Willow is. In fact, it's almost as though the Scoobies' interpersonal relationships are being drawn lightly as a contrast from the heavy themes. I'd say it might be a harbinger of some heavy stuff between regular characters next episode, but that can't be, right? It's Buffy's birthday!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Band Candy

"I don't like this. They could have heart attacks!"

I've been looking forward to this: Jane Espenson is here at last! And her first script is comedy gold- witty, full of fun, and getting us to see characters in hilarious yet plausible new ways. It's odd that Faith isn't in this at all, though.

I love the way that the first few minutes focus on Buffy's responsibilities and the pressures being put on her by her adult authority figures, a very stark contrast to what comes later. She has SATs to prepare for, which will determine whether or not she gets into college. She has slaying duties, as ever. There's time with her mother to fit in. Oh, and Angel, who's becoming more lucid, which is starting to lead to awkwardness. It's all go. Oh, and Snyder expects her (any everyone) to sell this "band candy stuff".

Are American high schools really like this? Are kids regularly conscripted into doing stuff for school activities they haven't even signed up for? I'm curious about this. Is "band candy" a traditional phrase that people would know? Oh, and what about driving? We hear that Buffy hasn't even taken her test, but she drives her mother's car! Is this not highly illegal? Also, that car is massive.

It all sounds a lot of pressure, which culminates in her being found out by her mother and Giles when she uses them as alibis against each other. This seems to lead to the two of them ganging up to schedule all her free time into structured activities, tiger mother style. Except all is not as it seems, courtesy of the ever uber-cool Trick, the returning Ethan Rayne and the ever more interesting Mayor, who seems to have achieved his position by making some very dark deals which would traditionally require some very long spoons.

The tables are now turned, as the chocolate bars magically turn all the adults into particularly immature teenagers. The fact that they are considerably less mature than actual teenagers leads me to suspect a bit of a subtext here. Are we perhaps being told that, actually, kids today are more responsible than their parents' generation, perhaps with an added flavour of how the baby boomer generation has not exactly looked after the world all that well on its watch? Probably not, on balance. The differences are mainly portrayed in terms of popular culture and, yes, the younger Giles is just the sort of person who would pause the conversation with a girl he was trying to impress just to hear an Eric Clapton guitar solo.

It's a bit difficult to square this rebellious Ripper with his notably estuarised speech with what we were previously told about his past (actually quite the goody-goody until going off the rails at uni) but it fits. But Joyce is much funnier as a teenage girl although the most hilarious of these sequences have to belong to Snyder. All three actors are great here. Interesting, though, that Snyder has gradually changed from a sinister, threatening figure with comic elements to an outright figure of fun during the early episodes of the season.

Buffy's interaction with the "teenage" Joyce and Giles is hilarious, especially the bit with the handcuffs. And of course the closing moments where we learn that Joyce and Giles did, in fact, do it on the bonnet of a police car, are glorious. Yes, the conclusion may be a bit quick, and the demon rather easily dispatched, but I for one am glad Espenson decided to give more screen time to the funny stuff than the mechanical plotty blah-blah.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Dead Man's Party

"You can't just bury stuff, Buffy. It'll come right back up to get ya."

So, Buffy's back. There are so many things that need to be said, and there's so much awkwardness. And yet, being people, everyone prefers to hide behind polite fictions and all sorts of procrastination- anything other than create awkward scenes. It just goes to show that even Americans can be so, well, British sometimes.

This may be a serious idea in what is, in many ways, a very serious episode, but it's also a great excuse to have an awful lot of fun at the same time. That quote up there tells us what the zombies are all about, for one thing. But there are so many clever depictions of people failing to communicate. Only Giles can see that an intimate get-together is what's called for, not a loud, overwhelming, alienating party. No one else agrees, and so we get a loud party at which it's hardly possible to talk and everyone is avoiding the potential awkwardness of actually talking to Buffy while telling themselves that they're throwing a great party for her. Personally, I see it as a great vindication of why I so much prefer a quiet pub to a trendy, horrible, city centre bar with no decent beer, but let's not wander off on any tangents.

