TV: mortal and stupid
Day 01 - A show that should never have been cancelled
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of one of your favorite shows
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of one of your favorite TV shows
Day 08 - A show that's had a significant effect on who you are today
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
Day 14 - Favorite male character
Day 15 - Favorite female character
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show
Day 17 - Favorite mini series
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death
Warning: below this point, obviously, there be spoilers.
There've been some rather powerful gut-punches of character loss over the years -- Col. Henry Blake's postscript plunge into the Sea of Japan in M*A*S*H is probably the yardstick by which most are measured, but in the wartime nature of the show, there wasn't time or luxury of dwelling or ruminating, just...moving forward, diminished.
There are two ways to approach a character's death. The first is the most standard -- dwelling with the character during their final moments, often but not always oblivious to their fate, ending with that person's eventual loss. Probably the best example of this in recent years (though I confess to bias) is "Wilson's Heart," the season four finale of House. Amber "Cutthroat Bitch" Volakis, the first-runner-up to be a fellow under House and now House's best friend's girlfriend, has been critically injured in a bus accident, with both of her kidneys damaged. As a result, the flu pills she took earlier in the day have built up toxins that can't be scrubbed out of her system, and death is inevitable [more on the medicine behind this here]. She's been unconscious but now her boyfriend oncologist decides to wake her up, just to say goodbye.
The ramifications are impressively long-term, following the series for at least a few more seasons, haunting both Wilson and House (the latter almost literally).
But I think I'm a bigger fan of approaching the question from the other direction. How do we react in the new-found absence of someone we thought indispensable? How do we reconcile our vision of the world and its engines with what we're faced with when someone too good to lose is lost? Sometimes we don't react well; sometimes we curse out God and his creations. Too often, our heroes just keep on truckin' -- too many times the protagonists of TV are wrapped up in extremely pressing circumstances that don't allow them to react in genuinely human ways to such events, and I find that...disappointing. There's something cathartic and validating in watching someone unravel in a realistic and painfully familiar way. It's a kind of kinship that the terrible state in which you unexpectedly find yourself, that state that you will remember as your worst, is not unique, not alien, and, whether this is better or worse I'm still not sure, might just be a rite of passage. But putting that particular human experience on the screen is not easy to do, not easy to watch.
Which brings us to "The Body." In a series with a musical episode and one episode almost without dialogue, this is the most non-Buffy Buffy episode. It is also one of the best hours of television I've ever seen, and honestly, at this moment, I can't think of anything I'd supplant it with.
Before the credits, Buffy walks in, finds her mother open-eyed, unresponsive on the couch. Sudden realization: she's not moving. Credits, catchy theme music, quick flashback to happier times (solely for something to run more credits over), and with a crash we're back in the present time, panic fully setting in.
What happens next can be summarized, but not how it happens -- no incidental music, long surreal takes, characters reacting in wholly uncharacteristic ways to a phenomenon that each of them (in the vampire-infested burg of Sunnydale) had faced, to one degree or another, before, but now stares unblinking in their faces. Buffy goes numb. Xander reacts with blind rage. Willow rails against her juvenile wardrobe. Dawn melts down and is struck with morbid, disbelieving curiosity. Anya -- the thousand-year-old ex-demon -- asks pointed, painful, perfect questions:
But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I knew her, and then she's-there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead ... anymore! It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And ... and Xander's crying and not talking, and ... and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn, or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why!
The only two functional Scoobies are Giles (who has buried a lot of friends by this point and has the discipline to keep moving) and Tara (who is slightly spared by still being somewhat peripheral and by virtue of suffering her own loss in her childhood; Amber Benson never had enough to do on this show but she did it so well). Giles bears the weight of the necessary paperwork as best he can, while Tara comforts a grieving Willow as best she can:
It seems ridiculous now that it'd take a year to get an on-screen Willow/Tara kiss into the show. And yet Joss Whedon says it was the only time he threatened to quit the show, when the network tried to kill it. And I swear, I didn't even notice the first few times. It's not erotic, it's not titillating, it's well in the middle of an already-established relationship, and yet it's the most natural and necessary thing in the world. It's love and sympathy and understanding and acceptance and support. No wonder the networks didn't want it to be seen.
It's not a perfect episode -- I could've done without the obligatory final-scene vampire -- and maybe reading my imperfect summary makes it sounds like an Afterschool Special or something. But its execution is brilliant, the performances are riveting, the camerawork is excellent.... If you're a Buffy or genre fan at all, you should've seen this already. If you don't like Buffy and avoid genre shows like the plague, check this one out anyway; the craft that's evident in it might just change your mind. If you like well-made television, you owe it to yourself to watch this episode. Netflix it or Hulu it or get it on iTunes or stop by the house and I'll let you have mine.
But know that this is not a good-time, hour-to-kill watch. If you haven't lost anyone close to you, it will take its emotional toll; if you have, it will be very painfully familiar.
And thanks for wallowing through the depths of the meme. At least, that's my take. What's yours?
