Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode one
6:46 am
wow. i'm actually doing it. like, actually. almost two months later, but i'm posting a journal. snap.
so i just watched episode one, "Welcome to the Hellmouth", which is the first of a two-part premier, for the third or fourth or fifth time. i'm not really sure anymore. i've watched seasons 1-3 at least twice straight through and season one once more than that. i also used to watch the show on occasion when it was in syndication on /my/ tv. it no longer is, so i watch online.
anyway, i decided to try to let go of my preconceptions of the characters for this, but it was very hard. my first time around, last spring, i went into the series feeling anti-buffy+angel on pure principal (because i'm a yaoi/slash fan, and will be until death). however, they actually made me /LIKE/ them, so i was all...yeah. that can all come later. anyway, the second time i watched, this fall, i realized how much i hate angel. like, dude, wtf? i just was excessively irritated by him and his pathetic, boyish face. it was annoying to be so annoyed.
so this time, i'm trying to let go. it didn't go as well as i had hoped, but we'll let you see what i came up with. you might want to sorta watch along with the opinion stuff after the summary. it gets a little confusing.
first of all: brief summary.
opens to inside a high school. two kids break in. he's showing off, she's scared. hears a noise, he proves there's nothing there, she vamps and eats him. theme song.
blonde girl in bed, having nightmares. we see images of blood and fire and creepy stuff and a book titled 'VAMPYRES' and a silver cross on a chain in a box and some more creepy stuff and an ugly-as-shit dude, who's a vampire. she wakes up to mom calling her down for the first day at a new school. last thing mom says before dropping her off: "and buffy? try not to get kicked out this time." thanks for the confidence-booster, mom.
a boy skateboarding towards school, with no ability to stop, but at least he can sort of steer. he sees buffy, distracts himself, and runs into the railing on the steps, effectively clothes-lining himself in the stomach and ending up /under/ the railing. redheaded girl (willow) comes by and he gets to his feet talking to her. another boy (jesse) joins them, and they talk, clearly friends.
principal's office with buffy. he (flutie) tears up the records from her old school, them tapes them back together. crashes into a girl in the hall, and the first boy (xander) helps her pick up her stuff, but she leaves a stake. she goes to class, meets cordelia, most popular girl in school, takes popularity test, are mean to willow, goes to library. meets giles the librarian. she needs books, he produces the book called 'VAMPYRES'. she runs away.
at lunch, buffy asks willow for help in classwork, xander returns the stake, they ask personal questions, cordelia announces gym was canceled due to dead-guy from the beginning. buffy investigates, it's a vampire bite, she goes to giles.
they argue about her duty as a slayer, and how there's all this mystical whatnot in the town (sunnydale), and something's going to happen soon. she leaves, giles follows, xander comes out of the stacks and says 'what?'. giles and buffy continue the fight in the hall.
buffy goes to the club in town (the bronze), but runs into a creepy yet attractive man giving her vague messages about a harvest and the mouth of hell, along with the silver cross from the dream. at the bronze, she chats with willow, sees giles, tells him his friend caught up with her, he denies knowing the guy, she passes on the message, they argue about her slaying duties again. she sees willow leaving with a vampire, goes to kill, doesn't catch up but threatens cordelia accidentally, goes out looking while giles goes to the library, and runs into xander. they catch up with willow and jesse, each dragged off by a different vampire to be food for the 'master', who is being risen by another vamp (luke).
buffy kills boy-vamp, fights girl-vamp (darla), xander, willow, and jesse run for it, buffy is attacked by luke, darla goes after the others, and the episode ends with luke bearing down to kill buffy.
sorry for the not-briefness of my brief. now for my /opinion/ on this stuff.
my first thought upon the breaking in of the science lab was 'oh, delinquents...' because, seriously, who breaks into school in the middle of the night to impress a girl? and when the dying finally happened, i get thrown every time. well, not this time, but the first three or so. i always think it's gonna be the boy, and it's not.
the theme song was good. the music is headbanging worthy, and i usually do air drums. and they use decent clips.
mom's automatic assumptions that buffy will screw up are a little disheartening. and xander. i couldn't let go and just be new to him. he's xander. and i love him. he was adorable.
when she left flutie's office, the girl she runs into is wearing an open shirt over a sports bra. was that actually okay? and in? because /seriously/. it's just weird. i was only six at the time, but still. weird. and xander. him and his adorable, non-good-talking-ness. and buffy's 'nice to meet you' before walking away seemed insincere to me. of course, i came into this looking for vapid-bitchiness, because when i realized i hate angel and his boyishness, i realized i hate buffy and her bitchiness. but i was trying to ignore it while searching for it. if that makes sense. ANYWAY!
