Winter Wunderland

1 December 2007

It was the first day of December today, so naturally, we got half a foot of snow.

Snow is cold, sure, but when it first falls, it's rather lovely and invigorating. It's clean and white and pure and new . . . it's only afterward, as it piles up and freezes and turns grey or brown that it becomes an ugly, unpleasant thing.

That's my opinion, of course, I'm sure you adore brown snow.

My sister's kid was coming over (we were gonna see ENCHANTED, but she didn't mention that she saw it last week), and I got the bright idea of going outside and building a snowman with her. She's six years old and I got a coat on her and some gloves and we went to work making a snowman. The snow was fresh, having just fallen during the night and morning before I woke up, so it was easy to pack and I'd basically make a ball, then have her roll it around until it was too big for her to push, and I'd take over.

We did that twice and were just starting on the snowball that would be the head when she started complaining about the cold. I told her it wasn't so bad and that we were almost done, and went as fast as I could. We stuck the head on and she wanted to go inside. I told her we weren't done, that all we had to do was get some rocks and branches and make arms and a face. She didn't seem to want to, but I gathered up the rocks, broke two branches off the tree, and made her stick them on.

"Now can we go in?" she asked, nearly in tears now. I told her we needed to take a couple of pictures to show her mother (and my mother too, I guess), so I went in and got my camera. When I came out again, my niece was full on crying. She was cold and it wasn't fun anymore.

"Smile, damn you!" I basically shouted and took a couple of pictures. Then we went inside and she just started bawling. I guess it's been too long since I was a kid or I'm genuinely a bad guy, 'cause I didn't get why she was making such a fuss. Turns out her hands were so frozen she couldn't get her shoes untied and her pantlegs were soaked through from the wet snow. I helped her get her shoes off . . . and she wasn't wearing any socks underneath. I had just assumed when I told her to get her shoes on, she would've gotten socks on too, and I'd think she would've . . .

Ah well.

Anyhow, I filled a big mixing bowl with hot water and put it down for her to stick her feet in it, and instead of warming her up, she began shrieking, then giving out state secrets and enemy troop encampment locations.

I don't know if this Stupid Thing is truly deserved, because I didn't mean to torture my sister's kid, but I certainly felt stupid typing it up.

Rish "Luckily Childless" Outfield

Stupid Thing of the Week

Merrill and I watched BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: RAZOR on the Sci-Fi Channel the other night. It was the TV movie that's supposed to make it okay that the show isn't coming back until April of '08. But as they went to commercial, they had these really strange, often perplexing bits of narration, supposedly answering questions that had been posed in some sort of online contest.

I wish I could express to you the surreal and offensive moment when the announcer voice came on and announced, "It has been revealed: Helena Kane and Gina Inviere are LOVERS. Brought to you be Quiznos. Mmmm, mmmm, mmm, mmm, mmmm . . . toasty."

I shit you not one little bit.

I was reeling afterward and Merrill had to rewind it a time or three to make sure we hadn't both had a brain aneurysm at the same time. I'm thinking I ought to come up with something stronger than just a Stupid Thing of the Week in the future, since STOTW just doesn't do this one justice.

Rish "Mmmm" Outfield

Buff-gel Wednesday: Special Edition

27 November 2007

Because the spell-checker doesn't accept "Xander" as a real word, I found I used it thirty-four times in the last entry. Also in my last entry, I used the word "Gunn" seventeen times (spell-checker doesn't think that's a word either). This trivia is vitally important, isn't it, kids?

In order to help this station become operational as planned, tyranist is here with the first of his "Buffy" blog contributions. It was only after he completed his assignment that he let me know there would be no Buffy Wednesday this week, and no reason for me to get behind schedule. Hmmm.

So Rish talked me into guest blogging an episode of Buffy for him, something about if I didn't force him to watch so many at once . . . Anyway, I get to do "Out of My Mind." Not the best episode, but that probably has a lot to do with my problems with Marc Blucas, er, I mean Riley.

So Buffy is slaying vampires and Riley is showing up to help her even when she hasn't asked for it. Spike is still trying to interfere, but is discovering that he loves Buffy, which he and I think is totally wrong. Harmony, having been handily defeated two episodes ago in "Real Me" is deathly afraid of Buffy and thinks she's being hunted. Not true, because Buffy doesn't even see her as a threat, but there you go.

Dawn makes herself useful in this episode by being present when Joyce collapses (right before her episode, she looked at Dawn and seemed not to recognise her, finally mirroring every single "Buffy" viewer across the country. It's unclear what caused her to pass out, or if it was the knowledge that Dawn shouldn't be there that did it. --Rish) and by finding out that Riley's heart is beating much faster than it should. Apparently all the drugs the Initiative had Riley on are starting to kill him by pumping adrenalin into his system constantly.

Riley likes it because it makes him strong, Buffy hates it because it will kill Riley, I like it because it will kill Riley.

In swoops the organization that was formerly the Initiative but is now just an anonymous government entity to help Riley out. He refuses and beats them up. Buffy decides it's for the best though and sends Spike to find Riley in the old Initiative caves. Predictably, he goes after the doctor instead and intimidates him into taking the chip out of his head. Buffy heads to the caves (even though she sent Spike there and is seemingly oblivious to the fact that Spike didn't show up at all to help her like he said he would), finds Riley, and convinces him that she'll love him forevah, even if he turns into a girly man because he won't have so much adrenalin running through him.

Subsequently, there's a fight, Spike doesn't get the chip removed, Riley is saved by the doctor (even though the doctor said it was too late to save him at least twice in the episode), Buffy is happy again, and Spike has this mad dream in which he and Buffy snog.

Not my favourite episode and we're only four into the fifth season. Mostly I disliked it because it dealt with Buffy's two love interests: Riley and Spike, more than it dealt with the normal monsters and villains. I've never really liked the Buffy love interest episodes though, so this shouldn't surprise anyone. Except maybe Rish who inexplicably prefers them to good episodes.

