All about television
Really, I don't just watch television. I read, I work, I speak to human beings. Really. And yet...
I now have no idea what's going on with Veronica Mars tonight. Supposedly, some affiliates are preempting it for the vice presidential debate. My DirecTV program guide still lists a new episode on my affiliate. The main UPN site says they're re-airing last week's episode. All I know is that this is not going to help the show's already dodgy ratings.
My local neighborhood video store, Dr. Video, although it carries a surprisingly large selection of TV shows on DVD for such a small store, does not have Farscape. Neither does the public library. I don't know if I could justify signing up for Netflix just to get the DVDs, because I very rarely rent movies. I may have to suck it up and ask D. if I can do it through his account, though since his fiancée rents a lot of movies, that might not be practical. He's going to make so much fun of me, and since he has to cajole me into watching Smallville with him, that is just not right. But in any case, I have decided to check it out if I can. Because what I really need right now, more than anything else in the world, is another cancelled genre series to obsess over.
I finally got up to "In the Harsh Light of Day" yesterday in my rewatching Buffy project. It's an episode that always gives me a jolt of nostalgia, since it's the last time we see Spike as a real force of is own, capable of striking trepidation in the hearts of the Scoobies with mere news of his presence in town. The next episode he appears in, "Wild at Heart," marks the beginning of his long and painful journey. And let's face it, that bed crawl is really, really hot.
Nostalgia factor aside, I think "In the Harsh Light of Day" is a truly fine episode, one of the best of the season, even though I have to watch all of the Parker scenes through my fingers. Perhaps, in part, because I have to watch the Parker scenes between my fingers: the writing strikes just the right note between exposing Parker's smarmy jerkitude to the viewer and showing how Buffy is incapable, because of her limited experiences, of seeing it. Buffy could easily have come across as stupid or a victim, but instead just seems painfully naive and hopeful.
This is the last episode where we see Spike in all his evil potency. Since the show later draws explicit comparisons between being chipped and impotence, specifically when Spike tries to bite Willow but implicitly throughout the next couple of seasons, it's interesting to note that the episode depicts that potency both sexually, with the aforementioned bed crawl (excuse me while I fan myself again) and other scenes with Harmony, and in terms of his power: his ability to command minions and the fact that simple news of his presence in Sunnydale is cause for great concern among the Scoobies. It's also the last time he and Buffy engage in physical combat as equals, and telling that neither is able to kill the other.
Although their torrid sexual affair is still two years in the future, there is already a powerful undercurrent running between those two. For one thing, they're both moving on from heartbreak--and making huge mistakes on the rebound. For another, they seem to have an instinctive, unspoken agreement about the rules of their adversarial relationship. Outside the frat party, Spike actually turns his back on Buffy while he deals with Harmony, and Buffy does not stake him. While it's likely that neither of them want to attract the attention of a fight, it's equally obvious that those rules involve open, honest combat rather than stabbing in the back and ambush. And there's enough of a thread of chemistry and history running between them at this point that Parker wonders if Buffy and Spike used to date.
For someone who has spent very little time in Sunnydale up until now, Spike has witnessed a remarkably large number of major events in Buffy's life, including, now, Parker's rejection. And, being Spike, he knows how to poke and prod at all of Buffy's insecurities until he makes the mistake of bringing up Angel. But then, Spike has never known when to stop where Buffy's concerned. It's already becoming a pattern. I don't think there are many other vampires who, once they're acquired the vampire equivalent of the Holy Grail, immediately seek out the one person who is most likely to be able to take it away. It takes Spike's special brand of fatal flaw, his fixation with slayers in general and Buffy in particular, to generate that kind of decision-making. When Spike tells Buffy about her death wish in the alley scene in "Fool for Love," I always think of the sunlit campus fight scene in this episode. Spike's able to see it in Buffy because he's got the vampire equivalent himself. And, in fact, he loses the gem to Buffy, and stays in Sunnydale, and starts the slow slide towards becoming something his former evil self wouldn't even recognize.
There are some good Willow moments in this episode as well. First of all, there's Willow's glib dismissal of Oz's concerns over her exploration of magic. There's also a depiction of the Willow/Buffy friendship where Willow's the cheerleader, the follower, supporting Buffy in all her decisions; it slowly becomes clear starting in the very next episode that she secretly really resents this role, but she's actively embracing it here.
It's also interesting that Buffy immediately wants to send the Gem of Amara to Angel. It's an indication of her friends' respect for her leadership that nobody second-guesses that decision. It's also, to me, a really good indication of how little Buffy understood Angel, and how successfully he was able to hide large parts of his personality from her. After all, she wants to give invincibility to a vampire with a tenuously anchored soul, one who is prone to fits of self-loathing and nihilistic despair. In another year, he's going to be firing his friends, screwing Darla, and shutting a bunch of lawyers into a wine celler with vampires, all with soul firmly in place. Angel himself understood the danger of that much power and smashed the gem. Or, at least, in my world he did, because the reason he gave about needing to walk in the dark to understand the people he helped made no sense whatsoever. I wonder if Buffy would have been as eager to hand over the gem if she had truly known him and understood his weaknesses.
I'm enjoying S4 a lot so far, despite my terribly mixed feelings. Spike as a regular was great; Riley and the Initiative were not. I'm at the point where I'm about to start seeing a lot of all three of them. Yeah, mixed feelings.
