Watching The CW

I’ve been watching through all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - yet again - and I realized a few things. I started watching in May and I’ve seen all 144 episodes (actually 145, cause I watched the unaired pilot, too) in just a few weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we aren’t meant to watch too many eps in one day. Also, I learned something else.

Joss Whedon hates us. No, I mean it, he really, really hates us. He likes to smack us around, and rip our hearts out (with a spoon so it hurts more) and leave us bruised and bleeding on the ground. Then he likes to kick us in the head, just for fun. Like he’s an abusive boyfriend, and we keep going back for more.

Honestly, I think the great part of Joss’s appeal is his ability to really connect. To evoke feelings, good or bad, in all of us. He hates us and yet we love him. Joss can make us happy, sad, frightened, lonely, miserable, or, you know, feel like singing.

The reason I came to this conclusion, is cause while watching Season 6, the depressing, sex-filled season, I watched a string of shows, pretty much all within a day, that nearly made me suicidal.

The first ep (number 15 of the season) is “As You Were,” in which Riley comes back to Sunnydale to enlist Buffy’s help. Except, now he’s married to a wonderful woman and very happy. Buffy is working at a burger joint and has a cow on her hat. Plus, she’s sleeping with Spike. I never liked Riley that much, but it was hard to see him come back like that. It was also hard to see Buffy tell Spike she didn’t love him and never would.

The next ep is “Hell’s Bells.” Xander leaves Anya at the altar. It was just gut wrenchingly awful. I almost couldn’t believe it the first time I saw it. It still hurts to watch.

Then there’s “Normal Again,” where Buffy hallucinates between Sunnydale with her friends and being locked up in institution, except her parents are alive. She has quite a choice to make between which world she wants to be the “real” world. She tries to kill Dawn and all her friends. Plus, she cries a lot. Talk about depressing.

Following that are “Entropy” and “Seeing Red.” Anya tries to exact vengeance on Xander (that part is a little lighter), but then ends up seeking solace with Spike, and everyone sees them, hurting both Xander and Buffy. Then Spike tries to force Buffy to say she loves him and attempts to rape her. Also, Warren shoots Buffy and Tara, killing Tara.

Of course, then Willow turns evil and things really get bad.

So you see how I came to this conclusion and now, we never have to worry about feeling too cheerful ever again. Just watch Season 6.

By the way, if you’re interested in all things Joss Whedon, come on over to my other blog at FanaticSpace.com

And as long as I’m talking about Buffy, can I share a little gripe that I had recently about an Angel episode that was on TV? I was never as big a fan of Angel as I was of Buffy, although I own all those DVDs, too, and have seen every episode. Several times. Anyway, Angel is on TNT every morning at 6 am and 7 am (ET) and most mornings, I watch it while I’m doing other stuff.

The other day, they aired this one episode from Season 5 was entitled, “Why We Fight” and I’ve never liked it. Its not a bad ep, as episodes go, and I understand why they did it the way they did it, but I still don’t like it. And I’ll tell you why. That is, if anyone is actually reading this and actually cares. The episode is told through flashbacks to World War II, where they have Angel working with the US Navy to recover a captured German submarine with American sailors on board. The Nazis have got Spike and some other vampires in their employ. I get what they are doing. They need to have both Angel and Spike involved, and they wanted to show something in the past, to make the show interesting.

But from other Angel history that we’ve seen in the past 7+ years of these two shows, supposedly Angel had spent close to 100 years being all brooding and wimpy, eating rats and stuff to stay alive, after he got cursed with his soul in 1898. It just seems doubtful that he pulled together the chutzpah to behave the way they have him behaving in this episode, set in 1940s, cause we’ve seen him as a wreck, starting around 1900, and then in both the 1970s and 1990s. There was also an ep in 1950s, where he clearly wants no contact with humans. So what would make him decide to fight for the Americans during the war? Why would he even care, he’s not even American.

Also, we’d been given to believe that Spike didn’t know about Angel’s soul, when he first met back up with him on Buffy in Season 2. The implication was that they hadn’t seen each other since shortly after the turn of the century, back in 1900. Obviously, if Spike had hung around with Angel in the 1940s, he would have known all about the soul.

Like I said, I get it. Since Spike was turned in 1880, I realize that if they wanted to do something in the past that involved both of them, they only have about a 20 year span to place them in, and I’m sure they just got tired of that. Plus, maybe they didn’t want to have to deal with adding in Darla and Druscilla. It makes sense. But still the entire episode ends up feeling forced to me, since they are trying to play around with history. And I hate when shows do that.

