The Good; SMG is just wonderful as the Buffybot, credit it to her that she can remember all the dialogue at the end of the teaser. Another nice Anya/Tara scene and Dawn and Buffy reunited is always a joy. Love the way that the Buffybot is such a hit at Dawn's parent/teacher day. Possibly the coolest Spike moment ever when he kicks the Hellion off the bike.
The Bad; The Hellions are deeply stupid. There's only 15 of them and they appear to be killable by conventional methods (some are even human) so why don't the SDPD just shoot them? The fat vamp seems to burn awfully fast, Dru and Darla on Angel take far longer.
Best line; Xander; "House o' chicks relax, I am a man, I have a tool!"
Women good/men bad; Razor is nastily misogynist so Tara let's him have her axe. Good for her!
Jeez!; Will kills Bambi! Even though she's a machine you feel so sorry for the Buffybot. The sight of Buffy's corpse is upsetting but not as much as her crawling out of her grave.
Kinky dinky; The Hellions threaten to rape the Scoobies.
Captain Subtext; Love the Willow/Tara/Dawn house. In the comics Willow talks of the pair being tempted of just taking Dawn and the three moving out of Sunnydale, forming their own little lesbian family. Spike can't be with Buffy so he takes the closest thing he can get, babysitting Dawn. Xander appears to like the Backstreet Boys? Hmmmmm? Dawn and the Buffybot, awwwwww! Xander and Giles hug at the airport. Xander says he needs more male friends.
Kills: 1 vamp for Spike and one for the Buffybot. One fawn and one demon for Will. A demon each for Xander and Anya. Tara's first kill plus 3 demons for Buffy Buffy: 96 vamps, 35 demons, 6 monsters, 3 humans, 1 werewolf, 1 spirit warrior & a robot Giles: 5 vamps, 2 demon, 1 human, 1 god. Cordy: 3 vamps, a demon Will: 6 vamps + 1 demon +1 fawn. Angel: 3 vamps, 1 demon, 1 human Oz: 3 vamps, 1 zombie Faith: 16 vamps, 5 demons, 3 humans Xander: 5 vamps, 2 zombies, 1 a demon, Anya: 1 vamp and 1 a demon Riley; 18 vamps + 7 demons Spike; 3 vamps and 2 demon Buffybot; 2 vamps Tara; 1 demon
Total number of scoobies: goodbye Giles and goodbye Buffybot so 6 Xander, Willow, Buffy, Anya, Tara, Spike
Spike; good or bad? (new column to handle one of the most pressing questions of the series) Spike is fighting alongside the scoobs and taking care of Dawn but also pouring scorn on the schooling system and thinking the chaos and destruction looks fun.
Buffy and Dawn more than sisters? Dawn not only gives Buffy the will to live but she seems to just instinctively be able to sense that she's back and find her amidst the chaos. Once again it's implied that that there's a deeper connection between the 2 sisters.
Questions and observations; Very long 'previously on Buffy', the series now very much rooted in it's own mythology. Love Tara the vamp hunter, note she feels the need to get a leather coat for her warrior princess phase. Note Giles and Spike actually share a joke together. The numbered shirts appear which I actually didn't notice first time around. Buffy looks to have put a little weight on whilst dead and it suits her. The Buffybot remarks 'I don't eat', deliberate joke? Dawn is back in touch with her dad. The Buffybot appears to be breaking her programming and almost becoming a real girl. Check out the scene where the Scoobies are saying goodbye to Giles at the airport, it looks like Spike is sitting behind Giles (JM's stand in?).
One good thing is that they kept Dawn. She wasn't that popular with the fans and it would have been very easy to write her out, she would have simply gone to live with her dad and she and Buffy could have had an offscreen reunion as Buffy and Angel do. But they kept her and the show is all the better for it. Surely if Willow can fix a decapitated Buffybot she can fix a limbless one? So what happens to the bot? I remember reading an excellent fanfic called The Sentry where they repair it and leave it hooked up to an electricity supply in a remote cave, programmed to come to the rescue if anything ever happens to the Scoobs (very 'Demon with a glass hand' if you ever watched The Outer Limits). To judge by Buffy's appearance when she comes out of the grave she dyes her hair. You notice that the 'power shot' at the end of the opening titles isn't actually Buffy at all, it's actually the Buffybot.
I almost stopped watching Buffy at this point, I was so disappointed in these opening eps but I'm glad I kept with it.
Marks out of 10; 6/10
5 out of 10 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink