Slashdot Mirror
Faith Returns to Buffy
duffbeer writes "According to an
article at Yahoo!, Eliza Dushku will be in the upcoming Buffy season
7! Five episodes are scheduled, along with three over on Angel. Now starting the oft-mentioned space-cowboy-thriller Firefly on Fox, I wonder if Joss have enough juice left
over to invent plots for Faith
as entertaining as those in the past?" Since the Slayer line has to continue through Faith, and since Gellar wants to leave the show after season 7, there is much interesting plot potential with Faith's return.
Look, we *have* to keep watching inane, mindless televison, or else the terrorists have already won!
Please.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
This is also News for Nerds, and Buffy has quite a following in that demographic. Besides, if you don't want news about tv-shows, disable the damn category in your preferences. It's not like it's hard or anything.
always refreshing when taco posts about buffy. good to know I'm not alone in my fanaticism.
-
Is she single?
Yes, and I hear she's attracted to fat, ugly, pear-shaped, acne-faced, loser nerds who've never been on a date, so go for it.
Jeeze! I had forgotten all about this movie.
They have to do something. Since the move to UPN, something has been different. Buffy has gone the way of most sitcoms in that unless you have seen 3 of the 5 most recent episodes, the storyline is lost. Buffy used have stand alone episodes - each was fun, "light", and had both a beginning and an end. Lately, ever since Glorificus, it has been impossible to watch episodes out of order. The Buffy character seems to have been written into a corner, and even the introduction of the 3 arch nemisises (this is the slashdot tie-in) and their subsequent disposal has not been able break the cyclic decline into soap operadom. Maybe, if Faith kills everyone and becomes the dark slayer, we can return to the stand alone episodes of the early days and leave behind political statments and ratings whoring of the lesbian duo. I just wish they would do another musical episode. Once More, With Feeling is my favorite by far. My $.02 - and remember, an opinion is never worth more than you paid for it.
Anything you say will be held against you.
Find a show on TV today showing a better role model for the 'nerds' of the generation, even without getting into the whole gay/bisexual nerds can be important also subplot.
Take the quiet kid at school, bit of an outsider, not liked by anyone except an old male friend. In her spare time, she browses the town's computers systems, and has 'Accidentally' broken into pretty much every computer in the town [1]
Then a superhero turns up, saves her life and gives her some direction and a new sense of priorities. She begins spreading further and wider, meets up with another nerd crossing old tech and new tech, picks up on that and forges a valuable weapon in the defense of the world (althout she did accidentally releases a self-multiplying daemon onto the internet, a bit like Robert Morris, Jr did [2]). She even ends up teaching some classes in Highschool to people her own age[3].
She gets offered a job at the worlds largest software manufacturer [4], and pretty much every university in the world [5] but turns it down to fight evil instead. When the highschool is threatened, the athletic and the popular kids turn to her as one of the few people who can help [6].
Arriving in College, still the outsider, she still wanders around before finally discovering that there are other people like her, and when they get together there is practically nothing they cannot do [7] including giving her the power to attack a God [8], take over as the leader of the team that defends Earth from Hell for six months [9], and when her lover is killed she decides to destroy the entire world to save everyone from the pain of living[10]
If that's not a path to base your entire life on, I don't know what is. Also, she's the only person to ever have a iMac laptop upgraded with the telepathic optional kit, making it actually useful.
Personally, I hope that SMG does quit so they can have the Scooby Gang series : Willow, Xander, Giles and Dawn. Other people won't agree with me, but there's more stories to work with if they have to remake the Slayer out of her clone with Faith's Assistance, then by continuing with Buffy
(In case you were keeping count:
[1] Welcome to the Hellmouth
[2] I Robot, You Jane
[3] Passion
[4] What's My Line
[5] Choices
[6] Graduation Day
[7] Hush
[8] Tough Love
[9] Barganing
[10] Grave)
When I originally heard about buffy, I decided to pass on it. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, I considered it 'bubble-gum'. I figured that, as a TV series, it would be pretty vacuous. When I finally got around to watching it, I found that it was hilarious. It is now one of only two TV series that I watch regularly (the other being Enterprise*).
In any case, I wrote up a defence of Buffy some time ago (which was printed in a local SF mag).
