7.10: Bring On the Night - Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles: forums

obcooke · 18th December 2002, 01:03 AM

Death and destruction, need I say more.

Okay, a bit more.

Giles returns and officially declares it an apocalypse. He brings in tow a few of the few remaining girls with the potential of becoming The Slayer.

Spike and Buffy suffer mightily at the hands of The First's UberVamp.

angelle myst · 18th December 2002, 01:30 AM

So exactly how bad did Buffy look at the end of ep? Or Spike for that matter? And whats up with the Principal? Dodgy!

xxx

obcooke · 18th December 2002, 02:20 AM

[Sammy O'Neill: So exactly how bad did Buffy look at the end of ep? Or Spike for that matter? And whats up with the Principal? Dodgy!]

Actually she didn't look as bad as you might imagine, just a little beat up. Even at her worst, she wasn't exactly oozing or black & blue. She did spit up some blood.

Spike had one eye swollen shut but pretty clean besides.

The Principal is being more mysterious and lurky but no indication yet of which side he is on. But the fact that he found Jonathan's body lying on the big ol' goat-faced seal in the ground and quietly buried him, doesn't make him appear innocent or benevolent.

Things are definitely getting interesting.

tabuno · 18th December 2002, 04:21 AM

When Buffy goes out in search of the wannabe Slayer who ran away, I almost gagged at the fight scene. I almost wanted to say that the whole episode was ruined just for the sake of the dramatic contrast that occurs at the end of this episode. But how dumb and stupid can scriptwriters be and the directing when Buffy is found to be out without any weapons at all, going up agains the vampires of vampires. How ludicrous can that be? Not even a big giant sword to chop off a head or two. Where's the flamethrowers? Where's the rocket launcher? Where's the acid?

On the whole, though, the good humor continues, the pain intensifies, the evil one is really getting naster, and Buffy really ends strong in this one. Great but almost disastrous episode.

tabuno · 18th December 2002, 04:23 AM

Secondly, Buffy in this episode is so amazingly slow without any counterpunches...what's up with that? Her fighting speed and martial art moves are so slow and awkward while the vamp is just a tad more fast than Buffy is usually.

obcooke · 18th December 2002, 04:45 AM

I had a problem with the way they tried to build dramatic effect as well.

I also noticed Buffy's shocking lack of weapons. If a girl ever needed a rocket launcher...

Other things that were distracting -

When Buffy was wounded and trying to get away, the only thing slower than her was the UberVamp. It was lumbering like a Frankenstein monster.

Then after she drops the pipes on him and gains some distance, the UberVamp runs to catch up with her.

Why didn't it run before?

And another thing - Why was Buffy being so stubborn about getting some rest? I was never a warrior, but even in the peacetime service you learn to sleep when you can because you never know when your next opportunity will come.

I mean, she was falling asleep without any warning - surely that's more dangerous than sleeping in a house full of S-I-Ts and friends to sound the alarm.

Instead she decides to go to work??? I thought she went to the school to see if she could learn anything more, but we never see her investigating, just sitting at her desk and falling asleep listening to student's complain.

Oh, well she did try an Internet search, but surely she didn't have to go to the school to do that. Isn't that something that Willow and Dawn are supposed to be so much better at? Is there something special about the computer on her desk that Buffy could find out something that Willow and Dawn couldn't?

The threat is growing nicely, but the holes in this script are SOOOO irritating that it detracts from the dramatic impact.

tabuno · 18th December 2002, 05:36 AM

Buffy's mother visits Buffy and urges her also to sleep. There is an element of conflict here as Buffy wants to reject sleep so as to reject the first evil who also wants her to sleep. So perhaps, at least, subconsciously, she's trying to stay awake just because that's what the first evil suggested and to make this more complicated, perhaps the first evil is using reverse psychology trying to keep Buffy awake so that she'll be less powerful and alert.

