I’m now current on Buffy

[aadler]

 
Last week I was deeply annoyed when I received the third issue of Buffy Season 8 in the mail, with no sign of the second. Yesterday the second issue came in, and I read them both together.

As with the first issue, my reactions are mixed. Even reading #2 and #3 literally back-to-back (I finished the one, immediately started on the other), it still seemed to go by really quickly. I have no objections to the story or the storyline, I enjoy seeing my favorite characters continue to develop as people, and I’m impressed with the way Joss respects the Buffyverse past while not letting it limit him. But, damn it, there’s not enough.

It may be the 24 syndrome. I liked the idea of the show, but found it too distracting to try and keep up with the episodes in regular broadcast. I ordered the first season on DVD, to help me pass the time in Iraq, and was instantly addicted; I have in fact actively advised against watching the show in any way other than through continuous DVD viewing.

Not the same with Buffy, but some of the principles hold. The first three seasons of that show, too, accompanied me to Iraq (I bought the fourth online and had it shipped to me), and I watched them in fairly straightforward sequence, going through each season in a week to ten days. It’s a different perspective. Things I remembered developing progressively, over weeks and months (from watching the broadcast seasons) were revealed as a lot more streamlined once I didn’t have to wait through seasonal scheduling delays. More than that, I had already discovered that seeing a season in toto gave a more realistic overview than one might receive in moment-to-moment viewing. Basically, a season — especially as done by Joss, though others have learned from his example — is a consolidated work. If this is so for television, all the more so in the comic-book format.

Think about it. Given commercial time, a standard television episode runs, what? forty-four minutes? forty-two? Even in that abbreviated form, three episodes still equal a decent-sized movie. The comic-book ‘episodes’, though? Ten minutes each, fifteen max. It would take three or four to equal one television episode. The comic-book episodes, then, are always — taken one at a time — going to feel abbreviated. Because, let’s face it, they are.

I’ll read #4 when I get it, to finish this arc. Once that’s done, though, I believe I’ll let them stack up until I have more of a handful, anything from four to six issues at a time. It’s just more satisfying that way.

Open Cut — Thoughts on “The Long Way Home”

This is going to be a general overview, rather than a play-by-play analysis, mainly because I’m lagging so far behind the rest of the world. (There are lots of good things about serving in a foreign deployment, but timely mail is not one of them.)

I love the continuing development of the new Slayers. I love the care and thought that’s going into them. Satsu continues to sport the ‘RUDE GIRL’ button we saw in issue #1. Renee — in both #2 and #3 — has the the same feather earring(s) we saw when she was at the console in #1. (And Renee, unlike most clueless tunnel-vision Slayers, has the perception and good sense to develop a crush on Xander.) If this attention to visual characterization continues and is matched by character development, we’re in for a fine ride.

Xander as tactical coordinator just continues to impress. This is somebody who shows all signs of having outgrown his earlier insecurities, and grown into the guy we were always able to see. He’s not only more likable now (and clearly more comfortable with himself), he’s quite a bit more admirable.

If this arc opens — as informally claimed elsewhere — something like 18 months after the end of “Chosen”, Dawn would be 18 years old (which would be underscored by the contention that she ought to be in college at Berkeley). As drawn, however, she looks more like 15.

I’m glad Buffy’s “Are you coming to bed?” was a dream-fakeout. I’m all in favor of Buffy/Xander, but I want to see it happening, not have it dropped on me like an anvil. Anyone who watched Spike’s painful journey toward self-actualization, or Willow’s subtle accumulation of the willfulness and selfishness that morphed into world-destroying fury, can understand my contention that the process of character change (when done with the skill that the Whedon writing team is capable of displaying) is usually as interesting as the fact, and often more so.

By the time we saw Warren’s appearance, I wasn’t surprised. Maybe I’d picked up hints from LJ comments preceding the spoilers I was careful not to read, or maybe I just absorbed some of the atmosphere of the episodes themselves. Not surprised, but I’m more than interested in seeing where this will go.

Hmm. Who did kiss Buffy? More to the point, who was sufficiently in love with her that a kiss would break the spell-coma? Xander is the obvious candidate (to which obviousness Willow would of course be stubbornly blind), but Joss is both more subtle than that and more committed to gay-yay. There is clearly more there waiting for us to be shown, and I’ll watch with some interest.

And we still have no hint who was inside the hovering boots from #1.

Close Cut

It’s not the same as if the series were still on the air. But it’s still fine storytelling, and I’m willing to follow it for the forseseeable future.

Comments

[xxmagex.livejournal.com]

Glad to see your posting. I was worried the DOD ban on web-pages might impact livejournal, but apparently not.

[aadler]

Not so far. Could happen, but right now they’re focusing on bandwidth-hungry sites. It’s a matter of technical capacity rather than of internal censorship.