Since, I’ve been sharing the Buffylove, there’s one more thing I should mention. Joss Whedon, creator of the Buffyverse and general all around good guy, has also written several graphic novels, outlining Buffy’s 8th season. Which is a very good thing, especially for those of us who missed the show even before it was off the air. I was super glad to see Buffy back in action. It was so awesome to know that Joss loved us and loved the characters enough to not let it just die, even though the show was off the air. Plus, obviously, you can do lots more in print than you can on a TV show.

The second compilation of graphic novels is coming out on June 29, and I prefer to purchase them that way, instead of buying all the separate books. Its just less to deal with and I get a longer read. I’ve been saving a Barnes and Noble gift card since Christmas so that I can buy it when it comes out. I kid you not.

So, if you’re gonna start watching the series now, you might as well start reading Season 8, too. I’d recommend watching all of the series before reading the graphic novels, cause then things will make more sense. Plus, you don’t want to get spoiled by finding out stuff before you see it happen, right.

You can buy them all over the place. So you should check out your local comic book store, or Barnes and Noble, or Amazon and get them.

As you might already know, I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s been my favorite show for years now. Of course, I have all the DVDs and I watch them all the time. I’ve probably seen every ep at least a dozen times. More. Anyway, when I first got sick (and if you want to know all the sordid details of my on-going illness, check out my other blog at www.watchingsitcoms.com, and believe me when I say its even worse than it seems), I thought I was only gonna be off work for a couple of weeks at most. So I had gone to the library and got lots of other DVDs to watch to pass the time while I sat around and hoped to get better.

Well, I’m still sick. And also, getting more and more depressed. So, to make myself happy, I’ve started to watch Buffy again. Buffy always makes me happy. And it’s almost working. But then I’m only about half way through season 4 right now, so there’s lots more to watch.

I always assume that everyone who was ever gonna has probably already seen BtVS. But maybe not. So I’m appointing myself as the official spokesperson for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Don’t let the name put you off. Its really good. Snappy dialogue, well written, directed and acted. Plus, great character development.

There’s more than one way to see the show, too. You can watch it on weekend mornings, at 7 am (ET) on FX. I think they are somewhere in the middle of season 2, right now. (And, scarily enough, even though I’ve been watching the DVDs, I usually still manage to catch the eps on TV, too). You can also watch all of seasons 1 and 2 on hulu.com.

I’m serious. Go check it out. I think if you just give it a couple of eps, you’ll be hooked.

I didn’t know about the snogging.

I’m not surprised or anything, I just didn’t know. The first episode of the second season of Torchwood was interesting to say the least. And to a rabid Whedon fan like me, it held lots of fun little moments. Maybe they didn’t even realize it, but I caught lots of stuff.

Even my husband noticed when James Marsters’ character, Captain John Hart, told Jack he needed a blond on his crew. Was this a veiled reference to Buffy? Probably. In another scene, Captain Hart knocks out Gwen with a kiss from his poisoned lip gloss. Much like Saffron did to Mal in the episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds” on Firefly. Plus, Jack and John were stuck in a time loop once.

There were other little things just like that, but I don’t want to ruin them all. You really need to watch the episode for yourself and see how many you can count. Oh, there was also a Star Wars reference that made me clap my hands in glee (cause I’m a total geek). In one scene, Jon Hart leaves a voice mail message for Jack. When Jack plays the message its a hologram, very reminiscent of the Princess Leia message in R2D2 for Obi-Wan. I’m watching it, thinking it’s just like that, when John Hart ends his message to Jack, “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” and then he sorta looks back over his shoulder. See, there was glee.

James, of course, was awesome as usual. His character on Torchwood had bit of Spike, which was fun, but was also his own person. Charming, yet evil. Just the kind of person who you end up trusting in spite of yourself and then, of course, realize you shouldn’t have. I really loved it. I like that they ended the episode with the chance that John Hart might be back, too.

I just didn’t know about the snogging.

Torchwood, James Marsters, Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Star Wars

So I’ve been wracking my brain to find a way to make this blog about the CW when I haven’t seen anything new on the CW in about a month. So, here goes.

Last night we decided to watch a movie on our new TV (I’ll probably stop talking about it eventually) and we chose Serenity. I just got the collector’s edition for Christmas and I was really interested to see how it would be on the big screen with surround sound. (Awesome, btw).