Probably the single moment which symbolises what the whole episode is trying to say is when Giles rings Buffy, but the phone can't be heard under the loud music, and is eventually picked up by one of many people at the party who don't even know Buffy. There's failure to communicate, in a nutshell. It's also a reminder that this sort of party gatecrashing used to happen well before Facebook, as everyone's second favourite Beastie Boys video clearly demonstrates. I hope Joyce earns a lot of money and / or has great terms on her house insurance.

People only start saying the things that need to be said after Buffy, alone, upset and alienated at her own party, starts packing and gets caught by Willow. She, Joyce and Xander all then proceed to have a go at her. It's awkward, it's emotional, but it clears the air, and it has to happen for Buffy to be able to relate to any of them, again.

It's a great episode for Giles, who is dam right about all of this, all the way through the episode, and also gets to threaten Principal Snyder. It's perhaps a less great episode in its treatment of zombies, though. It's generally best, these days, to avoid the West African origins of the trope, as it's bound up with all sorts of post-colonialist awkwardness. And voodoo is a real West African religion, just as "primitive" art is part of real Bantu tradition, history and cultural context, not just something to be patronised as "primitive" and used as an influence by Cubists or whomever. That doesn't mean that West African cultural tropes should be in any way out of bounds (I wasn't moaning about all this with Inca Mummy Girl), but they should have been a little more tactful, I think. Still, it's only slightly unfortunate, and essentially we have another great episode

There's already a bit of arc stuff, too. Willow's study of magic proceeds apace, which will obviously not go wrong in any way. Buffy has another cryptic dream about Angel which, again, conveniently fulfils David Boreanaz's contractual need to appear in every episode. And Snyder is still on about that mysterious Mayor…

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Go Fish

“I’ll do whatever I can to make your life better- whether little bath toys or whatever.”

OK, this isn’t exactly the best episode ever. In fact, it’s the worst episode we’ve had a while. But a relatively lacklustre episode of Buffy is better than the best episodes of lesser shows, and this episode has a surprising amount to say about misogyny, rape, and corruption in the world of sport.

Oh, and the monsters look just like the thing from The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I don’t think this is any more than a visual reference, in spite of the more overt homages to Universal movies we’ve seen in the past, but it’s a nice touch. It, er, doesn’t mean the costumes look any less embarrassing, though.

We see a lot of evidence of corruption in Sunnydale High School, as Willow (a student of seventeen taking a class, especially for all this time, is rather dodgy- is she getting paid?) is heavily leant on by Principal Snyder to allow a failing student to pass simply because he’s a successful member of a sports team. Worse, another member of the swimming team attempts to rape Buffy, implying that successful performers in competitive sport have privileged status and are allowed to get away with some extreme stuff, all in the name of “school spirit”. Is this really what happens in American high school, to some degree? To this foreigner it looks a little far fetched, and I say that as someone with very little interest in spectator sports and zero interest in macho culture. This seems to go a lot further than the “jock” trope.

And all that talk about Buffy “leading on” her potential rapist, and the way she dresses… it’s rather clear what’s being said here. I doubt this is the first time this bloke has tried it on, and most girls are not as physically strong as Buffy. It’s not a pleasant thought. And neither is the almost-rape of Buffy by the fish boys near the end.

Oh, and it’s rather alarming to see Jonathan being waterboarded by said jocks. Frankly, I’m glad he peed in the pool. It’s interesting that he’s starting to become an actual character. I’m also enjoying the rather, er, arousing sight of Willow as interrogator, complete with lamp to be shone in eyes.

The other subtext, of course, is steroids, and the need to succeed in sport at all costs. This seems absurd to people like me who don’t follow sports- after all, it’s only a game, an artificial contest with no meaning outside of itself. But the status it confers is real, especially in a hierarchical society such as that of a high school. We rather cleverly get shown these pressures at work in the funny dialogue between Cordelia and Xander.