On going back to school, she is trying to compromise in her commitments. While perhaps a wacky sense of priorities (she's sleepy remember) she agreed with the (strange) school principal down in the basement to go to school the next morning when he asked. Something seems to be going on there, especially with the weird expressions going on with the principal. So Buffy goes to school and tries to research at the same time and falls asleep and dreams about her mother (first evil).

angelle myst · 18th December 2002, 01:28 PM

The wildfeed made it out to be like Buffy and Spike were beat up so bad. Some ppl i know said that the scenes with Spike getting beat up looked pretty fake.

xxx

JonahBlack · 18th December 2002, 10:00 PM

My favorite bit was that they made a point of saying that The First can only imitate people who are dead/have died, and that it remains incorporeal. Remember that last we saw Giles he had an axe inches from his head. Through the entire episode, he never touche anything, and he always has his coat on!!

Does this mean Giles is dead? That's what my friends and I thought. Then we realized that it'd be just like Joss Whedon to pay attention to those details just to make us think that...

However, 'Giles' also brought the last of the potential Slayers to the home of the thing that wants to kill them, and he brought Buffy to the cave with the uber-vamp, and he spent much of the episode doom-saying. Things don't look good for out favorite British Librarian

Dru · 18th December 2002, 11:31 PM

Oh I have to say this. This episode sucked! Ok now The First Evil is just a big stupid jerk! How dare he/she/it use Drusilla form to hurt Spike?!?! Hello? What the hell is wrong with the writers?!? They not only break up the one good relationship ever on the show but they then use one of them to torture the other?!?! Even if it wasn't the Real Drusilla it still sucked.

And Hello? Drowning a vampire?! Oh dear lord....I guess they forgot that vampires DON'T BREATHE!!!!

And the Slayer's In Training? Can we say rip off of Spike and Dru Pretty Maids All In A Row? Plus the girls were just annoying....

And what's her name? Annabell? Running off from a house full of slayers, and people who have been fighting since they were younger then you to run down a street with out at least grabbing a sword or crossbow or something?!? I thought they said these girls were like Kendra trained since they were little kids? Where's her frickin brain?!??!???!

Highlander II · 18th December 2002, 11:51 PM

Hey! You stole my drowning rant!

anyway -- aside from the stupid First trying to drown a not-breathing vampire -

yeah - this episode wasn't all that it could have been -- (JAG was better) --

The best part of this whole ep - shirtless Spike -

but it wasn't good -

Buffy w/o weapons really got to me too - and all the other plot holes that have been pointed out -

I just want to know - why is everyone being stupid all of a sudden? Did their brains fall out?

The use of Drusilla to torture Spike, I totally get - the First thinks that Drusilla could pull Spike to 'her' side - except that Spike realizes that the First is just appearing in these various forms to taunt him, and after Buffy's little speech from the last episode - he's all set to completely ignore the first and die, if that's what it takes (probably extreme, but he might end up that way) to protect Buffy --- Spike going 'hero' on us?? (gag me, but anyway) --

tabuno · 19th December 2002, 06:15 AM

I really like the Spike character here because it reveals pain and torture of an undead - to suffer without dying and still there is resilience and then there is the ominous dread, the evil of all evil that saps, and like Satan, plays with your inner most hopes and dreams, sucking the very life out of you. The scriptwriter intentional wanted to have a depths of dispair to rising up. The premise is sound, its execution was shaky in places, but I liked this concentration, focus on how strong, how viral this opposition is, how helpless and questioning our strong gang can become. As in reality, such experiences are real. This whole season continues to move progressively forward with flare and with fire and with intensity that is only matched by "24."

Highlander II · 19th December 2002, 06:04 PM

Yeah - the Spike parts were well-done. I think Douglas Petrie wrote those parts... Marti Noxon co-wrote, and I'm sure she wrote most of the other Scooby stuff - which kind of explains the skewed focus toward Willow a bit -

I'm not a big fan of Marti Noxon's episodes beyond S2 - and even a couple there bug me -

What I mostly don't understand is that she was responsible for 'developing' the relationship btwn Dru and Spike - she came up with them and their S&M like relationship, the dolls w/ the blindfolds, the way the two played off each other, then once Angel lost his soul, it's like she completely forgot how to write Spike and Dru - almost like she could write them as a couple - the couple being one character, but once they were split, she had no idea how each would react or act or be -- she got lost -- (and this is just my opinion, and it might be something much beyond that) --

