Unusual Buffy thread...

This topic didn't seem appropriate for Dollhouse or Firefly threads so I posted it here...

The most recent episode of Buffy I saw was probably when she went to college (her boyfriend was some soldier posing as a student or something). I wouldn't be bringing this show up but for a weird dream I had where the series finale had a twist ending with Buffy dying and becoming a vampire! I know (alright, I'm pretty sure) that's not what happened but the idea still lingers with me (usually I forget dreams as soon as I wake up) prompting the typing of this thread.

 

Well, Buffy was a vamp in a season 1 episode where the little boy's dreams become reality, twisted by the hellmouth into everyone's nightmares. (Zander has to confront the clown from his 6th birthday party, Cordeliea is dragged screaming into the chess club...)
Buffy in college with soldier-boy boyfriend is season 4, where, in my opinion, the show went to crap faster than a rollercoaster on a downward spiral to oblivion. I really wish they'd just stopped after season 3, when they were on their highest point. Oh well--then fans would have been screaming about a show cancelled in its prime. As it was, the dragged the show kicking and screaming down the the depth of idiocy until it was finally put to death as a mercy to everyone.


I always hate dreams based on TV shows. They're so unsatisfying.

 

It's Xander. And speak for yourself about it being the mercy of everyone and that it was crap at the end. Seasons four and six were a bit weak, but still enjoyable. And if everyone was so relieved, why is the new Buffy comic the most consistantly top selling comic for Dark Horse? Because it still has a strong fanbase and good stories.

Buffy becoming a Vampire was in "Nightmare" as mentioned. Reily Finn debuted in season four's "The Freshman" and Buffy found out who he was in "Hush". "Chosen", the live action series finale, featured Buffy having Willow use the Scythe to activate all 1800 potential Slayers, before taking about thirty Slayers and her group into the Hellmouth to destroy it. After references in Angel episodes, "Damage" and "The Girl In Question", we pick up the Scooby Gang's story in "The Long Way Home". Also known as season eight.

 

Well, I gave up on the series somewhere in season 5, and from what I heard, 6&7 were worse.
The musical episode was just horrific.
As for the comic, if they actually have good stories, it could work. Unfortunately, I didn't see any signs of one devoloping in the later seasons

 

Once More With Feeling may have been the cheesiest episode ever conceived, but it was still fun to watch.

 

I think you're confusing "Once More With Feeling" with "Every episode past Seeing Red."

 

No, "Once More with Feeling" was the horrific musical episode I was referring to.

Regardless of my opinions on the episodes, what do people think of the post that started this thead?

(sorry for the hijacking)

 

"Once More With Feeling" wasn't that bad. Otherwise it wouldn't have had it's own soundtrack, much less have a number of television shows doing musical episodes because of it.

 

Once More With Feeling was a triumph, and this is coming from someone who doesn't really like Buffy after season 3. I have the stand-alone dvd.

 

*cautiously pokes head into thread, takes a good look around* Well, now, truth be told what I actually do find somewhat confounding even now, my own personal take on it at least, is simply the fact that....well, some folks can I guess seem bound and determined to state with such seeming absolute, unequivocal certainty - that the latter seasons of "Buffy" are somehow eggregiously or dreadfully sub-par or that they simply don't measure up to the rest of the show's run, and even for that matter that...."the fans" as a community, I take it, are supposedly in general agreement that this is indeed the case, and that the show's quality or compelling nature was somehow lessened during those later seasons....like during four, five and six, and what I find equally bewildering is that people have said much the same about season *seven* as well....plainly confuzzling to me, that is, and....
We-ell now, honestly, I suppose that from my own personal stance on the matter at least, I do simply fail to see how anyone can so cavalierly claim that "everyone", or even the supposed vast majority of the fandom apparently, is in consensus that the latter seasons just don't compare, aren't nearly so good, interesting or involving.... Such a sentiment bewilders me, takes me aback to some extent, I suspect - just because....it was the latter seasons of "Buffy" - five, six and then through into seven, natch - with which *I* actually became a full-fledged fan too! : As a matter of fact, it was indeed the vaunted and famed, ingeniously dreamed-up and brilliantly-executed sixth-season musical episode, "Once More, With Feeling" which effectively and totally hooked me when I happened across it, that first airing....even now perhaps I can't say quite what compelled me to tune in, the subconscious pull which apoparently simply could not be denied, but....
Well, there I was, you see, and so that night I sat down and watched the musical and was thus completely drawn in and totally *delighted* by it as well....and right that moment yet another full-blown and devoted, forevermore "Buffy" fan was born, or at least entered the proverbial fold....indeed, yes, apparently I was rather later to it than some, but maybe in the end what matters most isn't whether one is early to it or late, even whether one is in on it from the outset....but rather more that one gets into it and cares enough about it....at *all*, then, be it in the shorter first season or the fifth, sixth or seventh....being a fan at all is the main thing here, far as I'm concerned, and that's what I'm by far and away more inclined to focus on anyway. But, well, yes - so you see, then, how it likely isn't so much fair to have all these blanket rote statements or generalizations flying around, wherein people so consistently if confoundingly claim that "no one" like or got into the later seasons....
Because, well, um, the thing of it there is that....*I* very much did, so doesn't that count for something too? - and, heck, after checking out the musical ep and of course being completely and irresistibly hooked from then on, well, naturally I was quite keen to go back and see the all the rest of what I'd apparently been missing out on all this time....something for which I suspect I was smacking myself upside the head a wee bit, even then. *wry chuckle* Now, at the time, it turned out that our Space network actually was going through airing the earlier "Buffy" and even "Angel" seasons (though for some unfathomable reason they stopped doing that a long while ago, and grrrr, argh, that's so *not* fair, by the way-!) - so I did surely greatly appreciate the opportunity that afforded me, to play some catch-up on earlier Buffy-verse happenings even as I was of course devotedly and loyally watching the sixth season as it aired every week....
And, actually, it was a fabulous thing for me and *very* much appreciated besides, to be able to properly bone up on my Buffy-dom and have that even better and clearer sense of all that had come before, in order to get from the beginning to where the show wa

