Geoff's Comments about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5
Last updated: 5 February 2004
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Buffy and Angel comments -> Buffy, season
5
5.1 Buffy versus Dracula (7)
Classic vampire lore meets modern-day postmodern deconstruction
thereof. The two sit amusingly, if uneasily, together to make a
lightweight and undemanding beginning - Dracula is arguably defeated a
bit too easily - with plenty of pointers forwards. Best line: "Poncey
bastard still owes me eleven pounds".
5.2 The Real Me (7)
New little sister Dawn, played excellently by Michelle Trachtenberg,
is all over this, slotted into the cast so cleverly that you'd think
she'd been there all along. A side effect is that with eight regulars
and several guests - including Harmony's amusingly incompetent gang -
it gets a little crowded; but again there are plenty of pointers to
the remainder of the season: the crazy man telling Dawn "you don't
belong here" works on several levels, for instance.
[Trivia time: Tom Lenk, who emerges next season as Andrew, is one of
Harmony's minions; the second time that the same actor plays two
unrelated characters.]
5.3 The Replacement (7)
There's a sense in which this season is slowly getting up to speed in
the first few episodes. This, the first Xander episode since 3.13
The Zeppo, is a variation on 3.16 Doppelgängland which sees
Xander finally getting his life together. Nick Brendon acquits himself
well, with help from his twin brother Kelly - it's an interesting task
trying to work out which one is which - and the concept is clever, but
it doesn't sparkle as much as it could.
5.4 Out of my Mind (8)
An episode which has had a lot of bad press, largely due to the way
Riley behaves. Nonetheless, it's a superior version of 4.14 Goodbye
Iowa which allows Marc Blucas to show off his basketball skills
and takes the time to lay down some important plot threads. Harmony
and Spike are on good form and the final scene is something of a
surprise.
5.5 No Place Like Home (8)
The season is by now up to full speed and we finally find out what's
up with Dawn in the first of Three Big Character Revelation
Episodes. After a bit of treading water, plenty of misdirection and
the very fine scene in which Buffy wanders around the house in a
trance work to make something which by the end is pretty damn
effective; and note the clever use of Dawn's real purpose as a
metaphor for looking after one's younger siblings. And we see the
first of the unhinged Glory, who makes a memorable entrance, if not
such a memorable departure.
5.6 Family (8)
The only Tara-centric episode, for which Amber Benson is suitably
pretty. The revelation that Tara isn't a demon after all is a
bit convenient, and the ending shows that Joss can sometimes overdo
the sentimentality; but this is an effective and, in the showdown
between Tara's family and the Scooby Gang, quite moving hymn to the
value of friendships over traditional and suffocating family ties.
5.7 Fool for Love (9)
The build-up at the start of the season culminates in a classic
Buffy episode, spoiled only by relegating half the regular cast
to a superfluous vampire hunt. James Marsters delivers a tremendous
barnstorming performance as the action takes in excursions to London,
Yorkshire, China, South America and New York while covering a
similarly broad sweep of emotions. It's variously barking mad (the
London sequence), touching (Spike's infatuation with Buffy), highly
amusing (the real explanation of Spike's "bloody" epithet) and
grippingly exciting (in particular the New York Subway bits), and - as
is often the case with the best of Buffy - frequently several
of these at once. Special mention goes to the scene in China with
Spike, Dru, Angel and Darla walking towards the camera.
5.8 Shadow (6)
This is where the season starts to go wrong, with a sudden change in
tone which is particularly jarring after the first seven
episodes. While this episode pushes the story-arcs onwards, the manner
of its execution lurches too far towards
TV-movie-meets-daytime-soap-opera: with too much sitting around in the
hospital, it takes half an hour to actually get anywhere, and
while nobody could accuse Glory of not lightening things up, Buffy's
fight with the the not-very-convincing snake at the end is hardly a
satisfying climax.
