Unofficial Buffy-Boards Buffy the Vampire Slayer Rewatch

I promise i'll stop the Xander hate in my posts guys...when we get to 'The Freshman'. Its so hard to like him season 1-3 because it is just one awful thing after another. Its only until Anya comes along that he mellows out.
 
I promise i'll stop the Xander hate in my posts guys...when we get to 'The Freshman'. Its so hard to like him season 1-3 because it is just one awful thing after another. Its only until Anya comes along that he mellows out.

...So you hate teenage guys. Not that I really blame you, but that's the gist of what you're saying. Really, Xander can be best described by Giles' description in The Pack, about turning into a 16-year old boy and that you'll have to kill him. Really, this stuff is just how guys are at that age.
 
As one my self at one point checking out books just for the boobs (The witch) is a male time honored tradition
Ingoring one girl and her fellings because you have the hots for another....well that happens at any age but still.
 
...So you hate teenage guys. Not that I really blame you, but that's the gist of what you're saying. Really, Xander can be best described by Giles' description in The Pack, about turning into a 16-year old boy and that you'll have to kill him. Really, this stuff is just how guys are at that age.

I'm the same age as Xander is in season 1 and a teenage boy and Xanders traits are what I see all the time in school, which makes him like him even less. There is stuff that he does that I can't just blame with teenage boy broodiness. Like in becoming, Xander's "Kick his ass" comment was just him being a terrible person. Its those moments that i'm talking about when I refer to having an extreme dislike for him in seasons 1-3. Oz is a teenage guy with teenage moods, but he never did the stuff that Xander did, which shows that Xander's actions can't all be reduced to "He's just being a typical teenager".

---------- Post added at 07:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 AM ----------

I just realised that Xander was 19 and therefore still a teenager in season 4, so i don't hate all of teenage Xander 😛
 
Oz is mellow about himself
Where as Xander is very verbal about himself he puts himself out there more so that reflects his actions.
His kick his ass speech to Buffy was wrong he knew it
 
I'm the same age as Xander is in season 1 and a teenage boy and Xanders traits are what I see all the time in school, which makes him like him even less. There is stuff that he does that I can't just blame with teenage boy broodiness. Like in becoming, Xander's "Kick his ass" comment was just him being a terrible person. Its those moments that i'm talking about when I refer to having an extreme dislike for him in seasons 1-3. Oz is a teenage guy with teenage moods, but he never did the stuff that Xander did, which shows that Xander's actions can't all be reduced to "He's just being a typical teenager".

---------- Post added at 07:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:41 AM ----------

I just realised that Xander was 19 and therefore still a teenager in season 4, so i don't hate all of teenage Xander 😛

I don't think Xander is a bad person, but he has some pretty serious flaws in S2-3 (not so much in S1 for some reason. He's pretty awesome most of the time in S1) when it comes to Buffy, and I don't think they can be just attributed to teenage broodiness. Lying to Buffy in "Becoming", the way he acts in the S3 episode (can't remember the name) where Gwendolen Post frames Angel. He's acting out of jealously, but he goes so far that it can't just be excused (although it is, for whatever reason).

That being said, Xander isn't a "bad" person. Not at all. He clearly shows, numerous times, that he's a hero, that he'll fight to the end for his friends and that he grows up. People forget, but he was first in line to help Buffy and Angel in "Amends".
 
We're getting WAY off-topic here, which is interesting to me for multiple reasons:

1) It shows that the episode we just watched has pretty much nothing in it, since we can't come up with anything to say about it.

2) We keep a conversation going a lot better when it's not really on-topic, which I guess is just a rule of the internet or something like that.

But, yeah, I think we'll really have the chance to talk about this and evaluate it when we get to these future episodes. I'm not a huge fan of Xander -- I don't dislike him, but I generally don't tend to be a big fan of characters that remind me of myself in some way, but we'll definitely get this discussion in detail -- thing is, it's been too long since I've seen Becoming to really comment on it, and we should keep at least somewhat on-topic -- hopefully that'll get a lot easier once we get out of the slog that is Season 1, since there'll actually be interesting things to talk about...
 
I just remembered that I actually like the up-coming episode. When it comes down to it, the only season 1 episodes that I really don't like are Teachers Pet, The Pack and I Robot...You, Jane.
 
I know the reviews on this episode haven't been very positive, and while the plot was pretty silly there were some really, really funny moments that I hadn't remembered at all.

When they're walking into Sunnydale High and Giles is in full exposition mode and all of a sudden he stops, looks up and "god, every day here is the same". I thought that was priceless.

And the scene with Buffy and Flutie was awesome. "Bottled up grief leads to powerful laxatives". I mean, what? I'd love to have heard the concept writing for that line. So funny. And then the next shot with Cordy in the grief councilor's office where she's trying to say that Dr. Gregory dying makes her look on the bright side of things, like "how used Mercedes still have leather seats".

