The Reduced Shakespeare Company version of that 30 Days of BtVS meme

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Gacked from molly_may. Once upon a time, there was a show I loved called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Behind the cut, some of the reasons why I loved it. If you're looking for precise, short - or even definite answers (as opposed to woolly prevaricating) - here is probably not the place.



Day 1: Favourite Season

I'm really torn about this one, because I love season 7 so much, but I think I'm going to have to go with 5. For one thing, the plot of 7 is deeply flawed, for another, I think 5 is the season that has the best arcs for all the characters, from Buffy herself, to Spike, to Giles, to Xander, not forgetting Willow, Tara, Dawn and Anya along the way. Oh, and Joyce. Every character has their day - their moment in the sun - and the final episode is the whole season in microcosm. Pity the season Big Bad's so annoying, though the hobbits with leprosy do make up for it a bit.

Day 2: Favourite Episode

Very tough. There are episodes I love because they're so funny, or because they're so beautifully polished and clever (Hush springs to mind), or because my favourite character gets great stuff to do (Fool For Love and Intervention, I'm looking at you), but I'd have to say The Gift. As I said above, it's the perfect episode in many ways - very Jossian (back when that hadn't become tiresome), because there's such tragedy in it, but it's also very uplifting. And did I mention that every single character gets their moment? Wonderful.

Day 3: Favourite Song Used In An Episode

Hmm, torn between Transylvanian Concubine by Rasputina in Surprise in season 2 and We Are the Lucky Ones by Bif Naked in Harsh Light of Day in season 4. Such a pity Buffy's dancing with Parker to that second one. I'm also pretty fond of Pavlov's Bell by Aimee Mann in Sleeper in season 7.

Day 4: Favourite Female Character

It's Buffy - except in season 3, where I really don't like her that much. Never have managed to get over realising that we were supposed to feel sorry for Buffy, who had friends, family and a hunky not-boyfriend, over Faith, who had nothing.

Day 5: Least Favourite Female Character

The Guardian in End of Days in season 7. Worst dea ex machina ever - and not only worst, but most useless. Get back to that am dram production of Gotterdammerung for f**k's sake!

Day 6: Favourite Male Character

It's Spike. No, really. Honestly, I mean it. Stop looking so sceptical. I do like Giles rather a lot too, though.

Day 7: Least Favourite Male Character

I love Wesley in AtS (he's my favourite character on that show, in fact), but in BtVS season 3 he's a horrible American TV caricature Englishman. I haven't words for how much I loathe how he's written. For those of you who've read the Buffy comic, one of the reasons why the Faith arc -which most people seem to think is the best one - doesn't work for me, is because so much of it is based on a similar caricature - except even more innacurate - of Brits and Britland.

Day 8: Favourite Friendship

Erm..tough one. I'm not much of a Core Four fan. I'm going to choose Anya/Everyone Else, because I love the way poor Anya tries to fit in and be a good friend and girlfriend when she hasn't the least clue how to do it and no one likes her much. I adore her in the final three episodes of season 6.

Day 9: Favourite Romance

As we all know, romance doesn't have to be romantic, so I, too, am going to go with Spike/Buffy, though I liked most of the 'ships in the show in their time. Special mention for Xander/Anya, and for Spike/Drusilla, because they're so wonderfully creepy.

Day 10: Least Favourite Season

I'm going to have to go with 3. It's odd. Season 3 contains some of the best standalone eps in the show. I also love the Mayor and Faith. However, the season arc just doesn't do it for me. Not sure why not. I think it may have something to do with my aforementioned problems with the character of Buffy this season. I also find the Buffy/Angel 'ship a drag after Beauty and the Beasts except when it's being parodied as in The Zeppo, and when it ends in The Prom, which is so beautifully done. It's plain as plain that Angel is basically stuck in a holding pattern until he can go off to his own show.

Day 11: Least Favourite Romance

I hesitate to call it a romance, but Buffy/Parker. What an arsehole. I'm not too keen on Willow/Kennedy either, not so much because I don't like Kennedy as a concept (as it were). I think she's good for Willow. But Iyari Limon doesn't sell the 'ship to me, I'm afraid.

