(no subject)

[doyle]

- this was the first thing Ultimate Drew wrote for TV, ever? Wow.

- he's such a fanboy. He points out all the stuff like Xander's Lie and the amulet from Something Blue, and David Solomon says that he was on every episode and doesn't know all that stuff.

- The First was supposed to appear to Anya as Halfrek in CWDP but Kali Rocha wasn't available.

- Anya's name and backstory came about because when Drew G was doing research for the episode he found a Viking King called Olaf whose wife, Aud, was known for her 'strange sense of humour and ability with money'.



CWPD

- Jane Espenson is adorable. As are Tom Lenk and Danny Strong.

- Jane loooves Jonathan. I think it's Drew Goddard who snarkily says "you could go in and pitch an episode about Spike and Jane'd be like, ooh! Can Danny play Spike's mom?"

- I shall maturely say nyah to the person on my friends-list or on BAPS (can't remember which) who said Tom was lying about making up some of his own lines. (Also Jane tells a story about watching TV with Tom in a hotel room in Britain and him getting too tense to watch a gameshow - "ohh, I can't watch these things, I get too nervous for the people. It's why I don't like ice-skating." - which is a line she wanted to use for Andrew)

- Xander wasn't in this episode because he's 'never known anyone who died'. Uh... Jesse? Larry? Snyder, which would fit with Restless?

- the actress who plays Cassie is apparently identical to Rebecca Rand-Kirshner, who created the character. Thinking about Help, Cassie's the definition of a Mary Sue, isn't she? Tragic background (she knows she's going to die), mystical powers. Plus she becomes best friends with Dawn, Buffy's obsessed with saving her, she uses her next-to-dying breath to encourage the Spuffy and her actual dying breath to give Buffy a morale boost, and everybody sits around weeping over her death. And yet I still like her a lot. Hm.

- Jane says yes, Joyce was The First, and that yes, the First can appear in more than one place at a time. Which I guess we saw in Bring on the Night when it was masquerading as a potential and appearing to Spike. Shame it didn't think to exploit this omnipresence a bit more considering that confusing your enemies might be a good idea (I have issues with the source of all evil being dumb as a rock, tactically speaking).

- the writers had next to no outline for this episode beyond "Buffy and Holden scene. Dawn scene." They had three days to write it and were majorly stressed. So Jane took off to Vegas. I want to be her when I grow up.

Comments

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Yep, it's in at least three places at once. Possibly four if it's also appearing to Spike in the bar while he's talking to the girl.

Oh, and everyone on the commentary mentions the shot of Warren by the basement door as one of the scariest moments in the whole series (which I agree with, that shot scares the hell out of me)and there's much praising of Adam's acting. Danny calls him his best friend, too.

[emony.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. And if it's appearing to Xander as Jesse and Anya as Halfrek and we just don't see it ... which it so should, if it wants to freak the "good guys" out, so I chose to believe it did and they just never mentioned it.

Maybe it's a bad sign, but that doesn't scare me at all. It makes me want to run over and give him hugs and ice cream. Hehe *g*

[shadowscast.livejournal.com]

I chose to believe it did and they just never mentioned it.

I also choose to believe that.

Man, the First just totally failed to be scary. And it totally failed to use its abilities to full advantage. For instance, it could appear as Buffy. Why didn't it ever wait till Buffy was out of the house, then appear as her to the Potentials and give them bogus orders? Say, send them into a Bringers trap, or something? And did the First ever do anything with the intelligence it gathered while it was hanging out at Casa Summers pretending to be Eve?

[emony.livejournal.com]

I think they probably just made that whole First Evil plot up as they went along. More holes than plot that season. That whole thing with "oh, if the ubervamps come and cover the earth the First will be Way Poweful and corporeal, for some reason, but if they don't .. uh .. it'll just go away and won't bother us anymore." Made no sense! It had such potential, but really didn't fulfil it.

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

My thought was that they were using Buffy's insularity, setting her up to see a world-destroying action as good, but decided that they couldn't go out with their hero as the final big bad, and the house of cards fell down.

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

Joss Whedon has said that the way Buffy ended was planned all along and I heard that if season 5 had been the final season he would have ended it with Buffy sharing her powers then.

Buffy was never going to be the Big Bad, although they did discuss having The First become corporeal in Buffy's form but the symbolism of that was not what the season was about, so it didn't happen.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I've heard versions of The Gift where literally *everyone* died and the Hellmouth swallowed Sunnydale...

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

Joss Whedon has said that the way Buffy ended was planned all along and I heard that if season 5 had been the final season he would have ended it with Buffy sharing her powers then.

The alternate S5 I heard had Xander as Ben and had more dead bodies on the ground than the end of Hamlet.

Buffy was never going to be the Big Bad, although they did discuss having The First become corporeal in Buffy's form but the symbolism of that was not what the season was about, so it didn't happen.

Well, there's a whole bit, starting with "Conversations", where Buffy was disconnected from reality. It being December already during the first ubervamp hunt when, by the time she knew, it had only been a week since "CWDP", and the untouching Giles. If you disconnect someone from reality, what purpose is there other than changing their landmarks and making something that is really a bad, world-ending thing look like a good idea.

Was it the plan ever? Maybe. Maybe not. It was what I was seeing a year and a half ago, and it would've been cooler than what we got, though.

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

By the way, what was the symbolism of S7 about? I couldn't get a handle on anything like symbolism.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

According to teh Joss? Female power (particularly in the way Caleb dies) and, as far as I recall, motherhood (Buffy looking after the potentials). Well, the symbolism of the girls all bleeding together over the seal is about 'menstrual power'.Or something.

Kind of ironic, then, that without Spike to wear the amulet and Angel to deliver it, the ubervamps would have eaten all these newly-empowered women.

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

So, let me get this straight.

Dead!Pawn!Of!SP!Lilah gives amulet to Angel.

Angel gives amulet to Buffy.

Buffy gives amulet to Spike.

Spike stops not-the-SP's-apocalypse, pulling victory from the jaws of Buffy's perfectly planned mass suicide, gets burned up.

Spike returns to Wolfram and Hart, providing them with another Vampire With A Soul, which would allow him to kill Angel without destroying Destiny.

Meanwhile, instead of just one girl at a time receiving a permanent "kill me" sign and the power to defend themselves for a time, hundreds of women now receive this curse. How is this "Female Power"?

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

The symbolism of season 7 was fighting against male supremacy. Caleb represented chauvenism, someone who wanted to destroy female empowerment.

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

The symbolism of season 7 was fighting against male supremacy. Caleb represented chauvenism, someone who wanted to destroy female empowerment.

Bullshit.

Caleb might have represented that, he served a being that always presented itself as female to him, and he received power from her. Beyond that, the evil rarely represented itself as male. Few of the male characters were presented as having power (Giles' power, what little he had, was more as parental power than male power, Wood was presented as having a perfectly justified reason to exercise his power and still failed, Xander was emasculated, Spike only grew his balls back when he was told to, and Andrew was powerless and scared). No males were presented as anything remotely supreme, except maybe RT in "Him".

Plus, at the end, it was the supreme male who saved the day.

Bullshit.

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

Buffy has always received help in saving the world. That's been a big theme from the beginning. The reason why she survived so long (despite being resurrected) was from the help of her friends.

The theme was female empowerment but there were other things going on also. I'm not saying that every single thing that happened in season 7 touched on that theme, I'm saying that that was what the Big Bad represented. The First was trying to destroy the Slayer line. The Slayer line represents female empowerment.

I understand that you have problems with the season and the way it was handled but every time I've watched it, the biggest thing I got from it was that female empowerment was threatened and in the end it was shared. I know people see the slayer power as a burden because that's what it represented to Buffy throughout the series but I think that the burden was actually that she was alone with the power, not that she had the power. The burden was that she alone had the responsibility to protect the world. Now that there are women everywhere who have the powers Buffy has, they don't have to be alone in it. Hell, they probably don't even have to use their powers if they don't want to (that's just speculation).

