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tori_reviewsI waffled for a while on whether to do one or two reviews in this post. The one for 1x09 is a little on the shorter side, but not that much. In my head the one for 1x10 was on the longer side...and it is, for s1. I was much less rambly in s1, and even didn't get sidetracked into a point or two that I thought I remembered that I did. Anyway, this way I can finish s1 next week and get to some good stuff in s2.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 1x09 – The Puppet Show
This episode kind of gives me the same vibe I had back in Witch, there’s something just…comfortable about this episode. It’s kind of an average episode, so much so that I’m not sure it would be that appealing on first watching, but right now it’s working for me really well.
This is kind of reminding me why I dislike so much modern TV, I think I miss little episodes, and it being okay to have little episodes. In short seasons of shows, there isn’t a place for little episodes; and even shows with longer seasons these days seem to have to be about their larger story that strings the audience along until it’s time for the big events to take place. It causes burnout or the need to binge and just get the whole story. Part of what makes watching this show so comfortable is just the format, and it’s one I still respond to.
Even though, like I said, this episode is just as average little story, something that doesn’t excite that much response, it is just…well, comfortable for 45 minutes or so. I mean, I doubt I’m the only person who thinks the most memorable part of this episode is the credits scene.
I don’t remember if I noticed this before, but I am being more analytical this time through. And the villain comes out of nowhere in the last ten minutes of the episode. But I was thinking here that I guess Snyder was there as a red herring? If that was what they were going for, it didn’t work for me; but it is worth asking why. Is it because I’ve seen the show, and in fact never saw this episode without seeing several more with Snyder? But that doesn’t quite feel like enough of a reason why the misdirect only occurs to me in an analytical sense and not within the story itself.
I think it’s more complicated than that, and kind of hangs on when this show was made. Because Snyder is played by Armin Shimerman, who wasn’t just a nobody getting cast in a low budget minor network show. These days it’s more common to get known genre actors to play smaller roles in other shows, but that never feels like what’s happening here. This seems much more like he’s moving in to be a new nemesis to Buffy in her civilian life. The attention drawn to him feels more like introducing a new element of the series for the long haul rather than the idea that he could be the villain of the episode.
That said…how is Buffy not suspected for the second murder? Snyder knows she was looking for the victim and then he turns up dead and Buffy was in the vicinity at the time. Did she actually report finding the dead body? Cause I think that would have been something that would complicate matters further. Or did she not report the mysterious death and so there’s still going to be an investigation.
In fact, there will still be an investigation into these two deaths. Admittedly, when there are no other deaths that fit the profile, they might conclude the killer just moved on, but I question it.
I also question why the kid with brain cancer is going to high school like this. It’s not real clear how bad it was or whether it was assumed to be treatable, but it was bad enough that people noticed his headaches. Maybe he wanted to finish out the school year without anyone making a big deal out of his condition so it wasn’t well known? And he wanted to put on an act in the talent show? It’s not impossible to explain, but…
Wait, where did he get the dummy? Did Sid just wander up and suggest they team up for the talent show? Although, how would he know the demon was in the talent show when he can’t narrow it down any further?
Look, I said this episode was comfortable, I didn’t say it stands up to a lot of scrutiny.
But I do want to talk for a moment about Cordelia, and to lesser extent all the high schoolers here. Because the show plays Cordy as very self-absorbed, but I’m feeling pretty sympathetic to her. She’s seen a lot of crap in the last few months, a lot of people around them have died in some pretty strange ways. And while the Scoobies get to know what’s going on, the rest of the students don’t. Whether the self-absorption is a coping mechanism or a consequence of a coping mechanism like sticking one’s head in the sand, I find it quite understandable.
And just because the Scoobies are in the know for what’s happening, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be having trouble dealing with all this crap. And yeah, they grew up in Sunnydale where there probably are a lot of unsolved mysteries around, but it has to take a tole.
What am I shipping?
