Because 5 is not enough
Oct. 25th, 2005 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniHere's my 10 best Buffy episodes
1. Hush
I saw that episode and then I realized Joss was a genius and a true artist. He did what poets have been aimed at for centuries...the content and the form matched exactly!
But Hush was at the same time your typical Buffy episode, with the humour(the projector scene is a classic), the red herring and the monsters used as metaphors. And The Gentlemen are the best villains ever!
Hush is what put definitely BTVS on a level that is above any other tv shows IMO.
2. Fool For Love
It's my favourite episode but also a brilliant one. I love it for being a Spike-centric episode of course, but also for some of the most arty shots we've seen on BTVS (just see my icon!). The New York flash backs mixed up with the Spike/Buffy fight in the alley is a grand moment of television. It's a key episode for the rest of season 5 and in Buffy's journey it's a pivotal moment. Same for Spike who couldn't go back from there after the wonderful ending scene.
And there's sweet William giving Cecily THE nod (James' best performance ever!). FFL is simply effulgent, my friends!
3. Restless
Restless is a gem and an oddity that many viewers didn't get. Either you adore it or you hate it. It's the climax of what is the best season of the show. The episode is so rich so daring, full of winks to previous episodes, foreshadowing stuff, cultural references (from myhtology, literature, pop culture), and funny moments (Giles' song is priceless)and plain bizarrerie the dreams are made of (The Cheese Man). It defies the rules and is ethereal and orchestrated like a symphony of colours and lines, defying gravity just like a good watcher should do ;- ). Xander's dream is my favourite sequence because it reveals the whole set. I could spend hours interpreting it, but there's also great stuff in the other dreams. I can't tell you how sad I am that my disc is scratched precisely on that episode. Could anyone burn me a copy of Restless btw? Please, pretty please...
4. Passion
The best episode of season 2, so powerful, so poignant. That shot on Giles' blank face with Puccini's music playing when they are taking Jenny's body is forever printed on my mind. Buffy has great moments with her mother and her surrogate father in that episode. Angelus is evil à souhait taunting Buffy but also Spike, thus showing what really got him off and his true weakness (after all passion comes from patior). All the characters were victims of passion in the episode including Angelus, which enhances the love that Angelus can't give but that is demonstrated between Buffy and her mother, Buffy and Giles or Buffy and her friends.I know that many people prefer the tragic ending of Becoming, but for me the true tragedy lies in Passion, yet I wasn't too fond of the Giles/Jenny 'ship. And still there's some lightness like Jenny paying the Orbs of Thesulah with her credit card (always makes me smile)!
5. Once More With Feelings
Or the counterpoint of Hush two years later! It could be ludicrious(and trust me it was when entirely dubbed in French!)but it is a great show. The dancing/singing scenes are never gratuitous numbers nor simply winks to old works but as usual with Joss they are meaningful and foreshadowing stuff in every scene. Key elements are everywhere, in what is said, sung or seen on screen. The lyrics are funny and so are the visual details. My favourite joke being the fire truck passing by in the background when the group is singing "let it burn". And I love Xander/Anya duet ! The Giles/Tara duet mixing up their both songs into "wish I could stay" is also quite fine.
6. The Body
It is an oddity in BTVS and the perfect counterpoint of Restless but when Restless was pure fantasy since it was about dreaming, The Body is the most realistic episode of BTVS! And that unusual atmosphere is precisely supposed to be weird in order to show the feeling you experience during the first hours that follow a death. Those among us who lost someone close know that. Because on Buffy reality is what is bizarre, Joss managed to make us feel what Buffy is going through. It is heartbreaking and I can't watch the first scene without crying, especially when we hear a cracking noise and Buffy said "I broke something. It cracked."
At the end of the episode, Buffy's world find its logic back when the vampire shows up and fight ensues. Because life goes on.
7. School Hard
Spike got the best entrance ever on the show. That was the episode when you felt something was going to change in Sunnydale and not only in a less-ritual-and-more-fun kind of way! The new villains were nothing like the previous ones. School Hard was a perfect set-up for both characters. Drusilla was so quirky and the dolls scene was creepy. Spike already had the full potential that would be developped later: the snark, the guts, the telly-addiction (the punch line is priceless!), the sensuality, the intelligence (because he is compared to the regular vampires), the crudeness of the sexual predator but also the ability to care about someone else. Oh sure the poet didn't show at all, but the fool for love was already there. And you cannot watch the scene in which he stares at Buffy dancing at The Bronze without thinking that Spike would stay on the show and that Spuffy was written in the stars (Mektoub!).
