7.20 Touched

[Clare]

7.20 Touched - Episode #142
As the apocalypse looms, couples grow closer in Sunnydale and Buffy learns of a mystical scythe that may be the key to defeating the First.

Review (also post a score out of 10) and discuss this episode.

[partcynic]

7x20 “Touched”

Episode Rating = 2

Like “Potential” back in the midseason, “Touched” is one of those eps it’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for. While it’s a sub-par edition, the responsibility for this should be split equally between its own writer (Rebecca Rand Kirshner) and “Empty Places” scribe Drew Z. Greenberg. To be frank, “Empty Places” was so problematic and full of character destruction that even Joss wouldn’t have been able to pen a good follow-up to it (unless said ep took place in a parallel universe or was one-hundred percent monster-of-the-week), so expecting Rand Kirshner to be able to crawl out from under the mess would have been too much. Instead, we got a typically slow, drab and development-free S7 arc offering – but this one at least had a grasp of the characters’ basic personalities, as well as the odd decent line. Taken in context of the entire “Buffy” series, this is obviously nothing special, but at this stage in its chronology, you just have to work with what you’re given.

What I Liked about “Touched”:

- This ep has a few funny lines, like Xander’s hypothetical letter to the First and Andrew’s post-hypnosis comment about needing a lozenge.

- It was great to have Spike point out that Willow et al were a bunch of miserable traitors, and I’d have been happy for him to give all of them a good smacking.

- Buffy’s mini-battle against Caleb was all good, with some nice flashes of the old, quip-ready Buffy coming through. It was excellent to see her remember basic strategy (your opponent is physically stronger than you, so don’t let him hit you), and do what she should have done when they fought in “Dirty Girls”.

- I remain fond of Amanda, and laughed when her response to missing a Bringer with her crossbow bolt was to beat him up with the bow itself.

What I found to be a mixed bag about “Touched”:

- It wasn’t written particularly well, but I enjoyed seeing Buffy open up to Spike about her sense of isolation. It was nice to have a bit of follow-up to “Conversations With Dead People”, and the character was more sympathetic than she’d been for the bulk of the season. In turn, Spike’s response was good – but it was also overdramatic (“In a hundred years, you’re all I’ve ever been sure of”, which kind of kills his S2 arc – I’m pretty certain he was sure of Drusilla). The flowery, over-romanticised proclamations didn’t sound like Spike, or even like a man, instead having more than a hint of Mills and Boon to them. It’s a shame that Spike has been reduced to a sorry cliché, but like I said, the scene wasn’t bad.

- I loved having Harry Groener return, and his performance as the First-Mayor was as spirited as ever. However, if I wanted to watch the character, I’d rather put on one of the superior eps from S3, and see the real deal instead of a weak facsimile. His conversation with Faith was okay, but it didn’t say anything new or insightful (hasn’t ‘Faith doesn’t want to be alone’ been a basic facet of her character ever since she was introduced? And as for Buffy not trusting her – to quote Cordelia, “Well, duh”), and was consequently gratuitous. Besides, Faith should already have dealt with most of these issues during her time in prison, as well as during her LA confrontation with Angelus.

What I Disliked about “Touched”:

- The camera work in the first few scenes was terrible. I understand that the crew wanted to convey a feeling of tenseness and uncertainty, but the amateurish, jangling shaky-cam succeeded only in inducing motion-sickness.

- A lot of the early scenes were empty. The abbey chat with Spike and Andrew and the silly Spike/Faith fight were unnecessary, and Andrew’s ‘solo’ moments had him back in irritant mode. It’s a shame that he’s had no real development post-“Storyteller”, and it seems that the excellent job that episode did of giving him more depth has been ignored.

- I didn’t mind Kennedy in her first few episodes, but she’s been incredibly annoying since “Get It Done”. At the start, she’s approaching Dawn-esque levels of whininess, and her later material with Willow left me cold. Alyson Hannigan and Iyari Limon have zero romantic/sexual chemistry (compare them to Alyson and Amber in “Seeing Red”), and the sex-prelude ‘kite string’ dialogue was poorly written. I also found it strange when Willow stated that the precedent set by her transformation into Warren after their first kiss made her concerned about what would happen if they slept together – as it suggests that Kennedy never bothered to tell her that Amy was responsible for what happened.

