Which show do you like more?

[jom]

like? the rape?

 

[Mr Trick]

Do you think so? I saw it just a tad darker kinda Buffy in many respects, especially as Buffy touched on some pretty dark subjects itself in the later seasons.

I wouldn't say its maturer, just that it tells a different kind of story. Also as has been mentioned before I think Buffy blurs the lines between good and evil just as much.

 

[jom]

you got to give some examples here. I know evil willow did somethings, but you know, i dont consider that to be a big deal. It's like when wesley lost fred and he shot nox and stabbed gunn. Things like that are understandable

 

[Silverspike]

When have you seen a realistically shot sexual assault as in season six in AtS though?

 

[Mr Trick]

you got to give some examples here. I know evil willow did somethings, but you know, i dont consider that to be a big deal. It's like when wesley lost fred and he shot nox and stabbed gunn. Things like that are understandable

Important characters such as Joyce and Tara dying, and the impact that has people around them.
You have the attempted rape, as well as I guess other examples of that kind thing.
Child abuse in Nightmares.
Mental breakdowns/repressed memories.
Addiction such as Willow's to magic.
Buffy embracing her dark side, questioning her place in the world.
Faith killing a man and seeming not to care (although she clearly does) is pretty dark too.

 

[bespangeled]

The biggest difference for me is that Buffy deals with young adults - AtS deals with adults, has less hope and more cynicism. While both shows do have many of the same themes, I think Buffy has a younger feel. And where there is Buffy there is hope - Angel, not so bright a beacon.

 

[Mr Trick]

Angel is the darker show no question there. I just think it gets underesimated at times just how dark Buffy can be. And because it mixes the light and dark more than Angel in some ways that makes it more intense when the dark stuff does happen. Buffy is a bit more radical when it comes to experiementing with narrative form I would say.

 

[jom]

Important characters such as Joyce and Tara dying, and the impact that has people around them.
You have the attempted rape, as well as I guess other examples of that kind thing.
Child abuse in Nightmares.
Mental breakdowns/repressed memories.
Addiction such as Willow's to magic.
Buffy embracing her dark side, questioning her place in the world.
Faith killing a man and seeming not to care (although she clearly does) is pretty dark too.

tara and joyce not core characters.

you are putting me on the spot here hehehe

Well those things are bad things and bad things happened in buffy even early on, like angel killing jenny, but the massage of the show has always been that those things are evil and must be overcome with the force of good.

In Angel sometimes you dont know what's evil or good and what overcomes the problem is not necesarily evil or good

 

[Mr Trick]

tara and joyce not core characters.

you are putting me on the spot here hehehe

Well those things are bad things and bad things happened in buffy even early on, like angel killing jenny, but the massage of the show has always been that those things are evil and must be overcome with the force of good

Well Joyce is very important to Buffy, and the way she dies out of the blue is shocking. And at the point of her death Tara had pretty much become a fully fledge Scoobie and her and Willow were very much in love. I would argue that Tara was a core character or at least the show had convinced you of that before the untimely death.

 

[jom]

Well Joyce is very important to Buffy, and the way she dies out of the blue is shocking. And at the point of her death Tara had pretty much become a fully fledge Scoobie and her and Willow were very much in love. I would argue that Tara was a core character or at least the show had convinced you of that before the untimely death.

Tara was in the show like 2 seasons, i consider her less than doyle in angel. i dont consider doyle a core charecter. Angel, cordelia, wesley, fred and gunn. Lorne? maybe

 

[Mr Trick]

Tara was in the show like 2 seasons, i consider her less than doyle in angel. i dont consider doyle a core charecter. Angel, cordelia, wesley, fred and gunn. Lorne? maybe

Why less than Doyle who was in the show for like what 8 episodes? I don't think you can measure a characters importance on their number of episodes, but comparing Doyle to Tara in that respect just doesn't work for me.

Thing is that for the first couple of seasons of Buffy it was clear who the core characters were, but as things progressed others did cross over and it became less clear. Not a bad thing IMO.

 

[jom]

Why less than Doyle who was in the show for like what 8 episodes? I don't think you can measure a characters importance on their number of episodes, but comparing Doyle to Tara in that respect just doesn't work for me.

Thing is that for the first couple of seasons of Buffy it was clear who the core characters were, but as things progressed others did cross over and it became less clear. Not a bad thing IMO.

Doyle was part of angel's mission, tara was not needed for buffy's missions 
i like it when the forums are lively

 

[Mr Trick]

Doyle was part of angel's mission, tara was not needed for buffy's missions

I won't even dispute that Doyle was important to the narrative even if only for a short time. What I am saying is that Tara had much longer run on her show, and certainly from S5 onwards was an important character to the central story. Don't forget they dedicate an episode to her in the family show, one of the early sub-plots of 5 is the other Scoobies struggling to relate to Tara outside of her relationship with Willow, and when Glory targets Tara that becomes a big deal also.

Also, don't get the idea that if a character is not important to Buffy or Angel then they are not important. They maybe the lead characters of the shows, but there is much more to the shows than just their stories.

