Maybe it's good it was cancelled . . .

POSTED BY: grrarrg
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 20:31
VIEWED: 11296
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CORNCOBB

Friday, March 11, 2005 7:49 PM

Christhecynic, you made a very good point. Not all of these young impressionable killing machines will be good. I've even been writing fanfic about that idea. It deals the revelation that the slayer powers were drawn from the First, and now that all the potentials have been activated the First can corrupt them. Thing is, once they've been cured, some will have enjoyed turning 'dark' and will keep on killing.

I would have liked to see Angel S6 but it's true that this might have overstretched Joss. Maybe he could have done it but maybe not.

My least favourite season of Buffy was season 5. It was just really girly. There's nothing wrong with that of course but since I'm a guy I couldn't relate. Plus, Glory and dawn annoyed me. And, unlike most seasons, there really wasn't a potent metaphor.

I think the weakest episode was All the Way. It was juvenile. I felt like I was watching 90210 with added vampires.

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

SALTYGOODNESS

Friday, March 11, 2005 9:42 PM

I guess I am one of the other few who didn't hate S4 of AtS as much as most people. During the first half of the season I felt like the week in between episodes was SOOOO long and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. Of course, evil Cordy was a bummer, especially for those of us who had been hoping to see her and Angel connect-and Connor and Cordy was repulsive.

I thought S5 seemed more disjointed and I didn't like the Wolfram & Hart setting as much; I missed team Angel sitting around working on problems together in the hotel. That being said, I loved many of the episodes individually, they just seemed more self-contained than the rest of the seasons to me (except S1).

I agree that one of the worst Angel ep's was the one with the dismembered evil doctor harrassing his lover. As for Buffy, I am only halfway through S3 having just started watching the DVD's (since I am an Angel and Firefly fan, thought I should finally see Buffy!) and so far my least favorite episode is Bad Eggs. The monster in the basement popping out evil chicken eggs just seemed really lame to me.

As for a S6, I actually think that it ended really well and as sorry as I was to see my favorite show EVER conclude, I am very satisfied with the way they wrapped up the story.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Saturday, March 12, 2005 2:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by embers:
Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
the thing that I remember about slayers is that they are murderers.
There isn’t anyone around to guide all of these slayers and keep them from becoming killers.

Wow, you certainly were watching a different show than me.
So you figure that without a middle aged British guy to guide them, most young women with super strength will kill people right and left?

Have you ever noticed what happens to people who are given extraordinary gifts? The vast majority of them don’t use them for the greater good. Tell me, if not a middle aged British guy who has had extensive training who should guide them?

Even with guidance from professionals we aren’t exactly given a high ratio of success are we?

Quote:
I was just imagining they would all join the Olympics

Right, so you think that they would use a supernatural advantage given to them by breaking an ancient rule to immorally win the only sporting event in history designed (ok, revived) to promote peace and friendship among all nations of the world.

All of this knowing full well that people have been known to kill themselves for losing there, not to mention the psychological effects of a record breaking loss.

But, you don’t think that they would harm anyone even if they knew they could get away with it.

NUMEROCINCUENTAUNO

Saturday, March 12, 2005 5:59 AM

As a late convert to the Buffyverse, I am a bit biased -- Buffy S7 and Angel S5 were the only seasons I watched first run. However, even now that I have the whole backstory down, I very much enjoyed Angel S5, and I think it is a shame that it did not continue. As someone above suggested, even the lamer shows of either series were better than most anything else on.

The original point was that Angel S6 would have necessarily been terrible because Whedon was so tied up with the Firefly project. While I concede that the episode quality seems to improve to extent Whedon is more involved, he also seems to be able to attract a pretty strong team of people for what is a collaborative and commercial business. As others have noted, even the weaker seasons included outstanding episodes, and even weak episodes included outstanding moments.

The original premise of Buffy was "high school blonde by day -- demon butt-kicker by night -- but fatally attracted to a tall REALLY dark and handsome." To Whedon's credit, he allowed the characters and the environment to grow, expanding on characters and situations that worked (like Spike) and discarding those that didn't. The cosmic joke ("Our high school is built over a Hellmouth? That explains a lot.") and the original premise ended with Season 3 ("Taking a moment", also the point at which Angel and Cordelia transfer to the new series). The transition to college (and the Initiative) probably sounded good at the time, but ultimately didn't work (although "Hush" and the last two episodes of S4 are as good as any). Season 5 is a writing tour-de-force, if nothing else, because by retroactively introducing a younger sister, they put the original premise back in place.

However, the real problem is how you come up with an enemy that is sufficiently evil, especially when you start (in Season 1) with the ultimate evil. How ultimate can evil be? By season 5, Buffy was no longer fighting a demon, but a God (thankfully a mentally- and fashion-challenged one). Still, Buffy achieves apotheosis in defeating this enemy. The series was quite prepared to end with "She saved the world -- a lot."