5.9 Listening to Fear (6)
Again, the unwelcome descent into depressing melodrama spoils an
otherwise reasonable monster-of-the-week storyline in which Kristine
Sutherland delivers a fine performance. Buffy can do downbeat
as well as anyone else, but this is not the way to do it; the result,
as with 3.12 Helpless, is a passably frightening mini-horror
film with precious little to get excited about. The most memorable
image is the ensemble group shot at the end.
5.10 Into the Woods (6)
The end of this alarmingly shark-jumping trio is an
otherwise archetypal Big Relationship Episode By Marti Noxon in which
Riley, arguably the least essential of the regulars, finally gets out
of Sunnydale. The last few minutes are undeniably moving, but the
story is stretched out for far too long and isn't helped by the gloom
which hangs over the entire episode.
5.11 Triangle (7)
With Riley gone, there's more room in the credits for the other
regulars to breathe. Yet more unnecessary gloom at the beginning
aside, this sees the welcome return of Buffy's sense of humour
with a rather silly story about Anya's troll ex-boyfriend, who seems a
bit like an excuse for much wanton destruction ("puny receptacle",
indeed). It's a bit inconsequential, and there could have been more
than one episode's worth of setup for of the antipathy between Anya
and Willow, but it shows that Buffy hasn't completely forgotten
what it is.
5.12 Checkpoint (8)
A much more serious episode which follows on from 3.12
Helpless. It's well and solidly written - the Watchers' Council
manage to be both stupid and menacing - and, all told, it's one of the
best episodes of the season. And, in a story all about power plays,
it's particularly satisfying that it ends with Buffy's
excellently-executed assertion of her own power.
[Trivia time: note that the Watcher's Guide Volume 2 is
contradicted about Anya's surname: Emerson or Jenkins? Here's one among
many sites which notices this. I suspect that the Guide, as
with Larry Blaisdale, just made it up and got caught out when the
writers, unaware, had their own ideas.]
5.13 Blood Ties (8)
A fine study of adolescent pain and anguish from new writer Steven
S. DeKnight. The metaphor is interesting - what could be worse than
finding out that you don't actually exist - and Michelle Trachtenberg
puts in a superb performance to match. Unfortunately it runs out of
steam towards the end, but this is better fare this season than we've
had for a while.
5.14 Crush (7)
The second Spike episode of the season, which casts a judgemental eye
over his convoluted love-life. Unfortunately it feels laboured, isn't
as funny as it thinks it is, and only really works when Harmony or
Drusilla, in more or less their last Buffy roles of substance,
are on-screen. A wasted opportunity by David Fury.
5.15 I Was Made to Love You (7)
A good example of a Buffy-as-metaphor plot, in which the story
of the custom-built robot girlfriend (rumoured to have been originally
given to Britney Spears!) acts both as a perceptive examination of
male obsession and a foil for Buffy's own romantic problems. Not one
of Jane Espenson's best, however, but it suffers from drift less than
5.14 Crush, and there's a lot of poigancy in Buffy's
conversation with the dying robot. And the final heartstopping scene
is on a different level altogether.
5.16 The Body (7)
That ending is, of course, the introduction to one of Buffy's
most talked-about episodes, which with its subversion of TV dramatic
conventions represents Joss's biggest gamble to date. And yet, for all
that it handles the entirely natural death of a much-loved character
with undeniable and admirable sensitivity, it's also ultimately his
biggest disappointment since 3.10 Amends. Formally, there are
plenty of devices to admire, of which the most salient are the absence
of background music, the entirely indoor nature of the action, and -
aside from the meaningless vampire attack at the end - the total
absence of the supernatural. It's sadly ironic, then, that one of
these very same breaks with convention ultimately lets the episode
down.
The first act, which voyeuristically shows Buffy's initial reactions
to finding her mother dead, is the most effective; there's an urgency
and anguish about this section which, underlined by the brutal cuts
from scenes of domestic happiness and contrasted with the balmy
sunshine and gentle tinkling of the wind-chimes, promises so
much. Thereafter it slides downhill: Dawn's reaction, seen through the
classroom window, would work better if the rest of the scene was
something other than pure padding; and the decision to play everything
in real-time slows the remainder of the episode down to the point of
paralysis, depriving the good bits - like Anya's moving little speech
and the snide "we have to lie to make you feel better" - of the chance
to make a proper impact.
