Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #16, "Time of Your Life, Part 1"

While I'm still not sold on continuing Buffy's story and I wasn't impressed by the previous issue, I feel much more optimistic after reading this issue. Now this? This I like.

From 2001-2003, Buffy creator Joss Whedon wrote an eight issue miniseries called Fray about a future Slayer in the 23rd century. Now Whedon serves up a long-awaited Buffy/Fray crossover with Fray artist Karl Moline along for the ride.

This is the Whedon style of writing that I love, and Moline's art is a big improvement over the cartoonish art of his predecessor, Georges Jeanty. My only complaint about the art here is that like Jeanty, Moline is apparently incapable of drawing Xander as anything other than pre-pubescent.

Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #15

It just didn't grab me, but it deserves a second chance.

It's a little hard to judge the writing since I came in at the end of a story arc, so I think it's only fair that I allow the series at least one full story arc before I really judge it. The next story arc will be written by creator Joss Whedon and will be a crossover with his earlier Fray comic. I'm thinking I might like that.

On the other hand, it's easy to judge the art of Georges Jeanty and to judge it harshly. The characters look cartoonish (especially in long shots where they have all the facial expression of Little Orphan Annie), I couldn't have told Buffy and Willow apart on one page if I didn't know one was a blonde and the other a redhead, and Xander looks like he hasn't hit puberty yet. The good news is that the next story arc will feature art by Fray co-creator Karl Moline.

I'm still not convinced that it was necessary to continue Buffy's story in comic book form.

Re-watching all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly since January has allowed me to pick up on the one theme that they all have in common: family. Not necessarily the one you're born with, but always the one you choose and chooses you. At their cores, the shows created by Joss Whedon are all about families of choice, from the Scoobies to Angel Investigations to the crew and passengers of the Serenity, outcasts all but outcasts who come together as families. I think this is where a great deal of the emotional power in Whedon's work derives from.

I finished re-watching the fifth and final season of Angel last night. I still think its ending is perfect and reflects the themes of the show. I feel the same way I did after re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer: I don't need to read the comic book continuation of the story because it came to the right end on television. Overall, the show wasn't quite as good as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it wasn't very far behind it. Next up: re-watch Firefly.

More details about Joss Whedon's Dollhouse: Angel story editors/staff writers Sarah Fain and Elizabeth Craft are the showrunners; Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel line producer Kelly A. Manners is working in the same capacity again; and Steven S. DeKnight (story editor/staff writer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a staff writer/producer on Angel) and Tim Minear (showrunner on both Angel and Firefly) are consulting producers. The people working with Joss behind the scenes certainly have credentials. The first season is expected to begin airing in January 2009.

As for casting, what I'm most excited about in Dollhouse isn't Eliza Dushku in the lead role of Echo, but Amy Acker in the recurring role of Dr. Claire Saunders. After re-watching Angel, I was reminded of just how good of an actress Acker is. I still can't believe she played both Fred and Illyria. She changed her method of speaking and even her body language so completely. Add in her voice work in Justice League Unlimited as the Huntress, and Acker has demonstrated her ability to be a chameleon. One wonders if perhaps she wouldn't have been better cast as Echo, a character who can have different traits programmed into her each episode.

Nooooo!!!! Moonlight got canceled. I'm not going to defend the show on quality grounds, but once a week I could look forward to cheesy fun with some nice eye candy in the forms of Alex O'Loughlin and Sophia Myles.

However, one of my other favorite new shows from the 2007-08 season received better news. Reaper is coming back for a second season, although the number of episodes will be reduced from the eighteen of the first season to thirteen and they won't air until early in 2009. I like how the show's mythology has developed over the first season and want to see where it goes from here.

Captain America's Shield Found in Iron Man?!. Fascinating.

Speed Racer is turning into one of the biggest box office disasters of the 21st century. Reportedly costing in the area of $300 million to produce and market, it'll be lucky to even make 20% of that back at the US box office. I haven't seen it yet, but most of the reviews I've read haven't been kind.

Lastly, this made me laugh out loud.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Re-Watched

It's over. Last night, I finally finished re-watching the entire run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the beginning. Seven seasons (or series, if you use British terminology). 144 episodes. 6,480 minutes. It took a few months, but I accomplished it and the experience was worth it.

After watching it all over again, I think its greatness is undiminished. It still deserves to belong on the short list of not only great genre shows, but great television shows in general. Even now, eleven years after its debut and five years after it went off the air, it's still one of the best written shows to ever grace mainstream television. Watching it is like taking a crash course in good storytelling. Its influence on shows like Justice League, Battlestar Galactica, New Doctor Who and Torchwood is apparent.

It remains significant for its portrayal of young women, and for the surprising amount of feminist and leftist ideas bubbling beneath, and quite often bursting through, the surface of its fictional universe. Perhaps not always consistently so, but that's only to be expected when you have a large and shifting writing staff producing material. I would also argue that no other American television show has handled a character coming out as a lesbian or her relationships with women quite as well as this one did, despite the original network, the WB, trying to keep scenes of two women kissing out of the show (moving to a different network, the more open-minded UPN, for its final two seasons allowed it to develop without that and other creative interference).

The middle section of its run, seasons two through five, were its finest. The first season was very much a case of creator Joss Whedon and his writing staff figuring things out as they went (especially in light of the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer theatrical film being regarded as somewhat of a failure). If the sixth and seventh seasons as a whole weren't quite up to the same level as the four they followed, they were still remarkably good and individual episodes like "Once More, with Feeling", "Seeing Red", "Villains", "Grave", "Conversations with Dead People" and "Chosen" were as good as any from earlier seasons. "The Body" from the fifth season remains the best single episode out of all of them.

