Buffy the Vampire Slayer slays the competition!
Written: May 25 '00 (Updated Feb 04 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The writing is absolutely stunning, and almost every episode is better than the last.
Cons: You might have some catching up to do...
The Bottom Line: It's the best show on television. No, seriously. Words can't describe it; I've only attempted.
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| lizzamay's Full Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer |
I've analyzed the same episode, but it's new analysis. I kept my review at season 4 because there's just too much to write if I continue. I'll probably address those in reviews of the DVDs. Enjoy!
OK, before I start -- somebody totally jacked my cute pun in the review title. Rawr!
Also, I've noticed that many of the poor reviews for this show come from people who have "tried" to watch the show, or people who have "seen my first episode last week." Folks, one of the first things you have to know about this show is that you can't develop a full appreciation for its genius and style by watching a single episode -- unless that single episode is hand-picked by a Buffy fanatic and served to you with complimentary side-dishes of commentary and back-story. Buffy is a great show, but true fandom requires the commitment of learning its history. If you watch a random episode by yourself, you may find the show to be humorous or cute, but you're not going to appreciate it at its full value. The characters are richly developed and the morals and themes shift as the characters grow.
OK, on to the two-year-old review.
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I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer since day one, and I have to say that it's really matured. It's become a a commentary on society and relationships, and the writers do a surprisingly amazing job of incorporating vampires and other demons into that mix ;-)
First of all, don't go into it expecting it to be ANYTHING like the movie. Though both the movie and the show are the products of the same mind (Joss Whedon), the movie was a brainless, cheesy flick about a blonde chick with a wooden stake, while the show is a social commentary in which the writers take thrilling and suspenseful plots and weave into them thought-provoking metaphors. Speaking of Joss Whedon... he is a deity, an absolute deity. The man wrote a musical episode -- we're talking cheese Broadway-style musical with flashing lights and dancing -- and composed the entire thing himself. Not only that, but the actors in the episode were all singing with their own voices. Some of those people can SING! Wow. Check out the soundtrack; the episode was called "Once More, With Feeling."
A perfect example of the show's excellence is the fourth-season premiere. On the surface, it is merely another episode in which Buffy finds her vampire, fights it, and slays it, but this episode gives new meaning to the phrase "facing your demons"; the viewers share Buffy's insecurities upon finding herself swallowed up in the enormity of college. As a new college student myself [or at least, I was when I wrote this], I can relate to the feeling :-) We understand her feeling of inferiority; she's never been a good student, and she now finds herself surrounded by highly intelligent people. The audience also realizes that the vampires she fights in this episode are not just vampires; they represent her feelings of intimidation. When she finally triumphs, we know that she'll survive freshman year. :-) (it's really better than that; my description doesn't do the episode justice.)
When you first watch BTVS, it may seem a little "out there," give it a chance - keep watching for a few episodes. If possible, watch it with someone who's been watching for a while; it'll be nice to have someone to clue you in on some of the in-jokes. Another option is to buy the DVDs and get yourself hooked one glorious episode at a time. I'm doing that with my girlfriend; we bought season four and season five from the UK and we're in the middle of season five now.
The blend of suspense, horror (one outstanding episode, "Hush," was one of the scariest in the series, despite the absence of dialogue for nearly 28 minutes of the 48 minute episode), irony, and comic relief (often in the form of an "impotent" British vampire, Spike) will have your eyes glued to your set in no time! :-)
While Buffy the Vampire Slayer has matured since its birth several seasons ago, season 4's finale was its transition from wise adolescent to intellectual adult. The previous episode, in which the group invokes the power of past slayers through a spell, was itself worthy of finale status, and included some of the most amazing special effects the show has seen so far (e.g. Buffy calmly puts her hand in front of her and the bullet flying at her splits into iridescent doves.) The episode was beautiful, and I wasn't sure how the writers could possibly top that, since the finale is supposed to be among the best episodes of the season.
