Buffy Halloween eps
Oct. 31st, 2011 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightHappy Halloween, everyone.
Whi-ich is a weird thing for me to be saying.
We do celebrate it over here, but to be honest, as a kid I was actually scared of Halloween, because I believed in ghosts and all that stuff. All part and parcel of my ongoing dislike of horror films etc.
I did try to do my best to get into the spirit of it this year, though, in between angst-ridden wrestling with my Nekid Numbers Halloween fic, which is now going to be a post-Halloween fic, if it's a fic at all. To whit, I re-watched all three BtVS Halloween eps. Having done so, my conclusions are as follows:
BtVS season 2: Halloween. Boy, the Buffy comics have had a bad effect on me! I can't watch a pre-Angelus arc Bangel scene without feeling slightly queasy. And when Xander tells Cordy to give it up because there's 'no way she'll ever get between those two', it feels like he's singing from the Extremist Bangel Fans' hymn sheet. Also, seeing Ethan Rayne makes me very, very cross all over again at how cavalierly the character was disposed of in the comic.
That said, this is the best out of the three Halloween eps. It has everything going for it - humour, plot, terrific guest characters (ie. Spike, Dru and Ethan Rayne). Cordelia is delightfully bitchy (and her little scene with Angel at the Bronze, where she actually makes him laugh, shows us in a nutshell why she is so much better suited to him than Buffy is). It's also a great episode for Willow and reminds me again how much I liked her relationship with Oz at the beginning. Even Xander isn't that annoying (and I usually find early season Xander very annoying), and Ripper Giles is just cool. This was our first sight of him, and I can remember the impact it had on me the first time I saw it (though I also remember wincing a little at the 'Ripper' name).
BtVS season 4: Fear Itself. I remember this as not being that good, and it turns out I was right. The weakest of the three eps, though with some nice stuff in it all the same. I really like Buffy/Riley at this stage. A pity he turned out to be a commando instead of just a nice TA. It also sets up some stuff that will be important later in the season, like Xander's feeling of being invisible to his friends because they've gone to college and he hasn't, and Buffy's growing belief that if she reaches out to someone they'll turn on her, or throw it back in her face. More comics miffness associated with this ep, though, in that this is the first of two - two!- episodes that deal with the fallout from Buffy's one night stand with Parker. And yet Spike, with whom she had a sexual/romantic relationship for two whole seasons doesn't even rate a mention in four whole years of the Buffy comic. It really comes across that the minute he went up in flames she forgot about him, or at least that a huge chunk of their past was just erased, dumping them again where they were at, say, the beginning of season 6. Oh well. Anyway, the best things in this ep are Anya's bunny Halloween costume and Giles with a chainsaw. Rawr!
BtVS season 6: All the Way. This was the runner-up. It lacks the humour of Halloween, but works an awful lot better than Fear Itself. It's also far more entwined in the season long emotional plot than either. Dawn's brief fling with the vampire boy is bittersweet, because he obviously does mean what he says about liking her. It's just that that translates into wanting to kill her and turn her into a vampire. Also, it's hard to believe that anyone could watch the post-we're getting married party for Xander and Anya and not expect the whole thing to crash in flames. Poor Xander (I like him much more in the later seasons) regrets what he's said the minute he's said it, but has no idea how to take it back without hurting Anya dreadfully. Meanwhile, Willow's relationship with Tara is spiralling downhill fast, and Giles is very close to deciding it's time to give up his fatherly role. Speaking of whom, he's awesome in this ep.
In fact, if there were a prize for which character does best in the Halloween eps, it goes to Giles hands down. He even gets the funniest costume.
Now, what shall I watch next?
Whi-ich is a weird thing for me to be saying.
We do celebrate it over here, but to be honest, as a kid I was actually scared of Halloween, because I believed in ghosts and all that stuff. All part and parcel of my ongoing dislike of horror films etc.
I did try to do my best to get into the spirit of it this year, though, in between angst-ridden wrestling with my Nekid Numbers Halloween fic, which is now going to be a post-Halloween fic, if it's a fic at all. To whit, I re-watched all three BtVS Halloween eps. Having done so, my conclusions are as follows:
BtVS season 2: Halloween. Boy, the Buffy comics have had a bad effect on me! I can't watch a pre-Angelus arc Bangel scene without feeling slightly queasy. And when Xander tells Cordy to give it up because there's 'no way she'll ever get between those two', it feels like he's singing from the Extremist Bangel Fans' hymn sheet. Also, seeing Ethan Rayne makes me very, very cross all over again at how cavalierly the character was disposed of in the comic.
That said, this is the best out of the three Halloween eps. It has everything going for it - humour, plot, terrific guest characters (ie. Spike, Dru and Ethan Rayne). Cordelia is delightfully bitchy (and her little scene with Angel at the Bronze, where she actually makes him laugh, shows us in a nutshell why she is so much better suited to him than Buffy is). It's also a great episode for Willow and reminds me again how much I liked her relationship with Oz at the beginning. Even Xander isn't that annoying (and I usually find early season Xander very annoying), and Ripper Giles is just cool. This was our first sight of him, and I can remember the impact it had on me the first time I saw it (though I also remember wincing a little at the 'Ripper' name).
BtVS season 4: Fear Itself. I remember this as not being that good, and it turns out I was right. The weakest of the three eps, though with some nice stuff in it all the same. I really like Buffy/Riley at this stage. A pity he turned out to be a commando instead of just a nice TA. It also sets up some stuff that will be important later in the season, like Xander's feeling of being invisible to his friends because they've gone to college and he hasn't, and Buffy's growing belief that if she reaches out to someone they'll turn on her, or throw it back in her face. More comics miffness associated with this ep, though, in that this is the first of two - two!- episodes that deal with the fallout from Buffy's one night stand with Parker. And yet Spike, with whom she had a sexual/romantic relationship for two whole seasons doesn't even rate a mention in four whole years of the Buffy comic. It really comes across that the minute he went up in flames she forgot about him, or at least that a huge chunk of their past was just erased, dumping them again where they were at, say, the beginning of season 6. Oh well. Anyway, the best things in this ep are Anya's bunny Halloween costume and Giles with a chainsaw. Rawr!
BtVS season 6: All the Way. This was the runner-up. It lacks the humour of Halloween, but works an awful lot better than Fear Itself. It's also far more entwined in the season long emotional plot than either. Dawn's brief fling with the vampire boy is bittersweet, because he obviously does mean what he says about liking her. It's just that that translates into wanting to kill her and turn her into a vampire. Also, it's hard to believe that anyone could watch the post-we're getting married party for Xander and Anya and not expect the whole thing to crash in flames. Poor Xander (I like him much more in the later seasons) regrets what he's said the minute he's said it, but has no idea how to take it back without hurting Anya dreadfully. Meanwhile, Willow's relationship with Tara is spiralling downhill fast, and Giles is very close to deciding it's time to give up his fatherly role. Speaking of whom, he's awesome in this ep.
In fact, if there were a prize for which character does best in the Halloween eps, it goes to Giles hands down. He even gets the funniest costume.
Now, what shall I watch next?