|
|
[Reviews]
(Additional content by Frank Kurtz)
On November 2nd at Paramount Studios, the cast of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER gathered together for the premiere event for the much heralded musical episode of the series, "Once More With Feeling."
Joss Whedon, Alyson Hannigan, Amber Benson, Nicholas Brendon, James Marsters and Michelle Michelle Trachtenberg were all on hand for the even.
Before stepping in to view the show, Whedon spoke of the project, saying, "I've always, always, always wanted to do a musical and Buffy is so much like a musical anyway. It's with it's heart on it's sleeve... half the time you feel like they're going to burst into song any minute but they just don't. And this time they will!"
When asked if he knew they could all sing, Whedon answers, "I didn't know they could all sing, that was lucky! I knew that a lot of them could sing because they would come to my house and sing. And we would sit around and James would play guitar and Tony would sing and I knew I had a lot of heavy hitters. That's when I thought. 'okay I'm really going to do this. I'm going to put them all to the test.'...Some people like to sing more and some like to dance more. I sort of tailored the show to whoever did it."
Amber Benson confirms the details of those gatherings at Whedon's house, saying, "We do Shakespearean readings at Joss' house every few Sundays, and afterwards it always degenerates into a lot of singing and dancing and making fun of ourselves. Joss will do a Grateful Dead song and I'll sing along, so he knew I could sing and he knew Tony could sing. And he took the leap of faith that we would all go for it and we did."
Benson spoke of what she thought was the toughest part of the episode, saying, "For me it was dancing. I had this little number and singing to Willow and that was really difficult because I hadn't danced in a long time. When I was a little kid I'd done tap dancing and stuff, but never trying to dance and sing at the same time, it was difficult."
Alyson Hannigan feared the singing, saying, "I was pretty much petrified. I tried to convince him not to do it, I said I could have laryngitis, right? They can do wonders with the little music making machine. My singing was not as terrible as I thought. But still I'm not quitting my day job! I asked him, 'please, as little singing as possible for me.'"
James Marsters was pretty scared, too. He revealed, "I was terrified, as was everyone else. We were asked to do professional singing. Joss writes very confusing musical. He's like Stephen Sondheim in which [I mean] that the note you are searching for is not necessarily contained in the chord that's being played... the chord is coming up and the note will be given to you in the next phrase which is very Sondheim. It's very complicated and it's very demanding on the singer. We were terrified."
When asked how he felt about his performance in the program's closing moments, Marsters gets coy, saying, "I can't answer that question... but I have a very good job! And I enjoy it very much!"
'Buffy's' One-Time Only Musical Offer by Kate O'Hare of Zap2it LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Those planning to tape "Once More, With Feeling," the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" musical episode airing next Tuesday, Nov. 6, at 8 p.m. ET, on UPN, had better check the settings on their VCRs, or they could miss the big Hollywood ending. Director Joss Whedon's cut of the episode (he also wrote it -- screenplay, words and musical score) runs eight minutes long, and he's gotten special dispensation for that from UPN, but it's a one-time offer. Says Whedon's fellow executive producer, Marti Noxon, "They're only doing it for the first run. The first night is the only time you're going to see the whole thing in its entirety. The one that UPN's repeating on the Friday, Nov. 16, is a version that's cut down from the original version. So, tune in on the 6th." As it stands now, "Buffy" is set to air from 8:00-9:08 p.m. ET, with "Roswell" airing from 9:08-10:06 p.m. ET. For fans wondering if the score will be available on cd, Noxon warns them not to hold their breath. "They're in the process," she says. "It was going to be Joss putting it out on Mutant Enemy [his production company]. Now it looks like it's going to be (20th Century) Fox putting it out, and that means it's going to take forever. That's too bad." Asked if it could be available by the holiday shopping season, Noxon says, "Probably not. It's a shame, but you never know." Whenever that cd does come out, it may immortalize Noxon's TV singing debut, as a woman belting out her dispute of a parking ticket. "I sang when I was younger," she says, "and I was like, 'Joss, give me a little part.' Then he actually did. I thought, 'You know, it's really self-indulgent, but let's do it anyway.'" "It was really fun, and it made me sure glad that I'm not an actor." Deseret
