Once, when I was trying to rewind the end of Smashed for rewatching purposes, I accidently hit record, so now there are a few seconds of WWF wrestling mixed in with the bringing down the house sex.

Also, I have to of course chime in with my agreement with Susan about the Spike redemption. I also really think there was a time when they were unclear about him AND season 5 being the first season I watched AND me being a sucker for redemption through love or will I completely though Spike would grow a soul. Or, since they introduced Warren, a BAD being with a soul-- they could show a a GOOD being without a soul.

Whatever. I was wrong.

Although I really, really wish Spike's story had ended with Chosen, because at that point I did think he was redeemed. He made his choice to stay not at all for Buffy's love. And I think in that once second when she said it, Buffy did love him. Not before and not after, but for that second. And I liked that ending and found it satisfying.

On the whole issue of soulessness and evil demons, I have a fanwank. It can only be a fanwank, because Joss made it clear both in interviews and in the way both series handled the issue that souls and soulessness are purely a plot device in the Buffyverse/Angelverse. But because I don't consider it a minor issue like Jeffries tube layouts in the Trekverse , I need a fanwank.

Ok here is how I see it. Demons on this plane are mixture of pure demon and human. Even a lot of the demons we think are just travelers from other dimensions are part human. Pure demons for the most part don't visit this plane. (There are very rare exceptions.) One example is Pyleans ; the fact that they have humans on their plane and can reproduce with humans indicates a part-human nature.

Demons have a tendency towards evil but can choose good. Vampires are an exception , and (as we saw in season one of Angel) are the most despised of demonic types. Why are they so despired? Well it is canon that they have more human in them than other demons. But I can see on other point. It looks like with most demons, the demon side is an inteligent creature with free will. They are a blend of humans with free-will and demon with free will.

Howver in the Pylea epsiode, it looked the demon that animates a vampire is pretty much an animal - no human level of sentience. Blood beasts seem to pretty much operate on pure instinct and habit. So a human corpses animated by a blood beast gets all it's intelligence from the corpse of the human. But it's drives and impulses are pure animal demon. So a vampire without a soul has no choice but to see humans as prey. It may be restrained by circumstances from killing people, but it is never able to stop wanting to, or see any reason why it should not other than very strong practical objections. Only a human soul can let a vampire fight those impulses - and it is very rare that a souless vampire can even want to . In the Harmony episode where Harmony tried to give up evil - it looked like she sincerely did try at one point. She just was unable to stick to it when a serious temptation was offered. Of course even living Harmony was not the strongest willed or brightest creature in the world. But I don't think even razor sharp intelligence and a will of iron could let a vampire overcome the tendency towards evil without a soul It might temporarily give it up for practical reasons - but when the reasons go so does the restraint..

Most other demons get a choice. Which just goes to show that being a vampire really sucks...

The grey area of demons goes back way before Clem, though, MM. It comes in somewhere in S4, as a device to distinguish between the Initiative (all monsters are animals and bad full stop) and the slayerettes. also to justify why they didn't stake Spike. Which didn't work.

I just think he tried like crazy to be good (before the soul) but couldn't even really comprehend it entirely, because he didn't have the raw materials necessary for doing so.

To me, it was like he was slinging good deeds about the place and some of them stuck and some of them didn’t. However because he was soulless he actually needed Buffy to tell him when something he did was real. Like when she pitches up at his crypt after he withstood the torture by Glory.

Yeah, but where did they state that in the show? Up until Joss started making his "grey area choices" re: demons and vampires, there was only "Look! A demon! It's evil! Kill it!" "AARRGGHHH!! *kill* *maim*"

First example I can remember of greyish demons was the demon that showed up during a Buffy Faith patrol with the Books of Ascension. Also they kinda started blurring the line with Williethe snitch’s bar, an Buffy going in there and not staking everything that moved.

I do think the writers wanted to make a distinction, that the kind of magic Rack offered was a shortcut (Just like drugs!). And that particular shortcut had bigger and darker consequences, unlike the "earned" magic which Willow had practiced before and which she would reclaim by "Chosen." But I don't think they made that distinction very well at all.

I can see this.

Howver in the Pylea epsiode, it looked the demon that animates a vampire is pretty much an animal - no human level of sentience. Blood beasts seem to pretty much operate on pure instinct and habit. So a human corpses animated by a blood beast gets all it's intelligence from the corpse of the human. But it's drives and impulses are pure animal demon.

I’ve been shouting this from the rooftops since the Pylea episodes, Or, you know, occasionally typing up a post about it.

Which just goes to show that being a vampire really sucks...

That's a very shaggy dog there, Gar.

