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14 February 2015 at 10:20 #38003
@purofilion
My favourite scene in the entire series (that doesn’t involve Willow in leather)
13 February 2015 at 22:30 #37993@purofilion
There was an interesting and subtle tweak to the broadcast dialogue, vis a vis the shooting script
“And I’ll never forget it.” was changed to the simpler, and less loaded “I won’t forget”. I only ever noticed that on this rewatch and I think you will see what a subtle bit of craft that tweak was (although not just yet).
Well. Hello kitty.
One of my bucket list items is to hang out under a tree with a Cheetah called Tiddles
(Yes, I know, kitty was a mountain lion – probably not the same one that tried to eat Elisha Cuthbert when 24 was being filmed)
12 February 2015 at 16:48 #37965@all
Bear in mind that people have grumbled about the casting of a mixed-race actor in The Musketeers.
By people who need to research Alexandre Dumas…
11 February 2015 at 18:16 #37947@jimthefish, @scaryb @purofilion
A note on Emma Caulfield and Anya.
Every moment of Anya’s character development could have been designed to build up to this:
ANYA
But I don’t understand!Something in her tone stops Will, and as she continues, she breaks down more and more…
ANYA (cont’d)
I don’t understand how this all
happens, how we go through this,
I mean I knew her and then she’s,
there’s just a body, I don’t
understand why she just can’t get
back in it and not be dead, it’s
stupid, it’s mortal and stupid,
Xander’s crying and not talking and
I was having fruit punch and I
thought that Joyce would never have
any more fruit punch and she’d never
have eggs, or yawn, or brush her
hair, not ever and no one will explain…It is the birth of human Anya (rather than post-demon) and Caulfield delivers the in truly breathtaking style.
And the kicker was pushing away Xander’s attempt at comfort. So real.
(Going back to an earlier note about aspect ratios – when the paramedic is talking to her, viewed from behind, in the 4:3 version Buffy is completely squeezed into the top left corner of the screen. In the pan and scan 16:9 that imagine is nowhere near as clear)
@scaryb – thanks for the kind words.
11 February 2015 at 13:34 #37939@purofilion
Brief, because on a deadline
And who is Buffy really?
And what? She is the Slayer, but she is a sister bound by a promise she made her now dead mother.
A good friend of mine uses the expression “Written from truth” and argues that all great writing is. I concur. The Body is without a question written from truth.
Buffy: Was it sudden?
Tara: No…yes…It’s always sudden.
I know that am not the only one for whom that simple exchange causes complete unspooling, still after all these years and reaction to it helps distinguish those who have been there from those who will be there. Barely 6 months after spending an eternity of three days in a room waiting for the breathing to stop. It’s always sudden.
Quite simply, one of the finest single episode of TV ever broadcast.
The payback for it is that you are about to see what, IMO, is perhaps the most brilliantly exposited metaphor in TV history.
9 February 2015 at 23:19 #37923Maybe it was an Angel re-watch that triggered my thinking: I suspect that in Angel it was deliberate (or at least not entirely unconscious) to contrast LA with small-town Sunnydale. His very first ‘client’ died (and that set up avenging Angel), but I wonder if part of the point is that in the big city there are always going to be many, many defeats.
9 February 2015 at 22:07 #37919Oh yes!
I confess I’d never really thought of the danger of Red Shirts before, just the lazy and/ or fearful light it shines on producers (can’t really blame the writers here – they have to work within confines).
But it does rather induce the viewer/ reader to minimise the impact of a killing. No-one important is lost so (in this case) we are left looking at the twisted love story rather than its costs.
One of the things that is awesome about Buffy is that things have consequences and Red Shirts are used very sparingly – even when the *mumblemumblemumble* turn up later there are no true Red Shirts. And with Riley, we had seen his vamp victim murdered three years before, when they could have grabbed somebody from Casting Central. Think of the craft that went into that handful of scenes.
And Tasha Yar doesn’t really counter-balance the vast population of Red Shirts that Star Trek, in its various guises, delivered.