Also, and it is unfortunate that I know this, there is a ton of setup for future stories in this episode. So many that the episode is probably more meaningful down the road when all of those storylines come to fruition. All I can hope is that the next episode gives us a little more of what I love.

Thanks, tyranist. He's right, I like "Buffy" relationship episodes just fine. Something about living vicariously through Joss's characters or something. I also a) can't wait for Spike to get that damn chip out of his head, and b) can't wait for Spike to proclaim his love for her, just to see what will happen.

At the end of the show, Buffy finds Spike in his crypt and is going to kill him for his treachery. He dares her to do it, to put him out of his misery (living in a world where he can't kill and where she foils his every plan). And then, he kisses her. Spike tells Buffy he loves her, and then Spike awakens, particularly horrified by this "nightmare." It had to have been the best part of this episode.

I was worried that tyranist would use his blog opportunity to make me look like an idiot, but then he reminded me that the best way to make me look like an idiot would be to let me open my mouth. So, here I am, to sum up "Untouched," the last "Angel" episode we watched. This one was written by Mere Smith, her first episode. But apparently far from her last.

Evil lawyeress Lilah Miller chats with Darla over at Wolfram & Hart. It seems that Angel has been drugged (presumably a mystical drug) into sleeping all the time and allowing Darla nocturnal access to him. It seems unlikely, at this point, that anyone outside our core group know about Angel's "pure happiness=no soul" trick, which is good.

Back at Angel Investigations, Cordelia gets a vision of a red-haired girl being chased by a couple of sleazy dudes. Just as they are about to reach her, she uses her mind to slam an iron dumpster into them, turning them into Knott's strawberry jam. Angel arrives at the scene and finds the girl hiding in (yet another) abandoned building. He tries to calm her and explain that he means her no harm, but she freaks and "Carrie White"s a pipe into his chest. When she sees he's still alive and he offers her his card, the girl flees.

Turns out that she is staying in the apartment of evil lawyer Lilah, who recruited the girl to maybe become an assassin for the lawfirm. The girl's name is Bethany, which is not an unusual name, but I can't honestly remember ever knowing a Bethany.* Bethany has little control over her powers, and lashes out when she becomes tense or afraid. She has a bad dream, causing a lamp to fly at Lilah. Embarrassed/distraught/afraid/mortified, she runs out and goes to Angel Investigations to ask for help.

She has a lot of issues and quite a nasty attitude, and something in her words tells Wesley that she was sexually abused, probably by her father. When he confronts her with this possibility, her powers strike out again, flinging him (and Angel) across the room. Angel tells Wesley to leave, and he assumes that means he is fired. Turns out that Angel just wants him to leave, as Bethany is really hostile toward him right now. I was impressed by this.

Angel offers to help her control her abilities, showing her how to focus on an object by standing on her hands and levitating R2-D2. In return, Bethany offers to be his bedmate. He declines, upset about her mental state. Elsewhere, Gunn has been sent to check out the dudes who Bethany flattened in the alley earlier (he's now an official employee of Angel Investigations). He learns that they were on someone's payroll . . . a certain slightly-eviler-than-the-rest lawfirm that wanted her to use her power to kill.

Cordelia tries to befriend Bethany, but the Wolfram & Hart guys interrupt that by first trying to kidnap her, and then by sending her father to Angel's hotel to confront her. At seeing him (I believe he was also Katie Holmes's father on "Dawson's Creek"), she does lose control, shattering all Angel's windows and flinging him out of them. At the last moment, though, she mentally catches her father and does not kill him. 'Twould seem that Angel got through to her after all.

Angel accompanies Bethany to Lilah's place, where she gets her stuff to move out, but Angel can't enter due to not being invited. He smirks and tells Lilah that she'll have to find somebody else's mind to screw around with. She smirks right back, since, after all, she does. The end.

Another solid "Angel" episode, directed, I believe, by Mr. Whedon himself. Is that right? Hmm. I liked this one because both Bethany and Lilah are sort of grey-area characters. Neither one is evil--well, except for the lawyer aspect--but both have obstacles that keep them from being entirely good. I've met very few people in my life I'd characterise as evil, and only one person entirely, 100% good**. But hey, I've only met eleven people ever, so I'm not the best example.

Rish "Social Butterfly" Outfield

*Even odder, I DID know a girl named Bethel once.

**That would've been Shad Tobler, a real prince of a guy. I'll never forget the last time I saw him: it was midnight and he was digging holes in his backyard. He told me he had a lot of mulch to bury, and when I saw several garbage bags full by his feet, I made up an excuse and went back inside. I always wish I had helped him with his gardening because I found out two days later that his wife had walked out on him, just up and disappeared without a word to anyone. He really could've used a friend, I'll bet.

Stupid? Thing of the Week

I've not listed a Stupid Thing in a long time. Not because I've not done or said anything stupid, but because . . . well, I don't know why. Maybe I'm just not very smart.*

Anyway, there was a Stupid Thing today that, as I thought about it, didn't seem all that stupid. I went out to dinner with my family, and my niece was ranting about this doll she wants called "Baby Alive," that is remarkable in that it urinates and, get this . . . defecates on command.

My niece wants one, and the store shelves tend to be empty, so a lot of others do too. And she says that her chief reason for wanting this doll is that it "pees and poops." Heck, it says it right on the package.

You know, that alone merits an entry here, believe me.

But afterward, my brother and I started riffing on spin-off toys they could make from Baby Alive. He suggested Crack Baby Alive (self explanatory). I suggested Baby Dead (which would do nothing). Maybe they'd make a bedridden grandparent doll that was also incontinent.

And then I thought about Baby Undead. They could make a series of zombie babies, with different features (such as bleeding or dismemberment or fresh from the autopsy table) and differing levels of decomposition. You could squeeze them and they would moan or say, "Braiiiiiins!" Or you could remove body parts, and like the old Cabbage Patch Dolls, they could come with a death certificate. Maybe a headstone.

We laughed about this sick idea for a few minutes, and then my mother ruined our fun, not by telling us we were eating or that this was in bad taste, but by saying, "You know, you ought to market that. I think something like that would really sell. And not just for Halloween either."

