Reviews

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 19: Empty Places

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg; Directed by James. A Contner

The lameness of this episode is pretty much summed up in the scene in which the entire gang stand up against Buffy and throw her out of her own house. Fine, okay, I can just about swing that, although I have a hard time believing that the original crew would go so far as to turf her out, even if her actions last week did result in the loss of Xander’s eye. What I have a really hard time buying, though, is that they would then choose Faith as their leader. Faith, who not long ago was trying to kill them all. Perhaps I could accept the Potentials siding with the cool new Slayer who smokes and lets them indulge in underage drinking, but certainly not Willow, or Giles, or even Xander at this stage. Sorry, this is just bull.

Sorry I don’t have anything more to say about this. I’m simply getting so fed up that actually writing about what I’ve just watched is becoming a chore. Nothing much happens anyway. Skip to the final scene and you wouldn’t be missing anything important.

Overall rating: 2/10.

Next time: Touched.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 18: Dirty Girls

Written by Drew Goddard; Directed by Michael Gershman

Last week, Giles tried to have Spike killed. This week, they’re sharing a house and, barring one brief mention of it, seem to have forgotten about it all. Oh well.

Anyway, in this episode, we learn that Buffy makes crappy choices as a leader. Which is all well and good, but for the fact that, for the last seven years, she’s actually been a pretty good leader. Her having to be a tactician and take other people’s lives into her hands is nothing new, but the writers, for some reason, now decide to make out that it is. This week, she leads the whole gang into what is obviously a trap and ends up getting some Potentials killed and Xander’s eye ripped out. Once again, Buffy suddenly becomes a useless general because the plot requires the rest of the gang to decide she isn’t up to the task and kick her out. Although quite why the writers felt the need to do this is anyone’s guess, because a couple of episodes later she’s back in the fold and none of the arguments are ever addressed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. With five episodes to go, the writers suddenly decide to introduce a new villain, a mad southern priest called Caleb. I’m guessing they suddenly realised that a main villain who couldn’t actually touch anything wasn’t all that great, so they bring in yet another bad buy with superhuman strength who can toss Buffy around like a ragdoll. Great, except pretty much every supervillain ever introduced has been able to do this, so it’s sort of old hat. Caleb also exists to give another of Joss Whedon’s Firefly actors, Nathan Fillion, a job. In interviews and commentaries, Whedon goes on and on about what an amazing actor he is, but I’m not seeing it. Sure, he’s competent, but he’s nothing special.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Empty Places.

Angel: Season 4, Episodes 13, 14 and 15: Salvage/Release/Orpheus

Salvage
Written by David Fury; Directed by Jefferson Kibbee

Release
Written by Steven S. DeKnight, Elizabeth Craft & Sarah Fain; Directed by James A. Contner

Orpheus
Written by Mere Smith; Directed by Terrence O’Hara

Based on these three episodes of Angel, I’m convinced that the goings-on during the season of 2002-2003 were considerably better in Los Angeles than in Sunnydale. Okay, so you get some bad ideas, like the dodgy and mildly-incestuous relationship between Cordelia and Connor (not literally, because they’re not blood relatives, but she always struck me as something of the mother figure in the unofficial Angel Investigations family), not to mention the crummy Jasmine storyline that was thrown in late in the game only so Joss Whedon could give another of his Firefly actors a job after that show was cancelled. Still, it’s a hell of a lot more potent and focused than Buffy’s seventh season. It’s considerably better shot (by many of the same directors who were doing such an indifferent job on Buffy), the actors seem to be more engaged, and there’s genuine character development instead of people just saying and doing whatever will service the plot. Plus, who couldn’t like the new, super-cool Wesley, with his designer stubble, sawn-off shotgun and no-nonsense attitude? This is one character who’s certainly come an extremely long way since he was first introduced to the Buffyverse.

