Buffy Season Two Episode Six

[koganbot]

"Do the demons just hate how commercial it's become?" (On why demons take Halloween off.)

Episode takes half a show's worth of clumsy exposition to get going, and even then falls into cliché, but nonetheless interesting threads are spun. On Halloween the kids turn for real into whatever they're dressed as. Earlier clumsy exposition is about how for one night you get to be who you aren't (but might want to be?). So this confirms that Buffy really, actually wants to be Buffy, not some simpering girly-girl 18th-century noble woman. Ah, but Willow is unformed, so she gets to find new aspects of herself; also shows that she's got the character to take command when Buffy flakes out - which we already knew, but Willow might not have.

So:

Willow takes over.
Giles has secrets.*
Buffy gets laid? (After almost getting slayed.)

OK, I've got a definite complaint. Show is cheating in that, if Buffy feels frazzled and harried and maybe unattractive, you've got to make her look askew, and frazzled, not just give her a tasteful bit of dishevelment.

Spike... it's not really his episode, but you wonder about his taste in women, saddled as he is with pale goopy sickly babe. Just what does he see in her? I guess vampires can't be choosers, but...

Cordelia watch: She's not all that unresourceful herself, when it comes to battle. She's taken aback when Angel only has eyes for Buffy, but Xander has useful advice: "Give it up, Cordy. You're never going to get between those two. Believe me. I know." (Is Xander the only one who ever calls her Cordy? Or does Willow do so occasionally, too?)

*Similarities between Giles and Magnum, P.I.'s Higgins. Both are in a nanny/caretaker role, slightly demasculinized, but Higgins had a past as a sergeant major in the British army and iirc did some work with the British equivalent of the Special Forces, and Giles, as we know, can be a fighter.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Gah, Drusilla! I hate hate hate the actress who plays her -- common theme in not just this but many shows is that poor acting seems to destroy any possibility of an engaging character but you can't always tell if it's the character done in by the acting or the other way around. I think Dru suffers from both, really, but I would like to know from UKers if her accent is as awful as I suspect it is.

a UK-er confirms:

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

Her accent isn't just awful, it's fvcking atrocious! It made me cringe mightily at first, then I just sort of got used to it.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

vampires can totally be choosers! they are predators who decide whether they harm, kill or transform their victims into other vampires -- i would think massive boredom would be the chief relational issue

the best i can do on the accents is these people are like 250-350 years old and that's really how they spoke then er er

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

With the obvious exception of Tony Head's, all the British accents on the show are a bit dodgy to some degree or other, but Drusilla's is the worst by far.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Once you accept Drusilla as the ultimate Ham she becomes hilarious instead of annoying. "OhhhhhhhOOHHHHHH Spiiiiiike please bring me a fwuffy kittaaaan to PLAAAAY with ooooooooowwwwhhhhhhhu"

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I think Angel's Oirish accent (can't remember if that will have appeared by now) may be even worse than Drusilla's "is she supposed to be English or what?" accent. Spike and Drusilla have a long history which perhaps gives some context to their relationship.

Sadly they never really do quite enough with the darker aspects of Giles' past. There was talk of a spinoff series, so maybe they were saving up ideas for that, but it never happened.

[koganbot]

Well, as long as the accent is consistent you can claim that as a child the person was an army brat, so never quite got a particular local accent down.

Spike, anyway, is speaking 18th-century Euro-Jive, so he gets a free pass.

[koganbot]

It is claimed that people in Appalachia speak much the way the Elizabethans had in southern England. (Not sure who claims this, actually; I heard it from an Appalachian.)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

was s/he 400 years old?

[koganbot]

Well, my point isn't in regard to Drucilla (who perhaps has Transylvanian heritage), just confirming your point that the present doesn't get to define "English accent" - if Whedon wants to he can justify any old thing by pointing out that vampire accents are defined by movies not by locale, and anachronism is well-established in the genre anyway.

[koganbot]

John Hillerman, who played Higgins in Magnum, P.I., is from Texas.

Wikipedia: "[Higgins] later discovered his father (Albert) had sired several other sons (all played by John Hillerman) during World War I, including: Father Paddy McGuiness, who is a Catholic priest in Ireland; Elmo Ziller, a Texas rodeo owner; Don Luis Mongueo, an heir to the throne of Costa De Rosa in South America; and Tsu Li, the son of a raven-haired Mongolian beauty." (As I recall, in one episode Higgins impersonates Father Paddy, only to have the real Father Paddy show up while the impersonation is underway.)