Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Q: How many apocalpyses were there during Buffy?

A: There were eight by my last count. 1) The Master in "Prophecy Girl". 2) The Judge in "Innocence". 3) Acathla in "Becoming Part Two". 4) The Sisterhood of the Jhe in "The Zeppo". 5) The Mayor in "Graduation Day Part Two". 6) Adam in "Primeval". 7) Glory in "The Gift". 8) The First in "Chosen".

Q: Who is Nighthawk? I’ve seen all but 5 eps from the first season, and I don’t remember him/her.

A: Nighthawk was Xander’s alter-ego during the months that Buffy was living as Anne in LA and in Hell as well.

Q: How did angelus get Jenny’s body into Giles’ house in ’Passion’ and even get in for that matter if Angel had never been inside before. He wouldn’t be able to get inside, a fact which is clarified in ’Amends’ when Angel has to be invited inside. It’s like that whole amazing scene is a huge goof. It would be great if you could clear this up for me.

A: Angel apparently had been in Giles’s house before. The scene in "Amends" was able to take place because there was a reset button on where Angel could enter after he came back from Hell. He did do it awfully fast, but then Angel’s a fast guy.

Q: My question is why does everyone say that Spike went out and got a soul because he loved Buffy. If you watch the episodes at the end of season six Spike clearly goes to the demon in order to have the chip removed from his head and not to have his soul restored. I was just hoping if you could clear that up for me.

A: You’re a bit too confident, sir. Spike does not "clearly" go to the Demon to get his chip out. It’s supposed to seem that way to the viewer. Joss Whedon has said on numerous occasions that he was, in fact, there to get his soul returned to him. The real question here is how a vampire can get to Africa and back without being burnt to a crisp.

Q: In "Conversations With Dead People" Joyce warns Dawn that Buffy might turn on her. ("Buffy won’t choose you, she’ll be against you.") Nothing ever really played out from there, so do you think that it was really Joyce warning her or just the First, messing with her head? If you think it was The First, it was acting as Cassie with Willow at the time, so how could this be?

A: Dunno. Can’t wait to get my seventh season DVD to try to figure this one out.

Q: What’s your best guess on how many slayers survived the big battle?

A: As I’m sure that so many fans did, I tried to count the number of slayers left at the end of "Chosen". It seemed clear to me that Joss Whedon’s directing purposefully left the number obscure, maximizing story flexibility for any possible continuation of the slayer saga. My best guess is a minimum of 8, including Faith and Buffy. Eight sounds about right. Probably a bit more than that. Damn, why did Amanda have to die instead of Rona? It just isn’t right.

Q: Do you think that when a fan first started watching Buffy generally affects how they rate the different seasons? Judging from what I see on-line, it certainly has for me. Though I’d heard about it from many friends for years, I didn’t start watching Buffy until late 4th season, when my area got a WB station. I suppose as a result I rate the 4th and 5th seasons as highly as the 2nd and 3rd, and one of my all-time, favorite funny episodes is the first one I watched, "Beer Bad".

A: I think this is true for some fans but not all. For instance, I’ve gotten a lot of mail from fans that began watching in the fifth season defending season six to the bitter end. On the other hand, I’ve also gotten mail from season one watchers decrying season six and defending the High School Years. Then there are those of us who loved it all the way through. Interesting point though.

Q: Do you think we’ll ever get a back story from some of the former potentials who took refuge in Buffy’s house, about where they disappeared to during so many essential events in the 7th season? My personal best guess—within the Buffyverse story—is that they learned very quickly to avoid Buffy, and wherever she was, they managed to be somewhere else. My real-world guess is that 7th season was editorially sloppier than previous seasons.

A: No. It was odd. That character Chloe was in it an episode, disappeared for two, and then killed herself. I like to pretend that some of the Potentials traveled with Giles. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah.

Q: Do you see a strong resemblance between 7th-season Buffy and the all-slayer-Buffy in "Dopplegangland"?

A: Hmm. Yeah. Doesn’t the speech at the end of "Bring On The Night" remind you of Buffy’s arrival in "Dopplegangland"? Hmm.

Q: Where will the bus-o-slayers go? LA and Angel? Is it likely that we’ll hear a few throw away lines about them during Angel’s 5th season? There are malls in LA and how much damage can Buffy and Co. do to Angel’s new Wolfram and Hart credit card?

A: Could be. And this might be a good time to tell everyone that it has been confirmed that Joss Whedon is writing and directing the season premiere of Angel this year. Hurrah.

