Show and Tell
May. 19th, 2003 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyWhy Mutant Enemy failed to reach me this year:
I've been enjoying Buffy this year, as evidenced by most of my posts.
However, though I've been enjoying it, it hasn't, for the most part, touched me emotionally. The only parts that have are those involving Xander and now Angel's recent appearance.
Buffy was always my think-and-feel show. It was never just a 'pretty people' show for me. This season, I've been reading a lot on why Buffy isn't right this year, and it comes down to show and tell, timing, and point of view.
They're mostly just telling this year. They tell us that The First is the Biggest Bad to come down the pike. They tell us that this apocalypse is so different that the normally in-denial Sunnydalers are leaving in droves. They tell us that the Slayer line is in danger. They've told us that Spike is important.
But they haven't shown it to us.
And it could have been so easily fixed. Have a couple of First visitations to random Sunnydalers. Don't have so many potentials, since it's hard to worry about 30-40 people. We started out with one girl. Now, it seems like you could kill half the world and only then worry about not getting a new Slayer.
They had, to (loosely) quote Anya, a Big Bad that could be any dead person it wanted to be. They should have used it more. Have everyone haunted and more often. Have the BB pretend to be Buffy and confuse everyone.
The other big issue is timing. They wasted a lot of time in the middle of the season, and now it feels like they needed that time. They're rushing things. They could have put Bring on the Night and Showtime into one episode. They should have put out Xander's eye sooner: then they could have made the Sunnydalers leave that much sooner. They should have brought in a Caleb-type sooner - a person/creature that does damage to our Scoobies. The turning point should have been Conversations with Dead People. They could have done what Angel did, and had the last part of the season all tighttight, but they ruined that by setting Bring on the Night in December, when Conversations with Dead People was only three episodes ago and that was on the 12th of November. Especially since Sleeper and Never Leave Me both needed to follow soon after Conversations (or Andrew was in a coma in that chair).
Basic continuity has been fucked up this year and they should know better.
They've burnt out. I really do think that that's the answer. They just were burnt out on Buffy. But we were the ones that got screwed because of it.
Now, can they turn it around in the finale? Of course, but will that be enough? Both Touched and End of Days were better than most of the episodes after Conversations with Dead People, but in places, it did feel forced, because we haven't seen any sign of this kind of life in them for a while.
The last issue is a big one. Starting last year, but getting ever worse this year, is the loss of Buffy's point of view. She's the main character. We need to be able to sympathize with her. You do not end the penultimate episode with someone other than Buffy. Or rather, you can, but that takes her out of it. And they've been doing it for a while. They've been shutting us out of Buffy's pov and only let us in a little, starting at the very end of Empty Place, and then they pull us out again at the end of End of Days. Spike's reaction is not the important one here, just as it wasn't the important one after the attempted rape. The show is not called Spike the Vampire.
But I definitely won't make any final statements about my feelings about this season until after the finale.
Eeep. This is the last episode of Buffy ever. Eeep.
I've been enjoying Buffy this year, as evidenced by most of my posts.
However, though I've been enjoying it, it hasn't, for the most part, touched me emotionally. The only parts that have are those involving Xander and now Angel's recent appearance.
Buffy was always my think-and-feel show. It was never just a 'pretty people' show for me. This season, I've been reading a lot on why Buffy isn't right this year, and it comes down to show and tell, timing, and point of view.
They're mostly just telling this year. They tell us that The First is the Biggest Bad to come down the pike. They tell us that this apocalypse is so different that the normally in-denial Sunnydalers are leaving in droves. They tell us that the Slayer line is in danger. They've told us that Spike is important.
But they haven't shown it to us.
And it could have been so easily fixed. Have a couple of First visitations to random Sunnydalers. Don't have so many potentials, since it's hard to worry about 30-40 people. We started out with one girl. Now, it seems like you could kill half the world and only then worry about not getting a new Slayer.
They had, to (loosely) quote Anya, a Big Bad that could be any dead person it wanted to be. They should have used it more. Have everyone haunted and more often. Have the BB pretend to be Buffy and confuse everyone.
The other big issue is timing. They wasted a lot of time in the middle of the season, and now it feels like they needed that time. They're rushing things. They could have put Bring on the Night and Showtime into one episode. They should have put out Xander's eye sooner: then they could have made the Sunnydalers leave that much sooner. They should have brought in a Caleb-type sooner - a person/creature that does damage to our Scoobies. The turning point should have been Conversations with Dead People. They could have done what Angel did, and had the last part of the season all tighttight, but they ruined that by setting Bring on the Night in December, when Conversations with Dead People was only three episodes ago and that was on the 12th of November. Especially since Sleeper and Never Leave Me both needed to follow soon after Conversations (or Andrew was in a coma in that chair).
Basic continuity has been fucked up this year and they should know better.
They've burnt out. I really do think that that's the answer. They just were burnt out on Buffy. But we were the ones that got screwed because of it.
Now, can they turn it around in the finale? Of course, but will that be enough? Both Touched and End of Days were better than most of the episodes after Conversations with Dead People, but in places, it did feel forced, because we haven't seen any sign of this kind of life in them for a while.
The last issue is a big one. Starting last year, but getting ever worse this year, is the loss of Buffy's point of view. She's the main character. We need to be able to sympathize with her. You do not end the penultimate episode with someone other than Buffy. Or rather, you can, but that takes her out of it. And they've been doing it for a while. They've been shutting us out of Buffy's pov and only let us in a little, starting at the very end of Empty Place, and then they pull us out again at the end of End of Days. Spike's reaction is not the important one here, just as it wasn't the important one after the attempted rape. The show is not called Spike the Vampire.
But I definitely won't make any final statements about my feelings about this season until after the finale.
Eeep. This is the last episode of Buffy ever. Eeep.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-19 10:13 am (UTC)One of my biggest peeves this season was that the FE could *be* Buffy, right, and had been to Spike before. Did he *mention* this to anyone?
Why not have FE!Buffy mocking Willow, Xander or Giles?
FE!Buffy confusing things? FE!Buffy being the one that lead them to the vineyard.
There are so many other possibilities for this big bad, and they *only* just tapped into it with the reappearance of the Mayor. Um, hello? Giles could be visited by the dead Watchers from the council, Andrew by Katrina or Jonathan, Xander by Jesse, Larry, Harmony, any of the other random characters they didn't save.
I love Nathan Fillion, but I don't care about Caleb. I want to see the FE showdown I was promised.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-19 03:49 pm (UTC)I mean, the idea behind the FE is actually pretty damn cool. And they didn't take advantage of it. They used to be able to make silly ideas great and now they can't even work an interesting an creepy one.