[buffy@pylduck.com]

(Spoilers inevitable in posts. Be warned.)

[12:15:56 PM]

Yeah that was strange. What are we supposed to make of the Spike-Buffy sex?

I'm glad that there is something more to Buffy's return than her despair of being ripped from a heaven. What's wrong with her? Is she not really alive? Is she soul-less? Is she bad? Hee hee. I want Faith to come back and kick her ass.

Last night's episode was very interesting because so many scenes were left in mid-air. Tara and Dawn are still sitting in the house waiting. Willow and Amy are on their way to a "bigger place." The three nerds are still stealing things for money and steadily building their arsenal (a freeze gun?). But it all seems so random. There isn't a sense of building up towards something like there has been in the past. And maybe that's because there isn't a main bad guy yet in this season, at least not one that has an air of mystery around him. (The nerds have "phase two," but we know who they are already and their goals, so how surprising could phase two be? And it will probably be something crazy like building a mansion with a huge dvd library and playboy bunnies running around.) I have to say that Willow's turn to an amoral side (not yet a dark side) can be very interesting. It kind of reminds me of the amazing job they did with Faith and her descent into badness, that sense of an inexorable fall with so many untaken opportunities to stop. We'll see, I guess.

o0o

[10:08:51 AM]

The people want to know! Quite a few people have stumbled across my [blog] doing searches for "buffy and tabula rasa." I guess there was that time I wrote about tabula rasa in Gold by the Inch, and obviously I write about Buffy a lot. Anyways, I think it's cool that people are curious as to what tabula rasa is. Don't search me for answers, though.

This past week's episode was okay, but mildly disappointing in its lack of enthusiasm. Everything just seemed so muted to me. No passion, I guess. But maybe the constant deferral was meant to build up to the "climactic" kissing sequence between Buffy and Spike at the end. Even that scene wasn't shocking or passionate, though. The distant shot seemed to push them off, to make us as viewers dispassionate and uninterested.

I always like it when shows, books, movies, etc. play with the idea of memory. It was disturbing, though, how much the episode naturalized personalities and behaviors. I hardly think that people waking up without memories of who they are would so quickly "figure" out their roles (Buffy: protector, Dawn: little sister, Xander: freak, Anya: capitalist pig, etc.). It might have been much more interesting to force interactions between the central characters without resorting to their stagnant character traits. And don't even get me started on the naturalization of gender and sexual norms. All of a sudden, "Alex" is all manly and beating up the vampire? Because he's a man? And the Willow-Tara thing? I just don't know.

I guess I am still largely dissatisfied with the show this season. Doesn't mean I won't be watching for a long time yet. History and past attachments mean a lot.

Joe told me that in St. Louis, there is no UPN station. But Buffy still does come on the air, only not until the Saturday after its Tuesday airing, and on the WB or some other station. Sigh.

o0o

[3:59:54 PM]

Spike:  Life's not a song

      Life isn't bliss

      Life is just this

      It's living

      You'll get along

      The pain that you feel

      It can only heal

      By living

      You have to go on living

      So one of us is living

Dawn:   The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.

o0o

[10:13:50 PM]

Joss Whedon is a god among men. I can't believe he wrote the music and lyrics for the songs in the musical episode. I mean, it's not like the music was stunning or anything, but what can't this man do??

"Once More With Feeling" was great as a musical parody / homage. Joss is so good at toeing that line between the two modes of presentation. It's one thing that makes Buffy so great. I don't really have anything else to say about the episode except that it was so smart. I mean, can you imagine manipulating all those plot lines about each character through the conventions of a musical, especially in paralleling certain stories (like the Giles-Buffy and Willow-Tara relationships)?

o0o

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