beginning s6
Feb. 28th, 2007 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseWatched the first three episodes of Buffy S6 tonight with the housemates (minus Claire, to whom many thanks are due for the use of her eps)... and already I'm seeing the increased darkness that people have been telling me about. Edited because apparently I can't count when I'm tired. :P A teensy bit of that slip was actually my associations with the sixth season - I have no concept of the 7th season whatsoever. People have told me lots about S6, but it's almost like S7 doesn't exist, except for a few teeeeensy little things that I generally just forget about or mentally smush over into S6. I inadvertently think of this as being the last season quite a bit. Anyway. Back to regularly-scheduled flailing.
First off, the Buffy-bot is So Very Cute. So bippy! So cheerful! And it seems to me that SMG was having a fabulous time getting out of the dour and angsty cloud that Buffy's been in the last season and a half. I liked the 'bot during her past visits, but I really adored her in these episodes.
Which, naturally, should have clued me in that something very bad was going to happen to her. I still haven't learned, apparently. It was unaccountably, terribly, extremely disturbing to me to watch the hell bikers (Sidenote: hell bikers - how much you wanna bet Joss'd been waiting years to do that one?) rip into her. No, wait. It didn't bother me when they ripped into her. It bothered me when they got her on the ground and the whole circle of them kicked the crap out of her. And then it bothered me when they quartered her. And then it bothered me when the demon made the usual rape threats.
...Here's me pointing at whatever I said about Joss usually not making gender-based threats/torture, and shaking my head. Okay - so I got it wrong. I'm tempted to blame this one on Marti Noxon and Dave whatever-his-name-is, but I know that wouldn't be fair. So... I take that back, I guess. Anyhow, that didn't bother me nearly as much as the rest of the stuff with the 'bot.
Other things. Umm. Poor Spike? He's such a woob. And so horribly cute. I loved how when the rest of the gang showed up, he just zipped right out the door. Poor boy.
There was so much color symbolism going on in these episodes. Most obviously, there's Buffy in the black, and then changing into the white shirt (and then wearing the black shirt in the next episode), and finally into more normal clothes but still in totally neutral tones at the end of the third ep. Also, Willow's transition from white during the scene with the deer (so very white! so very maiden-ish - very 'girl who lures the unicorn'), then to red during the next scene, and then, finally, to black during the actual spell-casting.
I miss Giles, of course, though I really really really liked his goodbye scene. This may have had something to do with him smiling. But... really, all joking aside, I liked it a lot. His awkward hug with Xander was very cute and "no, really, we're manly," and his little bit with Dawn was just adorable. I was somehow less affected by the bit with Willow - possibly I was too aware of what was coming, or possibly there was some intentional awkwardness happening there that I didn't quite latch onto the meaning of. I'm not sure. I just know that something seemed a little... less, there, than I would have expected.
I love how I can make everything about Giles even when he's in a grand total of half of one out of three episodes. :P But really, I've sort of... run out of sane things to say about these episodes, aside from sort of frantic mental images that I might be able to push together into something coherent tomorrow. For now, I should probably go to sleep. Or at least to bed. Just wanted to get some of that out while it was clear in my head.
Oh. And I was really happy that the episode after "Bargaining" was by Jane Espenson. It wasn't quite the joy that I've come to expect from her, but I blame the circumstances. For what it was, and for what it was working to accomplish, it did a wonderful job. I ♥ her writing so much.
First off, the Buffy-bot is So Very Cute. So bippy! So cheerful! And it seems to me that SMG was having a fabulous time getting out of the dour and angsty cloud that Buffy's been in the last season and a half. I liked the 'bot during her past visits, but I really adored her in these episodes.
Which, naturally, should have clued me in that something very bad was going to happen to her. I still haven't learned, apparently. It was unaccountably, terribly, extremely disturbing to me to watch the hell bikers (Sidenote: hell bikers - how much you wanna bet Joss'd been waiting years to do that one?) rip into her. No, wait. It didn't bother me when they ripped into her. It bothered me when they got her on the ground and the whole circle of them kicked the crap out of her. And then it bothered me when they quartered her. And then it bothered me when the demon made the usual rape threats.
...Here's me pointing at whatever I said about Joss usually not making gender-based threats/torture, and shaking my head. Okay - so I got it wrong. I'm tempted to blame this one on Marti Noxon and Dave whatever-his-name-is, but I know that wouldn't be fair. So... I take that back, I guess. Anyhow, that didn't bother me nearly as much as the rest of the stuff with the 'bot.
Other things. Umm. Poor Spike? He's such a woob. And so horribly cute. I loved how when the rest of the gang showed up, he just zipped right out the door. Poor boy.
There was so much color symbolism going on in these episodes. Most obviously, there's Buffy in the black, and then changing into the white shirt (and then wearing the black shirt in the next episode), and finally into more normal clothes but still in totally neutral tones at the end of the third ep. Also, Willow's transition from white during the scene with the deer (so very white! so very maiden-ish - very 'girl who lures the unicorn'), then to red during the next scene, and then, finally, to black during the actual spell-casting.
I miss Giles, of course, though I really really really liked his goodbye scene. This may have had something to do with him smiling. But... really, all joking aside, I liked it a lot. His awkward hug with Xander was very cute and "no, really, we're manly," and his little bit with Dawn was just adorable. I was somehow less affected by the bit with Willow - possibly I was too aware of what was coming, or possibly there was some intentional awkwardness happening there that I didn't quite latch onto the meaning of. I'm not sure. I just know that something seemed a little... less, there, than I would have expected.
I love how I can make everything about Giles even when he's in a grand total of half of one out of three episodes. :P But really, I've sort of... run out of sane things to say about these episodes, aside from sort of frantic mental images that I might be able to push together into something coherent tomorrow. For now, I should probably go to sleep. Or at least to bed. Just wanted to get some of that out while it was clear in my head.
Oh. And I was really happy that the episode after "Bargaining" was by Jane Espenson. It wasn't quite the joy that I've come to expect from her, but I blame the circumstances. For what it was, and for what it was working to accomplish, it did a wonderful job. I ♥ her writing so much.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-01 02:53 pm (UTC)And note the tone-and-pace change. S6 is the slowest of all, I think.
Oh, and the use of light. "Everything is harsh and cruel".
And on the subject of symbolism: Buffy meeting Spike after resurrection. On the same stairs she listened to his "You treat me like a man" speech. Only then she was ascending and this time is descending. I always considered her words in 5x14 "Crush" - "The only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious" - as foreshadowing...
no subject
Date: 2007-03-01 07:15 pm (UTC)The light thing was really weirding me out, too - it's almost over-exposed during the daylight scenes. Very odd. I hadn't really noticed the pace thing as much yet (first three eps of a season are generally pretty fast-paced regardless of what else is going on), but there is something slightly less... urgent. Even the stuff with the hell bikers seems kind of... secondary. Third ep, it's like Buffy is in a haze the whole time, which I expect will be a continuing theme. Joy of joys - the instant I get used to SMG actually being a fairly good actress, we pounce into a section where she's intentionally flat. I knew it was coming, but it's tweaking me more than I expected to actually see it.
Ooo. Initially I thought of the stair dialogue as nothing more than a really impressive use of levels (the more I pay attention, the more I notice that good directing = good use of levels, among many other things), but that's a fascinating contrast, there. I'll have to keep thinking about that one.
There's also at least one reference to a famous musical in the third ep. We debated a little whether this was foreshadowing for OMwF, or just the writers having musicals on the brain. I lean toward the former.
And the icon is lovely. ;)