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Post by Clare on Sept 26, 2008 9:58:03 GMT -5
5.13 Blood Ties - Episode #091
On Buffy's 20th birthday, Dawn discovers that she's the Key and runs away, only to encounter Glory.
Review (also post a score out of 10) and discuss this episode.
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Post by cyclica on Feb 9, 2009 17:10:00 GMT -5
Not too bad of an episode, though I think it suffers from being too arc related, it can only be enjoyed when watching the whole of s5 and isn't much to watch on its own.
Dawn is a little annoying at one point (get out, get out, get out!), but redeems herself later on, sneaking into the magic box and pumping glory for information. The rest of the gang didn't have much to do though. My biggest problem with this ep was the fight at the end- suddenly xander and spike seemed to be just as strong as buffy, and glory was just a notch stronger. The first time we saw her she was punching holes in walls and throwing the slayer across the room, but here she seemed as strong as any random vampire.
I give this ep a low 6.
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Post by partcynic on Sept 9, 2010 14:09:06 GMT -5
5x13 “Blood Ties”
Episode Rating = 2
After the last two episodes showed evidence of thought and attention to detail, I’d originally hoped that S5 might have been breaking away from its watery style. Unfortunately, “Blood Ties” promptly snuffed my optimism out, providing an ep so devoid of plot or character development that it could make “Bad Eggs” look like Shakespeare. The debut of Steven S. DeKnight, this is a depressing foreshadow of the tripe he’d churn out for both “Buffy” and “Angel” over the next few years, and the first appearance of serious competition for Rebecca Rand Kirshner as the show’s weakest writing link. Still, there are a few minor highlights scattered about, and they’re enough to save “Blood Ties” from the trashcan – but only just.
What I Liked about “Blood Ties”:
- The dialogue in the first few scenes (Magic Box meeting; the birthday party) is good, with lots of wit and some humorous lines.
- The Spike/Dawn interaction was the highlight of the episode, and I loved how Dawn taunted him about his battered box of chocolates and claimed that even she was scarier. Spike’s retort about her sneaking out to watch Teletubbies was excellent, and their dynamic in the Magic Box scene worked. I also enjoyed the later moment when Spike stood up to Buffy – he made great points, and it was nice to see Buffy’s self-righteousness get its deserved dismissal.
- Arc-wise, I guess it’s nice that Dawn (and the rest of the gang) now know she’s the Key, and the ‘Ben is Glory’ reveal was shocking on first viewing.
- The Dawn/Glory scene is reasonably tense, and Clare Kramer is continuing to improve as an actress. Their dialogue was interesting, and it was good for Dawn to display some cunning and attempt to quiz Glory on the Key.
What I Disliked about “Blood Ties”:
- As per usual, the cinematography blows. I don’t understand why the indoor scenes (especially at the Summers house, which should be a priority set) are so constantly dark, nor why they’re saturated with yellow. Would it have wrecked the show’s budget to buy a few more lights?
- In another thing that’s becoming increasingly common for the season, there’s little plot. Dawn finds out that she’s the Key, we learn that Ben and Glory are the same person (kind of)... and that’s it. A hefty chunk of S5 is dragged down by non-existent stories, and it’s risking losing the focus that once made the series so watchable.
- Charlie Weber is from the Marc Blucas school of charisma-free eye-candy, and he’s just as wooden and unconvincing. His acting during Ben’s freakout was pretty laughable, and he didn’t seem to know what to do to convey his character’s feelings (such as those bizarre, flailing hand movements he kept making).
- How’s Jinx able to manoeuvre around the hospital so easily? Doesn’t anyone notice him randomly lurking around the wards?
- I’ll cut Michelle Trachtenberg some slack and say that the problems with Dawn are obviously not her fault, but she’s still a weak actress. Her attempts at being emotional are either shrill or corny (I’m not a [dramatic pause] KEY”), and her shrieking is flat-out irritating.
- I’ll now be more specific and discuss Dawn as a character. The big problem with her is that despite the supposed year-long plan for her arrival, she’s flat and underdeveloped. All we’ve really gotten so far is her whining and being bratty, with the occasion ‘sleeping innocent’ shot. Because of this, two problems arise. Firstly, I haven’t been given a reason to care about Dawn as a person as opposed to a plot device, and secondly, nothing has happened to make me understand why the other characters care about her. Sure, they have fake memories and want to keep the Key safe, but I’d like to properly know why they love/fuss over her so much. By telling instead of showing what’s so great about Dawn, we’ve ended up with a dynamic just as problematic as Buffy/Riley, and it’s one that does equal harm to the show.