Anyway, @purofilion is about to have her heart ripped out and stomped on. And then roasted. And then ripped out again.
9 February 2015 at 20:17 #37917@purofilion
typically, I felt sorry f0r her too…Spike is so…. helpful…
And I’m sure the couple Dru killed in the Bronze really felt the sorrow.
Just goes to show how dangerous a concept the Red Shirt is in fiction…
9 February 2015 at 10:23 #37913Yes, but you’re Scottish, so you don’t understand English accents!
9 February 2015 at 09:42 #37911@purofilion
I mean come on, she ‘binds him’ away from her house. What is up with her??
He’s evil. Evil is not now how he acts, it’s what he is. He can’t help it. He has no soul. He is behaving like and obsessive, like a stalker because the chip gives him enough space to develop twisted crushes.
Buffy knows that.
The only reason he is alive is because he is neutered by the chip and so defenceless, and the only reason he helps is because doing so lets him kill.
Buffy knows that.
It really doesn’t matter how much he thinks he wants to change, the instant the chip is removed he will revert.
Buffy knows that.
That’s what is up with her.
Crush is the episode which caused a measurable chunk of the fanbase to completely forget the premise of the show.
(Crush – a truly marvellous piece of work – is also the episode where my patience with Dick van Landaus’s over-acting crappy-accentedness finally cracked a little. I really wanted a director to say “Juliet, love. Less, less. You lived in England for ages, did you not listen to people?”)
8 February 2015 at 15:43 #37897RTD vs Moffat – now it’s personal 😉 Very amusing.
8 February 2015 at 12:53 #37896@purofilion
Jerry from ER!
Yup.
Now, Dawn seems to know something’s up -honestly, why oh why do these people not keep their voices down.
To be fair she is quite good with the sneaking around (a bit f a Summers Girl trait).
8 February 2015 at 02:07 #37892@purofilion
Who is the one person in the world you don’t break a promise to? Even if she hadn’t before, Dawn has a fierce protector now.
(This is from the shooting script, so may not be word for word as broadcast)
JOYCE
No, I guess it isn’t. I do know I was
pretty out of it. And I had – not a
dream exactly. More like, I had this
knowledge. It just came to me – like
truth, you know? Even though it didn’t
seem possible. Even though I shouldn’t
think such things.
BUFFY
What, Mom? It’s okay.Joyce says the next with difficulty.
JOYCE
That Dawn…
(pained)
She’s not mine, is she?Buffy takes this in for a long beat. Finally-
BUFFY
No.Joyce labors to understand.
JOYCE
She’s – she does belong to us though.
BUFFY
Yes. She does.
JOYCE
And she’s important. To the world.
Precious …Buffy nods. Joyce takes her hand.
JOYCE
As precious as you are to me?
Buffy nods again – trying to hold it together.JOYCE
Then we have to take care of her.
Promise me, Buffy – if anything
happens to me, if I don’t come
through this-
BUFFY
(cutting her off)
Mom-JOYCE
No. Let me finish. No matter what
she is, she still feels like my daughter,
and I have to know you’ll keep her safe.
You’ll love her like I love you.
Buffy fights tears.BUFFY
I promise.JOYCE
Good. Good…
Joyce seems to relax a bit. Lays back and pulls her daughter to her. Holds her tenderly.JOYCE
My sweet, brave Buffy.
What would I do without you?7 February 2015 at 23:20 #37889@purofilion
Should I have watched all of S1 before starting S5 of Buffy?
It isn’t essential, but there is a Angel companion piece to Fool For Love that is well worth catching up with. It sort of fleshes out the Buffyverse and gives a nice alternative perspective, but Angel does generally follow its own logic and tone.
There are, indeed, 7 seasons.
Masters was, also indeed, 42 – something he did a very good job of keeping quiet until after Buffy had finished. He’s only 2 years younger than me (although I’m more devilishly handsome, obviously).
(Lost started excellently, but then badly lost direction as it became a bit of a shaggy dog story – and then it was given a firm end date and it rediscovered it purpose and ended, IMO, superbly.)
Perdita is Honeysuckle’s sister.
So have you finished Listening To Fear yet?
7 February 2015 at 17:21 #37883Yep – although there is much of interest that is imminent and it is very much a continuing story. Whedon was carefully non-specific in a couple of his key concepts, which gave him plenty of wriggle room.
But the fundamental S5 theme (or rather one of its strands) is about to become more evident (but @purofilion needs to finish Listening to Fear first).
Michael Kitchen as Quentin. Now there’s an idea (with no disrespect to Harris Yulin).
7 February 2015 at 15:15 #37880Oh, and totally salute the Foyle’s War love. I :heart: Honeysuckle Weeks.
7 February 2015 at 15:14 #37879@purofilion @jimthefish
Marsters certainly delivers the goods (he has some very interesting things to say about it that it would be very premature to go into now), but back in “oooh! This is all new Buffy” days there wasa degree of resentment that the writers had developed a bit of a crush on him. Mistaken, IMO, except for a few moments quite a way down the road, but indicative of the care writers need to take. Some saddo on Usenet did an analysis of the shooting scripts to show how he had pushed out other characters. Which is really sad, if you think about it.
As far as spuffy/bangel – I am firmly in the camp of the administrators of smgfans.net (or com or whatever): a blanket ban of all discussion because it crowds all other discussion out, especially sensible discussion of the nature of the two relationships. And storytelling is far too important for that to happen. It also spawned Twilight, and I class that as a crime against humanity.
It is a source of some joy that, by-and-large, Who fandom has been spared such drivel.
What’s interesting in this arc is that Spike knows he is a monster, revels in being a monster – but thanks to the chip is having to grasp the unintended consequences of being that thing. But he doesn’t have what Angel had – a soul – and the clear question at this point is ‘does the chip create a quasi-soul’?
Curious pedantic fact: railway spikes have never been used in Britain, so his nickname never really made sense.
There are a couple of fun interviews with Mercedes McNab, who was 18 when she did her first scenes with Marsters, who was 42. You never really think of that sort of pressure on an actor.
Curious pedantic fact 2: Mercedes is the daughter of John McNab, Arsenal right back of the 1970s.
7 February 2015 at 10:27 #37865@purofilion
Yeah – Riley is definitely having an “I’m a hunky chap and can’t cope with a badass girlfriend” time, isn’t he? The attentive viewer will recognise the vampire girl as Sandy, who Vamp!Willow ….er … vamped in Doppelgangland.
I think Family is an a rather under-rated episode in fandom at large. As well as what @jimthefish says it lays out something that is important to the season as a whole in rather a clever way. But more on that later.
I’m remarkably prosaic, aren’t I?
I don’t know about that, but some clearer signposting about what you’re responding to would help in terms of spoiler avoidage 😉 If you’re on the ep I think you are you’ve just met Worst Snake Ever (they tried a new FX house and….it didn’t go well).
VERY imp that you avoid spoilers from here out.
7 February 2015 at 00:32 #37854@purofilion
I watched the last 2 eps of S5 last night, just for kicks, and had quite forgotten that the penultimate episode has my all time fave Buffy scene in it.
Not that I’m dropping hints to get on with it or anything.
Oh, no. No siree.
6 February 2015 at 18:16 #37846I know (by which I mean “was discussed in the Usenet days”) Whedon thought he had coined “wiggins” in whichever Buffy episode it was first used (possible WTTH) – but Alicia Silverstone used it in Clueless two years earlier.
I think there were probably a lot of people tossing around such Valley Speak (sometimes called Dawson Speak, for Dawson’s Creek) and a few got traction. I suspect ‘bite me’ is the most notable (probably alongside “as if”, but much more durable).
My personal favourite (I don’t think used in Buffy) remains “It’s was really very.”
