The curse of the season start. I was fully spoiled on the Freshman, had read the reviews, and the poor press from the fans etc. and it lived down to its expectations. Buffy was whiny and self-obsessed, the lines were good (duh) but the delivery was on autopilot at best, and Willow's hair....
I don't understand Bufy's problem. All this angst over starting Uni, my arse. First year of Uni is the biggest piece of piss on the history of planet Earth. Compared to fighting the legions of evil, killing your boyfriend and sending him to Hell, him coming back after months or years or centuries of torment, only to have him leave you despite his continued love for you, Fresher's week's a regular Mardi Gras.
Olivia had the sexiest voice I'd heard for a long time, so top marks to Giles. Helene added her to the list of "People who Have Naughty Touched Giles and Must Therefore Die." And SMG had about the only good delivery of a line in the whole thing. "You're very, very old, and it's gross."
And we saw the dreaded Riley. See the SSK list to see how much we hate him.
The most interesting things about the whole episode were the two eerie similarities going on between Eddie the vamp, and Scorpio from Dirty Harry, and between Sunday, and Nell from Ally McSqueal-like-a-pig.
Quality gubbing handed out by Buffy at the end, though.

This is a bit more like it. Being, as many Buffy fans are, an ex-student, I know all about the horrors of a shite flatmate. Buffy's shite flatmate was a demon Cher fan.
I'm not sure that's worse than a drug addict/dealer who washed maybe four times in the course of a year, but at least he never attempted to steal my soul, or indeed any of my stuff.
The time when he lost 1500 quid's worth of someone else's drugs and they accosted me outside the flat at night with a carload of tooled-up heidcases from Glasgow wasn't great, but I didn't have to hear Celene Dion while I was being threatened with a kneecapping.
I did like the sillyness in here. The bit with Buffy drinking the milk captured the spirit of crap flatmates the world over. Pity Parker turned up. Arsepiece furry eyebrowed nob jockey.

The School Hard of season 4. Both third in the season, both heavy on Spike, both followed by two lacklustre episodes before the quality of the season returns.
Was I the only one who kept singing "Harmony" in tune to the Bee Gees "Tragedy", every time her name is said?
Problems? Well, I don't understand Parker. Buffy hasn't looked this good since season 1, and in the later episode Parker is going on about how great Buffy is in the boudoir department. And yet he dumps her. Even for a shallow manipulative "poophead"(oh purrrrlease), it doesn't make any sense. You have seduced a gorgeous girl, who despite her exceptionally good looks, group of very close supportive friends, the knowledge that you're only alive because of her, and an industrial strengthly mince father figure with nothing else to do now his Nubian sex goddess has fucked off, is still lacking self confidence, and is consequently easy to manipulate, so you could use her as an occasional sex toy if you want. Strange. Maybe I just don't understand the mindset of the Parker style twat.
The Spike bits made up for that, by a country mile. Huge credit to James Marsters for excellent delivery of his brilliant lines, and for apparently doing most of the nails fight at the end.

And now, the bit where I lose it completely. "Some truly spectacular kickings of my ass".
Ass?
ASS?
ASS?
SPIKE IS ENGLISH. HE SHOULD SAY "ARSE." ARE YOU LISTENING JOSS AND JAMES, YOU DOPEY AMERICAN FUCKWITS.
Click here to see what the thunder said about that.

A mediocre episode. As with any Buffy ep, it had it's moments, Oz in the bath frantically repeating "I'm not gonna change" with some truly convincing hysteria from Seth Green.
An episode that had two great big future hindsight hints, in my opinion. Willow saying college is a time to experiment, and Oz talking of the power he can't control.
Anya's bunny costume, and in particular the way it made her walk was suitably chucklesome, and Giles with the chainsaw was a sight to behold.
Best bits were Giles in the sombrero and the wee Frankenstein dummy. It's alive. Tee Hee.
The "Don't taunt the fear demon" skit was also of the fun.