- Knowing about Dawn’s poor characterisation, let’s look at her actions without the ‘ah, poor child’ blinders on. First, she throws a fit because people won’t tell her things (welcome to the real world), and feels so entitled to know Buffy’s private information that she breaks into Giles’ place of business and takes his things. Upon learning that she’s the Key, she earns emotional points, but her anger could have been expressed more eloquently than through those awful “you’re not my mother!” and “get out, Get Out, GET OUT!” scenes. As with Riley in “Goodbye, Iowa”, this character’s world has fallen apart, but the reactions are so generically written that it’s hard to sympathise. Adding insult to injury, there is zero development here – Dawn’s upset, frightened and questioning the world for 42 minutes, then pings back to her old self and demonstrates no growth. If the writers weren’t going to do anything with her, why bother penning this episode?
- The treatment of injuries is poor. Dawn carves up her arm with a large (and very sharp) knife, yet no-one suggests taking her to get checked at the hospital, and Buffy later shrugs off having a bar hurled into her torso. Even with Slayer recovery powers, that’s going to need some attention, and it’s stupid that it’s forgotten as soon as its role in the ‘story’ is over.
- The hospital scenes are filled with questionable plotting. The staff loudly discussing the murdered watchman just as they walked past the gang was a huge coincidence, as was the Scoobs magically finding Dawn and Glory just in time to prevent any brain-suckage. Hospitals are large buildings, and I’d like to know how our heroes deduced where they were.
- Glory is far too weak against the Scoobs. She’s wiped the floor with Buffy the last two times they’ve fought, yet she’s now being given minor trouble by Spike and even Xander. In addition, it seems that her strength is being ignored – when she threw Xander, she should have been able to knock him out (or send him through the wall), and the rebar she launched at Buffy should have gone right through her. For all of the talk of how she’s a god (even one with currently limited powers), it would be good for her to show skills matching her status.
- Why do Willow and Tara have the teleportation spell powder on them? They left the Magic Box to look for Dawn, not to fight monsters. And it’s not like they could have returned to the shop and made some – they go from the unsuccessful Dawn-hunt to meeting Buffy in the graveyard, and then to the hospital. It seems that the only reason they had the powder was because the plot required it – and that’s bad writing.
- I’m not usually bothered by bad language, but I was surprised by the frequent swearing. Sure, it was all mild, but the show has usually gone without, to its benefit. Besides that, the only incident in which the language proved funny was Glory’s “oh, sh—“ before she plummeted to earth –and even that was a duplicate of a joke the show had done before (in “Doppelgangland”).
- The Knights of Byzantium are a terrible concept, written poorly and played by hammy actors. They come across less like a noble order and more like a bunch of particularly geeky Dungeons and Dragons fans.
- The ‘blood ties’ theme is a failure. All of the dialogue pertaining to the ‘you ARE my sister, no matter what’ stuff was mawkish, and the episode kept sidestepping the real issues in favour of chicken-soup-for-the-soul clichés.
Do I like this episode more or less than the last time I watched it?
I’m as unimpressed by it as I’ve always been, and think that it ranks with the then-worst eps of the show (though as we’re aware, S6/7 would rewrite the rules regarding bad “Buffy”). I won’t say that this is terrible, and I do like some of the humour, continuity references and characterisation – it’s just that these are overpowered by the absence of plot, poor pacing, plethora of clichés, and the presentation of trite soundbites as deep and powerful. As a result, I can only give “Blood Ties” a score of two out of ten, which puts it in my bottom three eps at this point.
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Post by cyclica on Nov 13, 2010 15:54:05 GMT -5
- The Spike/Dawn interaction was the highlight of the episode, and I loved how Dawn taunted him about his battered box of chocolates and claimed that even she was scarier. Spike’s retort about her sneaking out to watch Teletubbies was excellent, and their dynamic in the Magic Box scene worked. Agreed. Dawn seems to have better chemistry with spike than with anyone else. - In another thing that’s becoming increasingly common for the season, there’s little plot. Dawn finds out that she’s the Key, we learn that Ben and Glory are the same person (kind of)... and that’s it. A hefty chunk of S5 is dragged down by non-existent stories, and it’s risking losing the focus that once made the series so watchable. I agree that the episode has little plot, and this is one of many episodes this season that can only be enjoyed as part of a marathon. But haven't there been episodes like that since season 3? For me, these 'arc episodes' don't get truly annoying until season 7, where there are virtually no self-contained episodes to balance them out. - The treatment of injuries is poor. Dawn carves up her arm with a large (and very sharp) knife, yet no-one suggests taking her to get checked at the hospital, and Buffy later shrugs off having a bar hurled into her torso. Even with Slayer recovery powers, that’s going to need some attention, and it’s stupid that it’s forgotten as soon as its role in the ‘story’ is over. They are in a hospital at the end of the episode, they could have just got their injuries looked at off-screen after the action was over. - Glory is far too weak against the Scoobs. She’s wiped the floor with Buffy the last two times they’ve fought, yet she’s now being given minor trouble by Spike and even Xander. In addition, it seems that her strength is being ignored – when she threw Xander, she should have been able to knock him out (or send him through the wall), and the rebar she launched at Buffy should have gone right through her. For all of the talk of how she’s a god (even one with currently limited powers), it would be good for her to show skills matching her status. Agreed. That fight was ridiculous. They really need to be consistent with how strong the characters are. And besides, they wasted a good opportunity to make glory seem more intimidating than previous big bads, if only she'd have inflicted serious injuries on the main characters. - Why do Willow and Tara have the teleportation spell powder on them? They left the Magic Box to look for Dawn, not to fight monsters. And it’s not like they could have returned to the shop and made some – they go from the unsuccessful Dawn-hunt to meeting Buffy in the graveyard, and then to the hospital. It seems that the only reason they had the powder was because the plot required it – and that’s bad writing. They probably carry it with them all the time. If I lived in a town full of demons, and I knew how to make power to teleport me out of danger, I'd carry it with me all the time too. ...but then, why is it never used in later episodes? - I’m not usually bothered by bad language, but I was surprised by the frequent swearing. Sure, it was all mild, but the show has usually gone without, to its benefit. Besides that, the only incident in which the language proved funny was Glory’s “oh, sh—“ before she plummeted to earth –and even that was a duplicate of a joke the show had done before (in “Doppelgangland”). Ha! If anything, there's not enough swearing.  I'm not saying everyone should be swearing all the time (certainly I wouldn't enjoy watching that), but at times it seems odd that characters are put into extreme, life and death situations and never exclaim anything harsher than 'damn'. Usually the writing is such that you don't notice when a character doesn't swear when put into a situation when any real person would, but at times it does stand out. Especially whenever someone says 'frickin'. I'm glad we at least got a couple of instances when someone indicated they were aware of harsher words. .... I'm sticking with my low 6. There were a few flaws, and it's definitely marathon-only material, but even so I didn't think this ep was all that bad. |
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Post by partcynic on Nov 15, 2010 11:53:47 GMT -5
You are too kind, sir. I noticed that you deftly sidestepped all of my comments on Dawn's characterisation/lack of development. Agreed. I don't really think there have been, though. The only real plotless arc eps we've had before were "Consequences" and "Goodbye, Iowa", and the rest of their parent seasons had enough going on to render those stumbles very minor. Contrast to S5, where we've already had "No Place Like Home" and "Blood Ties" (as well as "Out of My Mind", "Listening to Fear", "Into the Woods" and "Triangle", if we also include low-plot non-arc eps). Not to mention that we still have "Forever", the first half of "Tough Love" and the entirety of "The Weight of the World" to get through. That's close to half of the season being almost story-free. But Dawn cut herself (and was bleeding quite badly) a long time before that. Common sense dictates you get it checked out immediately to make sure you haven't severed any major vessels. It might have been okay if the subject was broached and Dawn refused to go, but it didn't even get mentioned. And why didn't they think to give any to Buffy, or even Dawn as a last-ditch protection measure? |
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Post by cyclica on Nov 21, 2010 15:00:41 GMT -5
You are too kind, sir. I noticed that you deftly sidestepped all of my comments on Dawn's characterisation/lack of development. Yep. I can understand why you might not like her, but I've never had a big problem with dawn (except for a few scenes, and every character has been annoying at some point). As for why the other characters like her, well I'm sure it's because of their fake memories. I don't really think there have been, though. The only real plotless arc eps we've had before were "Consequences" and "Goodbye, Iowa", and the rest of their parent seasons had enough going on to render those stumbles very minor. Contrast to S5, where we've already had "No Place Like Home" and "Blood Ties" (as well as "Out of My Mind", "Listening to Fear", "Into the Woods" and "Triangle", if we also include low-plot non-arc eps). Not to mention that we still have "Forever", the first half of "Tough Love" and the entirety of "The Weight of the World" to get through. That's close to half of the season being almost story-free. For me, 'no place like home', 'triangle', 'forever' and 'TWOTW' don't fall under the category of being marathon-only plot episodes. And while I admit s5 does have more 'dragging' episodes (into the woods, listening to fear), the season as a whole is just a notch below seasons 3 and 4 in terms of quality, and has only slightly more arc episodes 'taking over', and it's not a big enough problem to complain about. |
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