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of one of your favorite shows
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of one of your favorite TV shows
Day 08 - A show that's had a significant effect on who you are today
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
Day 14 - Favorite male character
Day 15 - Favorite female character
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show
Day 17 - Favorite mini series
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death
Warning: below this point, obviously, there be spoilers.
There've been some rather powerful gut-punches of character loss over the years -- Col. Henry Blake's postscript plunge into the Sea of Japan in M*A*S*H is probably the yardstick by which most are measured, but in the wartime nature of the show, there wasn't time or luxury of dwelling or ruminating, just...moving forward, diminished.
There are two ways to approach a character's death. The first is the most standard -- dwelling with the character during their final moments, often but not always oblivious to their fate, ending with that person's eventual loss. Probably the best example of this in recent years (though I confess to bias) is "Wilson's Heart," the season four finale of House. Amber "Cutthroat Bitch" Volakis, the first-runner-up to be a fellow under House and now House's best friend's girlfriend, has been critically injured in a bus accident, with both of her kidneys damaged. As a result, the flu pills she took earlier in the day have built up toxins that can't be scrubbed out of her system, and death is inevitable [more on the medicine behind this here]. She's been unconscious but now her boyfriend oncologist decides to wake her up, just to say goodbye.
The ramifications are impressively long-term, following the series for at least a few more seasons, haunting both Wilson and House (the latter almost literally).
But I think I'm a bigger fan of approaching the question from the other direction. How do we react in the new-found absence of someone we thought indispensable? How do we reconcile our vision of the world and its engines with what we're faced with when someone too good to lose is lost? Sometimes we don't react well; sometimes we curse out God and his creations. Too often, our heroes just keep on truckin' -- too many times the protagonists of TV are wrapped up in extremely pressing circumstances that don't allow them to react in genuinely human ways to such events, and I find that...disappointing. There's something cathartic and validating in watching someone unravel in a realistic and painfully familiar way. It's a kind of kinship that the terrible state in which you unexpectedly find yourself, that state that you will remember as your worst, is not unique, not alien, and, whether this is better or worse I'm still not sure, might just be a rite of passage. But putting that particular human experience on the screen is not easy to do, not easy to watch.
Which brings us to "The Body." In a series with a musical episode and one episode almost without dialogue, this is the most non-Buffy Buffy episode. It is also one of the best hours of television I've ever seen, and honestly, at this moment, I can't think of anything I'd supplant it with.
Before the credits, Buffy walks in, finds her mother open-eyed, unresponsive on the couch. Sudden realization: she's not moving. Credits, catchy theme music, quick flashback to happier times (solely for something to run more credits over), and with a crash we're back in the present time, panic fully setting in.
What happens next can be summarized, but not how it happens -- no incidental music, long surreal takes, characters reacting in wholly uncharacteristic ways to a phenomenon that each of them (in the vampire-infested burg of Sunnydale) had faced, to one degree or another, before, but now stares unblinking in their faces. Buffy goes numb. Xander reacts with blind rage. Willow rails against her juvenile wardrobe. Dawn melts down and is struck with morbid, disbelieving curiosity. Anya -- the thousand-year-old ex-demon -- asks pointed, painful, perfect questions:
But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I knew her, and then she's-there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead ... anymore! It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And ... and Xander's crying and not talking, and ... and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn, or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why!
The only two functional Scoobies are Giles (who has buried a lot of friends by this point and has the discipline to keep moving) and Tara (who is slightly spared by still being somewhat peripheral and by virtue of suffering her own loss in her childhood; Amber Benson never had enough to do on this show but she did it so well). Giles bears the weight of the necessary paperwork as best he can, while Tara comforts a grieving Willow as best she can:
It seems ridiculous now that it'd take a year to get an on-screen Willow/Tara kiss into the show. And yet Joss Whedon says it was the only time he threatened to quit the show, when the network tried to kill it. And I swear, I didn't even notice the first few times. It's not erotic, it's not titillating, it's well in the middle of an already-established relationship, and yet it's the most natural and necessary thing in the world. It's love and sympathy and understanding and acceptance and support. No wonder the networks didn't want it to be seen.
It's not a perfect episode -- I could've done without the obligatory final-scene vampire -- and maybe reading my imperfect summary makes it sounds like an Afterschool Special or something. But its execution is brilliant, the performances are riveting, the camerawork is excellent.... If you're a Buffy or genre fan at all, you should've seen this already. If you don't like Buffy and avoid genre shows like the plague, check this one out anyway; the craft that's evident in it might just change your mind. If you like well-made television, you owe it to yourself to watch this episode. Netflix it or Hulu it or get it on iTunes or stop by the house and I'll let you have mine.
But know that this is not a good-time, hour-to-kill watch. If you haven't lost anyone close to you, it will take its emotional toll; if you have, it will be very painfully familiar.
And thanks for wallowing through the depths of the meme. At least, that's my take. What's yours?