Let's move on.

In emotional terms, for a massive Oz/Willow shipper like myself, it felt like I was caught up in the wheels of the Space Shuttle Carrier, getting ground up inot little kibbles of unhappy Berloke.
The quality of acting from Alyson Hannigan and Seth Green was of the highest standard I've seen on American television for a long time.
As for the great Oz Bad/Oz Good debate, I still maintain Oz never meant to hurt Willow or to cheat on her. You can kick the shit out of me and I'll still say it. Red hot pokers and electrodes couldn't change my mind. You can murder me and my gravestome will read "OZ DIDN'T MEAN TO HURT WILLOW"
When Willow asks him if he had more animal attraction to Veruca than to her, you can see it on Oz's face that it's true, but that he wishes more than anything in the world that it wasn't, and that he hates himself for it. My respect for Seth Green as an actor went sky-the-fuck-high when I saw that scene.
I wrote this a few weeks back, before I'd seen the episode, but after I'd read the transcripts. I pretty much stand by what I said.

Oz's main character flaw is his hangup about telling people he's a werewolf.
He doesn't even tell his aunt that he's the wolf in Phases. He tells them later, judging by the SHS yearbook.
Oz, being Spocklike Logical Guy, should have told the gang he was the wolf as soon as he woke up in the woods in Phases. He didn't, and consequently wolfed out again.
By the time Faith shows up, he's more comfortable with his lupine side, having the support of the gang, and the security of the fact they lock him up and look after him each month. Hence, he comes out right away.
Now, by the time Veruca shows up, he's feeling guilty about being attracted to her, which isn't his fault, it's the wolf talking. He doesn't know this, so he just clams up instead.
Veruca's presence seems to bring the wolf out even more, which again he didn't know about. He thought he could handle his wolf side, based on the fact he's never mixed with another lycanthrope. Throw in the fact he feels guilty, and he made the fatal mistake of reverting to his previous method of dealing that we saw in Phases, ie not telling anyone.
In short, he panicked. Willow isn't anything like as emotionally stable, or retarded, if you want to be brutal, as Oz, and he's used to being the rock in their relationship. Now he's the one wrestling with unwelcome feelings, and he couldn't deal with it. He underestimated Willow's ability to handle the fact he did the dirty whilst a wolf. I mean Oz has tried to eat Willow on around three occasions, and she doesn't hold it against him, because it wasn't him. Sex is different, but Willow isn't daft. She could forgive him.
Meantime, he overestimated his ability to control the wolf. I subscribe to the theory that werewolves have a destabilising influence on other werewolves, because of the whole pack animal thing on the wolf side, and just peer pressure on the human side. Oz basically prides himself on his stoicism, and his control on his emotions. When he started to lose that grip, he again panicked, and this is why he left. He loves Willow more than anything, and would rather go through the heartbreak of leaving her than see her get hurt. Shades of Angel's departure, anyone? In his panic, he thinks that he will hurt Willow, physically at least, and mentally by cheating on her again, since he thinks he's going to become semi-wolfed, mentally, all the time, something I'm not convinced about, or Veruca would have been a sociopathic killing spree sex fiend, rather than just a bitch.
So Oz is feeling hugely guilty, and is terrified of himself, and what he could to to the love of his life.
If you think this sounds like a recipe for mature and logical decision making, remind me to never get stuck in a lift with you.

I suspect monseigneur Whedon knew we were all depressed, so he threw in one of the funniest Buffys since around Earshot.
The unimaginably crap fight between Harmony and Xander, plus the masterstroke of putting it in Slo-mo with extra dramatic music, had me shitting bricks with laughter.
I don't like Marc Blucas' delivery of his lines. They're good lines and he fucks them up. However, the scene at the party with his amazingly poor girl-handling technique was done perfectly, so I'll let him go.
And Riley twatted Parker. About fucking time. I just wish they'd make that a running joke. Parker getting more and more fucked on every week.
The Spike impotence scene was marvelous too.
And, I like Willow's hair again. I've done a lot of frighteningly deep soul searching and I like it.
It begs to be touched and adored. Not entirely unlike the young lady under it.

A light episode. Basically like a season 2 episode. The season in general isn't as angsty as season 3, which is sometimes good, but I do like a good chunk of heavy emotional trauma.
Giles and Spike basically stole the show. Every single line they had was delivered perfectly.
I didn't actually think Pangs would be that good from the transcripts, but I was amazed at how much better it was onscreen. Some episodes don't work as well on paper. This was one. Wild at Heart was almost as good on paper as on screen. Pangs was a bit flat, until Spike and Giles livened it up.
What's wrong with it? Once again, it's the plot. Native American Spirit Warriors, blah blah blah. As with many episodes, the actual plot is dull as dishwater, the fun is all the stuff that happens around it.
And there was no need for Angel at all. His presence was purely to set up the mighty I Will Remember You

Insanely good fun. Take a deliciously silly premise, Spike and Buffy in love, and build a fastastically good episode on it.
Spike and Buffy have miles better chemistry than B/A ever did, Buffy for the first time looking like she wants to suck face. Although to quite frank, that's our boy Spike's doing. He's such a dirty studmuffin that he could get a toast rack to exhibit raw lust.
It's a shame the other two wishes weren't funny or interesting. You have a more or less unlimited comedy tool with the wish, but only one funny one. Granted it might have clogged up the screen, but it's not so much fun.
What I will say is how pissed off I am with how the rest of the gang treated Willow.
She's gone through an giga-shitty breakup, and they're moaning about how much of a pain in the arse it is for them to deal with
Especially Buffy. I was spitting blood at the screen for how insensitive she was. Complaining to Willow about how stable and reliable Riley is. Stupid bitch.

Pretty much a dead cert in 90% of Buffy fans top five, this ep. Rightly so.
It's got everything that makes for great Buffy.
Some highly fun comedy, although I must say the projector scene left me only quite amused. Except for Buffy's wanking stake motion.
Oh, and Willow's choking was adorable. Which is technically a redundant statement, since my definition of "Willow" includes adorable pretty much as read.
The Gentlemen were the best villains since the Mayor. Joss really came up with the goods this time.
I've had a theory for a while that the key to making a good villain is to make them wrong.
Not wrong in the moral sense of doing things which are wrong, that's a given, but making things about them which don't fit for someone about to commit acts of violence.
Like the Mayor's family values obsession, and his obviously genuine love for Faith. It's wrong for someone so evil to love someone.
The obvious one is make them camp, which they were. The good manners also were...wrong. You don't bother with please and thank you during enforced organ removal.
The floating, it's wrong. People don't float.
The silence. Wrong.
The bit where the young lad is getting his heart cut out is particularly horrible. Man being a social animal, your first instinct when in the shit is to call for help. Seeing that made impossible isn't fluffy.
The fight at the end was suitably big, too. That Lackey who Buffy swung into to kick? He stayed kicked after that. Nae fucking danger.
And it was the first showing for our delectable Ms. Benson. Ahab says I don't care who you are, that handholding was raw sex on a plate. The line about the wanna-blessed-be's running the other way was so hug-worthy it was almost untrue. Okay I need help, fucking sue me then.

Not so great this. Again, a dull central plot. The only things that really made it shine was.....

Oh you know what's coming. Spike.
From the shirt to the self-staking to the speech at the end, he was joy joy joy.
Willow action limited to me wanting to rip the flesh off Percy's chest and play soggy xylophone on his ribs. Captain of the Hot squad you braindead shite-taste-in-women cunt.

Indifferent again. I thought the Fayarl demon just wasn't mean enough.
A few great Giles lines, since it's a Giles episode, the delivery being the key, notably:
"He needs a good.....being killed"
Loved the Walsh-Giles interaction too.
But I wasn't overly impressed.
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