Well, our conversation puttered to a halt after that, but I do wonder, was my mother right? Would people buy something like Baby Undead? Or would only the sickest of adults (like me) find that amusing? And wow, imagine the outcry from parent and religious groups. People like my aunt, perhaps armed with pitchforks and torches, would thirst for the manufacturer's blood. It would be like high school all over again.

Ah well,

Rish "Barely Alive" Outfield

*Actually, there was a post a while back that I started to make, then didn't publish, because I looked like such an a-hole in it. I wrote it, but never stuck it on here because, as much as I dislike myself, there was just too much to dislike in that one. Maybe I'll reconsider, I don't know.

Buff-gel Wednesday (21 November 2007)

Earlier this year, I started blogging about "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on its twenty-fifth episode. I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't go back and review that first season and a half, just for completion's sake.

But even if I did (which will never happen), I wouldn't be able to recreate that fresh first-time viewing experience, where characters and situations are introduced with no hint as to where they'll be going, and I find myself surprised and amused in ways only my mother (who instantly forgets anything she's seen) can repeat.

First up was "Buffy" episode "The Replacement," written by Jane Espenson. I was introduced to her as the editor of two essay books about "Firefly," as well as the writer of the episode "Shindig" from that series.

In this one, Xander is tired of living in his parents' basement (like a buttmonkey) and goes apartment hunting. He and Anya and Buffy and Riley find a really nice apartment that Anya loves, but Xander is worried about money (his construction job is ending soon) and thinks he ought to turn it down. Anya throws a little fit about this and Buffy and Riley go to the bedroom to get it on.

Before even opening the magic shop, Giles is attacked, this time by a cool-looking demon who wants, big surprise, to kill the Slayer. The demon's name is Toth, and is described as being pretty resourceful.

For reasons I don't recall, the group goes to Sunnydale's dump (we called them "junk yards" where I grew up, I wonder what the difference is*), where they encounter Spike, gathering garbage up for use in his home. You know, I'm starting to relate less to Xander and more to Spike as the show goes on. If they could only get Jonathan back. The demon Toth attacks, aiming a sort of wand/stick/rod at Buffy and firing. But Xander gets in the way of the blast and is knocked to the ground.

The demon has vanished, and the gang help the barely-conscious Xander up and out of there. Once they're gone, it is revealed that there is a second Xander, knocked out, among the trash. We will call him Dirty Xander (which I've been told is a revoltingly perverted act that only Thai prostitutes and Paris Hilton will perform), because when he wakes up the next morning, he's kind of grimy, having used several diapers as a pillow. He makes his way home and finds, to his horror, another Xander there. This one we'll call Clean Xander, since we first see him fresh out of the shower and combing his hair.

Dirty Xander follows Clean Xander, trying to figure out what is going on. Tyranist and I were sure that the demon had taken Xander's form and was now impersonating him, though in retrospect, that doesn't make any sense, really (since he was aiming at Buffy, presumably to kill her in a roundabout way). Clean Xander goes to his construction job and is called into the foreman's office. Dirty Xander spies at them, gleeful at the duplicate being fired rather than him (no, this also makes little sense, but real life never does), and is shocked when Clean Xander is not only kept on, but given a promotion for all his hard work.

Next, Clean Xander goes to the apartment they checked out, and not only gets the flat, but flirts so hard with the real estate woman that she needs to change her underclothes afterward. He then calls Anya, who is angry with him, and tells her he has something he wants to show her. Dirty Xander is convinced the other one is an evil twin, perhaps a robot**, using mind control to get his way.

The two Xanders finally meet face to face, and Clean Xander is forceful, direct, and ambitious, while Dirty Xander is timid, callow, and paranoid. Tyranist mentioned that he didn't like Dirty Xander much. We are no longer friends.

Dirty Xander runs to Giles's place to tell the gang about the evil duplicate, only to find Clean Xander there, telling the others what he saw. He claims that Dirty Xander is the double, and should be killed on sight. It begins to rain, and Dirty Xander goes to the dorms to see Willow (who, though I haven't mentioned it, is now living with Tara). He is able to convince Willow to believe he's the real one and confides in her that his evil twin is doing a much better job with his life than he ever did. Then he remembers Anya, and that Clean Xander is probably mounting her at that very moment. He heads to her place, and finding her not there, he gets into her drawers (her literal drawers, as in dresser drawers, not . . . never mind) and removes the pistol she has hidden there.

I believe it was at this point that I began to really hate tyranist. But let's look at this logically: Anya spent hundreds of years as an immortal being making men miserable, it's only natural she be afraid of dying and afraid of the many enemies she surely made along the way.

Speaking of Anya, she is at Xander's new apartment with Clean Xander. He's patched things up between them and comforts her about her anxieties. Suddenly, Dirty Xander bursts in, telling Anya to get away from the evil duplicate. He pulls out her pistol and points it at him.

Buffy and company arrive also (good timing). Giles has done a little research about what the Toth demon did to Xander, and reveals that neither is an evil twin (or a robot): the blast split Xander into a strong and a weak half, the same way Captain Kirk was in "The Enemy Within." Oh, and Giles doesn't mention Star Trek. That part was me.

It turns out that one cannot survive without the other, and Toth's plan was to kill the weak version of Buffy after they'd been separated. At this knowledge, the two Xanders stop fighting and begin to interact, finding a strange sort of delight in having a twin.***

The demon Toth arrives at the apartment and a battle ensues. Riley and Buffy slay him and then Willow comes up with a spell to reunite the two halves. But not before Anya proposes a three-way between them. Sadly, that scene was not included on the DVD.

Xander, now clean and dirty in one, moves his stuff out of his parents' basement and Riley assists him. In a head-blowing moment, Riley mentions to Xander that he's almost envious of his relationship with Anya, because as much as he loves Buffy, he knows she doesn't really love him back. The end.

With this, tyranist surprised me by saying, "Wow, I actually feel sorry for Marc Blucas." I'm sure he meant Riley, but he always refers to him by the character name. There's growth there.