news Musical 'Slayer' is spectacular You'll have to excuse Sarah Michelle Gellar if she's a little bit defensive about her show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." After all, it remains one of the best-written, best-acted programs on TV - and, in many quarters, it has never gotten the respect it deserves. Which is why Gellar has no patience with people who can't see past the admittedly offbeat title and think the show is something far different from what it really is - people she described as "stupid people," rather bluntly (but sweetly). "I don't mean to be rude, but I think that people that would say that - it's just ignorance," Gellar said. "Sometimes people look at a title. I know when (executive producer) Joss Whedon was first creating the show . . . people didn't want a show named 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' because they were afraid it would turn people off. "This show is the most wonderful mix of brilliant, witty writing and phenomenal performances and evolving stories. If people say they won't watch it . . . that really is just ignorance." And if some people turn up their nose at a show called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," what will they say about this coming Tuesday's episode (7 p.m., UPN/Ch. 24) - officially, it's titled "Once More With Feeling," but, unofficially, we're calling it "Buffy: The Musical." That's right. An hour long episode - written and directed by series creator/executive producer Joss Whedon - in which the cast performs musical production numbers. Skepticism among even fans of the show is understandable. Heck, I thought it was a terrible idea, and I love "Buffy." And I was wrong. This episode is a triumph - maybe the best ever, which is saying a lot. "Once More With Feeling" is better than any movie musical in memory. It's better than a lot of Broadway musicals. It's funny and shocking and heartfelt. It mocks itself without becoming a parody. And it makes sense within the "Buffy" universe that all these people would suddenly be singing and dancing. (I won't give it away, but there's a demon involved.) And this is not a stand-alone, let's-go-out-in-the-barn-and-put-on-a-musical show. "Buffy's" ongoing story arc is advanced in big ways. HUGE ways. All the regulars have their moments - Gellar, Nicholas Brendan (Xander), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Anthony Stewart Head (Giles), Alyson Hannigan (Willow), James Marsters (Spike), Amber Benson (Tara) and Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn). Not all are of equal vocal talent - Head, Benson and Caulfield turn in the best performances, but even the non-singers are made to look good. It's not particularly scary, but there are some big surprises - including one that will have fans of the show picking their jaws up off the floor. This is the sort of risk-taking TV that the Emmys ought to reward but won't. Whedon was absolutely right when he said, "There are some people who never take genre shows seriously. It's a prejudice . . . that I'll never understand. Because (they think) anything to do with fantasy turns them off, and anything that's humorous must not be meaningful. "So this year (the 'Buffy' cast) are all going to be doctors," he joked. But, no joke, Tuesday's "Buffy" is the best thing to hit TV in a long time. From
SciFi Wire Cast, crew and invited guests turned out for a special theatrical screening of the upcoming musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, held on the Paramount Pictures lot in Los Angeles on Nov. 2. Attendees included cast members and Buffy creator and the episode's musical composer Joss Whedon. The episode airs at 8 p.m. ET/PT Nov. 6 on UPN. Meanwhile, clips and behind-the-scenes interviews from the musical episode, "Once More With Feeling," are now on the Web at the Zap2it and official BuffyUPN Web sites. After the show airs, Whedon is slated to talk with fans about the episode at 10 p.m. ET Nov. 6 on the official site's message board. Buffy sings -- and the tune carries the day by Steve Johnson Now comes "Buffy": the musical episode, a great, giddy achievement that had this viewer grinning throughout in equal parts right-brain delight and left-brain amazement that the show's creator, cast and crew were actually able to pull it off. For 60 TV minutes Tuesday (7 p.m., WPWR-Ch. 50), the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" gang will sing and dance their way through the evening's storyline, creating a kind of "Buffy Horror Picture Show." With