Still… the whole thing is more than a little clichéd, and the comeuppance of the coach as he gets eaten (just like a principal) is so very uber-predictable. And isn't the premise more B-movie sci-fi than horror? It doesn't quite seem to fit the aesthetic of the show. There’s not much going on arc-wise, either, aside from one of those contractually mandated cameos from Angel. That’s a rather awkward thing about the length of these seasons: Angel has spent rather too many episodes just sitting on his arse for someone who’s supposed to be the big bad. Still, two-part series finale, here we come…

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I Only Have Eyes for You

“Whose idea was that?”

“Obviously some hairy-legged feminist…”

Wow. This is an extraordinary episode. There’s so much going on, both thematically and relating to the characters, and it’s very scary indeed. This is our first episode dealing with the paranormal- in this case a poltergeist- and we get to see all sorts of tropes of scariness that remind us of films like The Exorcist, The Omen and, er, Poltergeist.

Again, one of the main themes is the possessiveness which men feel over women, and its horrible consequences. Sadly, and I say this as someone who is burdened with a “y” chromosome, it does rather tend to be men who kill women because of sexual jealousy instead of the other way around. Perhaps this has a lot to do with the patriarchal assumptions within our culture- the man is the “head” of the family, a wife takes her husband’s surname- it’s easy how this sort of thing can cause some men to feel almost a sense of ownership over their partners, which can have terrible consequences when they find themselves rejected.

And yet… another theme of this episode is forgiveness. Buffy- the very person whose forgiveness the ghost wants and needs- is not very forgiving indeed. She doesn’t advocate capital punishment, thankfully, but she espouses some very unpleasant and tabloidy opinions on crime and punishment. There’s an interesting contrast with Giles, here: he has far more reason to be angry and punitive, given the way in which he’s recently lost the woman he loves (and we see this in the way he needs to believe that the poltergeist is Jenny), but he isn’t. And what he says to Buffy is right- forgiveness is the answer. James is just a kid- he’s not the embodiment of patriarchy or misogyny, but in some ways a victim of it too.

All this is echoed variously in a lot of character stuff that’s going on, too. Obviously, there’s Giles’ continuing reaction to Jenny’s death, but there’s also Buffy, who finally forgives James. Perhaps now she can start to forgive herself and realise that Angel’s actions are not her fault. It’s fascinating that the re-enactment of the murder, between her and Angel, happens with the genders reversed. Suddenly, forgiveness and understanding are possible.

There’s also a lot of sexual jealousy with the Angel / Dru / Spike triangle. Spike is pretty much being openly cuckolded and mocked by this point, and there’s another gender reversal as Drusilla addresses him as “pet”. And suddenly we find out that he doesn’t need that wheelchair. There’s a season finale on the way; I foresee conflict.

Oh, and Snyder is very, very interesting here. We haven’t seen him for a while, but his semi-comic desire to persecute Buffy seems to have intensified. There’s another scene in which he discusses a cover-up of an obviously supernatural event, but this time he utters the blatant line “We’re on a Hellmouth.” This made my jaw hit the floor on my first viewing; there is a conspiracy, and Snyder is in on it. And we get our first mention of the Mayor, clearly a figure to inspire fear…

Oh, and apparently, according to my good friend Google, the Sadie Hawkins Dance is an American High School Tradition, not just something invented for the episode. I never knew that. There seem to be an awful lot of formal dances in American high schools!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: What’s My Line? Part One

“How do you know?”

“I lurk.”

There’s an awful lot going on in this episode, the first of Marti Noxon’s many writing credits; Buffy gets moody, she and Angel start to get really, properly, couply, and Xander uses the phrase “Scooby Gang” for the first time. Yay! But, as so often with Buffy, it’s all based around a theme, and the theme is handled brilliantly.

The theme is, superficially, careers, but in reality it’s a lot more than that. From the teenage perspective it can all be rather depressing and angsty to know that you’re on a carrier belt through school, university and some unknown career, with scarcely a moment to stop and think about what it is that you want. Buffy, of course has no choice, and this is getting her down, quite understandably. The career fair means nothing to her, as her life has already been mapped out for her by others, and her future doesn’t seem to include much in the way of wealth, happiness or, indeed, years.

