BtVS Retro Review Project (Episode 1.1: Welcome to the Hellmouth)
Hrmmmm, format, format, my kingdom for a format.
Episode Summary in Five Sentences or Less
It's the Pilot, so we get to meet everybody and get a sense of who they are and (in some instances) why we should care. We see The Master in the first 5 minutes and it's clear that he's the Big Bad, but we get only hints of what is going on with him and his brood (What's "The Harvest"? Who is the crazy quasi-religious vampire Luke? What's a Hellmouth?)*. Buffy is plausibly introduced to Willow, Xander, and Jesse, and plausibly** ends up in a situation where she has to rescue them and in the process they learn her secret. She also meets a mysterious stranger who knows all about her and may or may not want to help. And in the end, Our Heros look to be in bad shape, as Luke has thrown Buffy into a coffin and is about to bite her while Willow, Xander, and an injured Jesse are running away into the approaching throng of vamps.***
Five Overarching Thoughts****
(1) Everyone looks SO YOUNG.
Yes, sure, this is 12 years ago now, and I'm old. Olllllld.****** But it's still startling to see just exactly how young all of these people are compared to my memory. SMG really looks like a semi-plausible teenager, which is a big step up from most tv and movie "teenagers." Probably helps that, per imdb, she likely was, in fact, a teenager when this was filmed.
It's possibly even more striking just how young Willow looks, since unlike most of the main BtVS cast she has a current highly-visible media presence in the surprisingly excellent How I Met Your Mother.
Back to SMG, I am required by local ordinance to note that she is looking mighty fine in that miniskirt that she wore to the first day of school. Or is it creepy for me to quasi-retrospectively leer at her? Although, geez, SMG is in my same age-bracket really.
No, no, definitely skeezy. Let's just say that last paragraph didn't happen. Although I will note that, later in the episode when she's trying to decide how to look her best when going to The Bronze, she ditches the tres chic mini in favor of a 5-sizes-too-big polo, tank top, and hair bob. So going out she looks studious and going to school she's a total hottie....er, more fashionable.
On the subject of clothes, one really has to note Willow's mighty print dresses here. Daaaaaaamn. There is a nice line about her mom having picked out one dress, but it really looks more home-made. One of the few things that seems a little forced is former fashionista cheerleader Buffy deciding to hang out with this wallflower wearing the doilies.
Getting (belatedly) back to the point of this bullet, Cordy really looks much older than the other "teens" in this ep. Turns out that she is, too - by about 6-7 years.
(2) Impressive what Joss could do with no budget.
...and get used to it, from what I hear about the strategy for Dollhouse Season 2.
In some instances, the obvious lack of funds is even helpful. The Bronze looks like an old industrial warehouse that might actually be used by high school kids for a teen hangout instead of the staggeringly unlikely upscale bar-but-don't-card-anyone it becomes later.
The vamp makeup is sparsely used - The Master, Luke, and Darla are the only ones seem in vamp-face until the very end, even though many obvious vamps are seem in human form. Actually makes it a bit more startling when the vamps do ultimately come. Transformations are entirely off-camera; in the first scene, Darla does the look-away-while-normal, look-back-vamp bit, while other transformations take place entirely offscreen. Poor Luke is in vamp-face full time - I wonder if he had to do all his scenes in one day.
Not everything on this front is unicorns and rainbows, though, as there is a real clunker of a greenscreen effect where The Master rises from a pool of cherry kool-aid, and the opening credits look like they were done as a high school project.
(3) The characters are surprisingly well thought-out already.
As everyone knows,******* tv pilots are notorious for having characters that act and react totally different from how they do things later on in the series, as the writers and actors are still figuring out where to go. Whether because Joss had an incredible control over his baby or because he had written 300 pages of backstory compulsive-GM-style and made everyone read it, or what, the characters are largely true in this episode to how they behave later.
Okay, they grow, and learn, and love, and etc, which is part of what makes the show great after all, but the essence of the main characters is there. Buffy is confident as The Slayer, but insecure about life and resentful of Destiny, Xander is a goofball with a heart of gold, Willow is mousy (perhaps a bit too mousy - this is the only one where they might have made a bit of a correction) and smart, Jesse******** is a more serious and grown-up version of Xander with some potential lurking personality issues, Cordy is the popular queen who nevertheless is willing to assume good things about people, Giles is the stuffy suit on a quest for knowledge, frustrated by the silliness of everyone else, and Joyce is a little frazzled and a little new-age, but trying her best as a single mom.
