Buffy

there are several of those videos from an Entertainment Weekly reunion special - they made Nicholas Brendon film separately because David Boreanaz won't have anything to do with him (understandably) IIRC.

very cold take: "the body" is an amazing episode of tv but the show just isn't as good without joyce (and giles, later on) even though she's kind of a nothingburger character most of the time

of course i am a parent now so i would say that

I agree; I think having two distinct generations was a big part of the show's balance, somehow.

Hence Firefly and Dollhouse never really getting off the ground

yep but also dollhouse got to have this effect anyway, first half of season one is trapped in a formula that the show at first resists then totally abandons

season two of dollhouse is still my favorite joss whedon show

I love season 2 of Dollhouse. Topher is probably my favorite Joss Whedon character ever.

xxxp
I thought in earshot Jonathan wanted to kill himself and it was the lunch lady who wanted to kill everyone else. I may be remembering incorrectly tho.

weird i do not really want to rewatch buffy or angel but i do wanna rewatch dollhouse

I rewatched it early in lockdown. Apart from those first few episodes that I knew would be duds, it holds up.

Oscar is right but even with the switch, “someone wanting to kill students + another person bringing a gun to school” most probably not great post columbine.

Otm on the lack of older characters changing, possibly even ruining the dynamic. But that is kinda also like life. Becoming an adult on your own is hard. Or it was for me anyway.

Wait... was Dollhouse good?

Dollhouse had some flaws and a terrible first 5-6 episodes, but overall, yes, I think it was good. And it had some really amazing actors; Eliza Dushku just wasn't one of them.

a lot of v rich character development after that initial slump. an early episode of season two was probably the most upsetting thing on television i'd ever seen at the time, rivaling "the body." the plotting was v twist-heavy but every reversal felt smart and made the world deeper iirc? if it holds up on rewatch i expect it'll still be one of my favorite shows ever

Was that "Belonging?"

Intriguing! Do I have to watch the crappy episodes?

Not really! They are very episodic. You'll miss a little bit of story developing w/ the FBI agent who gets obsessed with tracking her down, but you can prob watch the pilot just to get a sense of the premise and then skip to episode 6.

Was that "Belonging?"

― Lily Dale, Friday, January 15, 2021 2:54 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yep

Josh have you considered just letting your daughter watch the show and seeing how she gets on rather than trying to curate the experience? If she doesn’t like it, it’s nbd honestly.

Well, yeah. But I've seen it, I think she will enjoy it, I enjoy watching things with her, there is literally zero chance she will watch it on her own and I know she would enjoy watching it with me. So if it's between her never seeing it or finding a way to convince her to watch it with me, I'd rather the latter. I mean, "if she doesn’t like it, it’s nbd honestly" goes for pretty much everything, but she's mostly appreciated my recommendations in the past and there is decades of awesome stuff she will literally never see/watch/read etc. if I don't recommend it or even gently lobby for it.

...and that's okay

If any of you had smart kids that like cool stuff but would nonetheless be content watching 15 years of "Criminal Minds" if left to their own (literal) devices, you'd maybe understand.

*taps the Onion article*

wow i'm glad i'm rewatching dollhouse, even the bad episodes are good

i'm sure i will take that back when i get to the pop star episode

Josh’s posts about successes & failures in shared viewing w/ his kids, and his frequent reports of being pwned by them for his missing plot points, as though they’re ilx0rs, don’t give the impression of onionan indoctrination

Don’t think anyone was saying that, just having been a teenage girl myself, I think it’s better to let kids discover things themselves and opting in

Andrew Farrell at 4:19 15 Jan 21

*taps the Onion article

In my experience kids will end up watching whatever’s on in the living room, which is how I ended up watching eighty-six seasons of Taggart with my mum (no regrets!). Perhaps if you start bingeing Buffy by yourself, your daughter will eventually just end up watching it, in a criminal minds-style (i.e. comfort of familiarity). I didn’t start watching Buffy till season 4, and it’s pretty easy to jump on at any point in the first five seasons, plus “going back and discovering the earlier stuff” can be catnip for teenagers. Good luck! I don’t think there’s *literally anything* wrong with gently nudging kids towards things - without parental nudging I might never have gotten to Steely Dan, Motown, Cheers, The Marx brothers, Laloux cartoons, Tony Hancock, etc. etc. Of course my mum also tried to push me to watch Don’t Look Now, so, er, you can’t expect a 100% hit rate (I’m guessing she didn’t remember how saucy/terrifying it was — and also that it starts with a child’s death! WTF mum)

Just coming back here for a couple of things: firstly, Josh in Chicago has been trying this for almost two years?!