I also notice that a genuine effort is made to build on the theme of redemption that was a big issue for Faith back in Season 1 of Angel. She’s only on the show for three episodes this season, but she gets considerably more character development than she does in Buffy’s five, where she does little more than get it on with Wood and say “yo” a lot. Additionally, in her brief guest stint in the third episode, Willow seems more alive than she does at any point on Buffy this year. It’s bizarre, but Mere Smith, who had never written the character before, manages to portray Willow’s “voice” with considerably more skill than those who had been writing her for years. Granted, the Willow that appears on Angel has a lot more in common with Buffy Seasons 1-3 Willow than the less quirky one that emerged later on, but I’m willing to forgive that given that, for the first time in ages, Alyson Hannigan actually seems to be enjoying playing the character. Her scenes with Wesley (Hannigan is married to Alexis Denisof in real life) are also nice, in an in-joke sort of way. I should also point out that it’s kind of embarrassing how much more chemistry she has with Amy Acker (Fred) than Iyari Limon (Kennedy), despite the fact that they only get a couple of scenes together. If they had to pair Willow up with anyone during the final season of Buffy (short of bringing Tara back), it should have been her.

What’s not forgiveable, though, is the ease with which Willow performs the re-ensoulment spell. Given that, on Buffy, it’s been stressed that she has a hard time performing even the most basic enchantments without threatening to slide back into Dark Willow mode, it’s a major oversight that she seems able to pull off one of the most complicated spells in existence here without batting an eyelid.

Overall rating: 8/10 for Salvage, and 7/10 for Release and Orpheus.

Next time: back to Buffy for Dirty Girls.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 17: Lies My Parents Told Me

Written by David Fury and Drew Goddard; Directed by David Fury

Can someone explain why it is that it’s taken until now for Wood to decide to do something about Spike, despite learning, three episodes ago, that Spike killed his mother (the New York subway Slayer we saw in Fool For Love)? Still, now I know why the writers made Spike’s chip malfunction: so he would be able to rough Wood up in this episode. Yet another perfect example of “the plot is all that matters”. (Kind of sounds a bit like Buffy’s “the mission is all that matters mantra, no?)

The character assassination of Giles continues in this episode, with him conspiring against Buffy with Wood in order to set Spike up. Never mind that Giles was so distraught over betraying her trust in Helpless that I couldn’t imagine him ever doing anything like that again - the only reason Buffy slams the door on Giles at the end of this episode, telling him that he has nothing left to teach her, is so Whedon can shove his trite “girl power” message down our throats in the final episode. Because it wouldn’t do for anyone other than Slayer Spice to be in the right, would it? Instead, Giles reverts back to being a crusty old fuddy-duddy, just like the Watchers’ Council he spent the last few years rebelling against. Check out his wacky horrified reaction to the new computer-driven Sunnydale High library - it’s like Season 1 all over again! I know the writers said they were going “back to the beginning”, but I didn’t realise until now that that also meant throwing away seven years’ worth of character development.

Still, this is a better episode than most of the ones that have preceded it, although once again it focuses on new characters like Wood (and Spike, who isn’t exactly new, but isn’t one of the original characters) at the expense of the “core four” (Buffy, Willow, Giles and Xander). Actually I don’t believe Xander, Dawn and Anya even appear in this episode except as background props, and Willow’s only substantial contribution is to say that she’s heading over to LA to help Angel Investigations out. Speaking of which, I’m going to watch the three episodes of Angel’s fourth season in which Faith appears (and Willow, in the third), which will hopefully be better than the dreck the Buffy crew have been serving up of late.

Overall rating: 5/10.

Next time: over to Angel for three episodes, then back for Dirty Girls.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 16: Storyteller

Written by Jane Espenson; Directed by Marita Grabiak

You guys know how much I like Andrew, right? Well, imagine how much I love a whole episode framed around him! That’s right, not much at all. Why is it that, with only six episodes to go until the end of the series, the writers are wasting time on this annoying, whiny, self-absorbed brat who should never have been included in the show in the first place? And the Hellmouth is closed by his tears… What the hell is this crap?

Overall rating: 2/10.

Next time: Lies My Parents Told Me.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 15: Get it Done

Written and Directed by Douglas Petrie

I’ve said it before, but the title of this episode is thoroughly apt. You can literally feel the boredom of those involved permeating throughout. I don’t care what anyone says about her demeanour being appropriate given her character’s situation - Sarah Michelle Gellar is sleepwalking through her role, the lighting is so flat it practically looks like someone’s home movie (granted, a home movie shot on 35mm, but still), and the writing is so uninspired that people literally just stand about talking about how terrible it’s going to be when the First starts its master plan, despite the fact that we’ve seen fuck-all except something that can take the form of dead people and bore people to death with its speeches.