Xander’s and Cordelia’s predicted careers are used more-or-less only as a little light relief, but Willow, as a high-flyer, has been pretty much head-hunted by a big IT tycoon- will she take the proffered apple? Interestingly, this means she gets to spend some time with the only other student also chosen- Oz. They meet at last.

Spike and Drusilla are such a sweet couple, in an incredibly perverted way, and it’s quite touching how Spike loves his girlfriend so much that he hires the Order of Taraka, an unstoppable bunch of demonic assassins, to kill Buffy. And Buffy’s response to the knowledge that she’s being marked for death is extremely well-done, as various strangers arrive in Sunnydale. Director David Solomon gives us a brilliant sequence of Buffy walking down the school corridor, becoming increasingly paranoid that every face she sees could be that of her killer.

The stress drives Buffy to flee, alone, to Angel, who significantly is the person she turns to when she’s most desperate. But Angel is out, doing the Batman thing to some bloke called Willie, and he’s soon attacked and defeated by a mysterious young lady with awesome fighting skills and a most peculiar accent. My God, though; ain’t she gorgeous?

Angel’s left in a cage, where he will eventually die when the Sun comes up. That’ll be the first element of the cliffhanger, then, this being our first two-parter. Isn’t it exciting? Part two is Cordelia and the maggot man. Urrgh!

The last shot, though, as Buffy and our mysterious young lady are mid-fight, is where she introduces herself as Kendra… the Vampire Slayer. Duh duh DUNNN.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: School Hard

“From now on we’re going to have a little less ritual and a lot more fun around here.”

At last we’ve reached School Hard. I was worried for a while that I wouldn’t get to it before Christmas, but here we are. This is a massive milestone and in some ways a reboot of the entire series; up to now the baddies have been rather clichéd, hierarchical and obsessed with ceremonies and other such things. They’ve been more than a little perfunctory, frankly. And this has been entirely appropriate; the show needed to establish the premise and the characters. It made sense to keep the baddies a little dull and perfunctory for a while, plus this very dullness allowed for the occasional bit of metatextual silliness about how predictable and trope-ridden the vampires were. All that ends here.

Spike is magnificent; charismatic, cool, irreverent, wearing a black leather trenchcoat which is, er, a bit like mine, and completely rewriting our ideas about how vampires are supposed to behave. He has absolutely no time for the kinds of rituals and ceremonies that have dominated vampire behaviour in Buffy up to this point and just wants to have some gloriously chaotic fun. There’s quite a parallel with what punk rock did to music in the ‘70s, so it’s appropriate that Spike should come across like a kind of blond Sid Vicious. He gets all the best lines, too (“Please! If every vampire who said he was at the Crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock.”).

James Marsters is amazing here; he just owns the screen. The accent isn’t quite perfect (he has particular trouble with his flat o’s, as in “not”), but that’s easily explained away if we suppose that Spike has spent quite some time in the United States. On the other hand, it sounds a bit modern and estuarised for someone who hasn’t lived in Britain for a while, but we mustn’t be picky. The mannerisms are all there from the start, and the contrast with the vampires we’ve seen thus far is huge.

Just as amazing is Juliet Landau as the uber-gothic and wonderfully mad Drusilla, who comes across like a character from Alice in Wonderland (“Do you like daisies? I plant them but they always die.”), especially with her dolls. It seems appropriate that she should be named after the Emperor Caligula’s favourite sister. She’s gloriously, sexually evil and the little erotic touches between her and Spike really highlight their amazing chemistry. This season is going to be fun.

Of course, this episode isn’t all Spike and Drusilla. The theme here is all the different lives that Buffy has to juggle (at least three, as she mentions), while somehow keeping them apart against all odds. It’s stressful and horrible to be a teenage girl, and this episode just piles on the pressure. We begin with Snyder piling extra pressure on Buffy by forcing her to arrange the parent / teacher evening or be expelled, which sets the benchmark. Later on we get two scenes in quick succession which pile on the pressure even more. Joyce reminds her daughter that she’s made sacrifices in moving towns, starting a new business and a new life, all because of her daughter’s behaviour in LA. Worse, she tells Buffy that she doesn’t want to be disappointed again, a horrible thing to hear.

