![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nekkyo_chanHurrah, I now have a functional desk chair! It gets me high enough to see the top of my desk and everything.
I also have my rewatch for BtVS episode 3, the Witch. I've found that it's very hard for me to say things about this show, because I always feel like I don't know enough about it, even when I've seen the vast percentage of it already. Hm.
The Witch
- Here we get our first monster of the week episode. It’s pretty decent.
- “I’d say he should get a girlfriend if he wasn’t so old,” says Buffy. She doesn’t really think of Giles as a person yet; he’s just a Grown-up and an Authority Figure, and thus too old to have a personal life. She grows out of thinking this way in degrees as the series goes along, but she hasn’t even started yet.
- I am torn between thinking that Xander giving Buffy the bracelet is kind of sweet and kind of creepy. On one hand, he all ‘here have this. For luck’ and is sort of nervous and shy about it and it’s just such a dorky thing to do...and on the other hand he’s giving jewellery – jewellery that says ‘Forever Yours’ – to a girl he’s not even dating.
- I like that Cordelia comes up to Willow and starts talking to her and Willow talks right back like this is normal. I mean, I’m not sure how well this fits with her attitude towards them a lot of the time, but. There’s more nuance to their interactions than the stereotypical cliques set-up would suggest and this feels more natural to me.
- Is cheerleading typically this big a deal? My school didn’t have cheerleaders, so I wouldn’t know, but it seems a little over the top to have personal cheerleading coaches. Though Buffy thinks it's strange too, so I guess we're supposed to think it's over the top.
- Giles, a girl just caught fire. “That’s the thrill of living on the Hellmouth!” is not the appropriate reaction. I mean, it's totally consistent for early Giles to respond like that, but it's a little odd.
- “That means hacking illegally into the school’s computer system. At last, something I can do!” Oh Willow. And she she doesn't even try to pretend it's not illegal this time - she's proud of her illegal hacking.
- “I laugh in the face of danger. And then I hide until it goes away.”
- I like the way Buffy easily pulls the lid off the crate that Joyce was just trying to crowbar open without success. They do a really good job casually working in Buffy’s Slayer powers.
- “You’re like my guy friend that knows about girl stuff!” Oh, poor Willow. Not something you want to hear from your crush. And then it's echoed later in the episode when Buffy says that she likes Xander “cause he’s totally and completely one of the girls.” I feel for both of them, with their unrequited crushes, even if I can’t wait for them to get over them. Having seen later seasons, where they’re all just wonderful friends, with no romantic interest in each other, makes the early crushing a lot easier to tolerate. It feels like more of a character thing and something I can sympathize with, and less of a romantic/shippy thing. If that makes any sense at all. I don't feel like I'm explaining myself very well.
- “For I am Xander, King of Cretins, may all lesser cretins bow before me.” Xander cheerfully announcing to Buffy and Amy that not only did they make the team, but are the first and third alternates, respectively, not realizing that alternate means they aren’t actually on the team is cute and realistically awkward. I like it.
- The witchcraft with barbies is not quite as sinister as it could be.
- What’s with this thing with the Yearbook staff being nerds? At my school it was the really involved people, the same people mostly as were on the Prom Committee and the Student Council and in multiple clubs and sports teams who did Yearbook. Was my school atypical in this regard?
- “You don’t have to drive it through my head like a railroad spike.” In retrospect, this line makes me snort, although it doesn't actually connect to anything Spike-related.
- What makes Cordelia’s behaviour weird enough for Buffy to note? How does she even know which locker is hers? And even if she does, it’s not immediately obvious that anything supernatural is happening; there’s no reason for Buffy to follow her.
- Also, why does going blind make her act like she’s been hypnotized?
- The metaphor for parents living vicariously through their children, to said children’s detriment is quite well done. BtVS doesn’t always do a great job with the metaphors, but it is well executed here, the way it’s not even quite a metaphor, so much as magic being used to make it that little bit more. The Hellmouth makes the figurative literal, in a sense.
- When did the switch happen? It seemed to definitely be Amy earlier, but she says her mother switched them a few months ago. I’m not sure how well the Amy scenes at the beginning of the episode play if it’s Catherine in Amy’s body.
- The purple magic special effect is not so great. On the other hand, Catherine’s eyes go black when she does the spell, which feels a little creepy for obvious reasons. This episode feels like the start of Willow's magic arc, although she does no magic here.
- Giles says it was his first casting. While I’m sure this is just an artefact of them changing their minds as to what to do with the character – it's part of the enthusiastic newbie thing he has going on in early episodes – it’s interesting to think about from an in-show perspective. He’s lying about having done magic before, and it works with the idea I’ve seen postulated elsewhere that he’s deliberately creating the stuffy librarian persona to separate himself from his Ripper days.
- Okay, Xander rushing in and grabbing Amy, followed by Willow with the baseball bat is really funny.
- “My dad is so impossible. He doesn’t ever want me going anywhere, he wants to spend total quality time together. And I’m like, Dad, I can go out, it’s perfectly safe. But he’s got all this guilt about leaving me with my mom, and he’s being a total pain.” “You’re loving it.” “Every single minute.” That’s really sweet. I like Amy. Too bad she ends up all evil later on.