8. Dead Things and Normal Again (ok I cheated but I really couldn't choose between those two!)
Those 2 episodes are why, unlike some fans, I love season 6. They are simply daring. They led you to unexpected places, they made you feel Buffy's confusion and distress, and as always with BTVS they kept twisting things. Spuffy for instance is a twisted sub/dom relationship, not reversed(that would be too simple) but twisted. The handcuffs are easier to bear than the sweet post-coïtal talk, the catwalk scene is a false seduction (both are lost and pathetic and so alone in that scene)while the true sexy/moving scene is when they are separated by the crypt door, can't touch one another and yet are deeply connected to each other. The dead things aren't what we think they are: Katrina who seemed alive was already dead, and Buffy is actually talking about herself when beating up Spike.
Normal Again is a great gamble, a possible exit, and a complicated pun. The title can be interpreted in 3 ways: the obvious one is Buffy is poisoned, becomes crazy but ends up normal again at the end of the episode; or...Buffy has been living a fantasy as a Vampire Slayer but could be normal again as in a girl without any superpowers if she gave up the fantasy world because she's actually in a mental institution (Dawn who doesn't exist become the key locking Buffy in her madness). At last, the episode's title can work for the whole season: resurrected Buffy was not normal, she had to deal with the aftermaths of her return and behaved in an abnormal way as a mortal(she doesn't feel anything)/Hero(tired, not very noble)/female(using the male for sex just like Warren wanted to use Katrina)/sister(she's neglected Dawn and focuse on herself)/friend (she isn't thoughtful enough nor caring)/lover(insults, violence)...which reached its paroxysm during the episode (she rejected everybody and tried to kill them)but from then on, Buffy becomes normal again. My theory is that after her awakening in her grave, a vampire-like awakening (Spike pointed out he had the same), Buffy behaved more as a Vampire than as a Slayer. But she's Normal Again by the end of the season and will show a normal behaviour after that episode: in "Entropy" she'll be able to talk to her friends, she'll be hurt as a lover when seeing Spike/Anya, in "Seeing Red" she'll be seen in her female vulnerability(the unfamous AR)and in her mortal vulnerability (without Wilow's magic Warren's shot would have been lethal), in "Villains" she's The Slayer again and in "Grave" she ends up as a true sister for Dawn.
9. Something Blue
A funny episode and a dream come true for a little while. The Spuffy at heart that I am couldn't not pick Something Blue. It was a test for the Buffy/Spike chemistry on screen and they certainly didn't fail.
It's also one of the funniest episodes ever done, from the teaser to the last scene you can't stop smiling or laughing with highlights like Spike desperate to watch "Passions" on telly and Giles' line "you'll do what? Lick me to death?" or Spike mocking Buffy's name and Giles seconding it, or again blind Giles simply falling over his couch just after having nodded to Buffy's resolution to find Willow "Before somebody gets really hurt"! Actually it's Giles who's really funny in the episode. Sometimes the simplest gags are the best.
That episode was also the beginning of my Tristan & Isolde theory concerning Spuffy.
10. A New Man
It's pure Buffy formula: great comedy (Fyarl!Giles chasing Maggie Walsh, Spike wanting Giles to be his proxy demon, the Scoobies misunderstanding the clues in Giles' house) combined with intelligent metaphor on what a monster/man really is and with a Mythologycal subtext (The labyrinth, Theseus and the Minotaur). And a monster can conceal another one that is kept behind door 314 but will show up in the next episode.
And of course there's Giles' old mate, Ethan Rayne! Some people don't get my love for Ethan and why my second ship of predilection is Githan...they simply should watch A New Man again! The innuendos are all there. I wish Ethan would have come back and gloated some more on BTVS. Only Ethan can be who he is, do what he did to Giles and yet try to pick up the waitress or comment on how he gets caught every time.
Of course there are many other terrific episodes like Tabula Rasa, BB&B, The Zeppo, Intervention, Crush, The Wish, Band candy, The Initiative, Selfless, Pangs...but I had to pick the best 10 and I already cheated with the 8th rank!
So I kept 4 episodes from season 4, 2 from season 5, 3 from season 6 and 2 from season 2.
So what's yours?
1. Hush
I saw that episode and then I realized Joss was a genius and a true artist. He did what poets have been aimed at for centuries...the content and the form matched exactly!