- The ideas the show is conveying about being a leader are really problematic. In “Empty Places”, we had much discussion about how Buffy’s authoritarian stance and recklessness were bad – to the point that all of her friends and family dismissed her and kicked her out of her own home. However, within five minutes of this ep starting, Faith has assumed her role and turned into Bossy-Buffy 2.0. She then concocts a plan just as flawed as the one Buffy suggested (stroll in to an unknown situation at the heart of the enemy base, which might as well have ‘trap’ written above it in flashing lights), yet everyone is fine with this, with no-one but Kennedy having an issue with her dictatorial decisions. In then turns out that Buffy was right all along, while Faith leads everyone to get blown up by an improbable bomb. Just what is the show trying to say about the nature of leadership? Does anyone want to dwell on the jumble of attempted themes in these last few eps?

- While it’s at least consistent with her translating abilities from earlier in the season, Dawn’s linguistic skills continue to be a joke. It appears that she’s now added ancient Turkish to her repertoire, and that’s just as unbelievable as her knowing Sumerian.

- The stuff with the captured Bringer didn’t really work. I fail to understand why it would have told them about the weapons cache in the first place, and it’s silly that none of the Scoobs were suspicious of his willingness to talk (wouldn’t that suggest a trap to you?) In addition, why did Giles kill the guy when he was being so giving? Surely he could have provided them with a little more info first?

- Giles’ characterisation continues to disappoint. After his disastrous turns in “Lies My Parents Told Me” and “Empty Places”, we got the scene of him saying that throwing Buffy out was the right thing to do, and then switching his paternal affections to Faith. Are we absolutely certain that he isn’t the First in disguise?

- Has Spike suddenly developed psychic powers? He tells Buffy that her plan to return to the vineyard was right – except that he was away on the abbey mission for most of “Empty Places”, and was never actually told what she’d suggested.

- The sex scenes were more boring than hot. I get that the intention was to contrast the physical-only bonding of Wood and Faith/Xander and Anya with the more emotional connection between Buffy and Spike, but that didn’t mean it had to be tepid. Faith keeping her bra on during sex was silly (since when was she that modest or concerned about her body?), and Xander/Anya was an unnecessary retread of a long-finished plot.

- The shiny Excalibur scythe (complete with random spotlight shining down on it) was a joke. I’d have hoped that the writing wouldn’t have sunk so low as to manufacture a blatant deus ex machina two eps from the season’s close, but I’m hardly surprised.

Do I like this episode more or less than the last time I watched it?

I still think this is an unimpressive episode, but coming after the complete failure that was “Empty Places”, it was nice to have an ep where the characters (mostly) felt like themselves instead of pod-people. However, there are still far too many issues for “Touched” to ever be considered good (or even okay), so all I can grade it is a weak two out of ten.

[cyclica]

Oh boy.

Touched.

I haven't seen this episode in possibly ten years. And I can happily go another ten years without ever seeing it again.

I had said recently that I've softened towards the show during my re-watch, things that used to annoy me are less annoying. And while this is true, it is also true that there's very little in this episode to enjoy, and the vast majority of the episode is a pointless drag. In this episode the gang gets a bringer to talk with magic, faith leads the gang and finds a bomb, and buffy finds the axe. That's about it, and those last two are at the very end of the episode anyway. So what we're left with is a lot of tedious talking. Oh and sex scenes. Which have nothing to do with anything, and serve no purpose except to turn the show into a soap opera where characters hooking up is treated as drama. And even then it's handled badly, with there being no consequences to any of the pair-ups beyond 'these two are together now'.

As for positives, well it was mildly amusing to see faith yell at kennedy. And the mayor as the first was nicely in character. Seeing buffy dodge a frustrated caleb was amusing too, in a cartoonish sort of way. For an episode with so much talking though, I don't remember any good lines. Even Showtime at least wasn't noticeably lacking in good dialogue.

