The Other Obligatory Thread: Buffy and Spin-offs

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Ah. Perhaps I should have watched that first episode of the new series of Angel before saying what I thought. Typical.

I loved it. Some of it made no sense (an emergency call to Cordelia to fight the demons?), but right from the Homicide-style boards, I enjoyed it hugely. Forcing Angel into karaoke was beautiful, it focussed on redemption (if Angel has an interesting aspect, that's it), the way the Tribunal appeared was terrific (fight scene was banal, though), and I started looking at Angel's relationship with the urban-guerilla demon-fighters as something not unlike the under- underworld in Andrew Vachss's novels.

I still don't like it as much as Buffy, by a long way, but it's much better than I recalled.

― Martin Skidmore, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

haha adam i just remembered you live in ANNE-RICE-OPOLIS, no?

Yeah, but the character of New Orleans is more surly complaining drunkenness than lacy gothic bloodletting eroticism.

Anyway, Buffy season 6 started piling the emotional baggage way too high, to the point where I stopped caring, which is where Buffy stopped being great. Without that emotional involvement, my suspension of disbelief and critical faculties can only withstand so many cringeworthy stories and so much painful dialogue, which the second half of S6 has lots of.

Angel, on the other hand, was (for most of the season) more lighthearted than it had ever been, allowing the characters to, like, flesh themselves out a bit-- Cordelia became much more believable as a sidekick, Gunn chilled out, etc--and draw us into the bitchin' story arc. Admittedly, said arc kind of fizzled later but from say January-April, Angel was brilliant nearly every week.

― adam, Sunday, 9 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I think that Buffy Season 6 is sort of post-Buffy - in the sense that the show tied up so much at the end of Season 5 that Season 6 feels like the characters woke up after the end credits and found their lives continuing on. Season 4 felt similar, but I think not as strongly because uni is such a logical follow-on from school => whereas now the show has this totally directionless feel, despite the fact that there's clearly a story arc at work.

I don't think this is a bad thing, incidentally, but it makes for a very odd season. Then again, all seasons of Buffy are odd.

― Tim, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I love the way that TWOP calls Dawn 'Shiny McWhiny'. They're SO on the money.

― Sarah, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i must at this point admit that i was WRONG and am no longer a buffy- hata, to the bemusement of boyfwiend (who remains a hata). i wuv buffy! and the gentlemen are the scariest thing EVAH. Rick can we watch buffy tonight can we can we (boyfwiend is going to see Brian Wilson = buffy opportunity ahoy!)

― katie, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

can we can we can we PLEEEAAASSEEE????

― katie, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

OK. But I've got to go to Beng's to pick up some stuff first, so I might not be back until 19:30ish.

― RickyT, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

hurrah! say hi to BTG for me!

― katie, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

the whole gentlemen episode was absolutely wonderful.

― Josh, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

josh are you on a buffy binge?

― mark s, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

no mark I saw the gentlemen one like a month ago but there is no buffy luv at the residence so I have to reach out to you interweb mentalists

― Josh, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

haha if only I COULD go on a buffy binge but it's only on twice a week

― Josh, Monday, 10 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Josh, if you got basic cable it is on twice a day (on FX).

Actually it is on 3 times today because they are having the last two episodes of season 5 on FX and a rerun of one from Season 6 on UPN. I know, I know, very sad that I know all this. But I am not watching any of them, I'm far too busy today, that's all I can say in my defense.

Season 6 = a mixed bag. Some really great episodes, but many a great big pile of meh. The finale made up for a lot, imo. What will happen to Spoike and Willow the big question going into season 7.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

SPOILAHS WILL BE DUSTED

― mark s, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

HEY right I INSIST no more Buffy fests until I can come over bearing PORT!!!!!!!! I need to see Hush again!!!!!

― Sarah, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

we watched THREE episodes of Buffy last night!! i wuv spike when he tells people to piss orf and calls them wankahs. hehehehehhhh.

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Mark is a sensitive flowah, so I made sure there wasn't any spoilers in my last post.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

But I will back what Adam said about Angel: it was GRATE this season, despite the fact that Angel is an annoying dullard. It's the rest of the characters that make the show.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

my favourite joke is to call Angel Angle. me and boyfwiend even made up a spoof theme to "Angle" which culminates in us saying "Angle!" in scary voices and framing our faces with right angles made from our hands. i know it's crap but it makes me happier than a Jedi with two lightsabres!

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I did the angel angle joke in forbidden planet when the bloke from angel was doing a signing...me and my friend were like "who is that" (why the hell is this shop so full up, can't they see i wanna get to the comics!)and i said "i think it's angle or something like that" and this middle aged man turned round and said to me "no, actually it's angel! hmmpphh!". Maybe, it was funnier at the time.