The finale, entitled "Restless," ties up the season in a sequence of dreams that could only be truly described by comparing them to the surrealist works of Samuel Beckett (Endgame, Waiting for Godot). It was one of those episodes that you have to watch twice; at first glance, it seems like nothing more than silliness and absurdity (albeit rather enjoyable silliness and absurdity), but when you watch it the second time, everything falls into place, and you smile and marvel at the writers' genius.
Again, there's so much more to discuss when it comes to Buffy. I've only stopped at season 4 because that's when I originally reviewed the show.
If you are a regular watcher (no pun intended) and you live somewhere that hasn't shown season 4 yet (Africa, I think, is a couple seasons behind), please stop reading now as you will enjoy it more if you don't know what to expect.
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This was an epinion I wrote of the episode shortly after it aired. As I've watched more and more I realize how off my original analysis was.
Behold:
Throughout the season, Willow struggles to keep her new relationship with her "friend" Tara a secret from the rest of her friends. In her dream, she finds herself facing the realization that sooner or later, people will find out. Her dream sequence relays the contrast between the comfort she feels when she's with Tara and the unknown reactions she faces when people discover her secret.
On the surface, that's her fear. But we're living in a different time, and Willow's concerns are largely the concerns of any person developing new relationships; she can't deal with the contrast between her self-image and the image the rest of the world sees. Even the viewer recognizes how much she's grown, but in her mind she's still the same little Sears girl who reads "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" for her summer book report -- and once people see her for who she really is, they won't love her anymore. I think everybody has that discrepancy, at least to some degree.
I like the part where Harmony's jumping around trying to bite Giles. She's so... not scary. She never was. Even when she tried to be, she never was. Sheesh -- even in high school she wasn't a leader, only a follower in the "in-crowd," which she's kinda part of now, as a vampire. Hmm. Never thought of that.
Xander, silly hormone-driven teenage boy that he is, can't seem to keep sex out of his dream, but despite that, the audience can see his frustration at being caught in a rut; he is the only member of the so-called "Scooby Gang" to not continue to college, and he still resides in his parents' basement. No matter where his dream takes him, all roads lead back to that basement, and upon looking up at the door (someone is on the other side pounding on it the whole time), he realizes that relying on his parents is "not the way out." If you get a chance to see this episode, be sure to watch for Anya's steering Xander's ice cream truck by "gesturing emphatically".
How wrong could I have been? I guess I interpreted this through the eyes of somebody in the same exact rut. I was still living at home and trying desperately to pretend I wasn't entirely dependent on my parents no matter how "independent" I tried to be. I slept at school, I worked night shifts, I found other places to stay... all the while burying my anchor deeper into the ground, right where it'd always been: in my parents' house. I made Xander's mistake; I ignored the realization that the way out was through my parents, not around them. When Xander looks up at the pounding door and says, "That's not the way out," he's just repeating to himself the same thing he's been repeating for years. Don't go up there. Too scary. Find another way. Pounding on the door. Find another way. Convince yourself you can keep going like this. You don't want to see what's on the other side of that door -- but all the while it's freedom you're avoiding. The way out IS up those stairs -- up the stairs and out the front door. Not the side door, not every other door in every other room, all of which lead back to the basement. The only way out is through it, and you can't get out without facing your parents head-on, and it might rip your heart out doing it, but that's the only way.
The part where Buffy's in the sandbox... and she calls Xander "big brother." If I wanted to reach I could say that he's kinda like "big brother" in the sense that he watches everything... but I'm not that desperate. No, I think that's like, a turning point; until this point he views Buffy in a not-so-platonic manner; he's in "love" with her. Suddenly his love for Buffy takes on a new importance; he no longer lusts wistfully; he knows what kind of love this is, so to speak. "Brother."