deliciously clever songs and more-than-passable music by creator/executive producer/head writer Joss Whedon, and with cast members doing all their own singing and dancing, it imagines a demon (Broadway star Hinton Battle) who infects the entire town of Sunnydale with the need to sing their innermost secrets and the ability to do so in clever rhymes. It's audacious, absurd and thoroughly, wondrously incongruous. It's also the best single hour of TV I've seen since the (considerably darker) "Homicide: Life on the Street" episode in which Vincent D'Onofrio played a man doomed to die by being pinned between a subway car and the side of the platform. Selling people who haven't seen "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on the UPN series is tough: "It's about this college girl, see, and she beats up monsters and wisecracks with her friends, and, really, it all adds up to a kind of subtle metaphor about how every adolescent/young adult feels alienated and alone, battling forces they don't really understand, but it's also offers amazingly clever commentary on pop culture and a lesson in girl power and . . ." Most listening to such a soliloquy get that tune-out glaze in their eyes before the sentence even reaches "monsters." Many are making a mental note not to invite you over again. It's a shame that "Buffy's" fantastical premise keeps it from getting respect from Emmy voters and the tens of millions of viewers who would love the show if they saw the show. But give Whedon credit not only for the talent to create a delicious pop-culture treat like "Buffy," but also for the curiosity and ambition to continue to try to attract new viewers and, more important, challenge himself creatively. Last season, it was a triumphant episode called "Hush," in which the characters spent most of the hour unable to speak. Now the musical hour, "Once More with Feeling," raises the bar even higher. This is no mere episode with a few songs tossed in, but an all-out production to rival last TV season's "South Pacific" remake in which the episode's story and meaning are contained in the roughly 14 songs. It begins with star Sarah Michelle Gellar, in the show's standard graveyard setting, performing a lovely song about her title character's ennui as a vampire slayer. "Every single night the same arrangement / I go out and fight the fight," she sings, as, with flawless choreography, she defeats -- ho-hum -- the usual demon assortment. It progresses from there: love songs, power ballads, a dance homage to Audrey Hepburn in "Funny Face," a number the character who sings it dubs "a retro pastiche [that] is never going to be a breakaway pop hit." It builds to the big group number at the end, part triumph, part existential lament: "The battle's done / And we kind of won / So we sound our victory cheer / Where do we go from here?" The eight minutes of dialog serve as a bridge from one number to the next, and they are -- like the song lyrics, like most of Whedon's writing -- so sharp the temptation is to just quote everything. Here, with restraint, is one line: A character has discovered the reason they are all singing is "some sort of Lord of the Dance. But not the scary one. Just a demon." Bravo, as they say in the theater. And encore! The
LA Times We know that demonically seductive "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" can carry an hour by smoothly mingling humor, action and poignancy. But can it carry a tune? You'll find out tonight when this unique series, still endearing, smart and effortlessly witty after relocating to UPN from the WB, presents a musical that becomes the hour's plot. One moment Sarah Michelle Gellar's benevolent and resourceful Buffy is saving the world, the next singing and dancing. And executive producer Joss Whedon, who wrote the songs and lyrics, has Buffy wondering just what is going on. "Did anyone burst into song?" she asks her friends. As a matter of fact, yes. To prove it, they schmooze about it musically as a chorale: "What's this cheery singing all about?" They're not the only ones, though, for soon we're seeing customers emerging from a cleaners and delivering a thundering aria: "They got the mustard out!" And just look at that poor, distraught woman, singing her protest to a cop giving her a parking ticket: "It isn't right. It isn't fair. There was no parking anywhere. I think that hydrant wasn't there." In addition to Whedon, clearly something dark and otherworldly is afoot in Buffydom. Could the culprit be Sunnydale's newest resident, a jazzy demon who can't sing a lick but dances gracefully (Tony winner Hinton Battle)? Did he summon up "this whole evil musical extravaganza," forcing Buffy and her friends to sing their private thoughts to one another? That includes gentle Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) and that snarling hero-come-lately Spike (James Marsters) revealing their true feelings about Buffy. What's not to adore about this series, with Buffy back among the living and at a life crossroads now after dying in a cliffhanger at the end of last season? It's as funny as ever, too, as in a recent episode when Buffy had a fight to the near death with a mummy's hand and was tormented by a trio of demonically challenged dorks. As a bonus, years of being a tenacious slayer have not cost Gellar her freshness. Now comes tonight's ratings sweeps-tailored episode that features bold creative risks that are rare for prime time. Don't expect the Sharks and the Jets. The cast does its own singing, the voices ranging from small to thin, and you might want to drive a stake through a couple of these numbers. Yet this is great fun, the best coming when Buffy's closest friend, Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and her girlfriend, Tara (Amber Benson), sweetly serenade each other ("I'm under your spell..."). And Buffy's sister, Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), has a nice little ballet with a trio of nimble demons. Best of all, they got the mustard out! From
Cinescape.com Joss Whedon directs another excellent episode that’s music to the ears of BUFFY fans and beyond Whenever BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER comes up with a show that seems gimmicky in nature, it always seems to overcome the initial hokiness of it with a great payoff. Creator Joss Whedon has always been at the forefront of those episodes. In “Hush” he did an entire hour without the use of any dialogue, in “Restless” dreams played a big role as the episode went from one weird non-sequitur to another, and in last year’s “The Body” Buffy dealt with the death her mom in a largely surreal scenario that played out with very little background music. Now comes the biggest leap of faith – BUFFY THE MUSICAL. Titled “Once More with Feeling,” this is definitely the most ambitious and outrageous idea for a BUFFY episode yet. With previews hinting at rock opera via PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE or ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, the result could have been disastrous. To the contrary though – the episode is just about the best thing you’ll find on television. Going beyond ambitious, Whedon took it upon himself to not only write and direct the episode, he also penned all the songs that are used to convey the feelings all the characters have been experiencing most of the season, but haven’t had the nerve to express. It’s exhilarating and Whedon wastes no time jumping into it as Buffy begins the episode with a song lamenting her lack of focus and interest in slaying vamps and demons. It’s a really funny moment which leads to the whole Scooby gang realizing there must be a demon afoot forcing them to engage in these big musical numbers and they’ve got to stop him before they break into song again. But they do… again and again and again. The songs are quite catchy, with a love ode sung by Tara to Willow being one of the standouts. Amber Benson has a beautiful voice and of the females, her and Emma Caulfield (Anya) have the strongest range. Buffy tends to be a bit on the soft side, but the fact that her singing isn’t perfection only adds to its infectious quality. It’s hard to cite the best dance number, though as of this moment I’m leaning toward an old-fashioned romp between Xander and Anya called “I’ll Never Tell.” They’re questioning their own loyalty and love in something that wouldn’t have been out-of-place in a musical of the ‘40s. They dance around Xander’s apartment in their undergarments and the energy level is phenomenal – with Caulfield busting some pretty amazing moves. Also getting ample treatment is the continually evolving love-hate relationship Spike has with Buffy. He still loves her, but lately hasn’t been as obsessive, realizing his affections will never be reciprocated. As the true source of these strange musical numbers is revealed – it’s a demon named Sweet (Hinton Battle), who has a predilection for a catchy number and watching people dance themselves into a frenzy so that they spontaneously combust – we end up with the most revealing and honest moment of the entire episode when the whole cast sings the grand finale “Where Do We Go From Here.” As with most of Buffy’s significant turning point episodes, events that happen here open up a whole new can of worms with some major (and quite surprising) revelations coming to the fore. It will ensure that the season’s largely uneven plot points are now going to take on more