'BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER' Season 1 dvd challenge! (1 Viewer)

[Wendy_L]

I'm not as wordy as you guys so excuse my short post.

First off I just want to say, 'Thank you' to John W for starting this thread for me since I was out of town until yesterday evening.

Ok, so far I have watched "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". The only comment I have to make is that since I didn't watch the show when it originally aired but in syndication on FX, I didn't see these episodes until I had already seen about 1 or 2 seasons. But I like both of these episodes. I liked "Welcome to the Hellmouth" a little bit more than "The Harvest" for some reason. I thought "The Harvest" dragged a little.

I have not watched the episodes with the commentary tracks but I plan to.

 

[Citizen87645]

When y'all finally get through S7, you'll be able to read S8! http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/8719.html

 

[ethanTo]

Woohoo! The game begins. I just got a chance to watch the first two, I'll comment on 3 + 4 later this week.

I watched these when they originally aired and caught them when they first hit syndication, and have only watched season 1-3 and no Angel. I found myself, while watching comparing this to other 'teenaged' shows (not commenting on intended audience, but simply that the show is set in high school). After all, Buffy, correct me if I'm wrong, was one of the launching points of what later became the WB (along with Dawsons Creek) and probably played a heavy part in getting other teen supernatural themed shows onto the air (Smallville, Roswell pop into my head).


Welcome to the Hellmouth
The first thing I noticed right off the bat in the first episode, whether this was due to low production costs or not, the lack of music! It seems like most teen shows, like Dawsons, Roswell, One Tree Hill (especially!!!) tend to play out like a music video, with popular songs (or, on the verge of popular, but still somewhat indie songs) constantly rolling in the background. The first episode had like no music! It was so strangely quiet. There was a bit more in the Harvest episode, when they headed to the Bronze. If any of you have seen One Tree Hill, at least this past season, they just go from song to song, throughout every scene throughout the entire episode! I think that this was sort of a natural evolution for the WB, as the pairing of these indie songs tends to mesh well with the 13-17 female suburban MTV-watching audience that the majority of their shows seem to cater to.

Buffy reminds me of Veronica Mars (the characters). The smart and highly sassy, and very aware of pop culture references (new and old), blonde. To further the analogy, Giles could kind of be seen like a Daddy Mars type figure. Despite the fact that these girls are both beautiful and should have no problems fitting in, are extremely aware of popular culture, perfectly groomed and dressed, they have some side of them that makes them socially unacceptable and awkward. hehe (The whole mystery solver thing too of course).

Despite the low production values, and they really need to work on the lighting, yikes, the smart dialogue is definitely in place. Great one-liners! My favorites being the 'softer side of Sears' haha...I still remember that line from when I first heard it when the show first premiered. THAT is genius! Whether or not she looks too old (it never really bothered me, having watched the early years of 90210...Dylan? Andrea Zuckerman..hahahaha, they were ancient) she is perfect! I also liked the "nobody cool has epstein-barr anymore" jab.

The guest star baddie! I laughed when I saw the Luke guy, even with the makeup job, he is so easy to spot. I don't know the actor's name (is that Eric Balfour?) but I loved him in X-Files and just watched an episode of Hercules where he plays a (very similarly acted by the way) barbarian lord named Goth.

The cross she gets in this episode, I noticed she starts to wear in the next, I think it might be fun, in addition to tracking how they use music, to keep an eye out for how they deal with religious themes in the show, I know that it goes wicca later on, I think it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

 

[ethanTo]

The Harvest
Just a few more thoughts on the second ep.

Favorite line: "They can fly? They can drive."

