 |
|
 |
| | Guest Starring: | |
| |
|
|
| | Anthony Stewart Head: | |
| | (Giles) | |
| | | |
| | Tom Lenk: | |
| | (Andrew) | |
| | | |
| | Iyari Limon: | |
| | (Kennedy) | |
| | | |
| | Clara Bryant: | |
| | (Molly) | |
| | | |
| | Indigo: | |
| | (Rhona) | |
| | | |
| | Amanda Fuller: | |
| | (Eve) | |
| | | |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
11. Showtime. |
|
| | | |
| |
Buffy devises a plan to slay the uber-vamp and teach the potential slayers a lesson about their own strength and courage. |
|
| | | |
| |
Great quotes: |
|
| | | |
| |
 | | 'Welcome to Thunderdome...' |
- Andrew: “Keep the chatter down! Or speak up so I can hear you; I’m bored, Episode 1 bored.”
- Demon: “I remember you wore pink.” Anya: “Those were entrails.”
- Andrew: “Ow, watch it! That’s my joystick hand.” Xander: “I’m not touching that one.”
|
|
| |
Fantastic moments: |
|
| | | |
| |
- Dawn and Andrew have a surprisingly entertaining discussion in the middle of the episode. First they argue about why slayers are always girls, Dawn suggests that girls are cooler, before Andrew tells her that he used to be an evil genius but that Spike is “... a worse killer than me by a way lot.” He then goes into a monologue about how under-rated Timothy Dalton was as James Bond and how the Bond production team were “... treading water”. Dawn is utterly bamboozled by this, asking him “... is there a language you’re speaking?”
- The best bit of the episode is Buffy’s extended battle against the uber-vamp, “Welcome to Thunderdome” she says as the Scoobies talk up positions in a makeshift arena. Along with the exchanges of punches and kicks there are breeze blocks, pick axes, planks of wood and tonnes of ninja-style leaping before Buffy garrottes the uber-vamp with a length of wire. It’s a brutally nasty way to finish off a show-stopping bout.
|
|
| |
Duff Bits: |
|
| | | |
| |
- Emma Caulfield’s lips are not synched into her dialogue when she and Giles talk to the demon before meeting Baljoxa’s Eye. That’s a rare poor production slip.
- The SFX for Baljoxa’s Eye is appalling.
- Molly’s ‘Cockney’ accent is getting worse. Her pronunciation of ‘wise’ is more like ‘woi’ise’.
- The First’s deployment of its minions indicates that it has never a Bond film or even read ‘Being an evil genius for dummies’. It seems content to allow the Bringers to be picked off one by one before sending the uber-vamp to an obvious death. Poor tactics indeed.
|
|
| |
Dean's comments: |
|
| | | |
| |  | | Willow struggles to overcome her aversion to magic. |
Despite a brilliant finale in which Buffy triumphantly slays her nemesis after several minutes of heavyweight fighting, ‘Showtime’ spends quite a lot of its 40 minutes treading water and going over old plots in a rather laboured attempt to draw several threads together. Buffy and Giles laboriously discuss the events of the previous few episodes, as if the ‘previously on’ segment wasn’t long enough already, and introduce season 7’s latest and by no means final maguffin – the Baljoxa’s Eye – an entity which has lots of handy information about why The First is trying to destroy the world. I was very pleased to see Kennedy get put in her place, she jokes with Willow that her evil side would be good for a laugh before getting a serious rebuke. The whole episode is nothing more than a build up to the big finale, and what a finale it is. Buffy lives the ‘ultimate combat’ cliché and goes for a full 12 rounds with the uber-vamp while the Scoobies and potentials look on. By the end she’s battered and bruised, but she has made her point and the potentials are suitably impressed. | |
| | | |
| | 7/10 | |
|
|
|
|
