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Buffy moves to Sunnydale, meets her supporting cast (Xander, Willow, Cordelia, Angel, and Giles) and learns about the Hellmouth and the Master.
Man, I was shocked at how dated these first two episodes felt. The last time I saw them, they felt fresh and trendy, while now they feel like a time capsule of my teen years. It's weird...Buffy is a huge part of geek pop culture, even now, with many a nerd quoting Whedon's witty dialog or saying something like "don't go all Willow on me." Eh, they probably don't say that, but they do in my head.
Anyway, as of this writing, the pilot episode two parter is 11 and a half years old. It's really scary how time flies.
One thing that I noticed as the episodes went on was that in these two opening chapters, the actors CLEARLY do not have the ear for the Joss Whedon snarky dialog. Whedon's chatter doesn't exactly flow off the tongue unless you know how to say it, and they didn't get it here. Also, David Boreanez is terrible! He's wooden and amateurish. No worries, though, in a few years, he'd be strong enough to headline his own show.
What I hadn't realized from my previous viewings was how far back many of the characters that I'd grown to love were in this first two parter:
Darla is here, played by Julie Benz, but she's a throwaway at this point. Later....later she will shine and be a lynch pin of the Buffyverse, but here she's really a minor supporting character.
Harmony, played by Mercedes Mcnab, appears in one of these two episodes as well. Again, she's going to be a major player down the road.
It's really interesting to me to see just how many elements of the show are here, but they aren't to the level that they will become. The pieces of the puzzle are almost all here, but it's just not assembled yet.
The big standout to me is the ever watchable Anthony Head as Giles, one of my all time favorite characters. He's completely engaging and you just know somewhere deep inside his British bumbling is a warrior.
It's good to go back and revisit this show. It's been a long time, and it's brought back a lot of memories about a lot of things. Fashion, music, and trends.
I'm trying not to be impatient to get to the great stuff that I know will come, and it's really hard. I need to just enjoy the foundation being laid here so I can take the trip all over again.
I give this 2 parter 5/10
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2 comments:
awesome you are doing this heath! one of my fave shows of all time. i should do a rewatch too. i bet it would be interesting to see when certain characters show up, how they affect things later, etc.
Yeah, buddy, I've loved the show for so long, but it's easy to forget where certain seeds were planted. It's been really great.
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