 

[jom]

I won't even dispute that Doyle was important to the narrative even if only for a short time. What I am saying is that Tara had much longer run on her show, and certainly from S5 onwards was an important character to the central story. Don't forget they dedicate an episode to her in the family show, one of the early sub-plots of 5 is the other Scoobies struggling to relate to Tara outside of her relationship with Willow, and when Glory targets Tara that becomes a big deal also.

Also, don't get the idea that if a character is not important to Buffy or Angel then they are not important. They maybe the lead characters of the shows, but there is much more to the shows than just their stories.

i get that, but we were talking about core group, meaning the untouchable ones, the ones that were there almost from the beggining or at least the ones that most of the core story gravitates to. In buffy is: Buffy, Giles, xander and Willow

 

[Skanky Vamp]

What I am saying is that Tara had much longer run on her show, and certainly from S5 onwards was an important character to the central story. Don't forget they dedicate an episode to her in the family show, one of the early sub-plots of 5 is the other Scoobies struggling to relate to Tara outside of her relationship with Willow, and when Glory targets Tara that becomes a big deal also.

I never really got Tara as being 'important' to the story either. Yes, she hung around, but so did alot of other people. Sure they had a whole episode about her family, but you have 22 episodes you have to have filler, and that's what it was, filler- didn't amount to anything. Glory targeting Tara had no impact on me, I did not consider it a big deal at all. I honestly didnt care about Tara at all. To me it always felt like she was there for one reason: to give Willow something to do and make Willow's character more three-dimensional. The only time I really was interested in Tara as a character was season 4.

 

[Mr Trick]

i get that, but we were talking about core group, meaning the untouchable ones, the ones that were there almost from the beggining or at least most of the core story gravitates to. In buffy is: Buffy, Giles, xander and Willow

I think its fair to say that Tara was somewhere in the middle. And I agree that the core scoobies will always be the four you mention, but that doesn't mean that other characters can't be crucial to the direction of the show.

I never really got Tara as being 'important' to the story either. Yes, she hung around, but so did alot of other people. Sure they had a whole episode about her family, but you have 22 episodes you have to have filler, and that's what it was, filler- didn't amount to anything. Glory targeting Tara had no impact on me, I did not consider it a big deal at all. I honestly didnt care about Tara at all. To me it always felt like she was there for one reason: to give Willow something to do and make Willow's character more three-dimensional. The only time I really was interested in Tara as a character was season 4.

But you seem to be baseing Tara's core importance on the fact that you didn't rate her as a character. Thats a bit like me saying that Riley isn't important because I never liked his character. Of course compared to the Scoobies and even someone like Spike, he was not that important, but for the time he was on a show he was a pretty central character. Also, you can't really dismiss that Tara episode as filler. I don't think they would give just any character their own episode. Thats a bit like saying that Cirgrette Smoking man is not important in The X-Files despite that one episode in season four.

Anyway, me thinks this deserves a thread all of its own.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

But you seem to be baseing Tara's core importance on the fact that you didn't rate her as a character.

Of course I am.. just like the thread says which show do you like better. It's all personal preference. I didnt see where Tara brought anything (that another random character) could not bring therefor to me, she is not important. Simple as that.

And I can dismiss the Tara episode as filler, as it WAS filler. To me. Seen it once when it aired, never re-watched it. Everyone has their own preference. I thought Buffy would do better with a short 10-12 episode season. You think the full 22 makes a better show. It's all about opinions. Neither is 'right' yet both are right for those who has the opinion.

 

[Mr Trick]

Of course I am.. just like the thread says which show do you like better. It's all personal preference. I didnt see where Tara brought anything (that another random character) could not bring therefor to me, she is not important. Simple as that.

And I can dismiss the Tara episode as filler, as it WAS filler. To me. Seen it once when it aired, never re-watched it. Everyone has their own preference. I thought Buffy would do better with a short 10-12 episode season. You think the full 22 makes a better show. It's all about opinions. Neither is 'right' yet both are right for those who has the opinion.

Fair enough of the first point.

But I don't think seeing that episode as filler or not has anything to do with personally preference. Personal preference is more to do with liking or disliking an episode or maybe having a certain understanding of it. But to me fan or not of Tara I don't know how that can be considered a filler episode. Don't forget that Buffy is one of those shows that rarely does filler, because often the stand alone episodes are more important to character deveolpment than the ones which are part of an arc.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Don't forget that Buffy is one of those shows that rarely does filler, because often the stand alone episodes are more important to character deveolpment than the ones which are part of an arc.

And yet other shows can show character development within the standard narrative and dont need standalone, filler episodes to do it. To me, episodes like the family one (and there are alot) are nothing more than filler episodes.

 

[Mr Trick]

And yet other shows can show character development within the standard narrative and dont need standalone, filler episodes to do it. To me, episodes like the family one (and there are alot) are nothing more than filler episodes.

Its not that they need to have stand alones to show character delelopment and it is just the way it works. To me it makes sense, yes you still get touches of it within the arc shows, but the focus in those episodes has to be on moving the plot forward, whereas the stand alone episodes are a good chance to explore characters further which then adds to their importance within the overall narrative of the show. For me this saves many of those episodes from just being filler.