Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Buffy Blogthrough: 1.10 "Nightmares"

Most mornings, to warm up my brain I write & edit 150 words on yesterday's entertainment — a TV episode, movie, news item, or whatever. Now that I've got Lady Hotspur watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I've decided to post these exercises so you & she can enjoy them too!

1.10 “Nightmares”
broadcast: May 12, 1997
writer: Joss Whedon (story) & David Greenwalt (teleplay)
director: Bruce Seth Green

Buffy has already flirted with dream-states—think of the fake-out that opens “Teacher's Pet”—but it makes a commitment in “Nightmares.” The plot is an afterthought, almost a means to an end: a comatose Little Leager accidentally conjures dreams into reality. The episode's tension, and it gets intense, is seeing what the characters truly fear. Some of their arcs are conventionally cathartic, like Xander punching a scary clown. Then there's Buffy's absentee father visiting Sunnydale to explain her role in her parents' divorce. Their conversation is staged without even a touch of surrealism; it's hard to tell whether it happened or not. The scene may be Gellar's strongest performance in all seven seasons. Plotwise, on the other hand, “Nightmares” is one of the series' slackest. It's a mirror image to the rest of Season One, abandoning the formula of well-made, socially-driven metaphors for a more formally adventurous style.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Buffy Blogthrough: 1.9 "The Puppet Show"

Most mornings, to warm up my brain I write & edit 150 words on yesterday's entertainment — a TV episode, movie, news item, or whatever. Now that I've got Lady Hotspur watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I've decided to post these exercises so you & she can enjoy them too!


1.9 “The Puppet Show”
broadcast: May 5, 1997
writers: Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali
director: Ellen S. Pressman
Buffy already has shown a gift for final scenes, but the one in this episode—Buffy and pals performing Oedipus very poorly—is especially winsome. This coda typifies the tone of “The Puppet Show”, the series' first episode to go all-out for comedy without compromising on action and thrills. “Show” even cheerfully undercuts Buffy's triumph over this week's monster by showing us the baffled reaction of the new principal (Armin Shimerman as a perfect martinet) to the typically gory scene. The light touch eases the potential silliness of the titular puppet, who's not the predictable demon-doll but a demon-hunter cursed to inhabit a ventriloquist's dummy. That twist is one of the plot's many red herrings, which get turned so deftly they cover for the lack of a social theme. Taken alone, “The Puppet Show” is forgettable fun, but the success of its execution points ahead to better episodes.