Seriously though, that's a very good fan wank. And it's cannon that demons don't have any use for vamps, and vice-versa.

Spike: Perhaps part of the Spike problem (that being the division between people, myself included, who at the start of S6 thought a redemptive love storyline was coming, and people, the show writers included (I think), who saw him a creepy stalker) is that the show's POV shifted on Spike at some point during Season 5.

Usually we're in Buffy's POV - slay all vampires, except for Angel. Spike, as we see in Crush, is a "sick miserable vampire that I should have dusted a long time ago."

But sometime after this, as Spike tries to be good for her, the POV on Spike shifts a little. Spike sees himself as a good guy, he loves her, he's tryign to do good even though he doesn't have a soul. And in Season 6, when Buffy comes to him, leans on him, confides in him, I think a lot of people lost track of exactly who was thinking of Spike as the good guy. We should have been seeing Buffy's POV - monster, but hey, at least I'm feeling something - but instead we're seeing Spike's POV - what a good guy, he loves her, he's trying to change for her. It has fairy tale overtones (Beauty and the Beast-ish) and would be sweet... except that it seems Spike is inexplicably still evil, a message Mutant Enemy never really drove home until Seeing Red's attempted rape, which was utterly horrifying, and doubly so if you saw Spike as a good guy.

Now, I can look back and say, oh, I see what they were getting at - Spike was the creepy stalker the whole time, Buffy was using him - but at the time it wasn't so clear. As others have pointed out, that "bad guy" thing was not clear until partway through 6. And then there's the Buffy issue - after Smashed, I was convinced she loved him - because look at how bereft she was after Parker used her in S4. Our Girl Buffy would not sleep with someone she didn't care about. Little did I know... Our Girl Buffy had left the building and we were watching an older, sadder slayer. :(

That's my same issue with Willow's magic... now I look back and say, oh I see what they were getting at. But that doesn't help the fact that while it was airing week-by-week, I didn't get it. Good call, DavidS (Hec, right? I'm learning) on the distinction between Willow's usual magic and what Rack offered; however, that was certainly not made clear at the time.

Polter-Cow - the Trio? Loved them. It was a great story - the comic relief that I never expected to go dark, and when it did, it was terribly scary. A great set-up, with Andrew being sucked into Warren's plans and Jonathan trying to get out of his sphere of influence, too late. I wish there'd been more of them.

Polter-Cow - the Trio? Loved them. It was a great story

I also liked the psychoanalytic excuse for them in "Normal Again," that they were three nerdy guys instead of vampires or demons or gods. Then again, I love pretty much all the psychoanalytic excuses in "Normal Again." The bit where she "woke up" after dying in "The Gift" was particularly clever.

The grey area of demons goes back way before Clem, though, MM. It comes in somewhere in S4,

Earlier. Even if Whistler (S2) is a special case, there is the "not a deadly threat to humanity" bookseller of S3

God only knows how. I mean, they had all of S5 to watch people's reactions to him, and to the idea of his Love For Buffy; they didn't notice people were investing and rooting for the couple?

I suspect they didn't quite grasp the degree.

This brings up something I've been trying to get my head around - is it inevitable that the creators/writers of a show will lose their ability to gauge audience response at some point? Joss & Co. were (or at least seemed) able to correctly foresee general response to their storylines and manipulate (in a good way!) viewers accordingly up through Season 4 on Buffy and in both Seasons 1-2 AND 4-5 on Angel, but lost touch from 5 onward on the parent show and in Season 3 when the original exec producing team had been on the spin-off for several years. That it happened in different years on the different shows tells me that Joss alone was not at fault, as does Jeff Bell coming in and sparking a renaissance. But at some point after a certain period spent working, the crew seems unable to forsee—or even to recognize as they're occurring—missteps such as the woobification of Spike, the magic crack storyline, Angel/Cordy, or the fact that Wesley was much better paired with Lilah than with Fred. We've seen this effect on numerous other shows (Chris Carter, I'm lookin' at you!), and the fact that the best collective of television writers I've ever seen were not immune makes me think this might be something universal and unavoidable, except by bringing in an infusion of new blood with different styles and approaches.

And then there are Andrew and Jonathan, who willfully follow him. It was interesting, and a bit disturbing, to see them agree to these morally depraved plans about making women their love slaves. And Andrew slowly grows to accept Warren's evil ways, whereas Jonathan begins to realize this isn't what he signed up for.

Even though I don't like S6, I will say that "Dead Things" was probably the most disturbing BtVS episode ever for me (and I mean that in a good way). To watch these "harmless" guys turn into rapists without realizing it? Scarier than any monster they ever had on that show.