coffee refill...

Hec, with a couple of exceptions that are too few to go into, your post on this season speaks for me. It's a shame the season arc wasn't tighter, but when I look at the series as whole, I am so satisfied. I think that's because I love the characters, and I'm happy with where they ended up, even Spike and Anya. They've been alive forever. They died fighting on the side of good. I feel like I just finished a good, epic novel - one that I'll pick up again, every year. I'm not nearly as sad as I expected to be - considering it's all over. I'm sure in part, knowing that Angel has at least another season, is helping a lot. (Lalalala - not thinking about the lack of Tim, lalalala.)

About the giant snake... I go into these shows, expecting the monsters to be lame, and then I'm pleasantly surprised when I get The Gentlemen, Gnarl, and the like. I remember reading Stephen King's It, and arachnophobe that I am, I was still left thinking, "A giant spider? WTF???" I loved what happened in Graduation Day enough, that the CGI snake didn't detract from it (although it certainly didn't add to it).

I think that was the first big use of CGI I saw, so it was cool to me in a way beyond "big fake snake".

When you consider Buffy's budget (especially on the WB) the special effects and make-up effects were actually pretty good. (But then I love Attack of the Crab Monsters-seriously, not in a campy it's so bad it's good way-despite the literally cardboard monsters, because the script is interesting and the acting generally convincing. So I obviously have a high tolerance for cheap special effects.)

coming in WAY late...

Eee! Joey and Dawson are demons!!!

That's the plot device RIGHT THERE!

I'm telling you... it's perfect.

Plei. I will beg and grovel and kiss your feet if you will write this.

Because, SO yeah!

Plei. I will beg and grovel and kiss your feet if you will write this.

I would have to totally immerse myself in the Creek again for at least a week to do it justice, I fear. It all depends how bored I get this summer.

When you consider Buffy's budget (especially on the WB) the special effects and make-up effects were actually pretty good. (But then I love Attack of the Crab Monsters-seriously, not in a campy it's so bad it's good way-despite the literally cardboard monsters, because the script is interesting and the acting generally convincing. So I obviously have a high tolerance for cheap special effects.)

Yes - the budget was a big thing. Seriously though, with me, it wasn't just the technical aspects of the giant snake - it was the fact of the giant snake. I just felt like, "That's it."

I'm a luddite. I'm still amazed by the special effects in The Ten Commandments. It's just for me, where monsters are concerned, less is more - or something. I know the Mayor-demon had to be huge, so that they could blow up the high school, and blowing up the high school was the most important part of it (to me), so I don't care that the Mayor was a giant snake. It's just that's not going to strike fear in my heart. A small, real snake? Yep.

Other than the Luddite impulses, what Cindy said.

Hell, fake the snake (courtesy of TWOP when the were still MBTV and headn't yet kicked Jengod out for having an opinion) wouldn't have bothered me if the rest of the episode had been compelling in some other way. Other than Buffy's comparison of Glory to Cordelia, NSM.

Right Now, I'm thinking of Dr. Who with Buffy's budget...

Some belated thoughts, as threatened promised:

Buffy's still a hero. (She's still my hero.) And this is still her journey.

Spike would never have done what he did without the Buffy-effect. That tells me a hella lotta about Buffy, and her journey.

My problem with the climax isn't so much that Spike got to share the hero's journey (although I do have one). I had the same problem with "Grave," and I don't begrudge Xander his triumph the way I begrudge Spike his (and that latter is My Personal Issue): despite the strength of the ensemble, this is a show about an individual's hero's journey, and I think--as a *structural* reinforcement for the emotional themes of the season--that individual should get the action climax of the season, and in fact the action and emotional climaxes should be the same.

This is why "Becoming 2" works so well for me, and why as much as I love S3, "Graduation Day 2" doesn't work as well as "Graduation Day 1." In "Becoming 2," *everything*--emotional, thematic, action--climaxes in that cross-cut Buffy/Angel - Willow-spell - Xander rescuing Giles scene. In GD1, the emotional/action/thematic climaxes are all in that Buffy/Faith confrontation. In GD2, the emotional climax is the Buffy/Angel drinking scene and the action/thematic climax is the graduation. It's weaker than I expected (and those weeks waiting for my bootleg probably hurt it as well).

In "Chosen," the thematic and emotional climax of the season is the "Every girl is a Slayer" montage. But the action climax, it feels to me, *isn't* the girls fighting the ubervamps, it's Spike destroying Sunnydale. And it makes me grumpy (still!) because in a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I want Buffy to get the Big Moment. In a show that ends with a vision of female empowerment, I want the Big Moment to be that empowerment--and not the male destroyed happily by channelling someone else's power.

Unrelated: thanks to Quotable, I've been thinking about Buffy's big speech. "I hate this. I hate being here. I hate that you have to be here. I hate that there's evil. That I was chosen to fight it. I wish, a whole lot of the time, that I hadn't been. I know a lot of you wish I hadn't been either. This isn't about wishes. This is about choices."

I like the implicit contrast between what the vengeance demons (specifically Anya) did and what Buffy is doing, the contrast between the horror that came from wishing but being unable to claim power and the hope that comes from being able to choose, to do so.

Does that make the original UberVamp the Turok Han Solo?

Snerk

Was anybody else afraid for a second when Buffy said "I love you" that Spike was going to say "I know"?