This episode was fun, and despite my almost overwhelming desire to kill tyranist, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

As is tradition, we followed up the "Buffy" with an "Angel" episode, this one called "First Impressions," written by Shawn Ryan, who went on to create the hit FX show "The Shield."

At the end of last season, after Cordelia had been cursed with that deluge of suffering visions, she seemed to have turned over a new leaf. Gone was the selfish, money and fame-centric Cordelia of yesterday, and there was a new one on the scene. In the first two shows of this season, we got the same old Cordelia (though I'm referring to the same old Cordelia from "Angel," who is much less materialistic, shallow, and arrogant as her "Buffy" counterpart).

In this episode, Angel has been dreaming a great deal about the OTHER woman from his past, Darla. They meet, they dance, they kiss, they moonbathe, they kill together. Ah l'amour. And I gotta say, though I'm not a fan, Darla was looking damn fine. Angel drags himself out of bed later and later each day, feeling more and more tired, while Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn do what they can around their new office in the no-longer-haunted hotel. Nabbit the billionaire shows up as well, happy to have friends and excitement, and offers to help Angel out with property investment advice. I like Nabbit.Gunn has been having problems with a demon named Deevok, and Cordelia has one of her visions, this time of Gunn in trouble, and apparently quite afraid. Wesley is busy and Angel is sleep-humping Darla, so Cordelia takes Angel's car and goes to Gunn's hideout to rescue him. As she enters, she finds Gunn in the middle of combat, so she hits his assailant over the head with . . . if I recall correctly (but how could I?) a battle axe. Turns out, though, that her victim was just a friend of Gunn who was training with him. The guy, apparently, will be okay, and Gunn is none too pleased about a) Cordelia's presence in his "crib," b) Cordelia beating up one of his pals, and c) Cordelia thinking he might need her help. He marches her back to where she parked, only to find that she left the keys in Angel's car, and it has been stolen.

Angel's still dreaming of Darla, and Wesley has to wake him up to tell him Cordelia is gone (as is his car). Luckily, Wesley has his motorcycle, and a sissy pink helmet he forces Angel to wear (after all, it is the law).

Gunn and Cordelia go looking for the car, checking out the area's known car thieves. At the first one's auto shop, he tells Gunn that Desmond is the man he wants, and where he is partying. As they leave, Deevok steps out, planning general naughtiness. The unlikely pair ("Gunn and Cordelia, they're the original odd couple!") go to the party, where Gunn runs into a chick, Veronica, who I assume is an old girlfriend of his.

Suddenly, a bunch of vampires crash the party. Gunn and Cordelia do battle with them, but Veronica gets her neck cut, and Cordelia tries to stop the bleeding as they rush her to the hospital. The doctors are able to stablise her, and mention that Cordelia's actions likely saved her life. Gunn is distraught that she nearly died, and even refers to Veronica by his dead sister's name.

Angel and Wesley get to the party a little late, amid cops, paramedics, and shocked partiers. Angel grabs one of the survivors to ask her what happened, then headbutts her (watch out British censors!), revealing her to be one of the vampires. He finds out Deevok was behind it and how to locate him. Gunn and Cordelia are already at Desmond's chop shop, where Angel's stolen car has been taken. Deevok is probably the most revolting demon we've seen on the show (except for the maggoty one from the previous season-ender), with rot and exposed bone in his face. He tries to kill Gunn and Cordelia sprays him in the eyes with mace. Wesley and Angel arrive and everyone does battle, eventually, Angel slays Deevok with Cordelia's axe.

Gunn seems frustrated he didn't get to do it himself, seething with unreleased anger, and Cordelia theorises that the danger he was in in her vision was from himself. She vows that she's going to save him, even if it takes really big boobs to do it. Gunn, though not thrilled with the idea, seems to have warmed to her a bit (indeed, it was pretty entertaining to see them bicker, and they've got a dynamic I like, so why not?), and we'll see where that goes.

Angel goes back to his hotel room and dreams of more romance and bloodletting with Darla. While he sleeps, we see that it's no dream: Darla is there, in his room, crawling on top of him. The end.

You know, this is all good stuff. People say that it took "Angel" a couple seasons to find its tone, but I'm really enjoying it, not in the same way as "Buffy," but in a different, but nearly-equal way. By introducing a half dozen characters besides the original three, they've got a lot of faces I enjoy seeing from week to week, as "Buffy" has been for years.**** If "Angel" truly does get better as it reaches season three and beyond, then perhaps it won't be quite as sad when "Buffy" reaches the end of her run.

We'll see,

Rish Outfield

*Of course, we also called chickens "pets."

**Grunt. Mark my words: the day this show actually sinks to having a robot version of one of our characters is the day I finally achieve studliness.

***I had no earthly idea how they pulled off some of the doubling, even with computer effects and double-passes. Later, an evil angel came to me in a dream and told me that Nicholas Brendan has a twin brother who also appeared in the episode. That really pissed me off.

****I nearly put "years" in quotation marks, because I've only been watching "Buffy" since February or so, but I feel like I've known her, well, a little longer than that. I wonder how I would feel had I been watching five, seven, or ten years ago.

Stupid Thing of the Week

Here's a stupid thing... I haven't listed a Stupid Thing of the Week in months.

It may be because everything I do and say is so stupid it doesn't really stand out from the rest of things.

No wait, I thought of one.

I was helping my mom--or trying, anyway--to get everything ready for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday and at one point she asked me to go out and move her car from her driveway.

"Why?" I asked.

So that people could park there.

I said, "Why should you move your car? It's your house? They should move their cars." She said, "Fine, I'll ask someone else to do it." And walked away.

Suddenly, I was fourteen years old again. The rage nearly overwhelmed me and, like I was fourteen, I slammed the door and seethed. It was probably an hour before I was back to, well, "normal."

You know, I don't think I'll even publish this one. It's just too unpleasant.

