(no subject)
I did not enjoy this week's Sherlock as much as last week's, but in the way of all good cult TV, it made me enjoy last week's more. The comedy "dog" references made me laugh, because I am ten, and Russell Tovey having flashbacks to his werewolf past life, and the second Christmas jumper in as many episodes, and of course this: "I don’t have friends. Just one friend." ♥
I confess that when Sherlock is doing his deducting thing, I come over just a bit wibbly. What is it about people saying clever things quickly? I can’t decide if it's the showcasing of intellect that does it or just someone who really knows what they're doing with their mouth.
Hee, LJ! This is why I've missed you. Sherlock has come up in conversation with various people I've met this week, but my in-built appropriate filter has made that last thought impossible to share. ;)
I had a day off today and two hours of the house all to myself, which I meant to spend productively. But elisi posted a picture that made me seek out my S5 videos (VHS, you still have my heart) and watch Checkpoint and Blood Ties instead. Oh, show! There are three - two, really, because Triangle is all aftermath - episodes to get from Riley to a point where there is so much hope in the Buffy/Spike story that Crush breaks your heart good and proper. I have a sort of longing for it to be twenty episodes, because this is a Golden Age in things Buffy and Spike. But in these two episodes, in what - five, six scenes - there is a microcosm of why I love them and why it works.
So here's Checkpoint: Spike jumps in to save Buffy, and she tells him she doesn't need rescuing and definitely not by him. But then later on she brings Joyce and Dawn to him because, "you're the only one strong enough to protect them." And there you go: hero, heroine, both equally capable of taking care of themselves, but needing and depending on each other because that shared strength gives them a burden of care for everyone else. I don't need you to protect me, but I need you to help me protect them: it's a grown-up story about partnership, about responsibility, and it's dressed up in combat, chemistry and leather coats.
In Blood Ties there is a glorious game of he flips/she flips involving Buffy, Spike and a sarcophagus lid. It's super-hot: her blazing intent tipping him from cool sarcasm to flash of fire. She says he should have stopped Dawn, and he says it's not his fault, Dawn would have found out with or without him. There's a moment then, one of those moments that sets them apart, a "but you treat me like a man" moment when she says, seriously, disappointedly, gently, almost, "She shouldn't have found out like that." Later there's the mirror scene to it, Buffy telling Spike that it's her fault, and Spike reassuring her that it would have happened anyway. It's a parallel that makes its point perfectly: a scene re-played so that this time they listen, they learn, they let each other in.
And meanwhile the subtext is screaming, we are ridiculously in tune with each other! We are exceptionally matched physically! We spend a lot of time suppressing our superhuman stores of energy because we have to be careful around the people who matter to us! As subtext sums go, I’m not sure the answer stretches to multiple choice.
You know all this. But sometimes when I haven't seen this show for a while I start to think, maybe as TV pairings go this is one-of, rather than one-off, and then I see it and it is honestly as good as it gets. End-of. :)
On a kind of side-note, this: Sometimes partnership is two people saving the world side-by-side. And sometimes it’s one person saving the world while the other person makes the tea. I need my stories to tell me both of those. And of course I need it to be Spike making the tea sometimes - preferably more often, because he's had a hundred years' more opportunity to practise. But I don't need my stories to pretend there is no tea. There is, and blessed are the tea-makers. Hee. That's silly, but what I mean is that yes, I want TV to be the platform that lets us explore the best we can be. But what I love about Buffy is it is the story of people endlessly trying to be bigger even than they are, and there is cost, and compromise; it's myth, earthed, and that makes it the very best kind of story.
I confess that when Sherlock is doing his deducting thing, I come over just a bit wibbly. What is it about people saying clever things quickly? I can’t decide if it's the showcasing of intellect that does it or just someone who really knows what they're doing with their mouth.
Hee, LJ! This is why I've missed you. Sherlock has come up in conversation with various people I've met this week, but my in-built appropriate filter has made that last thought impossible to share. ;)
I had a day off today and two hours of the house all to myself, which I meant to spend productively. But elisi posted a picture that made me seek out my S5 videos (VHS, you still have my heart) and watch Checkpoint and Blood Ties instead. Oh, show! There are three - two, really, because Triangle is all aftermath - episodes to get from Riley to a point where there is so much hope in the Buffy/Spike story that Crush breaks your heart good and proper. I have a sort of longing for it to be twenty episodes, because this is a Golden Age in things Buffy and Spike. But in these two episodes, in what - five, six scenes - there is a microcosm of why I love them and why it works.
So here's Checkpoint: Spike jumps in to save Buffy, and she tells him she doesn't need rescuing and definitely not by him. But then later on she brings Joyce and Dawn to him because, "you're the only one strong enough to protect them." And there you go: hero, heroine, both equally capable of taking care of themselves, but needing and depending on each other because that shared strength gives them a burden of care for everyone else. I don't need you to protect me, but I need you to help me protect them: it's a grown-up story about partnership, about responsibility, and it's dressed up in combat, chemistry and leather coats.
In Blood Ties there is a glorious game of he flips/she flips involving Buffy, Spike and a sarcophagus lid. It's super-hot: her blazing intent tipping him from cool sarcasm to flash of fire. She says he should have stopped Dawn, and he says it's not his fault, Dawn would have found out with or without him. There's a moment then, one of those moments that sets them apart, a "but you treat me like a man" moment when she says, seriously, disappointedly, gently, almost, "She shouldn't have found out like that." Later there's the mirror scene to it, Buffy telling Spike that it's her fault, and Spike reassuring her that it would have happened anyway. It's a parallel that makes its point perfectly: a scene re-played so that this time they listen, they learn, they let each other in.
And meanwhile the subtext is screaming, we are ridiculously in tune with each other! We are exceptionally matched physically! We spend a lot of time suppressing our superhuman stores of energy because we have to be careful around the people who matter to us! As subtext sums go, I’m not sure the answer stretches to multiple choice.
You know all this. But sometimes when I haven't seen this show for a while I start to think, maybe as TV pairings go this is one-of, rather than one-off, and then I see it and it is honestly as good as it gets. End-of. :)
On a kind of side-note, this: Sometimes partnership is two people saving the world side-by-side. And sometimes it’s one person saving the world while the other person makes the tea. I need my stories to tell me both of those. And of course I need it to be Spike making the tea sometimes - preferably more often, because he's had a hundred years' more opportunity to practise. But I don't need my stories to pretend there is no tea. There is, and blessed are the tea-makers. Hee. That's silly, but what I mean is that yes, I want TV to be the platform that lets us explore the best we can be. But what I love about Buffy is it is the story of people endlessly trying to be bigger even than they are, and there is cost, and compromise; it's myth, earthed, and that makes it the very best kind of story.