Thoughts on "Out of Mind, Out of Sight"
You know what's neat? When you haven’t seen a BtVS episode in so long that you actually don’t remember the details. I liked this episode a lot the first time around, but I’d never rewatched it until today.
Buffy: I love how proactive she is in this episode. The later seasons gear so much more toward season-long arcs and run-of-the-mill monsters, rather than the “mystery-of-the-week” episodes more common in S1, that I’d forgotten how involved Buffy can get in the “searching for clues” aspect of cases (and see how easy it is to use the word ‘case’? I can’t do that much in later seasons). I like how she searches the school, investigates Cordelia’s connections, can empathize with Marcie (to a point), and doesn’t hesitate to help Cordelia. The scene where she watches Cordy’s dress fitting through the window is wonderful for how sad it is. I love Buffy’s yearning for that kind of light-hearted activity. Though I rarely rewatch early season episodes, and certainly not with enough cohesiveness to judge evolution of character, I think I like S1 Buffy better than S2 or S3 Buffy.
Willow: Buffy takes a rather commanding tone when she says, “You know, why don’t you compile a list of dead or missing kids” to Willow. I’m a stickler for manners, so the lack of a ‘please,’ etc. probably wouldn’t ping with other people, but I can understand how Willow’s resentment toward Buffy builds up over the years.
Xander: gabrielleabelle ’s feminist filter has made me more aware of sexism in the show, and boy does Xander’s comment about using invisibility to guard the girls’ locker room annoy me more now than I'm sure it did five years ago. Worse, no one calls him on it. Ugh. Also, after Angel rescues him, Willow, and Giles from the basement, Xander says, “Hi! What do you want?” I can’t believe his rudeness after Angel just saved his life. Double ugh. I definitely prefer later seasons Xander.
Giles: You know, if I were an ardent slasher who always watched things with slasher goggles, the scene in the library with Angel would make me think that Buffy isn’t the only one interested in Angel. Not that I perceive anything intentional in Giles’ behavior, but he does seem to exhibit an unconscious, moth-to-the-flame attitude and intellectual hard-on for the mystique of a “good” vampire. Ironic, all things considered.
Angel: No scenes with Buffy! Always a good thing. Seriously, Angel, just go away.
Cordelia: I like Cordy as a character in the early seasons. Not because I like her or think she’s a good person (in S1 at least) but because she’s usually funny. That said, I don’t really understand what the writers were trying to do with her character. Her conversation with Buffy about trying to be popular so that she’s not alone by herself is strangely serious and, I think, genuine. However, it also indicates she’s not an airhead, which doesn’t jive with how she’s portrayed 99% of the time. I can’t tell if we’re supposed to think her lines like “It was the most traumatizing event of my life, and she’s trying to make it about her leg!” are an act as well or not. They really don’t come across as an act. And I can’t reconcile a person stupid and shallow enough to say something like that with the person who confides in Buffy and thanks her at the end. Again, this is a complaint (sort of; 70% observation, 30% complaint) about the writers rather than Cordelia herself. It reminds me of how Spike was sometimes portrayed inconsistently in the later seasons (i.e. usually his gentleman and jerk qualities coexisted in a sensible manner but then sometimes he randomly turned into King of the Jackasses around Harmony) because the writers themselves disagreed so much over his personality. Maybe there was disagreement about Cordelia, too.
-Principal Snyder makes any episode better. And in this episode at least I actually can’t fault him in his interaction with Buffy. He doesn’t want her to go in the locker room. It's a crime scene. That’s what a good principal should do. Armin Shimerman FTW!
I really like the ending with the FBI agents, but even more than that I love the conceit of the episode, that forgetting about something can actually erase it from your life, and I wish that conceit had carried through (bad world-building?). If forgetting about Marcie turned her invisible, shouldn’t people remembering and acknowledging her turn her visible again? Buffy concentrating really hard on Marcie and willing her to go Technicolor makes more sense to me than the silly “goes calm and listens” bit at the end. Oh well. Perhaps the writers thought of it and decided the FBI thing was worth the inconsistent logic.
I really like S1. It’s not as fun to watch as some seasons because so many of my favorite characters (Spike, Anya) don’t arrive until later in the show, but I really like it. I like the original foursome; I like the relative lack of Angel; I like the old-school (haha) high school setting; I like Cordy; I like the newness of it all. And I really like the tone of the episodes, how they’re treated as mysteries. The music, the shots from villains’ POV (like invisible Marcie approaching Buffy), and the tags at the end (such as the eggs in “Teacher’s Pet”) all give the episodes that little ounce of fright (for a first time viewer) that I think the later seasons lack. I also noticed that the episode wasn’t as funny as most, and I think that could apply to most of S1. It seems to me that as the series progressed it traded its mystery vibe for humor. I like the humor, but it is nice to have a “Scooby Doo” type episode, too. There’s a reason the Scoobies are called the Scoobies, and I don’t think that nickname would have cropped up if the series had started with, say, its S4 vibe. S1 is usually called campy, but I think it actually takes itself pretty seriously, and I like that.
