Buffy 2x03 Full Length Reaction
Added 2025-04-17 06:09:56 +0000 UTCI've now officially met Spike and his fascinating accent!
*Please note, this is the full length version, and due to copyright restrictions, requires you to sync your own copy of the episode.
Comments
Besides Spike's accent, you have also meet my favorite Drusilla.
Garrick Smalley
2025-04-29 19:28:40 +0000 UTCI am shocked, and I'll say it again - shocked! That you would impune the diligence and dedication of the producers for not working well enough with James Marsters to embody the authenticity of whatever accent Spike has. This show has many accolades, but above all, it was know for the accuracy and clarity of the forign accents the producers required the American actors adopted for their characters... literally 90 seconds before they rolled camera. (The context of my (attempted?) joke will become clearer a handful of episodes down the line). Also, Anthony Head is also "doing" a British accent. He is English, but he normal speaks with a more working class Londoner accent like Spike's... or, I guess like Spike was hopping for, given your observation. Of course for Giles's accent, Head shot right past posh to give us the most British accent that has ever Britished. Wanted to note that your observation about Willow and Xander wearing striped costumes is not a motife that I ever noticed, but I can see it being an intended choice. Because this show would've pretty much exclusively been exibitited on CRT televisions back in 1997-98, the dpiction of stripped clothes was notoriously shoody given the way the image gets split into... well, stripes, which can make anybody wearing stripes look "shimmery." So, it was genrally avoided, unless it had textual or (probably in this case) thematic importance. That said, they were obviously still being carful with the choice of striped paterns they are choosing for Will and Xander, as they are not close together strips or usually not vertical strips which would be the most problematic. Finally, (yeah, I don't post often, but when I do I try to give ya you're money's worth) you metioned the blending of music from the band at the Bronze to the ochestral score when Spike enters and sees Buffy (and Will and Xander) for the first time. (Diagetic to non-diagetic for the fellow film geeks). Damn. You've pointed out something that is profoundly interesting. But going any further would not be possible without bring up spoilers for pretty much the whole series. So, best if we circle back on that bit down the road.
Tony Hofmann
2025-04-20 19:11:37 +0000 UTCI had always read the title as a way a pouting child would say it. I love Die Hard, and even with all the times I've re-watched Buffy, I never saw the correlation. Thanks for your explanation.
CarmenF1727
2025-04-19 04:07:58 +0000 UTCAt the beginning of the hyena episode in season 1, Xander and Willow had just come from the zebra enclosure, where I think one of them talked about how zebras mate for life. They were both wearing stripes in that moment, which I took as visual symbolism, and foreshadowing that they'll eventually get together, so I've been tracking how often they both seem to be wearing stripes. I can't imagine it will go on the entire series, but it's been a fun thing to look out for.
Movie Night
2025-04-18 06:08:55 +0000 UTCI love how Drusilla's sheer insanity was enough to elicit a rare, genuine, uncensored, f-bomb from you haha. In the beginning when you were musing about whether "School Hard" was a play on school yard, or caveman speak, it's actually a play on "Die Hard." There are a number of parallels between the plot of this episode and Die Hard. There's an event at a big public building that is crashed by dangerous attackers, Buffy crawls through vents to get around and take them out in incremental groups, there's a section where a character is pretending to be someone else but the other person is secretly aware of the deception, Buffy and her mother have a strained relationship in the beginning and then a reconciliation after their near-death experience... probably a lot more that I can't think of off the top of my head. Regarding some of the questions you were asking at the end of the episode, I don't know which ones were rhetorical and which ones you actually want to know. And I would never give away any information about upcoming episodes (and I hope others won't either). But I will say this because I don't think it's a spoiler, it's pretty on the nose... having Spike kill the Anointed One and say "From now on we're gonna have a little less ritual, and a lot more fun around here..." was a very deliberate statement from the showrunners. The Anointed One was not a very popular character at the time and they knew that.
Dude Longcouch
2025-04-18 04:33:39 +0000 UTCCordelia grew on me the first time I watched the show, which was during the pandemic. Xander is the one who I loath more and more as time goes by.
Dave Rose
2025-04-17 23:05:52 +0000 UTCThe Stripes fashion choice will continue to at least the 2000's, stripes were one of the major fashion trends of the late 90s.
Dave Rose
2025-04-17 23:04:23 +0000 UTCFunny that you got Masters being American. Most Americans thought he was British until the twenty year anniversary reunion when he did his normal voice. I guess the intended audience being teenagers in the 90s, when there was little British television on American channels made it easier for people to get away with it then.
Dave Rose
2025-04-17 23:02:27 +0000 UTCWhen Buffy season 1 and 2 first aired in the UK it aired in the afternoon timeslot for teens. I put it on in the background while I was studying for uni. Once Spike and Dru showed up though it was pretty damn clear there was more to this series.
James Fleischman
2025-04-17 21:32:17 +0000 UTCJacqui, you are correct about the pronunciation of Angelus. They mangled that a bit in early episodes and shift it later. Also, fun bit of trivia. Anthony Head's accent in the show is also fake. While he is British, his real accent is closer to the London/Cockney accent Spike was going for.
jasonm
2025-04-17 15:37:33 +0000 UTCI think maybe I wasn't paying enough attention when the subject first came up, but what is the theory about the stripes?
Michael Cyr
2025-04-17 13:42:57 +0000 UTCHe's supposed to be British yeah. Let's go with the explanation that accents do get muddled over 100+ years, even if that's slightly undermined by his accent improving somewhat. Juliet Landau, Drusilla, is also American. Hers is a little over the top, but it works with the creepy crazy persona.
Asmo0
2025-04-17 12:33:05 +0000 UTCSpikes accent was a work in progress. Once it became evident that Spike was going to be a recurring character and not just a monster of the week Anthony Stewart Head began working with James Marsters to develop a believable British accent.
Stephen Knueppel
2025-04-17 12:14:58 +0000 UTCAccent hard…
Tom Flynn
2025-04-17 08:18:32 +0000 UTC