― jel --, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

jel you met comic-book guy!

― mark s, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

BLIMEY jel, what mark s said! what you should have said was "ooohhh, he's mean and moody and hangs around in graveyards with a wooden expression he's..... angleANGLE!!!" and then done the thing with the hands. then everyone would have understood!

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

If Angle heard what Jel said he'd get so cross he'd probably have to go eat another stick of butter.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

And he STILL looks like Dane Bowers.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

heh - Angle "Bomb Diggy" whatever angle's last name is...

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

HA HA Angle = butter boy and Riley = SPUD BOY! To be sure Angles last name is "O'Woodenface" and sure won't he do a fabulous Oirish accent in the flashbacks - ooh where's me pig to put under me arm ect ect. "Sure won't ye haaarrvve anotheer derrrink" <-- still a better Irish accent than Angles!

― Sarah, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

RIGHT! This has been bugging me for a while now. How come Angel lost his comedy oiiirish accent, while Spike still does bad impressions of Dick Van Dyke? I know Angel's older than Spike, but if someone doesn't lose their accent after 100 years or so, I hardly think another 100 is going to make that much difference.

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

ooh ooh *puts hand up* maybe spike's accent is so crap cos it is in the PROCESS of changing? then in another 150 years or so he'll be all valley like the rest of them. and what is the link between angle and butter, what have i missed?

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Because David Boreanz couldn't keep it up!

Or continue to do his Irish accent for a sustained amount of time HUR HUR.

― Sarah, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sorry readers. I will be leaving my workplace of misery to go to the bar in precisely 10 minutes.

― Sarah, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

but WHOT is the link between Angle "Bomb Diggy" O'Woodenface and the BUTTER! Sarah! don't go to the bar! tell me!

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

One time I was watching a scene where Angle is sad and almost crying and I said "Angle is so upset he's going to find another stick of butter to chomp on" because he is so puffy and bloated. So now I always talk about him eating sticks of butter.

He probably drinks melted butter instead of blood.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

it;s all very well saying spike's accent is crap but i know several (english) ppl — no names mentioned — who didn't realise he wasn't english till it was pointed out, and they listened quite carefully => it's not perfect obv, but it's not bad either (and — counter theories above — it is GETTING BETTER) (probably thanks to not being wiv drusilla any more)

― mark s, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

it is better than Johnny Depp's accent in From Hell. but that ain't saying much! i think it's quite good most of the time but there are times when it slips, especially in longer speeches. "Piss orf" is highly amusing and also he once told someone not to "pay-tronise" him.

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

and also, hahahahaaaaa it is better than Giles's cockernee accent when he got teenager-ised!

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

And shagged like a stevedore hahahaha!

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Wait wait wait Josh is ahead of me in the syndication, the bastard: I caught the cliffhanger first-part of Slayer-identity- switching on Sunday and now I have to wait until Saturday and be home at 4:00 p.m. (because obv. how could I have anything better to do than be home at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday) to see the remainder.

Riley seems vaguely okay from a distance but as soon as the camera closes in and he starts to do something he becomes a massive disappointment. Half of the time Buffy's concern for him comes off more as the searching pity of "why aren't you interesting enough for this show."

Q: Has anyone else had difficulty deciding how to feel about Xander's delivery eventually entirely syncing up with Matthew Perry's on Friends? (Sometimes I like to imagine that Xander eventually changes his name and moves to New York to escape the trauma of his past life in Sunnydale.)

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Mr S is right, it is getting better. Maybe not as a whole, but there are fewer glaring word slips like the aforementioned 'paytronise'.

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

(Also can we discuss why Tara bothers me so much?)

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

hmm that is exactly what i was thinking about xander last night. when they're all together at skool it's fine as he's just playing off the others and all his remarks seem to fit in, but in season 4 he seems to just fire them off randomly in a very "friends" stylee, as if he's just making a gag for the sake of making a gag. funnily enough also my friend BTG sa that he doesn't watch buffy as it reminds him too much of Friends, i wonder if he just got contaminated by watching xander? though i suppose you could say that since he's not at college withthe rest of the scooby gang he is trying extra extra hard to be the same good ol xander and looking uncomfortable because of it. actually that fits dunnit?

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

RickyT sa Tara = bovine, which is cruel but on the whole fair.

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

The Xander/Chandler convergence has been bothering me as well. Their deliveries (and jokes for that matter) are worrying similar, yet I don't find Xander even 1/1000th part as annoying as Chandler. This got in me in a bit of a hole last Saturday when I was trying to explain to a Buffy hata why Friends is nothing at all like Buffy: I just couldn't explain why Xander is grebt and Chandler is rub.