Oh, and because Anthony Head wasn’t around for this episode (again, Giles’s absence is unexplained), Dawn can conveniently speak ancient Sumerian. Although, given the way Giles was behaving towards Chao-An in the previous episode, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d conveniently forgotten ancient Sumerian too. By the way, why is Kennedy now training the Potentials? Isn’t that Giles’s job, or Buffy’s?

Overall rating: 3/10.

Next time: Storyteller.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 14: First Date

Written by Jane Espenson; Directed by David Grossman

The first time I saw this episode was when it aired on BBC2. Back then, I was suffering from a bad case of food poisoning, or some sort of infection, and I ended up falling asleep half-way through it. Watching it again for the first time today, it looks like I didn’t miss much.

This episode begins the character assassination of Giles. Specifically, his treatment of the Chinese slayer Chao-An, which is so ignorant that it borders on racism and is completely out of character for someone who is supposed to be a well-travelled and intelligent person with a solid grasp of at least six languages. Not that Cantonese is necessarily one of these languages, but his “You - new - here, you - no - speak - English” (okay, I’m paraphrasing, but that’s about the level of it) routine is insulting. Once again they sacrifice character for a one-shot joke.

Otherwise, this episode is as throwaway as they come. Xander goes out on a date with a girl… who turns out to be a demon! How unusual! That’s never happened to him before! If this is what passes for character development I’m not surprised Nicholas Brendon said he only stayed on the show because he needed the money. Worse still, the demon in question is played by some pop star called Ashanti, who can’t act to save her life.

Also, I’ve said it before, why in the hell is the murderer Andrew allowed to live in Buffy’s house and not be held accountable for his actions? Then again, I suppose he’s right at home with Willow, Spike and Anya.

Overall rating: 2/10.

Next time: Get it Done.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 13: The Killer in Me

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg; Directed by David Solomon

In this episode, Willow turns into Warren after kissing Kennedy, because… I don’t know, something about her feeling guilty about flaying him. Oh no, wait, Amy did it because… I don’t know, I stopped caring when Willow started getting it on with the first lesbian who crossed her path. Have these writers got no respect for the integrity of their characters?

Normally I quite like these body-switch episodes. Who Are You?, for example, was brilliant, with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Eliza Dushku playing each other with considerable accuracy. This time round, though, it doesn’t work, because Adam Busch makes no attempt to adopt any of Alyson Hannigan’s mannerisms. He simply plays it as Warren, and as a result it just seems incredibly hokey.

Additionally, Spike’s chip stops working and Buffy has to seek out the Initiative to sort things out. I’m not sure why it begins malfunctioning - presumably so Buffy can ask for it to be removed and further drive a wedge between her and Giles, because the plot requires that he disapprove. Again, not sure why. Oh, and we also get a thoroughly anticlimactic end to the “Is Giles the First?” puzzle. Turns out that he isn’t - he just wasn’t touching anything or anyone because… sorry, again, can’t answer that.

Overall rating: 2/10.

Next time: First Date.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 12: Potential

Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner; Directed by James A. Contner

This is going to be a really short review, because there’s nothing remotely entertaining going on here. The show is just treading water. Buffy spends the whole episode making lame speeches! Andrew’s being annoying again! Dawn’s getting ignored by everyone again - how Season 6 of them! And we have a turgid story about Dawn thinking she’s a Potential, only it turns out the Potential is actually someone else from her class. I guess that’s the potential “Dawn the Vampire Slayer” spin-off dead and buried.

Oh yeah, and Buffy claims the Slayer line runs through her. As I pointed out in my review of the previous episode, it doesn’t. Just saying that it does multiple times doesn’t change what’s already been established.

Overall rating: 3/10.

Next time: The Killer in Me.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 11: Showtime

Written by David Fury; Directed by Michael Grossman

Another generic and almost completely forgettable episode. More annoying Potentials show up, more whinging from all on sundry, more speeches from General Buffy… And Giles and Anya visit a demon named Beljoxa’s Eye, who says the First Evil has been given the chance to put its plan into action because the line of the Chosen (i.e. the Slayers) has been altered, apparently as a result of Buffy’s resurrection. Um, yes, but it’s been shown already that the line no longer goes through Buffy but through Faith. If it had continued to go through Buffy after her first death at the end of Season 1, Kendra wouldn’t have been called in Season 2, and therefore neither would Faith in Season 3. The fact that a new Slayer wasn’t called when Buffy died at the end of Season 5 only compounds this. Therefore, the writers are once again ignoring their own canon simply so they can make the plot do what they want it to. If the change in the line of the Chosen was what the First Evil needed, it would have sets its plan into action at the end of Season 1 - but, of course, it didn’t.

