Buffy S1, Please tell me it gets better! (1 Viewer)

[DaveGTP]

Stacey made us skip The Pack because she wanted to see the one with Angel in it (the next ep.). I tried to talk her out of it, to no avail (I'm very strict about proper order in most things). She said that the watched it the other night and that it was pretty good. I guess I'll have to catch up on it.

 

[Jaime_Weinman]

"The Pack" is also a good example of how the show achieved good visual results despite a small budget. The scene where hyena-Xander breaks Willow's heart is wonderfully directed (with Xander in closeup and the other hyenas in the background as he mocks Willow). Also, it gave Nick Brendon a chance to show more range than he did later in the series. (Xander later became pure comedy relief, but in the first couple of seasons he was tougher and smarter than he later became, because the original intention was to get Xander and Buffy romantically involved at some point, so Xander had to be someone who Buffy could plausibly go for.)

Also, in the original script of "The Pack" the hyena kids ate some random kid in the schoolyard.
Whedon, in doing his rewrite, changed it to Principal Flutie
to make it clear that this was a show that could surprise people.

 

[Kevin Porter]

This also has bugged me. I think his scenes in episodes like Into the Woods (His profession of love to Anya, his convincing Buffy to not let Riley go) showcased a range rarely seen in the later seasons.

 

[Joshua_W]

Speaking of "The Pact,"...

I think they probably killed off Principal Flutie so they could bring in Snider. Flutie was just so nice, and I think they wanted someone who in the position who would be a minor nemesis for Buffy.

Also, there's some great build-up in the second season when we discover that Snider is afraid of the unseen mayor, and later when we discover that he knows more about Buffy than everyone thinks.

 

[Ryan_Guah]

That has always made me wonder. I wish they would have explored just how much Snyder knew about Buffy further, but they never did..

 

[Stacey_B]

Hrm....Lots of info about "The Pack". Yes, as Dave said, I did watch it last night. I found it to be my favorite so far actually.
The scene with Xander and Willow was classic, I had to restrain myself from yelling "Jerk!" at the screen in my best high school girl voice. hehe....
And yes, the bit with the kids and surprize was quite shocking!
Yeahyeah....Dave agreed to skip it just as readily as I did! Don't let him feed you anything!
I look forward to the last couple of episodes and season 2! I don't have season 3 yet but...I will!
Stacey

 

[Andy Sheets]

I love season 1. I think seasons 2 and 3 are better, but I'd rather watch most season 1 episodes before the majority ones from season 4 onward. I tend to like seeing tv shows develop early on because it's before the writing staff has figured out a dependable formula to constructing stories, so everything feels much more by the seat of the pants. I have more fun seeing a show develop and hit its stride than seeing it start crumbling in later seasons because the people just can't muster up the same passion anymore

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

It definitely does. Season 2 is one of the better seasons, especially the latter half.
Season 1 is much better than some of the stuff in the last two seasons. At least it was entertaining to watch which was not always the case with season 6 and 7.

 

[Adam_ME]

That's true. The death of a fairly significant supporting character was a major shocker to me with the show only being 6 episodes in. Although I will say that the death of a certain character in "The Harvest"(whom Joss wanted to place in the opening credits, but couldn't afford to) was equally surprising.

 

[Mark Oates]

If there's one show that never, ever hits the reset button, it's BTVS. There are actions and consequences that turn up throughout the seven year run of the show. The first season may have appeared to reset, as television even as recently as 1997 tended to play it safe. From the start of Season Two, the gloves are definitely off.

If anybody wants a good "try before you buy" episode, I'd say:
S1 - The Puppet Show
S2 - Halloween

Like I say, from the start of Season Two the show's in its stride. The Spike arc especially is fascinating, and that's six years' worth of episodes.

 

[Tony_Faville]

My recommendation is to definitely stick with it and move on to Angel when the time comes. Buffy does get better moving into S2 and S3. My wife and I both feel very strongly that Angel S3 was one of the best seasons of TV ever produced. In fact, we just watched S3 again in about a week's time in anticipation of S4 coming out in a week.

As for Alias, yeah, it's gone downhill, fast. A good friend of mine is a die hard Alias fan (went to London just so she could attend a fan convention there) but is refusing to watch it anymore because it has lost the "magic" it once had.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

I'd recommend they come back next season, if only for a few episodes.

