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Post by partcynic on Jun 17, 2007 11:43:23 GMT -5
This is the thread for our second episode discussion/comparison, with Buffy's two main robot shows. Review and discuss. Which ep did you prefer and why?
(Will post my thoughts a little later).
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Post by coco on Jul 5, 2007 20:08:52 GMT -5
i liked both
mostly because in Ted you got to see a jealous buffy and what it would have been like is someone did come into the father and try to father buffy. plus Ted was way creepy.
i was made to love is my favorite of the both, i don't know why but it is. haha. it was just a better robot episode. personally. Yet it was kinda gorss how Warren used the robot for *cough* other things. ew.
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Post by partcynic on Jul 7, 2007 9:20:56 GMT -5
I've finally gotten around to rewatching so I could answer this one - so I guess it's about time!
Firstly, both of these episodes have the slight problem that stems from them being about robots - namely, that there's little in the Buffyverse that supports such creations being possible (with magic, yes - but the robots aren't magically created, and the Buffyverse isn't as mechanically advanced as it would need to be for them to work), so they harm the verisimilitude of the series a little bit (as do all of the nerds' other sci-fi devices). However, this is only a tiny point, and doesn't harm my view of the episodes one way or the other.
2x11 Ted is one of only five episodes from the first 5 seasons that I actually dislike. However, while most of the bad Buffy eps (in S6 and S7) simply feel like the work of unskilled people, Ted feels like the creation of a group of very talented people - that just failed.
Why is Ted a poor ep? In many ways, it's the first S6 show. Buffy works best when it utilises the supernatural as a metaphor for something in real life - and in this ep, the writers didn't do that. Instead, they took a real-life domestic violence scenario and played it just like any number of Lifetime movies or cheap melodramas would. You could find similar stuff to Ted in any generic drama you could care to mention, and the first thirty minutes feel sludgy and heavy-handed in true S6 fashion. Thing is, the writers then tried to Buffy-ise the story by making Ted a robot, but that aspect of the story is poorly developed, doesn't make a huge amount of sense (note how the backstory is glossed over in the final scene), and so silly that it badly jars with the heavy stuff before it. As such, the two discordant parts end up defeating each other. Aside from the good-quality acting by all, there's very little to like or commend about the episode - its other big draw is that it's the first one to really deal with the morality of being a Slayer, but S3's Faith arc does that much better, leaving it as a big question mark. I don't hate the episode, but as far as Buffy goes, if you missed seeing it, you wouldn't lose out on much.
On the other hand, 5x15 I Was Made To Love You is an example of the robot episode done right. It's definitely in my top 5 of S5, and has a kind of nostalgia to it (it's the final metaphor episode). Although it's fairly humour oriented (love Joyce teasing Buffy and puffy Xander), the ep mainly succeeds because of its theme (the nature of perfection in relationships) and the way in which the plot expresses this. The idea of a person (even a robot) who bases their entire existence on catering to another is quite tragic, especially as we see poor April get discarded because she's too good at being a girlfriend - a person's flaws can be just as attractive as their positive qualities, and this episode acknowledges that; the last scene with April and Buffy on the swings speaking volumes. The character development is also strong with Buffy dealing with her own treatment of Riley, as well as realising that sometimes being single is far more enabling of growth than being in a relationship. And let's not forget the ending, which is truly heartbreaking. Great stuff, and kind of a last hurrah for the series - of the following episodes, only The Body and OMWF were better.
So overall, I voted for "like IWMTLY, dislike Ted". The robots are an interesting idea with a few inherent problems, but (as always) it's the way in which they're used that impacts how good the show is.
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