Theoretically, it would be entirely possible to ignore errors like this, in much the same way that it was possible to ignore The Gift’s many instances of twisting the canon, but the fact that Season 7’s plot is so fundamentally uninteresting makes it difficult to simply gloss over this sort of thing. Note to writers: if you want to make your show all about the plot at the expense of character development, you’d better have an airtight plot. But no, instead we get the first of General Buffy’s many stupid ideas: last week, she fought the Ubervamp and it not only beat her but gave her a thoroughly good hammering. So this week, her grand plan is to… fight it again? What’s changed? Nothing more than the venue. She sends everyone to a construction yard where she faces the Ubervamp in an arena-style showdown - but what precisely is it that allows her to beat it this time, when she’s already injured, that she didn’t have last week at full health? Oh, she has an audience and a cool location for a fight. But she doesn’t have any advantage. She simply beats it because that’s what the script calls for. Someone really didn’t think this through.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Potential.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 10: Bring on the Night

Written by Marti Noxon and Douglas Petrie; Directed by David Grossman

Today, Giles shows up with a trio of girls in tow - Potentials, i.e. girls who could potentially be called as Slayers when the current one dies (and exactly who is the current Slayer is a matter that will be debated in a subsequent review). They’re incredibly annoying, and none more so than the pair with the most hideous Cockney accents known to mankind. I don’t get why, in what the writers must have, by this time, known was the final season, they decided to bring in a whole roster of new characters and give them more screen-time than the original characters.

One of these Potentials is a brash Hispanic lesbian called Kennedy. Her appearance signals that (a) the writers had abandoned any thought of trying to get Tara back, and (b) they’d decided that yes, Willow going to remain a lesbian. Back during the break between Seasons 6 and 7, Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon actually had meetings to discuss whether or not Willow would “stay gay”. (I’ve seen a made-for-TV documentary, seemingly recorded early during the production of Season 7, in which Noxon described Willow’s relationship with Tara as “college experimentation”!) Unfortunately, Kennedy is an absolutely awful addition to the cast, and it’s not even remotely plausible that Willow would be attracted to this type of person. The addition of this character was, clearly, an attempt by the writers to regain some of the “lesbo street cred” (to quote Tough Love) that they’d lost over the Tara debacle: “Oh, so you guys like lesbians, do you? Well, we’ll give you a new lesbian and Willow can have a steamy lesbian romance with her!” Way to miss the point, again. She’s there only so they can look a little better - a token gay relationship that isn’t going to end in death and destruction (although I’ve read some hilarious fanfics in which Kennedy is killed in a variety of gruesome ways). In all fairness, I feel sorry for the actress, Iyari Limon: she tries very hard, but this is not a gig I would have wished on anybody. But, ultimately, she and Alyson Hannigan have absolutely no chemistry together and their scenes together are uncomfortable in the extreme. The fan-written continuation of the series, The Chosen, actually performs the seemingly impossible task of making this character likeable, to the extent that, when she left at the end of the virtual Season 8, I was genuinely disappointed, but, ignoring fanfic and concentrating only on what exists on the screen, she’s a dead loss.

This episode also begins the “Is Giles the First?” subplot, a pointless little mislead that serves no actual purpose and is completely unbelievable. Basically, the idea is that Giles touches nothing and no-one touches him, which is intended to make the audience suspect that Giles is in fact dead and that the First has assumed his guise. The problem with this is that, like so much of Season 7, it makes no sense. Last time Giles showed up in Sunnydale, Buffy and Anya were all over him, which makes the extremely cold, non-touchy-feely manner in which everyone behaves when he appears at the door extremely strange. Ditto with the fact that, when Buffy falls into a hole, Giles doesn’t stop to help her out - he just kind of stands there. This is never explained and is a perfect example of the writers’ willingness to sacrifice character to service a pointless subplot.

Oh yeah, and why does the First have Spike tortured by holding his head underwater? Vampires don’t need to breathe, remember? Come to think of it, why is the First torturing Spike anyway? Because he didn’t do its bidding? I’d have thought it would have better things to do - like deal with all the Potentials showing up in Sunnydale.

