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Buffy Staked Again By Emmys
jonerik writes "Despite six witty, intelligent seasons, 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' has never been able to catch a break from the folks at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences who vote on the annual Emmy Awards, with the show's nine nominations to date (with no wins) being mostly in technical categories. And, according to this piece from E! Online, when the ballots for this year's Emmy nominations were sent out in early June, this season's musical tour de force, 'Once More With Feeling,' was inexplicably left out of list of shows eligible for the Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series catefory. The academy has attempted to correct its error by sending out postcards to Emmy voters informing them that they can, in fact, vote for the episode, but the fix is probably too little, too late. According to awards-show expert Tom O'Neil, 'It entailed such extraordinary effort that it was unlikely the voters would do it even if they loved the episode. So it definitely curses its chances.' If you missed it the first time around, 'Once More With Feeling' will be re-run tomorrow evening at 8pm eastern time on UPN."
The rerun of Once More With Feeling is defintely worth catching, but be warned that this is a cut down episode. The full length episode is 8 minutes longer than the standard "1 hour" slot, and it was announced at the time of the original showing that future airings would be of a much shorter version without the additional 8 minutes of footage.
I believe you'll have to wait for the Season 6 DVD to be published before you can see the full episode again.
Sailing over the event horizon
Uh oh, slashgoth just got slashdotted.
The undead are now dead.
No kidding. I can completely vision how the brainstorming for this show went down:
Network Exec: "Alright, we take Melrose Place, make the girls slightly uglier, the stunts better, and we put it on a network so unbelievably bad that Chia Pet documentaries garner 30% of it's total viewing audience, and bam, instant gold..well, at least silver, probably copper. Maybe we need something else."
Intern Worm: "Lesbians sir. Feminine, non-political agenda lesbians."
Network Exec: "It's slightly more of an imagination stretch than vampires, but sure, what the hell."
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Ok, I'm being slightly hyperbolic, but when you compare "Once More With Feeling" to other musicals in it's genre (comedy/horror) you have Little Shop of Horrors and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There must be others, but that's what I can think of. I love both of those, but OMWF just blew me away. The episode stands on its own (I know, since I wasn't a Buffy fan when I first saw it), and it only gets more engrosing as you become more familliar with the series (e.g. I just loved the "bunnies" bit from Anya, but it got even funnier when I saw the previous holloween episode).
:-)
If you're a fan of the series and have friends who have held out, I strongly suggest that you tie them to their chairs for this showing (even though it's cut-down), but then if you're a fan you probably knew that
It's too bad that this episode kicked off (with a couple of set-up episodes) the least appealing season so far. I'm looking forward to next season though. I just hope Firefly and Angel don't take too much out of the creative team....
What sort of doll are we talking about?
You can't grep a dead tree.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
"Dare I say, you're a moron? Buffy isn't even on WB! It moved to UPN last year."
Dude, you are seriously overreacting. I don't think knowing the difference between UPN and WB will suddenly result in an invitation to Mensa.
"Derp de derp."
I'll start with a technicality first. Buffy rarely kills vampires any more, it's all ghouls and zombies and the like.
/.ers hated when hollywood got the geek image wrong, yet you buy this stereotype? I don't expect a tv show to be as realistic as the sugar in coffee, but we've gotta draw a line somewhere.
You're saying this inherently makes it a bad show? It was established in the first episode that vampires weren't all that Buffy would be fighting. They don't even call her a Vampire Slayer anymore, it's down to just Slayer. That you are using this as the opening to your argument makes the rest of it really weak.
Second, the acting is absolutely terrible. I can't remember his name, but the tall guy with the shifty mouth that's friends with buffy needs serious acting lessons. He's from the Ben Affleck squint-squirm-mumble and act-threw-your-teeth school of acting. Then, you've got Sara Michelle Gellar, who just sticks out her chest instead of getting into character, and her magical friend Willow who says every line with the same delivery, no matter if it's comical or dramatic it's always the same. Third, the writing is not good. Now, this is a tender subject because of the huge creative control from the creator and his love of the show, but his ego is just getting in the way.
Xander, the first character you refer to, is one of the most real and honest characters on TV. He doesn't act like any other character on TV. Neither do any of my friends act like any characters on TV. Or my parents. Or my parents friends. Think about it next time you watch a television show. Do people really talk like that? Do they deliver snappy dialogue? Do they get serious all of a sudden and say something important with gusto? I highly doubt it.
As for Sarah Michelle Gellar.... well this past season hasn't been a good one for her, I'll admit. The entire show seemed very blah, except for a very few episodes. Sarah was attempting to play someone who had given up on life, and in my opinion she just didn't do it. The mood of the show conveyed it more than she did. But in previous seasons her acting was excellent. She is very capable of relying on her acting ability instead of her breasts, and it has shown through time and again.
As for Willow. I think that's the actress. Watch her in American Pie or anything else she's done. That's the way she delivers all her lines. She made a breakthrough in the season finale and did something different, and it was the best acting job I've ever seen her (the actress) do.
Third, the writing is not good. Now, this is a tender subject because of the huge creative control from the creator and his love of the show, but his ego is just getting in the way. The snappy one liners after a vampire skewing were campy at first, but every character vomiting at least 6-7 of those things every episode for half a decade? Give me a break.
That's part of a comedy show. Ever watch Simpsons, another favorite around Slashdot?
As for the writing itself...there are ups and downs. Most of the time the writing is average, but occasionally it is superb. How many e you watched? If it's just a few here and there, you're not doing the show justice. Buffy isn't written a show at a time, it's written a SEASON at a time, with the expectation being that you will watch them all, and mostly in order. This creates a completely different effect, and I could see where the writing would be called into question as such.
This isn't a fourth since it's still about creative control. The movie was better.
I don't even feel the need to reply to this.
Fourth, what's with the geek patrol villians? I thought
Most fans of the show believe that the geeks were the worst thing to happen to it. You have to look at it from Joss' perspective, though. The season before, Buffy defeated a god. Where do you go from there?
This season was all about growing up and fighting inner demons. The people who didn't get this probably understood during the final 4 episodes when one of the inner demons almost literally came out. The geeks were there to act as a catalyst for the final episodes, as well as add a bit of comic relief in an otherwise depressing season.
I really have to wonder how much of a chance these people have given Buffy. I used to think it was the dumbest show on TV, based solely on the premise and having seen one episode. When Buffy died, it made big news on a lot of sites and with several of my friends who were fans of the show. Then FX started rerunning it, and I gave it a shot. I came in around the second season and was hooked. The dialogue is witty (although sometimes predictable). I fell in love with the characters after about three episodes, and began to really care about what happens to them. That's the mark of good characterization. The plots are often contrived, but they're hilarious.
You really have to watch several consecutive episodes of Buffy to "get" it. The show is meant to be viewed as a whole, not as individual episodes. My bet is that most people who immediately discount it have seen fewer than three episodes, and probably didn't come to the show with an open mind.