Bring on the Night

Buffy Episode Review

In which Buffy will twist the circumstances of any situation into a reason to find Spike.

What Happened

Andrew finally wakes up and Buffy demands that he tell them what he was doing in Sunnydale and where The First may have taken Spike. He leads them to the seal in the basement of the school, where they find evidence that someone may have been trying to open it again.

Buffy decides that they need to be scared of The First. While Dawn does a web search, Willow sets up a locator spell. Both tasks are equally useless, but Willow's action opens her up to The First's mystical influence. Pissed, because she's the only one who can dump on her friends, Buffy prepares to stalk off in broad daylight, carrying an axe, to find The First. At the door, however, is Giles and three girls. Potential Slayers.

Giles unloads some info: The First is old, can take the form of the dead, and has been killing potential Slayers all over the world, despite being non-corporeal. Oh, and the Watchers Council will be less help than usual because they were blown up. Buffy and Giles go to see if The First is still hanging out in the same cavern as before, but find only the Ubervamp.

Ubervamp almost kills Buffy, but the rising sun drives him underground. By nightfall, everyone is bummed, particularly because they all have to listen to Buffy's downer speeches. One of the Potentials freaks and runs and gets caught by the Ubervamp. Buffy finds her body - and the Ubervamp. It smacks Buffy around (she hadn't thought to bring a weapon or a car), and Xander and the others find her unconscious body and take her home.

After she finishes brooding, Buffy announces that The First has declared war, and she's turning the Potentials into her army.

What We Learned

• "I'm the Origin of All Evil" is a demon come-on line.
• Principal Wood is acting weird again.
• Andrew is out of touch with reality... again.
• The First does a lousy Drusilla imitation.
• According to Dawn, kids today like Red Bull and Jackass.
• Buffy should be worried about Dawn's extra-curricular activities.
• Buffy is planning on talking until The First dies of boredom.

What Did I Think?

I suppose I'm sort of hedging my bets; last season was such a downer, but at least there was a driving force behind it. I hated the whole Spuffy idea, but I could see what they were trying to do, and I wanted to be there when Buffy finally told Spike where to shove it. This villain is so scattershot and the momentum of the slayers-in-training was lost when they stopped showing them after the first two episodes.

I think the problem is that the stand-alone episodes aren't being as well-integrated as Season Two/Three. With so many characters and so much history, the writers are really in a place where this is verging towards a soap opera/serial storytelling format. They go for a multiple part story-line (like a mini-series), but keep interrupting things for the throwaway shows like "Him."

Or something like that. A lot of what I've been thinking is complaints about the pacing - which is kind of hard to put your finger on.

Drusilla was a snooze. There was just a little too much of her on display. While bringing back all the villains in interesting in theory, where's the logic to this? We've only seen Dru and Warren, what about the others? Were they just a tease in the season opener? Why not just stick with FirstEvil!Buffy and go with it? Or have it start pulling things that mimic previous villains and confuse everyone for a couple of episodes and then reveal it's the First? It's like they know where they're going, but they aren't quite sure how to get there. The season arcs used to be mapped a lot tighter from the start.

Spike was refreshingly low-key with his "she believes in me" bit, but the whole drowning him scene? I get that it would be uncomfortable, but with the "vamps have no breath" thing being one of the more contentious part of Whedon'smythology (if they don't breath, how do they talk? and smoke cigarettes?) I wouldn't have made that particular story choice. I think there's a real passive-aggressive vibe developing between this show and its fans. It's like they wanted to yank a few chains.

Whatever. I'm not giving up on Buffy just yet; it may well make sense in the end. Angel, on the other hand...