I also have Slashdot Journal entry about how Buffy's biggest problem in running for Emmys is that they're going for the drama prizes when they should competing in the comedy category.
*(for those of you just waiting for me to comit blasphemy, I've come to like the theme to Enterprise, and have gone to the trouble of transcribing and memorizing it... If you pay attention, it's basically a musical version of the 'where no-one has gone before' monologue.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
That new FireFly show, judging by the preview at least, is a complete rip-off of Outlaw Star. Theplot looks exactly the same.
-- Eric
Season 6 was terrible.... the acting looked terrible, the character interraction was terrible (blaaa lbaaa blaa blaa blaaa, 1 fight scene or 2, blaaa blaaa blaaa blaa blaa)
I mean, it's okay to have character interaction, but over 50% of talking and silence and so on in a show that you were looking at because it had a "season" storyline and lots of action and intrigues to which you didn't want to miss anything. In that season 5 rocked, and when buffy died, she should have stayed dead, after that the show just plain sucked (exept maybe the last episode of season 6).
Look at Angel, season 3 just rocked, they kept the same mood, storyline, action, darkness, heck this is supposed to be the "buffy for girls" show and I am way more on that one than on Buffy.
I always thought a good show ends up at it's peak with a good end of story, and if you want to cash in extra, you create a spinnoff that will rock as much (angel rocks). Waiting till a show suck just enough that it loses all popularity in order to cancel it shouldn't be the way to do things. And there would be trememdous value after to buy the whole episodes on DVD season by season (and ALL of them would actually sell) and be of great entertainment. Of course, we're talking about the TV industry..... so... if they'd be any stronger and have it their way, they'd film a rock for 30 minutes and charge us for it.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
If it's any consolation to you, I don't want to hear anything to do with Star Trek, but I look forward to the rare occasions when Buffy news shows up. We balance out. :)
This is the best-written show on TV. I will watch until they stop making them, and I hope that's not anytime soon.
Pretty much have to be. Playing a Vampire Slayer is pretty physical. By the time you work your body into a shape that can handle the stunts, you're pretty much guaranteed to be in nice shape.
(personally, I always thought that Tara (Amber Benson) was the babe of the Buffy series).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Like I give a fuck that AnandTech reviewed ATI's Mobility Radeon 9000? Quit whining; just keep scrolling when you see an article that you don't care about.
And if you actually tried watching it, you might like it. I used to think it was lame, back before I ever saw an episode.
IT'S SOOOOOOOO 3DGY AND ORIGINAL TO DO THE FIVE THOUSANDTH MUSICAL PARODY EPISODE!
Yeah... uh, about that. The musical episode-- wait for it-- wasn't a parody. It was a full-blown CinemaScope musical with an overture, themes, book numbers, and a big ensemble piece at the end. It had character development, and a plot, and it advanced the story of the season in an important way, forcing the characters to deal with a lot of stuff that had previously been only internalized. Of course, musicals-- as you'd know if you'd ever even seen one-- are all about externalizing the internal, so it actually made a ton of sense.
If the musical episode had been a parody, or too self-aware for its own good, then you'd have been right. But that wasn't it at all. They didn't say, "We're going to do a clever parody of musicals." They said, "By God, we're going to do a musical." And they did. Like it or dislike it, you've gotta respect the accomplishment.
Just don't make the mistake of thinking it was a parody.
Does she get naked! not likely.
... thanks Sam Raimi ;)
checkout CNDB.com the Celebrity Nudity Database (the whole concept of which makes me laugh).
It was really weird when i realised that it was Eliza Dushku who played the daughter in True Lies.
"Bring it on"
a light hearted amusing movie about cheerleading
also features Kirsten Dunst and the one who played Glory in Buffy.
Im just another Teenage fanboy!
Mmm Kirsten Dunst in "get over it" pointless and gratuitous scene just so that we get to see her at the pool in a bikini.
Mmm Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman, unecessary rain and a tight dress
My lord, some of us don't want to know anything about the upcoming season. It's getting to where you can't read Slashdot anymore....
like you i was late coming to watch buffy. the movie was good, but a tv series would be lame, right? wrong. however plot lines are longer then a season. the willow being overwhelmed by magic was developed since around season one or two. willow becoming a vengance daemon showed up first mid-season 4 - so it was over two years in the making for the end of season 6.