The Body is ultimately, like the other episodes in the
Joyce-is-dying story-arc, hampered by veering too far to reality for a
show which works best when reality and fantasy feed off and complement
each other. Compare, for example, the aftermath of Jenny Calendar's
murder in 2.17 Passion, which was much more devastating for
being put in some context. Still, better people than I have admitted
to being reduced to tears by this episode, and only Roslyn and Loey
Lockerby seem to agree with me, so I suppose I can't complain.
5.17 Forever (5)
Featuring a perfunctory fight with one of Buffy's least
convincing demons (to be fair, this was Someone Else's fault) and a
feeble cop-out at the end, this is the depressing end to a misguided
story-arc. Heavy with the lethargic hangover from 5.16 The
Body, it's far from Marti Noxon's finest hour and would better
have been combined with it in a single episode rather than being spun
out over two.
5.18 Intervention (8)
At last, the season returns to what the show is supposed to be
about. A tightly-written combination of Slayer lore and typical
Espenson humour which cleverly combines two plot threads, it gives SMG
her own version of 3.16 Doppelgängland, which she executes very
well. And the humour, while not quite a riot, is gratefully received.
5.19 Tough Love (8)
Things start to come together for the end of the season here. At times
in the first half-hour it seems to be heading too far towards
soap-opera, and while the rest isn't brilliant it carries the story
forward well. It wins points for its sensitive handling of Tara's
state, and redeems its soapier aspects with the ending.
5.20 Spiral (7)
A strange, exposition-heavy piece which is unbalanced by putting the
main action - the chase scene and mounted attack - in the middle
rather than at the end. The main action itself is unnecessarily
protracted - is it really necessary to show the death of every
one of the horsemen? - and the episode is a bumpy ride throughout, but
it gathers itself together at the end.
5.21 The Weight of the World (7)
Clearly saving energy for the big finale, this spends a lot of time
not getting very far. While the journey into Buffy's mind is important
from a plot point of view, at times it seems to be the excuse for some
gratuitous weirdness. Still, it manages to be watchable, especially
when Glory is on screen.
5.22 The Gift (9)
You can always count on Joss to deliver the goods: as with the
preceding season, this is a better finale than a cynical observer
might opine is deserved. Everything is there, from characteristic
Whedonesque comic asides to the little emotional touches which make
Buffy's best moments so memorable; and the story builds up to a
dramatic - and very gracefully-executed - climax, which is as moving
and affecting as anything since 2.22 Becoming. The epitaph,
too, is entirely in keeping with the show's spirit.
[Trivia time: despite popular belief, the "previously..." section
doesn't actually include clips from all the 99 preceding episodes in
order. Clips from at least eight episodes are missing, the first being
1.8 I Robot, You Jane; and the clips from 3.7
Revelations and 4.8 Pangs are out of sequence.]
The DVDs
A mixed bag of extras; among the less essential are "Introducing Dawn"
and another of those rather pointless season overviews. Most
disappointing is the brief set of outtakes, all of which come from a
few episodes in season 3. Aside from that, the featurettes about
stunts and "Buffy Abroad" are quite entertaining, and Danny "Jonathon"
Strong clearly enjoyed his little "Demonology" item.
As for the commentaries, they're pretty much as you'd expect. Davids
Fury and Grossman, despite some interesting factoids, don't do much
with 5.2 The Real Me; Doug Petrie does his usual enjoyably
affable job on 5.7 Fool for Love; and Jane Espenson's chat over
5.15 I Was Made to Love You is quite satisfactory. Joss's
commentary for 5.16 The Body, finally, is rather odd; while he
manages the right balance between respect for the episode's
subject-matter and flippancy, at times he seems to have run out of
things to say.