Monday 19 February 2018

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Doublemeat Palace

"You're better than this!"

Yes, I know: it's been far too long. But from now on, aside from a mini-break between seasons, there'll be no non-current TV in this blog that isn't Buffyverse. Promise. I'm going to finish this marathon and enjoy myself in the process.

Anyway, this is an intrinsically depressing episode about the awfulness of fast food and the sheer soul-destroying and profound bleakness of working in such a restaurant, with its crushingly monotonous processes, made much worse by the fact that, as Dawn insightfully points out, Buffy is the Slayer and will therefore be doing such soul-crushing work for the rest of her short, violent life. So let's get Jane Espenson to write it and leaven all this with wit and humour, although I suspect I may see a moderately subtle vegetarian subtext here. But it's a nice little one-off tale, with a nice twist, and shows us the depressing economic reality of being the Slayer.

Oh, and this is the first episode of Buffy I ever saw, at uni, courtesy of my housemate. It kept my attention, although I took a while to become hooked.

Sub-plots include Willow's cold turkey from magic, this season's rather strained metaphor for drugs, with Amy as her bad influence friend whom she finally rejects- yay Willow- and Anya's and Xander's festering doubts about their upcoming nuptials. Anya's old demon mate is fantastic; I don't usually single out guest stars but Kali Rocha is brilliant.

This isn't, perhaps, a particularly great episode to return to, and there's a certain hint of mid-season treading of water. But even a mediocre episode of Buffy is superior to most other telly. It's good to be back.

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