I liked the beginnings of the Buffy/Angel romance here as well. The stuff with the jacket, where she's wearing the next day at school, I'm a total sucker for stuff like that.
 
I liked the beginnings of the Buffy/Angel romance here as well. The stuff with the jacket, where she's wearing the next day at school, I'm a total sucker for stuff like that.

You know, I never would've guessed that you're a sucker for things like that. This catches me completely by surprise.

I'm so late with these, I really need to get ontop of the ball with posting my thoughts 🙁

You can do what I do and cheat a tiny bit by watching the day before.

This is such a good podcast and I am so addicted. I've listened to 23 within the past 24 hours. They have such great chemistry.

I tried listening to that podcast straight through, except for one thing that stopped me cold: Cordia HATES Eliza Dushku. As in, I cannot emphasize the word "hates" enough -- and she will not shut up about it. When I got to Faith, Hope, and Trick, she would not shut up about it, to the point that she wasn't even talking about the episode and was really using it as a soapbox to talk about how bad she was in Dollhouse (which I completely disagree with, but that's a tangent). It was just irritating for me to listen to and I couldn't keep going with the podcast.
 
I tried listening to that podcast straight through, except for one thing that stopped me cold: Cordia HATES Eliza Dushku. As in, I cannot emphasize the word "hates" enough -- and she will not shut up about it. When I got to Faith, Hope, and Trick, she would not shut up about it, to the point that she wasn't even talking about the episode and was really using it as a soapbox to talk about how bad she was in Dollhouse (which I completely disagree with, but that's a tangent). It was just irritating for me to listen to and I couldn't keep going with the podcast.

I don't really mind it, but i'm only up to Passion so far. I'll just wait and see how season 3 is. I'm neutral towards Faith so i don't think it will bother me that much. I can see what you're talking about though because i'm the same when it comes to Anya.
 
I don't really mind it, but i'm only up to Passion so far. I'll just wait and see how season 3 is. I'm neutral towards Faith so i don't think it will bother me that much. I can see what you're talking about though because i'm the same when it comes to Anya.

It's not so much that Cordia doesn't like Eliza that bugs me, it's the fact that she's so obnoxious about it. I remember sometime in Season 1 or early Season 2, she went on a tirade about how terrible she was as an actress for a reason I can't even remember, then spent almost the entirety of Faith, Hope, and Trick complaining about her being there. That's where I stopped listening, but I'm giving it another chance alongside this rewatch. Maybe it'll be more palatable listening to two or three a week instead of four or five a day.
 
Well, it's Saturday here now, so time for Never Kill A Boy On The First Date.

I'd post my thoughts here, but I didn't take many notes and I'm a little tired to really string together all my thoughts, so they'll be... sometime. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not -- I really don't know.
 
It's not so much that Cordia doesn't like Eliza that bugs me, it's the fact that she's so obnoxious about it. I remember sometime in Season 1 or early Season 2, she went on a tirade about how terrible she was as an actress for a reason I can't even remember, then spent almost the entirety of Faith, Hope, and Trick complaining about her being there. That's where I stopped listening, but I'm giving it another chance alongside this rewatch. Maybe it'll be more palatable listening to two or three a week instead of four or five a day.

I just finished listening to that podcast and I have to slightly disagree when it comes to what you said about Cordi's opinion. I thought she was quite complimentary towards Faith this episode and that what she didn't like was that Faith was obnoxious towards Buffy which she found annoying. Also her opinion on how Eliza Dushku plays the same character in everything she does, seems to be a popular opinion. She didn't really talk that much about Faith in this episode. I hope you do find it more enjoyable as you re-listen 🙂
 
Wow, there's been zero discussion about this episode so far? Well, I guess that I'll try to get my thoughts in now...

You know, I thought that I liked this episode more than I do. I mean, it's pretty well regarded in general, but something about it... just didn't seem to really work for me this time around. Possibly because I know how ultimately pointless the Anointed One plotline is to the show as a whole.

Despite what I just said, the twist of who's really the Anointed One? Well executed.

Did Andrew Borba remind anyone else of Jayne?

Really, I'm having trouble finding anything to say. I guess that I just don't like this episode all that much, but don't dislike it enough to rant or go on tangents like I did with the previous episode. People who liked it, please make your case.
 
Never Kill a Boy on the First Date is probably one of my least favorite episodes of the show. I didn't like Owen at all. I felt he didn't have chemistry with Buffy very well. I was also never a fan of the Anointed storyline either, which gets its start in this episode. I like that it shows how Buffy is unable to do ordinary things like date an ordinary boy (because her slayer duties occupy most of her time, and it also risks the guy getting seriously hurt or killed), but I thought the episode as a whole could have been laid out better.
 
Back
Top Bottom