(I didn't publish this one. Not for a couple of months. Mostly because it hardly paints me in a positive light and frankly, I'm embarrassed about stuff like this. But then I thought, "Hey, this blog is all about me and the stupid things I do. If I can talk about performing home abortions in church parking lots, I should be able to admit to losing my temper around my mother." So, here's the post. Sorry about it.)

Angel Season Two Begins

19 November 2007

The other day, tyranist threw his two cents in about my recent blogging. I realise that some of the things I say in these "Buffy/Angel" posts may be a little inflammatory. Some of it may well be unfunny and/or untrue. But adulthood has made me opinionated.

It may well do the same to you, someday. Consider yourself warned.

We made it through "Angel" season one (a much better first season than "Buffy" had, though it had its weaknesses), and I was happy to start the second season this week.

The first episode was called "Judgement," and I'll be darned if I didn't think it was spelled with only one 'e' all these years. The episode was written by co-exec David Greenwalt, with a story by Greenwalt and Joss Whedon (I found it surprising that of the four episodes we watched, none were directed by Whedon and this was the only one he got a writing credit on).

We are reintroduced to our three main characters at their various hangouts, and with a shock, I see that Gunn (J. August Richards) has been added to the opening titles. Angel calls them together to put a stop to a human sacrifice a couple of demons are having. Afterward, Cordelia gets one of her patented visions, this one of a pregnant woman and a big unidentified demon. It doesn't stay unidentified for long as Cordelia describes it to Angel who sketches it for Wesley who looks it up in a book.

To discover where the demon may be found, the gang goes to a karaoke bar that caters to demons. This is where I wish I had spent my formative years, kids. They meet green skinned Lorne, a smooth-talking gay demon who hosts the entertainment and is able to read the destinies of those who sing at the bar.

Angel gets the information he needs and goes to (yet another) sleazy part of town to find the demon, and presumably, the pregnant woman too. He does, and attacks the demon. They fight, but Angel is easily victorious. It's only after he's killed it that he learns that the demon was PROTECTING the pregnant woman. It would seem that her unborn daughter will be of great importance, and demonkind wants her terminated. Angel feels bad for his mistake, and tries to make it up to the woman, who has more than a little difficulty trusting him.

Over at Wolfram & Hart, Lilah Miller and Lindsay McDonald fill us in on what's been going on with the newly-alive Darla. She has regained her memories and is almost strong enough to go after Angel, who, if we recall "Buffy" season one, killed her in the episode that explained his origin.

Angel enlists the aid of Gunn, who delivers a talisman they found on the dead Kyle Reese demon to Wesley to study. Angel leads the pregnant woman to a crumbling old hotel, and he is attacked by more terminator demons. He tells her to go to Cordelia's house, and there is an extended fight. When Angel gets to Cordelia's the woman isn't there, so he's forced to go back to the karaoke bar (I looked it up and it's called Caritas, which is Mexican for "little faces") to ask Lorne for help.

To get the help, Angel has to sing. He chooses Barry Manilow's "Mandy," and is supremely awful. Afterward, Lorne tells Angel that the woman is facing a tribunal of sorts, and that the slain demon was her champion to fight for her survival. The talisman is the champion's calling card, and Angel goes where Lorne tells him to and throws it down just as the pregnant woman was about to be killed.

Angel fights the other champion, another demon astride a horse. We get to see Angel ride--and joust--on a horse, and is knocked off, then stabbed by the evil champion. But Angel, being a vampire, doesn't die, and when the evil champion turns his back on him, Angel kills him. The pregnant woman and her unborn child, who we can only presume grows up to be that really cute girl from "High School Musical," are safe.

The next day, to my surprise, Angel goes to visit Faith in prison, where he gives her words of encouragement while she does her time and attempts to learn to control her violent tendencies. Forget monasteries, the American prison system really is the best place for that. The end, though we get an amusing credits sequence with David Boreanaz continuing to sing "Mandy" most awfully.

Good stuff, and fun. This was a fairly light episode, which, being "Angel" is still darker than most "Buffy"s. They've started their second year strong, with a bit of tasty subplots that hopefully will pay off soon.

And soon came in the form of "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been," an episode title not taken from a song (for once), but referring to the McCarthy hearings of the 1950's. A good chunk of the show is a flashback, and I really like those.

Turns out the hotel Angel went into in the last episode was significant for him. He asks Wesley and Cordelia to do some research on it, and we flash back to the Fifties, when Angel was a tenant there. We get to see the racism of the time, a very little of the glamour of Los Angeles, and the assortment of odd tenants of the building, all amid the backdrop of the H.U.A.C. coverage on television. Beyond that, there seems to be a creepy voice in the hotel that sometimes tells people to do bad things, like kill themselves or hide bodies or text message in movie theatres.

A detective-looking guy is snooping around Angel's floor and Angel discovers a young woman in his room, hiding from the man. When the dude comes to his door and demands to come inside and get the woman, Angel decks the block and I get that little familiar thrill I get whenever people find out the hard way that Angel ain't human.

Back in 2000, Cordelia and Wesley delve into the mysterious history of the hotel, with unexplained phenomena and deaths, and a photo from 1952 with Angel in it. Even then, he had really good hair.

In '52, Angel's next door neighbour has shot himself in the head, and the hotel manager decides to stick the body in a meat locker, since it's the third death in a row and hey, that kind of publicity is bad. The guests wonder if it wasn't suicide after all.

Angel talks to Judy, the woman he rescued. Turns out she's wanted for stealing money from a bank in the Midwest where she worked. She was fired when it was discovered that she's really a light-skinned Negro just passing as a white woman (this is sad, since even if being black were a crime, if you couldn't tell by looking at her--not to mention if her coworkers got to know her--then why not just let it go?*), and stole a suitcase full of cash out of fear or anger. Angel takes the bag down to the hotel's basement and hides it up in the rafters. While he's there, he hears the creepy voice telling people to do bad things, which explains why he appeared in VALENTINE shortly after this.

In the present, our trio visits to the run-down, abandoned hotel (still there because it's a historical monument or something, like your house). Angel goes downstairs and finds the money still there. He also finds the creepy voice still there, and tells Cordelia and Wesley that it's a demon that feeds on peoples' insecurities.