:)
that's the frustrating thing about joss. we probably have a ton of clues as to what will happen in season 7. for instance the thread about giles leaving also first showed up in season 4 - note the song he plays in a late season 4 episode.
buffy's like a long mystery novel that no matter how much i'd like to, i can't flip to the end.
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I ignored Buffy for years because I thought it would be like Beverly Hills 90210 or something. For some reason (I don't even remember why) I started watching the reruns that came on at 7:00 & 8:00 AM on FX. This is (maybe was) one seriously good SciFi show. The whole evil mayor season and the Glory season (I think they were seasons 3 & 4) were interesting, smart, funny, and scary.
The best and most creepy episode is "Hush", where these grinning, silent, evil beings float through town at night and steal everyone's voices and then select a few people each night to cut out their hearts while they CAN'T EVEN SCREAM. About 2/3 of the episode had no dialogue at all, the characters had to communicate in other ways. It was seriously freaky.
I know the past season wasn't as good, but there were still a few stand-out episodes, like the one where Buffy is dreaming (or really IS) in a mental institution and they're telling her that all the slayer stuff is in her mind. And the musical was much better than I thought it would be, it was actually very interesting.
Don't knock it until you try seasons 1 through 4.
First of all, if you don't like TV and don't watch TV, good for you. I do watch TV, and I'm not ashamed of it.
Secondly, the terrorist did win. They made things go boom, people were terrorised. Get over it, they won, and no matter how much more civilians you kill than they, they still won, its not a football game where the score counts.
And since you qualify Buffy as "inane, mindless televison", its clear that your not watching it leads to you not being informed enough to have an opinion that counts. Seriously, its not inane, its smart, and you are a troll...why the hell am I taking the bait from a troll?
Damn hangover...
You can't take the sky from me...
The death-trigger only works once. Buffy has already died at the end of the 1st season (thereby summoning Kendra), so nothing happened when she died again.
It's like how a Java object gets garbage collected; you can resurrect it in its finalize() method, but when it's garbage collected again later finalize() won't be called a second time.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
You're absolutely right. But there are also a huge number of Buffy converts... people who hated it solely based on the premise, but ended up loving the show after watching it awhile. I think the original poster was just talking about those people.
Has it ever occurred to Slashdot that perhaps we DON'T like our TV shows' plots announced before they're on! Does CmdrTaco have to join the ranks of ChrisD on my blocked poster list? Bah! Leave me and my sci-fi shows alone! Alone, I say!
I have a really hard time watching TV because of the quality of the content. Unlike most movies (which often have millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man-hours put into them), TV series are made of much less effort, talent, and budget.
People should spend that time reading a book or working on their doctorate or something, instead of watching TV.
Daniel
Sheesh. If you going to post spoilers for the 7th season, you might as well post ACCURATE ones.
Some of us were trying to avoid finding anything out about Buffy's upcoming season. Thanks a whole fucking lot for posting a spoiler right on the front page. God damn, you guys are fucking irresponsible some times. If it hadn't been for the Lone Gunmen thing, I might be willing to forgive it as a mistake, but you idiots should know better. Jesus fucking Christ.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Some people NEED to know if Willow is gonna ressurect Tara and live happily every after.
Some people NEED to know if Angel will ever escape from the bottom of that lake.
Some people NEED to know if Xander will ever convince Anya to take him back.
Some people NEED to know if Cordelia will leave Gruselug.
Thank Torvalds I'm not on of them!!!!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Yeah. She is totally delicious. I "discovered" her after my wife convinced me to watch "Bring it On".
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
She did indeed sign for two more seasons....last season. So Season 6 was her first, and 7 will be her second. Of course, unless Joss is a dumbass who can't look a cash-cow in the mouth, he'll beg her to sign for another.
One thing I've never been able to understand is how Buffy can provoke such a negative response from people here. Your quote: "buffy sucks, the movie sucked, the WB is the sole reason for the downfall of America" is tame compared to some of the flaming that goes on when someone even suggests that they might enjoy Buffy.
As for rights vs mod points... well Slashdot isn't a democracy. Slashdot doesn't claim to let you say anything you want. The moderation system itself should tell you that....
Okay, have you ever actually seen the show?
If you had said "Faith" instead of "Buffy", your post would not have been Offtopic. Interesting, perhaps. And it certainly wouldn't be Overrated.