I love Spike, and I'm liking the character development we're getting this season - but it's almost like 'too little, too late' - the writers should have been developing Spike (Dawn too) back in S4, 5 and 6 - thus leading us into a more well-developed storyline - but they're still shoe-horning him into the story - he's integral, but only b/c Buffy wants him to be. If Buffy didn't care about Spike at all, she wouldn't be trying so hard to 'rescue' him. Why is it that every time they get something that could be a Spike-centered storyline, they shift it back to Buffy? It's why the stories start to suffer after a while - they're trying to develop a character that's already been developed - over the course of six years -- Buffy doesn't really need more development, she might if they'd thought to focus on the other characters a bit more in the earlier seasons, but it's beginning to seem to me that the writers don't really know how to work with Buffy unless she's attached to a partner (generally a boyfriend - Angel, Riley, Spike) - she has to have a male counter-part to react against in order to be effective - kind of defeats the whole initial purpose of the show, IMO.

end rant -------

btw - I watched this again - and I still wasn't impressed - the other eps this season have been much better - not sure what happened w/ this episode --

Shaun · 21st December 2002, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JonahBlack
My favorite bit was that they made a point of saying that The First can only imitate people who are dead/have died, and that it remains incorporeal. Remember that last we saw Giles he had an axe inches from his head. Through the entire episode, he never touche anything, and he always has his coat on!!

Does this mean Giles is dead? That's what my friends and I thought. Then we realized that it'd be just like Joss Whedon to pay attention to those details just to make us think that...

However, 'Giles' also brought the last of the potential Slayers to the home of the thing that wants to kill them, and he brought Buffy to the cave with the uber-vamp, and he spent much of the episode doom-saying. Things don't look good for out favorite British Librarian

Yeah, thats what I was thinking. But it might be just a red herring. The SITs would have to be really stupid not to notice that 'Giles' never touched anything all the way to the US. Especially after telling everyone that the First can't take corporeal form.

I liked the episode. Giles is back (even if it isn't him), and it had Dru. I'm starting to like Andrew so I'm I'm guessing that they're going to kill him off soon

. I still don't like how the uber vamp looks but he could fight all right so he gets points for that. I thought they were a bit heavy handed with the Principal Wood thing.

little smaug · 28th December 2002, 11:42 AM

Oh, you mean people have now ruined for me the greatness of Giles coming back!

But there were a few suspicious bits. Like when Buffy was climbing out of the hole after fighting the ubervamp, where was Giles to give her a hand?

18th December 2002, 01:03 AM	#1 (permalink)
obcooke OB-Wan Join Date: Jul 2001 Posts: 1,357	7.10: Bring On the Night Death and destruction, need I say more. Okay, a bit more. Giles returns and officially declares it an apocalypse. He brings in tow a few of the few remaining girls with the potential of becoming The Slayer. Spike and Buffy suffer mightily at the hands of The First's UberVamp.

18th December 2002, 04:21 AM	#4 (permalink)
tabuno Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 69	Almost Ruined Episode When Buffy goes out in search of the wannabe Slayer who ran away, I almost gagged at the fight scene. I almost wanted to say that the whole episode was ruined just for the sake of the dramatic contrast that occurs at the end of this episode. But how dumb and stupid can scriptwriters be and the directing when Buffy is found to be out without any weapons at all, going up agains the vampires of vampires. How ludicrous can that be? Not even a big giant sword to chop off a head or two. Where's the flamethrowers? Where's the rocket launcher? Where's the acid? On the whole, though, the good humor continues, the pain intensifies, the evil one is really getting naster, and Buffy really ends strong in this one. Great but almost disastrous episode.

18th December 2002, 04:23 AM	#5 (permalink)
tabuno Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 69	Oh...Also...Slow Buffy Secondly, Buffy in this episode is so amazingly slow without any counterpunches...what's up with that? Her fighting speed and martial art moves are so slow and awkward while the vamp is just a tad more fast than Buffy is usually.