The final episode of the fifth season, "The Gift", would have been the best possible ending for the show had it not returned for two more seasons on a different network, but the show's actual final episode, "Chosen", wasn't too far behind it. "Chosen" still has emotional and dramatic impact. I feel like it was a satisfying end to a great story told over many years. I still don't feel the need to read the comic books that continue the story.

The box set includes a bonus DVD that offers a revealing round-table retrospective of the show by creator Joss Whedon; showrunner Marti Noxon; writers Jane Espenson, David Fury and Drew Goddard (who went on to write Cloverfield); and actors Nicholas Brendon, Charisma Carpenter, Emma Caulfield and Danny Strong.

In short, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was and is a great television show.

Dark Willow Saga

After watching the fourth season premiere of Doctor Who this evening, I finished off the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD with the episodes comprising the "Dark Willow Saga".

I think the sixth season as a whole was cleverly constructed to hide the identity of the Big Bad. Oh, sure, there was the Trio, but their role was to usher in Willow as the real Big Bad. In retrospect, it worked well. At the time, watching the episodes as they were broadcast, it didn't seem to work because the Trio seemed to be nothing but inept geeks, but it paid off by the end of the season.

I have to admit, I liked the Trio. Geeky wannabe villains driving around in a van that honked the Star Wars theme and arguing about who the best James Bond was? Good comic relief at a time when Buffy became a much darker show, and Warren's turn to real evil was nicely set up during the season. It seemed inevitable rather than tacked on for narrative convenience.

The season also brought some more of creator Joss Whedon's famously cruel treatment of fans. Willow and Tara got back together in episode 6.18, Amber Benson (Tara) was added to the main credits for the first time in episode 6.19 and then Tara was murdered at the end of that same episode. Damn you, Joss, for getting our hopes up!

Dark Willow. Awesome character development. It's easy to see her emergence as a result of Tara's murder, but it's clear from some of the things she said that sweet, shy Willow had been holding in a lot of anger and resentment, which as any geek knows leads only to the Dark Side.

Favorite line of dialog from the "Dark Willow Saga": Andrew describing Willow as "like Dark Phoenix up there!" I so love that reference.

Now isn't it too bad that Joss didn't make the third X-Men film with its Dark Phoenix storyline? This story arc from Buffy handled the concept so much better than the mess that X-Men: The Last Stand was.

"Once More, with Feeling"

Tonight's Buffy viewing included "Once More, with Feeling", another episode I'd consider a worthy contender for a list of the show's best episodes. I'm fond of musicals, and if there's any show that could pull off a musical episode so effortlessly, it's Buffy...and it did. Joss Whedon is a good songwriter and the cast is more than up to the task of singing.

"The Body"

I re-watched Buffy the Vampire episode 5.16, "The Body", this evening. If I had to pick the best episode from seven seasons of Buffy, this one would be a very worthy contender. I think it's the best single piece of writing that Joss Whedon has done so far, not to mention a fine piece of directing by him. It's just so brutally honest about how people deal with the sudden death of a loved one.

I finished re-watching Season Four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Season One of Angel last week. I think the former has some good things (Willow and Tara in particular) to offer, but it also feels unfocused and the Big Bad isn't very impressive (if they cut Adam out, it wouldn't affect the season's story arc much at all).

As well as Joss Whedon and his writing staff handle the emerging lesbian relationship of Willow and Tara, the network partially undercuts those efforts by demanding that the characters be shown doing nothing more than holding hands and occasionally hugging, which can be immediately contrasted with the kissing and romping in bed that heterosexual Buffy and Riley engage in during the season. As usual for American television, the queer lovers must have a passionless relationship. The network allows a kiss in Season Five, but the problem is only truly rectified in Seasons Six and Seven, which is when the show switched to a different, more open-minded network.

I was talking to a friend last week about the continuations of Buffy and Angel in comic book form. I haven't read any of them yet, but the plot summaries I've perused have left me a bit cold. One of the things I like about the television shows is how they're grounded in a certain level of reality due to the limitations of television and special effects budgets. I'm not convinced that removing those limitations is for the better.

That said, after some reflection I think the real issue for me is that I feel like I've already been told a complete story about the characters and I don't necessarily need more to feel satisfied. Buffy is essentially the story of Buffy, Protector of Sunnydale. The show begins with her arrival in town and concludes with the town's destruction. End of story. Angel ends on a cliffhanger leaving the fates of several characters up in the air, but think about it--a core theme of Angel is fighting the good fight no matter the odds, and the final scene nails that idea perfectly. Again, end of story.

For now, I'm not interested in the comic books. Who knows, perhaps after re-watching the complete runs of both shows I'll change my mind.

I'm just about at the halfway point of Season Four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I left off with "Hush" last night, featuring some of the most disturbing monsters to appear on the show and the first appearance of Tara (mmm, the yummy Amber Benson). I'm also about at the halfway point of Season One of Angel, leaving off with "Parting Gifts", Wesley's first appearance on the show.

Re-watching the episodes has been as much fun as watching them the first time was. Knowing where all the plot and character arcs are going makes it easier to see the ingenious way that Joss Whedon and crew went about their work (not to mention seeing where and how they influenced Russell T Davies' approach to the Doctor Who revival and Torchwood).