But Hush was at the same time your typical Buffy episode, with the humour(the projector scene is a classic), the red herring and the monsters used as metaphors. And The Gentlemen are the best villains ever!
Hush is what put definitely BTVS on a level that is above any other tv shows IMO.
2. Fool For Love
It's my favourite episode but also a brilliant one. I love it for being a Spike-centric episode of course, but also for some of the most arty shots we've seen on BTVS (just see my icon!). The New York flash backs mixed up with the Spike/Buffy fight in the alley is a grand moment of television. It's a key episode for the rest of season 5 and in Buffy's journey it's a pivotal moment. Same for Spike who couldn't go back from there after the wonderful ending scene.
And there's sweet William giving Cecily THE nod (James' best performance ever!). FFL is simply effulgent, my friends!
3. Restless
Restless is a gem and an oddity that many viewers didn't get. Either you adore it or you hate it. It's the climax of what is the best season of the show. The episode is so rich so daring, full of winks to previous episodes, foreshadowing stuff, cultural references (from myhtology, literature, pop culture), and funny moments (Giles' song is priceless)and plain bizarrerie the dreams are made of (The Cheese Man). It defies the rules and is ethereal and orchestrated like a symphony of colours and lines, defying gravity just like a good watcher should do ;- ). Xander's dream is my favourite sequence because it reveals the whole set. I could spend hours interpreting it, but there's also great stuff in the other dreams. I can't tell you how sad I am that my disc is scratched precisely on that episode. Could anyone burn me a copy of Restless btw? Please, pretty please...
4. Passion
The best episode of season 2, so powerful, so poignant. That shot on Giles' blank face with Puccini's music playing when they are taking Jenny's body is forever printed on my mind. Buffy has great moments with her mother and her surrogate father in that episode. Angelus is evil à souhait taunting Buffy but also Spike, thus showing what really got him off and his true weakness (after all passion comes from patior). All the characters were victims of passion in the episode including Angelus, which enhances the love that Angelus can't give but that is demonstrated between Buffy and her mother, Buffy and Giles or Buffy and her friends.I know that many people prefer the tragic ending of Becoming, but for me the true tragedy lies in Passion, yet I wasn't too fond of the Giles/Jenny 'ship. And still there's some lightness like Jenny paying the Orbs of Thesulah with her credit card (always makes me smile)!
5. Once More With Feelings
Or the counterpoint of Hush two years later! It could be ludicrious(and trust me it was when entirely dubbed in French!)but it is a great show. The dancing/singing scenes are never gratuitous numbers nor simply winks to old works but as usual with Joss they are meaningful and foreshadowing stuff in every scene. Key elements are everywhere, in what is said, sung or seen on screen. The lyrics are funny and so are the visual details. My favourite joke being the fire truck passing by in the background when the group is singing "let it burn". And I love Xander/Anya duet ! The Giles/Tara duet mixing up their both songs into "wish I could stay" is also quite fine.
6. The Body
It is an oddity in BTVS and the perfect counterpoint of Restless but when Restless was pure fantasy since it was about dreaming, The Body is the most realistic episode of BTVS! And that unusual atmosphere is precisely supposed to be weird in order to show the feeling you experience during the first hours that follow a death. Those among us who lost someone close know that. Because on Buffy reality is what is bizarre, Joss managed to make us feel what Buffy is going through. It is heartbreaking and I can't watch the first scene without crying, especially when we hear a cracking noise and Buffy said "I broke something. It cracked."
At the end of the episode, Buffy's world find its logic back when the vampire shows up and fight ensues. Because life goes on.
7. School Hard
Spike got the best entrance ever on the show. That was the episode when you felt something was going to change in Sunnydale and not only in a less-ritual-and-more-fun kind of way! The new villains were nothing like the previous ones. School Hard was a perfect set-up for both characters. Drusilla was so quirky and the dolls scene was creepy. Spike already had the full potential that would be developped later: the snark, the guts, the telly-addiction (the punch line is priceless!), the sensuality, the intelligence (because he is compared to the regular vampires), the crudeness of the sexual predator but also the ability to care about someone else. Oh sure the poet didn't show at all, but the fool for love was already there. And you cannot watch the scene in which he stares at Buffy dancing at The Bronze without thinking that Spike would stay on the show and that Spuffy was written in the stars (Mektoub!).