As if this wasn’t enough (she’s already mixing up studying with her social life at the Bronze to fit everything in), along comes Giles, in the very next scene, with dire warnings about this St Vigeous thing on Saturday. The pressures on her have never been more intense. Her life is very complicated and this must be overwhelming for a teenage girl. And yet… it’s her mother who ultimately saves her from Spike, and Spike refers to the fact that she has a life as a strength.

Although, of course, there's an obvious parallel with John Maclean, of Die Hard fame, a similarly put-upon individual from the film which obviously inspired this episode.

Other interesting stuff happens, too. Joyce and Snyder meet for the first time, and clearly don’t like each other. And our hints that Snyder knows more than he’s letting on are confirmed at the end of the episode, as he and a senior police officer discuss a cover-up of what happened at the school. I wasn’t expecting this to happen quite so early.

Oh, and we have Angel pretending to be his evil former self, Angelus. How very interesting. We’re also told that Angelus “sired” Spike, and I think it’s pretty obvious what that means.

This is a pivotal episode, where the show really changes gears. The arrival of Spike and Drusilla has instantly made things seem more exciting, dangerous and fun, but perhaps equally important is the gradual emergence from the shadows of characters such as Joyce and Snyder.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: When She Was Bad

"There are some things I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense."

"No, actually that would be one of the five."

This is a bit of a perfunctory season opener, I suppose. It isn’t much to write home about, but it does what it’s supposed to, namely remind us what this series is about in case we’ve forgotten during the gap since the first season ended.

Buffy acting like a bit of a bitch because of her unresolved “issues” over “dying” don’t exactly ring very true, mainly because the reset button is pressed at the end and none of this can exactly be classed as character development. Nevertheless, there’s cool stuff in you look for it. The first seeds of the inevitable Willow / Xander relationship are sown, while Snyder continues to be hilarious, once again balancing menace and comic relief perfectly. It’s also nice to see that Cordelia, while still very much the vacuous queen bee on the surface, has enough intelligence not to go into denial about what happened just before the summer. It’s also nice that she should reveal a glimpse of her not-vacuous inner self as she calls out Buffy for her behaviour outside the Bronze. There’s actually a deeper and more likeable character inside, although of course we all love the surface Cordelia’s dialogue. Long may she reign.

There are a couple of very nice bits of metatextual fun in this episode, too. For a start, Buffy pretty much says out loud that the vampires and demons have taken the Summer off, out of sheer plot convenience, so that she can stay in LA with her dad! And the last shot leaves us in no doubt that Joss Whedon is well aware that the Anointed One is a rubbish villain. We shall have to look elsewhere for our Big Bad of the season.

Speaking of whom… I notice that David Boreanaz has now made it into the opening titles. Robia LaMorte hasn’t, but it still seems as though the expanded Scooby Gang is here to stay. And it’s very, very obvious that there are now sparks flying between Jenny and Giles.

Other than that, there isn’t much to say about this episode. I suppose Buffy’s “journey” (much though I hate to use the word like that!) is a bit of a microcosm of her character arc from last season in that she rejects the help of her civilian friends only to prevail by accepting them. I trust she’ll be back to normal this episode, although her out-of-character behaviour was cool for one thing; I love the bit where she goes all Batman and starts beating up random vampires for details on where her friends are being held!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Out of Mind, Out of Sight

“Being popular is not just my right. It’s my responsibility.”

We get a lot more in the way of witty lines than we did last week, but this is another so-so episode of The X-Files- er, Buffy. We get another metaphor for teenage life, as a friendless girl becomes literally invisible. And we get our first real look at Cordelia as something more than comic relief. Oh, and did someone say that men in black were in the zeitgeist during 1997?