In the past, Angel goes to a bookstore where they have the sorts of occult books you don't find at Barnes & Noble, and reads about a ritual to make the hotel demon materialise/corporealise so he can kill it. When he gets back to the hotel, he finds the Judy being accused by the detective-looking guy of being brown on the inside. Before the guests can respond badly to this revelation (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the hotel's owner seemed to have a whites only tenant policy), Judy immediately accuses Angel of being his neighbour's killer, pointing out that he has blood in his room (a yummy bottle conveniently marked "human blood" on the label).

Egged on by the demonic whispering, the tenants lynch Angel, hanging him from one of the banisters, breaking his neck. Almost immediately, the thrill is gone, and everyone wanders off to . . . I don't know, not surf the internet. Angel pulls himself free and as he's walking toward the door, the demon appears to him, laughing about its victory. It found the paranoia of the tenants delicious, and especially the betrayal Judy fed it. Angel tells the demon its welcome to the tenants, and leaves.

Back in 2000, Wesley, Cordelia, and Gunn help Angel perform the ritual to corporealise the demon. It is cool-looking (though at this point, they pretty much all are), and Angel fries it with the fuse box. After the demon is dead, Angel goes upstairs and finds Judy still living in her room, now an old woman. She hasn't got much of a mind left, but apologises to Angel for what she did, and he comforts her as she dies.

When Angel goes downstairs, the gang is happy to be getting out of the hotel, but Angel decides it is going to be his new home. The end.

This episode was written by Tim Minear and was another good one. It was nice to see such an ugly side of people, since you don't expect it, and 1950's Angel abandoning them to the hotel was another unexpected twist . . . which I've come to expect from this show. Having never seen an episode, I never said I wouldn't watch "Angel" (no, that would be tyranist), but I was pretty wary of it. So whoever would've guessed that tyranist and I would not only still be watching the show into its second season, but be looking forward to it?

And speaking of looking forward, I think I'll have tyranist as my guest blogger in my next post, just to see how he . . .

Actually, I'm just lazy. There's no other excuse.

Rish "The Blog Princess" Outfield

*But hey, I'm something of a product of my times; I can't really imagine what the "good old" segregation/racism days were like, or the mindset of the people then.

Buffy Season Five Begins

17 November 2007

So, this Wednesday, I got to see Buffy face Count Dracula, as tyranist and I begin Season Five.

"Buffy vs. Dracula" (why don't they capitalise 'versus' again? Is it a legal precedent?) was written by Marti Noxon and begins at the end of summer. Buffy is still with Riley, but sneaks out of his bed to go vampire-hunting. She encounters Count Dracula, who has come to Sunnydale in search of Buffy Summers.

Dracula is vaguely European, with long hair and has that sort of Antonio Banderas effeminate sensuality that women tend to respond to. He has the fabled ability to entrance the ladies with his gaze, and when Buffy tries to stake him, he turns into smoke, and later, a bat.
Giles, meanwhile, has decided that, rather than sit around and make a glorified cameo in each episode, he'll go back to England. He tells Willow this, and she spends the rest of the show trying to get the others to appreciate him (without explaining why).

The credits have neat new visuals, as they always do at the beginning of a season. Anya is now in the opening titles. Which reminds me, tyranist has begun to hate Marc Blucas. I think his despising of her is on the same level of my despising of Harmony Kendall. It'll be interesting to see if that changes (for either of us).

That night, Xander runs into Dracula walking home. The Count uses his charms to entrance Xander, "Renfielding" him to be his servant. Dracula also visits Buffy in her bedroom (she's living with Mom for the summer), coming in and doing the whole seduction thing. He tells her she has a dark side and that her slayer abilities make her a creature of the night like him, all with the Fabio hair. When Buffy starts giving in and letting the vampire bite her, tyranist and I knew that it was just a dream.

But Buffy wakes up the next morning with bitemarks in her neck, which she hides with a scarf. Turns out her mother saw the handsome European man and invited him in earlier that night. At Giles's place, nobody notices Xander eating spiders or referring to Dracula as "the master." Riley, however, does notice something odd going on with his girlfriend, and everyone is shocked to see that she has those deep hickeys from the night before. Willow and Tara go to put a protection spell on Buffy's house, Giles and Riley go looking for the Count, while Xander suggests Buffy hide out at his place.

Xander locks Anya in the closet and takes Buffy to Dracula's castle. Yes, there's now a castle in Sunnydale. But there's probably one in yours too (I know for a fact that there's a castle in tyranist's hometown), so don't worry about it. Confronted with Dracula, Buffy tries to break free of his spell, but it's real hard. Dracula promises to make her immortal like him, and begins monologuing.

Giles and Riley find the castle and go inside, splitting up to look for the Count. Riley finds Xander, who he floors with one punch. Giles finds the trio of vampire women he refers to as "the three sisters." They are evil and attractive, and begin pawing at Giles, who is almost as helpless against them as I would be. Not you, of course, no, you're too strong and pure for that sort of thing.

Riley rescues Giles (the three babe vampires seem to have escaped), and they head down to save Buffy. It's too late: Dracula cuts himself and gives his blood to Buffy to drink. As she tastes it, though, she gets a barrage of memories that are very similar to one of Doyle/Cordelia's visions, and it snaps her back to reality. They battle, and Buffy stakes Dracula.

The spell on Xander is also broken, and he is angry at what happened, and tired of being everybody's buttmonkey.* They leave the castle triumphant.

But then . . . the dust that was Dracula reforms! Buffy is in the room, though, telling him she knew he was going to do that, and stakes him again. Poof! He is dust again.

But for how long? For . . . how . . . long?

Afterward, Giles tells Buffy he has something to tell her. She has something too and he lets her go first. She tells him what almost happened and how she's got a dark side and how much she's missed his teachings and asks him to be her Watcher again. Giles is unable to go back to England now, but is happier for it.