Oi! @purofilion! Get watching!
6 February 2015 at 13:01 #37842‘Bite me’
I think it was in general use (it was certainly used in an early West Wing). I think it was just Valley Speak.
5 February 2015 at 21:19 #37823FAO @nick1235
*Innocent face**
4 February 2015 at 21:43 #37811@purofilion
Anyway, back to Dawn….
4 February 2015 at 18:23 #37808Courtesy of Popbitch:
(For overseas readers, Alex Jones is the slightly vacuous co-present of The One Show, a magazine show)
Alex did bamboozle Christopher Eccleston on the show last week…
…prior to going live, Chris and representative told them both : “No questions about Doctor Who AT ALL, Chris will NOT comment”. Poor Alex responded with “Oooo, were you in it then ?”4 February 2015 at 15:05 #37804@purofilion
When you finish Buffy/ Angel and you inevitably move on to Firefly – and after you have finished being outraged at its premature cancellation – you should listen to the commentary for Objects In Space. A Whedon special.
My impression is that with most commentaries, as @bluesqueakpip says, available people are rounded up and they get done in a single take in reaction to watching the episode ‘live’ and either haven’t bothered, of haven’t had time, to think about any points they might want to make.
4 February 2015 at 00:43 #37789@purofilion
I’m thinking S2 is tighter?
*spfllltftfftf*
I am only still watching out of morbid curiosity.
Man in the High Castle is on Amazon, so you may find it there (it is only at the pilot stage). It was interesting and well done, IMO.
2 February 2015 at 19:47 #37764I came this close >< to turning the Superbowl off after that extraordinary fluke catch (knowing that, being the Superbowl, the remaining minute or so could easily last 20 mins and it was already 3am). So glad I didn’t.
Now we just need the Red Sox to remember to turn up next season…
1 February 2015 at 00:55 #377251/10 for content, 0/10 for technical merit.
1 February 2015 at 00:50 #37724@Purofilion
People who analyse non-linear systems talk about being “over-confident in the current forecast”, leading change to be ignored and unaddressed until it is overwhelmingly upon us (chaotic, in the sense of chaos theory). Confirmation bias as part of the system. With monopolistic media it is easy to embed.
Then Greece comes out of the dark.
I think conservative (small “c”) analysts have been a little too over-confident in their current forecasts of late, giving the impression that Conservatives (big “c”) are impregnable.
1 February 2015 at 00:45 #37723Oh @nick1235, Nick Nick Nick.
There I was all overflowing with sympathy for your difficult circumstances and then you go and mention the “C” word.
As we say at my end of London:
Up yer arse, right up yer arse
Stick yer blue flag up yer arse,
From Stamford Bridge to Upton Park
Stick yer blue flag up yer arse. 😉
Depression is an absolute bastard fucker of an illness and all too much the treatment for it consists of the equivalent of yanking the crutches away from someone with a broken leg and saying: “Go on the, walk. We’ve told you how”.
Been there, done that. And, as ever, written about it.
Take care of yourself.
30 January 2015 at 22:07 #37694@purofilion
Oh good (the American ones don’t). They do something very cool in the S5 finale (which happened to the the 100th episode).
How far have you got?
30 January 2015 at 21:44 #37691Hey, @purofilion -do Oz Buffy DVDs have the “Previously on….”?
29 January 2015 at 21:52 #37673@purofilion
cockwomble
The writer Tony Grounds needed some authentic army slang for one of his shows – he asked on a football fan site I read, and a couple of ex-squadie fans came up with a fair few, of which ‘cockwomble’ was the only one remotely safe for broadcast.
And it amused me.
29 January 2015 at 16:50 #37669Further more, when you mention in comments the staff come of board at get all obnoxious at you… See this moronic exercise in not using captions, and the comments: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/ng-interactive/2015/jan/07/best-january-tv-shows-premieres-guide, most notably this total cockwomble
29 January 2015 at 01:01 #37661@purofilion
It has been established a couple of times (whenever Hank turned up, and a couple of other time I think) that Buffy is an only child.
