2011 Reading #80: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 by Joss Whedon et al.
Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
71. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.
72. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin.
73. Red by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner.
74. Richard Stark's Parker Book One: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke.
75. Plastic Man: On the Lam! by Kyle Baker.
76. Old Men In Love: John Tunnock's Posthumous Papers by Alasdair Gray.
77. Orbiter by Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran with Dave Stewart.
78. The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects by Mike Mignola.
79. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
80. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 by Joss Whedon, Georges Jeanty, and too many others. (Link goes to Volume One only.) Thanks to my friend Will for the loan. It took some doing (the last two seasons of Buffy, the ending of "Dr. Horrible," and, well, "Dollhouse"), but I'm over Joss Whedon. That doesn't mean he can't do anything right, but I don't entirely trust him anymore. I'm not retroactively writing him off--"Firefly" is still near-perfect, and the first three seasons of Buffy are some of the best TV I've ever seen, and yeah, I'll be seeing "The Avengers" on opening night. Sadly, Season 8 has some of the same problems that Season 7 did--too many writers with too little apparent consistency of direction, an army of slayers that no one knows what to do with, and a title character whose personality is all over the map. (Case in point: I was buying this series up until the point that Buffy had a lesbian encounter with another slayer, at which point I felt like I didn't know what was going on and neither did the writers.) Whedon has admitted that they got carried away working in a medium with no budget limitations or other restrictions, and I agree; I got tired of the massive battle scenes and the Initiative-like tech strewn all over the place, and by the end, when Buffy essentially developed the powers of Superman for a time, I was just trying to get through to the end. Like any season of Buffy, even the mediocre ones, there are great episodes here: "The Chain," about a slayer who becomes a decoy of Buffy, is perhaps the best, but the Brian K. Vaughn mini-arc "No Future For You" is also great. Unfortunately, these both occur early in the run, and while there are other things that work--the recurring Dawn subplot is kind of hilarious, the return of Oz is welcome, Spike's giant-bug-staffed airship is GREAT, and the Steven S. DeKnight issue "Swell" has a ridiculous main story but a great interaction between Kennedy and Satsu--there are a lot of things that are messy, most particularly the confusing and interminable "war" between the slayers and their enemies, and the convoluted logic that "explains" the season's Big Bad. That, and the way that the sex is handled throughout is frankly kind of embarrassing. So why did I read this? Because I'm invested in these characters--perhaps a little less so, now that I've read this, but yeah, still.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
71. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.
72. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin.
73. Red by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner.
74. Richard Stark's Parker Book One: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke.
75. Plastic Man: On the Lam! by Kyle Baker.
76. Old Men In Love: John Tunnock's Posthumous Papers by Alasdair Gray.
77. Orbiter by Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran with Dave Stewart.
78. The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects by Mike Mignola.
79. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
80. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 by Joss Whedon, Georges Jeanty, and too many others. (Link goes to Volume One only.) Thanks to my friend Will for the loan. It took some doing (the last two seasons of Buffy, the ending of "Dr. Horrible," and, well, "Dollhouse"), but I'm over Joss Whedon. That doesn't mean he can't do anything right, but I don't entirely trust him anymore. I'm not retroactively writing him off--"Firefly" is still near-perfect, and the first three seasons of Buffy are some of the best TV I've ever seen, and yeah, I'll be seeing "The Avengers" on opening night. Sadly, Season 8 has some of the same problems that Season 7 did--too many writers with too little apparent consistency of direction, an army of slayers that no one knows what to do with, and a title character whose personality is all over the map. (Case in point: I was buying this series up until the point that Buffy had a lesbian encounter with another slayer, at which point I felt like I didn't know what was going on and neither did the writers.) Whedon has admitted that they got carried away working in a medium with no budget limitations or other restrictions, and I agree; I got tired of the massive battle scenes and the Initiative-like tech strewn all over the place, and by the end, when Buffy essentially developed the powers of Superman for a time, I was just trying to get through to the end. Like any season of Buffy, even the mediocre ones, there are great episodes here: "The Chain," about a slayer who becomes a decoy of Buffy, is perhaps the best, but the Brian K. Vaughn mini-arc "No Future For You" is also great. Unfortunately, these both occur early in the run, and while there are other things that work--the recurring Dawn subplot is kind of hilarious, the return of Oz is welcome, Spike's giant-bug-staffed airship is GREAT, and the Steven S. DeKnight issue "Swell" has a ridiculous main story but a great interaction between Kennedy and Satsu--there are a lot of things that are messy, most particularly the confusing and interminable "war" between the slayers and their enemies, and the convoluted logic that "explains" the season's Big Bad. That, and the way that the sex is handled throughout is frankly kind of embarrassing. So why did I read this? Because I'm invested in these characters--perhaps a little less so, now that I've read this, but yeah, still.