Oh, and as I’m writing this, my iTunes library is on shuffle. It’s playing Metallica’s “Invisible Kid”, appropriately enough. And the metaphor is a good one. But I don’t like Giles’ explanation that it’s quantum mechanics; this is science fiction, not horror / fantasy, and this is too early in the show’s run for that kind of extreme playing around with the genre. You need to fully establish rules before you break them. Besides, I’m no scientist, but even I know that the phenomenon of particles only being in one definite place one they’re observed only works on the quantum level; once one gets above a certain (very small) size, it’s classical physics all the way.

Oh, and this May Queen thing. That’s one of those traditions they have in American High Schools that I know nothing about. Is it something of a trope for the most popular girl to get elected? It’s a nice framework for some fun with Cordelia, anyway. She’s a fantastic character, and in this episode she gets all the best lines. My favourite is when she dismisses a girl she ran over on her bike: “It’s the most traumatic event of my life, and she’s trying to make it about her legs.”

And yet, we get more hints of a deeper and more intelligent Cordelia beneath this popular and vacuous front. Her heart-to-heart with Buffy is gripping, and we get a glimpse into a much more self-aware and psychologically astute Cordelia; she “can be surrounded by people and be completely alone.” Her desire for popularity is just another way of coping with the anxieties of being a teenager. She’s a fascinating character, and it’s great to see the beginnings of her involvement with the Scooby Gang. She’s in on the secret, sort of.

Oh, and Angel pops by to be all mysterious and to establish a bit of a rapport with Giles, which has to happen at some point. He’s also gone to get a book about some prophecy, in the season’s most obvious bit of arc stuff. That’ll be the McGuffin for the season finale, then. Oh, and the Master has a big plan. Gosh.

Oh, and there’s loads more fun with Principal Snyder. Of course, the character, in his role of obstructive authority figure, has to tread a fine line between being annoying and losing credibility, but he’s achieving this perfectly by being funny and seeming yet again as though he may know exactly what’s going on: “Dead? What are you, ghouls? There are no dead students here. This week.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Puppet Show

“That’s the kind of woolly, liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.”

I love, love, love this episode. It’s not just the ventriloquist dummy demon hunter with the wandering hands. It’s not just the introduction of the fabulous Principal Snyder. It’s not just the perfect banter between the Scoobies. It’s the wit of the script and its sheer sense of fun. Dean Batali and Rob Des Hotel impressed with Never Kill a Boy on a First Date, but with this one they become the first writers to approach the high standards of Joss Whedon himself.

Principal Snyder is an utter delight, and Armin “Quark” Shimerman is perfect casting. This character, as Giles acknowledges, is an authority figure with the power to make life very difficult for the Scoobies, and it’s essential that he doesn’t end up turning into a character who exists purely to annoy and frustrate the viewer by placing arbitrary obstacles. There are good signs that this isn’t going to happen, though; while remaining a character with real presence, he’s a brilliant comic character. He lays out his position from the start (“My predecessor, Mr. Flutie, may have gone for all that touchy-feely, relating nonsense. But he was eaten. You’re in my world now.”

In hindsight, though, there are two rather interesting sides to the character. Firstly, with this being his first episode, the writers are able to have fun by using him as a red herring. Secondly, much though his lines about recent weird events and being eaten are played for laughs, they could be taken as hints that he already knows perfectly well about the Hellmouth, and what’s going on. Two of his run-ins with Buffy, where he asserts his presence assertively while not actually stopping her from doing anything, might also be taken as hints that he knows more than he’s letting on. It’s tempting to speculate that the episode title may be clever than it seems and be referring to him as puppet master, although sadly I think this might be going way too far.

Great though this is as a comedy, it also works brilliantly as a surprisingly layered whodunit. I for one had no idea of whom the demonic murderer would turn out to be, and the attempted method of killing Giles with a guillotine was delightfully over the top.

Sid’s great, isn’t he? If a fight scene between him and Buffy isn’t cool enough, the big reveal is even better. We also learn of a previous, Korean, Slayer back in the ‘30’s with whom Sid, er, had relations. And the scene where Buffy removes his naughty hand from her leg is priceless. All the same, though, there’s real pathos at his tragic death.

The ending is wonderfully witty; both the demon and Sid have literally died on stage before the curtain opens; now it’s the turn of the Scoobies to do the same in public!