The last scene of the episode is Buffy about to leave on a date with Riley. She sees a strange Harriet the Spy-looking girl in her room. "Make sure you take your sister," her mother says. The end.

Good show. Pretty light, I think, but hey, that's Marti Noxon's strength.

I already knew who the sister was, though tyranist now claims (lies) that he wasn't the one who explained it to me, so the ending wasn't really a surprise to me. But I can imagine audiences of September 2000, though, scratching their heads or shouting "What the f--?" even louder than they did with the Jonathan episode.

But hey, they never said Buffy didn't have a sister. Perhaps Dawn was living in L.A. with her dad this whole time, and they just never mentioned her before. I'm imagining the week of anticipation was filled with all sorts of speculation and probably a lot of doubt that the addition of a new Summers was a good idea.**

Well, all those questions are answered in "Real Me," the next episode. It begins with Giles telling Luke "Feel the Force flowing through you" while she balances on her hands. She is interrupted by her still-unnamed sister and Buffy, some white crystals, and R2-D2 all fall over.

In the Summers home, we see the morning ritual of Joyce getting ready for work, Buffy getting ready for her day, and Dawn messing things up for her. She is told to take her sister to get school supplies while she's off training with Giles. Dawn writes in her diary about the people in her sister's life. She resents Buffy greatly, considers Willow a role model, Giles a geezer, and Xander a manly, dreamy hunk.

At this point, there have to be millions of "Buffy" watchers wondering what the hell is going on with their show. Who is this girl? Where was the introductory episode? How come the characters look at her like she's always been on the show? Why is she in the opening titles already? After being be-effed by the WB with two previous episodes, my money would've been on yet another episode they didn't show, one that explained just what the devil is going on with this Dawn character. Due to the magic of DVD (and time travel), tyranist and I are only somewhat confused.

Dawn reluctantly goes along with Buffy in Giles' new convertible, and they stop by the magic shop where they see Tara and Willow. Inside, the magic shop owner is lying dead--murdered by vampires is good--and Buffy asks Dawn to wait outside while they investigate. Outside, she encounters an unbalanced-looking man (that we don't know) who tells her she doesn't belong there.

Giles admires the magic shop and what a good business it would be while they see that the vampires stole books on Slayer lore and a pretty unicorn statue. Tara goes out to be with Dawn and comforts her, telling her that she knows what it's like not to be a part of the group. Giles decides to buy the magic shop and run it while also training Buffy and defeating demons and monsters every week.

Well, it turns out that the unicorn was for Harmony Kendall, who is still living under Sunnydale, and is still a vampire. But now she's got a group of really dumb vampire followers (my guess is that three of them were scientists and one was a Rhodes Scholar until they tasted of Harmony's blood) that she calls minions. They stole the books so they could figure out how to kill Buffy. And Harmony has a plan.

That night, Dawn is unhappy about having to be babysat that night while Buffy goes patrolling with Riley and Joyce goes to her still-unseen gallery. She's less unhappy, though, when Buffy gets Xander to sit her, but is disappointed when Anya comes over too (Anya treats her like a little child, though not as unkindly as you'd think). A rock is thrown through the window, and Harmony and her minions are there to call Buffy out (as you know, the vampires can't enter the house without an invitation). Xander tells Harmony that Buffy's not there and that she sucks, and Harmony starts calling everyone names. Dawn says, "Oh yeah? Why don't you come in here and say that," breaking the protection on the house. Xander is luckily able to chase Harmony away, though I can't really remember how.

Buffy has spent the whole patrol complaining about her sister, and when she gets home, she is furious at Dawn for inviting Harmony into their house.*** Dawn hears Buffy calling her irresponsible and immature and worthless and pretty much all the pet names my father had for me, and runs outside to . . . well, be captured by Harmony's minions. Anya, of all people, tries to protect the girl, but she is knocked unconscious just inside Buffy's door (so the vampires can't do evil shtuff to her). Riley and Xander take Anya to the hospital.

Buffy finds Spike and threatens him with bodily . . . well, death, if he doesn't tell her where Harmony is. Dawn, meanwhile, has been taken down to Harmony's lair and tied up. Harmony begins complaining to the girl about her life and how unappreciated she is and how difficult it is to be stylishly undead until her minions decide to kill her and eat the girl.

Then Buffy arrives. The vampire thugs attack her and Dawn watches her sister in action as she dusts one, two, three, four of 'em. All but Harmony, who, damn you episode writer David Fury, escaped. She takes Dawn home before Joyce gets back from work, and both of them make a deal not to tell their mother what happened to them. The end . . . with still no clue as to where Dawn came from.

This was another really fun episode, despite the dual frustration of Dawn's unexplained appearance and Harmony's disgusting reappearance.

One of the three big signs of a TV show "jumping the shark" is the addition of a cute new child to the family. But I gotta say, I find Dawn absolutely delightful. I realise that's not the straightest of words, so I try not to say it much, but it's really the most appropriate word. I love that kid.

It is vexing the way she's been introduced on the show, but hey, I'm along for the ride on this one.

Rish Outfield

*For once, this isn't my own silly distortion of the text. Xander actually uses the immortal word "buttmonkey."

**Which reminds me, X-men just added a new Summers sibling too. I wonder if Buffy got her last name from the X-men.

***Like me, Dawn is a constant screw up. Unlike me, Dawn is fourteen years old.

Trilogy Special Edition 2

I somehow coerced my buddy, Beta Ray Charles, to participate in a few Top Five lists too. Hey, anything to speed along this prison sentence.

So, in conjunction with the last post, here are my five WORST additions to the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition:

1. Luke's Emperor scream. By far, the most patently offensive addition to the SWT:SE, made all the more shocking by the fact that a lot of other people didn't even notice it.
2. Hayden Christensen's leering face replacing Sebastian Shaw's. People have tried to explain it to me, but no matter what bullshit excuse they or Lucas gives, it doesn't explain why Anakin is twenty-one years old again, yet Obi-Wan and Yoda are really, really old.*
3. Greedo misses Han at point-blank range ("At that close range, we won't last long against those Star Destroyers." "We will if they shoot like Greedo!")
4. The INCREDIBLY bad Jabba the Hutt in the 1997 Special Edition.** Holy Teebo, it not only didn't look like the 1983 Jabba, but wasn't remotely up to snuff with the special effects ILM created for JURASSIC PARK four years previous. It's like Lily said in FIRST CONTACT: "You didn't even try!" And Han stepping on Jabba's tail the way he did . . . what's the opposite of cute?
5. "Jedi Rocks." Ick. Even the name is obnoxious. At least "Lapti Nek" sounded like it could be a song title in their universe.