Giles' dream is by far the most comedic; at first, Buffy drags him through a carnival scene while Giles' recurring-character girlfriend pushes a stroller, presumably Buffy's. This reminds the viewer that Giles lost his watchership because the Council determined that Giles had a father's love for Buffy and therefore couldn't be an effective watcher (i.e. trainer). Following this scene is a hilarious moment in which Spike provides words of wisdom, as he is wont to do on occasion. He reminds Giles that he has to figure things out; he does, after all, have that "swishy frontal lobe." Watch for Spike's charming "poses" (he's hired himself out as a sideshow freak, since he's a vampire).
Giles then moves on to the Bronze (the local night club), where he finds Willow and Xander, who have already suffered the fate they met in their dreams. The three try to figure out what is causing the dreams while Anya does a matter-of-fact stand-up-routine. "It was the duck who spoke, and not the man. Thank you." Giles struggles with his desires to have his own life; Willow says, "You know, this is all your fault" and Giles responds, "... I have my own gig, you know." He then proceeds to figure out the answer to the puzzle a la rock musical; he sings the entire solution on stage to an audience of screaming fans. *giggling* Listen for his dramatic concluding lyric: "Xander, help Willow, and try not to bleed on my couch; I've just had it steam-cleaned." Giles then follows the microphone cord to his own fate, realizing the source of the dreams along the way.
The entire season had Giles trying to find his "gig," but as we learn later, he can't do it as long as he's still that guy reminding Buffy not to tilt her elbow. And this may be stretching it, but he can't have a real relationship with a woman when Buffy is in the picture, because as long as she is, the woman will have to take on a share of Giles' responsibility for Buffy, e.g. Olivia pushing the empty stroller. The stroller always gets overturned, or its neck snapped by a vicious ex-champion vampire with no soul.
I should mention the Cheese Guy now; throughout all four dream sequences, a goofy-looking man appears with a cheese tray or slices of cheese. I think this implies that the writers acknowledge that there are some "cheesy" moments on the series; this man appears during them, in this episode. In Giles' dream, he appears right after Spike makes one of the dorkiest "bad-guy vampire" poses you could imagine. Cheese Guy walks by Giles, wearing two slices of cheese on his bald head, and states, "I wear the cheese; it does not wear me." I love that line... The writers know there are cheesy moments, but they have a handle on them and don't let them overshadow the real stories. (Also, Cheese Guy could refer to the proverbial "Big Cheese," since the episode was both written and directed by the show's executive producer, Joss Whedon.)
Joss claims this is the part of the dream that had no meaning, because there's always that part... but I still think that significance is there, whether or not it was conscious.
Buffy's dream is rather amazing. She finds herself back in high school, searching for her friends. On the way, she passes her mother, who appears to be living in the walls, i.e. on the periphery of Buffy's new college life. She knows that she can break her mother out of the wall, but she gets distracted and continues on her way, leaving her mother behind to play with the mice.
Another thing to note is that everybody seems to be back in high school, despite the new college setting. Willow goes to her locker just before the bell rings... in college. I think when you first start college it's kind of hard to separate it from the kind of school you're used to -- academically, and also socially -- especially when you're going to school in the same city and with the same people as you did in high school. Something has to distinguish the two.
She then finds herself at the initiative, facing her boyfriend Riley and a now human Adam. After noting that the key element to their plan for world domination is "coffeemakers that think," Riley explains to Buffy that they "have important work here - a lot of filing, giving things names." This reflects the frustration that Buffy has had all season with the self-important initiative (aka the government project dedicated to capturing and analyzing demons); the folks at the initiative don't fully understand what they face, but they believe that what they're doing will save the world and they tend to look at Buffy as a nuisance when in fact she is their only hope.
In the commentary Joss talks about how somebody on the Internet pointed out how the men and the women in the episode approach things with different methods; Tara and Willow talk about waiting for things to reveal their true names, and later Riley and Adam do their whole shpiel about how they have important things to do -- "Lots of filing, giving things names."
