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There's Murphy's Law; there's Godwin's Law; high time for a new law.
I propose Whedon's Law:
Any discussion of a genre TV show will inevitably invoke comparisons to Buffy.
Why? Because Buffy used and manipulated every genre convention there is. You name a standard plot line, Buffy did it. And what's more, the many creative minds behind Buffy always added something a little bit more, so that when you see that plot line again, you can't help but thinking of the Buffy episode and how much better done it was.
Case in point: the last episode of SGA, "The Real World." Now this was a perfectly serviceable episode. It followed the standard plot, had some creepy effects, gave Torri a chance to stretch a little bit and resolved just the way it should. The plotbabble could use a little work, but when doesn't it?
But watching it, I couldn't help but long for the season 6 episode of Buffy, "Normal Again." The set-ups the same: our heroine wakes up in a padded cell to a nice doctor telling her that the last however many years have been a hallucination, and she's just a normal girl in a normal world. But instead of going through the motions of trying to find a way back to the "real" world, as SGA did, this episode was about the emotional state of Buffy in the show at that time.
The SGA episode was just a puzzle: find the way out of the maze. The Buffy episode was a question: do you really want to find a way out of the maze?
At this point in Buffy, Buffy had lost her mother, been completely abandoned by her father, her mentor had declared he's leaving her as well; she's stuck with an abrasive and out-of-control sister that she has to parent, a best friend who's becoming addicted to drugs and a completely self-destructive relationship. She's in a dead end job that she hates and more than anything else is weary of the responsibility she shoulders, both as the slayer and as the emotional leader of her disintegrating social group. She wants to give up but knows she has no choice but to continue.
So, they use the standard mindfuck plot to give her a choice: believe in this world where she's miserable, or believe in a world where she has both her parents and no responsibility. All she has to do is choose to disbelieve the last six years. The plot underlines the fact that this character would rather believe that she is insane than continue with her life. Instead of making it about finding the key out of this place, since Buffy travels freely between the one reality and the other, it's about making Buffy accept that she cannot give up her responsibilities and must continue.
Since the whole season was about Buffy's inability to just take up her old position after having died and been relieved of her responsibility as a slayer, this episode made her accept that she could not go back to that state of rest.
That's why it was a good episode. Because the writer (Diego Gutierrez) did not just trot out the plot but used it to further the emotional arc of the show.
I love SGA -- in some ways I love it more because it is all surface -- but Buffy definitely did a better job.
I propose Whedon's Law:
Any discussion of a genre TV show will inevitably invoke comparisons to Buffy.
Why? Because Buffy used and manipulated every genre convention there is. You name a standard plot line, Buffy did it. And what's more, the many creative minds behind Buffy always added something a little bit more, so that when you see that plot line again, you can't help but thinking of the Buffy episode and how much better done it was.
Case in point: the last episode of SGA, "The Real World." Now this was a perfectly serviceable episode. It followed the standard plot, had some creepy effects, gave Torri a chance to stretch a little bit and resolved just the way it should. The plotbabble could use a little work, but when doesn't it?
But watching it, I couldn't help but long for the season 6 episode of Buffy, "Normal Again." The set-ups the same: our heroine wakes up in a padded cell to a nice doctor telling her that the last however many years have been a hallucination, and she's just a normal girl in a normal world. But instead of going through the motions of trying to find a way back to the "real" world, as SGA did, this episode was about the emotional state of Buffy in the show at that time.
The SGA episode was just a puzzle: find the way out of the maze. The Buffy episode was a question: do you really want to find a way out of the maze?
At this point in Buffy, Buffy had lost her mother, been completely abandoned by her father, her mentor had declared he's leaving her as well; she's stuck with an abrasive and out-of-control sister that she has to parent, a best friend who's becoming addicted to drugs and a completely self-destructive relationship. She's in a dead end job that she hates and more than anything else is weary of the responsibility she shoulders, both as the slayer and as the emotional leader of her disintegrating social group. She wants to give up but knows she has no choice but to continue.
So, they use the standard mindfuck plot to give her a choice: believe in this world where she's miserable, or believe in a world where she has both her parents and no responsibility. All she has to do is choose to disbelieve the last six years. The plot underlines the fact that this character would rather believe that she is insane than continue with her life. Instead of making it about finding the key out of this place, since Buffy travels freely between the one reality and the other, it's about making Buffy accept that she cannot give up her responsibilities and must continue.
Since the whole season was about Buffy's inability to just take up her old position after having died and been relieved of her responsibility as a slayer, this episode made her accept that she could not go back to that state of rest.
That's why it was a good episode. Because the writer (Diego Gutierrez) did not just trot out the plot but used it to further the emotional arc of the show.
I love SGA -- in some ways I love it more because it is all surface -- but Buffy definitely did a better job.
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Sigh. I need to rewatch Buffy, I guess. It's been a while.
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Damn it, other stuff happened!
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Here via linkage from
So, um, hello. :)
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Stay a while, though I don't promise to always be this erudite.
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I agree that the Buffy ep was much better, especially the fact, that after Buffy's made her decision the audience is left with the feeling that *maybe* she is insane and the whole Slayer universe is in her mind...
I really didn't care for this ep of SA. I found it extremely predictable, and boring. Yes, Torri got to have more than 4 or 5 lines for a change, but it wasn't anything new or insightful about the character. The writers had a real chance to give Elizabeth some more depth and backstory, but they didn't. They simply focused on the 'mystery' of what was going on.
I did however, like the fact that after all that Carson and Rodney had done, it was Elizabeth herself that defeated the nanites. Obviously the show needs to be very tech heavy, but every now and then it's nice to be reminded of the strength of the human mind....
Oh, one more thing. Elizabeth was so sure the Atlantis was real, and the hospital wasn't (before she started takeing the meds.) Why then, if she researched Simon's death on the internet didn't she do a search for Rodney, or Carson, or John even? Proof of their existance would have given her some emotional support.
As always, just mho....