So on with the plot, nitpicks and all-

This ep follows on from the previous one, though I'm pretty sure Vi wasn't in the previous one (they weren't filmed at the same time), and as my favourite potential I found it noticeable and bizarre that she would just pop into existence in the middle of the scene.

Buffy breaks into a man's house, and he points a gun at her? I realise he's scared and she's an intruder, but she doesn't look like a threat. Just what is he afraid on anyway, in fact why are people leaving town at all? Why does buffy continue to try to take over his home and kick him out? Even as apathetic as she is at this point, it still seems out of character for her. And he just runs out, like he's just decided on the spot to leave town without packing just because a stranger walked up to him and took his gun, without ever being threatening to him. This is not how humans behave!

Spike and Andrew are still at the church, waiting for sunset so spike can leave. But this scene is in between two night scenes. Did we just miss a day, and if so, what was everyone doing?

The bringers are digging for the axe. The first asks caleb if the bringers sweat. Shouldn't the first know something about it's own bringers? That nitpick aside, here's a massive problem with this set up- why are they digging up a weapon a slayer can use against them? I realise they are over-confident, but there's no reason to dig it up at all.

Faith has a plan, to kidnap one of the bringers to make it talk. It's a decent plan, but it should have happened long ago. Like maybe in Amends. Kennedy becomes the bait catch the bringer. Why are the bringers just wandering through town?

Spike returns and doesn't like the fact that the gang kicked buffy out. Buffy's friends knew this was coming, yet they come across as unbelievably pathetic when talking to spike. It ends with a fight between spike and faith. Which is amusing for a moment until you remember the writers are biased towards spike, of course she's not gonna stake him, he's the big draw that gets viewers.

I did find it interesting that spike can enter buffy's 'new home' without an invite. For some reason all these invitation rules we've had over the years fascinate me. It turns out a vamp can enter a home if the owner has abandoned it with no intention of returning. So spike tells buffy that she was right, caleb is hiding something at the vineyard. Except spike had no way of knowing what buffy's plan was, or why she was kicked out.

The first appear to faith as the mayor. After Lessons I'd been hoping we'd see the first as the mayor again (along with glory and the master), but now he's here he seems oddly out of place, like the first has been the same few people so often its odd to see him become anyone else. The scene itself was decent, and I did like the tiny nugget of an idea that the mayor is still alive in some way. Like because the first evil is the evil in all of us, some part of every person (the evil 'drives' for lack of a better term) continue to exist so long as the first itself exists., and when the first becomes another person, its not purely an illusion, but the evil part of the deceased that remains. Of course, that's just me building a fan theory around a single line of dialogue, though it is an idea I wish they had explored further.

Faith doesn't know what an achilles' heel is? A bad joke that leads into her talking about how she never went to school. But she's never before been portrayed as someone with gaps in her knowledge like that, and that little scene feels like character assassination.

Sex! Faith and wood, zander and anya, willow and kennedy... what's the point? So what if they're all having sex at once, there's no drama in the sheer coincidence of it. And what happened to all the girls that sleep in willow's room, that kennedy kicked out so she could be alone? Are they in the garden? Isn't the house packed now?

Faith decides to take the potentials... where? Where are they? Did she decide to go to the vineyard after all, following Andrew saying there is something important hidden there? Where ever they went, it's not the vineyard, buffy is there taking on caleb and snooping by herself. It seems to me like this should have been buffy's plan all along, to go to the vineyard alone, since bringing the gang would only get them killed. In a previous season, this whole subplot could have reduced down to 'I'm going to do a recon mission alone, see you guys later when I have more info'.

Faith's subplot about leading the potentials is pretty thin. There's very little in the way of her learning to be a good leader, of building trust between her and the team (especially buffy's friends she used to be enemies with), or of her challenging herself in any way. They had a perfect opportunity to have some interesting drama and did frustratingly little with it. She wasn't even fun to watch.

A bomb? Why would there be a bomb in a chest? Even if the bringers put it there as a trap, triggered to explode when opened, they wouldn't leave a trap like that and then stay nearby where they themselves could get hurt by the explosion. The bomb is kind of a cheap cliffhanger, but at least it promised the next episode will have a bit of action. The reveal of an axe did nothing for me. ... Then again I never read the 'fray' comics about a slayer in the fuure, which is where the axe first appeared, so maybe joss was counting on viewers being wowed by seeing something from the comic. It is cool to have some kind of tie to the comic I suppose, but for the rest of us it's just an weapon like any other.

