Buffy: The Vampire Slayer seasons 3 and 4

It turns out that there are a lot of shows I’ve wanted to watch for a while but never got around to. I’ve been catching up, though! I recently finished my first-ever watch-through of Babylon 5 (check out my posts on the series) and I’m 4 seasons (well, at the beginning of season 5) in Buffy. This show is… phenomenal. My discussion of the seasons 3 and 4 follows, and will have SPOILERS for those seasons. Please do not spoil later seasons for me!

Season 3

“Anne” was a good episode to set up the rest of the season–seeing Buffy so distraught while watching her group of friends attempt to make up for her not being around was a solid thread. Having Angel return is a huge lead on the whole time, and I kinda wish I didn’t know a separate show for Angel exists. That made me fairly confident going in that he was going to leave. And of course he does pull what I call the “Spiderman.” The Spiderman is when someone decides they can’t be with the person they love for some allegedly honorable or noble reason but it’s really just annoying because their decision doesn’t resolve the alleged problem to begin with. Anyway, Angel gives Buffy the Spiderman, and a bit of it goes in the other direction. I am sure there’s all kinds of fan fic dedicated to having them end up together forever (and I guess it is theoretically possible they get back together in-universe at some later point–there’s a lot of the show to go).

There are other threads, of course. Willow’s own burgeoning power(s) is a fun one. Faith is an exciting character, and I didn’t really expect them to take her in the direction they did. It’s pretty awesome to see more of the Council and the interactions they have with Buffy.

At this point I’m totally into the show. I love its lore, I love the characters, and I think it has built an exceptional amount of story to build upon. I’m glad to see there are comics and novels that explore more of the series. If you have any (spoiler-free!) recommendations, please let me know!

Season 4

Season 4 started off a bit rough, in my opinion. The new setting, a group of new characters, and having a bunch of other characters get introduced and then killed off right away made it start feeling a bit like a monster-of-the-week scenario. But then the storylines that continued to draw threads through the season really got their feet under them and the season just became a series of high point after high point. Honestly, it’s my favorite season so far.

One obvious high point is the episode “Hush.” I don’t like horror movies. I just don’t like thinking about all the grossness that goes into the awful ways people devise to kill people in horror movies. Here, the established characters and extremely creepy makeup and music combined with eerie silence of everyone involved make it a haunting and amazing experience. It’s honestly one of the best episodes I’ve seen of anything.

Oz? Oz came back as a one-off!? What the heck? I honestly didn’t expect them to bring him back and then tie him off as a character all at once. It makes me wonder if something was happening behind the scenes because he was such a fun character, and I loved having werewolves around. I guess it did get tedious having to have episodes where he was stuck in werewolf prison off and on, but I also thought they could have taken him as leader of a werewolf pack around town and run with it. I wonder if we’ll see more of him someday.

Faith’s resolution (for now? who knows) is another great twist. She was a good villain, and the hints at the end of this season about the “darkness” inside Slayers is interesting.

“Superstar” was one of the most fun episodes of television… ever. It was surreal in a way that was never horrifying or frightening (looking at you, “Hush”), but delivered the goods on plot, fun, and character development. I hope Jonathan shows up again. Adam and all the secret agents I haven’t really discussed at all to this point, but I thought they did a fabulous job. Like I said–the threads that started early in this season truly give great payoffs later. It’s a delight all the way through. I can’t wait to watch more.

Links

Science Fiction Hub– I have scores of reviews of Hugo nominees, Vintage Sci-Fi, modern sci-fi, TV series, and more! Check out my science fiction related writings here.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.

I started watching “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer”… so here are thoughts after two seasons

It turns out that there are a lot of shows I’ve wanted to watch for a while but never got around to. I’ve been catching up, though! I recently finished my first-ever watch-through of Babylon 5 (check out my posts on the series) and now I’m already 2 seasons deep into Buffy. This show is… phenomenal. My discussion of the first two seasons follows, and will have SPOILERS for those seasons. Please do not spoil later seasons for me!

Look, no small amount of my love for this show comes from straight-up nostalgia about the 90s. That’s there in oodles. It’s even better because it’s absolutely unintentional. If you grew up in the 90s or have any interest in that decade, you’re going to adore the show just because of that. The “high schoolers” (played by 20+ year olds, of course) wear the most 90s jeans, the most 90s hair, and the most 90s makeup all the time. The slang, the concerns, the social commentary–it’s all there, and it is so much fun.

But nostalgia would only take me so far. The show is genuinely fun to watch. Every single episode has great one-liners, fun characters, and new threats for Buffy to face. Every character gets genuine development throughout, moving from some one-dimensional characters to people you’re involved with, even as you often wish they’d make much better choices. So far, I think my favorite is the hapless librarian, Rupert Giles. He has such a winsome manner while also being there when you need him. I like him a lot. Obviously, Buffy is another favorite.

Season 1’s plot centered around a generically evil baddy trying to unleash hell on their small town (with an exceptionally high murder rate due to vampires–they should probably talk to Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote about this). It’s a fine story, and it gives us a chance to flesh out the main characters while not having to worry too much about intricacies of plot. Of course, there are some great standout episodes that pad that plot. The silliness of Teacher’s Pet, an episode in which the baddie turns out to be a giant preying mantis cannot be overstated–yet it works. It works phenomenally well because they embrace the campiness, and it becomes a recurring joke in later episodes. Speaking of that–the series has continuity of plot that actually builds on itself over time. That doesn’t sound like a big deal in our era of huge epic plots that continue throughout whole series, but shows like Buffy (and Babylon 5, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) had to build that basis. These aren’t a bunch of one-off episodes. Things placed in seemingly random fashion in one episode turn out to be bigger deals than initially thought–like Amy the witch from episode 3, who turns up big in season 2!

So yeah, there are some great moments throughout, and no small amount of nostalgia involved. It’s just an extraordinarily fun show to watch all the way through. Season 2 ramps up the intensity with a cast of antagonists (and huge development of Angel–good or evil?) who are far more three-dimensional than the generically evil “Master.” I gotta admit, some of the developments with Spike in particular caught me off guard. He and Drusilla are quite dynamic as “baddies,” and that is a credit to the writers and their acting. Drusilla has that kind of offhand glee for evil that makes her much more interesting than she’d otherwise have been.

Also, Buffy’s mom is just… not good. The finale of season 2 really brings that out. Maybe she turns into a more dynamic and kind character later, but she’s basically done nothing but blame Buffy or anyone but herself for everything that goes wrong the entire time. And then her reaction to finally finding out that Buffy is the Slayer is… to kick her from the house? What an idiot!

I’d be remiss to not mention Jenny Calendar, a “techno-pagan” who steals the show in multiple episodes. She becomes a fascinating character through season 2, and then she’s ripped away from us–and Giles!–in devastating fashion by Angel. I don’t know how, but I am hoping they’ll find a way to resurrect her at some point.

Anyway, we couldn’t leave the show alone after the ending that left Buffy distraught about killing (banishing?) Angel. On to season 3!

Links

Science Fiction Hub– I have scores of reviews of Hugo nominees, Vintage Sci-Fi, modern sci-fi, TV series, and more! Check out my science fiction related writings here.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.