{"id":2102,"date":"2013-03-22T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T17:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=2102"},"modified":"2013-03-18T21:35:23","modified_gmt":"2013-03-19T04:35:23","slug":"mark-re-watches-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-life-serial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2013\/03\/mark-re-watches-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-life-serial\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Re-Watches &#8216;Buffy the Vampire Slayer&#8217;: Life Serial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to Jennifer for commissioning this episode! Oh god, <i>season six<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/s\/zvpbf8qtzazcdq3\/buffy6x05.mov\" target=\"_blank\">The video file for &#8220;Life Serial&#8221; can be downloaded here<\/a>, and all Mark Watches videos will be indexed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/sh\/xx9l6nxutvo9mo3\/1IyIM77u_L\" target=\"_blank\">my Dropbox folder<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>So. <i>So<\/i>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>So, season six of <i>Buffy<\/i> will always be my least favorite of the bunch. Despite that large parts of &#8220;Life Serial&#8221; are hilarious, I admit that having seen the season&#8217;s endgame, I found this episode more disturbing than funny. Most of this centers around the fact that I just feel <i>awful<\/i> for Buffy and the predicament she is in.<\/li>\n<li>Like, okay, I&#8217;m sure folks who have been poor and painfully broke totally understand the entire line where Buffy says she&#8217;s figured out how to arrange payment of her bills in order to prioritize who she&#8217;s <i>not<\/i> going to pay. Not only is that an illuminating bit, but it highlights just how money can strip the idea of a future away from a person. When you have none of it and need lots of it just to get by, you really can&#8217;t think about things like, &#8220;What do you want to do for the rest of your life?&#8221; The thought rarely, if ever, crosses your mind.<\/li>\n<li>Lord, this episode really sets up a <i>lot<\/i> of heartbreak. Giles leaving (NOOOO, WHY, <i>NOOOOO<\/i>), the Trio gaining confidence, Buffy and Spike finding solace in one another while simultaneous making so many bad decisions that I can&#8217;t count because <i>why<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>I will say that hindsight <i>doesn&#8217;t<\/i> ruin or tamper how goddamn sweet and touching it is that Spike and Buffy (largely) hang out and treat each other well. Like, why couldn&#8217;t their relationship have been more of <i>that<\/i>? Okay, I do know the answer to that question, but <i>still<\/i>. It&#8217;s cute!<\/li>\n<li>Oh, I&#8217;m so glad Clem became a regular character. And kitten poker! This is the episode where Buffy gets super drunk and judges kitten poker!!!<\/li>\n<li>Man, fuck the Trio. It&#8217;s so hard to go back and find pretty much <i>anything<\/i> they do to be funny once you see what they do. Granted, Warren deserves the bulk of that ire, and I will hate his character until the universe ceases to be. I barely feel bad for Jonathan because <i>dude<\/i>. At the very least, Andrew gets a lot of surprising development on both <i>Buffy <\/i>and<i> Angel<\/i> after season six, but I don&#8217;t know that I ever felt <i>love<\/i> for him as a character. Mostly, I&#8217;m just mad about Tara, and I get the sense that this will never go away. <i>lol i am an adult<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>I dunno, y&#8217;all. Season six is just all over the place in terms of tone and characterization. I get that people enjoy the realism that is injected into the narrative, and I would never suggest that there&#8217;s anything wrong with enjoying this season or finding it empowering. In the end, I&#8217;d probably just say that it&#8217;s not my thing. There are some great moments \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and kitty poker is one of them \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but it all left a bad taste in my mouth. And my soul. <i>Oh god, and my heart<\/i>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thank you, Jennifer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to Jennifer for commissioning this episode! Oh god, season six.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,206],"tags":[433,174,400],"class_list":["post-2102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","category-past-shows","tag-commissions","tag-mark-watches-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","tag-rewatches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->