- The cheerleading trophy thing? So creepy. I mean, she deserves it, but. So creepy to think about.
I also have my rewatch for BtVS episode 3, the Witch. I've found that it's very hard for me to say things about this show, because I always feel like I don't know enough about it, even when I've seen the vast percentage of it already. Hm.
The Witch
- Here we get our first monster of the week episode. It’s pretty decent.
- “I’d say he should get a girlfriend if he wasn’t so old,” says Buffy. She doesn’t really think of Giles as a person yet; he’s just a Grown-up and an Authority Figure, and thus too old to have a personal life. She grows out of thinking this way in degrees as the series goes along, but she hasn’t even started yet.
- I am torn between thinking that Xander giving Buffy the bracelet is kind of sweet and kind of creepy. On one hand, he all ‘here have this. For luck’ and is sort of nervous and shy about it and it’s just such a dorky thing to do...and on the other hand he’s giving jewellery – jewellery that says ‘Forever Yours’ – to a girl he’s not even dating.
- I like that Cordelia comes up to Willow and starts talking to her and Willow talks right back like this is normal. I mean, I’m not sure how well this fits with her attitude towards them a lot of the time, but. There’s more nuance to their interactions than the stereotypical cliques set-up would suggest and this feels more natural to me.
- Is cheerleading typically this big a deal? My school didn’t have cheerleaders, so I wouldn’t know, but it seems a little over the top to have personal cheerleading coaches. Though Buffy thinks it's strange too, so I guess we're supposed to think it's over the top.
- Giles, a girl just caught fire. “That’s the thrill of living on the Hellmouth!” is not the appropriate reaction. I mean, it's totally consistent for early Giles to respond like that, but it's a little odd.
- “That means hacking illegally into the school’s computer system. At last, something I can do!” Oh Willow. And she she doesn't even try to pretend it's not illegal this time - she's proud of her illegal hacking.
- “I laugh in the face of danger. And then I hide until it goes away.”
- I like the way Buffy easily pulls the lid off the crate that Joyce was just trying to crowbar open without success. They do a really good job casually working in Buffy’s Slayer powers.
- “You’re like my guy friend that knows about girl stuff!” Oh, poor Willow. Not something you want to hear from your crush. And then it's echoed later in the episode when Buffy says that she likes Xander “cause he’s totally and completely one of the girls.” I feel for both of them, with their unrequited crushes, even if I can’t wait for them to get over them. Having seen later seasons, where they’re all just wonderful friends, with no romantic interest in each other, makes the early crushing a lot easier to tolerate. It feels like more of a character thing and something I can sympathize with, and less of a romantic/shippy thing. If that makes any sense at all. I don't feel like I'm explaining myself very well.
- “For I am Xander, King of Cretins, may all lesser cretins bow before me.” Xander cheerfully announcing to Buffy and Amy that not only did they make the team, but are the first and third alternates, respectively, not realizing that alternate means they aren’t actually on the team is cute and realistically awkward. I like it.
- The witchcraft with barbies is not quite as sinister as it could be.
- What’s with this thing with the Yearbook staff being nerds? At my school it was the really involved people, the same people mostly as were on the Prom Committee and the Student Council and in multiple clubs and sports teams who did Yearbook. Was my school atypical in this regard?
- “You don’t have to drive it through my head like a railroad spike.” In retrospect, this line makes me snort, although it doesn't actually connect to anything Spike-related.
- What makes Cordelia’s behaviour weird enough for Buffy to note? How does she even know which locker is hers? And even if she does, it’s not immediately obvious that anything supernatural is happening; there’s no reason for Buffy to follow her.
- Also, why does going blind make her act like she’s been hypnotized?
- The metaphor for parents living vicariously through their children, to said children’s detriment is quite well done. BtVS doesn’t always do a great job with the metaphors, but it is well executed here, the way it’s not even quite a metaphor, so much as magic being used to make it that little bit more. The Hellmouth makes the figurative literal, in a sense.
- When did the switch happen? It seemed to definitely be Amy earlier, but she says her mother switched them a few months ago. I’m not sure how well the Amy scenes at the beginning of the episode play if it’s Catherine in Amy’s body.
- The purple magic special effect is not so great. On the other hand, Catherine’s eyes go black when she does the spell, which feels a little creepy for obvious reasons. This episode feels like the start of Willow's magic arc, although she does no magic here.
- Giles says it was his first casting. While I’m sure this is just an artefact of them changing their minds as to what to do with the character – it's part of the enthusiastic newbie thing he has going on in early episodes – it’s interesting to think about from an in-show perspective. He’s lying about having done magic before, and it works with the idea I’ve seen postulated elsewhere that he’s deliberately creating the stuffy librarian persona to separate himself from his Ripper days.
- Okay, Xander rushing in and grabbing Amy, followed by Willow with the baseball bat is really funny.
- “My dad is so impossible. He doesn’t ever want me going anywhere, he wants to spend total quality time together. And I’m like, Dad, I can go out, it’s perfectly safe. But he’s got all this guilt about leaving me with my mom, and he’s being a total pain.” “You’re loving it.” “Every single minute.” That’s really sweet. I like Amy. Too bad she ends up all evil later on.
- The cheerleading trophy thing? So creepy. I mean, she deserves it, but. So creepy to think about.