And Beta Ray's WORST Special Edition Additions:

1. Greedo Shoots First
2. Hayden Christensen in ROTJ
3. Jedi Rocks
4. Emperor Scream
5. Jabba in ANH

These lists were really quite easy for me to think up. Kind of impressive that we listed the same damn five in separate lists. I sense a conspiracy.

After additional prodding, I was able to get my cousin Ryan to compile his list (of four):

1. No Han shoot first.
2. Jedi Rock
3. McDiarmid in ESB - it's really cool to have him in it, I liked the new lines,
but there was nothing wrong with the old lines, nor even monkey-eyed-old-lady-Clive.
4. Jabba at Docking Bay 94 - it doesn't give us any information we don't already know, so it's bad cause it just repeats info, but it's kinda cool to have an intro to Jabba, once they fixed him up a bit.

Even Ryan listed three of the same ones, so maybe I'll forgive him for his earlier "George Lucas has no flaws and is a god among men and when he poops the room actually smells better than it did before" comments.

Rish "The Unspecial Edition" Outfield

*Dude, it doesn't. The next time someone tries to tell me, "Well, Anakin Skywalker died when he became Darth Vader, hence his spirit blah blah blah," I will stab them in the genitals, then ask, "Okay, then who killed the Emperor, then?"

**Now, I will grant you that they fixed him up for the years-later DVD release. That Jabba still doesn't look as good as the ROTJ one, but he doesn't make me fumble for my usually-handy bottle of rat poison.

Trilogy Special Edition 1

The other day, I went to Target, and I ran into my old Film teacher. He had, more than any other, infuriated me with his opinions, while enlightening me with them as well. He was the teacher I most think of when I go back in my mind to those days, and I remember how much he hated STAR WARS and how he'd constantly bring it up, either to get a rise out of the fanboys or just 'cause he despised it that much.

It was a little over ten years ago now, when the "Special Edition" just came out, that I saw him on campus and thought I'd ask him what he thought of the changes Lucas had made. He said, "I haven't seen it. What did you think of the changes?" I told him parts were really cool, but there was nothing wrong with the film in the first place, and I wished that they'd just left it alone. He then smiled and said, "So, how many times have you seen it?" "Three times," I told him. "Three times," he repeated. "So do you think Lucas really cares what either of us think?"

That was one of those reasons I despised him, but also one of the reasons he changed my thinking. He was the one who would always say, "You vote with your dollar."

So it was all the sadder that I bludgeoned him to death in the Target parking lot.

Okay, that part's not true, but I did think about the countless discussions my friends and I used to have about STAR WARS and Lucas's tinkering with them, and how much joy mixed with despair that used to bring me.

What's funny is, though I loathe the Prequels quite a bit, it's the Special Editions that bother me the most. I shouldn't still be so irritated, since it's now relatively easy to get a copy of the original versions (though not in nearly as high quality), but it was the SE changes that most rattled me, especially those that change the characters or tone of the Original Trilogy, still my favourite films of all time.

So, here are my five BEST additions to the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition (but this was really difficult. When I think of all the silly, stupid changes, like removing blaster hits on Imperial officers or switching "You're lucky you don't taste very good" to "You were lucky to get out of there," I get half angry and half sad):

1. Nice new X-wing/TIE Fighter visuals
2. Addition of Biggs reunion scene (well, most of it)
3. A couple of extended congratulations scenes at the end of JEDI (involving Wedge and Lando and Chewie and Pruneface)
4. Vader's lightsaber is red as the blast doors close
5. I don't know, a nice, realistic Wampa in a couple of shots?

I then asked my friend Beta Ray Charles for his list as well, and this was his response:
1. Improved shots of Cloud City
2. Biggs Scene reincluded
3. Tractor beam controls no longer English
4. Cleaned-up lightsabers in ANH
5. Improved land-speeder effects in ANH


I also asked my cousin Ryan, who you could call a Lucas apologist, for his five best and worst changes. He honestly said he could not come up with five bad ones*, but here are his five best changes:

1. Removing Palpatine's scream from Luke at Bespin
2. No Nyub Nyub/celebration additions.
3. Wampa
4. Cloud city scenes
5. Sarlac improvements - I guess.

I put the good ones first because . . . well, I don't really know. I don't really know why I do a lot of things.

Rish "Future Serial Killer" Outfield

*Funeral services will be held Saturday, from 10 to 1.

Elton John Songs

November 15th, 2007

Good news. Not only has tyranist tentatively agreed to contribute a "Buffy/Angel" blog in the future, but he seems amenable to doing more Top Five lists. As I've said before, nobody but us read this blog, but that means at least fifty percent of my readership is excited by this.

So, to kick it off, here's my Top Five Elton John songs:

1. Your Song
2. Someone Saved My Life Tonight
3. Tiny Dancer
4. Written In the Stars
5. Candle In the Wind

I love Elton John, for some reason, and it's a fairly recent phenomenon. I never owned a single record, tape, CD, or mp3 by him until I saw ALMOST FAMOUS. Now, I find it difficult to narrow them down to five. Sadly, I had to drop "Levon" and "Daniel" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Rocket Man" from my list, though I love them all.

Here's tyranist's list:

1. Your Song
2. Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (as sung by Roger Daltrey)
3. Candle in the Wind (Marilyn version)
4. Come Down in Time (as sung by Sting)
and . . . uh
5. Rocket Man?



I'll get to work on other Top Fives right now. This may be fun!

Reginald Dwight Outfield