Again, kind of nothing. I notice Xander continues to be a little territorial about Willow, which works for me. And I like the vibe between Buffy and Giles even if it’s still in an acorns phase, both as a relationship and for me shipping it.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 1x10 – Nightmares
So it looks like I have about a million things to say about this episode, even though in the grand scheme of things it’s not that important. And I have several things to say about that fact.
When I’m reviewing more modern shows, or more niche ones, or more where at least it’s new to me, then taking the time to do a lot of character analysis feels like a more valid use of time. With something like this, I know everything’s been said before; been talked over by a lot of people reading this, including myself; and I’m not even ignorant of what may or may not be picked up on later.
I guess the Star Wars stuff wasn’t an entirely different kettle of fish, because between knowing spoilers and what I knew must happen in the larger saga, and it being such a well known property, I didn’t have a lot new to bring to the table. Except I did have my journey with it, how I made sense of what I was seeing even if it wasn’t surprising. This…feels more self-indulgent, but I also am enjoying it; a lot more than I was a lot of the Star Wars material you might notice.
Anyway, as an episode this is a mess. In some ways I get that nothing making sense is part of it being a dream, but I’m left with a lot of questions that make it pretty awkward. I think the best way to look at this would be that Billy sort of set up a dreamland that overlaid Sunnydale and nothing that happened in it really happened. Everybody is kind of going to remember it as a nightmare, unless they knew it wasn’t.
Except that there must still be traces of it. Do the test papers just disappear? Do people ‘wake up’ and wonder how they got wherever they were? If they compare notes of the last couple days, do they find they were having a lot of the same dreams? Are people still hurt by the things in the dreams? Did anybody die in either their own or someone else’s nightmare? Did anyone dream-resurrect a dead loved one? What about things that involved people taking actions that someone else (or they) dreamed they would take? If someone had a dream of being assaulted by a specific person, did that person find themselves doing it, or did the nightmare world create a specter of the person who actually did it?
It's pretty clear from the end that Buffy’s dad was not there. That this was Buffy’s nightmare scenario of how her father feels about her and her effect on his life. But the Master is in Sunnydale, did the dreamland let him escape as Buffy would have nightmares about, or did it create a specter of the demon she feared? Seeing as she has no idea what the Master looks like (even this episode points out that they would be meeting for the first time) would it really be him that Buffy had nightmares about? (…Okay, I might be willing to put that down to Slayer foresight, having dreamed about the actual Master at some point.)
Then, if I can get past my questions of how this works and how it impacts people/events/memories, I still have some niggles about this. Because…it could have been more. With Buffy and to a lesser extent Giles there is something to analyze here, and I’ll get to it, but we’re not told much about anyone else through the nightmare scenarios.
Except if I assume that in not being told much we are told something, but I’m not sure what to do with anything in that case. Because Willow and Xander are having very normal nightmares, average fears, and common phobias. They aren’t being haunted by all the things they’ve seen and done in the past few months. There’s no Jesse, no thoughts of what Xander did during The Pack, no Moloch/Malcolm being let out in Willow’s nightmare. With the spiders, Xander does make a passing reference that could be a reference back to Teacher’s Pet, but it’s not explored. No hordes of the monsters they’ve seen.
With Buffy we do get a mix of nightmares. The test one is a common one, but her lack of confusion says something more about her fears. Not only did she not know about the test, but she couldn’t even get to class, and everyone else clearly does get it; as nightmare logic that ‘makes sense’ but Buffy being so easily convinced of it also makes sense. Because Buffy does hold herself to a high standard in all aspects of her life, and she’s very aware of how her life as the Slayer is distracting her from elements of her high school life. So even though we’ve seen her studying history before, she thinks she wouldn’t know anything if pushed.
Buffy’s nightmare about her dad is a different matter. It’s an interesting mix of a more complicated fear and yet still very teenage. Which is still more grown up than Willow and Xander’s fears. The many complex reasons why her parents split up, she can’t fully understand, and she does see how she could make a problem worse (which in her mind expands to her being the one to blame).
