Re: Re: Request and Questions - Rewrite season 6

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Hmm, guess I should follow up DEM's random thoughts before I see
"Villains"

Spoiler

Space

for 

"Seeing 

Red"

for 

just 

a 

few

more

hours.


1. The broken urn does seem to just be a one-of-a-kind thing, with no
further implications. All year long they've done that, tease us with
big possibilities and settled for the most prosaic thing. It's "we
can't top Glory" syndrome. Gee, I bet Buffy the immortal warrior or
Buffy's fractured soul driving Willow insane or any of a zillion fan
ideas would have topped it but good.

2. "Deep cellular tan" was there so there wouldn't be an excuse
for/reset button on Spuffy, but ME was the ones who teased us with this,
for no other reason, so it's a waste of time.

3. Oh, god, yes, MopeyLoserBuffy is totally alienating. (Even the
Spuffys only want the coupling because their Heroic Rapist wants it.)
Why not show Buffy being herself and then lapsing into sobbing at odd
moments--you know, show depression as an oscillating mood rather than a
continual lethargy? Or actually give us a Buffy-p.o.v. cam now and
then, and show the world seeming "bright" and "loud" to her and thus us?

4. Having to care for a child and fearing you might lose her because
you can't cope should be in every ep, not just wandering off between
"Tough Love" and "Gone". If it's the central issue of Buffy's life, you
can't go 13 eps without addressing it.

And yes, Joss said he always planned for Buffy and Dawn to be
parentless, so apparently Dawn is just there to be Buffy's burden. If
they'd spend more time developing Dawn, then Joyce's death could have
been about DAWN's arc, not just a catalyst for Buffy to have One More
Problem.

5. But if Willow knows what to do without Mommy, I mean Tara, telling
her, then Tara loses her only function in the plot. Even in "Seeing
Red", she's still Saint Tara, telling Willow how to deal with the B/S
thing. Apparently Middle America can't deal with a lesbian who isn't
perfect, and it's an insult to The Community to have a GLB character
with flaws, or something. And that "she lied to everyone for a year,
put a spell on them, nearly got them killed" thing? Never happened,
apparently.

6. But W/T can't have debates about magic, because Tara is always
right, so where's the debate? Magic is only bad when Willow wants to do
it, when Tara says it's wrong. Wonderful balanced relationship there.

Sarcasm aside, yes, I'd like to see more of Tara's magic background, but
I'd like to see more of Tara, period. Do you know we still don't know
where she's from? What happened to her mother? Whether Mom bought the
"demon" story? Why she's at UC-Hellmouth (a witch moves to Sunnydale to
study art)? How she pays for all of this? If she ever dated boys, or
anyone before Willow? When she and Willow first kissed? Whether she
tried to resurrect her mother, as hinted in "Forever"? Let's see, she
has encyclopedic knowledge, no personality, and has a lot of sex with
Willow. Are we sure Warren didn't build HER?

7. The Troika's arc was okay, but it a) lacked a point (they just want
money?) and b) was based on unnecessary and repugnant bashing of the
fan-base. This show should be above "hee-hee, lookie, nerds!" All the
good comedy came from their character interactions ("Smashed", "Gone"
and even "Entropy") and you can have the "little bads end up bigger than
they seemed" without making them (and Buffy) look pathetic. Bored,
lazy, disconnected and dangerous was the way to go here, not "silly
little boys".

8. It's so sad that DEM has to cite the X/Ay/W/T scene as use of the
ensemble, when that's just the same two couples stuck together. And if
the four of them had developed a bond, like "Bargaining 1" seemed to
imply, that went out the window PDQ. (And where was the Anya/Willow
friendship arc from last year? Completely forgotten, that's where.)  

Wouldn't "Entropy" have worked better if we'd HAD S/Ay scenes before?
Wouldn't Xander's anger at Spuffy be more credible if we didn't have to
go back before they butt-monkeyed him (starting in "Gingerbread", I
suppose) to remember how important the three of them are to each other?
Wouldn't Anya be more credibly upset at Dawn's stealing if they'd ever
had a scene before that? (A few seconds in a group scene in "All the
Way" does not qualify) Shouldn't Xander have seen Amy ONCE, in three
eps? (Did the Dawn-spell even affect Amy, since she was a rat at the
time? Guess we'll never know.)

9. I can't even be coherent about Dark Willow at this point. Here's a
conundrum on Tara: DeKnight said the whole point of her presence on the
show was to get Willow deeper into magic, with eventual negative
consequences, but then they made Tara so saintly that the (larger)
audience never went "oh, please, Willow, stay away from the magic" but
"that bitch! how can she do that to Tara?". Doing a 2.5 year character
arc about Willow, and making her the unsympathetic one in the story is a
disastrous concept, which is why they had to try and save it with "it's
drugs, she can't help it, and she only does it because Tara dies".  

ME just thinks everyone thinks the way that they do. So they figure
they have to sell Spike as a leading man (and then they wonder why the
Spuffyites are upset that Buffy doesn't love the PerfectSpike they gave
us) and they figure no one will ever dislike Willow, so they make her
take the blame for everything between her and Saint Tara, and then
they're confused by why people have turned on her. Morons.

10. I think Buffy resenting Slaying might be seen as regression, but I
agree Willow should resent getting lectures on magic when they were all
keen for her to use it before. To be fair, though, it was Buffy who had
her use it, and Buffy hasn't been lecturing her. So I guess the only
real anger there should be at Buffy for not putting a stop to the crap
Tara and Giles were giving her.

11. With Spike, they've taken away everything that made the character
appealing and somehow decided that made for "chemistry" with the star.
It's like if they started to push an Angel/Cordelia arc and had Cordy
stop being observant and cutting and funny and had her have an ugly
short blonde hairdo. Fortunately, that'll never happen....

(gee, when Joss said Spike was this show's "new Cordelia", who'd have
thought that would mean they'd wreck both of them so that they could
date the leads. You know Spike is in trouble when becoming a rapist
actually qualifies as deepening the character...)

12. Spuffy, covered this already. Would have been interesting if it
was a decision Buffy made (stupid and ultimately self-destructive as it
might have been). As it was, just nine eps of Buffy being forced to
submit, just a preview for when it actually becomes rape. Painful.

13. Giles. He doesn't know how to say no to Buffy, so he runs away.
So very lame. (And really only credible if he's in love with her AND an
idiot.) Why the heck can't he just be out of town? There's trouble in
England and you need space, but here's my number if you ever really need
me. Could have had a couple of 10 second scenes at Buffy's low points
(like "Dead Things") where she thinks about calling him, but puts the
phone down.

And maybe his needing to detach should have been about him being
over-protective, not her being weak. Of course, that would be character
development for someone who isn't Buffy, so...

14. Thanks to DEM for the point about plot-over-canon. After "Seeing
Red" I officially hate Clem the Cuddly Demon. (I know, I'm slow.)

15. I'll do favorite eps some other time. I've got to put
"Benediction" on tape (and out of digi-storage) right now.

Dan