Buffy: I love how proactive she is in this episode. The later seasons gear so much more toward season-long arcs and run-of-the-mill monsters, rather than the “mystery-of-the-week” episodes more common in S1, that I’d forgotten how involved Buffy can get in the “searching for clues” aspect of cases (and see how easy it is to use the word ‘case’? I can’t do that much in later seasons). I like how she searches the school, investigates Cordelia’s connections, can empathize with Marcie (to a point), and doesn’t hesitate to help Cordelia. The scene where she watches Cordy’s dress fitting through the window is wonderful for how sad it is. I love Buffy’s yearning for that kind of light-hearted activity. Though I rarely rewatch early season episodes, and certainly not with enough cohesiveness to judge evolution of character, I think I like S1 Buffy better than S2 or S3 Buffy.
Willow: Buffy takes a rather commanding tone when she says, “You know, why don’t you compile a list of dead or missing kids” to Willow. I’m a stickler for manners, so the lack of a ‘please,’ etc. probably wouldn’t ping with other people, but I can understand how Willow’s resentment toward Buffy builds up over the years.
Xander: gabrielleabelle ’s feminist filter has made me more aware of sexism in the show, and boy does Xander’s comment about using invisibility to guard the girls’ locker room annoy me more now than I'm sure it did five years ago. Worse, no one calls him on it. Ugh. Also, after Angel rescues him, Willow, and Giles from the basement, Xander says, “Hi! What do you want?” I can’t believe his rudeness after Angel just saved his life. Double ugh. I definitely prefer later seasons Xander.
Giles: You know, if I were an ardent slasher who always watched things with slasher goggles, the scene in the library with Angel would make me think that Buffy isn’t the only one interested in Angel. Not that I perceive anything intentional in Giles’ behavior, but he does seem to exhibit an unconscious, moth-to-the-flame attitude and intellectual hard-on for the mystique of a “good” vampire. Ironic, all things considered.
Angel: No scenes with Buffy! Always a good thing. Seriously, Angel, just go away.
Cordelia: I like Cordy as a character in the early seasons. Not because I like her or think she’s a good person (in S1 at least) but because she’s usually funny. That said, I don’t really understand what the writers were trying to do with her character. Her conversation with Buffy about trying to be popular so that she’s not alone by herself is strangely serious and, I think, genuine. However, it also indicates she’s not an airhead, which doesn’t jive with how she’s portrayed 99% of the time. I can’t tell if we’re supposed to think her lines like “It was the most traumatizing event of my life, and she’s trying to make it about her leg!” are an act as well or not. They really don’t come across as an act. And I can’t reconcile a person stupid and shallow enough to say something like that with the person who confides in Buffy and thanks her at the end. Again, this is a complaint (sort of; 70% observation, 30% complaint) about the writers rather than Cordelia herself. It reminds me of how Spike was sometimes portrayed inconsistently in the later seasons (i.e. usually his gentleman and jerk qualities coexisted in a sensible manner but then sometimes he randomly turned into King of the Jackasses around Harmony) because the writers themselves disagreed so much over his personality. Maybe there was disagreement about Cordelia, too.
-Principal Snyder makes any episode better. And in this episode at least I actually can’t fault him in his interaction with Buffy. He doesn’t want her to go in the locker room. It's a crime scene. That’s what a good principal should do. Armin Shimerman FTW!
I really like the ending with the FBI agents, but even more than that I love the conceit of the episode, that forgetting about something can actually erase it from your life, and I wish that conceit had carried through (bad world-building?). If forgetting about Marcie turned her invisible, shouldn’t people remembering and acknowledging her turn her visible again? Buffy concentrating really hard on Marcie and willing her to go Technicolor makes more sense to me than the silly “goes calm and listens” bit at the end. Oh well. Perhaps the writers thought of it and decided the FBI thing was worth the inconsistent logic.
I really like S1. It’s not as fun to watch as some seasons because so many of my favorite characters (Spike, Anya) don’t arrive until later in the show, but I really like it. I like the original foursome; I like the relative lack of Angel; I like the old-school (haha) high school setting; I like Cordy; I like the newness of it all. And I really like the tone of the episodes, how they’re treated as mysteries. The music, the shots from villains’ POV (like invisible Marcie approaching Buffy), and the tags at the end (such as the eggs in “Teacher’s Pet”) all give the episodes that little ounce of fright (for a first time viewer) that I think the later seasons lack. I also noticed that the episode wasn’t as funny as most, and I think that could apply to most of S1. It seems to me that as the series progressed it traded its mystery vibe for humor. I like the humor, but it is nice to have a “Scooby Doo” type episode, too. There’s a reason the Scoobies are called the Scoobies, and I don’t think that nickname would have cropped up if the series had started with, say, its S4 vibe. S1 is usually called campy, but I think it actually takes itself pretty seriously, and I like that.