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Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Last week we got Buffy: The Musical. This week it was Buffy: The In-Joke.
"Tabula Rasa"
Episode 6.08
Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Directed by David Grossman
Once again I'm trying to think of something to say about an episode that was less than the sum of its parts. Coming off of last week's spectacular success, any show would suffer in comparison. That difficulty is compounded by the fact that "Tabula Rasa" felt more like two different episodes: a light, fun, action-filled comedy, book-ended by a gloomy, angst-ridden soap opera.
If you want a quick synopsis, this was "the amnesia episode." We've seen it before on other series - for some reason, everyone in the cast loses their memory, and they try to piece together their identities while dealing with an external danger. Some characters retain their underlying commitments to one another (remember how Paris and Belanna hooked up in the Voyager amnesia episode?), thus proving that - awwwww! - they really are meant for each other. Other characters get it completely w-r-o-n-g (Captain Worf?), providing some comic relief. If we're really lucky, hilarity ensues.
Well, we were half-lucky. Some of the misunderstandings were wonderfully silly - no, I won't spoil it, but let's just say that Giles' "relationships" with two other cast members made for some of the funniest moments of the night. Other jokes, however, felt a little forced, as when Buffy scoffed at the idea of a vampire with a soul. That should have been a throw-away line, but instead Spike babbled on about the possibility far too earnestly and for far too long, until Buffy's reaction was far too predictable. You also needed to be more knowledgeable than usual about the show to get a lot of the jokes. For instance, it was amusing to see Willow repeat, word for word, one of her lines from "Doppelgangland" in season three, but it would have been lost on anyone who hadn't seen that episode.
One character who didn't change one bit was Xander. I recently got to see "The Zeppo" from season three again, and it reminded me of what makes Xander so special. He doesn't have any special powers (like Buffy, Spike or Willow). He doesn't have any special training or experience (like Giles or Anya). He's not even particularly good in a fight (although you'd think, growing up in Hell-Mouth town, he would have signed up for karate lessons or something). But Xander is the very definition of a stand-up guy. He might not have a chance in a fight against the Big Nasties, but he will insist on getting in there and trying. (Remember the season one finale, "Prophesy Girl"?) He's not stupid, and he'll run away if possible, but he won't leave anyone behind. And if necessary, he'll deliberately put himself in harm's way to divert attention away from his friends. Or in this case, complete strangers. In that sense, he's the bravest and most honorable person on this show.
Speaking of Big Nasties, and speaking of forced jokes - the shark. I half expected it to try to deliver a candygram - the only thing missing was Larraine Newman's body sticking out of its mouth. I've wracked my brain, and I can't think of a single episode of Buffy - no, forget that, not a single episode of any TV show in the last twenty years, that had such a bad villain. (Although I'm open to suggestions.) And I don't mean bad as in scary. We're talking LAME. It wasn't just the ridiculous rubber head; as a long-time Dr. Who fan I've seen plenty of ridiculous rubber heads. But it was an entire identity based on a bad pun, and the tone was so out of sync with everything around it, that the internal rhythm of the show was completely disrupted. The writers were winking so hard I'm surprised they didn't give themselves ocular trauma. "It's a shark - and it's a LOAN-shark! Get it? Isn't it FUNNY?" Uh, huh.
So much for the funny. The other episode - the soap opera - is what brought it down for me. I have nothing against long arcs requiring that you follow a story from week to week. But in this case, the mix was hard to take. Three things were going on, all resolutions of a sort to problems that have been simmering all season and brought to a boil in the musical. Now all we get is the bitter aftertaste (OK, that's the last of the food references.)
First, the four main Scoobies try to deal with the newly-found knowledge of what they did to Buffy, and Tara privately confronts Willow over the issue of her lover's abuse of magic. Willow promises to prove that she can give it up by swearing off of it for a week - and like a true addict, breaks that promise at the earliest opportunity. After all, if Buffy's problem is her memory of heaven, why not erase that memory? And if it's a violation of her mental integrity - well, she won't remember, so what's the harm?
Meanwhile, Giles tells Buffy that he is leaving town again, because she has become too dependent on him. She doesn't take the news well, nor does she deal well with what happened in the finale of the musical - her liplock with Spike. Everyone is frustrated, disappointed, angry, or guilt-ridden, and by coincidence, everyone is at the Magic Shop, just as Willow's spell goes into overdrive. Then, after the comedic interlude, the episode resumes where it left off - frustration, anger and guilt. Only now, Willow's recklessness has been exposed, and, catching her in a lie, Tara takes some drastic but not unexpected action. Despite the implication in the amnesia segment that Tara and Willow are true soul-mates, this one might be broken beyond repair.
So, overall, I can't say that I enjoyed this episode. Sure, it had great dialog (as usual) and some real laugh-out-loud moments. But the episode ended on such an unmitigated downer that the fun was forgotten. The tone was so uneven that it felt thrown together. And the end was a cheat. Instead of exploring the consequences of Buffy's attraction to Spike, or showing the friends' reaction to Giles' departure or Willow's endangering of them all - instead of that, we got a music video. Music made last week's one of the all-time greats. This week it was used as a crutch to patch together an unhappy ending, and as an excuse to "shock" us with another surprise ending.
Episode rating: 7 for the comedy, 3 for the soap opera. Splitting the difference - 5 out of 10. Barely.
Although I agree with Anya about the "ruggedly handsome." I'm going to miss Giles.
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