[buffy@pylduck.com]

(Spoilers inevitable in posts. Be warned.)

[8:54:42 PM]

Oh, and I'm so looking forward to Buffy: The Musical!!!! I hope it lives up to its the accomplishments of "Hush" when the Buffy people took the idea of a film genre and played with it in the episode. In "Hush," I thought the writers were very clever to deal with silent film conventions as part of the storyline of silence. But they clearly weren't bound by it too much, and offered humorous parodies of silent-film affectations. The musical episode promises to be similarly self-reflective and witty.

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[8:50:51 PM]

Hmmm. Not a very scary Halloween episode last night. So you might be wondering what awful things I have to say about Xander this time. Well, plenty. He has such a fucking problem. I totally don't understand him at all. Why is he always so panicky about his relationship with Anya? If he loves her and wants to be with her, why does he have so much trouble with how people see him in that relationship? Because it all seems to boil down to his discomfort with being seen with Anya. What a jerk. He is still so insecure, even though he's supposedly an accomplished man now (has a steady job, has sex with his girlfriend, has as girlfriend, etc.). What is he afraid of? I guess my beef with the man is that he seems like a jerk for no reason. He has absolutely nothing to be ashamed about, and yet he is. He deserves all the unhappiness coming to him. Poor Anya, though.

So, bad Willow is increasingly interesting. They writers of the show are definitely working on eroding Willow's sense of right-and-wrong, playing with the ideas of usefulness, self-interest, and power. Willow's idea to shunt all non-fifteen-year-old-girls into an alternate dimension temporarily so she could find Dawn was just outrageous! And the ending when she makes Tara forget their fight . . . so creepy! How far will she go?

Dawn being naughty. I like her development as a teenager with a sense of needing to prove her worth / coolness (to the Scooby Gang; to her friends; to boys). I'm wondering now, though, if she might have some powers or something, maybe latent or just unused. Any Key residues? Because the vamp boy felt something special about Dawn. He attributes it to her being the Slayer's sister. But is that really it? And if so, does that mean she has some claim to Slayer-dom?

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[11:17:04 AM]

Annoying. I can see what the Buffy people are trying to do with Xander in terms of charting his coming-to-terms with his masculinity, but why does he have to be so odious? Xander is this young man who has just recently come into his entitlements as a man. He was always a geeky, outcast type. He never got any of the girls in school. He is wimpy; girls are always kicking his ass or saving it. BUT rather than coming to a different understanding of what it means to be a man, a good human being, he has become the embodiment of an awful man. After high school, he floundered for awhile. But then he got a girlfriend in Anya and suddenly became the arbiter of appropriate gender and "human" qualities. It's like once he had a woman to dominate, he could take on all these disgusting norms of being the man in charge, etc. etc. And when he job validation in his "manly" construction gig, instead of becoming comfortable in his man-ness, he just became even more obnoxious. Why didn't he stick up for Buffy? Sure, he doesn't want to lose his job, but couldn't he have done more to acknowledge what really happened with demons? Why must he make Buffy bear the brunt of emotional and psychological disjuncture (the other construction workers can't come to terms with the strange demons)? Although Anya, too, grates my nerves with her unquestioning embrace of consumer culture and ideals of submissive femininty, she at least offers some hope of a more complex character. When she stands up to Xander, yay! When she realizes how insignificant material wealth is (after Buffy's mom's death), yay! I know she's meant to be a comic character with her crazy devotion to capital accumulation. So how about turning the comic-ness into a critique of the drive to acquire material wealth?

I think it's an unfortunate cop-out for Giles to provide Buffy with money at the end of the episode. It would be very interesting for the show to continue with Buffy's dilemma of solvency. In high school, she had to deal with the difficulties of being a kid in high school. Why shouldn't she continue now, to deal with the difficulties of being an adult? Maybe the show will continue to make money an issue in the story, but with Giles's check, it seems like the issue won't be a fundamental one; it won't be one that really affects the development of storylines or how Buffy approaches her life.

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[10:55:33 AM]

Oh yeah, and what the fuck is up with the three "geeks"? SO utterly messed up. As I mentioned before, the show has definitely moved away from looking at the world through the eyes of "outcasts" to inhabiting the space of the hip and cool, further alienating those who didn't make the transition with them. It's really unfortunate, too, because both Jonathan and the robot-building guy seemed like they could've been very interesting characters to develop as occasional "sidekicks" for Buffy and the Scoobies. They are appropriately tortured enough to sympathize with what used to be a concern for Buffy -- protecting an uncaring world from utter destruction by demons and hell.

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[10:29:44 AM]

Let's see. What can I write about this latest episode of Buffy? Not much. I wasn't much impressed. I think these step-back-from-the-supernatural episodes are generally a hit-or-miss deal. They can be very well done and offer a lot of insight into the lives of Buffy and her friends, or they can be utterly and miserably pointless. I didn't get much out of this particular episode.