J.J. said he'd be more involved, and even HE was a bit upset with the direction the series took when he left for a while... hopefully they'll do a turnaround.

 

[Stacey_B]

OK....Well...being the compleatist I am I will watch all of Buffy. (I pre-ordered S7 so I can work backward and forward at once, I find this is the best strategy to working through a long series that I"m behind on.) Then I'll move on to Angel...or 1/1 during the 4th season start switching? I believe that's what I've heard in the past.....?

I will also continue with Alias in hopes that it does get better in S4...I might hold of buying S3 until after the reviews come out in January though...

Stacey

 

[MaraKM]

Gah! Oh, that just pains me. Why would you want to skip to the end of a story? I know I'm a spoiler-phobe, but, I just can't imagine deliberately watching seasons out of order. Season 7 will not make any sense if you haven't seen the previous seasons, and you'd be robbing yourself of getting surprised by the plot twists. You'll see characters die before you see them introduced. It will skew your perceptions of the various romances. It's just...gah. eep. :frowning:

And as far as Angel, there were a lot of crossovers in the first couple of seasons, so, yes, you should start watching Angel S1 when you start Buffy S4.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I agree. Under no circumstances should you watch Buffy out of order. It's an incredibly serialized show and the characters frequently yalk about things that happened in previous episodes. Seeing where hte show is going is half the fun, so knowing everyhting before you see would be a bad idea.

 

[Stacey_B]

Nonono...I guess I wasn't clear enough. I meant I just collect them that way, I don't actually watch them when I pick them up but if I pick up S7, S6 as I'm like picking up S2 and S3, as I'm watching them...by the time I finish S4 I've only got S5 to buy and the rest is already there for me so I don't have to continue spending money. It's a little psychological trick I do for myself.
Don't worry, I never actually would watch a show really out of sequence (beyond skipping 'The Pack', which I did go back and re-watch!).

So, Dave and I finished the last 2 episodes of S1. I must say...pretty decent stuff. It was almost meladramatic though to go from quasi-cheesy to serious back to whitty one liners at the end when the action should be at it's peak. I mean....Your Mouth looks like Fruit Punch? Or whatever she said....I was laughing instead of actually watching the show!
But, it was the best 2 episodes of the season...
I look forward to S2 and S3, I love experiencing things like this for the first time because you know you never get a second chance to relive the unknown. In this case....Buffy Seasons 2 and 3.
Stacey

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I'd advise waiting in that case if there's a Best Buy in your area. They usually have sales when Buffy season come out where you can save big money buying a bunch at once.

 

[Paul_Scott]

with Amazons STL discount, S7 is $35 shipped.
if you pass on the same discount to someone else and they buy it, you also get $3.50 credit.
i ordered S6 from them, and will probably do the same for 7.

DDD, if they have another coupon sale at the end of Nov, should also bring the sets down around $32-35 each.

just finished disc 4 of the second season.
entertaining definitely, but i still prefer S3 and S5 & S6 more.

The fact that she didn't kill Angel when she had the chance seems to me now to be a glaring lapse of character consistency.
Angel is still going around tearing peoples hearts out, killing co-eds and its pretty much entirely her fault.
her regret is pretty 'light' and sporadic and consequently just comes across as a gimmick when it does get brought up.



people seemed to dislike the later seasons for taking the consequences of unpleasant events to their logical ends, which by nature can seem relentlessly bleak, but
when i watch the early seasons now and they only intermittenly follow thru on these issues, it strikes me as ...slight.

 

[Joshua_W]

Paul Scott:

 

[Jaime_Weinman]

That's exactly what Joss Whedon intended for the show: to have it bounce constantly from serious to funny to tragic to campy, so you never knew what was coming next. The mix of styles is the true innovation of "Buffy" and what makes it so good.

Part of the reason I find the last couple of seasons so dreary is that the writers forgot this, and instead retreated to the conventional style of alternating "serious" scenes with "comedy relief" scenes, instead of having scenes be serious and funny at the same time. (One of the few times they got back to that in the last season was in the Buffy/Holden scenes from "Conversations With Dead People" -- and those scenes were written, uncredited, by Joss Whedon.) The show was great in the first few seasons because it took these problems absolutely seriously while also signalling how funny it was to be turning run-of-the-mill teen problems into serious monster stories. It wasn't pure drama, and it wasn't camp. It was both, and a lot more besides. That's what makes the first three or even four seasons so unique.