To roll with the Veronica Mars comparison, Willow is very much like Mac(k?) the computer whiz on VM. Who I heard is going to be a credited show star next season. They have the same sort of voice, with all the nervous awkwardness, are (at least conventionally) unattractive, do the computer thing, come to the main character for sexual advice (the Buffy the cheerleader vibe, and judged on my memories of the movie, if I had to guess, I'd guess that Buffy had some sexual experience, but I do remember later events play to the contrary). That might be another comparison to consider, the sexuality of teen female heroines, which is a really interesting social point. The old school Buffy (old school being 90s haha) versus the new school (if you agree with me) veronica mars, who - whoa. (Upcoming a Veronica Mars season 2 spoiler) Has had sex (consentual and otherwise) and contracted chlamydia in season 2.
And this was ok! Would it have been OK for Buffy? I don't remember much about her deflowering. To compare again to One Tree Hill, those girls are sexually turbo-charged, and not cast in a judgmental light for it.

Anyways, I'll be back!

 

[Nick Martin]

I like teen dramas, but that aspect of them - turning the shows into music videos in a sense, I can't stand at all. Having an emotional scene drowned out by some cheesy pop song heard all over the radio...as two of my favorite teen characters are fond of saying: Eww.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Wendy, your welcome, my friend.

About the comparisons to Veronica Mars, please be aware that I haven't seen season 2 yet, so be careful about spoilers regarding VM, i've been on pins and needles as it is about blowing anything from that show until I see it on dvd in a couple of months.

 

[Ruz-El]

Whew, it's been busy at work, so I haven't been able to post. So let's catch up, shall we?

1.3 THE WITCH : In which we discover that Cheerleaders are as evil as I always thought they were.
4/5.
This is a nice stand alone episode that seemed to have minimal "serial" info in it, but gave the cast a chance to do their thing. The team dynamic realy comes into place. I refered to the Buffy, Zander, Giles, Willow team as "The BSRs" (Buffy's Slayer Recognisance squad,) which gave me Buffy nerd friend a laughing fit, as he told me they were nicknamed "The Scoobys". I like mine more, but I well refrain from using it so as not to upset Nicholas, Jay and the other die hards. As in the first story arc, I still find that Zander and Willow are pretty much stealing the show everytime they are on screen and that Buffy herself is almost a minor player. It's like in a "Batman" story where the surrounding characters are more interesting than the main protagonist.

1.4 Teachers Pet : In which a substitute teacher makes her students loose their heads.
2/5
A genuine monster episode that let me down. Everything about this was just weak. I'm guessing that this is the episode where Zander starts to play the kidnap bait that was traditionaly played by blond girls. Forunately for us, Zander is the man for the job and really runs with this episode, and is the main reason I'm giving this a 2 out of 5. The Buffy nerd thought this one only warranted a 1, and declared it to be the worst of the Season 1 episodes. If this is in fact the case, than the rest of the series should pan out pretty good.

As I'm pretty much going to continue in this format, here is a break down of the rating 1-5 scale I'm using:

1/5 : Total crap and not worth revisting, ever.
2/5 : Has some business in it, but not essential
3/5 : Good episode, worth watching
4/5 : Great episode, must see within the series
5/5 : Classic episode, should be watched period, whether your a fan or not.

I'm suspecting that the 1 and 5 ratings well be pretty few and far between, but the rest should give you all a general idea of where I'm coming from.

 

[ethanTo]

My bad, about the Veronica Mars spoiler. It didn't even occur to me, being non-Buffy and all. I spoiler boxed the one season 2 thing I let slip, (don't worry it is not going to ruin anything for you if you saw it, as it leads into a mystery but does not outright spoil one if you have not seen the second season, if that makes any sense at all!!!) and will be more careful in the future.

 

[Nick Martin]

So, will this primarily be an episode review thread?

I thought the idea was a sort of online commentary, highlighting moments that stuck with you, providing trivia (like the unaired pilot stuff) and laughing at the comedy together...as though we were all sitting together watching it. ethanTo's posts are the best example of what I mean.

The whole ranking/reviewing was a little unexpected, is all.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Participants can comment in any manner they like, really, whether it be a simple episode review, remembering how an ep made you feel then and now to a full analysis of episodes. It's open season on these eps.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

No sweat, Ethen, that was mostly my paranoia talking, trying to avoid the outcome of such a popular show like VM around here isn't easy, I generally freak and panic just seeing the name Veronica Mars.