Please pay attention to such details in your future posts.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
Hmm, I've got to go with Emma Caulfield, personally, though maybe it's a toss-up between her and Eliza...
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
You forget, geeks are rooted in SF&F. To say that a show like Buffy does not qualify as geek or nerd material is elitist, and stupid. And so fine, you ant to read about the other shows, go read about them. No one forced you to read this article.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Slashdot: News for NERDS , stuff that matters.
From NerdWorld.com
What is a Nerd? The typical definition of a Nerd is someone who is passionate about an activity that is not necessarily mainstream. Typically these activities have to do with technology or academia. In addition to the passion, there has always been an aura of being a social outcast associated with the term Nerd.
If nothing else, I think Buffy and other fantasy TV shows qualify as non-mainstream. That being said, this woul dbe news for nerds and is therefore acceptable on slashdot. Just keep scrolling, don't click the link and move on with your sheltered day.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The show is actualy a decent show if you sit down and watch it for a bit. It has very nice SFX and well choreographed fight sequences for a TV series, and it's more entertaining than some of the other stuff out there. And besides, it's got some of the best quotes ever. It is a highly quoteable show
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I dare you to go watch any Andrew Lloyd Webber production and walk away from it going "That was Cheezy" Espesialy Jesus Christ Superstar
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
If we're all so thoroughly into the Whedonverse, let's concentrate on the important stuff -- like the absence of space noise from Firefly.
If slashdot sucks so much, why are you here? Is it because you enjoy sucky things? Perhaps you have nothing better to do with your time than waste it here? Oh well, at least I'm content.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
That being said, I really think that Season 6 was almost great. Unfortunately, when you're doing this kind of creative risk-taking "almost great" usually is equivalent to "bad".
When you say, "They should have let her stay dead", you're forgetting that they chose to kill her off in the first place. In fact, the death and ressurrection had been planned more than a season before. A big gamble -- especially when you've just made a big point that Bringing Back the Dead is a big no-no.
Such an ambitious story twist required soom really good follow-up. And that's where they blew it. Af first they seemed to be leading into a really good arc, which involved a long-standing "good" character getting seduced by her own power and going over to the dark side. But then they seemed to lose track of what they were doing, going off in every which direction. Some of these directions were sort of good (the Evil Nerds had their moments) but most of it was recycled corniness that was better suited to an After School Special. (Magic as addiction? Barf!) Worst of all, none of it did anything to advance the main story arc.
Plus they put some of the characters though changes totally at odds with their past history. And then finally they picked up the original arc very clumsily, killing off a popular character in the process, but not making any real connection with the ideas raised at the beginning of the season. The final eps were very well done -- but I couldn't enjoy them, having been so frustrated by the way they were set up.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, I've come to think that Joss Whedon has spread himself too thin. He claims he delegated Buffy to people who know his mind, but the sad truth is that Season 6 foundered on gimmicks that he never allowed when he ran the show directly. He needs either to do a better job of delegating, or scale his work back.
Faith was easily, for me anyway, the most touching character I've seen on television in a long while. It's uncommon in television to see a character grow so much through a series. Think about all the phases she went through, including all the frustration, heart-break, broken efforts and masks worn, all the way to a final redemption. Underneath everything, there was a good kid after all. So many people in the real world go through similar trials, and never manage to jump the final hurdles. It was very satisfying to see her survive the journey. A very touching character.
Faith is easily one of my favorite television characters to have graced the screen in a long while. --I found Jeri Ryan's (Sp?) charcter 7of9 on Voyager to be similarly evocative, (which was one of the bigger surprises of the last decade of television considering the initial impetus for the character; -Window dressing for a dying series!
Though. . . Since Joss withdrew from directly working on Buffy, the show has turned into exactly the kind of high-gloss 90210 teen-shine crud it originally launched in sharp contrast with. --You know? With wisdom, compassion and actual human insight rather than a 'Pretty Kids' club house full of 'Oh So Meaningful' self-centered drama. Stopped watching about two episodes in last season, right around the time I decided to Never Watch Television Again. (An abstaintion I find myself unable to keep with absolute faith every week, but hey. Balance in all things, right?)
