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fretspyder
Reviews
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Beneath You (2002)
James Marsters (Spike) earns 8 of these.....
Xander gets .5 in comedic timing...above the usual Xander.
Buffy gets .5 for standing there, and reacting, in true and perfect Buffy fashion. See below.
But, James Marsters (and I truly "loathe" to use the term) "destroys" the Buffyverse with this one.
30 minutes of filler, 4 minutes that will mean more....in the last 8 minutes.
Monster of the week is tied to Anya. Spike wants to help. Xander is there (+.5 ensues), but Anya "sees" Spike (4 minutes or so...), then MotW bites it. Which "sparks" the 8 minutes of "loss-of-jaw-muscles".
I"m a Fred fan from Angel, and a Willow acolyte above THAT...and I'm questioning who has the best performance in a given episode, to spite my preferences. I really think Spike wins "best performance" here, in this episode.
The insanity was sane...when "she" spoke. All Buffy could do was recognize the horror in front of her. No blame. Just results. And every time she spoke, he was perfectly lucid....and then, immediately, MORE insane. She stopped talking until she couldn't help it. And that's when the reality of what she did (to herself, in s6) matched the horror of what he did ("tried to do")...to her.
Angel was the most brooding of characters...and he never did THIS to SHOW it....The torment Spike feels is on full display. There's really no way what he tried to do could be understood...unless you were a literal demon(ish) who sought a soul to atone for it. And THAT isn't even enough in the end. Or is it?
That's not for me to decide. And I don't shy away from judgment.
After the Dark (2013)
Absolute drivel
Made worse by the fact it had potential. It ended up being nothing more than the same postmodern rejection of reason that permeates "entertainment" today... ignoring the fact our basic means of survival is the mind. Every philosophical turn is used to undermine logic, including making the "teacher" into nothing more than a bewitched servant to feminine bullshit. It's not deep. It's a denial of our nature in an attempt to sound important so people won't see how pathetic the mind that created this is.