Official Discussion of 7.14 "First Date" (UPN-US)

I actually thought of that, but then i realized it is no mistake... because xander's story isn't happening at the same time... think about it... xander goes with the girl, he sends willow a message saying he got lucky, which everybody obsiouly interprets as something is eating xander's head... spike goes to warn buffy, while xander is probably being knocked out and taken to wherever the seal was (i'm still not sure it was the school's) spike and buffy go rescue xander while he is being sacrificied... so it really isn't a mistake...
Click to expand...

It doesn't really matter of course. We're just supposed to ignore this kind of stuff and go on. Nevertheless it is fun to discuss, so let's.

The seal was at the school. Wood makes a comment about it in the car.

Willow was unclear about what the message actually meant because it was an old code her and Xander hadn't used for a while.

She thought it either meant he had gotten lucky (at which point Anya huffed) or a demon was eating his head. Dawn considers the two altenatives and says something to the effect of "If we weigh the averages...". Giles cuts in and says, "a demon is eating his head".

At that point they spring into action. Willow does a locating spell (which takes a little time) then Spike jogs ten miles past the school to go warn Buffy... Huh?
 
just to clarify, the new SIT is Chinese. Remember Giles saying "She speaks Mandarin. My Mandarin is rather shaky. turns out, she also speaks Cantonese... which is even more shaky."
 
ep 14 and The First and Slayers

- I agree with captain peroxide that Giles's escape from the bringer would've been better if it'd

been all in one shot.

- Diminished_9th wrote:
Mmm, it would have used Tara, but Amber Benson didn't like the idea.
Click to expand...
I read a script for "Conversations With Dead People" that had Willow talking to Tara instead of Cassy. I was wondering why they changed it. Could you point me towards a link or something where Amber says how/why/what she didn't like about it?

Personally, I think it maybe works a little better the way they wound up doing it--with Cassy instead of Tara. It seems better somehow, but I'm not sure why.

- As soon as Principal Wood said his mom had been a slayer, I paused and thought for a moment...
I thought back to the slayers we'd seen Spike kill back in Buffy 5x07 "Fool For Love". It had to be her. So later on, when it wasn't the same actress, it didn't faze me--I knew it had to still be her, they just had a different actress for some reason.

- About the turok-han adn the seal: How much do we really know about the seal of Danthazar? We have a fancy name, do we have much else? Who's to say it doesn't simply summon a turok-han everytime you splash enough blood on it?

- Helga the Viking wrote:
What was that evil chick's goal? Was she trying to raise another Turok-han?
Click to expand...
She said the End was near and it was time to align with either the forces of good or evil. She chose evil. Therefore, she was in favor of bleeding Xander to raise a turok-han.

"How did she know about all this?" you may ask. There's gobs of possibilities. She could have special senses, she could've had a feeling and then done a spell or talked to a mystic to get more info. My personal favorite explanation:
The First showed up to her in the form of some random dead person and said, "Hi. I'm The First. Hey, listen--the world's ending--you can feel it. Join me or die by my hand. You accept? Great! Now here's how I'd like for you to kill Xander..."

- I agree with others that there could still be more to Principal Wood than meets the eye. Sure he's the son of a slayer (but then isn't that pretty weird by itself?) It may be simple though: it could be that he's a good guy, but he's got a tortured soul on account of him mom was killed by a vampire. And of course, that means big fireworks in the near future... That means that even if he's a totally righteous, upstanding guy, he could still be against Buffy because she's in favor of Spike. It's very messy and it's exactly what The First wants. Whenever people are in disarray and chaos, The First is winning.

Note about the dagger Wood had: I was just watching again and it appears to be curve-y. That could be an accident on the part of the prop people, but if it isn't, this is strange. A curve-y dagger like that isn't generally the type you use to kill people in combat--it's the kind you'd use in a ritual. If it has blood on it, it's not a happy-fun ritual.

- About The First: I'm a bit confused... if it's truly The First evil force of the Universe, how can you destroy it? And how come it had to ask, "are you wearing a wire?"? If it were truly The First Evil, I would expect it to know almost everything all the time. I would expect it to know they were setting it up. Isn't there some evil in all of us?
I expect that in the end, they'll have to reach some sort of stalemate with it--force things in the Universe back into balance.

- About the chip:
It was important for Giles and Buffy to debate about the chip. Everything that Giles said was true and everything that Buffy said was true. I'm glad that they had this argument/debete because it needed to happen. It was really cool just to see Giles and Buffy have a grown-up style argument/debate for a change.

But I'm also glad they didn't burn any additional time on the "should we remove the chip?" question 'cause you know they were going to wind up removing it anyway. Best to just get it over with.

