No, you've missed my point... :-)

Noooooooooo.... *you've* missed *my* point... ;)

Okay, I think we're not missing each other's points, so much as not quite communicating our meanings to each other. Let's go back and look at your original example.

For instance, Anya's long basement speech to the SiTs had no justification except for the visual joke of Andrew drawing on the pad. That scene went on for what seemed like twenty minutes when sixty seconds or less would have sufficed to get a laugh from the audience.

As it was shown, it was telling. it was telling a bad visiual joke, which came with way too much setup up.

But here's what I meant when I said that you'd hit the "show" nail on the head...

sixty seconds or less would have sufficed to get a laugh from the audience.

Those sixty seconds would have "shown" the joke.

I think part of the problem is that some people are getting tied down in the specific meanings of the words "show" and "tell."

In storytelling, it is possible to "show" with a speech (Buffy has just generally failed to do so this season).

It is also possible to "tell" with only visuals.

What "show, don't tell" means is that "showing" is revealing things through character action (remember: speaking is an action, too) - "telling" is simply stating things for the audience, rather than letting them discover it for themselves (which can be done without speaking).

Weighing in late in the "show don't tell" issue. As a screenwriting teacher and script doctor I hammer away at this endlessly. And I mean endlessly. I agree that it means in its essence that you use action *and dialogue* to reveal things about character. Have someone be angry a lot rather than say "I have a bad temper." The knife throwing is a good example. However, I thought the Xander speech worked as showing, because it told us things about Xander and how his relationship with Anya had changed him that we didn't see before--not only that, we saw him discover it in front of our eyes. And I HATED Riley, BTW. Characters can state their feelings or thoughts directly and it can certainly work dramatically--for example think of Buffy saying "Me" ianswer to what's left. It is a statement of fact, but no less effective for that.

Skipping ahead to see if anyone watched the A & E Biography tonight?

OK - at the risk of stirring up the teapot:

How has Spike showed he's, if not actually redeemed, at least on the path, outside of speechifying.

He has not, to my awareness, remotely attmepted to rekindle romance with Buffy in any deliberate (emphasis on the word deliberate) way, shape or form. I don't mean talking about his soul, I mean talking about trying to get her back as a lover in any form. He may have speechified his response to this in End of Days, but his actions in t memfault - the episode before End of Days showed it.

Also, his absolute, unambiguous horror in the Bronze when he discovered he'd been feeding and siring.

And, most importantly, his absolutely unhesitant rescue of Xander when he realized what was going on. Whether calling Buffy off was the right thing is another issue, but I think it's what was happening to the potentials that spurred it. Given how antagonistic he and Xander have been over the series, I think that speaks volumes.

Oh, and ZNDR'N'SPYK4VR

And, just 'cause I loved it - SO, WHEELCHAIR FIGHT?

Fury and Minear are on the Succubus Club internet radio show, now.

You can email questions to them.

[link]

Allyson, I don't think there is an e-mail address at the klbc.org site. I would think the thesuccubusclub.com site had the address where you can send questions.

What "show, don't tell" means is that "showing" is revealing things through character action (remember: speaking is an action, too) - "telling" is simply stating things for the audience, rather than letting them discover it for themselves (which can be done without speaking).

But it sure sounds like you're arguing that Show = writing you like, and Tell = writing you don't like.

For instance, your distinction between "showing" the visual joke and "telling" the visual joke seems to come down to the difference between giving the audience a brief example and hitting the audience over the head with it. Whereas I believe we were being "shown" that Andrew is a dork and Anya is callous and emotionally clueless, but the scene was bad in that it just went on too long. (Nobody was saying "Andrew's a dork" in lieu of us seeing from his actions that he's a dork.)

Popping in to say that, depending on what happens next week, I may change my OTP to Anya/Xander/Andrew. Or they should at least remake "Three's Company" with that trio.

I would think the thesuccubusclub.com site had the address where you can send questions.

Oooh. Good call.

So not touching the SDT debate. I discussed my feelings on the subject in my popgurls piece last fall. But on the subject of this:

But amongst so many minds, not one little voice said, "How are we gonna recover from this? This is the Worst of the Worst, so we're gonna have to come up with the Best of the Best to recover."?

This is something that has bugged me quite a bit over the past year and a half or so. There have been several occasions when something happened on the show, fans reacted in a certain way and the writing staff would say, "We never thought people would take it this way." Or "We never believed people would think XYZ."

And I'm pretty much at a loss of why that is. To me, the logical follow-up to "Spike tries to rape Buffy" is "Okay, but what happens next? Where do we go from there?" And I feel as though, with many of the storyline decisions they've made, there was never that follow up discussion.

I look back on Season 2 and Angelus killing Jenny Calendar. A conscious decision was made for Angelus to be in vamp face. Why? Because Angelus was committing a horrific act that the audience might not be able to forgive him for. But they knew Angel was coming back and getting his own series. So they chose to do that scene in a way that would allow Angel to come back and be a good guy again.

I'm at a loss trying to figure out what changed between then and now. The only thing I can come up with is that Joss became more and more hands off. Though I hate that reasoning.