As an addendum to the previous post...
Apr. 11th, 2008 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katsarisAs an addendum to the previous post about improving the last season of Buffy...
... when Angel decided in its 5th season to make an episode about:
a) Evil puppets with nefarious schemes
b) Angel himself being transformed into a puppet...
Wouldn't it have made better sense if they had combined the two ideas to be about evil puppets with a nefarious scheme to transform people into more puppets?
It'd have been a radically different episode ofcourse, but one that would make a bit more sense plotwise I think.
The way I'm thinking it would be one single person (Fred preferably) keep seeing more and more puppets walking about -- the first time it's just a "Wow! Magical puppet walking about? Is that an employee?", and then she keeps seeing more and more puppets around, until she sees people she knew already having transformed into puppets, and nobody remembering that anything had ever been otherwise.
Kinda like Beverly Crusher in that TNG episode where more and more people keep disappearing. Here they wouldn't disappear: They'd just transform into puppets, until the whole nation had like a 10% (and growing) puppet-American minority. Fred becoming shrill about a puppet-conspiracy while the rest of her friends just shaking their heads sadly and thinking to themselves that they can't believe Fred's such a bigot.
Fred telephones Willow for aid -- and then we have something like the following (in a parallel with the 2nd season ep 'Disharmony' of course):
Fred> There's puppets everywhere! Angel's a puppet! Puppets are taking over the world! We need to do something!
(moment of silence)
Fred> You are? Well ...good for you.
(switching us to see Willow -- who we see is now also a puppet)
Willow> (sarcastically) Thanks for the affirmation.
Anyway I think such a version of 'Smile Time' would have allowed the writers to have much more fun, both with the concept of reality manipulation (which is always nifty and would be thematic for a Season 5 Angel episode), and giving them a chance to make fun of bigotry/conspiracy theories in general.
PS: Amusingly enough, I wrote all of the above (including the Willow scene) and only then remembered that Willow's character is also supposed to be Jewish in ancestry -- that's cutely fitting since the ep as I reimagined it would have of course been partly (but not solely) a parody/mockery of anti-semetic conspiracy theories.
... when Angel decided in its 5th season to make an episode about:
a) Evil puppets with nefarious schemes
b) Angel himself being transformed into a puppet...
Wouldn't it have made better sense if they had combined the two ideas to be about evil puppets with a nefarious scheme to transform people into more puppets?
It'd have been a radically different episode ofcourse, but one that would make a bit more sense plotwise I think.
The way I'm thinking it would be one single person (Fred preferably) keep seeing more and more puppets walking about -- the first time it's just a "Wow! Magical puppet walking about? Is that an employee?", and then she keeps seeing more and more puppets around, until she sees people she knew already having transformed into puppets, and nobody remembering that anything had ever been otherwise.
Kinda like Beverly Crusher in that TNG episode where more and more people keep disappearing. Here they wouldn't disappear: They'd just transform into puppets, until the whole nation had like a 10% (and growing) puppet-American minority. Fred becoming shrill about a puppet-conspiracy while the rest of her friends just shaking their heads sadly and thinking to themselves that they can't believe Fred's such a bigot.
Fred telephones Willow for aid -- and then we have something like the following (in a parallel with the 2nd season ep 'Disharmony' of course):
Fred> There's puppets everywhere! Angel's a puppet! Puppets are taking over the world! We need to do something!
(moment of silence)
Fred> You are? Well ...good for you.
(switching us to see Willow -- who we see is now also a puppet)
Willow> (sarcastically) Thanks for the affirmation.
Anyway I think such a version of 'Smile Time' would have allowed the writers to have much more fun, both with the concept of reality manipulation (which is always nifty and would be thematic for a Season 5 Angel episode), and giving them a chance to make fun of bigotry/conspiracy theories in general.
PS: Amusingly enough, I wrote all of the above (including the Willow scene) and only then remembered that Willow's character is also supposed to be Jewish in ancestry -- that's cutely fitting since the ep as I reimagined it would have of course been partly (but not solely) a parody/mockery of anti-semetic conspiracy theories.
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Self-esteem is for everybody
Date: 2008-04-11 02:40 am (UTC)Incidentally, IDW published a Spike miniseries that revisited the puppets (and transformed Spike into one).
http://ist.atc.cx/InStockTrades/large/OCT073584.jpg
This is by the same writer currently working with Joss Whedon on the Angel Season 6 comic.
Re: Self-esteem is for everybody
Date: 2008-04-12 12:28 am (UTC)I've gotten into the Buffy comics too. Bought the first Season 8 tradeback ("Long Way Home"), and the three first (non-canonical) Omnibuses (Omnibusi?) as well. Haven't found Fray yet.
The non-canonical Omnibuses were very mixed in quality. The very best stories are the ones in the 1st Omnibus and the beginning of the 2nd Omnibus. They were the stories that paradoxically were written last, are "prequels" to the Buffy series, and actually contain a very cute 10-year old Dawn in them. And adding Dawn in those prequel stories was a stroke of genius btw. :-)
The rest of the 2nd Omnibus and the whole of the 3rd one are stories that were written much earlier on -- I've not yet managed to read them all, but the ones I've read feel like bad fanfic: nothing that makes me want keep reading at all. And they're missing Dawn, so that's another negative for them :-)
I think I may stick to the canonical comics from now on -- Season 8, Angel:After the Fall, and Fray if I can find it.
Re: Self-esteem is for everybody
Date: 2008-04-12 01:30 am (UTC)I hear that Spike: Shadow Puppets is really good, though. It was also the mini that convinced Joss Whedon to work with that writer on After the Fall. And Peter David did some nice work for the noncanonical Angel stuff, including a Spike special, an Illyria special, and a Spike vs. Dracula miniseries. All good stuff.
I've found Fray in stock at Amazon and InStockTrades.com... but I have no idea how much shipping would cost you. I once ordered a book from Amazon UK and it cost me about $15 just for shipping.