significance and finally start to show some signs of a payoff. The attention being drawn to this BUFFY episode is important, since it will also once again show new viewers just how special and unique the series can be. It’s always wildly surprising, but the “resurrection of Buffy” episode that introduced a whole new audience on UPN was so caught up in resolving previous plot issues that it might have been a little “inside” for the casual viewer. Albeit, the musical episode does require some previous knowledge of the BUFFY-verse and what’s been going on this season, but you’ll still get drawn into the show’s musical magic regardless. This is what television wants to be but rarely takes the chance at achieving. It’s a gimmick with a point and one that lingers with you days after seeing it. In an era of disposable TV where the only show that ever gets repeat viewing that actually enhances its appeal is THE SIMPSONS, it’s nice to know BUFFY in its sixth season still has a lot of life left in it. Fans will rejoice, new fans will be won over and this time the Emmy’s can’t ignore the series after “Once More with Feeling.” Stand this up to anything else out there, and it’s obvious – nothing can compare. This may a genre show, but it’s one that has a beat and now you can dance to it too. From
Salon.com An extraordinary episode of "Buffy" takes the American movie musical to places it's never been before. Even those of us who love musicals have to recognize that they often demand taking a leap of faith: Sometimes when a segue from dialogue to song doesn't feel natural or believable, we look the other way for an instant until we can get swept back into the rhythm of the music and the action. And then there's the problem of hokey expository dialogue clumped around the music. Pauline Kael nailed it in her review of the film version of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music": "You know what you're in for near the beginning when the hero ... is greeted with 'Good afternoon, Lawyer Egerman.'" How can it be, then, that a special musical episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- an episode that ran some eight minutes over the show's regular runtime, potentially causing riots across the land among fans who didn't set their VCRs to catch the overhang -- should avoid every traditional pratfall of the genre? The show's creator, producer and chief writer, Joss Whedon, wrote and produced the music. The songs were only half-memorable at best, and the singing ability of the show's regular cast ranged only from the fairly good to the not so great. But picking apart the technicalities of this "Buffy" episode -- its title was "Once More, With Feeling" -- is the best way to miss the point of how beautifully it worked, how gracefully paced, clever and affecting it was. For one thing, Whedon figured out how to make the music a seamless part of the action, by working it into the plot as a joke. Here's the story: Sunnydale has been invaded by a demon who makes everyone burst into song and dance at the slightest provocation, as Buffy discovers when she looks outside on a sunny morning and sees a phalanx of ordinary citizens prancing and high-kicking in perfect formation, swirling their just-retrieved dry-cleaning about them like bullfighters' capes. ("They got the mustard out!" a chubby, gleeful baritone sings by way of explanation.) The joke is brilliant because it frees even people who hate musicals to settle into the story without getting hung up on the genre's conventions. I remember a friend saying to me in the fourth grade, "Musicals are so unrealistic! Nobody bursts into song like that!" Whedon addresses that criticism directly instead of just dismissing it. But "Once More with Feeling" works mostly because the musical numbers are keyed right into the heartbeat of the show, a show whose mythology, by now, in the midst of the sixth season, is so rich and deliciously Byzantine that you could almost design a college course around it. There was joy and lightness in "Once More with Feeling," particularly the sequence where Tara (Amber Benson) and Willow (Alyson Hannigan), the show's Wiccan lesbian lovers, cavort in an almost insanely sunny park, twirling about in medieval-looking frocks. Tara sings of her love for Willow, particularly her amazement that anyone could open her so completely to the beauty of the world; the scene ends in the couple's bedroom, with Tara gently levitating inches above the bed as Willow hovers somewhere just below the frame, one of the best metaphors for the bliss of oral sex I've seen on any screen, small or large. Yet the whole of "Once More, With Feeling" was brushed with melancholy -- of the four humors, that's the one Whedon finds the most