So overall, while I do feel reluctant to hand out zeros, especially when I've enjoyed most of the eps more than usual, the fact remains that this ep is the biggest load of nothing in the whole show. And if this episode doesn't get the lowest possible score, what will?

Touched- 0.

[partcynic]

Well done on having the fortitude to endure this stuff again - it was a shame that you had to stop reviewing when there were so few editions to go. Being at the point where I pretend these eps don't exist, I'll definitely be joining you in taking a decade-long break from them, at the bare minimum.

I don't know if I'll be able to make many additional comments that won't be 1) me quoting you and saying 'agreed' or 2) me stating something about the ep/season you'll have already heard me say multiple times in the past. But I did want you to know that I read and enjoyed the whole review - it's interesting how our most disliked eps somehow get us writing more than our favourites (I think my "Empty Places" write-up is my longest ever...)

Oh, and kudos for doling out that 0 grade! I can tolerate this ep more than you, but it's still a mess. As you noted, the plot is silly when it isn't non-existent, the sex scenes are completely arbitrary (and wholly unsexy), and there are no real positives (maybe Harry Groener as the Mayor, and one or two lines). I hope you'll be able to write up the last two episodes, and perhaps we could resume chatting about some of the old reviews (I believe we left off in S5 at "Intervention"). I'll make sure I respond to any new bits you post, though the "Angel" reviews will be my top priority!

[cyclica]

I don't know if I'll be able to make many additional comments that won't be 1) me quoting you and saying 'agreed' or 2) me stating something about the ep/season you'll have already heard me say multiple times in the past.

Read more: buffytvsliveson.proboards.com/post/46262/quote/1348?page=1#ixzz3ao8aGqFk

I feel the same way, I have little to say about your review beyond that I pretty much agree with you. I certainly plan on watching and reviewing the remaining 2 episodes.

Feb 13, 2009 18:53:31 GMT -5 partcynic said:

- The ideas the show is conveying about being a leader are really problematic. In “Empty Places”, we had much discussion about how Buffy’s authoritarian stance and recklessness were bad – to the point that all of her friends and family dismissed her and kicked her out of her own home. However, within five minutes of this ep starting, Faith has assumed her role and turned into Bossy-Buffy 2.0. She then concocts a plan just as flawed as the one Buffy suggested (stroll in to an unknown situation at the heart of the enemy base, which might as well have ‘trap’ written above it in flashing lights), yet everyone is fine with this, with no-one but Kennedy having an issue with her dictatorial decisions. In then turns out that Buffy was right all along, while Faith leads everyone to get blown up by an improbable bomb. Just what is the show trying to say about the nature of leadership? Does anyone want to dwell on the jumble of attempted themes in these last few eps?

A storyline about showing faith becoming a leader had decent potential, yet they did so little with it.

I realise this would never have happened given we are nearing the end of the show, but I would have loved to have seen faith be a leader for a little longer. We've seen her go from bad to good, now let's see her take on the responsibility of being a slayer, and not just another team member. I always hoped faith's character arc would see her come full-circle and become a successful slayer, who takes initiative and makes plans (though not necessarily doing what buffy would do). Instead she ends the show as a Scooby gang member, which is better than nothing I suppose.

Feb 13, 2009 18:53:31 GMT -5 partcynic said:

- The stuff with the captured Bringer didn’t really work. I fail to understand why it would have told them about the weapons cache in the first place, and it’s silly that none of the Scoobs were suspicious of his willingness to talk (wouldn’t that suggest a trap to you?)

The whole thing makes no sense.

If the bringer was setting up a trap, was it intending to get captured so it can tell the gang where to go? They cannot even talk, but the plan could only have worked if the gang found a way to make it talk, and the bringers had no way of knowing they could do that.

But if the bringer wasn't setting up a trap, it had no reason to reveal where it's weapons are, and the other bringers wouldn't have known the gang were on the way, and wouldn't have hid a bomb.