Q: Do you know what the reason for Marc Blucas leaving the series was? Also, I actually liked the Riley character. I wish he would’ve stayed around. Would you have liked Riley and Buffy to work out their problems in Season 5? Why or why not?

A: Heh. I urge you to read my article "Captain America". As for why Marc Blucas left, I think this dandy Joss Whedon quote should answer that: "I love Marc and I loved Riley as character. Some people responded to him and some didn’t. Basically, it came down to nobody getting over Buffy and Angel. And because I’d done the tortured Romeo and Juliet ’This is the wrong guy, he’s gonna make me miserable’ romance, I wanted to see Buffy have a nice relationship with a nice guy. America doesn’t want to see that. So it became instead a scenario where people thought, ’She has a really nice guy. She’s going to walk all over him’".

Q: Why are DVDs in the US released later than in other countries? I don’t want to wait years to complete my BTVS collection of all seasons.

A: Me neither, man. But I always rationalize it that we got new episodes first, so they get the DVD’s. I don’t know why it turned out that way, but I’m dealing. And speaking of, Season Four came out the day I wrote it and can’t express my excitement for watching the audio commentaries: Joss on "Hush" and "Restless", Doug Petrie on "The Initiative" and "This Year’s Girl", Jane Espenson on "Superstar", and Joss, Seth Green, and Marti Noxon on "Wild At Heart". (They are released later due to the syndication deal with Fox - Bec)

Q:Here’s something that’s bugged me: In the alternative Sunnydale universe, no one wears bright colors because it supposedly attracts vampires....nowhere else in Buffylore is this mentioned....any enlightenment?

A: No enlightenment. I mostly think it’s just bull invented by the higher-ups at Sunnydale to put the poor population’s mind at ease.

Q: Do you know why the only thing in the hellmouth in season seven was the ubervamps. In prophecy girl and the zeppo that other demon came out and it was mentioned on multiple occasions that the opening of the hellmouth would bring about the end of the world. But in chosen they just opened it up and walked inside only to find just an army of ubervamps and nothing else. This makes no sense to me. I was wondering if it made sense to you.

A: I figure that The First pushed everything else out of the way to make room for the Ubervamps, but that wasn’t a good move, because the Turok-Hans were easily dealt with. Kinda. Sorta.

Q: What does your full list look like? I mean, which rank do End of Days, Chosen and the Witch(!) get?

A: "Chosen" moves to number two behind "The Body" and before "Restless". "End Of Days" is at number 33 behind "Wild At Heart" and before "Never Leave Me". And the overlooked "Witch" is at 119 before "Where The Wild Things Are" and after "Something Blue". There you have it.

Q: How did you do the list? Point system, season ranking?

A: I rated every episode out of ten and put ’em together.

Q: What’s your reaction to those season 7 and Chosen critics. I’m sick of them, not because of their critics but they seem to never read explaining comments and keep posting always the same.

A: Understand them. Don’t agree with them. I thought season seven was layered, full of the metaphors we’ve grown used to, and filled from end to end with episodes that really hit home for me personally.

Q: Hey dude, I am under the impression that Willow is the most powerful girl in the buffyverse, even grater that Buffy. I grew to like Willow more than Buffy since she got with Tara and I was wondering why the writers decided to make Willow that powerful and not give her anything to work with, she could have been the strongest. I just feel that its over for Buffy now that Willow sa gotten more powerful than her, what do u think about that?

A: They gave Willow her power arc in season six. They acknowledged that she was powerful. More powerful than Buffy? I don’t know if I’d agree with that.

Q:It just struck me today that a good question for you, and perhaps for a top-ten list that would generate some discussion, is this: Which Buffy episode(s) would be the best to watch with a friend who doesn’t know the show?

A: They should be episodes that wouldn’t require too much intra-episode pausing and explaining. So this isn’t a best-episode list — "Restless" would be near the very bottom. The question is which episodes would a newbie who has heard of the show, and who presumably knows that you are a fan but doesn’t really know what it’s all about, enjoy? I’m also not going for "Which episodes would teach a newbie about Buffy" — just enjoyment and perhaps impressing upon the newbie what’s so great about the series. Here are my top ten episodes to show to newbies: "Welcome To The Hellmouth/ The Harvest", "Prophecy Girl", "School Hard", "Halloween", "Lie To Me", "Surprise/Innocence", "Hush", "The Freshman", "Buffy Vs. Dracula", "Lessons".

OKAY!!! That’s it for this week but I have one more thing to say. I bought the new Radiohead record "Hail To The Thief" today, and it truly is one of the best CD’s ever recorded. It completely blew me away. Radiohead’s one of my favorite bands, and I’d recommend that you all pick this masterpiece up immediately.