interesting and worthy, and it's the thing that's given the series so much juice and depth over the years. The presence of the musical demon dude (a sharp-suited smoothie in two-tone shoes, a dashingly handsome figure if you discount his shiny red devil face) causes the characters to spill their deepest secrets in song. So we get Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and his ex-demon fiancée Anya (Emma Caulfield) leaping out of bed (dressed in '30s-style satin nightclothes) to sing blissfully not just about how deeply in love they are, but about all the petty things that they find annoying about each other. Is this the beginning of trouble in paradise? From there, the characters' intertwining troubles and fears only intensify. Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) sings a tender lament to Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), wondering if he's not doing her more harm than good by staying in Sunnydale, now that she's returned from the dead to face a new set of challenges (the biggest of which is simply being an adult). And Tara is jolted out of her reverie when she learns that Willow, well-intentioned but misguided, recently worked a spell on her to control her thoughts; she wonders aloud if she might have to leave the love of her life behind, and her suffering comes through in the pale, watery clarity of Benson's voice. Tara and Giles, each tangled up in their own troubles, sing a contrapuntal duet -- they're complementary mirror images of each other, both knowing that doing what's "right" may end up being the hardest task they'll ever have to face. If that's not operatic intensity, I don't know what is. It's fitting that this spectacular episode should follow right on the heels of this year's twice-postponed Emmy Awards show: "Buffy" has been nominated several times over the years (mostly for minor honors like cinematography and hairstyling), but has never won a major Emmy. I've enjoyed some of the work of David E. Kelley and Aaron Sorkin, though they're not half as clever as they think they are: Too often their self-consciousness shows right through like the gleam of skin beneath the knees of a threadbare pair of pants. As a writer and producer Whedon never comes off as self-conscious, no matter how fantastical his story lines get, because he rides his instincts for both high drama and humor like the Big Kahuna. Unlike "The Practice" or "The West Wing," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" isn't a show made by a guy who's working overtime to show us how much drama there is in the prosaic; it's made by a guy who understands that when you're living high drama, you long for the prosaic. What Buffy Summers wouldn't give to be a presidential aide or a lawyer arguing a malpractice case! Instead, in a setup that's formally classical despite the fact that the characters wear the latest fashions and live in Southern California, she's destined to slay demons and vampires for the rest of her days -- and possibly beyond. "Once More, With Feeling" works beautifully in the arc of the Buffy mythology, and it points the way to intriguing, possibly distressing, developments for the rest of the season: Buffy's younger sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) is starting to feel rumblings of a sexual restlessness that can only lead to trouble. (The musical demon almost lured her back to the underworld with him -- just as, a few weeks back, she almost surrendered willingly to a vampire's kiss.) And the sparks between Buffy and Spike (James Marsters) just may ignite an explosion. In "Once More, With Feeling," Spike -- one of the most seductive figures Whedon has created, a character whose Brit blond laddishness is more debonair and silky than thuggish -- finally comes to terms with his unquenchable love for Buffy. As a vampire who's been "tamed" against his will via an implanted microchip, he used to be her mortal enemy; now he's simply besotted with her. Buffy, still only half-awake in the land of the living (returning from the dead is never easy), is more vulnerable than ever to his charms. And he, unlike her mortal friends, understands completely why mortality is hell. A nd there's no way of getting around the obvious: He's frigging handsome. "If my heart could beat / It would break my chest," he blurts out in his anguished sung confession. A vampire in love is a terrible and beautiful thing, but a singing one is off the charts. "Once More, With Feeling" was just a little more than an hour's worth of television, but its gently layered tones suggest something infinitely more complicated than either your standard contemporary musical or your standard contemporary TV episode. It's an all-singing, all-dancing full-moon fever dream. Now that's entertainment. From