Still, it’s not all hopeless. It’s good to see Drusilla again (the First assumes her form), and written considerably better than she was in Crush. Ditto with Joyce, who shows up in Buffy’s dreams.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Showtime.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 9: Never Leave Me

Written by Drew Goddard; Directed by David Solomon

Sorry these reviews have been so sporadic. It’s just so hard to get myself motivated to watch these episodes - there’s literally nothing compelling me to go from one to the other. At least Season 6 had a train-wreck quality to it, where I found myself eagerly ploughing through the episodes to see what new low the writers would sink to each week. Here, it’s all just… meh. It’s competently shot, but it’s generic, and there’s nothing happening on the screen to justify my time. We’ve seen it all before: Spike’s dangerous, he keeps being triggered by the First so they have to keep him chained up in the basement; Andrew is annoying and whiny; Xander, Willow, Dawn and Anya serve as set decoration. And what’s up with Wood secretly burying Jonathan’s body? My memory is hazy, but I don’t recollect this ever being explained.

And it gets worse. The very next episode introduces the horror of… the Potentials.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Bring on the Night.

Spread the hate

What is it about Disney and reviews that brings the slavering fanboys out of the woodwork? First I was attacked by “Jens” for my less than favourable review of the direct to video nightmare Mulan II, and again for a throwaway comment in my review of Bambi pertaining to the preview for its own shoddy-looking cheapquel. Now it’s happening again, this time because I’ve had the audacity to suggest that the transfer for the new Platinum Edition of The Little Mermaid is not as good as it could have been.

According to the poster by the name of “Dingbats”,

If you want to see reasoned comments from people who actually care about this movie you ought to go to www.ultimatedisney.com and ignore this biased reviewer who clearly hasn’t got a clue what he is talking about, and seems only able to make sounds from his rectum.

Well, it’s good to know that my reviews are so appreciated. You know, when it comes to video-related matters, if people could just say “Well, I don’t see the problems you’re referring to,” it wouldn’t be half as bad, but the fact that some people actually feel the need to tell me I’m wrong and don’t know what I’m talking about really irks me. Do they think my eyesight is defective and adding artefacts that aren’t actually there? No, many of them are just too blindly loyal to Disney to believe that the studio could possibly be in the wrong. What’s even more annoying is the assertion that, because I criticised the transfer, I don’t “care about this movie”. If anything, the opposite is true: I’m voicing my concerns precisely because I think the film deserves better. Read the whole review, moron.

Luckily, people in the know like Home Theater Forum reviewer David Boulet and film restoration expert Robert A. Harris concur with my opinions, which is not particularly surprising to me, but is certainly nice, as it means I’m not the lone voice of dissent. By all means go and read the Ultimate Disney review if you want a sycophantic love letter to Disney written by someone who praised the likes of the grubby, non-anamorphic The Black Cauldron and Hercules releases. But, without getting too full of myself, I like to think that I’m offering a somewhat more objective service.

How it feels to be wanted

I got my first rejection letter yesterday. I never mentioned it, because, in the heat of the moment… well, I forgot, but I couple of weeks back I sent out a bunch of job applications. Two were to libraries, one was for a desk job at Strathclyde University’s modern languages department, and the other was to an online firm, Prospect Solution, where I will (hopefully) be writing essays, doing proofreading, and so on. (Hell, supply and demand - if people are willing to pay for it, I’m willing to do it!) I recently got a preliminary acceptance email for the Prospect Solution gig, but am holding off until the results for my MLitt come in before I send them my full details. In any event, it may turn out that it’s something that brings in little work and money, so I need to keep my options open.

Anyway, yesterday morning I got a rejection letter from the Glasgow School of Art’s library. “Dear Mr. Mackenzie, thanks for your application, but we regret to inform you that bla bla bla…” It’s fair enough, I suppose, and I’m all too aware that rejections are a necessary part of the process, but I wish that, in these circumstances, they would give some indicator of why you were turned down. Something like “Dear Mr. Mackenzie, there are other people better qualified than you,” or “Dear Mr. Mackenzie, we saw the picture that you included on your CV and would never employ someone has grotesque as yourself.” Then again, experience has taught me that employers have a habit of trying to let you down gently when they decide they don’t want you. I do, after all, speak with the experience of someone who is one of the few people ever to have been turned away by McDonalds. Much to my relief, I might add, but the spotty-faced deputy manager who interviewed me was typically cagey as to his reasons for rejecting me. He said something along the lines of “I don’t think you’d be right for McDonalds,” which I suspect is polite talk for “You wouldn’t last a minute in front of a deep fat fryer,” or “I actually wanted someone to work from midnight to 8 AM, but you weren’t having it.” Either way, it was a narrow escape.