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Buffy hata = BTG = person who thinks WILL AND FUCKING GRACE is funny, so we should maybe not pay too much attention to his hatred

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"xandler" ho ho!!

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Now I'm finally watching the middle of season 4, I'm sort of half warming to Tara. Maybe she's being a bit less bovine than in 5 but she's not quite as annoying somehow. Or it might just be cos she's not as omnipresent.

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

haha when dr vick asked the tara question i answered "because she's a lesbian" and was (quite properly) pelted with cushions => so that is not the answer!!

― mark s, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

It might just be as simple as her being responsible for Willow wearing rubbish hippy clothes.

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

also she is <<<< cool than Oz

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

hey you i like willow's rubbish hippy clothes!

― katie, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

that's cos yr a rubbish hippy!

― RickyT, Tuesday, 11 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Skipping 68 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

It must be a compliment! ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 18 January 2003 16:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

I found out my parents watch Angel. They like the "green singing man". They'd never even heard of Buffy. I'm not sure if I find that very cool or very odd. Mind you I've always wondered that about my family.

― Celeste (Celeste), Saturday, 18 January 2003 19:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

* still recovering from shock of hearing High School Willow and Oz described as "annoying"*

They're showing Season 4 again over here...if Oz is hip to The Velvet Underground (at one point in today's episode he was inspecting Giles' record collection and geeked out- in his own catatonic way, of course- over Loaded), how come his band sounds like Nickelback? And how the hell do Eater (whose t-shirt he has worn in earlier seasons) fit in with this?

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Saturday, 18 January 2003 23:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

three months pass...

A brief thought that came into my head today:
Buffy and everyone around her are damaged people who can no longer function in a normal way. This is what I like about seasons 6 & 7.
There's this sense that they're all *this close* to becoming total gibbering wrecks. They're tired. All they can do is save the world. And if that was no longer a priority, then they'd simply cease to function. They no longer relate to the rest of the world. They've lost all ambition, all traces of outside lives.
There can never be a happy ending for them.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Sunday, 11 May 2003 05:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think you're talking about the writers of the show.

― Carey (Carey), Sunday, 11 May 2003 13:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

All they can do is save the world. And if that was no longer a priority, then they'd simply cease to function.

Substitute 'write about music' for 'save the world' and that's been me at some of my darker moments over the past couple of years. It's been an interesting adjustment...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 11 May 2003 13:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

What season are you in, Ned, and what's the story arc?

I love Buffy so much that I am deeply saddened by most of Season 7 (I actually loved season 6). I don't think the writers intentionally made them out to be shadows of their former selves but rather the writers and maybe actors can't get it up anymore. Buffy is this cold cold bitch now and SMG can only act with her patented "argry arms" (tm TWOP).

― Carey (Carey), Sunday, 11 May 2003 14:07 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ned, hush. You should know better than that.

― Nicole (Nicole), Sunday, 11 May 2003 14:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

Don't forget the pursed lips, Carey! That's her only other patented acting tic this season.

― Nicole (Nicole), Sunday, 11 May 2003 14:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

yeah someone said that it's hard to tell the difference between 1st Buffy and good Buffy now.

― Carey (Carey), Sunday, 11 May 2003 14:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

It is. The only difference is that the 1st Buffy is sometimes nice to Caleb, and I see no evidence of the real Buffy being nice to anyone.

― Nicole (Nicole), Sunday, 11 May 2003 14:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

am I the only one who totally regrets that the long-awaited Buffy cartoon never got on the air?

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 12 May 2003 07:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

No. I loved the concept drawings that were done for it, it probably would have been a lot of fun.

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

nine months pass...

Buffy's little sis in her own teen movie

― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 25 February 2004 21:07 (twenty years ago) link

I preferred Angel post S3 Buffy.

― Barima (Barima), Thursday, 26 February 2004 15:48 (twenty years ago) link

After "Eurotrip," she'll be seen on HBO's "Six Feet Under" as a spoiled, Christina Aguilera-like pop diva.

Sweet!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:15 (twenty years ago) link

They forgot the 'who has died and needs to be interred' part -- but she's still spoiled from BEYOND THE GRAVE.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 26 February 2004 16:16 (twenty years ago) link

one month passes...

Hey! How come no one told me that Alyson married Wesley?

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 00:26 (twenty years ago) link

how crazy is that?! for real!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 30 March 2004 00:53 (twenty years ago) link

for the harold bishop mentions alone this thread is classic

― pete s, Tuesday, 30 March 2004 01:04 (twenty years ago) link

two years pass...

Not really a spin off, but HBO have given Alan Ball the green light to do True Blood - based on Charlaine Harris' 'Southern Vampire' series. I'm hoping it might be the 'Claire Fisher - Vampire Slayer' mashup I always dreamt of.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 08:41 (seventeen years ago) link

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