SciFiIGN Of course, I kind of have to love this one. It captures the heart of all those classic movie musicals I'm the biggest sucker for, while freely acknowledging the inevitable cheese that comes with and lacing the whole thing with snarky, Jossian wit. As we begin things, the Scoobs find themselves breaking into random bits of song for no apparent reason. Sometimes there are even fireworks, sparkly things and a chorus of dancing demons in the background. The culprit is a snazzy-suited demon named Sweet who believes he was summoned by Dawn -- unfortunately, all the singing and whatnot forces everyone to reveal their innermost feelings, and damn, that's never a good thing with a group so angsty as this. Tara finds out that Willow bewitched her. Giles reveals his desire to depart. Xander and Anya fret about their impending nuptials. And of course, Buffy finally musically bitch-slaps her friends for yanking her out of heaven and back to the hell that is Sunnydale. The cast members all give it a go with the singing, and naturally, some are stronger than others. Luckily, Joss, who wrote the music and lyrics (is there anything he can't do? Is he also an Olympic-caliber diver? Yeesh), manages to tailor things to everyone's respective talents, and using everyone's real voices adds a charming, homegrown touch of realism -- there's no West Side Story-style voice dubbing to be had. Stand-outs are, of course, Anthony Stewart Head, making fine use of his Rocky Horror chops, James Marsters, employing that aspiring rock god thing, and Amber Benson, who sings like an angel on her Disney-esque (well, minus the delightfully naughty parts) love ballad, "Under Your Spell." The entire cast, however, does a wonderful job of working with Joss to capture the intangible, winsome charms that go along with musicals, that "get up and sing" notion that makes you giggle right along with the characters as they fall in a heap of goofy laughter, post-song. The Anya/Xander number is a perfect example of this, a shiny, Busby Berkeley-esque nod to jaunty songs that reveal darker emotions. It's sweet, it's catchy, and Anya's wearing that delicious red outfit. The characters' feelings are well-captured, but the whole affair remains bouncy as can be because they're carrying a tune. Love that Xander chimes in with "This is my verse, hello!" These two are obviously having a blast with their number, and it rubs off on the audience. I also love the way that Joss plays with musical conventions, making it seem as if all the residents of Sunnydale are caught in their own personal show-stopper -- people dance in the street, and one man(played by The Fury!) jubilantly belts, "They got the mustard ouuuuuuuuuuut!" in reference to his formerly soiled dry cleaning. And of course, gotta love Marti Noxon as the tuneful gal who gets a ticket -- that Marti can sing, eh? All this, and I haven't even mentioned the villains and little Dawnie yet. Sweet, as played by Hinton Battle, is a wonderfully slinky demon, all shiny and sleek what with his suit-changing abilities and supple singing voice. The scene wherein he and his scary, puppet minions dance about with Dawn is like some sort of twisted, jazzy Nutcracker, a really nicely-choreographed piece of work. In fact, one of the musical's great strengths may be that the numbers are fairly varied, but each adheres to a different sort of convention. Giles, of course, gets the power ballad. Spike gets the piss-off rocker. Anya gets a riot grrrl number on bunnies (who knew Emma Caulfield could rock out like that? If she ever need another job, maybe Sleater-Kinney needs a new singer?). As for the dramatic turns housed within the music, well...we're going to be seeing plenty of heat from 'em for some time to come, and the way they're presented works very well. Giles' tough love approach to parenting Buffy cuts to the bone. Willow's shocked face at Buffy's revelation shows us that she hasn't given in completely to darkness. And the rally-the-troops save by the Scoobs is appropriately rousing. The only thing that's notably missing is a song from poor Willow, who seems to be focal this season, but mostly just burbles, "I think this line's mostly filler." (Hee!) Understandable, since Alyson Hannigan's vocal abilities seem somewhat limited, but such a thing is conspicuous in its absence. What else can I say? I'm a cheeseball. I'm gonna sing along when I watch this one again. And as for that sloppy kiss at the end, well...every musical needs a good kiss. Sarah Kuhn insists that you all go out and see Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Now!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Return to
Stakes and Stones.co.uk