Sure, it's important that Buffy faces finances. But the episode seemed so stagnant, like it was so much a filler episode. Why, for example, didn't anyone (besides Anya) discuss the idea of people in the house getting jobs? At least next episode Buffy does the construction job thing. And speaking of Anya's idea -- what was so crazy about that idea? I hated Xander's dismissal of Anya and her ideas. He always does that, marks Anya as crazy ex-demon who doesn't understands "true" human-ness by ridiculing her. She is so right always to be upset that he never takes her side, although the way the characters are played, she comes across always as the whiny girlfriend. Very disturbing. At least Anya kicked some butt this episode. She didn't let Xander get away with his asshole-ness. He has absolutely no reason not to announce their engagement. If he's willing to ask her hand in marriage, he should damned well be ready to announce it. What's the point of keeping it secret? Jerk.

I usually talk to Cindy, the English department receptionist, a little about Buffy (she, too, is a fan). And she mentioned how she saw some of the re-runs of Buffy on FX and was shocked by how much nicer Xander was, how much more sympathetic, back in the first and second seasons. So true. How did he become such the enforcer of gender norms, anyways? I guess it was after he got his first girlfriend in Anya. It was after he saw how hopelessly in love with him she was. Why the cruelty towards her, though? Why must he assert so much control over someone who is already so willing to do anything for him?

I continue liking Spike. People who lurk in the shadows and at the edges of social circles are cool. Heh. (Identify much?)

Oh, and the blow-up between Giles and Willow. Soooo creepy. I guess Willow is well on her way to evilness. Heh heh. She threatened Giles. Mmm...

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[11:57:03 AM]

I just realized I hadn't posted about this past week's Buffy yet. I was in a very unhappy mood on Tuesday. I was very down, down, down. I almost didn't watch the show. *Gasp!* That's how depressed I was. But I did end up watching it and Roswell, too (though that was a waste of time).

Anyways, I was freaked out by the possessions in the episode. I have this thing about possessions. People suddenly going crazy with weird eyes and stuff. I thought the first mainfestation of the demon thing was the best. Buffy talking about the black arts and Willow's cold, calculated sacrifice of the fawn. Definitely points forebodingly to a Willow quickly spiralling out of control. In a way, I think it's inevitable that Willow will have to face the consequences of her witchcraft. But I also don't want her to be the "bad guy" in the season. I hope it's not something nearly as simple as all that. I hope Joss Whedon has something else up his sleeve, and that he weaves this narrative strand of power and control into another struggle.

Buffy's confession at the end of the episode was great. I kinda felt that it would've been wrong for Joss et al to send Buffy to hell when she died. After all, there has been such a big deal made of her heroism and reward in the afterlife. (Then again, she did die by mystical means, as Willow pointed out. But don't many Slayers die by mystical means, since that's what they do, deal with the mystical and demonic?) It was beautifully, achingly pathetic how Buffy described her afterlife, the utter contentment and rest she was finally able to enjoy. She just knew that everyone she loved and cared for was ok -- does that mean in the long run, or on earth? Did she know that everyone was going to end up in heaven, in peace? It's interesting how her afterlife was so isolated, detached from the idea of reuniting with loved ones. And yet, it was so utterly peaceful.

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[6:00:04 AM]

Yikes. The new [Buffy] site at UPN is so... RED. I'm not sure I like the character bios on the site. And all the writing on the site. It seems kind of simplistic and "hip." Makes me miss the early Buffy that I identified with so much because it was all about being "outsiders" in high school.

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[7:27:14 PM]

Yay for the return of Buffy!!!! The season premiere was exciting and I'm so happy they gave us two hours to bathe in the glow of Buffyness. :)

I was especially intrigued by Buffy's return to the place of her death. Willow's diagnosis of Buffy's condition a little earlier was that she is in shock. One theory of trauma-shock (and violent death would certainly be a traumatic experience) is that the traumatized returns constantly to the scene of rupture -- when the world changed irrevocably. And even in her not-quite lucid state, Buffy gravitated towards that tower. Up on the platform, she was about to repeat the trauma by jumping or falling. The traumatized return is a fear that the event will keep occuring for eternity, that there is nothing to stop it from happening (in the past, in the future, ever again, etc.).

The Scooby Gang's fighting is not really believable, though. They keep being incompetent and making blunders all the time, but they never get seriously hurt or killed. It just doesn't make any sense. And wouldn't they be more competent by now? I mean, they've been working at it for five years now. It seems like they do a lot of punching and stuff, too, rather than swift staking. But I guess it all fits in with the narrative of Buffy's importance and the necessity of her presence in Sunnydale yadda yadda.

Having Dawn reach Buffy was very thoughtful. It plays on this idea that there is some instinct, a strong connection between the essence of Buffy and the need to protect others, especially her family and loved ones.

(I'm not quite lucid myself with this cold.)

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