There's also something else I just thought of. The initiative leaders and Buffy are kind of like Adam and Eve -- the initiative, like Adam, needs to name everything, to identify it, and to control it. However, as much as Adam (the biblical Adam) had the power to name things, it was Eve who had the power to change things; it was through her refusal to follow the "rules" that the human race aquired knowledge and set out into the real world. The serpent might as well have said, "Adam believes he creates knowledge... but come, eat of this tree and become a part of everything, and acquire true knowledge."
The initiative itself is Eden, a soldier's paradise where all the animals are in cages waiting to be named and devoured by scientists who think slicing them up will tell them more about what evil really means. Biblical Adam's names mean nothing to animals who will not answer to them. Professor Walsh named her creation "Adam" -- probably because he was to be the first of her new race of demon-hybrids... but the name only reflects her naivetee in believing that Adam had any connection to the mankind of his namesake; unlike man, who came from the earth and must someday return to it (that's what "Adam" means -- earth), the creatures that gave Adam life came from somewhere else, and only Buffy understands the implications underlying his origin. And while Maggie gave him a name, Buffy asks for his -- but "not a man among us can remember." All Maggie really created was a demon version of the initiative itself; Adam (demon Adam) seeks to understand how things work, but he does it the same way the initiative does it -- by killing the very thing he longs to understand. You can't understand how something works by cutting it apart; once you kill it, it no longer has the essence of life in it and it becomes a useless piece of non-working machinery. Buffy understands this; she turns to the ancient female energy -- the slayer's, in this case -- to defeat the enemy by tapping into the Everything around her.
Back to the dream...
Buffy finally finds herself in a desert, where she encounters Tara, who has been the voice of reason throughout the episode. Through Tara, the source of the nightmares is able to speak, and Buffy realizes that this force is the soul of the very first slayer, in her primitive form. It turns out that when the group invoked the power of past slayers, they released the power of the first one. Buffy has come face to face, literally, with her heritage.
Throughout the season, Buffy has been struggling with her birthright; the slayer is not supposed to be able to lead a normal life, with friends and school, but somehow she has been able to. She has, however, been feeling more and more distanced from her friends because of the pressures put on her. When she faces this lonely, primitive creature, she realizes, that she is not alone. Through Tara, the first slayer says, "The slayer does not walk in this world." (i.e. the slayer cannot have a normal life, but must be in perpetual battle.)
Why Tara? What is it about Tara that makes her everybody's voice of reason? She's kind of like the good-witch in The Craft; she already has that connection to everything. That's what makes her a true witch and not one of the lemon-bundt girls. She was born into the knowledge, unlike Willow, who learns her lessons the hard way.
I used to think this episode was about Buffy settling something inside her, but in fact it awakens her. Buffy realizes that she's not alone, but for the first time she recognizes that it's not just her friends who are by her side as she fights. She is not alone. This is a theme that gets played out a lot more on Angel, which has its own incredible insights into life and death and otherworldliness.
And there's so much prophecy.
"Faith and I just made that bed."
[ a flashback for you ]
Faith: Little sis coming. I know.
Buffy: So much to do before she gets here.
[ / flashback ]
Tara whispers, "Be back before Dawn."
More old analysis:
Buffy realizes what she's been forgetting all season
Later she declares, "You are not the source of me." Do you think that has some connection to the fact that technically Buffy no longer heralds from the slayer lineage? Faith carries the slayer line now; Buffy is her own creation. WHEN are they going to address this on the show??!?
and as the camera focuses on her at several different angles, she speaks these words to the first slayer, but also to herself:
"I am not alone...
I walk. I talk - I shop - I sneeze.
I'm going to be a fireman when the floods roll back.
There are trees in the desert since you left,
and I don't sleep on a bed of bones.
Now give me back my friends."
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
lizzamay
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Member: Lisa, aka Lizza
Location: Southern CA
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 147 members
About Me:
I was gone... but I'm back!
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