While we’re on the subject, the episode always makes me regret the way Hank drops out of the story later. It’s as if later the writers forget that he isn’t the guy Buffy was afraid he was here. He lives a few hours away, and he no doubt has his own life, while Joyce seems to have gotten full custody either officially or in however they compromised unofficially in the divorce. That doesn’t mean he isn’t part of Buffy’s life; she can be scared that he’ll forget about her or leave her behind, but he’s likely more complicated than that. And I wish the show remembered that.
Buffy’s last couple nightmare scenarios are just to be expected from the sort of things that haunt a Slayer. Though I do think there is something to be said about Billy’s dream monster; because Billy’s dream monster must be super strong and no one can really stop him, so even though Buffy is the Slayer and then a vampire (albeit one who doesn’t seem to worry much about sunlight), she can barely take him on. By the same logic, Buffy dreams that the Master is just going to mop the floor with her when they do have to face off, of course in the nightmare she can’t even put up a fight.
And now I get to talk about Giles. All of Giles’ nightmare pieces are facets of the same fear; that he isn’t good enough, that he is going to fail as Buffy’s Watcher, that it will be his fault when the day comes and there’s something she can’t beat. Giles has to know that death is how all bonds between Slayers and Watchers are destined to end, and I think this makes even more sense if he does. He’s been raised to be a Watcher, he knows the life expectancy of Slayers, but things are different now. Buffy is a person, not a historical note in the Watchers’ diaries, she’s real and he has to be able to protect her; to try and save her from the fate of all Slayers. And he doesn’t know how to do it, because no one can.
I think some of that is probably evident even in this episode, at least some fear of uselessness and of failure. But this is definitely influenced by prior experience with this show and fandom, and lot of Buffy/Giles fic back in the day.
What am I shipping?
I’m sort of still thruple-ing Buffy/Willow/Xander. There are elements to each side that appeal to me, and there’s no reason not to just put them all together. But in my heart of hearts, yeah, I’m still a Buffy/Giles shipper who wants to write some big piece about how their nightmares build on each other’s, and I like them being in sync. Plus, any time they go together to talk to people in the hospital, it always reads very partner-ship to me.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 1x09 – The Puppet Show
This episode kind of gives me the same vibe I had back in Witch, there’s something just…comfortable about this episode. It’s kind of an average episode, so much so that I’m not sure it would be that appealing on first watching, but right now it’s working for me really well.
This is kind of reminding me why I dislike so much modern TV, I think I miss little episodes, and it being okay to have little episodes. In short seasons of shows, there isn’t a place for little episodes; and even shows with longer seasons these days seem to have to be about their larger story that strings the audience along until it’s time for the big events to take place. It causes burnout or the need to binge and just get the whole story. Part of what makes watching this show so comfortable is just the format, and it’s one I still respond to.
Even though, like I said, this episode is just as average little story, something that doesn’t excite that much response, it is just…well, comfortable for 45 minutes or so. I mean, I doubt I’m the only person who thinks the most memorable part of this episode is the credits scene.
I don’t remember if I noticed this before, but I am being more analytical this time through. And the villain comes out of nowhere in the last ten minutes of the episode. But I was thinking here that I guess Snyder was there as a red herring? If that was what they were going for, it didn’t work for me; but it is worth asking why. Is it because I’ve seen the show, and in fact never saw this episode without seeing several more with Snyder? But that doesn’t quite feel like enough of a reason why the misdirect only occurs to me in an analytical sense and not within the story itself.
I think it’s more complicated than that, and kind of hangs on when this show was made. Because Snyder is played by Armin Shimerman, who wasn’t just a nobody getting cast in a low budget minor network show. These days it’s more common to get known genre actors to play smaller roles in other shows, but that never feels like what’s happening here. This seems much more like he’s moving in to be a new nemesis to Buffy in her civilian life. The attention drawn to him feels more like introducing a new element of the series for the long haul rather than the idea that he could be the villain of the episode.
