I started watching with OMWF but Passion (when I was catching up on FX) was the instant I realized this series could go anywhere. Not just in killing off a major and sympathetic (and btw staggeringly attractive) character but doing it in the most painful (for the audience) way possible. No "shot down over the Sea of Japan" offscreen death.

I think Passion was the first ep where I realized DB actually had some chops. Heavies are notoriously fun to play, but he had gone from tortured and good to evil and loving it. The sense of fun, of passionate predatory glee he brought to the chase of Jenny, and then the almost offhand way he killed her...it gave me shivers then, and made me take another look both at character and actor.

Giles coming home and finding the wine and candles, and then Jenny was exquisitely heartbreaking. But I think I really bought Angelus as the evil he was meant to be in the scene where he watched outside the window while Willow and Buffy learn about Jenny's death.

I liked the voiceover, actually. Of course, I like the voiceover version of Bladerunner, too. I'm just a Philestine I guess.

Beverly, the voiceover was my favorite part too, I always think they add a chilling effect, like things we know the characters don't and might never. I like it in Beauty and the Beasts, I liked it in the parts of Restless it was used in. Voiceovers good in my book. But especially Passion. So torturous and very sad.

And speaking of sad yet totally off topic, my little hamster who I've had for three years died today...so I'm quite upset. Am I ridiculous for being completely crushed and spending a good lot of today crying over this? I feel silly, but I figure someone may have had a similar issue and have a solution for how I should handle it. So depressed.

I liked the voiceover in Passion as well.

I'm working my way through the entire series (I have 1-6 on DVD and 7 on tape) I realize that there is nothing in the series I would now change. Not because I liked everything they did, or think everything was equally good, or that other interesting stories couldn't have been told, but because (to take this back to a concept I shared with Dash at the end of season 6-BTVS as "found object") I view what happened to the Scoobs as, well, what happened.

Riley, The Initiative, Dawn, Glory, the AR, the death of Tara, Kennedy etc. (all the things that some really hate) are, for me, now part of a completed (on BTVS anyway) biography (or, since the show was never just about Buffy, history). And because of that I watch Buffy differently (the show and the character) in seasons 1-4.

Knowing how Spike will evolve, or the fate of Anya, or that Buffy will one day have to take on the role with Dawn that Joyce is playing with her, only enriches the earlier episodes. Spike in School Hard was a fun bad guy, but I wouldn't have been surprised or upset if he'd been staked after a few episodes as originally intended. But now the amusing but essentially one-dimensional baddie of early season 2 has a "backstory" (or should that be "frontstory?" ) of later events that retroactively adds many shades to those earlier appearances.

Which is all by way of saying I'm really enjoying rewatching the entire series while now knowing how it ends. Which I wasn't sure would be the case-I was half-afraid that once the promise of new eps was gone, the magic might fade. Nope-Emily was right. At last I can start living in the past. (Though perhaps the real test for me will come when the Buffyverse really has no new content-when Angel is gone, and Ripper, and whatever else spins off.)

Oh, so sorry about your pet, Miss Vanna. I don't think you should feel silly at all, nor should you worry about how you're handling it. There's a pet thread, actually several, at WorldCrossing, that would be a wonderful support for you. Unfortunately, WX is frelled right now.

I do think the sadness of pet loss is something given little to no respect. I'm sure your hamster filled a needful place in your life, and it's understandable that you would mourn and miss him. I hope your memories of him turn to happy ones soon.

And speaking of sad yet totally off topic, my little hamster who I've had for three years died today...so I'm quite upset. Am I ridiculous for being completely crushed and spending a good lot of today crying over this? I feel silly, but I figure someone may have had a similar issue and have a solution for how I should handle it. So depressed.

You aren't being silly-it was a living creature that you shared a significant part of your life with. It wasn't a toy or a machine that broke-it was its own self, with a unique hamster personality different from any other hamster. And the only way to handle it (imo) is to allow yourself to mourn, to feel as sad as you feel without guilt that you are overreacting (as long as you aren't suicidal you are being perfectly proper). And then, when you are ready, get another pet (if you don't already have another). No one should live without an animal in their lives.

Miss Vanna, I am so sorry.

Thanks everyone, it just sucked so bad because I always clean her cage on Sundays and I went to take her out and she didn't move. It was so traumatic, I bawled like a four year old all day. And the only thing I could do all day to cheer myself up was buy the S4 DVDs since I hadn't had time or the money until now. It still really didn't help much since I had to take everything out and there's just an empty spot where her cage was.

I'm just one of those highly emotional people when it's something I've grown attached to so I'm hurting pretty bad right now, but I appreciate everyone's kind words, it really does mean a lot and I've never dealt with a death of a pet in that manner...the last pet that died was my childhood dog and my family put him to sleep when I was at school, so I didn't deal with the actual death of it all. I'm not a big handler of loss or change...but then again, who is?

Miss Vanna, anybody who doesn't mourn lost companions is missing something important inside. Sadness is one of the ways we can tell we're still human. You've still got her inside, though. That's why it hurts, now. It's better to hurt than to be empty, though. The more you've got inside, the more you can fit in there. Kinda wierd, that. Nice, though.

{{{Miss Vanna}}} I'm so sorry about your hamster. Of course you're hurting.