Sorry, I seem to have gone a little off topic. Anyway, onwards and upwards. I’ll no doubt be firing off a fresh batch of applications before too long. And until someone offers me a job, I’m actually quite enjoying the unexpected leisure time. It’s allowing me to catch up on some of the things I like to do, namely writing reviews, watching movies and trawling my way through Season 7 of Buffy. Although, in the case of the latter, “like to do” is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace: The Complete Series

Darkplace will, I suspect, be something of an acquired taste. An appreciation of its attention to detail and a proper understanding of its comedy requires some familiarity with the material being lampooned, while many are likely to be put off by the fact that it is essentially the same joke repeated over and over again. However, those who grew up on 1980s horror and sci-fi, much of it bad, should get a real kick out of Darkplace. It is in my opinion one of the funniest comedies of the last decade, and the fact that part of me knows that, had it really aired in the 80s, I would almost certainly have tuned in religiously, is proof that it operates on some level beyond simply making fun of its source material.

Finally getting the DVD release that fans have been clamouring for since it originally aired in 2004, I’ve reviewed Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace: The Complete Series, presenting all six episodes of the horror/sci-fi spoof on a single disc with numerous extras. Darkplace is released on October 16th 2006.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 8: Sleeper

Written by David Fury & Jane Espenson; Directed by Alan J. Levi

Spike has started walking around without his shirt on again. One can only assume that Marti Noxon has returned from maternity leave, presumably to take control of the show. Thing is, I liked it better when no-one was in charge, earlier on in the season. (And I truly believe that no-one was in charge. Joss Whedon was busy with Firefly, Noxon was squeezing out a brat, David Fury was - by his own admission - spending more time on Angel, and neither Douglas Petrie or Jane Espenson strike me as having being significantly invested in the show to have taken over showrunning duties. Rather, they strike me as having been writers for hire who were, by this stage, just intent on getting the job done.) It was directionless, sure, but at least it was largely fun and occasionally meaningful. Now, with Captain Marti steering the ship, it remains directionless, but becomes completely boring.

Anyway, nothing much happens in this episode, except Buffy tries to find out whether or not Spike is killing humans again. Yawn. The highlight of the episode is that they managed to get one of my favourite musicians, Aimee Mann, to guest star at the Bronze, where she mimes two songs from (at the time) her most recent album, Lost in Space… although her line as she exits, “Man, I hate playing vampire towns,” is one of those odd “breaking the fourth wall” moments that really doesn’t sit well with me.

Overall rating: 5/10.

Next time: Never Leave Me.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 7: Conversations with Dead People

Written by Jane Espenson, Drew Goddard, Marti Noxon (uncredited) & Joss Whedon (uncredited); Directed by Nick Marck

This is the closest Season 7 gets to an episode that is a genuine masterpiece, and the reason for that is that it is one of the few that attempts to do anything approaching an intelligent look at the issues raised in Season 6 and the themes of Season 7. Chiefly, we get to hear Buffy admitting what we’ve all known for a long time: that she has a superiority complex and thinks she’s better than her friends. The episode also manages to be genuinely unsettling in its depiction of the poltergeist that invades the Summers house and attacks Dawn, while the central concept of the episode - none of the main characters come into contact with each other (in fact, Xander and Anya aren’t even in it, making this the one episode out of the entire run of 144 that Nicholas Brendon missed) - is pretty nifty.

Still, there are some major problems. As good as the aforementioned poltergeist material is, it makes no sense in the grand scheme of things. Originally, I thought it was either the First preventing Joyce’s spirit from contacting Dawn, or indeed that the vision of Joyce was the first. Either way, her line to Dawn, “When it’s bad, Buffy won’t choose you. She’ll be against you,” is never followed up on. If it’s Joyce genuinely trying to warn Dawn, then it’s nonsensical enough, but if it’s actually the First, then the attacks make even less sense, since it is established that the First is incorporeal and can’t affect anything physically, which means that it would be impossible for it to smash up the house and give Dawn a thrashing.