Day 12: Least Favourite Episode

Depends in what sense. I dislike Bad Eggs because I think it's just plain bad and even boring, and I dislike As You Were because I think the thinking behind it is so horribly flawed - not Buffy breaking up with Spike, but Riley sweeping in to show Buffy how crap her life is, and worst of all Buffy apologising to him for what happened in season 5. Yuck! Yeah, I'd probably better go with As You Were - though Bad Eggs is really pants.

Day 13: Favourite Potential Slayer

Amanda. Not for nothing did Joss (whose foibles were beginning to grate by that stage) decide to kill her in Chosen. She's far and away the most likeable of the Potentials. I kind of like Rona too, because of the sarcasm, but I don't think I can ever quite forgive her the 'ding-dong the witch is dead' remark from Empty Places.

Day 14: Favourite Female Villain

Drusilla by a very, very long way. Wonderful character.

Day 15: Favourite Male Villain

Angelus, I guess. Back in season 2, Joss really knew how to hit where it hurts and have you begging for more. And none of us could second-guess him.

Day 16: Episode You Like That Everyone Else Hates

I don't know if everyone else hates it, but I really enjoyed I Robot, You Jane when I did my season 1 rewatch in 2009. I thought it was very cleverly written.

Day 17: Character You Relate To The Most

Joyce Summers. My daughters were a few years younger than season 1 Buffy when we first started watching the show together. It has to be Joyce. In fact, I said so to Kristine Sutherland at one of those Collectormania events a few years back. I think I rather alarmed her.

Day 18: Character Who Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time

Well, IMO, Spike can never have enough screen time. But, being reasonable, Mr Platt, the school counsellor in Beauty and the Beasts in season 3. I thought he could have made a great recurring character. Also Mr Trick and pretty much any POC character, because yes, Joss, you are crap at including characters that don't come from your own social/ethnic milieu. I would also have loved, loved, loved more Ethan Rayne, and killing Ethan so cavalierly early in the Buffy comic is one of the things I can least forgive Joss for ever. So there. More Darla (real Darla, that is, not season 1 Darla) would have been nice too.

Day 19: Character You Like That Everyone Else Hates

Umm...Rona? Except for that one bitchy comment.

Day 20: Best Spike-centric Episode

I should say Fool For Love, I know I should. It's a brilliant episode - almost perfect. However, I have a big Thing for Souled Season 7 Spike so I have to go with Sleeper. That last scene in the basement just kills me. Honourable mention to Intervention.

Day 21: Best Willow-centric Episode

More season 7 love. I'm going to go with Same Time, Same Place, even though the Gnarl scene is the only scene in the whole of BtVS that I can't watch because it's so gross. But I love the final scene where Buffy gives Willow her strength.

Day 22: Best Xander-centric Episode

I adore The Zeppo. I think it's a little masterpiece. Honourable mention to The Replacement. If someone who had never watched BtVS asked me to recommend an episode to watch, I would probably go with one of these.

Day 23: Two Characters You Wanted To Get Together That Never Did

Spike and Angel, Spike and Giles, Giles and Ethan. Sorry. That's four characters, but again I can't pick just one couple.

Day 24: Favourite Example of 90s Special Effects

How about Buffy's mini-skirts? Okay, seriously, Praying Mantis Lady from Teacher's Pet is pretty terrible, but any time anyone's shown using a computer I fall about laughing. How did we ever manage with those horrid clunky-looking monitors?

Day 25: Favourite Buffyverse Saying

"Paralysed with not caring." I can't remember who said it, though.

Day 26: Favourite Scooby Moment

It has to be that moment in The Gift where the gang are tooling up to go and fight Glory, Spike and Giles have their Henry V moment, and then later Spike offers Willow his hipflask. The gang and the rocket launcher in Innocence is pretty good too.

Day 27: Cutest Moment

You know, I don't really do cute, but Buffy catching up with Giles at the beginning of Grave and the two of them bursting out laughing when Buffy tells Giles what has been going on is sort of cute.

Day 28: Character You Love To Hate

Principal Snyder. He's utterly horrid, but he's also funny. "Kids today need discipline. That's an unpopular word these days, 'discipline'. I know Principal Flutie would have said, 'Kids need understanding. Kids are human beings.' That's the kind of woolly-headed, liberal thinking that leads to being eaten." How can you not love to hate someone who says stuff like that?