They have barely started with the mind-fuck yet.
(And when the season is over I can unleash my pet peeve about a certain type of fans)
28 January 2015 at 16:59 #37659Ah, Emmerdale Farm in the days when it was on immediately before Crown Court. Young Jenna hadn’t even been born.
And then were the BBC2 test transmissions – usually corporate films about techie topics (Philips seemed to do a lot of them).
That and test matches in the days when commentators knew when to keep their gobs shut.
Our first remote control was wired (so didn’t get used much). DE bloomin’ R.
28 January 2015 at 13:46 #37657Rotate many foodstuffs…
28 January 2015 at 01:09 #37650C- for the technical merit, E+ for artistic impression (severe penalty for redundant capitalisation)
Somebody really needs to introduce you to the Christian interpretation of Led Zep’s Stairway to Heaven. It’s a hoot.
28 January 2015 at 01:01 #37649@purofilion
The film is available on YouTube now (Google really respect intellectual property see?). 1971. Richard Harris, Jenny Agutter.
27 January 2015 at 23:50 #37644Apropos of..well, not quite nothing, but this is a bit of writing I did a while ago. Not really linked to today’s stuff in Poland, other than en passant, but it felt appropriate to stick it up.
26 January 2015 at 19:20 #37624FAO @purofilion, @blenkinsopthebrave and the rest of the Aussie crew: if Hollywood was Aussie –
26 January 2015 at 16:51 #37623@purofilion
Also, I believe there were a few very obvious ‘connection’ lines or transition exposition
Almost certainly inserted as a result of a network Note, because network executives think everybody else is as stupid as they are.
25 January 2015 at 22:19 #37609@purofilion @jimthefish
I never had a problem with Jonathan and rather like Superstar for the chain-yanking of the fans in the titles (there is a much darker version of that in …ooooh… 30 or so episodes time). I like a bit of “meta” me. Also, I sort of see Jonathan as Xander without the benefit of some really fuckin’ cool gal pals with superpowers.
Danny Strong was one of the few non-main cast actors to appear in the unaired pilot (most notable for having Wrong Willow in it) as well as the series.
25 January 2015 at 00:31 #37592FATE CALLING PURO!!! FATE CALLING PURO!!!!
Don’t tempt me!
@purofilion
24 January 2015 at 23:52 #37590@Purofilion
(Moved back the to TV corner to keep stuff together)
BTW, I watched some of (what I thought) was the worst (no, say ‘not the best’) Buffy in ‘Put the I in Team’?
Is it just me, but whilst Crouse’s performance in parts was spectacular, some things just did not work at all?
And the ENDING?? What the hell happened! I get the vague motivation and the inevitable ‘pay off’ but jeepers!
Giles was great -as always, but there was little Willow time and everything seemed wrong: I can’t get my head around it! I will enjoy some episodes today -I gotta add I liked A New Man quite a bit!
Yes, you’ve pretty much run into the nub of the problems with S4 (you should probably avoid @jimthefish‘s blog until you’re done though). This was where contract problems arsed up the story, apparently, although it was fundamentally flawed, IMO, anyway.
But by my reckoning you still have This Year’s Girl/ Who Are You, featuring porn, (and a string of hardcore (not in a porn sense) Angel eps afterwards) as well a New Moon Rising (keep the kleenex handy) and Restless (make sure you watch it last!).
Still much awesome to come.
Yes. Mid-life crisis TV. Enough already. Also, I seriously doubt Wollaston’s judgement on anything. He’s a tool.
24 January 2015 at 14:59 #37583Yes, I was using the list as a guide.
@purofilion
Although a change of editor rendered some of Iain M Bank’s later works borderline unreadable, you should definitely explore his early Culture novels Consider Phoebus, A Player of Games, (Look To Windward is shockingly prophetic when you note the publication date and its dedication). Leave Inversions until you’ve read a few to see how clever it is.