[By the way, Buffy stops breathing for a few seconds in season 1, and we get Kendra/Faith. She is dead and buried after season 5, so where is the third slayer? I'm just sayin'.]

Angel was always a more "noir" and edgy than Buffy (the episode where Angel regains his humanity, is again Buffy's lover, and gives it up in order to help her, is perhaps the most moving episode of either series). The problems with Angel S4 had something to do with the writers dealing with real world events. I thought I heard that the real actress Charisma Carpenter had a real pregnancy and some real hassles with the production team. I thought the introduction of the fatherhood dynamic as a potential enemy was brilliant. The introduction of Jasmine -- the enemy you do not know you are supposed to fight -- was beyond brilliant.

Angel S5 -- putting them in charge of the law firm -- added so many more dimensions (no pun intendend) of the central question: who is the evil that you are fighting? My bottom line -- I believe I would have enjoyed most of an Angel Season 6 tremendously (although possibly not as much as a Firefly Season 2).

EMBERS

Saturday, March 12, 2005 5:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by NumeroCincuentaUno:
[By the way, Buffy stops breathing for a few seconds in season 1, and we get Kendra/Faith. She is dead and buried after season 5, so where is the third slayer? I'm just sayin'.]

as I understood it, each slayer could only be 'replaced' once...
you couldn't keep killing Buffy and keep getting more and more...
because Buffy did get killed a lot.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Saturday, March 12, 2005 7:25 PM

It always struck me that the difference between Buffy and Angel, the shows, not just the characters, was that Buffy was about destroying evil and Angel was about protecting those that deserved it.

I think that came out well in an episode of Angel that Buffy came over on, I think it was about Faith but I could be wrong as I saw it a while ago. Angel said that he was in the business of saving souls.

If the one with Faith was not the one about saving souls it was certainly related. Buffy wanted to punish Faith because she had been evil, Angel wanted to help Faith because everyone deserves a chance at redemption.

Even the method of finding evil is different in Angel. Evil things were drawn to Buffy, probably because of the hellmouth and the fact that she was the Slayer, but I’m not sure. Angel on the other hand was given direction through visions passed down from a higher power. Those visions were most often about people in need of saving, not evil in need of killing.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Saturday, March 12, 2005 9:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by embers:
Quote:
Originally posted by NumeroCincuentaUno:
[By the way, Buffy stops breathing for a few seconds in season 1, and we get Kendra/Faith. She is dead and buried after season 5, so where is the third slayer? I'm just sayin'.]

as I understood it, each slayer could only be 'replaced' once...
you couldn't keep killing Buffy and keep getting more and more...
because Buffy did get killed a lot.

As I understand it Buffy is no longer the one after she dies, so to get another new slayer you need the newest one to die.

GRRARRG

Monday, March 14, 2005 9:29 PM

Some good points. Personally, I would love to have gotten Angel S6. But in a grander sense, it think it would have deteriorated to a point that it's status would have diminished. I like the fact that every time I see a mention of the show in a review or article, the author is using it as an example of a great show that was prematurely cancelled. If WB had decided to give it another season, it would have gone downhill, and any future mentioning of Angel would be as an example of a show that should not have continued. Again, I would have enjoyed it personally, but it would have hurt the reputation of the show and Joss's reputation. Of course, maybe that doesn't matter.

To re-hijack my own thread in a new direction,

Quote:
As I understand it Buffy is no longer the one after she dies, so to get another new slayer you need the newest one to die.

That's the way I've understood it. So since (in Buffy S7) the First was trying to kill all of the potentials so that the slayer line would end (I think that was the goal), then it would seem very convenient for the current chosen one - Faith - to be confined to jail. Why, then, would it send someone to kill Faith? This would call a new slayer, one that would probably join up with Buffy and make the First's mission harder. To remind you of the reference: they showed a scene of Faith working out in the prison yard, when some big inmate approached her with one of those Bringer knives. She said it was nothing personal, that someone was paying her to kill Faith.

I mock you with my monkey pants

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, March 15, 2005 2:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by grrarrg:
Why, then, would it send someone to kill Faith?

To reintroduce Faith into the plot?

If I go for the logical approach maybe something will come up.

Right now there are two slayers around, one that simply refuses to die, or rather does it often enough but avoids staying that way, and another that is the one, killing her will bring about a new one.

Obviously you want to kill Buffy more, but Faith is a danger too, leave her out of it and someone will tap her. On the other hand kill Faith, a very good killer, and somewhere you have a new slayer, yes, but one lacking in experience.

CORNCOBB

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 2:19 AM

Actually, for an entity that was apparently trying to kill all the slayers, and certainly had the resources to do so, the First was peculiarly lax in achieving its aims. It even led Buffy to the Scythe, allowed her to take it, and indirectly gave her the idea to give the other slayers their powers. Plus, it was somehow strengthened by Buffy's ressurection. Think about it...

P.S. sorry for the hijack

"Gorramit Mal... I've forgotten my line."

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