That's the way I see it, anyway. It's ok if you disagree though.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Oh! And the First rising now because Buffy was resurrected, that big, huge deal... that was never mentioned again.

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

There are good and interesting scenes in later episodes, really, I think everything went off the rails with "Conversations", and I hate the episode because of it.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I'm planting the blame squarely on Showtime/Bring on the Night. So much lameness (and I'm saying that as someone who loved season 7, but just hated the arc)

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

That bothered me that it was never mentioned again. I like season 7 and I can overlook some plot holes because I know the writers try their best but aren't perfect, but that one bothered me so much I wrote a short scene (http://www.livejournal.com/users/electrcspacegrl/1213917.html?nc=9) about what Beljoxa's Eye told Giles and Anya

[electrcspacegrl.livejournal.com]

The alternate S5 I heard had Xander as Ben and had more dead bodies on the ground than the end of Hamlet.

This was something they talked about. It doesn't mean that they were really going to write it that way. I'm sure they had quite a few different story ideas floating around. I just know I read that a writer or producer said that Joss had always wanted to end BTVS with Buffy sharing her powers, from the very beginning.

When I said that the writers discussed the idea of making Buffy fight herself (The First as Buffy) but decided against it, I heard this from the writers themselves in the Succubus Club interviews. They felt it would be a powerful image, but not one that fit with the season. Buffy had not been in an internal struggle with herself. They also said that something like that might have fit in a different season (like perhaps season 6) but not this one.

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

Well, as things went, things seemed to be tightening. First season, the evil was all external, some mad thing. Second season, the evil was a former lover. Third, the evil was her city government. Fourth is not worth speaking about. Fifth, evil attacking and going after her family. Sixth, the evil turns out to be her dearest friend. Conflict with self would've been perfect, and there was still room for her to be in conflict with herself.

But then again, the argument isn't with you, it's with Whedon and a writing staff that's been off the job for a year.

[metalphoenix.livejournal.com]

That, is a very powerful point. And the more I think about it, the more I wish they had done something along the lines of Buffy fighting the First as herself.

There were points were she was conflicting with herself, I think, moreso than the woman power thing. Buffy has always been about women being powerful, but near the end, it got more and more about her, as a person. There were random episodes, random scenes where parts of her thoughts came out, but the further along in the series it went, the further along her problems with herself developed.

In season 7, she was always bringing the problems on herself, to the point where it pissed off the potentials. The conversation with Faith showed how much responsibility she had on herself. And in CWDP she talked to Holden and told him how she felt inferior and superior to her friends at once.

All of that adds up, for me, personal conflict, and would have been summed up beautifully with her fighting the First as Buffy. If they had a scene where instead of her fighting some random uber-vamp, she had turned to the First when it was goading her and began fighting with her instead... and then Spike doing his thing..

That would have been amazing.

[shadowscast.livejournal.com]

Yeah. *sigh*

Oh well -- more work for the fanfic writers!

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Exactly! If it can appear as Buffy or Spike, the other characters can't trust *anything* those two say or do - in a panic situation there's not always going to be somebody close enough to check for corporeality. Plus it could be appearing to Andrew and Dawn, and to all of the Potentials like it did to Chloe (and Annabelle?)

The First had the ability to wreak psychological warfare on the Scoobs (hey, I'm sure Robia laMorte wouldn't be willing to return as Jenny but how about appearing to Giles as Randall, the guy Eyghon killed? Or to Xander as Jesse?) And yet... it didn't. Talk about a lazy Big Bad.

And what did it want with Spike, anyway?

[shadowscast.livejournal.com]

And what did it want with Spike, anyway?

Good question.

Hm, when it told Andrew it had big plans for Spike, the trigger was still intact, right? So maybe the FE's Spike plans fizzled out when the trigger got broken.

Rather pathetic for the Ultimate Evil to have such easily-foiled plans, though.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

The First Evil: nice girl. Not all that bright.