Thoughts on Buffy S2, and also apples
So I went to Goodwill tonight hoping to find some pants. That was a bust. And it'd be oh so much easier to shop there if they'd arrange things by size. I know, for three bucks per pair of jeans you can't expect much, but still.
Went to the store for a couple things, thus providing another example of How To Tell You're a Gastric Bypass Post-Op: Your Saturday night grocery run consists of beef jerky, rice cakes, apples and a Diet Snapple.
I wanted some honeycrisp apples (and omg the wonder of being able to consume raw fruit again, let me show you it) so I went to the apple area. The honeycrisps had obviously been well shopped all day, they were all willy nilly, but down the row, the Red Delicious and Granny Smith sections were pristine. Like, scarily so. All the apples were lined up in neat rows, and whoever had done it had alternated which direction they faced from the bottom up, wide ends pointing north or south, so that they'd all lie flat. Down the row was a guy restocking, and in the process of tidying the Fuji section. The Amazing Apples of Neatness were obviously his work.
Me: Hey, good job!
Dude: Thanks.
Me: These apples are very tidy.
Dude: I do what I can.
Me: I don't want to mess them up, I'll just take some of these.
Dude: The honeycrisp? Those are the best, anyway.
The Kroger had, however, been overrun with a bunch of post-football pre-party college-aged assholes who were running around being doofy and loud and generally making asses of themselves, so I took my beef jerky and got the hell out.
Finished up Buffy season 2 last night. Had a few thoughts. Like I sometimes do.
I remembered season 2 as having really high points but also a lot of really low points, but as I rewatched, the low points weren't as numerous or as low as I remembered. I mean, sure there are turkeys like "Reptile Boy" and "Bad Eggs" but some of the monster-of-the-week episodes are still pretty effective, especially "Ted," "Killed by Death" and "I Only Have Eyes For You."
And of course there is the perpetual awesome of Spike and Dru, and episodes that would have ongoing aftereffects like "Halloween."
But one thing is also clear...man, Boreanaz was pretty crap at acting in the early days. He got so much better once they moved him to his own show, I think because on Buffy he had this niche that he just sat in, but on "Angel" the character got to expand and change and show facets. I also get the distinct impression that the character he plays on "Bones" is much closer to his real personality (sarcastic, charming, kinda dorky) than Angel was.
I mean, while the whole Angel/Angelus storyline is awesome and poignant and moving, but honestly? I kinda don't buy Angelus's Big Hairy Evil. Boreanaz doesn't sell it all that well, and that's even BEFORE we hear the Worst Irish Accent Ever. Mostly he lurks about and is kinda dumb. The worst is when he's planning the end of the world with Acathla and Spike just keeps saying what we're all thinking, which is "Man, this is kinda dumb. What's the point of this, again?" Also, this version of Angelus doesn't jibe with the Angelus we'd see later in numerous flashbacks. I remember even when I first watched the show, I was kinda rooting for Spike to kick Angelus's ass. And that scene with Joyce and Spike sitting awkwardly in the Summers living room making small talk about how she hit him with an axe that one time will never stop being funny.
I was never a Buffy/Angel fan. I found the whole pairing kinda dull. I really didn't have a better idea, though, (although I flirted with being a Buffy/Giles shipper for awhile) which is why it was so exciting when they started exploring her with Spike. I liked Angel way better with Cordelia, too, and witness my dismay at how THAT was handled. Did you have to get pregnant and force us into two years of inane storylines, Charisma?
I loved Angel on his own show, but not so much on Buffy, when he was defined in terms of her. And I'm sorry, but I think Spike's redemption arc is WAY more interesting than Angel's. I mean, think about it. Angel's all good and stuff, right? Only because he got a soul, which was forced upon him. And once it was gone, he was pure evil again, to the point that the Judge couldn't burn him because there was no humanity. Even without a soul, Spike had some humanity to him. He felt love, he had emotions. He started being good because he wanted to, and when he got a soul, it was because he went looking for it and endured great hardship to get it.
