Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Storyteller Rewatch

May 5, 2016 6:01 AM - Season 7, Episode 16

Andrew makes a documentary about life in the Slayer household and the current fight, though his embellishments frustrate Buffy and the others. The Seal in the school basement is causing all sorts of trouble, and Buffy needs Andrew to confront the reality of his own evil actions to stop it.
posted by yellowbinder (2 comments total)

This is a funny episode, there's no doubt. And it's a good episode too, and I think Tom Lenk is really great throughout, and absolutely in the final confession scene, which succeeds in making Andrew a full human being, rather than just a walking joke machine.

There's some really cute stuff here. The intro, Spike playing for the camera, this. The sequence in the school is really funny (with an exception, which I'll mention), and I like that this episode actually gives Xander and Anya some time, which is sorely needed (Willow and Kennedy's make up is left as a simple gag).

That all said, and this is the last time I'll say it, the show really needed to focus on the potentials, not on Andrew, and it's failure to do so here means we will never feel connected to them.

-"Buffy, slayer of the vampires"
-"Why can't you just masturbate like the rest of us."
-Andrew's intro for everyone is great.
-I'm not convinced that highlighting the fact that Buffy's speeches are dull really helps defend the fact that you keep having dull speeches, writrs.
-"In my plan, we are beltless."
-Where is Giles again?
-The thing that bugs me about the school scene is Buffy's glib reaction to someone exploding. Someone died and Buffy failed to save them, but because we're in a comic episode, Buffy acts like a cartoon character.
-When Buffy explains the vision to Wood about the vampires, she does it in a really roundabout way given that it was driven by the magic box he gave here.
-Cheese man!
-Now they need a special knife to open the hellmouth, apart from they didn't any other time
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:03 AM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is one of the few episodes I really like from s7. I admit Whedon does pathetic fan boy dialogue pretty well.

I do agree with you that a lot of the episode though isn't helpful in terms of the plot arc. I never care for ANY of the potentials, Kennedy included. There are too many and not enough time spent with them. Part of that is the recurrent set up in s7 of Buffy's speechifying juxtaposed against the usual Potential whining.
posted by miss-lapin at 7:21 PM on May 7, 2016