The other big problem is the Willow material. I’ve seen the original script, and the plan was for Willow to be visited by what first appears to be the ghost of Tara, but eventually reveals itself to be the First, after failing to convince Willow to slash her own wrists. In the episode as it airs, Willow is visited by the First in the guise of Cassie (the girl from Help). Unfortunately, this makes little sense, as Willow never even met Cassie. And, if the First can appear in the guise of (and I quote) “any dead person it wants”, including Buffy (who has, after all, been dead twice), Spike and Drusilla (who are, after all, technically dead), the Mayor, Glory and so on, who not Tara?

There is of course a completely straightforward answer: Amber Benson flatly refused to have anything to do with an episode that would cause even more heartache to a community of fans already extremely uset by her character’s death. And this, more than anything, is perhaps the biggest scandal of Season 7. When the season ended, Joss Whedon, confronted in an interview with IGN about various problems with the season, came up with a grand story about how his original plan was that Tara was eventually going to be resurrected and return to Willow and everyone would be all smiles and he cried every time he pitched the story because it was so heartwarming… but then that horrible Amber Benson refused to do it. As it happens, though, Amber tells a completely different story, saying that Whedon never once mentioned a happy ending to her, and that she was under the impression that he wanted to appear as the First and only as the First, something that she wasn’t prepared to do to her fans. (And I can’t say I’m surprised. She of all the cast and crew members seemed to be the one who most “got” the social significance of the role she played - although, given that at least one lesbian viewer told her that she didn’t commit suicide “because of Willow and Tara”, it would take a very dim person not to get it.)

Here the vindictiveness of Whedon really comes out, as he did his absolute best to make her out to be the bad guy, pulling his usual “tortured artist” schtick, when, as has been pointed out numerous times, if he hadn’t made the decision to kill off Tara in the first place, the whole sorry situation could have been avoided. He behaved in a similar way with Charisma Carpenter on Angel, deciding not to renew her contract after she got pregnant and therefore required his precious artistic vision for the fourth season to be altered (although, given that they seemed to be making that season up as they went along, I suspect that he was once again looking for someone other than himself to blame for its shortcomings). Then again, it’s always someone else’s fault with this guy: apparently Alien: Resurrection’s problems are Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s fault, the Buffy movie sucked because of Donald Sutherland, and so on and so forth.

Am I rambling? Sorry.

Oh yeah, and one other thing I forgot: Andrew kills Jonathan in this episode. That’s right, murders him in cold blood. And yet somehow, despite knowing this, Buffy and co are more than happy to let him hang about in their house for the rest of the season.

Overall rating: 8/10.

Next time: Sleeper.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7, Episode 6: Him

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg; Directed by Michael Gershman

What’s the biggest problem with Season 7? (Apart from it generally being boring and lifeless, that is.) Continuity. This episode is fun in a ridiculously cheesy throwaway manner, but it seems to exist in its own reality because, outside of a brief moment near the start that acknowledges what’s been going on in Anya’s life, the characters act as if the events of previous episodes never took place. Anya, who was utterly depressed at the end of Selfless, is back to her cheery Season 4-5 self; Willow, who, less than six months ago, was standing with the love of her life’s blood splattered all over her, is busy falling head over heels for a generic high school jock and contemplating casting a spell to rid herself of the slight inconvenience of him having a penis (I don’t care that he’s wearing an enchanted jacket that makes all women crazy about him - Willow would never do this!); and Spike - Spike - is busy moving in with Xander. You know, the same Spike who Xander wanted to kill after he boned Anya and tried to rape Buffy? Well, apparently not, because in this episode the two behave pretty much like old pals who’ve had a minor tiff in the past. Perhaps, though, this is Drew Greenberg’s niche: stupid, throwaway episodes that have nothing to do with the main story arc and can be syndicated out of their original production order. To be honest, I suspect that this is the sort of material we would have seen with the aborted Buffy animated series. Who knows? Perhaps the episode was even written for it. That said, as mediocre as it is, it’s certainly considerably better than anything else he ever wrote for the show, although I’m still not ready to forgive him for Older and Far Away or The Killer in Me (review for that particular travesty forthcoming).