Everywhere I look in my daily life I see potential spoilers for 'VM' lol.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Witch

Buffy's first "monster of the week" episode is an entertaining one with all of the classic trappings associated with witches, the boiling cauldron, black cat, spells and hexes. One really has to feel bad for Amy and her mother, Amy spends a good three seasons as a rat and her mom remains trapped inside a cheerleading trophy for the remainder of the series, although one has to wonder what became of her when the school is destroyed.

Was this a significant episode? More than one would think from the way it appears on the surface, the Scooby gangs dynamic really started to cement in this ep and it was the first time that Giles did something directly to save Buffy's life, furthering the emerging trust between them...slayer and watcher. Seeing Buffy "drunk" was very funny, including the unexpected, and quite unintentional, demonstration of her strength lol.

Moving on...

 

[Scott-S]

LOL I didnt think about what happened to the mom in the future. That is pretty sad.

Did anyone else think that the "witchcraft" stuff was really cheesy? The cat and the boiling cauldren were too "cliche". I am glad this element evolved as the show progressed. I get the feeling that Joss didn't know the path that Willow would take and how important wicca would become. I am glad they didnt give Willow a wart on her nose and a pointy hat.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I actually think that the whole point of the episode was to exploit those old witch associations and just have fun with them. We're talking strictly halloween material here, hence the name of the episode, Witch, and all that it implies.

 

[Nick Martin]

It's all just as I said in my first post - embracing the obviously silly supernatural concept early on, but grounding it with believeable characters to prevent it from being too ridiculous or too serious.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Yep.

 

[Ruz-El]

If this was in response to my postings, my apologies. I'm pretty much watching these blind. I know I've seen the first season before when it first came out on DVD, but I can't say I'm remembering much of it. I figured, since I'm not a fan of the series revisting it, but a person interested in it from hearing about for so long, I'd do mini-reviews of the episodes, as I have no trivia etc to offer. If you all woud rather not see somewhat poorly structured reviews, let me know and I will limit my comments.

Are we watching a disc a week, or just burning through them the best we can? As I stated in the other thread, I'm basically watching a episode a day over lunch at work with a friend who is a Buffy fanatic, so we start disc 2 tomorrow. Are we going too far ahead?

 

[Nick Martin]

Oh, no - I was just curious as to the overall intent of the thread.

A 'review' thread, or a 'opinions/memories' thread, etc...

This one is all of the above - John made that clear to me.

I like reading your reviews.

 

[Scott-S]

Russell, Feel free to do your posts as reviews. I am just going to keep doing mine like a list of things I found interesting or had a question about.

As far as how fast you proceed. That is up to you, but I think most of the folks here are aiming for 1 disc a week.

 

[Wendy_L]

Witch

This was the first episode I ever saw of "BtVS" in syndication on FX. I didn't watch the show when it originally aired. See, here is what happened. I saw the movie and wasn't that impressed with it (I have since gone back and watched it again and now I enjoy it) so I was never interested in watching the TV series. But when it got to the 4th of 5th season I would hear all these good things about the show and it was everywhere, magazine covers, talk shows, etc. So, I was bummed that I missed the boat on what was now sounding like a really good show. I figured I could catch it in reruns or on DVD. I had Season 1 Disc 1 on my Netflix queue for about a month but it was always on a short wait so one day I decided to see where FX was in the rotation of the show and I realized I had only missed the first two episodes. So I recorded Witch that day and LOVED it. That was it, I was hooked. Over the next couple of months I saw Seasons 1 - 6. Watching two episodes a day and eating them up with a spoon.

Anyway, for that reason this episode is one of my favorites of Season 1. I've always liked things to do with witchcraft and witches and I also loved the dynamic of the characters and the witty dialogue.