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Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Try on my world, see how good it feels."
Episode 6.05, "Life Serial"
Written by David Fury and Jane Espenson
Directed by Nick Marck
It's so much easier to write a review when you feel strongly one way or another. Remember two weeks ago? In "Afterlife" we got lots of story, but not much fun. This week the emphasis was on the comedy, but there wasn't much story. Basically the Geek Mafia set out to see who put Buffy to the greatest test. In other words, who could be the most annoying.
Since Buffy is effectively an orphan, it's up to the Scoobies to ask the dreaded parental question: What are you going to do with the rest of your life? School or job? Not really having much a life outside of slaying, she tries on the lives of her friends: going to class with Tara and Willow, working with Xander, selling retail at the Magic Shop with Anya and Giles. It sets up the episode to follow a pretty straightforward structure - Buffy tries to be like [insert Scooby name here], doesn't really enjoy it, gets into Nerd-induced trouble of a supernatural nature, and moves on to the next friend.
So we get a series of little scenes connected by a pretty obvious structure, and which, when you look back at them, aren't very compelling. In the first scene, Buffy is slightly bewildered by the academic babble flying around Willow's Sociology class (can't say I blame her). But following a conversation gets near impossible when Warren (the techno-geek) plants a tiny device on her that makes time slow down - one second she's talking with Tara, then suddenly 20 minutes have passed. Pretty soon just standing in a hallway gets dangerous, as students race past and knock her down. But - problem solved. She finds the device, and it promptly disintegrates. Next!
Since school didn't work out (she makes this decision after just one class?), Xander gets her a temp gig at his building site. (Watching Xander dressed in his construction gear, talking about supervising other workers, and getting to act like an actual grown-up in this scene was a big plus by the way. I was reminded of the Thanksgiving episode a few years back, when Anya was audibly lusting after him as he was breaking ground for a new job ... But I digress.)
You could easily predict this one. Tiny Buffy arrives on a site, workers make fun of her until (darn it!) she shows them all by easily lifting enormous girders and generally out-performing everyone around her. Then Andrew (the demon-loving dork) unleashes his latest collection of hell-creatures, and of course she defeats them and of course the boss of her area gets knocked out before he realizes she's saving his life and of course she gets blamed for the mess the fight created because of course the hell-creatures have vanished. So she gets fired. Next!
Our girl now is left with working the hell that is retail sales. (Word of advice: If you're going to be on your feet all day, of course it's going to be hellish if you insist on wearing high heels! Duh...). Anyway, it's now Jonathan's turn to cast her into peril, and what does he come up with? "I made it so that she would have to satisfy a customer with a task that resists solving." Who says this show has lost its sense of horror?
In a shameless rip-off of the movie Groundhog Day, every time Buffy turns around, time has rolled back to where the same customer walks in the door to demand an unavailable object. We then get a quick succession of cuts showing Buffy in full tantrum mode, insulting customers and throwing merchandise around, because of course none of it matters. She finally comes up with an ingenious (at least the writers appear to think it was ingenious) solution just in time for the next commercial. Next!
On the whole, it was rather anti-climactic, although it was kind of sweet that the worst danger Jonathan could come up with was frustration. And frustrated is a mild description for what Buffy is feeling, especially now that she's run out of lives to try on.
Almost run out, that is. Thank God for Spike. Well, uh, thank something for Spike. Of course I'm prejudiced, but he saved the episode for me. It's becoming a habit for Buffy to turns to him for company when she's feeling down, and he's all too happy to diagnose her problem. In a speech that echoed last year's "Fool for Love" he insists that Buffy is neither a schoolgirl nor a shop girl, but "a creature of the darkness, like me. Try on my world. See how good it feels." Glad of an excuse to spend the night on the town with his favorite slayer, he suggests that they check out the local demon hangouts to find out if there's any rumor of who's been harassing Buffy.
As entertaining as it was to see the various Spawn of Hell play poker (and nothing could make me reveal what the stakes in this game are), the only thing accomplished is to get Buffy drunk. Even while potted, though, she's able to recognize the Geek-Mobile that the Nerdly Trio is hiding out in. Unfortunately, she's not sober enough to recognize the "demon" who jumps out of the van and takes credit for "testing" her. And so the nerds escape to continue their quest to become the Ultimate Crimelords of Sunnydale.
Next!
The epilogue to this episode was a quiet little scene between Buffy and Giles, with him giving her some much needed assistance and her confessing that she's glad he'll "always" be there. (Cut to troubled look on Giles's face - uh, oh.) Other than that, there wasn't much going on. I'm getting to be a big fan of the Legion of Dorks, and I love the utter silliness of their dialogue, but we already had one episode centering on them. It's time for a fresh plot - instead, we got plot clichés.
What's more, there were troubling signs of sloppiness if you actually think about the plot. For instance, why did Tara abandon Buffy when she was obviously in distress? Why was a non-drunk Spike equally fooled by the pathetic smoke cloud that so utterly did not hide the van's escape? And if Warren is so powerful that he can even speed up time, why is he so strapped for cash that he's still hanging out in his parents' basement?
Bottom line? This was a fun episode to watch - once. If you're a fan of dork humor.
Episode Rating: 5 out of 10
(And for what it's worth, Sean Connery rules!)
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