Once More, With Feeling

We had a bit of a Buffy-thon last night, watching several Buffy episodes, and I have to say, I miss Buffy. I wish there were something on TV now that I liked as much as I liked this show…something as funny and clever and poignant all at the same time. The last installment to any good Buffy-thon, if you want to end on a high note and you’re not going for closure (that would be the end of season 7, right?) is ‘Once More With Feeling’, the musical episode. I have this on my beloved iPod, actually, and I listen to it more often than I should admit. For you Buffy fans out there, here are a few of my favorite numbers.

First song…Going Through The Motions…This is Buffy, singing about how alienated she feels from this world, since she has been rudely pulled back to our world (by her friends), when she was peacefully dead in Heaven.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0EKL_SL-GY[/youtube]

This clip has the opening sequence, which is clever, and then a funny scene where the scooby gang tries to figure out what could possibly be causing them to break out in song. Maya’s favorite part is Anya’s hard rock number at the end, where she sings about her fear of bunnies…I like Emma Caulfield as Anya so much more in Buffy than I liked her as Susan in 90210.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mntUmvjHZZk[/youtube]

Giles, Buffy’s watcher, is afraid that his presence is keeping Buffy from becoming the strong adult that she can be…that her experience of being dead and coming back has stunted her emotional growth somehow, and he needs to leave, so that she can face up to her responsibilities. He is pretty miserable at the idea, as he loves her dearly, and feels like a father figure to her. Then we see the scene where Tara discovers that Willow has been casting memory spells on her, to make her forget fights that they have had, and Tara decides that she has to leave Willow, to save herself.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANREsVWl8pA[/youtube]

This song is near the end of the episode…Giles has sent Buffy out to save her sister, Dawn, from the demon who is causing everyone to sing, hoping that the fight will spark some feeling within Buffy.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-NzGvZ7QjU[/youtube]

And here’s the song where the truth comes out, and her friends find out what they’ve done to Buffy, while only meaning to save her from some horrid hell dimension where they think she was trapped.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni9TBUNZn9Q[/youtube]

And the final number, Where Do We Go From Here, once all of the secrets are out…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEhDtePc1ow[/youtube]

I left out a couple of pretty good songs here…Tara singing to Willow of her love in Under Your Spell (no link, couldn’t find a version I liked); Sweet, the dancing demon, revealing his motives in What You Feel; Xander and Anya confessing their fears about marriage in I’ll Never Tell. Really, too bad there isn’t a YouTube of the whole episode. Rrr Argh, indeed.

~DoSoEvAyMo
1. More time with my book today? Perhaps.
2. Tonight is the 2-hour Battlestar Galactica television event, otherwise known as a TV movie. YAY!

5 Comments

  • Literary Feline

    I really miss Buffy too. It was such a great show. I came into it late, and kind of forced my husband to watch (and he became an even bigger fan than me after that–especially of Joss Whedon). I admit that I listen to the musical numbers now and then too. 🙂 It was such a great episode.

  • Py Korry

    This musical could have really been horrid, but it seems JW took his time in composing the songs, so, in the end, it all turned out better than “well.” I think it’s one of the best Buffy episodes in the series! 🙂

  • Cherry

    I love this episode! I must admit that my favorite song is “I’ll never tell”. Love it!

    But I still find “Drawn to the Fire” gets stuck in my head very randomly.

    We recently found ourselves watching some Friends reruns. They just don’t make shows as good as these anymore, do they?

  • hellomelissa

    we loved buffy! and we even liked angel when it first started.

    i think you should try doctor who. netflix series 1 with chris eccleston, then hold tight for series 2 when we all wept openly.

    series 3 is excellent, and we’re waiting impatiently for 4.

    t wrote about it on his blog a ways back…