Day 29: Episode You Hate That Everyone Else Loves

I don't know if people love it, but I think The Body is very overrated. There are some very good scenes, granted - the ones that move me most are the beginning one when Buffy is alone with Joyce's body, and the one where we see Buffy telling Dawn that Joyce is dead through the eyes of Dawn's class mates - but I get really irritated when people pick this episode as best episode ever, and get pissy about it not winning an Emmy, simply because it's so untypical of the show as a whole. I think it would have been wrong if it had won an Emmy, because of it being so untypical. It always comes across to me as Joss saying, "Look, see! I can, so, do proper writing and not just that silly fantasy stuff."

I also hate Seeing Red, even though it's a good episode, but I'm not opening that can of worms here.

Day 30: What Do You Think Made Buffy So Great

I think Joss did what he set out to do - create a seminal character who would have a huge influence (mostly for the better) on pop culture in general. Along the way, he also created a few other seminal characters, notably Angel and Spike. Oh, and the writing/acting were pretty good.

Edited: because it bugged the hell out of me seeing 'favourite' spelt wrong.

Comments

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Day 25: Favourite Buffyverse Saying

"Paralysed with not caring." I can't remember who said it, though.


That would be Spike.

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Was it? Really? Which episode?

[quinara]

Loving the love for Sleeper and the 'meh' on The Body. Also the dislike of S3. I concur!

[kerry-220.livejournal.com]

Triangle, to Xander about fighting Olaf.

(I knew one!)

[constance-b.livejournal.com]

Day 5: Yes, yes and yes.
And I'm much admiring everyone who manages to complete this meme. You have to pick one? Just one? One favourite episode?
Though it seems everyone agrees on their least favourite. There were worse eps overall, maybe, but nothing sticks in the memory like that rage inducing apology.

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

I'm gobstruck that anyone liked S7 that much :)

thanks for doing it, though, I enjoyed reading your answers!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

The Guardian in End of Days in season 7. Worse dea ex machina ever - and not only worst, but most useless. Get back to that am dram production of Gotterdammerung for f**k's sake!

...Yeah. Shoulda picked that one. I think the janitor snuck into the writing room while everyone was out for coffee.

Principal Snyder. He's utterly horrid, but he's also funny.

SNYDER! ♥ You know, I prefer the later seasons to the early ones, but even "Fool For Love" would have been approximately 41% better with added Snyder. I can't believe they had to kill him. Why couldn't he have run for Mayor instead?

...Woah. *stomps plotbunny*

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

I'm liking all the not-favoritism for S3. When I see all the mags pick it as the best, it annoys me. It's fine enough, but IMO, ultimately boring and as far as character arcs for the big 3 go, pretty pointless. Clothes Fluke pretty much sums up the whole season for me. A bunch of manufactured drama that doesn't lead anywhere.

The Body isn't my favorite either. I quite like the Buffy-Giles-Dawn scenes, but wasn't digging the Scoobs scenes. They felt too forced.

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

One of the things I found odd and unbelievable about "The Body" was the ambulance team driving off and leaving a teenage girl, who's obviously in shock, alone with the open-eyed, gaped-mouth corpse of her mother lying on the floor. I don't buy "We've got another call to take, so we have to go now." I've never heard of a paramedic doing such a thing -- if Joyce had begun to revive while they received the new call, their dispatcher would have found someone else to take the new assignment, so why couldn't they have told Dispatch that they were busy giving aid to a traumatized young girl? I see it as yet another case of Whedon ignoring logic in order to hike up the angst and drama -- and it didn't work, because the lack of logic destroyed any sense of angst for me!

[snickfic]

For those of you who've read the Buffy comic, one of the reasons why the Faith arc -which most people seem to think is the best one - doesn't work for me, is because so much of it is based on a similar caricature - except even more innacurate - of Brits and Britland.

FWIW, the reasons I love that arc have everything to do with Faith and Giles and Buffy and nothing to do with any of the English plot points. I totally understand being too distracted by bad depictions of one's home to appreciate anything else about it, though.

Season 3 contains some of the best standalone eps in the show.

Absolutely. But then there are others that just don't add up to anything. It's very hit-or-miss.

But, being reasonable, Mr Platt, the school counsellor in Beauty and the Beasts in season 3. I thought he could have made a great recurring character.