I now have no idea what's going on with Veronica Mars tonight. Supposedly, some affiliates are preempting it for the vice presidential debate. My DirecTV program guide still lists a new episode on my affiliate. The main UPN site says they're re-airing last week's episode. All I know is that this is not going to help the show's already dodgy ratings.
My local neighborhood video store, Dr. Video, although it carries a surprisingly large selection of TV shows on DVD for such a small store, does not have Farscape. Neither does the public library. I don't know if I could justify signing up for Netflix just to get the DVDs, because I very rarely rent movies. I may have to suck it up and ask D. if I can do it through his account, though since his fiancée rents a lot of movies, that might not be practical. He's going to make so much fun of me, and since he has to cajole me into watching Smallville with him, that is just not right. But in any case, I have decided to check it out if I can. Because what I really need right now, more than anything else in the world, is another cancelled genre series to obsess over.
I finally got up to "In the Harsh Light of Day" yesterday in my rewatching Buffy project. It's an episode that always gives me a jolt of nostalgia, since it's the last time we see Spike as a real force of is own, capable of striking trepidation in the hearts of the Scoobies with mere news of his presence in town. The next episode he appears in, "Wild at Heart," marks the beginning of his long and painful journey. And let's face it, that bed crawl is really, really hot.
Nostalgia factor aside, I think "In the Harsh Light of Day" is a truly fine episode, one of the best of the season, even though I have to watch all of the Parker scenes through my fingers. Perhaps, in part, because I have to watch the Parker scenes between my fingers: the writing strikes just the right note between exposing Parker's smarmy jerkitude to the viewer and showing how Buffy is incapable, because of her limited experiences, of seeing it. Buffy could easily have come across as stupid or a victim, but instead just seems painfully naive and hopeful.
This is the last episode where we see Spike in all his evil potency. Since the show later draws explicit comparisons between being chipped and impotence, specifically when Spike tries to bite Willow but implicitly throughout the next couple of seasons, it's interesting to note that the episode depicts that potency both sexually, with the aforementioned bed crawl (excuse me while I fan myself again) and other scenes with Harmony, and in terms of his power: his ability to command minions and the fact that simple news of his presence in Sunnydale is cause for great concern among the Scoobies. It's also the last time he and Buffy engage in physical combat as equals, and telling that neither is able to kill the other.
Although their torrid sexual affair is still two years in the future, there is already a powerful undercurrent running between those two. For one thing, they're both moving on from heartbreak--and making huge mistakes on the rebound. For another, they seem to have an instinctive, unspoken agreement about the rules of their adversarial relationship. Outside the frat party, Spike actually turns his back on Buffy while he deals with Harmony, and Buffy does not stake him. While it's likely that neither of them want to attract the attention of a fight, it's equally obvious that those rules involve open, honest combat rather than stabbing in the back and ambush. And there's enough of a thread of chemistry and history running between them at this point that Parker wonders if Buffy and Spike used to date.
For someone who has spent very little time in Sunnydale up until now, Spike has witnessed a remarkably large number of major events in Buffy's life, including, now, Parker's rejection. And, being Spike, he knows how to poke and prod at all of Buffy's insecurities until he makes the mistake of bringing up Angel. But then, Spike has never known when to stop where Buffy's concerned. It's already becoming a pattern. I don't think there are many other vampires who, once they're acquired the vampire equivalent of the Holy Grail, immediately seek out the one person who is most likely to be able to take it away. It takes Spike's special brand of fatal flaw, his fixation with slayers in general and Buffy in particular, to generate that kind of decision-making. When Spike tells Buffy about her death wish in the alley scene in "Fool for Love," I always think of the sunlit campus fight scene in this episode. Spike's able to see it in Buffy because he's got the vampire equivalent himself. And, in fact, he loses the gem to Buffy, and stays in Sunnydale, and starts the slow slide towards becoming something his former evil self wouldn't even recognize.
There are some good Willow moments in this episode as well. First of all, there's Willow's glib dismissal of Oz's concerns over her exploration of magic. There's also a depiction of the Willow/Buffy friendship where Willow's the cheerleader, the follower, supporting Buffy in all her decisions; it slowly becomes clear starting in the very next episode that she secretly really resents this role, but she's actively embracing it here.
It's also interesting that Buffy immediately wants to send the Gem of Amara to Angel. It's an indication of her friends' respect for her leadership that nobody second-guesses that decision. It's also, to me, a really good indication of how little Buffy understood Angel, and how successfully he was able to hide large parts of his personality from her. After all, she wants to give invincibility to a vampire with a tenuously anchored soul, one who is prone to fits of self-loathing and nihilistic despair. In another year, he's going to be firing his friends, screwing Darla, and shutting a bunch of lawyers into a wine celler with vampires, all with soul firmly in place. Angel himself understood the danger of that much power and smashed the gem. Or, at least, in my world he did, because the reason he gave about needing to walk in the dark to understand the people he helped made no sense whatsoever. I wonder if Buffy would have been as eager to hand over the gem if she had truly known him and understood his weaknesses.
I'm enjoying S4 a lot so far, despite my terribly mixed feelings. Spike as a regular was great; Riley and the Initiative were not. I'm at the point where I'm about to start seeing a lot of all three of them. Yeah, mixed feelings.