Corona | Coming Attractions

I'm five episodes into the third season of Buffy. This Scott kid does nothing for me. Wasn't too crazy about Faith's intro an episode or two back. Maybe she'll grow on me now that she's been knocked down a peg.

Oh, hey! It's Cowboy Vampire! I've been wondering what happened to him.

I find your lack of enjoyment of Faith disturbing.

And yes, I'm as ashamed for having written this post and you were disgusted for having read it.

Watching "Band Candy." So far, it's way too quippy for my tastes. Just checked to see who wrote it. It's somebody named Jane Espenson. This is apparently her first episode, though she will eventually go on to write twenty-two episodes. 

I'm wondering if she wrote one of the very few episodes I saw part of during the original run. I remember a big complaint about what little I saw back then was that every single character seemed to be an unplumbable well of quips and ripostes. It seemed the writers would somehow even manage to turn a character's inability to come up with a quip into a kind of quip. It was obnoxious to me then, and seemed to be a hallmark of the few WB shows I had seen, like Gilmore Girls and Dawson's Creek. For some of these shows--particularly Gilmore Girls--the entire cast felt like one hyper-aware, bon mot-flinging character with a bag full of faces.

Excessive quippiness hasn't been a problem for me up to this point. I've been wondering if maybe my tastes have changed. This particular episode is already standing out for me, and I'm only eight minutes in. It could just be that I am tired. I've tried to get to sleep four or five different times, but haven't managed.

All the girls were mackin' on Xander in the last episode I watched. Oh, Hi, Amy!

After blasting through S1 of 'Community' in like four days, I've been moving pretty slowly through S2.  I like it, but it hasn't captured my attention in the same way, at least until ep 14 'Advanced Dungeons and Dragons', which I'm halfway through right now.  It's hilarious (maybe the best Pierce ep so far, too).  'Freaks and Geeks' had a pretty awesome bit where the characters played D&D, but they didn't get into it nearly as much as 'Community' did with this episode, where they are basically spending the entire ep in a D&D session.  It's probably safe to assume that 'Freaks & Geeks' inspired this ep to some degree.

I'm only 3 eps into Community S2. The 1st and 3rd eps kind of had too much angry Jeff. I liked the second one a lot where Annie would panic and kept chloroforming the same guy.

I'm not even 10 episodes in on S1. I suck.

 I am watching a documentary on the Euro crisis.

Rock n roll!!!!

All this Buffy I've been watching has made me want to dig up Anthony Head's old Nescafe commercials. Of course, when I was watching them in the late eighties and early nineties, the product being presented to me was "Taster's Choice." The commercials made a really strong impression on me for some reason. I guess it was the appeal of grownups acting almost comically grownuppy.

Watching the commercials as a series back to back, it occurs to me that these people have a real fucking hangup with their coffee. Seriously, these guys have a problem. Unless you take all the coffee talk as a metaphor for a mating ritual. (I'm pretty sure that's exactly how you're supposed to take it, but I'd rather take it more literally.)

It turns out the commercials the Brits got and the ones the Americans got were shot at different times to appeal to the different markets. It also turns out Anthony Head was softening his British accent for the American audience. Compare the Nescafe Gold Blend version of the "Dinner Party" advert (it starts at around the 1:30 mark)...

to the Taster's Choice version Americans got...

(You'll notice the storyline has been changed a little, too.)

I don't think it had occured to me before, but those people seem to be drinking coffee with dinner.  Maybe they are trying to convince consumers that drinking coffee with dinner is "sophisticated," since they are hitting the "sophisticated" thing pretty hard.

I'm liking Faith more. Jealous-to-the-point-of-cruelty Xander I'm liking less. 

The secret-keeping and in-fighting among the Scoobies is a little tiresome. I'm ready for this stuff to get resolved so the show can get back to business.

Spike's back.

[SPIKE SPOILERS]

I know a little about Spike from Angel. I know he somehow gets a soul (or gets his old soul back, or something) at some point. I don't want to go looking stuff up, since I'm knee-deep in the series (better half spoiled than completely spoiled), but I think I remember something about him actually seeking out a soul. Maybe it was to prove to the gang that he wasn't so bad. Can't exactly remember. (Don't tell me, if you don't mind. I'll get there.)

[/SPIKE SPOILERS]

Anyway, Spike's a developing character. We've seen him getting jealous, he struck a bargain with Buffy in the last season, and now he's heartbroken over Drusilla leaving him. Basically, he's showing a range of human emotions. He's clearly not all bad, despite being a demon (having a demon in him?).

Somehow, his existence on the show makes the cavalier way in which vampires are slaughtered a little sticky. The general approach of the good guys has been that it's all right to slay vampires, since they have no souls. It reminds me of that line from "Something in the Way": "It's OK to eat fish, 'cause they don't have any feelings." 

Being someone who doesn't presuppose that anyone has a soul, murdering something soulless was already a little sticky. I understand that souls exist in the show's mythology, and I can understand how having and not having one would influence how a slayer and her buddies would value the existence of something soulless a little less than they would value something with a soul, but Spike's complexity and "humanness" really calls into question just how valueless the life of a vampire is--for me at least.

The vast majority of the vampires on the show are evil through and through, of course. Humans are concerned with keeping humans alive, and vampires are a threat to the continuation of human life. I get that. That said, doesn't Spike prove even a vampire's life can be worth something? Does having a soul *really* make a human's life more valuable?

Most vegetarians and vegans argue that a cow's life is every bit as valuable as a human's life. Would vegetarians and vegans say the same about vampires? Would the knowledge that vampires need to kill to survive color the opinions of these vegetarians and vegans?

(These aren't serious questions, by the way. Please don't give them real thought, or let yourself come to the conclusion that I was actually trying to make anyone ponder any of this.)

Thursty, your first multi-sentence paragraph in your most recent post is going to be a bit spoilery for poor Quasar.

Don't know if you're serious or kidding, but I went back and spoiler-tagged it.

Too late, fucker! I already read it!

Just watched "The Wish." The Master's superbigplan for the world turned out to be pretty small potatoes. A blood bar? Come on, Man! Show some creativity!

I watched all of Mortal Kombat: Legacy because I remembered that I only watched the first episode when it came out and I wasn't impressed with it at the time. Episode 01 is still pretty weak compared to most of the other episodes, in my opinion, but I probably shouldn't have dismissed the entire series based on just the first installment. It was actually pretty decent, but I think they could have made it better by showcasing more of each character's signature moves.

The series also reminded me how much more interesting Mortal Kombat lore can be than Street Fighter lore. I was always more drawn to SF when I was a kid because the controls felt a lot tighter and made the fighting seem a lot smoother than the fighting in MK. The MK universe seems a lot more interesting, though, perhaps in part because it is so brutal. Whenever I try to get into the MK games, though, I can't get past how shoddy the gameplay is and how stiffly the characters move. Mortal Kombat is just not fun to play, so I never had the patience to slog through it for the potential payoff.

The Vampire Diaries. I can't believe I'm the only one watching this show. It is TITS!

A couple episodes back, Giles got knocked out again, and I made a mental note to point out that it seemed he had been knocked out a shitload, and that you'd think he'd be brain damaged by now. Then I forgot.

He just got chloroformed in "Gingerbread," and it reminded me. I had planned to come here after I finished the episode and mention that he'd been knocked out a whole bunch since the first season. A couple minutes later, Cordelia revives him, asks how many times he's been knocked out, and says something about brain damage.

Cordelia vs Goits. Advantage Cordelia.

 Kevin and Perry Go Large.

The thing about vampires in buffy is that their souls are replaced by a demon - or a part of a demon or aspect or something. It's unclear how vampires originated, but what is clear is that their soul is gone and what's there now is demonic.

The thing about Spike (and to a lesser extend, Drusilla) is that he actually loves Dru all throughout season 2 (and before, in fact). You'll find out about Willaim the Bloody's backstory at some point, and then maybe we can continue this discussion.

Oh, but then we have Angel. I guess his exception is that he has both a demon and a soul. Because of the (story wise, I suppose) innate goodness of his soul, he can control, perhaps not without a struggle, the demon inside. He made mention of that in the episode with Ripper.

You're telling me things I know, Jake.