Angel brings a folder and a spiffy magic necklace to Buffy. Buffy appoints Angel as the backup/final line of defense should she and her minions fail in Sunnydale. It's clear from the first few minutes that this is going to be a long, pointless episode. And in that regard...it doesn't disappoint. The necklace is the perfect representation of this episode and the series as a whole -- it's a cheap, gimicky little trinket.
In truth...BtVS has been a silly little series from the outset. It did manage some moments of brilliance, but more than anything else it pandered to its intended adolescent audience. The bigger problem is...it looks as if it were written BY adolescents, instead of FOR adolescents. The series got completely lost along the way...and in the process, it lost whatever redeeming qualities it might have managed to eek out over the course of 7 seasons. There's just so much of Buffy's pouty expression, forced smiles, and preachy melodramatic diatribes issuing forth from her oddly formed mouth that one can take.
BtVS has always been about relationships. But there's the rub...every single relationship in the series is a disaster. All of the background static involving lame demon battles could hardly hide the fact that when all is said and done -- the only thing that BtVS really did was plaster one ridiculous relationship after another in an endless parade of glorified nihilism.
Buffy = COOKIE DOUGH/not finished baking? Maybe that plays well with the teenie bopper crowd...but the series was weak and continued to get weaker as it crawled towards its inevitable cataclysmic demise.
As far as this specific episode...the essence is contained in the following line, which Buffy delivers to the group: "Right now you're asking yourself, 'what makes this different? What makes us anything more than a bunch of girls being picked off one by one'?" The problem lies in the answer contained within the question -- they ARE nothing more...than a bunch of girls...attempting to conquer primordial evil. And not even the most freewheeling feminist Utopian mumbo-jumbo can seriously suggest otherwise -- the BtVS fan base notwithstanding.
"Chosen": Good guys (and I use that term somewhat loosely) fight bad guys. Spike uses the magic trinket brought by Angel. Buffy gives uninspiring speeches. Willow does big magic with the ax. Good guys win/save the world. Spike and Anya die -- and believe me...they were the lucky ones. Anyone consigned to have to live in Buffyverse faces a future much worse than death -- an eternity stuck in Joss Whedon's adolescent nightmarish dystopia.
"Chosen" has none of the brilliance of LOTR in its final battle of good vs evil. That's because Whedon is no Tolkien. Willow the White is not even in the same galaxy as Galdalf. It takes more than tricks and gimmicks to create alternate worlds and sympathetic heroes. Unfortunately, the people talking into Whedon's ear -- telling him how great he is -- don't seem to know the difference. Instead of an epic battle, "Chosen" is nothing but an epic fail.
Now...before I bid my final farewell to BtVS...I would like to thank katierose295 for all of her thoughtful, detailed reviews. I can honestly say that while I did not agree with all of her points, I did read all of her reviews, and found them to be most helpful. Furthermore...I think I can sum up the essence of her reviews in 4 words: "I REALLY LIKE SPIKE".
(...fade to black. Finis)
In truth...BtVS has been a silly little series from the outset. It did manage some moments of brilliance, but more than anything else it pandered to its intended adolescent audience. The bigger problem is...it looks as if it were written BY adolescents, instead of FOR adolescents. The series got completely lost along the way...and in the process, it lost whatever redeeming qualities it might have managed to eek out over the course of 7 seasons. There's just so much of Buffy's pouty expression, forced smiles, and preachy melodramatic diatribes issuing forth from her oddly formed mouth that one can take.
BtVS has always been about relationships. But there's the rub...every single relationship in the series is a disaster. All of the background static involving lame demon battles could hardly hide the fact that when all is said and done -- the only thing that BtVS really did was plaster one ridiculous relationship after another in an endless parade of glorified nihilism.
Buffy = COOKIE DOUGH/not finished baking? Maybe that plays well with the teenie bopper crowd...but the series was weak and continued to get weaker as it crawled towards its inevitable cataclysmic demise.
As far as this specific episode...the essence is contained in the following line, which Buffy delivers to the group: "Right now you're asking yourself, 'what makes this different? What makes us anything more than a bunch of girls being picked off one by one'?" The problem lies in the answer contained within the question -- they ARE nothing more...than a bunch of girls...attempting to conquer primordial evil. And not even the most freewheeling feminist Utopian mumbo-jumbo can seriously suggest otherwise -- the BtVS fan base notwithstanding.
"Chosen": Good guys (and I use that term somewhat loosely) fight bad guys. Spike uses the magic trinket brought by Angel. Buffy gives uninspiring speeches. Willow does big magic with the ax. Good guys win/save the world. Spike and Anya die -- and believe me...they were the lucky ones. Anyone consigned to have to live in Buffyverse faces a future much worse than death -- an eternity stuck in Joss Whedon's adolescent nightmarish dystopia.
"Chosen" has none of the brilliance of LOTR in its final battle of good vs evil. That's because Whedon is no Tolkien. Willow the White is not even in the same galaxy as Galdalf. It takes more than tricks and gimmicks to create alternate worlds and sympathetic heroes. Unfortunately, the people talking into Whedon's ear -- telling him how great he is -- don't seem to know the difference. Instead of an epic battle, "Chosen" is nothing but an epic fail.
Now...before I bid my final farewell to BtVS...I would like to thank katierose295 for all of her thoughtful, detailed reviews. I can honestly say that while I did not agree with all of her points, I did read all of her reviews, and found them to be most helpful. Furthermore...I think I can sum up the essence of her reviews in 4 words: "I REALLY LIKE SPIKE".
(...fade to black. Finis)