That said…how is Buffy not suspected for the second murder? Snyder knows she was looking for the victim and then he turns up dead and Buffy was in the vicinity at the time. Did she actually report finding the dead body? Cause I think that would have been something that would complicate matters further. Or did she not report the mysterious death and so there’s still going to be an investigation.
In fact, there will still be an investigation into these two deaths. Admittedly, when there are no other deaths that fit the profile, they might conclude the killer just moved on, but I question it.
I also question why the kid with brain cancer is going to high school like this. It’s not real clear how bad it was or whether it was assumed to be treatable, but it was bad enough that people noticed his headaches. Maybe he wanted to finish out the school year without anyone making a big deal out of his condition so it wasn’t well known? And he wanted to put on an act in the talent show? It’s not impossible to explain, but…
Wait, where did he get the dummy? Did Sid just wander up and suggest they team up for the talent show? Although, how would he know the demon was in the talent show when he can’t narrow it down any further?
Look, I said this episode was comfortable, I didn’t say it stands up to a lot of scrutiny.
But I do want to talk for a moment about Cordelia, and to lesser extent all the high schoolers here. Because the show plays Cordy as very self-absorbed, but I’m feeling pretty sympathetic to her. She’s seen a lot of crap in the last few months, a lot of people around them have died in some pretty strange ways. And while the Scoobies get to know what’s going on, the rest of the students don’t. Whether the self-absorption is a coping mechanism or a consequence of a coping mechanism like sticking one’s head in the sand, I find it quite understandable.
And just because the Scoobies are in the know for what’s happening, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be having trouble dealing with all this crap. And yeah, they grew up in Sunnydale where there probably are a lot of unsolved mysteries around, but it has to take a tole.
What am I shipping?
Again, kind of nothing. I notice Xander continues to be a little territorial about Willow, which works for me. And I like the vibe between Buffy and Giles even if it’s still in an acorns phase, both as a relationship and for me shipping it.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 1x10 – Nightmares
So it looks like I have about a million things to say about this episode, even though in the grand scheme of things it’s not that important. And I have several things to say about that fact.
When I’m reviewing more modern shows, or more niche ones, or more where at least it’s new to me, then taking the time to do a lot of character analysis feels like a more valid use of time. With something like this, I know everything’s been said before; been talked over by a lot of people reading this, including myself; and I’m not even ignorant of what may or may not be picked up on later.
I guess the Star Wars stuff wasn’t an entirely different kettle of fish, because between knowing spoilers and what I knew must happen in the larger saga, and it being such a well known property, I didn’t have a lot new to bring to the table. Except I did have my journey with it, how I made sense of what I was seeing even if it wasn’t surprising. This…feels more self-indulgent, but I also am enjoying it; a lot more than I was a lot of the Star Wars material you might notice.
Anyway, as an episode this is a mess. In some ways I get that nothing making sense is part of it being a dream, but I’m left with a lot of questions that make it pretty awkward. I think the best way to look at this would be that Billy sort of set up a dreamland that overlaid Sunnydale and nothing that happened in it really happened. Everybody is kind of going to remember it as a nightmare, unless they knew it wasn’t.
Except that there must still be traces of it. Do the test papers just disappear? Do people ‘wake up’ and wonder how they got wherever they were? If they compare notes of the last couple days, do they find they were having a lot of the same dreams? Are people still hurt by the things in the dreams? Did anybody die in either their own or someone else’s nightmare? Did anyone dream-resurrect a dead loved one? What about things that involved people taking actions that someone else (or they) dreamed they would take? If someone had a dream of being assaulted by a specific person, did that person find themselves doing it, or did the nightmare world create a specter of the person who actually did it?
It's pretty clear from the end that Buffy’s dad was not there. That this was Buffy’s nightmare scenario of how her father feels about her and her effect on his life. But the Master is in Sunnydale, did the dreamland let him escape as Buffy would have nightmares about, or did it create a specter of the demon she feared? Seeing as she has no idea what the Master looks like (even this episode points out that they would be meeting for the first time) would it really be him that Buffy had nightmares about? (…Okay, I might be willing to put that down to Slayer foresight, having dreamed about the actual Master at some point.)
