I am up to “Lies my Parents Told Me,” this week on Buffy. This leaves me with three S7 episodes left. It has been a lot of fun, but I’ll be glad to change gears a little, and write about some other things for awhile. Perhaps even books! Or other shows. I have been enjoying Black Sails very much, for example. Toby Stephens! Pirates! Adventure on the high seas!
This week’s rewatch covers “Storyteller,” which is the season seven Buffy episode where Andrew attempts to impose his own narrative on the killing of Jonathan Levinson, and Buffy eventually makes him cry. As he so richly deserves. Here’s my essay.
A number of the folks who comment on these columns directly (on the Tor.com site, I mean) have expressed the opinion that Andrew’s redemption arc would have made more sense and been more satisfying if it had been Jonathan’s–if he was the one who committed murder, and had to make up for it. I’m pretty much with them on this; I think Danny Strong is wonderful, and find Tom Lenk’s Andrew really hard to take.
That said, it’s a funny script in a season notable for its lack of jolly, and sometimes you just gotta take what you can get. Enjoy!
This week’s rewatch is up to “Him,” the S7 episode where a magic coat makes an allegedly unremarkable young man graceful, attractive, and an all ’round tasty morsel.
Here in Toronto, we got a dumping of the white stuff: nineteen centimeters of snow, or so somebody told me. Kelly and I promptly went out and got proper boots. This should be, I think, the last of the official moving expenses. The boots are waterproof and toasty and pretty clompy, and I’ve done my usual stomping about in them for the past couple of days with satisfactory results. I’ve been taking pictures, and they’ll end up here as I continue to sift through them.
I’m up to “Selfless” on the Buffy rewatch. Anya! I love her so. Here’s the essay.
At least one person in the comment threads has already called this the best episode of season 7. I’d say that’s “Chosen,” because I loved how the series closed. But then there’s “Storyteller, too.
Still, Anya! So complicated, so smart, and so darned strange!
Since we are now supposed to be living in a land of snow, I have been uncharacteristically keen to have some. And we have, but it hasn’t been very visually impressive. It falls, it slushes, it goes away. There have been a few good holiday trees though, especially in the financial district. I thought this one, for example, was pretty nice:
This week’s rewatch covers the episode “Help,” which is the one where a young teen predicts her death, and Buffy tries to stop it.
Today is the last really full week of work for my Novel One students at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. They’ll walk out with a first chapter, an outline, and a plan for moving forward with their projects. Starting next month, I’ll be teaching “Creating Universes, Building Worlds,” which is the speculative fiction course with a focus on short stories. There are still some slots for students in this one; if you have any questions, let me know.
In terms of one-on-one mentorships, I will not be taking new students for at least the first couple of months of 2014. I could be persuaded to run a waiting list, so if you are interesting in this and we haven’t talked before, reach out.
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, if you happened to celebrate it last week.
photo by Kristy Boyce
The Color of Paradox
The Cage