in class, cordelia pretty quickly was proven to be a bitch. the popular girls tend to be, and her treatment of willow was uncalled for. obviously. but buffy wasn't mean and went to be nice to her during lunch. but in the library? giles? he came off as a creeper at first. like *shudder*. i couldn't think of the right onomonopia for that.
when the dead boy fell out of the locker, i smiled. heck, i almost laughed.
and then xander at lunch. oh, xander... he rambled about knowing buffy upon being introduced because, as jesse then said, he was a bibbling idiot. when xander produced the stake for buffy, jesse's face was priceless. he was so confused.
skipping ahead to the buffy-giles showdown in the hall! what the hell was she thinking, asking a question like 'how bad can it be?'? hasn't she learned anything yet?? YOU JINXER, YOU!
cut to luke, apparently /praying/. um, i'm pretty sure that there are not many gods that answer vampires. wtf?
and then to the bronze, where buffy does a handstand on a pole, perfectly balanced and resting for /way/ too long in order to whack, what she believes to be a vampire, in the back and knock him down. um, frontwards? but then he's on his back... confused. totally unrealistic, though. and why does he have to be a cryptic creep?
willow's explanation for why she doesn't date was precious. she can't talk around them. and her and xander's dating history. cute. but poor jesse. poor, poor, jesse. and giles, wtf, man.
they see willow with thomas, the vamp-boy, and giles says 'what is she doing?'. what do you THINK she's doing??! seriously. and darla? huuuuge hussy. i also felt that the graveyard scene was too dark. which, okay, it's a graveyard, but it was difficult to make out. willow's backbone was nice, considering what ends up happening to it. and why did willow, jesse, and xander listen to the vamp that said they couldn't leave? whatever.
halfway through the episode, i was thinking it was waaaay too long, but at the end i remembered it's a two-parter. duh.
sooo... that's my summary-slash-opinion. i don't feel it was very good, and that it was way too long. sorry. i'll try to cut down in the future. i'm kinda sick of this first season, anyway. it's like 'arrgh'.
~
7:30 am
wow. i'm actually doing it. like, actually. almost two months later, but i'm posting a journal. snap.
so i just watched episode one, "Welcome to the Hellmouth", which is the first of a two-part premier, for the third or fourth or fifth time. i'm not really sure anymore. i've watched seasons 1-3 at least twice straight through and season one once more than that. i also used to watch the show on occasion when it was in syndication on /my/ tv. it no longer is, so i watch online.
anyway, i decided to try to let go of my preconceptions of the characters for this, but it was very hard. my first time around, last spring, i went into the series feeling anti-buffy+angel on pure principal (because i'm a yaoi/slash fan, and will be until death). however, they actually made me /LIKE/ them, so i was all...yeah. that can all come later. anyway, the second time i watched, this fall, i realized how much i hate angel. like, dude, wtf? i just was excessively irritated by him and his pathetic, boyish face. it was annoying to be so annoyed.
so this time, i'm trying to let go. it didn't go as well as i had hoped, but we'll let you see what i came up with. you might want to sorta watch along with the opinion stuff after the summary. it gets a little confusing.
first of all: brief summary.
opens to inside a high school. two kids break in. he's showing off, she's scared. hears a noise, he proves there's nothing there, she vamps and eats him. theme song.
blonde girl in bed, having nightmares. we see images of blood and fire and creepy stuff and a book titled 'VAMPYRES' and a silver cross on a chain in a box and some more creepy stuff and an ugly-as-shit dude, who's a vampire. she wakes up to mom calling her down for the first day at a new school. last thing mom says before dropping her off: "and buffy? try not to get kicked out this time." thanks for the confidence-booster, mom.
a boy skateboarding towards school, with no ability to stop, but at least he can sort of steer. he sees buffy, distracts himself, and runs into the railing on the steps, effectively clothes-lining himself in the stomach and ending up /under/ the railing. redheaded girl (willow) comes by and he gets to his feet talking to her. another boy (jesse) joins them, and they talk, clearly friends.
principal's office with buffy. he (flutie) tears up the records from her old school, them tapes them back together. crashes into a girl in the hall, and the first boy (xander) helps her pick up her stuff, but she leaves a stake. she goes to class, meets cordelia, most popular girl in school, takes popularity test, are mean to willow, goes to library. meets giles the librarian. she needs books, he produces the book called 'VAMPYRES'. she runs away.
