BtVS Season 1: The Puppet Show
Sep. 30th, 2008 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightYesterday, for the first time since early April (!!!) I finally got around to carrying on with my re-watch of BtVS season 1. This was partly to stop myself rushing ahead too precipitately with BSG season 4, but is still a very enjoyable thing to do for its own sake. Once again, I'm pleasantly surprised by how little the show appears to have dated in most respects (though I suppose I might not feel the same if I was up-to-date with the latest version of Valleyspeak).
A-anyway, I know that people have been re-watching old BtVS episodes elsewhere on LJ, but I haven't managed to keep up with my own re-watch let alone with anyone else's, so I'm just going to plough on at my own pace.
Today's episode was The Puppet Show, which again proved to be much better than I remembered –was, in fact, a nice, tightly-written little episode with some good suspense, an enjoyable climax and some great funny moments – not to mention the usual Jossian witty dialogue.
I’m not sure if there was an overall ‘lesson’ to this one unless it’s that things are not always what they seem, which should probably be the Sunnydale town motto, or one of them.
I'm also not sure we learned an awful lot more about Buffy and her friends, but then I'd have to re-read my previous reviews to discover what I feel I've learned so far, so maybe it suffices to say that Buffy is very take-charge, as she has been all season, and her instinct, which is often spot-on, is to trust Sid, which is eventually justified. I think she feels a sense of kinship with him when she hears his story – another demon hunter staring death in the face -not to mention that Sid is quite charming in a louche sort of way – for a puppet. Also, it's always nice to get little glimpses in passing of the lives of previous Slayers, because it gives depth to the show's mythology, as long as whole bunches of them don't start cluttering up the place.
Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles are becoming a tight-knit little group, very much still outsiders and not as insular as they become later when they weren't outsiders any more. They work well together, even if it's with snark. Speaking of which, Principal Snyder's first appearance in the show is hilarious, and he gets nearly all the best lines. He comes across as an unpleasant control freak, who will prove to be (ultimately fatally) out of his depth, and that starts here, when he makes his speech to Giles about the school becoming a quieter place now he's in charge, only to be interrupted by the sounds of horrible screaming.
There are lots of nice little character moments for Buffy and the others, including Giles's satisfied, and unseen, smirk when Snyder orders Buffy and her friends to take part in the talent contest. Then there's Cordelia's utter and total self-involvement, as shown in her scene with Xander after the horrible murder of Emily, and there's Willow's shyness and fear of performing in public (not something she's alone in) and there's poor Joyce still trying to be a caring, involved parent and yet again getting the rebuff from Buffy for reasons she's completely clueless about.
As I said, the plot is set up pretty well, with not one but three believable candidates for the roll of murderer – Morgan, Principal Snyder and Sid the dummy – and the resolution is both quietly satisfying (the demon gets a taste of its own medicine), sad, with the final demise of Sid, and ultimately hilarious when the curtain is drawn aside leaving our heroes frozen in a bizarre modern art installation-style tableau.
As Snyder says: What is it? Avant garde?
Trivial stuff
Judging by the death of Emily, it seems that in spite of Sunnydale High School's high mortality rate, the students still haven't learned to run like hell at the first sight/sound of anything odd, but still go blithely investigating it.
Sid the dummy, before he’s revealed as a good guy, is actually way creepier than most, if not all, of the demons in season 1.
Considering what they've already been through this season, isn't Xander's scepticism about the dummy being alive a little odd? I suppose it’s just an early use of him in his devil’s advocate role, which he fulfils quite a lot over the course of the show.
Also I note that Giles is still saying all demons are just 100% pure evil, as if he really believes it and we are supposed to too.
The episode doesn't suffer at all from lack of Angel.
Silly things
Giles looks totally gorgeous. Every time I see one of these early episodes again, I'm stunned by how good-looking ASH was (and he's not bad now, if Saturday's episode of that daft Merlin thing is anything to go by) and also stunned by the fact that the audience at the time was supposed to think of him as this stuffy old fogey. Rarely has a man in tweed looked less stuffy.
:shakes head:
Buffy seems to have forgotten her skirt/trousers altogether for large parts of this episode and gone out in just a top.