This is, by the way, the last filler episode before the main Seasonal Arc of Morbidity kicks into gear, so you might at well savour it. It’s more or less all doom and gloom from here.

Overall rating: 6/10.

Next time: Conversations with Dead People.

Fear and Loathing of the State

The extended edition of Enemy of the State (R1 USA) and the recently-released HD DVD version of Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (R0 USA) both arrived today from DVD Pacific. I’ve given Enemy of the State the once-over, and my report will, for now, be brief. Basically, it contains the same extras as the R2 UK release I already own - nothing more, nothing less. The transfer, meanwhile, features considerably less obtrusive edge enhancement than its British counterpart, but on the downside looks abnormally soft. Additionally, it strikes me as having much weaker colours than the R2, although I’ll have to do a side by side comparison to make sure. Either way, I’m curious to see the extended cut, but the new transfer doesn’t exactly set the world on fire.

On to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where I’m happy to report that things are better all round.

We all know how weak Criterion’s transfer of the film was, right? Actually, we probably don’t, because practically every review I’ve ever read of that release gave it a 10/10 (or equivalent) for image quality.

(On a side note, isn’t it amazing how a company’s own self-publicity can convince the public that said company is providing a better service than it actually is? The number of reviews I’ve read where writers praise Criterion to the heavens is just astounding, when in fact the discs they’re praising are so mediocre that they’re clearly not in a position to distinguish in the first place between a good disc and a great one! I actually bought into it myself for a long time, on the basis of a couple of stellar titles and a couple of not so stellar ones, whereby I believed the hype and assumed that the not so stellar ones were just blips. As it turns out, the reverse is closer to the truth: the stellar transfers are the ones that are the blips. In the end, as it happens, the average Criterion release is no better in terms of image quality than one from any other studio. I still thank them every day for spearheading the movement to present films in their original aspect ratios, and for creating the first LaserDiscs with bonus features, and for brilliant-looking discs like The Rock and Naked Lunch, but nowadays I’m convinced that the praise of their DVDs is a prestige thing rather than something grounded in reality.)

Anyway, the Criterion DVD looked abnormally poor, as did Universal’s version. Luckily, though, they’ve now been superceded by an HD DVD release which, while being rather bare-bones in comparison with Criterion’s stacked 2-disc release, and while not featuring a “perfect” HD DVD transfer like Serenity and Unleashed, is so much better than what preceded it that it’s literally like watching a different film.

Taken from a film element (presumably the 35mm interpositive also used for the Criterion and Universal standard definition releases, judging by the identical print damage), the first thing that leaps out is the monumental increase in clarity. The opening drive through the desert looks fresh and new, lacking the hazy, foggy appearance of the DVDs and literally coming alive in terms of film grain. The close-ups are eye-popping - for example, I never noticed Johnny Depp’s character’s clumsy shaving job before. Naturally, the increase in clarity continues to be evident throughout the film, although this is more evident in some scenes than others. The dark, low contrast sequences in the hotel, for example, unsurprisingly look slightly less defined than those taking place in the stark sunlight of the desert. The transfer is also pleasingly free of tampering, although, like Red Dragon, it also exhibits a degree of horizontal edge enhancement.

This is overall a mid to high 8/10. It’s fairly near the bottom of the heap as far as Universal’s HD DVD transfers go, but that’s no small achievement given how uniformally excellent they’ve been so far. For comparison, I’d put it on around the same level as Warner’s Constantine, which also suffered from slight edge enhancement.

The Little Mermaid: Platinum Edition

As one of Disney’s most beloved animated features ever, fans of all ages are sure to be queuing up to pick up this 2-disc edition of The Little Mermaid before it is placed back in the notorious Disney Vault. Still, while the extras are plentiful and largely informative, the transfer is a real disappointment and one that betrays a lack of understanding or regard for the medium of film-sourced, hand-drawn animation. The sad thing is that, for the foreseeable future, these flaws are likely to be here to stay, so holding out for a later release (e.g. a high definition version) is unlikely to improve matters substantially. One thing’s for sure: Disney should definitely never again commission Technicolor to undertake a restoration of one of their films.

One of Disney’s most popular animated classics has finally been given a re-release on DVD, getting the deluxe 2-disc Platinum Edition treatment. I’ve reviewed the R1 US release of The Little Mermaid, due out on October 3rd, which unfortunately features a decidedly substandard restoration.