Basically, the problem is that Joss was each of the characters, and knew how to write them instinctively; no formulas or mechanical thinking required. --And perhaps more importantly, he could look over a script from one of the staff writers, and fix in a flash the rough guestimates at dialogue the other writers could only ever try to capture through observation. Like some guy trying to do Kermit's voice post Henson. When such a level of understanding and humanity is achieved, no matter how hard the second in command may try, nobody can ever be Kermit again. Like-wise with Buffy & crew.
Hopefully Joss will be working on the new Faith material. If not, then I'll be damned sure to avoid the living hell out of it. I wouldn't want to see an almost flawless story tainted by new and bullshit writers attempting to work with Faith's character.
Though, this Firefly thing. . . Frankly, Joss is one of the few creative geniuses of our time who has made his mark in television drama. I'll give anything he works on a try.
I just hope that, unlike poor Lucas, he can avoid the thought-police and keep his brain from being sucked out through a tube for being too likely to have a positive impact on culture! Cuz, you know, we gotta go perpetrate our greed and evil upon the world and it would be disadvantagous to have people in the West influenced by wise and humane thinking!
Heavens, No!
-Fantastic Lad
Unfortunately, this ep loses some of its best moments in the FX version. It's a decent job of editing, but a lot of my favorite visual jokes are gone. I may have to buy the DVD. Oh wait, I don't even own a player...
People who aren't already hooked are not going to have the patience to sit through the the first season or the the first half of the second. If you can live with not knowing all the backstory (and you're sort of in trouble there anyway -- part of the premise is only documented properly in an out-of-print comic book), a good place to start is midway through Season 2, with "Suprise", which is the 13th ep in Season 2. This ep begins the first really great story arc, and trots out a whole slew of really well-acted bad guys.I actually rather like season 5. The first ep was awful, but it's my personal favorite story arc -- my favorite villain, and a new character is introduced in a truely originaly way.
Although I'm a fan of the show, I have to wonder why this story is here. A front page posting? Is a result of some kind of coherent editorial policy or just a symptom of sloppy editing? I mean, okay, Buffy has a certain geek affinity, and so I understand why it would squeeze in for anthropological interest. But stories about relatively insignificant casting rumblings?
There are already good sources of show and cast minutiae (e.g. Slayage) and spoilers (e.g. The Spoiler Slayer) for those in need. Editors: If you really feel the need to feed us, say, casting baubles, or angsty rumblings about the future of the show, make a category for them. If not, save it. Thanks.
-aT
In my opinion, the show is running out of dramatic territory to cover, and it would be nice if it was allowed to die gracefully while we're still watching instead of die a miserable near-ignored death like so many fine shows.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Well, duh.
Every major character in a primetime show these days, especially women, are "pleasent looking young ladies". That's the point.
These people make money off of their looks. And, what, did you think Buffy was such a popular show because of its excellent writing?
Thats just the way television works.
Ok, I'll skip right by the fact that Buffy just isn't news. At all. And it's taking me all my willpower to do just that. It was a 'B' movie to begin-- But I digress. I did want to mention something about Firefly, however. Without knowing much about it, it strikes me as unusually similar to Cowboy Beeboy and Outlaw Star... Again, it's just a passing glance, but it's got that deja'vu thing happening all over it.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Jeeze! I had forgotten all about this movie
She kind of looks like this cleavagey slut-bomb walking around going "oh check me out, I'm wicked cool, I'm five by five."
Yep! Since Little sis is going to take over the family business. Or something.
Except that Dawn doesn't have any superpowers. Is she going to braid the demons' hair to death? Although, if she doesn't have Buffy's strange aversion to guns, I suppose she could just shoot them.
Not all systems scale badly!
Nice work, Cmdr Fuckface. And to think.. I barely read /. anymore, but the one day I'm bored and look at the front page.. big old Buffy spoiler. And you're right, it's not even the first time. Didn't CmdrTaco even post something like, "I never would've posted the Lone Gunman spoiler?" And now he goes and posts this.
Except that Dawn doesn't have any superpowers. Is she going to braid the demons' hair to death? Although, if she doesn't have Buffy's strange aversion to guns, I suppose she could just shoot them.
You think that Buffy and all the other Slayers called before her had their powers all their life? No, the power comes when the previous Slayer falls. I'm guessing that Faith will die, and Little sis gets the gig. But then, we can't call it 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' anymore.