18th December 2002, 05:36 AM	#7 (permalink)
tabuno Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 69	Possible Explanations Buffy's mother visits Buffy and urges her also to sleep. There is an element of conflict here as Buffy wants to reject sleep so as to reject the first evil who also wants her to sleep. So perhaps, at least, subconsciously, she's trying to stay awake just because that's what the first evil suggested and to make this more complicated, perhaps the first evil is using reverse psychology trying to keep Buffy awake so that she'll be less powerful and alert. On going back to school, she is trying to compromise in her commitments. While perhaps a wacky sense of priorities (she's sleepy remember) she agreed with the (strange) school principal down in the basement to go to school the next morning when he asked. Something seems to be going on there, especially with the weird expressions going on with the principal. So Buffy goes to school and tries to research at the same time and falls asleep and dreams about her mother (first evil).

19th December 2002, 06:15 AM	#12 (permalink)
tabuno Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 69	Still Like This Episode I really like the Spike character here because it reveals pain and torture of an undead - to suffer without dying and still there is resilience and then there is the ominous dread, the evil of all evil that saps, and like Satan, plays with your inner most hopes and dreams, sucking the very life out of you. The scriptwriter intentional wanted to have a depths of dispair to rising up. The premise is sound, its execution was shaky in places, but I liked this concentration, focus on how strong, how viral this opposition is, how helpless and questioning our strong gang can become. As in reality, such experiences are real. This whole season continues to move progressively forward with flare and with fire and with intensity that is only matched by "24."

18th December 2002, 01:30 AM	#2 (permalink)
angelle myst Ash Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,771	So exactly how bad did Buffy look at the end of ep? Or Spike for that matter? And whats up with the Principal? Dodgy! xxx

18th December 2002, 02:20 AM	#3 (permalink)
obcooke OB-Wan Join Date: Jul 2001 Posts: 1,357	[Sammy O'Neill: So exactly how bad did Buffy look at the end of ep? Or Spike for that matter? And whats up with the Principal? Dodgy!] Actually she didn't look as bad as you might imagine, just a little beat up. Even at her worst, she wasn't exactly oozing or black & blue. She did spit up some blood. Spike had one eye swollen shut but pretty clean besides. The Principal is being more mysterious and lurky but no indication yet of which side he is on. But the fact that he found Jonathan's body lying on the big ol' goat-faced seal in the ground and quietly buried him, doesn't make him appear innocent or benevolent. Things are definitely getting interesting.

18th December 2002, 04:45 AM	#6 (permalink)
obcooke OB-Wan Join Date: Jul 2001 Posts: 1,357	I had a problem with the way they tried to build dramatic effect as well. I also noticed Buffy's shocking lack of weapons. If a girl ever needed a rocket launcher... Other things that were distracting - When Buffy was wounded and trying to get away, the only thing slower than her was the UberVamp. It was lumbering like a Frankenstein monster. Then after she drops the pipes on him and gains some distance, the UberVamp runs to catch up with her. Why didn't it run before? And another thing - Why was Buffy being so stubborn about getting some rest? I was never a warrior, but even in the peacetime service you learn to sleep when you can because you never know when your next opportunity will come. I mean, she was falling asleep without any warning - surely that's more dangerous than sleeping in a house full of S-I-Ts and friends to sound the alarm. Instead she decides to go to work??? I thought she went to the school to see if she could learn anything more, but we never see her investigating, just sitting at her desk and falling asleep listening to student's complain. Oh, well she did try an Internet search, but surely she didn't have to go to the school to do that. Isn't that something that Willow and Dawn are supposed to be so much better at? Is there something special about the computer on her desk that Buffy could find out something that Willow and Dawn couldn't? The threat is growing nicely, but the holes in this script are SOOOO irritating that it detracts from the dramatic impact.

18th December 2002, 01:28 PM	#8 (permalink)
angelle myst Ash Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,771	The wildfeed made it out to be like Buffy and Spike were beat up so bad. Some ppl i know said that the scenes with Spike getting beat up looked pretty fake. xxx

18th December 2002, 10:00 PM	#9 (permalink)
JonahBlack Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 17	My favorite bit was that they made a point of saying that The First can only imitate people who are dead/have died, and that it remains incorporeal. Remember that last we saw Giles he had an axe inches from his head. Through the entire episode, he never touche anything, and he always has his coat on!! Does this mean Giles is dead? That's what my friends and I thought. Then we realized that it'd be just like Joss Whedon to pay attention to those details just to make us think that... However, 'Giles' also brought the last of the potential Slayers to the home of the thing that wants to kill them, and he brought Buffy to the cave with the uber-vamp, and he spent much of the episode doom-saying. Things don't look good for out favorite British Librarian

