BtVS s7 – look at the background noise.
May. 18th, 2005 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avreliaLife is what is happening while you are watching TV.
I believe that most of the annoyances with the season 7 have the reason that we expected to see something else there – whatever it was - /Spike’s finding a couple of balls on the back storage shelf in Ikea, Buffy’s becoming a governor of California, etc, etc.
Of course, none of us would get what we wanted. It is logically impossible the more specific our wishes were the harder they were to align with the TV production process and the minds of the creators.
Listing all the things we didn’t get (and I mean myself as well here) we missed things we did get, and right now I am enjoying finding them in the much-maligned middle of the season.
It is a sleight of hand – don’t know whether intentional or not. We look at a shiny thing in one direction, and the important things go on in the background. One of the regular complains was everything is going on in the background, and now that I am watching and paying attention to the background – Duh! – it was kind of the point. In the background life is going on. I first noticed it when writing about Anya – her whole story after Selfless is happening in the background. She is cooking, arguing with Willow and Dawn and Andrew, figuring things with Xander, and so on. This time around I noticed more – there are character interactions of the many kinds. There are potentials chatting and becoming friends, there is Dawn studying, Xander and Buffy are going to work, Spike and Buffy talking, Scoobies are discussing daily minutes. Maybe their interactions are not that heartfelt and profound, as before, but they are there.
Yes, we are filing in the blank here – but aren’t we always? Take the high school seasons. How much of the classes we actually got to see? But because the setting was so familiar, and the life was so so structured by the classes, homework, extracurricular activities, high school politics, that it was enough to have strategically placed accents and scenes to get that overwhelming feel of high school, without noticing that we are filing in the blanks.
By s7 things change radically, and it is hand to say what should be in the foreground, and what in the background – high school is there, but it is a work now, and only a part-time job as opposed to slayage.
Then I look at the foreground again – and it is a lonely place, where Buffy is stuck in the impossible struggle with the First Evil, with other characters popping on the surface from time to time.
The life is going in the background.
This structure is a thing of beauty in its own way, really. It is like those 3-d pictures, where you look- and it is a mess, and then you look slightly askance- and it is a sailboat.
Of course, you may argue that no one had to make so much effort to see a sailboat in the picture, and you would be right, too.
But then I see the 3-d sailboat, and I am happy.
I believe that most of the annoyances with the season 7 have the reason that we expected to see something else there – whatever it was - /Spike’s finding a couple of balls on the back storage shelf in Ikea, Buffy’s becoming a governor of California, etc, etc.
Of course, none of us would get what we wanted. It is logically impossible the more specific our wishes were the harder they were to align with the TV production process and the minds of the creators.
Listing all the things we didn’t get (and I mean myself as well here) we missed things we did get, and right now I am enjoying finding them in the much-maligned middle of the season.
It is a sleight of hand – don’t know whether intentional or not. We look at a shiny thing in one direction, and the important things go on in the background. One of the regular complains was everything is going on in the background, and now that I am watching and paying attention to the background – Duh! – it was kind of the point. In the background life is going on. I first noticed it when writing about Anya – her whole story after Selfless is happening in the background. She is cooking, arguing with Willow and Dawn and Andrew, figuring things with Xander, and so on. This time around I noticed more – there are character interactions of the many kinds. There are potentials chatting and becoming friends, there is Dawn studying, Xander and Buffy are going to work, Spike and Buffy talking, Scoobies are discussing daily minutes. Maybe their interactions are not that heartfelt and profound, as before, but they are there.
Yes, we are filing in the blank here – but aren’t we always? Take the high school seasons. How much of the classes we actually got to see? But because the setting was so familiar, and the life was so so structured by the classes, homework, extracurricular activities, high school politics, that it was enough to have strategically placed accents and scenes to get that overwhelming feel of high school, without noticing that we are filing in the blanks.
By s7 things change radically, and it is hand to say what should be in the foreground, and what in the background – high school is there, but it is a work now, and only a part-time job as opposed to slayage.
Then I look at the foreground again – and it is a lonely place, where Buffy is stuck in the impossible struggle with the First Evil, with other characters popping on the surface from time to time.
The life is going in the background.
This structure is a thing of beauty in its own way, really. It is like those 3-d pictures, where you look- and it is a mess, and then you look slightly askance- and it is a sailboat.
Of course, you may argue that no one had to make so much effort to see a sailboat in the picture, and you would be right, too.
But then I see the 3-d sailboat, and I am happy.
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Date: 2005-05-18 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2005-05-19 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 06:56 pm (UTC)s7 needs you!
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Date: 2005-05-19 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-20 08:14 am (UTC)I love this, and I think it really fits how the overall theme of the season is about making connections.
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Date: 2005-05-24 07:42 pm (UTC)But, yeah, the disconnect between background and foreground is strong, and it reflects on the general connection topic.
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Date: 2005-06-23 06:19 am (UTC)Lovely commentary. Thank you!
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Date: 2005-06-25 09:31 am (UTC)