- On the creation of slayers:
Okay, the first time Buffy died back in season 1, a new slayer was called. Later when Kendra died, Faith was called. How come no new slayer was called when Buffy was dead for 3 months between season's 5 and 6? You can't say that it's because there was already a slayer (Faith) because it didn't work that way previously.
Also, in season 6 Villains, Buffy's EKG monitor flatlined for a brief time when Willow came into the operating room. That would indicate another death on Buffy's part. So that's three times now.
Perhaps a new slayer is only called for the first time a slayer dies?

- More about The First:
An observation: Since it has appeared to Spike as Spike and as Buffy, we can conclude that it can appear to anyone as Spike or Buffy. It could do this at a crucial moment to confuse or misdirect people.
 
Originally posted by WyrdDemonHunter
- On the creation of slayers:
Okay, the first time Buffy died back in season 1, a new slayer was called. Later when Kendra died, Faith was called. How come no new slayer was called when Buffy was dead for 3 months between season's 5 and 6? You can't say that it's because there was already a slayer (Faith) because it didn't work that way previously.
Also, in season 6 Villains, Buffy's EKG monitor flatlined for a brief time when Willow came into the operating room. That would indicate another death on Buffy's part. So that's three times now.
Perhaps a new slayer is only called for the first time a slayer dies?
Click to expand...

Its because Buffy has already passed on the power. First to Kendra but when Kendra died she passed it on to Faith. Now the only way for a new slayer to be called is for Faith to die.

Anyways, I thought the episode was better than alot of the episodes they have aired this season. It had an interesting plot, not unlike the ones from the first few seasons, and it had more subtle wit and cleverness, such as when Giles is upset at the end and he holds up his drawn picture of a bringer and a vampire and says that its not a joke. I laughed so hard. I also liked the part at the restaurant when Buffy eats the food from Principal Wood's fork and says "I think thats the best thing I've ever had in my mouth." That was just really funny.

Did anyone else catch the interaction between Dawn and Andrew? Also, do you think that Andrew is really gay, or is he bisexual?

PS~Kudos to Danny! He did a great job as Jonathan, just like always. Even if it was the first.
 
Did anyone else catch the interaction between Dawn and Andrew? Also, do you think that Andrew is really gay, or is he bisexual?
Click to expand...

I hope bi, that way he could hook up with either Spike or Dawn.
 
What is it that people are wanting Willow to 'call' Buffy on..? She just said "Why does everyone think I'm in love with Spike?!", how is that somthing she shouldn't of said...?
 
It's because Buffy said "Why does everyone think I'm STILL in love with Spike" implying that she was once in love with him in the first place... something she always denied. she always said that she was just using him.
 
I think the Andrew-is-gay topic on the show is hugely annoying, and insulting to both nerds and gay men. He's already expressed sexually interest in women, so he's not really gay, entirely. I think the point was to make Andrew seem so subserviant to Warren that he bordered on effeminate. He's supposed to the ultimate beta wolf (in packs of wolves, the betas follow the alpha, usually without question). I think the writers unfortunately want the audience to understand that Andrew is weak, obsessive, and strange by suggesting homosexuality. He obviously has a power fixation (he doesn't seem to want power directly, just to worship those who wield it, like in this episode's comment about Captain Archer). It's odd that the show has such a progressive attitude about lesbianism, but, in my opinion, a rather loathsome view of gay men, particularly since gay men make up such a large portion of Buffy's fan base.

All that being said, I thought this episode was a good development of Andrew's character as someone who's worthwhile. I hope they'll treat his character right, in the end.
 
Originally posted by The First
It's odd that the show has such a progressive attitude about lesbianism, but, in my opinion, a rather loathsome view of gay men, particularly since gay men make up such a large portion of Buffy's fan base.
Click to expand...

Really? didn't know that, not that i mind....


but there's no loathsome view of gay men... Larry was gay and is one of the most beloved season 3 characters...
 
The only genuinely positive portrayal of Larry was in Anya's alternate dimension, where his sexuality was conspicuously unstated, not to mention irrelevant. Andrew has been the most consistent source of references to male homosexuality in the series' history. Let's just say it's not a pretty picture. But maybe, just maybe, the writers can turn it around. For the first time ever, thanks to this episode, I'm actually looking forward to seeing Andrew's role in all of this. His fate, so to speak, is totally open at this point. I'm excited to see what the writers bring him.
 
That's not true, Larry only had one negative portrayal.. and that was in Phases when he was struggling with being gay...
After that he was a very nice guy, like in Earshot
 
I think this show treats gay people very well... and I love laughing at how they treat geeks, because I am one. You really shouldn't be so sensitive about laughing at yourself.
 
I read a script for "Conversations With Dead People" that had Willow talking to Tara instead of Cassy. I was wondering why they changed it. Could you point me towards a link or something where Amber says how/why/what she didn't like about it?
Click to expand...

