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a bit B5, lots of BTVS
Aug. 15th, 2003 07:23 amIt's raining. See me do my Gene Kelley imitation. I can't tell you what a relief this is on my side of the Atlantic.
Babylon 5: My Vir story, now entitled Knowing Love, is up here . Once September starts, RL will have me back with a vengeance and lots of work to do, but who knows, I just might be giving in to another old B5 plot bunny first, which has been dogging my steps forever, a telepath story this time. A Bester and Lyta conversation, set during The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father when he's recovering in the hospital.
I watched two more BTVS season 6 episodes before my weekend visitor will arrive, both with writer and director audio commentary. Now Hell's Bell's was something of a disappointment - not the episode, which I love, but Rebecca Rand Kirshner and David Solomon made the mistake of getting too caught up in watching and not talking enough. Still, there were some nice tidbits, such as Solomon teasing Kirshner that she auditioned for the part of Spike's date (hey, other writers had their cameos!) , and Kirshner revealing she got married some weeks before writing the episode, "but Xander's mother isn't based on my mother, oh no". Buffy's desperate explanation to Anya why the wedding would have to wait was improvised by the entire writing staff when the story was broken. Also, as most fans probably already know, Joss wrote the entire Buffy/Spike encounter of that episode. Emma Caulfield and Nick Brendon were justly praised, but alas so much that there were far too many "Isn't she great!"s and "Isn't he cute?"s and not enough info.
Random personal impressions upon rewatching Hell's Bell's:
- Do Mr. and Mrs Harris remind anyone else of a ghastly version of not Xander and Anya, but Xander and Cordelia if they had gotten married in season 3?
- Even knowing what I do know (i.e. poor Anya doomed), I still feel sorry for both Anya and Xander, not just Anya, in this episode. I thought Nick Brendon really sold Xander was genuinely afraid of hurting Anya the way his father did his mother.
- Buffy is adorable in Hell's Bell's, between intercepting Harris Snr from insulting everyone further, distracting the guests with charades and juggling, being supporto girl to Xander and having her encounter with Spike in a honest, dignified and adult manner.
Normal Again, on the other hand, also with a writer/director combination for audio commentary (first time Buffy director Rick Rosenthal and first time Buffy writer Diego Guiterrez, though as Joss' assistant he was a BTVS veteran otherwise), was much more satisfying as far as commentaries were concerned. As I mentioned in my later-seasons-of-Buffy-praise a while back, I love the experimental episodes, and this was one of them.
Rosenthal digs the concept so much he thinks it should have been an end-of-season cliffhanger. (My thought: And wouldn't the fandom have screamed bloody murder?) Guiterrez disagrees - they did want people to question realities, but this particular episode was also commenting on Buffy's emotional state at that particular time in the arc, and couldn't have come at any other point. Or earlier than season 6, for that matter, for her to be actually tempted by the hospital scenario.
They love the ambiguity of it - yes, among other things it's a reflection of Buffy's psyche, but it's also a parallel world. That's what they call it in the commentary: a parallel reality. With both realities informing upon another; Guiterrez points out that Buffy's first extended trip to the mental hospital world, for example, is preceded by the Xander-Spike fight, and Buffy attacking Xander later by Xander being on the verge of discovering her affair with Spike. And then of course the Tara/Joyce-interference climax.
When the scene where the Doctor comments on Buffy inserting Dawn into her delusional world when it started to become less comforting, and on her villains now not being grandiose demons and gods but three guys she went to high school with comes up, Guiterrez mentions Joss grooved on the meta-narration aspect of it all. It was also a way to tell the fans (they mention the original online confusion about Dawn and later about the Trio as the season's villains here) "you know, we know what we're doing". Which we probably guessed. But what was surprising in a "duh!" way for me that Guiterrez said, during Spike's "you're addicted to misery" speech to Buffy, that this was also a meta thing - it wasn't just Spike talking to Buffy but himself talking to Joss.*g*
But, he continues, here's where the Jossian dictum of "give them what they need, not what they want" comes in.
As with the other commentators, they're wild about the actors - MT, AH, but most of all SMG, whom they single out for praise since this is really her episode. (An aside here: these commentaries were recorded when about half of season 7 was already over, and they knew the show would end. So if this was only praising the star for job related reasons, it wouldn't have been necessary anymore. Just saying.) Their favourite scene is when Buffy, watching the photo of herself with her parents, tells Willow she was in fact once in a mental asylum. ("That was so important for the character, and she nailed it. Watch that single tear on the left side. How does she do that?")
Incidentally, since it was hotly debated how this new information fits with previously established continuity: Guiterrez says it took place between the movie and the pilot.
Random observations of yours truly:
- they're right, it's a crucial scene and background information for Buffy; the foundation of her fear that if you tell about that other world/vampires/Slayerness/everything "not normal" in you, you get rejected by your nearest and dearest
- in a way, Dawn is right about this being Buffy's ideal world - the return to childhood with both parents together and no responsibility at all - but the surrounding circumstances make it a searing comment on Buffy's state by season 6; after all, it would have been possible to make that other world a wonderful paradise, only Buffy's mind, to paraphrase Agent Smith from The Matrix would have rejected that; she has to put herself into a straight jacket to accept it
- Warren's offhand comment about Andrew's Ocean's Eleven "I still think we need another eight guys for this" reference - "I should never have let you watch that movie" - is a nice and subtle comment about the power dynamics of the Trio having irrevocably changed at this point, just as the more obvious ostracizing of Jonathan.
( And now: Quiz Time: )
Babylon 5: My Vir story, now entitled Knowing Love, is up here . Once September starts, RL will have me back with a vengeance and lots of work to do, but who knows, I just might be giving in to another old B5 plot bunny first, which has been dogging my steps forever, a telepath story this time. A Bester and Lyta conversation, set during The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father when he's recovering in the hospital.
I watched two more BTVS season 6 episodes before my weekend visitor will arrive, both with writer and director audio commentary. Now Hell's Bell's was something of a disappointment - not the episode, which I love, but Rebecca Rand Kirshner and David Solomon made the mistake of getting too caught up in watching and not talking enough. Still, there were some nice tidbits, such as Solomon teasing Kirshner that she auditioned for the part of Spike's date (hey, other writers had their cameos!) , and Kirshner revealing she got married some weeks before writing the episode, "but Xander's mother isn't based on my mother, oh no". Buffy's desperate explanation to Anya why the wedding would have to wait was improvised by the entire writing staff when the story was broken. Also, as most fans probably already know, Joss wrote the entire Buffy/Spike encounter of that episode. Emma Caulfield and Nick Brendon were justly praised, but alas so much that there were far too many "Isn't she great!"s and "Isn't he cute?"s and not enough info.
Random personal impressions upon rewatching Hell's Bell's:
- Do Mr. and Mrs Harris remind anyone else of a ghastly version of not Xander and Anya, but Xander and Cordelia if they had gotten married in season 3?
- Even knowing what I do know (i.e. poor Anya doomed), I still feel sorry for both Anya and Xander, not just Anya, in this episode. I thought Nick Brendon really sold Xander was genuinely afraid of hurting Anya the way his father did his mother.
- Buffy is adorable in Hell's Bell's, between intercepting Harris Snr from insulting everyone further, distracting the guests with charades and juggling, being supporto girl to Xander and having her encounter with Spike in a honest, dignified and adult manner.
Normal Again, on the other hand, also with a writer/director combination for audio commentary (first time Buffy director Rick Rosenthal and first time Buffy writer Diego Guiterrez, though as Joss' assistant he was a BTVS veteran otherwise), was much more satisfying as far as commentaries were concerned. As I mentioned in my later-seasons-of-Buffy-praise a while back, I love the experimental episodes, and this was one of them.
Rosenthal digs the concept so much he thinks it should have been an end-of-season cliffhanger. (My thought: And wouldn't the fandom have screamed bloody murder?) Guiterrez disagrees - they did want people to question realities, but this particular episode was also commenting on Buffy's emotional state at that particular time in the arc, and couldn't have come at any other point. Or earlier than season 6, for that matter, for her to be actually tempted by the hospital scenario.
They love the ambiguity of it - yes, among other things it's a reflection of Buffy's psyche, but it's also a parallel world. That's what they call it in the commentary: a parallel reality. With both realities informing upon another; Guiterrez points out that Buffy's first extended trip to the mental hospital world, for example, is preceded by the Xander-Spike fight, and Buffy attacking Xander later by Xander being on the verge of discovering her affair with Spike. And then of course the Tara/Joyce-interference climax.
When the scene where the Doctor comments on Buffy inserting Dawn into her delusional world when it started to become less comforting, and on her villains now not being grandiose demons and gods but three guys she went to high school with comes up, Guiterrez mentions Joss grooved on the meta-narration aspect of it all. It was also a way to tell the fans (they mention the original online confusion about Dawn and later about the Trio as the season's villains here) "you know, we know what we're doing". Which we probably guessed. But what was surprising in a "duh!" way for me that Guiterrez said, during Spike's "you're addicted to misery" speech to Buffy, that this was also a meta thing - it wasn't just Spike talking to Buffy but himself talking to Joss.*g*
But, he continues, here's where the Jossian dictum of "give them what they need, not what they want" comes in.
As with the other commentators, they're wild about the actors - MT, AH, but most of all SMG, whom they single out for praise since this is really her episode. (An aside here: these commentaries were recorded when about half of season 7 was already over, and they knew the show would end. So if this was only praising the star for job related reasons, it wouldn't have been necessary anymore. Just saying.) Their favourite scene is when Buffy, watching the photo of herself with her parents, tells Willow she was in fact once in a mental asylum. ("That was so important for the character, and she nailed it. Watch that single tear on the left side. How does she do that?")
Incidentally, since it was hotly debated how this new information fits with previously established continuity: Guiterrez says it took place between the movie and the pilot.
Random observations of yours truly:
- they're right, it's a crucial scene and background information for Buffy; the foundation of her fear that if you tell about that other world/vampires/Slayerness/everything "not normal" in you, you get rejected by your nearest and dearest
- in a way, Dawn is right about this being Buffy's ideal world - the return to childhood with both parents together and no responsibility at all - but the surrounding circumstances make it a searing comment on Buffy's state by season 6; after all, it would have been possible to make that other world a wonderful paradise, only Buffy's mind, to paraphrase Agent Smith from The Matrix would have rejected that; she has to put herself into a straight jacket to accept it
- Warren's offhand comment about Andrew's Ocean's Eleven "I still think we need another eight guys for this" reference - "I should never have let you watch that movie" - is a nice and subtle comment about the power dynamics of the Trio having irrevocably changed at this point, just as the more obvious ostracizing of Jonathan.
( And now: Quiz Time: )