 

Qui-Dawn, that was a very nicely written piece. You have me hanging my head sheepishly.

I can't speak for the majority of fandom, and never have. I can only say what I thought of the show at the time.
Of the first season, there are actually two episodes that are attrocious. Two episodes out of a season may not seem like much, but that's 1/6th of the season. Still, one of the key elements of the environment, for me, in Buffy was the oppressive atmosphere of highschool. Replace that with the open freedom of university and the show was much less satisfying.
To me, musical episodes spell the downfall of any show. It's a big "We're out of ideas so we're doing a musical" neon sign.
Not that I'm against musicals specifically. Just against having them in the middle of a non-musical show. I don't care if it's a Buffy Demon or a Scrubs brain tumor, these musicals just make me grit my teeth.

But that's me. I'm a cranky nit-picker.
and an inadvertant thread hijacker.

Getting back to the original post...

 

I always thought the end of Season five would have been a good way to wrap up the series, Buffy sacrificing herself to save the world.

 

"Once More With Feeling" came about because Joss Whedon is a fan of musicals and had always wanted to do that. During the run of both shows, Whedon would invite the cast and crew to his home for parties where they would read Shakespeare and socialize. On one such occassion, he started playing the piano and coaxed Tony Head into singing "Rocket Man". Which then lead to some of the others joining in. It was from this that Whedon realized that he had an opportunity to try something radical, which he spent the summer hiatus coming up with. OMWF was written and composed entirely by himself, with some help from veteran series composer Christophe Beck. It wasn't a desparate attempt for ratings, but a chance to do something that he knew that he could probably never get to do, as musical films are not popular these days. The popularity resulted in private screenings where fans could come and sing-along with the episode, in movie theaters, much like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". If not for FOX putting a cease and desist on the thing, recently, it'd still be going on. The episode was widely praised for it's inventiveness, which is why the other shows did it and is considered a landmark in television history for daring to do something outlandish and pulling it off successfully. Many a fan expected something like that for "Angel", but instead Whedon and company came up with the equally popular episode "Smile Time". Featuring the fan favorite debut of Puppet Angel.

 

It was great, but hardly a landmark. Xena, Warrior Princess did it first some years earlier, and was nominated for two Emmys in the process. I'm not a huge Xena fan, but credit where credit is due. You rather make it sound like Buffy broke new ground with the musical and lead the way for others, rather than being one particularly successful example of something that other shows had done in the past, and will continue to do in the future.

 

First, I never watched Xena. Second, more came following Buffy than they had for Xena.

 

Around June I finally broke down and put "Firefly" in my Netfix queue. I watched the pilot "Serenity" and "The Train Job" before I had to stop because Best Buy was closing in an hour and I had to buy the series. Since then, I've bought "Serenity" the movie and I've started Netfix-ing Buffy and Angel in order. I'm just starting season 5 of Buffy and 2 of Angel. Buffy is still great (I think it might have a lot to do with Alyson Hannigan *blushes*) but Angel isn't really keeping my attention. This is really great writing, and I can't wait to see what Joss Whedon comes up with in "Dollhouse!"

 

Give Angel time. It'll grow on you. As soon as you are done with both shows, pick up "Buffy The Vampire Slayer-Twilight: The Long Way Home", "Buffy The Vampire Slayer-Twilight: No Future For You" and the first arc in "Angel: After The Fall". Along with "Spike: Aslyum", "Spike: Shadow Puppets", "Tales Of The Vampires", "Tales Of The Slayers", "Haunted" and "Fray".

 

Yeah Angels a good show, the first season is a little slow but it really picks up after that.