Once More, With FeelingA Buffy, the Vampire Slayer video post. Sure, as if anyone was calling for this.
I came across this online and decided that I wanted to have a tidy link to it since I don't have that season on DVD. So, it's the complete musical episode from the 6th season, appropriately if coincidentally enough in 6 parts.
It's important to keep in mind that to the best of my knowledge most of the cast makes no claim to being able to sing. Anthony Head (Giles) is one exception, as he's had some stage singing background, I know, even starring in a stage production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show sometime back in the day.
As you listen to the vocally uneven results keep in mind how "off" Alyson Hannigan (Willow) must have been if she was given almost a complete pass from having to sing.
This was a fun gimmick which was used to peak advantage, advancing the plot of the series considerably as many of the secrets each character had been holding inside are revealed. That a firm context for the singing and dancing is solidly rooted in the plot makes it all the better.
If you decide to watch it, don't be a snooty, intolerant prick and skip ahead because your delicate, shell-like ears are offended by the singing of people with little to no musical training; the songs are important to the plot, and several of them are rather clever, too.
Arguably the peak episode of the sixth season.
For those who are just walking in off the street...
Buffy, the star of the show. Latest in a line of vampire- /demon-slayers, she died at the end of the fifth season in a sacrifice play. However, some of her friends, noting that her death was by mystic means, pulled together the elements of a spell and brought her back from the grave at the start of this season. She hasn't been quite right since, being at best somewhat distant and distracted. Her friends think the problem is one of disorientation and trauma arising from being in some hellish dimension while her body lay dead and buried.
Tara and Willow, witches and one of the romantic couples in the series, were central to the spell that brought Buffy back.Willow's been becoming a magic abuser, which led to an argument between her and Tara recently. Willow used a spell to make Tara forget the argument, but made the mistake of not making everyone else forget it, too.
Giles, member of an ancient council of Watchers assigned to guide and chronicle the Slayers of each age, is a good generation older than the rest of the cast. He's recently returned from the UK, unsure of what his role is now, seeing himself as potentially more of an impediment to her growth than an aid.
Anya and Xander are engaged. Anya's a former vengeance demon -- she used to specialize in visiting horrible punishments on men at the behest of jilted or betrayed women -- who's now returned to human form and bereft of her powers. Xander is one of the core members of Buffy's support group.
Spike has been a vampire since 1880. Captured and implanted with a behavioral inhibition chip that prevents him from preying on humans (any attempy brings him intense pain) by a paramilitary organization a couple seasons back, he's been undergoing some changes. In a perverse twist that even he doesn't understand he's fallen in love with Buffy. In Buffy's confused and conflicted state since her return from the grave she's occasionally lost herself in what's to her a physical relationship with Spike that she's since moved to end.
Dawn is Buffy's kid sister, magically created and retconned into existence early in the fifth season (too much to explain there, and at this stage in the game it's not important), complete with memories for and of her. What's important at this stage is that she's feeling awkwardly on the outside, treated as the kid by everyone else. Also, she has a bit of a kleptomania problem....and that's all you really need to know going in. Anyone else in the story is being seen for the first time.
The episode's laid out in six segments. When one ends just start the next one. Enjoy!
Tags: Once More With Feeling, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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Comments
More than once, he's noted to me that he wished he could get this one episode without having to get the entire 6th season (I'm thinking it's not necessary to go into why). Thanks for putting it up here. Now I'll get to see it, too!
If your schedule today's what I believe it to be he'll have some other distractions.
Rewatching it, I'm reminded of one aspect of it that troubled me -- Whedon is inconsistent in just how 'public' the various tunes are. It's extremely important, for example, that everyone take part in, and hear, all the lyrics of the climactic number, which, as you note, spills several important secrets. And several other songs also provoke specific responses in those listening. Yet Giles thoughtful "I'm Standing In Your Way" number is apparently unheard by anyone, as is his and Tara's duet in which they both express a desire to stay, although they know they can't. In fact, although they're singing together, apparently they can't even hear each other.
Sloppy stuff like that bugs me, and, well, that nearly sums up the whole BUFFY series. Still, yeah, it's a good episode, and definitely the best of an otherwise appallingly bad season.
That some things might be done for the entertainment of extradimensional beings (including those of us out in the audience) is something I accepted as part of the series. It's a large part of why things such as the episode where Buffy may or may not be a delusional woman in a psych ward worked for me; reality becomes a matter of perspective, locale and degree of immersion in each.
As for the rest of the season, it had its missteps and it was intentionally dark and muddy, but I continued to enjoy much of the series all the way through the end of the final season.