So the way I got here? Serenity was the movie version of Firefly (which aired on Fox, so that was no help) written and produced by Joss Whedon, who was also the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which was on both the WB and UPN, which joined together to make the CW. See? See how I did that? I used to like to do that on the Serenity movie site, as well. The six degrees of Joss Whedon. I think that stuff is a lot of fun, but only if I have the time to sit around and randomly web surf. Which I just don’t.

My husband has just recently taken to counting the number of times I use the word “random” each day. So far the count is - several.

Back to Serenity. If you haven’t seen it, you should. (You should actually see all 15 episodes of the series, Firefly, and then see the movie, cause it will make it all that much better.) I saw that Serenity is On Demand right now, too. I think on Starz. It’s really such a great movie. I cry and I laugh at the same stuff every single time I watch it. And I’ve seen it many times. Don’t ask me to count.

I also cry every time when I think how incredible it is and how much I love that gorram ship and its shiny crew and now they are just gone, gone, gone. Do you think Joss will ever do another movie? I’d watch it.

(Just so you know, we are having a little problem with comments. If you comment and it doesn’t show up right away, not to worry. I’ll try to make sure they get approved as soon as possible.)

the CW, Serenity, Firefly, Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I’m starting to like Supernatural again. Almost as much as I did in the first season. Almost. I am getting a little confused with all these random chicks, though. Who are they and why are they here?

I’m not against them adding more people, but I was liking Dean’s interaction with Ellen’s daughter, Jo (Alona Tal), and then they just dropped her out of sight entirely. Where did she go? Did she die in the fire at the bar? Did she get another acting gig so she’s no longer available to Supernatural? What happened to her and why don’t they ever mention it? I really want to know.

Now, they are adding all these other chicks, like, they had the crossroads demon, plus that demon who’s “helping” Sam, and now Bela (Lauren Cohan). And what’s her deal exactly? I mean, does she take the place of the yellow-eyed demon as Sam and Dean’s number one antagonist?

Also, I much prefer to see someone who has an interest in Dean rather than Sam. Pretty much only because I think Dean is just way, way better looking. I mean, just look at Jensen Ackles. He’s like a perfectly perfect specimen of a man. He’s just beautiful. Not that Jared Padalecki isn’t cute, but in my opinion, Jensen is just so much more gorgeous. I actually remember being surprised when I first started watching that Jared was considered the star, rather than Jensen.

Checking out what’s coming up, I see that this week, the ep (Fresh Blood) is about vampires, always a favorite subject for me, and it stars Mercedes McNab, another Buffy/Angel alum. I’m looking forward to it.

Supernatural, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Alona Tal, Mercedes McNab, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel

I’ve been meaning to watch Smallville again, but, honestly, I just keep forgetting. I get busy doing something and then I remember when it’s mostly over. I have caught the last few minutes the past couple of weeks anyway.

I just read somewhere that James Marsters was coming back to reprise his role as Professor Fine/Braniac and I don’t want to miss that. Actually, it was because of him that I started watching in the first place. I mean I did try to watch it back in the beginning, but I couldn’t get past the stiff writing and not so great acting. Sorry, I just couldn’t.

I wanted to like it. So when James played Braniac in the fifth season, I watched, and was teased that James might be on into the sixth season. That didn’t happen, so I saw maybe two eps of the sixth season and then I gave up. I did, briefly, contemplate going back to the begining and watching all the eps, just cause. (My nephew owns them, I wasn’t gonna spend any money.) But I never did and then I lost the urge. Maybe I still will. Over this winter when there are no new shows to watch cause of the writer’s strike.

Of course, no new Smallville means no James Marsters. He’s actually in a couple of other shows, coming to a tv near me soon. Or possibly someday (see above, re strike). He’s playing a recurring role in Without a Trace, another show I’ve never seen, but plan to watch just to see James. Also, he has a part in Torchwood, which just makes me so happy. For those of you who don’t know, Torchwood is a spinoff of Doctor Who. Granted the ep James is gonna be in won’t make it to a channel I can see for years to come at this point, since the first season of Torchwood still hasn’t (it’s actually just now airing on BBC America, however, I don’t get that channel; but I’ve heard rumors it’s coming to SciFi). In any case, since the first season, which originally aired in Britian in 2006, is just now here in the US, how long will I have to wait to see the second season, airing in 2008?

Smallville, James Marsters, Without A Trace, Torchwood, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel