shadowscast

Thanks to my wonderful friend E and his tapes, I've now seen (rather than just read) BtVS all the way through to the end. I've also seen AtS through 5-6 ("The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco," and by the way I love that title.)

Once I've watched all the way through to the end of Angel, which should be sometime this week (yay! and *sob* simultaneously), E and I are going to get together and have thematic food (we're planning cookie dough and funny-shaped pancakes), and watch some commentaries and just generally enjoy being fannish together. Unfortunately poor E is squicked by slash, so I'll have to restrain myself in that regard. Still, I'm totally looking forward to this.

And now, some comments on the many, many episodes I've watched in the last few days.

I've heard a lot of negative things about Season 7, but I enjoyed it. There was nothing that quite compared to "Once More With Feeling," but I did appreciate the general arc. I thought that the total destruction of Sunnydale was a very fitting ending for the series. The Potentials did have their annoying moments, but I enjoyed the never-ending-slumber-party atmosphere. It was tight and claustrophobic, banal and scary at the same time (eg: Andrew complaining about Faith stealing the last pizza pocket while they all prepare for certain death!), and different from anything they'd done before.

That night that Buffy and Spike slept - just slept - together, did anyone else notice that while he was holding her when they went to sleep, she was holding him when they woke up? Did anyone else go weak-kneed at that?

Dawn's line about the crossbow and Miss Kitty Fantastico may well be my favorite bit from the whole season, in a terribly sick and twisted way. Just a throw-away line, settling a plot thread that got quietly dropped years ago, and sufficiently vague to lead to all sorts of terrible, terrible mental images - it was utterly brilliant. Horrible, and brilliant. (At least we know she wasn't lost in a round of kitten poker.)

I'm almost tempted to write a ficlet about the fate of Miss Kitty Fantastico, but really it would be redundant.

Oh, and Buffy's line about oiling up Spike and Angel and making them wrestle? I couldn't breathe for like a minute after that. Laughing too hard. My husband had to pause the tape. And that on top of Spike's cartoon sketch of Angel taped to the punching bag.

I'm in love with the fact that Giles, Xander, Andrew and Amanda spent the night before the Last Battle playing D&D. (Or some variant thereof.)

That's all late in the season. In the early parts of the season, my heart just bled for broken, crazy Spike. I had to go find fanfics where Buffy or Xander or someone pulled him down off the damn cross.

Oh, Robin Wood was a pretty cool character, and the rebuilt school was good to have - it felt right that the show ended right back where it started. (And do you realize this means Buffy has actually destroyed three high schools? Three!)

And then on to S5 Angel. Unlike all you poor folks who had to wait through four months of summer hiatus, I got to watch "Chosen" and "Conviction" the same night. (Though I did have to bike 10 km through the city at midnight to get the new tape from E. It was a really foggy, creepy night, too.) I knew Spike would be on Angel, obviously, but I was happily unspoiled for how he'd get there.

So... he's a vampire ghost. The very concept makes me giggle. (He had a great line in Hell Bound: "Vampire ghost here, ya sod. Bloody well invented afraid of the dark.") The non-corporeal thing is a bit annoying, though. Really cuts down on the slash possibilities, doesn't it??

Still, if he just spends the entire season haunting Angel with snarky comments, I'll be reasonably content.

Oh, there were a few outstanding slashy moments. How about when Spike introduces himself to the necromancer dude as Angel's date? (And Angel doesn't contradict him, either - which I'm sure was all about not making the necromancer any more suspicious, but still, it was good fun.)

Oh, and the bonding moment! Angel says he liked Spike's poetry!

Well, that's all from me for now.