That is a good thread. It starts out with a bunch of no-caps-users who don't get it, but don't give up on it -- the thoughtful types end up dominating the thread. There's a lot of cross-pollination with music and comics that brings new perspectives to the thread. Examples:

(the description of the "silent" Buffy episode reminds me very much of Marvel's "'Nuff Said!" event month of a couple of years ago where every comic they produced was completely dialogue-free, for example).

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in some ways Buffy is sort of an anglicized anime -- the bizzare fantastic/trivial outsize character soap-opera meets space-opera thing's been happening in anime for years, and sometimes in mildly similar ways.

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I will attempt the over-anticipated and likely k-disappointing Epic Defense tonight, though in the meantime I would start with stop focusing on "Once More with Feeling"! "Once More with Feeling" is like the "Paint a Vulgar Picture" of Buffy: i.e. possibly one of the greatest things it's ever done, but "great" in part because of certain decisions it makes about situating itself as a key, functional point in the context of a much larger story.

These are all things I don't know much about. I was much enlightened by googling "Paint a Vulgar Picture." They also sent me to Google to define Gormenghast, nurse novels, and Habermas. Of course there were some references I could easily get:

while Buffy may be The Beatles of pop tv, and 'Once More with Feeling' may be its 'Sgt Pepper' - the consequence of this is that 'Charmed' is the Monkees.

To people who don't want to read the whole thing I would recommend the discussion about the influence of Chris Claremont on Buffy (search on "totally fakey"; maybe this link should be crossposted to the "Jossverse in other media" thread) and the essay-post "Why I Love Buffy" by Nabisco Sunshine.

while Buffy may be The Beatles of pop tv, and 'Once More with Feeling' may be its 'Sgt Pepper' - the consequence of this is that 'Charmed' is the Monkees.

And the best point is that everyone then starts yelling "except the Monkees are better than the Beatles!".

Yeah, that inclines me to trust in the insightful nature of the commentary, all right...

Having recently re-watched "The Real Me" I find this picture of Mercedes McNab particularly amusing.

Random: The Chosen talk above made me think of the best unscene ever - and I can't remember who came up with it - of Oz pulling up in his van, getting out and looking into the pit with a "Huh." I love that part.. it plays in my head. I'll probably be expecting it on the DVD.

I love that scene too. It's almost as if I actually saw it.

I was relating that to friends who are new to Buffy (I KNOW!) recently. They loved it. Do you think I could find it on the internets? Fortunately, it isn't the most difficult scene to recreate. I believe I did it justice.

Jen: Pete, Husband Of Reason "Buffy 4: Grr. Arrgh." May 21, 2003 8:14:21 pm PDT (and Frankenbuddha "Buffy 4: Grr. Arrgh." May 21, 2003 8:58:00 pm PDT).

Thank you, Nilly. My memory is so shot. I will remember to give due credit to Pete/Frank/Hec in future for the perfect coda.

The quote below is from a review of the Season 7 dvds, does he mean a scene in the "previouslies"? Or an actual scene from the show as aired?

As a final note, for some unexplained reason, Fox has decided to not include the "previously on Buffy The Vampire Slayer" intros to each episode. Normally this would not be a major bone of contention, except that by omitting them a potentially key scene involving Faith is also removed. Shame on you, Fox.