Sorry, Angel. You rock and all, but Spike's more of a good guy than you are.
Went to the store for a couple things, thus providing another example of How To Tell You're a Gastric Bypass Post-Op: Your Saturday night grocery run consists of beef jerky, rice cakes, apples and a Diet Snapple.
I wanted some honeycrisp apples (and omg the wonder of being able to consume raw fruit again, let me show you it) so I went to the apple area. The honeycrisps had obviously been well shopped all day, they were all willy nilly, but down the row, the Red Delicious and Granny Smith sections were pristine. Like, scarily so. All the apples were lined up in neat rows, and whoever had done it had alternated which direction they faced from the bottom up, wide ends pointing north or south, so that they'd all lie flat. Down the row was a guy restocking, and in the process of tidying the Fuji section. The Amazing Apples of Neatness were obviously his work.
Me: Hey, good job!
Dude: Thanks.
Me: These apples are very tidy.
Dude: I do what I can.
Me: I don't want to mess them up, I'll just take some of these.
Dude: The honeycrisp? Those are the best, anyway.
The Kroger had, however, been overrun with a bunch of post-football pre-party college-aged assholes who were running around being doofy and loud and generally making asses of themselves, so I took my beef jerky and got the hell out.
Finished up Buffy season 2 last night. Had a few thoughts. Like I sometimes do.
I remembered season 2 as having really high points but also a lot of really low points, but as I rewatched, the low points weren't as numerous or as low as I remembered. I mean, sure there are turkeys like "Reptile Boy" and "Bad Eggs" but some of the monster-of-the-week episodes are still pretty effective, especially "Ted," "Killed by Death" and "I Only Have Eyes For You."
And of course there is the perpetual awesome of Spike and Dru, and episodes that would have ongoing aftereffects like "Halloween."
But one thing is also clear...man, Boreanaz was pretty crap at acting in the early days. He got so much better once they moved him to his own show, I think because on Buffy he had this niche that he just sat in, but on "Angel" the character got to expand and change and show facets. I also get the distinct impression that the character he plays on "Bones" is much closer to his real personality (sarcastic, charming, kinda dorky) than Angel was.
I mean, while the whole Angel/Angelus storyline is awesome and poignant and moving, but honestly? I kinda don't buy Angelus's Big Hairy Evil. Boreanaz doesn't sell it all that well, and that's even BEFORE we hear the Worst Irish Accent Ever. Mostly he lurks about and is kinda dumb. The worst is when he's planning the end of the world with Acathla and Spike just keeps saying what we're all thinking, which is "Man, this is kinda dumb. What's the point of this, again?" Also, this version of Angelus doesn't jibe with the Angelus we'd see later in numerous flashbacks. I remember even when I first watched the show, I was kinda rooting for Spike to kick Angelus's ass. And that scene with Joyce and Spike sitting awkwardly in the Summers living room making small talk about how she hit him with an axe that one time will never stop being funny.
I was never a Buffy/Angel fan. I found the whole pairing kinda dull. I really didn't have a better idea, though, (although I flirted with being a Buffy/Giles shipper for awhile) which is why it was so exciting when they started exploring her with Spike. I liked Angel way better with Cordelia, too, and witness my dismay at how THAT was handled. Did you have to get pregnant and force us into two years of inane storylines, Charisma?
I loved Angel on his own show, but not so much on Buffy, when he was defined in terms of her. And I'm sorry, but I think Spike's redemption arc is WAY more interesting than Angel's. I mean, think about it. Angel's all good and stuff, right? Only because he got a soul, which was forced upon him. And once it was gone, he was pure evil again, to the point that the Judge couldn't burn him because there was no humanity. Even without a soul, Spike had some humanity to him. He felt love, he had emotions. He started being good because he wanted to, and when he got a soul, it was because he went looking for it and endured great hardship to get it.
Sorry, Angel. You rock and all, but Spike's more of a good guy than you are.