So true. Can you imagine if Buffy'd walked into his office and made that confession, and he hadn't been dead? It'd have made such a difference to her to have a semi-objective adult who was concerned with emotional well-being. Plus he was just cool.

the Gnarl scene is the only scene in the whole of BtVS that I can't watch because it's so gross.

Yes. I flat-out refused to show it to the (ex-)housemate when we watched the series.

Principal Snyder. He's utterly horrid, but he's also funny... How can you not love to hate someone who says stuff like that?

Aw. He'd probably go in my "character that you like that everyone else hates" category, if I did this. Because yes, he's horrid, but in such a petty and usually ineffectual way. More seriously, in a show all about world-ending evil, he's petty evil. He helps ground it, I think.

[jen-nsync-landl.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite Spike lines ever, and one that I employ most regularly. :)

[jen-nsync-landl.livejournal.com]

Agreed with so, so much of this, and it made a lovely I-should-be-prepping-for-class-by-rereading-that-book-on-Elizabeth I-but-it's-been-a-long-day-and-I-don't-really-want-to distraction. That's what tomorrow afternoon *before* the seminar is for, after all. ;)

Just time for one thought before I stumble off to bed: I do get where you are coming from on The Body, but I also plead guilty to being absolutely cut up by it. The moment later in the episode, beyond the horrible bit with Buffy being alone with the discovery of the body, that really kills me is Anya's "she'll never have eggs, or yawn, or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why" speech. I just lose it. There's something so sad about it; after meditating on the big picture, the hole that Joyce's absence will leave in Buffy's life, early in the episode, to turn sharply to such quotidian images of disruption and loss is terribly affecting there.

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

I think I love you. You mentioned the Reduced Shakespeare Company. NO ONE I KNOW KNOWS THEM. I am in love with Adam.

I have to disagree with you about s5 (its my fav too) GLORY IS AWESOME. Have you seen her shoes? Why yes i do score baddies on footwear. *is shallow like that*

HIGH FIVE ON ANYA/EVERYONE. GO ON SLAP MY HAND! SLAP IT!!

Yes on Darla!! She would have been awesome. S1 Darla annoyed me so much after seeing Angel.

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

Anya always has the best speeches.I love her. I hope you don't mind but I just sort of quoted your open_for_sunday drabble. I've been doing it.. ever since i read it. People are getting annoyed. I don't care though.. Slap My Hand is my new Leggo My Eggos.

[vic-amy-z.livejournal.com]

Brilliant meme. It's good to be reminded about the best bits in Season 7 as it's usually my least favourite. I totally agree about some of the Spike bits in 7 - the scene where he drapes himself on the cross absolutely kills me.

I also love The Prom, but probably for very different reasons! Might have a go at this list myself... [puts on thinking cap]

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Ah. I'd completely forgotten. Given that's my favourite Buffyverse saying, I'm pleased to learn it was my favourite character that said it.

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:)

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Nice to know there's some consensus. :) Never too sure what it is about season 3. If I want to watch a one-off episode I usually choose one from that season (Band Candy as often as not), but the arc just makes me go meh!

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Day 5: Yes, yes and yes.

She's just terrible, isn't she? She reminds me of that great prophet whatever character from Hitchhiker. Turns up at the very last minute and is no bloody use to anyone.

You have to pick one? Just one? One favourite episode?

Well, as you can see, I didn't really. I just nudged one slightly further forward than another.

There were worse eps overall, maybe, but nothing sticks in the memory like that rage inducing apology.

I know, and one of the worst things is that you know for absolute certain that Petrie didn't even think of it that way. He genuinely thought Buffy owed Riley an apology for not loving him enough.

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I'm gobstruck that anyone liked S7 that much :)

There're actually quite a lot of us, but we do realise it's a long way from perfect. I just love the Buffy/Spike stuff, and I appreciate Joss's heart was in the right place with that female empowerment montage, even if it didn't quite work if you squinted at it.

Glad you enjoyed. :)

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I think the janitor snuck into the writing room while everyone was out for coffee.

Is that the janitor from Scrubs, because I can see him thinking it quite hilarious messing things up like that?

Why couldn't he have run for Mayor instead?

...Woah. *stomps plotbunny*

Aww, poor bunny! :pets it: Please write it.