Ballard is more of an acquired taste but “Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan” should be required reading. Not SF at all.
24 January 2015 at 13:01 #37575@purofilion
where should I begin?
This list is a decent guide and the list may well be published on Oz.
On that list, those that I have both read and recommend include:
- The Forever War (Joe Haldeman is the most under-rated writer, and when it comes to military SF achieves everything that Robert Heinlein fails miserably to);
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (8 pages of which inspired Blade Runner). Also, Now Wait For Last Year.
- The Stars My Desination ((aka Tiger Tiger). Alfred Bester also has The Demolished Man, which is also superb)
- Stand On Zanzibar (bizarrely, not as dated is its premise might suggest. Brunner is a bit of an oddball)
- The Dispossessed (and The Left Hand of Darkness). LeGuin is superb
- Sirens of Titan (and, for that matter anything by Kurt Vonnegut. You MUST read Slaughterhouse 5 – it is one of the great works of American literature. So it goes.)
- Time Machine and War of The Worlds (As much as anyone HG Wells was a true pioneer of SF)
- Timescape – but don’t skip ahead an read chapter headings!
- A Case of Conscience (James Blish wrote some lovely stuff, but this meeting of Science and the Vatican is marvellous)
- Rather than The City and The Stars, I would go with The Songs Of Distant Earth, by Arthur C Clarke. Also, Renzesvous With Rama (but NONE of the sequels, which he didn’t write). And 2001, obv.
- Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang (and I’d add Juniper Time from Kate Wilhelm)
- Ringworld (Larry Niven may be a right wing libertarian nutjob, but the boy can write)
- Tau Zero (includes the best explanation of relativity theory I have ever read AND the most sublime sleight of hand ever)
- Roadside Picnic (a bit of Soviet SF!)
Not yet read by me, but which everyone I know recommends:
- The Man in the High Castle
- Flowers for Algernon
- Riddley Walker
Ones I’d add (non-exhaustive). Can’t guarantee they are available
- Waystation by Clifford Simak
- A Canticle of Leibwitz (on a list lower down the linked page)
- The Gods Themselves (easily Asimov’s masterwork)
- The Book of the New Sun – Gene Wolfe
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Philip Jose Farmer (and many sequels if you like it)
- A Dream of Wessex (in fact pretty well anything by Christopher Priest)
- Rite of Passage by Alexia Panshin
- Almost anything by John Wyndham, but especially The Chrysalids
Everything above fulfils the criteria of being Good Fiction (posts passim)
23 January 2015 at 23:57 #37563@purofilion
Ah, well. According Margaret Atwood, neither Handmaid’s Tale nor Oryx & Crake are science fiction, despite there being no sensible definition of SF that excludes either.
Genre snobbery is a thing.
(As Theodore Sturgeon – source of a few bon mots – said “If it’s not good fiction, it’s not good science fiction.”)
23 January 2015 at 23:45 #37561One may make a distinction between the technical or imaginative quality and skill of one piece of writing over another, without needing to trash the author of the novice piece, their enthusiasm and milieu.
Good critique doesn’t show mercy and it judges quality, of which invention, skill, craft and bunch of other stuff are all componts. But the greatest of these is invention.
If the writer hasn’t bothered to invent before moving into someone else’s universe then he or she will get a right shoeing. It may be done with a scalpel or a bludgeon, but a shoeing it will be.
23 January 2015 at 23:34 #37558why not others
As I said if people have earned the right by demonstrating that that have what it takes to bring a fully realised idea to fruition, then why not indeed?
But if someone is just trying to take a short cut, to skip out the really hard part of writing, then they have no claim on the property, whether copyright has expired or not.
So first, ask your fan to demonstrate that s/he is a good enough writer. A single item of Mary Sue-free original short fiction might be all it takes, but nobody is entitled to a free pass.
It is a bleak truth that, these days, the writer might as well ask “What shelf at Waterstones will this sit on?” before even bothering to start to write.
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