(4) Doubters can suck it, this show started strong.
Within 1 minute of the credits we have our first victim,********* thank you very much Ms. Darla. No shortage of action elsewhere in the episode either, with the big fight at the end and a little sparring with Angel.
More importantly, the tone was all there - Buffy encounters Darla and another vamp and is instantly in sarcastic-taunting mode. A couple vamps is nothing she can't handle - it's the first day of school at a new town that is the stressful thing for her in the episode.
There are alot many hints of important plot points, without alot of forced exposition to tell us exactly what those points are all about. The idea of The Slayer is summed up in about 5 seconds in the intro and then again by Giles before Buffy cuts him off with "blah blah blah." Either the viewer is quick enough to catch onto what is happening and buy into it, or they go away. No slowing things down for everyone.
And the witty quips....oh lord, the witty quips.
And Jesse, despite what people may remember, seems to be just as fully-developed as any other member of the Scooby Gang. He has as much screen time as Willow, Xander, and Cordy, and there are several references to a back-story between him and Cordy. He's not just a redshirt.**********
(5) Sunnydale is just another town at this point.
Giles hints at a dark past for the town, but when victim #1's body is found, everyone totally screams and freaks out - these are not the same Sunnydale kids that are quite blase about such things later on. They'll learn.
Top Ten Episode Quotes***********
(10) "I'll give you a bright, shiny nickle" Xander, trying to bribe Willow into helping him with his homework.************
(9) Willow: "We used to go out, but we broke up"
Buffy: "Why?"
Willow: "He stole my barbie."
"I was 5"
Willow, talking about her relationship with Xander.
(8) "And, like a plague of boils, the race of Man covered the Earth" Luke, preachifying.
(7) Girl #1: "I mean, what kind of name is 'Buffy'"
Girl #2 (passing by): "Hi, Ambrosia!"
(6) Buffy: "I'm going out to a club"
Joyce: "Will there be boys there?"
Buffy "No, mom, it's a nun club."
(5) Jesse: "Is it me, or are you turning into a bumbling idiot?"
Xander: "It's not you"
Xander, so smooth with the ladies.
(4) Angel: "Don't worry, I don't bite"
Angel's first line in the series. Oooohhh - foreshadowing!
(3) Buffy: "Okay, now, we could do this the hard way or....actually, there's just the hard way."
To the vamps, obviously.
(2) Angel: "I'm a friend."
Buffy: "Well, maybe I don't want a friend."
Angel: "I didn't say I was yours."
(1) "Seize the moment....because tomorrow you might be dead."
Buffy, jauntily explaining her philosophy of life to Willow.
Coming Up Next: Episode 1.2: The Harvest
* No, these questions don't count in the five-sentence limit! This is a parenthetical! Shut up!
** Well, mostly plausible. Willow actually talks to a boy (who, of course, turns out to be a vamp) after getting a seize-the-day pep talk from Buffy, so Buffy going to save her is totally right. But then she bumps into Xander outside The Bronze, and he's all "so, you think you're 'The Slayer'". Having just dealt with Giles and Angel, it's not surprising that she assumes, sure, why not, this idiot knows too. But how exactly did Xander hear about any of the Slayer business? Not explained here. One hopes that will come up in episode 2, but I honestly don't remember.
*** Cliffhanger! Seriously though, a little bit ballsy to do that on the Pilot episode when they didn't air as a two-hour back-to-back special or anything. Would audiences feel cheated that now they had to watch the next ep just to see what happened? Isn't that a little bit 1920s-radio-serial-level corny?
**** Totally stolen from Will Leitch's movie reviews on http://leitch.tumblr.com/. Man, what has the world come to when you have to steal an idea for listing 5 things.**
***** Also, way to go me, stealing format ideas on the VERY FIRST REVIEW. Yeah, these are going to go on forever.
****** Of course, so are you.
******* I mean, you know this, right? You're not some kind of idiot, are you? What a great rhetorical trick that phrase is.
******** Oh, we're getting to Jesse. You better believe that.
********* Oddly, it turns out that the first-ever victim on BtVS is now one of the main characters on CSI:NY. It makes me sad that I recognized the 1997 version of him as that actor. I watch too much television.
********** I am ignoring, for the sake of making my point, that after episode 2 I don't think anyone ever mentions him again.
*********** Yes, a Top Ten now. My originality, it overflows the mountaintops.
************ 500% inflation for us! I don't think we need to worry about bumping the standard rate anytime soon.