If you’re like me, you’ll most likely watch an episode of one kind of TV-show or another before this weekend is over. Some of you will be tuning in on an old favorite show; one you know won’t let you down, and some others might even try watching a TV 3 show (for reasons that are purely nonsensical, I’m sure). Every so often while you’re waiting for the commercials to finish, you find yourself wondering what this particular episode will be like. Maybe it will be funny, or maybe it will just make you think. Yesterday when I sat down to watch my late night Buffysode, I was expecting the usual stuff: slayings, monsters and maybe some nice drama to “sink” my teeth into. What I got was a work of art.
I know I kinda promised not to do Buffysodes, and I promise you that I won’t be making it a habit. But I won’t say I’m sorry, because this is not a review. It’s a flat out on-my-face-in-the-mud praising of what is most likely three quarters of my wasted TV watching time that came the closest to not being totally redundant.
I can’t tell you what the episode is about, since it would ruin the season for those who haven’t watched it already. Suffice to say that it’s a show-altering event that rocks its solid premise that we have come to know and love. Things will never be the same in Sunnydale…
Joss Whedon, of course, wrote and directed “The Body” and I can’t help to think that he must have a innovative brain stroke when he sat down to write it. It’s actually the appifany of “less is more”. Who knew what would happen if you took away the background music, took away the monsters and the witty conversation. What was left was bare emotion; grief, sadness and emphaty for their loss. I didn’t enjoy the episode, but that wasn’t the point. It made me feel something.
10/10
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There’s no music in this episode, you know. In the background. There’s no score. It’s silent.
It’s beautiful.
17. March 2007 @ 14:35 ( Permalink )
I know. Beautiful, but oh so sad…
Great episode…
17. March 2007 @ 19:31 ( Permalink )
Funny that both of Buffy’s best episodes are practically soundless. Also fun that they in almost all other respects are totally different.
And I agree about the emotional impact. Just thinking about this episode is like a fist in the gut. If the episode has a weak moment, however, it’s the morgue scene. For some reason, I just can’t help but feel that including a vampire there kinda lessens the episode of the plot. No matter how wonderfully creepy that scene is. On the other hand, it clearly illustrates that life has to go on, in spite of what’s happened. Wah, I just can’t make up my mind about that.
Ingenious episode, in any event. One well worthy of a blog post.
18. March 2007 @ 06:01 ( Permalink )
“Both of Buffy’s best episodes”? What are you, crazy? Hush is good, but it’s not one of the two best. “The Gift”, “Once More With Feeling”, “Surprise/Innocence”, “Fool for Love”, “Lies My Parents Told Me”, “Selfless”, “Grave”, “Bargaining”, of course “The Body”, and probably a horde of others I’m just not thinking of right now. “Hush” is excellent, but one of the top two? Really?
18. March 2007 @ 12:02 ( Permalink )
No. Really no. I think, that as a general rule, when I say things like that at 6 in the morning, you can safely ignore it. Consider it baloney.
18. March 2007 @ 15:27 ( Permalink )
Will do.
18. March 2007 @ 15:30 ( Permalink )
If the episode has a weak moment, however, it’s the morgue scene.
Not to brag or anything, but I was quite sure that a vampire would pop up in the morgue. At first I was also negative to it, but then I realized that it was in fact quite good drama to have it appear like that. It made the next “scene” with Dawn more powerful and it a vampire of some sort has to be included in a Buffysode; it was probably in the contract or something…
18. March 2007 @ 16:31 ( Permalink )