18th December 2002, 11:31 PM	#10 (permalink)
Dru I'm a princess Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 910	Oh I have to say this. This episode sucked! Ok now The First Evil is just a big stupid jerk! How dare he/she/it use Drusilla form to hurt Spike?!?! Hello? What the hell is wrong with the writers?!? They not only break up the one good relationship ever on the show but they then use one of them to torture the other?!?! Even if it wasn't the Real Drusilla it still sucked. And Hello? Drowning a vampire?! Oh dear lord....I guess they forgot that vampires DON'T BREATHE!!!! And the Slayer's In Training? Can we say rip off of Spike and Dru Pretty Maids All In A Row? Plus the girls were just annoying.... And what's her name? Annabell? Running off from a house full of slayers, and people who have been fighting since they were younger then you to run down a street with out at least grabbing a sword or crossbow or something?!? I thought they said these girls were like Kendra trained since they were little kids? Where's her frickin brain?!??!???!

18th December 2002, 11:51 PM	#11 (permalink)
Highlander II There can be only one!! Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 9,630	Hey! You stole my drowning rant! anyway -- aside from the stupid First trying to drown a not-breathing vampire - yeah - this episode wasn't all that it could have been -- (JAG was better) -- The best part of this whole ep - shirtless Spike - but it wasn't good - Buffy w/o weapons really got to me too - and all the other plot holes that have been pointed out - I just want to know - why is everyone being stupid all of a sudden? Did their brains fall out? The use of Drusilla to torture Spike, I totally get - the First thinks that Drusilla could pull Spike to 'her' side - except that Spike realizes that the First is just appearing in these various forms to taunt him, and after Buffy's little speech from the last episode - he's all set to completely ignore the first and die, if that's what it takes (probably extreme, but he might end up that way) to protect Buffy --- Spike going 'hero' on us?? (gag me, but anyway) --

19th December 2002, 06:04 PM	#13 (permalink)
Highlander II There can be only one!! Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 9,630	Yeah - the Spike parts were well-done. I think Douglas Petrie wrote those parts... Marti Noxon co-wrote, and I'm sure she wrote most of the other Scooby stuff - which kind of explains the skewed focus toward Willow a bit - I'm not a big fan of Marti Noxon's episodes beyond S2 - and even a couple there bug me - What I mostly don't understand is that she was responsible for 'developing' the relationship btwn Dru and Spike - she came up with them and their S&M like relationship, the dolls w/ the blindfolds, the way the two played off each other, then once Angel lost his soul, it's like she completely forgot how to write Spike and Dru - almost like she could write them as a couple - the couple being one character, but once they were split, she had no idea how each would react or act or be -- she got lost -- (and this is just my opinion, and it might be something much beyond that) -- I love Spike, and I'm liking the character development we're getting this season - but it's almost like 'too little, too late' - the writers should have been developing Spike (Dawn too) back in S4, 5 and 6 - thus leading us into a more well-developed storyline - but they're still shoe-horning him into the story - he's integral, but only b/c Buffy wants him to be. If Buffy didn't care about Spike at all, she wouldn't be trying so hard to 'rescue' him. Why is it that every time they get something that could be a Spike-centered storyline, they shift it back to Buffy? It's why the stories start to suffer after a while - they're trying to develop a character that's already been developed - over the course of six years -- Buffy doesn't really need more development, she might if they'd thought to focus on the other characters a bit more in the earlier seasons, but it's beginning to seem to me that the writers don't really know how to work with Buffy unless she's attached to a partner (generally a boyfriend - Angel, Riley, Spike) - she has to have a male counter-part to react against in order to be effective - kind of defeats the whole initial purpose of the show, IMO. end rant ------- btw - I watched this again - and I still wasn't impressed - the other eps this season have been much better - not sure what happened w/ this episode --

28th December 2002, 11:42 AM	#15 (permalink)
little smaug Fire and Brimstone Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 1,347	Oh, you mean people have now ruined for me the greatness of Giles coming back! But there were a few suspicious bits. Like when Buffy was climbing out of the hole after fighting the ubervamp, where was Giles to give her a hand?

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