Bottom to Top: The BUFFY Episode Countdown: 027
We continue the countdown….
#128 - Ted
[episode 2.11]
BtVS’ version of parental abuse. Hell, if it didn’t have John Ritter in it (and if he wasn’t a robot), this could’ve been a Lifetime movie of the week. I hate the television concept of the ‘friends and family who can’t see what a psycho nutjob they let in the house’. Let’s not believe a girl who up until this point was right on the money everytime she had a ‘gut’ feeling something bad was going on. It’s just a frustrating mess. Realistic or not.
#127 - Shadow
[episode 5.8]
It’s really not to say this episode was bad character-wise or story-wise. It’s just that damned fake-looking CGI snake demon that doesn’t work here. It’s REALLY bad, especially when Buffy fights it in the park. You can tell every moment that it goes from being CGI to puppet….and I mean EVERY frame. “Puppet!”, “CGI!”, “Puppet!”… and so on and so forth.
#126 - Smashed
[episode 6.9]
It’s the night Buffy falls off the wagon again. Back to screwin’ vampires, ugh. Poor Buff. Plus we get the damned wackiest Disney-looking magick we’ve ever had, making absolutely no sense whatsoever. It started in OMWF during the Willow/Tara song, but this blew the roof off that stuff. Willow flicking her wrist, and all of a sudden colors fly out, changing people. Not to mention the fact that I hate abuse of power. Dawn probably should’ve done more than slap her for what she did to her in the next episode. Where’s the friggin’ bazooka?
#125 - Living Conditions
[episode 4.2]
Kathy was just irritating. If you liked Kathy, you and I can’t be friends. No matter how “funny” you think it is. And don’t give me that “you don’t get it” stuff. I get it, trust me. And I’m still not laughing. Matter of fact, the funniest part of the entire episode is when Willow eats Buffy’s sandwich at the very end. Now that was funny. Oh Willow, so much more fun being “sandwich eating mousy Willow” rather than the crackwhore variety.
#124 - Go Fish
[episode 2.20]
If you nix the Xander undercover scenes, this is a crapfest and a half. Giant black lagoon monsters, the coach feeding them some sort of other-wordly substances, it’s just all kinds of bad. Some of it is bad in a funny way, some is just bad. And I know bad in an unfunny way. You’re reading this, aren’t you?
Atalanta: I don’t mind Smashed. Wrecked I hate, but Smashed is okay. And Willow’s abuse of magic becomes pretty important later. Living Conditions though, I really don’t like much.
(07.05.2005, 11:48)
UnpluggedCrazy: Ted and Living Conditions weren’t that bad. They didn’t have a whole lot of relevance, but they worked well enough. I especially liked Ted because of the late, great John Ritter. Mini-pizzas and Chrissy. Yum. I think that came out right. Yeah.
(05.05.2005, 13:13)
EriatarkaESP: Anything with Spike sex is good. Smashed is in my top ten for the misinterpreted metaphors alone, not to mention the “It’s about damn time!!!” aspect of it all.
(27.04.2005, 02:47)
Spikes_love_slave: i think u people who think smashed sucked should go watch a different show. if u dont enjoy that episode ur not a real buffy fan. u have to respect the “plot-twists” joss throws at us and like them, not ridicule them. if u dont have anything good to say, DONT SAY ANYTHING AT ALL!
(11.04.2005, 21:21)
Cole: “You people are rite about all these episodes, they suck!” Agh. Don’t worry, countdown writer…I’m sure there are more intelligent people reading it than these “talk back” posts would suggest. Anyway, I feel your perspective on “Ted” is a little mixed up. I think Joss’ main intention while writing this script was to explore Buffy’s responsibility to not misuse her strength.
(02.04.2005, 15:51)
Cole: Ted is not a person I would want in my life, but she took the wrong approach in dealing with him. She was itching to get into a brawl: he had power over her, and she wanted to use her slayer abilities to take that away. A very heavy and important theme is introduced in “Ted.” It’s a great foreshadowing of “Bad Girls” and “Consequences.”
(02.04.2005, 15:51)
Cole: On any other show the robot twist at the end would have been ridiculous…but here it was neccesary; Joss wanted to explore this theme without the repercussions that would affect Faith in season 3. Since Ted turns out to be a robot and not a human being, the episode can have a happy ending. This episode was “Buffy” at its best.
(02.04.2005, 15:50)
Lurker: OH COME ON!!
- if you think they suck then you really aren’t buffy fans,..
- come on, ALL THE EPS RULE!!!
- I love Go FISH!!
- I LOVE ALL THE FUCKING 144 episodes]the all SOOO RULE!!
(30.03.2005, 07:59)
marianvespers: yeah living conditions sucked, except for the funny part when i didn’t realize buffy was acting any different than usual.
(02.02.2005, 13:02)
Spike_And_Angel: You people are rite about all these episodes, they suck!
(31.01.2005, 16:47)