She talked about it in an interview. You can watch the video here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/communicate/ram/amberbenson191202.ram
It's about 30 minutes into the interview.

She doesn't explicitly say she would have played the first, she just said Tara would have gone bad. When I heard that, I figured she would have been portrayed by the first. Now that you said she was to be in Conversations with Dead People, it's clear what Joss had in mind.
 
that was a great clip. 'was funny and cool to watch.

i was all urky when i heard that ashanti would be in this episode, and after watching it, i thought she was just "okay." i mean, i dunno how she could've been better but just knowing who she was made her character a little off.

plus the channel i watch the show on played this preview of the show which gave away the basic plot made me all bleh. right away i knew that wood's was the son of the slayer that spike killed. i think that it's a wicked new part of the story. (also wood's secret whiteboard weapon storage is AWESOME! hehe)

the thing i didn't like was the mentioning of willow and kennedy holding hands under the table. urk.
 
the First, Tara, Cassy, and the power of veto

Thanks for the link, Diminished_9th, it was really cool getting to see that interview.

To anyone that hasn't clicked the link yet: there are only a few lines in the interview about what I was talking about, i.e. Amber not wanting to have Tara come back evil. Even so, the whole interview is good and anyone that hasn't seen it and wants insight into the Amber perspective on Life, the Universe, and Everything should give it a look-see.

I was watching it on a broadband connection, but I have a feeling it might still be watchable (with a few blips) on dial-up because it's real player and it's the BBC and I've had good luck watching real player streams from the BBC over dial-up in the past.

NOTE: I guess there are some people that might consider the following spoilers, but I don't. Nothing in the future story-line is discussed. There's only some discussion on the influence of actor/actresses on a story line, and a possible alternative version of Conversations With Dead People.


Now, back to the evil Tara vs. no evil Tara: Isn't it fascinating that the actress has some control over the story line in this way? By choosing not to have Tara come back as evil, she forced Joss to come up with something else. I keep wondering which way is better--the version that Joss had intended where the First comes to Willow as Tara (i.e. Evil Tara) or the version that got filmed where the First comes back as Tara and claims to be speaking to her.

We could add another limitation to the powers of the First: it can't come back as a non-permanant cast member if that actor/actress doesn't agree to it or isn't available. 🙂 Also, of course, if the First comes back as a non-permanent cast member, that means that, that actor/actress had to go to all the time and trouble of getting to the set. So they'll usually use that person in more than one scene. Note that when the First appears as Dru, it stayed that way for a while. Then again, maybe that's just 'cause so many people love Dru. I know I do. 🙂

Amber said she didn't want Tara to come back as evil because she didn't want to do that to the fans--they'd been through enough already, what with Tara's untimely, sudden death. It fascinates me that she'd take such a personal and/or compassionate view towards the fans. In some ways, I can see her point--Tara's death was an ugly and sudden thing. Now to have her come back as evil--Ouch!

But on the other hand, I've heard it said by some authors that if you only set out to please the fans, your story usually turns out as crap. It's like--if you only give them what they want all the time, there's no real substance in it--no conflict, no power.

Still there is the "which is better?" quesiton. In some ways, it might have been deliciously terrible to watch Amber as the First.

On the other hand, that would've been sort of the ultimate violation--not only did she not have a noble death, but now she doesn't even have a noble after-life. Also, I don't feel that Willow would've been able to recover so quickly if she'd been visited by fake-Tara rather than fake-Cassy. I mean even though it wouldn't really have been Tara, surely it would be 10 times as emotionally draining as her seeing Cassy. It hurts just thinking about it.

But then, with the Cassy version, we are left with the question, "why didn't the First come back as Tara?" I mean, we know the real reason--because Amber didni't want to do it, but there's no in-story reason. All in all, given the nature of the First it would make sense for it to come back as Tara to cause Willow more pain and anguish.

I realize I've gone rather far off topic here. 🙂 sorry, my bad.
 
I actually opened a thread about this very thing here after I posted the video. I've wondered about the same thing. I think I agree with others; it would have been cool to see Amber do something a little bit different, but very hard to watch Willow go through that, especially if it happened in more than one episode.

WyrdDemonHunter, did you see the original script for CWDP on the internet? Is it still around?
 
Originally posted by captain peroxide
andrew never actually said he was gay, technically
Click to expand...

Never brought up the subject, as I recall. (Effeminate mannerisms are inconclusive, IMHO.) I think he's just confused -- about more things than his sexual orientation.

I did rather like The First's "beta wolf" theory.

Originally posted by Lorne the Host
That's not true, Larry only had one negative portrayal.. and that was in Phases when he was struggling with being gay...After that he was a very nice guy, like in Earshot
Click to expand...

And a major help in "Graduation Pt. II", where I believe he got killed...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom