Re: OT: on "Once More With Feeling"

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

As I've hinted, I've come around to Fox's position (you remember Fox,
right? She used to draw this comic strip...bitch, bitch, grumble,
grumble, whine/whinge, pleeeeeeease, etc.) that "Once More With Feeling"
lacked a plot--it didn't tell us anything that we didn't already know.
We knew Willow had messed with Tara's mind, we knew Buffy was in heaven,
not hell, and while it's nice that Tara/the gang found out about Willow
and Buffy's secrets, that should be the set-up to the story, not the
climax.

As a contrast, in "Revelations" we know Angel's alive and Buffy has been
hiding him since "Beauty and the Beasts". Xander (and thus everyone)
finds out.

That's not the end of the ep. That's the end of ACT ONE.

Then we get the actual story of the ep: gang chews Buffy out, Giles
chews Buffy out, Willow bonds with Buffy because she feels guilty about
her own secret, Xander bonds with Faith because they're both jealous of
Angel's place in Buffy's life, Faith tries to kill Angel, Xander decides
he trusts Buffy more than he hates Angel, Faith decides the opposite.

Oh, yeah, that summary leaves out little things like Gwen Post and the
Glove of Mynhegon and Lagos the Demon and Giles nearly getting killed
and five separate fights (Faith/Lagos, Buffy/Lagos, Gwen/Angel,
Buffy/Faith, Everyone/Gwen). And the Buffy/Angel and Willow/Xander
romances. It's an episode, not "there's a lot of singing and two
secrets come out".  

Mind you, the singing was nice. 

Dan