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When I see all the mags pick it as the best, it annoys me

Same here, likewise when people insist the show was never any good again afterwards.

Clothes Fluke pretty much sums up the whole season for me. A bunch of manufactured drama that doesn't lead anywhere.

Have to agree. I suppose quite momentous things do happen to the three main characters, but ultimately leaving school is the only real forward progression.

I quite like the Buffy-Giles-Dawn scenes, but wasn't digging the Scoobs scenes. They felt too forced.

I feel the same way. Never been moved by those scenes.

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It is pretty unbelievable. I can't even remember now if they ask Buffy if there's someone she can call.

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I totally understand being too distracted by bad depictions of one's home to appreciate anything else about it, though.

Well, the thing about that arc is that a lot of it does revolve around this Lady Gigi character and she's just so badly written (by someone who clearly has no clue about the place/milieu he's writing about but doesn't think it matters because none of his readers will realise) that the rest of it just collapses like a house of cards for me. I can't just ignore it.

It'd have made such a difference to her to have a semi-objective adult who was concerned with emotional well-being. Plus he was just cool.

Oh, he was very cool. What a waste!

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:(

I'm afraid Anya's speech just doesn't work for me. Emma is great, but I can't help thinking to myself that Anya is in fact a 1000 year old vengeance demon. She's killed hundreds of people. It just doesn't compute for me that she's so clueless about death.

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You mentioned the Reduced Shakespeare Company. NO ONE I KNOW KNOWS THEM

:) They are brilliant. I love their version of Wagner's Ring Cycle too (basically a bloke lighting a match and then jumping into a paddling pool).

Not being a shoe person I can't really comment on Glory's shoes. She's okay, but sometimes I feel like the valley girl persona is a wee bit OTT. (I suppose it's meant to be).

As for Darla, I don't really mind that much that there's not more of her in BtVS because she gets such a great arc in AtS (or I think so).

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I totally agree about some of the Spike bits in 7 - the scene where he drapes himself on the cross absolutely kills me.

Me too (see icon). I know season 7 is more likely to be loved by Spuffy 'shippers (though not all of them) than by other fans, but I do think it has some very good episodes. The arc is muddled, but its heart is in the right place.

I also love The Prom, but probably for very different reasons!

Why do you love it, then? I don't love it because Buffy and Angel broke up, btw, but because it handles the break up so beautifully, and also because of the class protector award thing which in retrospect I should have chosen as my favourite cute moment.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hehe, the reduced Shakespeare? Friends of mine just played that! And after it the reduced bible :)

More Darla and Ethan would indeed have been awesome. If S1 had not been the first season, Darla, the real Darla from later on would have made a completely amazing Big Bad.

[calturner.livejournal.com]

I struggled to choose my favourite season too. I love the later seasons more or less equally, so any one of them could be my favourite depending on my mood.

This meme is so much better done in one day!

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

Darla's arc is pretty fantastic on AtS. I just wish we could have seen her like that on BtVS. She was sort of ... annoying on Buffy.

BWAHAHA I will have to watch that. I do enjoy simplified opera.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

So much to agree with here! Except the spelling of "favorite", of course. Heh.

I do think Becoming II does just as good a job of giving everyone something important and awesome to do — and being tragic and uplifting ("Me.") — as The Gift, though. I prefer it because Angel more-or-less dies instead of Buffy, and I'm very firm about that being the more satisfying outcome. Plus: Drusilla but no Glory. Far more appealing for that alone, imo. Though The Gift has 100% more Shakespeare jokes...

Season 3 has loads of great episodes, and Faith, but the crushing boredom of the Angel/Buffy problem kills it. Snyder is horribly wonderful, though. As is Ripper threatening him.

Yes, much to love, and some things to love even more than love! Our show! ♥

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If S1 had not been the first season, Darla, the real Darla from later on would have made a completely amazing Big Bad.

She would, though I guess I'm glad she got the arc she did on AtS.

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I agree. Spread it out too much and it gives you too much of an excuse to vent.

[shapinglight]

Except the spelling of "favorite", of course. Heh.

:)

I agree that Becoming is very good, but unfortunately, due to reasons not unassociated with the Buffy comics, I'm not currently keen on the high school years.

Yes, much to love, and some things to love even more than love! Our show! ♥

Yes, it was good. All 7 seven seasons of it.