ExerSlay: Out of Mind, Out of Sight

March 15th, 2010

Out of Mind, Out of Sight

So…Um…This episode didn’t make me vomit. That’s good, right? It’s not really bad, per se. It’s just kind of lame. A flute player turns invisible because no one notices her. She has a nasty streak and, like most people who become invisible, she uses her power for bad.

Marcie (played by a young Clea DuVall) beats a jock with a baseball bat, pushes Harmony down the stairs, and chokes a teacher with a plastic bag. Then she kidnaps Cordelia and Buffy and takes them to the Bronze to perform a little amateur plastic surgery.

Buffy frees herself and uses the Force to knock Marcie into the curtain. Just then, two FBI agents bust in and haul Marcie away to a special assassin school. Bah.

The biggest thing I got from this episode was that Angel has completely shed the ‘tude. He even saves Giles, Willow, and Xander from asphyxiation. What a guy. Also, Regina George would eat Cordelia Chase for lunch.

Grade C. Mostly blah, but inoffensive enough.

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ExerSlay: Nightmares

March 11th, 2010

Nightmares

The Scooby Gang is minding their own business at school when some kid is spontaneously covered in spiders. They run to library to talk about it with Giles, but he’s lost in the stacks. Things get weirder as their worst nightmares begin to come true.

The best thing about this episode is that we are, essentially, getting the good gossip about the Sunnydale folks’ worst fears. Giles fears that he’ll get lost in the library, or forget how to read. Xander fears a homicidal clown. Willow fears being in front of a crowd (the cutest of the nightmares). Buffy fears that her parents divorced because she was a bad kid, and that she would become a vampire.

Turns out some kid in a coma is unleashing the nightmare world onto Sunnydale, and the Gang needs to wake him up to make everything go back to normal. Waking him up involves him facing the guy who beat him up…his baseball coach.

‘Cause that makes sense. If you want a kid to play better, you beat the crap out of him. It doesn’t even make sense that the coach is angry about losing a Little League game and lost control, because he didn’t beat the kid up right away. He waited.

Whatever. Whedon wrote the episode. I guess he was really into the dream part and did a little hand-waving for the rest. I give it a C.

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ExerSlay: The Puppet Show

March 10th, 2010

The Puppet Show

I should start off by saying that this probably my favorite episode from the first season. I like the new principal, the Scooby Gang seems really one their game when it comes to one-liners, and CREEPY DUMMY!

The episode is visually darker than others, too. Even in a classroom with the California sun streaming in through tall windows, the shadows take over. And there is nothing thematically darker than a high school talent show.

Giles has been roped into directing the talent show. The contestants begin to turn up dead. (And no one ever suggests, maybe, canceling the talent show. That is why Sunnydale High is great. On with the show!) A weird boy with a dummy turns out to be especially good, but gets weirder and weirder as the night of the talent show draws near.

The final battle ends just as the curtain opens, revealing a grand guignol tableaux that baffles Principal Snyder. Then, during the credits, we are treated to Buffy, Xander, and Willow’s dramatic presentation of a scene from Oedipus Rex.

I give it a B+. If I didn’t know about the finale of season three, it might have gotten an A.

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ExerSlay: I, Robot…You Jane

March 4th, 2010

I, Robot…You Jane

Oh. My. God. That was terrible. Terrible. There is so much wrong I’m not sure where to start.

Okay, let’s just start at the beginning. It’s 1418. A demon with a neck-snapping fetish is terrorizing cultists in Italy. Monks trap him in a book. Then what do they do with that book, you ask. Do they throw it in a fire? Put it in a box and sink it to the bottom of the ocean? Rip it to pieces? Nope. They stick it in the library and hope no one reads it. Smart, guys. Glad to know you’re on our side.

Anyway, for some inexplicable reason, Giles, Willow, Buffy, Xander, two computer geeks, and a computer teacher are in the library scanning pages of the books. Willow scans the demon book. The demon is set free in the internet. Wacky hijinks ensue.

There’s a message about the evils of being “jacked in.” Willow is cyber-stalked by a demon who convinces her that he’s in looooove with her. That is, until his sociopathic computer-geek minion kidnaps her to bring her to the local computer company where they have made a robot for the demon to possess. They even made curly demon robot horns. Yay!

Really, the only good part about this episode is the introduction of Jenny Calendar…TECHNO-PAGAN! Plus a few good lines. I give it a D.

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ExerSlay: Angel

March 2nd, 2010

Angel

The funny thing about this episode is that even though it’s very important to the whole BTVS and Angel mythology, it’s completely lame. And on top of that, the only good scenes are the ones with Darla.

The Master sends the Three Stooges after Buffy. (Of course they fail. This show isn’t called The Three.) Then Darla decides to make Angel kill Buffy, and almost pulls it off. Why? Because Darla has had 400+ years to work on her manipulation skills and she knows Angel better than anyone on the planet. Bitch is totally old school.

I do give Angel some credit for being concerned about the age difference. I guess that was so we wouldn’t think he was ephebophilic. But really, it’s better if we don’t think too hard about it. Because that’s the only reason we think it’s okay that he killed his ex-girlfriend for Buffy. I know I’m supposed to be buying into this special fated love thing, but this episode does not get me there. All I can think is that Humbert Humbert just killed his wife for Lolita. Ick.

Anyway, I give this episode a D. I was going to up it to a low C for Darla’s sake, but she gets killed off. Even the Masters total shit-fit afterward wasn’t enough to bring it back.

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ExerSlay: The Pack

March 1st, 2010

The Pack

Wow…Dark much? Xander and a quartet of bullies (that includes Cleopatra 2525) are possessed by hyenas. First they’re just nasty and they sniff things. Then Xander is mean to Willow. Then he and his new buds eat a live piglet. Then he tries to rape Buffy while the rest of the pack eats the school principal. As if that didn’t tip us off that things were taking a turn, one of the hyena-bullies drools when he sees a baby, like my dog drools over a Milkbone.

My favorite bit of the episode is when Buffy tries to explain to Giles that Xander is acting strangely. She says that he’s acting “wiggy.” When he posits the opinion that Xander is just acting like a teenaged boy, Buffy says, “I cannot believe that you, of all people, are trying to Scully me.” Awesome.

The ending, alas, is kind of lame. Giles gets knocked out, a possessed zookeeper tries to bite Willow, Xander shows some brass, and Buffy arrives just in time.

This show gets a B. I really liked hyena-Xander sniffing everything. And you can’t beat a little cannibalism. I would have upped it to a B+, but that ending…bleh.

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ExerSlay: Never Kill A Boy on the First Date

February 27th, 2010

Never Kill a Boy on the First Date

A student wanders into the library for an actual book. It’s the mythical sensitive high school boy who loves Emily Dickinson. Kill it! Kill it with fire!

Wait. Owen is not the baddie. He’s the hottie for this episode. *shrug*

There’s a prophecy about an Anointed One rising from the deaths of five. Buffy and Giles hang around the cemetery, as is their wont, but it’s really about a shuttle bus accident involving the driver, a middle-aged woman, a young mother and her son, and a bible-verse-spouting lunatic. Hmm…which one is the Anointed One, I wonder.

Giles goes to the cool deco funeral home alone and is trapped by vampires. Willow and Xander go fetch Buffy from the Bronze where she is on a date with Owen. Angel makes a quick appearance, but when the Scoobies + Owen go to save Giles, he’s like, “See ya!”

The bible-verse-spouting lunatic is now a bible-verse-spouting lunatic vampire. Buffy kills it with fire. Owen, freaked out and woozy from a possible concussion, goes home. The next day he reveals himself to be an adrenaline junky. Buffy does not kill him with fire; she just blows him off.

Then the master is revealed. Is he sad that the Anointed One is dead? No. The Anointed One is actually the kid. It’s like Anakin Skywalker invaded the Buffy-verse. If only some peroxided, leather trench-wearing vampire would kill it with fire (from the sun)….

While I liked the subtle lesson that pretending to be someone you are not is no way to win a boy’s heart, I have to give this episode a C. It’s clever enough in places that it almost makes up for the Annoying One. In the end, Giles’ constantly pained expression and a cool funeral home that is conveniently cemetery adjacent can’t overcome the dread of what’s to come.

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ExerSlay: Teacher’s Pet

February 26th, 2010

Teacher’s Pet

(-9 pounds since starting in Feb. 2010. +1 since last weigh in.)

Angel makes his appearance at the Bronze. He was nowhere to be seen last episode. I think he was off having his attitude surgically reduced, because he borders on pleasant. He warns Buffy about a bad guy and gives her his coat. He’s only wearing a clingy tank top underneath, so I’m guessing this is where we are supposed to think he’s super-hot. Noted.

But really, this episode is not about Angel’s hotness at all. It’s about Xander’s lack of confidence. Buffy’s disinterest throws him into the arms of the substitute Biology teacher, who is totally into him. That should have been is first clue, right?

Anyway, hot teacher lures Xander back to her nest where she plans to mate with him then bite off his head, or vice versa. Buffy figures things out, partly because the teacher dresses “predatory” – and I have to agree. She arrives just in time to save the day.

In the past, I’ve skipped this episode. This time, I liked it. Buffy has a nice moment with the original Biology teacher at the beginning of the episode. The baddie that Angel warned Buffy was a red herring, of sorts, who Buffy uses to figure out the real enemy. Willow hacks, and Giles pretends he doesn’t know it’s illegal.

While Teacher’s Pet is not a stand-out episode, it’s certainly better than I remember. I give it a solid B.

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