Then, if I can get past my questions of how this works and how it impacts people/events/memories, I still have some niggles about this. Because…it could have been more. With Buffy and to a lesser extent Giles there is something to analyze here, and I’ll get to it, but we’re not told much about anyone else through the nightmare scenarios.
Except if I assume that in not being told much we are told something, but I’m not sure what to do with anything in that case. Because Willow and Xander are having very normal nightmares, average fears, and common phobias. They aren’t being haunted by all the things they’ve seen and done in the past few months. There’s no Jesse, no thoughts of what Xander did during The Pack, no Moloch/Malcolm being let out in Willow’s nightmare. With the spiders, Xander does make a passing reference that could be a reference back to Teacher’s Pet, but it’s not explored. No hordes of the monsters they’ve seen.
With Buffy we do get a mix of nightmares. The test one is a common one, but her lack of confusion says something more about her fears. Not only did she not know about the test, but she couldn’t even get to class, and everyone else clearly does get it; as nightmare logic that ‘makes sense’ but Buffy being so easily convinced of it also makes sense. Because Buffy does hold herself to a high standard in all aspects of her life, and she’s very aware of how her life as the Slayer is distracting her from elements of her high school life. So even though we’ve seen her studying history before, she thinks she wouldn’t know anything if pushed.
Buffy’s nightmare about her dad is a different matter. It’s an interesting mix of a more complicated fear and yet still very teenage. Which is still more grown up than Willow and Xander’s fears. The many complex reasons why her parents split up, she can’t fully understand, and she does see how she could make a problem worse (which in her mind expands to her being the one to blame).
While we’re on the subject, the episode always makes me regret the way Hank drops out of the story later. It’s as if later the writers forget that he isn’t the guy Buffy was afraid he was here. He lives a few hours away, and he no doubt has his own life, while Joyce seems to have gotten full custody either officially or in however they compromised unofficially in the divorce. That doesn’t mean he isn’t part of Buffy’s life; she can be scared that he’ll forget about her or leave her behind, but he’s likely more complicated than that. And I wish the show remembered that.
Buffy’s last couple nightmare scenarios are just to be expected from the sort of things that haunt a Slayer. Though I do think there is something to be said about Billy’s dream monster; because Billy’s dream monster must be super strong and no one can really stop him, so even though Buffy is the Slayer and then a vampire (albeit one who doesn’t seem to worry much about sunlight), she can barely take him on. By the same logic, Buffy dreams that the Master is just going to mop the floor with her when they do have to face off, of course in the nightmare she can’t even put up a fight.
And now I get to talk about Giles. All of Giles’ nightmare pieces are facets of the same fear; that he isn’t good enough, that he is going to fail as Buffy’s Watcher, that it will be his fault when the day comes and there’s something she can’t beat. Giles has to know that death is how all bonds between Slayers and Watchers are destined to end, and I think this makes even more sense if he does. He’s been raised to be a Watcher, he knows the life expectancy of Slayers, but things are different now. Buffy is a person, not a historical note in the Watchers’ diaries, she’s real and he has to be able to protect her; to try and save her from the fate of all Slayers. And he doesn’t know how to do it, because no one can.
I think some of that is probably evident even in this episode, at least some fear of uselessness and of failure. But this is definitely influenced by prior experience with this show and fandom, and lot of Buffy/Giles fic back in the day.
What am I shipping?
I’m sort of still thruple-ing Buffy/Willow/Xander. There are elements to each side that appeal to me, and there’s no reason not to just put them all together. But in my heart of hearts, yeah, I’m still a Buffy/Giles shipper who wants to write some big piece about how their nightmares build on each other’s, and I like them being in sync. Plus, any time they go together to talk to people in the hospital, it always reads very partner-ship to me.