Josh in Chicago
Posted: 14 February 2019 at 12:47:22
One of the biggest mistakes I've ever made as a parent is forgetting to skip season one, forcing myself to convince the kids that yes, it does get a lot better, and quickly, too!

”I can have anything.... anyone. Even you Spike. I can ride you at a gallop till your legs buckle and your eyes roll up. I've got muscles you've never even dreamed of. I could squeeze you until you pop like warm champagne and you'd beg me to hurt you just a little bit more. And you know why I don't? Because it's wrong."

a correction: xander isn't the zeppo he's the xander (= the normie character the entire arc is happening to) (i don't think you need to like him, he's a bit of a dick who's stubborn abt learning?)

season 5-7: absolutely watch these (but don't jump straight in, take a good run-up = seasons 1-4)

then watch the whole lot through again

can't believe how rarely i posted on this thread, i guess the good buffy threads were started by me and had better threadtitles

Just coming back here for a couple of things: firstly, Josh in Chicago has been trying this for almost two years?!

Not actively! We work slow in this house. Probably two years ago we watched the first couple of episodes, then nothing for a year or so, then we watched one or two from season two, then nothing, then maybe a year ago we watched "Hush" from S4. There's been a lot of other stuff in between.

And yeah, by the standards of contemporary TV, it's definitely *closer* to a PG, though the adult themes (in every sense) definitely increasingly teeter on the brink of R. But there's no profanity, no nudity, and the violence is miles below something like the blood and horror of a Stranger Things or Walking Dead. What TV gets away with, even basic cable or some network stuff, has shifted much, much further toward the R-end of the spectrum.

Stranger Things and TWD are both shows for adults though? Whereas Buffy was definitely more targeted at teens to start with.

My eldest daughter has been begging to watch Buffy for the past couple of years since finding the box set on the bookcase - felt she was a bit too young and so far we've made do with occasional viewings of 'Once More With Feeling' which she loves. She started senior school last year - feel like this lockdown might be the time to finally embark on it all?

Last two seasons have lots of good stuff in them (as well as bad). Season seven is the “back to basics“ season, but the sixth is better - it’s all daring small stakes stories about stasis, dependency and failure - but the execution doesn’t match the ambition - sometimes it feels like a season-long bottle episode. And not enough Giles.

(Xpost to gyac)

Stranger Things and TWD are both shows for adults though?

I think they're both TV14 in the US, which is essentially PG-13. Regardless, my kids are teens, and we don't really put the kibosh on what they watch at this point, so it's all basically moot. Point being, by the standards of contemporary stuff, teen stuff or no, "Buffy" is pretty mild. It's just sometimes *intense*.

Watched all of Buffy during what we now call Lockdown I, or The Great Lockdown, and the one scene that struck me as causing problems for people watching with their children was the one where Spike is humping invisible Buffy.

(Which I guess was less embarrassing to film than the less thrusting sex scenes but still)

a correction: xander isn't the zeppo

No, but the widely-loved episode The Zeppo is about Xander

Speaking of Buffy

If Cancel Culture is really going to have Donald J. Trump removed from the John Hughes movie “Home Alone,” then in support of MY PRESIDENT, I’d like to have myself officially removed from the John Hughes’ films, “Pretty In Pink” and “Ferris Buhler’s Day Off.”😂

— Kristy Swanson (@KristySwansonXO) January 15, 2021

Found the whole series is streaming on all4, so might have to do a rewatch and occasionally update in here :)

yeah, they re-broadcast the whole thing around midnight on e4, sometimes two a night, during lockdown 1, took about 4 months. they are about to start again from the beginning on 4Music.

angel still goes out nightly, at 3am ish, and is on series 4. (and also on all4)

The adverts on All4 are so annoying and badly spliced in

They're all on Prime if you've got that

Charisma Carpenter:

My truth. #IStandWithRayFisher pic.twitter.com/eNjYcJ6zwP

— charisma carpenter (@AllCharisma) February 10, 2021

pic.twitter.com/Fw0SkHU87c

— charisma carpenter (@AllCharisma) February 10, 2021

<3 charisma carpenter forever and miss her on my tv. fucking joss.

This seems to be pretty well known & I’ve seen it discussed a number of times but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hate that prick

she's amazing and i fucking hate joss whedon

I’m rewatching season 3 right now and she’s so great.

I never knew the specifics but her departure from Angel was always extremely sus to me. brad otm fuck that asshole, I'm glad he finally started losing work recently (he created and then got booted from HBO's the nevers)

been watching angel season 2, and she's the best part. sucks that joss is such a creep