8. Dead Things and Normal Again (ok I cheated but I really couldn't choose between those two!)
Those 2 episodes are why, unlike some fans, I love season 6. They are simply daring. They led you to unexpected places, they made you feel Buffy's confusion and distress, and as always with BTVS they kept twisting things. Spuffy for instance is a twisted sub/dom relationship, not reversed(that would be too simple) but twisted. The handcuffs are easier to bear than the sweet post-coïtal talk, the catwalk scene is a false seduction (both are lost and pathetic and so alone in that scene)while the true sexy/moving scene is when they are separated by the crypt door, can't touch one another and yet are deeply connected to each other. The dead things aren't what we think they are: Katrina who seemed alive was already dead, and Buffy is actually talking about herself when beating up Spike.
Normal Again is a great gamble, a possible exit, and a complicated pun. The title can be interpreted in 3 ways: the obvious one is Buffy is poisoned, becomes crazy but ends up normal again at the end of the episode; or...Buffy has been living a fantasy as a Vampire Slayer but could be normal again as in a girl without any superpowers if she gave up the fantasy world because she's actually in a mental institution (Dawn who doesn't exist become the key locking Buffy in her madness). At last, the episode's title can work for the whole season: resurrected Buffy was not normal, she had to deal with the aftermaths of her return and behaved in an abnormal way as a mortal(she doesn't feel anything)/Hero(tired, not very noble)/female(using the male for sex just like Warren wanted to use Katrina)/sister(she's neglected Dawn and focuse on herself)/friend (she isn't thoughtful enough nor caring)/lover(insults, violence)...which reached its paroxysm during the episode (she rejected everybody and tried to kill them)but from then on, Buffy becomes normal again. My theory is that after her awakening in her grave, a vampire-like awakening (Spike pointed out he had the same), Buffy behaved more as a Vampire than as a Slayer. But she's Normal Again by the end of the season and will show a normal behaviour after that episode: in "Entropy" she'll be able to talk to her friends, she'll be hurt as a lover when seeing Spike/Anya, in "Seeing Red" she'll be seen in her female vulnerability(the unfamous AR)and in her mortal vulnerability (without Wilow's magic Warren's shot would have been lethal), in "Villains" she's The Slayer again and in "Grave" she ends up as a true sister for Dawn.
9. Something Blue
A funny episode and a dream come true for a little while. The Spuffy at heart that I am couldn't not pick Something Blue. It was a test for the Buffy/Spike chemistry on screen and they certainly didn't fail.
It's also one of the funniest episodes ever done, from the teaser to the last scene you can't stop smiling or laughing with highlights like Spike desperate to watch "Passions" on telly and Giles' line "you'll do what? Lick me to death?" or Spike mocking Buffy's name and Giles seconding it, or again blind Giles simply falling over his couch just after having nodded to Buffy's resolution to find Willow "Before somebody gets really hurt"! Actually it's Giles who's really funny in the episode. Sometimes the simplest gags are the best.
That episode was also the beginning of my Tristan & Isolde theory concerning Spuffy.
10. A New Man
It's pure Buffy formula: great comedy (Fyarl!Giles chasing Maggie Walsh, Spike wanting Giles to be his proxy demon, the Scoobies misunderstanding the clues in Giles' house) combined with intelligent metaphor on what a monster/man really is and with a Mythologycal subtext (The labyrinth, Theseus and the Minotaur). And a monster can conceal another one that is kept behind door 314 but will show up in the next episode.
And of course there's Giles' old mate, Ethan Rayne! Some people don't get my love for Ethan and why my second ship of predilection is Githan...they simply should watch A New Man again! The innuendos are all there. I wish Ethan would have come back and gloated some more on BTVS. Only Ethan can be who he is, do what he did to Giles and yet try to pick up the waitress or comment on how he gets caught every time.
Of course there are many other terrific episodes like Tabula Rasa, BB&B, The Zeppo, Intervention, Crush, The Wish, Band candy, The Initiative, Selfless, Pangs...but I had to pick the best 10 and I already cheated with the 8th rank!
So I kept 4 episodes from season 4, 2 from season 5, 3 from season 6 and 2 from season 2.
So what's yours?
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-28 10:55 am (UTC)2. ONCE MORE WITH FEELING
3. HUSH
4. BECOMING PARTS 1&2
5. NORMAL AGAIN
6. GRADUATION DAY
7. THE BODY
8. TABULA RASA
9. FAMILY
10. SCHOOL HARD
That was hard! Also my order depends on what mood I'm in - looking at my choices I'm obviously in an emotive mood today as each of these made me cry for one reason or another, well not no 10. but Spike, well, not crying technically, but getting rather da.... ok I'll stop.