I thought the Groosulag was meant to be a kind of mutant wasn't he? When he was doing the whole "look at my big manly mis-shapen arms, the foul turn of my grotesque mouth, the beastly hue of my glinting eyes" and all that.

See, I think you've got it totally arse-about-face. The problems start when ME started trying to second-guess. Somewhere in Buffy S4, and in Angel S3, they started pandering. The fans like Spike. The fans like flashbacks. The fans like the big arcs. Hey! Let's bring darla back!

I'm don't think that's it. They already had gone the big angst route in season 2, and liked it. There's only so many ways you can do that without just piling on new characters, so I think retro-fitting was what they thought they had to do.

I am curious what they decided when, though. I know I've heard intimations that Mr. Trick was supposed to be more important season 3 than he turned out to be, due to actor issues (non-specific, but that's what I read), not unlike Lindsey Crouse wanting out of 4. So was Faith always going to go bad, or was that something that grew out of the character? Was the mayor always going to be the ultimate big bad (even though on the gut level it was Faith who was the ultimate big bad for Buffy) so prominently?

Well, the pattern (medium bad in first part of the season, shocking Big Bad in the second) was established in S2 and continued (arguably) to S6 (Spike/Angelus, Trick/Faith, Initiative/Adam, Glory/Buggerthatdoesn't work, Trio/Willow). But yeah, that's an interesting question - they'd been establishing the Mayor as a force in S2, so I guess he was always going to be a player, but it's hard to see what other function Faith could have performed. Which is not meant to sound as porny as it does.

Glory/Buggerthatdoesn't work

Hee hee hee.

I know I've heard intimations that Mr. Trick was supposed to be more important season 3 than he turned out to be

Aw, man, I really liked him. And I saw him onstage in Art.

I know I've heard intimations that Mr. Trick was supposed to be more important season 3 than he turned out to be

I wish he had been. He had great potential. I know that he had to be gone for Faith to step in, but couldn't he have left town with a "live to fight another day" speech.

Ooh, K. Todd Freeman? I've loved everything he did, from a Miss Chardonnay turn on Sisters to the partner to Hank Azaria's fed in Grosse Pointe Blank, with a stopoff as a junkie on NYPD Blue. I hated when they dusted him. Waste of a good villain.

I know that he had to be gone for Faith to step in, but couldn't he have left town with a "live to fight another day" speech.

And that would have been quite in line with his character, too. I can definitely see Trick saying, "Cause, ascension, whatever" and skipping out.

From the Salt Lake City Tribune

"What would Buffy do?", the Christian lessons from Buffy.

Okay, gotta love this:

Seeing Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" made him feel he could never be as self-sacrificing as Jesus, he says. "But I can be like Buffy."

Riess' book provides plot summaries and features an interview with Eliza Dushku, who played Faith, a rogue slayer friend of Buffy's. Dushku, who was raised Mormon in Boston, now stars in "Tru Calling," another show that gives her weekly supernatural powers.

Okay, I knew Dushku was from the Boston area (I don't think Boston-proper, I think either Waltham or Watertown (I disremember which)), but I didn't know she'd been raised Mormon.

Angel, by the way, is a vampire with a soul -- meaning that he remembers his past evil and fights against it. After he and Buffy kiss for the first time, he seems speechless, says Kuykendall. Buffy walks away and the camera pulls back to show that Angel actually is gasping in pain because Buffy's crucifix had fallen against his throat and burned him rather badly. But he hadn't pulled away.

Not their first kiss, but their second. Not a crucifix, but a cross. t pedant (tag doesn't close)