at lunch, buffy asks willow for help in classwork, xander returns the stake, they ask personal questions, cordelia announces gym was canceled due to dead-guy from the beginning. buffy investigates, it's a vampire bite, she goes to giles.
they argue about her duty as a slayer, and how there's all this mystical whatnot in the town (sunnydale), and something's going to happen soon. she leaves, giles follows, xander comes out of the stacks and says 'what?'. giles and buffy continue the fight in the hall.
buffy goes to the club in town (the bronze), but runs into a creepy yet attractive man giving her vague messages about a harvest and the mouth of hell, along with the silver cross from the dream. at the bronze, she chats with willow, sees giles, tells him his friend caught up with her, he denies knowing the guy, she passes on the message, they argue about her slaying duties again. she sees willow leaving with a vampire, goes to kill, doesn't catch up but threatens cordelia accidentally, goes out looking while giles goes to the library, and runs into xander. they catch up with willow and jesse, each dragged off by a different vampire to be food for the 'master', who is being risen by another vamp (luke).
buffy kills boy-vamp, fights girl-vamp (darla), xander, willow, and jesse run for it, buffy is attacked by luke, darla goes after the others, and the episode ends with luke bearing down to kill buffy.
sorry for the not-briefness of my brief. now for my /opinion/ on this stuff.
my first thought upon the breaking in of the science lab was 'oh, delinquents...' because, seriously, who breaks into school in the middle of the night to impress a girl? and when the dying finally happened, i get thrown every time. well, not this time, but the first three or so. i always think it's gonna be the boy, and it's not.
the theme song was good. the music is headbanging worthy, and i usually do air drums. and they use decent clips.
mom's automatic assumptions that buffy will screw up are a little disheartening. and xander. i couldn't let go and just be new to him. he's xander. and i love him. he was adorable.
when she left flutie's office, the girl she runs into is wearing an open shirt over a sports bra. was that actually okay? and in? because /seriously/. it's just weird. i was only six at the time, but still. weird. and xander. him and his adorable, non-good-talking-ness. and buffy's 'nice to meet you' before walking away seemed insincere to me. of course, i came into this looking for vapid-bitchiness, because when i realized i hate angel and his boyishness, i realized i hate buffy and her bitchiness. but i was trying to ignore it while searching for it. if that makes sense. ANYWAY!
in class, cordelia pretty quickly was proven to be a bitch. the popular girls tend to be, and her treatment of willow was uncalled for. obviously. but buffy wasn't mean and went to be nice to her during lunch. but in the library? giles? he came off as a creeper at first. like *shudder*. i couldn't think of the right onomonopia for that.
when the dead boy fell out of the locker, i smiled. heck, i almost laughed.
and then xander at lunch. oh, xander... he rambled about knowing buffy upon being introduced because, as jesse then said, he was a bibbling idiot. when xander produced the stake for buffy, jesse's face was priceless. he was so confused.
skipping ahead to the buffy-giles showdown in the hall! what the hell was she thinking, asking a question like 'how bad can it be?'? hasn't she learned anything yet?? YOU JINXER, YOU!
cut to luke, apparently /praying/. um, i'm pretty sure that there are not many gods that answer vampires. wtf?
and then to the bronze, where buffy does a handstand on a pole, perfectly balanced and resting for /way/ too long in order to whack, what she believes to be a vampire, in the back and knock him down. um, frontwards? but then he's on his back... confused. totally unrealistic, though. and why does he have to be a cryptic creep?
willow's explanation for why she doesn't date was precious. she can't talk around them. and her and xander's dating history. cute. but poor jesse. poor, poor, jesse. and giles, wtf, man.
they see willow with thomas, the vamp-boy, and giles says 'what is she doing?'. what do you THINK she's doing??! seriously. and darla? huuuuge hussy. i also felt that the graveyard scene was too dark. which, okay, it's a graveyard, but it was difficult to make out. willow's backbone was nice, considering what ends up happening to it. and why did willow, jesse, and xander listen to the vamp that said they couldn't leave? whatever.
halfway through the episode, i was thinking it was waaaay too long, but at the end i remembered it's a two-parter. duh.
sooo... that's my summary-slash-opinion. i don't feel it was very good, and that it was way too long. sorry. i'll try to cut down in the future. i'm kinda sick of this first season, anyway. it's like 'arrgh'.
~
7:30 am