Andy: I was just sitting down to watch another episode of this hilarious series full of optimism, when I had this tip off from an reliable informant: “dont watch Buffy tonight. it sucked.”

So I didn’t.

[Right, that’s it. I warned you. Didn’t I warn you? — Ed]

Jackson: Vampires. The relationship between the human being and the demon within is one of the key concepts that form the foundation of the Buffy universe. Sadly however, it appears the writers don’t agree with me, and it is too often neglected or abused. Such is the case in ‘Conversations with Dead People’.

From the first episode we were presented with a very simple, rigid definition — a vampire was a demon in a human body. Beyond memory, nothing of the original human remained. Now it is natural that as time went on the writers would want to blur the line between these two entities — and they have, although perhaps inconsistently.

Such redefinition if it is subtle and used to increase the shows moral complexity is great. However flagrantly disregarding established rules merely for comic effect is not. The implications ripple out across the entire Buffy universe — which is annoying for those of us who like to take there shows vaguely seriously. It’s a shame because I actually found this episode quite entertaining.

The vampire that Buffy spends the entire episode talking to seems nothing more than himself coupled with an overpowering desire to kill — similar I suppose to vampires in the Anne Rice universe, minus the moral anguish and gradual acceptance of what they have become. It’s convenient for Buffy that they did remove the internal conflict factor, because then she might of had to think about it before she staked him. Besides, if the writers went with that road, however interesting, Angel would have a LOT of explaining to do.

But surely if even a fragment of the human remains, then it raises some disturbing ethical questions. And that’s why Buffy often seems at times to almost contradict itself. While everything around the protagonist becomes more grey and muddy — that moral landscape the characters themselves is still very much black and white. Angel handles this sort of thing much better. But such inconsistencies are what Buffy is about these days it seems — with superpowers, characters whatever. It’s almost like the writers don’t care sometimes, and just want to make us laugh. It’s a pity. There is a lot of potential there. That being said — the sequence was very funny.

Anyway enough of that. This I believe is the first episode that features the First in full swing — and it’s fairly impressive. Although it must have drained it for the next half a season because it doesn’t like appearing as that many people again. I find the concept of the First more difficult to swallow than most, because obviously it doesn’t have a consciousness the way we do — I mean, it can hold conversations with several people at once and act as completely separate entities. I think it’s bigger than a person can comprehend.

Dawn manages to pull in a less-annoying-than-usual performance. Maybe I just enjoyed it because she was shit-scared the entire time. Who knows? The exact nature of the Joyce apparition that appeared to Dawn is subject to rampant speculation on the net, and on hindsight is one of the more intriguing parts of this episode. Was it the first, and the entity trashing Dawn’s house trying to protect her? Or was it something else? I get the feeling we’ll never find out.

And of course, in typical Buffy style, Dawn won’t mention the apparitions ‘revelations’ to anyone else. Because we all know in this show that if everyone talked to everyone else, a lot of their problems would be fixed.

Another point of intrigue, which probably isn’t because they couldn’t get the actor — is the absence of Tara. Surely if the First wanted Willow to kill herself, it would have been more effective impersonating Tara. Is there a reason the First didn’t choose Tara? Probably. But perhaps more interestingly, maybe it couldn’t impersonate Tara for some reason. Although the idea that Tara’s ghost could hold that power seems unlikely. They probably just couldn’t get the actor. I honestly don’t know.

Jonathan’s death was quite shocking — he didn’t quite get a friendly send off. He got one line where he sort-of-almost redeemed himself. This was definitely a highlight. Oh and Buffy/Vampire sequence which I spent most of the ‘review’ complaining about… All in all, I remember enjoying this episode. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, hence my rather long rant to hide the gaps in my memory.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Jackson Kearney on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2003. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.