:shakes head again:
Best line
It's a tie between
Snyder: There are some things I will not tolerate. Students lingering after school, horrible murders with hearts being removed. And also smoking.
And
Cordelia (re: Emily's death): All I can think is, it could have been me!
Xander: We can dream.
A-anyway, I know that people have been re-watching old BtVS episodes elsewhere on LJ, but I haven't managed to keep up with my own re-watch let alone with anyone else's, so I'm just going to plough on at my own pace.
Today's episode was The Puppet Show, which again proved to be much better than I remembered –was, in fact, a nice, tightly-written little episode with some good suspense, an enjoyable climax and some great funny moments – not to mention the usual Jossian witty dialogue.
I’m not sure if there was an overall ‘lesson’ to this one unless it’s that things are not always what they seem, which should probably be the Sunnydale town motto, or one of them.
I'm also not sure we learned an awful lot more about Buffy and her friends, but then I'd have to re-read my previous reviews to discover what I feel I've learned so far, so maybe it suffices to say that Buffy is very take-charge, as she has been all season, and her instinct, which is often spot-on, is to trust Sid, which is eventually justified. I think she feels a sense of kinship with him when she hears his story – another demon hunter staring death in the face -not to mention that Sid is quite charming in a louche sort of way – for a puppet. Also, it's always nice to get little glimpses in passing of the lives of previous Slayers, because it gives depth to the show's mythology, as long as whole bunches of them don't start cluttering up the place.
Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles are becoming a tight-knit little group, very much still outsiders and not as insular as they become later when they weren't outsiders any more. They work well together, even if it's with snark. Speaking of which, Principal Snyder's first appearance in the show is hilarious, and he gets nearly all the best lines. He comes across as an unpleasant control freak, who will prove to be (ultimately fatally) out of his depth, and that starts here, when he makes his speech to Giles about the school becoming a quieter place now he's in charge, only to be interrupted by the sounds of horrible screaming.
There are lots of nice little character moments for Buffy and the others, including Giles's satisfied, and unseen, smirk when Snyder orders Buffy and her friends to take part in the talent contest. Then there's Cordelia's utter and total self-involvement, as shown in her scene with Xander after the horrible murder of Emily, and there's Willow's shyness and fear of performing in public (not something she's alone in) and there's poor Joyce still trying to be a caring, involved parent and yet again getting the rebuff from Buffy for reasons she's completely clueless about.
As I said, the plot is set up pretty well, with not one but three believable candidates for the roll of murderer – Morgan, Principal Snyder and Sid the dummy – and the resolution is both quietly satisfying (the demon gets a taste of its own medicine), sad, with the final demise of Sid, and ultimately hilarious when the curtain is drawn aside leaving our heroes frozen in a bizarre modern art installation-style tableau.
As Snyder says: What is it? Avant garde?
Trivial stuff
Judging by the death of Emily, it seems that in spite of Sunnydale High School's high mortality rate, the students still haven't learned to run like hell at the first sight/sound of anything odd, but still go blithely investigating it.
Sid the dummy, before he’s revealed as a good guy, is actually way creepier than most, if not all, of the demons in season 1.
Considering what they've already been through this season, isn't Xander's scepticism about the dummy being alive a little odd? I suppose it’s just an early use of him in his devil’s advocate role, which he fulfils quite a lot over the course of the show.
Also I note that Giles is still saying all demons are just 100% pure evil, as if he really believes it and we are supposed to too.
The episode doesn't suffer at all from lack of Angel.
Silly things
Giles looks totally gorgeous. Every time I see one of these early episodes again, I'm stunned by how good-looking ASH was (and he's not bad now, if Saturday's episode of that daft Merlin thing is anything to go by) and also stunned by the fact that the audience at the time was supposed to think of him as this stuffy old fogey. Rarely has a man in tweed looked less stuffy.
:shakes head:
Buffy seems to have forgotten her skirt/trousers altogether for large parts of this episode and gone out in just a top.
:shakes head again:
Best line
It's a tie between
Snyder: There are some things I will not tolerate. Students lingering after school, horrible murders with hearts being removed. And also smoking.
And
Cordelia (re: Emily's death): All I can think is, it could have been me!
Xander: We can dream.